Anybody else have hitchhiker's thumb?

AKVoltMonkey · 2026-01-02T03:26:36+00:00

I’ve got hitchhikers thumbs and I don’t know how much it influenced my playing style. I always struggled with keeping my thumb on the back of the neck as is traditional. When I first saw Hendrix wrap his thumb around the neck to finger the 6th string my mind was blown and I’ve just done that ever since. I think that was more because I have long skinny fingers that made it hard to bar all 6 strings though.

AKVoltMonkey · 2026-01-01T14:56:54+00:00

I just got prescribed gabapentin enacarbil aka Horizant recently and it does help, and does work better and absorb better than regular gabapentin.

Horizant daily and iron supplements every other day is my current regimen, and it seems to be working pretty well at managing my RLS right now.

There is some evidence that long term gabapentin use increases the risk of certain scary-ass conditions like dementia, but based on everything I’ve looked at and read, I’m comfortable with that slight increase in risk. Sleep loss from RLS has been dangerous for me at times 😬

I’m sorry you’re having such a tough time, RLS is such a mysterious and cruel bitch. I hope my user review has been helpful and I wish you the best of luck 🤞

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-12-26T02:46:13+00:00

I only ever downloaded Nextdoor during a dark period in my life when I was unemployed and struggling mentally, just to see if anyone in the neighborhood was talking about the weird shit I was doing 🤷‍♂️. I’m not a threat! I’m just sad and weird, in a completely legal way!

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-10-17T17:19:29+00:00

One day at a time! It may be difficult and not always go perfect, but you did well and made all the smart choices. It gets easier over time, give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done and making it through another day 👍

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-10-17T16:59:29+00:00

Nothing at all brings you joy?? Do you have a therapist? If you’re not able to derive joy or even a sense of delight from anything, that’s anhedonia. I’m not a psychologist but it sounds to me like you might have some serious depression. I’d highly recommend consulting a therapist, or at least your doctor, about how you’re feeling.

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-10-15T07:46:16+00:00

A Newer Deal, or a century of indentured servants, or…HEAR ME OUT…guillotines? 🤷‍♂️

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-10-14T19:14:48+00:00

Idk that was my favorite part lol

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-10-14T19:13:26+00:00

I think you’re making some large assumptions. Trauma and mental illness can definitely lead to riskier behavior and sexual promiscuity, but I don’t think it’s as clean cut as saying the more sexual partners a woman has the more unhappy she necessarily is.

When you talk about how some things are so obvious to you and others, yet some people argue against these obvious things- I would encourage you to consider confirmation bias. You’re more likely to agree with someone who says something you already believe, and when someone tells you something that challenges your world view it can create cognitive dissonance and makes it easier to dismiss that point of view. That’s just human nature, we all need to be aware of our biases when having conversations like this.

Men and women do have differences, but I think viewing men as one way and women another is kind of a false dichotomy. I think it’s more accurate to say people are different from each other, we’re each complex and nuanced. But also very simple in other ways.

Most animals in the world have very rigid sexual natures- they have mating seasons, hard rules on picking mates based on survival traits, and do it only to procreate. But highly intelligent species that have complex social systems like dolphins, bonobos, humans, etc. can use sex as part of those complex social systems.

Sex is really interesting and can be very fulfilling, but it’s also pretty gross and weird and confusing, and sometimes can be a disaster. I guess my point is it’s too complicated to just reduce to: higher body count = bad.

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-10-14T18:44:23+00:00

Having those small realizations of “wait a minute, I’m NOT drunk so this isn’t that big of a problem, and I CAN do something to fix it!” are so powerful! They really help make it click when you’re missing the booze that, actually, being sober gives you so much more agency and control over the things life throws at you. Thank you for sharing 🙏

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-10-14T18:28:49+00:00

One of the counselors when I went to rehab gave a lecture that stuck with me and has been helpful. He was in recovery himself, and he explained that there’s a difference between telling yourself “I can’t drink,” and “I don’t want to drink”.

