Win times two

I had an incredible experience last night, and since it also relates to (not) drinking, I thought I might share it with y’all.

As I mentioned here before, I wrote a screenplay. This was a project I set for myself last year, because while I’ve always loved to write I had never finished a long work.

I honestly didn’t really know what I was going to do with it, beyond that. Of course I would love to see my work produced, but what are the chances of that? That is still true, but through a friend of a friend, last night I was able to hear a read-through of my entire screenplay, with real actors. The friend of a friend, D, is an actress is involved with a theater workshop company, and, she told me, loves to help writers. So she read the script, invited some actor friends, cast the parts, and hosted the read-through at her house. Wow!

I’m still on cloud nine. Of course none of this would have happened when I was drinking. I would never have written the screenplay, never would have had the energy or mental space. I would still be locked in my prison of surviving from day to day – and thinking I couldn’t do even that without my liquid friend.

The other, smaller win, was that everyone at the read-through last night was drinking, and I didn’t feel one pang. I even brought beer, because I asked D what I could bring and that’s what she said. Later, D made a joke about me drinking soda, saying if she were hearing her own work she’d have been hitting the wine bottle, and I didn’t feel self-conscious. I joked back that I didn’t want to forget a single moment of this. Also, there is a scene in my screenplay where some characters are drinking wine, and one of the actors got up and said (to much laughter) that was his cue to bring out another bottle. I am just amazed that I was able to laugh along with these jokes and not be bothered.

Now THIS is a high!

What next?

Someone asked me the other day if I still feel like drinking sometimes.

The answer is YES. Sometimes, perhaps most often, it is at social occasions when it would be nice to join in with everyone else.

But my problem was more with “stress” drinking rather than social drinking. I had a day like this last weekend when we had to cram in two soccer games (across town from each other), yard work, grocery shopping, and laundry. Then it was dinner time, and cleanup after dinner, and making lunches for the next day … I stood there in the kitchen really wanting a glass of wine.

We didn’t have any in the house, so you could say this is all moot, but I have two basic strategies for dealing with this situation. If it’s really bad, I just stop what I’m doing. I go sit down somewhere quiet, telling my hubby and kids that I need some quiet time. I turn on my meditation app, or just sit quietly. I check in with myself — am I thirsty? Hungry? Do I have tension somewhere? (Neck, shoulders, back.)

But sometimes this isn’t possible. If I’m out somewhere, for example, or maybe I don’t feel I need a major intervention. That’s when I ask myself, so I have a drink. What next? Do I have another? Do I still have to make the lunches? Most importantly, has any problem been solved? I also visualize that feeling of being tipsy — not the good “ahhhh” feeling, which is really only at first — but the woozy, flushed, over-warm feeling.

It helps take me out of the immediate desire into thinking about what drinking would really do for me. So this has become a little catchphrase for me whenever I feel like drinking. So I have a drink. What next?

Two years sober

I know I haven’t posted in forever. As a peace offering, I submit this photo of my dog:

How could anyone be mad at that face??

I wanted to mark this day because Mother’s Day, 2013, was my last day of drinking. It’s the day I went to the hospital, the day I realized I needed to change my life. And I did change it.

I’ve been having a good day today. I mentioned awhile back that I was writing a screenplay. Well, I finished it, and I’ve been trying to reach out to anyone and everyone who might be connected to the theater or film industry.  Today I got an email from a friend of a friend, who is involved in local theater. She offered to set up a reading of my script with real actors, so I could see and hear my words being performed! How exciting is that?

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Sunday, and a special sober happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there.

 

What’s your poison?

In the US thirty years ago, wine drinking was passe. It was seen as vaguely pretentious, the province of connoisseurs and poseurs.

(One of the alcohol books I read recently went into the history of this quite a bit. The growth in the alcohol – especially wine – industry is almost entirely due to an increase in women’s drinking. Men’s rate of alcohol intake has remained fairly steady. Scary.)

