Stiflers Mom
Banned
Drinking a lot less over the last few weeks. I don't drink home alone anymore.
Still problems with saying no when meeting people or other social events.
But I am working on it.
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Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
PSA: Don't drink alcohol too much. Liver transplant experience. NeoGAF special edition.
Still problems with saying no when meeting people or other social events.
But I am working on it.
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Cool, so keep at it, congrats on progress!
CAB_Life
Member
I’m not going to promise it’s some kind of one-size-fits-all “magic pill”, but exercise (and subsequently nutrition and health) saved me from a cocaine and alchol addition—spawned from clinical anxiety and depression—in my 20s that would’ve left me in the grave. There is an inherent and positive growth that we derive from physical fitness, not to mention the obvious aesthetic and biochemical benefits that combat issues with self esteem, anxiety, depression, etc.
If those of you struggling with similar issues to the OP or many others in this thread are not exercising, I suggest you do so. You’ve nothing to lose, really, and the benefits are too good to ignore even if you don’t take to it as dedicatedly as I have. 3-4 days a week of physcial activity is the bare minimum to demand of ourselves and these wonderous machines of meat and muscle we call bodies. We’re so detached from our physical and spiritual selves these days, and exercise—for many—can be a direct and grounding conduit back to those aspects.
Edit: Btw you can set up a pretty efficient home gym for less than the price of a next gen console ($500): chin-up station $149, magnetic bike $150 (Folds up too, if you need space), assorted adjustable Ironmaster dumbbells, kettlebell and plates $200. I fit all this into our office and still have plenty of room for my gaming stuff (opposite wall):
If those of you struggling with similar issues to the OP or many others in this thread are not exercising, I suggest you do so. You’ve nothing to lose, really, and the benefits are too good to ignore even if you don’t take to it as dedicatedly as I have. 3-4 days a week of physcial activity is the bare minimum to demand of ourselves and these wonderous machines of meat and muscle we call bodies. We’re so detached from our physical and spiritual selves these days, and exercise—for many—can be a direct and grounding conduit back to those aspects.
Edit: Btw you can set up a pretty efficient home gym for less than the price of a next gen console ($500): chin-up station $149, magnetic bike $150 (Folds up too, if you need space), assorted adjustable Ironmaster dumbbells, kettlebell and plates $200. I fit all this into our office and still have plenty of room for my gaming stuff (opposite wall):
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Bo_Hazem
Banned
Gym just opened again! Hitting the weights next week! Keep up the good work and stay healthy!
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Yeah I am trying to do that since I could even move, because after the surgery I lost pretty much all the muscles. And it's a terrible feeling, way worse than anything I live through during the surgery or post. However I don't see the appeal and not even feel it.. I always struggled with it, since from the birth I was always being told that I am fat and I have to work out and well I want to do different thing like play the piano and shit like that. So I guess it's ingrained in my, however GF is really quite active so she helps me with this.
Alter_Fridge
Member
How is being frozen to the couch for 5 hours fun
Alter_Fridge
Member
Did you ever try 12% beers. They will definitely get anyone drunk
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GymWolf
Gold Member
it's just an example, some people like to relax and think while stoned from indica, or just play some videogame or stuff.
Alter_Fridge
Member
Fair enough
GymWolf
Gold Member
you can tailor the experience with weed, you can be super-active too.
Alter_Fridge
Member
I've had too many bad experiences with weed to make it enjoyable for me.
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Elcid
Banned
Damn OP, I don't know how I missed this thread. Kudos to you A for writing this post, and B for acknowledging you had a problem. I know especially know that times are difficult but I pray you continue to find strength in our community and your loved ones. It's crazy how we let ourselves fall, and when we think we can't get any lower, we still manage to. You're alive so that's a blessing in itself and it shows you're no weakling. May you NEVER get anxiety again. I don't know what you can do after such a surgery, but exercise and meditation work wonders so I'd definitely entertain that if you can.
Also...
Also...
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M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
That's pretty big gift I have to say.
MiyazakiHatesKojima
Banned
I showed this thread to Max Payne the other day and he broke down in tears
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Just wanted to provide update, I am now at just 2mg of immunosuppressant, which basically means that over time my Liver can be like my own. Social health care system claimed another huge win. Especially now with all that shit flying in the world, this is amazing news.
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MasterCornholio
Member
I'm happy that it's going well for you. Thankfully your body is accepting the organ quite well.
