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Sober Soup

Posted in 90- 120 days by

Today I am 100 days sober.

I still feel I am treading the waters here. It does not feel like I am taking the plunge into sobriety yet. It seems like a test run. A competition. A challenge. Did I win yet?

I feel I have gotten this far with a sober soup. It is a mixture of different things. Belle’s 100 Day challenge was the broth. I added to that daily blogging, reading other sober blogs, reading my journals, reading memoirs such as Carolyn Knapp’s Drinking: A Love Story and Kristen Johnston’s Guts, and reading articles about alcoholism. The support from real life friends and the cyber sober community was like spices added to this soup. It made it work. This mixture kept me from drinking alcohol the past 100 days. (AA meetings were the salt and pepper. I only needed a little bit.)

I feel I have this sober genie sitting inside of me. He sometimes is in my chest. Sometimes my stomach. When I think about having a drink, he punches me. He grabs my esophagus and says “Go ahead but I am gonna make you puke it up and regret it!” He holds a knife to my liver and threatens to rip it apart. He runs into my brain with a napkin soaked in chloroform. I know both booze and that will poison my memory. When I choose not to drink, he flicks his chin up and says “Yea! That is what I THOUGHT you’d do.” He is like a bully but one I need.

I am scared this genie won’t stick around. He is gonna eat all this soup and leave.

265 more days of blogging about mistakes, regrets, and other mishaps from my drinking problem. I have daily blogging to keep me accountable.

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Mistake #100- Was visiting my sister in 2002. We invited a guy that I used to date to go out with us. We ended up at a gay bar. I got wasted and left with some girl. I just left my sister there with a guy that she barely knew. There were some nasty messages on my voicemail when I woke up the next day.

No time

Posted in 60-90 days by

I have been working a lot lately. But that is a good thing.  It keeps me busy. I don’t have to worry about thinking of drinking or being tempted. My brain is being stimulated.  And I am making good money.

The downside is I do not have time for much else.  I am not working out as much as I want.  I am not reading the books in my bag nor enough blogs. I have been able to get movie and TV show time in while I multi-task with cleaning or working, but I would like a relaxing night of a movie with popcorn.

Tonight, I am excited for the season finale of Walking Dead. I like to think of fighting to survive the zombie apocalypse is like fighting to stay sober in this world that loves booze. All those drunks stumbling around like the undead… wanting to poison me with their alcohol… real life is more nightmarish than the show! And if a zombie infection does become real, wouldn’t I want to have my head clear and ready? And my body fit and healthy? I think that is the number one reason to get sober!
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Then right after, I am going in to work some overtime.

I just hope I can find time to write my daily blogs. Can I do this until January? I feel like writing up a spreadsheet of my mistakes to post daily along with my progress. I just don’t know when I will have time to do that. But I will try.

Mistake # 68- I went to Borneo to go scuba diving. I was spending a few days in Kota Kinabalu. It is the second largest city in Malaysia. I read that there was a famous Sunday market along the main street.

I was traveling alone. I went out Saturday night by myself. I watched the sunset while sampling speciality drinks at bars along the waterfront. One place had two-for-one drinks called Borneo Sunset. I drank a lot of those whole reading my book.

I walked back to my hostel around 11pm. I stopped to pick up a few beers to keep in the dorm fridge. My hostel was a little off the main road near some other backpacker hotels. The roads were dark.

Along the walk, I had a few cars pull over. Each had a guy driving and they held up condoms to the window. One yelled out “I show you good time.” I was drunk but that seemed to sober me up.

In the twenty minute walk, four cars approached me. The last one kept circling the block and followed me. I ran to my hotel. The front door was locked. I banged on it until the front desk woman woke up to let me in. I told her a man was following me. She shrugged her shoulders and went back to her mat.

Maybe if anything happened, I would have been blamed because I was drunk and wearing a tank top with skirt in a Muslim country?

I sat in the common area outside of the dorm rooms. I was too shaken to go to bed. I sat on my tablet chatting with friends in Europe and the US. I told them my scary tale of Borneo stalkers.

