I listened to Led Zep while cooking sober just to see if I could. Happily could still enjoy!
3 Likes
It’s all in your head guys. Disassociation is easy if you think about it. There is no need to carry on fearing listening to your favourite music.
As I said above, music has been part of my life since before I was old enough to ride a bike let alone drink.
For 30 odd years my life has centered around music drink and drugs. Now I just have music
And as we are surrounded by alcohol in our culture, life is easier and happier by accepting it is and moving on.
It seriously is that easy.
2 Likes
Especially Pink Floyd but my list is pretty long since my life was full of music. I would turn it on from the moment I woke up and often sleep to it or on a documentary I watched a hundred times.
I am discovering new and old artists, songs but then they mark my struggle with drinking. I miss cooking with it, gardening with it and unfortunately drinking with it. I miss sharing a nice piece I discovered with my brother and three best friends I lost in the last few years. Times we had always cooked around music, food and laughter.
Sometimes I attempt to listen to old playlists we all built together, it makes me numb. I guess I started to compartmentalize. Watch so much more nonsense shit instead and fall asleep to it. Feels meaningless now but I am sure in the future they will stamp this period and adjustment I am going through after decades of drinking, heavily after my brother died, a year something. Now a year and some sober most of the time, sometimes whatever it takes. Tonight, I watched Orange is new Black and ate the candied fruit left from making fruit cakes etc around the holidays. I am not a sweets person. Would normally prefer cheese but then a glass of something something. Bad for sobriety.
I have become comfortably numb.
2 Likes
@anon12657779 If it was that easy we wouldn’t be here whining about it LOL. No, I agree with you fundamentally, it’s no harder than what we’re doing here in the first place. But it’s gonna take time for me at least to detach from some of those associations. It’ll happen!
2 Likes
You guys we are having the same conversation Plato had when he was talking about the ideal place to live - about how important music is to us, how it touches us deeply, right down to the heart:
“musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace”
We are smart cookies.
For me it’s TV shows. I find they have concentrated emotion, like, intense. I find it overwhelming. Grey’s Anatomy? I can’t watch it. It just spins me up into a whirlwind. But I love a good documentary. Star Trek also.
@anon12657779 you’re right, there is a zen where you can watch it enter and pass, keep the good and appreciate it for what it is, without letting it take charge of you. What’s interesting - what I wonder - is what makes music, and drama, so riveting for some, while the same art can be appreciated more… contemplatively? is that the word for your experience? - so contemplatively by others.
Was there a moment you noticed that calm observance in how you heard music? What factors make it possible for you to experience that steady, sober experience of music?
1 Like
Another part of it is, with music, it’s a set amount of time dedicated to listening to a musical experience. It’s auditory, it’s encapsulating, it’s a vibe that you feel as much as experience the sound. With movies and TV shows, they are longer, and instead of just being a passive thing that you listen to while you do other things, they require more focus. You could be messed up and listen to music and enjoy it knowing that you can always do that again. But watching the same TV show or movie over and over again after forgetting what you saw or watched it’s just not the same.
2 Likes
Sometimes my psychosis tries to convince me that many of y’all are some kind of extremely kind pro bono shrinks or something because y’all are actually that effective on my brain… 
Either way I appreciate you all… 
3 Likes
Ok Matt, when I first read your reply I was like…ok adult words and concepts! 
things that I don’t really think about much.
To quote Genesis
" I know what I like and I like what I Know"
But I’ve had the night to think about it.
I know that quote from Plato’s Republic.
And I wholeheartedly agree it gets into ones being. If we are that type of person.
Now, I am not one who can listen to a piece of music and define what it is that moves me. I suppose if I sat down and thought about it I could pick out the melody and say it moves me, or there’s a particular set of lyrics that I can relate to.
Take Mad Season’s Wake up. I guess that someone who know about music would say that " ooh, isn’t it great how they use the minor 6 ( I don’t know what the chords or key or anything else about this song!) to create the counterpoint to the lyrics…blah blah blahdy blah! "
To me, it’s sounds great, the lyrics are heartfelt because they are about Layne’s personal fight with addiction and there’s a fucking great guitar piece at the end!!
