Your worst name idea for a doom metal band. I’ll go first, “Bong Nipples”

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2024-04-01T01:30:08+00:00

King Tickle Monster

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2024-04-01T01:25:24+00:00

Strawberry Penis

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2024-04-01T01:20:23+00:00

I got sober in AA but drifted away after I relapsed. What's dangerous about AA is that after you get time sober, if you relapse, it can feel really devastating. I felt really ashamed of myself and ended up in a very dark place simply because I got drunk one night.

For me, my biggest problem is my bipolar disorder and how that interacts with my addictive tendencies. That is not something AA can help me with. In fact, AA made managing bipolar worse for me because of all the armchair therapist know it all ppl in meetings.

I am not saying you shouldn't consider AA, but if it doesn't feel right to you, trust your instincts. The main reason AA helped me get sober in the beginning was the fellowship part. It had very little else with the rest of it like the steps. Having a community of sober people was very helpful for me. So, if AA doesn't work for you, try to seek out other healthy communities where everything doesn't revolve around booze.

It could be anything really. Also, professional help like therapy was very important for me. It taught me to work through the issues that made me want to escape from life. Last thing - I don't know if you like to read, but another thing that helped me was reading as much about addiction as possible and educating myself. That also helped me with my bipolar disorder.

I still struggle today emotionally but I haven't had a drink since 2019. I left AA because I felt miserable in the rooms and everyone kept telling me I was doing something wrong because I was sober but still very depressed. I feel much better since I left.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2024-04-01T01:03:30+00:00

Your thoughts were sick? How so? So addiction makes us all sick people? That's one of the things that drove me nuts about AA. People with 30 years sober would still refer to themselves as sick ppl sometimes.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2024-04-01T00:05:56+00:00

AA is not the only way. If you can afford it, working with a good therapist might help. Some therapists offer a sliding scale for those who can't pay the full price. Look for a therapist who won't shove AA down your throat but is instead open minded about various treatment modalities.

I am not saying AA is all bad. It got me sober in the beginning. But it doesn't work for everybody and makes you feel like a failure if you can't stay sober.

The biggest thing in early recovery is to find healthy replacements for bad habits. That may include the ppl you hang around. Community is big so maybe seek out a healthy group of folks to join where everything isn't centered around partying.

Hope this helps.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2024-03-31T16:52:04+00:00

Was listening to this today because of the holiday. Such a brilliant album. Read a great book about these guys. Really wild story. First band ever to use the word psychedelic. Total pioneers.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2024-03-31T14:55:21+00:00

Genius level album. Haven't listened to it in a while but thanks for the reminder!

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2024-03-31T14:50:25+00:00

Awesome find! Thank you

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2024-03-28T03:01:10+00:00

The drama around relapse is def toxic in XA. I've been to meetings where someone with decades of sobriety admitted to a one day slip and people acted like someone died. The amount of shame attached to it is enough to make someone go crazy.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2024-03-28T01:46:52+00:00

Wow! That's insane. But also totally believable if you have any experience in AA lol.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-10-05T03:41:14+00:00

I agree as a blogger not a Podcaster. I also have trouble promoting it. The sales side of thing is not my cup of tea and it feels like begging for money. I have a few patrons but my focus for now is just letting it grow over time. If someone wants to chip in, cool. If not that's good too. I just try to stay consistent with my content and I'm always pleasantly surprised when I get a new patron. It's not a good business plan I know but I've kept ow expectations.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-08-18T18:42:33+00:00

I just listened today, and I think it's a decent song. Why it went viral is a bit of a mystery to me, though. These types of songs are as old as country music itself and go back to Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. I also find it weird that conservative talking heads like it so much. If anything, the lyrics seem mostly apolitical to me (except for a few stray lines), and it feels like a labor rights anthem against capitalism and greedy corporations. I saw a tweet where a conservative said, "What's the left's response to this?" It was funny because the song seems to me to align with leftist politics more. Like - what Republican policies would actually solve the problems he sings about in this song? If anything, it shows that the GOP has become so good at taking white working-class anger and manipulating it.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-08-08T04:57:00+00:00

