Day 620

Long day.

Too much driving and too many pesky little work things. Bigger issue, though, is that boy-beagle had another escapade and came back limping: won’t put any weight at all on his right front paw. Can’t -see- anything like a cut or a foreign object but it seems a little swollen. Have to call the vet when they open tomorrow. He seems fine otherwise but of course we are all concerned.

ABL acted up tonight too. Joy.

I did, however, manage to have a good shrimp salad for lunch so there’s that. Which is enough for today. Tomorrow it all starts over.

Day 619

Good day.

Went for a nice long walk even though the weather was lousy. Sidewalks were treacherous with snow hiding ice and I slipped theee or four times but never fell all the way down which I count as a win.

Finally bought myself _Girl Walks Out of a Bar_ which has been on my wishlist well over a year now and I’m enjoying it so far.

Also finished off the Oreos - I have -got- to stop buying those things...and I’d have better luck if they didn’t keep coming out with new flavors as I am a sucker for new things. Sigh.

Today started way too early though: MiL called at five freaking thirty in the morning because her older sister, who has been sick with the same sore-throat-exhausted cold _everyone_ had had, woke up coughing and coughed so much it started a nosebleed and should she call the ambulance? I was about the whole thing and she apologized a zillion times for waking me up...but it was yet another reminder why it pays -not- to go to bed all drunk: can’t even imagine how big a deal that call would have been if it had happened on top of the horrible hungover thing.

Maybe tonight I’ll have normal sleep!

Day 618

A really good day.

Didn’t start out that way as I simply -could-not- sleep last night: despite all the relaxing things I usually do I was wide-freaking-awake till something like 2:30....then woke up at my usual time of 6:20 anyhow without alarm clock or grogginess or anything. I kept waiting for the afternoon crash but it never came. Weird. Good-weird but strange all the same.

Anyhow work lightened up considerably and I got to have a lunchtime walk instead of a lunchtime meeting. That was nice. Made a new internet acquaintance too which was nice. Mostly, however, I had a surprising amount of energy. Don’t know what it’s all about but I’ll certainly take it.

I’ll also take another treat: this time a T-shirt I’ve been eyeing for a couple weeks. I had been getting really lax about the little rewards for living life with all its vicissitudes.

But now I must try the whole sleep thing again and hope for better results this night than last.

Day 617

Another weekend winds down. I don’t think about it consciously all that much but it is really nice to feel more or less the -same- for a whole weekend. No more up-and-down hungover/not hung over/sober/drunk roller coaster. Feeling good first thing in the morning is something I take completely for granted now and that’s a huge change for the good.

I write this in part because last night I -did- wake up at three-something...not hungover and thirsty with pounding heart and aching head but hungry. Very atypical. I suspect it was a combination of stress, eating too much junk food and being around smokers but in any case I had a muffin and went back to bed and woke up feeling the same as any other day which is not how up-at-three used to be.

Forgot to mention yesterday that I decided I was due for another treat so I ordered some fancy Hawaiian chocolate. I still have a tiny nugget from the last Hawaiian chocolate left which can now be a special indulgence for the short term since More is coming. I’ve also been very happy with my Day 600/20 month house slippers - they feel great.

We have two groceries in town and I usually go to the one with the good meat and discount on gasoline but today I went to the other one for everything -but- the meat and had a far better experience even though I had to make a second trip for meat. I think I’ll do that again next week. Not sure why I haven’t done it before, actually...I guess it’s another example of getting stuck in a rut and not breaking the cycle. In any case I got all the things needed for the week with far less aggravation than last week so I’m happy.

But now it’s bedtime.

Day 616

So glad for the weekend. Slept in about an hour which is enough to feel a bit indulgent but not enough to throw off a whole schedule then tried a new muffin recipe for breakfast. Had plenty of good Minecraft time too - I find that game surprisingly relaxing. I like virtual terraforming.