If I like it I like it. Same goes for a good TV show.
Case in point, I don’t do Zombies! Seriously don’t! Pointless things, yet both the Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead are now two of my all time favourite TV shows.
Music is, to my mind, a very personal thing. Some of what I listen to, my wife thinks is a noise and I, have never seen the point of benial pop, even though I love the Beatles, always have.
Music was my first escape, as a child, not being able to deal emotionally with the way that children like to pick on their classmates, I would often get home and pull one of my dad’s albums out, stick on his massive “can” headphones and disappear inside my head in the music.
Imagine my joy when I found pot and how that heightens that emotion! Age 13 I think.
Moving forward, 10 or so years, I’m still listening to a core of 60’s 70’s rock blues type stuff when along comes EDM. What a noise I thought… until I found Ecstasy, and all the other " party drugs". Wow, ultimate escapism. Forget about your troubles and smile and love everyone and everything!!
And under all this obviously has been alcohol as well.
Now I’ve gone full circle and back to music being my one and only escape.
I don’t listen to radio at work, I have Spotify on. In my playlists for the last 3 years has been " Shine on you crazy diamond"
The first time I listened to this I was stoned, lying back on my sofa and letting the sound of the guitar take me away. Great feeling. One of the greatest feeling in my life.
But thats not me anymore. I’m clean from everything for over a year now but still listen to music in the same way.
Yes when I put Floyd on I remember all the feelings that I used to associate with getting stoned to it, same with EDM, I put a particular track on and the hairs on the back of my neck rise as I remember the rush from a good pill.
But, that was the old me. I’ve moved on in my life but have accepted that I have these feelings and emotions in my past and will remember then fondly.
But I don’t let it trigger me into wanting to go and get drugs or drink.
Thanks for reading, if you have got this far.
keep the faith.
2 Likes
I once believed the whole app was AI bc I would always read what I needed at the right time and if I had a problem someone would come on here with the same problem so I would put my energy into helping them.
2 Likes
I got it with advertising for festivals etc.
EDM is a huge trigger, defently after a good workout it feels like i want to reward myself by going out…
Its hard sometimes cause still my friends ask if join them…but i cant…! Sometimes is hard to accept that kinda lifestyle is over…
But when i wake up in the morning without a hangover i feel so proud!
3 Likes
Yeah that feeling is hard to shake but the great feeling in the morning is an even better reward isn’t it?
Keep going, it does get easier.
2 Likes
Trust me if I was in this for the money I’d be driving a much better car
2 Likes
Yes that makes much better sense…
Anyways… I gave this thing you’ve done here a test run in my own life last night… Why??? Because if someone else has already been there or knows the answer why waste another 25 years sitting mute trying to figure it out on my own… I was able to sit through every drinking song that I ever knew, loved, hated etc without consuming any alcohol myself even though I wanted to drink 24 hours before that… When we don’t live alone sometimes we don’t own the remote… I’m starting to think I might just be able to get through life without it… I’m lacking nothing today but a few hours sleep… Thank you so much man!!!
5 Likes
Hi Geoff, sorry it took me so long to reply. There was a lot to digest there. Thanks for taking the time to really dive deep into my question! 
I think I understand what you mean. The past is past; it was what it was. The present is my choice, now, from moment to moment. Music can be enjoyed as part of that experience.
Still I suspect there is a calm self-awareness in you that adds steadiness to your experience. It’s interesting, as you engage with people here on TS, you maintain a steady encouraging tone; an even keel. There is a special quality to that. I am not sure if that is an aspect of your personality, or of your effort in developing your mindset. Like most things in life, it’s probably both 
I am also a Pink Floyd fan. There are a few musical groups I think have really taken their genre to its heights, and Pink Floyd is one. Man I could swim in that music for ages and not get bored. Glad to meet some others here in this thread who love it too
1 Like
Yes!!! When I start rocking out, I really want to drink. I’ve switched to worship music for now, really enjoying it.
3 Likes