Posts

Fourth day and This Naked Mind

So I made it past my regular "two day break" from alcohol and entered into new territory--not drinking past two days in one week. I wonder what my body is thinking. I hope it's happy. I slept so well last night and the night before. I can see on my fitness tracker that there are fewer awake times and more prolonged sleep periods and I can feel it. I hate the feeling of waking up after even having two glasses of wine. And the groggy, irritated, tired, old feeling lasts all day until I have the next drink that evening. I only felt good while into the first glass of wine up to the dreaded half bottle moment when I had to stop. Such a short period of time to actually feel good everyday--three hours, two? And the rest of the day shot to recovering from the poison, which masquerades as a salve, a balm of hurt minds. But like Macbeth, I know, that balm isn't wine, it's sleep. And alcohol ends up being akin to the memory that one killed someone, terrible guilt that keeps ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Third day

This is the first milestone on my new nonalcoholic life because in my former drinking life, I would resume drinking on the third day after two days alcohol free. I believed that I was giving my body a break. So, tonight, I won't drink any alcohol--no wine, no beer, no cocktails, and my body will wonder what is going on. Thoughts and cravings are always there in the background, but I am at the point at which I know there is no solution to this conundrum of drinking but to stop completely. Last night I started drawing and coloring again for the first time in ages. I have a set of coloring pencils and an adult coloring book. I also have a sketchbook. I put on some Latin jazz and started filling in filigrees and flowers and actually enjoying it. I live alone and alcohol could blunt out the loneliness and uncomfortable feelings and thoughts very easily. I could drink and surf the internet or watch a show on my computer and be on autopilot. I decided to tear myself away from the comp...
Post a Comment
Read more

Second day of not drinking

I'm 47 this year, single, professional, East Coast, and newly appointed non-drinker. Appointment was made by me. I've flirted with quitting drinking before. Four months here, one month there. But have I mentioned that I am 47? And I've been drinking regularly since my twenties, although I had my first drinks as a teen. My father was an infamous alcoholic. All of my friends drink, of course. I think my story of drinking is probably similar to many other highly sensitive, middle class, cerebral women in their forties, whether married with children or single, like me. As a child, one is highly perceptive and sensitive and does well in school, is self-conscious and notices everything. One sails through academia if not through the social jungle of adolescence, deals with memories of an imperfect childhood, and begins drinking, smoking and experimenting with average vices while again, doing very well on the outside--school, jobs, advancement. I am very privileged as are the hun...
Post a Comment
Read more