Loss and...

The last time I wrote I was sober and in my father in laws house dealing with the evacuation from the fires near our house. Oh and my mother passed away rather suddenly. You could have knocked me over with a feather if you were to tell me things things would happen within days of each other…yet there I was.

It’s so weird to me that the entire five days that I was sober in my father in laws house, I had no desire to drink. Even after the passing of my mother. My rock. The one person I thought I would fall apart once she passed.

I think it was emotional exhaustion because all I wanted to do was lay in bed and read so I could fall into a coma like sleep that my drunk self never thought could exist in soberland.

The evacuation was lifted two days after mom passed and I went into a weird phase of work for a couple hours and go home to try and not feel – while not drinking situation. I would end up drinking…

What was weird was taking what I “learned” from my time at my father in laws and the fact that I DIDN’T DRINK AFTER MY MOTHERS DEATH (Side note, not even a sip and didn’t drink for a couple of days after – I am a person that has used every single sad/horrible event in my life as an excuse to drink – I didn’t want to, I just wanted to sleep, maybe wake up and eat some ice cream and then go back to sleep) I repeat, I didn’t WANT to drink after my mothers passing.

I got back home and I did drink.

Initially I didn’t want to, it was weird how I felt like I was forcing myself to take that first drink when we were home. Like I laid around most of the day thinking: “I don’t need to, I can just keep going and be fine” but I literally forced myself to take that first drink. Like I was my own peer pressure, because it is all I know.

I didn’t drink that much the first couple of days home and went to bed early, feeling like I hadn’t drunk at all the next morning. I felt a bit like I was moderating. I know that all of us alcoholics know there is no moderating, but I felt really good that week. Like I didn’t drink too much and was able to read myself to sleep like I had done at my FIL’s.

Now here I am again. I’m trying to moderate, but I would like to think I am a damn bit closer to trying to a sober challenge again.

I have felt like I used the excuse in the recent past that I am too scared about quitting cold turkey. Like I could have a seizure if I just dropped off. This recent emergency has told me that I will be fine…or mostly fine and it’s not an excuse to keep using.

It’s not fun to try and get to sleep for the first time sober in a while but it’s also very satisfying if it happens and happens several nights in a row.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here other than I am willing to try again. I had such great sleep while sober and that was grieving for my mom…can you imagine if I slept for real with no booze and not reason to not sleep?

So many things

 

Well I’m sober right now. 

I’d love to tell you that it is because I had a brilliant revelation and I see the error of my ways and blah, blah, blah.  

But no, that is not the case. 

I am currently not drinking because we had to abandon our house and evacuate to my father in laws due to a wildfire that is about two miles from our house.  I won’t drink in front of him. 

We first came out here on Wednesday night just as a precaution. I felt safer. I smuggled a couple of hard seltzer’s in and drank those right before bed behind the closed bedroom door but they didn’t even give me a buzz. It was more to help me sleep. 

The next night we decided we were safe enough to stay in our house for the one night and so I started drinking around five in the evening. 

Two hours later they called for a mandatory evacuation ending a quarter mile above our house. I stopped drinking and over the course of the next three or four hours we gathered all the important items and loaded both cars. 

By the time we headed out to my FIL’s I was sober enough to drive. 

That was the last drink I had. Hardly an earth shattering amount of time but the funny thing is, I haven’t wanted to. All I’ve wanted to do is sleep. 

This morning the mandatory evacuation for my house was set in place. No going back now. 

They are calling for dry lightening storms starting tomorrow night and that can only make things worse. 

There is a very good chance we are going to lose our house. Worse than that, it’s my husbands grandparents house. We rent it from his dad and it’s been in the family forever. 

Ready for more?

My mom has taken a turn for the worse and was moved to hospice end of life care yesterday. She’s in Maine and I’m in California. I just tried to call and she’s so doped up she can’t be woken up. There is a good chance I may never speak with her again.  It could be hours it could be weeks. 

I’m not built to handle this. I’m a wreck. 

I want my mommy. 

ETA: mom passed away tonight. I’m so very lost. 

Dear Universe...

Can we please stop playing the game of “How much more can we pile on Xay until she breaks”?
It’s been going on for well over three years now and I’d like to think I’ve been pretty fucking bendy, but I am only human. I am going to break, and I feel like I’m going to break soon.

You are testing my health, my marriage, my sanity and my emotional well being…and those last two were never really good to begin with.

I hate almost every single thing about my life. 

I hate going to work because my boss is a manic/depressive, bipolar sociopath that triggers me daily because she acts JUST like my father and my abuser mixed into one. And because for some stupid fucked up reason (thanks universe!) she adores me and keeps me as close to her as possible both in terms of physically and as a confidant.

I hate coming home because since quitting nicotine and having to work from home during the last few months, my husband has turned into a depressed person that blames all of his misery on me (or at least takes it out on me) while maintaining that his mental health is fine.

My mother is finally home from the hospital/rehab only to tell me tales that make me realize that she is not okay to be living alone and will probably end up in a nursing home sooner rather than later. 

Knowing that is her worst nightmare and knowing there is NOTHING I can do about it because I live 3000 miles away under a lockdown while my abuser (my brother) that lives locally to her does the bare minimum because his wife hates our family.

I can’t even look at what is going on with the world without crying constantly. So much death and unfairness and people fighting. As an empath it is just too much.

ALL OF IT IS JUST TOO MUCH!!!

I go to work and have to perform for my boss to keep her calm so she doesn’t go crazy psycho on the rest of the staff (not even kidding, it’s a thing). 

I come home and have to perform so that my husband doesn’t sense a single bad mood in me so that he can use that to play like everything is all my fault since I got off the anti-depressants THAT HE NEVER WANTED ME TO BE ON IN THE FIRST PLACE and therefore prove that his lot in life is to live with a heinous bitch for the rest of his days. 

I talk to my mom every night and have to be in a good place for her because she is scared (understandably) and doesn’t know what the heck is going to happen from day to day with her health and or living situation. 

And that is all I do other than drink and sleep. I can’t leave my house other than work and grocery, and I’m a hypochondriac so I wouldn’t want to anyway, to see friends and vent.

I have tried to reach out in facebook messenger chat or text, but admittedly not much and never while drinking-not even playing THAT game. I always get the vibe that they have a lot going on and can’t deal with my drama and I get that. It just leaves very little to no outlet for my pain.

I was doing online therapy but it was super pricey and I can’t justify it knowing that my work might be shutting down by the end of the year. I need to save as much as I can because I don’t know how my job or my marriage might turn out lately.

So yeah.

I’m just venting right now, but I’m getting very close to a breaking point and I don’t have the time or the money to break. 

