Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Day 529

Spent too much of the day emotionally out of sorts. Cranky, melancholy, no motivation...some days are just like that, I guess.

But the treatment is bed, not cocktail hour-which-becomes-all-evening.

Monday, October 30, 2017

Day 528

A day which started off poorly but ended well: bad HR decisions at work but Youngest passed her driving test.

Joy is more joyful without booze. My drinking self would have never believed that but it’s true.

Steadily pushing along toward 18 months. It’s good.

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Day 527

Day was ... okay I guess. Pretty much forgot that Sunday was my birthday on Friday and Saturday so I ended up planning menus not taking anything special into account. Then got up and did grocery like any other Sunday morning. If the grocery is any harbinger of my upcoming year I’m asking for witness protection program though!  Just since last night they had rearranged/restocked in ways which included no longer selling any kind of jarred pimentos, the Santitas corn chips we like or plain ol’boring Red Hawaiian Punch. (I mean seriously how could they be out of -the- Hawaiian Punch flavor?) Had to take whole order through the 15-or-less cashier because no other lanes were open (how I hate that) and they redirected me when I tried to use the self checkout which is designed for smaller/less heavy orders. Then I got home and discovered the milk had a leak.

But instead of using all the above as an excuse to start drinking closer to noon than dark I used some coping skills. Made a nice grilled cheese sammich for brunch and calmed myself before venturing out again. I went to Dollar General for the jar candles I like thinking it would be a stop on the way to the other grocery but surprisingly they had all the stuff I needed and the local-dairy milk had better outdates than the leaky one.

So I suppose all’s well that ends well. Spent big chunk of time error-correcting my knitting pattern - someone did not carefully proofread it before posting to Ravelry but since is free cannot complain. Had good FB Messenger chat with a friend from high school with whom I had fallen out for a while but we made up a couple months back.

Quiet but good.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Day 526

Oh blogfriends I got so -much- done today! The most important was troubleshooting the dishwasher door, which wasn’t closing properly. The most satisfying, though, was fixing the flapping weatherstripping on the front door. That stupid thing had been annoying us for probably a year now which sounds shocking when I type it up. I guess it is an example of living with something so long you don’t even think about it - oh some months ago I had tried fixing it with a hot glue gun but that glue didn’t last through the first serious temperature change and somehow it just became one of those live-with things...till Youngest asked, one morning we were leaving together this week, either why it was like that or what it would take to fix it or some other words which brought the whole thing into focus. When I said something about “I need to go to the hardware store and get some special kind of glue” the first voice in my head was “so whyintbehell didn’t you do that already?” but the second was a much nicer “I don’t know but I can go this weekend.”

I also did more cleaning than usual, a -lot- more laundry than usual and finally attacked - and completed - a bunch of small sewing jobs which had been piling up - mostly replacing safety pins with stitching.

“Accomplishment” is a really good feeling. Rewarded myself with some books instead of some booze and the fact that it was such a normal built-in kind of response felt pretty good too.

Tomorrow I turn 51. Had to remind myself; it feels like any other Sunday and I’m not planning anything special. Used to care a lot more about birthdays but this year not so much. Got a list of other stuff I want to get done tomorrow though.

Being able to wake up -functional- without a delayed re-entry into the affairs of living is another one of those not-to-be-underestimated sobriety benefits.

Friday, October 27, 2017

Day 525

A very long day with many ups and downs of mood. It is ending well though, and a big part of that is because I’m sober. I’m up an hour later than usual but things are just as in-focus as they were six hours ago, I haven’t had any big sloppy emotional issues with the family, I haven’t done any of that crazy late night eating and the sleep, when it comes, will be restful. Best of all, though, is having absolutely nothing to regret in the morning. One of the quietly massive things about long term sobriety that I didn’t even consider would be as life changing as it has been is losing all that morning after regret and the self-recrimination which accompanied it. It’s like a glacier: quiet but huge and most of it is hidden.

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Day 524

Long day. Too many extra add-on tasks at work and too many errands at home...but it all goes so much better without the added complication of alcohol. So glad to be off that roller coaster.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Day 523

Another long day. Once I did have free time I was too tired to do much other than lie on the couch. Which is fine, I suppose.

