depression

I've been around music all of my life, and appreciate our piano greatly (now especially). I took piano for 11 years, before I went to college.
My 2 closest cousins (now living in awaaaay states) both majored in piano, one with a
2nd degree in concerto performance (so some such). One is the music Director of a large
church in Washington.
I'm just saying that despite being around others (many others actually) that could get past the being in the public, performing for and with others, I had significant problems with stage fright, or even (in one recitaL) FORGETTING as in BLANKING out in the MIDST. My fingers got lost...despite being able to hear it in my head, I couldn't find it.
I then just made up stuff until my fingers found it again.

Music can be a wonderful, powerful anti-depressant as well as a balm, and purger.

 

There was a time in my life (before I had my son) that I discovered that if I took enough pills and drank enough, that I would absolutely positively "Be" like everybody else. Plus I didn't "think so much"...a thing that seemed to bother the people I was around at that time. HAH!!!

I recently purchased a bottle of wine, the first I've purchased in about 10 years. And I'm finding I like having 2 (med size) coffee cups of this red wine at night.

Anyhoo, there came a time that I found I had no interest in being around anyone that was Bothered by the fact that my mind works...and I realized it was stupid on every possible level to drug myself needlessly.
and so I quit. seriously. I did cigarettes like that, too. Last March 16th, 3/16/2008 I quit smoking cigarettes after 34 years. I've not picked them back up, and I know I won't. :cheers2:
The power of the mind.

 

I know what you mean, I'm the same way when I drink. I don't really know what to make of it.

 

God, I don't get online enough to keep up with all this.

About music: In high school, my guitar was closer to me than my girlfriend. Every day after school, a couple of hours with my guitar, and the rest of the world disappeared. And I've performed in front of audiences a few times - but I had to learn - at the beginning I was sweating, but finally I found identity with my audience, and then it was all about giving them something to take them beyond themselves.

It's the same way with art - when I start drawing, the rest of the world disappears and time stops.

I also played piano - took actual lessons - my teacher dispaired of me because I was bored with her assignments and wanted to play my mom's Chopin and Scarlatti and Bach pieces instead. But I picked up some bad habits because of my impatience.

Addiction...I'm a highly addictive personality. I've always been a project person - scheduled maintenance drives me up the stinkin' wall. I need to have a goal I'm striving toward - something I'm in the process of achieving.

There have been times in my life that I've gone without drinking for years. My current mode of drinking every night started a couple years ago when I was unemployed for months on end.

The count for tonight is six shots.

And I need to get up for work in the morning...g'night, all.

 

If I figure anything out, I'll try to remember to let you know.

 

I figured it out once, but then I forgot. I think I was drunk when I had figured it out.

 

Maybe it'll come back...maybe I'll find it and explain it to us both - one can only hope!

 

(way)Back when alcohol was my especial friend, (and one of the reasons I basically decided to STOP as I was) I had blackouts, and wouldn't even have to be really drunk to experience this.
To me, blackouts are scary.

 

Do you really "not remember" at all, Zg?

 

Not totally, Lynn. When I come back to re-read my notes, I find them vaguely familiar, and at the same time I'm a bit surprised - and a bit intrigued - by the things I wrote. Sometimes when I read what I wrote, I think, "Jeezus, who the hell was I channeling?"

And sometimes I wonder what the hell I was getting at, because my goals are not apparent from re-reading my own posts.

 

Drunk-posting is indeed a peculiar activity. Alcohol has to be the craziest drug there is.

 

neo, I soooo agree that alcohol is the craziest (most wild and Most Dangerous IMHO) drug there is.
For a FACT, DT's from alcohol withdrawal come closer to killing someone - and Have Killed more people- than stopping any other drug.

But, it is also a fact that a BIT of it, of red wine in particular, can help you.

OK, enough with alcohol facts.

Guess where I learned them from....from 2 separate sessions of ASAP - drunk driving classes. That is what happens when you get 2 different DUI's.

