I Hate Snow

It took me 3 hours to get home from work today. I live 14 miles from there. 
I have never really driven in the snow (ok..not really actually is closer to never). All around me I kept seeing cars doing the exact same thing I was and they were spinning their tires..unable to move. I just kept hoping that I would not be one of the statistics that was stuck on the side of the road. The storm came on stronger than what was predicted so I don't think anyone knew it would be this horrible of a commute. I kept having visions of myself huddled up in my car on the side of the road until the next thaw!
I really really really don't enjoy snow anymore. At All. When I finally pulled into my driveway I sat in the car for a good  little while on the verge of tears. But..I am back in the house now. 
I did have the thought once or twice that if I was still drinking I would have had at least two bottles of wine on a day like this. Instead I turned to chocolate. I know not the most wholesome solution from my woes but honestly, if I could have made the drive to the gym I would have! I just didn't want it to close before I got there!!!

7 months sober

My best bit of wisdom to those who are recently sober...
It gets better. It gets A LOT better. There will be a time when you won't think about alcohol every second of every day. Hang in there!

One Word...

Ouch!
Needless to say I am doing what I said I was going to do- working out. It hasn't totally set in yet because I just had a really great workout...but tomorrow is going to be painful. Good thing this bed is close to the ground so I can roll out of it in the morning!! A protein shake might be in order for breakfast!
I am not totally out of touch with working out. I used to be though. Aside from a couple of years of playing basketball in high school I was what my husband would call "skinny fat." I was super skinny but not in shape.No fat, but definitely lacking in the muscle department. 
When I packed up and moved cross country 6 years ago I got into the gym. For the first time in my life I was a bonafide gym rat. My day just didn't feel right if I wasn't working out. I got myself in the best shape of my life! (then drank myself right out of it...then got there again..then..uhh... drank myself out of it AGAIN!) 
I am eager to reach the point again when I have a deep desire to be in the gym. This is day two and I think that feeling can't get here soon enough. 
I have been sick for the last 2 weeks or so and I am quite sure that this workout tonight has dislodged any remaining yucky stuff inside of me as I am sneezing and blowing my nose at an alarming rate. If you see a CNN story about the woman who can't stop sneezing- it's me. 
Wishing you all a wonderful week! 

Working out

Tomorrow I start my exercise and eating plan. As long as I can remember I have had some issues with body dysmorphia. I weighed about 114 pounds when I was 18 and still longed to loose weight. I hated my body. My family on my dads side has a history of morbid obesity. My grandfather died at well over 500 pounds. I remember my mom telling me when I was eating chips that if I ate them all I would get fat. (I probably weighed 109 at the time at 5'6".) That attitude stuck with me for a long time. I am 50% Portuguese decent from my dad's side. To me that means I have a butt. Growing up I hated that about myself. I remember crying one day when my older sister told me I had a bubble butt. All through high- school I played basketball but really didn't have any athletic prowess. 

When I joined the Navy I gained 15 pounds in bootcamp. I was devastated. I tried to convince myself I looked better but when I looked in the mirror I saw someone much bigger than myself. To make a long story short..I have always struggled with my own perception of my body. 

When I first moved to this state I could actually afford to join a gym. I became a bonafide gym rat and started to love my body. It was the first time ever I lost weight the right way- by exercising and eating right. No starvation diets, no diet pills. I have managed to get into great shape a few times since then but was always derailed because of my drinking. 

209 days ago I was at my heaviest of all time- 168 pounds. I would say I don't know how I let myself get like that- but I do. I consumed so many calories in just alcohol. I could have totally gone without food and still packed on the pounds. I know from research that when you drink your body stops metabolizing everything else and just works on the alcohol. 

Well, as of right now, I am 13 pounds lighter. I have gotten down to as low as 150 but am holding steady at 155. While the number on the scale is not as much of an issue for me, I am ready to get myself back into shape. I want to be stronger than I ever have before. I want to look fitter and have abs. I know I am capable of that now. Before, alcohol always zapped my motivation or derailed my diet. 

My goal is to get down to 140 pounds. I have a 13 week plan that includes core strength, weights and triathlon cardio workouts with some mixed martial arts training thrown in by my husband on the weekends. I have been getting a lot of motivation from stories and tv shows about people who started way more out of shape than I am. If they have the willpower to do it I know I can. 

This will also help me gear up for an inevitable deployment to the middle east where I will have to endure rigorous training in pre-deployment workouts. 