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Yeah it's like a magic honestly, others who were there with me around that time are now on 18mg and for those who also lost their kidney(s) (quite common, liver and kidneys are interconnected pretty well), those are in worse state. Yet I got a best matching organ just in one week. It's pretty crazy, I am after a 10km run and yet still super pumped.
MasterCornholio
Member
I know it's going very well for you but it must have been difficult.
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
It was, however I feel that some things, just had to be... I just don't have any guilt story for this.
I must say I like drinking alcohol - because I like the taste.
Absolutely love ice wine (which is sugar and alcohol - probably as bad for you as it gets)
Love cocktails
Love good whiskey straight (with a tiny bit of lemon).
Love good beer
Love hard cider (semi dry with hops)
I also have a very high alcohol tolerance - takes a LOT to make me drunk and it wears off very fast, in 30 minutes or so.
Had to make a conscious decision not to drink anything on weekdays and only drink on friday night - since I know it is not good for my liver. Already have fatty liver from days when I was much heavier than now, but so far my Fibroscan is normal so I think I will be ok as long as I do not indulge too much.
Speaking of fatty liver - PSA - there is non alcohol related liver cirrhosis and there is more and more of it, so watch those carbs folks...
Absolutely love ice wine (which is sugar and alcohol - probably as bad for you as it gets)
Love cocktails
Love good whiskey straight (with a tiny bit of lemon).
Love good beer
Love hard cider (semi dry with hops)
I also have a very high alcohol tolerance - takes a LOT to make me drunk and it wears off very fast, in 30 minutes or so.
Had to make a conscious decision not to drink anything on weekdays and only drink on friday night - since I know it is not good for my liver. Already have fatty liver from days when I was much heavier than now, but so far my Fibroscan is normal so I think I will be ok as long as I do not indulge too much.
Speaking of fatty liver - PSA - there is non alcohol related liver cirrhosis and there is more and more of it, so watch those carbs folks...
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
I think that lot of thing mirror's my experience, however, most important stuff is if you have hangovers. That's probably the part where like if you don't have them it's bad.
GeorgPrime
Banned
Prequel:
So.... I've been planning to write this in here for some time, but let's say it's not that easy to talk about that. I've been preparing this in my head, how to write something for this wonderfull community, which imrpoved my mental state a lot.
I was abstinent, till my 22 years old. I lost friends which I had high school/University, because I did not want to go to the pubs and stuff. I hate driunk people how they behave and shit. Well, so it's pretty big irony where I ended up.
In 2011 on some LAN party I was drinking (by that time) popular Radler, basically very light beer with some juice into it. 2% alcohol. Since I did not drive car that often, I drink it as some people drink soda. Not a big deal and it does not really do anything for me. I could drank 10 0.5l cans per day and nothing. Or so I thought. This happened like for a year.
After some time my mental state got way worse and I met my biggest enemy - Anxiety. More precisely GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder), which come with Agoraphobia, which basically does not even allow me to go outside. I was scared and sometimes even scream in terror, which I experienced. I contemplated suicide, since basically....why live if you cannot do anything and suffer like hell.
So I went to doctor, psychiatrist. I got prescribed Xanax and I went to pharmacy, took one. And my life changed, forever. That fucking substance is so fucking powerful that withing 5 minutes, all of my issue were gone. Well, since tolerance for this substance rises, you need more and more and more. Well doctor obviously did not want to prescibe me more, so basically I was on my own and experienced something which I would not wish to my worst enemy. Benzo withdrawal. I cannot even express with words, how much hell it was. There is a one substance, which can alleviate the symptoms of withdrawal. And that it's Alcohol, but basically 2mg of Xanax for gaba receptors, is about 1l of 40% alcohol. At least, that's how it worked on me. I remember drinking like 5L of alcohol and basically was not drunk and somewhat was barely able to do study, job, etc. I felt almost normal.
Well than I went to doktoronline.cz where I found people selling Benzos and all kinds of stuff which I needed. Lyrica was my first illegal purchase, which helped a lot I did not need to drink and felt that nice buzz, when I take more pills at once. Which lasted whole day, seemed like a good redeeming drug. Well until my source dries. That was caused thanks to idiots, which targeted Pfizer, that they did not include information that it's not only a drug againts pain, but also to cure all kinds of mental problems. Psychiatrist prescribe this medicine off-label for GAD and other anxiety-related problems. This class-action lawsuit cost Pfizer 2.3billion dollars. Which subsequently lead to restriction who can prescribe it and for what reason. At that time, Pfizer still have rights to be exlusive manufactuer of Pregabalin, so there was not any generics.
