Six...

...and sulky. Out of sorts. Grumpy.  Don't have the urge to drink but not much liking life right now.

Yesterday morning was grand and even the midmorning was nice: helped a lost woman find her way to a meeting, got some lingering stuff done, the whole bit. By afternoon it was a whole different scene. Part of it was difficult conversations with relatives, part of it was the first really warm day in these parts, part of it was bloating and blah and all that but I was just crankypants all night.

Did the usual stuff: minimal homestuff (left dishes till morning) extra sugar in the system and early bedtime. It worked well enough.

Today was more of the same except hotter weather. I had hoped to start dialing down the carbs both simple and complex but after realizing I felt better after two servings of fettucine alfredo than I had the whole day I gently but firmly told That Voice that we could work on food issues AFTER a good 60 or 90 days, not before.  After all, part of what kept me on that damned six-week up-down on-off rollerdrinkingcoaster was stuff like "you have just as big a problem with food as you do booze so maybe you should deal with -that- and what about this exercise stuff and why aren't you doing it ALL, right now, since there are other people nearly -sixty- who are in amazing shape and you're just falling apart right where you sit..."  You get the idea. 

Anyhow, I have plenty of ammunition for self-loathing so the thing to do is pick the one -biggest- thing and fix that which by far and away is the drinking.  If I "need" -- no, wait, I'm not going to put the pejorative quotation marks there --  If I need to eat the last of the iced animal crackers because they are comforting and soothing right now then it's okay. I would tell a friend or a kid not to beat themselves up for such a thing so why be harder on myself?

Oh yeah. Because for some reason I have one set of reasonable, kind, achievable standards for Everyone Else but only perfection will do for myself. How fucked up is that? Probably has something to do with the Little Voice which just popped up with "because maybe then Daddy will like us again." 

I backspaced over and then re-typed that last sentence three separate times before letting it stand. Wasn't sure I wanted to go there at all, much less yet.  It feels pretty damned silly not to mention pathetic and lame to be months away from freaking fifty years of age and still have so many Parent Things running through my head. However since these are some of the things I was drinking to avoid, I might as well just acknowledge this shit when it pops up. Something out in the open has far less power than something kept a secret.

On a related note, one of the things I realized during that nice long sober time was that "drinking to avoid" is more than just the staying buzzed part It's the whole feeling crappy the next day part and the guilt part because if one focuses on all that then one doesn't have to focus on any of the other stuff making one feel crappy/guilty/ugly/unhappy/etc.  

That's enough navel-gazing for this night. Oddly enough, typing it all out seems to have taken some of the edge off. Interesting.

Tomorrow will be Day 7 and that's a whole week and that's the first milestone in Round Two. Hey, no, wait: today was actually the first milestone because since that lovely 202 days the longest I had gone was five days in a row and today makes six! Okay, tomorrow makes the second milestone. Nice to end on an "up" note.