It's a slippery slope

I haven't written in ages.  I've been drinking. 

Things had been going ok.  I was happy with keeping my drinking to the weekends - I was even tossing half a glass of wine if I didn't actually feel like drinking it.  I was doing well, happy to be sober during the week and happy to have a few on the weekends. 

But of course, it's a slippery slope for me.

We had some houseguests for a week and a half... a glass of wine or two at dinner and I thought sure, we have company.  But I knew full well that I was using it as an excuse to break my own rule.  Then we had another visitor... then we went to a family farm for the weekend and my husband and I came back determined to move up there.

Then the stress of having the upheaval of moving.  Getting the house ready to sell while a 1 and 3 year old follow me around undoing everything I do!  I knew the burden would fall mostly on me because I'm the one at home.  I feel like I was finally at a point where things were under control, that life was good.  I was spending my 2 days a week while the kids are at care working on my business.  I've even done a craft market.  Then this happened.

Basically my husband is very unhappy in his work.  I'm not so thrilled about the long hours he's away from home.  When we went to the farm we realised how much family is there and how we wouldn't be on our own.... cousins for the boys to play with, etc.  We've always wanted to live on a farm so that's what we're going to do.

I know this is a great move for us.  I'm not even that worried about moving to a new town and leaving this one.  I mean I've made friends here but my husband is the person I enjoy spending time with and I know we'll have more of that when we move.  But it's still all very hard.  Just trying to get the house together (and we've not done a lot of the 'extras' in keeping a house up to standard like weeding the gardens etc because it's so hard with 2 young kids to even keep the house clean!) and I don't really know what else but it's just been hard.

So I continued to drink.  I do it to help cope but that's a big lie because it only succeeds in making it harder to cope because I end up not doing stuff in the evenings because I'm drinking and then I'm hung over the next day so not doing things... and things are falling apart.  Our bills aren't getting paid, I'm not doing my business, I had started losing weight and now I'm gaining it back, I'm waking up in the middle of the night beating myself up mentally and emotionally and I'm up for hours... it's just all falling to pieces. 

It's insane because I know I just need to not drink.  But even as I write this, even as I vowed that I will not drink during the week, a huge part of me just wants to pick up a bottle of wine to have tonight.

I thought I could control it

Well I stopped posting here because after I made it through day 2 I convinced myself (along with help from others who don't know the whole truth about my drinking) that I don't need to give up.  I convinced myself that it is under control, that I'm not 'that bad' and that as long as I could moderate my drinking, I could still drink.

So the first night that I made that decision, Wednesday, I had 2 glasses of wine.... which I drank over a long period of time (took me over an hour to drink my first drink).  I felt really cozy and nicely warm... I went to bed, woke up and felt good.  The same thing happened the second night.  I was feeling great - partly because I was moderating my drinking and enjoying it, and partly because I had convinced myself that I didn't in fact need to stop.  That I could moderate it.

Then came Friday.  I returned to my old tricks and stocked up big time on wine 'just in case' I ran out.  I think I probably drank close to a bottle and a half of wine... not sure.  Friday night is the big drinking night for me and my hubby.. where we hang out and have a few drinks.  I ended up 'falling asleep' on the couch around 8:30.  Repeat on Saturday.  Repeat on Sunday. 

On Monday I felt moderately bad.  Still drank.  Tuesday I drank because I could, even though I felt awful and didn't want to.  Today I decided that I would go the next two days without drinking and at about 1:30 pm I renegged on that decision too. 

So here I am, 4pm and having a glass of wine. 

It has become apparent to me once again that I can not control my alcohol.  But I don't want to believe that because I don't want to give it up.  This constant push and pull is insanity!