What a clever plan, I thought, and away we went! First evening on holiday my mother-in-law pulls out this fancy and delicious sparkling apple juice from France. The label was all in French and everything. Yum yum. So far so good with my clever-post plan...I snapped a pic...
Next evening I was poured this delicious lemon, lime and bitters cordial mixed with lemonade. It's got bits of peel in it and everything. Great! Another snap taken. Took me about five goes to get this one for some reason. Hard with the phone in one hand and the drink in another. You can see my middle guy through the glass playing a ukulele (arty me).
Um..... and then .. well .. that was it. I took no more photos for the rest of the week! I thought about taking more photos.. but the truth is I wasn't really having any 'alcohol-replacement' drinks. I kind of stopped bothering. Gone are the days when I have to have something in place of the wines at 5 o'clock. Most days I didn't have anything pre-dinner, and just took a glass of water to the dinner table.
And (I can't believe this) I hardly even notice other people drinking any more. I used to feel quite self-conscious when the booze came out and conspicuous in my not-drinking.. but now I hardly register it and if I do it's barely in passing. I certainly don't count the drinks other people are having like I used to. Sometimes I'll catch sight of a glass and think 'jeepers that's a big pour' but the thought passes by pretty quickly. I just don't really care.
HOW FUCKING COOL IS THAT???!!!
I remember my sister telling me ages ago about a guy she knows who is many years sober and how he once told her 'I don't even notice other people drinking any more'. And I thought (skeptically) "Really? That can't be true." I just didn't believe that could happen. Well I think it's slowly happening to me. Hooray!
Just checked and I'm 683 days sober... this is proof should I ever need it that the longer I live sober, the easier it gets. It just gets easier (even when I'm bloody stressed with loads of stuff going down and not sleeping very well but I won't bother going into details about all of that!).
Love, Mrs D xxx
This is exactly what I needed to read to today! Sometimes I feel very conscious that I am the only one not drinking. I would love to get a point where I just don't notice, or care what everyone else is doing. And, 683 days?!? That is AWESOME xx
ReplyDeleteAin't this the truth! I still catch a whiff of wine sometimes and once in awhile I'll ask to smell someone's wine to check the bouquet. But here's the amazing part...my mouth doesn't start watering anymore!!! That is the biggest fucking deal ever.
ReplyDeleteI does get easier...and I love it.
Glad you had a good vacation my friend.
Sherry
Hi Mrs D, I haven't been absent, I've just been having epic IT failures commenting using my Wordpress profile, so now I'm just on my gmail account. I couldn't agree more, it certainly gets easier you just need to grit your teeth and get through those first few months. I think we don't want it to become too easy, lest complacency take hold and we start thinking we could take or leave it, or start again if we needed to, or whatever other strange mind games our brains could come up with!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your words, wisdom and encouragement as I tick over the one year mark. You're a star! Take care, Paul (http://facingfactsaboutmyself.wordpress.com).
That is extremely cool Mrs D. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Mrs. D! I can really relate to needing to "replace" a cocktail with a mocktail or something festive and how that all just sort of faded away. In fact, I was at a raging party a week ago which I go to every year. The first sober year I went, I brought a four-pack of rootbeer which is packaged in a brown beer-bottle-looking bottle and drank it with a beer cozy so I could blend in. After all, I was SURE everyone was going to be noticing what I was drinking and wondering and pondering and asking questions and---NOT! No one noticed. The next two years, I came with rootbeers again because I wanted the sensation of drinking from a bottle, but I didn't do the beer cozy because I wasn't bothering to blend in, having discovered that no one notices or gives a shit what I am drinking! This year, I came with a couple cans of seltzer and then had a diet coke. The whole thing with trying to fill the void was so OVER.
ReplyDeleteVery cool - love when that happens! I had to be careful about the "replacement" drinks early on. The one time I stopped drinking (many years ago) for six months, I thought it would be ok to have near-beers and non-alcholic "wine", etc. It felt safe. But what I was doing was drinking vicariously in a way - through the idea that I was still drinking...does that make sense? It was about 6 months in that I was able to approach virgin drinks and mock stuff. Frankly, those things shouldn't have got me going, as I wasn't a cocktail drinker in the end there. Fancy glasses weren't a requisite for drinking. Pounding vodka out of the bottle on the back of the bus was all I needed!
ReplyDeleteBut it's a great thing to realize that you're oblivious to most people's drinking. I was at my sister-in-laws the other day and it wasn't until half way through dinner that I realized that my wife was having wine! She used to ask it was ok to drink - she stopped asking me along time ago.
Wonderful post and pics, Mrs. D :)
Paul
Haha, I love those happy little apples on the sparkling apple juice bottle--they look positively giddy.
ReplyDeleteHey, at least you got two photos! :) AND you're sober! Woo-hoo!
Congratulations to your 685 days of sobriety!!
ReplyDeleteIt does get easier and the disinterest in drinking or noticing what others drink increases -- so good to hear you say that.
ReplyDeleteWell done you on 685 days!
This gives me hope. I ALWAYS notice when other people are drinking. And it's like my sense of smell has gone into over drive! I could smell my friends wine on the other side of a huge hot tub the other day..crazy. She was at least 5 feet away. On the upside, I no longer want to attack the people and steal their drink. So it's nice to hear that it will continue to get easier lol.
ReplyDeleteGood for you.
ReplyDeleteIt does pass - yesterday I went to see "The World's End" - stupid comedy film very laddish British humour. The premise is a bunch of old school friends collected back together again by one of them who hasn't really grown up to complete a 12 pub pub crawl they started the day they left school.
Now sometime ago going to see a film which a large part of the plot revolves around alcohol would have been a very bad thing, it would have not been good for my head, now it is no problem it shows the slow slow progress the longer I stay away from the first drink the easier being sober becomes. Living life may not get any easier however at times!!!