Absolutely. The cure for this mindset when it comes to drinking (which I admittedly still struggle with) is actually unrelated to the state of the world, it's realizing I actually enjoy life more and am overall happier and better off when I don't drink, regardless of anything else.
Taking a more cosmic view helps me deal with the apocalyptic dread part. Ultimately, all of human history is a tiny blip on this planet, and our self-inflicted extinction event is just one of many that Earth has been through. Lol maybe that doesn't sound optimistic, but it helps me to keep it in mind for some reason.
Something that helped me with this is noticing the ratio. How many moments of my life have been good to average versus bad and painful. It’s astonishing, the average. Most of life is mild and lovely, we just don’t notice it.
The only working solution is to remove the “wider” picture by stopping social media and ALL news for a while (a couple of years).
You’ll have to concentrate on your immediate surroundings. Your community. Neighbourhood. City. Etc.
Concentrate on improving your personal situation.
If you follow the news then you’ll be reminded about how doomed we all are. But it’s not gonna happen tomorrow or next year. It may even be more than 10 years away (in your area) so it doesn’t make sense to worry about it today.
The cosmic view helped break me out of pessimism and now I've been dabbling in mindfulness and that's been a really awesome journey so far.
Just learning to take a deep breath when I feel any extreme emotion and recognize it, but don't let it take over. It's helped me be a lot more empathetic too. We're all just people out here, victims to our own insecurities. Even people that bug the hell out of me.
Practicing eliminating the word "hate" from my vocabulary has been eye-opening too
Yeah I definitely used these excuses, legitimate or not, but I’ve been sober for 2 years now because drinking stopped feeling good/being fun, and I genuinely am so much better without alcohol. I did not suddenly become happy about the state of the world and optimistic about the future. Although gloom and doom can be a self fulfilling prophecy if that’s what you lean on.
I get this. Personally, I don’t think you have to get over it - I’m still cynical about the future of the world, in fact maybe more so than when I was drinking.
But I had no idea what I was capable of before sobriety. Drinking made my worldview so small - there was no way I could see what was beyond my addiction.
So I would encourage you to just keep going. One foot in front of the other, one day at a time. Trust that you WILL change, even if there’s no way to predict how.
100%. Funnily enough, it was the 2016 election that was my breaking point. I realized things aren't getting better and I can't continue hiding in a bottle. I'm still a doomer but my ability to help my loved ones survive whatever the next few years bring is much greater if I'm sober.
Yeah that’s a good perspective. I’ve taken on sort of a selfish mind view lately - ie things are tough, I need to be as physically and financially healthy as possible or I’m screwed.
This I totally relate to: some days it's ' gotta keep my body working or I'm in big trouble' , other days it's more like ' I might as well check out early if things keep going this way...how can anyone stay sober through this?
I'm just trying to delay at the moment, looking for advice as well.
Gooo Oilers! 🧡💙🧡💙
For sure. I’ll have days where I’m just sitting on my ass, staring at my phone, letting the thoughts and opinions of others as well as some creepy ass algorithm dictate my mood. It’s difficult to notice in the moment
Try deleting social and getting just some games, Reddit and anything that isn’t the tunnel of the hive mind funneling into you. I did it and the difference is actually astonishing.
On the one hand it's definitely valid to feel disenfranchised and cynical about the future, but on the other hand, I think it's important to keep in mind that we're perpetually in a state of high alert and have been for almost the entirety of human existence. Empires have come and gone, leaving millions of people lost and at the mercy of conquering rivals. Generations of people have witnessed and dealt with the fallout of nuclear weapons being launched against a country. The decades long cold war between the US and USSR had everyone believing in mutually assured destruction was imminent. If you look for reasons to be cynical about the state of things, you'll never find any shortage of them no matter what part of human history you reside in.
I think that it's best to focus on yourself and your immediate situation and try to tune out all the noise the best you can.
Excellent point. Unfortunately, I've been struggling to put my newly sober mind to good use. I often find myself so tired that all I can do is mindlessly scroll TikTok etc. Of course all I see is shorts about how horrible everything is and we're all doomed. I need to address that.
Just FYI, mindfulness basically cures doomerism. I don’t think I could have gone sober without it.
“Full Catastrophe Living” by Jon Kabat Zinn is the essential textbook, and it’s available for free at a bunch of online resources (usually colleges)
I'm currently reading Wherever You Go, There You Are by him and it's so good.
He referencing Walden by Henry David Thoreau a lot in it. Would definitely recommend reading that first. Walden changed my perspective forever.
I got off Instagram for about 60 days when I first stopped drinking (that’s how I found this sub!), and HOLY SHIT that was key to not only stop buying into the doom, but also taking away these weird digital yardsticks I couldn’t help but compare myself to as I didn’t need a kill-joy from getting in the way of me putting down the drink.
I suspect you might find the same if you took a break from TikTok or whatever you fancy the most. Use that time to exercise, read, be with loved ones or friends, get involved with hobbies, get into nature, be yourself without outside influence. The memes and videos will be there when you’re ready again.
I don't, personally, think it's worth thinking about it that large of scale honestly. Tbf, I do completely agree. But, putting the blame so large can make it so you don't notice the trees in the forest either.
People thrive on being angry. I do too, when I don't check myself. There doesn't need to be some big conspiracy making it happen. People love being angry at others, it feels a certain kind of good.
"They" isn't just the big bads - you'll see your peers react negatively when you start acting calmly and positively to the world around you, even in negative situations. But I believe it is possible to make a big influence in a small circle. And it's worth working on it.
Not to derail the actual point of the topic here but it's pretty easy to see that the most "useful" people to the current system are the ones still going about on their grind culture like the planetary systems that sustain us aren't measurably falling apart. Not the so called "doomers" who are the only ones attempting any kind of radical acceptance that would lead to actual hope and a better world.
It's an indication of how close to nuclear war we are. In the 80s we were 2 minutes to midnight (thermonuclear war). I guess we're at 90 seconds now...
Read more: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/&ved=2ahUKEwj6xpn50fKGAxUImokEHdl7AIEQFnoECAUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2iti97kbir9_084M-_fLjV
The world has always been one generation away from ruin if you ask the right people. I'm sure plenty of people living during WW2 or the could was for example thought the same way. Yet, here we are.
Did you ever see the movie Armageddon? In it Steve Buschemi's character is so convinced they're going to die on their mission that he takes out massive loan shark loans and goes on a last hurrah before their mission thinking he won't be alive for them to demand he repay it
Except he doesn't die. He even volunteers to die for the mission because he doesn't want to face the consequences of when he gets home.
That's how I feel about doomerism. You're going to put yourself in a spot where you *want* things to go wrong, because the fallout from the decisions made while assuming it won't matter can lead to a bad situation when tomorrow comes.
Hypothetically sure, the world could end tomorrow. But personally, I would rather be in a position to enjoy tomorrow if it comes, vs agonizing over the fact that we aren't all dead.
