January 1st, 2019                                                                                                 Day 260

On this New Year’s Day I am so very grateful for 2018. I accomplished some pretty amazing things in 2018. My life changed for the better in unimaginable ways. It is difficult for me to express the gratitude I am feeling as I write this. I did not, however, feel that way on January 1, 2018. In fact, on January 1, 2018, I may have been at my very lowest.

I remember the last weeks and months of 2017 very clearly. I had opened my business on November 4th, 2017 and the months leading up to it were extremely stressful. Come to think of it, the last few years had been extremely stressful. I was still reeling from two close deaths in the family from the previous two years, one on New Year’s Day, a big move from the city where I had grown up and lived my entire life to now being self employed in a new place with no public transportation and no close neighbors. I was, and still am, so amazingly grateful for the opportunity to start my own business but I was scared, incredibly anxious and filled with self doubt. Keeping a schedule of ten+ hour days, six days a week to keep the store open had curbed my drinking quite a bit. I resented not having the weekends off and spending long, lonely days at the store with little business but I admittedly needed the long schedule. When I was home, I was drinking.

With the move, my husband and I had purchased our first real home together. Truth be told, I still occasionally long for our 600 square ft, okay 599 square ft, first Co-Op apartment and the time and place that went with it. The move from the city to the suburbs afforded us the opportunity to purchase a beautiful, older, 3500+ square foot home on over 2 acres of land in a small, historic district. The house was in relatively good shape with beautiful bones but there was cosmetic work that badly needed to be done, before long the fixes would not be superficial. I love the work and seem to have a natural talent for painting walls, fixing plaster, ripping up carpets and refinishing floors, among other things. No doubt passed down from my mother who taught me how to paint and plaster and my Grandfather, who I never met. My husband, L, and I decided that it made the most sense for me to take a small part time job and that I would spend the remainder of the time working on the house. One quick estimate for floor refinishing and it was an easy decision to make. I could save us a lot more money from my efforts than I could earn so I took a part time job, 8:00am – 12:00pm, Monday through Friday. I was a bookkeeper and an administrative assistant for a small preschool and it was a perfect fit. I soon settled in to my new routine and I was home shortly after lunchtime to change and get down to work on the house. I also had another new routine. I would crack open my first beer of the day at around 2:00pm. Long, hot days, doing work I loved, no one else around, the iPad playing whatever music or news show I wanted, feeling productive and well, pretty buzzed. The only saving grace I think I had throughout my drinking career is that I could barley handle anything harder than light beer. Yes, I am aware of how utterly ridiculous that sounds. Unfortunately though, if you drink enough of just about anything, including light beer, it will begin to effect you. It was during this time that I was drinking anywhere from 18-24 beers every day. That’s a lot of beer. And a lot of recycling. And a lot of money. And a lot of calories. And a lot of stress. It also gets hard to purchase that much beer every, single, day. I got pretty creative about what stores I would go to and in what rotation. The mornings got a little tougher but I would soldier through because at the end of the day, I was really only spending about 7 hours a day sober. A daily, low level hangover was my normal, a continuous rumble that was as irksome as it was familiar.

With the grand opening of the store in November of 2017, my daily hours of sobriety did increase. My first beer was no longer in the light of the afternoon. When I would come home at 6pm or 8pm or 9pm, that would be the first thing I would do. Sometimes even before my coat would come off, I’d grab my beer and feel an immediate relief. There we go, the day is done and now I can relax. Can you feel the proverbial ahh?

After three months of working 6 days a week, I was as ready as ever for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I still only had the one day off but I had the day off with L which made me very happy. I still miss having days off together. I planned something to make for a New Year’s Eve Party Potluck, stocked up on beer, wine, champagne and orange juice and got excited. New Year’s Eve was going to be good, I was determined. I did my hair, which was a rarity these days. I planned out an outfit I liked, which had become a less than thrilling activity after gaining over 50lbs. In general, I was feeling pretty good. I closed the store early at 3:00pm for New Year’s Eve, excited about having off the next day. As I was happily making the miniature rice balls for the potluck, I was happily guzzling beer. I never wanted to seem greedy for alcohol at parties and quite frankly, I wasn’t used to socializing at this point. I was never a social butterfly by any stretch of the imagination but I had spent the better part of the last two years working in an office, mostly by myself, for four hours a day and then the remainder of my time in holey and paint splattered clothes getting my drink on in the early afternoons. The combination of nerves and wanting to arrive a bit beyond buzzed was fueling my growing desire for alcohol. By the time we left, late of course, it was 8:00pm and I was flying. At parties I would always bring and then proceed to drink, white wine. It was not what I preferred and I was not accustomed to the higher alcohol content but it always seemed far more respectable than throwing back bottles of beer. No one questions a wine glass in your hand.

