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Corby Haas
Jul 29, 2015
I just finished reading to the end of the thread. Are you still there, Penny? How are you feeling?

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Punk da Bundo
Dec 29, 2006

by FactsAreUseless
drinking is good, then it gets better, then it gets very very bad

be good to your body goons

Jim Barris
Aug 13, 2009

Piss de Bundy posted:

drinking is good, then it gets better, then it gets very very bad

be good to your body goons

Heroin is exactly like this too. They're actually probably equally as dangerous to a person with the inclination to abuse only there's just one you can buy at the grocery store.

ham_sanitizer
Jul 12, 2014

professional swine bather
i went to a techno festival without taking drugs or drinking alcohol. dancing for 12 hours without those things is hard.

Punk da Bundo
Dec 29, 2006

by FactsAreUseless

Jim Barris posted:

Heroin is exactly like this too. They're actually probably equally as dangerous to a person with the inclination to abuse only there's just one you can buy at the grocery store.

im glad that when i started to drink too much i was able to be like whoa buddy, this isn't cool

i wouldn't get the shakes or anything crazy, i wouldn't even drink until the weekends. but i had this idea i HAD to be plastered all weekend or i "wasted" it.

alcohol is cool and everything but if you have to ask yourself "do i drink too much?" you probably doooooooooooooo

Jim Barris
Aug 13, 2009

Piss de Bundy posted:

im glad that when i started to drink too much i was able to be like whoa buddy, this isn't cool

i wouldn't get the shakes or anything crazy, i wouldn't even drink until the weekends. but i had this idea i HAD to be plastered all weekend or i "wasted" it.

alcohol is cool and everything but if you have to ask yourself "do i drink too much?" you probably doooooooooooooo
Yeah, you're lucky then. Opiates really grabbed me, I cannot control my use of them in the slightest. It's not even like I'm cured or something I actually have to be really careful and mindful of it all the time. What I've come to understand is that there is a certain type of person that once they start they have to do it till they're destroyed enough to stop or they die. Alcohol or heroin it's much the same though heroin will put you in a grave a lot quicker for various reasons. Still, it could of easily been alcohol that did it to me. Which is why I do not drink.

CaptainSarcastic
Jul 6, 2013



Jim Barris posted:

Yeah, you're lucky then. Opiates really grabbed me, I cannot control my use of them in the slightest. It's not even like I'm cured or something I actually have to be really careful and mindful of it all the time. What I've come to understand is that there is a certain type of person that once they start they have to do it till they're destroyed enough to stop or they die. Alcohol or heroin it's much the same though heroin will put you in a grave a lot quicker for various reasons. Still, it could of easily been alcohol that did it to me. Which is why I do not drink.

Having been addicted to both at different times, I would say that in my experience the nature of the two addictions was different. Both were going to leave me dead or in jail one way or the other, though.

Pennywise the Frown
May 10, 2010

Upset Trowel

Corby Haas posted:

I just finished reading to the end of the thread. Are you still there, Penny? How are you feeling?

I am still here, still alive. I didn't drink about 25 days straight before having a lapse. Last week I drank a few times and I just drank last night. I'm learning that this isn't fun in the least bit anymore. Those 25 days were extremely productive. I got poo poo done around the house, my yard, I started BJJ again. I have an app called eMoods to monitor a few different metrics for bipolar disorder and printing the graph is pretty eye opening. Depression, anxiety, irritability, etc. all trending downwards.

So I did have a few lapses, but I didn't completely relapse. I just take note of what I was feeling at the time I did drink, and now I can try to avoid that the next time. I'm trying to be a bit more proactive and mindful this time and it seems to be working little by little.

Thanks for your concern homie. :glomp:

Psycho Society
Oct 21, 2010
gj bud

CaptainSarcastic
Jul 6, 2013



Pennywise the Frown posted:

I am still here, still alive. I didn't drink about 25 days straight before having a lapse. Last week I drank a few times and I just drank last night. I'm learning that this isn't fun in the least bit anymore. Those 25 days were extremely productive. I got poo poo done around the house, my yard, I started BJJ again. I have an app called eMoods to monitor a few different metrics for bipolar disorder and printing the graph is pretty eye opening. Depression, anxiety, irritability, etc. all trending downwards.

So I did have a few lapses, but I didn't completely relapse. I just take note of what I was feeling at the time I did drink, and now I can try to avoid that the next time. I'm trying to be a bit more proactive and mindful this time and it seems to be working little by little.

Thanks for your concern homie. :glomp:

Congrats, Pennywise - this sounds like good work.

Jim Barris
Aug 13, 2009

Pennywise the Frown posted:

I am still here, still alive. I didn't drink about 25 days straight before having a lapse. Last week I drank a few times and I just drank last night. I'm learning that this isn't fun in the least bit anymore. Those 25 days were extremely productive. I got poo poo done around the house, my yard, I started BJJ again. I have an app called eMoods to monitor a few different metrics for bipolar disorder and printing the graph is pretty eye opening. Depression, anxiety, irritability, etc. all trending downwards.

So I did have a few lapses, but I didn't completely relapse. I just take note of what I was feeling at the time I did drink, and now I can try to avoid that the next time. I'm trying to be a bit more proactive and mindful this time and it seems to be working little by little.

Thanks for your concern homie. :glomp:

Keep it up! You don't have to drink anymore or ever again.

