Sunday, February 19, 2012

Girls dinner out...

Went out for a friends birthday dinner last night.  Five of us, all mums, with 18 kids between us! (Left at home with the Dads I hasten to add).  I had volunteered to be the taxi driver as we all live within a few blocks of each other.  I started the pick-ups at 7.30pm so we all had time to settle our kids down and get ourselves a little bit glammed up.

In the past this would be quite a problematic time for me, going out at 7.30, because I used to begin my drinking at 5pm.  My drinking habit in the final few years was an at-home solo endeavour.  Quite a private, steady, heavy drinking habit.  Not fall-over wasted most of the time, but easily a bottle and a bit every second night.  No-one but Mr D was aware of how regular this steady, heavy drinking was (and even he took a long time to come round to understanding when I was trying to tell him how dysfunctional it was becoming).

So yeah .. on a night like this one I would have had to try very hard to slow myself down beforehand and limit my pre-outing drinks to just 2 or so.  And then while out I would have had to try very hard to not drink as quickly as I usually would and 'out' myself as a boozer (unless it was a boozy group in which case I'd go for it).

We got to the restaurant last night and they took a while choosing what wine to order during which I did feel a bit self-conscious which was annoying.  Still getting used to being the non-drinker I suppose.  None of them seemed fazed however, they know all about my new sober life (I talk about it very openly to take any heat out of gossip or guess-work about how bad I was), and the birthday girl ordered me a Lemon, Lime and Bitters after ordering their Sauvignon Blanc. 

Once the drinks arrived it was fine and I didn't care at all that I wasn't drinking the wine.  I could smell it though!  And more interesting was that they all sipped away SO SLOWLY!!!!!!!  Man, they were like snails getting through that one bottle.  Bloody hell.  I thought 'don't they want to drink and get all excited that they're out child free celebrating a birthday??!!'  Clearly not.  Then I thought 'oh no, that just used to be my attitude'. 

They did order a second bottle, so two bottles in total between 4 of them.  It noticably loosened them up a tiny bit, probably because they wouldn't normally drink half a bottle of wine (!) but really it was a very moderate session.

After we left the restaurant (Japanese, tasty) we went up the road to a busy, trendy bar and ordered coffees and hot chocolates and laughed while watching the hip, young crowd drinking, chatting, flirting and dancing.  Then then I drove us all home.

Then - to top off my unusually mature behaviour - I washed my face and put on night cream!!!!!!!!!!!  Who am I?????????

Sober Mrs D, that's who.

Bye xxxx

5 comments:

  1. You are "Super-sober Woman" that's who you are!! Night cream even!! (gosh more organised than myself!!) hehe.
    Sounds like a fab night! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are awesome! I am so impressed you handled all of that so gracefully. And I totally understand when you wrote about how slowly they drank. I've noticed people leaving wine in their glass... and never finishing it?? Omg I never, ever, ever would have done that. Even falling down looped (though mostly in my home, as I was primarily a private drinker) I would never 1. drink slowly or 2. leave wine in a glass.

    Great post - have an equally great night!

    ReplyDelete
  3. OMG! You had me laughing out loud. I always think the same thing when I'm out with a group..."holy crap they drink slow" and, "are they going to order another bottle or not?!" Not to mention the..."they are LEAVING WINE IN THE GLASS!!!"

    I heard a joke once about someone asking an alcoholic how much he drank. He looked at them like they were crazy and said "All of it!" Yep...that was me.

    Night cream! Impressive.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hahaa you are the absolutely marvellous sober mrs D! Oh how I enjoy reading your blog! And it is UNBELIEVABLE how similar we are in our alcoholic ways. Seriously, this could have been one of my tellings of being out and about with friends.

    Thank you so much for sharing, and take care dear mrs D *hugs*

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks Mrs D! I had my first sober dinner out on Saturday night and ENJOYED it! Focused on the food and the company rather than the wine bottle/who's drinking as fast as me/who's judging me..blah blah. I'm inspired enough to start my own blog which is amazing for me as I like to keep things fairly private (especially my drinking!)and thanks to all of you for sharing your stories with me- I'm truly grateful to have found these blogs.
    *hugs* to all.

    ReplyDelete