So universe? A little time off to cool out would be nice. Maybe a whole week where nothing goes wrong? That would be rad. I shouldn’t even tempt fate with that.

Updates

 Things have been…well, things suck. Having said that, the last two days I feel like I have started to make the slow climb out of my own head to some sort of non depressive/angry state.

First things first. Mom spent about five days at the hospital. They ran tests and took an ECG and it was determined that the she had pulmonary hypertension on the right side of her heart and also surface blood clots and one deep vein blood clot in her legs. This has all apparently stemmed from her never using the CPAP machine she was given about 12 years ago due to her sleep apnea. All this time she has been causing her heart to work overtime because she never used it. Couple this with the fact that she basically hasn’t moved much in the last two years and boom, heart problems and blood clots.

She is currently in a rehab facility. She had to get a COVID test to go there so thankfully she tested negative after being the hospital for that long. Also, thankfully they are testing everyone before they let them in.

She is doing PT and on blood thinners and a Lasix. As of yesterday the fluid wasn’t really leaving her body and in fact she was gaining weight daily while not really eating a lot.

She told me last night that they were going to double the Lasix starting today.
Her insurance company wants her out of there by the 9th but the facility is hoping for longer…we will see how that battle goes down later.

She admitted to me that she has been aware of her swelling legs for quite some time and had been keeping it a secret from the both my brother and I as well as the staff at her assisted living. 

I know now and have known really from the past that she can’t be trusted about these things, but how can I police them from 3000 miles away? I can’t actually see her. And for months she has been pushing me off the phone after a few minutes when I call because she is scared she might slip and say something….or I might suspect something.

After a certain age, the child becomes the parent and it is truly scary when you don’t live near your new “child”.

The good news is, is that she doesn’t appear to be in a depressive state any longer. Every time I talk to her she sounds really upbeat and realizes that she caused this all herself. The other good news is that her assisted living doesn’t appear to have a problem letting her back in once she gets out of rehab. That was a HUGE concern of mine when this all started and I’m glad it doesn’t appear to be an issue. *knocks wood*

In other news, I’m still not sober.

Between the virus, having to go to work every day in fear because I work with people who don’t really think it’s real and go out gallivanting all the time, and my mom…yeah, excuses excuses.

What I can tell you is that I have not enjoyed the drinking hardly at all. And the hangovers are getting worse. The anxiety level in the last couple weeks has been almost unbearable. 

I was never a person that really got bad hangovers. I always hydrated at night before going to bed and it was never really that big of a deal.

It has been lately.

I know what all signs point to and I’m almost grateful. 

I can’t keep going on like I have been and with no “events” on the horizon like I used to use as excuses to not stop drinking, I think it is time.

I’ve been looking into Annie Grace’s 30 day challenge. 

Not putting a forever date on it has always worked well for me at least getting some sober dates under my belt. Forever seems such a daunting task and while I know it is the only way, I clearly cannot moderate or I would have by now, I just can’t seem to say the word because it makes me immediately want to dive into a bottle of vodka.

30 days seems almost doable.

I know once I get a good amount of days in, I will feel so much better and want to continue. I just need to get to that jumping off point.

At any rate, thank you all for your comments. You guys are the only thing that is really giving me hope and words alone cannot tell you how much that means.

Because I felt kind of okay…

 Welp, of course.

My brother called me about two hours ago and told me that my mom is heading for the ER. Her night nurse felt her legs and they were very hard and she was concerned so she called Rescue to come get her and bring her to the hospital.

He will keep me posted on what he learns. My brother is my abuser, so this is always hard to deal with in the first place.

He said she told him to call me instead of calling herself because she didn’t want to get too emotional and she knew she would if she had to call me.

I don’t know anything at this point, but I know it’s not an emergency like when she had her stroke…it’s more like a wait and see what they say and about the tests they run.

The biggest problem is the mystery surrounding her housing situation if they let her go home tonight. It’s too late to call the office to find out if she will be allowed back in after being exposed to the ER and what if she isn’t???

My brother didn’t seem to concerned but he’s…well, my brother.
I am just sitting here, wondering how in the f*ck I have even been able to function at this point and now there is more. I know that is a total “WOE IS ME” situation but … yeah that is where I am going right now. I’m sick of taking a different blow to the face every week and really would like some time to be able to settle down and just relax.

I guess it serves me right for thinking earlier this week that work seemed to be getting a bit less frantic for me since I was no longer at the front desk. Right after that we got served with some more paperwork for an ongoing lawsuit and yesterday it seemed everyone up in arms about shredding a bunch of paperwork and “it’s all very secret, but don’t you worry about it, it’s fine!”

Accompany this with the whole never being left alone thing… Seriously this morning while my husband was out of the back porch drinking his coffee, I slid into the kitchen to make myself some avocado toast. It takes mere minutes and it would satisfy me before I had to go out to the store.
As soon as I put the toast in the toaster he was on me. “Can I help? I’ll slice the avocado. Oh wait, I now how to clear off every single surface in the kitchen and then slice the avocado with an amazing precise skill of a ninja…”

So I didn’t say anything, just went over to the toast and popped it back up because clearly, we are going to be here a while…

He finished about two hours later (sarcasm) and asked for the toast, I told him I would have to toast it again because I knew he wasn’t ready for it at the time it was toasting and he got butt-hurt ONCE AGAIN.

This is an obvious exaggeration, but this is also what I have to deal with every fucking day. I just wanted a nice quiet morning to make myself a snack and take it back to bed before I had to face the world and … yeah.

I’m gonna break eventually. A human can only take so much before they snap.

Now with my mom. I can’t even.

I just want to freeze time so I can take a week-long breather and then come back and deal with all this shit.

Alone? (mom update, but read through to my crazy…)

 

Hey guys, thanks for your kind words as I’m working through my mom drama. As an update, she is feeling much better. She is walking downstairs almost every day and feeling like her old self again. Her doctor had two phone visits with her and wants to have some blood work done, to rule out her kidneys. The good news is that they are able to take the blood draws in her building so she doesn’t have to go out and come back in…the bad news is that they only to it bi-weekly and she just missed it.

I think she is happy about this because, much like her daughter, she doesn’t want to hear any bad news and the longer they can keep it from her is best for her. Meh.

She is in good spirits and walking again so that makes me very happy. I should have been on the tail end of my visit to her at this point. We were set to fly out last Friday and come home this Tuesday. I’m kinda sad because this would have been the first Momma’s Day we would have spent together in 20 years but I know there is nothing we can do about it.

The best news is that my brother was able to find her a large amount of toilet paper and it was delivered a couple days ago. I can stave off that worry for now.

