Of course, you can always check it out and wear headphones and not share. Good luck!

u/lastfutures and u/Bezotcovschina

I just wanted to chime in with my own personal experience with recovery and resources if either of y’all have a desire to stop drinking (or using anything else). This is going to be a long comment so I’ll start by saying the most important information first.

Even though most AA meetings around the world are not meeting in person right now, there are TONS meeting online over zoom. Go to aa.org and you can search for online meetings anywhere in the world. I wish y’all the best of luck, wanting to stop drinking is the first step.

Personally, I started trying to get sober when I was 20 years old. I had lost the ability to say no to a drink and once I drank I couldn’t stop drinking. It affected my grades and attendance in school and my relationships with others.

The first time I got sober with AA, I got a sponsor (someone to help you go through the steps), and regularly attended AA meetings multiple times a week. I was able to repair my relationships with my family and friends, although this took some time. That first run was three and a half years of sobriety.

I’ve had multiple shorter periods since then, but every time I stopped actively working an AA program I relapsed. On September 5th, I’ll have a year sober. I have now spent more time sober than I have using drugs or alcohol and I’m proud of that.

Being sober has allowed me to accomplish many of my goals, like graduate from college, volunteer at hospitals, teaching after school programs for elementary school kids, and follow through with an academic research career studying alcoholism, addiction, and the increase in depressive and anxiety symptoms resulting from becoming dependent on any substance of abuse.

If you are unfamiliar with AA, the program essentially consists of two things: a supportive community of other people that also have a desire to stop drinking and a 12-step method that helps to bring that desire to fruition.

Having a community of people that know what not being able to control their drinking is like and want to help others get sober is huge. If y’all decide to try and get sober, please take full use of people’s genuine desire to help you. In fact, many in AA have found helping others achieve sobriety to be very rewarding and helps them stay sober themselves.

The twelve step program outlines the steps that others have found to improve their lives. It works if you genuinely try them. In summary the steps consist of coming to terms that you are in fact an alcoholic, realizing that what you cannot stop drinking on your own volition, a willingness to rely on something other than yourself for help, taking an accurate self-appraisal of why you drink and the harm you’ve caused others, making amends to the people you’ve harmed, continue to make self-appraisals, meditate, and help others to also achieve sobriety.

I will say that the steps do mention God, they also say that you can call this a higher power. If you have an understanding of God, perfect, but if you reject the idea, I urge you to not let it stop you from trying the steps. Many people in AA come in with a preconceived disdain for organized religion, often for good and understandable reasons. It is the standard to refer to god as a “higher power”. The way I interpret this is that I am not the end all be all and because of that there is something out there that may know better than me. Some people use the collective support of other people as their conception of a higher power. The important thing is that you understand that you don’t know everything and that you can learn and accept outside guidance from others. This is what I believe people are referring to when they use terms like god or a higher power.

I hope that you both made it this far in your reading. I have a few more items I would like to mention. Getting sober and working a program, by itself, may not fix all you problems. For me, I deal with ADHD and Bipolar disorder as well as my alcoholism/addiction. AA’s only concern is to help you stop drinking/using, if you have any outside issues you should seek medical help for those issues. I have sought help for my other psychiatric problems through weekly individual and group therapy as well as regular visits to my psychiatrist to get more medication maintenance. Tell your provider (physician, psychiatrist, therapist) that you are in recovery or you are in the process of getting sober, this way they can avoid prescribing medications that have addictive potential, as there are many alternatives that are effective that are not addictive.

I wish you both the best as you start your journey. Feel free to reach out to me for support or any additional questions. I will PM you both my phone number, you are welcome to call anytime. You don’t have to go through alcoholism alone, there is a way to get help.

Edit: Since I have no concern over privacy, my number is +1 210 633 7520. Anyone is welcome to call me if they want to stop drinking or using.

Thanks for your first comment. That was all eloquently laid out

Elysium

This whole post was like reading fake amazon reviews.

Biology PhD student studying neuroscience of addiction and other psychiatric disorders

Quote from Barr about the radicalization of youth people to Antifa ideals: “Once they encrypt these chat rooms, we will be unable to prevent the radicalization of young people”

If OP is serious about the post, I honestly think they might just be figuring out what they believe.

It might be that they were introduced to the idea of anarchy from Noam and it interested them. From the way I see it, they are trying to fit what they used to believe (taught to believe) in with these new ideas and are likely dealing with cognitive dissonance from their paradoxes. From their vocabulary, it sounds like they grew up in a family that held/holds traditional, American, conservative values. Although, I could be wrong.

They seemed a little upset— especially in the paragraph of questions— so I appreciate your level-headed responses to OP’s questions.

but as a long time raddle user (registered 5 days ago) I can share my two cents:

I fucking lost it. Thanks for the laugh

As a neurobiologist, I can help out a little here. There is a lot of scientific research. I would suggest you read this scientific review by Byne et al. 2018 published in Transgender Health. I have linked it below. The authors are prominent in the field and are at Columbia University and Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5944396/

In the paper, they refer to imaging studies using fMRI and other techniques. You can go to those papers that are referenced to see the data scientists have found on brain differences.

Gender dysphoria (as you know to be true), which drives someone to change their gender from their biological sex to the opposite gender is real and there is research that the brain of men who identify as a woman (are trans) functions differently than men who identify as men.

If you would like to learn more, I think it might help you understand what is currently known by looking at peer-reviewed research studies. These are done by scientists who have spent their whole lives researching this topic.

Edit: misspelled authors name, fixed it. Best of luck. Proud of you

Walmart is the easiest. You just walk right out if there is not a person at the door checking receipts

Lol at the ads on the site you hosted your images on. Your temp Texas fake drivers license is good. I did some for people back in college before we turned 21 that were passable at bars.

Can you elaborate on the moral compass you have envisioned for your protagonist?