I stopped drinking thirteen days ago. Without changing anything else in my life, I’ve lost 4.5kg (9.9lb). I am sleeping so much better, and I wake up naturally at 7am every day. My skin is clearer, my lungs can breathe deeper, my memory is already improving significantly. Other than one Pepsi Max the other night, I’ve not had an ounce of caffeine in this time either.
Life is way more boring, sure, but I feel so much better. And all in less than two weeks?
Jon and I have decided to give it another go, mostly because we have to be in bathing suits now that it’s July. This time, we’ll just do a month, through mid-August.
I told my dudefriend yesterday that I was giving up drinking for a month. After asking when I planned to start this (starting now), he voiced his concern that this would interfere in our fun. Apparently, he likes me drunk and naked. Luckily for him, that is my default. I am sure he will appreciate the after effects of my sober month, hopefully, a smaller middle.
I am going through old Facebook posts and laughing. I want nothing more for this evening than to drown it in red wine. I feel like it would give me a sense of normalcy, like what I felt before being unemployed. ‘Cause I’m feeling pretty happy right now, but I could extend the happiness with fermented grapes.
I mad cheated this weekend: cheated with food, cheated with alcohol, cheated with working out. The only thing I did NOT cheat with that I like was sex. So quadruple fail.
Friday: I went on my second date with a guy to one of my all-time favorite restaurants, Beast, and what’s an evening at Beast without a glass of wine? The bartender knows me as Malbec so might as well. The date was also interested in hitting up Weather Up, a steam punk bar that exists for fancy cocktails made my men in mustaches and vests served by a girl with a Helena Bonham Carter up-do. How could I order a Diet Coke here?
I was so wiped out on Saturday that I just cooked and cleaned and passed out just in time to miss my friend’s birthday party and dinner and drinks in my neighborhood. Can it be that a glass of wine and a Devil’s Bottom or whatever can sap me of all energy for the following day?
Then, I ate my way through Sunday starting with a Chinese New Year’s Party and ending with a Superbowl party, both of which I drank wine at because by that time, what the hell?
I think I gained all the weight I lost last month so I’m back on track with the gym and the sobriety and all that with renewed dedication.
Going on my first date post-sobriety. Getting nervous.
Watching Scott explain to Bruce Jenner how he’s dealing with life without alcohol. “More manageable” is the descriptor. Kinda relating. To Scott. Of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Hm.
Well, as Amy put it, it was bound to happen. We started on this challenge with the best intentions, and knowing full well that someone would cheat at some point. And that’s just what happened on Saturday.
The details are boring, let’s just say that Amy and I both took a night off from our teetotaling and fully imbibed at one of our best friend’s birthday parties. It was completely worth it (it’s been ages since I’ve made out with a stranger at a bar in front of all my friends … well like a year ago, maybe … eeep). I’ll confess that an overwhelming sense of celebration if difficult to achieve without a bit of booze, so it was necessary for the occasion.
What was not necessary, predictably, was the hangover that ensued the following day. Few things have felt so awful.
So, with that as the last memory of what drinking feels like, it’s not so difficult to step back on the wagon.
Jon brought up today the fact that he’s been feeling more irritable lately and I have to say, I’ve had inklings of that feeling, as well. Although we have plenty of things in both of our lives that could be possible causes of this, we immediately blamed sobriety.
I’ve been irritable in that I’m less able to humor other people and instead, I’m lazy and tell them what I really think. I am less likely to hear someone’s problem and respond positively. Now, I will tell them that they’re overreacting or it’s hopeless or some other finite statement. So, I’m pretty sure I have some angry friends now.
I think that the joint irritation might only be alcohol-related in that going out and throwing back a few is a release at the end of the week. Now, my release is watching a movie at home or working out, which doesn’t quite feel the same. Doesn’t feel like I’m kinda wild and crazy. Swimming yesterday felt a bit release-ful, though, probably because of the cute life guard I will now be seeing every Thursday at noon.
Side note: even though I have no desire to create babies, watching an attractive man teach children makes me good tingly inside.
The only thing that makes me feel gayer than being, well, so gay, is asking for a non-alcoholic version of a drink, and having the waiter say, “Sure, I can get you a mocktail.”
Somewhere on the fun-meter between your first intervention and last stint in rehab.
Two Brooklyn-based lushes ditch the hooch for 90 days. Read as they walk a straight line, forget about hangovers, and start remembering what happened the night before.
