Squirrel!!

Well son of a gun! I think I know at least one reason that I drank. Seems this mind of mine is a very busy place. I think my three year old has the right words for it..."pew pew pew!" (insert fake gun) It is a bit like the fourth of July up in my head. Here comes a beautiful thought, boom, pow, where did it go? Squirrel!
One of the mantras that has become a favorite of mine on this journey, is "what is the point?" Meant to refer to drinking. As in, after that first lovely glass of wine, when you move on to many more, and never even get a buzz, when you only seem to be getting fat and miserable, what is the point? That question seemed quite easy for me to answer, and that saying has gotten me through some tough spots. If I take that saying even further, it gets me to my thinking. What is the point? A sober mind is full of them! Holy hell it is a virtual factory of ideas! A busy nonstop place. But very unfocused! What to do with it? Today I plugged in the headphones, streamed some Pandora and reorganised the kitchen. All the while trying to focus even one complete thought. My station of choice? Love songs. hmmm....what is up with that I wonder... I think, it is me trying to love me, me trying to get over loving wine, (they play breakup songs too) and me trying to love my life and all those in it. Well that thought just came from nowhere, but that is the point for me, of this whole blog. A place to focus. A place with less squirrels! My friend told me that a dark room, lotus position and a candle would have me seeing squirrels. Said it scared the hell out of her! Well although that sounds incredibly exciting *wink* I don't think I need to conjure more squirrels. Fuckers are everywhere already. But I suppose without all of my random thoughts, I wouldn't catch the gems. So today, I am focused on my mind. I am trying to get in there and take an inventory. The one clear thought that I have from this effort today is this....get ready for random..... My head is completely full of experiences. It is completely full of DRUNK experiences. Drinking memories. Wine memories.  Of course not all have alcohol in them, but in the experiences category, the vast majority do. So... the big thought for the day is this, I need a new reference library up in my head. The old one is out dated. Of course, you can't build a library of SOBER experiences over night. But it is a new goal. Something that I actually look forward to. Replacing the wine soaked books in my head with new ones. Filling the spaces with memories of the sober me.

                                                   ~Rae

P.S. The first song that popped on after I wrote this blog? Without You. HAHAHAHA!
And I think the wine rack would make a lovely towel holder! Squirrel!! xoxo

Identity Crisis?

Not too long after I started my new sober journey, I ran a little caption contest on my business Facebook page. It was a photo of a deep in thought me. I simply asked, "What am I thinking?" The responses caught me a little off guard. I heard many that included some sort of alcohol, and me wishing I had it in my hand. These comments all came from people who didn't yet know that I had quit drinking. That was the day I let Facebook know, that this wino had given it up! So then what? It seemed very clear to me, that who I was, at least to a lot of people, even if meant complimentary, was an EXTREME lover of wine, and Fireball.  Maybe it was a phenomena I would only encounter on Facebook? Maybe the posts on my wall, the cartoons, the photos...

                              Maybe they gave the wrong impression? I really doubt it!!! So now what?  I don't feel like I can even begin yet to explain who I am without alcohol. It was definitely a big part of me, and obviously associated with almost everything I did.
I get a lot of statements like, " So how long are you not going to drink?" and a whole lot of "Why?" There seems to be a general disbelief and shock when I tell people I have quit drinking. A look on their faces that says, "Who are you?"  Really the only stock answer that I have is, "I am still fun!" I have yet to have anyone tell me that yes, I am still fun, but DAMN IT I AM!! Ha! (OK, my husband may disagree when I bitch about beer breath.)
What I do know, is I am liking the new me. Even if I don't completely know me yet. I think it is an improvement. Hell, I know it is!

                                                                   ~Rae

Welcome to my sober life.

I was inspired to write this blog because of a book I am reading. I have read many books, and I will surely reference them. But the latest, Mrs. D is Going Without by Lotta Dann is by far the best so far. Why? Because she has told the back story for me. Well, at least the guilt ridden screaming voice in your head telling you that you suck part.  But unlike Mrs. D, I didn't wait until five o'clock.  If you want to know more and really get some awesome advice, head on over to www.livingwithoutalcohol.blogspot.com. Mrs. D is the shit!

I'm 41. Married and have a fifteen and a three year old! That alone should explain why I drank. *wink*.  Up to my mid thirties, I was an occasional social drinker. I was often amazed that in a family of hard hitters, I had somehow dodged the alcoholic bullet. Or so I thought. So what the fuck happened?!! This is my story.
I am on day 119 of my new life. Never in my entire life did I EVER want to be alcohol free. No frickin way! I managed the social fun and looked forward to drinks when the times called for it. Then I met wine. Oh glorious lovely Cabernet! I am going to streamline this here. Maybe in flashbacks later I will have stories to tell, and I definitely do, but it looked something like this...
 Open a bottle, drink it.  Repeat daily. One bottle not enough? Start buying the box, so that the guilt monster doesn't step in. But the good box for Christ sake! A box has four bottles. That was good for two days. Now go to lunch. Of course I will have wine with lunch! Before I head home from work, I will stop for happy hour and have a lovely Martini. Not wine, I have that at home. (I hope) Weekday? Weekend? Didn't matter. The only difference was the guilt level. Less guilt on the weekend. What is in the cup? Most likely alcohol. What kind? Depended. About the only thing I never did was drink a red wine in the morning. But white, absolutely. Best breakfast ever.  I always had a drinking buddy too! Man were we bad for each other! A retired lady and a self employed make my own schedule lush. Look out back patio! We spent hours, days even, sitting on the patio drinking wine, smoking cigarettes and bitching about the world. Good times. Do that enough, and you will either see the problem, or die too soon. I had tried to quit drinking last spring, lasted a month, then I was in it harder than ever. I had tried because for the first time in my life, my Doctor called me an alcoholic. Well of course the blood work showed stress! There was an entire bottle of wine in my blood!! *snicker*  I do think to this day that the results were a bit askew, because two weeks later they were all normal. Didn't matter. The fact that the Dr. pissed me off is beside the point. Or maybe a good point. So I have made it through tailgate season, Thanksgiving, Christmas and a New Years party at my house.  I have easy days, and days that I want to smack the shit out of anyone I can.  Being around alcohol is easy. Being around the effect of alcohol is not as easy. Quite irritating actually. I am still in the phase of figuring out why I can't moderate alcohol. But honestly I don't think I need to understand why I can't. I need to accept that I can't. When I run through what having a glass of wine tonight would look like, I still can not imagine having one glass of wine.  I can imagine and feel every emotion that follows one glass. I'd want more. Much much more. I'd wake up the next day wanting an alcohol breakfast and lunch. And so it would be. So no. No wine for me. I can't be trusted. Knowing that, is a good and empowering thing. So here I am, planning to write it all down. Mostly for myself, so I have a record of success and a reminder of struggle. A map of my journey.

                                    ~Rae