Notices by Nick Selby :donor: (fuzztech@infosec.exchange)

I last drank alcohol 8768 days days ago, on Dec 26, 2001. Many things conspired to push me from "Guy who likes drinking" to "Guy who probably shouldn't drink". So 24 years ago, I quit. This post will include some AA stuff, but I'm not in AA - not really. I believe people need to find their own path if that's what works, as it did for me.

I posted this as a thread on Twitter my 20th sobriety anniversary, and to Mastodon in 2023 and 2024, and I post it again today because I see many people saying here that they have stopped or want to stop drinking. I want all of you to see that, even after 24 years, one manages not to drink one day at a time.

You can do it. Days become weeks, then months, then years, then decades. Not all your problems will be over - in fact the hardest part of being sober is not the not drinking, it's the living soberly - I've found that if I had personality issues as a drunk, I have them as a sober person too, so the work isn't over. Not being wasted makes it lots easier to do personal work.

At first, not drinking was hard. I never had anything *like DTs, but I was anxious and it was hard to sleep. For the first couple of years I went to AA meetings, to find like-minded people, then I stopped. I still have very dear friends from that AA group in Munich, Germany.

AA is a personal choice and it's by no means perfect or even great - it's OK if it helps you. It helped to believe that in tough times, I had a group of people to count on, which means a lot. I never believed the "Disease" concept (I think it's a cop-out), and fuck the Christian-centric "God saving me from blah blah." Also, fuck AA's obscenely moronic Christian approach to how agnostics should approach the program, which essentially says, "Get over it, get on your knees and pray," to which my reply is, "Yeah, go fuck yourself." If you like religion, if you like Christianity, that's awesome for you. For me, more religion and genuflection is not the answer to an operational problem.

Yet my attitude towards AA is sometimes contradictory: I feel I don't need the meetings but I've noticed that in times of extreme stress I do go back for a top-off. And today I am attending the same meeting I attended that miserably cold day in 2001. That seems selfish, but hell, there's no rule against it, and I try to give as much as I get, in my own way.

For me, the most important of the twelve steps they recommend are 9 and 10:

Step 9: "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others"

Step 10: "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it."

Wow, wouldn't it be nice if everyone engaged in those activities?

I am willing to do (and have done) quite a lot for anyone who wants to stop drinking or drugging, as it can be really hard.

Of the horrible, corny, hokey, AA slogans, my favorite:

"There's no problem that is so bad that drinking can't make it worse."

That's very wise. It is particularly worth repeating to the newly sober. As is (cringy as it is) One Day At A Time: it means you're not required to stop drinking/drugging/eating/sexing/what-have-you-ing forever. Just for today.

My three pieces of unsolicited advice for anyone who wants to stop drinking or drugging:

There is as much or as little support as you need, so take what you need. If AA is good for you, do AA; if it's not, don't. A network of like-minded people is great, but these days, with online video, it's easier. If it's not AA, seek something that works for you.

Second, I can't say enough that, "One day at a time" means that you only need to worry about not drinking/drugging/whatever-ing today. Yesterday is past, and tomorrow is in the future. On hard days, consider volunteer service or anything to keep you busy.

Third, help yourself by helping others. Be there for those in your network who need you. I have a standing rule for people I know which is, I sleep and rise very early, so piss off after 9pm unless you need me, in which case, call anytime at all.

A guy in Munich said every day he complained how miserable things were and each day his friend said, 'This too shall pass." One day, the guy noticed everything was great. He said, "Wow, you were right, everything is awesome" and his friend said, "This too shall pass."

I really cannot believe the MAGA stupid. https://flipboard.com/@lgbtqnation/lgbtq-nation-c65vn37sz/-/a-hGKWci3aTo2M-5KrJogJtQ%3Aa%3A3220327925-%2F0

@futurebird @notoriousiptg @mjr @MarkHoltom Having worked there I can say that often those stops come after cyclists are killed - let’s be real here: mashed into paste - by buses and trucks and cars. There have been many campaigns to save cyclists that start with enforcement. I can understand as a cyclist myself why we think other priorities (like for example making NYMTA bus drivers actually stop at lights) would seem higher but I never once heard the sentiment that NYPD doesn’t like cyclists. It’s not all a plot.

Golly https://bsky.app/profile/espiers.bsky.social/post/3lmz2bwrrjc2g

horrible news https://eu.jsonline.com/story/sports/mlb/brewers/2025/01/16/bob-uecker-milwaukee-brewers-radio-voice-and-mr-baseball-has-died-at-age-90/75592190007/

I suppose this isn't real, but I wish it were. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/linasbeliunas_this-is-brilliant-o2-has-introduced-daisy-ugcPost-7271828515421900801-Gcs9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Oldie but goodie.

@ryanc @thedarktangent This sounds like the worst of both worlds.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-09-14/arizonas-1864-abortion-ban-is-officially-off-the-books?utm_source=press.coop

@killyourfm this was one of the first things I noticed when I moved to Europe in my 20s: at social events and parties, “what do you do?l just isn’t a question that comes up. Or rather it will but much later in the conversation.

Wow this is fascinating and counterintuitive: people don't just prefer sloppily wrapped presents, but they prefer what's inside the package "significantly" more when it is sloppily wrapped. What a COOL experiment https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-gift-wrapping-explains-why-sloppy-is-better-128506

You hear that everyone? We're usin' code names.

From: @realhackhistory
https://chaos.social/@realhackhistory/111562481853572861

TL;DR: You might want to read that Niemöller poem again.

And then read this article in the WaPo ($) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/01/texas-abortion-highways/

I am among a small number of Americans who actually lived in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - I was there during the Yeltsin-on-a-tank coup in August, 1991, and I moved there to live in December, 1991 - I was there when they took down the Hammer and Sickle flag and raised the Russian Tri-color. I would drive in the USSR and then, later, in Russia. All over. As a foreigner I was somewhat exempt from the rules governing travel by Soviet citizens. The roads were horrific and the gas was 76 octane (but cheap!) but if one had the means and a running car, one could, say, drive from St Petersburg to Moscow or Tula, or Petrozavodsk or - and this is important - to Finland. Which I did a lot. Hell - if you drove far north enough, like to Murmansk, you could take a ferry to Kirkenes, Norway. Again, you'd need paperwork - much harder for Russians/Soviets than for me as a foreigner - but it could be done.

I raise this because the Great State of Texas seems to be looking at the USSR and saying, "Oh, yeah? Hol' my beer an' check this out," by moving to pass (in some cases, already PASSED) laws restricting on American roads freedom of movement and association.

You know that viral toot in which people say, "...And I took action right away because I know the poem"? Well, first, they came for the people of color and the immigrants, then they came for the LGBTQIA+, then they came after women's right to control their bodies, and now they're trying to literally limit where you can drive, with whom, and for what purpose.

[Add: BTW, FWIW, I didn't move there because I was or am a communist, quite the opposite. I was there on November 10, 1989 helping with a sledgehammer to knock down the Berlin wall, and I moved to Russia because it looked like we could start businesses there. Not sayin', just sayin'.)

@kaia what I like is:
your DHL package will arrive between “13:07 and 14:07 today,” which isn’t just never, ever correct, but it is always highly - and unnecessarily - specifically wrong.