Staying Alcohol Free

[Jaye B.]

Nearing my 32nd anniversary of freedom from one of the most destructive of substances on this planet aka alcohol, I’m compelled to share the following:

Back in 1989, I found myself driving home from a party using up three lanes of a freeway to do so. I would’ve given myself a DUI that night and wondered how I was able to park the car, get to my apartment and pass out on my bed. (Probably guardian angels who were working in shifts at the time).

I woke up the next day with a horrible hangover and said, “That’s it. I’m done. I’m endangering other people’s lives.”

Then when I told people I had just quit drinking they would reflexively say, “Go to AA.”

But I decided to take a class in intuitive development instead. At the time I was quite skeptical about it, but when I met with the person that taught the class as a needed prerequisite, no longer was. In the course of 2 1/2 hours she had nailed my life down quite accurately by reading my energy, aura, etc. I must admit I was quite impressed having never met this person before. Afterwards, she let me in the class.

I burned all bridges with artist and musician friends of mine who drank and moved to Saint Paul, Mn. about a mile away from where the teacher lived. We met once a week and covered the energy centers of the body aka chakras. We used a grounding and visualization technique to see these energy centers (I used a kind of circular movie screen to do so) and would do these timeline visualizations, i.e., what the energy centers looked like at birth, at the age of 5, 10, teenage years, young adult years, all the way up to present time.

When we got to the energy center located in the solar plexus area, the teacher told us it was associated with metabolism, will, power, habits, compulsions and....addiction. Using the timeline visualization, I saw something traumatic that happened to me at the age of ten. It turned out to be the root cause of all of my substance abuse issues.

Having addressed the root cause of addiction and not just the symptoms has enabled me to say to stay alcohol free all these years with no withdrawal symptoms whatsoever-even during very stressful times. The insights gained in the class were crucial, esp. during the first year of abstention which is always the hardest for those struggling to quit.

In 2015, I returned to Minneapolis and encountered the above mentioned artist and musician ‘friends’ who were still drinking. They were all hollowed out and petrified, their souls eaten up by alcohol. I then realized that quitting drinking was and still is the best decision I’ve ever made in this life.

Here are some of the many benefits of being alcohol free:

Being sober deprives the archontic parasites that control the liquor industry of their sustenance. Being sober deprives these parasites of the negative energy generated by alcoholic individuals as well as alcoholic, dysfunctional families.

Abstaining from drinking strengthens our auric fields and help ward off demonic, archontic entities associated with alcohol. It also helps ward off low vibrational people controlled by these demonic entities and gives us much healthier boundaries. ( Keep in mind that when you are not miserable, there will be no misery loving company in your life.)

From a purely economical standpoint I’m guessing I have saved over $100,000 by not drinking (seeing that I was a top shelf drinker). At present time I think it costs over $20,000 if you get a DUI plus paying more for car insurance, lawyers, etc.

You will be able to effectively separate your emotions from other peoples emotions also creating much better boundaries. Sensitive people take on other peoples energies and it gets mixed up with their own.

I share the above in this forum because there are probably many of you that are full blown empaths and are extremely sensitive. Alcohol is a convenient way to numb the senses but in the long term is very destructive. Being an empath myself, I fully understand and is also one of the reasons why I started drinking at such a young age.

One of my intuitive development classmates did a documentary at that time on creative people and substance abuse and interviewed many artists, writers, theater people, etc. each stating the reasons why they drank and did drugs. It all distilled down to trying to block out the troglodyte world we live in that tends to crush creative, autonomous and intelligent people.

But if we can keep our vibration high instead of numbing out, it gives us a better chance of not getting crushed ourselves.

Recommended reading:

https://thecostaricanews.com/spiritual-consequences-alcohol-consumption/

Jaye B.

[Tyy1907]

Couldn't agree more. Excess alcohol use puts a person back on the hamster wheel and it shows certain lessons haven't been adequately learned. It's all good though when you essentially have eternity to learn!

[ExomatrixTV]

Am 100% allergic to alcohol even when using it for "after shave" ... (am I unique in having that effect?).

Long time ago when I was 18 years old I did a Break Dance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvrMhdQE6zM) / Electric Boogie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DERvh_GUgmY) group performance ... and I was told to get free drinks ... I asked for Cola (not as wise back then) not knowing he gave me Cola Bacardi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_and_Coke) (Rum) I didn't know and I was really thirsty after my performance in a local discotheque (Summer 1984) I literately threw up on the dance-floor as my whole body can't stand alcohol.

Needless to say I never was drunk in my entire life ever. I have no idea how it is to have alcohol passing through the blood-brain barrier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier) and intoxicating my brain completely. The idea alone is horrifying.

But I have had some girlfriends in the past who had an alcohol issue ... I remember an odd rhetorical circular question:


"Do I drink alcohol because I have problems (I won't face) ... or do I have problems (I won't face) because I am drinking alcohol? ...

Eternal self-destruction loop! ... unless you find a way to break this cycle like Jaye B. (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/member.php?47780-Jaye-B.) did. :clapping: :bowing:

I wonder how many became alcoholic because of long time "social expectations" (young adults rituals) peer pressure and the need to let go of all fears.

cheers,
John

[Metaphor]

Great and inspiring read. Yes many of us use alcohol and other substances to cope with the many aspects of being a misfit. @Jaye b, Its inspiring that you point it out in this light, and also point out that its also the persons we hang out with that keeps dragging us down in further abuse.
The more the merrier? No not really. Turning my back of the rocknroll culture I was in was the best thing I could do for me and my family. Im a better father and husband now. I do drink but very regulated and not as frequent as i used to. When I was at my worst I drank practically something everyday and used amphetamine daily for 2 years to escape my since childhood anxeity and sense of not fitting in.
We must forgive ourselves for doing this and find the root cause. Only then true healing can occur.

[haroldsails]

Five important words somebody once said to me - "alcohol is not my friend" - I repeat them everyday.

[rgray222]

Great post, thanks for sharing.

For those struggling with recovery keep in mind..................it is not the last drink that gets you drunk it is the first drink.
R

[Icare]

Jaye B,

that's a powerful story! Thank you for sharing it with us.

I salute you!

[palehorse]

Alcohol is big business today and widespread and promoted by society as so, but if one go back in history about 14.000 BC (first residue of beer was found in a cave) you will see the original intention was not even close to business, it was used in rituals, at least that is what the findings says, first wine residue was found about 6.000 BC.
Anything in life can be appreciated if not used in exaggeration, if it does not make any good, listen to your body signals and avoid.
Granpa used to drink his own home made wine and beer every day and I never saw the old man drunk, it was a cup of green wine on lunch every single day his entire life and he died of old age, I used to drink wine when I was young as part of family tradition, today I only drink when I find the crafted stuffs or real small scale home made stuffs, I do like the fermented stuff, drunk distilled spirits before but it didn't make any good for my body, never tried again.
I had an uncle who was alcoholic and he died of it at 45 years old, before he died he lost everything he had, he was a very successful business person, but alcohol destroyed his life and is family, we all have so many examples in life, it is up to us to learn from it and avoid the same destiny of many.

Great post, appreciate your share.

[Docim369]

Thanks for the post. Alcohol or some call it the spirits...The word “alcohol” is said to come from the arabic term “Al-khul” which means “BODY-EATING SPIRIT”.
Not long ago I read a story of an Indian man, who was partly clairvoyant and had issues with alcohol said that when he was drinking, spirits of dead alcoholics came down and "joined" the "feast" and encouraged him to drink more, which tends to be quite a common issue with alcohol drinking...a tendency to drink more and more (common also with other drugs).
When I made a cut with my alcohol drinking friends I could easily clear out the drinking patterns and I found myself to have much more clarity and was much more in balance. When I still encounter those friends I do not feel fully accepted and they try to encourage me to drink, but I just hold on my own. I believe that alcohol blurs out the energetic protection and the state of drunkenness somehow turns out to be a kind of spirit entanglement and can cause some kind of spirit possession.
If you are a consumer, I would advise to use considerably and with caution.

[thepainterdoug]

Jaye b/ Wonderful post and congratulations to you. I believe I am one of those people who doesn't see this as so severe in a sense. out of four in my family, my brother and i are able to enjoy a glass of wine or scotch, like i am able to enjoy a piece of chocolate from time to time. however ,my two younger sisters have had severe issues with it. i can drink wine for dinner and thats it. i can have some scotch over the weekend with a cigar if i choose and thats it. no more until the following weekend or not even then.

Over the final four months of 2020 with all the madness, I let it get out of hand and had to catch myself and I reigned it back in. I can totally see how others would not be able to do so and it can easily ruin lives.

Presently I have returned to a nice balance. It never effects my productivity or my want and will in my creativity. In fact my best writing seems to release itself with a glass of wine, two tops. 3 and my writing is delusional.

But if I had to err on one side or another, I would say, cut it all out. Im glad I haven't needed to do so. Moderation is what I always learned from my dad , a very successful and productive man who was a moderate drinker up to the day of 85.

And even Nikola Tesla seemed to approve of the spirits over chewing gum and coffee. know thyself .

[Mercedes]

... the state of drunkenness somehow turns out to be a kind of spirit entanglement and can cause some kind of spirit possession.
If you are a consumer, I would advise to use considerably and with caution.

I completely agree. And I also think that the many psychotropic drugs in existence also can cause this.

[Bill Ryan]

A story from 30 years ago. :)

I realized I had Candida (from overdoses of antibiotics when I was a kid), and included in the treatment regime was a totally sugar-free diet for 18 months. No sucrose, lactose, fructose, and of course no alcohol or any kind of yeast.

When I had the all-clear — and it's stayed clear ever since — I had half a pint of shandy to celebrate. That's half beer, half lemonade. It just about knocked me out, and I had to be driven home by a friend.

Ever since then, I've had the alcohol tolerance of a baby, and didn't touch another drop from there on out. My body reacts to it like it's poison. (And never kid yourself, poison is what is.)

Even if I go out to dinner and the chef puts a tiny bit of wine in the sauce, I sense it immediately and then have a hangover the next morning. (Not a joke! Cooking does NOT distill out all the alcohol.)

I'm in pretty good shape for my age, and although there are many contributing factors to that I'm sure that being alcohol-free for 30 years has been a part of that.

[Anka]

I made cider from too many apples from the garden last year, and it came out as a kind of very sweet light champagne, the secret is to put exactly 0.8 grams of sugar per liter and control the fermentation and conditions (without additives at all).
The thing is, at Christmas, it was very hot in the house, especially in the kitchen where I was cooking a lot of cakes, and I was thirsty, and I opened a 280 ml bottle, and I drank almost everything, (it doesn't have a taste of strong alcohol, has an accentuated apple flavor), being very sweet and sparkle and cold. And in no minute, I felt it. My legs froze, my gaze (I couldn't blink) and my mind froze and all over in my body I felt a kind of numbness along with a general malaise, and after I fell into an unnatural laugh, I fell asleep in seconds.

The thing is, I think I'll try again, this homemade cider is supposed to be a healthy thing, I'm still thinking.:blushing:

I also make every year: from a liter of alcohol and one kg of sugar and 5 kg of raspberries or cherries, a kind of very good alcoholic syrup, which 20 ml helps to digest and I drink it only occasionally.

[Jaye B.]

I actually wanted to touch on brewing your own and putting a positive intent into it and how addicition is deliberately programmed into commercially manufactured alcohol. Same with commercially grown cannabis where the spirit has been bred out of it by bottom line growers.

[Gracy]

I actually wanted to touch on brewing your own and putting a positive intent into it and how addicition is deliberately programmed into commercially manufactured alcohol. Same with commercially grown cannabis where the spirit has been bred out of it by bottom line growers.

Great thread Jaye B.! This is an interesting take, and I can only add my own personal experience as everyone is different. I've been a casual consumer of alcohol (I like a glass or two of wine in the evening :)), and weed, for my entire adult life. Hard to compare commercially made alcohol to home made, as I've only tried home made wine made here and there from friends along the way who make it, but I never really noticed much of a difference other than that the home made is much stronger.

Now of course until very recently, weed could only be purchased off the streets so to speak, and no telling where it came from, but presumably not grown through a home gardener's tender loving care to speak to intent. I've also partaken in Amsterdam's coffee houses, for the first time ever used my own tender loving care by growing my own as part of last summer's garden, a couple of friends have shared some bounty that you can buy legally in some states now, and quite honestly I can't say that I notice any measurable difference there as well.

