Not sure. I’ve never really reflected on that idea. It certainly seems to be true for me personally.

My alcoholic years had some pretty ugly parts and could have killed me several times. Severe depression, self harm, suicidal thoughts, wrecked my car (thankful it was just me and a steep curb, no one else involved, that could have been so much worse), a hospital trip, walking 2 miles home by myself at 3am almost every weekend while hammered in the middle of a US city known for its crime and lowkey wanting someone to try to mug me, etc. Let alone the physical damage that 50-100+ standard drinks per week at my worst was doing to my body, luckily none of that seems to be permanent, I was scared to get my blood work done for the first year alcohol free, but it came back fine.

I don’t like looking back on that period of my life, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that it happened and I can’t change that and mostly been able to forgive myself.

So while it was ugly and could have killed me, shit at parts of it I wanted it to kill me, at the same time… I wouldn’t be who I am today without all that (and a lot of therapy and self reflection and journaling and all that fun stuff). I really genuinely like who I am today. I haven’t been able to say that for the majority of my life. And I find a lot more appreciation in the little things that I used to be too numb to see. I’m doing things I enjoy solely because I enjoy them, not because my family or parts of society say it’s what I’m supposed to be doing.

I don’t think I want that statement to be true for humanity as a whole, at least not in the way that I faced my mortality, I hope there are other ways people can get to a point where they feel truly alive. But yea I think it’s true for me.

It’s not that bad. My programming experience is Matlab and a bit of python, so not much. My command line experience was almost non-existent before switching, and tbh still isn’t that good.

I haven’t fully switched yet, I’ve dabbled in Linux a few times over the last ten years, starting to fully switch now. Have one old PC running a Debian based server OS and a bunch of free self hosted services. Personal laptop is now Debian. Work laptop stuck on windows. Desktop is still windows for gaming, but I’ll probably even change that soon. I’m still in a bit of a distro hopping phase to figure out what I like before switching the desktop.

Heck yea! Walking around the block is where I started again a couple years ago. It’s definitely worth sticking with it. Life got in the way a few times and I had to be gentle with myself and repeatedly remind myself that progress isn’t linear, and that doing something is better than nothing.

Thanks :) I don’t really talk about my sobriety with a ton of people in person, still some shame associated with who I used to be, appreciate being able to share online.

And yea exercise in various forms is one of my big things now, definitely relatable, I try not to be preachy about it. Lifting, swimming, and rollerblading recently. I need to do more yoga though… I’m in wayyyy better shape than I was two years ago, feeling almost as good as my college athlete days.

Hell yea, I’ll probably give it a go tonight, not feeling like joining my normal Wednesday night magic the gathering crew

Aw yeaaaaa, I haven’t played it yet. How’s it going?

Some actress with boobs. I know her from White Lotus. No idea on the ending wokeness part because I don’t follow the lives of celebrities outside of checking IMDB to see what else they’ve been in.

Edit: I tried to look into it a bit. Something about the fact that a conventionally attractive young woman with nice breasts is gaining popularity means it’s an end to all the body positivity and other wokeness? Idk, I’m not doing more than 5 minutes of looking into it

I also saw that her grandma has seen her nude scenes and said “she has the best tits in Hollywood” and that’s just hilarious

Sobriety. 2 years 3 months since I’ve drank.

Still relearning some aspects of being an adult. Figuring out who I am. Picking up old hobbies again and trying new ones. So many things bring me joy nowadays where it used to only be alcohol that triggered the ol happy brain chemicals.

I’m in a much better place than I was a couple years ago when I was abusing alcohol as a coping mechanism.

I won’t drink with y’all today.

And I’ll try to check in here more often. I’m on the stopdrinking subreddit a fair amount, it was crucial to me making it as long as I have and it’s the main reason I still use reddit. But, I need to remember to help foster this community too

The sand tiger shark also doesn’t have a drink… So it also captures how I feel on first dates as a recovering alcoholic

Well you can’t just say that and not give me a link, you’ve piqued my curiosity

I was wondering how many of my Denver neighbors were on lemmy. This is not the way I wanted to find them…

I’m about to lose mine in a few weeks because I’m moving :( I’m at a point where we were going to be cutting back and stopping soon, but still… If something pops up and I need more, will have to find a new one

Ooh that one is good. They also make one called Cayenne Cleanse that I love, it scratches my itch for spicy margaritas. Damn now I want a spicy marg (just the flavor, don’t want to be drunk)… Off to find a kombucha haha

I used an app called HabitShare. You can link it with an accountability buddy (if you want to, you don’t have to share it with anyone to use it) and track whatever habits you want on a daily/weekly basis

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Therapy and gym are my big ones lately.

There was a reason I was trying to numb myself with alcohol so often, definitely needed some therapy to address those core issues.

Gym is a mixed bag for me. I used to have some pretty bad body image issues despite being pretty darn fit. Trying to get back into the gym with a “I’m doing this for long term health” mindset instead of my college era mindset of “MUST LIFT HEAVY, MUST GET BUFF” which led to injuries on more than one occasion. Still working on that. But sometimes the old mindset creeps in and I do stuff I could manage at 21, but shouldn’t be doing at 31. Tweaked my back last week picking up some heavy dumbbells with poor form. Yay…

Trying to learn to be nice to myself and do things that are good for me in the long term. It’s a work in progress

The reddit version of this community was super helpful in my journey. I don’t really check in daily as much any more, but I’ll be around :)

Popping in to say hi, I’m new to exploring Lemmy. Hope this community keeps growing. Props to everyone not drinking today!