I did have a small worry in our conversation as she asked me if the phone lines were busy on Mothers Day. 

I didn’t understand what she was asking and wondered if she was worries about the lines for the flowers we ordered online. No, she was adamant that there were ALWAYS problems with the phone lines on Mothers day.

I just kind of agreed and let it go, but I worry if this is the beginning of dementia. She had it years ago when she let her diabetes get out of control. It was blood sugar induced, but it was scary AF.

I have talked to her a couple times since that, and she’s been mostly okay, but I am super scared that this might be the beginning. 

I’m scared I won’t get to see her before something might happen given the state of the world. I worry about everything.

I haven’t been my myself for 2 months.

I have never NOT worked during this shelter in place and my husband has been working from home.
I work all day interacting with people and then come home to a husband that is so starved for human interaction that he can barely let me get through the door. 

I am normally a person that gets overwhelmed with too much interaction. I am an empath, it is too much.

My new normal is to present too much at work, come home and have to do the same damn thing all over again and maybe get an hour if he decides to go to bed early where I can decompress.

Yes I am still drinking…that doesn’t really factor into this at this point.

I am normally a person that cannot handle too much human interaction…thus the Empath thing. Twice a year, I pay for a hotel room locally (not a cheap feat where I live) and hide away from people. My husband approves and it has helped out marriage.

I’M OVERDUE FOR THIS NOW AND HE DOESN’T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND IT!!!!!

I’ve told him this and yet, ten minutes after arriving home, he is right behind me: “How was your day, what are your plans for tonight?” And the worst after I just wake up on the weekend: “What do you want to do today? There is nothing worse than a wasted day!”

I have told him I need some throwaway days and that I cannot just ENGAGE right away after work…he understands for about a day and we are back to “normal” If I try to call it out, he gets butthurt. 

HELP!!!

Update On Mom

 I talked with mom tonight. She is not having any breathing issues, no other issues in fact other than the leg swelling…although she did tell me that it was really hard going downstairs to get the boxes was very taxing on her and she felt very winded, but once she was able to stop and sit for a minute it was okay. I get this because she literally does not move farther than her chair to the bed to the toilet…that is all the activity she gets, maybe three times a day.

She called her doctor first thing this morning and left a message with an actual person about what was going on. She said they haven’t called her back.

She said that she did tell her caregiver last night what was going on with her legs and she agreed that my suggestion to sleep with her legs elevated was sound and to wait to hear back from her doc.

She sounded in much better spirits tonight but I know that is mostly because she finally told people what is going on and she isn’t internalizing it any longer.

I told her that she can’t just wait for her doctor to call her back, she needs to call them back first thing tomorrow and tell them again what is going on.

She came up with a theory while we were on the phone that the water retention might be due to all the food she is now eating since the shut down. She used to never go down to the dining area to eat, choosing to eat her yogurt and toast up in her apartment. Well, since this lock down, they have been bringing the meals that they would normally serve in the dining area, up to the residents. My mom isn’t used to a bunch of rich foods (they do not to food restrictions there at all) and is now eating two to three times the food she normally would and she said she’s been salting everything.

I told her to knock it off and she said she would.

I told her (as I always do) that she needs to start walking again, a little at a time. When she initially had her stroke, she would do her little leg strengthening exercises and they helped a lot. I keep trying to get her to go back to doing those and she has always resisted. Like once she recovered, she didn’t need to put in the work anymore and now here we are.

I told her to go for a small walk around her apartment floor tonight and elevate her legs again and make sure to call the doc tomorrow and I would check in with her tomorrow night.

I feel better that she feels better, but I know this is far from resolved.

I feel like the worlds worst daughter and this is exasperated by the fact that my brother (my abuser) and I do not get along so we cannot discuss these things like normal siblings.

I really hate this shit.

Not okay right now

 I’m so effing scared right now. I just talked to my mom. She admitted to me that she has been having some leg swelling from the knee to the ankle that started “a while ago” and she didn’t think anything of it. It started with one leg and then the other leg caught up.

Tonight when I called her she admitted that to me and then told me that her upper legs were now completely swollen too and she didn’t know what to do.

She lives in an assisted living facility that is on lockdown. If she goes to the hospital, she may not be allowed back into the facility that has been her home for the last ten years and she might have to go to a nursing home. Most of the nursing homes where she lives have been infected by COVID19.

She is very scared to tell them, but she is also worried enough to tell me and my brother who she called earlier tonight. If she’s worried enough to tell us, she is really scared.

She said my brother told her to go to the hospital. Don’t even get me started on my brother right now. I don’t disagree that she should go to the hospital but I totally get her fear that she might not be allowed back into her own home and that she will start a downward spiral because of the virus. She has a lung disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease….ALL the risk factors for this stupid thing.
She said that the staff was giving her some tough love and making her go downstairs tonight to go help gather the fan that I sent her after she told me hers had broken. They are doing this because she never leaves her apartment. Like at all, before the virus, but now especially. I think that might be part of her leg swelling, but I don’t know. They said they were going to have her accompany them down to get the box and then back upstairs and she could take as many breaks as she wanted to along the way.

She is hoping that the activity will help her with the leg swelling. From what I read it is true that the inactivity she has been going through can cause the swelling…

I just don’t know what to do or think….I can’t. I literally cannot. We were supposed to go see her next month but had to cancel our trip. She lives 3000 miles away and there is NOTHING I CAN DO RIGHT NOW and it is freaking me out so bad.

She was thinking of telling the caregiver on call tonight that was going to walk her down about her legs because she trusts her but she didn’t know. She is afraid that the person might have to report it because of her job.

At the end of the call I told her to please have someone call me if she ended up going to the hospital tonight and that if not I would call her tomorrow for an update.

I’m so fucking scared right now.

My mother is kind of my everything and there is nothing I can do about this….it’s too much.

Working In Hell

So after my last post, I learned that a long term employee called out with what we were told she thought was allergies, was laid off after she told the employer that she didn’t feel safe coming back to work after the skeleton crew and social distancing went to hell. 

Just to drive that point home; she was laid off after telling her employer that she didn’t feel safe coming back to work because they were not providing the essential worker guidelines that were required for our business to continue to function.

Tonight I found out that one of our employees that called out for a half a week with a cough, tried to call out one more day – stating she still had a cough and was told: “Well, we really need you, but I guess it’s okay if you don’t feel good enough to come in” full well knowing she can’t get tested for the virus around here and we HAD BEEN TOLD NOT TO COME IN IF WE FEEL SICK.

The last thing I learned was that someone (I wasn’t told who do to privacy and safety reasons) reported us as not complying with the 6 foot rules and such that an essential business is supposed to follow.
They were told by OSHA that they are far too overwhelmed to deal with something like that and unless someone is in critical danger, they can’t do anything.

