Yay! 31 days

Yep, I made it. I really didn't have much doubt I could, only because I have done the one month cleanse before. The hard part is going to be the next 30 days. Outside of  2 Pregnancies, I haven't gone 60 days without drinking since 1985. That is a pretty crazy thing to look at... written down... now public knowledge. Wow, 27 years.....My life is far from wasted but more than a few days are lost from my life due to hangovers and over indulgence.
So I feel like I'm starting all over, this being my true first month of sobriety. It will be the most challenging. I have a few events that are coming up which will really put me to the test. As I progressed through last month I was able to stay sober easily because I was in the comfort and safety of my home and routine. This weekend my family went to the beach and I felt challenged at every turn. There was so much down time and when we were doing something, it was dining at a restaurant or sitting on the beach, or sitting in the hot tub, snuggled in watching movies. Everything that goes well with a glass of wine or a couple bottles as the case may be. I was agitated, grumpy, and miserable. At home when I start to feel that twinge come on I do something, walk, run, clean....blog. OH how I missed my blog. I wanted to write down my feelings so bad. This is a huge outlet for me and a way to process my emotions. Instead I paced and tried to think of things to do. I read two books...."Mommy doesn't drink here anymore" by Racheal Brownell and "The Long Run" by Mishka Shubaly. Both were great books and different paths to sobriety. I contemplated drinking and got close a few times, rationalizing that my husband doesn't know the kind of commitment I have made (hindsight this might be the time to tell him). It boiled down too...I would know, ME, MYSELF and I. I couldn't come back to this blog and celebrate I had been sober 31 days. The disappointment in myself would have been huge. So while I sat at dinner eating my wonderful crab stuffed Halibut, I imagined how exotic a glass of Cabernet would taste with this meal, beating  myself with the progression of events that would take place if I have one glass. This actually played out in my mind. Have you ever read "If you give a mouse a cookie"?

This is what is sounds like
If you give me a glass of wine, then I will have to have two. If I have two, then I will have broke the cycle of sobriety. If I have broken the cycle of sobriety then I can stop and get a bottle  of wine on the way back to the house. When I stop and get a bottle on the way home I might as well grab 2. But since I have had two glasses already and I stop and buy 2 bottles then I will only finish half of the second one tonight. So I might as well get 3 bottles at the store because I will need a full bottle to go with the half a bottle left over from tonight. And since I'm already planning to drink tomorrow. I might as well get 6 bottles so that I can have 2 for each day we are here since I'm drinking again.

Needless to say....once I got to the store in my head I was done. What a train wreck. Happily I did not drink, maintained my grumpiness and just tried to freaking relax. Drank a lot of ginger ale an milk Sunday and ate way to my onion dip and chips. :)

31 days sober. Relieved I was able to blog today. Ran 4 miles this morning. Making chili for dinner.

AHHH! Home.

 

Off to the beach

Haven't given drinking much thought lately but this impromptu trip is starting to pull on the inner strings a little. Typically alcohol would be present and forefront on such a trip as this. I'm scrambling around the house thinking of things to take that will help with distraction. I just finished my book so I will need to find another before we leave. I won't be able to blog while I'm there so my safety crutch is gone.
I asked my husband if he wanted me to pick up some beer to take and he said he wasn't really planning to drink, unless we went to a restaurant, then he might have a few. GOD!.....why can't I be like him.
All will be fine. I plan on running, taking walks and doing some shopping.
Only 3 days left till 30. I will be happy to get over this hump.