To me it's still a sacred plant regardless, they all have different qualities, something different to offer, and that's about it. I come down more on the side that the importance lies more in how these substances are consumed, rather than their origin. Both can be abused, but both can be your friend as well, all in how it's approached IMO.

[thepainterdoug]

Gracy, I had you pegged as a heavy whisky drinker! joke, joke, joke :Party:

[Justplain]

I had a driving incident in 1991, or so, and decided I had had it with booze. Much like cigarettes, I had consumed booze as part of a psychological lifestyle choice. Alcohol and smoking were associated with good times. To relax, had to have a cigarette and a beer.

After that incident I associated booze as a traitor. And it was and is.

I went several decades before touching the occasional light drink at special events. No big woop. But never more than that.

Very sad how alcohol destroys lives. Like gambling. Like drugs. Thankful that these vices don't affect my life. Sorry for those to whom it does.

[Inversion]

Congratulations Jaye B. for not drinking. I haven't had a drink since 2007. Alcohol makes the mind and body sick. When my parents and grandparents were young drinking was the norm for most social occasions. How things have changed.

[leavesoftrees]

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?103987-No-healthy-level-of-alcohol-consumption-says-major-study

No healthy level of alcohol consumption, says major study

[ExomatrixTV]

How would the world be if everything was the same EXCEPT Alcohol-use and Alcohol production never happened ... Imagine a super advanced "Time Traveling Alien Race" could arrange that "parallel reality" on Earth ... and you could have a peek ... what would we see?

Do we have more (unique) Souls would be here on Earth making a super uplifting difference for all ... or less? ... or do you think it will create other unexpected "set-backs" ... me: I do not think so!

cheers,
John

[Tyy1907]

How would the world be if everything was the same EXCEPT Alcohol-use and Alcohol production never happened ... Image a super advanced "Time Traveling Alien Race" could arrange that "parallel reality" on Earth ... and you could have a peek ... what would we see?

Do we have more (unique) Souls would be here on Earth making a super uplifting difference for all ... or less? ... or do you think it will create other unexpected "set-backs" ... me: I do not think so!

cheers,
John

And perhaps how population numbers would be fewer? Many factors to consider with this question.

To take that a step further, where would we be sitting if "gods from the sky" never came down and "saw the daughters of men" and interbred with them. Showing them all manner of cultural trappings (ex: alcohol), some helpful and some less so.

[thepainterdoug]

I did a little looking into some famous drinkers./


Vincent Van Gogh

Dutch painter

Van Gogh was enamored with absinthe, and it featured in many of his paintings. During much of his most productive years, Van Gogh’s diet mainly consisted of bread, coffee, alcohol, and cigarettes. Alcohol is at least partially responsible for the mental decline that led to his removal of his ear in 1888 and his suicide in 1890. Despite his alcoholism and poor mental and physical health, he was incredibly prolific during his later years, producing over 2100 pieces of art, including over 800 oil paintings, in about a decade.

Stephen King

American writer

Stephen King has published over 60 books and almost 200 short stories from the 70s through today. Still, most of the late 70s and 80s went by in a haze of alcoholism for King, who wrote in his memoir On Writing that he “barely remembers writing” his 1981 novel Cujo. Despite this apparent fact, the book won numerous awards and was turned into a movie in 1983.

Alexander the Great

Macedonian King

Alexander the Great was a legendary Ancient Greek general who is considered one of the greatest military commanders of all time. As his power grew, though, so did his sense of paranoia and megalomania. He considered himself to be a god, and had increasingly erratic behavior that led him to murder a close friend. Some historians attribute this behavior to alcoholism, which contributed to his untimely demise at age 32.

Leonard Nimoy

American actor

Leonard Nimoy is best known for his enduring role as Mr. Spock from Star Trek. Unfortunately, the success of the show led him to drink, and what Nimoy called “unwinding” spiraled into a ritual of drinking wine, beer, or other spirits at the end of shooting every day. Eventually, he even started to sneak drinks on the set, disguised as water in a paper cup. Later, he checked himself into rehab, where he got clean.

Betty Ford

American First Lady

Betty Ford, former First Lady and wife to President Gerald Ford, was an outspoken proponent of the feminist movement. Her approval ratings were much higher than her husband’s, at around 75%, and people admired her outspokenness and candor on a variety of issues. Still, she battled all along with an addiction to alcohol and painkillers. After a 1978 intervention she went into treatment, going on to establish the Betty Ford Center, a rehabilitation clinic, four years later.

Buzz Aldrin

American astronaut

Buzz Aldrin was the second person to walk on the moon. Upon his return to earth, with seemingly little left to accomplish in life, his life deteriorated. Under the weight of depression and alcoholism, his marriage fell apart, and he withdrew from friends and family. He recounted the experience in his 2009 memoir Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon.

Ernest Hemingway

American writer

Ernest Hemingway published many works of fiction that are considered classics today. He received a number of serious injuries in WWII and later in a series of plane crashes that left him in chronic pain. He drank heavily to escape the pain, once declaring that “a man does not exist until he is drunk.”

Elizabeth Taylor

American actress

One of the most famous classic Hollywood stars, Elizabeth Taylor spent over three decades of her career addicted to alcohol and painkillers. She became the first celebrity to openly admit herself to rehab at the Betty Ford Center in 1983.

Ulysses S. Grant

American president

As a Union general, Ulysses S. Grant was nearly constantly intoxicated, drinking from a large barrel of whiskey he kept stowed in his tent during the Civil War. Still, he led the North to victory and went on to become the 18th president of the United States.

Samuel L. Jackson

American actor

Samuel L. Jackson is a highly successful actor, having appeared in over a hundred films, and is currently the second highest-grossing actor of all time. During most of his early career as a stage actor, he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol. His first role upon completing rehab was as a cocaine addict in Jungle Fever, the film that launched his cinematic career.

WARNING SIGNS: HOW TO IDENTIFY A HIGH-FUNCTIONING ALCOHOLIC
Just because someone is able to function at work or in life despite their dependence on alcohol does not mean that they are immune to its effects. Here are some signs that could indicate someone is a high-functioning alcoholic:

They need alcohol to feel confident.

Often high-functioning alcoholics feel “locked in” to their drinking because they worry that when the alcohol stops, so will their success.

“I used to think that drinking would help my shyness, but all it did was exaggerate all the negative qualities. The drinking and the pills just sort of dulled my natural enthusiasm.” –Elizabeth Taylor

They joke that they have an alcohol problem.

They don’t take their alcohol dependence seriously or believe that they still have complete control on it.

“Do you drink?” “Of course, I just said I was a writer.” –Stephen King

They don’t seem to get hangovers anymore.

Developing a tolerance for alcohol can, in turn, convince them that their drinking is not a problem because they are not feeling its effects.

“Because I could handle my drinking – or so I thought – and could consume a lot of alcohol without becoming uncontrollably inebriated, I refused to see it as a problem.” –Buzz Aldrin

They drink alone.

Drinking is not a social activity for them; it is a solitary pastime.

“I like to drink alone. I never get ugly when I drink too much, I never bore myself with a lot of dull conversation, and I have never yet invited myself to step outside.” –Stephen King

They replace meals with alcohol.

Mealtimes are often an excuse for the high-functioning alcoholic to start drinking. They may even forego food altogether.

“I would as soon not eat at night as not to have red wine and water.” –Ernest Hemingway

They become a different person when they drink.

Social drinkers do not dramatically change their personality when they drink. Alcoholics, however, behave quite uncharacteristically.

“The minute we finished the last shot I would have a drink. Then it became a series of drinks, little by little. Before I knew it I was drinking more and more because my addictive personality was taking over.” –Leonard Nimoy

They become hostile or argumentative when they can’t drink.

Alcoholics often suffer withdrawal symptoms if they are forced to stay sober or are cut off from their alcohol supply.

“I knew I was an alcoholic because I was preoccupied with whether alcohol was going to be served or not.” –Betty Ford

They can’t stop at one drink.

They have trouble letting alcohol “go to waste” and may finish friends’ drinks for them. They have trouble setting a limit on their drinking.

“I ain’t the kind of guy who can have one drink. I never could. That’s what I have to remember. I never had one drink in my whole life.” –Samuel L. Jackson

They hide their alcohol.

They keep their alcohol stashed in a secret location where their friends and family won’t find it, like in their desk or car.

“I left his office, went around the corner, and at the first liquor store I found, I bought a bottle of Scotch. I couldn’t even wait until I got home. I swilled several swigs before pulling out of the parking lot.” –Buzz Aldrin

They black out regularly.

It isn’t unusual for them to be unable to recall what happened while they were drinking.

“The turning point came when my family found me passed out on the kitchen floor. I guess I wanted to get caught.” –Samuel L. Jackson

Recognize these warning signs in yourself or a loved one? Reach out for help. It’s not too late.

[Jaye B.]

This from Dr. Mercola:

Liver Damage is Off the Charts

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/14/alcoholic-liver-disease.aspx

[greybeard]

Basically some live to drink -- an alcoholic has no choice --drink to live (exist)
Delirium tremors are not a place to go -- a drink postpones that.
Fortunately I am talking from long past experience.

If a person wants to say free of alcohol and is not addicted -- a good way is to say "I wont have one just now"
Works as an aid to stop smoking.
If addicted profession help is required -- will power not enough.
AA worked for me.

Chris

[Hym]

Don't drink now and haven't since the early 80's and then it wasn't much. It never appealed to me. Never liked any of the tastes and it was highly unnatural to get drunk. Just too busy and relaxed to numb any of this life. That and a family of alcoholics, and protecting sisters from abuse, failing at protecting them from themselves, precluded this soul from even liking the stuff. Quite the opposite, though not critical of those who didn't overindulge.

When trying out alternatives it's best to just focus on and ENJOY nutritious foods and the endless variety of drinks, as most alternatives are just not good. I wonder how many people enjoy plain, clear and clean water. I do.

There seem to be alternative drink mixes that are developed by completely clueless makers. One such drink alternative is made from botanicals, which on their own are harmless and are used to mimic the tastes of various hard liquors.

However the ph of many alt. drinks is very acidic, at 3.6 pH, and they are made from a host of toxic ingredients that are unhealthy for anyone, and likely toxic for those with drinking problems.

One of the common ingredients is sodium benzoate, a preservative that turns into the toxic substance called benzene when it is digested. That's killer on the liver.

The other ingredients are mainly sugar, citric acid and other preservatives.
Whoever invents those brands is completely oblivious to the fact that alcoholics are almost all diabetic or pre-diabetic.



I lost many relatives to alcohol, close ones. Some of those losses are still living. Upon his mother's death from alcoholism, and other hospital induced sicknesses, my young son and I went to AdultChildren(of)Alcoholics. It was a beginning for him, besides a lack of focus on real healing and an excess of misplaced blame, we found it completely left out the effects of nutrition upon healing the addicted body and mind. It's criminal that any program leaves out nutrition.

Some ACA teachers are better than others, but at least that was a starting point for a young man trying to figure out the reasons for a mother, a parent, abandoning him, during and after such a long, tortuous period of very unhealthy living. I do support those parents who have the courage to stay away from their children when they are under the inebriated and sober influences of alcoholism. It's not living when a child goes thru a parent's addictions. I went thru it with siblings, parents, uncles and aunts, made worse when some committed suicide.

On a very positive note, I remember well, seeing a distant aunt and uncle when I was young and all I remember of them was that they were alcoholics, wine being their poison. I saw them 25 years later and I didn't even recognize them. They had completely stopped drinking some 23 years before, 2 years after I saw them last. Tho much older, they were the healthiest and most engaging couple I had ever met. I had thought that they would have been long gone by that time. Healing finds itself when people want to live a full life. That was a joyful meeting!

The co-founder of AA, Bill Wilson, swore on and deeply benefitted from a concentration upon nutrition and it's effects on willpower and healing. He basically co-wrote the book "The Vitamin Cure for Alcoholism" with Dr. Abram Hofer.

In the book he took this brilliant doctor's dedicated, clinical use of Vitamin C, at 3 to 5 grams, and up to 20 grams, a day along with Niacinamide/B3 (buffered Niacin), which he showed had a 70% recovery rate for schizophrenia (in 20 years of clinical use) and applied it to recovery. Dr. Hofer, the creator of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, author of 600 studies and 30 books, and Bill W. share with the reader the battles they went thru getting the nutritional treatments recognized in recovery programs worldwide. There is much room left to include healthy living habits, in every program and in every book available.

[Strat]

I'm in pretty good shape for my age, and although there are many contributing factors to that I'm sure that being alcohol-free for 30 years has been a part of that.

