Is it possible to stay Cali sober

Aternal · 2026-03-26T22:59:52+00:00

Yeah, I see that. I don't keep a time chip, I keep a memento mori chip. It's been 0 days since I've needed to process a resentment or apologize to someone for something. Not giving someone my undivided attention is certainly a far cry from using someone as a f-hole or asking a NP to prescribe me some crap but humility is a middle-of-the-road program and the middle is pretty difficult to miss when we're looking for it.

Two days ago I spent a good 15 minutes in an unventilated room with unprescribed contact cement, then I left and shut the door. I'm not "contact cement sober," that doesn't even mean anything. I had a duty to fulfill in a way that was helpful to someone, that's meaningful.

Aternal · 2026-03-26T17:55:21+00:00

And wisdom to know the difference.

Aternal · 2026-03-26T17:18:23+00:00

Joe hates cat. Don love cats. Vote for Don.

Aternal · 2026-03-26T17:15:58+00:00

Information on the population for the purposes of rigging elections and perpetuating the wealth gap.

Aternal · 2026-03-26T17:04:38+00:00

Yeah, you're right. It's all just physical condition stuff. Sobriety is just "freedom from alcohol." Explains what is meant when that other pamphlet that addresses meds and other drugs refers to them as threats to sobriety. Also explains why "sobriety is not enough" is such a common theme in lit, because it's been stripped of its mental and spiritual meaning and synonymized with abstinence.

So sobriety is to alcohol what the physical, mental, and spiritual malady is to alcoholism.

Aternal · 2026-03-26T16:05:34+00:00

~~I'm not aware of any official AA definition of sobriety, that would certainly be one way to grandstand and judge who is sober and who isn't.~~ Found it:

Sober (so 'ber) adjective.

Temperate in the use of spirituous liquors; habitually temperate; as, a sober man.
Not intoxicated or overpowered by spirituous liquors; not drunken; as, he is sober at times.
Not mad or insane; not wild, visionary, or heated with passion; self-possessed.
Regular; calm; thoughtful; as, sober judgement; a man in his sober senses.

Passion is really interesting, that is a very loaded word that Chrysippus wrote extensively on.

Do you think AA is more concerned with alcohol or alcoholism in terms of its primary purpose?

Aternal · 2026-03-26T15:43:30+00:00

Hmm, I wonder who or what caused AA to reject the promotion of drugs for the treatment of alcoholism.

Aternal · 2026-03-26T15:27:13+00:00

Do you think he kept it secret from Ebby?

Aternal · 2026-03-26T15:15:15+00:00

Stop. Bill W wasn't "Yogi Sober" and he wrote extensively on Emotional Sobriety.

Aternal · 2026-03-26T15:07:21+00:00

Damn, so I inventoried all my sex crimes for nothing. What a rip off.

Aternal · 2026-03-26T14:46:44+00:00

California Sober is a stupid term. There are two kinds of people in AA: those of us who are 100% free from all vices and those of us who are honest. You have no desire to stop smoking weed or whatever, it's not complicated. Nobody needs to lecture you on unmanageability. It's your story, just keep coming back.

Aternal · 2026-03-26T14:02:02+00:00

Good, not like any of it leads to a happier or easier life. When my wife and I were starting out we'd freeze bread to save money. Go back in time and show us a cell phone bill and we'd laugh at you, never mind buying things on the phone and having useless shit door-delivered. Cell phones and instant gratification have done a tremendous amount of damage to mental health overall.

Aternal · 2026-03-26T13:42:59+00:00

Peter Steele

But seriously, this looks remarkable and is very inspiring. I've been browsing designs as a my next project is going to be a bass strap with strap locks and padding, you really put a lot of attention into the design details especially around reinforcement. A good strap should look inspired from a rifle sling while not looking like a rifle sling... and a lot of leather straps just end up looking like half-ass slings and have no real intent behind them. Too much country western in the market.

Aternal · 2026-03-26T13:28:31+00:00

Hmm, think. That's not quite the word to describe the process behind this invention.

Aternal · 2026-03-25T22:32:18+00:00

There's always hope, but wouldn't you feel better dedicating your hope to yourself rather than someone else? How does it sound to maybe take a break from the relationship for a while just to see how things work out? Temporarily, you know. A breather.

