Day X and Counting

Monday

After last night’s bleak post, I’m trying a different approach today: posting in the AM, and starting the day out on the right foot.

Today, I’ve taken a day off to spend the morning with my boys on a field trip, pumpkin-picking. Before I freelanced, I would have never felt it possible to do this due to the internal pressure that came from working on-site and “climbing the ladder” at an agency. But now, who gives a flip! I love it.

And it’s going to be a wonderful day. I’ve got my son on my lap right now (fussing because I won’t let him tear apart a post-it pad), and my other son probably writing on the walls somewhere. 

But after this post, I’m headed downstairs to fix breakfast and get on with the day. Aside from the fun morning ahead, I have a full afternoon of work, appointments and kids. Looking forward to being more fully present than I was when drinking, and then working out in the evening without concern about “giving up” a drinking evening.

While there are still many struggles ahead-in terms of hours in a day, I’m grateful and happy about my decision more hours than not.

I can do this. Go girl.

Sunday. Tough mental day today…I can’t put my finger on why but just feeling really discouraged. It’s definitely a day I would have drank heavily to escape the mental discomfort.

Drinking helped me escape the hard work of dealing with the unhappy parts of my marriage, and now – I’m confronted with it. And although I’m trying to work on my part of things, some days just feel hopeless. The fact that I’m sober and he’s not is making it harder to find connection.

I just wrote and then deleted most of this post. Struggling with how much of what I’m feeling is petty and due to my own internal angst as I deal with quitting. 

When it comes to dealing with emotions, being sober kind of sucks.

Saturday – full day today, including three parties and my first two “no thanks” conversations.

The first was an annual pumpkin-carving get together with our beach crew. Each year it grows, and this year it was around 50-75 people, not including kids and dogs, all carving away. Lots of beer, food, some shots of whisky and the like going around the campfire. C and I split up as we normally do – C going for the beer, and me trying to find friends to connect with – to keep my mind off the booze.

One of our drinky-est friends came over to talk politics and make plans for our next boozy evening at their basement bar, the Twilight Lounge – where T pours a heavy Manhattan, and keeps the drinks flowing all night long. We usually Uber over, and get blasted while commiserating about the current political landscape. She’s pushing me to get a sitter and come over soon – they need to talk Trump. She’s talking about Uber and making plans for next weekend, and I casually mention that I’ve stopped drinking so could DD if needed. 

She instantly grabs my arm, out of concern, wondering if I’m having health issues. I assured her I wasn’t and then went into my “it isn’t serving me at this point in my life, it was hurting more than it was helping” elevator speech which I’d thought through, but she interrupted me in my first sentence to say, “No worries, no need to make excuses, I’m just glad you’re OK” in kind of a rushy, dismissive way. It made me realize, some people probably just don’t want to hear Why.

My second “No thanks” conversation was at the third party of the day – a clothing swap at a friend-of-a-friend’s house. My girlfriend and I arrived late, dragging our bags and hangers of clothes in, to meet a house full of women – all chatting away over wine, beer and finger foods. The place smelled like chardonnay, and the mood was bubbly. The hostess immediately asked what cocktail she could get us, and I was unprepared. I stuttered out, “Do you have tonic?” She graciously offered a few seltzer options without hesitation, and I was grateful that she didn’t   push anything alcoholic. So I ended up with a mandarin seltzer and shopped the evening away, feeling quite content.

Now I’m home and headed to shower before bed. Tired but looking forward to a hangover free Sunday tomorrow…

Friday the 13th.

And I had the strongest pull to drink tonight that I’ve had so far. Blame it on the date, or the long workday/week, or the fact that C left to go watch the Yankees game with his friends. But after putting the boys down, I went downstairs with the familiar “it’s Friday night, time to par-tayyyyy” feeling. Walked by C’s beer glass and could smell it as I walked into the kitchen. The idea of a cold, thick G&T hitting my lips, alcohol going straight to my brain – no food to blunt it… it all was so strong in my mind.

Interesting because I knew I wasn’t going to cave, but all the thoughts were there anyway. The familiar groves of “you deserve this” and imagining the ritual of fixing it – sound of ice cubes hitting the glass, pulling the lime and tonic out of the fridge. The way I like to cut the lime, twist it over the cubes before pouring the greasy gin into the glass. Then tonic – the sound, the smell… bubbles filling up the glass. Just the right amount of everything, probably 2-3 drinks in one glass.

On a Friday night like this: no husband around, kids down, stressy week over and 2 days ahead to recover, I’d easily go through 3 of these before stumbling off to bed, way too late.

