{"id":130,"date":"2020-10-11T20:27:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-11T20:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/?p=130"},"modified":"2020-10-11T20:27:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-11T20:27:52","slug":"is-the-universe-sending-you-signs-to-stop-drinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/index.php\/2020\/10\/11\/is-the-universe-sending-you-signs-to-stop-drinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the universe sending you signs to stop drinking?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you ever feel like you are are the set of the Truman Show? When I was a kid, before the movie even came out, I felt like I was on a show of my life. I am sure this a psychological milestone that all kids reach and that I was not unique, bu it certainly wasn’t something I ever told other people. I wonder if my anxiety was a cause or an effect of this feeling of being watched\/judged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between work, virtual school, cooking and cleaning and general living, I don’t watch much television. I am a child of the 80’s and I love me some trashy television, but during the week we don’t watch tv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday was a rainy Saturday and we were lounging around, watching tv. Hotel Impossible<\/em> is a family favorite, I like rooting for the underdog. It’s like watching Kitchen Nightmares without the constant bleeping of F-bombs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The particular episode we watched on this lazy, rainy Saturday was about a hotel in Hershey, PA where the manager was an alcoholic<\/a>. He had been through treatment and had decided that he was no longer a problem drinker. Obviously, this was not the case. It was sad to see the level of denial people who continue to drink live in. I remember justifying my drinking many times by saying “it’s not hurting anyone.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recognize that even with those around me being unaware of my drinking problem, it was hurting everyone around me. From erratic moods and unrealistic expectations to a lack of truly being present, my drinking seeped into all aspects of my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later in the day, we watched an episode of Seinfeld, in which James Spader is an alcoholic in recovery<\/a> making amends to everyone but George Costanza. I have watched all of the episodes of Seinfeld several times over and I don’t remember watching this episode before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later (this is a rainy Saturday lazy day- don’t judge me) we watched a 30 Rock Episode in which Liz follows a guy she is interested in during his lunch hour. He is going to an AA meeting and Liz pretends to be in AA <\/a>in order to get to know him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was an eerie feeling to watch 3 shows out of 6 dealing with alcohol abuse. Perhaps the universe is trying to tell me something. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s been 31 days since I last numbed ny feelings with alcohol. In this time I have not had any life altering experiences. What I have experienced is awareness. Maybe we aren’t always ready to deal with awareness, the 60 year old man on Hotel Impossible was not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many things I did in my 20’s that I no longer do in my 40’s. Eating at Buffalo Wild Wings, watching Survivor and going to “Ladies Night” at the club are just a few. Drinking alcohol falls into this category for me now, it is one of those things that I no longer do, it’s just not part of my day. Instead of feeling guilty about the past, I am focusing in the positive steps I am taking for a better today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you seem to focus on the drinking behavior people in movies and tv shows, maybe the universe is telling you it’s time to find a new hobby. Give in to reverse peer-pressure, you don’t have to drink!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you ever feel like you are are the set of the Truman Show? When I was a kid, before the movie even came out, I felt like I was on a show of my life. I am sure this a psychological milestone that all kids reach and that I was not unique, bu it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,48,13,26],"tags":[47,43,44,45,46],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alcohol","category-month-2","category-quotivation","category-signs-of-a-drinking-problem","tag-30-days","tag-30-rock","tag-floyd-debarber","tag-hotel-impossible-hershey-addiction","tag-james-spader-seinfeld"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcor7Q-26","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sobernotsomber.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}