I can't tell you how many times I have decided to stop drinking. It's a conversation that my husband and I have had multiple times, as he is also a drinker. Yet... that conversation occurs in the morning, and by late night, we're yet again 3/4 of the way into a handle of Vodka (or Rum, depending on which one was the cheapest at the store of our choice that day.) We would alternate between all the stores we would purchase from as to not lead on that we were closet drinkers. Really, not just drinkers, but functioning alcoholics, but I can't quiet bring myself to admit that, although I would often "joke" about us being Alcoholics, knowing that the jokes weren't really jokes underneath it all.
Anyways, after a night of binge drinking with a friend of my husbands, his friend pointed out, you guys are drinkers!... with a smile on his face, no judgement at all. The fact that somebody had noticed though, and the fact that my husband followed it up with laughing and acknowledging we were, I knew I didn't want to be this way. So the next day, I told him I wanted to be done. That I wanted to be healthy. That somebody I wanted to be a Mom, and I wanted to be a true wife.. ya know... cooks dinner, cleans, snuggles in bed after. Not what I was... the drinking buddy that passed out at the end of the night, sometimes flat on my face on the floor. He said fine, but by the end of the night, I was anxious, I was really grumpy (I've noticed when I don't drink I get grumpy.) I was bored. Really bored. I don't understand how alcohol takes a boring situation and somehow spices it up, making the same situation seem less boring. Yet, it does.... and I like that.
So... what did I do? I told him we should go buy a bottle. And see, this is where I really struggle in quitting... he will support me quitting. Yet, when I break and I ask for a bottle, he will say "Okay." It's like there's no support in trying to quit. When I start to relapse, he just allows it.... my liver has been really hurting, and he knows that. He has said on multiple times "I don't want to lose you, let's quit drinking." But then, later that day, he'll come home with a bottle, or I will suggest it and he'll agree.
The only thing that stopped that from happening last night is that I had lost his debit card from when I got dinner earlier, and we didn't notice it until at the liquor store. So... we had no $$ for it. And now, here I am again in the morning, wanting to get through today without alcohol.... and yet... having so much doubt that it'll happen. 1 day sober... not by choice, by chance....
On top of it all, I have tried quitting before, but my sleep really gets affected when I do. I think that my body got used to passing out from alcohol and, somehow, "forgot" how to fall asleep without alcohol. I've tried calming teas, Melatonin, nothing works like alcohol. Just last night, I went to bed at 11:30 with my husband, fell asleep around 3 AM into a very light sleep, and woke up about every 20 minutes. And then stopped trying to sleep around 5:30 AM.
How do you quit? Especially when you're only support system just allows it??? I don't have the answer to this, and that scares me.
