On Vacation

 

Well, I am here in my hometown on the east coast for my vacation.  I have not had a drink, so there is that.

The actual traveling part of the trip went relatively smoothly (no hiccups or delays - a non bumpy flight and the bus rides were peaceful) and for that I am thankful, but it was a LONG 24 hours of a lot of "hurry up and wait".

After being awake for 33 hours, Hubs and I checked into our hotel around 3 in the afternoon and I was crashed out in bed by six.

Having said that, I will admit that there was a pull to drink.  Probably the strongest I've felt really since that first night when I quit a month ago.  As I stated in my last blog entry, I wasn't quite sure if I was going to remain sober on this trip because I hadn't had a vacation without drinking since I was a kid.  And I'm still not 100% sure, but I am proud to say that I have been able to resist so far.

However, the thought of and actual act of being in a hotel room was messing with my mind and still kinda does.

I mean, I used to deliberately stay in hotels in my town sometimes just so I could get rip-roaring drunk without any judgement.  I called them my "me-time weekends" and I would tell everyone that it was my time to just isolate and recharge my batteries by reading and watching movies and going swimming in the local hotel -- and while I did do all those things, they weren't the main event.  No, that was the vodka that I brought with me.  And sometimes I would drink just enough to get a pleasant buzz, but most times I would get blind drunk in the safety of the hotel room.

Other hotel times are usually Vegas related and well, in Vegas all bets are off.  I pretty much drank 24/7, but only got drunk at night once we were tucked into the safety of our hotel room for the night.

So you can see why it's a bit uneasy-making to not be drinking whilst in this hotel.

I'm not gonna lie, when we went to the grocery store while waiting to check into the hotel I was so tempted.  I even contemplated just getting a bottle of wine. Vodka Villain™ was telling me that wouldn't be as bad as my normal large bottle of vodka, but VV™ wasn't really fooling me.  I knew that if I had that wine it wouldn't even scratch the surface and then I would feel really shitty for having broken my streak of sober days, so I would have sent my husband out for vodka.  Better to just not have anything around.  Plus I knew that I was sooooo overtired that first night that it would have been a waste of a good drunk.  I would have been ready to pass out after the first two shots, but I would have kept drinking anyway until I was drunk and miserable.

So I didn't get any.  But I got lots of food, in keeping with the whole "Xay isn't going to lose any weight after ditching thousands of daily vodka calories because she is replacing them with sugar" theme, but I'm okay with that right now.

What was fantastic was the visit I had yesterday with my cousin.  She is one of my favorite humans on the planet and helped raise me when my parents couldn't keep their hands off of each others throats.  She's just a few years shy of 100 years old and still sharp as a tack, funny as all get out has a much busier social life than I do (which TBH, isn't saying that much).

I loved that we stayed at her place for hours chatting and reminiscing with her.  I was 100% present and didn't feel the need to rush things so I could get back to the hotel and get drunk like I normally would have.  It was so nice and as she is up there in years, I'm going to be very glad that I have those memories instead of regrets that I had stayed longer.

Tonight we are having dinner with a friend from high school.  She gave us a few options for places to eat and the one one we picked because it had most intriguing options for food, just happens to be a brewery.

Now this is weird, because I am having these visions of her getting a beer and asking if I want one and this shouldn't make me feel tempted or uncomfortable but it does.  The reason it shouldn't is because I wasn't a beer drinker so there is no temptation to want to drink one other than to possibly make her feel more comfortable to not be having one by herself.

The other reason that this is bizarre is that if I was actively drinking, I would have no problem refusing a drink at dinner.  I've almost always done that anyway.  That's the thing about being a closeted drinker.  I was always very careful to not drink much in public if at all.

So why am I all of a sudden weirded out at the thought that I might have to say no to a drink tonight?  It's odd to me.

Anyway, it's almost eleven and I'm going to hop in the shower to head out for lunch with another old school chum.  Just thought I'd check in to say I'm still fighting the good fight so far.

Sober Vacation?

I’m very close to completing the Live Alcohol Experiment.  It began on September 1st and it is no co-incidence that I started before my upcoming vacation.  In fact, the last day of the experiment is the day before we fly out.  That was by design as well.

