Moving on with things

RelievedSheff

You are a changed man Alt.

Being kinder to yourself will come with time.

enthusiasticsaver

You are a different person now. All of us make mistakes and the key is to learn from them.

 Interest rates will never be kept as artificially low as they have been over the last fifteen years. Just think you are in a better place now in terms of personal debt and hopefully by the time you come to refinance on your property portfolio things will have stabilised. I am not sure it will have the desired effect on inflation anyway but I hope I am wrong. Lots of people have fixed rates these days. It will hopefully stop people from taking on more debt though. 

alt80

Coming up to balance pay down day - another below target after going on holiday. Not had a great day generally and just have rising levels of stress which is something I'm meant to be managing and have been failing to do so for a while now. I have to work this weekend again not all day so will get some time with my family but totally whacked, really running on empty again and realise I spent far too much time on holiday thinking about and doing work rather than relaxing.

@RelievedSheff thank you I have a long way to go but choosing and committing to recovery, it has changed me and challenged a lot of views and beliefs I held. I have met people I wouldn't have spent time listening to otherwise and realised we are all someone's child. Idk life I don't think is easy for anyone really. 

@enthusiasticsaver thank you, have to stay on that right path, don't always find it easy tbh it's tempting sometimes to 'forget' the lessons learned. Think that's the case for all of us to some extent or another though, nothing special there ha. Unfortunately for me it's looking like I won't enjoy the honeymoon of having rid myself of the large personal debts for long before I have a whole new world of pain dealing with my property. Idk maybe I was never meant to just be 'ok' ha.

100% we won't see sustained levels of cheap debt again like we have. I hope inflation won't continue to blight our lives but it seems like it is more stubborn than first thought. As they started to get serious about it last year I sort of lost what was going on - I had to give all my focus to my recovery. You are right about the fixed rates, wasn't something I used to do but the deals were I thought just too good to not, and turned out to be right. I had been saying for years wouldn't see deals like this again but I hadn't anticipated this, thought it would be a steady climb to a base rate of c2% with deals c2.5%-3%. Different !!!!!! world now and is compared to when the rates were comparable. Value of property generally has only climbed so much over the last decade off the back of cheap money, I am concerned where things will go if these current rates hold or get worse. Over this decade I'll be surprised to see much if any growth at all in this part of the world. Unfortunately, whilst I think people in relatively fortunate positions will reconsider taking further debt, those struggling will perhaps be likely to just to keep things ticking and the lenders aren't in a position they've ran out of money either. Think many are in for a bumpy ride (myself included). 

alt80

Managed to have a decent weekend with family, paid an additional £2,600 off the balances and today no work apart from planning my coming week. I need to take the family time, had started neglecting it for work and it was impacting my mindset negatively, along with the news. Can’t control the news, economy etc. no desire to get into politics haha can you !!!!!! imagine lol. I can control how I spend my days though and to what extent I’m spending it working. I’d been doing a lot of 8am to midnight with a break for dinner and son’s story time, had very poor sleep the past few weeks and that lead to craving the stuff which I really don’t want to end up there again so had the !!!!!! desperate calls to the pros and wife. Had the panic, anxiety agoraphobia thing trouble with driving etc. Friend from the past still harasses me and my family that’s just another reminder now of how much I don’t want to go backwards, his life where he’s let it go is just !!!!!! tragic really. I’ve not come this far to !!!!!! it up again. 

Determined to get back to exercise this coming week. I’ve been neglecting it and other things that are good for my recovery to work excessively- I know it’s part of the same problem, better than the other stuff but still an addictive ‘habit’ for me and when it gets like that it affects me. Family miss me, I miss out on things with them, been eating one meal a day for quite a while to not take a break from working, sleep and fitness both sacrificed and spoilt my holiday. Not !!!!!! worth it.

warby68

I wish there was a magic wand for mindset @alt80, but if you keep doing as you are and pulling yourself back from the brink with eyes wide open, the successes will start to count.

To be fair as well, the economic conditions will be prompting a lot of business owners to put in extra hours to try and weather proof themselves so some element of the pull to work a lot is understandable from that perspective so be kind to yourself.

As long as you stay clean and however you do it is a success.

alt80

Not having an easy time rn. Tbh I have started to feel as financially stressed as when things were really quite bad personally. It's for different reasons (property / business related) - the ongoing increases in interest rates is !!!!!! terrifying me. Those who followed my other diary are likely somewhat aware why.

@warby68 I have no social circle anymore and no easy access to personal money, it's having those barriers in place for me as I don't think I'm going to get into that position of finding self worth which I get is better for actual recovery tbf. I get up, work and go to bed with a break for dinner and a break to read to my son. Said I wanted to get back to exercise at the start of this week and not work like this but have failed. I do try to spend a day at the weekend with my family - they want me to.

Can't say I see a future for myself, just have to keep reminding myself my family didn't choose to wind up here dealing with me and the only thing I can give back is to earn well and not spend money on myself so they some day have more. All sounds !!!!!! depressing but you're right about however I stay clean is a success, this is for my family and they deserve this. I do not want them to suffer the embarrassment any longer.

RelievedSheff

You do need to snap out of that spiral of self loathing.

Be kind to yourself. Allow yourself some time out. 

You do need some form of interaction with the world outside of work and your immediate family.  It is unhealthy to be locked away from the world.

You are doing so well with the finances. It is perhaps time now to start looking at your health and well being as well? 

alt80

@RelievedSheff iswyacf tbh I’m fed up of trying to do !!!!!! meditation, cold water, therapy and all these other things that are meant to help telling myself if I do it often enough it’ll sort my head out and bring long term contentment. For me it doesn’t but it has helped me to see I need to stay away from things that harm my family and do the right thing by them- they are the most important thing and keeping them safe and happy is what I need to do. I do get something of a buzz still from making things happen in business but diminishing returns- deals have to be bigger for the same hit. So far as my personal finances go that is a lot better at the expense of being able to have access to my own money ha !!!!!! irony not lost on me, I used to get something from spending. The other financial stuff I suppose I’m anticipatory stressed about it as rn things are fine as they are. Ultimately I’m doing this for my family and others I’m responsible for because it’s the right thing, see my boy grow up to have a better life so I don’t want to fail and !!!!!! up a load of other peoples lives in the process, tbf you must see that not all of us can have the sort of enviable lifestyle you enjoy with the leisure time etc. 

stymied

Remember that your best days are those that you have experiences with your family. You have, dare I say it, been happy on those days. Right now you’ve gone back to talking like you use to which has been worrying me for a while. Please plan a project with your son, e.g. setting up a wormery in the garden or doing a park run or improving your tennis together. Don’t think about it, just do it.

warby68

You do need to do this for yourself @alt80. In doing that, you will do right by your family. You place a lot of pressure on them indirectly and perhaps not deliberately as you are now, because you are effectively saying they are the only things keeping you straight.

A very narrow life of hiding is not good in the long run. 

Eventually you have to manage sobriety in more normal settings - hopefully the pros have some helpful advice. I know you're only months in and need to keep drug free however you can but you must bring in some bigger goals of normality even if they are distant at the moment.

Just get some big walks with the dog, trips out for ice cream, fun drives to see castles or beaches going, whatever. Just live a little tiny bit more. You don't have to wear your hair shirt of perpetual worry 24/7
 
Meant kindly @alt80 - your talk is spiralling a bit.