Here's to not making any more excuses and just doing it!

Living....

I am successfully living life as a sober person. Alcohol does not consume every thought that I have anymore, and I am thankful for that.  My life is now delightfully predictable! I used to feel so tortured inside that I could have written here three times a day- but now, I am peaceful. It has become second nature to tell people that I don’t drink (if they mention it). I don’t feel compelled to tell them my life story, if they ask, I generally just tell them that I realized I was too old to keep putting that poison in my body. I think the fact that I have lost over 15 pounds helps them to realize the benefit of not drinking for me.  When I first started that clock was such a daunting thing for me…a perpetually slow reminder of the daily torture of sobriety. Now I hardly look at it. I don’t count days down anymore. Honestly, I didn’t think I would get to this point. I didn’t think I would be strong enough now to not struggle on a daily basis. Even though I spend a lot of time alone now- I am still stronger. Strong…but diligent. I am not naïve to the fact that I have to remember why I can’t take another drink.

I am so thankful for sobriety – much more so than I ever thought I would be. 

Happy Sober New Year

This New Years I am hanging out with the kids with a bottle of sparkling apple cider chilling in the fridge watching Dick Clark's New Years Rocking Eve. (They are still young enough for me to force them to watch what I want on tv...lol) 
I hope you are all having a wonderful New Year however you celebrate (my husband is celebrating by sleeping right now). 
Tonight, instead of going out we all went to a movie and then ordered some pizza. 
This blog has been such a huge help for me in the last 6 months. I almost don't know what to write about anymore. I hope this year I can find some inspiration to keep coming back. Even when I don't write I am reading my favorites just to keep up. 
Have a great night...and please know that I am extremely grateful for all the encouragement and support from all of you! 

Time to Relax

My kids AND husband opted to stay up until midnight so they could open their presents. That definitely takes the pressure off having to get up early. I have spent the last two days cooking. It was my first attempt at making a prime rib and it turned out pretty darn good if I do say so myself. My favorite dish of the day was key lime pie from scratch. It was a labor of newfound love because zesting and squeezing a billion tiny key limes really is a pain in the ass! It was well worth it though. I have been craving it for a long time. 
Now I am sitting with my feet up hoping that the back pain from hunching over wrapping presents and cooking for two days will go away. 
This was my first sober Christmas in a long time. It was a nice change. I think I'll keep it up! 
Merry Christmas Everyone!

Ready For Christmas...almost

Tree is up, presents have been purchased but still need to be wrapped, dinner menu is set and groceries are in the fridge. I will start cooking pies tomorrow and do some other prep work. I have been spending a lot of time relaxing, napping and just enjoying hanging out with my family.
When I was at the grocery store today I bought a bottle of apple cider for New Years. My first sober New Years in God only knows how long. It felt pretty good. Life is good. Hope you all are doing well!
Almost forgot!!! SIX MONTHS (and two days) SOBER!!

Doing Better

Just wanted to let everyone know I am feeling better and am in much better spirits and still sober. I am looking forward to Christmas. All of my holiday shopping is done and I am enjoying some VERY LAZY days at home.

Melancholy

I have been in a dark place lately. I have suffered from bouts of depression in the past but this is something different. I have been having morbid thoughts of death and injury of my family. I am not sure if this is a product of me spending so much time without them lately and feeling that I am missing them. My mind is f*in with me! I have decided to start taking anti-depressants again. I would really like my Christmas with my family to not revolve around my mental health.

It occurred to me that I might have felt this way before but just drank the feelings away…drowning out my dreams in drunken sleep. Now it seems ridiculous that I would drink.. it’s just going to cause me a headache, and in the end everything is still going to be right where I left it.

It seems weird that it is Christmas time- I should be happy and cheerful. Hopefully those feelings will hit me soon. 

Good Weekend

This was a really good weekend for my family. My daughter ran in an out of state cross country meet and shaved a minute of her time from last year. My son competed in his first swim meet and won one of his races! My husband earned his purple belt in jiu jitsu and I earned a promotion in the reserves. (only hiccup this weekend was I lost my ID- have to get that replaced tomorrow if I can!)

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. I am a reservist and am facing a potential deployment to the Middle East. I have known this was going to come but now that I have been promoted the odds are even greater.  I have also been looking for a job closer to home. I really like my current job but being so far away is really weighing on my mental health. I feel like I don’t have much of a life anymore with working, working some more and then working out. It is effective to keep time passing quickly but I can see the potential for extreme stress pretty soon.