I drank my beers as my solution. I drank almost all of the bottles. I opened one but it was still full and next to me when I woke up the next day. I passed out on the couch in the common area. Travelers were all making their way around me and going about their days. I emptied the full beer in the sink and crawled into my bed.

I slept until early afternoon. I missed the Sunday Market. I wasted the day. Yet I still went out drinking again that night. I am lucky I survived so many risks.

Glum

Posted in 30-60 days by

Yesterday I was feeling glum. My original plans were to grocery shop in the morning after work, sleep all day, wake up and go to gym, and then stay up late reading or watching movies. I am keep my body on my night shift schedule because I will most likely be called in for overtime tonight.

I got to the Whole Foods, started shopping, and dropped my phone. A cute man picked up and handed it back to me and said “at least it didn’t crack.” I smiled and made some joke about dropping it is why I have insurance. But when I got to the check out line, my screen was not turning on. Oh crap. It didn’t crack but it did break. I made the joke about the insurance but the truth is, my insurance on my phone ran out. I was allowed two replacements a year and I used them both up by ruining two phones when drunk.

I am new to this area so I was worried about trying to find my way home. I got mad at myself for relying on technology and GPS. I have an old Tom-Tom GPS thingie but it was not in my car. I did have my iPod Touch on me for listening to sober books (listening to Drinking Diaries currently.) I went back inside Whole Foods to use their WiFi and search maps on the iPod to figure my way to the highway.

Instead of sleeping in all day, I set my alarm for 4 hours sleep. I needed to wake up earlier so I could get my phone fixed. But all the Yelp reviews for phone fixers close to me were bad. I decided a quick 40 minute drive into the city would work since there were great reviews for phone repair companies there. I calculated it would take 40 minutes to drive to the city and but did not realize another 50 minutes to get INTO the city thanks to bridge traffic. I managed to get to the repair shop as the guy was walking out the door. He fixed it in fifteen minutes.

“Let’s grab some dinner in the city since I came all this way” I thought. I walked around wanting to find a place with good lighting so I could read while I ate. This will also, hopefully, avoid a place that was primarily a bar with food. I was thinking of just grabbing pizza when a woman was handing out flyers for free fries at a burger joint. It looked bright inside. But since I was eating alone, they sat me at the bar. I asked for the end seat near the sink so the booze would not be in my direct eyesight. The meal was good and I did not really feel any temptations.

The glum began to start when I picked my car up from the parking garage. When I paid, I started to calculate how much it was costing me to get this phone fixed. The price of the phone, the gas money, the bridge toll, the parking… it was all at least $200. A new phone would cost $500. But I started to think if I didn’t fuck up my phone while drunk twice, I would still have insurance. (I better get that overtime tonight!)

I read a few blogs while waiting for my car. Then I pulled over and read some more before leaving the city. A few bloggers wrote about relapsing. It started to get me scared. I worried about if I relapsed, would I try sobriety again? Would I be brave enough to blog about it? I keep thinking I have this sobriety thing easy since I have been mostly avoiding places with booze and I do not have kids or a partner that might make me want to grab a bottle. I have been volunteering to sign up for extra shifts at work to keep away from temptations (and fatten my paycheck.)

I started to think about one of the Drinking Diaries stories. I think it was called “First Sober Kiss” but I can not find it on the website. The author got sober by the age of 23. She talked about being drunk and promiscuous. I thought of some of the regretful, intoxicated intercourse I have had. I do not want to go back to that life. (Even though sometimes I am so scared I am not gonna know how to have a sober relationship if it ever happens.) These thoughts inflamed my glumness.

I left the city and started to drive towards the gym. I was still hoping for some exercise. Maybe it would clear my head. But thinking intensifies when I am driving. It leads to more thinking and overthinking. Add in tiredness and it creates a disheartened, crybaby. I started bawling and drove right pass the gym. I decided to go home to bed and just sleep for as long as my body wanted.

