Why I love being sober..

I chatted with a friend the other day about about all the stuff that had been going on lately and opened up that it had been a hard time 'sober-wise' as I'd been hankering for a glass of wine to help me deal with things.  Told her that I'd pushed through OK (with the help of half a cigarette that tasted awful) and things were smoothing out now and I was getting closer to my one year 'soberversary'.  She said, "I often think of you. How amazingly strong you are. I wish I could drink less."

Ok so there's a lot going on here.  1) she's concerned she drinks too much 2) she's being honest with herself about her drinking and working to keep in as under control as possible and 3) she thinks of me and it helps!

I'd be a big fat liar if I didn't admit that I love that people are impressed by me giving up booze.  It's a vain, big-headed thing to say but it's definitely one of the big positives about living sober and I'll take the good along with the bad.

Good = people are impressed, people think I'm strong, I think I'm strong!, I respect myself more, I have a much healthier self-image, I make more effort with my appearance and personal grooming (the extra bits like nails and eyebrows), I'm saving money, I am healthier, I am calmer, I am more considered in my approach to interpersonal matters, I am ensuring my kids won't carry any shit from having a heavy-drinking mum, I am choosing a sustainable way of living well for the second half of my life.

Bad = I'm different from the majority, I won't be able to be 'silly pissed' at parties and might have to retreat if it's difficult to mesh with people who are getting tipsy or drunk, I have to deal with tricky interpersonal stuff in a raw and real state which is sometimes not as appealing as blurring the edges with wine, the angry and sad versions of myself are more pronounced when they're around, I don't get to taste alcohol any more.

These are the facts.  This is what I have chosen.  No regrets.

Love, Mrs D xxx

An early start...

So the two little boys woke us at 5.15am.  Boy were we annoyed.  5.15am is THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!!!!!!!  So there were lots of stern words as we tried unsuccessfully to get them to stay quiet until the sun came up or at least one bird started to chirp.

I lay with my head buried into the pillow feeling grumpy... grumbling .. grumpy .. but then .. made myself pause for a minute .. head buried in the pillow.. and think .. think of the wider picture Mrs D .. the bigger picture .. the whole entire picture.

It was 5.30am... my sons were giggling, my lovely husband was grumbling into his pillow next to me all warm and snugly in our bed .. the sun was about to rise on a clear Saturday morning and despite being a little tired I was also clear.  Clear headed and sober.

I'm bloody 40 years old and I've kicked a dysfunctional drinking habit to the curb and I am sober.

My life has it's ups and downs, way more than it used to.  Sometimes it's tricky. Sometimes it's gritty and I get grumpy or sad.  Sometimes shit happens to people around me and relationships get strained.  Life is tricky, people are complicated, people get sick, shit happens.  Shit happens all the time.  But dammit, all I have to do is not drink alcohol and I'm doing ok.  I am doing ok.

So I got up (I'm not going to embellish here and say all day was peaches and roses) but I got out of bed a damn sight happier that I could have done.  There was no hangover or guilt or concern about my alarming wine consumption, just a tired mother-of-three getting into the day earlier than she would have liked.

I'm feeling better.  I'm glad to hear people telling me that soberversaries can be hard.  I'm kind of annoyed once again to realise that I'll probably always be glum that I can't have a glass of wine or three to unwind.  But I can't.  I didn't.  I don't.  I used to.  Boy did I used to guzzle wine like it was water.  Hard and fast, lots of it.  In the glass it went.  Down my throat.  Bottles in the recycling.  Go get more.  In the glass.  Down the throat.  Wine, wine, wine, wine, wine. Not for me no more.

Now, off to make pizza with Parmesan cheese, thinly sliced potato, anchovies and rocket at the end to finish. Yummy!  A pink sparkling grapefruit juice to drink with it while I sit on the sofa, read my supervisor's notes on my draft chapter and watch the All Blacks play Australia.  Who needs wine.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Vulnerable? Odd? Not sure...

Hi all .. just a quick post, realised I'm feeling a bit odd and want to write it out to examine what's going on.  Have decided that I'm going to buy a packet of cigarettes in the grocery shop today and have a sneaky one before I pick the kids up at 3pm.  Haven't had a ciggy since Christmas when I was indulging a little, like it was my 'treat' for getting through the silly season without booze. Some stern talk from my lovelies out in the blog-o-sphere helped me decide that was bloody stupid and I stopped before it became an intrenched habit.  But now I've decided I want one or two.  That I 'need' one or two, or 'deserve' it or something.

Also feel like getting a Red Bull (!!shock horror!!).. I dunno .. this seems kind of minor and silly but the truth is I'm feeling a bit weird and ... vulnerable...?