I was still feeling pretty good at the party. I felt a little uncomfortable not knowing anyone other than the hosts but they went out of their way to introduce L and me to other guests and made us feel very welcomed. My fears of not bringing enough wine were also put to rest when I saw the bar area. These people were drinkers and that put me at ease. The hosts had also created their own signature drink for the occasion with a very cute name I’ve long since forgotten. It was blue and sweet and filled with rum, which reminded me of my honeymoon and man, was it good. I normally stay away from anything with hard liquor in it given how I tolerate it, or don’t for that matter, but it was New Year’s Eve, I was feeling good and the host was more than happy to mix up some more. I switched between the white wine I had brought and my honeymoon in a glass for the evening. I was mingling and talking, I even got up the nerve to ask an attorney who happened to specialize in alcohol licenses for her advice on my application for the business, things were going well.

Until they weren’t. The beer, the wine, the rum, oh the rum, had caught up with me in a way that sirens sound for a three alarm fire. We were in the middle of a deep freeze with temperatures well below zero and being as drunk as I was, I was also craving more cigarettes. Being the year 2017, soon to be 2018, no one else smoked cigarettes so I made sure to travel well outside the confines of the front yard in the hopes that no one would see me or smell the cigarette smoke. The driveway was one sheet of ice and I know that on that last trip I barely made it back to the house. I remember wondering how long it would take for my hands and face to get frostbitten if I couldn’t find my footing and get back up. Once back inside, it all becomes a blur. I have vague memories that are slurred together. I know that at one point I broke something, presumably a glass, and proceeded to cry. The ball dropped, Happy New Year handshakes and kisses were exchanged and I was way too drunk. I told L that I had to leave, as soon as humanly possible, perhaps an hour ago if that could be arranged. I was starting to stumble and struggled to put my shoes, that the hosts requested we leave by the door, back on. I remember my husband helping me into the car. I don’t remember, but was later told by my overwhelmingly supportive husband, that I cried the whole way home and kept repeating how much I hated myself. Once home, I remember L helping me get inside but running back out to move the car, realizing that it would be difficult to herd me the extra few feet to the door. In the few moments of his absence, there was a sharp pain and blood running down my carefully chosen sweater from my nose. I remember the dog running away to escape the thud of my body hitting the floor yet again. Stumbling, bloody, streaked with tears and running makeup I made my way into the powder room, slunk down on the floor and cried and cried and cried. In fairness, I probably needed a good cry. The sadness and stress, pressure and loneliness of the last two years had been catching up. I did not, however, need to be on the verge of a complete blackout, with a bruised face, nearly broken nose and mortified that I had stumbled out of my husband’s co-workers home. I don’t remember how I got into bed, what conversation was had, if any, or anything else about the rest of that night.

As you might imagine, the next morning was not pleasant. I eventually crawled out of bed to use the bathroom, smoke a cigarette and take a little “hair of the dog” remedy to try to get back to sleep to feel slightly better a few hours later. I cancelled plans with a very disappointed and caring family friend. This also meant that my loving L spent the day home alone, with me being infirm, on the first anniversary of his father’s death. I cried again and begged for forgiveness from L, to no avail, because he wasn’t angry with me. He was worried and felt terrible that I hated myself so. As always, he said all the right things and didn’t want to make me feel badly. I don’t know what feels worse, to be scolded or to feel so incredibly guilty and have the victim of your poor judgement react sympathetically.

I knew that this needed to stop. This did not happen frequently but when it did, it would take weeks to recover, both physically and emotionally. My preoccupation with alcohol had been growing and my secret little afternoon nips and weekend eye openers were leading me down a very frightening path I didn’t know how much longer I could control. I knew this. I had for quite some time that this was not “normal”. Something had to change. There was only one problem. I was absolutely terrified of what my life would be like without alcohol in it.

I did not vow to never drink again, I knew that I would only be lying to myself. I would come up with rules that I would eventually break and cut back for awhile. I would attempt to limit myself to only a few beers a night, succeed for a time, mostly due to circumstance and opportunity. I would feel better about the situation, tell myself I had worked myself up for nothing, everyone drinks too much sometimes, don’t be so hard on yourself. The internal dialog would continue and eventually I would feel so good about things that I would relax and celebrate, listen to my music all night, alienate my L and wake up sick, feeling guilty and full of shame. And so it goes.