I’m so fucking over this. NO ONE CARES if we live or die.

I’m so sad that I need a paycheck, or I would ghost these fuckers so fast they would…well, they wouldn’t even care…let’s be honest.

Update

Thanks to a comment from Dwight, I decided to update. I am so grateful for him checking in with me even if I don’t have good news to report…

Life is very scary right now. I’m not sober. I’m a hypochondriac working an “essential” job that has to go into work everyday. When it all first came down we were shut down for a whole day and then implemented a skeleton crew where our shifts worked every other day so we could maintain the six foot rule. That lasted exactly a week when they decided “Ef that, we don’t’ really care about our employees, we care about making money so let’s just scrap the whole thing and bring everyone in.” At least that is how I feel. If I survive this whole thing, I will be looking for another place of employment because after 14 years they showed me how truly little they care about our safety and well being.

We had an employee that I worked closely with recently, have to quarantine because her husband was told he worked with someone that tested positive. They cannot get tested because they don’t have high fevers, though they are showing all the other symptoms.

Everyone at my work is coughing and I know that it is allergy season but it is driving me out of my mind.

Because of so many people calling out (BECAUSE THEY FEEL SICK) I have been moved to the reception desk, as that is where I trained so many years ago and I am able to do the web work I do at that desk. Because it is reception, I have to have someone (one of the biggest coughers in our office) relieve me for breaks and lunches. I have learned to hold my pee like nobodies business! I refuse to take more breaks than I need to.

When I come back from my breaks I sanitize every surface including my mouse, mousepad and keyboard because she can’t help but touch all my stuff and pray for the best.

The problem is that we are going to be running out of sanitizing supplies soon at work. I don’t know what to do when that happens. Everyone is taking a very non-nonchalant attitude about everything and it is making me a lot crazy.

My husband has been lucky enough to work from home but I am so afraid of bringing this home to him as he has a heart condition and is one of the people they deem compromised.

Before you ask if I can confront anyone on this, please know that I have PTSD and I cannot confront anyone – especially my boss that reminds me of my abuser in so many ways it isn’t funny. I have been asked on so many levels why I can’t just tell them that I don’t feel comfortable – but they don’t understand the fear based environment that I have worked in for so many years. 

So yes, I’m still drinking. I feel like it is reaching a head soon. I don’t want to do it and my booze-brain keeps telling me that it is the only thing keeping me sane.

I know that I will feel much less stressed if I lay off, but I can’t comprehend that right now. There is just too much scary stuff going around in my brain.

Wow, that was a lot.

Still here...

 I bet that title gets written a lot on trying to get sober journals…or at least I hope it does.

I have been struggling every since that stupid trip to LA two weeks ago.

Non-valid excuse after non-valid excuse has been flooding my mind and I have just accepted it like a good alcoholic. 

Clearly, my vodka knows what is better for me than I do.

I’ve not gotten completely snockered every night but I am definitely suffering from the “3 AM pounding heart, regret city, I wish I didn’t do that” party. It’s a stupid party in the harsh light of day and I don’t know why it seems so exclusive and inviting after work…

I have put an end date to it, however ( I hope). 

I have a plan of action in the works to not drink for an indefinite number of days starting Sunday.
I will post more this weekend in anticipation (don’t we always) of my quitting date.

But for now…I am trying to be gentle with myself. I know what I want and I know it wants me back. I will get there.

My Traveling Demon

 

So I guess if there is anything good about “slips” in the journey to get sober is that it teaches me a lot of things about myself if I let it.

So far what I have learned is that I tell myself I want to make sure I am sober the week before any sort of traveling event that will raise my anxiety. The other thing I have learned is that because of that elevating anxiety level before the trip it is super hard to stay sober the last couple of days before the trip.

I did this with Vegas in December and I did this just this week with our theme park trip.
I mean, I blamed it on other factors that really had no merit. For example, on Wednesday my husband said that was our big day to pack because he had to go see his dad the next night and wouldn’t be able to get as much done. 

I reasoned with myself that packing is a BIG THING and I haven’t done it sober in a very long time. It will make it very difficult for me to get to sleep because I will be so ampd up (currently I need to be in bed by like seven on sober nights to make sure I get the proper amount reading and relaxing that I require to drift of to sleep, also this is totally an excuse and I’m sure I could get to sleep just fine after nine but these are the reasons my brain makes so I can have a drink). 

So I drank.

We didn’t pack much on Wednesday so Thursday became my deal to make sure the most of the packing got done because the Hubs was still going to his dad’s that night. I reverted to the excuse from the previous night and drank.

Now, I didn’t get shitfaced both nights and I made sure to kind of keep hydrated and watch my intake so I wasn’t hungover the next day (because also huge stressful days at work Thursday and Friday that helped fuel my drink demon the nights before).

Friday after work we headed off to our hotel.

Hubs always drives because my anxiety doesn’t do well even as a passenger on more than a one lane road. This drive involved a four lane road one way for about an hour before we got to our hotel…this freeway is very twisty and turny and goes about 70 to 80 miles an hour. Knowing this in advance was the reason for my anxiety leading up to this trip. It was every bit as much of a nightmare as I thought it would be so despite my vow not to drink at the hotel that night because we didn’t get there and settle in until nine at night, I drank anyway. My drink demon told me that I was far too freaked out from the drive to fall asleep in any kind of timely fashion and of course I listened.

Again, I didn’t get crazy, but drank for about an hour and made myself go to bed.

Saturday after the 1st theme park all bets were off because I had told myself weeks ago that would be my reward for all the stress of the trip.

So what I have learned is that I will use any excuse when it comes to my anxiety about a traveling event and drinking. I tend to do really well on the couple of weeks leading up to the event but the week of, makes me go into that squirrelly part of my brain that can’t function without a drink to get past the freak out factor. I don’t realize that is the reason at the time…I give myself every excuse in the book to get myself to the bottle but that is the ultimate “excuse” in my brain.

Overall, I felt very disappointed in myself this weekend but I am not trying to beat myself up. The fear on the freeway is REAL for me and there was one moment where I legit felt like I was going to pass out. I know that I probably could have been okay on Friday night with just doing some deep breathing and reading my book but my bottle brain told me I deserved a few drinks for what I had been through.
The good news is that we don’t have another traveling adventure until May at this point and I am going to try and get way more sober days in before that so I can WIN THIS BATTLE!

If I can just keep the sober days going, I will be in a much better place before we have to fly in May and I am hoping it will just all come naturally at that point.

Wow, this is all so rambley, I’m sorry.