It's all this talk of the one year soberversary which is looming.  I suddenly feel very overly aware of my 'point of difference' again, my sobriety, my living a dry life.  I feel like it's all very tenuous and delicate.

Mr D had a MONSTER glass of red wine after work yesterday (it was the only one he had but it was probably actually more like 2 1/2 glasses in one glass, it was that big).  It sat on the edge of the bench for 10 minutes or so while he helped get the boys to bed and .. I walked past it a couple of times .. and fuck it was really like looming large in my vision.

And then I let myself totally imagine just grabbing it and sculling it down real fast.  It wasn't an entirely pleasant imagining but I totally went there in my mind.  Like .. it would be just so easy.

Fuck.  This is annoying.  But anyway...

So, off to buy some cigarettes.  You know, for a treat.

And don't worry .. there's nofuckingway I'm going to actually have a drink because I don't do that because I'm an alcoholic and I'm way better off with that booze out of my life and I love being sober and I'm proud of myself and other people are proud of me and oh yes aren't I so clever and strong wow oh wow look at me clever sober fucking clever sober me.

Sorry.

Off to have a ciggy now.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Things that happen...

I put white wine in my chicken casserole tonight and leaned over the pot as it bubbled away evaporating down.  Smelled nice but didn't trigger anything much.

They were doing wine tastings at the local supermarket - offering little plastic cups filled with good quality white varieties as shoppers entered the bread section. 'Not for me thanks', I said with a smile, then spent the next 5 minutes imagining myself explaining to her why I was turning her down.

Making plans for my 'soberversary', and how I'm going to make an elaborate cake and order myself some treaty takeaways to have for dinner.

Met my deadline for my first chapter of results to my supervisor, emailed it off last night.  Stoked! Totally stoked with myself.  Couldn't have done that if boozing.

Loving reading the new bloggers who have come on the scene and are still early days (less than 90), as it's so good reading them and being reminded about all that gritty, hard work that we do early on in recovery when we're re-training our brains.  Bless every one of you.

Woke up this morning after yet another long heavy good sleep and tried hard to remember what it was like to wake up hungover and knackered after being awake in the night with a fizzy brain, taking endless trips to the loo and feeling terribly guilty.

I am reminded constantly that things can change in a heartbeat, that life is hard, and that I am so pleased to be fully present in the midst of my extended family, clearheaded, openhearted and sober.  That is such a good thing.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Yo..(lack of imagination with post title)

So I've been a bit grumpy, had a tummy bug on the weekend and didn't eat properly for 4 days, have had two drinking dreams, kids are being really demanding and I'm up against a deadline with my MA so am spending all my spare time writing and the rest of the time stressing that I should be writing, hence the grumpy-at-the-kids attitude, Mr D isn't around half as much with the long hours for his new job so I'm doing a lot of the parenting stuff alone and my young guy is now toilet training so I'm cleaning up a lot of accidents, it's raining and I feel like a bit of a stress cadet.

So! Time for some gratitude as someone sensibly suggested to me.

1) I am so fucking happy I could scream it from the mountain tops that I am sober!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I fucking love that I am dealing with all of this shit without the added complication of necking loads of booze.  Sorry about the swearing.

2) My boys are beautiful.  They are noisy, rowdy, pushy, demanding, argumentative wonderful bundles of life. They live life at maximum level and as their mum I have to constantly negotiate, mediate, placate and nurture them not to mention feed, water, clean and rest them but I love them so much I really do. They are good, crazy, special boys.

3) I just bought a lovely scented candle.

4) I have a great husband.

5) I have many many lovely friends scattered around this country and around the world and even though I am still sad to not be close to my friends we have just moved away from I have decided that friends are like precious jewels that you gather up and they never go away.

6) I am actually really enjoying this MA work (although it is hard to be doing it while being a full-time mum, but that is my choice).

7) I have my health, aside from the afore mentioned bug, and did I mention that I am so-fucking-happy that I am looking after myself and not slowly ruining myself with booze??!!

8) I am one month away from being one year sober and that, my friends, is a very very good thing.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Thanks and an apology...

I love getting comments.  I'm quite addicted to them actually.  Every time I write a new post I spend the next day or two obsessively checking to see if anyone has commented.  I am always so happy to hear from people, I really love it when people respond to what I have written.

I love the wise people who help me in tricky times.  I love the lovely people who just say kind things and 'keep going' kind of supportive messages.  I love the thankful people who say your story helps me. I even loved it that one time someone was rude and told me to 'have a bloody drink and stop whining' because it made me mad and all the more determined.  Plus it gave me great material for a bite-back post.

