I have taken the next step in the recovery process.  Many people in recovery have heard the saying, “To keep it, you have to give it away.”

I am trying to do my part in the community by making myself available to others who are still suffering from drug and alcohol addiction.

I would like to extend that hand to anyone who happens to come across this blog and is still suffering.  If you need someone to talk to, if you don’t know where to start in the recovery process, or if you feel completely defeated and overwhelmed by the disease of addiction, feel free to contact me.  I will do my best to answer any questions you have and direct you to proper resources in your community that can help you.

You can start my sending me an e-mail, help@userandloser.com

From there I will do what I can.

Posted on November 8th, 2007 at 11:17 pm by The User
3 Comments »

My wife had a flat tire last week.  For once in my life I (we) were able to pay for the repair and tow and got back on the road in two hours.  It may sound weird to you but it’s the simple things like this that make sobriety great.

Posted on October 17th, 2007 at 12:16 am by The User
3 Comments »

My new job keeps me very busy.  It’s not only the job that is keeping me busy lately.  Work, kid’s, the kid’s activities: homework, sports, band, projects.  It’s life at its best and it takes a shitload of work.  Work I NEVER would have been able to accomplish if I was still using.  Things I never imagined I could handle.  My stress level is remarkably low and other than my messy house and the seemingly insurmountable pile of laundry calling my name every time I walk in the door things are going well.

My new job is an open door.  Not only will it enable me to get various other jobs in the computer industry, I learn so freaking much everyday sometimes I think my brain is going to explode.  I haven’t had to use my brain this much in a long time; I can literally feel my brain rewiring itself.  Memorizing random strings of numbers and letters (a skill I once excelled in) is coming back.  Being able to see how an issue someone is having is in reality related to several smaller issues and in turn how they are all connected is starting to become second nature (again, a skill I thought I had lost.)

When you stop trying to control everything in life it begins to take care of itself.

Posted on September 25th, 2007 at 10:58 pm by The User
1 Comment »

… or get sober.

This week I started a new job. I am finally using the skills I went to college to learn and have been honing over the past few years. Doing something you love to do and at the same time get paid to do it is a dream come true for me. This job can take me places. I never would have been able to get this job had I not sobered up and put in all the work to stay that way.

I read the following when I first thought about getting sober. I though it was horse shit. I guess I was wrong.

“If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.”

Posted on September 14th, 2007 at 11:29 pm by The User
No Comments »

1. When the weather is nice I like to fire up the grill. In days past firing up the grill also meant at least a 6 pack of Mike’s Hard Cranberry Lemonade. Although it is easy to remember that when I take even one drink the obsession takes over (and I wake up the next day trying to sort out the previous night) their are often times I wish I could drink like a normal person.
2. When you are sober you realize how much time their really is in a day. The problem now is finding a balance between the hundreds of things you now have time for with the hundreds of things you have to do in order to make those things possible (ie. work, clean house, feed kids, etc.)
3. My brain is starting to work in a way I thought I had lost years ago.
4. Depression and anxiety are and have been at completely controllable levels (without medications) for months now.
5. I have to remember not to get to comfortable in my surroundings. Things keep changing, life keeps happening and to keep things going in the right direction I have to work for it. Letting things slide for too long mean I have to dig myself out of a deeper hole later. I like to keep the holes shallow.
6. Relationships take a long time to repair. I have done a lot of damage over the past 12 years. I have found that the situation presents itself when it is time to make amends for the wrongs you have done.
7. I’m not nearly as special as I thought I was. My feelings of superiority - though they still cause me trouble at time - are slowly subsiding.
8. Life is good as long as you make it that way.
9. Trust others that have what you want sobriety-wise. If have something you want they can probably help you get it too!
10. Sobriety is a gift that can be taken away at any moment. Wake up each day feeling blessed that you woke up.

Posted on August 28th, 2007 at 10:59 pm by The User
2 Comments »

I found one of my secrets on PostSecret.com:

My wife makes more money than me and probably always will.  She is brilliant and has worked so hard to achieve everything she has accomplished.  She is the reason I will be able to live the life I am becoming accustomed to.  Thank you.  I appreciate you more than I can express in words.  You have held this family together at times when I swear less than a thread was binding us.  Unlike me, she tends to complete things she starts! I love you.

Posted on August 20th, 2007 at 9:44 pm by The User
7 Comments »

As each day passes and I get more sobriety under my belt I come to realize that I am becoming a better person not only for myself but for them. (well, not the pirate!)

Posted on August 18th, 2007 at 10:11 pm by The User
2 Comments »

Abraham Maslow, psychologist, humanist, circa mid-1900’s.

He is most noted for his hierarchy of needs that he developed in an attempt to explain the behaviors governing human motivation.

It is my experience that you can have some of the higher needs met without one or more of the lower needs intact, that is, assuming at some point previously during life the needs at the bottom of the pyramid were met. (Otherwise, at least according to Maslow, you wouldn’t have been able to reach the other levels.)

Why am I writing about this hierarchy of needs? Mostly because I am pissed and frustrated. I have a group of people, and one in particular, that are expecting me to do things that I don’t think I am capable of at this particular point in my life.

I am finally learning to live life on terms that are defined by the nature of life itself: unpredictability and uncertainty. I am staying sober, praying, spending time with my family, working on building a solid future both financially and personally, repairing relationships and trying to give of myself whenever possible. To some this is apparently not enough.

How does this tie in with Maslow? I am struggling to meet some of my basic needs (mostly because I completely fucked myself financially while I was using) and right now finding a way to meet those most basic of needs is my number one priority. Once those basic needs are met - notice it’s the foundation of the pyramid - I feel strongly I will be able to meet the expectations of these people who are very important in my life. I keep being told that if I give to others, these things will come. I don’t buy it - at least not in my current circumstances.

I can’t very well help others if I can not yet help myself. Progress is certain, the speed in which it comes it not.

Posted on August 8th, 2007 at 10:48 pm by The User
No Comments »

One hour it’s good, one hour it’s bad.

I knew the time was coming I just wasn’t sure when.  I was on the way to the store the other day when I noticed I was out of cigarettes.  I desperately wanted NOT to buy them so, instead, I went to the pharmacy and bought nicotine patches.  The work well and I know that a majority of the cravings I am getting are exclusively mental but they are cravings none-the-less.

Gum has become my new best friend and drinking massive amounts of water - instead of gorging on food- has taken the place of my sweet Camel death sticks.

Step-by-step, day by day…sometimes wanting to live a full long life takes more energy and mental gusto than I could have ever imagined.

Posted on July 31st, 2007 at 10:19 pm by The User
1 Comment »

I am such a loser that I don’t have insurance so I have to just cringe when my 6 year old wakes me up crying at 2:30 am clutching his ’swimmers’ ear and tells me [that] “everyday it seems to get worser”

Posted on July 31st, 2007 at 2:51 am by The Loser
1 Comment »