Got really lousy sleep last night; I’m sure that’s part of it. Stayed up a little too late then the dog acted  up just as I was getting into bed which got me all awake again...and then I woke up at 4:30 for no reason at all. Got back to sleep but still.

At least the sleep I -did- get was restful...and the waking up was just awake - no dry mouth, no sweating, no heart pounding, no self loathing. So much better than the old days.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Day 522

Long day.

Work hard, home hard, found out a co-worker is having elective surgery tomorrow and a friend had bypass surgery today which I -hope- wasn’t emergent.

Then just as I was calling it a night the dog pooped on my bed.

But hey, still sober so there’s -something- positive.

Monday, October 23, 2017

Day 521

Back to work and bad news: boss stepping down after all plus poor financial performance overall (not my department, praise be.)

Despite that my emotions seem to have evened our a bit and I feel like I’m getting back into a good routine. Haven’t bought my new sheets yet but I’m not letting them fall off the radar either.

I really like not being around drinkers. Like my personal sobriety it’s just so much easier.

And now bed. Even seventeen months in, the pleasure and power of -good- sleep is never to be underestimated and always gratitude-inducing.

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Day 520

Long day but ended well.

Drove home in the morning - sad and put out the first half or two thirds but by the time I arrived I was doing better with further improvement every time I knocked something else off the To-Do list. Groceries, walk, gas, fresh sheets (I have got to get into the habit of changing the bedding every weekend— it is just -so- much nicer) mail sorted, critters fed - then we tried the newest restaurant in town and were stunned at how good both food and atmosphere were.

Anyhow I’m not all that keen on going back to work in the morning but being home worked out well so maybe the work thing will be good too.

Five hundred and twenty consecutive days. Way cool.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Day 519

17 months. Huzzah!

It got lost in the shuffle though. The Afghani place closed ages ago so that was out and nothing else particularly appealed. Ordered myself a new pair of pants one size down; that will be a nice reminder.  Planning on getting myself a new set of sheets, too.

But mostly the day was about other stuff and by “other stuff” I mean parts of the family bent out of shape over what other parts were doing. I would have liked to talk about other stuff but that didn’t happen.

This week off was markedly better than the week off I took last month but I’m still ready to go back. I suppose that’s good because I was really sad about it for much of the early part of the day. In any case, much driving tomorrow.

Friday, October 20, 2017

Day 518

Today has been hard.

She’s been dead four years this past April and I dreamed about my mother for the first time last night. She’d be turning 76 tomorrow if she’d lived. She came to me with this big 3-ring binder of stuff in page protectors that she had been doing as a school assignment and wanted me to review even though I didn’t really want to. I leafed through it and it was weird and had a hard time, in the dream, figuring out what to say about it. I could tell she wanted some sort of support but I wasn’t sure I could give any.

As if that weren’t disconcerting enough it then morphed into my first drinking dream in many months. I wanted a big martini half Ketel One half gin. Had to repeat the order twice then after I finally got it realized “wait a minute I don’t drink.” In the dream I ended up not drinking even though I wanted to do so pretty badly.

That was a lousy way to start the day. My walk didn’t help as much as I had thought it would, either, and then I went shopping for a new bathroom mirror and the whole experience wasn’t particularly pleasant. Also I had - heck, still have, the overwhelming thought “tomorrow is my last day of vacation.” The brightest point of the whole day was restaurant leftovers for lunch.

Family drama and drinking became that afternoon/evening double feature and I found not drinking to be harder than it’s been since the very start of this whole enterprise. Eldest was having too-shelf vodka with San Pellegrino water - she switched from gin to the drink which used to be mine. I have a lot of complicated feelings about that but for many minutes at a time the biggest feeling was a bizarre urge to drink a huge swig from her glass. I didn’t but it was far more a struggle than I had expected and I was hugely grateful to have this blog as part of my armor.

It changed me from sad to glad I only have one more day of vacation. Being around all this drinking is taking more of a toll than I thought - especially now that my mother - whose death certificate flat out says “gastrointestinal hemorrhage due to or as a result of alcohol abuse” is so much on my mind.