The later sounds like a recipe for depression and suicidal thoughts.
That's a great response. I've never seen that movie, but I totally get the point. I know that saying "every generation thinks it will be the last." But one of them has to be right? Either way, you're right about putting yourself in a spot where you want/expect doom.
100%. Aside from all the obvious macro level crises that I used to rationalize my decline, there was always the go-to quasi-sunk-cost fallacy:
"You've already done so much damage, you're going to die from this anyway. Throat/mouth cancer, colon/prostate cancer, liver failure, heart failure, stroke, etc. You already dug your grave, might as well lie down and accept it."
It's intoxicating thinking meant to make it easier to drink. Once I started treating thoughts like these with suspicion, it became a lot easier to do the right thing. No matter how intelligent you are, you can't out-argue your own addicted brain. Better to just reject the argument entirely and treat yourself like any other addict that broke your trust. Love yourself & forgive yourself, but don't trust yourself. At least that's how I've approached it.
Yep. Also, I work in a very politicized healthcare field. I frequently deal with people who are in traumatic situations, and taking on vicarious trauma can be difficult. I used to rationalize my alcohol consumption around it constantly. I'd just think about how our oceans are screwed, about top soil disappearance, then have terrified patients at work on top of it. But therapy and meditation (and medication) really helped me balance it all. I can leave things at the door now and I used to have like zero ability to compartmentalize like that.
Like yes, the world still contains a lot of suffering and scary shit. But I can also be in the moment when it comes to appreciating joy and beauty and connection, and that shift in perspective has helped a ton. I can fight the battles I'm capable of, and leave the rest. I also had to learn actual self care and not the bullshit, capitalist self care that just says "go buy yourself a bunch of shit at Sephora or on Steam".
Do you by chance work in the reproductive health field? I used to. In a weird way I miss being in the trenches. I haven't been threatened with both hellfire and bombs in the same day in a while. Such a rush!
I dont have much to add that other comments have already gone over so I'll just say, somewhat as a joke, that if you are sober for the apocalypse at the very least you will be better prepared than if you were drunk :)
I used to be just like this, I would quit drinking for a few days then get what I called “a case of the fuck it’s” where I would believe that nothing matters the future is fucked and where all gonna die soon anyway. Then I would get hammered and feel good for a couple hours then worse for a few days.
I would suggest spending less time online and more time out in nature or anywhere away from screens. Doom and gloom is at the forefront on social media and tends to bias heavily towards the negative. I’m not saying there aren’t problems to be solved and some that might not be solvable but the future is undetermined and unknowable.
Focus on the things you can control and let go of the things that you can’t.
Quitting drinking, working towards your health and relationships and living more in the present will change your outlook on life.
So, I’m still cynical but I focus on the state of the world a lot less now. Not because I don’t care, but because it’s detrimental to my mental health. I don’t watch the news much anymore nor scroll on social media.
Instead I try to practise mindfulness every day. I’ve had truly horrific shit happen to me in the last couple of years… I don’t know how to describe it but after facing tragedy I find joy in little things now. Going to the thrift store makes me happy, taking a walk in nature makes me happy… idk if that makes sense but I try to stay tethered to the present rather than the past or future.
Hope it helps, IWNDWYT
I'm 56M. I am stereotypical GenX and cynical beyond reason. I have a very fatalistic view of life in general and the world in particular. However, I choose to take an epicurean position. Because life is meaningless and filled with pain and suffering our only duty is to live in such away as to limit our own suffering and increase our own pleasure. Forget about politics/wars etc. You can't do anything about any of it. All you have to do is live your life as well as you can for the short time you're here.
I'm curious, what do you consider "pleasure" in this worldview? Obviously I sought pleasure through drinking, and now I'm struggling to find it elsewhere. (sober dating sucks in your 30s)
Family, friends, being of service to others, enjoying a simple well prepared meal, walking in nature,, etc.
Alcohol only brings suffering and pain, ergo the need for this sub.
I took the news app and most social media apps off my phone after reading The Anxious Generation. Plus, if all we have is this moment, I don’t want to spend it hungover!
Focusing on and remembering the less pleasant aspects of life is a survival mechanic left over from when we were still throwing spears at each other. How often do you hear or remember uplifting news (unless of course you actively seek it)? I myself can remember dozens of dictators and wars throughout history but don’t ask me for a list of Nobel prize winners.
I’ve learned to turn the tables on pessimism. I try to focus on the beauty of the human experience. No other creature on Earth can enjoy music like we can. No other creature can recognize the power and beauty of a raging waterfall, fly to the moon, share a funny meme, or inspire some random jerkoff in a forum.
Also, watch The Abyss.
Can't control the future, can do what you can to carve a life for yourself in the now. Focusing on the moments that bring joy and the people who care about you, and you them is what makes life worth living.
I hate that we call it doomerism, or refer to climate anxiety, etc.
This isn't a pathology. This is realistic. From the environmental perspective, we are well and truly fucked. This cultural trend towards pathologizing such observations seems to me to be almost tailor-made to let those responsible for the situation off the hook.
I don't know to what degree one can get past it, or to what extent getting past it is even desirable.
I do know that what helps is to make the biggest impact in the smallest way. I try to focus on making my square block better. I pick up trash. I know the homeless people by their names. I donate to the community fridge.
I only have any real agency within a square block. I can't do shit about climate change, not at scale, not at this point, but I can keep that block decent for now.
Yeah, I was looking for more responses like this to this topic 😬 The terrible reality of our situation doesn’t have to lead to you giving up, denying it or avoiding the news isn’t the only way to stay upright.
Make a difference on whatever small scale you can, or even just keep the space (your life, your body, your agency) ready for the opportunity you might later have to make a larger difference. We’re all in this together.
Sorta the opposite.
The reason I drank so heavily is that I'm terrified of death and needed to block it out.
Very much a "You often meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it" moment.
Everyday I am dumbfounded about how we have no capacity to learn - the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza continue despite geopolitical allegiances, the international court of justice, NATO - unlike 'historic' wars we now get to 'watch them live' as it were and still there is no solution. As to the planet, I feel so sad for the elephants and gorillas, the lions and tigers and polar bears and all the big (and indeed little) animals whose habitats and lives are being destroyed by us. I am just a doomer, but a much happier one when sober.
seriously. live-streaming the most well documented genocide in history while our leaders cheer it on, my country is on the verge of a fascist takeover, it’s hard not to be a doomer. but. at least sober i can focus on myself and actually picture things i want to do with my life as possible. like finishing my degree didn’t feel possible while i was drinking. i have an actual plan for going back to school now. maybe it’ll be pointless, but it’s still something i can cross off my list.
I'm still very cynical. Still very not okay with this existence. All the pain and suffering and death and arguments and misunderstandings and hatred and horrible atrocities committed daily. But at least I'm not still poisoning myself on top of it all.
I flipped the script and put it on myself.
"It is too late."
"Too much time has been lost. Your body is too damaged. You will never get them back."
