Guy tries drinking moderately, learns he can't. (Note: I asked his permission to link to this.)

I've spent a lot of my time angry. Resentful at my friends, my loved ones, my workplace, pretty much anyone I can think of. Over time, I've learned that I really can't do anything about them. The only thing I have control over is how I react, and how I feel about myself.

If you feel down or low, throw a post into the ether and someone will find it, pick you up and dust you off and set you back on your feet again.

Step 1: I'm fucked Step 2: There might be a way out of this fucking mess Step 3: Decide to level the fuck up Step 4: Take a good hard look at how fucked up I am Step 5: Tell someone else about all the fucked up stuff I've been through Step 6: Prepare to stop being such a fuck up Step 7: Try to stop acting so fucked up Step 8: Make a list of everyone I fucked over Step 9: Swallow my fucking pride and tell them I really fucked up, except when doing so would fuck them harder. Step 10: Keep an eye on my fucked up thinking and behavior Step 11: Chill the fuck out sometimes Step 12: Help the next poor fucker that walks through the door

After stopping drinking, I have seen a lot of social anxiety surface, and then disappear after confronting it, but even more interesting is the interactions I'm having with people are so much more positive. Looking back on these two months, I have really realized that I had been feeding my social anxiety with alcohol, and had been really leading some very shallow relationships. Stopping drinking has removed that mask, and has allowed me to delve much deeper into my own personal relationships.

May I offer something that has helped me? When opening up about your sobriety, I have found that people usually gauge their response to how you are acting. For instance, if you simply said 'I do not drink', confidently, without hesitation, people are less likely to even respond and just move on. If you kinda him-haw, 'Well.. .uh, actually.... I don't drink anymore', it is much more likely to turn into a bigger deal.

Actually, today I feel like every AA'er has the rebuttal to everything everyone ever says in every meeting. Somebody's down in the dumps? They need to focus on gratitude. Somebody's experienced some sober joy? They're on a pink cloud. Somebody's sorry for the damage their alcoholism has done to them and their loved ones? They need to stop wishing for a different past. Somebody's proud of the time they've achieved? They need to know that a drunk is just around the corner. We alcoholics are apparently all wrong, all the time.

It's a bit like getting a glass of water barefoot, but the floor is covered in broken glass from all the bottles you smashed while wasted the night before. The objective couldn't be easier, but the wreckage in the way and the pain and the effort involved in accomplishing your goal seems insurmountable in your weakened, deluded state.

It looks like when you add a bookmark, you have the option of "submitting" it to this groups as well. I haven't submitted most of my bookmarks to this group - that would just build another "reddit," and we certainly don't want to do that.

I was thinking that the value in this would be the ability to peruse another user's links by username.

It's kind of a pain to get those lists right now . You have to view the group members at http://groups.diigo.com/group/reddit_stopdrinking/members

Then hover over their profile image, go to "more", then click "library."

Maybe it'd be easiest to just submit all links to the group, so that when clicking on the username you see a list of that person's links. (Because it seems to show you the list of submissions to this group, not their entire list)

This is what the link to a user's list of links looks like
http://www.diigo.com/user/offtherocks

I like the tags. Don't like how it's so hard to get to this page via the group, though