100%. My best friends family are Irish, they drink and smoke (pot). The father doesn't drink or smoke and he has aged very well, even his hair retained its color. He looks much younger than his wife. My friends cousin came over and remarked on this, "Damn, you aged well!"

In my opinion, alcohol is the worst drug in existence. It's socially acceptable and mandatory, it's easily accessible. If you want to get with absurdly beautiful women then you damn well better drink shots at the bar. If you want to have friends who are at the top of the social ladder then you damn well better drink.

I love alcohol and I hate it more than anything in this world. It's my one true love and my sole enemy. It has provided me with girls way more beautiful than anyone you'll see in the movies and it has sent me to the hospital. It has ushered me into parties and has had the cops rub shoulders with me. It's going to put me down before I see 40. I do have a plan to kick it, but I hope I can kick it before it kicks me.

[Hym]

I don't know if there are any steadfast answers, Strat. Assuming that there are solutions all on their own that give a different life without booze, may be missing the mark. I look at the lives of those who have succeeded and I see it as choosing a better life, a life without the self-trained guilt and an acceptance of seeing the many things that give longevity as engaging, interesting, and rewarding on a daily basis...instead of being a drag.

Whatever it is in you that gives you that connection to women and friends is not bound by alcohol. Agreed, that some hookups will be gone without booze, but what is their value without it. Even if getting together is cool for both people the mornings after, is that just an agreed upon denial that longer lasting connections aren't worth the hassle, instead of holding on to discovering the value of longer term relationships. Boy, waiting for the women and friends you get drunk with to slowly get healthier and drink less is a losing call.

I do see the social atmosphere in many places changing to accept and encourage healthier living, but hanging around the same haunts waiting for that new acceptance to arrive is another lost cause. At some point asserting your calm right to soberly, even tea-totallingly, engage with women and friends, women friends included, either makes an impact on the scene or you accept defeat at this young age. Whenever it is in the affirmative, it is always better.

That juice that runs inside of us when we are connecting is even more enjoyable when we are more sober. I say more sober because assuming that alcohol free living is the true definition of sobriety is proof that you are clueless.

We are always under some sort of influence, even if we simply view the brain as a chemical organism. Claiming sobriety makes no sense, when we view consciousness and being in different states of connecting to all that living in this busy world gives us. That's why blaming a buffer to deal with the excesses that life throws at us misses the point. It's most often not the booze. It's the overload that's the cause.

Yep, some drink out of boredom.....No advice to offer there. That's life in a world way over stimulated on so many levels, yet almost completely ungrounded and undernourished from the primal needs that only being in nature can provide.

When we look at cravings as a very physical calling and a nutritional need for missing nutrients bodywide, often mistaken as a need or desire to drink, it's easier to find solutions that have no downside.

At some point drinking seems to be an habitual laziness, waiting for that look in the mirror confirming that your appearance and health is going downhill, at which point you take the steps to treat yourself better and get used to accepting the good feelings that it all brings, something I see as a challenge to some people, or resigning yourself to limitless self abuse and jumping off giving a F**k about yourself.


What's the price and reward of different stages of sobriety........living. Whatever that means to you, it is always better. Challenges are easier to face and easier to experience. They become something different.

Believe it or not it is a very fearful thing to many people to have more sensory awareness, more connection, more feeling, more subtlety in personal connections than they are used to when being drunk. I can say it is a much easier experience to have when we're more sober.

Every body can handle it. We are all built for it. And there are many ways to zone out that are better than killing brain cells and kicking your liver's ass....

That's what meditation is made for, amongst other things....getting us out of our heads and back into our bodies, even if we have to travel a bit beyond both.

I just remembered something long past...

I met a seer who, not knowing me or me knowing her, advised me to tell the person in my life who was losing herself in alcoholism to take up working in clay, making pottery and grounding herself by also releasing her pent up creativity in the many healing and self affirming activities that art gives.

It for sure is a grounding activity, but I can see that there are some powerful trace minerals in some clays that make up for the missing minerals lost when the body uses them up protecting itself from the ravages of drinking. It would have been worth trying the insight out, but even after I told her, she never followed the intuitive advice.

[9ideon]

Good for you Man, have been drink free now for almost 6 years (couple weeks). My Irish ancestors are probably not to impressed, hehehehe.
In any case, was puking into a drain and realized that I was done drinking, not to different from story OP I guess (well on that part of story).

[Journeyman]

This week I learned of the death of a lovely woman who had been a functioning alcoholic for many years now. The end, when it came, was a bad one. Emaciated, drinking massive amounts, falling out with friends, lies deception etc. All will be familiar to anyone that's lived or had close acquaintance with a sufferer from alcoholism. It seldom ends well.

When she died her fridge was empty bar some old rotten milk. No food was as important as feeding the hunger for the next drink. This then is such a key point:


I lost many relatives to alcohol, close ones. Some of those losses are still living. Upon his mother's death from alcoholism, and other hospital induced sicknesses, my young son and I went to AdultChildren(of)Alcoholics. It was a beginning for him, besides a lack of focus on real healing and an excess of misplaced blame, we found it completely left out the effects of nutrition upon healing the addicted body and mind. It's criminal that any program leaves out nutrition.


I haven't drunk for about 6 or so years. I don't know the precise date because it wasn't something that I made a big, life changing decision about, I cut down till I wasn't drinking and then I never started again. I don't say that I'll never have another drink, but I don't plan to. I did drink more than my share for a few years before that though and it was a big part of my life. I wasn't an alcoholic, but I ticked a few of the boxes with binge drinking to excess, a glass of wine or two with a meal when alone, drinking more than planned etc. I came to drinking a little too early I think and although much of our generation had similar habits I recognised enough of the traits and the habits in those alcohol problem lists as well as knowing my own family history to first reduce and finally eliminate it as a part of everyday life. Some people I think are best leaving it aside completely and I suspect I'm one of those people.

I do miss the taste of a good wine or a nice beer on a hot day, and the social aspect of being out with a group at the pub on a 'session' but on the whole I think I'm better without it. That hasn't turned me into a puritan on the subject. I enjoy being out with others when they're enjoying themselves, although there does come a point when the anecdotes aren't as funny for the non drinker and driving everyone home they're not as witty as they think they are :bigsmile:

The main driver for me in reducing alcohol however was a newfound awareness of nutrition. I had to eliminate foods and drinks from my diet and when doing so I realised the connection they had with mood and other aspects of health. One book which made a big impact on me was Potatoes not Prozac: https://radiantrecovery.com/ Kathleen DesMaisons made the connection between alcoholism and sugar addiction and I think there's a lot of truth in this. The same opioid transmitters are activated, the blood sugar spike and crash can trigger addictive behaviour, the depletion of nutrients leaves one not only hungover the next day but also craving the emotional and physical 'boost' of another drink. As we learn more about gut dysbiosis and physical and mental health I think our opinions on alcohol as a society will start to change. That's already happening in the new generation who are drinking less I think than we did and seem to have a more responsible attitude to it.

[Mike]

We often hear about all the lives alcohol has ruined, but one thing you never hear about are all the lives that alcohol has saved.

Artists, broken people - they often require something like alcohol to remind them who they are underneath all their stressors - even if it's just for a few moments - and having been reminded they have the inspiration to carry on for another day. Alcohol is not called "spirits" for nothing. It often does things for a broken spirit and mind that no beverage on earth can do. The not so easy trick is maintaining discipline and respect for, say, a 3 drink limit perhaps. Everyone is different in their response to alcohol, so everyone's limit will be different.

I respect anyone who chooses to abstain, for whatever reason, but it's inaccurate to say that all alcohol is bad for all people all the time.

To begin, alcoholic beverages aren't all the same. Far from it. Saying that is like saying all aliens are evil. If we just take wines, for instance, there are numerous varieties, and within those varieties numerous factors that make each batch unique - location of the grapes, time of year they were grown, how they were tended to, and so on.

In my early 20's I drank alot of crap - Budweiser, Miller etc, and I truly suffered for it. But when I discovered Guinness, for example, it actually enhanced my life. There's an alchemy created by all the ingredients in a magical brew like that, one that makes the whole much larger than it's parts; but even the parts of Guinness look good on paper: loads of B vitamins, iron, fiber, silicon, prebiotics etc.

One of my literary hero's, Bukowski, said he would have killed himself early on in life were it not for alcohol. Hemingway said something similar. I'm sure that sentiment applies to many creative sorts. It's true that overindulgence has killed many an artist, but they may never have created anything in the first place without alcohol. Very few people think like that, and I find it a little surprising.

The right alcoholic beverage for the right person, at the right time (you have to work a little to find your drink) can be your salvation. It's a blessing for people who are broken. Alcohol is the result of fermentation, a very natural process. Yes, too much of it and one loses oneself. But at the right amount, one can find oneself. It should be used consciously and ritualistically, not clumsily. If you have the discipline to do that, it can be a powerful tool. To run from that powerful tool can be a foolish thing to do

One thing to keep in mind is that all substances that heal are toxic at excessive doses, even water. Even more important than the substances themselves is how we choose to use them. If alcohol just disagrees with you violently, or if you cannot control your intake, I would strongly suggest avoiding it. But for everyone else, I would strongly encourage exploring it

[Jaye B.]

One thing I didn’t mention in my initial post on this thread is the primary reason I quit drinking: the amount of suffering I was causing other people via what I said and did while intoxicated. At the peak of my drinking, I was embracing nihilism-and nihilist I was, not caring about any consequences at all, least of all destroyed relationships. Also what I call FNS (Fermented Narcissicism Syndrome) is another reason I quit. It is difficult for sober people to hang out with drunks who tend to masturbate their subjectivity and only talk about themselves, then repeat what they say after approximately 10 minutes.

[Strat]

We often hear about all the lives alcohol has ruined, but one thing you never hear about are all the lives that alcohol has saved.


I think this is due to the ratio of saved lives to ruined lives.

I hear you about the artists and all, but I don't think it was the drug that caused them to be artistic. I think crazy people make art and crazy people do drugs because they are often self medicating.

I do believe that some drugs influence the artistic process, but I don't think doing drugs = quality art.

[Spellbound]

Fantastic thread for a subject I'm VERY close to. I come from a long line of alcoholism...both grandparents on both sides of my family...down to both my parents....down to both my sister and myself. I drank like a fish during my teens...and ended up quitting drinking in August of 1989. I have not had a drop of alcohol since that date. That being said, I do miss the taste of beer, but the monkey has long been off my back.

Alcoholism is hereditary within family genes. It can cause sooooo much destruction to the human condition. When one quits drinking, they must realize it is a life decision and not to be taken lightly.

After saying all that...I am not completely substance free, as I do enjoy my herb (I've been partaking in quality marijuana on a daily basis for as long as I've quit drinking. There may be some detrimental effects of smoking weed....but not nearly the extent of alcohol. Also, I use a vaporizer as apposed to smoking joints / pipes....only getting pure THC and not all the other bad stuff. I can function stoned...I could not function drunk (believe me, I tried).

Life decision!!

Dave - Toronto

[thepainterdoug]

Revisiting this post here. I guess I can say this cause I manage all, but dont be too hard on yourself. forgive yourself ! forgive yourself for being human, a spirit cemented into a body in a 3 d unnatural world. You have so little control over it all that you dont even know who or what makes your heart beat.

you go to sleep and voluntary systems carry you thru the night, to find yourself awake again. how did you get there? you? nope.

If your waking day is resisting something, then it runs you. sometime you just need to eat so much chocolate, junk food, drink booze whatever, to learn by excess.
resistance causes persistance.

you need to discover the deeper problem. the thing thats hiding , making you believe one thing over the other.

i drink cause life is boring and repetitive. and when I drink , I forget that it is. But it never ever effects my true purpose and life participation.

[Mike]

We often hear about all the lives alcohol has ruined, but one thing you never hear about are all the lives that alcohol has saved.


I think this is due to the ratio of saved lives to ruined lives.

I hear you about the artists and all, but I don't think it was the drug that caused them to be artistic. I think crazy people make art and crazy people do drugs because they are often self medicating.

I do believe that some drugs influence the artistic process, but I don't think doing drugs = quality art.



Have you ever listened to Sergeant Pepper?:) If music was like athletics, we'd have to put an asterisk next to that album to indicate performance enhancing drugs LOL

But yeah I know what ya mean. Good artists are generally good artists, and bad artists are bad artists, with or without drugs. But sometimes drugs make good artists even better artists. You're playing with fire sometimes, but the question becomes: what kind of risks are you willing to take to reach new heights?

