Normal(ly) Drinking

Yesterday I titled my post "halfway" and realized this morning that I might have sent the wrong message.  I am halfway through Annie Grace's Alcohol Experiment, that's all.  I don't want to drink and I know I will still have some cravings.   I can't stop at 30 days.  That's only days 15 days away and I'm nowhere near ready to drink again.

That is so strange to say.  Why would I even want to drink again?  I still can't say "forever" and can still visualize times when I might want to but I bet I can visualize working through those situations and not drinking.

While I am having cravings,  the cognitive dissonance has changed tunes.

A craving used to be a debate like:
- Oh I want wine so badly
      -  Yes but you are quitting so you don't need any
- But I REALLY want some wine
      -  I know but you know you want to quit
- No you don't understand, I MUST have wine
      - Well, good thing we don't have any in the house
- But I can run to the store
      - Don't do it!
- I Do'd it!

Now the cravings are more like this:
- Oh you could really use a glass of wine, don't you feel...…(insert varying emotions)
      - Yes, but I really don't want what it does to me
- But don't you REALLY want some wine?
      - I don't know.  I kind of want that numbing feeling but I really want to quit more.
- No, you don't understand, you SHOULD just go have some wine
      - Well, I don't have any in the house anyway
- But you can run to the store
      -  Nah, it's not worth it.
- Just do it!
      - Oh, you just stuff it!

It's the "person" that has changed.  Now my conscious self is the dominate voice even though the inner child is still talking to me.  I want to keep this up.

Yesterday, a family member was driving me so crazy that when we were sitting outside, I kept thinking oh we really should have wine right now.  I don't know how to describe this but it was more thoughts than desire for action.  A big huge "wouldn't it be nice" but "oh well, that's not for me, not who I want to be" followed by a sigh.  I was just looking for an "out", an "escape" from the negativity I was dealing with.  Instead I just sat with it, kept turning away and rolling my eyes and sticking out my tongue where nobody could see me.

I came up with this saying right before I quit again...…

"Normal drinking isn't what I normally do, but I'm normally drinking around 5pm."

Sort of says it all.

The challenge for me is this....over the last two years I have become in touch with a few things:

1) I drank only to change my mood to a more mellow one.  (I really don't have terrible stress, I have a good relationship, loving family, pretty house, decent savings, I enjoy my job, etc.)  I just liked the buzz.
2) I didn't drink for taste.  I'd drink anything if it resembled the mellow flavor of white wine.  It was more of a push to drink red but once the mellow set in, it didn't really matter.
3) I didn't stop at two glasses.  If I disciplined myself to stop at 1, I was okay, but it took a lot of control.  It took superior control to stop at two (this I usually failed at).
4) Not drinking was actually pretty easy if I "just said the heck no".  It just took a certain element of control that was really only needed for about an hour a day.
5) If I was feeling moody or agitated I wanted wine to calm down.  I needed to find new ways of calming myself and changing my mood, replacing wine endorphins with non-wine ones.  (probably not technical but I think I make my point.)
6) I'm so in touch with the fact that I have an abnormal relationship with wine that I was VERY CAREFUL when I drank.  I didn't drink and drive. I didn't drink much when in social situations, just with hubs.

All of the above was every reason in the world to create a new normal and to stop normally drinking.

My blog must be so frustrating to those who have successfully quit.  You KNOW it's better, why don't I?  Well, I think I'm finally starting to see the light.

I FINALLY finished reading Sober Mummy's book this morning.  I started it awhile ago but once she got really far along in sobriety, I lost interest.  I just wasn't there yet.   She hit her year of being sober just as I was starting to try and get this in hand.  Her blog was crucial to my getting going on my journey.  Absolutely critical.  I think she realizes how many people she helped.  After I finished the book, when I read her acknowledgements of some of the blogs she said helped support HER, I almost cried when I saw mine mentioned.  Wow, just wow.  It was just the emotional support injection I needed today.