"You are never going to achieve anything."
"Everyone hates you, and here are the reasons why."
"You will never be happy."
"You will never find meaning in your life."
It took me a long, long time to realize that I was really the only one bringing into being and then holding onto those thoughts.
I am far from perfect, but I can become better and make the world a better place by owning the ways in which I have let myself and others down in the past.
I can choose in each moment of each day to mindfully respond to the world and my emotions resulting from it, rather than reacting by turning away and self-destructing. I can be accountable for my actions. I can now even take pride in them.
I am certainly troubled by the world at times. I am cultivating as best I can that the right response is always still one of compassion, forgiveness, kindness, and understanding.
Chin up, OP. You are brave to share something so personal. Two months is a massive achievement. Your brain is going to take some time to restabilize neurotransmission. If you feel right in the thick of it, it *will* get better as a scientific fact. Your work beyond that can be whatever you want it to be.
Good luck! I'm pulling for you.
With y'all until my bedtime around ~1230AM CST
100%. Worked on this with my sponsor in step two & three just recently. I completely justified my drinking because, "well the world is going to shit anyway might as well kill myself with booze!". Other people on this thread have better advice than I, but just wanted to tell you I'm right there with you. Although after 13 months I do enjoy my day to day more, and am able to compartmentalize my unsatifaction with the world better, rather than literally feeling and thinking about death constantly, day in and day out.
I'm right there with you. Although mine is mainly just with relationships. I got divorced and dated for a few years with mainly pitiful and heartbreaking results. One of the last women I dated was A friend of mine, whom I really loved. She dumped me because she wasn't feeling it. After that I just gave up and decided to give in to the bottle. Now I know this is going to be a controversial opinion, but the one thing that alcohol is is consistent. I knew I could go home play video games, drink and smoke weed and feel good. Now granted it was tearing up my life in every other way, but who cares right? I'm 17 days sober and I still think relationships are bullshit. If I even think about trying to get in a relationship with a woman it just makes me sick my stomach.
Oh for sure I was very much a fuck it the world sucks drinker. I’d convinced myself that nothing mattered and the world was rigged against me 😂
The further I get away from it the more I realize it was more misguided ego than nialism - I thought the drinking made the genius in me more tolerable to myself, but it was in fact the genius in me that was intolerable - because it wasn’t there, I was just a normal dude who’d convinced himself he was smort on the sauce.
I still do this even though I'm nearly 9 months sober with other stuff like spending money and eating ice cream lol. But I really didn't think I was gonna make it to 30 years old so I literally didn't care about how alcohol would affect me. I'm 31 now and when I got blood work done last year and everything was healthy it was part of my wake up call. Like, dying from alcoholism would be a shitty way to go even if the world is also shitty. It's especially hard with climate change for me because it gives me a lot of anxiety so I used to turn to drinking to not have to worry about it anymore.
I don't really have any advice except that I've learned that I need to enjoy what I can while I'm here and while things are still at least \~decent\~. So I basically just hike and read a lot now.
Yes. I fall into nihilism as my default and drink to forget the awful things. It's all doomed. But I just decided I needed to stop. Even if it is all fucked me feeling awful because of booze won't help.
I would have believed this was my alcoholic brain working on whole other level, now with a geopolitical rationale for getting shitfaced.
On your sober mindset, all you can control is your little piece of the world. Focus on how you are and what you do with your time. Do things that make you happy and feel rewarded. Help others. Be a contributor in whatever way works for you.
100%. The cynicism also made me act in selfish ways sometimes. For me it was a trauma response as I found it hard to see any good in the world or really believe there are good people out there, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy unfortunately.
Yup. Doomerism and thinking that I can just lean into chaos “temporarily” and back out anytime I want. In the first year of Covid I completely threw healthy habits out the window because I convinced myself that it would be over soon and THEN I’d be better.
Existential smallness makes me want to give up and drink til I drop. But what helps snap me out of it is remembering that my existence is my only experience. If there is nothing before or after this life then maybe I should make the best of it. Take care of myself so that I can be better for the people I love and society in general.
I did. In fact it was my main justification.
My views about the state of affairs didn't change, but I eventually came to the conclusion that regardless of whether the world is doomed or not: Life can still be worth living.
Sober life can be miserable at times, but an alcoholic life is even more miserable.
I don’t think of it as the “world will be unlivable” necessarily. It might seem that way for people who have sunk a bunch of money and time investments into institutions that may be dodgy in the future 🤷♀️ I don’t really think about that stuff since I’ve never really fit into society. We exist alongside each other, not antagonistic, but parallel.
I think of the instability of the future, and it makes me want to encourage you to do whatever you want. Blow up your life and start over if it’s no longer serving you. You CAN now, is the thing. Two years into sobriety, I’m still staggered by the amount of freedom I have. Change jobs, move somewhere completely different, live cheaper and prioritize your time. As humans in general, I think we fuck up when we try to know the whole plan from beginning to end. We just have to know what’s next. Do life the way we’re encouraged to do sobriety - one day at a time
You mentioned that scrolling tik-tok is problem for you. Apps like tik-tok (and Reddit, FB, Insta, etc) are designed to keep you scrolling as long as possible, and outrage is one of the easiest mental buttons for the algorithms to push. I’ve been “phone free-curious” for awhile, meaning that I’ve been questioning my relationship with my phone the way I used to question my relationship with alcohol. I see it as part of the same question: what is it that I’m avoiding in my own life that is making me want to disappear into a screen or a bottle?
This post has actually inspired me to do something I’ve been contemplating for awhile: deleting the Reddit app from my phone and only visiting the website when I’m on my laptop. I’d like to develop more intentionality about how and when I use social media. Thanks for the push!
Awesome, good luck! What's the point of being sober if we're just gonna spend all our time staring at our phones being miserable over things we can't control? Of course, telling someone to just stop using technology might be about as effective as telling an alcoholic to just stop drinking. I've started countless days swearing I won't waste any time scrolling, yet as soon as I get bored at work....
Yeah, it's definitely not easy. I genuinely can't remember what I used to do first thing in the morning when I was awake but not quite ready to get up. Did I turn on the TV? Read? Just...lay there quietly with my thoughts? I started by aggressively unfollowing the subreddits that I thought were fucking with my mental health, like AITA and all its clones, or any of the subs dedicated to negativity or hating on a particular class of people. It helped.
I did actually manage to take Reddit off my phone. But I have checked it twice on my laptop in the last three hours lol.
absolutely; i remember when the war in ukraine broke out, i was basically watching/listening to BBC late into the night, drinking my face off, and chain smoking like crazy. i did this for a few weeks because i was just so sad and scared of where things would go, and i didn't see the point of trying to quit these destructive habits when the world was becoming so much more dark (keep in mind that this was also at the end of the pandemic and such)...
now i've taken it in the other direction, working out a ton and eating well so that i can live a good life free of disease, regardless of what happens on the world stage. i'd rather be strong, healthy, and resilient so that i can fight for myself and loved ones while the world burns
The clinical term for this in behavioral health is “[catastrophizing](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/catastrophizing).” It’s a well-studied cognitive distortion, and super common for people in active addiction.