Winning my battle against the bottle tonight was worth it though as not 30 minutes later all the drinkers were asleep where they sat. Reduced the appeal greatly. I was even able to take Eldest’s full glass away from the precarious place near her sleeping self and put it in the fridge without furth—well, without -much- further temptation.

Tomorrow I will finish my current good audiobook on the morning walk. Tomorrow is also my 17 month Soberversary. I’m trying to think of what I could do to make it special - I’ve been giving serious thought to trying the Afghani restaurant near the local office supply store. If it’s still there, that is. This would be in addition to, not instead of, a purchased sober treat of some kind.

Oh and the new tile floor looks fantastic.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Day 517

Almost 17 months. Pretty cool and I know the daily check-in is a big part of my success. Without it I would have far too easy a time drifting away into the lands of Doesn’t Really Matter and Not Really A Problem. Especially with all the other drinkers in my family.

Speaking of which....

Today was a really good day. Went for a nice long walk with an engaging audiobook then Spouse and I got carry out lunch from a seafood place - haven’t eaten that much or that well in ages. In between those two events I got a decent amount of knotting done and binge-watched a few episodes of Transparent season 4.

So I was really surprised when out of the blue in the early afternoon I started getting a Big Sad for seemingly no apparent reason. Everything was good so what the heck? Then I realized, belatedly, that it had started right after the drinkers in the family had decided they would be doing so tonight. On an intellectual level I’m totally fine with “different strokes for different folks” and “their lives; their choices” and the previously popular “not my circus; not my monkeys.” However that doesn’t mean I still don’t have a whole lot of “well that didn’t turn out so well” stored in the memory banks including a few still fairly recent still fairly ugly things...which makes Sad a perfectly understandable thought.

Also “frigging annoyed” when they got to the boisterous stage. I don’t like raining on anyone’s parade and see above for not getting entangled but still. It’s hard when it’s family. But I’m managing. Excused myself for a shower and I believe we will have reached the going-to-sleep-early part of the evening by the time I get back.

Pretty sure my Seventeen-Month treat is gonna be bigger than usual though.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Day 516

Up and down day.

Did my walk early in the morning which always feels good.

Mostly the day was about the home repairs which were finally finished at six thirty this evening. The tile guys wanted to start late since they had a nearby job which couldn’t start before five but they underestimated what needed to be done and how fast they could do it. They tried to tell me it was all done at 5:45 but they had very much rushed the edges of the grout where it abutted the cabinets so I politely made them fix it. I am very proud of myself for that as I am usually non-confrontational to a fault and have difficulty with conflict. However I kept saying to myself “we are paying X for this floor so it needs to be done right” along with a side of “after this they will not be coming back.”

Sobriety didn’t directly help with the above but I’m sure it did indirectly. I’m more centered and have a greater sense of self worth (absence of drinking shame will do that) so it’s easier to expect good things and to have potentially difficult conversations.

The floor looks great. Got too hungry, angry and tired for too long during the process though. Made sure to get something to eat and take time to sit and relax while I ate - that fixed me right up. At almost 17 months self care is finally feeling like a natural next step. Oh and speaking of self care, sometime between 4:30 when they had thought they would be done and the 5:30 walk-through I ordered myself a couple tops online from my phone as a reward for Dealing With the three days of removal/installation. I think it is important to reward oneself. Not only because it’s a way to show self-love but also because so many years were spent thinking drinking was the reward for everything and I don’t want that idea anywhere near me.

Tomorrow I’m sleeping in.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Day 515

As vacation days go it was okay. Definitely this week of vacation is going better than the one last month. And now I find my mind a complete blank. Guess that’s okay. Between the contractors and the driving to get food and the old sit-coms I’m kinda brain dead.

Monday, October 16, 2017

Day 514

Bah. Getting new flooring which will be lovely when done but was horribly loud and echo-y all day. Plus dust all over everything. Gonna take 3 days instead of the 2 originally estimated. Praise be the dog likes them but what an icky day.

My walk helped and of course I was in pajamas by six thirty. Soon to an early bedtime. Always a good choice.