You see, I am not a good flier.  I didn’t used to be so bad about it but over the years, like everything else in my life, the anxiety has gripped me tightly when it comes to plane travel (or any travel really) and I was hoping that if I put some distance between me and the booze, I would cool out a bit about it.

It’s true that my anxiety has diminished so very much since quitting drinking (and now thanks to Annie and the program, I know the science behind why it has!), but we will have to wait and see how I react when it’s time to fly.

I bring this up because with the end of the program and the start of my vacation comes decision time.  I guess I had always kind of thought I would go back to at least having some drinks once we get to our destination.  It’s my vacation after all and as I’m going to collect my mothers ashes, it’s not like it’s going to be a barrel of laughs the whole time.

I honestly don’t think I have had a vacation without drinking since I was a kid.  Even on a mostly sober trip when we traveled to Asia and stayed with relatives for two weeks, we took a couple of days off at a hotel where I had a few drinks.  All my other vacations have involved me drinking heavily at least 80% of the vacation (usually when we got back to the hotel for the night).  And of course there is Vegas, where I pretty much just stay drunk for a week.

However, the more I’ve stayed sober and done the work in the experiment, I just am not sure I want to drink anymore period.  And yet, there is that part of me that is yelling: “But It’s A Vacation!!!!”

So I guess I’m at a crossroads.

A couple of nights ago I mentioned to my husband that I still didn’t know what I was going to do about drinking on the vacation but I was leaning towards not drinking.

He responded saying that he just figured I wasn’t going to drink on the vacation.  He said that he didn’t see point.  Although he was quick to add that of course, if I wanted to, it wouldn’t be an issue.

But all my brain heard at that point was my husband stating that he didn’t think I was going to drink on vacation.

At which point my defensive Vodka Villain (VV™) jumped directly into my frontal lobe and started screaming: “WE NEVER SAID WE WEREN’T GOING TO DRINK WHILE WE ARE THERE!  WHERE IS HE GETTING HIS INFORMATION??”  and  “He’s going to ruin this vacation for us!  Hotel rooms mean drinking!  It’s just the way it is and he’s just silly if he thinks that is ever going to change!”  and  “Look at him, making that decision for us!  I mean, that whole experiment was cute and all, but does he really think that we are going to NEVER DRINK AGAIN??  That’s just STUPID!”

I quickly blocked out VV™ and chewed it over.  If I was honest (and isn’t there more and more of that happening lately?), then I had to admit that my vacations have been lackluster lately.  Well, first of all they have been very few and far between due to COVID, but they have all been alcohol soaked and anxiety ridden for the last few years.  Never making many plans because in my eyes, my vacation was for doing as much day drinking as possible.

Hubs and I have repeatedly said that the Asia trip was by far the best vacation we have ever had together and it’s true.  And the reason for that?  Honestly (there is that word again!) it’s because of the lack of booze.  Because there was very little drinking involved, I was not hungover.  Because I was not hungover, I had very little anxiety.  Because I was not hungover and had very little anxiety, we were able to get up early in the morning and seize the day.  And because of that, we had full days worth of doing all the touristy things as well as local hidden gems that our relatives took us to.  Then we would come home in the evenings and prepare food or order take out for dinner and go to bed feeling accomplished, having a wonderful sleep because our days had been so full of activity.

We remember that trip so very fondly.  I can’t think of a trip we have had in the last few years that we think of as warmly as that — and that includes the one where we renewed our vows for our 20 year anniversary!

Now I have no illusions that the small state that I grew up in will rival a culturally rich country that we had never been to before, but I think you can see where I am going here.

I have to say the draw of waking up in my hometown and going to visit the few relatives that I actually want to see without being hungover sounds very appealing.  As does the idea of spending quality time with them and not rushing through it so that I can get back to the hotel and drink.

I know that I’ve pretty much made my decision and that decision is not to drink.  As I told my husband after mulling all of it over: “If I were to drink, I wouldn’t want to to want have more than a couple of drinks and I know damn well that two or three drinks will do nothing for me (other than make me mad at myself for giving in).  I’ve never been a light drinker.  I drink to get drunk and if I’m not doing that, what is the point?  If I’m going to “drink lightly”, I’d be better off having a mocktail or two.  They would do the same for me (nothing) without the guilt.

