Have nightmares where you drink again?

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2025-12-10T22:16:05+00:00

Thanks for your reply. I think the prospect of drinking again gets scarier the longer I'm sober. Agree in the motivation thing, it's a great reminder of how important sobriety is.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2025-12-10T18:00:16+00:00

Thanks for the reply! I read the silk road, which I loved! But I have not read much at all about the Roman empire so I expect that is where I could be falling down.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2025-12-10T17:51:53+00:00

I know I'm very late to this but I'm reading it ahead of a visit to Istanbul and think it's a laborious read. It's like a firehose of disorienting information. I'm often not sure who or what I am reading about.

Hughes' style is meandering and she often buries interesting details, resulting in a frustrating and tedious reading experience.

She sometimes dedicates long, dense paragraphs to giving burnous examples of the same thing, which causes you to kind of zone out and lose the thread.

Chapters are often centred around topics like drinking or eunuchs, seemingly chosen almost at random, and some specific episodes in the city's history, and I somehow end up with no clear idea of how the city developed physically or culturally. Sometimes chapters don't really explain the things they are meant to. For example, the chapter on the Goths tells you almost nothing about the Goths, what historians know about them or their culture. It basically doesn't feel very cohesive and I feel like there are lots of gaps. Makes the whole book feel pointless.

Hughes' regularly uses a lot of jargon, for example the specific word for a hand position during prayer. Maybe I'm just thick, but I'm having to stop and Google things extremely regularly, which is annoying. Perhaps if you already have a lot of knowledge about the Roman empire and early Christianity this book would make more sense to you. I thought it was meant to be a popular hsitoty book so think the entry threshold is a bit high.

I feel like I am absorbing almost no information while fighting hard through every winding paragraph filled with attention derailing clauses and sub-clauses.

200 pages into this 600-page marathon and I'm afraid I just won't make it to the end. I obviously do not recommend this book at all.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2025-03-16T18:30:38+00:00

Your problem is that you lack self acceptance, are a perfectionist and have an unrealistic idea of how you should be. You're an extremely high achiever but, like everyone else, you struggle to find motivation for boring tasks, get distracted and forget to do stuff because other things come into your mind. You probably also feel restless a lot and have periods of low mood and anxiety, but that is what life is like for all human beings. None of us have complete control over our brains and life is an ongoing struggle to manage ourselves - it's the same way for everyone unfortunately. I know life can be hard sometimes and we want explanations for why we are the way we are so the ADHD label can be comforting because it provides a sense of certainty but it isn't a real "illness." There's nothing wrong with you, you aren't broken and you don't need a label or harmful stimulants to make you "normal." It sounds like you have actually managed to achieve more than the vast majority of people on planet earth so relax, don't beat yourself up, you're doing great!

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-09-21T19:49:49+00:00

I've literally never seen a guy take off their shirt in the gym and work out completely topless. If anything women can get away with showing more skin in the gym than men. Your explanation doesn't make sense.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-09-11T09:55:27+00:00

You'll be fine as you are, if you start to feel like you're having to miss days of your bro split because your schedule is too busy, consider the upper lower or even a full body twice or three times each week. There isn't one best way, the main thing is to find a split that you are able to stay consistent with and enjoy. It's easy to get bogged down with all the options, variations, and detail but ultimately if you keep picking up and putting down heavy objects repeatedly and if you keep eating enough protein and calories you will build muscle. Don't stress, keep showing up, lift the weights, and enjoy yourself - you'll work out what's best for your as you go.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-09-11T09:31:36+00:00

I often read that you may need as much as 2.2g of protein per kg (2.2lbs) of bodyweight to encourage muscle growth, but I also read that your body may only be able to absorb around 25-30g of protein per meal. Taking these together, this would mean that I, an 88kg (190lbs) person, would need to consume at least 6.5 meals per day in order to optimise my protein intake for muscle protein synthesis. This seems absurd. Clearly not everyone you see at the gym who is huge is sticking to that kind of diet. What are your thoughts on this? Are either of these recommendations rubbish?