But forget artists, I'm mostly thinking about everyday, average people. Broken people living broken lives. Becoming an alcoholic is hardly a solution to that situation, but some alcohol might be required simply to endure. It's like if you're hemorrhaging blood - you have to stop the bleeding first before you ultimately heal. Alcohol, used appropriately, can stop the bleeding sometimes..metaphorically speaking. It can sustain hope when you've just got nothing left. It's done that for me anyway. I honestly can't say whether I'd still be around without alcohol. Yes, it's damaged me in some ways, but it's also saved me in others.

[amor]

Go to a Welsh bar where the beer and whisky is flying and ask for a tall, cold glass of YAK MILK. If the tender does not miss a beat and turns to make it for you, make sure that he/she is constantly in your signt so that when your order comes you may risk to barely taste it. When he/she lets out a string of curses in the Welsh language, at least you will not understand it. You might also find yourself having a YAK MILK Shampoo!

[Gracy]

But forget artists, I'm mostly thinking about everyday, average people. Broken people living broken lives. Becoming an alcoholic is hardly a solution to that situation, but some alcohol might be required simply to endure. It's like if you're hemorrhaging blood - you have to stop the bleeding first before you ultimately heal. Alcohol, used appropriately, can stop the bleeding sometimes..metaphorically speaking. It can sustain hope when you've just got nothing left. It's done that for me anyway. I honestly can't say whether I'd still be around without alcohol. Yes, it's damaged me in some ways, but it's also saved me in others.

Like the US founders viewed fire (government), a dangerous servant. :nod:

[Jaye B.]

One thing I forgot to mention in my initial post was when in 1986 I had a video artist document me getting drunk. I wanted to see what I looked like on the cusp of blacking out. I put on a performance of a lifetime. But she got scared, packed up her gear and split.
The next day with one of the worst hangovers that I ever had, she played the tape. I was horrified because I looked exactly like my father. The way he slumped his shoulders, held the drink and enunciated his words. I was able to quit for one year after that, then for good in 1989. It's a highly recommended technique for those of you who are looking to quit and want to see yourself as others see you when you are drinking.

[Hym]

That's a very healthy look at yourself Jaye B. Healing.

If more people saw themselves drunk they'd get a real look at how they see themselves under the influence, as you did yourself, and not just as others see them.

[Hym]

One of my literary hero's, Bukowski, said he would have killed himself early on in life were it not for alcohol. Hemingway said something similar.

And then Hemingway did kill himself.....

[s7e6e]

Never believed in alcoholism or not trusting yourself to have a drink once in a while and or without getting drunk. I find people unable to control themselves as weak.

Had my 2 years "episode" of getting drunk pretty much every single day and missing alcohol when not having it. I indulged myself because it made days pass by easier, having the roughest patch of my life at the time. But after missing a baby in a cradle by an inch while wheelying on my motorcycle I realized enough is enough.

It took 3 months for the craves to subside after which had my first beer. 10 years later, if I drink more than 2 beers in a raw, an invisible valve opens wide and feel the urge to have 5 more. But I never give in. I can drink whatever and get buzzed but passed that, I always put a stop to it.

Have quit regular smoking as well and went cold turkey 15 years ago after smoking 20 years. But I wouldn't trust myself having a "one off". Weak bastard..

I'm in the process of giving up sugar. The force is strong in this one, don't let anybody tell you any different.

[Mike]

One of my literary hero's, Bukowski, said he would have killed himself early on in life were it not for alcohol. Hemingway said something similar.

And then Hemingway did kill himself.....

Yes he did, sadly. Not alcohol related though. He'd suffered some very damaging concussions throughout his adult life. After the last, a plane crash, his behavior became erratic and his mood dark. He became despondent over his lost ability to write. He was also very paranoid about what he believed was government surveillance at the end of his life. Turns out, he was being surveilled. This caused him enormous stress. This, plus his deteriorating mental condition due to being repeatedly concussed are the recognized reasons for his suicide.

[onawah]

According to the research Dark Journalist did on the Hemingways, Ernest was an early "Targeted Individual" and his daughters may have been as well.
He was very interested in the ruins underwater off shore from Cuba for one thing, and the secret government didn't like that at all.
He was also friends with JFK.
Some fascinating info in DJ's show here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL9UWEL-SR4&list=PLNfJkzByQRuyoTq-7YXVCR7Cpui9wElEg

(



One of my literary hero's, Bukowski, said he would have killed himself early on in life were it not for alcohol. Hemingway said something similar.

And then Hemingway did kill himself.....

Yes he did, sadly. Not alcohol related though. He'd suffered some very damaging concussions throughout his adult life. After the last, a plane crash, his behavior became erratic and his mood dark. He became despondent over his lost ability to write. He was also very paranoid about what he believed was government surveillance at the end of his life. Turns out, he was being surveilled. This caused him enormous stress. This, plus his deteriorating mental condition due to being repeatedly concussed are the recognized reasons for his suicide.

[Alan]

I virtually never get drunk but do have a couple of glasses of wine almost every day. I'm full of stress and anxiety and it helps me deal with that. If I had access to weed I would use that instead. I've tried meditation many times to deal with my stress but I just can't seem to get into it.

Any suggestions for dealing with stress/anxiety would be most welcome.

[Karen (Geophyz)]

I occasionally have a glass of wine. But it is rare. I used to drink. We had social events at work and alcohol always flowed. It was at one of these events that I realized I really did not like the people I was around, especially when they were drinking. My father told me once that a person's true personality comes out after a few drinks. I have found this to be true. Out here in the woods I have discovered I really don't care for the taste of alcohol and was only drinking because everyone else was......what a bad reason!

[Mike]

I don't drink too often these days. But when I see my father I do. Although he's fit and healthy, my thinking is that he's getting a little older now and you just never know how long people will be around. So, I won't pass that up. Having beers with Dad is a special thing. He visited me recently and I had a few too many, and boy I suffered for it. People will likely think this is strange - and it kind of is! - but there's a Wynn Dixie grocery store here in Florida with a bar in the middle of it lol! It's quite a novelty. And you don't even have to sit at the bar to drink! You can roam the store all you like with a beer in your hand, do your shopping, so forth. We were so charmed by the whole thing that we sat there for hours. That was days ago, and I'm still feeling the effects. I'm getting older too:)

[Hym]

Thanks Onawah and Mike. That makes much more sense to me now, knowing a clearer picture of Hemingway. I have experienced those tragedies in my family from drinkers who not only took their lives while under the influence, yet more importantly whose many living days clouded all that I liked about them while they were not drunk.

One of those close to me had a story like Hemingways, with deep gov't. contact and was poisoned beyond the drinking....too long to tell here. That turned me away from looking into Hemingway's death, but now it all makes things clearer. Yes, I see where release and relief from pain is temporarily helped by alcohol, but the downside and the excess from drinking nullifies the gains and sometimes even the life itself.

Also, it is not uncommon for those who suffer concussions to turn to drink instead of nutraceuticals and a stronger nutrition base, and spending time learning how to control their pain with breath techniques. With more than one brain injury CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain condition only compounds the effects of saturating the brain with neuro-depressants like alcohol.

We see those suffering from concussions who've been in accidents, football players with recurring brain traumas, boxers and mma fighters switch from compassionate personalities to excesses in suffering from depression and outbursts of aggression as their brains and their personalities cope with the injuries. Adding alcohol to the mix only furthers the degeneration of cellular health.

The liver, as the cleaner and functional creator of new cells body wide, eventually loses it's ability to filter out both naturally dead cells and any of the many added toxins we are exposed to in this modern world, whether it is from alcohol induced mitochondrial necrosis/death or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

In either case the solutions are learning how to remove the habit by taking on healthier ones. There are endless examples, maybe more than those tragedies and life-changing regrets from alcohol abuse, of alcoholics whose lives have been revived by focusing on nutrition and a little consistent exercise. Learn how the liver functions and it's vital importance to the quality of life and longevity.

[Hym]

One good example is one I went thru.

Hearing that my ex, with her most recent drinking excesses, was in the hospital, my son and I dropped everything and immediately traveled to see her.
When we arrived, she was heavier than we had last seen her two years before.
Her sclera, the whites of the eyes, were yellowed, and her skin looked pale.
I saw the drawer full of candy that her mother had left her and the crap they were feeding her for lunch and dinner in the hospital.
I asked the doctors if I could cook for her and they said yes, if I kept it low or no sodium/salt.

I then went to a sister's house and cooked her a healthy dinner.
She appreciated the change in food and more than that, it had an immediate affect on her.
In just 45 minutes the yellow disappeared from her eyes and her face, her skin got back it's color.
In the 3 days I spent with her, feeding her, throwing away the candy, massaging her, sleeping in a chair next to her, complaining to the nurses calling me her husband when I knew she had a boyfriend by then, somewhere....
She had lost 21 lbs. from her edema/swelling, her bp went up to normal and her oxygen saturation went from 89 to 95, all signs of recuperation.

When we had to leave for me to get ready for a teaching gig I had coming up, and with our son out of the room, I asked her if she was going to make it and she said No.
She passed 18 days later when her mother pulled the plug without telling our son.

The hospital sucked so much at taking care of her, and they sucked in so many ways, that a few days after her passing I called the county coroner to request an autopsy, to no avail.
He did call me up during my class's afternoon break and when the class heard some of the conversation from the nearby hallway they gave me the rest of the day off. Good friends.

The coroner told me that I shouldn't have left her and he was right. Because the nurses told him I had taken care of her and him somehow thinking it was worth him taking the time to tell me exactly what he knew, without keeping anything out, he was right. Maybe he knew I'd share the tragedy to warn others about the many things wrong with the system itself.

After getting the 2352 pages of her stay there, and learning the many ways they f'd up her care, mixing her meds, injuring her by dropping her, etc..... confirmed what he shared. He was right in more ways than he likely knew. And this....all the result of the many things that institutions deliberately fail, alcoholics included.

He told me that he has told his wife that if he's in the hospital for more than 4 or 5 days, and if she doesn't come and get him, and if he can't walk out, he'll crawl out. This to save himself from the neglect, misdiagnosis and abject ignorance of the hospital industry. He should know, being the coroner for the largest county in the country, where he saw the results many times, every day he worked.

Though I am not responsible for any of her choices, I share this so that those who may not know the full tragedy of human loss will get another insight into how far addictions affect those around them.

[Mike]

Thanks Onawah and Mike. That makes much more sense to me now, knowing a clearer picture of Hemingway. I have experienced those tragedies in my family from drinkers who not only took their lives while under the influence, yet more importantly whose many living days clouded all that I liked about them while they were not drunk.

One of those close to me had a story like Hemingways, with deep gov't. contact and was poisoned beyond the drinking....too long to tell here. That turned me away from looking into Hemingway's death, but now it all makes things clearer. Yes, I see where release and relief from pain is temporarily helped by alcohol, but the downside and the excess from drinking nullifies the gains and sometimes even the life itself.

Also, it is not uncommon for those who suffer concussions to turn to drink instead of nutraceuticals and a stronger nutrition base, and spending time learning how to control their pain with breath techniques. With more than one brain injury CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain condition only compounds the effects of saturating the brain with neuro-depressants like alcohol.

We see those suffering from concussions who've been in accidents, football players with recurring brain traumas, boxers and mma fighters switch from compassionate personalities to excesses in suffering from depression and outbursts of aggression as their brains and their personalities cope with the injuries. Adding alcohol to the mix only furthers the degeneration of cellular health.

The liver, as the cleaner and functional creator of new cells body wide, eventually loses it's ability to filter out both naturally dead cells and any of the many added toxins we are exposed to in this modern world, whether it is from alcohol induced mitochondrial necrosis/death or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

In either case the solutions are learning how to remove the habit by taking on healthier ones. There are endless examples, maybe more than those tragedies and life-changing regrets from alcohol abuse, of alcoholics whose lives have been revived by focusing on nutrition and a little consistent exercise. Learn how the liver functions and it's vital importance to the quality of life and longevity.


Yeah, I doubt the drinking helped at the end of his life. Had he treated his injuries nutritionally instead of drowning them in drink he might have had a chance.

But there were other factors as well. They fried his brain with electrotherapy for starters. It just ruined him. And he was impotent towards the end of his life too. For a man of such bravado, this must have been devastating. And worse of all he could no longer write. Kind of a "perfect storm" of events there

[Jaye B.]

Any suggestions for dealing with stress/anxiety would be most welcome.


