a little late

 I'm a little late setting up this thing, I thought it should probably start on my first day being sober but things rarely go according to plan.

Or rather, there was no plan for this blog until yesterday and it still took me some time to talk myself into writing it. 

After reading about other people's sober journeys being buoyed by writing their thoughts down, I figured it couldn't hurt to try my hand at this as well.

So this is day 19 of my sober journey and so far it has not been terrible. It's actually been pretty great! Not drinking has not been as hard as I thought it would, despite my previous internal vows to "not drink again today".

I suppose that's what started this whole thing - I tried (very gently and quietly) to not drink and when the afternoon came along and I found myself thinking, "well, why not, I don't have a problem, my husband is having one, I'm not working, I have no place to be, I'm bored, it would be nice not to feel empty and useless". So I'd pour myself a drink, eyeing the clock to see if it was actually an "appropriate" time to drink (well it's 2:45 so that's basically 3 which is close to 4 which means that 5 is pretty soon after that).

So after months of drinking daily between the hours of 3ish to 8ish and thinking that maybe I shouldn't drink so much but then not doing anything about it, I tried to go for one month without. I texted my friends July 1st and asked if they would participate in a "Dry July" with me. I managed to get through most of the month, but towards the end I gave in thinking "well it's pretty much August already" (see a pattern here?)

The break in my drinking habit did not dissuade my desire to drink and soon after I was back to having a whiskey in the early evening every day. 

There were signs that I was having a bit too much. I've had trouble remembering what movies or shows that we would watch the night before, some mornings I would wake feeling foggy and my head would ache, I would very casually check to see how much I was drinking compared to my husband (but I was pretty much always the one finishing the bottle). 

I knew that I drank to feel drunk. Sure, a glass of red wine was delicious with some garlic bread and pasta but it also fueled my desire to eat far more than I needed to and left me feeling both drunk and stuffed. Consumption was a burden that I thought was a comfort. I wanted to have another glass until I was too tired and need to sleep or until I thought I was drunk enough.

So here I am, 19 days into my journey of sobriety. I initially thought this would just be another dry month to give me perspective and then I could go back to drinking. However, in the last few weeks I've been reading more about sobriety and alcohol abuse, paying attention to how I feel, and I'm coming around to the idea of just not drinking anymore. I've always been more of a "all or nothing" type of person anyway.