On Rebuilding A Life

When I tried this in March, which seems like ages ago thanks to COVID 19, I made it 12 days and on the evening of the 12th day I thought I was strong enough to limit myself to only a drink or two. History was faithful, proving itself yet again, and that night ended the same as most every other. Like I've mentioned, there have been many starts and stops in my attempt to control alcohol but this one is my official Take Two. I feel stronger this time around and my effort feels like it has real purpose and so I am taking it very seriously. My umpteenth attempt at Day One was August 26, 2020.  So far, I've made it through a pool day with my friends drinking mimosas, two happy hours with friends and a dinner out while everyone else drank wine.  A different approach this time around has included coming clean with my husband. This is something that, surprisingly, I've never done. Honestly, I can't say why I haven't been completely honest. He is kind and patient. He isn'...

Another Day One is on the horizon. Currently, I'm warming up for the challenge. In my listening and learning from bloggers, podcasters and writers that have gone before me in the search for a dry life, I've found that most folks don't have a clean cut stop story. Many starts and stops, fits, attempts and failures. Tiny successes along the way stringing together patches of good days. I've had the same experience, I guess. 12 days here, 10 days there, 5 days another time...when I think about it, though, I've probably only had a total of 45 dry days (just guessing here), outside of 2 pregnancies, in the past 8 years. March 6, 2020 was different. I actually named it. Wrote it down. Declared it Day One. I was ready to tackle the beast. My head was right and my resolve was strong. I made it almost 2 whole weeks and, looking back, don't remember it being the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I made it through, after all. Then, March 15, 2020 happened. T...

Saturday, March 14, 2020. One crazy side effect of sobriety are dreams. Last night I dreamed my pastor decided to have a second wife and he plucked her right from the mom population at our school. Weird, right? Another benefit, and blessing, really, is that I'm so clear and I can tell that I'm just a bit more patient with my kids. We've gotten to school early enough each day this week for them to play on the park with a few classmates before school starts. That has delighted them and completely shocked me. Something I mentioned in my first post was the fact that, even hung over, I am super high functioning. Prior to March 6, my typical day would've included getting up at 5:00, going to CrossFit at 6:00, coming home at 7:15 to make lunches, breakfast, possibly shower so I'm ready for the day when I get the kids to school, drop off by 8:20, showing houses, working on a renovation project (flipping houses), working with design clients, and juggling all the ball...

I have shared my increasing struggle over the past 7 or so years with a couple of friends. My best friend from my hometown since 4th grade, the best friend I have in my current hometown, my best friend from college (let's call her Mac) and my 2 sisters.  Even my husband during different seasons of this fight, but I think there is some history of him growing up with a mom similar to me and so I'm not sure he sees my behavior as that far out of line. Last summer at a family reunion my addiction was put on full display for my entire family to see. After that, my mom called to finally address me saying that it had to stop and that she's been concerned about me for many years.  And here I was thinking that I was doing such a good job of keeping it all together and making it look classy (laughing here).  Only fooling myself, apparently. More on that later, maybe. That was July of 2019 and here I am 8 months later. This is how long it's taken me to finally get my min...

Surprisingly, this feels pretty good. I've had to resist the habits I've created for so many years and it comes with challenges. Goodbye to this: Have lunch, drink a glass (or 2) of wine. 5:00 Have a beer or another glass or wine. Then it became 4:00. 7:00 Open a bottle of red wine. Then it became 6:00. Finish half the bottle. Then it turned into the whole bottle. Then open another bottle at 10:00. Showing houses? Take wine to go! Going out to dinner? Take the cup. Kids in the car? No big deal, they can't tell what it is. Mom, what's in your cup? Oh shit. She's starting to notice. Mom. You look tired. Are you tired? (7:30 glassy eye has settled in) You see the trend. It was getting pretty bad. I could give more examples and maybe one day I'll be comfortable enough in this process to know that they're not going to happen again and I'll be more free to share. It's been fairly easy for the past 4 full days. Trying to create new ha...

I have no idea what I'm doing here but I feel like I've made the first real decision toward sobriety in what has been coming for the better part of 20 years and it felt like something worth documenting. The drink obsessed mom that I've been for the past 5 years didn't happen overnight. It's subtle, ya know. I can look back and see that I was laying that foundation, brick by brick, in small ways, for years.  And it seemed, all of a sudden, I was standing inside of a mansion trying to figure out how to tear it down. Not a nice, fancy mansion. Maybe like an old hotel that everyone else left ages ago and I was still there...alone. March 6, 2020 was day one. On the day before, I'd woken up terribly hungover and mad with myself that I'd yet again repeated the pattern of going out to lunch, alone, and had what I intended to be one glass of wine. That turned into 4 when another lone mom sat down beside me. I would have stayed longer if for not having to rush o...