Try playing a guitar in 432hz. It will lower stress esp. caused by 5g.

[onawah]

Find a quiet, peaceful spot outdoors and lie on the earth, near running water or in a wooded area, if possible. See:
https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?84810-The-Divine-Consciousness-of-Trees-Metatron-channeled-by-James-Tyberonn&p=992825&viewfull=1#post992825
https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?85748-How-To-Befriend-A-Tree-a-mutually-beneficial-healing-relationship.&p=1006140&viewfull=1#post1006140
Certain housecats can be great healers--the relaxed ones that really likes to cuddle and purr. :cat:
(Or a dog :dog: if you prefer, or any animal you can form a connection with for that matter. I've even had pet parakeets that were great companions.
But cats and dogs seem to be especially attuned to humans.)
See: https://earth-keeper.com/animal-consciousness-the-benevolent-nature-of-cats-dogs/

I virtually never get drunk but do have a couple of glasses of wine almost every day. I'm full of stress and anxiety and it helps me deal with that. If I had access to weed I would use that instead. I've tried meditation many times to deal with my stress but I just can't seem to get into it.

Any suggestions for dealing with stress/anxiety would be most welcome.

[Alan]

(Or a dog :dog: if you prefer, or any animal you and form a connection with for that matter. I've even had pet parakeets that were great companions.
But cats and dogs seem to be especially attuned to humans.)

Onawah, thanks for your comments. I agree with your comment about dogs, we have 2 beautiful Labs who have been a tremendous source of love and joy in our lives.

46638

[Hym]

Meditation. Some basics.
Having a routine helps. When we plan to spend even 1/2 hour a day on anything that gives us health, we create a habit of feeling better. Our entire being, body, mind and soul creates an expectation that supports the daily practice. Meditating fits in the best.

There are few things that cannot be considered meditation.
Life itself is an endless meditation. It is focus. It can either release or severely constrict healing. It is always our choice.


When we look at meditation and the mind, one of the best ways to make the mind, in it's complexities and in it's simplicities, come under the control of our soul, our will, and to fulfill our desire to release itself from it's connection to an unhealthy addiction, is to control the breath.

Any breath rhythm that is balanced will do. Breathing in thru the left nostril and breathing out thru the right nostril is a good start. Then switching out, by breathing in thru the right nostril and out thru the left will bring the mind and the body under your control.

Breathing in and holding the breath in creates release, apana/uhpaanuh.
Breathing in, then out, and holding the breath out creates energy, prana/praanuh.

There are many more. Like breathing in 8 steps and then breathing out in 8 steps.
Find what suites you and be consistent.

One common misconception about meditating is that it brings some sort of transcendent state of awareness, as if that is the goal. That couldn't be further from the reality we experience. Good for you if you jump from the beginning to the end, but that's not the value, nor the purpose if we do it right.

In all valuable forms and in the most normal, the most healing and worthwhile types of meditating we go over our daily lives. We see the good and the bad, according to our living. We evaluate ourselves more clearly while meditating and we often learn, quite naturally and without coaching or dogma, how to let go.

If you're not seeing the junk along with the better parts of your days and your life, you're most often not meditating, you are fantasizing. Don't worry. Once those things are faced and released, the journeys are always there to take.

It takes no effort but the nature of your soul to guide the self discovery, how long we stay on a problem that needs our resolution, or when we go on to another, or......when we go elsewhere. Controlling our breathing releases worries to being solved, resolved or accepted...but it comes into real perspective of where we are.

It does arrive at the point where we release the entrainment of thought itself and find ourselves not actively living chained to words, concepts or images. If I never had experienced any of those states of awareness beyond self examination I would still consider the time meditating as extremely valuable.

If there is one thing to remember it is self forgiveness. If there was one power I could have in the lives of others it is only that, and that alone. None of us have that power and we weren't meant to have it, for it is a choice made by the soul to heal itself, the one redeeming and sure guarantee of real healing and enjoying the challenges of living.

If you feel the need to make amends, then certainly do so. Often it may be an apology and not more. However, there are healthy limits to making amends. If the injured hold on and if amends have been made, it's on them, even as contradictory as that seems.

There is no better mending of a wounded life than living a good life. When someone really loves you, maybe more than they should or more than you love yourself, they just want to move on and enjoy the living with or without them. There truly is no time but now, and love lives in the eternal space of now.

Meditation, in most worthwhile forms, is perspective. In that perspective we naturally let go of those concerns being allowed to dominate our lives. We don't forget them. We put them into perspective.

On a physical level you may find your tongue touching the upper palate during meditation. That is the heightened sensory aspect of your body touching, activating, it's connection to higher consciousness. There's more you'll find as you carry on.

[leavesoftrees]

I virtually never get drunk but do have a couple of glasses of wine almost every day. I'm full of stress and anxiety and it helps me deal with that. If I had access to weed I would use that instead. I've tried meditation many times to deal with my stress but I just can't seem to get into it.

Any suggestions for dealing with stress/anxiety would be most welcome.


you could try hypnotherapy

[Bubu]

I virtually never get drunk but do have a couple of glasses of wine almost every day. I'm full of stress and anxiety and it helps me deal with that. If I had access to weed I would use that instead. I've tried meditation many times to deal with my stress but I just can't seem to get into it.

Any suggestions for dealing with stress/anxiety would be most welcome.

I deal with stress with the following; Lots of exercises if you can do it under the sun and in nature, much better; Music; water fast, and magic mushroom. Meditation does not work with me too. Stress is normal to almost all people. everyone go through it at some point. Though people in the cities are more stressed than people living close to nature.

[onawah]

More about Hemingway and particularly his interest in the Hot Zone (remains of the underwater Atlantis colony) in Dark Journalist's latest here starting at 49 minutes in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxK63YETgC8
...which really helped to make him a Targeted Individual.



Thanks Onawah and Mike. That makes much more sense to me now, knowing a clearer picture of Hemingway. I have experienced those tragedies in my family from drinkers who not only took their lives while under the influence, yet more importantly whose many living days clouded all that I liked about them while they were not drunk.

One of those close to me had a story like Hemingways, with deep gov't. contact and was poisoned beyond the drinking....too long to tell here. That turned me away from looking into Hemingway's death, but now it all makes things clearer. Yes, I see where release and relief from pain is temporarily helped by alcohol, but the downside and the excess from drinking nullifies the gains and sometimes even the life itself.

Also, it is not uncommon for those who suffer concussions to turn to drink instead of nutraceuticals and a stronger nutrition base, and spending time learning how to control their pain with breath techniques. With more than one brain injury CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain condition only compounds the effects of saturating the brain with neuro-depressants like alcohol.

We see those suffering from concussions who've been in accidents, football players with recurring brain traumas, boxers and mma fighters switch from compassionate personalities to excesses in suffering from depression and outbursts of aggression as their brains and their personalities cope with the injuries. Adding alcohol to the mix only furthers the degeneration of cellular health.

The liver, as the cleaner and functional creator of new cells body wide, eventually loses it's ability to filter out both naturally dead cells and any of the many added toxins we are exposed to in this modern world, whether it is from alcohol induced mitochondrial necrosis/death or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

In either case the solutions are learning how to remove the habit by taking on healthier ones. There are endless examples, maybe more than those tragedies and life-changing regrets from alcohol abuse, of alcoholics whose lives have been revived by focusing on nutrition and a little consistent exercise. Learn how the liver functions and it's vital importance to the quality of life and longevity.


Yeah, I doubt the drinking helped at the end of his life. Had he treated his injuries nutritionally instead of drowning them in drink he might have had a chance.

But there were other factors as well. They fried his brain with electrotherapy for starters. It just ruined him. And he was impotent towards the end of his life too. For a man of such bravado, this must have been devastating. And worse of all he could no longer write. Kind of a "perfect storm" of events there

[leavesoftrees]

Study finds that even moderate drinking reduces density of brain's grey matter

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/18/any-amount-of-alcohol-consumption-harmful-to-the-brain-finds-study

[Bill Ryan]

I'd like to share this searing, extraordinary piece of writing, published (https://www.climbing.com/people/stonemaster-john-long-comes-clean-on-alcoholism/) today. It comes from iconic rock climber John Long, regarded by many as a kind of hero and [almost!] universally loved.

Off-topic on this thread: on the Contemplating mortality (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?114190-Contemplating-mortality&p=1430126&highlight=bachar#post1430126)thread I posted (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?114190-Contemplating-mortality&p=1430113&highlight=bachar#post1430113) a marvelous, self-effacing piece that he'd written in 1982, still celebrated as one of the greatest and most evocative short articles in climbing literature — a day when he came seconds from death when he took on just too much. I do recommend it.

Here's what he published today. Trust me, it's a most exceptional piece of naked self-exposure.