But I want to apologize for not responding to individual comments.  I know a lot of other bloggers do respond to each and every comment directly at the bottom of their own posts - and for me personally I love checking back after I've commented on someone else's blog to see if they've responded to me.  It's so great!  Like a disjointed chat room.

I am so so tempted to start doing that myself, and I've kept mulling over whether to or not.  But the thing is, I just can't.

And it's because of my bloody MA research.  I am actually in the middle of writing a 40,000 word thesis!  I've had a terrible few months of not-studying, what with the house-sale and relocation, have really faltered for a while there but am finally back into the swing of things and am starting to get into some heavy-duty analysis of my data.

I'm actually meant to be working right now while I type this.  And, you see, that's the problem.  I already 'waste' too much time on blogger when I should be working on my studies.  Of course it's not a waste.  Blogging is my secret sobriety weapon and my blogger buddies are my secret support network, my home group, my lovely faceless buddies spread around the world give me so much strength and hope every day.  I love that we're all lumped together in a crazy blog-o-sphere, opening up and supporting and talking and listening.

But if I were to start responding to comments, on top of trying to comment on others blogs as much as possible, plus keep posting twice a week .. I just wouldn't get my MA done.  So that's all I wanted to say right now. I want to tell you all every time you comment that I agree, or thanks, or me too, or wow really! or some such.  But for now, I'm not going to let myself.  Until I put this MA baby to bed anyway.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Up and down and up and down

I'd be lying if I said I never had pangs about drinking.  I do, in a sad 'yeah it would be really nice to have a couple of glasses of wine tonight' kind of way. But, as all good boozers know, it's never about just a couple of glasses of wine.  I've never been able to see the point in a couple of glasses of wine, might as well go for the whole bottle.

(I just imagined drinking a whole bottle of wine and felt quite sick actually).

I've come off my high from the weekend and had an absolutely appalling day yesterday which ended with me yelling at the kids.  It was just a bad day.

Then this morning I'm all tearful about god-knows-what and grouchy about the state of the house and just feeling kind of joy-less.  It's a down alright, and it's come after the up of last weekend.  Ups and downs and ups and downs.  The normal waves of any life I suppose, but felt more acutely now that I live sober.

So yeah .. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I have pangs of sadness that I'm not a lucky moderate drinker who can use alcohol wisely and reap the benefits of a few nice drinks on a Friday night. But I can't.  Just like I'll never have long legs or lovely smooth olive-coloured skin, or be really artistic, I can't drink well.  And so I don't drink at all.

I have to put it in that camp of things that are unchangeable.  The length of my legs I can't change.  Nor can I change my predilection toward heavy wine consumption.  Could I have avoided becoming an alcoholic with a different life-path? Who knows.  That I'll never know.  I think the reason that moment I finally accepted that I was an alcoholic (you can read the post here) was so profound was that it was a deep, total acceptance.  Like a surrender.  Yep, I'm an alcoholic, that means I can't touch alcohol.  Period.

It's a bummer.  It's a bummer.  It's a bummer.  It really is a bummer.  But it's a fact.  So there.  Get over it.  Harden up and get on with it. You can't drink (I'm talking to myself now, clearly going mad here), so suck it up, put your head down and get on with living sober.

Will do.

Love, Mrs D xxx

P.S. I got an email from an online pharmacy/healthcare provider place in the States to tell me they've included me in their list of top sites regarding alcohol addiction.  The list is here. The email was sent to the 'Mrs D is Going Without team'! Ah, that would just be me.  Just little old sober me sitting at my desk, in my living room, in my house, on a street, down under in New Zealand.

A birthday party.

Our middle boy has just turned 6 and we threw a wee party for him on Saturday.  There were about 15 adults and 18 kids at our house for Saturday afternoon.

Luckily Mr D and I enjoy throwing parties and we planned a treasure hunt, a disco competition and lots of yummy nibbles and drinks.

And I thought - bugger it.  Just because I don't drink any more doesn't mean no-one else shouldn't.  Opening a bottle of bubbles can really set a fun tone I think so I bought a couple during the week and had them in the fridge ready for the party.  Mr D went out in the morning and got some beer, and I also had some Virgin Cosmopolitans - a little pink bottle I've found from a company that is making a range of virgin cocktails pre-mixed. They're yummy.

So there I was popping the cork and pouring away for those who wanted it.  A few were happy to accept and a few had pink drinks with me.  Most of the blokes had a beer and the party was away! I was busy organizing the games and helping with present opening and making sure the food was going around and just chat chat chatting with our friends and did not give a toss that I wasn't sharing in the booze.