I  made a daily post last night before falling asleep. I was thankful that I wrote some already and saved as drafts. I just need to edit a bit and hit “publish post.” I fell asleep for eight hours.  It is now 5am and I am going to go the gym this morning. I feel better. Fatigue gone. And tomorrow I get my coconut cake for 50 days of sober.

Mistake #42 &43- I was living in Philadelphia but going to New York City every chance I got. It was summer and I was usually tan. But I was still pale by August because I rarely was awake in the daytime. I worked nightshifts and was up partying to sunrise if I was not working. Even if I only had one night off inbetween shifts, I would take the two-three hour Chinatown bus up to NYC, party for a night, and take a bus back in the morning.

I partied a lot with my Brazilian friend. She was a lot of fun. She had this cute, small apartment not far from Union Square. It was my crashpad for most of that summer. We would go to bars, go dancing, and have a few beers while watching the sunrise from her fire escape. It was a fun time for the most part.

On one visit on a weekend, I lost my phone. I think I lost it in a taxi or in a bar. I don’t remember. It was some cheap, Nokia. I got a free placement with insurance.

I went back up to visit the following Thursday because I had a friend visiting from the south. I originally met him when I lived in San Francisco and we got along right away. I remember loving his energy. He seemed so positive and upbeat. When I met him, he did not drink alcohol. But he started drinking again on this visit to New York. He told me about his issues with drinking and why he quit. I remember being glad he started again. We could have fun now! (And secretly I thought maybe I would have a chance to hook up with him finally.)

Drinking eventually killed him. I will have to save that for another blog because thinking about it is bringing back the glum.

He and I stopped in a bodega to pick up juice and wine in the late afternoon. The idea was to chug the juice and then fill the bottles with red wine. He also picked up some beer. We stashed the beer in his backpack. We alternated between our Jesus juice bottles and brown-bagged beer. We went to see the Brooklyn Bridge’s 125th birthday celebration. I remember there was a huge cake and fireworks. We were getting drunk and yelling “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” to a bridge.

We met up with friends in a bar afterwards. I remember almost getting in trouble for my bottles of “juice.” I tried to claim it was really just juice. A friend, who was a regular at the bar, asked me to please not drink my juice there. I started to buy rum and diet Cokes from the bar.

After the party at the bar was dying down, I took my friend to one more place. They played old 90s and rock music here. I wanted to dance. I remember rocking it out to Nine Inch Nails while my friend sat in a chair. He was looking glum. I did not realize, since we never drank together before, that he turned into a nasty drunk. He insisted on leaving. Okay okay… after a few more drinks.

I woke up the next day on my Brazilian friend’s couch. There was a note laying next to me “Did you lose your phone again!!!!!!”

huh?

Yep, I checked my stuff and my phone was missing. I went into her bedroom and found her sleeping. She woke up, saw me holding the note and looking confused, and started to laugh. She received a phone call from a taxi driver saying he found a phone in his car and her number was the first in it. That was such luck. Her name begins with a “C” but was one of the few I added to my new phone. I called the taxi driver back and he brought my phone to me. I lost two phones within one week! (Two mistakes.)

I have him a $20 reward. As he was taking the money, he said “Your boyfriend was not very nice. He said a lot of nasty things to me.” Huh? My boyfriend? “Oh him. Sorry. He is just a friend.”

“But he was not a nice friend.”

I do not know if the driver was trying to get me to give more money to make up for my nasty friend. I do not know what he did or said that was so nasty. But I do know I wish I would have recognized the danger my friend was in and I would have tried to help.

I don’t want to end up like him. I want to stay sober.

Focusing on the Negative

Posted in First 30 days by

“Sometimes the past should be abandoned, yes. Life is a journey and you can’t carry everything with you. Only the usable baggage.” ~Ha Jin

(I have no idea where that is from but a friend just posted it and I thought it went well with my blog today.)

A friend recently messaged me I should focus on the positives things about going sober instead of the negative. This lead me to try to explain the pink cloud to him. I have tried to quit drinking in the past and those times I focused on the positive. I felt wonderful. I imagined how great my life will become now that I quit. I thought of all the improvements in my life and the weight I would lose and how my relationships will become perfect.