We don’t have a whole lot planned this trip.  Not hanging out with my mom will free up a lot of time (Though I’d gladly give up that free time to hang out with my mom once more).  Honestly most of our plans involve visiting my favorite local restaurants that I grew up frequenting and going to see my bestie in the hospital.  This would normally make me very happy because that would mean lots of space for drinking at the hotel, but now it’s making me a little nervous. 

I’m not used to being sober in a hotel.  I don’t think I have been in decades.  I worry it’s going to make me itchy to drink.  However, I thought the same thing about my own house a month ago and I’m doing pretty well on that front currently. 

I think I’m overthinking it at this point.  There are going to be a LOT of new firsts for me in this sobriety journey if I’m going to stick with it and I just have to realize and accept that.  Look at it as a challenge.  I’m discovering a lot of things about myself that I didn’t think I could do before and that is kind of thrilling actually.

I need to change my mindset to think of it as exciting instead of scary.

What I am looking forward to for sure?  Sober packing!  I cannot tell you how many times I have had to open my suitcase whist hungover the next morning and repack because I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I had packed the night before.  I can’t wait to not wait until the last minute and actually KNOW what I packed and what I didn’t!  😜😜😜

Sleep

 

In case anyone is wondering, I’m feeling better since my last post.  Not much about the circumstances have changed but I seem to be in a better place emotionally about it.  I also started working out that night, so that is probably helping.

At any rate, that isn’t what I want to talk about today.  Today, as I’m sure you have gathered from the title of this post, I want to talk about sleep.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with sleep most of my life.

I had forgotten this about myself.  I had relied on the bottle to help me fall asleep for so long that I couldn’t really remember a time before simply just passing out.

However, since I have been actually been enjoying the decent sleep I have been getting this last week, I sat down and searched my memory for how I slept as a child/young adult.

I don’t remember a whole lot about my childhood before the age of 9 or 10.  I don’t know why, I just don’t.  But that would coincide with the first time my father left my mother.  He came back shortly after and left for good when I was 12 or so, but his first time leaving was when I was 10.

Anyhoo, I don’t remember my sleeping habits prior to that other than I didn’t like to go to bed.  What normal kid does right?  Mine was more about the fact that I knew my mind would hitch into overdrive and I would have the hardest time getting to sleep.  Heh, I was an over-thinker, even at a young age. 

My brother and I had bedrooms across the hall from each other for the year or two before my dad left (prior to that we shared a bedroom and I don’t remember having too many problems getting to sleep at that point).  We would each get time with my mother (that we called “minutes”) at bedtime.  She would come in and lay down in our little twin beds and set a timer for five or ten minutes and when that was done she would go to the other one and do the same.

After my dad left I took to coming downstairs and sleeping in my moms bed with her.  She technically never say I couldn’t and I think she enjoyed the company as she was newly separated.  Eventually she didn’t even bother trying to get me to go to my room for bed.  I don’t remember having problems getting to sleep when I was in her room.

I think I stayed sleeping in her bed probably almost up to my freshman year in high school I think.  Not quite sure of the timeline but that seems right.

Going back up to my own room, I began having problems getting to sleep again but I suffered through because I was a teenager for goodness sake and I couldn’t have my friends thinking I still slept with my mommy!

What this tells me is that I seem to have always had a problem getting to sleep when by myself in a room.  This entry isn’t about trying to psychoanalyze why I couldn’t easily get to sleep when I was younger, but that is interesting to note.

That lasted quite a while.  As I reached adulthood I seem to remember getting to sleep got a bit easier.  It might be because I got a TV in my room and could leave it on to block out my brain chatter while I tried to get to sleep.  Or it could just be that I had gotten a job and was more tired at night due to not sleeping in and being bored all day long.

Then I found booze.

Man, that sure did the trick!  20 plus years later, I found myself in a pickle when I couldn’t get to sleep without it. 

Since the 1st I have been doing pretty well.  The first day or two really sucked because my body had to adjust, but after that it has been pretty smooth sailing. In the beginning, I also took some holistic calmatives to help me sleep most nights. 

CBD oil and Orchex pretty well did the trick for me.  Lately I haven’t had to take anything.  I tuck myself into bed about an hour before I want to sleep and play on my phone and then read until bedtime and I’ve been pretty good at falling off within fifteen minutes of closing my eyes to sleep — usually sooner. *knocks wood*

Now that I’m sleeping relatively easily, I have to say that I absolutely love sleep!! The thought of going to sleep at night is no longer a scary thing for me.