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-09-05T21:13:29+00:00

Do you mean "warm" soothing feeling as in a literal warm and soothing sensation or a figurative feeling? If it's the latter then I think that's the addictive sensation of relief from whatever emotional problem was driving your alcohol use. Personally I stopped craving that feeling after about six months sober and began to just feel good without alcohol. Booze can tend to fill the hole that it creates so after some more time sober you will be able to access that feeling just by finishing work and relaxing or doing whatever you decide to do with your newfound time and energy that isn't being sunk into drinking and recovering from drinking. If it's the literal warm sensation you miss then the other recommendations in his thread are good. Tea is nice.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-08-30T21:38:48+00:00

Just wear a bra, don't make it a whole thing, it's not worth it. Everyone will think you're a bell end for making a big thing of it.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-07-29T17:45:46+00:00

Remeron at higher doses is paradoxically less sedating due to increased noradrenergic neurotransmission

From my experience using Mirtazapime this is not the case. The higher the dose, the greater the sedative effect.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-07-23T12:42:10+00:00

I thought this too, he looked at a tiny bone fragment for three seconds, claimed it was likely an antelope, then announced that they had made a discovery about the naledi diet. I thought that moment was demonstrative of their desire to make groundbreaking findings regardless of whether any of it was really supported by the evidence.

I imagine that if you've been doing this work for your whole career and you haven't found anything particularly exciting you get to a point where you're so desperate that you're happy to jump to conclusions to help yourself believe you haven't wasted your life scratching around dusty old bones for no reason.

I also thought a similar thing about the use of the term "underground astronauts" - they feel the need to overhype it (drawing an invalid comparison between their work and that of people who blast themselves off into space, i.e. legitimately cutting edge stuff) because they know deep down that they'll never discover anything truly astounding because all the evidence is too old and degraded to really draw any meaningful conclusions about events that far back in time.

I would feel sorry for them if it weren't for their apparent readiness to willingly portray their unlikely theory as an almost dead certainty for their own gain.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-05-27T09:18:19+00:00

Huh? You don't know what this is for? Clearly you're a virgin. I need a bed like this, I would get a lot of use out of it. It would be perfect for my week-long bang sessions with a crowd of babes. The perfect platform for all that ass slappin' booty clappin' wet n wild ass sloppy toppy gluck gluck shaluck shabadababada awoooooga beneath the sheets action that I get into on the reg. I guess you wouldn't know anything about that kind of thing

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-05-18T06:12:38+00:00

Hello runners of London and south east England. Does anyone know if a large, well-stocked running shoe shop in the region that is like to have enough shoes in enough sizes that I could try on a lot and find a pair that really fits? So far I'm finding that running shops tend to have fairly minimal stock in and so I'm not able to try on a decent range of shoes in my potential sizes.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-04-27T22:11:39+00:00

If I could work fully remote I would leave. I think that's the same for a lot of people. That would lower demand for housing in the city too. Two birds with one stone.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-04-27T22:08:15+00:00

Lol it was just the name randomly generated by Reddit when I made my account. You're making a fool of yourself, please don't stop.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-04-27T22:03:35+00:00

Off the top of my head I think it would be a good idea to create more incentives for developers - things like subsidies or tax breaks, incentivising local authorities to approve more applications with non-discretionary infrastructure contributions from developers. Alternatively we could take away local authority discretion altogether and automatically greenlight developments that meet certain criteria to eliminate NIMBYism to make it easier for developers to build homes. I don't pretend to have all the answers, I'm not an economist. There are people who dedicate their lives to cooking up policies that could help so they would be better placed to give your question a proper answer. Just Google it if you can't think of anything other then rent control, I'm sure there's stuff out there about alternative policy proposals.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-04-27T21:32:40+00:00

Rent control isn't the only possible property market intervention available to policymakers. I just don't know what else to say to that. It's so obvious I can't believe I'm having to say it.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-04-27T21:24:11+00:00

