LESS Alcohol ~ October 2025 ~ One Day at a Time

@WestCoastGirl_1 wow!!!! That’s such great progress! Happy for you!
1.5 glasses of wine last night, not bad. Normally on a weekend night it would be 2-3 so that’s something. I’ve been going over my calories this week so I have to tighten that up.

Today I am lectoring at church, then book club and then dinner out with friends. I will definitely have wine at dinner! But it’s planned.

Happy Sunday everyone!

AF 14
LA 3
A 1

I attended a very positive citizen event yesterday, came home cooked, and celebrated with one glass of Josh Cabernet Sauvignon. I'm starting to break out of the social isolation/depression of staying at home.

Fingers crossed that I won't be tempted by date night, happy hour dinner at the open, good, steak house. Lots of qualifiers in that phrase. Not my best grammar.

Wound up a little off track but that's okay, I'm still doing better than I've done in the past. Last night was planned drinks, son has a birthday coming up and we celebrated a little early. Son, daughter in law and granddaughter all came over, we had pizzas, followed Dubai chocolate brownies with vanilla ice cream since he's not a huge fan of cake. After, we all sat around talking. I went to the kitchen for something, son tagged along, and it was decided that we'd grab our planned beers and head upstairs to the studio to put on some music and talk by ourselves for a bit. DIL and baby came up a little later, it was nice to hang out, the four of us flopped out on sheepskins and pillow piles, lights down, music on, having some real talk. (Okay, baby didn't talk much, but she enjoyed hanging out.)

Tonight is DarkWave, so I've got the last beer. I've been sleeping like garbage, so I'm tweaking my stacks, cutting the pm doses of ashwagandha, valerian, passion flower, cutting the morning dose of reishi, try to get my circadian rhythm back on track. I thought I was sleeping bad because I was sick, but I'm nearly a week into my antibiotics and feeling a lot better, so….the wild part is the morning stack keeps me functioning during the day regardless, so that's cool.

In a day or two, I should be ready to transition my grow to fruiting conditions, I'm really looking forward to it. When I'm microdosing, I drink less. It makes sense, there's studies that back it up.

11 AF
8 A

-m

@chicbuc Thanks! I do feel that I'm making some progress. I've been feeling better each day. Thank you for the prayers! Congrats on your 4 Day AF streak. Six days AF out of seven is awesome! I don't like to predict ahead of time when my Day 1 will be, but it will be very soon. I like to post at night after the liquor store is closed. If I post in the morning, a lot of you won't see until the following day due to the time differences. So stay tuned 🙂

@NonnieDoiron Congrats on losing 15 lbs! Losing 37 lbs by the end of next July should be a piece of cake. I don't always respond to everyone's posts either, unless I have something to add.

@mfowler883 I have to admit that I don't understand the stacking/microdosing stuff either. I see TV commercials lately talking about microdosing, but it seems to be related to GLP-1's. Maybe you could explain it to us?

Okay, I'll try to explain this the best I can.

The stacks are pretty straight forward. Stack is just a general term for taking multiple supplements, usually in the context of things that work together to achieve a desired result, so you'll often see words like synergistic used. That just means supplement A helps supplement B do the thing better. Then you have things that just boost bioavailability or aid in metabolizing or binding to the right receptors and so on. My stacks are generally adaptogens, nootropics, GABAergics, anxiolytics, and along with some things that help with regulating sleep cycles, inflammation, immune boosting, and respiratory recovery.

I've been making some adjustments, so my current morning stack is niacin, lion's mane, chaga, cordyceps, ahwagandha, piperine, potassium, b12, and hyaluronic acid; my evening stack is melatonin, b6, lemon balm, l-theanine, magnesium glycinate, and reishi. Changes included ditching the morning dose of reishi and the evening dose of ashwagandha, valerian and passionflower. I'm probably about to reduce the melatonin and b6 again, trying to get back to baseline.

Microdosing is where things get interesting. In general terms, it just means taking a much smaller dose than usual. So you're seeing, for example, recent talk about microdosing semaglutide or other GLP-1 agonists as a possible route for appetite and metabolim hacking with fewer side effects than full dosing.

In my case, what I'm microdosing is harder to discuss openly. Culinary strains don't contain the relevant compounds, so we can eat portabello, oyster, button or shiitake all day long. In recent years, we're seeing a lot of shift in the climate surrounding these things as more and more research and studies come out; my hope is that in coming years, it'll be descheduled, decriminalized and become more socially accepted. Meanwhile, as the spores, cultures, mycelium and such are unregulated due to the absence of the relevant compounds, there's a massive cottage industry around it. I did find Amy Slaton's case interesting, the outcome was telling of the changes we're seeing.

