When I decided to quit drinking alcohol in 2008, I found help in meeting with a counselor. My counselor, Carl was my prime cheerleader in my quest to achieve sobriety. The first day, which led to the first week, which led to the first 90 days of sobriety were some of the hardest days I have lived through. Or so I thought.
When I made that call to the counselor, I made sure I didn't think too hard. I was told by some of my online friends that Alcoholics like to think too much, talk too much, analyze things too much. My friend also went through a program for sobriety and helped me overcome the feelings of shame of asking for help.
I had to quit on my own volition before my husband "made me", I was afraid. I felt that there would be nothing worse than having my husband force an intervention for me, or even serve me divorce papers. Yes, my drinking was that bad.
My drinking was no worse than my peers, but it was having a very detrimental effect on me. I was desperately lonely. I hadn't realized how angry I was, and I was isolated from people living in rural Vermont at the time. But it was having a negative effect on my parenting as well as my business. I was a loan officer at the time and it was getting in the way of me making money. My idea of socializing and networking was hanging out at bars. In short, the drinking disguised the procrastinating. The procrastinating disguised the anxiety.
Since 2001 or so, I lurked on conspiracy theory forums. I enjoyed the immediate feedback of people responding to my well thought out posts. I would take a good hour to respond to a post or thread topic and rarely introduce topics. I developed what I thought was "real relationships" with people online. For all I know it could only be five - the rest could have been sockpuppets - characters that were created to be a different "voice" online.
I have been an active participant in a small informal network of conspiracy theory discussion groups for over ten years now. I joked to my husband that since we have chewed up and spit out so many theories that, by now, we just exchange recipes. For the most part, that is true. Many of us have children with special health needs like Autism and often reach out to each other for support. Many of us have endured prolonged unemployment or foreclosure - a direct recipient of banker fraud and misleading bank practices. I have seen the quality of the content from some of these posters go from thoughtful to pithy to meanspirited to downright paranoid. As I saw the change of quality of the posters, I started to get a little shaken and had to step back, take a break and see things more clearly.
I posted my last forum post the end of January. Its been hard for me to walk away from an online community that I have been with on and off since 2003. I had to do it. It was not serving me anymore. As more and more posters became harsh and more judgmental, I had to stop posting. I realized that "show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are" struck me that I didn't want to be associated with some of the blatant racism, sexism and extreme paranoia (with revisionist history thrown in as a spice). I knew that if I wanted to publish my ebook and write publically, I had to change my playground. The result has been a detoxing that is very similar, if not harder to overcome than my alcoholic addiction of four years ago.
The day of the flounce was one where a poster didn't like a banner and threatened to leave. The result from that pronouncement was that he was the target of abuse from 90% of the other posters so heinous that it brought out the worst in everyone. I logged out and made one reasonable post as a guest and quietly exited the community. I am sad to leave some great posters - but then again, since I really don't know the "people" behind the posts, I have to stop kidding myself into thinking I am having a "real relationship" with anyone in that community.
Not unlike the first days of stopping drinking, the next day I was anxious and depressed. I grew more melancholic as the days went by. I resisted checking the forum as best I could but I popped in a few times a day but did not post.
I felt anxious and sad and downright depressed. I wasn't the only poster who left that day either so I was sad to see a couple of other people make the same decision I did. My symptoms were listlessness, boredom, restlessness and anxiety. And then it hit me; I was suffering from withdrawal. Not getting the immediate feedback of response one gets when one posts on a forum just bummed me out. I felt alone and isolated and I needed my fix. Surprised at the realization that it was my fix that was drawing me to check out the website, I forced myself to look at other websites and do research that had nothing to do with my normal forum subjects. I even started to pick up a book.
My addiction was so bad that I at one point I had installed Leechblock then de-activate it because I couldn't stop myself from the forum! So I knew that there was a definite addiction withdrawal that I was experiencing. In my efforts to continue the trend of avoiding forum posting, I exited out all my tabs that Firefox so conveniently sets up for me. One by one I clicked all my favorite sites off because I knew the time has come to leave my old bad habits behind and focus on abundant habits instead. There is a real irony here I might add. I avoid Facebook and note just how many of my friends online are playing games and spending time at chat. I think to myself that somehow I am not like them because I spend time having "real conversations" instead of blurting out two line status updates. The fact of the matter is, an internet addiction is an addiction - doesn't matter the substance, it was the act of submitting my will over to an external fix that I couldn't control. Guilty!
If I were to add up all the hours I spent over the last ten years on forums, I think I would be embarrassed. I have since learned about revenue sharing sites like InfoBarrel, Seekyt, Buzzlews, and TopicSpotter and now I am kicking myself for not participating in any of these sites before. So here it is. Its February, 2013 and its time for me to move on from my forum addiction where I am spending countless hours not accomplishing or solving or helping people to where I can offer ideas, support and content and reach more users AND make some money if possible.
This is the year where I turn my habits around and improve my lift and hopefully others too. One site at a time, one article at a time, one ebook at a time and one connection at a time!
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