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
