It's not easy, but honesty with oneself is what it takes to start making those insanely difficult changes. You can do it, but surround yourself with a tremendous support structure.

The first several months are the hardest, but also the most rewarding.

Thank you!

I'm doing something this time that I've not tried doing in the past, which has a lot to do with being honest about my inability to get sober on my own. I've thought for a long while that I was different in that respect and expected to be able to control my addiction if only I was strong enough to do so. After further reflection upon the last few years I've been able to see that I've been shamefully resentful about not being able to be normal, although I have tried time and time again to control my drinking and drug use. I've supplemented one addiction for another and have been quite unsuccessful while doing so. This has brought about the conclusion that I am sick in many ways and DO need help to overcome it.

The hardest part I feel for me at the moment is choosing to set aside playing poker until I am further in my recovery. As much as I'd like to believe I am able to still play, it's been a trigger and an excuse to use more than it's been helpful.

I've tried to ignore my issues, yet they've never just "went away" so that I can be happy, and unfortunately I have not been truly happy for a long while up until recently in these last 2 weeks.

I've been told many times that I have some serious problems and need help. I have hurt many people who care about me by refusing to believe that. My opinion changed when I was deciding on if I wanted to get sober or not and I had thought to myself "well, I don't really have a reason to be sober so how am I going to stop?" And at that moment I realized that my reason to get sober was that I had no reason to be sober. I was hiding all the hurt and pain in my life in a bottle because I was afraid of facing one of my biggest fears, and after I was able to admit I was afraid, I was able to make the decision to try something I've not tried before.

I'm working on the honesty, and being ok knowing how ****ed in the head I've been is the best step towards that for me

Feeling much better today than I was yesterday, and for that I am blessed

Great to hear. You are blessed. Very pretty pic, by the way!

Tyty

That's a really nice pic Blazin.

Poker does tend to trigger certain things when you have an addictive personality. It can be a seedy lifestyle, even for the best of grinders who have a good all round life balance.

Ty

I'm planning on returning to poker part time after I've gotten a bit further in my recovery. At first it'll be mostly online as I feel that would be the safest route to take with where I'm at in my life. I'll be acclimating back into normal life here shortly by getting a job for the time being so that I can focus on getting my life back on track before I really go into too much planning for my future in poker, but I believe I won't be gone from the tables forever.

Tonight I went to get some snacks with my new roommate at walgreens and some cough medicine a couple hours ago. While I was looking for which medicine would help me most, I was asked if I needed any help by the employee named Marcus.

I responded by saying "I recently moved here from Vegas and the humidity always causes me to have a horrid cough that I'm trying to get rid of."

Marcus then said "I'm not really qualified to give you much advice there. But hey, I'm gonna be moving out there soon for poker, well ... to Arizona really. "

"Is that so?" I asked intrigued by the randomness of running into a fellow poker player. "What game do you play? "

"Texas holdem" he answered a bit hesitant, to which I asked "What stakes?"

"Oh, well I've never gotten to play in the big games, but have you been to Gretna? I've been playing there. "

This put a huge smile on my face, as I thought about how ironic a conversation I was having while looking for cough medicine. "I've played there a few times, haven't been up there recently since I'm in recovery but I'm hoping to make it up there again soon. So do you know Boomer? He runs the game that David/Santa Claus plays in."

He got a big grin on his face and said "That guy doesn't care if he wins or losses, he's like a millionaire! I hopped in that game one time, hit for a big pot then left."
Amused by that, I told him about the last session I played (I never shared on here about it, which was also the last night I drank) and described how the luckiest guy I've ever seen hit 2 different gut shots to stack me in a 4k Big O pot.

He told me that he was going to be playing up there next Thursday, so I wished him luck and went on my way to finish my shopping.

It's funny how even not playing poker it seems to be a prevalent occurrence in my life. For this reason, I can step back from the tables and know that I'll be back stacking chips again when it is my time. I just gotta be patient and focus on me for the time being

Congrats on the turnaround Blazin. This is a total twist from where this started, but I'm still interested in your story.

Thank you

The night before last started experiencing vivid dreams, which I have not had in what seems like forever. This is something I was told is part of early recovery since while drinking and using drugs, most sleep was more similar to a comatose state of passing out rather than falling asleep.

The first night my dream was remnant of the home I grew in as a rebellious adolescent. Here I found a dog that soon turned on me and chased me around to the side of the house. I can not remember much else as I believe my alarm woke me up.

