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.