Still going

Well, I got some good sleep last night.  I did however wake up at three in the morning, but it wasn’t due to a racing heart and a nasty hangover.  It was because my dog jumped out of bed and started circling around my desk.  A sure sign that a dump was about to be taken in the house.

I jumped out of bed and rushed her outside just in time.

She’s been having some tummy trouble off an on lately, this batch was a bit soft but not runny like it had been last month.  I chalked it up to stress as she had to spend all day yesterday at my father in laws and he has a very large dog that frightens her a bit.  They don’t interact because she is in her crate inside and he is in his pen outside, but is bark makes her go a bit crazy.  She appears to be better today.  

*knocks wood*

Anyway, I was able to get back in bed after and drift off fairly easily.  Had I been boozing the night before there would have been no more sleep for me this morning.  It would have been a circle of shame and haunting thoughts.  I can’t tell you how happy I am to not have that in my mornings this week.
Work was pretty smooth again.  I have to say that I never really realized how much the drinking impacted me the next day.  I mean, I knew I was “hungover” as in dehydrated and sluggish, but since it was something that happened on the daily, I think I just got used to it and decided I never really felt “that bad”.

These last couple of days has taught me what a lie that was.  You never realize how bad you feel until you actually feel good.  It’s been so very nice to not be counting down the hours … no, minutes until I could go home and get a drink in me to make me feel better.

Tonight I had one of my allotted two glasses of wine that I am allowing myself each night this week.  Hubs made dinner while I sipped and helped out and we chatted.  It was nice and I don’t think the wine was even needed.  It’s not like I catch a buzz or anything, and I’m learning that I should be okay next week with nothing but mocktails.

As soon as I’m done typing this I’m going to get my nightly cup of tea and my two tea biscuits and settle into bed to play on my phone to relax a bit before bed.  I’ve quite enjoyed that every night this week, but I knew I would.  That is something that I always “forget” when I want to drink, but I so love laying lazily in bed mindlessly scrolling or reading until I’m sleepy and going to bed.

Tomorrow is Friday and while I don’t have intention of drinking other than my two small glasses of wine, we shall see how it plays out.

I’m hoping to write more in depth this weekend about what sort of helped trigger me to try to stop again this time, but right now I need to be under the covers with my doggies.

Day Three Of Progress

 So I was able to get a little bit more sleep last night than Monday night and I felt pretty good this morning.

The 2 glasses of wine that I was allowing myself turned into 1 and a quarter last night.  I had poured my second glass, taken a drink and then walked away for a while.  When I walked back into the kitchen, I saw it and reached for it, only to realize that I didn’t want it.  I’ve never been a huge fan of wine which is maybe why I picked it as the drink of choice to allow myself.  It hasn’t been that great of a temptation.  Anyway, I poured the rest of the glass down the sink and ate my dinner.

Was in bed reading and playing on my phone by 7:30 and turned out the lights when Hubs came to bed around nine thirty.

I’m pretty sure I dropped off around 11 or so and slept all the way through until my alarm went off at five.  Part of that is because Hubs had the day off and so I didn’t wake up to his alarm going off at 4:20 like usual.

I got up to pee at five and then ran back under the covers since I snooze my alarm until six.  As I was snuggling under the comforter I had this odd sensation of happiness, almost bordering on euphoria at the thought that I could just snuggle under the blanket for another hour.  Not hungover and desperate to get back to sleep like normal.  It was odd, but very welcome.

Had a pretty great day today not being hungover at work and wasn’t even that tired for only getting six hours of sleep.  Normally I pass out for six and then wake up in the middle of the night unable to get back to sleep until right before my alarm goes off.  And of course it is usually super drunk sleep so it feels like I got no rest at all.

Tonight the Hubs was at his dad’s helping him around the yard.  He had the day off and he took the dogs so it was just me, myself and I when I got home around three.  I’m not going to lie and say that the thought never occurred to me to slam a few shots of vodka before he got home just because he wasn’t here to see me do it.  —  And the truth is that he wouldn’t care if I did it while he was here or not, but there is always a “naughtiness” factor when he isn’t here.  Like I’m “getting away” with something.

Instead, I laid down in the bed and scrolled mindlessly though TikTok for about an hour before getting up and starting laundry, doing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen a bit.

When he got home around five, I did pour myself a glass of wine and sipped it through the course of an hour.  I thought about pouring the second “allowed” glass, but decided I was actually more hungry for food so I put together a plate of the food he had brought home from his dad’s and ate that instead.