The day wasn’t all rainbows and unicorn farts though: midday and early afternoon there was some family drama. Enough that I started getting really irritable and walking that edge of irrational arguments for the sake of blowing off steam and/or tears of frustration...so I took a nice long shower. I needed to be Away. From. the family in a way which didn’t scream “I can’t stand being around y’all right now” and it worked out really well. I got over my irritable, the drama fizzled out and the remainder of the evening was agreeably calm.

Couple years back I would have broken the cycle of that kind of drama on a Saturday afternoon with a run to the liquor store for double sure. Would have rehashed all the drama too. Showering it away was a much better choice.

Not looking forward to the grocery shopping tomorrow but at least I figured out menus for the week.

Day 615

A better day.

Carried emotional baggage from yesterday all morning but got my work done and left early so that was good. Opened some of the emotional baggage when I got home and that helped too. Pizza night meant no cooking and things were just generally easier.

Tomorrow I’m trying a new muffin recipe for breakfast. Hope it’s good.

Day 614

Not a good day. Not even close.

But I’m getting through it and eventually I’ll be able to call it a night.  And tomorrow could be totally different.

Day 613

Long day.

Very un-motivated for work and of course the day evolved into more work than usual on many fronts. Came home (late) and immediately had a bowl of ice cream. Haven’t done that inabery long time.

Then ABL acted out again. By the time I had dinner in the table I was full of rage...but a nice long shower helped. I have these feelings and think at the time they will last forever but they always wear off after a while. Some days I have to hold onto that truth harder than other days.

Day 612

Spent most of the day in a sad mad pouty sort of funk but I just rolled with it and things slowly got better. This evening I actually said out loud “nobody in the family appreciates what I do nearly enough” and it was okay. That was fairly mind-expanding. As you can tell, even after nearly two years I still have trouble with the whole feelings thing.

I -was- all worried about being not at all sleepy even though it was past my bedtime...then ABL decided to have an attention-getting tantrum. So I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyhow. Funny how that worked out.

Of course now I’m irritated which means I need to read and unwind because once one gets mad there’s no going to sleep. But that’s okay; I have a fully loaded Kindle app.

Day 611

School delay this morning so I went back to sleep and had the craziest dreams. Still, actually taking the two hours along with my kid instead of sending her on the bus so I could dutifully get to work at the usual time is a big improvement in paying attention to -me- for a change. I had nothing mission-critical or time-sensitive so why not take the time I would have happily given a colleague?

I also rescheduled the site visits which would have completely ruined my Wednesday, too. I’m getting better all the time at making myself -as- important as anyone else. After a lifetime of putting myself last (and filling my bag of resentment full of pebbles to cash in for booze later) it took a long time for it to start becoming more automatic but it’s a healthier way to be, I think.

Otherwise it was prettty much just a day: no big ups or downs. Another corporate officer resigned from my workplace which is interesting but my day-to-day work life isn’t affected. I could be eating better and definitely could be walking more but given all the balls imalready juggling having Spouse and girl-beagle home on top of Solid Winter I’m cutting myself some slack. I very much -like- having them but good chaos is still added chaos.

And bedtime is still bedtime.

Day 610

Woke up to no heat again. Third time in as many weeks and the last repair was only four days ago.

I was full of rage - just really awful fury - for a good 15 minutes and then just plain mad but it hadn’t lasted. It’s now right at an hour since I woke up to “damn, it’s cold in this house” and the anger has dissipated. Repairman is on the way (and was quick to point out he’s -not- the guy who was here last week) and I had some of the banana bread I made yesterday morning and suddenly realized I wasn’t pissed off any more. Annoyed, sure, but in that low-level here-we-go-again kind of way, not a big towering wrath. I don’t know if I can say all of that is sobriety or not but I do know that this whole thing would be FAR worse if I were trying to deal with no heat and a hangover too.

I’m worried that the only way to -completely- fix the heating problem is to get a new furnace. However I‘m feeling pretty good about the fact that at seven on a Sunday morning I’m just as bright-eyed and alert as if it were a weekday.

