207 Days

207 days and I still haven’t come up with a good enough reason to drink. Last Saturday night I went to my mom’s bachelorette party. I was sitting there with 6 of her oldest friends, most of whom have been friends since they were kids, and my mom’s friend asked why I wasn’t drinking. Now, this question gave me so much anxiety when I first stopped drinking. “Aw shucks, who me? I’ll drink. Look, I’m ordering wine so you stop asking me about it! Here, let me drink this entire bottle of wine, just so you don’t think I’m not drinking because I definitely don’t have a drinking problem, right? HAHAHA, WINE! Stop looking at me!!” I’d dread social events, I’d imagine these long scenarios where people would not stop peppering me with questions about it.

Again and again, I’m embracing the fact that people really don’t care. The more I practice giving an honest response, the more and more I relish being asked this question. When I drank, I would have DIED rather than admit I had a less than healthy relationship with alcohol. It was really hard to give it words, and to not only admit I had a problem to myself, but to anyone else. . .it was just such a big secret to hide. 7 months later, and get this. . . there’s no secret anymore! There’s no big cover-up, there’s no stench to cover up, there’s no self-hatred to smile brightly through. There’s no fake “oh sure, why not?” sham as I accept a glass of wine that I play off as a “treat” but in reality I drank a bottle the night before, and I’ll do the same later that night. I was such a fucking liar!

Now, I’m not saying that with sobriety I’ve become this brand new person. I wasn’t a bad person, and I wasn’t a compulsive liar about anything except in regards to drinking. But over the past 7 months, I’m learning what it feels like to have a guilt-free conscience. And it is profoundly different than living with a big stinking pile of alcohol soaked rags that you’re trying to cover up. That’s kinda how I feel about it now, like my life was really great in a lot of ways, but I had a room in my house that I guarded and protected and fed, but was also really embarrassed about. It bled into everything. It made me inconsistent. It made me hard to live with, because I was constantly over reacting to the guilt, and my husband couldn’t rely on my reactions to things on any given day. Because I was so angry at myself, I’d take it out on him. Our marriage is SO MUCH BETTER. We’ve been consistently happy and solid for like 3 weeks straight, which. . . we’re both passionate Scorpios that are stubborn AF, so that’s probably a record. It certainly doesn’t hurt that he’s been cutting way back on his drinking too. I meticulously kept a record of all the drinking BS that he pulled last year (god, I’m psycho, lol), and I am so glad I did because we’re in such a better place now. I know that me not drinking has been a huge piece of that, because I’m so much more reliable these days!

Last Saturday, my response to my mom’s friend, someone I’ve drank with many times over the years, but has a good relationship with alcohol, was that “I decided I needed to control alcohol in the only way I could…I had to leave it behind completely so I could move forward”. And then I word-vomited for about 5 more minutes because I’m neither succinct nor clever enough to finish a quip when I should have. I also thought it sounded kinda asshole-ish, because everyone (except my sister) at the table was drinking wine. But back to my original point. . . she didn’t care. She was happy for me, and understood exactly what I meant. I still feel the need to go further “. . . it’s not like I was a complete trainwreck, I didn’t wake up every Tuesday and drink a 5th of vodka, but it controlled my thoughts, and blah blah blah. . . “. Maybe someday I’ll get over having the urge to keep talking about it, but if people ask, I have zero shame in just admitting it, and I’m getting better with feeling the need to build a case.

*sidenote – hello to all my new readers!! I was shocked and excited to have so much traffic from the WordPress Discovery link! Hope you enjoy 🙂
-Jenn