But tonight, I worked on retraining the brain instead.

I mentally changed course, decided on a plan: Eat dinner, find a mindless movie to watch, then have a special drink to celebrate. Who knew Kombucha could be as fun as a beer? Talking out loud, I coached myself through this, then laughed at the absurdity of it. But retraining the brain will take efforts like these. Observing my own brain in its familiar patterns and changing course.

Hard work, so now – back to Wonder Woman.

 

It’s Thursday, the fourth day of my first week back into (semi) full-time agency work. I was anxious heading into this week, as agency life can be stressy and boozy. And I was right to be worried! If I hadn’t set clear limitations upfront, and kept maintaining them throughout the week, I could have easily worked 10-12 hour days. But I’m doing my best to draw lines and remind them I’m freelance with prior commitments that we’ll need to work around.

In my first few days though, I was amazed at how often alcohol was mentioned throughout the work day. As most creative agencies these days, it’s open-office, for better or worse, so you hear the conversations going on around you… and the two most common topics lately, aside from work-related stuff, have been Trump and alcohol.

And it’s not just agency life! Now that I’m trying to avoid it, it seems to be everywhere. Advertisements in my news feed, billboards on the drive into NYC, mentions on the radio, DrinkedIn parties via LinkedIn, Girl’s night out in my Moms of Multiples Group, Wine-o-clock hashtags, Facebook memes about parenting and the need for booze (boy, can I relate!)… I can’t even escape it at my kickboxing class – with people mentioning it left and right.

It’s pervasive. 

I know I’m hyper sensitive right now, but damn. It’s like society has a bad boyfriend and is still quite in love even though it’s super unhealthy… and only the sober folks really get it.

Proud of myself for staying strong this week, and have a little more confidence headed into the weekend. Still on edge in the evenings, but I think? it’s getting better. C and I did lunch today, which was good considering how last night felt, and he asked how it was going. I gave my honest answer – about feeling much more clear-headed and confident, even 12 days in, and how it was getting easier. I try not to have expectations for our relationship, but a not-so-small part of me hopes that my experience will help him quit one day.

Change comes from within though. I know it took me a few years of knowing and wanting to quit, before I actually did it.

 

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” – Henri-Louis Bergson

This will be a short one, I’m typing it from a broken iPad as C took the guest room which doubles as my office. If I had to venture a guess, which we all know is dangerous in marriage especially… I would say that he’s upset by my recent behavior.

Tonight, instead of going to the Modest Mouse show he’d arranged tickets for (at my request, months ago), I decided I was better off staying close to home and kickboxing instead. The concert was at a bar, and I would have been going by myself (C goes to bed early due to work schedules, and somehow my concert-going friends were all busy). It seemed dicey.

So this translated into him putting boys to bed while I left to go exercise, for the second night this week.

We’ve been increasingly distant over the last few months, primarily because I haven’t put in the effort to connect that I used to. All the effort, unreciprocated, was starting to make me angry. And that was no good for anyone.

So, I decided to love myself the way I wanted to be loved, and not worry too much about his moods and negativity.

And honestly, that’s worked out quite well for me so far. But I don’t think he feels the same.

Right now, I’m grateful for the bed to myself (no snoring!) and the ability to stay up with the light on and read. It’s the small things. And you know what, I love myself for getting stronger, healthier and more independent every day. Let him worry about himself.

I’m quite content.

Double digits!

Life’s crazy is continuing on without regard to the internal struggle I’m going through, and it has me thinking about the masks we wear.

One of the deeper issues I’m processing lately, mostly below the consciousness level until now, is the idea that I might actually have an issue with alcohol addiction. I know that sounds ridiculous, given that I’m making such a big deal about quitting – surely I must have already come to terms with being an alcoholic. But I haven’t. It was hard to even type that word out.

The subconscious struggle is fundamentally whether or not I actually need to be doing this. Am I really addicted? Is there really a problem? Could I just cut back? Am I making more drama about this than I need to? Everyone else is happily having their beer tastings, or work happy hours, or wine-o-clocks, or Mommy’s happy juice – and living apparently normal, healthy, balanced lives.

Am I really that person that can’t, ever again?

It’s rather bleak.

 

Still itchy, but surprised at how smoothly today went.

I think the firehose of onboarding at the new agency and creative push over the weekend/late night last night depleted my brain so that I was left on auto-pilot. And right now auto-pilot says, No drinking…just do the next thing on your list… kids bath & bedtime, kickboxing, check in with sober online group, post here, read book… bed.

