Monday - Spring Break 2012

This Spring Break is going to be awesome!  I am not going to be drinking this week bc I don't drink during the week.  That was my mantra for around 15 years.  Then I moved into a neighborhood where a lot of people drank every time they could get a chance.  Drinking just one or two a couple times a week when I really didn't want to but was asked, turned into hoping someone would call or be outside or have something going on so I could have an excuse (I even joined Bunco on Mondays bc I new I would have an excuse to drink), to me just fighting with myself and opening a beer while making dinner.

Not anymore.  I feel so much better when I don't drink.  I did have a total of 3 this weekend (two beers on Saturday and a glass of wine on Sunday).  I also did feel a little bit of a pull yesterday.  My dh was a neighbors "helping him with something" and having a beer.  In the past I would have gone over to "see what was going on" and would have also been offered one.  Of course, I would need to be polite, when I knew damn well that was the only reason I went over there.  I acknowledged the pull, left it alone and it went a way.  It wasn't a craving, more of a thought.

I know I am going to have thoughts like that all the time.  I am not cured, healed or even over the addiction ... I know that ....I never will be .... I am looking at have a couple on the weekend as a privilege I am giving myself.  If I can't drink responsibly, which is what I want most of all, then I can't drink at all.  So far so good.

In past Spring Breaks, I would have been drinking during the week.  I would have started the week off saying I wasn't going to, and that I was going to go to the gym and get lots done - but I would have drank 2-3 drinks probably at least 6 evenings out of the 11.  I would have felt down on myself, depressed, anxious, and pissed off - but would have also drank within a day or two again.  A lot of times it wasn't even that I drank too much it was more of just not being able to keep promises I had made to myself about not drinking during the week and getting to the gym.  Well ... this Spring Break is FINALLY going to be different.  I say that every year, but this year it is true.  I will not have anything to drink until Friday (and then no more than 2).  I will also get off this computer and get my butt to the gym.  My life does not revolve around alcohol anymore ... that is my new mantra of the day.

Happy new beginnings!