How NOT to Vacation

In a couple of short weeks, I'll be going on my first ever sober vacation. Even when I vacationed while pregnant I allowed myself one strawberry daiquiri!  It's been a while since I wrote about some of the bad drinking experiences I've had, but I want to write about one more here so it will serve as a reminder to me.

It was the summer of 2013.  Trip to California (wine country) for my brother's wedding.  One of my best friends lives in the area so as a bonus she would be along for the festivities.  A day long wine tasting excursion was planned for the first full day we were there.  Leading up to the trip I was worried about how I'd be able to handle wine tasting all day, but as it turns out I was way too hungover to even enjoy it.

As soon as we got to our hotel room there was a gift bottle of wine waiting for us.  I opened it before my husband could even put the suitcases down. The rest of the evening was spent at the pool so the kids could swim and the adults could "relax".  Throughout the evening different friends and family members came and went, always with more wine.  

Just a "few" of the bottles from that night

Long story short, I woke up in the hotel room with one of the worst hangovers of my life and a sink full of vomit.  Yep, I got sick in the sink in the very hotel room where my kids were sleeping a few feet away.  Who does that? NOT my proudest moment. Cleaning it up should have been punishment enough, but the whole next day of wine tasting was completely ruined because I felt so terrible. The day after the wedding was also ruined because of a hangover.  TWO full days of this trip were spent feeling miserable.  I will not do that again!

It's Official...I'm Sick

With so much sickness going around this winter I've been lucky so far.  In fact, I haven't been sick at all since I quit drinking.  I've felt it coming on the past couple of days and tried to deny it, tried to load up on vitamins.   This morning when I woke up I could not deny it anymore...I'm officially sick. It's a cold...not the end of the world.  It's interesting though that I have gotten so use to feeling good when I wake up in the morning that it was strange to wake up this morning and NOT feel good.  

I tried to talk myself out of going to the gym this morning and then remembered all the times I went to the gym with a hangover (feeling much worse), just to prove that I wasn't feeling that bad and didn't have a problem. So I did go this morning but may stay home to rest tomorrow if I'm not feeling better, after all I don't have anything to prove anymore! 

Some people have said that being sick is a trigger to drink.  I really don't feel that way and never have.  Although there was this one time in college that I specifically remember.  I was sick with a cold and went out drinking. I drank so much that my cold was completely GONE the next day.  I use to tell this story to brag, but as I think of it now I can only imagine just how much alcohol must have been in my system to completely knock out that virus...yuck!

The only thing I'll be drinking this afternoon is hot tea!

~DAY 100~

It's day 100.  Woo Hoo!  I have a massage scheduled for tomorrow afternoon to celebrate!

Here is a list of the top things I've learned.

10.  It's not easy.  There are good days and bad.  Some days I feel like shouting from the mountaintops about how I love being sober and some days I feel grouchy and resentful about it.

9.  Nothing good has magically happened since I became sober.  I didn't lose 10 pounds (in fact I initially gained weight) and my marriage still has issues.  I will need to work on these things to make them better.

8.  I still don't "know" how to meditate exactly, but I love listening to Tara Brach as part of my bedtime routine.

7.  I love blogging (this was a surprise).  It's not just my own blog...but the interaction.  I am grateful to my handful of followers (you) who comment on my blog. Also, I love to read words written by someone else and feel I could have written them myself.

6.  I don't miss hangovers...enough said!

5.  Other people don't drink as much as I thought they did.  The only people who will be upset that I'm not drinking are the ones who's brains are wired similarly to mine.

4.  It seems that people who drink too much share other personality characteristics as well.  

3.  I have never regretted NOT drinking the night before.

2.  Sleep is huge.  I love going to bed sober and I love sleeping through the night!

1.  I can do this and YOU can too!

Here is a list of the top things that have been helpful.

5.  Books

• Sober is the New Black
• Mrs. D is Going Without
• Kick the Drink...Easily
• Drinking: A Love Story

4.  Blogs

• writing my own blog
• reading others blogs
• commenting on others blogs

3.  Booze Free Brigage (BFB)

• Yahoo group
• Facebook group

2.  Podcasts

• The Bubble Hour
• Belle's audios
• Tara Brach

All of the above have connected me to others, which brings me to the most important thing that has helped me through my first 100 days.

1.  Realizing that I am not alone.  There are other people just like me.

Thank YOU for being on this journey with me.  Looking forward to day 101 and beyond :)

Merry Christmas!

I can't believe it's Christmas Eve!  When you're a kid it takes so long for Christmas to arrive and as an adult time moves so quickly.  My main complaint is that we've had very little snow so far this year.  It is suppose to snow tomorrow on Christmas day, looking forward to that.

Christmas Eve has always been a heavy drinking day for me.  I would always play the moderation game, sometimes with more success than others.  Always some degree of hangover on Christmas morning.  Not this year!  Looking forward to being fully present this time.

If you are reading this, I hope you have a wonderful holiday!

It's the Most Wonderful (trigger-filled) Time of the Year!

