SUNDAY 17TH JULY 2022
I’d say I’m still feeling calm, relaxed and positive on the whole but I’m also aware that I’m incredibly irritable. I wish I weren’t – I hate feeling like this, especially when I don’t really know why and can only tentatively blame it on the residual effects of alcohol in my system. Maybe it’s a lack of me-time – now that the kids are off school I’m either at work or with them or a mixture of both as I try to work from home so that I don’t have to farm them out while I go in to the office. I then feel guilty for working when I should be doing stuff for them while simultaneously feeling guilty for not getting enough work done. I guess that would make a person irritable. I hope that’s all it is – I don’t want to peel the layers away and find that, at heart, I’m just a miserable, old hag!
MY WOBBLE
I came very close to cheating this week when my husband got confirmation that he is being promoted at work. It’s over 2 months since he was interviewed so I had imagined us celebrating with champagne together before I started on my sobriety plan but D-Day came and went with no job offer so he was resigned to having been passed over, yet again. Had he got the news a couple of weeks ago, I would’ve gone back to the start but I’m now 3 weeks in so it was quite a dilemma. It’s not that I actually wanted to drink alcohol, it’s just that it seemed wrong not to mark his success with champagne. To make things worse, my kids were already scheduled to stay at their gran’s that night so it was the perfect date night in the making. I considered going out and buying a bottle and for us to toast his success, safe in the knowledge that he would never tell. I then dismissed the thought. Then I considered it again. I know I could’ve bought champagne for him and no-secco for me but I know it would’ve made me feel deprived and I honestly don’t think he would’ve enjoyed it the same – champagne is for sharing. In the end, I didn’t succumb so we didn’t celebrate at all. It wasn’t till yesterday, 3 days later, that I told him about the dilemma I’d had and how I felt bad for not marking his success. As I could’ve predicted, he really wasn’t bothered at all. He’s not a take-it-or-leave-it drinker like my brother – he’d rather take it – but he definitely doesn’t have the same emotional attachment to it as I do and he is fully supportive of my alcohol-free journey. We’ve decided to celebrate by going out for a nice meal sometime in the near future.
So, just like a Weeble, I wobbled but I didn’t fall down but it has totally highlighted my biggest stumbling block when it comes to alcohol…..that celebratory feeling. I’m fully on-board with the notion that alcohol doesn’t relieve stress, I have no desire to use it to relieve social anxiety and I seem not to be craving the relaxing / numbing effects of it any more. Celebrations, however, are a different matter and, if I’m totally honest, there are few things I enjoy more than that celebratory feeling of sharing champagne, or less expensive bubbles, in nice glasses with friends and family. Even the anticipation of it is a joy in itself! That is probably the main reason that I’m just not ready to commit to long term sobriety – that and the cosiness of sharing a nice bottle of red wine with my husband. By committing to giving up for a full year, I’ll get a chance to see how all the milestones, that are practically written in alcohol, play out without it. I hadn’t expected to struggle like this so soon in my journey but I guess it’s good to have a struggle under my belt and the main thing is, I’m still on track.
Theme Song: Celebrate Good Times by Kool & The Gang