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Day 513

First real day of vacation was good. Went for a very long walk with Eldest in the morning and got all my steps done early in the day. After that I got plenty of good knitting time. Best of all? Nobody’s drinking. Tomorrow and Tuesday we are getting tile installed which won’t be entirely vacation-y but it needs done and will look really nice afterwards.

I’m really appreciating this down-time.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Day 512

Ah, vacation.

Icky drive due to detour and being far too hangry for most of it but good pizza fixed me right up. Took my walk and was showered and in pajamas by 6 which felt delightful.

I realized today that -next- Saturday is my 17 months Soberversary. That’s quite cool. So is not having -any- responsibilities for the next week.

Friday, October 13, 2017

Day 511

Glad it’s Friday and even more glad I have a week off work.

Glad too that I’ve managed to excuse myself off to bed. I’m okay for most of the night but there always comes a point where something small but significant inside me snaps and I just can’t wait to be away from the drinkers. Who, paradoxically, never want me to leave.

Tomorrow will be better, I’m sure.

I look now and think “how could I -do- that all those years?” and yet it wasn’t long ago at all that I thought it was not just -a- necessary thing in life but -the- necessary thing in life for celebration, stress reduction, any random Tuesday...life without drinking at all, ever, seemed impossible.

Boy was I wrong.

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Day 510

Wow five hundred and ten is a lot. Of anything, really, but especially of sober days in a row. Feels good.

So does having this week wind down. I’m off work next week so I will take Spouse and girl-beagle back down to the other house and have a week of doing pretty much nothing which will be very welcome.

I just have to get through a lot of work tomorrow first. Sigh. But a good night of sleep will help and that’s what I’m getting ready to have.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Day 509

Long day.

For the first time in ages - well, months anyhow, I had a passing thought of drinking. Didn’t last at all but it was there. I’d just come from the liquor store (yeah yeah I end up buying for other family members “since you’re going out anyway”) and put the booze in the trunk and in the time between sliding behind the wheel and starting the car there was “you could have one of those you know. Remember how good it felt?” That was immediately followed by “what?!!? And give up five hundred some odd days? For something that wouldn’t either be that good? Nothing is worth starting all over again at one after this long.” And that was that - the end.

Except it wasn’t really the end because I realized it was a sign that life is currently a bit too much for me. Can’t fix any of it just yet but I have a week of vacation next week which I am hoping will help. In the meantime I’m trying to make things as easy on myself as possible. It’s mostly helping although I am still doing a bit too much self-martyring I think.

But now sleep.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Day 508

Emotions all over the place today. Definitely not drinking and not even overeating but I couldn’t manage any family togetherness tonight. Crashed on the couch till 9:30 when I threw together a lunch for tomorrow, moved laundry to dryer and adjourned to bed. Whatever the problem a good night of restful sleep is always part of the solution. 

Monday, October 9, 2017

Day 507

Better day.

Got a long-awaited home repair done - by a contractor not us - so that felt good. Got two compliments on my new scrub top (autumn leaves) and decided that even though it is far brighter colors than I usually wear I look good in it. Also skipped another not-applicable-to-me conference in favor of getting Actual Work done so that felt nice.

On the other hand, I had a case of The Sads in late afternoon, the dogs are getting tired of one another and ABL is starting in on his third or fourth week of “let’s see if I can get SamKD mad enough to yell at me.” So it’s a mixed bag...

...but it’s a sober mixed bag and that makes all the difference.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Day 506

Did all the things I needed to do and some of the things I wanted to do. Stayed sober in the face of much drinking. Would have gone to bed at eight thirty if it wouldn’t have raised too many eyebrows. Nine forty five was still enough to generate comments.

Tomorrow is another day.


Saturday, October 7, 2017

Day 505

Another long day full of family issues. Did not drink or even have a fleeting desire to drink but -did- have my nice long daily walk. That’s full of win.

Friday, October 6, 2017

Day 504

“Tired” caught up to me with a vengeance today. Woke up out of crazy unpleasant dreams and stayed ridiculously sleepy all day. Got all the stuff done that I needed to do but it was a slog.

Didn’t need to deal with dinner which was a help but didn’t baby myself enough otherwise I don’t think. But at least now I’m crashed on the couch which is at least horizontal if not all the way to bed.

