Day 11 – Tuesday 6th August 2013

I really want a glass of wine.

This is the worst craving do far. I’m tired from a long day with a lot of travel involved. It’s hot and sticky outside. My mind is buzzing with to do’s and learning from my first week in my new job. I have a bundle of things that need attention this evening and I can’t just abandon them (or my child for that matter) to go for a long walk or go to the bookshop or something else distracting.

I want a drink.

I want the taste and the cool feel in my mouth and the feeling when the alcohol starts to take effect whe  my arms feel slightly like they’re not connected to the rest of me.

It won’t take that much to get there, maybe a big glass, two at the very most. But what if I can’t stop there? Will I ever be able to drink in moderation again? 

I want that drink really badly.

15 Best Alcoholism Blogs of 2013

Hippie, Witchy, Boho Chic

15 Best Alcoholism Blogs of 2013

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Day 9 – Sunday 4th August

Hubby and I have been budgeting this weekend because we want to buy a house. We’ve been renting and so doing calculations on what the difference in monthly payments would be. Also we’re changing our childcare arrangements so there is sone saving there.  Out of curiosity and for motivation we added in the saving in not buying alcohol. It worked out £40 a week MINIMUM. Crazy money. No wonder my grocery shopping has thumped my credit card bills recently.

I’ve also lost 3lbs this week. Weight loss wasn’t top of my list of priorities with stopping drinking (not killing myself was #1) but you what, I will take whatever’s going!

Day 8 – Saturday 3rd August 2013

One week ago today I was horribly hungover and full of shame. I had no skin on one elbow (for reasons I still don’t know,  I assume I fell) and my favourite skirt and boots were covered in vomit. I wasn’t even sure I’d made it home with my purse but I couldn’t get up from bed to check.

Today I celebrate one week sober.

Today I woke up, ate breakfast and took my daughter out for a brilliant day followed by dinner with my family. I won’t pretend I didn’t really want to say “same for me” when my dad ordered a large glass of white, but I didn’t. Bless my husband,  he asked me what “our” plan of attack for drinks tonight was before we even left the house and he held my hand while we ordered our soft drinks.

We also had some good news earlier. That and the fact that traditionally we would have our first glass of wine mid afternoon on a sunny Saturday and temptation hasn’t been far away today. That’s been challenging but I knew the satisfaction of not drinking would outweigh the short term high of having alcohol. I hope I still feel that way a day, a week,  a month from now.

What a difference a week makes.

Day 6 – Thursday 1st August 2013

Pinch, punch,  first of the month 🙂 and first of the first sober month for me!

Just been involved in a long conversation in the office about drinking, people’s drinks of choice etc. I stayed quiet. I’m not ready to say “I don’t drink” yet, but neither am I willing to return to talking like a drinker. Luckily for me, as the new girl nobody is expecting me to be that outgoing yet so it was easyish to hide amongst the other (louder) personalities.

Another kicker this morning was trying to pick up some groceries. I’m expanding my tastes into new juices and other AF drinks but supermarkets seem to insist that these should go right next to the booze, often the same aisle. I guess they see them as mixers. I actually don’t see yhem as temptation right now, they just make me feel queasy and remind me of the nights I drank. But it’s just odd how many things I notice now that never occurred to me before. Conversations,  shopping, adverts… I guess alcohol plays a bigger part in society than I ever understood.

Day 5 – Wednesday 31st July 2013

Part 1: 8pm

Meeting an old friend tonight. We normally meet at a bar. Today I suggested the local ice cream parlour. She declined and said she really didn’t fancy it, what about this new bar in town? 

How do you tell someone you can’t go to a bar without explaining why?

So here I am. She’s late. A glass of wine woukd be perfect right now. But I will not give in.

Part 2: 10.15pm

Well gosh darnit if I didn’t actually manage it. My first time in a bar or restaurant without a drink.

I wanted one. But actually not as much as I thought I would.

I think what I’ve realised tonight is that the person I’m most scared of is me. I can make or break this. And I’m scared of the self loathing that I will feel if I screw this up more than anything anybody else could say or do.

The issue now is that I normally celebrate anything and everything with a drink, but how do I celebrate NOT drinking?

I am starting with a cup of tea and some chocolate. Let’s see how that goes.

Day 4 – Tuesday 30th July 2013

This afternoon something weird happened.

While I was drinking,  on hot afternoons I used to fantasise about a cold glass of white, so cold condensation ran down the outside. The crisp taste…

This afternoon the very thought made me violently nauseous.

Maybe its too soon after my off my face projectile vomiting on Friday.  Maybe that’s why it turned my stomach?

