Day 225: Boo!

Happy Halloween :)! I love this holiday- it is so much fun!  In the past it was a big-time excuse to get my drink on (when wasn't??).  Now I have no desire to drink.  I am so much more at peace with things.  So thankful that right now, I not only do not drink, but I do not WANT to drink.  Much love.

Day 210: Looking Ahead

Busy weekend but not much to speak of, boozish-wise. I've just generally been really thankful to not be drinking and to be closing in on 7 months. What an accomplishment for me. Soon come the holidays, the new year, my birthday. It would be so wonderful to reach age 35 as a happily sober person. That needs to be the gift I give to myself. One step at a time, with much love always.

P.S. Bob Ross is on Netflix!!

Day 105: Booze Life Be Gone!

Took two separate walks today with my husband, our son, and our dog. Beautiful temperature with no bright sun.  I enjoy being more active now that I have cut out ye olde booze.  Maybe it's just more motivation- who knows?  It feels pretty darn tootin good.  Feels like I'm alive.  Tomorrow is the 4th and normally I would have been obsessing about the usual suspects of drinking (when? where? what type? how much? when to stop?)...but not this time, my friends.  This weekend has been spent making homemade veggie burgers, drinking numerous fun NA drinks (lemon/lime selzer, chai tea, coffee, even water!!), studying like a prenursing demon, spending beautiful time with our son, taking it easy, keeping tidy, ya know- just generally living a life on my terms instead of on booze's terms.  It is awesome.  I do not miss alcohol at all.  Much love.

Day 91: Father's Day

Where have the days been going? Time is moving along. A tough day today but also had some really beautiful moments with my family. Morning found the three of us enjoying time together with at a playground under shady trees. Later a lovely  extended family lunch and then home just us three, cooking veggie dogs on the grill and watching our sweet dog frolick. So grateful to not be stuck in an endless cycle of drinking. Drinking could have killed so many of these quiet, private moments I cherish. I am starting to close in on 100 days. How strange. I love it. I hurt so much missing my dad but he was a wonderful father and I honor his memory every day in the love I give my son. Much love.

Day 68: Bittersweet

I really love how Sober At 53 has included her sober day within each title, and I'm going to continue following suit.  It makes it easy to personally keep track of what day I'm on, and also enables folks visiting to click right to the day they are interested in reading more about.

I've also found peace with the sobriety counter puzzle I'd been trying to solve. I felt weird saying I was, for example, 60 days sober, if it was only Day 60 (thus not a full 60 days...only 59 and 1/2, etc).  It's like I wanted to ensure that I was obsessively honest about my amount of sober time...I mean, who knows, maybe that Day 60 I would go off the deep end and go to the liquor store that evening, thus never making my true 60 days?  And so, this type of overthinking has finally led me to officially being cool with being a Day XX gal.  It's just easier and less mental energy to say "I'm on Day 68" versus "I'm on Day 68, so technically I only have 67 days sober, but I seriously doubt I'll have a drink or go on a bender this evening, but you never know, and one day at a time, and.."AHHH! :)

Happy Friday to all.   It is the start of a long holiday weekend here.  For a moment while I was doing the dishes I had a sigh of huh, no drinking this weekend.  It was 7:30am- you never do know when those urges will come.  It was a little mournful.  Then, as has been the case, the sober part of my brain came in and said, you know, it lies. The alcohol lies.  You don't need it and it will never be just one and the weekend is going to kick butt because you will be with your lovely family.  And then I didn't want to drink.  It was so nice.  Mrs. D talked a lot about retraining your brain, and I think I've begun to successfully do this.

So, this long weekend is quite a bittersweet one.  I am so, so looking forward to having an extra day with my husband at home.  We are going to love being together with our little man and little dog.  No plans to go anywhere, no racing to be a certain place at a certain time, nothing like that.  Very rare, normally we would need to be doing that as part of a holiday or occasion.  Not that it isn't great seeing family, because it truly is....but sometimes time with just ourselves gets a bit squeezed out.  So yes, very much looking forward to this time together.

The tough part of the weekend is that it's the one year anniversary of my dad's death.  It has been very tough coping with this loss, as you know.  I am extremely emotional about it and the grief has by far been my biggest trigger.  I get to thinking who cares, it hurts so much, drinking is meaningless compared to a loss like this.  Which is completely faulty thinking, I know.  It's just how it begins for me.  I'm feeling strong right now, but you and I both know how quickly that can change.  So please do wish me well.

One last thing- I haven't been writing as much about my grief because I have wanted to refocus this blog back to the whole point of me starting it: to document my journey of stopping drinking.  I just like including feelings about the loss because I have not found much at all written about the relationship between getting sober and dealing with death.  It is also very healing to write about it.  Much love.

Mother's Day

Hello out there. Such a busy day. Very good times spent with family. We are always go-go-going on a holiday and it sometimes seems to slip by. It's a little tough but still very good to be with everyone. Feeling super not drinking. Good conversation with my husband about drinking and my dysfunction surrounding it. Home now with our tiny guy tucked in upstairs and our tiny dog tucked between us on the couch. Happy Mother's Day to all Moms with much love.