Pennywise the Frown
May 10, 2010

Upset Trowel
One thing I've noticed is that I only make it about just less than a month before I drink again every time. I'm not sure why. I think it's about the limit before my brain starts taking off a bit too much. Towards the end of that 25 days I started spending a lot of money on hobbies and random poo poo and I was getting maybe a little too energetic and I'd talk a mile a minute which are all signs of hypomania. Again, I'll just have to be mindful of that and try to find some intervention I can put in place before it gets out of hand.

turn off the TV
Aug 4, 2010

moderately annoying

Pennywise the Frown posted:

One thing I've noticed is that I only make it about just less than a month before I drink again every time. I'm not sure why. I think it's about the limit before my brain starts taking off a bit too much. Towards the end of that 25 days I started spending a lot of money on hobbies and random poo poo and I was getting maybe a little too energetic and I'd talk a mile a minute which are all signs of hypomania. Again, I'll just have to be mindful of that and try to find some intervention I can put in place before it gets out of hand.

After a quick Google search it sounds like alcohol withdrawal can cause manic episodes. Have you tried tapering off instead of just quitting cold turkey?

Pennywise the Frown
May 10, 2010

Upset Trowel

turn off the TV posted:

After a quick Google search it sounds like alcohol withdrawal can cause manic episodes. Have you tried tapering off instead of just quitting cold turkey?

Yeah that's pretty much what I did to get off this last time. I'm on meds for bipolar/anxiety/depression, but of course it isn't perfect. Having alcohol out of the picture makes it easier to see what's actually happening on the mental end but it's not easy to handle.

turn off the TV
Aug 4, 2010

moderately annoying

Pennywise the Frown posted:

Yeah that's pretty much what I did to get off this last time. I'm on meds for bipolar/anxiety/depression, but of course it isn't perfect. Having alcohol out of the picture makes it easier to see what's actually happening on the mental end but it's not easy to handle.

Yeah, alcohol really helps with the whole "my brain is loving itself up and there's not much I can do about it" thing.

I tried to quit an SSRI over the past two weeks and when I started drinking again I realized that maybe it was a bad idea.

Pennywise the Frown
May 10, 2010

Upset Trowel
Dealing with mental illness AND an alcohol/drug addiction is loving horrible for someone. One makes the other worse, but one is also used to make the other one easier to deal with but it fucks with everything and aaaahhhhhhhh.

I'm sure drinking is loving up all of the medications I'm on as well as alcohol being the single worst thing for bipolar regardless.

CaptainSarcastic
Jul 6, 2013



turn off the TV posted:

Yeah, alcohol really helps with the whole "my brain is loving itself up and there's not much I can do about it" thing.

I tried to quit an SSRI over the past two weeks and when I started drinking again I realized that maybe it was a bad idea.

We're opposites on that - if I took an SSRI it would almost certainly make me want to drink. I tried Paxil again a few years ago and it only took about a week for it to put me into a dysphoric hypomania.

turn off the TV
Aug 4, 2010

moderately annoying

CaptainSarcastic posted:

We're opposites on that - if I took an SSRI it would almost certainly make me want to drink. I tried Paxil again a few years ago and it only took about a week for it to put me into a dysphoric hypomania.

It just makes me have fewer bad memories pop up and they don't feel as bad when they do, which is pretty cool so I guess that I'm lucky in that regard.

Pennywise the Frown
May 10, 2010

Upset Trowel
That is one of the main reasons I use alcohol. Horrible memories. I'm on two SSRIs, one anti-psychotic, one anti-seizure (mood stabilizer), and one benzo. None of them help with that.

turn off the TV
Aug 4, 2010

moderately annoying

Pennywise the Frown posted:

That is one of the main reasons I use alcohol. Horrible memories. I'm on two SSRIs, one anti-psychotic, one anti-seizure (mood stabilizer), and one benzo. None of them help with that.

Guanfacine and clonidine have been two of the best things for me besides stimulants in regards to bad memories and flashbacks. They still suck when they happen, but they happen much less often.

Chinatown
Sep 11, 2001

by Fluffdaddy
Fun Shoe
gonna drink some burbon tonite

CaptainSarcastic
Jul 6, 2013



The only thing I take anymore is Buspar, and I actually do fine when I miss taking it for a few days. It's a pretty old and mellow drug, much like I have become. :corsair:

Corby Haas
Jul 29, 2015
Hey Penny how is stuff now? I saw you posted in a thread I was reading about HoneyBooBoo's ranch dressing themed wedding so I thought I would ask.

I have had a crazy but majority good however-many-months of still being sober. I might post a mega-schizo-text-wall summary paragraph of it but right now I really need to go buy bananas and coffee grounds.

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Pennywise the Frown
May 10, 2010

Upset Trowel
I'm on day 7. The days are ok but I still get sick at night. Now the bipolar is starting to show itself again. Racing thoughts, intrusive thoughts, anxiety, severe depression, crying for no reason at all, bad memories that I can't stop thinking about, I'm seeing some signs of hypomania. I was thinking of buying a motorcycle yesterday. I don't even know how to ride one. I can't take news anymore. I have to stay out of the Trump lol thread. I'm finding it's drat near impossible to avoid horrible poo poo due to social media.

poo poo's a little crazy right now.



edit: btw, that's awesome you have a few months. Keep it up!

Pennywise the Frown fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Aug 14, 2017

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