Day 7

This day 7 feels so different.  Not pink clouds, not a lot of excitement....I just feel kind of zen.  Somewhere along the way my journey switched from desperately wanting to be able to drink normally to desperately wanting to not drink at all, to not want alcohol, to not needing alcohol to cope.

I've been giving a lot of thought this week as to how I ended up here.  My squirrel brain has been rewinding through my life at warp speed.   I've been gathering up topics that I want to face and blog about at another time.  But it's become crystal clear that alcohol has been a mainstay in my life since I was about 19 years old.  Wow.

I would say it wasn't until about 2010 that I realized that I was using alcohol to cope.  That occasionally I drank too much.  But since I was going through a divorce, everyone blew it off if I had too much at times.

I was about 40 lbs lighter than I am now.  Wow.  Now, that was pretty thin for me given that I had lost weight as my marriage was falling apart so plus it up by about 15lbs to be where I feel best.  So that means I'm about 25lbs heavier than I want to be.  It's a vicious cycle.  I gain weight when I'm drinking so then I can drink more before I "feel" it as much.  Then I gain more weight, then I can drink more wine.  Even the hubs was shocked when I said "do you realize I am 40 lbs heavier than when I met you????"

And he has indulged my wine habit along with his over the years.  Both of us went through stressful divorces and are realizing how we turned to alcohol to cope.  Never enough to fall apart in other aspects of our life but definitely enough to be unhealthy and have some moments.  Too often we were just lucky that nothing happened late in the evening and we tended to go to bed early because no way could either of us have driven to the hospital if need be.

But back to my journey.  I need to write this down.  I still worry that someone will "out" me about this blog and I have shared the real me to a few.  However, since I don't put any tags on this thing, the only way someone would find me would be because they are already on someone else's blog, I think.  So be it.  I don't care anymore.  No more apologies.  I need to share and get things out.

I'll blog about the past later but for now I begin with 2010.  Husband left and I had met the new hubs. We dated for about 3 1/2 months and then "committed" to seeing only each other.  The fact that we drank a lot when we did this and then the next day we had to recommit sober, over dinner, because we sort of remembered what we talked about the night before, was probably a clue that we were abusing wine.  He moved out of state for a job and then, I remember one night where we talked for hours and I remembered none of it.  This was probably fall of 2010.  I remember crying the next day and telling him that.  I was so embarrassed and he was so supportive.  He reminded me I was under a lot of stress, blah, blah.  I think it's probably that he didn't remember much about the night before either.

In 2011 I started noticing that occasionally after drinking my feet/ankles were a bit swollen.  Not often but I noticed it once or twice.  I went to visit my guy over the summer and was supposed to fly home one night.  My flight got cancelled, we drank a lot and I think that's when I got pregnant.  I had wanted to be pregnant.  We weren't married then but were committed and I knew he would move back near me before the baby was born.  When I flew home the day later, I downed a bottle of wine that night.  I came home to get my son and fly him back with me to continue the summer visit.  I remember noticing those swollen ankles.

I found out a few weeks later I was pregnant but I miscarried at about 7 weeks.  I've done my grieving so this blog isn't about that but I really think alcohol in my life played a huge reason as to why I had never had a second child with my ex nor why this one didn't stick.  We tried for another year but as we were both getting older, we ended that journey in 2012 and got a dog.

2012 to 2015 was just a journey of escalation.  Hubs and I ended up together, playing house, forging our new life, hosting parties and figuring out the new routine we now had.  I just remember starting to feel like I was drinking too much.  Not when we went out.  My situation seems reverse to some.  I rarely drank too much in front of others.  Never drank too much at a restaurant.  (Probably because drinks are so expensive and I'm too cheap to justify the expense.)

Spring/Summer of 2015 I remember finding Sober Mummy's blog and thinking hmmm.  I was starting to google about the topic of drinking too much.  She was just starting on her journey and I wish I had jumped on her bandwagon.  Then I put it out of my mind.  That Thanksgiving I drank way too much every night with family.  Had bad heartburn, slept horribly and I remember vomiting bile because I didn't eat enough the night before, just drank.  That was my real low I guess.  I've never let myself get back to that point again.

I resumed looking at blogs.  I had missed all of SMs journey.  All of sudden she had been through cancer, was still sober and was on her way to full sobriety.  I plunged into all the reading I could.  I prepared myself to quit.  I tried once for two weeks in spring of 2016.  Then, finally dove into the blog world with my own and quit for 125 days.  It was pretty easy.  But I wanted to drink normally despite everything I read about it not being possible.  Maybe it could be possible with willpower but I don't have that much strength.

Fall of 2016 up until now has been a work in progress.  I worked on my attitude towards exercise and changed that a lot.  I revealed myself to some bloggers and received amazing support, even meeting one in person.  I processed through a lot in the way of emotions surrounding my old marriage and my new one, coming to terms with things, accepting things.  But I still used alcohol to cope and when it would escalate I would try to quit for a few days.  January through July of 2018 saw really bad hot flashes as menopause started.  I got that under control.  Either by luck or my body just cycled again.  I had stopped drinking for almost a month so, of course, when the hot flashes subsided I went back to drinking.

