Spending some quality time going to bed early and rising when the birds are up and about, without having a hangover - it's like a new beginning. Sorry to soud a tad evangelical about this, but I haven't done anything else other than stop alcohol and I feel so unbloated, so alert and almost happy!
Am trying not to focus on what I am missing out on (ie that drinking is such a fun party and i won't be there) instead what i will say to my circle of friends who are all expecting to see me drinking heavily and almost prepare themselves for it when they see me.
Especially this weekend, we are going to stay at a friends' house for a night and they have seen me asleep on their loungeroom floor, drunk, a couple of times.
Sep 15, 2010
Sep 13, 2010
Day Two of Sobriety
Am staying positive and drinking plenty of water to flush my system.
Last night I went for a walk when I would normally have been getting started on the drink.
I fell asleep reading a book and woke up this morning without the surly resentment of the hangover stun. Have been eating well too, avoiding salty shit and the stuff I used to eat with wine.
Night two tonight, am confident I have worked hard enough today to be able to sleep well.
It is so easy to lapse into the self examination of the diarist and just start quoting lists and numbers and events. i will try not to do that in this blog, as that would soon become a drudge.
Last night I went for a walk when I would normally have been getting started on the drink.
I fell asleep reading a book and woke up this morning without the surly resentment of the hangover stun. Have been eating well too, avoiding salty shit and the stuff I used to eat with wine.
Night two tonight, am confident I have worked hard enough today to be able to sleep well.
It is so easy to lapse into the self examination of the diarist and just start quoting lists and numbers and events. i will try not to do that in this blog, as that would soon become a drudge.
My Last Day of Drinking
I am an alcoholic, even though I do not live under a bridge or have I lost my wife and family or my house or business - yet. Approaching my 36th birthday, I spent some time reflecting on where I was at and where I was heading in life.
To be totally honest, when I was drunk, everything was fine. But as happened every night, when I woke at 2am with a headache and full bladder, I would be overcome with grief and depression and feel almost suicidal that I was so weak to have let myself become alcoholic. I knew it had to end.
And not just stop for a couple of days or make a pathetic announcement that I would stop and then slowly build up my drinking over time until it was chronic again. Or tell everyone some story that I was exhausted and try and make excuses about it.
I made the decision and accepted that the bald, blunt reality is that I cannot control my drinking, and that it is a hopeless and shameful battle for me to think I can have a few drinks every now and then and be functioning. I admit that I think about getting alcohol everyday and plan my business and career around it.
I have been drinking alcohol to excess for more than a decade as a means to cope with whatever life events I was facing and even when there was nothing really doing, I would drink, cause i would be anxious that I would get anxious without it. So I drank also out of fear of not drinking and being sober at night before I fell asleep.
Yeah, so it was pretty fucked. So, being the completely hopeless alcoholic, on my birthday I committed to myself I would stop alcohol altogether in 100 DAYS! Yippee! I was doing something about it! I had made a commitment and admitted I had a problem.
So anyway, I gave myself carte blanche after that to drink myself basically to death. I drank dozens and dozens of bottles of wine, hot bottles of champagne in tumblers with ice, drinking tall bottles of beer in the car whilst my wife drive around town. The complete fucking rockstar alcoholic except I was not a rockstar. Just an alcoholic.
And I felt sad and depressed and life lost meaning and I was indulgent and lazy and moody and either drinking or asleep, sprinkled with some work in between.
And then on the last weekend, I really tried hard on the Saturday night and drank the house dry. Next thing, it is Sunday, the last day. And I see myself in the wardrobe mirror kneeling by the side of our bed, (so my wife wouldn't see) and glugging down Japanese Rice Wine. 18%, watery hard to say what it tastes like, salty rice juice?
And then I knew it was rock bottom.
To be totally honest, when I was drunk, everything was fine. But as happened every night, when I woke at 2am with a headache and full bladder, I would be overcome with grief and depression and feel almost suicidal that I was so weak to have let myself become alcoholic. I knew it had to end.
And not just stop for a couple of days or make a pathetic announcement that I would stop and then slowly build up my drinking over time until it was chronic again. Or tell everyone some story that I was exhausted and try and make excuses about it.
I made the decision and accepted that the bald, blunt reality is that I cannot control my drinking, and that it is a hopeless and shameful battle for me to think I can have a few drinks every now and then and be functioning. I admit that I think about getting alcohol everyday and plan my business and career around it.
I have been drinking alcohol to excess for more than a decade as a means to cope with whatever life events I was facing and even when there was nothing really doing, I would drink, cause i would be anxious that I would get anxious without it. So I drank also out of fear of not drinking and being sober at night before I fell asleep.
Yeah, so it was pretty fucked. So, being the completely hopeless alcoholic, on my birthday I committed to myself I would stop alcohol altogether in 100 DAYS! Yippee! I was doing something about it! I had made a commitment and admitted I had a problem.
So anyway, I gave myself carte blanche after that to drink myself basically to death. I drank dozens and dozens of bottles of wine, hot bottles of champagne in tumblers with ice, drinking tall bottles of beer in the car whilst my wife drive around town. The complete fucking rockstar alcoholic except I was not a rockstar. Just an alcoholic.
And I felt sad and depressed and life lost meaning and I was indulgent and lazy and moody and either drinking or asleep, sprinkled with some work in between.
And then on the last weekend, I really tried hard on the Saturday night and drank the house dry. Next thing, it is Sunday, the last day. And I see myself in the wardrobe mirror kneeling by the side of our bed, (so my wife wouldn't see) and glugging down Japanese Rice Wine. 18%, watery hard to say what it tastes like, salty rice juice?
And then I knew it was rock bottom.
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