So what did I do. Went back to Xanax, then my sources dries, because my country decide to drop a hammer on those illegal sellers. I was even photoed with one of the people who went to jail, delivering me medicine outside some restaurant in Prague. So after that I went back to cycle of w/d and heavy drinking. After some time I decided that since Alcohol is legal, is everywhere in here and price is not that high, well why not keep drinking right?
I can fucking on it just fine, I never had and hangover, so over 4 years, I have been drinking cca 1.5L of 40% alcohol. I pour it to different bottle, so I can drink everywhere and everything was fine. It was for me like a holy water.
Well.
Actual story:
On the 5th of April 2019 I was at the party, where I drink heavily...like always. Went home, felt kind of shitty, like never before and decided that I am going to stop drinking for a while. On the next day I was terribly tired, so I slept 2 days. My eyes turned yellow. Jaundice. My mind was really slow, I cannot eat anything and basically was at that point dead man walking. Next day I was completely yellow, which is a sign of liver failure. So I went to hospital, they told me, that with this damage I am not going to make it if I did not get a liver transplant, that my liver is completely fucked, like they never seen before. So they sent me to IKEM, Prague, which is pretty well-know facility for transplantation, which even foreigners uses, but it's pretty fucking expensive, if you are foreigner.
So I went there and basically first interaction with doctor, who was like a my age told me, that they will take care of me, but I should not have expect miracles. Luckily besides my drinking problem, I also have papers with all of the shit I was dealing with, like Psoriasis (which can also lead to cirrhosis), my mind problems. Etc. I've been put on dialysis and I improved a lot. And doctors and nurses (All of them was really hot, since IKEM is the place where you go first, because average paynment for nurse is 40 000CZK and for doctor 80 000CZK, average payment in Czech Republic is 25 000CZK per month, which is like 1000 USD. So yeah, they choose. I am sure that appearance is factor also, especially with nurses). So we kept talking and basically something changed, they told me that I don't seems to be regular drunk looser. Maybe because I have a GF, house, job and shitton of records that something is wrong with me, that I have legitimate issues and if I promise that stop drinking they give me a chance in form of Liver transplant. On the 3rd day in here, they decided that they bump me to the first place with Level 3 type transplant, which means I get the best matching organ, so I can live normally and I am not going to require re-transplation in few years.
It was only a week till, out of nowhere they told me. You are going to the room where you undergo a surgery. GF was there for a visit and I remember to fill out some papers, about legal stuff and last field was "How many times, if needed, you want to be resuscitated, before we give up". My GF give me dring from a bottle with bendable straw, which had shape as "7", so I wrote 7 times. This saved my life, because surgery was super hard and they have to resuscitate me 5 times. If I wrote basic 3 and enough, I would be gone.
Surgery took 18 hours and they I have 3 revision due to heavy bleeding, so basically 31 hours on the table. Normally it takes 4 hours without any sort of revisions.
I was in artificial sleep and I was scheduled to be woken up on 22th of April...and well nothing I was unresponsive. I don't want this to sounds like a cheap romantic shit, but on next day GF was allowed to visit me, she took my hand and said....this is going to be cliché and cheesy, but maybe I live because of it. She said "I love you"....for surprise to everyone I pressed her hand so hard she could not took her hand out of my grip. And I opened my eyes and saw here. But I was so weka, that I opened them just a little bit. It was weird I was on Fentanyl and basically I saw her and everything else was just totally different. Like I am not even in hospital, but somewhere in big church and shit. Weird ass stuff. But since I was so weak, that I cannot move, why that grip. Nobody ever answer me, how it was possible, because thanks to missing functional liver, my body consumed a lot of my muscles and I basically cannot even move. I was learning again how to walk, how to move.
I was one months in hospital and body learning how to live with foreign object which keeping me alive was 4 months of hell. But after that, I lost every single one of the mental problems, feeling better than ever before and well living. Thanks to covid, it's more limited, but still I am happy.
