Skip to main content

Day 6: Zero Alcohol

 So I believe I have a plan of action for everything over the course of the next 90 days. My goals in terms of quitting nicotine and quitting THC are going to be outlined below. Since i am past the worst of my alcohol withdrawal symptoms, i feel that i need to make a decent attempt at staying sober for a prolonged period of time before i attempt to move on to either nicotine or THC. So... for the next 90 days, i am going to work on getting us back on track financially first. Based on my projects, we are going to be short for the month of July, but should have a Very small surplus starting in August... Providing that is true, we should be able to start building savings over the next three months with the goal being having a surplus at the end of each month rather than a deficit. The way to accomplish this is to maximize income while reducing expenses. Spending between 20 and 100 dollars a day on alcohol is rough on the bottom line... but now that that's no longer happening... in theory all bills should be paid, and we should start to develop a surplus at the end of each month. With the additional of me Registering my car which grants me the ability to drive for Uber again, I'm estimating 4 years to get us out of the hole that we dug for ourselves since we got married. With a small savings being generated each month. 

While i would love to move to a new location, i don't think it is in the cards for this year. So that gives us a whole year to save and plan for where we would like to move to. (Probably closer to work - but still in Rhode Island). During the next 84 days i am hoping to switch from actual cigarettes to Nicotine Pouches such as Zyn. My thought there is while i am not giving up Nicotine all together... i will be reducing expenses (1 pack of cigarettes daily = $16.70 vs one Container of Zyn = $10.00). I had thought about buying discount cigarettes but i feel the best method will be to getting the Zyn's because virtually every gas station has them now where as not every gas station has discount cigarettes. But i want to wait at least another week before pulling the trigger on that change because i don't want to risk a relapse on alcohol. I'm only on day 6 and trying to quit to many vices at once has been known to cause a relapse in me. And i can tell you from past experience that my relapses usually come back worse than i started and last for months before another valid attempt to quit any of the vices.

 At the 90 Days Sober Mark - that is when i am planning on making my move to quit nicotine altogether. I have nicotine replacement therapy patches (A complete 56 Day kit). The goal will be to go through the steps and eventually cut the cord on nicotine. Because i already have the complete kit, there will be an immediate cost savings (between 7 and 10 dollars a day), which will add up fairly fast. For the 56 days that i am on the patch i will attempt to do the same things i normally do, just without smoking or doing the pouches. No sense in overdosing on nicotine if i don't have to. Now... while it would make sense to do a 90/90/90 method... because the cost of an 1/8th of weed is only between 16 and 30 dollars... and the fact that i am able to make an 1/8th of weed last a full week when i'm not drinking... (much like when i was younger before i started getting into drinking), it stands to reason that i want to make 90 days clean from nicotine before i attempt to quit smoking weed. this means that rather than starting on day one of the patches and saying 90 days from there... i legitimately want to go the full 56 days on the patches... then on day 57.... start the 90 day count down. The most i have gone without a cigarette in the last 25 years is 99 days (56 patch days and 43 non smoking days).... So... i want to go a full 56 + 99. Then, and only then will i feel confident that i'll be able to quit THC. 

After the 90 Days of No THC... I'll probably be getting ready to move because by that time we will be near next spring and we will have saved anywhere from $200-$300 per week in vice spending. which should have built our savings up quite a bit.

In the immediate short term of quitting alcohol... my goal is to simply stay sober. While i would like to take on fitness and shit like that, i feel it's not the best move to make to many moves all at once. But, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, i do plan on "lite" exercises.... Basically Push Ups, Squats, and 21s when i get to work in the morning. And starting at 10 minutes but escalating up to as much as an hour on the peloton at night. With Tuesdays and Thursdays being an in home fitness routine including crunches and a few other exercises. Lastly - At least three days a week, i am planning on getting between 30 and 60 minutes of walking in. I'm not planning to start this routine this week... or even next week... but starting a week from this coming Monday.   


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A lot of planning...

 So, seeing as I'm now out of work again I figure my current system isn't working. If i want to be successful in business and in life, then i need to get my basics down. Recently, I've started making sheets on excel to track what I'm doing everyday. they range everything from Diet and exercise to mood and symptoms. If i don't start tracking this stuff then I'm never going to make progress. While it's easy to put these items into practice using 1000s of apps... i found that just writing it all down on a few excel spreadsheets and tracking it by hand several times a day is a lot easier to remember. And it gets me off my phone. Lately I've be "Doom Scrolling" without any real purpose and what ends up happening is eventually the AI algorithm starts showing me videos of people dying in car crashes. Not exactly what makes me happy ya know. So I've got my lists and that's what I'll be working on for the foreseeable future while i attempt t...

A Bit of Hope on a Cloudy Afternoon.

Tonight we are heading over our friends' house to have dinner and hang out for a while. December 10th isn't really a memorable date. But every year around this time of year things start to happen that give tiny moments like these a real feeling of warming. Today even, it was nearly 60 degrees at one point today and it made this brutal cold seem bearable. It's not safe to be outside during the darkest of winter. Cold brings out the worst in people, and overall it's hard to handle because it also brings out the despair in people. Merge the two together and you could be looking at a cold dark society which emerges in the spring jaded working every year to bring happiness into ones life only to suffer the cold dark winter the following year. Today i have hope though. Recently i was inspired after talking with people that care about me. The best part is... a renewed sense of hope can alter the mind in such a way... it's better than any drug or substance that you can use ...

No Sooner Did I Say....

 No sooner did i mention that I have a new job, was i laid off for excessive days off. It's really for the birds. Here i am a disabled person who wants to work... and I've had an incredibly hard time hold down a job this year. Whether it be manic episodes due to the medication my doctor put me on, or the company pulling a bait and switch and finding due to that I'm not qualified for the position, to being out sick a couple of days and getting let go... this year has been terrible. While I've had frequent thoughts of a permanent "Out" for myself from this life... it would seem like a waste to get from an unsuccessful suicide attempt in 2008 to giving it another go 17 years later. I feel like if i survived the first attempt... then i must be here on this planet for some reason so i need to make the best of my time. Even in poor health, an optimistic attitude can make the difference between healing or not.   I don't know what my plan is now. But, i know that ...