===Much Later===

The heat stayed fixed but otherwise the day didn’t really improve. Grocery shopping was Just. Wretched. I waited too late in the morning and got stuck with not just s crowd but a crowd which was socializing with one another all over the store...including a former co-worker whom I didn’t like then and still don’t but with whom I had to be pleasant. On top of that background was painted the complete lack of the right kind of meat for tomorrow’s dinner so I had to completely scrap and re-plan right there in the store.

Once I finally got home I discovered we had less than half a cup of milk...and of course nobody had bothered to tell non-milk-drinking me. I’m not dairy-free or anything - fat from it - but I don’t drink milk by the glass nor do I eat cereal so unless I’m making a recipe which calls for it I have no idea what the milk status might be.

The dogs acted up, the autistic brother-in-law acted up, the family poked fun at the Thai curry I made for lunches next week and the roast carrots scorched on the bottom. Not a great day.

I did, however, buy anew pair of hpouseslippers so that’s something. A small but nice treat to commemorate the day.

Day 609

Decent Saturday.

Made banana bread first thing and it was comforting and happy-making to have some still quite warm for breakfast. Didn’t do much else all day except make lasagna for dinner, either: my step count is ridiculously low. Which is fine. ABL has been acting out this week and I can tell it’s getting under my skin because I had to stop myself doing That Grazing Thing at the open pantry just now. I’ve managex to stop drinking my frustration but I’m still not over all the bad emotion-related foid habits. Better but not over.

In any case tomorrow is 20 months and I don’t have anything special planned - yet, anyhow - and I’ll have to wait and see how that makes me feel once the day gets here. It’s a milestone all the same whether I do anything fancy or not.

But now it’s time for bed - be it lingering cold or stress or aging I’m _tored_ from doing nothing all day!

Day 608

Better day.

Realized this morning that Sunday will make -twenty- months. That seems like a lot. Twenty month old humans are definitely mobile, have a vocabulary and are little _people_ with their own personalities.

Like a 20-month-old, my sobriety does better when it has nutritious food and enough rest. Ate dinner the moment I got home tonight and then had a little nap because it had been a long day with minor frustrations tacked in the end. If the mantra for the first two weeks of sober time is “treat yourself as if you had the flu” then the mantra for the first two years seems to be “treat yourself like a beloved niece or nephew of the same age.”

Tomorrow is Saturday which means that after walking the dogs I can go right back to bed if I feel like it...that’s always such an indulgent feeling. I’ve got butter out to soften for banana bread too. That will be nice.

Day 607

Bah. Every so often I have a day filled with “oh yeah...these are all the feelings I kept drinking to avoid feeling.” Heavy emphasis on sad and angry with a dash of resentful on the side. We all have our own particular life issues, some more fix-able than others and some not at all fixable. Today it was my turn to take that deck of cards out and play with it a while. Well, no...that makes it sound deliberate and it was much more like having the rubber band securing a a deck of cards in your pocket suddenly break and scatter the cards around.

Mediocre similes aside it was a sucky emotional day and I didn’t handle it particularly well. Ended up eating junk instead of real food for dinner and although there’s nothing inherently wrong with that it’s not really -satisfying- at all.

On the other hand I didn’t drink and didn’t want to drink either so that counts as a win. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Day 606

I am So. Tired. of driving in lousy weather. It starts the day poorly.

Had a difficult work situation which took far too much of the morning and the heat went out at home (again) in the afternoon. It was fixed in about an hour but still.

So I ate bread pudding and called it dinner. Felt like I had banked a nice amount of love and concern in a Tupperware safety-deposit box so that was good.

Watched an old episode of _Bewitched_ and BOY that was a boozy show. Dunno whether it’s the ad agency culture or the mid-Sixties culture or what but they’re always about ankle-deep in cocktails.

I’m all the way deep under the covers; it’s bedtime. Here’s hoping tomorrow is better.

Day 605

Tired. Tired of driving. Particularly tired of driving in bad weather. One of my dreams is to live somewhere I don’t need a car.

Because I had driven 70+ miles in/on snow and I could I knocked off work at 3 which meant I had time to recover from my lousy too-much-road-time day before making dinner and “recover” meant “eat frosted animal crackers.” Sitting with Spouse, Youngest, cookies and tea -did- help.