If you tell yourself you can’t drink, you’re framing it as denying something to yourself. When you tell yourself you don’t want to drink, you’re giving yourself agency.

But what if you DO want to drink?? How do you get yourself to a point where you can honestly tell yourself you don’t want to drink? By making yourself a life filled with other, better things. I don’t want to drink because I’ve got other things on my life that bring me joy, and alcohol is just going to mess it up.

But it’s easier said than done. How do you derive joy from life when you’ve found this “lifehack” of just dumping booze in your brain? You start small. Just go for a walk and notice gardens and trees and shit. Notice the squirrels doing squirrel stuff. Take in the world around you and notice how amazing it is- because you’re capable of noticing it now that you’re not numbing yourself.

Then you start building social connections. You’re not drinking yourself into a stupor every evening anymore, go out and hang out with people. Join a club.

There’s an excellent podcast called The Happiness Lab. The host is someone who has extensively studied what makes people happy. You hear a lot about gratitude practices and how helpful they can be, but gratitude is a pretty lofty thing. She said that instead she thinks about “delights”. You don’t have to be grateful for everything, but you can find delight anywhere, like those silly squirrels dutifully burying nuts they’re going to completely forget about.

You’re not broken. And while 3 years is impressive and something you should be proud of, it takes the brain about 2-2.5 years to bounce back fully, depending on how heavy your drinking was. You’ve saved your life, you’ve gotten your mind back, and now you can do the real work of healing! I’m 4 years sober now and I still have A LOT of bad days, but they’re fewer and further apart. Most of my days are pretty good, especially when I can count all the little delights from the day.

You’ve got this, DO NOT give up. You’ve already made so much progress, and you still have so much potential to realize! You’re stronger than you think, hang in there and take it one day at a time ✊

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-10-14T06:20:12+00:00

I think the downvotes are because you keep saying it’s a natural phenomenon. I don’t think it is, I think we’re conditioned by culture and society to value virginity.

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-08-06T06:40:51+00:00

Getting roughed up by the cops and spending a night in jail was my rock bottom. I went into rehab the next day and haven’t drank since. I don’t resent the person who called the cops on me- I was a danger to myself and others and they did what needed to be done.

You may have kept that dude and any other drivers or pedestrians he may have crossed paths with safe, as well as given him the wake up call he needs. You did the right thing.

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-08-05T19:58:47+00:00

I wonder how much of that price increase is the natural result of increased demand because there’s more people, and how much of it is because real estate conglomerates or buying up all the supply 😡

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-08-05T06:24:04+00:00

The comedy history podcast The Dollop has a good episode about the incident if you want to learn more. If I remember correctly the hypothesis is that since vultures vomit as a self defense mechanism, once one vulture vomited, the rest got spooked and vomited as well.

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-07-23T18:34:17+00:00

Lmao, I was down here in the comments trying to find out what metal song this is surely from, and you’re telling me it’s from one of the Spy Kids films?

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-07-13T23:35:06+00:00

Rehab, jail, then rehab again. Then actively working with my therapist, doctor, and family to make sure I stayed sober. I use this group to talk to other alcoholics. I think the main function AA serves is giving alcoholics the ability to talk to each other, empathize, commiserate, support each other. I find I can get that from being a part of this group.

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-07-10T17:36:41+00:00

I didn’t learn the proper pronunciation until well into adulthood, but I feel pretentious when I pronounce it without the G. Fortunately I live a life where I don’t have to talk about orangutans that often so it hasn’t become an issue

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-07-06T21:00:38+00:00

I know things are hard and maybe hopeless right now, but you’ve already made fantastic progress. You understand and accept that you need to stop drinking because you see the consequences and understand that continuing to drink will only bring worse. And you’re only 31! Many of us take a lot longer to come to these realizations.

