It is 90 days today since I had that last drink. Just a couple of days short of three months and only ten days short of a hundred. It doesn’t sound like much, I know, but it’s the longest I’ve gone without booze since I started drinking again almost seven years ago now.
There’s been plenty of times since December 12th of last year when I’ve really craved a drink, but I’m glad to say that so far, I’ve come out on top; beaten the AV and beaten the booze. Perhaps because I was psychologically more “prepared” this time around; maybe it was my body telling my brain that it’s make-or-break time. Keep drinking and die time, or stopping the madness I’ve been - literally – drowning myself in. Or maybe living with two hard-line alcoholics and imagining myself wallowing in the same alcohol-sty with them each and every day with no end in sight; drunk and hopeless… Maybe my financial situation contributed. Or maybe it was God who listened and this time,
really helped. Maybe it was a combination of some of it, or all of it; I don’t care because it worked, and it still does.
Also, even if it
is just 90 days - and please bear with me because some of it is copy – paste from a previous post of mine – it is 90 days in which, apart from the money I’ve saved, I’ve also saved myself from:
• Drawing a curtain back over my brain and again living in a drunken daze most of the time…
• Throwing up almost every day…
• Waking up a dozen times a night – to either go to the loo or because I’m wet with sweat or because I had (another) bad dream or because I’m thirsty (again); then lie awake for hours or have another Scotch with tepid water at three in the morning, and another, and another…
• Having blood in my stool most mornings…
• My body feeling like a hundred-year old’s, tired and blotchy and itchy and ugly…
• An alcoholic red face…
• Nose-bleeds and easy bruising…
• Headaches and muscle-aches and stomach-aches and joint-pains and cramps…
• Dry and bloodshot eyes…
• My liver hurting all of the time...
• Spending less on food and eating less…
• Taking slow walks to the shops at a quarter to nine every morning, so I’ll be there at nine, when the Liquor Store opens…
• Swearing and spewing hate and racist c*** with my dad again, and pass out at seven or eight each night…
• Lying about the amount I drink – even to my dad and stepmom, and hide my empties again, like stepmom does...
• Lying about a lot of things, including my finances, which I’ll see getting worse each day; which is why I’ll just drink more – and lie more – so I can forget more…
• Being grumpy, ill-tempered, short of fuse, miserable, moody and forgetful…
• Being worried about things I said - and things I forgot I said and/or did the previous day and night…
It’s early days, I know. But what I also know, is that I
will get to a hundred. After that, I’ll just let each day take care of itself, then each week and each month and then hopefully each year. All of it one day at a time…
