Discovering Me Drink Free

A personal journal of thoughts and experiences towards an alcohol-free existence

[discoveringmedrinkfree]

Day 17

Day 17. It feels like forever since I’ve had a glass of wine, and at the same time, it feels like I just quit yesterday. It’s weird, there’s a small window of every day when I want it so bad. I have this internal dialogue with myself going back and forth about why I shouldn’t drink each day. I have to remind myself of what happens after “a glass of wine”. 

I miss it when I get dinner started mainly. I’m usually alone prepping and cooking, which is totally fine, I love it. But that’s when I’d also love my wine. It’s my decompression time, a zone where I can create a lovely meal and actively do something nurturing for my family. And having wine somehow made me feel like I was (and I know this sounds stupid) cultured, or mature, or just a normal adult cooking in her kitchen and enjoying a beautiful glass of wine. 

Trouble is, for me, that glass would turn to two glasses, then three... then I wouldn’t be hungry anymore. I’d want to keep drinking instead. I’d watch my family eat and feel satisfied that they enjoyed my creation. But I wouldn’t eat it. After they were done, I’d finish the bottle. Then open another. I may eat later, or just snack on crappy chips instead. This happened all the time. Never could I simply enjoy a glass or even two of wine, with dinner. Nope. I had to drink the entire bottle, and then some, in lieu of dinner.

So that’s what I remind myself everyday when I crave it. I ask myself if I really want to go down that rabbit hole of drinking the bottle, maybe more, then waking up at 3 am full of anxiety and regret (along with a headache, dry mouth, and queasy tummy), and having to start all over again with Day 1. 

No. I absolutely do NOT want to go down that rabbit hole. I do not. 

I’m hoping that over time, that craving hour will subside, no longer exist. Right now it feels scary and doubtful that I’ll never drink again. So I tell myself, at LEAST make it through January and reassess. At the very least. But I’m shooting for 100 days.... which I do hope that by that time, I will be at a point where I can see how good it is without wine at all, and not want to ever invite it back in. 

I’m not a moderator. I can’t imagine ever just drinking one glass of anything. I just don’t see the point, to be honest. 

So day by day, one day at a time, I will choose my new herbal teas in my new Ninja coffee/tea maker. I’ll enjoy sweets. I’ll enjoy hot yoga. I’ll do anything at all that will keep my mind off that glass of wine. Because it does pass. The craving comes but it does also go, and so I have grown to trust that, even with just 17 Days. 

[discoveringmedrinkfree]

Old Habits Die Hard

36 years.

It was 36 years ago I started drinking. I remember it quite clearly. Although I don’t recall exactly what prompted the action, I do remember the actual drinking part.

In 8th grade I was really tight with a few friends. We hung out most days, all weekends, and talked constantly. On one particular Friday we were at one of their houses and for whatever reason, we dared ourselves to raid her parents’ liquor cabinet. I remember us running to it and falling over each other in excitement and fear as we opened the doors. We looked for the bottles most full so it would be harder to tell anything was missing.

Can you guess what we tried first? 

Gag. Peach Schnapps. And I think a little bit of whiskey. Double gag.

But we liked it! Something about the warmth going down, the tingle in our throat. The lightheadedness it caused. We giggled, OH how we giggled. Lol. 

Her mom would be returning home soon, so we packed up our stuff and walked down to our other friend’s house knowing these parents would be out on the town. We wanted to keep the liquor cabinet raid going, and so we did.

From that point on, stealing and stocking up liquor and beer from our houses became our secret mission. We would save up for parties, weekends, or nights hanging out at the school playground. We had so much fun! The laughter and pee our pants memories are times I’ll never forget. 

I didn’t realize it then, nor do I think I’d care if I had, but that behavior so early on would leave a blueprint on my brain for years to come. To me, to us, drinking made things fun, created laughter and wild memories, and formed bonds that couldn’t be broken. It also gave me courage in social situations, allowed me to speak and move freely in public where otherwise I was so incredibly and painfully shy I could barely breath. Sure, in the safe privacy of homes with my closest friends I could be my silly, goofy self. But at parties or with other kids from school I didn’t know well, it’s like a cat literally had my tongue and I felt oh so self-conscious. 

Alcohol became my crutch for anything social from then on. There was no question of whether or not I would drink, it would simply be a decision of what and how much.

I was thinking of this today as I read “Blackout. Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget” by Sarah Hepola. Much of her story felt so familiar, and I found myself thinking back to how my drinking habit started. I’ve beat myself up many times for not being able to say no to a glass of wine. After promising myself NO MORE at 3 am but at 5 pm twisting the cork off a fresh bottle. Today, thinking, gee I have no early plans tomorrow, it would be a good night to drink. But no. I’m not ready to throw the towel in just yet. It’s only Day 4. Surprisingly, it hasn’t been too hard yet. But I know it’ll get there.

I’m just noticing how easy it is for me to revert to old ways of thinking though. Not only with drinking, but so much else. Today I noticed my anxious brain thinking of 1. Starting a new diet (after years of recovering from disordered eating, dieting and over exercising), 2. Starting a new program for a new career  3. Becoming a yoga instructor (??) and 4. impulsively opening a bottle of wine. 

I tend to be all or nothing. Starting big feats are my old go-to. Intense dieting was my jam. When I calmed those things down, drinking showed up more. 

What’s all that about??  I guess that’s what I’m attempting to find out. Who am I without all the things to take up my mind space? Who am I in this moment? Why must I jump forward and think of things to keep me busy and occupied? Why do I hate on myself for not doing enough, accomplishing enough? Ever? 