Plugging along

 

So I haven’t written in a little bit. And if I’m honest I had a slip on Friday night that led me to not caring on Saturday…but I reigned it back in on Sunday, so there is that.

Friday I was angry most of the afternoon…at stupid stuff. It started with me being angry that my boss was letting everyone go early but me so I walked out a half an hour early anyway.

Then I was pissed off because my husband was having to stay late at work for something that isn’t even part of his job, but he feels obligated to do every single time.

He is in purchasing and shipping and for some weird reason, even though the company has an entire warehouse full of employees for loading and unloading shipments, my husband feels responsible for the trucks because he either ordered them or signed off on them.

This was kind and endearing 13 years ago but now the warehouse totally takes advantage of this and on that Friday night, because the truck was late, they all just LEFT and now my husband had to stay four hours later than normal to load this truck that he isn’t even really supposed to be doing!

I was then pissed off at him for even falling into that trap.

At any rate, an excuse is an excuse and I used that as an excuse to drink.

Saturday, well I fell into the age old reasoning that I had already messed up so I might as well…

Sunday, I listened to the voice of reason and gave it a rest.

I’m not beating myself up about this. I’m still doing way better than I have in so very long.

It’s also a learning process for me now that I have so many sober nights under my belt. Waking up from a blackout used to be the norm for me for like 20 years. Saturday and Sunday morning were no fun. I wasn’t horribly hungover for some reason, but I regretted not having the decompression time I now give myself at night. My time before I go to sleep where I lay in my bed and drink my tea and read my book. That is so soothing to me now as is the slow awakening in the morning, feeling human. Not abruptly waking with a pounding heart and the disoriented feeling of not knowing quite what is going on because I don’t remember going to bed the night before.

I’m still very much a work in progress, but progress is the key word isn’t it?

My husband is trying to do his best by me for the most part. 

Last week my Tuesday and Wednesday were hard for some reason. I found myself crying and angry at the fact that I couldn’t drink. And it wasn’t necessarily that I wanted to drink, it was that I couldn’t if I wanted to … which I didn’t. It was weird.

My husband didn’t understand, but he tried to help in anyway he could. It’s gotta be a really odd experience for him.

At any rate, I am excited to announce that I cooked last night! Like, not just nuked some prepackaged, already cooked meat and some frozen veggies. 

I full on cooked a casserole, making the sauce from scratch. I’m talking stirring up butter, flour and milk to make a roux and everything!

I’ve mentioned before that the kitchen has been one of my nemesis’s in this journey to get sober. It’s where I did most of my drinking and cooking sober has felt like such a trigger to me the last three weeks that I have avoided it as much as I could. If I had to cook it was something easy like the above mentioned precooked meat and veggies or a salad thrown together in a hurry.

So last night, cooking an entire casserole from scratch was a pretty big deal to me and I am quite proud of myself. In fact, I didn’t even think much about it at the time. Hubs was out doing yard work right after we got home and I thought: “Well, if he’s doing that, I should at least get some dinner started.” and looked through the fridge and pantry. 

I just started pulling things out and whipping things into shape and before I knew it, I was cooking! And it wasn’t scary or triggering. I had some sparkling water in my fancy glass like I have been having for awhile now and I just did it. Like a normal person!

This was not something that my husband would have been able to understand, so I kept it to myself. But do me this is a huge accomplishment and yes, I am patting myself on the back. :D 

So that’s my update. I stumbled, but I did not fall too hard. I will probably stumble again, I’m human. But I’m improving and that is what matters to me right now.

Storm clouds ahead…

 

Riding the strugglebus tonight. 

Work is getting hectic and I’m feeling the pressure. It’s just going to get worse as we have to redo almost all of our literature in the near future. And by we I mean pretty much me. Not sure how I secured this graphics/editor position with the paycheck of a call center employee, but lucky me.

I also feel like I’m getting sick. It’s gone all through my office and I’ve been taking all the vitamins and trying my best to avoid it but I’m feeling pretty run down tonight with a scratchy throat. 

Not sure the last time I was sick and I didn’t drink through it to “burn it out” of my system.

Came home and did the treadmill and now I’m really wanting to drink. Blah!

Feeling the grief and loss tonight of not having that outlet.

I’ve given myself another “No drinks til Friday” rule to get me through the week and I intend to stick to it, but tonight is the first night where it’s been really difficult this time around.

I guess I had to know eventually it would catch up to me. I definitely had my head in the pink clouds last week and now here come the storm clouds.

Meh. I might write later, but right now I’m going to go drink some sparkling water and stuff my face.

Ug.

Cheers to not having to hide things.

 

I live in a very small town. 

There is one smallish grocery store seven miles away and a much bigger one about fifteen miles away.

I typically do my shopping at the closer one as they mostly carry everything I need, including my booze. I would usually buy two large bottles of vodka, sometimes three depending on how much I currently had at home.

Being a small store, I knew that all the cashiers pretty much had to know either myself or someone in my household must have a drinking problem but even though I saw them every week, I didn’t KNOW them so I didn’t much care.

However, being a small town there were several times where I would run into neighbors or even friends or friends of friends while I was doing my shopping. I would try to shop at the same day and time every week to avoid anyone because well, it had been working. I think mostly people try to do their shopping on a fairly regular schedule so it mostly worked. I also try and cover the booze once it is in my cart with my reusable shopping bags arranged to look perfectly messy over the bottles laying on their sides.

I know that there is one particular person that lives in my town that shops on Sunday afternoons as I’ve run into him multiple times around the same time when I can’t face the grocery store on Saturdays due to a massive hangover. 

He is not what I would call a friend, but I wouldn’t call him not one either. We have run in the same circles and he has been very good friends with the fiance of one of my very good friends. They all have been in the recovery community together for many years. He has danced in and out of recovery and I don’t know what his current status is and it’s really none of my business…but let’s just say, he has to know all the signs of an alcoholic very well. And well, three bottles of vodka in my cart is not exactly a subtle hint that I might have a problem…

Anyhoo, I ran into him at the grocery store this afternoon as I was mostly done my shopping. I was checking my phone to see if Hubs had texted anything else to pick up and I heard a voice say hi.

I looked up and there he was in front of me. I said hi back and inquired how he was doing as I was quickly looking down at my cart to make sure the booze was hidden and I realized…I wasn’t buying any. There wasn’t any in my cart to give away my secret. Instead of being paranoid that he would find me out, I was able to have a pleasant exchange without having to try and escape at the earliest break in the conversation and then shop even longer though I was done so that he wouldn’t see unload the bottles onto the conveyor belt at the check out (oh yes, I have done this dance before).

It felt SO GOOD! I didn’t have to hide anything because there was nothing to hide!!

