Day 18: Still here, still sober

This then is life. Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions. How Curious! How real! Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun. 

~ Walt Whitman

I can't believe it's been four days since my last post. I've been meaning to sit down and write something, but it's a crazy-busy time of year. I've also been writing Elsewhere, checking in with a community of wonderfully sober people.

When I woke up this morning, tired from a poor night's sleep, I felt optimistic about getting through the holidays without alcohol. Even though I hadn't slept well, I was still waking up without a hangover. The most incredible thing about it was that I was sitting in one of my favorite pubs just last night, drinking water with lemon and enjoying some good food and great company, not the least phased about the lack of alcohol because I was having a good time.

And now here I am, at barely past noon on this Friday before Christmas, thinking about drinking. Gah! The swings back and forth are frustrating. I know it's part and parcel of early sobriety. The knowledge doesn't make it better. Or maybe it does. At least I know what to expect and knowing what to expect gives me a leg up, allowing me to plan ahead.

So let's think this through, shall we?

Normally, in my drinking way of life, today would signal the beginning of the Christmas bacchanalia. I would start with a beer at lunch, maybe another beer an hour or two later, and then the heavy drinking would truly begin as I prepare dinner. After dinner, which I probably wouldn't eat much of because it would spoil my buzz, I would guzzle down beer or bourbon as I wrap gifts. I'd go to bed drunk, maybe way too drunk, and maybe, if lucky, I'd pass out for a few hours before the insomnia would wake me and the middle-of-the-night anxiety started. Maybe, if lucky, I'd be able to calm the anxiety and go back to sleep. More likely, I'd have to get up and watch crap on the telly to soothe me back to sleep. It would take a couple of hours for me to calm the anxiety, or for me to get tired enough to go back to sleep, and I'd sleep on the love seat in the living room until my back or neck started hurting and I would move back to bed where I might or might not go back to sleep.

Tomorrow I would wake up feeling like shit and wonder if I said or did anything hurtful even though I don't do that as much as I used to. Somehow I've managed to rein in the beast that emerges after too much drink, but not always. After taking a mental inventory of the previous night, I would vow to stop drinking, once and for all. The hangover, however, would have a lot to say about that. At lunch I would cave in, have some hair-of-the-dog, and that might or might not start another round of binge drinking. If the hangover was particularly bad, one beer or drink would be the limit and I'd give up alcohol for the rest of the day. Some hangovers, I've learned, don't respond well to more alcohol being thrown at them. I just have to nap my way through them. On Christmas morning I'd wake up feeling much better, and decide that since it's Christmas and I was already on a bender, I might as well continue until Monday. Monday would come along and, well, maybe there would be another hangover that needed alcohol to fix it. I wouldn't start drinking until late in the day, however, because it's one of those many lines I keep saying I won't cross (even though it was okay to cross it during the weekend). Isn't it strange how many rules we devise to keep ourselves in denial about our abusive relationship with alcohol?

Lather, rinse, repeat until sometime in the new year when I would wonder if I need to go to rehab. Given my recent patterns, I would not spend the entire week drinking. I would take off a few days here and there, and think about sobering up again. But almost none of my indulgences would be moderate.

Which is why I will not start up again in the first place. 

I do not want to grump, grouch, and white knuckle my way through the holidays so I will have to find a way to remain alcohol-free without the constant debate going on in my head. Take walks, meditate, find ways to laugh (and share laughter!), go ahead and have that cookie or cake or piece of pie, watch the sunrise and sunset, write, draw, go to the beach, hug my grandchildren, fool around with the Prof, and find a million ways other than alcohol to be happy, to feel fulfilled, to enjoy life. Otherwise, it's just a dry drunk and that is not the kind of life I wish to live.

One other thing of note: A visit to the doctor has reveled a possible health problem which may be unrelated to drinking, but I doubt alcohol will help the issue. In fact, I need to start easing my way into a more healthful way of eating and living. I realize taking on too much right now is a way of sabotaging myself, but some things can't wait until I'm years into sobriety. 

I must start caring enough about myself to treat myself well.

Love, peace, happiness, and merry holidays!
Rania ☼