I can attest to feeling the shift toward wine somewhere in the mid-90’s. Suddenly wine was everywhere. So when I started drinking daily ten or so years later, wine was a natural choice. Europeans drink two glasses of wine every day, don’t they? Tannins are good for your heart. It also seemed to fit with a persona I wanted to create – that of a mom who wore motherhood lightly, who didn’t let it become my defining characteristic.

Wine was great. So how did I get to brandy?

There were a few reasons. What started it is that I bought a bottle for a recipe. The recipe called for two tablespoons, and after that I had a bottle sitting in the cupboard which would be a pity to waste.

The second is that I got a kick out of the way brandy is talked about as having medicinal value, especially in British fiction of the 19th century. “She’s had a shock – fetch the brandy!” This is part of my Xer heritage – the notion of being hip by taking something hopelessly stodgy and lame and enjoying it ironically. (Hipsters going bowling is the ultimate example of this.)

But here’s the real reason, the main reason: wine wasn’t doing it for me anymore, it wasn’t giving the punch I needed. I also had to drink so damn much of it. It was getting conspicuous. Brandy, with its higher alcohol content, enabled me to drink less for the same effect. Brilliant.

I read somewhere, have no idea if it’s true, that hardcore alcoholics all end up drinking straight vodka as their preferred drink of choice. No messing around. And I’ve certainly read personal stories from drinkers who drank cooking wine, mouthwash, cologne … you get to a certain point, it doesn’t matter what form the poison comes in, as long as you get it.

 

Dreaming about Drinking

I’ve gotten to the point when I don’t think about drinking during the day very often. I have reaped enough benefits from quitting that the siren call of drinking is muted – or drowned out, har har.

And yet, in the night I often dream about drinking.

I’m not sure what this means. Wish fulfillment? My unconscious still working through issues? I am starting to see a pattern to these dreams. They usually involve being presented with an opportunity to drink. Then I usually decide I am going to drink, but then things happen that prevent me from being able to do so. Sometimes I do drink, but then circumstances conspire to keep from drinking any more.

I thought I would share with you the dream I had last night, since it was pretty typical. I dreamt we were hosting a party at our house. The guests were people I didn’t know very well. (Oddly, the Seattle Seahawks were there. Marshawn Lynch ate all the tacos.) I was tasked with mixing all the drinks. A woman asked for a Manhattan, and I found I had no idea how to make one. I remembered that the end result was brown, so I mixed together cream, hot cocoa mix, and vodka (ew!). I decided, if she doesn’t like it I’ll just have to drink it myself.

She took it, and wandered off. I kept waiting for her to come back. When she didn’t, I thought: I can make one for myself anyway. But my hostess duties kept preventing me from doing so (including making more tacos!). I kept thinking about that drink, and I woke up still wanting it – until I came fully awake and was relieved it was only a dream.

That’s the positive side to having these dreams: I always wake up relieved that I did not, in fact, drink. So that’s maybe what my brain is doing for me: rehearsing making a different choice. It always reinforces for me my confidence with the choice I have made.

 

Resolution(s)

Is it too late to make a New Year’s resolution? I say, no! Anytime is good time to resolve to make your life better!

I said last time that I want to make my resolutions this year positive and specific. First, I want to write another screenplay. I finished the one I started last year, but now I am doing a major revision of one section of it. So that is my resolution: finish this revision by the end of February, and then finish a second screenplay by the end of the year. It does me a lot of good to have a writing project to work on. Of course I would love to sell a screenplay, but right now it’s more about giving my brain something to chew on.

I swear a lot of the reason I drank was to try to shut up my brain. This is better: distracting it.

My next resolution isn’t too exciting, but it is to pay off our car early. We owe a little less than $6000 on it now, and paying it off early will do very nice things for our monthly budget. When we do that, we can start building up an emergency fund. This is something that every finance book recommends, and we always seem to find something else to do with our money. This might be a goal that will happen more in 2016, but I’m earmarking the car payment amount, as soon as the car is paid off, to go right into funding an emergency savings account – at a separate bank.

I try to check in with my financial picture once in year in January. Last year my resolution was to start keeping a monthly budget, down to the last dollar. I did this, and will continue doing it this year.

