Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Faking It and Random Ramblings

Good evening to all of my readers (which is zero, zip, nada, so far - but I remain hopeful!)  I was reading several blogs yesterday evening written by people who are either in the early stages of quitting drinking, or the posts were from the earlier days of them quitting.

More than a few of them talked about a sort of stigma surrounding not drinking, and about how they might have a club soda or sparkling something in their glass to avoid people asking questions about them not drinking.  One woman even felt almost forced or compelled to drink after a successful business deal, and another by a friend at their standard boozy wine lunch because it's what they always did - even though the friend knew she was attempting sobriety.

Here's what I've been noodling over - if we were struggling to get over shooting heroin or snorting coke, would we need to load a syringe with fake heroin-colored something and inject that placebo to make our friends more comfortable?  Or roll up a dollar bill and honk a line of baking soda (so 1980's, I know) to avoid the questions about why we aren't using?

Why is there so much social pressure to drink?  I have it in my circle of friends as well.  I haven't made any grand announcement about not drinking, or told anyone outside of my daughter, mom and a couple of people close to me that I am done with booze for good (fingers crossed).  I've said things like "I'm off the wine for a bit," and "I'm taking a break from the vino," but no full confession.  I wasn't even really consciously counting my sober days outside of noting that it had been beyond two months when I attended my first AA meeting.

I don't think I've not made a big deal out of it because I'm afraid to fail and explain away falling off the wagon, I just don't want to make it a "thing."  I have this internally busy feeling in my body.  I feel much like I did when I was pregnant for the first time - like a great deal of my energy was being absorbed by being pregnant, growing a human, thinking about growing a baby and becoming a parent, and like I didn't have much spare brain space or conversation left over to talk about the weather or your new shoes.

I wonder if anyone else feels that perpetually internal busyness?  It can be exhausting for me.

Since I didn't start writing this until my 91st day of no wine, I might try to back-write (but in real time) and touch on some of the milestones and challenges I've had along the way.  I promise I can be a funny writer, but I just feel overwhelmed and bland and blah these last few days.

Bored, boring, but sober.

Love yourself,

Un-wined



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