Along the lines of joy's post on Friends, I wanted to add my own 2 cents in praise of this board! To put it all in a nutshell, I learned how to *drink* when I was at Bethel, around late 89 to early 93. Was disfellowshipped sometime just before Thanksgiving 94, and have continued to be a heavy drinker ever since. About a month & a half ago I discovered this board, and last Sunday I quit drinking The wierd thing is that it was easy!!! I've tried before, during all the years that I was trying to blow off my borg past, but I can see now that I drank to drown myself in a fantasy world, trying to recover a lost childhood maybe, I dunno. At any rate, all credit for this breakthrough in my life goes to the people on this board. The more I read here, the better I feel, the more weight slips off my shoulders... I never knew anything about the UN debacle, the generation re-write, and so many other things that I've learned here in a very short time. Luckily, I joined this list just in time to hear about NBC Dateline, and getting to see that was a huge eye-opener as well.
For the past 8 years, every time I saw some variant of the phrase "peace and security" in the news, I beat myself to smithereens wondering if I should go back (too stubborn, thankfully)... But lately, with all the play this phrase has gotten over 9/11, the Middle East, etc, I barely even notice it; the evidence is so obvious to me now, that the WTS has no direct link to God, that it doesn't phase me anymore.
I quit drinking Sunday. Monday, I had such a fabulous day at work that people commented "Mike, you're in a really good mood today!" I feel better, I relate to people better, I work better, I enjoy my off-time more. My boss told me Monday that there may be an opportunity coming up that he'd want me to take advantage of, meaning more independence in the workplace as well as more money Tuesday was just fine, and then yesterday...! I had the best workday of my life! (I actually ended up drinking last night to celebrate, hehehehe, but it's not a trend anymore ) There was a technical glitch in our system that held up a bunch of orders on Tuesday; yesterday I got there and the printer had vomited them ALL out, so there was about 3 times our normal workload on the printer. To top it off, the guy who normally sorts those tickets, as well as some other odd jobs, turned out to not be coming in, cuz his wife was suddenly having a baby! So it fell on me... My boss said he'd help, and I said, "Actually, Chad, I'm really looking forward to the challenge! I can do it myself!" I worked my butt off, and caught up with the workload around halfway through the day. At the end of the day Chad told me that I "really stepped up to the plate today," and spread that around to the other supes & bosses... Part of all this is my own work ethic & natural ability, I know, but... I have to thank you all for helping me out of an 8 year "deep blue funk." I have the courage to truly face reality again, and I give huge props to Simon & his wacky pack of apostates for getting me over that hurdle.
with deep love, thanks, and admiration, Mike the SpiderMonkey