Hopefully that helps a little.

@NonnieDoiron, can you tell me how to clean old cross-stitch? I have a small piece that my mom made for me when I was very young, it's physically in good condition but it's very dingy…

-m

@mfowler883 Thanks for the explanation. I'm curious to see if you have any suggestions for NonnieDoiron's question.

OMG that’s amazing! Congratulations on the weight loss! You inspire me. I need to lose 15 pounds myself and this shows it can be done!

If you promise to finish craft projects, I promise to get my decluttering finished! Deal??

PS I loved scrapbooking! I have a big bin of things I was saving to scrapbook. The stuff in there is 26 years old. There is something lost with digital cameras though. Great pictures get lost in the vortex of my phone. I need to figure out a way to get the good ones printed so I can put them in frames! Or maybe I’ll just do one of those Shutterfly books.

@mfowler883 your evening with the family sounds wonderful. It’s such a treat to be able to have great conversations. As for you basically becoming a farmer, I get it! I found the Michael Pollan book on this subject fascinating. It’s nascent therapeutic use in a very controlled setting got highjacked quickly. I think that’s part of the reason it really isn’t used anymore as a therapeutic aid.

Deal, @Womona!

I know what you mean about the scrapbooking/picture debacle. I have the same problem. About once a year, I download all my cell phone pics to my computer. I typically print out what I need for a layout either from my own printer or sending to Walgreen’s via their website.

My scrapbook supplies and memorabilia take up quite a large space in my room.

All these bins/containers hold supplies, pictures, and more; and that’s just the central storage. I have more. The books behind the black sewing machine bag, are empty or partially completed. My completed books are in the living room.

I just need 8 hours a day to work on the scrapbooks. lol

I figured out last night why I stopped the cross stitch pattern I was working 25 years ago. I screwed up the count somehow, and didn’t catch it until it was too late. So, now, I just need to modify it a bit. It shouldn’t be too difficult to do, but I can see how I would have just gotten pissed off and put it away. I think it’s salvageable without having to restart, but we’ll see.

A-0
AF-20

@NonnieDoiron Potassium is good, make sure it's a form with good bioavailability - potassium tartrate is highest. Watch your sodium intake, of course. To really get beyond that… Dig into megadoses of hyaluronic acid for inflammation, I take 850mg. You won't find it on shelves, but I've found some on amazon that is pretty decent. On the mushroom end, try reishi, chaga, shiitake and maitake. It's harder to find, you may need to seek it out at a TCM supplier, but poria mushroom is traditionally used for water retention.

I'll have a go at cleaning that cross-stitch piece, but not today. I don't have Woolite…also, it's mounted in the hoop that it was made on, and backed with brown paper. Maybe later, I'll dig it up and take a picture to post.


@Womona I really enjoyed the Netflix series based on Pollan's work - he is one of the leading voices in the field. If you liked How To Change Your Mind, check out some of the work by Paul Stamets and James Fadiman. (Those in the know will spot the Stamets Stack influence in my morning stack.) Then there's Rick Doblin and MAPS, Roland Griffiths and Matthew Johnson at Johns Hopkins, and of course we can't leave out Leary. Another film worth watching is Fantastic Fungi.

This one is a little more obscure and not as directly related but still adjacent and worth the read, Journeys Into The Bright World by Marcia Moore. And no discussion on the subject would be complete without at least giving honorable mention to Hamilton Morris and COMPASS Pathways.

Yes, it's a rabbit hole.

I was watching the Shawn Ryan interview with Pete Scobell, with no idea that the subject would come up. Next thing you know, they're talking about Pete's experience with ibogaine therapy. When you start reading about the work of Marcus and Amber Capone through their Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions organization, or the Heroic Hearts Project, it becomes clear that this isn't just some flash in the pan, we've moved beyond Terence McKenna and into a whole new realm of potential benefit. Whether it's Robin Carhart-Harris and David Nutt investigating default mode network regulation, or Olson & Kwan studying effects on neuroplasticity, the science is becoming undeniable.

-m

We love Brandon Lake too @NonnieDoiron - my DD’s family are attending 3 this year! Your weight loss is phenomenal- a huge congrats! You are doing everything right.

Had 2 NA days last week and planning to make that 3 this week. As I have shared, I’ve gone over my targets since my girls get away and continuing a little too much birthday celebrating since the beginning of the month….the only good news is I’ve been mostly sticking to 2 or less glasses of red wine. Today is a new day to reset!

Current: 

AF - 4

A - 13 🍷 

LA - 4