So, I figured I´d start a journal here for fun and just post some random stuff from my every day life and my thoughts on stuff.
First off, a little info about about me as a person;
I am a 31 year old guy from Sweden who´s trying to build a better life for myself. I am a very introverted guy and can appear somewhat reserved and ”hard” as a person to those who don´t know me, but when I´m comfortable with people I am still very much a child at heart (I mean some serious toddler level shit). I have a passion for fitness and health, I like body art, I read (as much as my ADD allows for), I like drawing, and I have a passion for improving myself, physically and mentally. I just finished my first year of studying sports science at a university, and school is my greatest passion next to working out.
And a little bit about my backstory...
I have been battling alcohol and drug addiction since I was a teenager, and I suffer from ADD and Bipolar disease. Most of my life has been chaotic to say the least. I started drinking when I was 12, I´ve been on most drugs known to man, I have quit every school and job I ever had, I lost my drivers license for drunk driving, I´ve been locked up as a murder suspect after witnessing a man getting stabbed in the neck, I´ve been to jail, prison, and the psychatric ward, I´ve been suicidal, battled social anxiety and depressions… I could fill a laundry list of this stuff, but you get the picture.
But of course it hasn´t been all bad. Being bipolar has it´s ups and downs (pun intended), and being an extreme thrillseeker and having a world class passion for class A substances makes for a recepie for some interesting stories. I once was stabbed with a fork, I have seen a deformed midget stick a screwdrawer all the way up his nose while howling like a wolf, and I once had to undergo laser tattoo removal after drunkenly getting a smiley face tattoo on my forehead.
So it actually was good fun for a while. But you can´t live like that forever. As always, drugs began as a beautiful dream that inevitably over time turned into a nightmare. The last few years it was all panic, desperation and a slowly dawning realization that I was going to die from this disease. Very soon, the way I was going. I was extreme, even for an addict, and with the doses I did I should´ve died many times over (I still have no idea how the hell I didn´t).
But then life gradually took a turn. Or actually I made it turn, I hate it when people make it sound like something that just happens. Unlike most addicts, I didn´t have that one big turning point that made me change my life, there was never that one moment when I hit rock bottom or some cataclysmic event. Sure, there were certain moments when I hit new lows, and moments when I had breakthroughs that were important steps along the way. But basically I decided enough was enough. I began reading up on recovery and then it was all simply trial, error and grinding. I relapsed dozens of times, but every time I changed my approach and tried again. I took Jim Rohn´s saying ”for your life to change, you got to change” to heart, and started changing. I started listening to self improvement speakers, changed my mindset, got some treatment, started meditating, exercising, frequent NA meetings, build good habits etc. You know, all the usual self improvement stuff.
It was a long and tough process, but gradually I changed, and so my life changed. Over the course of the next few years I got my driver´s license back, I got treatment for my hepatitus C, got a job delievering news papers, worked off my depts, cut down my psychiatric meds to a minimum (turns out they were doing more harm than good), quit nicotine, got my own apartment, started studying at the university, gradually rehabilitated my body from years of injuries and bad habits, picked up hobbies etc.
Today my mission in life is simply to find out how good I can get. I am an all or nothing type of person (who would´ve thought, huh?), either I go full hedonist or I go for being a high achiever, I neither can, nor want, to stay anywhere in between. So constantly developing myself is simply my way of staying clean (and this journal is meant to be one of my many tools for staying motivated). Also, I just want to see how far I can actually go. I´ve spent most of my life feeling like the worst fuck up on the face of the planet, who would never amount to anything. But slowly I have realized I have far more potential than I ever could have imagined. I never thought I could study at all with my ADD, but I finished the first year with perfect grades and, by far, top of my class (this is a not so humble brag). This sparked an ambition to finish my whole program with perfect grades (who knows if it will be at all possible, but you gotta have a goal and believe in yourself) and proceed to higher levels of education (and eventually get a PhD).
Some of the every day stuff I stuff do to improve myself;
The wim hof method (breathing exercises, mindfulness, yoga, cold showers).
Meditation, gratitude and a positive mindset (pretty much avoid media full time the maintain the latter).
Intermittent Nofap streaks (doing it fulltime causes drug cravings for me, so I simply use nofap streaks as a tool when useful).
Exercise (lots of it, averaging 2.5-3 h/daily in my current mesocycle). Mainly doing calisthenics, my own arbitrary defintion of functional strength training, various cardio and lots of mobility training.
A balanced diet where I mind my calories, macros and micros. No sweets, junk food or soda, ever (which is actually just stupid, but I´m kinda OCD-ish with the food these days. Like I said, all or nothing).
Doing something every day that sucks (á la David Goggins philosophy of getting stronger through ”callousing over” one´s victim´s mentality by actively seeking discomfort). Could be anything from crawling through mud in the forest to doing a workout I hate.
Trying to read something every day, beyond course litterature in school.
Complete abstinence from alcohol and drugs (kinda goes without saying). Also kicked nicotine and keeping the caffeine on a reasonable level (it is my one remaining vice, and at times a useful one, so I´ve got no plans on kicking it all together).
And of course, going above and beyond in school!
So, that´s a (not so) small intro. Let´s hope someone will enjoy reading this journal, and either way I will have fun writing in it