On the contrary I was actually delighted not to be.  I so love that I've discovered that I can just do everything just as well and happily without boozing.  Normally - before I became sober - I would have gone through the whole party much the same but slowly and steadily filling myself with alcohol.  I don't think it would have been too noticeable, but I would have probably bought at least double the amount for the party and had a bottle or two of red wine for 'after' when people had gone home.

As it was I waved our friends goodbye, tidied up, watched some tele, cleaned my face, put night cream on and went to bed.

Who am I??!! Who is this person who is so unbelievably happy to have realised what was so wrong and made it right.  That's me, yippee!  Sober me.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Yelling from the mountain top

Someone emailed me to ask how the hell did I just decide to stop and then stop?  It does sound so easy when put like that.  And while it hasn't been easy to learn to live without wine smoothing the way .. it actually has been easy for me to not touch the stuff.  I have poured wine for others, sniffed it, had the smell wafting across the table on numerous occasions, bought it, encouraged others to drink it in front of me, and never once since the first few weeks of cravings have I actually thought to pick it up and swallow.  How come?

I do feel really lucky that I feel like this.  But I do think that all the re-training of my brain that I did early on really really helped.  Reading books like Jason Vale's 'Kick the Drink, Easy!' really helped me see wine not as my friend but as the enemy.

Not the enemy so much as that person that you thought was really good for you and then you slowly realise that they're actually a really negative influence and a liability and that you're better off slowly retreating from that person and avoiding hanging out with them.

Like that really un-cool person that you just wish would stop hanging around trying to be your friend when you just find they get in the way and make dumb comments.

I can happily fill the glass of wine and hand it to a friend because I just don't want that stuff in my body twisting my brain and sending it back into an obsessed place which I am tricked into thinking is fun when it's totally not.  I don't want that shit getting in my way, turning me back into that loser (in my own eyes that's what I was) who believes nothing is fun if you're not drinking. 

I actually hate the alcohol industry now for all the brain washing it does to make you think nothing is fun or social without booze.  It's simply not true.  This country is awash (pun intended!) with news items at the moment about our awful drinking culture and the toll it takes on our emergency, medical, social and other services.  But all the chatter is from politicians, medical professionals, the 'experts' etc etc.. but where are the ordinary people standing up saying 'this has got to stop!"

I feel like standing on the top of the mountain yelling for all to hear 'TAKE THE BOOZE AWAY I PROMISE YOU LIFE IS JUST AS FUN!!!'  I'd probably have to add 'AND YOU'LL GAIN BACK LOADS OF TIME YOU DIDN'T EVEN REALISE YOU WERE WASTING' and then follow up with 'OK SO YOU MIGHT BE MORE EMOTIONAL BUT EVEN THAT FEELS RIGHT IN THE BIG PICTURE'.  By now I'd probably have a sore throat from all that yelling but I'd just have to add 'IT IS TOTALLY POSSIBLE TO LIVE WITHOUT ALCOHOL - REALLY IT IS!!!!'.

All the lucky normal drinkers wouldn't need to really respond.  But how I wish all the hundreds of other dysfunctional boozers like me would give sobriety a go.  How much happier would so many of them (and their families) be? 

Righto, time for a cup of tea after all that yelling. Bye!

Love, Mrs D xxx

Whine and moan...

... and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and aarrrggghhhhhhh!!!!!!

That's all I goddam bloody hell do! Quit bloody whining and moaning would ya!  Blah blah blah-d-blah.

Right.  Good.  Now I've got that out of my system I can move on.

I love waking up every morning.  I honestly do.  I love waking up with no guilt, no dry horrors, no need for panadol, no distractions from what's actually in front of me. I've started feeling way more grateful for the fact that I wake up every morning after a good sleep with no sicky feeling in my guts and ready to start the day.

Ok so sometimes that day contains a bit of stress or grumpiness, but it's not overwhelming.  I think I have this belief that to feel grumpy or stressed, and certainly to act to others (my children or husband) like I'm grumpy or stressed, is a FAILURE. I have this stupid long-held belief that it is a FAILURE (use of caps for emphasis, is that too much?!) to be a grump or snappy or shitty.  That I am FAILING (that's the last use of caps I promise) if I am anything but cheery and sunny all the time.  Well how stupid and dumb is that?  I'm going to try harder to stop feeling like that.  I mean, I'm also going to try harder to control those moods and not let them 'run away' on me (i.e. get way too shitty or grumpy) but if I do act like that sometimes - well that's just life.

Now, better get studying, I've got a child-free day and should be working on my thesis!

Love, Mrs D xxx