Friendships

Spent the day with a dear friend who I have literally know my whole life. We met when we were 7. I remember being fresh from the corn state and standing in front of the class being introduced to all new people. I was a pretty easy going kid and everyone was a potential playmate, so this wasn't a huge transition for me. As we were gathering our things and I was ready to board the bus my teacher partnered me with a cute, tan, blond haired kid. He was really shy but only lived two houses down from me and would help me get off at the right stop. I don't remember the bus ride home just clips of images as we said goodbye and he watched me walk to my house. 35 years later we are having lunch at Red Robin talking about our plans for the weekend and his up coming birthday.
He has been in my life for what seems like forever. He is more family than friend now and my kids consider him an uncle. He was a devoted friend and we did everything together. Growing up I think I was more his shadow than he ever was mine. He was the kid with all the cool toys and we spent hours at his house, in the fields, and running amuck through the neighborhood. Freedom that sadly my children will never have.
As we grew up, we continued to do everything together, including drinking. I remember the first time we shared a beer. We stole it from the fridge behind the bar at his house. His dad always drank Miller Lite. We snuck the beer out quietly, headed to the front yard around the corner and popped it open. At first we both looked at each other with disgust from the taste, but then the rush of alcohol hit, filling our perfect and untainted bodies with a new kind of euphoria. They say, children who try or taste alcohol at a young age are more likely to become alcoholics......hmm....that's interesting.  We finished that beer and I remember saying lets get another one. My friend said "no, my dad might notice". Even as young as thirteen my brain couldn't just let me have that little bit. I wanted more. So our life in the 80's began. If you have ever watched 16 candles, Breakfast Club, or Valley Girl you would understand the kind of social scene and parties we attended every weekend. This is not an exaggeration. We would go to parties (never quite figured out who's parents would let a hundred teenagers destroy their house every weekend) and we would drink until we puked or passed out. I always had to be home by midnight so we would get an early start at 7:00, find someone to buy us alcohol and we would set out for the night. How we made it home alive was beyond me.
As the years passed we grew up, my life heading towards career, marriage, kids. His stalling out and maintaining a holding pattern just past 1994, but somehow we always met back in the middle with alcohol as our bonding agent. So today, I'm sitting across from him at lunch, me with my tea and him with his beer, talking. The whole time thoughts are pouring into my head about where this relationship is headed. Struggling to find some other commonality. I'm starting to feel agitated and uncomfortable not because he's drinking in front of me, but because I have this feeling of contempt about who we are and why are we still friends. I felt uneasy watching him slowly slip into a nice calming buzz. Time slowing down for him and me getting impatient because I'm struggling to make conversation, when usually the alcohol steers us down roads of old or on some tangent about this or that. I'm trying not to let myself judge or get irritated.  Maybe knowing he needs to stop as much as I do and if he did stop we could meet once again back in the middle.  I'm still not sure where we will end up once he realizes I can no longer be his drinking buddy, I guess we will find out on his Birthday night. I know we will remain family, too many years have passed for that to change. I may be speculating in a negative light. He may be fine and not care one smidgen about my new sobriety. I guess the problem is stemming for from me. Why can't I just accept who he is and the differences in our lives. Isn't that what I'm expecting him to do for me?

The Habits that Crush us- Zenhabits.com

The Habits That Crush Us

‘Don’t panic.’ ~Douglas Adams

Post written by Leo Babauta.

Why is it that we cannot break the bad habits that stand in our way, crushing our desires to live a healthy life, be fit, simplify, be happier?
How is it that our best intentions are nearly always beaten? We want to be focused and productive, exercise and eat healthy foods, stop smoking and learn to get rid of debt and clutter, but we just can’t.
The answer lies in something extremely simple, but something most people aren’t aware of:
We don’t know how to cope with stress and boredom in a healthy way.
The bad habits we’ve formed are often useful to us, in dealing with stress and boredom. Consider the bad habits that fit this bill:

• Smoking
• Internet procrastination
• Eating junk food
• Drinking
• Being rude/angry/depressed
• Watching TV or playing video games (if you become addicted & sedentary)
• Shopping (getting into debt, building clutter)
• Procrastinating on finances, paperwork, clutter (too stressful)
• Inactivity (avoiding exercise is a stress avoidance technique)
• Biting nails, chewing hair, clenching jaw

This isn’t a complete list, but all of these habits fill a strong need: they are ways to cope with stress and/or boredom. We have formed them as coping mechanisms, and they stick around because we don’t have better ways of coping.
So what if instead, we replaced them with healthier ways of coping? We’d get rid of the problems of these bad habits, and start getting the benefits of better habits.

Better Coping Habits

How can we deal with stress and boredom instead? There’s no one answer, but the habits we form should be ones that lead to healthier results. Some ideas:

• Walk/run/swim/bike
• Do pushups, pullups, squats
• Yoga/meditation
• Play with friends/kids
• Create, write, play music, read when we’re bored
• Learn to enjoy being alone, instead of being bored
• Take a daily walk and enjoy nature
• Deal with finances, clutter, paperwork immediately, in small steps, so that it doesn’t get stressful
• Take control of a situation: make a list, get started in baby steps, so things don’t get stressful
• Learn to be mindful of your breathing, body tension, stressed-out thoughts
• Get some rest
• Learn to savor healthy food that you find delicious
• Slow down
• Take a hot bath
• Learn to live in the present

These are some good examples. Each habit above will help cope with or prevent stress or boredom. If you replace the bad habits with these, your life will be less stressful and healthier. You’ll have less debt, less clutter, less fat, less disease.