What happens when all that doesn’t come true?

That overconfidence can be dangerous for recovery.

Alcoholics have notoriously selective memories. No matter how sickening the hangover, how humiliating the drunken behavior, how dangerous the blind-drunk drive home, we seem incapable of recalling consistently or clearly how bad things got when we drank. – “Drinking: A Love Story” Caroline Knapp

I wrote about being on a pink cloud my 9th day of sobriety. After trying to explain it to my friend, I decided to read up more about it myself. I found this website and it’s description of the pink cloud to be interesting: Alcoholrehab.com:

People can feel cheated when the super highs of early recovery are replaced by more modest emotions.

(I actually added that link to my blog because I wanted to save it and I really wish I had the money to go to a rehab program in Thailand. Do they allow scuba diving as part of the program?)

I am writing this blog for my recovery. Some people might read it and see I am worse of a drunk than they are. Some might read it and think my mistakes weren’t that bad. Others might relate to my stories. Some readers might have no problem with alcohol at all and do not understand my blabbings. But I am writing about 365 times that I do not want to forget. Moments that I want to reflect on when I think just one glass of wine will be okay. I have already forgotten a lot of the incidences. Or buried them in my mind. Journals and stories from friends are helping me.

Thanks for reading.

Mistake # 20- NYC costume party: I was finishing a 30 days drinking break. The end to my break was going to coincide with a trip to New York City to visit a friend. People teased me for picking an expensive city to start drinking again. My break was over on Thursday night. No problems. I went out with a friend for a few beers and conversation. She went home at a reasonable hour and I went to another bar. I drank alone until 1am. I drank again on Friday with another friend. Again no problems. Then Saturday, I went to a costume party. I started drinking in the afternoon that day. Beers with a late lunch. Lots of beers. I picked up some beers for “pre-drinking” in the apartment before the party. I was drunk on the subway to the party. I was very trashed at the party. And I continued drinking overpriced rum and cokes.

That night I met a guy that I thought of as a small, internet celebrity. I have his YouTube videos saved on my account. I had a small crush on him. I have no idea what I said or happened, but anytime I have seen that guy since that night, he avoids me. I joked and defended myself by saying that I am not a stalker. Just a drunk.

I woke up the next day at my friend’s apartment laying next to a purple skirt. It was a long, shiny skirt. It had a ripped zipper. I asked him where did it come from? He said he found me at the party passed out on a couch hugging it. He has no idea how I acquired it. The blackouts are baggage I will not miss.

Dignity

Posted in First 30 days by

Even though I feel I am hidden from most temptations to drink while at my mom’s house, I do not feel this is a supportive environment. She is supportive of me not drinking, but I think she still believes it only a bad habit. She used to say that my dad could have stopped drinking if he loved his family enough. I told her about my recent argument with my friend about alcoholism being a disease. She asked if I actually believe it is a disease. I use delirium tremens as evidence that it is a medical problem.

Her boyfriend makes me feel uncomfortable. I am in my late 30s but I feel like a teenager here. He scolds me for leaving a glass on the table or my box of spices on the counter. Before my mom arrived Saturday, he told me to clean up my mess. I had a few bottles of sauces next to the stove to make her dinner that night. He criticized me for drinking too much coffee the other day and then makes fun of me for eating organic “crap.” I know he looks down on me for my drinking problem. It is my defect. He does not like me on “his” computer but does not want WiFi in the house. I was typing my blog yesterday and he stood behind me. I had to close the page.

There is a news story now about a drunk woman that tried to make sexual advances on a plane. The plane had to make an emergency landing in Minneapolis. I have a few friends joking that it sounds like me on the video. I know they are only teasing and not trying to be mean, but I am hurt. I guess they view me as the fun, party girl that always drinks too much and sometimes out of control. Sometimes when I admit I had DUIs, people start to share their close-calls and admit how often they drove home drunk but did not get caught. Then they want to toast with a alcoholic beverage to “not getting caught.”