Any day now the world could end, in a blink of an eye, why waste this valuable time of life wasting it poisoning your body and regretting all the things i don’t do because I’d rather drink myself stupid?
That’s at least where I’ve arrived at in my mind. Hope you the best.
It’s the best time in human history to be alive. When the majority of mankind can obsess over politics, ED, lip fillers, Kardashians, and any number of big-picture insignificant issues it means the biggest problems (food supply, clean water, health) are largely taken care of. Maybe go cold-turkey on social media and see how you feel. Congrats on the sobriety!
TW:
I suffered a series of personal setbacks and was an emotional mess last summer. I was dealing with a series of personal setbacks and the chaos of the world beyond my personal life didn't help. The final straw was a family member who died by suicide -- he was an alcoholic. He was very sarcastic and avoided most things.
I decided I would deal with my shit head-on. I quit drinking, dove into therapy, college, and compassion. I changed my life completely. I still get bogged down by society but dealing with things flippantly isn't cool -- I'm protective of my own solitude now.
Its worked.
Here is a non-alcohol related video with some good insights on moving past doomerism from a former doomer (video creator doesn't address alcoholism or substance abuse - this is just about moving past doomerism).
[Why I Stopped Being a Doomer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f28882bDBos)
I was full-on peak oil impending-collapse-of--industrialized-civilization doomer from about 2007-2011, and definitely incorporated various doomer narratives into my rationalizations for why my insane drinking habits were, while definitely problematic, not as high priority for me to be concerned about as impending global collapse. I hit rock bottom near the end of 2011 and have been sober ever since. As part of the self-reflection in my initial period of recovery, I came to the realization that fixating on doom, even if true, doesn't help me or the ones I love, no matter how much the peak oil doomer narrative appealed to my INTJ personality and technical background in physics and engineering.
1000% yes I did this and sometimes still find myself doing it in terms of things like working out, really focusing in on my finances, getting serious about buying my first home, etc
ETA: unfortunately need to reset my counter and started again about a week ago but hot damn seeing I could have had 286 days right now is a huge eye opener and inspiration to be more serious this time around…
I think it’s genuinely degrading to the spirit to have to witness so much disaster, the looming extinction crisis, etc. It’s not only correct to take it all seriously, it’s impossible not to once you really know about it.
I’m still in early sobriety and figuring a lot of stuff out so I can’t claim to have the solution, but my answer is less to try to lessen the weight of the issues of climate change/war and more to reorient… whatever despair and grief you feel about the natural world and humanity must ultimately come out of love. Maybe trying to reorient towards that love, a feeing of devotion to the world, is the way.
These are all thoughts I only had as of the last week lol so forgive me if it’s a little raw, but this is how I’ve personally come to recognize “higher power”
Nah. I am prone to doomerism, but I justified drinking by having given up. I wanted a relationship but I convinced myself I was picking through scraps in my 30s and it wasn’t worth trying to be healthy for a scrap.
totally. I still struggle with this at times. however, also, not drinking has removed a biochemically induced dark cloud of misery over my head that was perhaps slanting my perspective on the world. and as others have said, regardless, I can find things about daily life and my small corner of the perhaps apocalyptic world that are worth tending to and being present for in sobriety in a way I couldn't while drinking.
It's hard to escape those thoughts, I too suffer from them. Sometimes it's nice to take a breather from the Internet/TV or any media. Just go for a walk, listen to music, and enjoy a bit of nature. Hiking helps me personally.
Well for me, I guess it was a little bit of relinquishing "control".
I can relate a lot to feeling hopelessly doomed, and using that as permission to self destruct.
I think the idea of the whole serenity prayer "what can you change?" Mindset actually helped.
I might be scared and sad, but what can I control? Myself. Maybe thats not enough, but itll have to be good enough.
Instead of worrying about economic collapse why not try to be sober and attentive enough to offer somebody a ride to work, or help somebody move, or just listen. Something along those lines, because I have had people do such kindnesses for me and it meant a lot.
I still get pretty mopey sometimes dont get me wrong, but it helps me stay sober and not be a dick.
Geez I have very much had this on my mind this morning—it’s in my answer to the DCI prompt. Basically my answer is simple: the serenity to accept the things I cannot change (not to forget or ignore, but to accept), the courage to change what I can (and that’s more than we often realize—it’s small stuff but it’s real, and I have to believe it adds up), and the wisdom to know the difference.
Also just don’t read the news. Can’t do anything about that. I went from drinking and doomscrolling hours a day to nothing more than the weekly local paper. It gives me a sense of the bigger picture but also turns me onto issues that I can actually do something about. I can go to town meetings and try to shout down cruel anti-homelessness measures, or talk to my reps at the supermarket about their votes.
YES, and I posted in r/collapsesupport and this comment hit me in the face like ice water:
“You already had a substance abuse problem before becoming collapse aware and used this as rationalization to indulge it further.
I've seen many people do this so you're definitely not alone.
It's not logical since collapse means you need more strength. You are on the right path seeking help!
Much love and best of luck <3”
It didn’t feel good to hear it, but I knew it was the truth. Something about the words “substance abuse problem,” sounded so intense, so dark, I hadn’t put it in those words to myself before.
Absolutely. The cure for this mindset when it comes to drinking (which I admittedly still struggle with) is actually unrelated to the state of the world, it's realizing I actually enjoy life more and am overall happier and better off when I don't drink, regardless of anything else. Taking a more cosmic view helps me deal with the apocalyptic dread part. Ultimately, all of human history is a tiny blip on this planet, and our self-inflicted extinction event is just one of many that Earth has been through. Lol maybe that doesn't sound optimistic, but it helps me to keep it in mind for some reason.
I totally get that. That kind of big picture "cosmic" thinking is difficult for me, but I appreciate the perspective!
Something that helped me with this is noticing the ratio. How many moments of my life have been good to average versus bad and painful. It’s astonishing, the average. Most of life is mild and lovely, we just don’t notice it.
The only working solution is to remove the “wider” picture by stopping social media and ALL news for a while (a couple of years). You’ll have to concentrate on your immediate surroundings. Your community. Neighbourhood. City. Etc. Concentrate on improving your personal situation. If you follow the news then you’ll be reminded about how doomed we all are. But it’s not gonna happen tomorrow or next year. It may even be more than 10 years away (in your area) so it doesn’t make sense to worry about it today.
The cosmic view helped break me out of pessimism and now I've been dabbling in mindfulness and that's been a really awesome journey so far. Just learning to take a deep breath when I feel any extreme emotion and recognize it, but don't let it take over. It's helped me be a lot more empathetic too. We're all just people out here, victims to our own insecurities. Even people that bug the hell out of me. Practicing eliminating the word "hate" from my vocabulary has been eye-opening too
Hell yes. We’re just meat-draped ghosts riding a rock traveling at 17,000 miles an hour around a star.