In the beginning of 2018 there were a lot of snow days. It was terrible for my slow to start business and made the long days even longer and feel even more pointless with no profit. It also meant that I was home earlier and began sliding back into my afternoon habits. I also found that the more I drank, the more concerned I became and the more concerned I became, the more anxious I would become and the more I drank. My own neat, personal cycle of hell. I was also approaching 37, rapidly it seemed. As my mother liked to remind me, almost daily, my biological clock would run out before it started ticking. Motherhood was never something I felt strongly called to like some other women, my sister for example. She had 4 kids by 35 but knew from a very young age she wanted a large family. I could never imagine not having a child or becoming a mother but that was always something I would do down the line. I was becoming increasingly aware that someday was rapidly approaching. This was also adding to my heightened anxiety about my drinking.

In short, I was a mess. I was desperately afraid of  the business failing, which seemed imminent. I had gained over 50lbs back of the weight I had lost for my wedding, I was terribly homesick and still trying to adjust to the move we had made 2 years ago and now I was convinced that I wouldn’t ever be able to get healthy enough to carry a child. The pressure was mounting and I was not having an easy time of it.

I don’t know exactly how it happened, but sometime in March I stumbled across a blog about living an AF (alcohol free) life. The posts really resonated with me and I took note. It felt like a well put together Pintrest board and was much more appealing than a church basement. I started following along regularly and binge read the posts and quickly found that everything I had been thinking, feeling, and experiencing for the last 10+ years was being echoed back to me.

As it turns out, I was far from alone. I was not alone and my experiences were actually very typical and very common for many women. That was the first thing that struck me. Almost every entry I read and comment that followed had me thinking, “I could have written this”.

One of the things that Katie Bee’s blog addresses is that having an issue with alcohol looks like different things to different people. Just because you’re not jobless and laying in the gutter doesn’t mean that your life would not be improved by the absence of alcohol. After much internal debate, namely that if I pursued the online course to quit drinking, I may actually have to quit drinking, I discussed it with L and we both agreed that it would make sense for me to take the course. I recoiled at the price, it wasn’t the least expensive thing to do, but if it worked, it would certainly pay for itself on more than a monetary level.

It was the end of March and the course began in April. It was completely online, as anonymous as you liked and I had classmates. Lots and lots and lots of classmates. Women from all over the world. These women were also my lifeline in those first few weeks. The day that the course began, it was a Monday and it was my day off. I had a massive panic attack and went on a complete day long bender. Suffice it to say, I was a mess. I was so worried that I wouldn’t be able to do this. Then what? I wasn’t bad enough off for rehab. I was too afraid to go to AA meetings. I slept it off and logged back in the next day at the store feeling utterly awful. And I posted. With a complete honesty that I could never muster in person, I recounted my fears to my invisible classmates. It felt good. It felt good to get out all of my worries and fears that had been silently strangling me for years. I was no longer hiding and pretending that I felt great and that everything was hunky dory.

The support and encouragement I received that day got me through that first week. In full disclosure, I was still having a few beers a night for that first week. I would not allow myself to participate in the course at all once I opened up a beer, it would have felt disingenuous and I really did want to give it a proper try. By the end of the week I was spending so much time at night catching up on the exercises and chatting within the course that I was actually having only one or two beers before bed which just seemed silly. I decided to follow the course and give alcohol up for just six weeks. After the six weeks, I would see how I felt and go from there. Although still feeling extremely anxious about not having anything to drink under a plethora of circumstances, I committed to it.

Six weeks turned into 8 weeks and so on and so forth. My alcohol free experiences were ticking up with the days. Went out to dinner AF – check, went to a networking event AF – check, day 60, day 80, day 150. At 150 days I decided to start this blog. I don’t know if anyone will ever read this but I will have an account of this amazing journey and accomplished something  that I set out to do. I have been making notes and writing every day since then but have not fully published them all yet. Most of my entries are very short and probably quite boring. This is by far the longest and the most I have written about the topic, even privately.

I am certainly no expert on the subject and I can only share my own experiences. As I sat at the very same party on December 31st, 2018, this time with my Cranberry Cider Seltzer, very happily I might add, I had the comfort of knowing that I would not be crying on the bathroom floor with a bloody nose.

In 2018 I gave up drinking. I lost 50lbs and no, the weight did not melt away but I have a lot more energy to run now. I learned a lot about myself and what I really want in life. I learned to appreciate the little things and what I truly enjoy. I learned what contentment feels like. I learned what it feels like to set a goal, accomplish it and the feeling of satisfaction that comes with it. I learned that I still have a lot of learning to do and I’m doing my best to cherish every lesson.