And the line-up to pat me on the back too starts here.
I had a really super-challenging situation yesterday and did not give in to drinking, though there was lots of wine available and I was soooooooooo tempted. SOOOOOO tempted.
WOW.
We had company for dinner Friday night. Wine was involved, but I didn’t have any (except Continue reading
Mike’s comment about social drinking really got me thinking. I replied to his comment but I wanted to expand on it a bit.
First of all, I have to say right off the bat that I no longer really experience social pressure to drink. It’s been many years since I’ve gone out drinking specifically to go for drinks with friends. We generally go for a meal or a coffee, but not just for a drink. My social circle generally doesn’t drink or doesn’t drink much. One of the hazards of middle age (okay, most of us are “seniors” now) — most of us have gotten less enchanted with partying than we used to be.
So when I say I went out to a pub only 2 days after I quit, I mean we went to a pub for a meal. (It’s the kind of pub that also happens to serve good food.) I suggested we try Continue reading
Remembering how I used to wake up every morning with a sense of abject failure because I had let myself down — again — by drinking waaaaay more than I’d intended to — again — and couldn’t stop. After just 2 weeks, I’m waking up refreshed, clear and without recrimination, after a deep, sound sleep, including NOT waking up in a cold sweat at 4:00 a.m. with my heart pounding in my ears.
I think about alcohol every day. At first there were no urges, no cravings, no arguments Continue reading
I thought I’d be getting a complete break from my normal life & therefore a good time to stop drinking because I was supposed to be going away for the weekend for a music retreat. But I had to cancel the trip — turned back when we were halfway to Toronto — because of a bad knee. Now I’ve been laid up in bed for 2 days, so I got the complete change but in a very surreal way. Today is Day 3 of resting the knee. Hoping it will be well enough by tomorrow that I can drive again, but I have to admit being waited on hand & foot is actually rather pleasant. All the coffee I can drink and so forth, delivered to my night table, with a smile yet.
The good news is, no urges to drink. Except … Continue reading
So it’s tomorrow now, only mid-day, and though I’ve been obsessing about alcohol and the fact that I’m not drinking and how is that going to work in my life, I’m enjoying the clarity.
Continue reading
Today was supposed to be Q minus 3 days. My quit date was going to be Friday. But this morning’s email contained a challenge that I just couldn’t pass up, so it’s Q day today! Continue reading
Yup, I’ve come to the (very) reluctant conclusion that the only way to get control of this beast is to give it up altogether. Clean break-up, total abstinence, maybe forever (BIG resistance to that), but at least for the foreseeable future, at least until the emotional charge is gone. And once the emotional charge is gone, well, I won’t need it anymore, now, will I?!
My counsellor has said some people write letters to the bottle. Maybe I’ll do that. But for now, I’ve come up with a couple of ways of looking at it that may be helpful in letting go. Remembering it’s an abusive relationship. Remembering alcohol is NOT my friend. And so forth. Here’s what it’s like, from where I sit right now:
– Alcohol is like that friend of a friend who shows up at your door one day to spend the night and ends up living in your house and he’s the roommate from hell but you can’t get rid of him because he’s charming in a bad-boy kind of way, and every time you try to kick him out he says he’s sorry and he’ll change and he didn’t mean to annoy you and he puts on that puppy dog face and because he’s such a smooth talker, he talks you into letting him stay one more night and then he’ll find his own place but he’s been here for YEARS and he’s charming in a devilish mischievous kind of way like Jack Nicholson in Witches of Eastwick or something like that but he has a dark side just like Jack Nicholson in Witches of Eastwick & if push comes to shove he will shoot you. Or like Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley, a needy loser who is charmingly ruthless and who worms his way into Gwyneth Paltrow’s life. Seriously creepy, and hard to get rid of.
– Alcohol is like your ex who you had a really troubled relationship with but he’s still charming and you’re still kind of attracted to him, well anyways attracted enough that you keep ending up sleeping with him even though you know this is not good. It’s not that he won’t leave it’s that you can’t quite get up the wherewithal to say you really want him to go.
– Alcohol is like that seriously irritating roommate who leaves hair & makeup in the bathroom sink, towels on the floor, pubic hair in the bar of soap, and takes forever in the shower when you have to pee; who leaves her food container, unopened and unrinsed, in the sink for you to open and clean and put into the dishwasher; who won’t feed the cat even if he’s right at her feet howling at her; who “forgets” to put away her shoes, her jacket, her purse, her keys, and anything else she happens to drop wherever she goes; who eats the last of the peanut butter and “forgets” to put it on the shopping list; who never seems to have time to stop for groceries; who drives the car for a week and a half and doesn’t put any gas in it and leaves the tank nearly empty so the empty idiot light comes on when you’re driving to Montreal; and who won’t leave on her own, so you have to be the one who moves out even though it was your apartment to begin with.
Metaphors & strategies from counselling session the other day. Still trying to come up with a metaphor that works for me. These seemed to strike a chord:
Desire/need/compulsion is this big thing right now, like a giant banner right in your face all the time. I can shrink the banner down to the size of a post-it note that I can put in my pocket. It’s there, I can take it out and look at it, but then I can put it back in my pocket.
Alcohol is a guest who’s overstayed its welcome. You’ve invited her in but now it’s time to go to bed and she won’t leave. I can take control. I don’t have to let her stay. I can open the door and tell her to get out of my house.
I’m stuck-stuck-stuck on one track in my head, one voice saying the same thing over and over again, drink-drink-drink, need-need-need, must have now, and so forth. When I ignore it, it just gets louder. But I can turn down the volume. I can even change the radio station if I choose to.
There’s part of me that says “I don’t care” even when I haven’t touched the bottle yet. But there’s another part that says “Yes I do”. They need to talk to each other.
There are days when I seem to be able to get past the compulsion, when there are other priorities. The other night we did a recording session, and I didn’t drink. I had a Kahlua and milk at bedtime but that was it. So the recording session was a priority. And there were other days in the past couple of weeks when something else was more important, and I didn’t drink at all. So what’s the difference between the days when I have this compulsion and days when I don’t? When does the compulsion kick in? Why? Can I catch it when it’s happening and nip it in the bud?
What if I bought a tiny 1/2 bottle of wine? One that has only 2 1/2 glasses in it? I wasn’t ready to entertain that — why, that would mean going to the liquor store every day … or restraining myself from opening more than one little bottle a day. Or, what if I bought just one bottle at a time instead of 3? So there would only be one bottle in the house at a time? What if I bought white instead of red, so I wouldn’t like it as much?
The thought of actually doing any of that threw me into a panic, and I immediately went to the liquor store on the way home, bought two bottles of wine — one white, one red — and drank them both, almost singlehandedly. Same thing the next day. But today was better.
I’m told the urge passes if you can keep yourself from drinking for 20 minutes at a time. Just 20 minutes. My counsellor also said alcohol physically clears out your system in 3 days. I found myself saying, “I can do anything for 3 days”. So that’s what I’m doing. I’ve gotten through day 1. Onward ho.
And finally, I’ve started reading about the neurological aspects of addiction.
Driving my own bus 