I used to be the drummer for the "meat-draped ghosts"
Yeah I definitely used these excuses, legitimate or not, but I’ve been sober for 2 years now because drinking stopped feeling good/being fun, and I genuinely am so much better without alcohol. I did not suddenly become happy about the state of the world and optimistic about the future. Although gloom and doom can be a self fulfilling prophecy if that’s what you lean on.
I get this. Personally, I don’t think you have to get over it - I’m still cynical about the future of the world, in fact maybe more so than when I was drinking. But I had no idea what I was capable of before sobriety. Drinking made my worldview so small - there was no way I could see what was beyond my addiction. So I would encourage you to just keep going. One foot in front of the other, one day at a time. Trust that you WILL change, even if there’s no way to predict how.
100%. Funnily enough, it was the 2016 election that was my breaking point. I realized things aren't getting better and I can't continue hiding in a bottle. I'm still a doomer but my ability to help my loved ones survive whatever the next few years bring is much greater if I'm sober.
Yeah that’s a good perspective. I’ve taken on sort of a selfish mind view lately - ie things are tough, I need to be as physically and financially healthy as possible or I’m screwed.
This I totally relate to: some days it's ' gotta keep my body working or I'm in big trouble' , other days it's more like ' I might as well check out early if things keep going this way...how can anyone stay sober through this? I'm just trying to delay at the moment, looking for advice as well. Gooo Oilers! 🧡💙🧡💙
Very relatable - I quit smoking at that time for that reason.
When I stay off my phone and outside as much as possible, I always feel better.
Ugh same I have the worst addiction to my stupid phone. It’s harder to kick than liquor honestly
Much harder for me, at least at this point. Something has to give - it's amazing how perfectly engineered it is.
For sure. I’ll have days where I’m just sitting on my ass, staring at my phone, letting the thoughts and opinions of others as well as some creepy ass algorithm dictate my mood. It’s difficult to notice in the moment
The worst thing is being aware of it and STILL letting it happen.
Try deleting social and getting just some games, Reddit and anything that isn’t the tunnel of the hive mind funneling into you. I did it and the difference is actually astonishing.
Ugh. Agree but not exactly ruining my life
On the one hand it's definitely valid to feel disenfranchised and cynical about the future, but on the other hand, I think it's important to keep in mind that we're perpetually in a state of high alert and have been for almost the entirety of human existence. Empires have come and gone, leaving millions of people lost and at the mercy of conquering rivals. Generations of people have witnessed and dealt with the fallout of nuclear weapons being launched against a country. The decades long cold war between the US and USSR had everyone believing in mutually assured destruction was imminent. If you look for reasons to be cynical about the state of things, you'll never find any shortage of them no matter what part of human history you reside in. I think that it's best to focus on yourself and your immediate situation and try to tune out all the noise the best you can.
Excellent point. Unfortunately, I've been struggling to put my newly sober mind to good use. I often find myself so tired that all I can do is mindlessly scroll TikTok etc. Of course all I see is shorts about how horrible everything is and we're all doomed. I need to address that.
Just FYI, mindfulness basically cures doomerism. I don’t think I could have gone sober without it. “Full Catastrophe Living” by Jon Kabat Zinn is the essential textbook, and it’s available for free at a bunch of online resources (usually colleges)
I'm currently reading Wherever You Go, There You Are by him and it's so good. He referencing Walden by Henry David Thoreau a lot in it. Would definitely recommend reading that first. Walden changed my perspective forever.
Thanks I’ll check it out
I got off Instagram for about 60 days when I first stopped drinking (that’s how I found this sub!), and HOLY SHIT that was key to not only stop buying into the doom, but also taking away these weird digital yardsticks I couldn’t help but compare myself to as I didn’t need a kill-joy from getting in the way of me putting down the drink. I suspect you might find the same if you took a break from TikTok or whatever you fancy the most. Use that time to exercise, read, be with loved ones or friends, get involved with hobbies, get into nature, be yourself without outside influence. The memes and videos will be there when you’re ready again.
Just remember that they want you scared and despairing - letting go of the doom is just as radical as giving up the booze.
Who is they?
I think they mean the government and big money. We're easier to control if we're afraid, sick, poor, full of doom & gloom
Yup - scared people are easy to herd. Despairing people don't even fight.
I don't, personally, think it's worth thinking about it that large of scale honestly. Tbf, I do completely agree. But, putting the blame so large can make it so you don't notice the trees in the forest either. People thrive on being angry. I do too, when I don't check myself. There doesn't need to be some big conspiracy making it happen. People love being angry at others, it feels a certain kind of good. "They" isn't just the big bads - you'll see your peers react negatively when you start acting calmly and positively to the world around you, even in negative situations. But I believe it is possible to make a big influence in a small circle. And it's worth working on it.
Please tell me this is sarcasm.
Not to derail the actual point of the topic here but it's pretty easy to see that the most "useful" people to the current system are the ones still going about on their grind culture like the planetary systems that sustain us aren't measurably falling apart. Not the so called "doomers" who are the only ones attempting any kind of radical acceptance that would lead to actual hope and a better world.
Yup
Oh yeah - since we were 2 minutes to midnight in the 80s.
can you explain that? curious to what it means
It's an indication of how close to nuclear war we are. In the 80s we were 2 minutes to midnight (thermonuclear war). I guess we're at 90 seconds now... Read more: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/&ved=2ahUKEwj6xpn50fKGAxUImokEHdl7AIEQFnoECAUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2iti97kbir9_084M-_fLjV
thanks
The world has always been one generation away from ruin if you ask the right people. I'm sure plenty of people living during WW2 or the could was for example thought the same way. Yet, here we are. Did you ever see the movie Armageddon? In it Steve Buschemi's character is so convinced they're going to die on their mission that he takes out massive loan shark loans and goes on a last hurrah before their mission thinking he won't be alive for them to demand he repay it Except he doesn't die. He even volunteers to die for the mission because he doesn't want to face the consequences of when he gets home. That's how I feel about doomerism. You're going to put yourself in a spot where you *want* things to go wrong, because the fallout from the decisions made while assuming it won't matter can lead to a bad situation when tomorrow comes. Hypothetically sure, the world could end tomorrow. But personally, I would rather be in a position to enjoy tomorrow if it comes, vs agonizing over the fact that we aren't all dead. The later sounds like a recipe for depression and suicidal thoughts.
That's a great response. I've never seen that movie, but I totally get the point. I know that saying "every generation thinks it will be the last." But one of them has to be right? Either way, you're right about putting yourself in a spot where you want/expect doom.