I loved it!!

It’s all the little things like this, the weight loss, getting amazing sleep and no hangovers that add up to GIANT things.

Wow!

 

I got on the scale this morning to find that I have lost six pounds since Monday.

SIX POUNDS!

Now granted I am a big girl to begin with but I have been easily been eating way more than I ever did when I was drinking. AND I am about to start my period so I am actually retaining water right now!

THAT is how many calories I was consuming from booze.

DUDE!

I realize it is bloat and it won’t last, but holy freaking cow, talk about a motivator!!!

So last night was my “time up” as in the time that I gave myself to stay sober until. When I started this last week, I told myself that I just needed to stay sober until Friday and see how it went from there.

I was pretty much mostly planning to drink last night. Hubs was talking about picking up some take out on the way home and it was shaping up to be a perfect Friday evening to imbibe.

Then he got a text from his dad asking if we wanted to go out to dinner.

Now if you will remember, my FIL just lost his dog the night before due to a hit and run outside of his house. It wasn’t like I was going to be like “Nah, sorry dude, but I got these drinking plans sooo….”

Of COURSE we were going to do whatever it was he wanted if he was reaching out…mostly because he doesn’t usually reach out.

So we tooled on over to his house after work and took him out to a local restaurant that we’ve gone to with them sometimes. A nice family place with a lot of selection. 

We all split nachos and FIL got a salad as well.

I was still on the fence about drinking when I got home. I was trying not to eat too much but the nachos were pretty awesome. 

FIL seemed to be in an okay mood and he told me that he liked to think of his dog passing as his wife calling the dog home to her. That surprised me because they are not a religious family but also warmed my heart and gave me a little peace.

This was the first time we had all gone out to eat without my MIL and I noticed as we were pulling into their house after and seeing all of her things that I had really missed her during that meal. I don’t think I particularly noticed it at the time because I was trying to keep FIL in good spirits but yeah. I started to tear up a bit in the driveway and had to bite it back.

We got home and I noticed I was still a bit full but not enough that I couldn’t “drink through it” as I had done countless times before.

I fed the dogs and got in my jammies, still not having made a decision.

I played around on my computer and hemmed and hawed and decided I just really didn’t want to. I blamed it on still being a bit full from dinner but I think I just really didn’t want to wake up feeling like poo in the morning.

It’s been so freaking nice to wake up and not have that pounding racing heart and throbbing head every morning this week. I mean, it’s amazing how you just get used to it when you do it every day. I have felt like crap for soooooo long that it just became the status quo. I accepted that it was just the way that I was going to feel. Every. Single. Day.

And to not…well that was nothing short of fantastic.

So I jumped in to bed and finished a fluff book that I had been reading off and on and went to sleep.
These are baby steps and I’m still not saying forever. My brain will not allow it, but for now, just for today I am pretty proud of not drinking last night.

More Sad News

Last night Hubs was over at his Dad’s house visiting. It’s something he has done every Thursday and Sunday since his mom passed last month. Just to sort of keep him company and check on him and all that. I usually join him on the Sunday visits.

I came home and didn’t do a whole lot. Hubs was bringing dinner home with him (he makes dinners for his dad on these nights and makes extra for us to eat when he gets home) so I didn’t have to worry about cooking.

I was initially a bit worried about being home alone and not drinking…not terribly worried because it’s not that big of a deal, but I do tend to let myself think about being naughty because I’m unsupervised sometimes. 

Anyway, I was laying on the bed around 6:30 playing Homescapes on my phone when it showed that hubs was calling. This is unusual because we normally text anything we need to each other.

I answered and he said: “I’m so sorry, but I’m about to ruin the rest of your night.”

“What’s going on?” I asked with a bit of apprehension.

“I’m so sorry, Xay. I hate to do this to you.” 

At this point, I’m getting very nervous but still in the back of my mind I’m thinking it’s just something like a flat tire or something that I need to come get him for.

And then he told me that one of my Father in laws dogs had gotten out of her pen that night and ran into traffic. She was struck and killed.

They only found out when someone (not the person that hit the dog) recognized the dog on the side of the road (they are a fairly well known family and the only house on this stretch of road) and stopped to come knock on the door and let them know.

They had to go gather her off the roadside and put her in the back of my FIL’s pick up truck. There was no place open at that point and she had already passed so FIL said he would keep her in there until the morning then he would drive her to their vet and have her cremated. 

I didn’t know all of the details on that at the time of course, just that Hubs told me that she had been hit and had passed. He didn’t want to wait to tell me when he got home because in his mind he felt like he would have been deliberately keeping something from me (that is the way the logic in his brain works) so he was sorry to have to tell me over the phone.

I cried. I wasn’t especially close to the dog. His dogs are very barky and don’t really let us near them, but I am a HUGE animal lover and the idea of an animal death makes me crazy. I once accidentally hit a squirrel that ran out in front of my car and I cried for two days. But even more than that, I was so so so sad for my father in law. The man just lost his wife of fifty some odd years a month ago and now his dog??? WTF Universe????

I hung up the phone and immediately looked at the clock. I did some math in my head and the truth is, I could have had some drinks and still gotten to bed at a reasonable hour if I had really wanted to.
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to feel the way I was feeling, but I didn’t want to drink either.
I took some of my herbal calmative (that sounds like weed, but I promise it’s not) and then went out into the living room and loved on my own dogs.

Hubs got home about 45 minutes later and I could tell he was very out of sorts. This had hit him pretty hard. 

We hugged it out and I let him go decompress, letting him know I was there if he wanted to talk.

We went to bed shortly after that and I had a bit of a hard time getting to sleep, but that is understandable.

Tonight we are taking my father in law out to dinner right after work and see how he is doing.

I’m just kind of angry right now that this good person (father in law) is getting dealt such a shitty hand right now.

Progress and Doubts

Slept a total of around 7 hours last night and it was quite lovely. I woke up about half the amount of times that I had been the last two nights so I’ll score that as a win.

Still went to bed to read early and I see myself doing that for at least another week or so. It’s just easier and I enjoy laying in bed with my tea (Hubs brought me another cup last night and announced it as my nightly cup of tea) and my book and my dogs. I’m all about whatever gives me enjoyment without booze right now.

Hubs emailed me earlier that his sister is having a birthday party for her dog (no I’m not joking) next weekend and we are invited to go…it’s being held at her favorite winery just down the road from us.
I told him I would probably go. Wine was never really my thing, though I do enjoy a nice cold glass of chardonnay on occasion, especially on a warm day.

It got me thinking about where I want to go with this.

I told myself that I would stay sober until Friday, just to get myself in start lane. Saying forever was/is just too daunting for me right now.