Changing the Habits

The old habits of coping didn’t build up overnight, and they won’t go away overnight either. We built them up through years of repetition, and the only way to change them is also years of repetition.
But an important start is to realize why we do them — stress and boredom, largely — and realize that there are other ways to deal with these two problems. We need to be aware when stress and boredom start to kick in, and instead of being afraid of them, realize that they are problems easily solved by other habits. Let’s take the fear out of stress and boredom. Let’s learn that we can beat them simply, and prove that with repeated good habits.
Once you have that realization, follow the usual Zen Habits steps to changing a habit:

1. Pick one habit at a time.
2. Start very small – just a minute or two, if you want it to stick.
3. Use social motivation like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or email.
4. Be very conscious of your triggers, and do the habit consciously every time the trigger happens.
5. Enjoy the new habit. You’ll stick with it longer if you do.

We have been crushed by the habits we’ve formed out of fear of stress and boredom. We can fight back, by learning to breathe, to smile, to go slowly. We can humble these giants that crush us by turning them into mere gnats to be shooed away with a smile.

22days and 13.1 miles

I haven't ran over 8 miles since August. I have been half marathon ready for 4 years. This means that on any given day I could go out and run 13 miles, if I chose to do so. Even in the wake of alcohol I could pull this off. So when I say I fell into the deep end, the pool being a bottomless pit of wine, I was not exaggerating.
Just a reminder to those who may have not been following along, I have drank daily or at least 4 times a week for as long as I can remember. At least since I was 23 and could afford to do so. I would adjust my drinking (or not) based on what I had to do the next day. One of my many strategies to maintain functionality. The scales finally tipped at the end of 2010. I had just finished my second marathon in October. I was exhausted and my body needed to heal so I took time off from running. Running is my"strategy for controlled drinking" and without it my vice quickly began to run full course. Disgusted with myself by January and needing to run again I decided to sign up for another marathon in June (this would fix my wanting to drink all the time HA!). My previous marathon was in October and really put a damper on my summer fun. I didn't like the fact that last summer I couldn't sit in the sun, enjoying cocktails when ever I wanted (which was everyday). If I ran the marathon in June,  I would be in great shape, which would carry over to my Hood to Coast run (a 12 man relay covering 197 miles) in August.  I could enjoy the summer and then when the kids went back to school I would start my training again. I WAS CONCEIVING A DRINKING PLAN FOR 7 MONTHS IN THE FUTURE. This should have raised a Red flag the size of Texas. So January came around and I abandoned my usual beginning of the year cleanse and managed my drinking around my running. I still wasn't in that bad of shape. I could still run 13.1 miles. The biggest change I noticed was I could drink and run. My main defense against drinking had finally been shattered.

Over the next 6 months I ran, trained (not well) and drank. I didn't feel great but I did it. Telling myself this wasn't so bad. I was less hungover because I couldn't drink "two" bottles of wine and run, so I was only drinking one. I saved the two bottle nights for when I didn't have to get up the next day. My long runs were on Saturday. I would run 15, 16  miles come home and drink for the rest of the day. Sometimes finishing 3 beers shy of an 18 pack. Enjoying the clear, clean buzz I got because I had just purged my body of all the toxins.
The marathon came and went. Not my best time but not my worst. Finally summer was here. I had a marathon under my belt and I could enjoy the summer without the shackles of my strategies. I didn't have to run in the morning if I didn't want too. My long runs were so minor compared to what I had be doing so drinking the night before become a non issue. All the protective coatings I had applied to myself to keep me safe were striped. I no longer had the blue and white rope with egg shaped buoys bobbing on the water, defining the shallow end of the high functioning drunk I have been for so long. Gradually I floated out into the deep end. I knew I was headed there but didn't care. I kept telling myself I needed this, I deserved this. I soon spun everything into drama so it would give me a reason to drink.

