Well it's been 10 weeks if you can believe it. I can't, I just had to count. I thought it was 8, maybe 9. Just goes to show, time ticks on. I was working for a few weeks but now I'm back home. I want to post more on here. I am keen to tell my story. So I'm going to commit to more posts.... I have so much to say!! And all the non-alcohol dependent people in my life don't really get it - CAN'T really get it.
So here's a brief review of what's been happening and how it's been going.
THE GOOD
Well there are the obvious things - not waking hungover, not going through life bleary eyed and feeling like crap, not beating myself up, feeling guilty and being angry with myself all the time... but now that some time has passed, there are more benefits. I have been sewing heaps, and loving it... I have been working on my business. My relationship with my husband is improving. We're not there yet but we are joking around and sleeping in the same bed again and this is a huge change. So we're on the right track. And I'm able to see his side of things a bit now with finances, working etc. We're back to being a team which is nice. And when I'm upset, I feel I have reason to be and not because my mind is all fuddled and I'm making it up. And I just handle it better. I'm really enjoying my kids. In the evening we all sit in the lounge together and my husband and I watch them play and play along. The days seemed so long at first, and that was initially part of why I drank. When I stopped, the days seemed long but in a good way, and I liked it... because it meant more time for me to sew!
THE BAD
It's not all roses. At first I really felt alcohol was missing. Daily. It just seemed so weird to never drink and I missed it. When I worked, that first friday I was driving home and I just felt a lacking. In my adult life I've never had a friday where I didn't have a drink. 20 years of classical conditioning is hard to break I suppose. I knew I could easily go home and drink. I was dieting too so that had to stop - it was risking my sobriety.
Also, life is a bit hum drum. By that I mean it just ticks along - no drama. I guess because there is no internal struggle on whether I drink or don't drink and then eventually succumb to drinking and then have the regret... the cycle isn't there so no drama. I'm not picking fights with my husband. I'm not apologising in the morning to him, feeling like a bad mum. There is just no drama. I have a problem, I try to deal with it rather than using it as an excuse to drink. I love my life now, I'm enjoying it, but sometimes it just feels a bit... easy. I know that may sound weird, but after years of the drinking dramas, it is just different living this way.
THE UGLY
There are times when I think about drinking. There are times when I think 'ya I could easily down enough alcohol to send myself into oblivion.' And if I follow that line of thinking a bit longer, I know I would like it. Regardless of knowing all there reasons why I don't, I still know, I would like the feeling of not feeling, being. So I quickly change my thoughts and don't continue to think about THAT.
I can't think about never drinking again. I can't think about Christmas, visiting my in-laws, I can't even plan my 40th birthday. Because it's too hard to imagine all those things without alcohol. I can't imagine people will want to come to my birthday when there is no alcohol. And there's no way I'd have a party where everyone else can drink but I can't.
And the ugly below all this is that feeling that I get.... that thought that I get... that I can control my drinking. That idea that forms that it's ok, that I could control it now. I don't listen to her. I think that must be the addiction. Must be part of this recovery... that part of my brain that tries to tell me it's not so bad, that now that I've gone this long, having one drink would be ok. Drinking on holiday would be ok. Drinking at Christmas would be ok. But I shut that down right away. In the end, I know it's not and it won't be just one. I would slide down that slope right back into a pool of alcohol dependency. So I just slam that door and run from those thoughts.