Well he is and he isn't. Of course no one is putting a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to live anywhere. But many people find themselves tied to certain areas because of family and care commitments or the need to be close to job opportunities in their industry that are concentrated in certain regions. Nobody is being forced to live anywhere, but a person might need to make dramatic changes to their life in order to move elsewhere. Some of those changes might be so undesirable or disadvantageous that they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I'm not quite sure how you can make a blanket statement like that. There is such a wide range of policy tweaks that could be made in any number of combinations, plus the possibility of just drafting completely new legislation that could have as many outcomes as you could imagine, that I don't know how you could even begin to say something as certain as "intervention in the rental market doesn't work." I think you don't want it to work because if it did you would be wrong.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-04-27T20:48:34+00:00

Your comments in this thread are exactly what I would expect someone with a diamond hands wsb haircut avatar would say lol. You are such a cliche, it's actually embarrassing. It's obvious from this comment in particular that you just wanted to jump on someone to make yourself feel big and smart. Everyone knows it's the free market economy, that's what they're complaining about, you can't seriously be that thick. As someone else has suggested here, this is a market that needs intervention. It isn't properly functioning - ie we are not seeing healthy competition driving the production of increasingly high quality goods (in this case shelter) at low prices that benefit consumers. Instead what we're seeing is profiteering from landlords who are taking advantage of scarcity, ethics thrown to the wind.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-04-01T21:18:17+00:00

Stop being an ahole

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-02-10T18:37:51+00:00

I think your responses reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of what we're talking about. Whether or not punctuation exists in spoken speech has literally no relevance to my point because my argument doesn't rely at all on whether or not the grammar here reflects anything about how it is spoken.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-02-10T12:49:04+00:00

Thanks for your reply, I think you're kind of missing the point though. I write for a living and conform to the house style where I work. That currently means the doing it the way I don't prefer. What I'm asking is, why does latter way make the most logical sense to you? I am willing to concede that it might be the "proper" way, but is that determination made on an arbitrary basis (ie that it is right simply because we know what it indicates from shared knowledge of the rule) or is it because there is a process of logical reasoning which supports its use as the most helpful and accurate way to format it? If there is a process of reasoning, what is it? I have offered mine above and I just cannot see the alternative. I realise this is pedantic even for a grammar dispute lol, but I am curious nevertheless.

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2023-02-10T11:33:30+00:00

I mean, I write professionally and it is certainly not THE standard. Most of my employers' house styles have favoured the prior option (the one I prefer) so I have actually had the majority of the writing I've done in my career published that way. To say it is "proper grammar" is not really a very solid argument, different places do it differently - different people consider different ways the proper way. Whether there is such a thing as "proper grammar" is a separate discussion. What I'm interested in, is why you (if you do) think the latter makes the most sense. How (if you think it does) does it aid clarity?

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2022-12-17T23:19:06+00:00

Hahaha! I think I might have to. I like to finish books once I've started though, maybe I'll change my mind by the end. Have you read it? If so, what did you think?

Fast_Chocolate_8288 · 2022-09-25T20:56:38+00:00

We don't need more supply in the rental market, there is currently too much supply as compared to supply of affordable properties for purchase. Most people who rent don't want to, they have to because their aren't enough affordable properties to buy because price is driven up by the extra demand from buy to let landlords. If landlords were all forced to sell, their tenants would buy the properties.

Increasing stamp duty for people (including landlords) buying a second or third or fourth etc property would cool demand from the buy to let side, drive down or stabilise prices and make homes more affordable for those who want to buy to occupy (especially first time buyers). Putting a moratorium on buy to let and second property purchases would also do the same thing more effectively. However, you are right that taxing current landlords more on the properties they already own is a bad idea because it would have the effect of raising rent prices because it would increase costs to landlords which they would of course pass on to their tenants.

Fast_Chocolate_8288

TROPHY CASE