It’s been a rough week, family-wise. Every single family member had their own set of issues and I’ve been doing, IMHO, far too much emotional care-taking. Starting to be work not to fill up the bag of resentment despite my best efforts to carve out plenty of me-time. I don’t want to drink but I have found myself thinking “yeah, this was the shit you drank so much to avoid and these are the feelings you kept trying to blunt.” It’s better to feel feelings but not always easier. Well, no...it -is- easier to deal with all this stuff sober and alert but it’s still not necessarily pleasant.

Definitely more pleasant than a booze-fueled argument or breakdown or the inevitable hangover. So at least there’s that.

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Day 503

A good day.

Woke up with a headache but Aleve cured it by eight - how cool is that?

Got all the stuff done today that I wanted to get done and managed not to get sucked into too much family drama. Ankle-deep at most.

My Day 500 treat of the two new scrub tops will arrive tomorrow so now I have two new things for next week which will be nice...as will thinking “five hundred days!” every time I wear one or the other.

Best of all: my new audiobook is engaging enough to make walking enjoyable. I finished my Really Good audiobook yesterday and had worried nothing would be able to hold my interest after that but I was glad to be wrong.

My new nightly routine of writing a blog post is just -so- much better than my old nightly routine of drinking water and making sure there was more by my bed. Never gets old, this restful-sleep thing. Never.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Day 502

Such an up and down day today. All the emotions at various times and a distinct desire to run away from home. But I did it all sober which I am absolutely certain made it easier in the long run. Not only could I think thoughts and feel feelings (I remember when I hid in the bottle from both of those) but I could articulate some of those thoughts and feelings in constructive ways.

Could also keep less constructive thoughts and feelings to myself, too. Those tend to be the ones which explode out of the bottle anyhow despite best efforts.

A good thing: first blood pressure check in almost a year was fantastic: 114/70. Granted I’ve been walking regularly these past two weeks but the greatest part of that number is abstinence. Read a Canadian blog a while back which stayed that regular alcohol consumption was -the- biggest cause of so-called “essential” hypertension in middle aged individuals of both genders. So that was nice.

What’s not so nice is that it is after 11 and I am still wide awake but that’s what the Kindle app for iPhone is made for: reading easily while lying down in the dark.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Day 501

This day had good things in it.

My audiobook was so good I ended up taking an extra long lunchtime walk just to reach a decent stopping point.

Used my words in good and careful ways to - I hope - improve the family dynamic.

Recognized an oncoming cold and went to bed early.

Couldn’t have done any of those things without being sober first.


Monday, October 2, 2017

Day 500

New milestone.

Kinda wish I’d made more of a fuss about it but that’s not where life is right now. Spent far more of the day having feelings about somebody else’s drinking than my own sobriety which is sort of weird. Did, however, skip the meeting I had planned to skip and had a nice walk with my awesome audiobook - I’m going to be sad when it’s over as it set the bar really high.

I am more emotionally tired than physically tired but bed is a good solution for both...and five hundred is a really cool number even if I didn’t make a big deal of it.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Day 499

Nobody ever writes grocery shopping into their novels. Even in the stunningly brilliant (Amazon's Best of 2015) one I'm reading now the food is already there being cooked, being eaten, making plot points...but never being purchased. The weekly trip really rubbed me the wrong way today; can you tell?

Other than that it was an okay day. Bought myself two new mail order scrub tops for work as my Day   500 present - then turned around and spent the same amount of money on frigging drain-fly goo because no matter how often I remind the kid with dish duty to empty the sink and clean the drain screens regularly they seem to think "regularly"means in the celestial or possibly geologic sense. Oh well; it's a relatively easy fix.

A bright note: Middle will be quitting smoking this week. Praise be and how I hope it sticks. It's a group project he and several friends are doing. Not sure there's any analogy with quitting drinking and even if there were I wouldn't want to -say- anything as I'm sure it wouldn't be well-received but I did make sure he's got a Zyban script waiting in the wings.

I really hope it's a good week. As another Day 500 present actually ON the day I gave myself permission to skip my dumb noon meeting tomorrow. That should help.