It's January 22nd. I have been back in training since Jan 2. Amazingly enough 3 weeks of running my legs held me through the gruelling 13 miles. While I was running I talked to myself about what I had done. Why I had let myself stop running and stop training. I realized it needed to happen. At some point this had to happen. How much longer could I continue to balance alcohol in my life. My husband and I went for a walk Saturday(we haven't done this in forever). He said he has noticed a difference in us and he liked it. I still haven't really talked to him about what I'm going through. I haven't shared with him yet that I can no longer drink.....forever. Bits and pieces have come out but nothing to declare eternal sobriety. But I have noticed we are healing. He joked; "it's probably my tolerance of him that has improved".  In some ways yes, but mostly I feel better, I'm listening, and I have thrown out all the made up drama I held him accountable for. Yesterday, I came home after my race, watched football, drank lots of water, and enjoyed the high you get from running. I woke up this morning feeling a little achy but happy, in love and ready to run again.

Diversity of Alcoholism

I was talking with my friend yesterday and we stumbled on the subject “Types” of Alcoholics. At first she thought she might have offended me, suggesting there is a “type” of alcoholic. I assured her she had not and this has been one of the biggest obstacles I have had to overcome.

The Diversity of Alcoholism.

There are as many types of alcoholism as there are people who are struggling with it. Each one of us has a different story, a different reason for drinking, and a different playing field. One reason why I struggled for so long, was comparing me to what I thought an alcoholic was. I wasn’t looking at myself as an alcoholic because, I was still able to get up in the morning, complete projects, run a marathon, take care of my kids, and all my friends were drinking right along with me. In my mind an alcoholic was someone who couldn’t keep it together, they sat on park benches clinching tightly to a paper wrapped bottle. They had drama, chain smoked, still dressed in the 70’s, slept all day. The stereo types went on and on in my head. Even when I saw my mother going down the dark path and witnessed firsthand what alcohol can do. I rejected that I could ever be that person. I just thought she was weak and I would never let myself get to that point. How could I, I have always lived by a strict rule of “learn from others mistakes and do not repeat them” My own ego and arrogance let me continue to live in a world of denial. I could and would be the master alcohol, everyone else around me didn’t seem to have a problem with alcohol. So I spent countless days and years coming up with strategies to keep myself under control. If I ran more I can’t drink as often. I will only buy one bottle of wine because I know I can still function the next day, I can only drink on the weekends….it didn’t matter though. It only took one drink, one excuse, one reason to get me started again, and again, and again. I could write a play book titled “101 ways to balance life with alcohol”. But eventually I abandoned my coveted strategies and let my urges and wants take over, leading me down the proverbial path of total and complete alcoholism.

I am learning quite clearly that diversity is what makes us all unique and interesting even in alcoholism. Understanding just because I’m not “that” person drinking at 8:00am, going to a bar where everyone knows my name, or getting DUI’s doesn’t mean I don’t have a real problem.  I didn't need to do any of those things or be any of those people to be an alcoholic, I was doing it already being me.

Embracing my diversity as an alcoholic is now helping me continue to want to stay sober. I know what "type" of alcoholic I am.  Reading and finding people with stories like mine, are helping me stay focused and preparing me for my Sober life. Thankfully seeing the diversity of alcoholism has helped me break through the stereo types and finally acknowledged who"I" am.

Day 19

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other”

-Abraham Lincoln

The book I'm reading is okay. We definitely have a shared path. Reading about her early adventures with alcohol hit home causing me to reflect on my own past and wince in horror at some of the things I've done and positions I had put myself into. I can only thank god that my life turned out as well as it did in spite of a multitude of bad choices. I think I'm still lying to myself about what and who I was with Alcohol. Every book talks about being honest and telling everyone the truth most especially yourself. I openly admit I have a problem, just not to everyone. But to the ones that are helping me.  I'm not telling people to give myself an out if I suddenly fall off the wagon, it's more I don't want pity or the badge branded across me. I guess I'm afraid I won't look like the shinny star, the girl that can some how manage to do so much I've been for so long. I don't want people to look at me and start putting two and two together and say to themselves "Ah, now that totally makes sense". I don't think I'm lying to myself as much as hiding behind a huge wall that is my EGO. I can also be hugely critical of others which is a trait I wish I could get rid of. So my critical self Ego is telling me others are going to judge me, make me wear a Scarlet shirt with a big fat "A" for alcoholic, and watch me under a microscope to see if I fail. And if for some reason I did relapse then I become another black slash on the Alcohol statistic chart. I guess that is the real motivation, isn't it. Not give anyone the opportunity to do this. But then am I quitting because I want too or now because I'm afraid to publicly look like a failure, which alcohol has already done.

So, back to quote above. The only person that matters to my success is me. I'm the only one who can make this work, feel confident in who I am, and be resolute to change. I need to feel comfortable that others might judge me but most will help me.