Finding Your Own Path

I didn't drink much as a teenager.  Nor did I drink much during my 20s.  However, I did smoke pot in my 20s until one day I just became paranoid and stopped.  I did cocaine recreationally for three years, after the pot (after my daughter was born, how sad is that), but stopped because once again I became paranoid on that!  This was all by the time I was 31 years old.  I did try a few times smoking pot, in the last two decades, but it wasn't the "high/relief/feelings" I was looking for which thankfully stopped me in bothering to try again.  But what I did come to love was drinking alcohol.

While I did partake in the first two substances I mentioned above, I never felt shame or guild for doing so.  I knew they were illegal substances, but they didn't interfere with my life like alcohol.  I only smoked pot in the evenings, to wind down.  I didn't smoke all day.  I didn't get hangovers from it.  The only bad side effect I got was eating too much at times.  The cocaine was only consumed on weekends and not a hair raising amount, but towards the end of this period in my life, alcohol became part of the ritual of coming down off a few lines of coke (sorry, this sound so very awful about me, but I want to be honest here).  After first it was just a couple beers, then it turned into four beers, and well....All this was my lifestyle with my first husband.

We were very young when we met and married.  That period of my life is a whole story in itself.  We ended up separating when I was 31 years old.  I had my young daughter, three at the time and I knew I had to get my head straight.  Thankfully I wasn't doing any drugs and not drinking too much then.  But as the months passed by, her father not part of the picture, trying to make new job work, not letting my mother/family know I was afraid and lonely, I turned to drinking on Friday nights by myself.  I remember buying a six pack on Friday night, knowing it would last me all weekend!  And it did for a while, but by the end of that first year, it was 4 or 5 beers on Friday and Saturday night.  I came across a journal entry, just before I met my current husband, where I wrote about drinking too much, being an alcoholic, etc.  This was December of 1994.  Then I met my husband now, January 1995.

He was raising two young children on his own, a boy and girl younger than my daughter.  Our relationship was fast and furious, we moved in together after six months, married a year later.  My drinking no longer seemed an issue.  I was in love, I had a whole new family, three children to raise and best of all, our children were picked up by their other parent every other weekend (having both one's parents is best, but isn't always possible).  Our friends were 8 to 10 years younger than ourselves, and were real party people!  We were always going to BBQs, birthday parties, kid events, etc.  And drinking was a big part of the life!  And yes, I drank too much, and too many times, but I didn't worry about it, nor did I feel guilty, etc.  It was my lifestyle, but as the kids grew up, and time went by (years) I knew I needed to stop drinking.  It became self-destructive, shameful, isolating and embarrassing, so I drank at home, behind close doors, not letting others know I had a big problem.

Fast-forward to now, while I've always journaled, and have written about my drinking, the not-so-good, the bad, and the ugly, it wasn't until April 2015 where I started my true effort to beat this demon.  And I've made great progress.  I wish I'd had quit alcohol 100% since I started, but it's not the case.   What is the case, is I have drank less, and less and have gone weeks without drinking since then.

And here I am.  Starting 2018 on a great path, however, I did trip up last Saturday.  A few days leading up to then, I was fighting, hard, the urges, the whispers of the wine witch, squeezing my brain, saying don't do it, don't do it!!  And I did it.

I drank one glass of red wine.  I have to be truthful, I liked the taste, I enjoyed the warmth which spread over me, my eyes glittered and I stopped and thought, "Is this worth it?"  And it wasn't.  I knew it wasn't worth the joy and freedom I've been experiencing.  I knew it was just a test.  I knew I had the strength and resolve to keep on, and so I told myself it wasn't the end of the world.

I called my daughter and told her about it.  She said mom, think of it as a medicinal tonic, one you needed to drink to feel better to go on with my sober journey.  My daughter always sees the positive, even when things aren't so, but it helped me to feel better.

And you know what, it isn't the end of the world.