Almost done.

Of note: husband has been following me around in the evenings as I go through the boy’s bedtime routine, out of concern, I believe, for my ability to handle it without losing my temper. Guess I’ve been snappier than normal during this last week. Usually HE’s the one losing his shit, but now it’s me. I hope this settles down soon. I’ve had to swallow my pride a couple times now and let him take over. Grateful that he’s supporting me in this, but also a bit ashamed that I’m that on edge.

I’ve heard that it takes 7 days for the alcohol to leave your system, so right now – the urges are all mental. I will say that I’ve noticed a clear-headedness that wasn’t there before, and a connectedness with the people around me, including coworkers, friends and family. I didn’t realize how often I was avoiding contact with people because I was either drunk/buzzed and unsure of how I would sound, or hungover and wanting to be more collected before we spoke. 

Interesting article on addiction/connection, with some neuroscience nuggets.

Really weak right now.

Almost through the weekend of this first week, but I hear that nagging voice. Just one… why not? You know how good it will feel, how great it will taste. Take the stress off.

Feeling itchy, literally and figuratively.

One of the physical issues I’ve had that caused me to examine life a little more closely was a constant all-over itch that got increasingly worse over the last few months. After weeks of testing and doctor visits, I was diagnosed with a condition called dermatographia. Basically, my mast cells (the white blood cells that release histamine) are a little hyper-sensitive, especially in times of stress. When my skin gets touched, or scratched, or pressed on, they break out the histamine and I get hives. So basically, life gives me hives.

And the stress has been pretty high lately, so this condition is the worst it’s been. I’m on high doses of antihistamine, but since quitting alcohol, even those haven’t touched the itch.

Anyhow, I’m sitting here, scratching and wanting a drink, and looking at my twins – doing their thing – bouncing from one activity to another at light speed. Just in the last half hour, we’ve:

• painted halloween costumes
• driven a spaceship (space heater)
• sprayed the front garden with organic bug killer
• played with a cardboard box that was alternately a bee cage, a robot costume, a drum, and a “delivery package”
• dressed up as Super Why
• had a pee accident
• made a mess of daddy’s desk
• begged for a snack and after being turned down, thrown a major fit
• done cannonballs off the bed into the “ocean” and swam around on the floor

No lie. And now the crazies are writing pretend notes on a notepad (allowing me two minutes to write this), and I’m being drawn into playing puppets… back later for an evening update.

Late PM update:

I rode the wave and got through the witching hour. Left to run an errand while husband did bath time, and grabbed a couple kombucha drinks (new to me, but will be my treat tonight).  Now boys are in bed, and I’m headed into an evening of work. Hoping to get to bed early so I can be ahead of the game for tomorrow’s stressball of a day, and have planned out an exercise routine for every evening this week to ward off the inevitable cravings that will come from the new work pressure.

Definitely feeling more present with the boys already, and today’s reflection on their busy-ness was a helpful reminder of why I’m doing this. 

Onward.

Work stress is putting a damper on what would normally have been a lovely “local summer” day, here at the Jersey Shore. Boys and I went to a new playground at the beach this morning and had a blast, but I knew I had work waiting for me when we got home. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

It’s a new freelance client, a large agency with a good reputation. I really want to wow them with this challenging assignment. Of course it comes with an impossible deadline and I’m working in a vacuum. Usually this type of work comes with a partner who you can bounce ideas off, and bitch about the crazy ask. On my own, and in this particular moment, I’m feeling quite insecure. A little insecurity is normal at this point in the brainstorming process, I’ve come to expect it. But right now, I feel even more handicapped than normal. A little fragile. Not quite myself. Not sure what to expect.

So I’m procrastinating, here instead.

If it weren’t for this minor drama turning me into a ball of stress, I might be looking for healthy, active ways to fill the flat and dangerous vacuum of my Saturday afternoon and evening. But I feel tied to the computer and my thoughts. My brain needs to perform, but half of it feels tied up in resisting the temptation to go grab a “well-deserved” Saturday evening cocktail. I mean, it’s almost 5-o-clock!

I just need to push through, knuckle-down and do it. Maybe a trip to the gym could be my reward for getting some thinking done this afternoon.

Last night’s bonfire with the husband didn’t end well. He slowly drank himself into the chair while I tried, in various light-hearted ways, to engage in conversation. Attempts were met with increasing reluctance and finally, mockery. I just got up and left. Felt angry and trapped. Was I overreacting? Maybe. Was he acting like an ass? Maybe. Will he remember it today? No.

Fucking alcohol.