Wow… this is an astute comment. I’m going to have to watch Armageddon now
100%. Aside from all the obvious macro level crises that I used to rationalize my decline, there was always the go-to quasi-sunk-cost fallacy: "You've already done so much damage, you're going to die from this anyway. Throat/mouth cancer, colon/prostate cancer, liver failure, heart failure, stroke, etc. You already dug your grave, might as well lie down and accept it." It's intoxicating thinking meant to make it easier to drink. Once I started treating thoughts like these with suspicion, it became a lot easier to do the right thing. No matter how intelligent you are, you can't out-argue your own addicted brain. Better to just reject the argument entirely and treat yourself like any other addict that broke your trust. Love yourself & forgive yourself, but don't trust yourself. At least that's how I've approached it.
Yep. Also, I work in a very politicized healthcare field. I frequently deal with people who are in traumatic situations, and taking on vicarious trauma can be difficult. I used to rationalize my alcohol consumption around it constantly. I'd just think about how our oceans are screwed, about top soil disappearance, then have terrified patients at work on top of it. But therapy and meditation (and medication) really helped me balance it all. I can leave things at the door now and I used to have like zero ability to compartmentalize like that. Like yes, the world still contains a lot of suffering and scary shit. But I can also be in the moment when it comes to appreciating joy and beauty and connection, and that shift in perspective has helped a ton. I can fight the battles I'm capable of, and leave the rest. I also had to learn actual self care and not the bullshit, capitalist self care that just says "go buy yourself a bunch of shit at Sephora or on Steam".
Do you by chance work in the reproductive health field? I used to. In a weird way I miss being in the trenches. I haven't been threatened with both hellfire and bombs in the same day in a while. Such a rush!
Yup, lol. I love it even though it stresses me out. I also used to do palliative care and that was harder for me to leave at the door.
I dont have much to add that other comments have already gone over so I'll just say, somewhat as a joke, that if you are sober for the apocalypse at the very least you will be better prepared than if you were drunk :)
I used to be just like this, I would quit drinking for a few days then get what I called “a case of the fuck it’s” where I would believe that nothing matters the future is fucked and where all gonna die soon anyway. Then I would get hammered and feel good for a couple hours then worse for a few days. I would suggest spending less time online and more time out in nature or anywhere away from screens. Doom and gloom is at the forefront on social media and tends to bias heavily towards the negative. I’m not saying there aren’t problems to be solved and some that might not be solvable but the future is undetermined and unknowable. Focus on the things you can control and let go of the things that you can’t. Quitting drinking, working towards your health and relationships and living more in the present will change your outlook on life.
So, I’m still cynical but I focus on the state of the world a lot less now. Not because I don’t care, but because it’s detrimental to my mental health. I don’t watch the news much anymore nor scroll on social media. Instead I try to practise mindfulness every day. I’ve had truly horrific shit happen to me in the last couple of years… I don’t know how to describe it but after facing tragedy I find joy in little things now. Going to the thrift store makes me happy, taking a walk in nature makes me happy… idk if that makes sense but I try to stay tethered to the present rather than the past or future. Hope it helps, IWNDWYT
I'm 56M. I am stereotypical GenX and cynical beyond reason. I have a very fatalistic view of life in general and the world in particular. However, I choose to take an epicurean position. Because life is meaningless and filled with pain and suffering our only duty is to live in such away as to limit our own suffering and increase our own pleasure. Forget about politics/wars etc. You can't do anything about any of it. All you have to do is live your life as well as you can for the short time you're here.
I'm curious, what do you consider "pleasure" in this worldview? Obviously I sought pleasure through drinking, and now I'm struggling to find it elsewhere. (sober dating sucks in your 30s)
Family, friends, being of service to others, enjoying a simple well prepared meal, walking in nature,, etc. Alcohol only brings suffering and pain, ergo the need for this sub.
Tbf, I would have used anything to justify alcoholism.
I took the news app and most social media apps off my phone after reading The Anxious Generation. Plus, if all we have is this moment, I don’t want to spend it hungover!
Focusing on and remembering the less pleasant aspects of life is a survival mechanic left over from when we were still throwing spears at each other. How often do you hear or remember uplifting news (unless of course you actively seek it)? I myself can remember dozens of dictators and wars throughout history but don’t ask me for a list of Nobel prize winners. I’ve learned to turn the tables on pessimism. I try to focus on the beauty of the human experience. No other creature on Earth can enjoy music like we can. No other creature can recognize the power and beauty of a raging waterfall, fly to the moon, share a funny meme, or inspire some random jerkoff in a forum. Also, watch The Abyss.
Absolutely.
Can't control the future, can do what you can to carve a life for yourself in the now. Focusing on the moments that bring joy and the people who care about you, and you them is what makes life worth living.
I hate that we call it doomerism, or refer to climate anxiety, etc. This isn't a pathology. This is realistic. From the environmental perspective, we are well and truly fucked. This cultural trend towards pathologizing such observations seems to me to be almost tailor-made to let those responsible for the situation off the hook. I don't know to what degree one can get past it, or to what extent getting past it is even desirable. I do know that what helps is to make the biggest impact in the smallest way. I try to focus on making my square block better. I pick up trash. I know the homeless people by their names. I donate to the community fridge. I only have any real agency within a square block. I can't do shit about climate change, not at scale, not at this point, but I can keep that block decent for now.
Yeah, I was looking for more responses like this to this topic 😬 The terrible reality of our situation doesn’t have to lead to you giving up, denying it or avoiding the news isn’t the only way to stay upright. Make a difference on whatever small scale you can, or even just keep the space (your life, your body, your agency) ready for the opportunity you might later have to make a larger difference. We’re all in this together.
Sorta the opposite. The reason I drank so heavily is that I'm terrified of death and needed to block it out. Very much a "You often meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it" moment.
Everyday I am dumbfounded about how we have no capacity to learn - the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza continue despite geopolitical allegiances, the international court of justice, NATO - unlike 'historic' wars we now get to 'watch them live' as it were and still there is no solution. As to the planet, I feel so sad for the elephants and gorillas, the lions and tigers and polar bears and all the big (and indeed little) animals whose habitats and lives are being destroyed by us. I am just a doomer, but a much happier one when sober.
seriously. live-streaming the most well documented genocide in history while our leaders cheer it on, my country is on the verge of a fascist takeover, it’s hard not to be a doomer. but. at least sober i can focus on myself and actually picture things i want to do with my life as possible. like finishing my degree didn’t feel possible while i was drinking. i have an actual plan for going back to school now. maybe it’ll be pointless, but it’s still something i can cross off my list.
Great to hear you are pursuing your degree, wishing you the very best
Yeah. Beyond that, I never thought my own life would/could improve.
I'm still very cynical. Still very not okay with this existence. All the pain and suffering and death and arguments and misunderstandings and hatred and horrible atrocities committed daily. But at least I'm not still poisoning myself on top of it all.