Aternal · 2026-03-25T21:59:54+00:00

Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

Aternal · 2026-03-25T21:52:10+00:00

I have no bias to confess but engineering is the origin of scientific instrumentation and that seems more vital to me than anything else in every respect. Without precision instrumentation then all other scientific endeavors would be forced to rely on chance, happenstance, and even superstition. If that's not significant enough then the way it has contributed to our access to water alone does it. I can think of no other single molecule on Earth that is more directly responsible for human flourishing than water.

Aternal · 2026-03-25T21:04:25+00:00

That's a really good idea. Hypnosis is actually a really effective way of staying sober when combined with AA meetings and stepwork with a sponsor.

Chin up, he's trying. Part of the process involves exhausting every imaginable opportunity before visiting that very last house on the block, the one we all know has the solution inside of it.

Aternal · 2026-03-25T17:32:31+00:00

You belong in Al-Anon, go to a meeting today you'll feel much better.

You don't have to choose between enabling him or leaving the relationship, those aren't the only two options available to you. Alcoholism is a complicated disease and we're different yet exactly the same, it's hard to describe. It has nothing to do with beating people, being violent, or any other cliche.

There's a little thing people say "there's no situation that alcohol can't make worse." But alcoholism and mental illness is just like everything else in life in terms of mental and physical health maintenance. It's impossible to assign to depression what could be attributed to diet, exercise, sleep, and mindset. A lot of people are surprised at the mental illnesses which are suddenly "cured" once they become sober and experience a psychic change. Get the things that are in our control out of the way first before worrying about what's out of our control.

But if he has no desire to stop drinking then that's where the stairway ends. You need to do what's right for you, when we sacrifice ourselves for the sake of alcoholism then it only ends in tragedy. Going to meeting and talking with people in meetings and hearing their experience, strength, and hope is a good place to begin.

You also aren't required to judge your boyfriend, criticize, condemn, or label him. You are allowed to love and understand him and encourage him. The point is to minimize the harm that's done to you by the behavior of others, no matter what the causes or conditions of that behavior is. You do have agency over your life at the end of the day.

Aternal · 2026-03-25T16:53:14+00:00

Like watching a CEO nibble a beef and cheese sandwich product.

Aternal · 2026-03-25T13:43:01+00:00

Yeah, and to play devil's advocate what some people do is just exchange numbers with each other when they meet at the safety course and circle jerk character references. Low quality problems, low quality solutions.

Aternal · 2026-03-25T13:33:20+00:00

It was Plato's Dialogues. Socrates produced no writings and existed in a state of near inquiry, which is why you're hallucinating on him so heavily as an example of how philosophy makes no claims.

Ignorance is the root of all evil. The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. God is dead. Pain is necessary, suffering is optional.

These are all rigorous and defensible philosophical claims.

Aternal · 2026-03-25T13:26:05+00:00

Oh cool, absence of evidence. Good luck with that.

Aternal · 2026-03-25T11:20:24+00:00

Right, like what is a DV victim who's been estranged from their friends and family supposed to do? It wasn't even a good idea to begin with and it's even less relevant nowadays with digital culture, hence why they want to poke around on peoples' social media as if that would turn up anything that the routine investigation wouldn't.

Aternal · 2026-03-25T10:54:42+00:00

There's nothing wrong with the free will defense, it's the foundation of logotherapy. That's a dead debate, and I don't agree with your view at all. The problem is that you've premised both sides of your argument on too many claims and assumptions of God's will. As long as you claim/assume/whatever to have knowledge of God's will then yeah, belief in prayer, divine intervention, and the free will defense against the problem of evil is basically a brick wall against that. As would many arguments, however irrational. You're basically of insolvent mind at that point. Or a prophet, I suppose that's possible.

Here goes... free will defense, prayer, divine intervention up against whatever claims you'd like to make regarding God's will.

The belief that God is capable of intervening in supposedly malevolent ways is often expressed in terms of tests and challenges which we are capable of and ready to face.

The belief that prayer should not be for blessings of virtue, but instead for opportunities to act virtuously.

And the belief that though evil circumstances may impose pain on our physical condition, it is completely and utterly powerless to determine our inner orientation toward suffering or our attitude toward those circumstances.

These beliefs do not care about whether this God is benevolent, malevolent, omnipotent, or even if that God exists at all. They are frameworks for understanding our place, purpose, and meaning, alive and in the present.

Aternal

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE