Bike Newbie

March 18, 2023

6:14am
I slept better and longer last night than I have in a while. I think my treatment is having that effect, which I’m grateful for. I have a long bike ride today so I should get ready for it.

2:02pm
Finished my ride (47 miles, 1700’ vertical climb) and kept up with the diehards. I feel pretty goddamned good right now.

9:18pm
We had dinner with a friend who happens to be the teacher who taught me in the fifth grade. It was so amazing to see her just as lively and engaging as when she was my teacher (more than a few years ago). Perfect ending to a perfect day.

March 17, 2023

7:51am
On the drive to work I was reflecting on how every song’s lyrics seem like recovery lyrics to me nowadays. Then it dawned on me that that’s probably because recovery is just me living my life. Recovery is basically life-plus. So yeah, since the song lyrics are about life it also makes sense that they’d be about recovery, because recovery is life. It feels good to be finally living my life the way it was meant to be lived.

5:55pm
Today was a good day. Or rather, it has been a good day…it’s not over yet which I’m very glad for. Daylight Saving Time is not always a villain.

March 16, 2023

1:09pm
After a 7 hour sleep, a good therapy visit and an upper body workout, I am giggly and giddy. I guess this is one of the peaks of the roller coaster. I always liked the term ‘roller coaster’: one of those words would probably have sufficed, but to get the whole experience across you have to say roller AND coaster. Sometimes a person will shorten it to ‘coaster’ and at those times I’m tempted to ask “What KIND of coaster?”.

4:21pm
Just did a treatment session in my truck, in the parking lot at work. It felt like I was committing some sort of crime, but I wasn’t. I work well over 40 hours every week, so I am allowed an hour here and there. I have to prioritize my treatment if it’s going to be successful. I deserve investment in my wellness. Anyway, I feel a lot better and more level and alert after the treatment.

6:46pm
Had a Clausthaler NA beer with my dinner. The interesting thing about NA beers is I always stop at one. I’m not chasing a buzz, and apparently that makes all the difference.

March 15, 2023

8:23am
So, I posted about my argument with my wife on the subreddit. I still feel like I was attacked by her and I really don’t like it. I’m not going to sacrifice my health and well being just to “smooth things over” or cater to her low self esteem. It’s too bad for her, but right now my happiness and wellness come first, and then I can spend whatever time is left over on her. If she doesn’t like that, she knows where the door is. It sounds cruel and selfish, I’m sure, but that’s how I have to be, otherwise I will let other people sabotage my wellness because it’s somehow inconvenient for them or makes them feel guilty about their own drinking/baggage/issues/etc.

The comments on Reddit have been all over the board. Most people offer me sympathy. Some people are on the side of “drop her if she’s holding you back” and others are on the “try to understand her and work with her” bandwagon. The ball is in her court, as far as I’m concerned. The sobriety and wellness trains are leaving the station and she can come aboard or not. I’m not letting anything stand in my way.

11:50am
As the day goes on, it’s becoming more obvious to me that I will need to talk with my wife again after work today. We stopped being angry with each other last night, but the issue did not get resolved. At the heart of it, she feels threatened by my sobriety and wellness. If I’m a well, sober, confident, physically fit man, then in her mind there’s a heightened risk that I will leave her for someone “better”. As she put it to me last night, “Who are you doing this for? Not me, I know that.” That alone shows the complete lack of trust and self esteem in her that needs to be addressed. I will need her to either start trusting me to make my own recovery and wellness my priority for a while, or start making arrangements to split up. Because I’m not playing these games, not on top of everything else I’m going through. As I said earlier, I’m not letting anything get in the way of my well being.

8:47pm
So we talked about the problem and reached a resolution. She denies ever alluding to me cheating. I know what I heard though. But it doesn’t matter because she now confirms that I, in fact, am not trying to cheat on her. I set my boundaries and she set her minimum expectations on the time we spend together. I think we have a good plan that will work. I am utterly exhausted now.

