"How were you conceived, Annally?"

"No, I didn't think that was possible."

Hiding drinks. My wife is a drinker and we always drank together plenty. 3-4 nights a week on average. A couple mixed drinks with dinner out and then a bottle of wine or a six pack when we got home was pretty standard, and on weekends we'd go brewery hopping or day drink with friends. I knew I was a heavy drinker then but it felt normalish, since the people around me were doing the same thing.

That wasn't enough, for me. I had to drink every day, starting from lunch while I was working. I was embarrassed for my wife to know about this so I hid it. When she caught me, she said the lying was the worst part and just to be honest with her. But I couldn't - how do you admit you are drinking 15+ drinks a day, everyday? You trickle truth it. You develop all these strategies to get rid of empties and hide your stash. It becomes a full time job just keeping up with your lies and the finances and the trash and the beer runs. What's the best way to hide the alcohol breath? When is she going out to smoke so I can spike my coffee? Etc. etc.

I got busted three times over about a year, the first two she was mad and we had long conversations about it. The third time she was just dejected, realizing that this was her life now and its just who I was always going to be. That was worse than her being mad.

Cobb salad for lunch (lettuce, egg, chicken, cucumbers, avocado, ranch), bacon burger and coleslaw for dinner. No snacks except 2 creamers in my coffee throughout the day. I don't find myself snacking much anymore, a month in.

For me it was carbs - had to stay under 20 carbs a day, luckily liquor is 0 carbs.

Others have suggested sneaking drinks or liver issues, both possible. Another one is other drugs you aren't aware of. My dad developed an addiction to pills, so he'd be on his first beer but already messed up from those.

I've tried a couple therapists to help with drinking. Everything they said just seemed trite and obvious to me, things I've worked out on my own. I also found myself being performative, saying what I think a therapy patient should say, editing myself. Ultimately it felt like a waste of time and money, but I acknowledge I could still find the right person with the right approach. I very much respect people that go to therapy and think it helps a lot of people. I don't see the stigma at all.

If it was supposed to be fun it wouldn't be called work.

Girlfriend in a Coma by The Smiths

I am entering the screenplay contest.

Drinking always made weekends occur in fast-forward. Going to enjoy each moment of this weekend sober. IWNDWYT!

For my family of 3, with tickets, popcorn, candy, soda, I'm looking at $70-80 USD. Whether that's a lot or not depends on your income I guess, it's way cheaper than a theme park and about equivalent to an arcade for a couple hours or a midrange sit-down meal (without booze).

Now, when we go to the theater that also serves real food and booze, we can easily spend $150+. One more reason I'm glad I quit drinking.

My read is he leaves this woman behind that taught him so much because he has this endless need for something new - to renovate the room, to change his identity. It seems to me that he's contradicting himself, at some points alluding that she was very important to his life, and others calling them "ships in the night", and thinking of her "not that often". He doth protest too much. I think he feels guilt about ruining something good that he had, and he's diminishing it in his memory to feel better. We end here:

I made a new cast of the death mask that's gonna cover my face
I had to change the combination to the safe
Hide it all behind a wall, let people wait
And never trust a heart that's so bent, it can't break

He acknowledges that he's changed his identity so he can continue hiding his true self from others, like this woman that got too close. He's too messed up to accept real love.

Great work friend. I'm on day 26, sleeping well and waking up rested is the biggest change so far. I hit my snooze just as a habit, then I sit there for 10 seconds and think "You know, what, I'm awake. Let's make coffee," and get out of bed.

"Oh my god! I grabbed the wrong one!" then run away

...14 inches

Last week my side yard was a dump of weeds, vines, dirt, and trash. One sober weekend later and it's all cleaned up with a stone path and mulch, ready for some nice plants. So satisfying to make that happen with your own hands.

I had a crush on a girl when I was in high school. I was dating a different girl but things weren't going great. I wanted to ask out my crush but didn't want to cheat on the other girl, so I dumped her (it was a long time coming, she had dumped me previously, it's a whole thing). Then, I asked crush if she wanted to go to a concert with me. She said "OMG I love them, thanks for letting me know, I'm going to go with my brother but we'll see you there I'm sure!"

Okay so not a hard no, I thought, we can still hang out there and maybe hit it off. Maybe I wasn't clear enough that it would be a date. I went with some friends of mine, who were a couple years older - her brother's age. He came over when he spotted my friends (he didn't know who I was) and said, "Oh man some nerd dumped his girlfriend to ask my sister out, she was mortified haha."

That was 20 years ago and I think about it still all the time.

I feel happy to be almost a month sober but disappointed and overwhelmed that it didn't magically fix everything in my life. Now I just have to deal with all the same shit without the crutch, and that's hard.

Who did James bleed on?

I'd spend a couple hundred more for the i9, the 4080, and a 1 TB SSD. I just bought this guy (they had an open box for $1800):

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1745683-REG/lenovo_82wq002rus_16_legion_pro_7.html

I was at 15ish a day and I quit a month ago. No withdrawal really other than a bit of irritability the first week. The biggest change is my sleep. I think drinking was giving me sleep apnea (my wife says my snoring was hellacious) and my Google watch says I was only getting 20 minutes of deep sleep. Now, no more snoring, and I get about an hour and a half of deep sleep. I feel way better in the mornings.

25 days sober today, but I was up to 12-18 a day. Start at lunch and pick up a case to drink through the afternoon/night. Lots of hiding drinks. I don't miss it, it was the only thing I could think about, and my sleep was shit.

I should note that I was "functioning" at this level, I was never sloppy drunk, could do my work, even could hide that I had been drinking. My tolerance grew a lot over the years and I was drinking light beers and seltzers over 12+ hours. But I was at the 5-6 a day mark like you for a while. The number just keeps going up.

WAAF 107.3 or FNX 92.1

Always hated steak because my mom only cooked it well done. First time I had prime rib at a restaurant I couldn't believe it was the same food.

I started as a junior programmer and now I'm in senior management. From when I started, I had a reputation as the guy that got stuff done. I worked on my own time on problems the company was facing, I offered to step in when others didn't want to, I took the lead on projects I was assigned to. I didn't say no to anything asked of me and didn't complain. Now, I could easily have done all this and just been exploited and never rewarded, but I guess I got lucky with my company, because I kept getting promotions.

It helps that I'm very good at communication and the EQ part of the job, much more so than the technical part of the job (my undergrad was in English Lit, I only got certificates in programming later). A lot of engineers are great at their tasks but not great at dealing with other people, and you really can't put them in a leadership position no matter how hard they work or how long they are with the company.