Any Friends of Bill W here @ AudioKarma

Thanks everyone - very good advice. I think my plan is to definitely hold onto it - and likely sell off when I'm in retirement mode to earn a few extra bucks. I mean - I have an entire IKEA expedite full of records - that I can really only listen to after a few drinks.

I still enjoy music and have Pandora running via BT to a cheap little 100.00 tube contraption - via Cambridge Soundworks sub/sat.

But man - the old days of opening a new record - pouring a glass, dusting it off - and placing it on the turntable - to sit down and.. It was a ritual for sure.

Old rituals give way to new (healthier) ones. I stopped listening to GnR but went to see Megadeth in 95 in sobriety after a few years under my belt. I stopped dusting off a record and a bottle and instead did the same them with a cup of coffee... I like the suggestion of dismantling your "trigger" listening room and recreating it for your new phase of living. Doesn't have to be done now either. Give time time. Bob
 
I did some minor rearranging in my music room. I packed up the Technics and moved it into the attic to keep as a spare. I also moved my amps off the speakers and onto the rack. Lots of simplification/reductions in wire and components. Now very basic - one table and one CD/Streamer.

I even picked up my guitars for the first time in months.

A couple glasses of iced tea and a new Miles Davis album I hadn't opened in several months.

All in all very enjoyable while sober.

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Thanks again folks.
 
You know, one of the stories I tell is about early sobriety and SAD (seasonal depression). My first year was difficult. I came in late summer, and by late fall my periodic winter depression was upon me. I wanted to crawl under a rock and shirk all responsibilities and be left alone. I pushed on with life, having a car repair shop to run, but I was slacking. The house was a mess and the laundry pile in the corner of my bedroom grew to demonic size, but I pushed ahead.
I bought more underwear so I didn't have to do the wash.

Finally, the inevitable happened and I had to do some wash. I hauled it down to the basement and started on it.
Since I was awake and waiting for the wash, I decided to do the mound of dishes.
I did.
I did all the wash.
My mood and attitude changed.
I wasn't my own victim, I felt a little plucky even!
I took my power back.
It's a program of action. Sometimes the solution of a major problem starts with something as simple as doing the wash!
Who woulda' guessed?

Your redoing and reframing you music certainly rhymes with doing the wash, just not phonetically:)
Good Job!
 
A couple of quotes that helped in my first year and beyond:

"What hand did you pick up with? Your right hand - O.K. Your job now is to keep your right hand occupied so it won't pick up. Take it to a movie, take it to a meeting, wash the dishes. Do ANYTHING with your right hand except pick up and the rest will sort itself out."

"When my physical space is clean, it seems like my spiritual space is clean, too. "
 
It's a program of action.
Taking action shifts my reality from having a problem to being in the solution.
I've heard it said: I can't think myself into good behavior but I can behave myself into good thinking.
Certainly true for me!
Congrats, Coster, on taking care of yourself! (I believe the aim of sobriety is to totally know and accept oneself, warts and all. IMO that is loving yourself fully and then able to love others)
 
Amen brother.
And the longer you experience “reality”, the stranger and stranger it will seem.
Stay sane.

That's for sure. I try to explain that to a norm'ie, but they don't get it. How could they? I think that comes from the "rebuilding" of your soul after hitting rock bottom. You gotta break it all down to a clean slate to come out the other side better than you were before.

:thumbsup:
I immensely enjoyed weed, and beer. I could have some really great bad ideas when loaded, like thinking a beer or a few wouldn't hurt while I was buzzed, so I don't get buzzed as having a few brewskys after more than 35 years is a terrible bad idea I won't risk.

Good insight. Putting the same ferocity into sobriety that was once put into self-destruction works well for me. Using your super-powers for good instead of evil.
 
Amen brother.
And the longer you experience “reality”, the stranger and stranger it will seem.
Stay sane.

Reality. What a Concept!
After 35 years, my reality is comfortable and serene. The world is a place of possibility. It's finally safe; I don't have to go to war over everything.
I don't get what you mean by stranger and stranger.
 
Reality. What a Concept!
After 35 years, my reality is comfortable and serene. The world is a place of possibility. It's finally safe; I don't have to go to war over everything.
I don't get what you mean by stranger and stranger.

Watching the “normal humans” running around in a tizzy, fretting about all sorts of trivial nonsense and panicking about the silliest little things to me seems strange.

Watching people opinionate about most things without any evidence or fact and get adamant about it seems strange.

Politics, religion, status, traditions, conventional practices all seem strange if you step back and look objectively.

Causality of events leading up to a result seems strange to the point of miraculous.

Look at events and stuff and wonder “how” or “why” and try to make sense of it and it starts to seem strange.

Addicts tend to be very intelligent and relentless, hard workers. They think, actually think. With mind altering substances, the thinking get screwy. Once clean and sober, that skill and talent searches for clarity. As the fog lifts and the “real” world comes into focus, I noticed a lot of things that seem strange, odd if you will.

I see most things taken for granted and actions taken by rote without any real thought as to why.
Take away the money reason, “for profit”, take away the common sense actions and the obvious things and what is left are the strange things we do for no real obvious reason.

Look at a strange coincidental good luck or bad luck event and back track the conditions that lead up to that event and note what had to occur, and when, to lead to that event. I’ve watched some very strange things happen and all the conditions that led to that event and the timing and actions were mind numbing in probability to occur the way they did.

A change of timing of a few seconds on some things would make a totally different situation. Yet some things remain the same no matter the timing. Strange.

I’ve watched and listened and seen things and heard things that are so bizarre in the real world that it doesn’t seem there is any reason to use drugs. Things are trippy enough without dope.

Just the change that occurred in my life because I let go and let God is beyond belief.

From where I was 30 years ago and the path I was on, to the place I am now, the path that brought me here and the possible future while clean and sober is very very strange.

Examples

We work to earn money to buy things to throw away. Trash bags.

Much of the planet does not have clean drinking water readily available. In the US, we flush our toilets, water our lawns, wash our cars, etc... with drinking water.

It is raining poop on earth. Birds.

People market and purchase food as “all natural” as if it’s a good healthy thing. Crude oil, poop, insects, etc... are “all natural”. I don’t want any in my food.

Religious wars?!?

Politics has never made sense except as some form of organizational process to attempt to get the crazy human animals to all behave and do common good things but there is very little that everyone can agree on. That’s strange. Why are we all so different?

I am an addict yet friends that “partied” as hard as I did are not. Strange.

You never thought about these kinds of things?
That’s strange.
 
I guess my disconnect from things I can't affect is greater than yours.
My vision? We each have our own little garden to tend.
My job is to tend my garden as well as I can. That will make it attractive. And you may want to visit and sit beside me.
Your garden is none of my business. I don't go into your garden and pull your weeds or criticize it-it's none of my business.
Al the stuff you mention is familiar to me and to one degree or another, I reflect on it at times.
But today, it doesn't matter very much-except maybe politics. The Big Book says all our problems are our own and the answer to them is acceptance.
Politics these days? Not doing very well on acceptance there!:)
But with very few exceptions, I no longer feel estranged from my world.
 
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