I went to see the movie “The Monuments Men” today. Three thoughts floated through my head most of the movie. 1) I should not have drank all that tea because I had to pee. 2) I wish I brought Advil because my knee was aching from an injury I sustained while drunk last October. And 3), every time they drink in the movie, I wanted booze. They had champagne and wine and toasted with some mystery beverage in cups that I imagined was a good lager. They mentioned whiskey and cognac throughout the movie. I mourned that I will never be able to taste any of that again.

But there was one character in the movie, Donald Jeffries, who was the drunk of the group. There were a few lines joking about it. He was sober. How long? Since this morning. But then he redeemed his drunken reputation by helping save great masterpieces. There was a letter in the movie that said something about going on the mission to save art helped restored his dignity.

That word stuck in my head. That is one more thing I lost. Dignity. My friends laugh at my mishaps. My mom’s boyfriend doesn’t seem to trust or like me in their house. If I go back to drinking, my mom will just see me as weak. I imagine my exes describing me as a crazy drunk. Dictionary.com defines dignity as “bearing, conduct, or speech indicative of self-respect…” I do not have self-respect. I struggle for self-love at times. I loved alcohol more than I love myself.

I know that this path to sobriety will not be easy and will come with it’s own problems. But maybe I can find dignity again.

Mistake # 14- Halloween parade: It is my favorite holiday of the year. I made an awesome costume that year. I spent a week creating a bird costume. Then at the beginning of the parade, I poured a bottle of “oil” all over me. The “oil” was pancake syrup with black food coloring. I was an oil spill victim. It was amazing but I was very drunk. I carried a water bottle full of rum and Diet Coke. I had a 2 liter bottle and a small bottle of rum in my bag for refills. My friends were wearing costumes with white bottoms so they ordered me to march in the parade far from them so the “oil” would not drip on them. I was stopped at one point by a news crew for an interview that never aired. I don’t remember being stopped but my friends said it happened. I must have been too trashed to be shown on TV. I do not remember the end of the night. Maybe my friend I was staying with came to meet me? Maybe I took a taxi to his place? I am lucky I was not driving that night. My favorite holiday but I was blacked out for most of it. In fact, I think the only Halloweens I fully remember are ones when I work.

Been a Long Time Coming….

Posted in First 30 days by

March 24, 2002 Journal entry:

When I think about all the problems alcohol has caused in my life, I seriously wonder why do I continue to drink. It has brought me some good memories, but many blackouts. It has brought me some friends, but ruined many relationships. It has made me feel good, but it is bad for my body. It has caused me to bruise my body and ego at times. It has caused one night stands or the desire to be with someone caused me to drink. I put myself at risk. I have put others at risk. I ruined my driving record and insurance. I’ve hurt others by the things I’ve said while drunk. I’ve wasted many hours being unproductive because of being drunk or recuperating from being drunk. I have missed work or been late to work. I’ve missed class and been late to class. I’ve spend money I couldn’t afford to spend to get drunk. Then I spent more money to get out a towed car, buy new tires I blew out while drunk, and to cover up other mistakes. Alcohol has brought so much misery to my life. I might have drank to have fun, but how much fun it is if I can’t remember most of the night or what I might have done drunk? I think it exacerbates my depression. It’s addicting. It is destroying my life.

And I continued drinking for another twelve years with a few drinking breaks to “prove” I could control it. It is not as if I woke up January 22, 2014 and said “Wow I never knew I had a drinking problem before. Maybe I should quit.” I mentioned in my first blog that I have been considering for the past year of collecting 365 regretful, drunk episodes. Sometimes I wonder if I can write 730 mistakes. Then throw in an extra for leap year.

Mistake #13- The mention of my tires in that journal entry has me confused but I think it happened years before I wrote that. It think I was referring to a time when I was married. Maybe in 1999? I went out clubbing with friends. My husband was either at work or home playing video games. He found me passed out on the couch the next morning. He woke me up and asked me what happened to the car. I didn’t know what he was talking about. He took me outside and the trunk was open. The lock was broken. The bike rack was missing. There were two flat tires. We concluded that I left the parking lot through one of the exits that had the chain hanging across it and the spikes up on the ground to pop tires. I must have drove under the chain! There were scratches along the top of the car. The chain must have pulled the bike rack off and broke the trunk in the process. Not sure how I did not get four flat tires. I was glad my husband was mechanically inclined to fix the trunk and get us new tires for a good price.