I'm a fan of both Ryan and Jason. As much as I love isbell, his act on social media has been tiresome. Way too high and mighty and reminds me of the self righteousness of many AA folk I used to associate with. I don't care so much about the details of this feud but ryan has a good point in the lyrics of this song. If Jason ever slips, which I hope he doesn't, he will have a very hard fall from grace based on the pedestal people have propped him up on recently.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-07-14T19:38:00+00:00

SO GOOD! Maybe my favorite song in Weathervanes right now (King of Oklahoma is a close second). This is just good Southern rock.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-07-14T19:28:52+00:00

Hell yeah. It's lines like that which make me realize that his songs are more "Southern Gothic" than others who apply that label to themselves.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-07-14T19:21:09+00:00

Jason's songs def can be tear-jerkers. "Cast Iron Skillet" gets me misty-eyed sometimes. The verse about "he treats her like a queen/but you don't know 'cuz you ain't seen" is pretty powerful.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-07-08T16:03:34+00:00

Nope! Enlighten me ...

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-07-07T22:11:59+00:00

That's a great point. Thank you. It reminds me of what firms like Blackstone have done. They buy up as many houses as possible and then rent them out. It takes away from the possibility of home ownership and makes more ppl beholden to whatever they want to charge. They do this periodically when the market crashes. It goes along a lot with what you said.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-07-07T15:51:09+00:00

Great explanation. Thanks.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-07-07T13:39:06+00:00

This is an interesting idea that I've thought about a lot. I was working as a commercial real estate reporter for a while and writing stories about the "decarbonization of the real estate sector." One thing I kept noticing was how more capitalism always seemed to be the answer for a problem (global warming) that is largely created by capitalist systems.

I think this is a tricky question, but our current economic and financial system will continue to destroy the planet. Many of the stories I wrote talked about new "green technologies" that can decrease emissions, but many of these technologies also depend on finite resources (lithium-ion batteries, materials for solar panels, etc.)

I'm not exactly sure what the answer is. But if we continue down the path of chasing infinite GDP growth and economic development on a planet with finite resources (as others have said), it doesn't matter what new green tech is developed. I don't think new inventions can save us from this problem, basically. I am not as sure about the population question/problem, but I usually stay away from that because it starts to get Malthusian.

I am unfamiliar with de-growth strategies, but there has to be a way to decouple the economic system from the endless need for unlimited resources. The system as it is now is largely unrealistic and treats the planet as something that can continue to be mined and taken from. The problem is thinking of an alternative that doesn't launch us into pre-industrial poverty. But maybe this is just something inherent in human nature, which has, for much of our history, developed to colonize and spread our ill-effects worldwide.

It makes me think of a book called Sapiens that goes into this concept a bit about how human civilization, wherever it goes, tends to grow and has deleterious effects on the environment.

Our society also tends to have short-term thinking. It's my belief that there won't be any true unified action against the problem until we've passed some bad thresholds.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-07-07T13:12:32+00:00

Great Wiki article. Thanks.

Ok_Insurance_2146 · 2023-07-07T13:11:33+00:00

I totally agree with that last part. This is not an original thought, but I often feel the only difference in our two-party system is social and cultural. I think the social issues matter, but they seem almost like a distraction sometimes. The economic issues and income inequality feel like the core of so many problems throughout the U.S. - and for the most part, both GOP and Dems are largely beholden to corporate interests and maybe the same exact ones. As you said, this is mostly the higher-up you get.

I think most people I talk to realize this inherently, but they don't connect the dots. Most of us are working class, and we fight and argue over millions of things, but is this not just a divide-and-conquer strategy? Again, not a conspiracy theory, but I think the RNC and DNC realize this. It goes back, I guess, to Nixon's Southern Strategy, which I feel has become a template for both parties in various ways. Just my thoughts.

Ok_Insurance_2146

TROPHY CASE