As of this morning I am one week sober. Technically, I say six days because the morning after a really bad night begins with awakening in a stupor. There is the initial feeling of being mortified followed by a bit of indifference simply due to the mild buzz of alcohol still present in the system. This fades into depression and regret. During those times, I could still sense the alcohol in my breath, in my body. I would always wish that I could speed up my biochemistry so that I could metabolize it out faster and begin the cycle of healing. Those mornings I knew that eventually things would be okay but that I would be guaranteed at least a week of depression. Sometimes I would reach out to friends, or even my parents, but I would still need to put on my happy face at work that week.
Today after work I will be leaving town with a friend for a hiking trip in the mountains this weekend. I had been looking forward to this trip for months. I still am. You see this would be one of those weekends that cultivated the false sense of confidence. It would have been filled with hiking, rest and maybe relaxing by the hotel pool. There would have been wine involved, for sure. However, it would have been a couple of glasses with dinner, or maybe by the pool. This is a friend who is fully invested in rest, relaxation, nature and long philosophical conversations. I love all of those things too which is why we connect as friends. When we first became pretty close friends and began to travel together, I learned from her to slow down, to take a nap on vacation if you so please, go to bed early and enjoy morning coffee with a beautiful view. This was all new to me because when traveling with other friends there would be sightseeing, hiking or spa time during the day then we would move right into happy hour, dinner and bars. This is not to say that all of my other friends have drinking problems. Some of them were just enjoying a girls weekend away from work stress, kids or normal life. Some would drink too much, some wouldn't. For me, again, it was always a 50/50 chance that I would end up sloppy drunk.
Anyhow, back to the cultivation of a false sense of confidence. Here would be the normal pattern. I would tell this close friend about how bad a screwed up this past weekend. She would listen and encourage me. I would tell her how relieved I was that I knew nothing bad would happen this weekend with drinking because we don't really do much of that when we travel together. I would go this weekend and have a bit of wine but generally have a weekend that was focused on many other things besides drinking. I would come back feeling a little healed from my really bad drinking incident last week. I would convince myself it was a fluke. That it was just because I didn't eat enough that night. I would convince myself that I just have to work harder on myself. That if I could be the best version of me, if I could tune into my higher self all of the time, everything would be just fine. Then within weeks or months there would be an event, an occasion usually something that lasted a long time like an all day cookout and evening party or a big girls night or a weekend trip to visit wineries and stay at a cabin. Then somehow, someway, I wake up mortified wondering how this happened again when I was only going to have a few glasses of wine.
This time is different. I called my friend and told her that I have stopped drinking and that I would not be drinking any wine this weekend. She was very supportive as always. I have found that most of my close friends have just sort of allowed me to navigate through this myself and come to my own decisions. Some who witnessed the bad nights worried. Some never even saw me drink too much but took my word for it when I told them I struggled. Most have heard me toy with the idea of stopping. The difference this time is that I am not toying with any ideas. I understand that sobriety is required for me to be whole and free from a future of worry, regret, and even injury.
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