March 14, 2023

3:50am
I thought I was on a good, healing path of recovery. My sleep times and sleep quality were improving. But the last couple of nights have been less than stellar. I get to sleep no problem, but can’t sleep a full night. At least I don’t wake up crying anymore, but it would be so nice to get 7 hours of good sleep for a string of nights. I should count my blessings. Work is going well, I have a good therapist, and I’m able to do all the physical things I want.

4:31am
Maybe I am the problem. Maybe I set my expectations too high, setting myself up for disappointment. After all, even in the most perfect life there is no moment where one can just stop and say OK, that’s it, I no longer have to work at anything. Recovery isn’t an endpoint, it’s a process. It’s a constant reevaluation of what’s working and what isn’t.

What’s working? Journaling. Bicycling and spinning. Therapy. SMART meetings. The subreddit r/stopdrinking.

What’s not working? Patterns of overexertion and over-rest. Lack of music. Lack of meaningful communication. Emotional unavailability.

8:03am
I’m struggling right now with a feeling of rage. I barely made it to work on time and I’m furious with myself. Or maybe I’m furious that such a stupid yardstick (the hour hand and the minute hand) is being used to measure my worth at my job. Or maybe I just have a lot of unresolved anger from my past. I don’t know.

What I do know, because I just learned it last week, is that this feeling of irritable rage isn’t me. It’s the depression. It’s a symptom of a condition I have, but the condition doesn’t define me. This helps me identify it, feel it, and (at some point) let go of it. Writing about it helps quite a bit, actually.

8:50am
I’ve gotten some work done and the feelings of rage and irritability are all but gone now. I’m totally exhausted and dragging now, but at least I’m not ready to punch through the wall or anything like that.

12:00pm
Remembering the first time I ever saw a man cry. It was in a movie…a WWII movie called Midway. It looked very strange to me, and I thought (mistakenly) it was some sort of joke. I was very young, maybe 4. Crying was something that just wasn’t done in my family. I think it wasn’t seen as dignified, which is hilarious when you consider that I come from a purely white trash heritage.

2:43pm
I’m tired, but not as tired as previous afternoons. This is surprising given that I only got 5.5 hours of sleep last night, and did an extreme 45-minute spin workout this morning.

9:46pm

So, the wife and I had our first argument about my recovery. She expressed a vague dissatisfaction about my constantly journaling, doing treatment, checking the Subreddit r/stopdrinking, going to online SMART recovery meetings, replying to subreddit comments, etc. My response was, “Oh I see, now my sobriety is a problem?” And she was like no. And I responded with, “So then what is the problem?” And it turns out she was just feeling neglected. So we talked through it, and we have kissed and made up, for now at least. It was important that we had our argument and worked through it, but now I’m exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally.

March 13, 2023

10:03am
After yesterday’s drama (a brief but powerful wave of anger/guilt/sadness), things have settled down for me. It’s still uncomfortable though. It’s not as bad as the gnawing. But I am noticing a fair amount of mild irritability and general dissatisfaction, which I just call the howling. The howling I can deal with, even though I don’t love it. Work is going well so far today.

1:57pm
In touch with the ground
I break from the crowd
I’m on the hunt I’m after you
I smell like I sound
I’m lost and I’m found
And I’m hungry like the wolf.

The howling has not left me. Maybe it’s going to stay a while.

5:07pm
The howling can be part of a happy feeling, not necessarily part of dissatisfaction. I feel happy right now and the howling is still here. I’ve made my peace with the howling and it can stay as long as it wants. I can be a civil human even with the howling present. And I can howl in the face of civility.

I don’t wanna feel no more

It’s easier to keep fallin’

Imitations of pain

Emptiness of tomorrow, haunted by your ghost

Laid down, black gives way to blue

Lay down, I’ll remember you

Fading out by design

Consciously avoiding changes

Curtains drawn now it’s done

Silencing all tomorrows, forcing a goodbye

Laid down, black gives way to blue

Lay down, I’ll remember you.

– Alice In Chains, “Black Gives Way to Blue”

As I was driving to go get breakfast, it dawned on me that I don’t need to change up my whole identity to make key, meaningful improvements that will change me. When I was younger, I would search for a pretty much new identity every few years. I was trying to make myself a better person, but what I didn’t see was that I was already a good person. I had been conditioned to hate myself and be ashamed of myself…that’s not something that goes away by wearing a different style of clothing or starting a new workout regime.

