Day 48 ~ It's a Mental Game

Day 48 is significant to me because the last time I "quit drinking", I drank on day 48.  I will not drink today.

Here's a brief recap of what happened last time. 

May 2014 

Day 0.  It was a Sunday, for no apparent reason I started drinking wine early and fast.  By the middle of the afternoon I had vomited and passed out.

Day 1.  Really bad hangover.  Guilt.  Shame.  The usual "I'm never drinking again."  But I felt pretty serious this time. 

Days 2-47.  I was feeling good, I was doing it.

July 2014

Day 48.  I went on vacation.  Wolfie was there although at the time I still had never heard it called that.  He said lots of things to me that day:

"You are on vacation, you can't have fun without drinking"

"You have made it for so long, you deserve a reward (wine)"

"Let's see how it goes, if a drinking opportunity presents itself and you want to drink you can"

"Everyone else on this trip will be drinking"

"You love wine"
"You need wine"

"You know you want to"

"You have never succeeded in quitting before"

"You aren't quitting forever so why not drink today"

 

I really did think long and hard about it.  I did not want to reset the counter on my phone to day 1.  I feel like my "let's see what happens" attitude was the reason for my ultimate decision to drink.  I am hoping the next time I go on vacation I will have a different outlook from the beginning.  I will know that I'm not going to drink and that there is no reason to have this crazy conversation in my head. 

Day 23

So what I've been struggling with and getting hung up on is FOREVER.  I know...that's why you are suppose to think about it one day at a time and all that.  I keep having these crazy thoughts...what if someone dies, will I drink then?  What if I get diagnosed with a terrible disease, will I drink then?  What if I'm sober for 10 years...will I drink on my 50th birthday?  What if one day I just want to have a drink...will I drink then, and if I do does that mean I have relapsed? (Of course I know I won't just have one drink).

And then I'm thinking about the whole idea of relapse.  I hate the word, it sounds so tragic.  So I'm sitting here thinking...let's say I started this saying I was going to quit drinking for 100 days.  Then on day 100 I would have succeeded.  So if I decided to have a drink on day 101 it would be a bad idea but I wouldn't necessarily consider it a relapse because I had never decided to quit drinking forever in the first place.  But on the other hand if I started out saying I was done for good and had a drink on day 101, or any other day, it would be a failure and a relapse.

I feel like this is a lot of rambling, but these are the crazy thoughts going through my mind lately (and no I'm not planning on drinking anytime soon). 

Wolfie, of course is the name Belle uses for the voice of our addiction.  The voice in your head that convinces you to drink.  One of the classic lines wolfie would always use on me was "You are an adult...you can do what you want.  You can drink if you want to because you are an adult".  Yes I am an adult and I'd like to think instead that it means that I won't drink too much and act like a jackass!