I’ve honestly been enjoying my quiet nights without drinks at home. Couple that with the fact that it takes so long to get my sleeping regulated and that my anxiety has been lower than it has been in a while, makes me want to stay the course, but there is always that thought…

What if I can just have drinks on the weekends and stay sober during the week.

I know where that leads of course…we all do. Five sober days a week turns into four and then three and so on and so forth until it’s back to the daily hangovers and regrets.

I know that I can go to this party and not drink and I will be fine, so why did I instantly want to order a glass of wine when Hubs told me about the invite? 

And will I always want to try and see if I can drink like a “normal person”?

I don’t know the answers and I don’t know if I will hold myself accountable beyond my goal of staying sober until this Friday (tomorrow). 

I do know that right now, I feel pretty good. Waking up in the mornings is easier even if I didn’t get a lot of sleep. Not feeling like a giant slug at work is pretty cool. There isn’t the same sort of blind fear about not drinking that there was a week ago.

And yet my brain is whispering to me that I could still have all that if I just stay sober Sunday through Thursday. I think my brain is a liar…but it’s a pretty convincing one.

Updates

 Last night, the sleeping was better than Monday night. Not great, but I figure all together I got about five or six hours of sleep so I'll take it.

I didn't really have much of a craving to drink when I got home...I mean, I feel like there will always be a pull when I first walk through the door after work. Well, at least until I get some serious months under my belt. It's just something I have done for so long that it is just habitual. It's what I do when I get home. I feed the dogs, get in my Pj's and pour myself a healthy shot of vodka.

However, once I cracked open my sparkling water and chowed on some chips and dip, I was feeling pretty content.

Played my video game for a half an hour and then Hubs and I folded the weeks worth of laundry that had been sitting.

Hubs mostly took care of dinner and then I ate and retired to bed to read.

About ten minutes later, my husband did the sweetest thing. He came into the bedroom to bring me a cup of Rooibos tea in my favorite mug. I used to love to drink this tea and had kind of forgotten about it, it's a nice, slightly sweet, relaxing tea. I discovered it when I had to quit caffeine due to my anxiety.
He put it on my nightstand and told me if I didn't want it he would be back to collect it when he came to bed.

At first I wasn't sure I wanted it but after the first sip I realized it was EXACTLY what I needed. Snugging under the covers with my book and a nice warm cup of tea. It was perfect!

It also made me realize how much me making an effort to stop or at least cut back on drinking is meaning to him. That hit me in the feels.

Not much else to report. It's my night to cook dinner so I'll try and get that done quickly when I get home. The kitchen is where I did all my drinking. I kept my vodka glass and chaser glass on the counter right next to the stove. This has made the kitchen seem like a bit of a danger zone to me when I am trying not to drink. 

I'm finding it's not as bad as I was making it out in my head, but still...there is a fear there.
I guess that is all I've got for now. 

Thanks to all who have been commenting and supporting me, it means more than you could ever know.💓💓💓

Sleepless in Soberland

Last night was brutal. Not the actual not drinking part...that actually went relatively smoothly.
I ate my dinner early and was posted up in bed with my book by eight with no real cravings other than the initial ones I had upon arriving home from work. 

What was so terrible was the fact that I could Not Get To Sleep at all last night.

I read for a bit until I felt sleepy, turned out the lights and put on my eye mask...and laid there...awake.

I know from experience that the first sober night after a long stretch of drinking nightly is rough and I think I let my fear of the thought of not being able to get to sleep get the best of me.

I think worried it into reality, if that makes any sense.

I took CBD oil and all my herbal calmatives and my magnesium spray and nothing worked. I would relax enough to feel like I might sleep and then I would worry that I was going to start twitching (this is something that typically happens a lot on my first night of sober sleeping after a long drinking period and therefore I was anticipating it too much) and I would start to have anxiety over it and so on and so forth until I was wide awake again.

I finally tried to change my mindset. I told myself that I was worrying about it too much and that there was no reason why I had to fear it. Even if it happened, I just had to wait it out until I could relax enough to fall asleep.

Finally around two in the morning I started to doze and of course kept jerking myself awake with my twitching. I tried to keep calm and get back to sleep after each one because the only thing I can really do when that happens is wait out my body until it is exhausted enough to sleep through it. That happened about an hour later. I slept fitfully after that but managed to get a total of about three jerky/snoring myself awake kind of sleep. Better than nothing I guess.

I'm not going to lie, the thought of getting up and slamming a few shots occurred to me a few times during the night. Each time I would push it away with the tentative promise that if it got too bad and too late, I would relent. However by the time I was desperate, it was past the point of no return. There would not have been time to "sleep it off" in time for work, and I was nothing if not a pretty functional and responsible drunk when it came to not showing up stinking of booze to my job in the mornings.
I'm completely out of it today. Like, my brain is mush and I am so super irritable and emotional. It doesn't help that I am PMSing, but add that to very little sleep and alcohol withdrawal? Yeah, I'm a hot mess.

It's so funny, I KNOW how to navigate my work day with a hangover, it may not be the funnest thing but it's something I'm really used to. This whole no sleep thing/withdrawals is a whole other ball of wax.

Historically for me, sleep gets a bit better each night so I'm shooting for being tucked up in my bed super early tonight. Given how tired I am right now, it shouldn't be an issue, but we'll see.
No real cravings other than the initial pull to drink just because it's what I always do when I get home from work. I'm not sure I would want to put a shitty passed out sleep on top of the lack of sleep that I got last night anyway. 

Sorry if this entry sounds all over the place, see the above statement about my brain being mush. ;)
So fingers crossed for better sleep tonight!!!!

Today

So yesterday didn't work out as planned. Shocking, I know.

Hubs was at his Dad's helping him around the house and I opted to stay home. I needed to mentally prepare myself for not drinking by laying around in bed all morning playing Homescapes on my phone. ;)

I was doing okay...not great when he got home. I was preparing steps for my meal prep and only slightly wavering back and forth on whether I should drink or not.

I got the egg muffins all prepared and put them in the oven, feeling a bit smug if I'm honest that I was able to complete some sort of baking project without hitting the vodka. 

It was about that time that my husband told me that we were going to clean out the Tupperware cupboard. Actually, if memory serves, he said he was going to do it and asked if I wanted to help.
I panicked. I have NO idea why, but I shit you not, the thought of cleaning out and organizing all our containers sober was absolutely terrifying!! 

I pretended I was fine for the next half an hour (we weren't going to start the organizing until the muffins were done) and then told my husband I was probably going to drink...and did so.

My brain was searching so hard for something to make me give in to that bottle that it chose picking over beat up food containers to make me have a panic attack and give in. 