The challenge for me now is making the new choices I’ve made stick (recovery and therapy). The brain is clever and tricks itself into thinking “That problem was all in my head…I never *really* had a problem with alcohol or anything else…I just had myself convinced that I did.” This can happen even many years into sobriety. But my great success is that I already realize my core identity is a good, strong person that I will keep and care for, and never be ashamed of again.

March 11, 2023

Today I rode a 44-mile bicycle route. That’s almost 70 miles shy of my longest ride ever in one day, but still, it was a challenging ride for me. I haven’t been on a long road ride in about 5 months, and the longest ride I did last year was about 67 miles. Today’s ride was fun but definitely a challenge.

A big difference for me now versus last year (and previous years, with few exceptions) is that I’m not drinking before, during, or after the ride. When I was drinking I would “carb up” the night before a long ride, usually with beer, sometimes with wine and pasta. Last night I had a Thai curry with some rice and a sparkling water. As it turns out, I was fine, and didn’t need to “carb up”.

Most times I wouldn’t drink during the ride, even when my drinking was at its worst. There were definitely some drunken rides, though…I’m just glad those days are behind me. It’s so not worth it to drink on a ride. You usually end up feeling overfull and/or nauseous, and you have to pee like every 20 minutes (no big problem if you’re biking in the mountains or country, big problem if you’re biking in town or the suburbs or while cars are zooming past on the road).

The biggest difference for me has been post-ride. In the past, I would drink after pretty much every ride, usually beer. I would be sore and twitchy from riding, and the beer would help alleviate those things. At the same time, though, the drunkenness would stimulate my appetite and I would eat everything within reach, snacking and drinking for hours after a ride. Now, I’m neither very hungry nor very thirsty (except for water) after a ride. And yes, I’m a little sore, but it’s more than manageable.

I bought some Clausthaler (NA beer) at the store on the way home from my ride today. I also bought some tortilla chips and fresh guacamole. I’ve been done with the ride for about two-and-a-half hours now, and besides water I’ve just had about 12 chips with guac, and one 12-oz. bottle of Clausthaler. That’s it. I’m full now. In my drinking days I would easily eat and drink six times that amount right after a long ride. And that isn’t counting the drunken “munchies” later on that night.

I think recovery is a healthier path for me in many ways. I definitely have proven to myself that alcohol is not necessary to have a good ride, nor is it necessary for healing my body after a long ride. Also, I still have the rest of the day, and don’t have to stress about “I’ll be too buzzed to [insert activity here] later on,” because I know I won’t be buzzed at all. I can enjoy my entire day.

March 10, 2023

2:41am
I went to bed around 8:30 last night. I was exhausted and depleted. I had a dream featuring Popeye, which was interesting. I hadn’t dreamt about any cartoons since I was a child, I think. Popeye was trying to help me with a problem, but he wasn’t having much success initially. Popeye didn’t eat any spinach in the dream. This, come to think of it, may have been the crux of the situation. I think the Popeye in the dream is me. Popeye didn’t give up and neither will I. I’ve just got to get my hands on some spinach.

8:06am
Went back to bed shortly after making the 2:41 entry, and slept for a couple more hours. This has been only the second full night’s sleep I’ve had in recovery…but it’s also the second within a week. So this is promising…I think I’ll be sleeping somewhat normally very soon. It’s such a relief waking up feeling fully rested.

2:30pm
I’m noticing a pattern. Even on days I’m well rested, my energy level crashes in the mid-afternoon hours. Not sure what I can do about it though. For now, drink caffeine I guess.

4:29pm
My energy level is back up, probably because it’s one minute from being my weekend!!

9:30pm

I didn’t play my guitar tonight, which is a bit of a bummer. But I did see a really good movie, Causeway, so I don’t feel too bad about skipping a day of guitar. I’m going to bed soon, hopeful that I get lots of rest before my big ride tomorrow.