Author: mstoughcupcake

Day 8

In bed cuddling with my puppy and cat (I would stop talking about them, but I spend more time with my fur babies than other humans…and I like my fur kids better than most humans). Calm…

I have to wake up at 5am tomorrow for a 7am flight, spend the whole day at a conference, then somehow get through a 2 hour cocktail party. I’m really debating skipping the cocktail party but this is the one conference every year where I know a ton of people and usually have an ok, aka not too socially awkward, time. I will see if I feel up to it…if not let, room service and early bedtime it is tomorrow night :). 

In other news, I think my drinking escalated in the past few years because I was so damn bored–I’ve been bored out of my mind this week! Last time I did a million things in the first week I was sober. This time I’m just bored of everything! Must find more hobbies 😉 at least the fall TV shows come back next week so that’s 4 hours of entertainment per week (we watch 4 and no more than 4 shows a week…some weeks fewer when there aren’t new episodes). 

One week!

Hah, it’s the little things that excite me these days…

Today was…itchy. Like, nothing felt right and I was very discontented all day for no apparent reason. I suspect just blood sugar rediscovering it can’t depend on leftover sugar from alcohol the night before! I was also starrrrrving all day. Weird. 

Got through the day. My angel husband bought me flowers after I told him I was cranky. Sweet, that one. 

Cuddling a puppy or two (they keep leaving and coming back) and all feels right with the world again. Also swam again tonight–I missed nighttime swimming!

Day 5

Interesting…I just read through my first few blog posts from the “first time” (which was meant to be the only time, damnit), and realized I don’t feel as terrible this time around. Headache isn’t there, etc. I guess even though I was back drinking for a month this isn’t as much of a shock as quitting after years of drinking straight. 

That said, quitting again sucks!

5 days. Only 2 more and it will be a week! 

I’m a little worried about Friday and Saturday  this week because I have a work conference where there will be free flowing alcohol at night. I got through one conference last time around but it was around day 90 and even that was hard. Oh well, I might err on the side of being super antisocial and just doing “enough” this weekend. I’ll take sober treats for each night after the socializing is over. 🙂

Thank you

Thank you, all, for the warm welcome back to the blog world. I am ready to give this another go.

I’ve had two days of recovering from jetlag and letting go of allllll of the emotional drama (well, it will never be gone–my father will still be who he is, but I don’t have to talk to him!), and I’m feeling ready to re-enter the world. Sober. 

I missed this community. I’m going to try to be better about commenting, too. 

Oh my…

…how the mighty fall.

If it’s not obvious by now, I fell off the wagon (or whatever phrase you want use).

Not so quickly. I made it to 100 days. 105 I think. Then I slipped, hard. One night, two glasses of wine because of some work crap. A few days later when my mom was here I had 1 glass each night. Recommitted to sobriety for 3 days, then left on vacation. Made it to day 3 of my relatives asking why I wasn’t drinking  (plus omg the stress of spending time with my father. Ahhh!). 

It was up and down but culminated three (?) days ago with drinking a bit too much, a huge fight with my father, buying an expensive (30 hour, $1000…oh the desperation) one-way plane ticket home to escape two days alone with him, and…just….ahhhh!

I’m actually still more upset about my relationship with him than the drinking. I’ve also realized I need a therapist to figure out how to ever talk to him again (this has been 32 years coming…)

Anyways, hi, all. I have been reading blogs but haven’t felt worthy to comment. I am sober-ish again (back to one ish drink a day). I am planning that Thursday will be day 1. I just can’t quite handle the emotional crap plus first few days of no alcohol at the same time. I am detoxing from my father, then we will deal with alcohol 🙂

I am going to recommit to blogging daily until I reach 100 again. I drifted away from my sober supports and I was hanging on by my fingernails by day 100 last time. Hence…well…that…

I missed you all. Day -1 😉

Day 90 (+4)

It’s been quiet around here lately–very busy with work, traveling. Still sober, but it’s been touch and go a few times. Last week at the airport coming home, people were just annoying me, and I really wanted a drink to escape from them. I survived, had tonic water, and got off the plane without a headache. Had there been a wine bar at that airport instead of the overcrowded crappy bars, I don’t guarantee the outcome would have been the same. This was after 4 days at a conference with very little sleep and lots of alcohol around. 

The past few days I’ve been thinking about drinking. No real reason, just a bunch of little things that have happened in the last week. A couple of tragedies to people around me (wife of my old boss was killed cycling last week which has made me skittish about getting on my bike. A good friend’s sweet dog died two days later from a rattlesnake bite which really upset me…and has made me squeeze my puppies even more than usual. “Mommmmm, let me go”), work stress, I hurt my back yesterday so I’m grumpier than usual…I was almost convinced I would drink tonight–a reward for going through all this nasty stuff. My husband had to go out of town last minute and my first thought was “ooh, i can open a good bottle of wine!”. Instead I swam, bad back and all–I think it helped my back a bit, bought a new fancy drink (grapefruit shrub which I then mixed with sparkly water. Weird taste!), went to bed. Well, I’m in bed and wired at 1130pm…

These almost drink moments aren’t like the cravings of the first month. They’re just “that sounds nice and I want to escape a bit and welll wine is fine, i dont have a drinking problem, I deserve it…”. Wolfie gets more subtle as time goes on, tries different tactics. At the end of each of these incidents, I haven’t really been bothered that I didn’t drink. 

Just a new phase to go through. I’m feeling a lot better in general lately. I don’t spend all day thinking about not drinking any more. Finally losing *some* weight. Less tired but that could be the last 5 nights of decent sleep talking. 

I have a deeper post written that I’ll post this week sometime. 

6 days until 100! Then….180 is the next big milestone. 

Hiiiiiiiii!

Eep, I keep meaning to sit down and write and the day gets away from me. Still sober, end of day 74. 

Last weekend we went to our local wine country to train on the bike course of my half ironman that I’m doing in 1.5 weeks. I spent 4 hours biking past some of my favorite wineries…not going to lie, that wasn’t *super* fun seeing them all and not being able to go wine tasting! We did however have a lovely weekend and I remembered just how hilly the bike course is! This race was where I did my first ironman 6 years ago (of 2 ironmans…they’re hard!) and I’ve done the half twice so it is sort of a tradition now. I’m excited to go back and race even among the wine grapes. 

We stayed in an airbnb room in someone’s house…not sure I would have done that if I was drinking because how would I drink wine without hiding in the room or letting strangers watch me drink too much? 

The best thing about sobriety right now is my new love of swimming. Tonight I got in the pool unexcited about being there but I got part way through the workout and it just cruised from there. My favorite is when I’m done and it’s just getting dark and I can float around and look at the stars. So peaceful, and something I NEVER did while drinking! Never (rarely? Nope, never) could make it past 7pm still sober. 

I haven’t had a “bad” day in over a week now…I’m sure it will come but I think the rough days are getting fewer and further  between and a lot easier to get through when they do show up. 

(And, I did mean to this write last week, but WTF Britain?!?!? The best thing to come out of Brexit was the British replies to Trump’s dumb tweet. If you haven’t read them go find them!)