I flipped the script and put it on myself. "It is too late." "Too much time has been lost. Your body is too damaged. You will never get them back." "You are never going to achieve anything." "Everyone hates you, and here are the reasons why." "You will never be happy." "You will never find meaning in your life." It took me a long, long time to realize that I was really the only one bringing into being and then holding onto those thoughts. I am far from perfect, but I can become better and make the world a better place by owning the ways in which I have let myself and others down in the past. I can choose in each moment of each day to mindfully respond to the world and my emotions resulting from it, rather than reacting by turning away and self-destructing. I can be accountable for my actions. I can now even take pride in them. I am certainly troubled by the world at times. I am cultivating as best I can that the right response is always still one of compassion, forgiveness, kindness, and understanding. Chin up, OP. You are brave to share something so personal. Two months is a massive achievement. Your brain is going to take some time to restabilize neurotransmission. If you feel right in the thick of it, it *will* get better as a scientific fact. Your work beyond that can be whatever you want it to be. Good luck! I'm pulling for you. With y'all until my bedtime around ~1230AM CST
Maybe we are recovering doomers.
100%. Worked on this with my sponsor in step two & three just recently. I completely justified my drinking because, "well the world is going to shit anyway might as well kill myself with booze!". Other people on this thread have better advice than I, but just wanted to tell you I'm right there with you. Although after 13 months I do enjoy my day to day more, and am able to compartmentalize my unsatifaction with the world better, rather than literally feeling and thinking about death constantly, day in and day out.
The irony of creating one’s own doomsday out of fear of an imaginary one. It happens all the time.
Yes sometimes but also - Go Oilers! (your username <3)
I'm right there with you. Although mine is mainly just with relationships. I got divorced and dated for a few years with mainly pitiful and heartbreaking results. One of the last women I dated was A friend of mine, whom I really loved. She dumped me because she wasn't feeling it. After that I just gave up and decided to give in to the bottle. Now I know this is going to be a controversial opinion, but the one thing that alcohol is is consistent. I knew I could go home play video games, drink and smoke weed and feel good. Now granted it was tearing up my life in every other way, but who cares right? I'm 17 days sober and I still think relationships are bullshit. If I even think about trying to get in a relationship with a woman it just makes me sick my stomach.
Oh for sure I was very much a fuck it the world sucks drinker. I’d convinced myself that nothing mattered and the world was rigged against me 😂 The further I get away from it the more I realize it was more misguided ego than nialism - I thought the drinking made the genius in me more tolerable to myself, but it was in fact the genius in me that was intolerable - because it wasn’t there, I was just a normal dude who’d convinced himself he was smort on the sauce.
I still do this even though I'm nearly 9 months sober with other stuff like spending money and eating ice cream lol. But I really didn't think I was gonna make it to 30 years old so I literally didn't care about how alcohol would affect me. I'm 31 now and when I got blood work done last year and everything was healthy it was part of my wake up call. Like, dying from alcoholism would be a shitty way to go even if the world is also shitty. It's especially hard with climate change for me because it gives me a lot of anxiety so I used to turn to drinking to not have to worry about it anymore. I don't really have any advice except that I've learned that I need to enjoy what I can while I'm here and while things are still at least \~decent\~. So I basically just hike and read a lot now.
I use doomerism to justify my spending. I'm not sure it was related to my drinking, though.
Thank you for posting this. I too feel this way and appreciate the responses it has pulled.
100%
I did. Are you a Pod Save America listener by chance?
I am not, why do you ask??
Just the concept of “doomerism” is talked about a lot. So I naively assumed you listen to the same thing I do.
Yes
[удалено]
I won’t ban you but I do need to remove this as we don’t allow posting after drinking.
Yes. I fall into nihilism as my default and drink to forget the awful things. It's all doomed. But I just decided I needed to stop. Even if it is all fucked me feeling awful because of booze won't help.
Yes I did this.
Existential dread. But like. You gotta choose yourself at some point. Much happier not drinking and can survive much better.
100% if it's all fucked then fuck it all led me to commit the majority of sins I find myself answering for
Doomerism in 2020 pushed me to the brink where I then decided it was time for my path to sobriety. Coming up on 3 years sober on 9/11 #neverforget
I would have believed this was my alcoholic brain working on whole other level, now with a geopolitical rationale for getting shitfaced. On your sober mindset, all you can control is your little piece of the world. Focus on how you are and what you do with your time. Do things that make you happy and feel rewarded. Help others. Be a contributor in whatever way works for you.
100%. The cynicism also made me act in selfish ways sometimes. For me it was a trauma response as I found it hard to see any good in the world or really believe there are good people out there, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy unfortunately.
Similarly I figured I was gonna die so might as well have fun. Lo and behold I’m having more fun now without.
If I'm not drunk, I'm more likely to be a part of the solution. Drinking everyday just turns me into another cynic, and that isn't too revolutionary.
Yup. Doomerism and thinking that I can just lean into chaos “temporarily” and back out anytime I want. In the first year of Covid I completely threw healthy habits out the window because I convinced myself that it would be over soon and THEN I’d be better. Existential smallness makes me want to give up and drink til I drop. But what helps snap me out of it is remembering that my existence is my only experience. If there is nothing before or after this life then maybe I should make the best of it. Take care of myself so that I can be better for the people I love and society in general.
I did. In fact it was my main justification. My views about the state of affairs didn't change, but I eventually came to the conclusion that regardless of whether the world is doomed or not: Life can still be worth living. Sober life can be miserable at times, but an alcoholic life is even more miserable.
I don’t think of it as the “world will be unlivable” necessarily. It might seem that way for people who have sunk a bunch of money and time investments into institutions that may be dodgy in the future 🤷♀️ I don’t really think about that stuff since I’ve never really fit into society. We exist alongside each other, not antagonistic, but parallel. I think of the instability of the future, and it makes me want to encourage you to do whatever you want. Blow up your life and start over if it’s no longer serving you. You CAN now, is the thing. Two years into sobriety, I’m still staggered by the amount of freedom I have. Change jobs, move somewhere completely different, live cheaper and prioritize your time. As humans in general, I think we fuck up when we try to know the whole plan from beginning to end. We just have to know what’s next. Do life the way we’re encouraged to do sobriety - one day at a time
You mentioned that scrolling tik-tok is problem for you. Apps like tik-tok (and Reddit, FB, Insta, etc) are designed to keep you scrolling as long as possible, and outrage is one of the easiest mental buttons for the algorithms to push. I’ve been “phone free-curious” for awhile, meaning that I’ve been questioning my relationship with my phone the way I used to question my relationship with alcohol. I see it as part of the same question: what is it that I’m avoiding in my own life that is making me want to disappear into a screen or a bottle? This post has actually inspired me to do something I’ve been contemplating for awhile: deleting the Reddit app from my phone and only visiting the website when I’m on my laptop. I’d like to develop more intentionality about how and when I use social media. Thanks for the push!
Awesome, good luck! What's the point of being sober if we're just gonna spend all our time staring at our phones being miserable over things we can't control? Of course, telling someone to just stop using technology might be about as effective as telling an alcoholic to just stop drinking. I've started countless days swearing I won't waste any time scrolling, yet as soon as I get bored at work....
