Typical Evening Before....

I just read this post about a blogger suburban betty's typical evening and thought it was pretty close to mine, except mine lasted longer, didn't involve eating dinner, and never ended at 4 glasses.

Chipping it Down

Last night I went to my third AA meeting and really enjoyed the topic of gratitude.  While I'm feeling a lot of things lately, I'm afraid gratitude isn't really one of them.  One lady talked about how she really had no clue what she was grateful for when she first started getting sober this last time.  Her sponsor suggested she start with "I'm grateful for my toothbrush."  It was a good reminder.

The last few days have been rough.  I'm overloaded with emotions.  I was at my regular gas station this morning, getting my regular ice tea on the way to work, and I got so overwhelmed I had tears running down my face as I'm adding the fake lemon juice to my drink.  Just completely blindsided!  I realize I've got to just feel all this shit and get through it, but damn.  It sucks crying at the equivalent of the 7-Eleven.

It's no help that my family is having a real blow up at the moment..  It's breaking my heart and I would love to dull these feelings with glass of wine.  I'm a fixer and this is something that I don't know if I can repair.  These two have to come together.  I feel like hiding away from the world for a while - is that normal?

Gotta get the show on the road - take care.

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

Welcome, Come on In

Blog Day 1, Sober Day 91

I'm inspired to start this blog today because today, sober sucks.  I forced myself to quit drinking wine by the 50 gallon drumful 91 days ago.  For the most part, it hasn't been a constant battle of cravings and fighting myself not to pick up a drink.  Overall, it's been, for the most part. boring.  I remember the first Friday of my no-wine life was remarkable only in how boring it was.

Today and yesterday it has been plain old fucking hard.  Feeling EVERYTHING is tough.  I never really thought about it.  If I had a "tough" day, I'd drink.  If I had a rough family issue, I'd drink. Now, I have to feel everything - face it - full frontal fucking feelings.  I'm a 52 year old woman, and I have been drinking for a very long time.  I don't think I've ever gone two weeks without drinking since I was probably 16 or so, much less 3 months.  

I was a big wine drinker.  I come from a group of family and friends who drink.  A LOT.  All of us. Drink.  All. The. Time.  At every occassion.  My problem was with my "stop" or "off" button.  It never worked well.  It's broken.  I don't remember how long it's been broken, but broken it definitely is.  It flat out does not work.  I never drank in the morning or at work or every day - more like every other day, and only after work, or on the weekends.  It wasn't unusual for me to start at a local happy hour and come home at 8pm or 9pm in the evening and stay up well into the wee hours drinking alone.  Not normal.  

Over the course of the last few months I've been reading a ton about alcoholism and how scary it can be for so many people.  I always sort of shrugged off my close calls and not so close calls.  One of my problems is that I can drink like a sailor (no offense to sailors) but I can drink a huge quantity of wine and walk and talk and stand up.  The problem is I don't remember what I say or what happened.  I'm told I repeat myself and forget conversations, which evidently is not fun to be around.  I'm thankful that I don't wake up in stange beds or act out sexually - I keep my knickers on but not my mind.

My last drunk was a doozy.  I drank a shit ton of wine, was in a blackout that I only have momentary pieces of memory of, where I said some horribly shitty things to someone that I really care about.  I still don't know what I said completely because this person won't tell me - I have the jest of it I think. What I do know now is that I don't ever want to  be that person again - ever.  

I've done and said some shitty things before while drunk, but I don't remember every intentionally trying to emotionallty wound someone I love.  Who is that tyrant bitch and does she really live inside me?  If she does, I wish the wine would have drowned her vicious ass instead of igniting her vile spirit.

But that's only the catalyst that pushed me to were I have known I needed to go for a very long time. How do you spot a problem drinker in a group of pretty heavy drinkers?  I don't know.  I know what was happening to me in my house - mostly alone.  My child (an adult now) has told me for years things like "of course you don't remember mom, you are (were) always drunk."  Was I?  Really? Could she tell? I mean always?  I thought I was just having a couple glasses of wine.  Maybe 6 or 12, or more.  We had arguments about it, some humdingers over the years.  Once I recall my mother asking me "do you really think you don't drink too much sometimes?"  But we are a non-confrontational family.  That's the only conversation we ever had about it until recently.

This is a downer post; a hell of an introduction.  To say it's been a rough week is not saying enough. My story is like a million other people's who are struggling to learn how live without alcohol in their lives.  I hope writing will help me.  I've been to a couple of AA meetings and need to get to more.  

I'm going to keep writing here in hopes that it helps me work through all of these new feelings I have to face and maybe in doing so, I can help other people along the way.

Love yourself,

Un-Wined