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 out the door to get my kids from school. Sadly, getting them from school didn't mean the party had to stop. I got them to gymnastics, came home and made dinner...drinking all the while. Once a proper 'evening' hour came around, I opened a bottle of red wine and after rushing the kids off to bed so I could enjoy 'me' time, I polished that one off, too. And this is how I'd say 5 out of 7 of my days would go.
It hadn't always been like this but, looking back, I can see that addiction is progressive and I was terrified of what the future might look like.
On March 5, I spent the day thinking about drinking and my drinking habits. This is something that I did most days, honestly. A conversation was always rolling in the back of my thoughts as I tackled each day being someone who most viewed as extremely functional. I wondered if I'd drink again that day, at what time I'd start to drink should I decide to, wondering how many people I knew that may be struggling in the same way...basically all my head space was consumed with the wine witch, as Clare Pooley has named her. (The Sober Diaries)
I also spent the day deep in blogs on sobriety, started listening to the aforementioned Sober Diaries, and just really had a fierce dialogue with myself about what all of this meant. This is one I've had loads of times before but I could never get to the 'forever' part. Always telling myself that I'd 'try' to make it for 21 days until this wedding or that vacation. If I could just master moderation then drinking would be OK.
As calendar would have it, I'd scheduled dinner plans with old friends at a new restaurant that night and when I arrived they'd already ordered a bottle of wine and a third glass for me. I drank moderately only having 2 glasses and we were done by 7:45. Super early for the girls that spent their 20s staying out all night. Now at 39, you have dinner at 6:00.
To go home and hang out with my husband would've been the responsible thing to do. I took advantage of being alone and went out to a bar, sat there having 3 glasses of wine (maybe 4) and finished listening to Sober Diaries, taking notes on a napkin as I heard nuggets of wisdom that resonated with me.
That might be an odd way to spend the night before your Day One, but that's how I did it. When I woke on March 6, I had a resolve to really work on this with a deep understanding that my life and the well-being of my family depends on it.
I read a quote several months ago that I've continued to look at, hoping that one day it would be my story...one of rebuilding...
"Imagine the woman you want to be. Think of what her daily life, her habits, and routines would be. Start showing up to those habits and routines, start building them, step by step, and day by day. You don't become her like magic. You build her. Start Building."
Seems to me that this is what I have to do to tear down the nasty old place I spent so long building. It won't happen overnight but I desperately want it to happen so I guess I have to start somewhere. I'll push off from here and take it minute by minute, moment by moment. I won't worry about the summer trips or family holidays. I will start building.
Start with me.
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 out the door to get my kids from school. Sadly, getting them from school didn't mean the party had to stop. I got them to gymnastics, came home and made dinner...drinking all the while. Once a proper 'evening' hour came around, I opened a bottle of red wine and after rushing the kids off to bed so I could enjoy 'me' time, I polished that one off, too. And this is how I'd say 5 out of 7 of my days would go.
It hadn't always been like this but, looking back, I can see that addiction is progressive and I was terrified of what the future might look like.
On March 5, I spent the day thinking about drinking and my drinking habits. This is something that I did most days, honestly. A conversation was always rolling in the back of my thoughts as I tackled each day being someone who most viewed as extremely functional. I wondered if I'd drink again that day, at what time I'd start to drink should I decide to, wondering how many people I knew that may be struggling in the same way...basically all my head space was consumed with the wine witch, as Clare Pooley has named her. (The Sober Diaries)
I also spent the day deep in blogs on sobriety, started listening to the aforementioned Sober Diaries, and just really had a fierce dialogue with myself about what all of this meant. This is one I've had loads of times before but I could never get to the 'forever' part. Always telling myself that I'd 'try' to make it for 21 days until this wedding or that vacation. If I could just master moderation then drinking would be OK.
As calendar would have it, I'd scheduled dinner plans with old friends at a new restaurant that night and when I arrived they'd already ordered a bottle of wine and a third glass for me. I drank moderately only having 2 glasses and we were done by 7:45. Super early for the girls that spent their 20s staying out all night. Now at 39, you have dinner at 6:00.
To go home and hang out with my husband would've been the responsible thing to do. I took advantage of being alone and went out to a bar, sat there having 3 glasses of wine (maybe 4) and finished listening to Sober Diaries, taking notes on a napkin as I heard nuggets of wisdom that resonated with me.
That might be an odd way to spend the night before your Day One, but that's how I did it. When I woke on March 6, I had a resolve to really work on this with a deep understanding that my life and the well-being of my family depends on it.
I read a quote several months ago that I've continued to look at, hoping that one day it would be my story...one of rebuilding...
"Imagine the woman you want to be. Think of what her daily life, her habits, and routines would be. Start showing up to those habits and routines, start building them, step by step, and day by day. You don't become her like magic. You build her. Start Building."
Seems to me that this is what I have to do to tear down the nasty old place I spent so long building. It won't happen overnight but I desperately want it to happen so I guess I have to start somewhere. I'll push off from here and take it minute by minute, moment by moment. I won't worry about the summer trips or family holidays. I will start building.
Start with me.
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