I tell you: this is the writing of a great soul. He's going to save lives with this.

~~~

John Long Comes Clean on Alcoholism

I’m doing a new book and my publisher received an email from a woman (“Jill”) in England who called me out as a womanizer, a fraud, a liar and creep who took advantage of a situation when I was supposedly trying to help her organize her writings into a book.

Instead, I hit on her. Nothing came of it. No fling. No twisting arms or anything like it; but the episode shattered her trust and turned her inside out. Jill was raging mad. I’d been all of those things she’d accused me of, and several more as well.

Jill’s email threw me into a surreal state of self-centered fear, which caught me totally off guard. The Jill incident happened years ago. I can’t be sure how many years because I was in the tail end of my active boozing and acting out, and that whole time looms behind me like a dark and boiling ocean.

Eventually, I got into recovery for alcoholism, and after a hellacious initial year, I finally started grappling out of the darkness. A key part of recovery is “cleaning up the wreckage of the past,” but I had so much troubled water to traverse, four or five years passed before I even remembered the incident with Jill.

I immediately emailed her, hoping to make amends. She was moving to England, she said, but was encouraged I had gotten hold of her to try and make things right. She would get back to me when things settled after the move. I heard nothing more from her till her letter to my publisher.

My terror at that moment was not so much about getting retroactively called out. Rather, that the narcissist I had become as an active alcoholic could jump back from the tar pits and wreck the same havoc and harm it once did when it ruled my life.

Years have passed since this was strictly so, but I haven’t done this perfectly and the fear of falling back into ****heel addict mode felt overwhelming. It once again exposed the hole in the middle of me, a sure sign that I had more work to do. After all these years of being sober, of seeking the truth that had so long eluded me, I was only now getting to the hard part.

My journey to escape hell is nothing special or unique. There’s an understanding in recovery rooms (especially AA, my path of choice) that we’re basically all telling the same story, but those of us with a genius for denial, dishonesty and self-deception have to hear it over and over to hear it at all. Then we need to keep hearing it to stay the course. “Eternal vigilance.”

My story started with a bad adoption and unremitting violence growing up. I struggled in school. My only salvation was sports. When I found climbing, and eventually made Yosemite my home base, I was only vaguely aware of my vastly imbalanced mania to prove myself and make a name. At any cost.

I’d come along at an opportune time in climbing history, had ambitious, driven partners and through luck, chance, and a little talent, managed some historic climbs and got “famous” in a small time way. I dove into adventuring and went to the North Pole, traversed Borneo and Irian Jaya, explored the world’s largest river cave.

When the bloom started fading from the adventuring life, I went on a film shoot to the Venezuela rainforest (with Jim Bridwell) and we rappelled thousands of feet down Angel Falls for the Guinness Book of World Records TV series. I met a Venezuelan school teacher, who worked in the jungle resort near the falls. Two years later we got married in El Tigre, Venezuela.

Fast forward a dozen years. I have two daughters and a house in Valencia, Venezuela. My wife was always a little fiery, but a darkness crept into her that eventually grew so fierce and toxic the girls and I were thrown into survival mode. Somewhere in there a cousin told me that mental illness ran in my wife’s side of the family (her mother was likely schizophrenic).

Whatever her actual condition, I was vastly overmatched by my wife’s erratic moods and behavior, which felt eerily familiar, like family. When my oldest daughter went to medical school and did a semester in a psych ward, she informed me one evening that mamá had chronic depression and who knows what else since she refused treatment.

She did, however, blame me for everything, and I started feeling torn open and rattled to the core. I was burning inside and tried to douse it with booze, an automatic response to someone who’d grown up in an era and a milieu (Yosemite) where drinking and drugging were expected, even celebrated. Then my wife got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Two torturous years later, she died at our home in Valencia.

For the last year before my wife’s death, nothing I did could dull the torment. I teetered at the edge. My wife died and I fell. I no longer cared about anything but trying to fill that hole. I became an alcoholic in a month’s time as all sense of meaning, truth, dignity, and value crumbled away. I’d seen various of my original climbing partners fall off the cliff like this, which at the time was tragic to watch. Now I didn’t care.

How I survived the next 18 months defies logic. How I had any friends who would still speak to me is an even greater mystery. I became so rogue, so inauthentic, so Machiavellian that I lost myself entirely. The hole only widened and burned out of control. All that mattered was immediate gratification. Buying things I didn’t need, compulsive exercise, meaningless, deceitful sex, binging on any and everything, and tossing people aside after their usefulness to me was over. I had no conscious, no empathy, no hope.

This demonic state became so intolerable that I could only sleep for two or three hours at a time, regardless how much booze I drank. I’d wake several times during the night, pound a couple shots of tequila, and pass out again. The first morning I found myself at a convenience store to buy booze at six in the morning an almost inaudible voice inside of me said, “You’re gonna die doing this. And your daughters won’t care.”

I somehow made it back to my place and for several hours sat with a terror more easily imagined than described. I was out of control and out of my mind and had no capacity to self-correct. I had just enough wherewithal to call a childhood friend who took me to an AA meeting.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/18/obituaries/18bridwell-obit2/17bridwell-elcapitan-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale
John Long (right), with Billy Westbay and Jim Bridwell, made the very first one-day ascent of El Capitan in 1975.

The year that followed proved the hardest of my life. I got a sponsor, Roberto, an aging Mexican American I couldn’t con or swindle because he’d been exactly like me 30 years before. Much to my amazement, putting down booze was the easiest part of the process. For some it remains an ongoing battle, but I’d been scared straight. Back then, the only thing I respected was fear.

The hard part was coming to grips with how recovery worked and couldn’t work. Admitting the problem defeats some, but I couldn’t deny I was alcoholic, and had acted like one, in spades. Next was accepting that for the vast majority of us, booze and using is only a symptom for deeper issues that got us drinking and acting rogue in the first place.

It didn’t much matter why I’d acquired my torment, said Roberto, or who was at fault. We had the “ism.” It was nobodies job but ours to unpack it. What’s more, those of us who sought compulsive defense strategies for avoiding that smoldering hole could and would use any means to fill it. Whatever addiction took us down, we’d have to address that first; but the crucial work ran deeper. Then I had to take stock of who I was and the damage I’d caused and go back and try and make amends.

If there was any question about the wreckage caused by addiction, and the addicts like me who caused it, I had those questions answered during my first experience with the amends phase of recovery. Dealing with my own family was especially tricky, since both my parents were dead. Both my sisters (including my older sister, a psychologist) were thrown back into the chaos of our upbringing.

Those were turbulent months. Then all the women to whom I’d feigned interest, even love. The wreckage was real and at a depth I couldn’t have imagined until they were screaming right into my face. I was always amazed when such people forgave me, and not surprised when several others would do no such thing.

What the Jill debacle unearthed in me was the preverbial conviction that I had been born flawed and had proved as much with my using, lying, cheating and general mayhem. How does a person every recovery from that? I needed “Steve” to guide me through it.

When Steve was 19, he killed a man in a drunken, drugged-up fistfight. He got life without parole and spent the next 38 years in prisons like Fulsom and San Quentin. I met him at a meeting shortly after the governor commuted his sentence and he finally got out. He was one of the most sincere, rock solid people I’d ever met and we became fast friends. He’d transformed himself in “the big house,” and I needed to know how.

If he could come back from murder one with special circumstances, maybe I had a shot. But the man he killed could never come back, so how did he deal with that? How could I deal with the people I had betrayed? And the few who would always hold me in contempt, insisting my efforts at amends were insincere, were cons, lies.

“You can’t roll back time and take it all back,” Steve said. My only option was to try and be the person the world wanted and needed. An actual adult who strove to do the right thing. The whole God mystery, at the core of many recovery programs, always felt slippery to Steve and me.

We both were inveterate meditators. I’d logged about 800 Zoom meditation meetings during the pandemic and probably would never have seen things so clearly, or at all, had I not spent so many hours on my ass, shutting my mouth and being still. And all those previous epics dealing with those whose trust I had broken and who swore every response from me was nothing but bull**** and defending, that I was doing it all wrong, “So **** you!” Nothing else would have woken me up—and continues to wake me up.

But seeking “God’s will,” as we’re instructed from the start, seemed nebulous. I couldn’t get hold of it. But I certainly knew what God’s will was not. And doing the right thing, being a responsible, self-contained adult as the world shakes and rattles around me, was something I’d understood how to do for a long time. The trick was to do it—in rain or shine and in the dark. To live by the philosophy that got Steve out of jail, knowing I couldn’t do it perfectly.

https://projectavalon.net/John_Long.jpg
John Long then and now — clean, sober and planning on staying that way.

“There’s nothing else to do,” said Steve. And it was always an action step, not a philosophy or slogan or intellectual understanding. Not a concept. It was how we are in the world. Setting limits. Creating safety, trust and dignity. It’s a confirmation of life, which is never just about us and our wants and desires and impulses. And it was not just about “my recovery.” It was far bigger than that. Not an easy path, but it’s all there is. It’s all that’s left.

Carolyn Tredway’s excellent documentary, “Light,” explored and exposed the perils of eating disorders, which for years had lurked like an elephant in the rooms of gym and sport climbing. Alcohol and substance abuse are particular concerns, but all of these disorders are mental health issues.

Only now, at long last, is the subject of mental health starting to lose its stigma, and for the prevalence of all the “isms” to be acknowledged and understood, in both the adventure world and society at large. My hope is this short article can do some little part for us “users” what Light did for eating disorders, and the whole issue of mental health.

The way Steve puts it, anyone can be better than their most destructive action. It all starts with coming out of the shadows and admitting the problem. As Dr. G. said in “Light,” Anyone can fully recover. It is hard. It is a street fight. It is a **** show. But it can happen. You can live free.

Only then can we chart a way ahead.

[Isserley]

This is long post, but very interesting -> Rudolf Steiner's take on alcohol

HEALTH AND ILLNESS II
GA 348
III. The Effects of Alcohol on Man
8 January 1922, Dornach
Dr. Steiner: Does anyone have a question on his mind?
A question is asked concerning alcohol, its negative effects, etc.
Do you mean the extent to which alcohol generally is detrimental to health? Well, alcohol's initial effect is quite obvious, because it influences what we have been describing in man all along, that is, the entire constitution of the soul. In the first place, through alcohol, a person suffers a form of spiritual confusion so strong that he becomes subject to passions that otherwise are weak in him and can easily be suppressed by his reason. A person thus appears more sensible if he has had no alcohol than if he drinks. To begin with, alcohol has a stimulating influence on the blood, causing an increased circulation of the blood. This, in turn, arouses a person's passions; for example, he may more readily become furious, whereas otherwise he can control his anger more easily. So you can see that the first effect of alcohol is exercised on man's reason — indeed, on his whole life of soul.

After alcohol has remained for a certain length of time in the organism, it causes another symptom that you know well, called a hangover; the appearance of a hangover shows you that the entire organism objects to the initial effect of alcohol. What does it mean for a person to have a hangover? As a rule, it appears in the morning after an evening of too much drinking. Due to the drinking the night before, the circulation of a person's blood is strongly agitated. The increased movement that otherwise would have taken its course at a much slower pace uses up a lot of energy.
Pay close attention to this! Let us assume that the body accomplishes a certain activity within twenty-four hours. When somebody consumes a goodly amount of alcohol, the same activity is completed in perhaps twelve or even six hours. The body thus deprives itself of inner activity. People who are in the habit of drinking every once in a while, therefore, instinctively do something before the hangover appears: they eat heartily. Why do they do this? They eat heartily either to avoid a hangover altogether or so that its effects the next day are at least milder so that they can work.

What happens, say, if a person has drunk himself into a visible state of intoxication and then consumes, let us say, a large hotdog? He stimulates again what has been used up by the previous excessive activity. But if, because he is not a habitual drinker, he doesn't do this — habitual drinkers do eat — and he forgets to eat that hotdog, he then will suffer the hangover, basically because his body is no longer able to engage in increased inner activity. When the body does not function correctly, however, waste products, in particular uric acid, are deposited everywhere. Since the head is the most difficult to supply, the waste products are deposited there. If a person has, through alcohol consumption, depleted the inner activity of the body during the night, he walks around the next morning with his head in the condition that is normal for his intestines, that is, filled with refuse. An immediate revolt by the body is brought about when, through the intake of alcohol, too much activity is demanded of it.
As I have mentioned to you before in these lectures, man has a much higher tolerance — I don't mean only regarding alcohol but generally — and can take much more abuse than is normally assumed. He is capable of readjustment for a long time. Some people even make use of a most deceptive, most questionable antidote against a hangover. When they come home or arise the next morning with a powerful hangover, what do they do? Surely, you have seen this; they continue drinking, making the morning pint into a special cure.

What does this continued drinking signify? During the night, through the agitation of the blood, the body has been deprived of activity. This activity is now missing in the morning. Through renewed drinking, the body is stimulated once again, so that the last remnants of activity are consumed. Since these last remnants dispose of the major part of the refuse, the hangover disappears to a degree from the head but remains that much more in the rest of the body. People are, however, less aware of that. Additional drinking in the morning thus unconsciously transfers the hangover to the rest of the organism. Only now, when this occurs, does the real misery for the body begin. Those alcoholics who drive away a hangover with more drinking are in the worst shape, because gradually, as this is repeated, the entire body is ruined.
Still, however, because man can endure a good deal, it is almost impossible to ruin the body that quickly. Therefore, the first thing that happens to a real alcoholic is that he suffers from a form of delirium. This does not as yet indicate total ruin. When delirium tremens, as it is called in medicine, sets in, people see certain kinds of animals, mice and the like, running all over the place. They suffer a form of persecution complex. Delirium tremens is connected with the phenomenon of people seeing themselves surrounded and attacked from all sides by small animals, especially mice. This is something that even has a historical background. There are structures called “mice towers” (Mäusetürme). Usually, they have come by their name through somebody in some earlier time having been incarcerated in them who suffered from delirium tremens, and, though some real mice might well have been there too, this person was plagued by thousands upon thousands of mice that he merely imagined all around himself.