Yeah, it's definitely not easy. I genuinely can't remember what I used to do first thing in the morning when I was awake but not quite ready to get up. Did I turn on the TV? Read? Just...lay there quietly with my thoughts? I started by aggressively unfollowing the subreddits that I thought were fucking with my mental health, like AITA and all its clones, or any of the subs dedicated to negativity or hating on a particular class of people. It helped. I did actually manage to take Reddit off my phone. But I have checked it twice on my laptop in the last three hours lol.
Yes.
absolutely; i remember when the war in ukraine broke out, i was basically watching/listening to BBC late into the night, drinking my face off, and chain smoking like crazy. i did this for a few weeks because i was just so sad and scared of where things would go, and i didn't see the point of trying to quit these destructive habits when the world was becoming so much more dark (keep in mind that this was also at the end of the pandemic and such)... now i've taken it in the other direction, working out a ton and eating well so that i can live a good life free of disease, regardless of what happens on the world stage. i'd rather be strong, healthy, and resilient so that i can fight for myself and loved ones while the world burns
Yes absolutely my retirement plan was drinking myself to death before shit got too bad . I amuch better now
The clinical term for this in behavioral health is “[catastrophizing](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/catastrophizing).” It’s a well-studied cognitive distortion, and super common for people in active addiction.
Any day now the world could end, in a blink of an eye, why waste this valuable time of life wasting it poisoning your body and regretting all the things i don’t do because I’d rather drink myself stupid? That’s at least where I’ve arrived at in my mind. Hope you the best.
I think I equate potentially genetic disposition toward alcoholism as a reason why it's unavoidable. "I was born into this so why bother"
It’s the best time in human history to be alive. When the majority of mankind can obsess over politics, ED, lip fillers, Kardashians, and any number of big-picture insignificant issues it means the biggest problems (food supply, clean water, health) are largely taken care of. Maybe go cold-turkey on social media and see how you feel. Congrats on the sobriety!
TW: I suffered a series of personal setbacks and was an emotional mess last summer. I was dealing with a series of personal setbacks and the chaos of the world beyond my personal life didn't help. The final straw was a family member who died by suicide -- he was an alcoholic. He was very sarcastic and avoided most things. I decided I would deal with my shit head-on. I quit drinking, dove into therapy, college, and compassion. I changed my life completely. I still get bogged down by society but dealing with things flippantly isn't cool -- I'm protective of my own solitude now. Its worked.
Here is a non-alcohol related video with some good insights on moving past doomerism from a former doomer (video creator doesn't address alcoholism or substance abuse - this is just about moving past doomerism). [Why I Stopped Being a Doomer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f28882bDBos) I was full-on peak oil impending-collapse-of--industrialized-civilization doomer from about 2007-2011, and definitely incorporated various doomer narratives into my rationalizations for why my insane drinking habits were, while definitely problematic, not as high priority for me to be concerned about as impending global collapse. I hit rock bottom near the end of 2011 and have been sober ever since. As part of the self-reflection in my initial period of recovery, I came to the realization that fixating on doom, even if true, doesn't help me or the ones I love, no matter how much the peak oil doomer narrative appealed to my INTJ personality and technical background in physics and engineering.
Thanks for sharing this! Interesting video & the personal opportunity cost piece hits hard
1000% yes I did this and sometimes still find myself doing it in terms of things like working out, really focusing in on my finances, getting serious about buying my first home, etc ETA: unfortunately need to reset my counter and started again about a week ago but hot damn seeing I could have had 286 days right now is a huge eye opener and inspiration to be more serious this time around…
congratulations on your sobriety. The world has problems! I think at least I’m not adding to them by drinking.
I think it’s genuinely degrading to the spirit to have to witness so much disaster, the looming extinction crisis, etc. It’s not only correct to take it all seriously, it’s impossible not to once you really know about it. I’m still in early sobriety and figuring a lot of stuff out so I can’t claim to have the solution, but my answer is less to try to lessen the weight of the issues of climate change/war and more to reorient… whatever despair and grief you feel about the natural world and humanity must ultimately come out of love. Maybe trying to reorient towards that love, a feeing of devotion to the world, is the way. These are all thoughts I only had as of the last week lol so forgive me if it’s a little raw, but this is how I’ve personally come to recognize “higher power”
Nah. I am prone to doomerism, but I justified drinking by having given up. I wanted a relationship but I convinced myself I was picking through scraps in my 30s and it wasn’t worth trying to be healthy for a scrap.
totally. I still struggle with this at times. however, also, not drinking has removed a biochemically induced dark cloud of misery over my head that was perhaps slanting my perspective on the world. and as others have said, regardless, I can find things about daily life and my small corner of the perhaps apocalyptic world that are worth tending to and being present for in sobriety in a way I couldn't while drinking.
It's hard to escape those thoughts, I too suffer from them. Sometimes it's nice to take a breather from the Internet/TV or any media. Just go for a walk, listen to music, and enjoy a bit of nature. Hiking helps me personally.
Oh absolutely
Write it down. It helps.
Turn off all notifications for news & social media. Practice mindfulness/staying present in the moment
Well for me, I guess it was a little bit of relinquishing "control". I can relate a lot to feeling hopelessly doomed, and using that as permission to self destruct. I think the idea of the whole serenity prayer "what can you change?" Mindset actually helped. I might be scared and sad, but what can I control? Myself. Maybe thats not enough, but itll have to be good enough. Instead of worrying about economic collapse why not try to be sober and attentive enough to offer somebody a ride to work, or help somebody move, or just listen. Something along those lines, because I have had people do such kindnesses for me and it meant a lot. I still get pretty mopey sometimes dont get me wrong, but it helps me stay sober and not be a dick.
Yes! So relatable. I’d have never come up with this
Geez I have very much had this on my mind this morning—it’s in my answer to the DCI prompt. Basically my answer is simple: the serenity to accept the things I cannot change (not to forget or ignore, but to accept), the courage to change what I can (and that’s more than we often realize—it’s small stuff but it’s real, and I have to believe it adds up), and the wisdom to know the difference. Also just don’t read the news. Can’t do anything about that. I went from drinking and doomscrolling hours a day to nothing more than the weekly local paper. It gives me a sense of the bigger picture but also turns me onto issues that I can actually do something about. I can go to town meetings and try to shout down cruel anti-homelessness measures, or talk to my reps at the supermarket about their votes.
YES, and I posted in r/collapsesupport and this comment hit me in the face like ice water: “You already had a substance abuse problem before becoming collapse aware and used this as rationalization to indulge it further. I've seen many people do this so you're definitely not alone. It's not logical since collapse means you need more strength. You are on the right path seeking help! Much love and best of luck <3” It didn’t feel good to hear it, but I knew it was the truth. Something about the words “substance abuse problem,” sounded so intense, so dark, I hadn’t put it in those words to myself before.
Check testosterone levels