I love snuggling up in the blankets and pulling up the kindle on my phone to read a bit (quit lit of course!).  I look soooooo forward to it, sometimes I watch the clock and wonder how soon is too soon to call it a night?  I’m usually tucked in bed by seven thirty.

Waking up when my alarm went off after drinking the night before, I would feel like I hadn’t slept a wink.  Even if I had been “sleeping” (passed out) for 12 hours I would wake up and feel like I had maybe gotten one or two hours of sleep.  Always groggy and cranky and desperate to hit the snooze button a million more times.

Now I wake up when my alarm goes off with relative ease.  Instead of smashing that last snooze button, I will pick up my phone and check a few social media accounts while snuggling with my doggos for a few minutes before getting up and hitting the shower.

My husband keeps commenting how he doesn’t have to pry me out of bed with a crowbar anymore.

I often think that all the snuggly time at night and the fantastic way that good sleep makes me feel is worth staying sober for all on its own.  I know that this will eventually become old hat and I won’t think too much about the whole sleep thing, but I will gladly revel in it for as long as I can.

The pink is fading…

Welp, so much for those pink f*cking clouds.

So I’ve been in a bad mood pretty much all the time for the last few days.  I’m not sure if it’s the not drinking thing or the fact that I’m going to be flying home in less than two weeks to pick up my mom’s ashes.

It’s probably a combination of each, if I’m honest.

I’m crying all the time, and if I’m not leaking from my eyes I’m internally FUMING about something that probably isn’t that big of a deal but it’s infuriating to me (nothing specific, just whatever pisses me off at that moment).

I’m not a good flier on a good day, but I haven’t flown in a few years and I’m really not looking forward to it.

Planning this trip has not been fun.  This will be the first time in EVER that I’ve gone home and not stayed with my mom.  Every time I had to do any sort of booking for this trip has resulted in me dissolving into tears when I realize I’m not going to see her.  Ever again.

To make matters worse, the one bright spot of the trip was seeing my best friend and she is now in the hospital.  She is parallelized from the chest down (with use of her arms) due to a botched back surgery a few years back and has a slew of health problems as a result.

She was recently sent to a hospital over an hour away from where she lives because it is the only one that had staff and beds to take her due to COVID and all the nurses quitting or getting fired for refusing the vaccine mandate (not trying to get political — also, covid should have never been politicized in the first place — but when I heard that, I was very sad.  I thought ppl in my home state were smarter than that — especially people whose main job is to make sure that people are safe and healthy) and it sounds like that particular hospital has their head up their ass as a whole and they are making life hell for her.

Example: She was admitted for many things but one was edema – lots of fluid filling up her body.  Her blood pressure was low (it has always run low) so they immediately started pumping her full of additional fluid.  To the point where she couldn’t breathe and literally thought she was going to die.

Are you f*cking kidding me????

I was pretty sure for a little while that she wasn’t even going to be alive for me to visit when I get there.

I digress.  The short of it is that now in order to visit her I will have to travel an hour and a half each way and put myself and my compromised husband at risk by visiting a hospital where there are lots of covid patients.

Re-booking this trip is not an option (though I really wish it was).  It’s been re-booked more than once and I need to get this done.

So yeah, there is a lot going on right now and I’m sure that the whole not drinking thing is just amplifying my bad thoughts and emotions.

If I were to step away and analyze it honestly, I know I would see that I would probably be so much worse if I were actively drinking through this.  In addition to everything else, I would be dealing with poor sleep and hangovers.  And I know my drunk self well enough to know that I would be absolutely inconsolable after a nights worth of drinking and would be screaming and crying at my husband every single night.

But who wants to be rational about that??  Not me.  I want to sit and whine that it’s not fair that I can’t have my “go to” for the last 20 years when I’m going through this.

So yeah.  That’s what’s going on with me.  But it’s been 21 days since my last drink.  Three weeks.  If I make it through today and tomorrow without a drink that will be the longest stretch of consecutive days I’ve had in the last 20 plus years.

So there is that.

2 weeks yesterday

So I hit two weeks alcohol free yesterday.

