The fact is that I enjoyed my very first drink. I just did. And I’m pretty tight-assed myself in some ways; other drugs that muddle my thinking, make me clumsy, make me say and do stupid things, etc. I actually don’t like. This one I do. And if I keep doing it, I DIE, and I’ve finally figured out that the 2 hours of pleasure are followed by so much pain–not to mention an uncontrollable urge to keep going, even though I’m NOT having any fun anymore at all, I’m still going. It’s total madness, and just no good reason to put myself through it.

It’s been days now and I’m not even thinking about touching it. Good lord, it really is insanity.

Perhaps the reason I’ve never really had a problem with alcohol is that I never seem to get the "two hours of pleasure" part. I have never understood the appeal of drinking. It muddles my mind, makes me clumsy, makes me say and do stupid things, makes me ill, and then when I finally do get "over" it, it just makes me sick.

It’s like the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin’s mom gives him a cigarette and as he lays on the porch gasping and panting after taking a puff, Hobbes looks at him and says "You’d think this would be an easier habit to break."

More or less exactly how I feel about it, but as I said, that’s because I don’t seem to have the initial two hours of pleasure in the first place. My brothers say its because I’m too tight-assed to let go and enjoy myself, and maybe that’s the case, but the end result is that my entire reaction to alcohol is ‘bleh.’

CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Toon of the Day

Seriously, 370-ish steps up and one step back is not at all bad. Don’t beat yourself up too much. But, of course, don’t let that one step back become a downward slide.

You’re an athlete in training, and 370 days is now your personal best… so far. You’ll better it next time.

JLBussey’s last blog post..My Route Home

I tend not to comment on these personal issues, mostly because I don’t feel I know you well enough to really have an impact and because I don’t have enough personal ego to think my opinion is that important anyway.

I will make an exception in this case though, mostly just to say that the sun came up today, will go down tonight and you and I will both have lunch. Just as I would caution you not to be too proud of your successes, I would caution you not to be too ashamed of  your failures.

Hang in there. We need you around here.

CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Quick trial update?

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

“We take a some­what dif­fer­ent view of hypocrisy,” Fin­kle-​Mc­Graw con­tin­ued.
“In the late-​twen­ti­eth-​cen­tu­ry Weltan­schau­ng, a hyp­ocrite was some­one who espoused high moral views as part of a planned cam­paign of de­cep­tion –​ he never held these be­liefs sin­cere­ly and rou­tine­ly vi­olat­ed them in priva­cy. Of course, most hyp­ocrites are not like that. Most of the time it’s a spir­it-​is-​will­ing, flesh-​is-​weak sort of thing.”

“That we oc­ca­sion­al­ly vi­olate our own stat­ed moral code,” Ma­jor Napi­er said, work­ing it through, “does not im­ply that we are in­sin­cere in es­pous­ing that code.”

“Of course not,” Fin­kle-​Mc­Graw said. “It’s per­fect­ly ob­vi­ous, re­al­ly. No one ev­er said that it was easy to hew to a strict code of con­duct. Re­al­ly, the dif­fi­cul­ties in­volved — the mis­steps we make along the way — are what make it in­ter­est­ing. The in­ter­nal, and eter­nal, strug­gle, be­tween our base im­puls­es and the rig­or­ous de­mands of our own moral sys­tem is quintessen­tial­ly hu­man. It is how we con­duct our­selves in that strug­gle that de­ter­mines how we may in time be judged by a high­er pow­er.”