My other news is that I got diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, which is an autoimmune disease where your body attacks your thyroid. I put on nine pounds last year, so my doctor ordered some thyroid tests. (And here I thought it was just because I started eating ice cream again!) I am taking medication for it, and am pondering making some dietary changes as well. Based on my online research (which I know can be flawed!), an anti-inflammatory diet (mostly, no sugar or gluten) can be a good diet for people with Hashimoto’s. I have to say, I’m still in the planning stages here. 🙂 The only change I’ve made so far is to give up my granola for breakfast in favor of more protein/fat based breakfasts, with some veggies or fruit:  veggie omelets, or cottage cheese with banana, or unsweetened yogurt with blueberries mixed in.

And to anyone reading this who is pondering quitting drinking for your New Year’s resolution: GO FOR IT! I promise you won’t regret it!

Stressful holidays

When I was a kid, I remember watching Family Feud once, and the question was, “What are the most stressful times of the year?” My child mind was completely gobsmacked to see that “Christmas” was number 1! It was not just that it didn’t stress me out, I was completely unable to imagine how it could possibly stress anyone out. It’s the most wonderful time of the year! It says it right there in the song!!

Needless to say, I am no longer puzzled by this.

Last year I was not happy during the holidays. It was my first sober Christmas and I spent the whole holiday being mad about it. When a co-worker gave me a bottle of brandy for Christmas, I almost drank it.

This Christmas was actually really nice. My brother and his wife came over, my parents were visiting, and it was a lot of fun. It made me realize something: not only was this Christmas much better than last year, it was better than any Christmas I can remember for oh, maybe a decade or so. I was never good, ever, at managing stress. Being busy meant being irritable and unhappy, full stop. No doubt this is part of what made me start drinking too much in the first place.

Quitting drinking, then, has forced me to learn to manage my stress. Here is what I have learned to do:

1) Living in the moment, only thinking about what I have to do right now rather than worrying about what I have to do later.

2) Slowing down. Instead of rushing through tasks, I do them efficiently, but deliberately. When I do chores that don’t use my brain too much, I use that time for thinking about something interesting. Something I read about, something I’m writing.

3) Asking my husband if I can go take some quiet “me” time before I start feeling resentful that I haven’t had any.

4) Meditating. I did this almost every day during the holidays. And yes, there is an app for that.

5) Not leaving my own interests behind. I still do my jigsaw puzzles, my crossword puzzles, and my history reading. Instead of thinking “I’m too busy for that,” I still do it, just for a shorter time period.

I also made a pre-resolution resolution that all my resolutions this year will be positive and specific (like “I will write another screenplay”), not negative and general (like “I will eat less”). More to come.

 

 

 

Abuse, unspecified

I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday and they did something they haven’t done before: gave me a copy of my medical report for me to take home. I think they have a new computer system.

This wasn’t a full medical report, just a summary. It listed, for example, medications I’ve taken, recent lab results, date of my last physical, and previous diagnoses. For this last, at the very top it says “Alcohol abuse, unspecified: in remission 5/2013.”

I suppose I should feel good about this (the “in remission” part), but instead it made me feel ashamed and exposed. I imagined every doctor, every nurse, every tech who pulls up my file seeing this emblazoned at the top. I suppose it upsets me to think that this won’t go away. It’s like cancer or something, I can’t make it disappear, it just goes in remission. It will always be on the list.

On another note, my husband and I started watching The Wire on DVD (no spoilers, please! We’re only on season 1), an HBO police drama set in Baltimore. There is a scene where two characters, heroin addicts, are forced to attend an NA meeting. Waylon (played by Steve Earle!) is the former junkie, now clean, who gives a speech at the meeting:

Here’s the line I loved: “When it was almost over for me, when I was out there standing on them corners without a pot to piss in, everyone who knew me or loved me cursing my name, you know what I told myself? I said, Waylon, you’re doing good.”

That’s that wolfie voice that I talked about last time, whatever you want to call it:  the drug talking, the inner addict talking, that little part of you that doesn’t care about anything as long as you can have a little drink.

