Week 3 - Celebrations and Struggles 1/21/18

Struggles - yesterday was really hard. I really had to push through and kind of fake it to get through the day. I have been just so tired and kind of out of it this week.  Still am unable to find my motivation to work out or really get much of anything done. Still feel a bit down and depressed but probably just from being so tired.  I need to start working out. I know for a fact that will help my mood. Having some struggles with thinking to the future - vacation over spring break, vacation this summer, hearing people at work talk about getting together at a brewery after school on Fridays again after it warms up, being ridiculously effected by alcohol commercials and feeling left out and sorry for myself that I won't ever again be able to have fun like that - or enjoy a brewery tour or a glass of wine at dinner or a nice IPA with my neighbors in the sun.....I know it is all Bullshit...but the voices are there and the struggle is real..one day at a time I guess.

Celebrations - I did it!!!!!! I have been so worried about my 50th (aurghh) birthday and how stupid it was to quit drinking before the big day and how the whole day was going to suck if I couldn't drink. I got through it (with the support of my family) and it was actually a nice day!

I posted the following to someone who was struggling this morning on a online support group I am part of. I know for a fact that this is not what I would have been posting this morning had I drank last night. I would have been making excuses and rationalizing but really been extremely disappointed in myself.  I am actually pretty proud of myself and instead wrote this:


I hear you!  I am also a weekend binge drinker - and not every weekend. Because this is my pattern, my rationalizing about not being that bad was/is very strong.  I think the turning point for me has been realizing that even though I was only drinking on the weekend (and having fun - and I'm not going to lie, it is fun to drink -  for those 8 hours on so on Friday and/or Saturday - which doesn't seem like a lot) it was kicking my butt the other 160 hours of the week. It was PHYSICALLY messing with me - causing insomnia, anxiety, lethargy, apathy, heart palpitations, depression not to mention terrible hangovers which involved night sweats and sever anxiety/self loathing even after as few as four beers or three glasses of wine. I was on a vacation last summer in Juneau on a whale watching tour one day and a beautiful hike the next and just could not enjoy myself. All I could think about was if the boat had adult beverages available and where we were going to go to dinner after the hike (really thinking about what I wanted to drink and then planning the meal around that). I kind of had this really weird realization while eating dinner/drinking my wine after the hike (kind of like I was watching myself - some kind of out of body shit) that with the wine I became a different person - talking, smiling, laughing, enjoying life.  All of a sudden it just hit me - I have gotten to a point were I can't really enjoy anything anymore without either drinking or anticipating drinking. I was not imagining it - not making it up - it was a real PHYSICAL change in my brain. It wasn't being dramatic - I had changed my neurotransmitters to need the drug to be happy. I decided to quit and did for four months. Then just convinced myself that "I wasn't that bad and that I just had to try harder to control it" and drank November and December. I wasn't out of control, in the gutter, getting DUI's, losing my job/family drinking, just "needing" to drink on the weekends to enjoy them and "needing" to think about drinking on the weekend to help me get through the week. My life was not ever unmanageable from the outside looking in. And it is true, I really am not that bad compared to a lot of other people out there.\. I never lost my job/family/got a DUI/rarely even made a fool out of myself. But I am bad enough in my own head (the mental torture/battle/conflict/rationalizing/wanting to stop but can't/stopping but wanting to drink/obsession/depression/anxiety/apathy/exhaustion). All of that came back in the two months I decided (for the millionth time) to quit - to be that candle of sobriety - to be a role model - to be able to find joy in life without a drug - to be fully present in all moments - to not be tied to this @#$%@#$%ing drug anymore! And I quit (again) 21 days ago.

You ARE NOT alone!  I feel exactly the same way - nothing is going to get better as long as I put the drug that is making me sick into my system.