Day 13 - Weekend UnWine-ing?

I'm still plugging away on my alcohol-free life.  Day 13.

Going into a long holiday weekend with the mindset that I should not enjoy an adult beverage makes me sad and frustrated.  A cold chardonnay goes hand in hand with my weekend relaxation, socializing, projects, household tasks, holidays. 

It's hard to imagine going out to a restaurant for a good meal, listening to live music, meeting up with friends, and not toasting the evening with a cold chardonnay or dirty martini. 

I've been known to pour in the afternoon on the weekends while cleaning out the garage, folding laundry, cooking, or staring into space on my porch.  I enjoy it.  I love the taste, the glass, the experience, the relaxed buzz. 

Trouble is, once I'm relaxed and enjoying the buzz, I keep pouring, because I don't want to lose the relaxed buzz, which is counter-intuitive because all that results in is in fact losing the relaxed buzz and bringing me to drunk and incapable of being productive or fully remembering and being present in what I'm doing/saying or what I did/said.

This week has been better than last week as far as intense irritability and mood swings, but I'm still having them.  I think I'm struggling with what is actually my end goal here.  And I realize that is foolish because it really is just a one day at a time journey and I don't yet need to know what my end goal is.

But, I can't get off the wheel of wondering whether I'm just trying to reset myself and regain control of myself and develop new life coping strategies so I no longer use alcohol as my go-to.  Thereby getting to a point where I can occasionally enjoy one or two glasses of wine at the most sitting on my porch unwinding or cooking dinner, or meeting a friend out, or enjoying just one dirty martini and being satisfied when my husband takes me out to dinner. 

This was, in fact, how my drinking looked for years. 

Once I self-evaluate and develop new coping strategies, will I be in control of my drinking habits again like I once was before my life fell apart in my divorce four years ago?

OR, am I quitting FOREVER.  Forever.  Like, as in, never again tasting a cold chard.  Never again getting a relaxed happy buzz.  Is this what I need to do?  I don't know the answer to that yet.

I keep re-reading Hip Sobriety article called I Am Not An Alcoholic.  It is so helpful to me.  Her Nine points make a great case for abstaining FOREVER.  Much of it is health related, what with Alcohol actually being a POISON that we willingly ingest into our bodies and the idea that if you can ingest this poison appropriately you DON'T have a problem, but if you choose NOT to ingest this poison any longer you DO have a problem.  So weird.  I can't reconcile the irony in that drinking thinking.

My new husband is very health conscious and endeavors daily to make healthy life choices.  He rarely drinks.  Doesn't enjoy it or see a need for it at all.  He will have a Moscow Mule to participate in a social gathering, but will sip just one through the dinner and then complain that the cost of it wasn't worth it.  :-) He is very happy with ice water with lime thankyouverymuch.

Obviously, knowing that about my man, you can guess he has been none too happy witnessing my frequency and volume of drinking over the time we have been together.  For him, it is health related.  He sees me exercising less, eating more poorly, and in general looking/feeling puffy and gray and old.  He legit worries about my liver. 

Wanting him to be proud of me is a big motivator in this journey.  I know this is not who I am, it's just something that has gotten ahold of me in some dark years of my life.  Now my life is shining brightly again with a new beginning, yet this crutch/coping strategy has a hold on me now and I'm finally having to face it and re-evaluate.

So, to summarize this long, rambling post:
1.  I don't know how to get through a weekend/holiday without constantly wishing I could have an adult beverage at some point.
2.  I don't know what I'm doing:  Abstaining forever or getting a grip on my poor coping strategies and redirecting my "escape" and "relaxation" needs to healthier endeavors, thereby being able to get back to occasional enjoyment of light social drinking.
3.  My husband is uber health conscious and chooses not to drink except for very occasionally and then only one.  He is concerned about my health related to drinking.
4.  I want my husband to be proud of me.  I'm more motivated to get a grip on this because I want him to be proud of me. 

There you have it.  Still hanging in there, with lots of thoughts swirling around in my sober head.  Day 13.

xo