You can see, therefore, that the ruinous effects of alcohol can only slowly be driven into the body; the body resists these effects that are produced by alcohol for a long time.

What happens when people who have been drinking heavily for some time are suddenly bothered by their conscience and, having some energy left, stop drinking? It is an interesting fact that if they had not suffered from delirium tremens before, now, after abstaining from alcohol, they sometimes get it. Here we find something of interest, when people's consciences suddenly stir. They have been drinking for a while, let us say, drinking since early in the morning, and then suddenly the conscience stirs and they stop drinking. What happens then? If they had not had delirium tremens earlier, they struggle with it now. This is the interesting fact, that sometimes those who have been drinking for a long time begin suffering from delirium tremens when they stop drinking.

This is one of the most important signs that man must be viewed in such a way that the head is seen to work differently from the rest of the body. In the last lectures I mentioned many aspects of this to you. As long as a person suffers only in his head from the side effects of drinking, his overall condition is still tolerable; the effects have not yet permeated the entire body. When they have penetrated, however, and the person leaves off alcohol, the rest of the body really revolts by way of the brain and he suffers from delirium tremens just because he discontinued drinking.
One thus can say that the bodily counterpart for the most important functions of the soul is found in human blood. You probably know that some people suffer from persecution complexes, seeing all sorts of figures that are not there. Particularly in earlier times, such persons were bled — not a bad remedy, really. You must not believe that all people in the past were as superstitious as is generally assumed today. Blood-letting was not something derived from superstition. People were bled primarily by applying leeches somewhere on the body that drew off blood. The blood thus was less active. Not necessarily in the case of alcoholics, but for other attacks of insanity blood was less active, and the person fared better.
As I have mentioned, the nervous system is very closely related to the foundations of the properties of the soul, but it is much less important for the human will. The nervous system is important for reason, but for the human will it has much less significance than the blood.

Now, when you see that alcohol pre-eminently attacks the blood, it is clear from the body's strong reaction against alcohol's effects that the blood is well protected against alcohol. The blood is extraordinarily well protected against the assault of alcohol in human beings. By what means is the blood so strongly protected against this assault? We must ask further, then, where do the most important ingredients of the blood actually originate?

Remember that I told you that blood consists of red corpuscles containing iron, which swim around in the so-called blood serum, and it also consists of white corpuscles. I have told you that the most significant components of blood are the red and white corpuscles. We shall now disregard the corpuscles connected with the spleen's activity, which, in our tests in Stuttgart, we termed the “regulators.” There are many components in the blood, but we want now to focus only on the red and white corpuscles, asking where in the body these corpuscles originate. These corpuscles originate in a most special place. If you examine the thigh bone from the hip to the knee, if you think of the bone in the arm, or any long bone, you will find in these bones the so-called bone marrow. The marrow is in there, the bone marrow. And you see, gentlemen, the red and white corpuscles originate in this bone marrow and migrate from it first into the arteries. The human body is arranged in such a way that the blood, at least the most important part of it, is produced in the inner hollows of the bones.

If this is the case, you can say to yourself: in so far as its production is concerned, the blood is indeed well protected from harm. In fact, alcohol must be consumed for a long time and in large quantities to damage the bone to the point of penetrating it to the innermost part, to the bone marrow, and destroying the bone marrow so that no more red and white corpuscles are produced. Only then, after the effects of drinking alcohol have reached the bone marrow, does the really ruinous process begin for the human being.

Now, it is true that regarding their intellects and soul qualities, humans are in many ways alike; regarding the blood, however, there is a marked difference between man and woman. It is a difference that one is not always aware of but that is nevertheless clearly evident. This is that the influence on human beings of the red and white corpuscles that are produced within the hollows of the bone is such that the red corpuscles are more important for the woman and the white are more important for the man. This is very important: the red corpuscles are more important with the woman and the white with the man.

This is because the woman, as you know, every four weeks has her menstrual period, which is actually an activity that the human body undertakes to eliminate something that must be eliminated, red corpuscles. A man, however, does not have menstrual periods, and you also know that his semen is not derived directly from red blood. It has its origin in white corpuscles. Although considerably transformed, in the end they turn into the main ingredient of semen. Thus, regarding what affects human reproduction, we must go to the protected bone marrow to investigate the means by which the human reproductive capacity can be influenced physically. Indeed, the human reproductive capacity can be physically affected precisely through the bone marrow within the bone.
After having been produced in the bone marrow, the red and white corpuscles naturally enter the blood stream. When a woman now drinks alcohol, it is the red corpuscles that are particularly affected. The red corpuscles contain iron, are somewhat heavy, and possess something of the earth's heaviness. When a woman drinks, it affects her in such a way that there is too much heaviness in her. When a pregnant woman drinks, therefore, her developing child becomes too heavy and cannot inwardly form its organs properly. It does not develop properly inwardly, and its inner organs are not in order. In this round-about-way, gentlemen, the harmful influence of alcohol is expressed in the woman.

In men, alcohol primarily affects the white corpuscles. If conception takes place when a man is under the influence of alcohol, or when his system is generally contaminated by the effects of alcoholism, a man's semen is ruined in a way, becoming too restless. When conception takes place, the tiny egg is released from the mother's organism. This can only be seen with a microscope. From the male, a great number of microscopic sperm are released, each one of which has something resembling a tail attached to it. The seminal fluid contains countless numbers of such sperm. This tail, which is like a fine hair, gives the sperm great restlessness. They make the most complicated movements, and naturally one sperm must reach the egg first. The one that reaches the egg first penetrates it. The sperm is much smaller than the egg. Although the egg can be perceived only with a microscope, the sperm is still smaller. As soon as the egg has received it, a membrane forms around the egg, thereby preventing penetration by the rest of the sperm cells. Generally, only one sperm can enter the egg. As soon as one has penetrated, a membrane is formed around the egg, and the others must retreat.

You see, therefore, it is most ingeniously arranged. Now, the sperm's restlessness is greatly increased through alcohol, so that conception occurs under the influence of semen that is extraordinarily lively. If the father is a heavy drinker when conception occurs, the child's nerve-sense system will be affected. The woman's drinking harms the child's inner organs because of the heaviness that ensues. The man's drinking harms the child's nervous system. All the activities are damaged that should be present in the right way as the child grows up.
We therefore can say that if a woman drinks, the earthly element in the human being is ruined; if a man drinks, the element of movement, the airy element that fills the earth's surroundings and that man carries within himself, is ruined. When both parents drink, therefore, the embryo is harmed from two different sides. Naturally, this is not a proper conception; while conception is possible, however, proper growth of the embryo is not. On the one hand, the egg's tendency toward heaviness tries to prevail; on the other, everything in it is in restless motion, and one tendency contradicts the other. If both parents are alcoholics and conception occurs, the masculine element contradicts the feminine. To those who understand the entire relationship, it becomes quite clear that in the case of habitual drinkers exceedingly harmful elements actually arise in their offspring. People do not wish to believe this, because the effects of heavy drinking in men and women are not so obvious, relatively speaking. This is only because the blood is so well protected, however, being produced, after all, in the bone marrow, and because people must do a lot if they are to affect their offspring strongly. Weak effects are simply not admitted by people today.
As a rule, if a child is born with water on the brain, one does not investigate whether or not, on the night conception occurred, the mother was at a dinner party where she drank red wine. If that were done, it would often be found to be the case, because wine causes an inclination toward heaviness, so that the child is born with hydrocephalus. If, however, the baby has a congenital twitch in a facial muscle, one normally does not check to find out if the father had perhaps been drinking too much the evening conception occurred. Seemingly insignificant matters are not investigated; people therefore assume that they have no effect. Actually, alcohol always has an effect. The really disastrous effects, however, occur with habitual drinkers. Here, too, a striking, a very remarkable thing can be noted.
You see, the children of a father who drinks can develop a weakness somewhere in their nervous systems and thus have a tendency toward tuberculosis, for example. What is inherited by the children need not be connected with the effects felt by the alcoholic father. The children need not have a tendency toward mental confusion, for example, but instead, toward tuberculosis, stomach ailments, and the like. This is what is so insidious about the effects of alcohol, that they are communicated to totally different organs in the human being.

In these matters, the great effect on human development of minute amounts of substances must always be taken into consideration. Not only that, but in each instance, one must consider how these substances are introduced into the human being. Consider the following example. Our bones contain a certain amount of calcium phosphate. Our brain also contains some phosphorus, and you will recall from earlier lectures that phosphorus is most useful since without phosphorus the brain actually could not be used for thinking. We therefore have phosphorus in us. I have already told you that phosphorus has a beneficial effect when the proper amount is consumed in food so that it is digested at a normal rate. If too large an amount of phosphorus is introduced too quickly into the human stomach, it is not useful but rather harmful.
Something else must also be considered, however. You know that in earlier days, matches were made with heads of phosphorus, but they are rarely seen anymore. If one has had an opportunity to observe something like what I did as a boy, the following can be experienced. When I was thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years old, I had an hour's walk from our home to school every day. There was a match factory about halfway where phosphorus matches were manufactured by workmen. At any time, one could see that a number of these workmen had corroded jaws — this was in the 1870s — and, radiating out from the jaw, their bodies were gradually destroyed. Beginning with the upper and lower jaws — especially the upper — the bones were eaten away.

Knowing the harmful effect that phosphorus can have on humans, one realizes that such a match factory is actually about the most murderous place one can have. In matters pertaining to the progress of human civilization, it is always necessary to look at the numerous harmful effects that man can suffer in this way. I always saw a number of these workmen going into this match factory with bandaged jaws. That is where it started, and then it spread. Of course, phosphorus obviously was already contained in the upper jawbone, but what kind of phosphorus was it?
You see, the phosphorus that first enters the stomach along with food and then travels internally through the body into the jaws is not harmful, provided the amount is not too large. Matches, however, are manufactured first by cutting long wooden strips into tiny sticks; these are then fitted into frames so that one end sticks out. They are dipped first into a sulphur solution and then into a phosphorus solution. The workman who dipped the matches simply held the frame in his hand and always got splattered. Just think how often in a day a person who cannot wash his splattered hands might touch his face during working hours. Though the amounts of phosphorus with which the person comes in contact in this way are minute, they nevertheless penetrate his skin. This is a mystery of human nature: a substance that is often extraordinarily useful when taken internally and assimilated first through the body can have the most poisonous effect when it comes in contact with the body from outside. The human organism is so wisely arranged inwardly that an overdose of phosphorus is eliminated in the urine or feces; only the small amount required is allowed to penetrate the bones; the rest is eliminated.

There are, however, no provisions for the elimination of externally absorbed influences. This problem could, of course, have been alleviated. Remember that in the last century little thought was given to humanitarian considerations. It would have helped if bathing facilities had been made available so that every workman could have had a hot bath before leaving work. A great deal could naturally have been accomplished by such an arrangement, but it simply was not done.
I only mention this to you to illustrate how the human body works. Minute, detrimental influences from outside, even substances that the body otherwise needs to sustain itself, can undermine human health, indeed, can undermine generally the entire organization of the human being.
Man can withstand a good deal, but beyond a certain point the organism fails. In the case of drinking alcohol, the organism fails at the point at which alcohol prevents the correct functioning of the life-sustaining activities, the invisible life-sustaining activities.

When a person is exposed to phosphorus poisoning, the inner activity that otherwise would assimilate phosphorus is undermined. It is undermined from outside. It is actually quite similar in the case of alcohol. When a person drinks too much alcohol, drinking always more and more, so that imbibing alcohol is no longer merely acute but has become chronic, the alcohol works directly as alcohol in the human being. What is the direct effect of alcohol? Remember that I once told you that man himself produced the amount of alcohol he requires. I told you that in the substances contained in the intestines, a certain amount of alcohol is constantly produced by ordinary food simply because man needs this small amount of alcohol. What do we need it for? Remember that in an anatomy, lab specimens are preserved in alcohol, because otherwise they would decompose. The alcohol prevents what was a living body from decaying. The alcohol produced in the human being works in the same way in the human organism; that is, it prevents decay of certain substances needed by man. Man through his inner organization really prescribes how much alcohol he should have, because he has certain substances that would otherwise decay and must be conserved.
Take now the case of a person who drinks too much alcohol. Substances that should be eliminated are retained in the body; too much is preserved. If a person repeatedly exposes blood that circulates in the body to alcohol, he conserves this blood in his body. What is the consequence? This blood, having a counteracting influence, blocks the canals in the bones; it is not eliminated quickly enough through the pores and so forth. It remains too long in the body. The marrow in the hollows of the bone is consequently stimulated too little to make new blood, and it becomes weak. It so happens that, in the so-called chronic alcoholic, the bone marrow in time becomes weakened and no longer produces either the proper red corpuscles in the woman nor the proper white corpuscles in the man.

Now, at a point such as this, I always have to make the following observation. Certainly, it is very nice when people come up with social reforms such as the prohibition of alcohol and so forth. It certainly sounds fine. But even such a learned man as Professor Benedict — I told you about his collection of skulls of criminals and how Hungarian convicts objected to having their skulls sent to Vienna because they would be missing from the rest of their bones on Judgment Day — even Professor Benedict said, and rightly so, “Here people speak against alcohol, but many more have perished from water than from alcohol.” Generally, that is quite correct, because water, if it is contaminated, can be present in much larger quantities. Considered simply from a statistical point of view one can naturally say that many more people have died from water than from alcohol.

