Things you can accomplish on a Sunday…

 

For the last 20 plus years, Sundays meant drinking as much as possible before I have to go back to the real world on Monday.

I’m going to couple that statement with the fact that I have always felt like I could never accomplish anything around the house without drinking.  Like I could never actively complete any chores sober because I just wasn’t programed that way.  I had always done the things while liquored up and that is the only way I knew how!

I used that excuse to a fault.  That was my go to when I was pressed about trying a semi sober weekend: “Well, I simply cannot because I need to get all these things done and I can’t do that sober!  To a ridiculous amount, those types of things raided my brain and I felt that they all were justified.  “I don’t know how to do that sober!!” I would lament in my head and sometimes out loud, and it never sounded stupid because it was honestly how I felt.  There was an actual fear in my head to try any of those things without drinking.

I would like to show you how I spent my Sunday.

This was my closet when I woke up this morning:

You can only imagine how it got that way yes?  It was far too important to get trashed than clean my closet, every single time I even thought about trying to tidy it. It’s been this way for years in differing levels of slothfulness.

Here is how it looks right now:

So that is what I did on my Sunday.  I feel so happy and accomplished.  There is still a lot to do on it, but dang it feels good to have done that much without any alcohol aid. 

New world

• Remembering to wash my face and brush my teeth before going to bed.
• Not waking up at two or three AM with a racing heart, a throbbing head wondering if I had been an absolute bitch to my husband the previous night.
• Waking up at three in the morning only because I have to pee (feeling just fine, thankyouverymuch!) and then being able to get right back to sleep once I get back in bed.
• Going to bed early to read and play on my phone, sipping tea and relaxing.
• Eating dinner at a decent hour with my husband while laughing at an episode of Bob’s Burgers and remembering every detail.
• The fact that my husband seems so pleased and happy right now even though he has always sworn that my drinking didn’t “really” bother him.
• The fact that I’ve lost five pounds in as many days.
• Knowing that I’m not going to dread social events (an evening movie date with my husband mid week for example) because they are cutting into my very valuable drinking time.
• Feeling rested, actually rested when I get up in the morning.
• Knowing that there will be more to my evenings eventually (now that my trial run is coming to it’s completion) than drinking, watching youtube videos and playing facebook video games.
• The knowledge that if a friend called and said they needed me, I could jump in my car and go see them no matter what the hour.
• Having my husband let me help him film his hobby (it’s over tough terrain and he normally wouldn’t “trust” me – for good reason) for the first time.

And quite possibly the most important:

• Feeling so much less anxiety and general sense of fear about everything.

These are just a few things off the top of my head that I have truly enjoyed feeling and knowing since Monday when I stopped drinking vodka.

It’s so bizarre to me that it’s really only been five days.

Last night I got out of work super early, around one in the afternoon.  On a Friday that is normally a reason to start right in on the drinks, especially since my hubs was already home as he worked from home yesterday.

I got home and decided to lay in bed for a bit and think.  I wasn’t really stressed, but my mind was saying “GO DRINK!!!” while my body was saying “Nah bro, we got this.”  To make more sense of this, I wanted to drink because it is what I have always done for the last 20 years.  My mind was just tuned into it.  “It’s what we do!!!  Especially since it’s Friday!”  However, my body was kind of put off at the thought of drinking vodka like normal.

I mean, I had actively kind of given myself permission to do it if I really felt the need but I didn’t.  In fact, when I thought about drinking vodka, my body kind of gave a disturbed shudder.

This is kind of how I’ve felt about my normal drinking for the last couple of weeks, but I kept going anyway.

I know.  It’s so stupid.  Why would I continue to drink when it isn’t even what my body wants??  A twenty plus year habit?  Like, it’s all I’ve known for the last two decades so I just go on auto pilot.  But I was sick of it.  Sick of the taste, sick of the way it made me feel, sick of being a fucking slave to it for so long, but I couldn’t let it go.

Fast forward to last weekend.  I was feeling that very feeling every single time I took a shot.  I knew that I had a trip coming up to get my mothers ashes and that would be stressful enough without the added hangxiety of my drinking.  To top it off, this month is the anniversary of her death last year and I have been crying at the drop of a hat.  For some reason, I had had enough.

I let the thoughts that usually swirl in my head and I bat away, come to fruition.  I don’t want to live this way any longer.  It hurts, in so many more ways that one.

That is what started prior to Monday…and I’m so glad it did.

I will make a part two to this because my husband is calling me to watch a movie and I am happy to do so…

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.