The child of a friend just picked up a 7-month sobriety chip after kicking opiates - I’m so proud of that kid.

I’ve left this too late and now all my thoughts have either flown away or roosted deep in the woods of my brain...so bedtime for me but everyone else carry on being your awesome selves.

Day 604

Such a domestic day. Made bread pudding in the morning and fajitas in the evening with trips to three separate groceries in between. Well the health food store might not qualify as “grocery” but still.

Hubby under the weather so I did the big trip alone which was fine. Got too tired and hungry during the trip though, which wasn’t. But I ate and rested and it was all fine again.

Tired has hit in a big way though - sucked any intelligent ideas right out of my brain so it’s bedtime for sure.

Day 603

Home safe and sound with Spouse  and girl-beagle. Good to have them. Car ride long...sigh. I think the break from Eldest Angst will do both of them good, particularly him.

We all had a junk food party-type dinner which was nice...the local grocery had Keebler frosted animal crackers for a change and they are just super good imho so they were a big part of what I called dinner.

So glad I took tomorrow off work - Spouse and I will trek to the good grocery half an hour away. Hope it goes well. I haven’t been there in ages.

Sober is _easier_.  I know it sounds crazy and for the first couple-four weeks it totally does -not- feel that way especially when the Drink Now Voice is screaming its super-personalized slogans but eventually one day you get this little hint of “that was easy” and it starts spreading all over everything  slowly but thoroughly in a very nice way.

Day 602

A very ordinary day. Ate good food. Hung out with Spouse. Got the car washed. Woke up as early as I always do but that was okay. I can’t temember how long it took to get the whole sleep thing sorted out - a month or six weeks maybe - but once you get used to waking up hangover free after good restful sleep it’s a very strong incentive to -keep- staying sober.

Also that whole “pair food with the appropriate wine (or more recently cocktail)” thing is just crap. Food is better without alcohol, period. That might be shocking and definitely goes against the whole industry’s message but I definitely stand by it. The taste of the food is more apparent and digestion is better.

Tomorrow is that damned 4.5 hour drive again. Sigh. At least I was sensible enough to take Monday off so I’d have a day to get settled.

At

Day 601

Miserable drive to the other house - rained the whole way. But I made it and got to meet Eldest’s guinea pigs - or rather “gippy” pigs as they will forever be in our households: the last time we had one was when Youngest was only a toddler and since that was how she said it that’s what stuck. These are tiny little guys only a couple months old but they adore parsley and like apple pretty well too.

Things are otherwise uneventful...and that’s a good way for them to be.

Day 600

Wow I made it. Six hundred days is a long time.

Yet until right now going to the blog I hadn’t thought of it even once. Weird.

I know y’all out there in the blogosphere are happy for me and that’s great...but I sure wish my family  cared more. Ah well, you can’t have everything - where would you put it?

Going to have to spend some time thinking up a good Day 600 treat but that’s okay because this weekend - including tomorrow and Monday - is going to be all about going down to the other house and coming back up with Spouse (and girl-beagle.)

Day 599

Easy enough day but I let myself get too hungry and too tired by the time I got home. Completely foul mood. Food and rest helped, of course...they always do.

No particular thoughts tonight...but strength and peace to all.

Day 598

Better day.

Took myself to lunch as the reward for doing a site visit and was glad I did. Entire way -to- the site visit I felt so draggy I was planning to say fugeddaboudit and just drive straight back or possibly hit a drive thru because parking the car and walking into a restaurant and dealing with the whole order-served-eat-pay thing sounded fairly overwhelming...so back and forth I went, leaning towards not. But after the site visit I decided I should do it anyway even if it did seem like work and I ended up having a lovely shrimp salad which was both tasty and healthy.

Slightly more energy tonight...and my new bargain blanket came so it’s on the bed waiting for me. Plus just as I started a new book one that I had pre-ordered ages ago was finally released so now I have a known Good Thing (it’s the next in a series I like) waiting.

