Thank you everyone for the honest stories of the discomfort of early sobriety! I haven't considered myself a true alcoholic until reading these posts. A couple glasses of wine after work is no big deal right? I recognize now that it's much more than that. I've gone a month here, a week there, even 3 months without a glass of wine in the past, but then a vacation or inlaws or a birthday party or a hard day at work and achy feet and head, and just like that, back to a couple glasses of wine at night plus whatever festivities came my way. I knew it was a concern when I told myself 2 glasses of wine a week should fulfill all my social needs but was never any where near able to come close to that goal. It was 3 or 4 bottles of wine a week or nothing at all. Nothing at all or nothing less!!! I don't care if it's 3 bottles of gin a day, or 4 bottles of wine a week. If it is a power stronger than your will power and it is not what you promised yourself, than it is an addiction. So I've stopped hopefully for good this time. I see the powerful grip of addiction and how it takes us down. Things that woke me up to the damage a few innocent bottles of wine will cause ... -This forum, the book "almost alcoholic", Brene Browns books and ted talks about the way we self medicate to avoid pain instead of leaning into discomfort. We need to lean into discomfort in order to live "wholeheartedly". In the US we numb because we are avoiding discomfort. We can numb with anything. Food, video games, sex, alcohol, drugs. Brene Brown says she doesn't care if it's crack cocain or an apple fritter. If we are using it to numb, we are numbing our happiness along with the discomfort. It all gets numbed. You can't pick and choose the numbing. That is why a couple glasses of wine at night is the dangerous slippery slop to much darker things. Numb the happiness and you will have more discomfort requiring more numbing.. You get the idea.