From now on my birthday is 23th of April, not 9th of March. I am not 31 years old, but 1 year old. Obviously inside my head, because it changes completely me as a person and I don't feel any connection to my past self. I also lost shitton of weight and now I am 82Kg and was 136kgs while being 191cm tall, so you can get the picture.
Conclusion:
Fuck the alcohol, it's horrible drug, because it's the solution and source of every problem you might have. In my opinion lot of different drugs should be legal, but alcohol should be very strictly limited. Because it's everywhere, it's effective and it can ruin live very easily.
Stay save my bros and sis!
Lot of tears were involved writing this as much as I don't want to admit
Some minor proof from hospital:
It's cheapp to tag people, but hey it's not like I care now:
I want to thank @EviLore to keep the site running after that exodus of lot of retards. Obviously a lot of other people who make this new NeoGAF.
I want to thank @MistaMiyazakiHatesKojima @GHG @Spukc @Lawrence ‘Chunk’ Cohen @Elektro Demon @brap @-Arcadia- @Cunth @Tesseract and many others who kept me company, reacted and quoted my dumb posts and make me feel like I belong somewhere. Even though I have GF, I always struggled to belong somewhere, as much as I have been here for just a few months, it feels like internet home for me.
I hate that I went here late, because on REEE as much as they try to pretend to care about everyone, almost no one cared, when I needed the most.
Thank you alds and gals. And please, don't do what I did. Life is worth living.
When i waa younger at evening school i overdid it too. We literally ended up fucking drunk each weekend with our whole class.
We celebrated at a friends place and my friend and i were the only ones that were still moving after some hours. I even walked our girls home and went back drinking more.
I realized, after i took a big glass of pure wodka head on after a full evening of drinking due to a girl that wanted to bang me (she literally dared me that i wpuldnt be aböe at the point of time), that iam way over my normal limit....
...so i mostly stopped drinking at all.
Sometimes a beer or a cocktail but i dont habe the urge anymore to drink just for fun.
You can say i drink only a few days in a year and even then i stop aftdr 1 oe 2 glasses
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Ultra Violento
Member
Yea man I find alcohol terrible, my father used o drink heavily and he would hit my mother in his drunk-fueled rage so I grew up detesting it with passion. Even so I used to drink some in my teens because of my friends' influence but thankfully I never truly liked it, I was just doing it to not feel left out.
Just curious but why did you resort to illegal purchasing of medication? I take 1 pill of venlafaxine xr everyday because of anxiety but it's all prescribed. Anyways Glad you started a new life, that's amazing. Congrats.
Just curious but why did you resort to illegal purchasing of medication? I take 1 pill of venlafaxine xr everyday because of anxiety but it's all prescribed. Anyways Glad you started a new life, that's amazing. Congrats.
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Rage alcoholics are terrible, I am really sorry about that. I was calmed by use of Alcohol, never agressive.
Mohonky
Member
I know this experience very well, 37, developed anxiety at the age of 20, shortly before I was 21.
I was super active as a teenager, I lived for sport every weekend, excelled at it. It was my hobby. I loved the playing away games because it meant going for long drives with my old man just chatting shit, playing my game and then enjoying the cruise home afterward. The idea of getting in a car and going for a few hour drive (my old man had a 99 model 2 door STi so the drive home meant we'd go find some mountain passes or some other long way home to stretch the cars legs abit) was fun.
Then when I started getting anxiety I became a total recluse, I couldnt leave the house at all, even to get to the letter box. It was the total oppposite of me. You could break my life into 2 distinct periods; pre and post anxiety. Pre anxiety I loved getting out, I loved going on long road trips, being active. Post anxiety, travelling even now, at my best, the idea of needing to get into the car to go down the road bring on a panic attack. The idea of doing what I was doing as a teenager is completely and utterly inconceivable.
If pre anxiety met post anxiety me, I dont think either of us could even begin to imagine we were one and the same person; the difference between us is so stark.
I eventually got out enough to be able to work again around 25 or 26, but between when it started just prior to turning 21 and then, I was a total shut in. One of the things that helped, beside numerous therapists etc was a benzo, and Ive been on it since my mid 20s. I have always been aware of how they are incredibly addictive, particularly because of how quickly you build tolerance, its easy to get into a position of thinking its doing nothing and upping the dosage but thats asking for a world of hurt.
So from my mid 20s to now, a period of over 10 yrs, I have been on them daily except for a brief period when I moved to a new town and a dr refused and told me he wanted me off them. So I did. Withdrawls? Apart from not being able to sleep, I didnt really get any. I went months without them but my anxiety went backwards, to the point I wasnt able to leave the house again.