Now that my kids are officially on winter break and we will have a couple of weeks off of our regularly scheduled evening activities I find myself in the beginning of what's normally my heaviest drinking time of the year.  In the past, I wouldn't even contemplate not drinking during this time of the year. Sure, I've tried dry January before.  That is much easier for me because it seems everyone is much more health conscious in January.  But during the holidays...no way, not me.

Except it is me now.  

I've spent the last couple of weeks relatively free of thoughts of alcohol.  This has been in part due to my obsession with a certain podcast that ended yesterday.  Then last night I was having those romantic thoughts of wine for the first time in a while.  You know what I'm talking about, right?  The sound of the the wine pouring in the glass, the way the glass feels in your hand, the instant "happy" feeling.  Also mixed in were thoughts of how unfair it is that I can't "drink like a normal person."

I've gotten much better though at "thinking through the drink."  Yes, it might feel good for maybe an hour at the most, but then what happens?  Well, I'd finish the bottle (maybe more), sleep like shit, feel terrible physically and mentally the next day, have foggy memories of the night before, not be present for my kids, etc.  

This year is different.  I'm confident I can make it through the next couple of weeks without drinking, but not so confident that I wont miss it.

That was Unexpected

As I sit here on day 42, exactly 6 weeks from the day I had my last drink, I am thinking about what has surprised me the most so far in this journey.

If you had told me 6 months ago that I would be blogging I would have never believed it.  I have never considered my self a writer and I would have thought of blogging as a chore.  Now as I wake up each morning I am immediately thinking about what I might want to write about.  Things I have learned, experiences I have had.  Those first days I felt like there was so much in my head that I needed to get it out.  Writing about some of my worst drinking experiences was a way to acknowledge them and I can look back to them when I need a reminder. 

Of course I got the idea to start a blog from reading other blogs.  The first blog I stumbled upon during my day 1 hungover internet search was Mrs. D's.  She was telling my story!  Then I found another blog and she was also telling my story.  I sat for hours and hours those first few days reading blog after blog.  My favorites are all listed here on my page and I continue to discover more and more. 

That brings me to possibly the most unexpected and exciting part.  All of these people are in all different parts of the world!  And they are just like me.  I guess living in the United States had led me to think the world revolves around us and honestly I had never given much thought to it and of course when I decided to get sober I had no idea what I would find.

I have to admit that geography is NOT my thing, never was.  I've actually pulled up a map more than once to see where some of these people are.  I find myself wondering about all of these places I've never been.  What's it like there, what time is it there?  Unfortunately, it seems that the prevalence of alcohol is the same everywhere...that's what brings us together!

Day 24

A cool thing happened last night.  I have been trying to actually comment on blogs instead of just lurking around and then Rachel said she had read my blog.  I got a cool butterfly in the stomach kind of feeling!  I really did love her book, I could relate to it so much.  I will be reading it again soon.

 

The other thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is this feeling that my problem isn't/wasn't that bad.  I KNOW I have a problem with alcohol and the way my brain works regarding it.  I also know I need/want to stop drinking.  I think what's bothering me is when I hear other peoples stories I almost feel guilty for never have gotten "that bad".  I love hearing from other people and being able to relate to others has helped me so much.  It takes a lot of courage to share terrible things that have happened.

 

They say alcohol addiction is like an elevator going down and people get off at different floors.  While some bad things have happened while drinking, I'd say I never reached a hard rock bottom.  So you could say I had a high bottom I suppose.  Something else that I keel getting hung up on is the fact that I was not drinking every day or physically addicted.  But as I said I KNOW I have a problem and for me this is what defines it:

 

I would always drink more that I wanted or intended to.  Yes there have been times in my life where I really only did have one or two but they were few and far between.  Also, anytime when that happened I had to concentrate and focus with all of my strength to make it happen. 

 

The part I hated the most was waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to go back to sleep.  I would lay there and ask myself "WHY"?  I would tell myself that I wouldn't do it again, but I always did it again.  The feeling of having lost control.  Then of course this was followed by a terrible hangover the next day.  I would spend my hungover days wishing the day was over and I hated that.

 

Another indicator for me is the constant obsession in my head regarding alcohol.  Always thinking about it.  The constant negotiating.  It just can't be "normal" to have this going on in my mind ALL THE TIME. 

Day 19

Good things are happening today!

I have a running text with 2 of my best friends and this morning I just casually put it out there that I was done drinking for good.  Guess what...the world didn't end.  Time will tell how it will be the next time I'm around them and they are drinking and I'm not but it feels good to put it out there and plant the seed.

Also, I have been missing my group fitness classes for about 6 weeks now because I am trying to recover from plantar fasciitis.  I've been wearing orthotics for a couple of weeks now and went to my dance class today.  It felt so good to be back!

Speaking of exercising...I can think of so many times I went to the gym hung-over because I was trying to prove to myself that my drinking was not a problem.  Of course sometimes I just felt too bad and couldn't make it but as long as I made it to class I could tell myself that I wasn't drinking too much.  One of my favorite classes is on Sunday morning and it will feel so good to feel good in class!