I am worried about the effects a potential deployment could have on my sobriety and mental well being. Just going in for one weekend a month I hear a fill of drinking stories. When my husband was overseas he told me how easily accessible alcohol was. I am strong in my sobriety now. I have a lot of confidence in myself. But of course with change comes challenges. 2011 promises to be a year of great change for me. Most importantly I am looking forward to spending my first year (since God only know when) sober. 

Forgetting

Sometimes, lately, I forget that I am an alcoholic. I don't think about drinking every single moment of every day anymore and so sometimes when someone talks about going out and throwing a few drinks it doesn't sound like some poisonous evil thing to me. 
Funny how 164 days can make for such a drastic change in perspective. 
For me, this change in thought shines a better life on why some people might relapse. It gets easier to forget you ever had a problem to begin with, especially when all those lingering effects of alcohol abuse have faded. 
It's moments like these that probably make it important to have someone to "report" to, someone who has higher expectations of you than you do of yourself. For me this person is my husband- and all of you who read this and provide comments. 

Good v. Evil

I have been enjoying a nice long lazy weekend. Finally got out today to pick up some dry cleaning and get my hair done. I have been doing a lot of sleeping this weekend. I guess the daily grind of the work week has really been catching up with me.

I did a little bit of Christmas shopping today and while I was out I passed through a convenience store with all of its wine and beer. Early in recovery it felt like I had an angel on one shoulder and a devil disguised as a liquor bottle on the other shoulder. Like somehow the alcohol was encouraging and taunting me. “Just buy me.. you know you want to.” A few months ago I avoided any section of a store with alcohol in it- like it was the great evil aisle that meant to do me harm. Today when I passed by I didn’t feel threatened. It seems ridiculous upon writing that an inanimate object felt threatening- but it did. I don’t know how to explain it- or if it even makes sense. What I do know is that early in sobriety it was hard to even be around alcohol- like the bottles themselves were able to talk me into drinking. 

I am thankful that early in my recovery people reminded me every day that I wouldn’t think about drinking every moment of every day. I don’t know if I believed it then- but it’s true. Thankfully.

Being Thankful

I am so thankful to be sober.
I spent last night and most of today cooking. Made a lot of food for just my husband and I. Last year I didn't cook and didn't realize until it was too late that my husband really enjoys the meal. His mom was supposed to come over this year but couldn't make it so I did my best to make him all of his favorite stuff. Now it is time for me to rest as I hear my husband rattling around in the kitchen wrapping up all the food.
When I was a drinker I would be tired after cooking because I had been drinking the whole time. Now...I am just full and happy and ready for a nice long nap!
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone- I hope your holiday is as happily sober as mine is!

5 Months

Today is my 5 month mark of sobriety. I have experienced a lot of changes in myself in this time. The most profound things for me right now- I don't think of alcohol every second of every day and sobriety has stopped being a chore and is becoming a way of life.

Alcoholic Thinking

I was talking to my husband the other day and he said his definition of having control is being able to walk away from anything. But according to his definition it’s ok to go back to whatever you were doing as long as you maintain that control. (for the record he was not suggesting that I drink again).

So I started thinking what it would be like to drink. Then I realized I don’t have any gauge as to what it means to NOT be an alcoholic. I have no idea how non-alcoholics feel when they drink. I don’t know their thought process for when it is time to stop, or why they don’t have the desire to drink more and more. I think it is safe for me to say that this is a pretty good reason that I shouldn’t ever drink again.

I can’t even imagine how their brains work. The only thing I know is how my brain works.  My brain tells me that you drink until there is nothing else to drink or until you pass out (I used to call it falling asleep!). My brain also tells me that it’s ok to drink ALL the time. This is why I can’t take another drink. I don’t have any clue what it feels like to NOT be an alcoholic. 

Growing Up

I was having a conversation with my husband the other day about the struggles I have gone through with my sobriety. I think he wants to understand but he really can’t because he has never done drugs and has never lost control of his drinking. His answer to everything is “Self destruction is not the answer.” Sometimes I think that’s easy for him to say but then again- he has lived that way. In this conversation he asked me how long I had been drinking. I had to really stop and think about when the seeds were planted for my alcoholism. I remember sneaking whiskey out of my dad’s basement when I was in eighth grade. As I got older alcohol was always easy to access because my mom owned a little mom and pop grocery store. I worked there A LOT. I also closed often so it was easy to pull my car up and fill the trunk with beer when I was 16. At 16 I also started dating a guy who was 21 so alcohol continued to be easy to access.

