I love Fall, still, too. Every season and holiday has an association with alcohol for me. Although I associate different drinks for different times of year, all had the common goal of getting drunk!
Towards the last year of drinking, I didn't put as much effort into drinking different types of booze different times of the year. I think that was the depression creeping in?
I was never a particularly depressed person before alcoholism. I wasn't spiritually fit, either. There was always a longing, an itch, an underlying dissatisfaction with life. It wasn't until after I quit drinking that I felt the heaviness, sadness, and lethargy of a major depression. I didn't realize it was depression at first because I never identified as depressed before drinking.
I'm grateful the depression lifted. I'm grateful to have all the tools of recovery to work through the longing, the itch, the dissatisfaction.
Today was a productive day for me. I know it's a particularly productive day when I complete items that are a bit further down on my to do list. Today I cleaned the shelves of my refrigerator. I know that I owe it to both the passing of time to heal by body/brain and working a recovery program.
Back in the day, I'd super duper clean the fridge AND the entire kitchen in one manic swoop of energy, then reward myself with drinking. In recovery, I am cleaning the fridge a little bit every day. Yesterday was the veggie bins. Today the shelves. Tomorrow the inside of the door. The next day, the outside. And I'll make it to the other deep cleaning parts of the kitchen next week, bit by bit. I like this new approach to tasks.
It's unseasonably warm where I live today, but I feel the need for a hot cocoa!! Be well, Febbies!!