How have you challenged yourself lately?

Cool, @downtide! I don’t have as much of an interesting singular event to report, but I’m back at college for the new year and that always means new challenges.

Specifically, this year I’m taking a full courseload for the first time (yay health!) and have also added a part-time job to the mix. I’m tutoring differential equations. So far very few people have come to my tutoring sessions, but I have helped a couple of people pretty thoroughly and it feels good. I’m busy busy, but everything’s under control and it feels great.

Not drinking. It really isn’t a ’‘challenge’’ I threw at myself rather than it was an ’‘alarm’’ I couldn’t ignore haha. I don’t consider myself victorious, but so far so good, although not drinking sucks. Makes me feel so bored and I have motivation for absolutely nothing. Drinking is pretty much the only reason I gave myself for existing in the past few years, and therefore, that’s what I worked for and looked forward to during my day. This made so that I could tolerate and go through anything. There was something to get at, but now the drinking is gone and everything feels pointless lol.

I say that, but I do find it pretty easy to lose myself in things like movies, books or games and give my mind a break. But I can’t sleep properly, I don’t remember things I was thinking about two minutes ago, (although that occurred while drinking also) and my moods are like a roller coaster and won’t stop changing. I get pissed off really bad, or have laughing fits at things that really shouldn’t invoke this much laughter.
It’s annoying, although I don’t notice how annoying it actually is until later, if that makes any sense. Plus I smoke too much now. (wow how counterproductive, give up one health ruining habit merely to inflate another)
It also makes me think and paranoid about shit too much, like every little thing that comes out of the norm or that sticks out somehow, I get all freaked about and I imagine it’s due to my drinking problem. What frustrates me the most about that is the lack of any kind of confirmation on my anxieties.That may be a good thing, since the primary reason I want to stop drinking is for health issues. I don’t wanna die of liver failure or something dammit. So all the freaking out keeps me occupied, and kinda helps to keep the boredom at bay. Except I don’t think that’s really healthy…I do feel a little better physically, I have way more energy, do more stuff with my time. But it just feels like it’s being done out of default, and in my head I still wanna be drunk haha. I’ve had several attempts to stop, but most were feeble and pathetic at best, this is the only one so far that I’ve made significant progress with.
Ain’t trying to get anyone to feel sympathy for me, just feels kinda cool saying it sometimes. Despite what I feel, I do have a goal and motivation, otherwise I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have made it this far. I tried keeping a diary of this, but mostly all I ended up doing was sketches of crows eating eyeballs and tribal writing the word fuck over and over.

I’m glad you’ve made it this far, @Symbeline. I hope you can keep it going. It sounds like you’re putting up a good battle. And whether or not you want sympathy, you’ve got mine. Of course, that, and fifteen dollars might buy you a new video game.