That brings us up to speed.  I just finished dinner and I think I might see if I can snag an ice cream sandwich from the freezer just to satisfy my sweet tooth.  I never seem to have want sweets except when I am actively trying not to drink and then I crave sugar quite a bit.

Anyhoo.  I feel pretty proud of myself so far.  I know it’s only been three days, but I feel really good.

Oh Hello

Hello lovely people.

It’s been a hot minute since I posted so I guess you can assume how things have been going in the sobriety department.

When I last left you I had recently lost my mother and pretty much all over the place.  I had done a five day sober stint without much of my own choice because we had needed to evacuate our house to my father in laws due to a wildfire.  That was almost a year ago.

Losing Mom was rough.  I’m still not okay but I’m doing better.  There are days/weeks/months were I do okay and then just have a week long breakdown for seemingly no reason.

In January I decided to take control of my diet again and began restricting my calories.  This was good because it also meant cutting back on the booze.  It was bad however, because I cut back on my calories quite dramatically so I could still *have* the booze.

I was by no stretch of the imagination anorexic but I sure as shit wasn’t getting enough nutrients into my body.  I was probably averaging anywhere from 700 to 1000 calories in food. After a while I then I was starting to exercise a bit obsessively so I could have more calories for booze.

When I was in my 20’s I was a pretty severe bulimic, so I really try to watch myself on the whole eating disorder front, but I didn’t even really see this as a problem this past year while I was dieting.

I ended up losing almost 30 pounds until we took our annual trip to Vegas in June and all bets were off.  I ate all the food and drank all the booze and was really “enjoying myself”.

We got home and I was no longer able to reel myself in.  On the food or the drinking and exercise went out the window completely.  As of this Saturday, I have gained back almost 7 pounds.

All the while, I could tell I was getting out of control but I just couldn’t even *think* about going back to dieting or restricting my drinking.  This is probably a product of being SOOOO strict with my calories for 6 months, that once I loosened the reigns I just couldn’t pull them back in.

Anyhoo, there were periods of time where I knew I wanted better for myself.  A couple of nights here and there I would ask my husband if we could go spend the night at his fathers house.  That house now represents a safe space for me and not drinking.

I’m not sure if this will make sense, but I’ve been boozing it up daily/nightly pretty much for as long as we have lived here in our house, and I feel like coming home to this house every night and binge drinking is just what I do here.  I never knew I felt that way until we stayed somewhere else (my father in laws) where drinking just wasn’t even on the table.  It wasn’t an option.  Now when we stay there, I am not anxious about not drinking like I would be at home because I know it is just not possible.
Therefore, I have seen a few opportunities for us to stay there and jumped on it because I liked the way I could control the drinking while there and not even worry about it.  I mean, of course I thought about it, at couldn’t wait to get home the next day to drink … but for that one night that we were there, I felt like a normal person, not an irresponsible alcoholic.

We are going to be spending an entire weekend there not this weekend, but the next as our little town is going to have a large influx of tourists that we want to avoid.  I’m looking forward to it.

So knowing I could do that and coupled with the fact that I just keep gaining weight, I thought about getting back on the diet.  I made the decision for yesterday as my start point and decided that instead of going back to horribly restricting my calories to include a vast (yet still restricted for me) amount of vodka … what if I just ate like a normal person on a diet and didn’t drink my calories???  I know, crazy concept right??

So that is what I am doing.  This week I have incorporated two small glasses of wine so far just to ease into it.  I am justifying it by saying it’s better than a half a 1.75 liter of Vodka which was at least what I was putting away daily since we got back from Vegas.  I know it is still drinking, but this is what is helping me transition right now.

And I’m not saying forever.  My brain can’t do that and has never been able to do that.  It makes me panicky and right now I’m just trying to cling to any kind of sanity in this at all.

Anyway, last night I was in my bed reading by 7:30 and probably will be again tonight if not earlier.  The good thing about the nights I have spent at my FIL’s was that it has taught me that I will fall asleep eventually, I just have to let myself relax and not worry obsessively about not getting any sleep that night.

I would have dropped off around nineish last night had my husband not decided to come to bed and immediately start snoring like a Buzzsaw (I’m so envious that he can get to sleep so easily).  I finally fell into dreamland around 11:30 after coming up with the brilliant plan to put white noise on my phone and pop in my earbuds.  And I slept the rest of the night through and woke up feeling more refreshed than had I passed out drunk at nine and “slept” three more hours.

I know I have had these types of revelations before, but for the first time in a while now I feel that feeling that is so foreign to me most of the time.  That feeling of hope.

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.