Day 3 sober and my wife is still here! I guess that is all I can ask for.
She let me have it in an email again today… which is fine, I deserve it. I just keep telling her that I really do love her, more now than ever, more than I thought before. There is other history to our relationship that I could get into on a later date… right now I am settling in to the idea that I truly am a scumbag and that it’s time to fix myself… and to fight to save this family.
So, to answer Dee’s question (hello by the way)… “What’s my plan for the drinking?”
No do it. Seriously… it that simple right? Not really… but I think we would all like to think so. Right? Anyway, I know I am only on day three… but I think I had a pretty good day. Every morning at work I have a meeting with all the folks I work with… and my boss, realizing it was Friday the 13th decided to throw a Rakia Tasting happy hour at the end of the work day just for the hell of it. You see, I work in the Foreign Service… if any of you were wondering what the heck I’m doing in… and it’s a pretty heavy drinking culture… there really isn’t a whole lot else to do. And Rakia? It’s pretty much Serbian moonshine… and various officials we meet with give us bottles of Rakia as gifts all the time and they start to stack up around the office.
Anyway… I was stuck. Great, right? This is my total MO too… I’m responsible when it comes to work... but it’s when work ends that I start to lose myself. Normally I would pound a couple shots of rakia or a few beers… as many as I could fit before it was time to go home… then I would probably stop by the commissary on my way out the door and pick-up a couple bottles of wine… probably polish one or both of them off when I get home… some nights I might even walk down to the corner store and pick up a couple more things of beer when the wine was done… I’m sure you all know the drill.
Anyway, day three and now there’s going to be a happy hour in my office. But I stayed strong. I said “no” to the rakia (it was my day to drive in carpool anyway)… so my boss handed me a glass of wine. I accepted because there was going to be toasts. I toasted but drank the sparkling water that I already had from my other hand… and then set the wine on my desk and focused on the popcorn and nachos.
So far I feel good… I have a feeling I’m going to hit a brick wall at some point, but I will deal with that when it comes. As I mentioned before, my family is the motivating factor at this point… as long as they stay by my side and can simply not drink.
What’s up with everyone else? I have to agree with some of the others, the tone in the November boards is not very inviting. I’m not sure if Ken simply wants attention or what… but I would encourage and exchange of stories and ideas that will in the end foster exactly what Ken was probably looking for.