Enough

Posted in First 30 days by

I just looked at my blog name as I signed in and thought “should it be 365 reasons 2 B sober?”

Then I thought no, cause I feel this is a path I am taking to sobriety. After a year of writing down 365 mistakes, then they will become reasons to be sober. I was reading one of my old journals about my thoughts on AA and the 12 steps. I said instead of steps, it should be “guided trails.”

I woke up today and read some more of Caronline Knapp’s “Drinking: A Love Story.” Since it is too tempting to drink wine with it in the evenings, I figured drinking coffee with it in the daytime will be easier. My mom’s boyfriend told me I was drinking too much coffee. I told him at least I didn’t put Baileys in it.

I have been thinking about the word sober. People say if you have not had any booze since such and such date, you have been sober since then. I keep thinking “well I could have a beer and not be drunk so to me that is SOBER.” According to dictionary.com, a definition of sober is “habitually temperate, especially in the use of liquor”. One drink doesn’t affect me. Could I have maybe one glass, not admit it to those that know I am trying to not drink, and still consider myself sober? Yes, I could do that. It would not help my alcoholism.

A part in the 4th chapter of the book really grabbed me.

Enough? That’s a foreign word to an alcoholic, absolutely unknown. There is never enough, no such thing. You’re always after that insurance, always mindful of it, always so relieved to drink that first drink and feel the warming buzz in the back of your head, always so intent on maintaining the feeling, reinforcing the buzz, adding to it, not losing it.

I have chased a buzz so often. Many a time I have said “I need to keep up this buzz. If I start to sober up, it is hard to achieve this level of drunk again.” I could not diagnose what that level was. That level might have been 5 drinks from blacking out. I could not define when I went from buzzed to trashed. Friends have tried to say “well it is because you were mixing. Never have beer AND cocktails.” Or it was because I had shots. Or tequila. Or cheap wine. It was always the booze fault. Never mine.

I have stared at wine bottles salivating. I have been in situations where I did not pay attention to a conversation because I was gauging how much I could drink without looking bad. When was a proper time to ask for another drink? Was I drinking more than everyone else? Or when would they open the next damn bottle! Ms Knapp mentions comparing how much is in your drink to the other glasses. I DID THAT! I would complain if I felt I was being cheated out of booze. And if it was at my house, I always poured myself extra cause “my tolerance is higher.”

Somewhere after a few bottles, the happy joyful me turned into a depressed, jealous, angry drunk. Arguments happened. Sometimes physical fights. I woke up hungover a lot the last few years and the first thing I did was check my Facebook to see if I made any drunk posts. Then I would delete them. Sometimes a friend would email me to see if I was okay because my posts were depressing. I always responded “No was just drunk.” A lot of friends took to blocking my statuses or unfriending me.

I never felt I needed booze. I feel I am not physically addicted. Though reading this book is reminding me that yes, I can have one drink and still feel sober. But I will never stop at just one drink forever. I could go with one drink a day for thirty days. Then my brain will tell me “see, you can moderate.” That whole month, I will be aching for it to end. On the 31st day, my brain will say I have no problem. I have proved it to myself I can drink and “stay sober.” I will drink more than one drink and then another. Then I will want to keep that level of buzz. Then I will get drunk. Maybe not black out drunk that night. But the blackouts will return.

So even if I can have a drink and not feel drunk, I must remember sober is not just the opposite of drunk. Sober means abstaining from alcohol. Sober is enough. It has to be.

I have one real life friend that knows about this blog. I was messaging with him earlier and said “I get happy and outgoing at first and then I snap and become depressed and mean.” He remembers. He mentioned another drunk episode I forgot about.

