Hello all. It's been an interesting year and a half since I last posted, but I'm happy to report that I'm on day 38.
I think I've finally come to terms with the fact that I can't be any sort of moderate drinker. Even when I would pat myself on the back for going out to dinner and only having one glass of wine, I knew that, as long as I let alcohol be a part of my life, I would never be free of the private binging, however convincingly I could appear to drink "normally" in public.
It was the anxiety that pushed me over the edge. Even when I tried to "moderate" my binges ("only" two bottles of wine instead of three, plus beer), the hangovers seemed to get worse. I've always dealt with anxiety and knew that the drinking didn't help, but the anxiety and panic attacks that started accompanying the hangovers got really bad. While I'd read enough to know what was happening and that I wasn't really having X medical condition, it was only a matter of time before I freaked out my family/friends by making one of them drive me to the ER because I felt like I was coming out of my skin and having some sort of fit, or heart attack, or something.
I knew, and know, I can't live like that, so I'm hoping this is it for me and alcohol. I saw a doctor for the first time in years and told him everything, and he was extremely sympathetic and supportive. Miraculously, my bloodwork was pretty good; one liver enzyme just slightly high, but he said that was consistent with fatty liver, which I was diagnosed with several years ago, and should resolve if I stay alcohol free and work on eating better and getting more exercise. He also started me on a low dose of an SSRI for anxiety and referred me to a therapist in their practice, who I'll start seeing this week.
In the last 38 days I really haven't had any cravings per se, but I have suddenly found myself in situations where I said to myself, "Ah yes, I can see where this would've been an excuse for me to drink before." I've also recognized a few times where I found myself romanticizing my past drinking, thinking in terms of seemingly innocuous, isolated snippets of time ("Wasn't it fun watching that TV show with a couple of glasses of wine?!") rather than the whole picture (you can't remember what happened in the entire series because those two glasses of wine turned into 15!). But the thought of actually having a drink feels utterly foreign to me now. I know I need to be vigilant and have a plan for when something, whether the AV or a stressful situation, tries to chip away at my resolve, and that's the first thing I'd like to work with the therapist on. Just reading other people's stories and experiences here has been huge as well, so I'm going to make a point to keep posting as I work through this.