Unwound

I had wine last night BUT I didn't like the experience.  Seriously.  Yay!!

Here's how it went down...

I fought through the normal craving earlier in the evening, 5-ish.  I had a work call at 6:30 that lasted an hour and completely drained me.  It went nowhere.

I checked the clock and saw it was 7:45.  Even had the thought that it was too late to want wine anyway.  Sure as shit at almost the exact time I thought that, my voice says to hubs in the other room "want some wine?".

He hasn't been totally AF but had been drinking a lot less.  He would have a whiskey but then drink AF stuff with me the rest of the evening.   Geez, he had that wine on the table before I could get it out of my mouth that I had no idea why I said what I said.  He had opened a bottle.

I had a momentary thought of just giving it to him but then decided to make an experiment out of it.  I did want to sit down and talk about our day, after all.  So I sipped my glass really slowly.

During the first glass I noticed:

1) It tasted horrible.  Asked the hubs if we always drank this shit?

2) Within about 3 sips I could feel the warmth in my chest.  Wow, amazing how fast it has effect.

Hubs kept refilling his glass so I ended up with two glasses from the bottle.  He was starting to show effects from his.

After the second glass I noticed:

1) I didn't really notice the taste

2) My thoughts started becoming real dreamy-like.  Talking future planning etc.

3) I noticed hubs was starting to look weird.  I could really see his motor skills being affected.

Hubs opened a second bottle at my urging but he drank most of it.  I had one glass.  Have to admit that was a much better bottle but hard to know if the wine really was better or my tastebuds were numb.

Hubs thoughts started wandering and even I was having trouble staying on point.  Hubs was pretty tipsy.  We went to bed around 11pm, late for us.

I slept like shit!  I wasn't really beating myself up but I couldn't get back to sleep.  I guess I slept from 11 to about 2:30 and then no more.  ICK!  Woke up this morning and just thought "who needs this shit".  I could have had the same fun conversation with an AF wine or beer or fizzy water and been just frickin fine AND slept amazing.

I am so glad I did that!  I was like a wound spring after 30 days.

I came up with a sort of plan that I ran by my sober buddy last week.  Turns out it was actually what Annie Grace was recommending at the end of her book which I hit on Monday and Tuesday.  She obviously doesn't recommend drinking but has a few options for those who want to go back to it.

I will refer to it as my Ferber method of not drinking.  I have no desire to drink, in fact, I really, really, want to NOT drink.  I'm just battling those addictive feelings but there is no underlying reason for me to drink.  I don't need it, don't want it, don't like I how I feel with it and don't need it to be social.  It's simply my go-to thing when I am tired/stressed.

As a parent I used the Ferber method with my young son.  He screamed in his crib when I put him down, I left the room, I came in periodically and patted him and kissed him and left the room again.  There were various increments to this process but the idea was that he would learn self-soothe.  And he did.  And my life was easier.

I'm building this method in to my not drinking.  I realize that there will come times when I just need to "pop" or drink wine at home.  If I don't declare when I am not drinking, however, I will cave to that need.  So what's going to work well for me is to do gradually longer and longer increments.  I did 15 days.  Then I did 30, now I'm doing at least 35 more.  After that if I need to prove to myself again that I don't want wine, then okey dokey, I'll do it again.  I'll self soothe if need be but then move back to sobriety.  The next go around will be 40.  I may or may not have that wine in between.  The difference now is that I don't view it so much as a reward, just something bad that I might do and may need to do to reinforce why I don't want to drink at home.

I'm also going to continue to celebrate total days without alcohol even if they aren't consecutive.  I'm going to use my sober buddy and fight like hell through the cravings so I don't cave.  I'm also going to resist that rebellious voice that says "go on, just do it!"  I may have a glass of wine with family when they visit or at a friends house.  Again, that's not where my issue is.  If I can not be awkward and decline, I'll do that first.  But I know I'll be having it only to avoid the questions if I don't have any.

I was feeling under the weather yesterday but today feel a lot better.  My son has been sick so I'm hoping I fend off whatever crud he has.  Went to exercise today and looking forward to not drinking tonight!!!  I really wanted to take the time to write this down so that I have a record of this.  I added a drinking tab back onto my blog in addition to my exercise tab.  At least exercise is going pretty well!  Now, hopefully I start to lose some weight!!

HD