UrsineApathy [any, comrade/them]

I like the art style! Her pants will NEVER fall down with that many belts.

I can confirm this too. I wasn’t as heavy of a drinker, maybe at least 3-6 higher alcohol% beers every night for years, but I used to force myself to take at least one “if I keep going like this I’ll definitely get the shakes” tolerance break for a month every year.

Insomnia was always an annoyingly consistent symptom. It was always a guaranteed week at least of the most absolutely shit nights of sleep. After that the sleep was amazing, but getting there sure sucked. Like other commenters have said, moderate exercise, cardio specifically, helps a lot actually. Your body just needs time to adjust though.

Sorry the withdrawals sucked for you. Glad you got there though and I hope you’re still doing better friend.

It’s been a few years for me, but I didn’t have great experiences with the free options at least when I tried them. Most of the ones I saw ended up being a calendar for progress tracking and/or daily words of encouragement which wasn’t helpful for me personally, but everyone’s journey is different. Some had a social component to connect you with other people trying to make a change in their life or an actual counseling professional, kind of like a traditional 12-step sponsor, but they usually paywalled those features.

If it’s free, give it a shot. You have nothing to lose except for a little bit of time.

The first couple of days of sobriety were always so strange for me. I’d try to go to sleep (or more accurately stare at a fucking wall or tv for hours until I eventually succumbed to it) with an unfocused but overwhelming feeling of dread and anxiety, but the first few days waking up without being hungover were so awesome and energizing. I’d be tired as everloving shit because of the miserable sleep and chemical changes, but somehow still feel better and more capable than I did in years. That’s all to say, I’m sorry I missed the boat to help you last night, but I hope you have an awesome fucking morning because you’ve earned it.

There will be good days and bad days and the nature of the beast changes as the days turn to weeks turn to months but every day gets a little bit easier. I started drinking for somewhat similar reasons to you, but I don’t want to assume I know your struggles so I won’t say anything more. Even so, it might be hard to see when times get tough, but life is still better in every way without the drink. Stay strong friend.

anyone who finds it difficult probably has trouble eating and shitting

Maybe don’t put down and call someone genuinely asking for help a moron???

I’m glad it’s a skill that’s come easy to you. Not everyone has had your experiences though and not everyone was taught the basics. Fuck off with that attitude when someone is just trying to better themself.

Cooking is easy man. Just follow the recipes.

Cooking is NOT easy and most recipes are frankly bad or lazy and expect you to have a certain skill level. If you don’t know enough already to know how to vet which ones are good then it’s going to be difficult and overwhelming.

I agree that breakfast items are a good starting place, but please don’t try to downplay how much knowledge and work goes into making successful dish. That’s just going to lead to frustration.

A lot of the difficulty in learning to cook is that you simply need to know the ingredients. You need to know how to prep it, how it changes as you cook it, and develop an intuition for when you need to adjust the recipe because very rarely are you ever going to follow a recipe word for word and a lot flat out lie about cooking times and expect you to have a basic level of knowledge already. It feels like a lot, because it IS a lot.

My partner was in a similar situation when we first met. She hadn’t eaten or heard of a lot of ingredients and got stressed out when I tried to watch or help. A big help for her was to use a meal service, like Blue Apron or Factor. They come with very accurate recipes and all the ingredients are partially prepared and portioned, so no shopping and you have everything you need. I know it doesn’t help with the two week period you have, but when you’re back home and if it’s in your budget it could be something to look into that could really help.

Just remember that learning anything is a process though. You’re going to make some burnt or nasty food sometimes, but don’t let it discourage you!

Edit: I asked my partner if she would have liked to have done anything different knowing what she knows now and she still recommends using the meal service. She said that specifically a lot of recipes expected you to know what “small dicing an onion” or “mince two cloves of garlic” meant and was supposed to look like, but they included accurate pictures of what they looked like prepped and that it was very helpful to make sure you had everything right before you even started cooking while also working on your knife skills (which is equally as important for cooking and also having it not take an obnoxiously long time).

She also mentioned that since you have roommates, you might be able to gift a week or two of free referral meals to each other to essentially get a month or two of free meals between all of you. It’s been a few years though and I’m not sure exactly if that’s changed over the years.

I’m of a similar mind, which is why that specific phrasing caught my eye. I always have a deep yearning to just be better and it’s felt like the only way I know how to reach towards that is to remove the things that seemed to be impeding me. But this also came with the drawback of feeling like I can’t have anything at all, which is also just not a healthy mindset.

I’d actually say I’m in a similar camp. I wouldn’t describe myself as spiritual, but I also certainly wouldn’t describe my main motivations for personal change as mostly material. My main goal was always to just be present and be at peace with myself. As someone who is (mostly) sober, my main impetus for that decision always was, as you say, that I wasn’t comfortable with an external stimuli ruling over me. My motivations were always less material and more internal, however. I can’t be reliably present, emotionally and physically, for myself, my loved ones, and my community if I’m always beholden to a substance.

if you find that, I will be so happy for you, just don’t give up if this takes a while

This gave me a bit of a chuckle. I love and appreciate the sentiment, and this isn’t the space to go into details, but my journey has already been a long one. I do thank you for helping to empower my spirit while going through the process though!

I have a volunteer shift at the library tomorrow evening so I’ll be sure to check if that book is in their catalog! It sounds interesting. I appreciate you sharing your experiences and wisdom and I appreciate you!

Honestly, thank you for this comment. I’ve been struggling similarly to OP for a long time and these are things I very much needed to hear.

Not to become a monk or ascetic

It’s quite funny to me that you phrase this like this because I was talking to my partner, literally in tears, sometime last week about how I felt like I genuinely needed to live the life of an ascetic in order to be anywhere close to achieving and maintaining the goals I have to develop myself positively as a person. Like, I don’t understand how my brain can do a task like reading, feel absolutely amazing afterwards, and then still feel like there’s some insurmountable hurdle in doing the task again the next time still. It’s genuinely baffling.