14 days without a drink.

I haven’t had a stretch this long without booze since 2018.  That was my longest stretch since I started my drinking career and it lasted three weeks.  Before that, I don’t even know, but I think I can safely say that it was before 1999.

I’m pretty stoked about this because I am still experiencing the pink clouds right now so it hasn’t really been too much of a struggle.

The first couple of days were pretty rough but once I started sleeping solidly through the night, I have been really digging this whole not drinking thing.  I mean, not the act of not drinking, I still miss the act of drinking … what I am really enjoying is the lack of anxiety, the change for the better in my attitude (a few mini meltdowns for no reason aside), and being present, among other things.

The best thing out of everything though is waking up feeling rested.  Waking up and not wanting to cry because I still feel so freaking tired.  Waking up and immediately cracking a joke to my husband, who is so floored by the fact that I’m even coherent that quickly after waking.  Normally, I am still in the monosyllabic phase of talking even after I’ve had my shower in the morning — putting together full sentences, let alone a joke, that soon after opening my eyes from slumber has just been unheard of for the last two decades!

So yeah, waking up in the mornings is no longer a horrific chore.  I mean, would still prefer to sleep in, but I no longer need to bury my face under the covers and hope that somehow I miscalculated and that it is actually Saturday instead of Tuesday.

And dropping off to sleep lately has been a cake walk (I am not issuing a challenge universe!  *cue me knocking wood*) and I couldn’t be more pleased.  I’m working on a future entry based solely on sleep and my love/hate relationship with it over the years, so I will leave it at that for now.

I have had my emotional moments of course but they seem to be more fewer and far between than I remember them being back in 2018.  They are present though and I do find myself flying off the handle into a fit of undeserved rage at the stupidest thing and dissolving into tears for no apparent reason, but as of right now the good things are outweighing the bad.

I know that these pink clouds are eventually going to wear thin.  I know that there is so much more ahead than just sunshine and roses.  I am unfortunately well aware of P.A.W.S. (Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome) as I’ve only recently come off of that from ditching my anti-depressant after 20+ years.

While I tapered off that med (celexa/citalopram) for over a year, I was still hit with P.A.W.S for an additional year to various degrees.  It’s not fun and I’m not looking forward to it.

So for now, I’m going to enjoy every little bit of these cotton candy clouds and keep going.

Over a week

I can’t believe it.  It’s been over a week since I have had a drink.

I haven’t had a stretch this long since August or September of 2018 when I managed to eek out three whole weeks in a row.  Before that, I’m not sure I’ve had a streak this long since …. wow, I want to say 1999.

I feel great for the most part.  Finally getting some decent sleep and my anxiety has dropped to insanely low levels.

I’d love to tell you that my house is spotless and organized, but I’m still not very motivated to do much.  That’s might not be much of a newly sober thing though as I’ve never been highly motivated even before I started drinking. 😂

I took my blood pressure for the first time in like two or three years and it is pretty normal.  No where near as high as it had been when I was in the major throws of drinking (so, most every day for the last 20 years).  That is a definite bonus!

My eating has been out of control though.  And I’ve allowed it.  I knew that there would still be a calorie deficit given how much vodka I used to drink, but I think it’s time to rein it in because I am sick of feeling full all the time.

So starting Monday I’m back on myfitnesspal and counting calories.  I’m not going to be super duper strict, but I have to stop shoveling food in my face every five minutes.

I’m also planning on starting back on the treadmill as that will help as well.  Hopefully the weather will start cooling off soon out here so it will be a lot more bearable to hop on after work.  Currently we have been having heat wave after heat wave and we don’t have air conditioning in our house.  That is an excuse of course, while it is hot, I’m just really f*cking lazy.  More so than ever right now.

I wonder if I’m taking the whole “be gentle with yourself” a bit too seriously.  I mean, I know for the first couple of days there was nothing I wanted to do other than eat and lay in bed if I couldn’t drink.  I kind of feel like I’m over that hump, but I’m still milking it because it’s comfortable.  Hmmm…that’s something I will have to contemplate this weekend.  It might be time to start doing some things that aren’t as in my comfort zone.  I mean, I’m not looking to go skydiving anytime soon, but maybe help my poor husband around the house a bit more.