Something else must be taken into consideration, however. I would like to put it like this. The situation with alcohol is like the story contained in Heinrich Seidel's Leberecht Hühnchen. I don't know whether you are familiar with it, but it is the tale of a poor wretch, a poor devil who only has enough money to buy one egg. He also has a great imagination, however, and so he thinks, “If this egg had not been sold in the store but instead had been allowed to hatch, a hen would have developed from it. Now, when I eat this egg, I am actually eating a whole hen.” And so he imagines, “Why, I, who have a whole hen to eat, am really a rich fellow!” But his imagination is not satisfied there, so he continues, “Yes, but the hen I am now eating could have laid any number of eggs from which hens again would hatch, and I am eating all these hens.” Finally, he calculates how many millions and millions of hens that would amount to, and he asks himself, “Shouldn't that be called gorging myself with food?”
You see, this is the case with alcohol, not in a funny sense as in this story but in all seriousness. Certainly, if you take the time from 1870 to 1880, and you investigate how many people died throughout the world from water and from alcohol, statistics would show that more people died from impure water. In those days, people died more frequently from typhoid fever and related illnesses than today, and typhoid can, in many instances, be traced to contamination of the water. So, in this way, gentlemen, it is easy to conclude that more people die from drinking water.
One must think differently, however. One must know that alcohol gradually penetrates the bone marrow and ruins the blood. By harming the offspring, all the descendants are thus harmed. If an alcoholic has three children, for example, these three are harmed only a little; their descendants, however, are significantly hurt. Alcohol has a long-term negative effect that manifests in many generations. Much of the weakness that exists in humanity today is simply due to ancestors who drank too much. One must indeed picture it like this: here is a man and a woman, the man drinks too much, and the bodies of their descendants are weakened. Now think for a moment what this implies in a hundred, and worse, in several hundred years! It serves no purpose to examine only a decade, say from 1870 to 1880, and to conclude that more people died from water than from alcohol. Much longer periods of time must be considered. This is something that people don't like to do nowadays, except in jest as did the author of Leberecht Hühnchen, who naturally was looking over a long span of time when picturing how to wallow in so much food.
If this matter is examined from the social viewpoint, consideration must go beyond what is nearest at hand. Now, it is my opinion that the use of alcohol can be prohibited, but when it is, strange phenomena appear. You know, for example, that in many parts of the world the sale of alcohol has been restricted or even completely prohibited. But I call your attention to another evil that has recently made its appearance in Europe, that is, the use of cocaine by people who wish to drug themselves. In comparison to what the use of cocaine will do, particularly in damage to the human reproductive forces, alcohol is benign! Those individuals who take cocaine do not hold cocaine responsible for the damage it does, but you can see from the external symptoms that its use is much worse than that of alcohol. When a person suffers from delirium tremens, it becomes manifest in a form of persecution complex. He sees mice everywhere that pursue him. A cocaine user, however, imagines snakes emerging everywhere from his body. First, such a person seeks an escape through cocaine, and for a while he feels good inside, because it brings about a feeling of sensual pleasure. When he has not had any cocaine for some time, however, and he looks at himself, he sees snakes emerge everywhere from his body. Then he runs to have another dose of cocaine so that the snakes will leave him alone for a while. The fear he has of these snakes is much greater than the fear of mice that is experienced by an alcoholic suffering from delirium tremens.

https://rsarchive.org/images/Banner1460x295bw2.png

Certainly, one can prohibit this or that, but people then hit on something else, which, as a rule, is not better but much worse. I therefore believe that enlightening explanations, like the one we presented today regarding the effects of alcohol, for example, can be much more effective and will gradually bring human beings to refrain from alcohol on their own. This does not infringe on human freedom, but understanding causes a person to say to himself, “Why, this is shocking! I am harmed right into my bones!” This becomes effective as feeling, whereas laws work only on the intellect. The real truths, the real insights, are those that work all the way into feeling. It is therefore my conviction that we can arrive at an effective social reform — and in other spheres it is much the same — only if true enlightenment in the widest circles of people is made our concern.

This enlightenment, however, can come about only when there is something with which one can enlighten people. When a lecture is given nowadays on the detrimental effects of alcohol, these things are not presented as I have done today — though that should not be so difficult, because people know the facts. But they do not know how to think correctly about these facts that are familiar to them. The listeners come away from a lecture given by some dime-a-dozen professor, and they do not know quite what to make of it. If they are particularly good-natured, they might say, “Well, we don't have the background to comprehend everything he said. The educated gentleman knows it all. A simple person can't understand everything!” The fact is that the lecturer himself doesn't fully comprehend what he is talking about. If one has a science that really goes to the bottom of things and considers their foundations, however, it is possible to make it comprehensible even to simple people.
If science is so unreal today, it is because true humanness was excluded from it when it originated. An individual rises from lecturer to assistant professor [in German, “extraordinary professor”] to full professor. The students are in the habit of saying, “The full professor knows nothing extraordinary, and the assistant professor knows nothing fully.” [“Ein ordentlicher Professor Weiß nichts Außerordentliches, und ein außerordentlicher Professor, der weiß nichts Ordentliches.”] The students sense this in their feelings, gentlemen; the sorry state of affairs thus continues. Regarding social reforms, science essentially accomplishes nothing, whereas it could be effective in the most active way. A person who is sincerely concerned about social life therefore must emphasize again and again that dry laws on paper are much less important — though naturally they too are needed — but they are much less important than thorough enlightenment. The public needs this enlightenment; then we would have real progress.

Particularly facts like those that can be studied in the case of alcohol can be made comprehensible everywhere. One then arrives at what I always tell people. People come and ask, “Is it better not to drink alcohol, or is it better to drink it? Is it better to be a vegetarian or to eat meat?” I never tell anyone whether or not he should abstain from alcohol, or whether he should eat vegetables or meat. Instead, I explain how alcohol works. I simply describe how it works; then the person may decide to drink or not as he pleases. I do the same regarding vegetarian or meat diets. I simply say, this is how meat works and this is how plants work. The result is that a person can then decide for himself.

Above all else, science must have respect for human freedom, so that a person never has the feeling of being given orders or forbidden to do something. He is only told the facts. Once he knows how alcohol works, he will discover on his own what is right. This way we shall accomplish the most. We will come to the point where free human beings can choose their own directions. We must strive for this. Then only will we have real social reforms.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/19230108p01.html

[Ratszinger]

Nearing my 32nd anniversary of freedom from one of the most destructive of substances on this planet aka alcohol, I’m compelled to share the following:

Back in 1989, I found myself driving home from a party using up three lanes of a freeway to do so. I would’ve given myself a DUI that night and wondered how I was able to park the car, get to my apartment and pass out on my bed. (Probably guardian angels who were working in shifts at the time).

I woke up the next day with a horrible hangover and said, “That’s it. I’m done. I’m endangering other people’s lives.”

Then when I told people I had just quit drinking they would reflexively say, “Go to AA.”

But I decided to take a class in intuitive development instead. At the time I was quite skeptical about it, but when I met with the person that taught the class as a needed prerequisite, no longer was. In the course of 2 1/2 hours she had nailed my life down quite accurately by reading my energy, aura, etc. I must admit I was quite impressed having never met this person before. Afterwards, she let me in the class.

I burned all bridges with artist and musician friends of mine who drank and moved to Saint Paul, Mn. about a mile away from where the teacher lived. We met once a week and covered the energy centers of the body aka chakras. We used a grounding and visualization technique to see these energy centers (I used a kind of circular movie screen to do so) and would do these timeline visualizations, i.e., what the energy centers looked like at birth, at the age of 5, 10, teenage years, young adult years, all the way up to present time.

When we got to the energy center located in the solar plexus area, the teacher told us it was associated with metabolism, will, power, habits, compulsions and....addiction. Using the timeline visualization, I saw something traumatic that happened to me at the age of ten. It turned out to be the root cause of all of my substance abuse issues.

Having addressed the root cause of addiction and not just the symptoms has enabled me to say to stay alcohol free all these years with no withdrawal symptoms whatsoever-even during very stressful times. The insights gained in the class were crucial, esp. during the first year of abstention which is always the hardest for those struggling to quit.

In 2015, I returned to Minneapolis and encountered the above mentioned artist and musician ‘friends’ who were still drinking. They were all hollowed out and petrified, their souls eaten up by alcohol. I then realized that quitting drinking was and still is the best decision I’ve ever made in this life.

Here are some of the many benefits of being alcohol free:

Being sober deprives the archontic parasites that control the liquor industry of their sustenance. Being sober deprives these parasites of the negative energy generated by alcoholic individuals as well as alcoholic, dysfunctional families.

Abstaining from drinking strengthens our auric fields and help ward off demonic, archontic entities associated with alcohol. It also helps ward off low vibrational people controlled by these demonic entities and gives us much healthier boundaries. ( Keep in mind that when you are not miserable, there will be no misery loving company in your life.)

From a purely economical standpoint I’m guessing I have saved over $100,000 by not drinking (seeing that I was a top shelf drinker). At present time I think it costs over $20,000 if you get a DUI plus paying more for car insurance, lawyers, etc.

You will be able to effectively separate your emotions from other peoples emotions also creating much better boundaries. Sensitive people take on other peoples energies and it gets mixed up with their own.

I share the above in this forum because there are probably many of you that are full blown empaths and are extremely sensitive. Alcohol is a convenient way to numb the senses but in the long term is very destructive. Being an empath myself, I fully understand and is also one of the reasons why I started drinking at such a young age.

One of my intuitive development classmates did a documentary at that time on creative people and substance abuse and interviewed many artists, writers, theater people, etc. each stating the reasons why they drank and did drugs. It all distilled down to trying to block out the troglodyte world we live in that tends to crush creative, autonomous and intelligent people.

But if we can keep our vibration high instead of numbing out, it gives us a better chance of not getting crushed ourselves.

Recommended reading:

https://thecostaricanews.com/spiritual-consequences-alcohol-consumption/

Jaye B.

I can appreciate that experience. In or around 2002 I was drunk as usual and made it home after I should not have been driving too. Later that same week a friend I have known for quite a while and a dentist and another friend a veternarian asked if I would like some mushrooms. Well, I love mushrooms and Greg, the dentist grew all kinds that he used in foods and so immediately I said sure. They gave me some. I took them home and later tasted a few of them to see what they were like uncooked. Bitter was what I tasted so I called him and he informed me they were 'Magic Mushrooms' this after I already chewed up, ate and swallowed two big caps! BIG CAPS although I was regretting it after due to the bad taste. So there I was waiting on the couch for the trip that was coming. Long story short it was euphoric and wonderful. The real mystery was that it cleaned me up. I quit smoking and drinking effortlessly after this trip and just literally walked away from it in 02 and that was it. When I got cancer later in life and was diagnosed and told I needed chemo I got the medical marijuana card. I grow my own because the dispensary stuff messes with me. I personally feel a lot the stuff they are selling at those places is tainted with something because of how it affects me but just my opinion. I only smoke my own and nothing like I used to but in a controlled more disciplined way than before. Somehow the mushroom trip balanced me out all around there and it's still ongoing. I'm not recommending it don't get me wrong but it's what happened to me and it's either coincidence I quit easily after that or the shrooms had something to do with being able to do it. Not sure.

[Pam]

(Or a dog :dog: if you prefer, or any animal you and form a connection with for that matter. I've even had pet parakeets that were great companions.
But cats and dogs seem to be especially attuned to humans.)

Onawah, thanks for your comments. I agree with your comment about dogs, we have 2 beautiful Labs who have been a tremendous source of love and joy in our lives.

46638

Oh Alan, your labs are beautiful. I lost my beloved lab last September, I thought he was very sad at the sudden decline of my dear, dear border collie. He always had arthritis. Due to CBD, fish oil, and home made food I really improved his health for over 3 years. It turns out my lab may have been mourning the death of his best buddie but he also had bone cancer. I had taken him to a vet which didn't catch it at all.

I am not ashamed to admit that I miss their companionship, there unconditional love, their happiness, their goofiness, their friendship more than any human I have ever known.

Please know that I have read a couple places that they are starting to use mRNA technology in their vaccines. You would need to validate that but I feel an obligation to share this. I am not stating it as a fact, but I read it at two different sources I respect and it would certainly be worth looking into.

Dogs were the best thing that ever happened to me. I love everything about every single one of them.

[Pam]

I virtually never get drunk but do have a couple of glasses of wine almost every day. I'm full of stress and anxiety and it helps me deal with that. If I had access to weed I would use that instead. I've tried meditation many times to deal with my stress but I just can't seem to get into it.

Any suggestions for dealing with stress/anxiety would be most welcome.

Coming from someone that has had a history of overdoing alcohol in my younger years and would get very,very sick from even a couple of beers I stay away. Some times I could have one and sometimes, I didn't seem to have control. If you can have a couple glasses and relax, why not? Marijuana is legal where I live and I wish it worked on me, but it doesn't relax me, it makes me paranoid and anxious....just my luck. Others get a happy warm glow and I get the opposite.

[Alan]

I virtually never get drunk but do have a couple of glasses of wine almost every day. I'm full of stress and anxiety and it helps me deal with that. If I had access to weed I would use that instead. I've tried meditation many times to deal with my stress but I just can't seem to get into it.

Any suggestions for dealing with stress/anxiety would be most welcome.

Coming from someone that has had a history of overdoing alcohol in my younger years and would get very,very sick from even a couple of beers I stay away. Some times I could have one and sometimes, I didn't seem to have control. If you can have a couple glasses and relax, why not? Marijuana is legal where I live and I wish it worked on me, but it doesn't relax me, it makes me paranoid and anxious....just my luck. Others get a happy warm glow and I get the opposite.

Since I wrote that I discovered you -can- get legal weed in Texas, and yes, it does get you intoxicated. It has helped me cut down somewhat on my wine consumption.