These are all just small things but they feel like -real- pleasures and indulgences as opposed to the false and hollow pleasure/indulgence of booze. The shrimp won’t make me wake up thirsty and headachey in the middle of the night, the blanket won’t trash my self-esteem and the book won’t make me wonder what exactly I said the night before.

Day 597

Still with the chills and fatigue - one of my family nicknames is The Ice Queen because I always like it cooler than everyone else does but I just couldn’t get warm all evening. I’m just grateful not to be all the way to sick-sick with head and throat and so forth. 

Also grateful I cooked ahead yesterday...and that I had a good book on my Kindle app. Have moved from couch to bed and from too cold to too hot...and that’s been the sum total of my evening activity.

I used, on a night like this, to think “I’m going to feel lousy whether I drink or not so I might as well drink anyhow and enjoy -that- instead of being all weak and lying down.” That was silly. 

Day 596

Today was a hard day. Not in a sobriety sense but in a just getting through the day sense. The dog woke me up from bizarre action-adventure dream because he wanted out and that set the tone for an entirely off kilter day. While the dog did his business I noticed the digital porch thermometer said 13, thought “oh it warmed up like they said it would - I’ll start shopping early.” While  from the front door to the garage door (Yes I could go -through- the garage but it’s a tight fit to get behind the car to open the door and I didn’t want car-dirt on me) I thought “gee it sure seems cold” then I got in the car and once on the road I saw the -car- thermometer said the outside air was -negative- 16. So that was different.

Went to both groceries and after the second I was so sad and down I thought I might cry right in front of the kids as we put everything away. Only afterwards did the freezing cold and the muscle aches come. I don’t know why at this stage in life it-still- takes me by surprise that “depressed” is pretty much always the first symptom of “sick.” I know I’ve blogged about it at least once before — you’d think I’d learn.

Wow that last bit sounded not just harsh on myself but harsh in exactly the same way my mother used to be harsh on -her- self. Ick. In any case once I bundled up under blankets on the couch and took a little nap I felt better both physically and emotionally.

I liked my new sheets I -finally- got for my whatever-month-it-was treat so well that I got another set just like them and I think that. Arches me up on monthly rewards. Maybe. Maybe not. In either case Amazon showede a “flash deal” on a blanket for half price so I got that last week and just realized it will probably come by Day 600. So that’s nice.

I rather like that my sober rewards have been bedding-related lately: literally wrapping myself up. Brings to mind security, restfulness, comfort - lots of positive self-care words.

Day 595

Even now at nearly 600 days there are still times I romance the drink. You know: contemplate how good it might be in that not really serious but not entirely random fantasy way.

But then I have occasion to interact with actual drunk people and it goes right away again. So that’s good.

Today was pajamas all day - eventually took a shower and went from on set of pajamas to a new one. I highly recommend it as a way to reinforce “taking the day -off- by golly.” Did the things I needed to do but not much more than that and everything was going fine...till it wasn’t. Got my dis good and gruntled around 8:45 and ended up just calling it a night soon thereafter. Reading in bed is a good choice as it’s warm, comforting and far away from the food.

Tomorrow is a whole new day.

Day 594

Not a great day. Not at all.

Felt bad physically, walked right into having to fix other people’s ignorance at work, had more work than I expected and then one kid after another gave me grief. Then I found out a popular and well-loved teacher at my high school had a fatal heart attack this morning. Plus the weather just sucks.

But I got through it all and now I’m in my nice warm bed with the dog asleep next to me and I don’t plan to leave the house tomorrow at all.

Not once but several times today I thought about how, even in this hideous weather, I would have certainly made sure to hit the liquor store on the way home. Probably would have interpreted my sensible “once I get the car in the garage I am not about to go back out” as an excuse to get a little more than usual never mind that I wouldn’t have been going out again once I’d started drinking anyhow....except that’s not entirely true as once two of the three kids had driver’s licenses it was all too easy to have one of them drive so Spouse or I or both of us could sate that “More!” voice. Not very proud of that. Sure we always paid them but still.

As I said before: really glad to leave that carnival behind.

