to my fellow Trib-Tribers, Pond Wonks, and et al. That I’m back an owe a little explanation. Those of you who know me know about my PTSD and subsequent depression and alcoholism and know that I’ve been sober since last summer. You know because someone else posted a similar diary that I read, which shook me out of denial and I’ve commented on it.
Well, fell off the wagon on New Years, and real hard too. I had my very first visual flashback (obviously the alcohol helped with the trigger). I woke up in the morning strapped to a bed in the klinik I was at last year. Since I am in Germany, the judge had the legal right and put me the clinic for a week (Jesus! I was COMMITTED!!!!!). After that week, I volunteered to stay for therapy for four months. It was a great way to enforce my resolution.
My God, what a difference without the news, political lies, and the whole world just going to hell. Just the quiet of a sanatorium in the German mountains, think Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain”. I was in the PTSD station with mostly people who were affected as victims of rape, child abuse, etc. I did, however, make a good friend with a young man who was a Kosovo Albanian and had been fighting since he was ten. For us it was a little different as we were both victim and perpetrator. Funny thing about the Germans, they really don’t have a lot of experience with war induced PTSD – they really don’t like wars at all and try to stay out of them, at least since that last bad experience. The therapy really helped…
In fact, not only am I alcohol free, but also NICOTINE free and dysfunctional girlfriend free! The only addiction left is coffee! I haven’t been depressed in a month nor have I been on medication for a month. The nightmares are seldom and I developed techniques to deal with the disassociation.
Man! I can’t remember ever feeling this good. It’s spring! It’s RUTTING season! My 40th is next month! And life is really good!
I’m going to get out there and start living it again!
Welcome back and congratulations.
Anytime is a good time to rediscover that “live is really good,” but 40 is a very good time – old enough to really appreciate it; young enough to enjoy it without the inevitable limitations of age.
Thanks Knox,
I meant not important in a George-Bush-just-nuked-Tehran sort of way. Of course it’s important in a personal sort of way, which makes me healthier, in turn allows me to contribute a little back to do my part to make the world a better place.
Yea, this is a good time. My mom said that the 40’s & 50’s where the best for her.
Thanks again for the encouraging words.
It’s wonderful to see you back, and I hope we’ll be seeing you much more regularly now.
Congratulations! It’s wonderful to hear that you are disposing of those life-threatening addictions. You’ll find that after all you’ve accomplished, the coffee is amazingly easy to get off.
Nothing’s more inspiring than seeing a slave throw off his chains.
That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while JD. Good for you. Really good for you.
Keep at it. I’ve missed your posts around here. Welcome back.
Peace
Thanks Super, I appreciate the encouraging words.
that’s awesome JD. Got any tips on kicking nicotine?
doing their “Living Centered” program and you can keep all of your friends and all of your family members too that you had before you kick the habit. I didn’t make any new friends though that week as the first thing that I wrote across the front of my notebook was I HATE EVERYBODY when all the rest of the nicotine addicts plus myself had our first whining whimperathon all together. It was positively pathetic! And then there was that one jerk who kept trying to leave and they kept dragging him back in because he said that he wasn’t a real smoker……he only smoked at night after work!
I was able to quit twice: The first time I was in Brazil and drank water out of the faucet. It had amoebas!! Puked and the runs for three days. Never felt so bad in my life. There was a natural rejection to cigs.Quit for a month. Cheap way to quit but not recommended.
The second time I was totally broke and could not afford to buy them. Being totally broke is not good, so cant recommend it either.
What I did find out is that after the first couple of days, it is not hard at all. You just have to keep repeating yourself: never again.
The totally broke method is what started it for me (see reference to disfunctional girlfriend addiction above). Nevertheless, it was a silver lining, “if I’m broke and can’t afford 3.80 Euro a day and I’ve thought about quitting, well then there’s no better time than the present!”
I can’t say I recommend that method either.
That got me started also. Quit for four months. And then gradually started again. One puff, half a cigarret, a whole one and before I knoew it it was a pack a day. That shit sucks!