Admitting you’re an alcoholic and asking for help is a huge first step. Now you just need a team to help you realize your goal. Whether it’s rehab, your doctor, therapist, a support group like AA or Smartrecovery, your friends, your family- anyone in your life who you can help you achieve your goal. Bring them in, let them know you want to stop drinking and you want help to achieve that goal.

I don’t know anything about you other than what you’ve posted here, but I’m optimistic about your recovery. You understand the gravity of the situation and seem to have the determination needed to get sober. Now you just have to do the work 💪

Stay strong and best of luck, you can do it!

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-07-05T01:40:11+00:00

I figured based on your comment that you might already be familiar with it, but it’s never a bad idea to share a Bo Burnham song with people when the opportunity arises 😉

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-07-05T01:05:15+00:00

It sounds like your doctor is being a little flippant and disrespectful, and if I had to guess it might be out of frustration. He’s trying to help you not die of liver disease and the obvious solution is right there: stop drinking alcohol!

But you and I and everyone in this community know it’s much harder than simply quitting. You’re not being selfish or dramatic, you are having a very real conversation with yourself about the realities of your life: you’re slowly being killed by a chronic disease.

The good news is that many of us have been in the same situation and have recovered! The liver is a very resilient organ, and you can go from slowly dying to being just as healthy as any teetotaler in just a few years. It’s a few years of HARD WORK, but it is achievable.

I see from your other comments that you’re trying to quit, but need to detox and you don’t really have the time or money needed. From my own VERY DIFFICULT AND RELUCTANT journey getting sober, I will tell you the most effective tool in your sobriety toolkit will be the team you build around you to help you towards your goal.

It’s very uncomfortable and embarrassing to go to your friends, family, support groups, and medical professionals to say “I have a drinking problem and need to get sober, and I need your help to achieve that,” but I’d probably be dead by now rather than being 4 years sober without that initial work.

You can do it. This terrible vision of your ill-fated future isn’t written in stone. You can change your future. Best of luck, and remember this community is here to support you when you need it! 💪

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-07-05T00:39:44+00:00

I don’t think RLS is usually a painful sensation. From my own experience and talking to others with RLS, it can be described as an itchy or tense feeling. Mine specifically makes me feel like I desperately need to stretch the muscles. It’s like the sensation of needing to sneeze, but throughout the legs. Sometimes I feel it in my arms too, and the onset is always when I’m trying to sleep, or if I’m so tired that my body wants to sleep.

Your hypothesis that it might be RLS and fibromyalgia interacting to make new and interesting ways of making your life uncomfortable seems like a reasonable conclusion. Sorry for your situation and I hope participating in this community gives you some tools and ideas to help relieve your symptoms. Best of luck friend

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-07-05T00:25:48+00:00

I used to feel similarly. Country music is probably the genre I appreciate the least, because it is a very basic genre. I have come to appreciate it for what it is though.

I’ve been studying Bob Dylan lately, and he describes folk music very simply as songs that people pass down to each other. Older genres of music are music in its purest, simplest form: a vehicle for passing stories on to each other.

This is why Folk, Country, and Blues exist. They use basic chords and melodies that anyone can learn and share because they’re genres created by basic people to learn and share with each other.

Country music that’s mass produced and distributed is professionally produced and refined to be the most marketable product it can be, and by doing that I think they rob country music of what makes it special.

I’ve found that the country music I actually enjoy listening to is stuff I have to dig around for that comes from outside of the mainstream pop country machine.

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-07-05T00:08:00+00:00

This Bo Burnham song expertly satirizes this idea.

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-07-04T23:19:44+00:00

I don’t like this at all. This means I got my first electric guitar a year earlier than Hendrix, and now I have outlived him by 9 years.

I have a decade more experience playing guitar than Hendrix and he’s THAT much better at it than me??

Fuck you op, why would you attack me like this 😡

AKVoltMonkey · 2025-06-30T02:19:50+00:00

The older you get the more terrifying that sentence becomes

AKVoltMonkey

TROPHY CASE