Alco-stress

That single word that causes toes to curl, heads to hurt, and body parts to just go numb, at even the thought of the word, much less reading about it. Stress.  One of the finer mysteries of life that I have recently been forced to acknowledge.  Not because this is me taking part in the What I Learned From project over at Middle Zone Musings, but because I’ve never had to “deal” with it in the past.  I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface on this word stress.  I can share a little about the subject though.

It Can’t Be Ignored

What I’ve learned most about stress is that there is no way it can be ignored.  Doesn’t matter how hard a person tries to drown it out, stress is going to be the one coming up breathing.  

It took me a while to realize this.  I only learned about stress, I mean really learned about it, recently as I have been growing/recovering.  You see, stress is most likely the biggest reason that alcohol took control of my life.  Granted, I am an alcoholic, and as stated in a previous post, looking back I knew at 16 or 17 (subconsciously I think) how I was going to deal with stress for the next 17 or 18 years.  My focus though is not on the disease for this article, but on the stresses of the disease.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that over time, ignoring stress was only going to prolong the inevitable.  Drinking to cause stress to go away only added more stress, more fuel to the fire, more alcohol to take away the fuel.  It was a vicious cycle.  And you know, stress never did “go away.”  Funny thing is, it’s still around today and I don’t have to alcohol to take it away!  What’s an alcoholic to do?!?

Learn How to Deal

Uh, yeah, OK.  I did deal. I drank right? I mean that was “Dealing.” No? 

No no my friend.  That got me no where.  The way that I deal now though is still a work in progress, and some of the dealings have only hit me over the last couple of weeks.  As of right now, I’ve only got 3 ways that I am able to deal with stress.  Remember, I am a work in progress (at 35..jeez.)

• Awareness
• Meditation
• Motivation

Awareness – It is my opinion that awareness of stress, obviously, must happen first in order to be able to start “dealing” with it.  I have become so aware of it recently that I can tell you which days of the week are going to be my most stressful. I am also aware of the generic “why” these days are most stressful, but I have yet been able to say “Oh, that’s why I’m so stressed.”   Again, the blog that I posted yesterday on this site has a little more detail on my personal journey with stress.  Once I became more aware, I could then use a tool that I had used in the past, just use it in a different way.

Meditation – I’m a firm believer in the many uses of meditation.  Not the least of these is releasing some of the stresses of the day. In fact, just today, meditating on one particular item of stress in my life has generated a resolution, or should I say built me up to be able to perform the resolution.  I won’t go into the problem here.  Again, my opinion, but if you practice it enough, meditation can be one of your greatest tools that you will use on your journey through life.

Motivation – Now that I am able to be aware of stress, and have a tool to manage it, I often use these as motivation to look for more stress.  I know that just sounds weird, but the more stress I can pull out and “fix” the better my life is going to be.  It also motivates me to tell stories of my wanderings and share them here, on tecthought, with you.

Finally

I’ll say it again, this stress thing seems kinda new to me.  I’m now in the process (motivation) to find other tools to manage stress.  How do you deal with your stress?  I’m curious.  Feed me.

Let me help you help yourself!
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Issues of the Week

I have had an issue that has been bothering me lately.  Yeah, I know what your saying..”What is it Scott (big sigh)?”  Just chill.  I’ll tell you in a second.  I really don’t have the answer to my main problem yet, but after reading a couple of articles I found another issue that I have to work on.  I think, if I can get them together, the issues will “fix themselves.”

First the Articles

It only took me these two articles to have the A-HA moment that I needed. I hope you enjoy them and chew on them as much as I have.

The first article I read was by Eric Hamm of Motivate Thyself (guest blogging on zenhabits).  The title of the article, Re-Centering: Finding Your Way Back to the Life You Meant to Live, pretty much sums up the article. I’ll let you read it for yourself without me giving you my two cents worth.

The ideas I received from The Only Two Secrets to Motivating Yourself You’ll Ever Need  by Leo Babauta of zenhabits, I hope to use to motivate myself to achieve the goals that I will have set from reading the first article..make sense?  It does to me, but due to my lack of planning for this post, I’m not able to make you see it.

The Issues

I have lots and lots of issues, don’t get me wrong.  This week though, or the last couple actually, the following have been really bothering me.  I’ve had a hard time thinking about anything but the first one actually.  The second I’ve thought about in the past, but never paid that much attention to it’s true worth.  But after reading the articles, I must address it as well.  So, without further ado, my “Issues of the Week” are:

• Emotions
• Goals

Yep. That’s them up there.

Emotions

From an alcoholics standpoint, the whole reason I was drinking was to drown my sorrows (emotions.)  That saying, “Drinking to Drown Your Sorrows” is true you know.  I didn’t want to deal with them.  I’ve never been good at dealing with them.  When I was 16 or so though, I found the way that was going to help me deal with them in the future. I guess I just didn’t realize at the time just how dangerous the road I was on was going to be, obviously.

Now, I must deal with them the way a normal person would.  I don’t know how to do that.  I’ve never done it. I don’t express my emotions. I just store them up and let them build until the pressure is just too great.

From what I can tell, the pressure is being released on Mondays and Thursdays.  The rest of the time in between is being spent storing up those emotions.  On those two days though, look out.  It’s getting to the point of I’m going to have to start issuing Severe Emotion Warnings to the folks around me.  Well, point is, that has to stop and I have got to learn how to deal with my emotions. Which brings me to…

Goals

I’ve read another article, and I wish I could find it to share it with you, that talked about setting goals and the reasons we fail at achieving them.  Maybe someone reading can post it in the comments.  The section in the article that stuck out to me was We set our goals to high.  The example that was used was a father/son setting where the father said “Go clean your room,” and the son’s goal became cleaning his room, but that was such a big goal for him that he whined and cried and did those things that kids do when you tell them to “Go clean your room.”  The article stated to instead, have the child first go pick up his clothes.  Then give him a goal to go pick up his toys, then another, then another and eventually his room will be clean.  He would have met his ultimate goal.  

I’m going to go against the article for now, because I want to use the Positive Public Pressure from Leo’s article to get me headed toward my ultimate goal, which is I’m going to figure out how to correctly deal with my emotions.  That’s generic, I know.  Just bear with me.  By me telling you my goal, it keeps me accountable.  So, from time to time, If I haven’t posted my progress, tell me.  I will also break this down over the next couple of days and share the steps that I plan on taking to reach that goal.  

For You

Maybe you would like to join me on this adventure and set your own goal.  If so, leave a comment, and a link, and I’ll hold you accountable too.  We can do this together.  Things are always more fun when done with someone else.  

If you have any suggestions please comment.  I value opinions and direction. 

Let me help you help yourself!

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Update – Personal Goal – Managing Emotions Correctly – Update #1