Writing this out now is literally making me shake my head at the stupidity of it, but I swear to you that it was an absolute real terror I felt at the thought of doing that sober.

I mean, if you could have seen the cupboard, you might KIND OF see why, but still...that is one of the stupidest excuses ever.

So I did drink yesterday, but not nearly the volume I usually do on a Sunday. Still more than anyone should in a given day, but no where near my usual weekend consumption.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the day I decided I wanted to at least try a week sober.

I'm not going to lie, I'm already forming excuses in my mind as to why I need to not.

They are the lamest excuses of course, but they are forming.

I'm not ready.

I will still have Vodka in the cupboard (I just now noticed how I capitalize Vodka, hmm...).

I didn't get to day drink today like normal on a weekend because we had such a lovely time at the toddler's birthday party that we actually stayed instead of splitting after the normally acceptable hour.

I have to cook/meal prep tomorrow for the rest of the week and I clearly cannot do that sober.

I'm not ready.

What if it is such a nice day and I just want to day drink?

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be in a bad mood (REALLY??)

I might want to paint my nails and I'm not sure I've ever done that sober.

I'm not ready.

What if I want to ...? (this list is endless and the reasons don't even make sense!

I got a lovely comment today from msnewleaf (I'm not savvy enough to tag her) today that gave me pause from all of that:

 "I am looking forward to reading about your Day 1 tomorrow. You can do it! It is NOT easy, but there are so many of us doing the same thing, and we can all support each other. The more I read about others’ experiences after they have had some significant time sober, the more I want what they have. It seems to take at least 3 or 4 to 6 months to really start to get good and then just gets better after that. I don’t know this from personal experience yet, but I’m determined to get there! You should come, too."

You should come, too.
That touched me.
I'm one of those FOMO ppl that never want to go anywhere but always want to be invited. As a result of never showing up anywhere I no longer get invited any longer. I'm totally fine with is because I never wanted to go in the first place, but the fact that I wasn't invited hurts me. I realize this is totally stupid on my part and makes not sense but neither does most of my life so there. XD
This is an invitation I think I could get behind...I know I'm only shooting for one week right now, but the thought of my life getting so much better after putting in a few months of work sounds amazing. Like, SOOOOOOOO inviting.
I want that.

I just finally confessed to my hubby that I am going to try to do tomorrow and possibly next week sober. He is is usual supportive helpful self.
"Tell me if I need to hide the booze."
"Let me know how I can help."
"Do you need me to do anything?"
He's amazing...but he has been through this before...SO many times. He expects nothing from me because of my history and he doesn't want to be disappointed yet again. That should speak volumes to me.

Okay, I need to come back and read this tomorrow when I'm wavering. It tells me everything I need to know.

Things I envision myself doing whilst sober

What will I do when I am not a slave to the vodka?

The answers shouldn't be that complicated. A little over a year ago I had 3 weeks sober under my belt, but I don't feel like was was "living" at that point. I feel like I was merely doing things to keep my sober time safe with no hiccups and there is NO shame in that.

But as I am reading sober blogs of ppl that have a significant amount of sober time, I wonder what I would do to improve my life more than just NOT poisoning it every day.

I mean, what would my schedule look like?

I would still go to work the same time, but I would be much more rested of course. I would work my full work week but maybe I might be energetic enough for a small walk at lunch instead of sitting and gossiping with the girls (not that there is anything wrong with that) for a half and hour.

When I got home from work would I have the energy and the inclination to get a half an hour work out in to power me through making dinner and doing some chores?

After that will I have the mindset to shower (no bath option for me) to have a rinse off and then start a skin care regime before I get ready for bed?

This sounds like I'm being sarcastic about it, but this is really what I want. I'm just so stuck in the: "Go to work hungover, come home from work to immediately drink, do as little as possible because I'm fat and lazy and pass out without being sure if I even ate dinner or how I left things with my husband." mode.

God, no wonder I'm looking forward to Sober Sunday!

I do fear though, that getting sober will not take away my laziness gene...

Making a plan...

 Not the first time I've uttered those words when it comes to my trying to stop drinking, but I think I might be ready to try...if only for a week. I don't want to pressure myself into too much, that is when I buck back and resist. 

I'm thinking of starting my week of sobriety on Sunday. I might even start on Saturday...we have a birthday party to attend for a two year old so that will occupy most of the day. And as I remember it, the first sober night is a BITCH to get to sleep so maybe it might be better to start on Saturday. That way I have more rest on Sunday so I'm not a total Zombie when I go back into work on Monday. 

If I'm honest, that whole Sunday, day drinking thing will be VERY hard to resist...

The thing is, we have a thing coming up in February where we will be out of town and staying in a hotel for two nights. While staying in a hotel is always an even BETTER excuse to drink to me, I feel like I really want to try this as my first sober adventure. 

It's part of my husband and I's 20 year anniversary present to each other (the actual anniversary isn't for months but we are breaking things up and celebrating throughout the year) and I know it would mean a lot to him if I didn't drink til I blacked out during the festivities. 

Funny that.

So I need to start trying on these non drinking nights for size. 

For some reason after this last month of seemingly drinking more than usual because I was thinking of quitting, I had an odd moment of clarity today. 

Maybe it's all the sober journals I've been reading again, maybe it's because I've finally come off the withdrawals of the antidepressants I had been on for 20 years and tapered completely off several months ago (see a previous post that I'm not sure how to link), maybe it's just because I'm fed up with feeling like shit. Anxiety, depression and so many aches and pains both physically and mentally...

I'm not sure of anything...but tonight I feel a glimmer of hope and it's a lot more than I've felt in a while, so I will take it.

Fighting my way back.

I'm not sober right now but I really want to be! I fought with myself so hard tonight but the booze won out, I really hope this isn't triggering anyone that is reading.

I don't want to do this any longer. It hurts both my head and my body.

I know that my late mother in law wouldn't like me to, knowing how her son struggled with booze and now here I am. 

F*ck I hate this.

Stupid Excuse Files

I think I'm going to start a series that I hope won't last long given the nature of them.
The reason I gave myself to drink?

1/15/20 It's my night to cook and I am not sure I can do that sober...

I'm sorry, what??

Yup, that is what I told myself that late afternoon and I stuck to when I got home from work.

How pathetic! I cannot possibly not drink tonight because cooking is clearly a thing only drunk people can do! That is what it is translated to in the harsh light of day. So stupid.

Especially when you think about the fact that I started cooking after my second drink. I FELT ZERO BUZZ or intoxication. So how can this excuse possibly hold any water? It can't....and yet it did. 

When you are just looking for an excused to drink, you will believe ANYTHING!