Blame

Over the weekend, I read this article:

Woman charged in car crash

Basically, a woman who was drunk on a mixture of alcohol and Ambien went to move her car from the street to her driveway. She apparently mistook the accelerator for the brake and plowed into her house, killing her husband and son in law and injuring her daughter. She had her grandson in her lap when she was driving. (He was unhurt, as was she.)

This is a terrifying story. Imagining what her daughter must be going through is horrific. But what most jumped out at me in this story was this quote:

“She told a deputy, ‘it wasn’t because of drinking, it’s because it’s a new car,’ the charges say.”

She has just killed two people she loved, injured another and endangered her grandson, and her first thought is to make excuses. I bring this up not to point fingers but because I understand it. She is deflecting blame, certainly. But she is also saying, Officer, this would have happened whether I was drunk or not.

I used to think, if I, say, slurred my words when talking to my husband at dinner, or if I overbalanced and almost fell when I was tucking my daughter into bed, or if I woke up with a bruise when I didn’t remember injuring myself:  anyone can  stumble and lose their balance. Why blame the alcohol?

If drinking is your crutch and your friend, your first thought is to protect it. My friend was not to blame. Don’t make me give up my friend.

It really helps to think of one’s desire to drink as a separate entity, “wolfie,” in Belle’s terminology. I’ve also heard people talk separately about their “addict self,” opposed to their real self. Among other things, it helps to externalize the (potentially crippling) guilt. Instead of beating yourself up (“why do I still want to drink when I know how destructive it is? I must be so selfish and irresponsible …”), you can fight against it. Wolfie wants me to drink, but I don’t want to.

Low hanging fruit update

Awhile back I posted that I was going to try to make healthy choices as long as it was something that I enjoyed. Healthy food, healthy exercise. And not beat myself up over it when I didn’t.

This is actually something that is somewhat difficult to maintain, for me. As much as I like to think I am a person who naturally craves balance, this is only true for some parts of my life. I like balance when it comes to structuring my time — work, family, friend, and “me” time. But when it comes to eating and health I have a surprisingly hard time trying to find a balance between healthy eating and indulgence.

I also have a fatal attraction to extreme diets. I found myself, this week, reading up on cleanses, fasts, detox diets, and  something called a “fat fast.” (This is what it sounds like – you eat nothing but fat!)

I am not actually doing any of these things, however. I was not always so wise. I had periods of disordered eating in high school and college. I was not an anorexic, but I definitely had periods of fasting, followed by periods of overeating. I remember wishing I could be just “a little bit” anorexic – enough to lose, say, ten pounds.

In my more rational mind, I believe something like intuitive eating is probably the most sustainable way to maintain good eating habits. As I understand it, this involves respecting and listening to your body. I find that when I am mindful of how the food I eat makes my body feel, I do all kinds of good things. I eat more slowly and chew my food more thoroughly. I don’t eat until I am uncomfortably full. I don’t eat that last bite just because it is on my plate. I eat more vegetables and less sugar.

But, here’s the thing. The things my body wants are boring.

When I was practicing intuitive eating, my body would tell me it didn’t want dessert! Or I would take a bite or two and it would be enough! And it would make me get off my ass and make a salad for lunch instead of reaching for something more convenient. Stupid body! Why do I have to listen to you?

It is strange to talk about the wisdom of the body on an addiction blog. Isn’t the whole point to conquer what my body is telling me it needs? Isn’t that what addiction means? I don’t think so.  Never having been physically addicted, my reasons for drinking were all in my head. My body did its best, but the nausea, night sweats, and crippling hangovers sent me a clear message that my body wasn’t happy with what I was doing.

So here is what I have been able to do, and what I plan to continue to do:

1) Daily walks

2) Taking vitamin D (I was low in my last blood work) and cod-liver oil

3) Eating slowly and mindfully, and paying attention to how it makes my body feel

4) Exercising outside when I can, at the gym when I can’t, but only for the mental health benefits, not to put pressure on myself to lose weight.

5) Taking a few minutes each day to just breathe, especially when I feel stressed.

Sigh. So boring. 🙂