Hi Booman,
replying through timelag here. I had been successful twice before in quitting smoking. I started out of boredom one day when I was in the field (in the Army) at 19 years old – one of my worst mistakes. What always got me started again was having a beer. Everyone knows that ya can’t drink without cigs!
So sobriety was a big first step. Then I used the patch. It doesn’t work for everyone but for me the important difference was that I no longer thought “I NEED a cigarette” but rather “I WANT a cigarette” – and that psychological rather than physical. I also brush my teeth many more times a day a chew sugarfree mint gum, not the sweet stuff, but the Altoid strength stuff that really changes your breath. There is something about a fresh taste in the mouth that really helps me.
I can’t say I don’t get urges, I do, but they pass almost unnoticed now. Funny, in the first few days of nic fits it wasn’t the images of cigarettes popping into my mind but rather some really good local beer. My brain wires are crossed as to what addiction is doing what.
Lastly, I have no auto (doing my part for the globe!) and I get out and ride my bike through the village and in the mountains (looks a lot like the Blue Ridge mountains back home). It’s spring, bike riding, – man I don’t even think about smokes while doing that.
So that is what worked for me. Those patches really helped cut down the nic fits enough that I good use will power to concentrate on other things.
Good luck!
It’s so good to hear from you again — and with very good news! ::hugs::
Welcome back to the pond!
We all have our personal bottoms and it took what it took to realise how bad it had gotten for you. This is such fabulous news. Keep it simple my friend just one day at a time. I am going to go out on a limb here(as another recovering being) and highly recommend you find yourself a support group when you leave. It doesn’t even have to be AA. It could be a group for those that suffer PTSD. I wish you only the best. If the demons appear give me a shout and maybe we can talk it through.
alohaleezy at sbcglobal dot net
Namaste my friend!
Yea, and I am so happy it was only one miserable night rather than a month-long or longer fall. Rehab last year never gave me any therapy, but this was incredible and intensive. So intensive that I couldn’t make anymore progress in my mind, it needed to slow down so my therapist suggested it was now time, now that I was stabilized, to do weekly out-patient. I also have made many new friends and kept in touch with those from rehab. We do non-alcohol things together. I’m hanging out with one, Nicole, in particular and quite freqently. So it works like a small little support group without really doing support but rather just “living life” – dinners, bike riding, movies, etc. It’s also so easy to turn to one of them and say, “ya know, I’m having a little urge” in the middle of an activity and have instant support and vice-versa… then it’s gone, poof! I also have a support self help group here as well, it’s just that sometimes it seems that it is the same thing over and over and I get these depressive feeling at times coming out of a group meeting. Whereas with my circle of recovering alcoholic and addict friends, we deal with that head one and support each other if and when it comes up but mainly focus on having a good time together and having fun. I find that to be a little more positive for me.
A side note, one of my friends Heinz, who was in the clinic for depression, is a biker. He gave me contact info for a dry biker club (no booze, no drugs). So I’m contemplating buying an old, used Harley Sportster.
Sounds like you are doing all the right things. Each person has to find what works best for them. Funny you bring up Harley’s. That is my goal this year…to get a bike. I have wanted one all my life and I just paid my car off so I just may finally do it at almost 54 years old. It is never too late to fulfill ones dreams. Best to you my friend. Again, email me anytime. I just celebrated 25 years in January.
Thanks, your email is indeed in my “emergency” folder of my address book.
Like ya said, you’re never too old, see ya on the road!
Great news.
Good luck.
Thanks Steven and congrats on the excellent front page work you’ve been doing. Your sig line is disturbing, for those who don’t know, an Infantry (Army & Marines) is made up 12 members! Ya think this guy will have problems later on in life? Sometimes it is so hard to try and not to hate, but this administration…
that should be” infantry squad”.
So happy for you!
I’m so happy for you! Now get busy with that business of living!
in order to have the strength (physical, mental, emotional, whatever) to fight the Powers-That-Be. And if you feel the demons tapping you on the shoulder, find a mental/emotional equivalent of that peaceful place you found and go there. We’ll muddle through somehow…
I’m glad to see you back… 🙂
Well done, and it’s good to see you back posting again!
