Natasha Lyonne Seen at NYC Bar Days After Airline Incident

Hey, congratulations. I’m on month 8, not my first time but feels solid. Been dealing with bad depression and a less than ideal work situation lately, and it still hasn’t occurred to me to drink. That could change two minutes from now but I’m thankful for where I am. Hope you’re well.

Congrats. I’m 335 myself. I agree I don’t think about it often but it can take something as simple as the sunshine to make me think about a patio to make me think about a beer to make me think about a … yeah. Anyways not trying to be negative just feels like people underestimate it sometimes. Even those trying to be sympathetic.

I can relate to these comments so much. Some days when it even does occur to me it’s a complete non issue, other days every second is a white knuckle struggle. Proud of you fam, keep at it.

Nice to hear. I guess I was being a little hyperbolic.

People don’t like AA because it’s religion based and kinda culty. Not sure what you mean though.

What didn’t resonate?

I didn’t read that book myself but did watch a lot of videos on YouTube in the same vein, about reframing the way that you view alcohol. I watched a lot of videos about the health costs of alcohol, that it is essentially a poison, ultimately harmful, with zero upsides. What we think of as positives are really negatives in disguise. It doesn’t make you more enlightened, happy, funny, or social, it makes you dumber, louder, and oftentimes sadder. It causes most of the cancers, kills your liver… there’s no such thing as a safe or “healthy” dose of alcohol, despite the glass of wine a day propaganda alcohol companies like to sell as being good for you. What can’t be taught is the internalizing of this information so you don’t just know it as an abstract idea, but you understand it, so that in practice you no longer desire alcohol, you can see all the reasons for wanting alcohol in the moment for what they are: lies and propaganda… so they enter and exit your mind quickly, you don’t dwell in them anymore. These thoughts become less and less frequent, and over time you sort of just forget alcohol exists until you see it being consumed by others, or in ads. Then you just start to notice how it’s sorta everywhere to a disturbing degree… and that seemingly every celebrity has their own brand, and you maybe think that’s kinda messed up. The ads don’t work on you anymore though, you’ve taken off the booze-goggles, and see the ads for what they are. It needs to *click* for you, and unfortunately that’s not something that can be read/learned, it’s just something that happens, eventually. I do still have the “I Am Sober” app from when I really cared about tracking my progress, and it’s been 4 years, 3 months, and 23 days that I’ve been sober from alcohol. Importantly, I was 33, and had gotten my second DUI, so it’s not like all it took for me were a few YouTube videos. It took me making mistakes, and fortunately being the only one that had to pay for them. Not everyone gets out as unscathed, whether it be themselves or others. Nobody plans on it being them, but you’re not yourself on alcohol, you’re a very dumb version of yourself, prone to making dumb mistakes. It’s chemistry/biology, why put yourself (and potentially others) at such risk? What are the upsides, really?

Life is for living and spending time with friends

I don’t drink because of meds I’m on. Does that mean I should just stay at home and not have a social life?

Oh ok my bad. I think it’s mostly due to a couple recent incidents but I hear where you’re coming from.