 

I've been having some terrible emotional withdrawl from cigarettes the last couple of days ... painful indeed. It was getting really bad today i was literally sobbing my heart out this morning but took a walk to the beach this afternoon and chilled out some and tonight i bought some tobacco and had such an enjoyable cigarette... the best cigarette ever! It seems i was being way too hard on myself. I'm totally relaxed now, calm and at peace and i know i'll roll into bed tonight feeling contented and i'll sleep well.
The lesson of the day is 'do what you do but don't do it to extremes' and just to stay concious of it. Things are so mutch more enjoyable in moderation. - But i've always found moderation difficult.

 

About 11 yrs ago I tried meditating/contemplating on not smoking. I would picture the addiction leaving my being through the top of my head. I could actually "see" this. Little wisps of grey smoke. Not long after I started doing this I became very ill. I had never been so ill. I have never smoked since. And never ever craved it again. Not once. I really believe that the illness was the addiction/craving leaving my body for good.

 

I was reading about Grace Slick - lead singer and songwriter for the San Francisco psychedelic band Jefferson Airplane, for those readers too young to know. She said she was arrested multiple times for TUI - Talking Under the Influence. She had a bad habit of sassing the police when they asked her what the hell she was doing.

That's what I do on this forum a lot of the time. TUI, LOL.

 

Lots of years ago I invented this saying, which I'm fond of repeating ad nauseum: Moderation in everything, including moderation.

 

Wow.

I'm not there yet with my drinking. I'm completely aware that I'm self-medicating, and I want to keep doing it. I'm learning new things about myself from my daughter's depression. I know I have some degree of the same neurochemical imbalance that afflicts her. I could get psychiatric medication for it, maybe.

But I like drinking. Vodka raises my level of enjoyment. Yeah, sure, it has side-effects, some of which are not beneficial. But I like it, and I want to keep doing it.

For now, at least. The situation might change at some point.

 

hehe, and 'moderation in everything including moderation' ... i like that.