My son (11) had noticed the other day that I had created a blog.  He mentioned it again yesterday so I told him I had decided to stop drinking alcohol because I thought I was drinking too much and that's what the blog was about.   That was really the end of it.  I plan to talk to my kids more about all of this in the future.

Day 10 October 28, 2014

So what I want to do today is write about May-October of this year. Basically the key events that happened during that time to bring me to where I am today.

In May 2014, I had a particularly bad drinking day. It was a Sunday, probably about 2:00 and I started my usual “a glass of wine sounds nice” routine. I played a board game with my family (wine was pretty much required to do this), my husband put steaks on the barbeque…sounds like a great afternoon. But it was not a great afternoon. The wine was going down even faster than normal and soon after I ate that steak I was in the bathroom vomiting it back up. Who does that? What kind of a mom is puking in the middle of a Sunday afternoon? Of course I got it in my hair so I got in the shower and then proceeded to pass out on my bed in nothing but a T shirt and underwear. I vaguely recall my family coming in and out of the room and looking back I can only wonder what my kids must have been thinking. So I woke up feeling like shit with 3 empty wine bottles on the counter. I managed to get the kids to school, stopped for Gatorade and coconut water, took a detox bath…anything to feel better. I didn’t feel better. I slept until it was just time to pick up my kids. It was one of many days I’d spend just wishing that day was over so I could go to sleep and feel better tomorrow. It wasn’t the first time I’d had thoughts about my drinking being a problem, or that I needed to quit. So this began my second “official” attempt at quitting. I made it 47 days.

I was proud of myself, the 47 days were not even that hard. I did lots of things without alcohol including a birthday dinner. I was on fire…and then I went on vacation. I did not have a clear plan about drinking on vacation other than to “see how it goes”. Of course one of the best things about vacations had always been drinking and as soon as the opportunity presented itself I could not resist. It wasn’t an easy decision and I actually thought long and hard about it. I’d have to reset the app on my phone that was counting the days from 47 to ZERO. But the alcohol won and I drank on most days of that vacation. Nothing extreme, one day with a moderate hangover. But once I’d started again I couldn’t get myself back on track.

That was at the beginning of July, and once I’d started again I saw no reason to stop. Especially considering that my best friend was coming in to town at the end of the month. I have a 3 close friends who I’ve known since Jr. High and High school. We get together every summer with our families and then also once a year for a girls weekend, drinking is always a focal point. This summer, the timing of my best friend coming to town also correlated with one of the other friends turning 40. There was a big party planned. My best friend and the one who was turning 40 are both very normal drinkers, with the other friend and I being the heavier drinkers, the party girls…she was my drinking buddy. My husband had mentioned wanting to drink at this event and knowing full well that I’d go overboard I causally mentioned to my drinking buddy that maybe I’d drive (not drink). She was upset to say the least. I really wanted to please her and of course I really WANTED to drink. So I drank. A lot. I’m not going to lie, the night was a lot of fun. After quite a few drinks I actually remember bringing up the fact that I thought I drank too much. Someone said “if you think you have a problem you probably do” So true.

We had our annual girls weekend just a few weeks ago. I did drink, but surprisingly not too much. I remember thinking that it felt so much better to NOT be severely hungover! Of course I couldn’t stop drinking before this weekend but once it was over I felt that I was ready to try again and here I am. If I stay sober as I plan to, next years summer and fall gatherings with my best friends will be some of the most difficult for me. However, they are my best friends and I know that they will support me.

Labor day was in there too…I drank A LOT…you get the idea.

Still Day 4

I feel good. Just got back from the gym and listened to the bubble hour (Mrs. D was the guest) while I was on the bike.

OK, time to write about something real. One of my worst nights of drinking, after which I first realized I might have a problem and had my first “official” attempt at quitting. I feel and hope that writing this down will be healing.

Spring break, 2012. Our last night in Hawaii. Mai Tai’s all afternoon at the pool followed by who knows how much wine during dinner. I woke up with a bad hangover, really bad. In fact, it was so bad I asked my husband to go downstairs and get me a beer. He did and I drank it first thing in the morning hoping to feel better. My 10 year old daughter who was sleeping in bed with me woke up and immediately and excitedly asked me about the tooth she had lost the night before. She wanted to know where I had put it for safe keeping. I had no idea what she was talking about.

In the past, after a night of heavy drinking, I often woke with a foggy memory of the night before. Then someone would mention something and it would slowly come back to me in bits and pieces. Not this time. I had absolutely no memory of the lost tooth. In fact, I had only a vague memory of arriving at dinner, eating dinner and drinking lots of wine but nothing after that. Nothing. I racked my brain, searched my mind hoping for something. I looked around in places I might have put the tooth and never did find it.

Lots of guilt/shame/embarrassment about this night. Lots of emotion, in fact I started to cry as I began to type this. Not only did I loose the precious tooth, but not having even the faintest memory of the night before scared me. How can that make sense to a child? AND, what else had happened the night before? I was with my family, my children! What did I say, How did I act?

I came back from that trip thinking that this could be my rock bottom. For the first time I seriously wanted to quit drinking FOREVER. I wasn’t ready. I quit for about 3 weeks.