Last night I dreamt about a red bell pepper garden. I had been double checking to make sure my friend was aware of all the ripe peppers so that he did not miss any when I began to hear rustling in the foliage. My friend (no memorable face) announced he was done and began to walk away from the garden, yet to my disappointment he had forgotten to pick the largest and most ripe pepper of all! I walked over to pick the pepper, and the rustling I had noticed earlier was right next to me now. I looked over to my left and saw a hole in the ground of a garden where a big bug was coming out of the ground, grabbing unripe peppers, then going back into the ground. I decided to beat the bug with the pepper I had picked. Afterwards I woke up.

I've been extremely tired for the last couple days after having a few days where I didn't sleep much at all, so shortly after I woke up this morning I chose to go back to sleep for a other hour or so.

During this time, I had what was more like a nightmare.

I was at an unfamiliar house on the front steps talking to a man. This man accused me of being the reason he had been arrested. I asked him why he didn't do anything to retaliate, to which he responded he didn't want to go back so he couldn't shoot the snitch. I was confused and offended, claiming it was not me. I the went into the house and was looking for my roommate who I was suppose to go to a meeting with that night.

I noticed that the time was way past that of the meeting on one clock, and this made me very upset. I then went into my mothers room to tell her about the man accusing me of something I did not do so she could make him leave. On my way to get room I saw my roommate, when I asked him about the meeting he said he had changed his mind then disappeared into the room next to my mother's.

I walked into the bathroom crying, and looked in the mirror as I let down my hair, it was long and the reflection on the mirror looked to be my mothers reflection rather than my own. I turned away and walked from the bathroom to my mothers bed, and began to tell her of the awful man outside. She held my hands and told me "You have to pay for hurting that man." I was in disbelief, had I really done something wrong?

I started to walk backwards out of the room when my Moms brother came up behind me and grabbed my arm which he used to guide me to sit on the stairs. He said to me "I'm calling, you did something really bad." I was crying uncontrollably as I asked what I did, he would say nothing more than "you'll know soon."

I asked "but don't you care about me still? "

"I did, but now you've done so much I don't know that I can anymore." he said quite plainly.

I muttered "Am I going to die?"

Just as despondent he answered "I do not know." To which I began to cry even harder.

While crying I woke up, only to cry more. I truly felt all of these emotions I was experiencing in my nightmare, feelings I'm unsure of. It felt quite real, and where as most times I know I am in a dream, this time I couldn't quite tell.

I've known myself to have night terrors at times, where I awake frantically and in an emotionally distraught state of mind. I believe this may have been a reason for drinking heavily in the past, as a way to avoid and numb many of the emotions that make me feel uneasy.

I believe now that I am sober and in a better place life wise, I'll certainly have to readjust to something as trivial as dreaming and realizing that they aren't real. How odd.

great pic

very pretty

Tyty

Just rode some trails on this bad boy it's been years since I've ridden a bike, let alone ridden on hiking trails in the woods Saw some kids throwing cheetos to the turtles in the lake, and yea they were loving the cheesy goodness lol

Today has been a great day! I'll be honest, I felt a small urge to light up a blunt when I started on the trail, but that quickly passed by the time I caught sight of a fellow who was partaking in a cold beer and his own bud at the park where we stopped for some water a few minutes later. I feel refreshed rather than exhausted after riding for somewhere between 5-10 miles, which is quite astonishing when just a week ago it pretty much killed me to only ride around for about 2-3 miles. I now know the function for changing gears, and managed to use the adequately while riding up and down the hills. There were even a few moments I was truly afraid of busting my ass but kept focus and held on to enjoy the ride lol

Slowly but surely I can feel my body becoming more healthy as my mind craves more productive activities to pass the time than it has in the past. I'm amazed that I was able to avoid complete sobriety for so long from fear of it not being a fulfilling life once I became sober. Yet everyday for the past 18 days in Tallahassee being around the people I have met, and in such short period of time they have very much so become family to me, I'm realizing that I'm happier than I've ever been.

It may have been silly of me to come to this town for the original reasons that I did without knowing the person I came here with very well or anyone here for that matter, but I wouldn't take back that decision for all the money and prestige in the world.

Nice ride!

On Saturday I signed my roommate up for bovada and deposited $100 into his account, in turn I received the $100 bonus. I've offered to teach him how to play poker as well. I streamed on twitch for a little over an hour while I played a HU PLO SNG with a friend along with 2 different 1k GTD MTTs. I managed to accumulate 23 viewers at my peak until the Internet disconnected my stream and Bovada as well for a few minutes, shortly after this disconnection I busted all the games I was playing. I will admit that I had been a bit tilted for a bit, but it didn't seem to effect my game as much as my tilt had been a few weeks ago.

At this point today I am 3 weeks sober, and yesterday marked 2 years since the first time I sat down at The Commerce Casino to play poker on the 40NL.

