Managing Expectations; Focusing on the Little Things

I had a lot of expectations about quitting drinking.

I was going to lose weight, exercise more, eat better, feel better mood-wise, be a better spouse, be a better mother, get great sleep and feel awesome every morning.

Oops.

I've lost a few pounds but my penchant for sweets and lack of exercise has caused that change to stabilize.  I'd like to say that I'm motivated to get the scale moving again but we'll see.

I certainly exercised more for the first 60 days but then fell back off that wagon.  I'm now working with someone to help change my view of exercise. I have realized that if I'm happy, I exercise. If I'm not, it's the last thing I want to do.  I would like to change my view and get to a point where I will know that exercise will MAKE me feel happier.  Logically I know this to be true with endorphins and all. I like exercise....when I do it....but doing it...just getting started... is my huge hurdle.

I don't eat much better.  I actually bought an ice cream cone yesterday with my son when we swung by the dry cleaners. I haven't bought an ice cream, been inside an ice cream store in YEARS!  Then I came home, made tea and ate my 6 squares of Cadbury....hmm...rutro......    I like AF wine (in moderation) as well.  So add in those calories too.  Granted, I drink my nightly cocktail of 1/3 glass of AF wine, 1/3 glass of club soda, 1/3 glass of sparkling water, squirt of lime juice and a sprig of mint.....so it's certainly not as many calories as 4 glasses of white wine but I think I'm going the wrong way on the chocolate thing.  I still don't eat many veggies.  I do still take vitamins.

I do feel a whole lot better when I have zero alcohol in my system.  I do think I am being a better spouse (still trying to deal with turning my mind off so my libido isn't affected...wine used to do that for me pretty well...) and I am definitely more present as a mother.

However, my sleep is back to being kind of shitty and sporadic, rarely very deep and I wouldn't say I feel awesome every morning.  I do get out of bed a whole lot easier though!

I tried a few glasses of wine and even that didn't feel good anymore.  The negatives really outweigh the positives for me.

I think this whole journey is about managing these larger expectations and focusing on the little things that day-to-day make changing our lifestyle worth it.  Someday more of the above will hopefully come my way.

For now, it's the little things I notice.

1) I really do have a brighter face, my eyelids don't puff over my eyes all the time, my rosacea is calm.  I don't need makeup to cover up redness or dark circles anymore.  I catch a glimpse in the mirror and say "YES!"

2) I don't consider walking/hiking/easy bike rides to be exercise.  So I enjoy those things and am continually amazed that I am happy to get up early and go do them.  (I know, I am warped...it's all the other exercise I hate...the stuff I feel I "should" do!)

3) We cooked burgers last night and, since that's not "my" night to cook, in the past I would have had 3 glasses of wine by the time we ate.  I would have forgot or been too lazy to slice tomatoes, wash lettuce and we would have had just ketchup and mustard out.  Last night it felt great to be slicing tomatoes and laying out more than just the basics.

4) When I was with my folks last weekend, I woke up early to the birds singing, hopped out of bed and started tea.  No throwing up bile in the morning because my stomach was so sour.  Some gastritis pain from the wine tasting but NOTHING like the past times I have been there and drunk the whole time.  Went fishing without feeling hot from the sun and didn't feel nauseated!

5) I am reading before bed again.  I don't just want to fall asleep right away.

6) I am saying goodnight to my son every night and remembering it.  I'm helping him brush his teeth or at least coaching (his hygiene with braces is challenging).  Before I would say "we need to work on your teeth" and I would go to bed without focusing on it.

7) I don't hate myself in regard to my drinking anymore.  No more self-loathing.

The list goes on and I'm sure this is boring but I mainly wanted to note it for myself.  I know a lot of people are concerned about my wine tasting forays so writing down all the good stuff helps to reinforce, for me, why I am choosing the life I am.

While tactics may differ, the common ground we all have, what brought us to these blogs, was a desire to change the way we drink, the role in which we let alcohol play in our life.  As a tactic, some will chose to abstain completely, some will choose to be an occasional drinker and some will decide to moderate.  But I think it's safe to say we all wanted major change.

I think focusing, and noting with thought or word, the little things that we notice, when we make this major change to revamp alcohol's influence, is what keeps us moving forward.  Day by day more things change and creep into our consciousness and make us decide to choose this life versus having it chosen for us.

I've decided to just talk about, on this blog, how great I feel about not drinking and other stuff in my life with which I am dealing.  I'm not going to over focus on when I decide to try some alcohol.  I'll note that on my counting tab and be done with it.  If I feel I strayed out of my Tier 2 definition, then I will blog about it so that I have a record for myself.  Otherwise, no mention other than date and amount.

Hopefully that will keep people, myself included, focused on the positives of not drinking and if I blog about the negative, then it will be because I am in need of some support to get back on track.

HD