Mistake #12 We were on a road trip. We were visiting a city that was new to both of us. We were dating about five months but fighting a lot about where our relationship was headed. I think I was worried I was wasting time if there was no future. We went to meet up with my friend’s roommate. We were gonna to have dinner and then an outdoor movie.

As soon as I met the roommate, I thought he was cute. He said he thought the same about me. But I was there with my boyfriend. So what if i thought this guy was cute. Nothing would happen. Then the drinking started. We enjoyed sampling a lot of the local brews he suggested. We were helping the economy!

After dinner, we headed to the outdoor movie. But we didn’t want to go there and let our great buzz die. So we went out of our way to find a mixer. I must have had vodka in the car already. We mixed lemonade with the vodka. My boyfriend and I sat away from the local guy and his friends. But he texted me the whole movie. It was an old movie from the 80s that my boyfriend did not know. So I was enjoying the text messages back and forth with the local guy making fun of the movie and quoting famous scenes. I did not see it as flirting.

After the film, the local guy invited us to a bar. Or club. I don’t remember. I was drunk. I drank most of the vodka and lemonade. I am sure my boyfriend drank a lot too but I was more trashed. The local gave us a ride to the bar. I really don’t remember anything there but my boyfriend told me I ended up kissing the local guy. In front of my boyfriend.

He doesn’t remember much about the night either. He said I got kicked out of the bar. I guess for being too drunk. And then we fought outside. I got hysterical. He said it took him thirty minutes to calm me down. I refused to get in the taxi. A few men have told me I have a fear of taxis when drunk. Actually, a fear of the taxi drivers. I am not sure if I have a repressed, drunk mistake to that story also.

He finally got me in a taxi. We were staying at a friend’s place that was away. I woke up in the middle of the night in the passenger side of my car. My boyfriend was inside the house. I had to pee. I opened the car and my car alarm went off. I ran inside to find the keys to deactivate it. I went pee and then climbed into bed with my boyfriend. I had no idea why I was in the car or what happened after the movie.

I know I lost a favorite bracelet and a cell phone. Mostly I lost my mind that night. I don’t know how he stayed with me another 15 months.

First Temptation: Reading with wine

Posted in First 30 days by

There are so many blogs about recovery!

I started to read some last night. And one blog would mention another and I would open that page. I kept wondering “should I start reading this blog from the beginning.” Then I would realize some of those blogs are more than two years old. It would take a long time to read each post. But it is comforting. It is motivational to think those bloggers have been sober that long and still blogging. I feel I got hoisted back on my pink cloud.

Earlier in the evening, I was reading “Drinking: A Love Story” by Caroline Knapp. I was at my mom’s house alone. She works far away and near my brother so she stays there when she has to work the next day. Her boyfriend went out for the night. I looked forward to a quiet night of reading the book. But then I realized something was missing: a glass of wine.

In my old apartment, I would spend many evenings reading and drinking. I have not owned a television since 2005. I love reading books. I also spend, or waste, a lot of time online. I watch movies on Netflix or videos on Youtube. I read articles and connect with friends from around the world on Facebook. But once in awhile I would turn off my computer to catch up on reading. I curled up on my couch with a blanket or in my bed. Or I would relax in the tub with a book, bubbles and aromatherapy candles. But I always had a glass of wine with me. I even bought a book tray that goes across the tub with a special slot for a wine glass.

I put down the Ms Knapp’s book and went to the computer. I filled up a large glass with water. I made a mental note to pick up some lemons and limes to flavor my water.  I started to read and click “follow” on blogs that I found interesting. I commented on and liked a few. It started to feel like a cyber support group. (Thank you soberlearning and rfscout for giving me encouraging words not to pick up that glass of wine.)

I enjoy reading how other people overcame struggles. It is an embarrassing malady to have. Too many friends have discouraged my decisions to go sober in the past. It is as if I told them I have an incontinence problem. They don’t understand. They don’t want to be around me with that problem. “Just control it.”

I thought of going to an AA meeting last night. I decided I was too lazy to go. Maybe I will go to some when I get back to where I am currently living.