For reference, knowing Benzos arent great because of their addictive nature and the speed at which tolerance is built, I always maintained a really strict regime with them. Never more than 1 a day (even tho I am on a small dosage to begin with) and even if I didnt feel like it had done much of anything, to never fall into the trap of upping the dose.
Being back at work again for the past few years and being more comfortable in my environment, Ive actually been building a surplus of them each month. I can only get 30 at a time, no repeats and if I goto my dr early, I cant get a script. So to find everytime I am due for anothet script, and I find that I actually have quite a few left even before they were supposed to run out, means I'm taking less than my allowed dosage, some days a half some days none.
But having been on them for so long is a worry for liver function. But I've also been getting regular bloodwork and my liver has been fine; probably largely because I dont drink at all, and knowing how the benzos and drinking would work the shit out of my liver, its probably been a good thing I dont drink.
So yeh all I can really add in here is if you take any medication in the benzo family, do not up your dosage. I noticed I had built tolerance to them in the first few days but you really need to avoid the temptation to increase your dosage.
The other; dont self medicate with things like alcohol. It'll make things way worse in the long run.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Quick derailment PSA for some of you working from home now on company laptops.
Make sure to get up and walk around.
Took long enough. But lately my lower back has been sore, which has got to be from sitting on my ass all day, even more than usual.
At the office, at least you move around more talking to people, going to meetings, going out to lunch, or stopping off at stores on the way home.
Make sure to get up and walk around.
Took long enough. But lately my lower back has been sore, which has got to be from sitting on my ass all day, even more than usual.
At the office, at least you move around more talking to people, going to meetings, going out to lunch, or stopping off at stores on the way home.
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M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Only Pregabalin, this is off label use and it gives me everything I need. Sometimes you just don't take pill for a day or two and then you take 3 days worth of dose and you are more than fine whole day. Not intended usage, but its also really not dangerous, since the tolerance for this shit ramps so fast, that anything beyond 2-3 highs after one another is worthless waste of substance. I am aware that I am pretty fucked if I ever would need to go of it, but I can everything and I almost never had a bad mood out of nothing. I feel good. Like I never felt before, which could be more than just pills, it could be that organ was faulty since birth and it fucked my life, well its no longer there, so I am fine.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Dang dude, it sucks you went through that. I'm glad you don't live in a country that puts a price on people's lives. I used to be able to drink quite a lot occasion but now I'm on allergy medicine that makes it have a bad reaction and makes me feel like crap so I just very naturally stopped drinking over a year ago. I figure it's probably for the best I keep off it if I ever go off the allergy medicine, it's just so bad for you.
12Goblins
Lil’ Gobbie
lyrica is an interesting drug... what do you find different about it compared to benzo's like Xanax that you were on ?
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
It makes you high if properly dosed and it does not destroy your life, like benzo would. It also holds for much longer than any benzo would per dose. Even many junkies have said that quitting Xanax is like hell. I went through multiple w/ds and its just so bad, like really fucking horrible feeling. Like I said I could go few days, even a week without Lyrica, try that with benzo after some time doing it, it will destroy you. Besides look at JP, he is completely braindead nowadays. Its dangerous and as far as Lyrica goes, I am not getting any less brain when I am really on it. With Benzo its much harder to think.
The disadvantage is that to feel any difference, it takes 3 hours with Lyrica, so any panic attack won't be solved by it. But even with that, it feels like miracle drug to me.
BlackTron
Gold Member
Interesting that this got bumped right when we lost Steve Harwell.
Dude that's insane, when I read this I physically bounced back in my computer chair and held my face in my hands. When your life comes down to the shape of a straw, it's a reminder that chaos reigns in this universe and we have no control, just best efforts and intentions.
Dude that's insane, when I read this I physically bounced back in my computer chair and held my face in my hands. When your life comes down to the shape of a straw, it's a reminder that chaos reigns in this universe and we have no control, just best efforts and intentions.
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
I sometimes have panic attacks about it, not going to lie
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Czech Republic, I never asked why it was there, but I guess these sort of operations are quite a bit different...that and that you are automatically organ donor...which you might have some juicy organs on-site. But that's just a speculation.
I do not, I haven't had drop of alcohol since 4/2019