We have been here before, but something feels different.
It’s been just Another Day 1 time after time since I started asking the question out loud: Am I Drinking Too Much?
This Post for example, was a day where I considered the journey that had brought me here, and contemplated quitting. Spoiler Alert: it was not the end. You can tell from the post that I still didn’t want to quit. It’s a strange thing knowing that something is the right choice, and seeing all the wrong choices stacking up to emphases how right that choice is, but not quite believing you can make it.
I definitely didn’t believe I could make it yet. But I was saying it out loud. First to some close friends, then to some family. I didn’t have to tell my husband. He knew. I knew that he knew that I knew that he knew that there were hidden boxes of wine in the closets and promises made, and always broken. Cycles of trying to stick to “just one…maybe two” and then waking at 3 am when the sugars and alcohol had burned off from the entire bottle I promised myself I wouldn’t consume … again … and laying in bed from 3 till 5 am admonishing myself for having absolutely no self control. And then another horrible, exhausted day. And then falling into the repeat.
That’s the lie we tell ourselves when we get to this point: that we are still in control. Thinking that willpower and restraint will save us. It is the slick delicious ride straight down the chute to the bottom of the bottle.
So I practiced talking about it. Then I read some books recommended by some people who had turned their practice of talking about it into habits. Some that helped me were:
We Are The Luckiest by Laura Mckowen, allowed me to realize I wasn’t special in my addiction. The stories that made me go “oh! wow. me TOO” were eye opening. This Naked Mind by Annie Grace, showed me that changing your thinking was the only true way to fight the hold of the alcohol monster. Annie says:
I drank for so long I forgot how beautiful life could be. I forgot how it feels to wake up energized about what a day can bring.
I woke up on this – Another Day 1 – and marveled at the feeling of a fog lifted. It was not new, cause we had been here before, but I took the time to marvel at it. I went through my morning routine, early, having actually woken up refreshed, and marveled at the time I had to spare. I spent time thinking about, and planning my day, instead of dragging myself out at the very last minute and trying not to talk to anyone while the muddled brain was still mush.
I woke up feeling different. And I noted each difference and enjoyed it. I cataloged my successes that day with surprise. Maybe it’s the public display I made on that Sunday February 13th, that made Valentines Day my new Day 1. Maybe it was finally talking about it with my kids, and hearing how much they’d noticed, when I thought they hadn’t.
Oliver (8): But if it’s bad for you, and makes you yell more, why not stop?
Alice (6): You should try for a WHOLE YEAR!
Mum: You think I can make a whole year?
Alice: You can DO ANYTHING!!!!
Maybe I was just finally allowing myself to say: it’s ok not to drink. They’re still going to like you. You weren’t that much fun after wine anymore anyway, even though you thought you still were. Maybe it’s because this time it feels like choosing life. For awhile, I gave up on the thought of ever being able to stop, cause it felt impossible. I quit quitting. You can venture a guess on how well that went. Quitting quitting is truly giving in. It’s telling yourself you cannot stop, so why bother. It’s taking away the choice because it says: I have no choice.
But that’s another lie. And reminds me of one of my favourite lines from John Steinbeck’s East of Eden:
Thou mayest, Thou mayest! What glory! It is true that we are weak and sick and quarrelsome, but if that is all we ever were, we would, millenniums ago, have disappeared from the face of the earth.
Maybe it’s because, this time, it’s not just about me. It’s for them.