Yesterday when I shared with my support group on the topic of how working with fellows has changed my life I began to cry as I said that I'm actually "happy" for the first time in my life. It was quite confusing, and I want quite sure where it came from. I'm assuming the gratefulness of reestablished hopefulness in my life has been something of an unexpected gift, one that simple words can not fully explain. Although I am still much I am early recovery stage, I'm much further than I had ever expected to be. I concluded that those tears were of joy.

After the meeting a couple friends and I went bowling and played some arcade games, had lots of fun doing that!

My roommate and I are getting kittens today, so I'm excited!

I will also be playing online again today, haven't decided if I want to stream as I feel like I should play without distractions mostly, but I could change my mind

Pics of kittens please! Seeing you move in a more positive direction is a pleasure to witness, cool bike btw hope you get a lock to protect it!!!

Wow. That's great! Congratulations. Now you know, the only person who can stop you or hurt you is You!
Keep on Keepingon!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM8JjT-97i8

Thank you!

Picked out the kittens today but won't be bringing them home until Saturday I believe, will post pictures when they get home

Tyty!

So today was a great day for me

I woke up around 10am for the first time in about a week, I dreamt good dreams about cookies and cuddles I did my laundry, cleaned up the house a bit and read some threads in the micro stakes section of 2+2 for a couple hours. Showered, then afterwards I went to All Saints Café for a Chai and some online poker with a friend. I hopped in a 2c/5c PLO 6 max for $1.50 and got to $5 fairly quickly and didn't feel like playing much more so I logged off. I think that was a solid move on my part.

Naturally I carry a deck of playing cards on my person when I go out in case I need them, so I offered to teach my friend how to play Open Face Chinese poker Pineapple style.



Even though I was helping him the best I could, the luck was just on my side so I was winning

We went to lunch with another friend at Voodoo Dog, and I got a bacon wrapped hot dog with Mayo, Lettuce, jalapeño, sauerkraut, and of course BBQ sauce... and Oh my, it was good!

After that, we went over to Little Cakes Cupcakes and I got a peanut butter chocolate cupcake. It smelled like icing in the shop, and after I took my first bite the richness of the cupcake certainly explained why!

Around then it had started to get late, so I came home and hopped on Bovada. I sat in a $5.50 PLO hi/lo SNG, a $3.30 NLH triple up SNG and the $2.20 NL 1k GTD MTT. I busted the PLO hi/lo SNG 6th, binked the triple up in the NL SNG, and streamed the remainder of the 1k after late registration closed.



I did really well! Got 17/624 and had a good not tilted run for the first time in awhile playing in an MTT.



Unfortunately, I lost a flip with AQs to A6o for that 137k pot, then a couple hands later lost a flip with 88 to AKo. The chat box above was the tables reaction, which oddly enough gave me a sense of pure accomplishment. I am sure that I misplayed a few hands as I am certainly rusty on playing poker sober, but am confident that if I continue to study as I did this morning and as I was playing I'll manage to be much better.

I'm super happy and heading to bed now, good night!

Today I played another one of those $3.30 triple up NL SNGs and won the $6, also was given $5 on acr for having a new account and played the 2c/5c NLH 6 max and turned that into $10, so I've had another profitable day in the micro stakes only played for a couple hours but I'm happy with that.

Going to the beach in the morning and meeting with my sponsor before I go to a meeting tomorrow. Been in a bit of a funk but here's hoping tomorrow is better!

Yikes was that about 7000 calories for the day. It sure sounded good!

Hahaha it was cheat day

Beach life <3

If I were to be honest with myself, I would admit to having a somewhat difficult time with the emotions I'm newly experiencing and the thoughts that accompany them.

It feels unreal... Last night my father called to tell me my Great Grandmother passed away, bless her soul and may she rest in peace.

This week has been somewhat of a roller coaster, with both extreme highs and lows. I've been faced with many feelings that have made me uncomfortable. Without a personal understanding of the way I've been feeling, my addiction attempted to regain control amidst the confusion and vulnerability I was having by twisting my perception. I have felt increasingly uncomfortable in my own skin, as if I no longer am who I am, yet these moments are often followed by many other feelings I'm unsure of.

I've had moments of despondency followed by fear and angst. I've been happy, yet guilty for feeling joyful, shamefully so at times. I've been exhausted, yet enthralled while feeling overwhelmed from being over stimulated by positive social interactions. I've gotten stuck inside my head a few times, and if it were not for the amazingly understanding people in my life who are there to support me, who tell me that those crazy thoughts in my head are normal, I may have let those crazy thoughts consume me.

I could say I'm becoming less afraid, although I don't know if I'd believe that. What I will say though is that I want more than ever to help the girl I've suppressed