Hi all,
Still here...
CuteNGayYay - hope the job interview goes well! You'll be on Dy 36, so that should give you lots of confidence going in.
Windancer - I hadn't heard of kratom. Not sure if it's a big thing here in the UK? But it's good that you are going to make a plan with your family doctor - and if your mother is able to support you through tapering, that also sounds like a great way forward. Hooray for getting your horses back on Thursday - that will hopefully give you a lift and a new focus. My beloved dog is away for a couple of weeks because we're having work done at the house - I'm missing her terribly!
Six weeks for me today. Still feel a bit meh about it all - I know I have to stop drinking, and taking booze out of my life is certainly cutting down on the chaos and extremes of up and down. I'm glad that I never have to wake up with that feeling of "Uh-oh, what did I do / say last night?"
But I miss it.
I went out for dinner last night and had soda water, but I felt jealous when I looked around at people with their red wine. I know it's poison. I know it depresses me and makes me less able to cope with day to day life - but sobriety still feels like a loss to me.
I find "forever" too overwhelming to commit to and I know that if I consciously aim for that now, I'm likely to give up. So I've told myself that I'm not going to drink for a year, and then I'm going to reassess: has my life, overall, been improved by cutting alcohol out of it? Has my depression been less severe? Am I more productive? Am I happier? If the answer to those questions is yes, then presumably I will decide to do another year - and another year - and then either those years will turn into "forever", or at some point I will feel able to commit to "forever". I find having to make a decision not to drink each day very draining - so this way, the decision is MADE for the foreseeable future and alcohol is off the table - but I don't have to deal with the overwhelming idea of "forever". At least, not yet. Does that make any sense?
Since stopping drinking, I've become acutely aware of society's messages about alcohol. It's all around us: not just the obvious things like ads, but the subtler messages we send out all the time via sitcoms / movies / music videos etc that alcohol = relaxation = fun = sociability = celebration = happiness = a solution. How many sitcoms do you see where the fun starts when the booze comes out? Or dramas where someone faces a loss or a crisis, so a friend pours them a drink? It's EVERYWHERE. Socialising (in the UK, at least) seems to revolve around alcohol. I'm trying to be conscious of it and keep telling myself that I can make a choice not to buy into it. But we're all brainwashed. I know how low alcohol brought me - yet part of me is still hardwired to believe that I'm missing out by not pouring it down my neck. It's crazy.
Anyway - this has been a bit of a rambling post! Just thinking out loud.
Hope you're all having a good week.
xx