What got me though was not the physical reaction to the thought of alcohol, but the realisation that today what I was cravinv was the feeling of being drunk. Not blackout drunk, 2 glasses drunk. That point when it courses through your veins like IV relaxation.

Part of me found this interesting in a detached, “well how curious” kind of way.

Part of me is terrified of it.

Because this feels like the nail in the coffin for me not being an addict. I crave the being high from alcohol. And one small mistake and I could be back being that person. And that scares the crap out of me.

When I searched for blogs about alcohol addiction and sobriety there were so many that started out just like mine. But they never made it past a few days. I want to still me writing this in a year. I don’t want to be seduced by that promise of just drifting away through a bottle of wine.

Today some lovely people left comments on my previous post,  and through them and finding a few others who are further down the road than me I am more hopeful.

I guess today I just realised there is a wee man on my shoulder with a corkscrew and I need to keep pushing him off.

Day 3 – Monday 29th July 2013

Occupied today with starting a new job. Before this, I’d have had a couple of drinks last night to celebrate (or to relax, or…). Last night I went to bed sober, and revelled in the feeling of being pleasantly sleepy. You see, it’s a novelty. Not feeling smiley silly or pissed off at myself and depressed, or on really bad nights getting so fucked up I have to cut myself to relieve everything building up inside me. Just calm, sleepy, contentedness.

And it was a novelty waking up this morning, still knackered after an interrupted night of sleep (when will this child sleep?!?) but *just* tired. It’s only now I see how different it was because of the booze. It’s not stupidly dramatic – I don’t suddenly feel like I’m in the Sound of Music – but it’s recognizably better. My brain is faster. I don’t hate myself for what’s happened the night before. I’m actually pretty damn excited about having made it another day.

It’s Day 3 you say, don’t get too up yourself. And you’re right. But the reality is that it would’ve been easy to come home tonight and have a bottle of fizz to celebrate surviving the first day. I could’ve explained it away. But I didn’t. It sounds so unbelievably self-righteous to say I went for the higher path, but that’s sort of how it feels. I guess it’s just the novelty of being pleased and proud of myself rather than disappointed and disgusted. Novelty.

The only thing that brought me down about today is a friend who’s explaining it away. I haven’t told my family, just my husband and my best friend. My best friend is telling me not to be so bothered about Friday night, so what, I puked on my shoes, everybody does it at some point. He laughed. But then he wasn’t there when I was virtually unconscious, he doesn’t get the risk that I put myself in (again). And I won’t tell him, because I don’t know if he’ll get it. And that makes me wonder if he’s not the right friend for just now. He’s trying to make me feel better. That’s nice. But it’s not the support that I need right at this moment, and I don’t know how to explain that to him.

I’ll let it go for now I guess. I’ll focus on three days sober and £15 more in the bank.

Watch out day 4, I’m coming to get you.

Day 2 – Sunday 28th July 2013

This morning when I woke up I felt released.

I’m under no illusions, this is going to be incredibly tough. The coming weeks hold a lot of stress, and once navigated they will be worthy of celebration. There’s two bottles of  champagne in the wine rack that I got as presents, and if my reaction within the next 48 hours isn’t to put one in the fridge I’ll be really surprised.

But I really want it this time. I want to enjoy my daughter. I don’t want her to be woken up in the night to get in the car and pick up her inebriated mother. I want my husband to have his wife back.

That’s why I have to write this, to come clean, go public (albeit anonymously) and reward myself for every baby step I make. Every day I don’t drink is an achievement. Every meal I don’t have a glass of wine with is to be celebrated. Yes, it’s going to be hard, but I deserve this better life.

Please give me the strength to change the things I can. This one I can change.

Day 1 – Saturday 27th July 2013

Last night I got so drunk I vomited all over my skirt and boots. I can’t remember parts of the evening and I had to call my husband to come and pick me up from the street I’d virtually passed out on.

Enough.

I’ve thought I’d relied on alcohol too much recently. Over a period of several months a bottle of wine on a Friday had turned into a couple of glasses every night and then into a bottle a night to myself. I’d convinced myself I couldn’t be an alcoholic because they drink cheap vodka or Buckfast, not Pinot Grigio.

But then I realised I could count the number of times I’d gone to bed sober in the last six months on one hand. I couldn’t remember waking up and not feeling groggy. On a trip recently with family I found myself really looking forward to stopping for a break somewhere so I could grab that large glass of white.

I even thought about having just a quick glass before a job interview recently, just to “calm the nerves”.

So, now it’s time to say enough.

Now it’s time to say I have an alcohol problem. And to fix it.