36 years. This is gonna be a hard habit to break. Those brain grooves are DEEP. But I’m hanging in there today. 

[discoveringmedrinkfree]

Dry January

So here we are, January 2022. Happy New Year!

I made the decision to take a break from alcohol at this time because Dry January seems to be a thing and I figured, what better time to start something new and challenging.

It also happens to be the year I turn 50.

When I reflect on my past and all the times I thought to myself I needed to stop drinking, I realize it’s been quite a while. For years now, I’ve been contemplating quitting and attempting to take breaks with very little success. In 2020, the first year of COVID lockdown, I actually went through the month of May and managed to avoid alcohol completely. I joined “The Live Alcohol Experiment” with Annie Grace. It was great! I truly felt good, and at the end of it, I could even imagine going on vacation without drinking. (gasp!)

And then we met friends out at a bar.

It was June. It was sunny and warm. We had been hibernating with little to no social contact other than immediate family for months. I thought, “Maybe I’ll just have a glass of white wine.”

So there I sat, outside on the patio of a bar with a table of friends and I enjoyed a glass of white wine. Then two. Then three. Then I lost count.

Then we continued on to our friends’ house where I scoured their fridge for hard seltzer (because they don’t drink wine and didn’t have any in the house.) Eventually, I ended up sleeping on the floor with their dog until my husband wanted to go home, and I left stumbling out the door with a little plastic bucket in case I puked.

(Later that week I would see said bucket and wonder where the hell it came from. My husband looked at me with a smirk and said, “you don’t remember that?”)

And that was it. I went back to my regular drinking pattern and habit, and while I always knew I had to stop at some point, I just couldn’t. That December, I even got to the point where I felt the pull to try AA. But it scared the crap out of me to actually go to a meeting. Thankfully for the new culture of Zoom and video conferencing for just about anything due to Covid precautions, I was able to find a virtual one. I thought to myself, “Perfect. I can join in anonymously and just listen in and hopefully, it will help in some way.” Thing is, these AA folks are determined to help a fellow drunk. And they will call you out.

Although my video was turned off, they saw my user name and kept calling on me to speak. Kept inviting me to introduce myself, tell my story. I didn’t want to introduce myself, or tell my story. I wanted desperately to be incognito and just sit back and listen. I needed to get a feel for if this was gonna be my jam or not. So I simply let them know that in the chat. However, I didn’t feel so anonymous anymore.

I’m not so sure AA is for me just yet. I never returned for another virtual meeting. And maybe I never will. But it’s reassuring to know it’s there, with really helpful and supportive people in case I change my mind.

Anyways, 2022.

The pull to quit is stronger these days for a few reasons.

#1 Health Values. I just have this intuitive sense that I’m killing my liver. It’s so stupid. Here I am a massage therapist, a personal trainer, a body-positive advocate with the motto of “Love Your Soulsuit”. And yet, on a daily basis, I choose to poison myself with an addictive substance. It just doesn’t line up with my personal values. I love life. I feel connected to God. I know there is a purpose to my being here on planet earth. I cherish the gift of my body so that I may experience being a human. I absolutely LOVE my family and the home we’ve created together. There are so many things I look forward to. I’m not trying to escape anything anymore. So why oh WHY do I continue to guzzle bottles of wine nearly every single night? I fear for my brain, my memory, my liver…it’s this crazy dichotomy I’m living in and it just doesn’t feel right anymore.

#2 Fear. My dad was just diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. I have access to his hospital portal and it says he has fatty liver also. For years, both of our liver enzymes have been elevated. Mine has been at a level that is enough to raise a red flag for the doctors to order more specific blood tests, but not enough to go past that. “It’s a quirk”, they say. A genetic quirk. Okay, that has made me feel better. Better enough even to keep drinking. “It’s not the alcohol raising my liver enzymes, it’s just a genetic quirk! Phew.”  But now I wonder. My dad was always a drinker. I’ve been drinking since 13. Is it really a quirk? I don’t want fatty liver. I don’t want cancer. I don’t want dementia or Alzheimer’s. And I can’t imagine that drinking the amount and frequency I do can be any good for any of those things.

#3 Life Purpose. I feel stuck lately. Like, in a rut stuck. My motivation and confidence to pursue just about anything are limited. I feel that drinking is keeping me stuck. It’s like I’m in this repetitive loop of stuckness. I know, like I know, like I know, that I’m meant for more than what I’m allowing myself. Alcohol is keeping me very, very small and afraid. As I mentioned earlier, I turn 50 this year. One of my worst dreads is looking back on my life with regret that I didn’t try something. That I didn’t give my life all I had. I know 50 is still young (or rather, not THAT old), and I actually do feel young at heart, but I’m old enough to also know that tomorrow isn’t promised to any of us. Whether you’re 5 or 50, life can take a very sharp turn and before you know it, it’s over. Whenever that day comes for me, I want to have done all I could have to make it count.

Soooooo. Here I am, Day 3. So far so good. I haven’t experienced “the witching hour” yet. Usually it comes around 5pm, especially when I start dinner. The past couple of nights have been pretty good though. I plan on getting some non-alcoholic wine to have on hand in case it strikes. I’ve tried putting seltzer or kombucha in a wine glass before but that never quite cut it. I’m curious if N/A wine would be any different. Maybe if it tasted even a little like wine it would trick my brain. We shall see.

For now, I’m going to treat this like a journal of sorts. A place for me to share my thoughts on my process, my progress, even my set backs. A place for me to figure it all out for myself. Figure out who I am, or who I become without alcohol. And if you resonate with any of this, it would fill me up to know I could help you feel less alone and more connected in some way.