Coming up on almost 2 months of not drinking. Still have pain in the hips and shoulders plus sometimes
right elbow and knee. Some days I feel better but in general it seems slightly worse than the last
time I posted. The doc thinks it’s from sitting in front of the computer all day but is setting me up to
get an MRI to “rule out anything nasty” as he put it. I’ve googled my symptoms a few times and have
run a cross some really ugly stuff. Dr. Google is known to be notoriously inaccurate so I will wait
for my doctor for the final word. Still very scared and trying to get through it day by day.
Attended a couple of online AA meetings. Don’t know if it helped much but listening to others
talk sometimes has a calming effect. First time I attended a meeting was very late at night
and I just clicked on one at random. I soon noticed that everyone in the meeting was speaking
with a funny sounding accent and realized it was a meeting in Syndney, Australia! Fortunately,
they didn’t seem to mind a Yank listing in on them and Zoom as far as I know doesn’t show your
location.
After many attempts I was able to get in touch with a therapist and had a couple sessions. She recommended among other things that I get out and socialize more. There is a church a few blocks
from my home and I thought “what the heck”. Now, mind you, I haven’t attended a church service
in over half a century so I was very surprised to see a couple of guitarists and a drummer setting
up their instruments when I entered. Accompanying the organist, they played several songs that
were not familiar to me but sounded very vaguely like Fleetwood Mac. I had expected some
slow organ pieces with a choir. It wasn’t a bad experience so I may return.
Anyway, I thank you if you have read this far. Wish I could write something more entertaining
like our friend Beckdawrek (haven’t seen her post lately, hope that she is OK). Creating
these posts and reading all your nice comments helps to reduce the stress a little bit.
Yeah, guitars, drums, and distortion have been a part of worship bands in many churches for a while now. There are people who don’t like it—either because they want more traditional music or because they think you should just listen to actual rock—but I enjoy it. And I’m glad you were able to, too. You gotta find things to enjoy.
Congrats on being two months sober. Sorry about the pain, and hope it turns out to be nothing. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the anxiety has to do with getting used to sobriety.
I personally have found podcasts to be awesome at night when I can’t sleep. Also, maybe take a quick check into ASMR and see if any of it helps you relax. (Some of it tries to be sexy, but a lot of it doesn’t. Just calming.)
You gotta have the full Christian multi-media experience to be a successful church now. At least 3 giant video screens, a full 8+ track audio system with a mixing board, a 6+ piece band. Some smoke and lasers are of course welcome.
I’m a member of a progressive United Methodist church in suburban Chicago. We have two worship services every Sunday: one with traditional music, and one with “contemporary” music – and, yes, that means a rock-style band (two guitars, electric bass, keyboards, drums). Members of our congregation tend to self-select which worship and music style they prefer – so, there’s a group of mostly older parishioners who only attend the 9:30am traditional service, and another group (mostly younger) who only attend the 11am contemporary service. Our church leadership has long believed that offering both styles is an important way to meet the varying needs of the congregation.
There is a ton of contemporary-style worship music out there, and has been for decades. But, if you’ve never been to a church that offers it, it may be a bit of shock.
An acquaintance gave me a cd for my son years ago. He was ~12 and into rap and hip-hop. Turned out the cd was christian rap. My son was not amused, my acquaintance found it all hilarious.
I saw a comic strip years ago (single panel) with a heavy metal-type band playing on stage and the husband of an elderly couple says to his wife, “I prefer the traditional hymns.”
I sent it to my mother, who loves it.
Our church has one service, but it includes traditional hymns and what I would call Christian pop, along with African hymns, since many people in our congregation are from Cameroon and Liberia.
Wouldn’t that technically be a “Christian Death-But-Then-You-Find-Out-You’re-In-Heaven-And-You’re-Pissed-Off-Because-You-Wanted-To-Meet-The-Devil Metal” band?
.
I guess I want my music to stay in its lane.
I really like hard rock, and travel to festivals for real rock ‘n’ roll, but I purposely go to a church that’s very “High Church”. It looks and acts like an old Renaissance cathedral, with music to match.
With no “Contemporary Service” and no (shudder) “Praise Choruses” where you repeat some platitude like “God is so good…” over and over and over. A friend calls those 7-11 hymns. “Seven words, repeated eleven times”.
Here’s a clip by a guy named Tim Hawkins, --a Christian standup comedian, and very talented guitarist, who’s singing about what goes on behind the scenes at church.
The song is a parody of Dire Strait’s “Sultans of Swing”. (A song originally about a bunch of poor musicians playing at a bar to an unappreciative crowd.)
This comedian turns it into a description of how the music gets played for worship in church.
He sings about" A techno version of the hymn with laser lights bouncing off the smoke machine in the sanctuary… “The deacons want it mellow for the offering, but let us crank it up on Sunday night” ,while a bunch of kids are fooling around in the sound booth. Then they play the Benediction with a reggae swing.
Worth watching, just to see him doing a terrific on the guitar.
Plus his standup is pretty funny, too.