Alcohol has always been well within reach. I lived in Italy for 3 years, starting when I was 19 so I never even had to worry about a drinking age. Upon reflection I don’t see myself as being an alcoholic at that time…. But it sure as hell was a great foundation. It wasn’t until I was beginning my divorce that I started using alcohol to self medicate. That was the time that I never felt drunk enough. As my addiction grew so did my tolerance so it took more to get me drunk.  Sigh…. Eighth grade- that is what… 13 years old? It might have been even younger.  Sometimes I am resentful that my parents didn’t catch me- I wonder if it would have made a difference.  Thankfully I am on the right path now.

Tonight we had a fight party – something we do often whenever there is a good boxing match on. This was my first sober event. It was nice. I am so grateful to be sober. 

Living Sober

I had a really sucky weekend. Blah. I have decided that I am a traffic vacuum. If there happens to be any traffic anywhere near it will be sucked right to my location! Thursday there was a police involved shooting that shut down my main thoroughfare- allowing me to travel a whopping 1.5 miles in 2 hours. Friday it took me 5 hours to make the drive south home (no traffic it takes 2.5 hours). Not to be outdone by Friday- my dear friend Monday decided it should take me 5 hours and 20 minutes to get back up here. Sigh.

My weekend wasn’t great either. My doctor determined I had an upper respiratory infection and prescribed some medicine for it. The cough medicine he gave me is probably the closest thing I have had to being intoxicated in almost 5 months. It is alcohol free but contains codeine. Definitely had me emotional and a tiff my husband and I got into didn’t help matters at all. Sigh again.

I am looking forward to a long weekend. I will drive south again tomorrow to enjoy a 4 day weekend. I really feel like crawling under the covers and not peeking out until Monday morning. Maybe I can convince my husband to stay there with me!

In the midst of all these inconveniences I never once thought about drinking. I did think to myself that I used to have that as my outlet and that I really need to get busy finding a new outlet. Normally that would be the gym, but not being able to breathe well definitely put that on the “can’t do” list for now.  On my way home I thought about how inconvenient drinking really was for me. Life seems so much simpler that I don’t have to worry about it. Being sober has become a way of life- just like drinking once was. Sometimes, just to play devil’s advocate with myself, I think about whether or not I could have just one drink. The answer is no. I might tell myself it was one drink- but it would always end up being another, and another- just like it used to be. I am so grateful that I am sitting here writing, sober.  

No Do-Overs This Time

I am feeling a little bit under the weather today. Can’t say that I actually feel bad…but I definitely do NOT feel good. I will be very happy to be at home in my own bed this weekend.

One of my co-workers has been spending a lot of time being disgruntled. I have to say- it takes a whole lot of effort to walk around mad at the world.  That kind of reminds me of drinking. It took so much effort for me to be an alcoholic. Always planning and sneaking…

In the very beginning of my sobriety it DID take a lot of effort not to drink. I had to break the habit of it. I also came to realize that there was never going to be a time when I could take a drink and feel like “wow.. that was the greatest drink in the world! I never have to drink again.” There were a lot of those times when I sat at home (drunk) with a drink in my hand, knowing that I had to get sober.  Every time I did decide to get sober it was in a drunken state. I would sit, thinking “this is it… this is the last drink.”  Even this time. The difference now is that I know I can’t ever drink again. There will be no time, ever, that I can be in control of my drinking.

I know now that one drink will turn into another one, and another. I equate it to being on a diet. When you mess up you figure- well the day is shot- might as well eat what I want and start again tomorrow. But then tomorrow is date night, or a wedding, or a family dinner, so that day is shot too. Then hell- might as well indulge the entire weekend and start again on Monday. My life was a perpetual “do-over” day.  But not this time. This time I am making it… I am so thankful for that. 

Happy Halloween

Tonight we will be headed out to dinner and a comedy club instead of handing out candy. Now that I spend the week in the city we cherish every moment we have together on the weekends. I am so glad that I get to enjoy the time as a sober person. 
I was thinking about my co-workers from my last job. They would tell me how they would take their kids trick or treating with a big cup of rum punch. At the time I thought, "Damn! Why didn't I think of that?" Every thought used to be figuring out how I could be drinking every moment. I am happy that I get to use my brain power for things other than sneaking a couple of drinks. 
Hope you all have a safe and sober Happy Halloween!