Self medicating - I think how we view these habits is important, if we can look at it as self medicating then we can find a minimum dose ie, a dose just large enough so we don't suffer withdrawl ... so we're not taking the substance anymore to get high or drunk or whatever, we're taking a small ammount; usually a fraction of the ammount one may have consumed in the past, simply to not suffer any withdrawl while our bodies get used to the lesser dose. I started doing this about a year and a half ago with cannabis because at the time i was smoking every evening more or less, so i experimented with how long i could go without suffering any withdrawl and how mutch i needed to smoke not to suffer withdrawl. I was surprised to find that even though i considered myself a moderately heavy smoker (smoking every day) that i only needed to smoke one small spliff about twice a week to avoid withdrawl ... shortly afterwards it became once a week and shortly after that i was going two weeks without a smoke and then a month which has been my limit until now. Attitude is important also ... do we see addiction/compulsion as 'bad' or 'just one of those things we got caught up in' ...the police would have you believe that smoking cannabis is bad and that you're a criminal for doing it and punish you ... i've been there twice and it's no fun having someone elses opinions forced on you ... but was it also my own opinion to some degree? Did i think i was doing something 'wrong' ... as a force in the world did i feel i was contributing to a pandemic of general drug use... i sold cannabis for a couple of years back in my twenties and i was punished for it ... but was i also punishing myself unconciously?
- So there were elements in myself which weren't quite happy about my own drug use, i could see both sides ... the upside (social tool, medicinal benefits, mood regulator ... good feelings) and the down side (what happens when one becomes dependent and it becomes compulsive ... a crutch you can't seem to put down).
I often thought about those two times i was busted (although one of those times i was at a friends place when she was raided ... but it was only I that got arrested) and wondered if i had brought it on myself ... created it, asked for it,... manifested it due to my semi unconcious thought that i was doing something wrong. That second time particularly, in hindsight i saw a very odd sequence of events ... synchronicity which led to me being there when i was, and actually just a couple of hours before my friend was raided (and she was no dealer btw ... no reason for her to be raided) i had the most aweful feeling ... a very concious thought that my friend would get raided that very afternoon. Stupidly i put it down to some irrational or paranoid thought, because that exactly what happened. But i'd like to explain the strange things surrounding the bust.
A couple of days beforehand i'd had a dream in which i was amongst a group of young people having a kind of picnic/smokeout and i was wearing these white converse boots with wings (Hermes= messenger), the police stormed in and started searching people and i managed to get rid of my own stash before i was searched.
The day beforehand i was at this friends place and was mysteriously touched on my leg ...with some force i might add by apparently nobody.
On the actual day, i was supposed to be at work. I went to work as normal but my co worker had turned up forgetting it was her day off and couldn't go home until the end of the day anyway, so i took the day off... scored some grass and went to see my friend. We had our 'wake n' bake' and chatted for a while, she went to her room to sleep a bit more and then i had the premonition about getting raided.
And another small thing concerning timing/synchronicity that day ... as the police were searching the place and questioning people (a couple of other friends had turned up by that time) i asked to go to the toilet. Just outside the toilet was the main intercom and buzzer for the door downstairs which is the main entrance to the apartment building. Just as i was getting to the toilet the intercom had started buzzing ... the poloice thought the sound was a phone somewhere and were looking for it to intercept the call, so i was able to just pick up the intercom and warn whoever was there to go away quickly because the police were raiding the place. This really pissed them off but made me feel alot better ... i can only hope i saved somebodys skin.
Anway looking at the bigger picture surrounding that whole event i can see forces at work (within myself also) which wanted to bust me basically and in that respect it felt like walking right into a self made trap. On the other hand i see forces at work (the dream, the touch, the premonition) which wanted me to see it and avoid it.
So for me this is the kinda thing that can happen if one is not certain and made up in their mind how they feel about doing certain things.
About a year ago i came across L.E.A.P (law enforcement against prohibition) and they basically say that cannabis use should not be a criminal issue but rather they see it as a mental health issue. In short they're announcing an attitude of compassion instead of blame, but spending some time reading on their site and watching their utube clips really helped me to turn something around in my own mind abou how I feel about drug use generally. To put it another way ... the victim IS also the persecutor and the persecutor also the victim.... it's a vicious circle of harm which can spread from one psyche to another; The whole dual paradime needs doing away with and replacing with something more united and knowing.
Actually i think i need to dwell on that thought ... the victim/persecutor thing because of course we live in a world full of other people so it's not just down to one individual and what goes on in their mind regarding what happens to them ... others have their agendas too but most peoples agendas are similar, most minds thinking the same way. It's kinda like a battle of wills.

 

I've been kind of thinking along the same lines lately. I'm pretty sure I could get by on a lower dose with no problem. By the time I get three to four drinks down my gullet, I'm feeling pretty optimally medicated. But my judgment is also fairly impaired by that time, and the habit takes over - the comfort of having something in my glass to sip. So I keep pouring. Of course if I were drinking wine or beer instead of vodka, this wouldn't be a problem. But there are other problems with wine & beer - wine tends to give me heartburn, plus it's more expensive on a per-drink basis, and my medication funds are limited. LOL Beer doesn't have enough of a kick. I'm wondering though - if I started out with maybe two or three shots of vodka to get the initial kick, and then got a bottle of beer for the suckling comfort...interesting.

This is spot on. I see this in my own experiences also.

Here in Massachusetts we recently passed a referendum that changes canabis possession from a criminal offense to a ticketable offense - i.e., you pay a moderate fine, kind of like a traffic ticket. But so far I haven't passed anybody smoking it on the sidewalk....

 

Informer,
you no say daddy me snow me Ill go blame,
A licky boom boom down.
Detective mon said daddy me snow me stab someone down the lane,
A licky boom boom down.