I did cook dinner last night.  It was only spaghetti, but for some reason cooking is always a trigger for me.  I guess it is because I have almost always been drinking when I cooked for the last two decades.  It usually makes me feel anxious to think about cooking or baking without drinks.

Last night I didn’t even think about it.  I just knew that Hubs had been taking on the task of dinner for over a week now and that it was my turn.  I also knew that there was ground turkey in the fridge about to go bad, so I just pulled out all of the ingredients and started in without giving drinking a thought.

In fact I didn’t think about the fact that I didn’t think about drinking until a couple hours after the dinner had already been prepared.  I guess that is a good sign.

Day 4 of LAE and lots of realizations

Day 4 of the Live Alcohol Experiment and the first weekend day.

So far so good is where I’m going to start.  I got a mostly solid 8 hours of sleep last night, broken up only by having to get up to pee 3 times (goodbye toxins!) and Hubs taking the dog out around two.  On all those occasions I was able to get back to sleep with relative ease so Imma call that a win.😀

According to the scale this morning, I am down almost 4 pounds since Wednesday (that would be 3 full days) and trust me when I tell you that I have not been counting my calories in any way shape or form.  In fact, I’m pretty much allowing myself to eat whatever the heck I want (there has to be some sort of reward for taking away my beloved booze right?  I mean other than better sleep, better health, a better relationship with my husband…hmmm, I digress).  Also, I am about 3 days out from starting my period so I should be in the gaining water weight part of that and I’m still down almost 4 pounds!

The day 3 lesson of LAE was a pretty short one but it made a lot of sense.  It was all about how our sleep cycles suffer when we drink booze and why it takes a few days to regulate again when we try to sleep without it.  I mean, I knew that when I drank I would wake up in the middle of the night without fail and not be able to get back to sleep for quite a while (usually not until right before the alarm was set to go off), but to actually understand the science of why this happens was quite fascinating to me.  

I’m not going to lie, when I realized that the first weekend of this experiment was to fall on a three day weekend, I almost backed out.  I literally said to myself: “Welp, can’t do that!  Three whole days of day drinking?  I’d be stupid to miss out on that!”

The reality is of course, that the three day long hangover would be miserable and by tomorrow, I wouldn’t even be enjoying the day drinking part.  Merely doing it because somewhere in the far away past, I used to enjoy long boozy weekends.  However, if I’m honest … I haven’t enjoyed day drinking in quite some time.  I mean the first few drinks? Yes, absolutely!  But after a couple of hours it just gets tedious.  I feel gross and warm and uncomfortable.  I get bloated, my stomach hurts and I inevitably get emotional for no reason and pick a fight with my husband.  I eat A TON of food right before going to bed (hello empty calories!) and wake up with not only no memory of eating dinner and going to bed, but also none of the last couple hours of the night.  Then I have to get up feeling super anxious, trying to be casual around my husband and see how he reacts to find out he is mad at me or not (that is an award winning performance right there, let me tell you).  Creep onto Facebook and see if I posted anything offensive or messaged anyone and possibly started a fight for no reason whatsoever.  And the stupidest part yet?  I would do it all over again that day because I could!  Ridiculous.  And yet this has gone on for decades.

Wow.  Typing out that last paragraph really admitted a lot about me and my drinking.  To you guys, and to myself.

Anyhoo … Today has been good.  A lot better than I thought.  Hubs just left for practice and he won’t be back for a few hours.  This is when I would normally dig in for my real heavy drinking to start.  Instead, I’m going to take a shower and then lay down on the bed and play some games on my phone.  Not the most productive, but I don’t have to be today.  The only thing I have to do today is not drink.

Tomorrow we will be heading to my father in laws house to spend the night.  As I think I’ve written before, that is a safe non drinking spot for me.  I know that I can’t so I don’t even really think about it.  Hubs suggested this when I first told him about the experiment and how I was worried about the long weekend.  I think at this stage, I will be okay if we didn’t but I certainly don’t mind going.  We usually get some yummy take out and all watch TV together.  It’s the closest thing I’ve had to family since the last time I got to spend time with my mom before she passed and it’s quite enjoyable.

So that’s it for now.  I probably won’t update until after we get back from my FIL’s house.  Thanks for the words of encouragement in my last entry.

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.