Day 593

Just an ordinary day...and that's fine. No strong feelings or profound thoughts but the nightly blogging check-in ritual is my strongest sobriety support.  Happy Thursday.

Day 592

Wow a week from tomorrow I'll have 600 days. That seems both totally normal and really astounding.

By virtue of having freaking heat this day was far better than yesterday.  Went to bed with a house at 55.5 F; woke up to 64.0 F and it's now back up to a toasty 75.5.  I'm happy about that because it wasn't till my nice hot bath earlier this evening that my feet were finally -warm- for the first time in the past 3 days.

A few years ago of _course_ the heat going out yesterday would be an excuse to drink to drown out the misery and the heat being back on again today would have been another excuse to drink to celebrate. So glad to leave that carnival. It smells bad, the midway games are all rigged and the prizes suck.

In any case it's time to wind up and get ready for a normal bedtime tonight. Last night I slept with the sheet pulled clear over my head (tiny vent-space near mouth) and didn't get to sleep till sometime between one and one-thirty in the morning. Tonight should be better.

Day 591

So many ups and downs today. Good news, bad news, stupid kid stuff, annoying house stuff...but I’m getting through it and the on-call furnace guy is in his way even though it is late. Grateful for that.

Grateful too that I didn’t have the urge to drink. Some days that’s enough.

Day 591

A quiet day around the house made a good start to the new year.

Nothing particularly special just quiet reflection and puttering: a little cooking, a little cleaning, a little laundry. I always make a few resolutions but I never talk about them because they're only for me.

Many, including some people I know, have made sobriety a resolution and I wish them every success possible. It seems really overwhelming at first and the voices try so hard to pull one back into the drinking fold - the ones from actual people all around and the even louder mental ones. I know they pulled me back so many times I thought it was just a flat-out impossibility that I'd ever be a non-drinker. Thought it for years, in fact...and thought I wouldn't be able to have any kind of a fun life without it either.

I was wrong. 

At first it's hard as hell - the voices are loud, the change is huge and after the second day you don't _keep_ feeling physically better enough for it to be the big motivator.  Treating yourself as if you have the flu and doing the barest of bare minimum anything plus eating whatever your heart desires is a good way to go. Some people like replacement drinks; some don't - I already drank a lot of iced tea but the entire first two weeks I made sure to fancy it up at night with a wedge of real lemon and a splash of seltzer water both as a special "good for you - you're doing the hard thing" and to satisfy the evening-ritual component of it all. If your "now it's my relaxing free time" started, like mine, with the making of the first drink, then making a nonalcoholic first drink helps.

Ferpitysake don't try doing anything ELSE. None of this diet-and-exercise-too turn-my-whole-life-around stuff.  Been there, done that, crashed and burned big-time. If you drink enough to be reading a sobriety blog then JUST quitting drinking is going to be plenty enough resolution.

Everybody's path is different and they're all tough but the farther along you go the easier it gets. For me Days 4 and 10 were the very hardest...but just past 30 days and again around 50 days were also very vulnerable times for me.  So vulnerable that even after I decided I wanted to quit "for real" I had several attempts fail in that zone.  Getting past the two-month mark though...that's huge. Three is even better. I didn't use AA but now I really see why they say "90 meetings in 90 days" because once you get to the three month mark it's a whole new world.

It's worth it.  No matter what the Drink Now voice in your head says to the contrary. There are times it's hard, times it's easy and times it's just plain boring but life just becomes so much more _live-able_. All the other problems are still around - as Robin Williams said, "I'm still the same old asshole; I've just got fewer dents in my car" - but they become more manageable when you don't have the constant up-and-down of drinking messing with your mind. I know that sounds like Pollyanna bullshit garbage because I used to think "ghAWD what bullshit garbage" too...but then one day I looked around and realized "y'know....my life is just plain working better these days."

Sleep gets a lot better too. Not right away -- I'd have to go back through the archives to see when -- but boy once it does that's a huge plus right there.

In fact, I'm going to go get some right now. Happy first day of 2018, all.