I spent the time this afternoon reading a journal form 2003-2005. There were a lot of entries where I ended it “I need to quit drinking!” Sometimes I admitted I had a problem but I did not want to do anything about it. I was too scared of what going sober would do to my awesome social life. That was 10 years ago. If I went sober, it would have prevented a DUI.

Today I kept wondering if I could control my drinking. Maybe if I only drank wine in restaurants. Or no more than a bottle a night at home. No more strong IPAs. For now, I want to commit to 365 days without alcohol.

Mistake #11- This is one I would have forgotten if I wasn’t checking out photos on my mom’s computer: My nephew’s kindergarten graduation.

I went out the night before with a friend. I do not remember the night at all. I do not know where we went or what we drank. But I woke up in his bed. And I woke up with my mom calling my phone and asking if I was ready for the graduation. They would pick me up on the way to the school.

I stuttered that no, I was not ready. I might have even mentioned being at a friend’s house. I would meet them at the school. Just text me the address. I grabbed my clothes and rushed to my house. I took a 2 minute shower to try to wash off the stench of booze. I put on a cute skirt and top and drove to the school. My mom saved me a seat. My sister and niece were in front of us. I honestly remember that instead of being hungover, I will still drunk. There is a photo of me between my 6 year old nephew and 3 year old niece and she is pushing herself away from me. I guess she was too young to be an enabler.

Beginning this blog one week sober

Posted in First 30 days by

I have had this idea for awhile. For the past year, I have started to jot down in a pocket calendar, that was gifted to me by a former boss, the mistakes I made while drunk. The things I lost. The one-night stand. The blackouts. The accidents. The dangerous situations. The fights. I have achieved goals of “30 days no booze!” and then would celebrate that goal by getting trashed. And then more mistakes. I thought if I could come up with 365 mistakes I have made while intoxicated, those mistakes would give me a reason to go sober for a year. And I am hoping if I can make the goal of a year sober, I can attempt a life change of abstinence.

I recently found my personal journals from 1998- 2008. I skimmed them and found many memories from drunk nights, both good and bad. I am not going to lie and say all my drunken times were mistakes. But there were too many close-calls, of my life or other lives, for me to continue drinking. I believe my lack of self-esteem is the core of the problem. My addiction was born by my desire to be accepted. Cleaning up is being born of my desire to live.

 

This blog will be my way to list and share some of those mistakes. I will start with small ones and try to work my way up to the destructive ones. I will also write about my current state and how I am dealing with my sobriety. I will try to do this daily. I will not use the real names of anyone. 

 

As of today, I am 8 days sober. It has not been hard. I have been driving across the United States since my last drink. So there has not been any temptation. I just downloaded the audiobook “Living Sober Sucks” by Mark A Tuschel to listen to for today’s drive. I will be spending time with friends the next few nights. I know the time will be full of my crying about my addiction and their supportive words. They are friends who have been with me for a long time and have seen some of the wreckage cause by my drinking. Going sober seems to be the time of testing who are friends and who are party associates.

As for an example of a mistake from my drinking, I will start off with this past New Year’s Eve. I was partying with some friends in Kuala Lumpur. We were at an apartment complex in the suburbs and the party was on the rooftop lounge. We had a nice view of the Petronas Towers. I broke my Galaxy3 that night by throwing it to a friend to take a photo of me while we were both drunk. He didn’t catch it. I do not remember seeing the fireworks over the famous towers. I do remember helping a stranger while he was puking. I do not remember leaving the party. I woke up the next day on a bed in a strange apartment in another suburban area. There was a fan blowing. My friend’s friend was lying on an air mattress in the room. I did not really know her and did not feel she even liked me. I went into the living room to play Sherlock Holmes and track down my belongings. The owner of the apartment was one of the party’s organizers. She was sweet. She offered to give me a ride into the city later that day. But I wanted to leave sooner. I wanted alone time instead of being hungover with these two women I barely knew. She gave me directions on how to take the bus to catch the Metro to the city. I was happy I had money on me and did not lose my purse. I worried how I was going to travel the next 3 weeks with a broken phone. It felt like a wasted New Years Eve.