I drank something almost every day but there were days when I didn't. Sports or other events demanded not drinking every day.  But last week my son was gone for a week on spring break and we drank every night.  I drank a bottle, he drank a bottle.  We started adding whiskey after.  My hot flashes came back for the first time since last summer.  I kept drinking even when I didn't really want to.  I succumbed to cravings knowing I didn't really want this.  Maybe over imbibing for a week where I didn't have to get up early to make lunch, drive to school, was a good thing.  I was just done.

I had started reading Annie Grace's book back in January but gave up after about 4 or 5 days.  I pulled it back out and said to myself, "I don't know if this is forever but whatever changes I make WILL be forever."  I know I don't want, don't need the nightly drinking.  I DO need to figure out what triggers the drinking and learn how to not drink.  So last Thursday (a week ago) was my last binge.  I didn't drink Friday and did have wine Saturday night when friends came over.

Drinking last Saturday didn't do it for me.  My hubs, my son, my friend, her beau and her son were sitting outside having hors d'oeuvres and the topic came to drinking.  Our two teenage sons were there.  I was so embarrassed the talk turned to drinking.  She was talking about how she used to bring alcohol to her son's baseball games, they were so boring and she needed a nip.  It was surreal.  I was sort of floating above myself and asking myself why the hell were we laughing at this.  What kind of message were we sending to our kids.  Our kids don't drink.  They went off to play pool and hang out.  Later, her son asked me to be sure to give his mom and beau a few more cocktails so that he would get to drive the beau's new truck home.  And he did.  Wow.  I did have wine that night but slowly and I just felt sad when they all left.  I was fully together and not drunk.  I remember so many other evenings over the years when they left and I barely remember them leaving.

SM was reminiscing today about her kids giving her wine oriented gifts.  I remember feeling sad when my son gave me a wine oriented birthday card one time.

So this week has been different.  It's been good because so many sports activities have made it easier to not think about wine.  I had an aha moment last night at a double header baseball game.  These games can be long and I was tired.  I made a store run for Gatorade and snacks for another mom who was hungry.  After we munched on pizza roll pretzels, brownie brittle, avocado corn chips, oranges and nuts, I was euphoric.  No shit.  I was high on sugar and carbs.  It was a reminder that I was using food last night to cope.  Better than alcohol but still.

I've been thinking through so many things in my life this week.  The previous times I've quit have been more about the quitting, not the changing.  More about just getting through it and coming to terms with alcohol and how not drinking felt.  This time I want to tackle more of the "whys".  I want to examine the role alcohol has played in my life.  I've thought about one topic after another and hope to begin to tackle them.

I need to find myself...... I realized this week that despite being comfortable in my own skin, very confident, not socially shy, never really depressed or anxious, very able and detail oriented, in a decent job with decent finances, a lovely house, not much debt and a having a great kid and hubs.....I have no idea who the heck I am.  Maybe this is a function of finishing up my 40s but I've sort of just been going through the motions.

I don't want to be alone, not wishing for that.  But I want to be sure of who I am and do more things for just me.  My son loves to game.  He does sports and gets great grades which allows him to then spend his time socializing with his friends and gaming.  He has a passion.  The hubs always has a hobby.  Two years ago he fell in love with horses.  He bought me a riding lesson that I didn't use so he used it.  That was it.  I still haven't really gotten back in to riding and he is now jumping horses for fun.  I was worried about expenses so he found a family that needed a groom.  He mucks 4 days a week and gets to ride their horses.  He has a passion.

Other than keeping the house neat, doing laundry, paying bills and reading.....I would like a passion.

I've watched (read) others blogging an it's been really cool to see what passions they find once they stop drinking.  Their lives weren't necessarily bad when they were drinking but they became so much more after they stopped.  I want to expand my life.

Strangely enough I view my 40s as a time of recovery even though I was drinking.  I needed a lot of time to get over the loss of my 18 year marriage.  It wasn't that I needed a lot of time to get over the person and I do acknowledge that while I think we could have made it work, maybe we weren't as well suited to each other as I thought.  I needed time to redirect my life.

I've used this analogy before but it's like stopping a freighter at sea.  It takes a long time for that ship to slow down before it can turn and head in a new direction.  It doesn't just stop on a dime and turn 180 degrees.  It is a long slow curve.  I need to find my direction in life.  I need to stop just putting one foot in front of the other and plodding along.  It's time to leap.

I'm looking forward to dealing with some things that I have pushed away.  Insecurities that I probably never let surface.

This journey is mine.  My word for the year is Decision.  I decided to do these 30 days as per Annie Grace's book.  I look forward to seeing what changes I've made, what thought's I've had at the end of it and then see where I go from there.  Forever is to strange to think of but I can think of "right now".