This is indeed wonderful news! Get out there, live, and enjoy. Congratulations!
No matter how hard the Republicans try, life is good and living it even better.
What great news to see your name up on a diary, I was literally just thinking of you yesterday and wondering and hoping you were ok.
As for not important, hell yes your important because it’s people together, all of us working and living together that make things happen, for ourselves and others.
Rambling again it seems, just very glad to see you back.
Hi Ink, thanks for the welcome back. I’ve missed all of you, too. Yea, you’re right, politics start with the personal. Volunteering at a soup kitchen, now that is just one small way to make a personal change. I bet there’s a lot of that going on in New Orleans. Maybe we’ll see to personal politics synergize into a movement and in November…
THROW THE SCOUNDRALS OUT!!!!!
and tried not to worry. I am so glad that you found a safe place to recuperate, or that at least a power greater than yourself found one for you! I don’t know that I will get over the fact that my Uncle didn’t find such a place and was probably terrified of turning control over to someone else for awhile so that he could do some deep deep healing. God I’m so glad though that you put this diary up! One soldier getting what he needs for himself so that he can live and smile once in awhile is a small balm on the wound on my soul over my Uncle’s fierce goodbye to us. Sending all of my love and making a small note in Tracy’s book of little used facts that Germany can be a fairly decent place to suffer a breakdown while inhabiting. America on the other hand not so decent and many victims of our war making have had to purchase a park bench to sleep on. Not my precious Jeffersonian Democrat though! As usual also missed all of your personal knowledge that you have about the late great Thomas Jefferson!
Hi Tracy,
sorry I didn’t have time to ease your worries of disappearing, I know that we’ve made pretty good cyber friends with each other and have a lot in common and I know your history with your Uncle, but (thank God) it was court ordered.
The thing I learned about my suicidal ideation is that I really do not want to die, all I really want is for the inner, spiritual pain to stop (hence the mind-numbing alcoholic fog of being drunk, happy, “cross-eyed and painless”). Death was, for me, the most obvious solution and in that state of mind, it was difficult to see other “antidotes” for the pain. Therapy drastically changed that.
You just gave me one of the finest compliments I’ve ever had. If my getting healthy gives you a balm for your own pain, I can’t think of a better compliment or a better reward. Shit Tracy, I got water in my eyes now!
Yea, Germany isn’t that bad a place to get help. Amazing what universal, or even partially-socialized medicine can do!
Once I calm down, I have a new diary to write on some nasty things going on at the VA.
It’s great to see you back, JD! I have wondered many times if you were ok since the holidays. For me, it’s been a wonderful way to live for 18 years now.
I’ve been great since the holidays, well not all the time, let’s just say making incredible progress. Just no access to the internet. When I started on the road to recovery last year, I kept hearing how wonderful life becomes. But I didn’t understand it of feel it inside.
Now I’m beginning to understand.
Glad to read this, keep up the good work!
Welcome back and to the world. I can not say any more that what has already been said…Congrats and hugs…will now be looking forward to seeing more of you….
Welcome back. Thanks for your openness, it’s what makes this place more of a community than many other blogs. So many people are so glad you’re back, it’s gotta feel good. By the way, rutting is good way past 40 so just ……..well, use your imagination.
Welcome back and that is one of the best news to hear!
I have not visited Booman Tribune to frequently, no real reason other than time. So, tonight I click on the site and see this on the list.
I am glad to hear you are doing so much better, even after your fall. I wish you much future success, JD.
Darrell aka the white trash poet aka the holy handgrenade
During two anxious days last week in DC, while I looked out the window and saw the Jefferson Memorial again and again, I thought of you, wondering where you had gone. This place was diminished by your absence.
I’m glad you are back, and hope you will keep on taking good care of yourself. You may still have some bad days – these times are “tailor-made” for PTSD to come creeping back in – but I hope you will remember all you have done and what a fine person you are. It is very good to see you here again.
*Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky