This is awful right, to feel somewhat envious of people who know for certain that alcohol is wrong for them? I don’t know why but I’m having major quakes right now inside. I can rationalize how good it is to be alcohol-free, how sobriety helps me be a better me, but there’s still this voice inside that says, “but is it really necessary to stay away completely??”
I’ve never blacked out, never missed work due to a hangover, I’ve never had problems that others could recognize (or at least that anyone has ever let on that they noticed). I’ve begun this journey due to my own self-reflecting and searching. I’m guessing there’s probably a problem, but there’s a part of me that masochistically needs it to be clear that “SCRIBBLY, YOU HAVE A REAL PROBLEM!”—a part of me that wants to see the truth emblazened in bold letters against the night sky (or announced in some way equally sensational and blatant).
It’s the curse of the grey (or gray) area drinker, I suppose, this limbo. I seem to drink more than a “moderate” drinker (or maybe I mean more than a light drinker—is moderation even a real thing?), but I’m somewhere on the slope. It’s not too steep yet, but maybe I can kind of glimpse that there’s a cliff ahead. I just can’t tell how far away I am from the edge.
Silly, isn’t it? I can’t do something just because it’s good for me, and I can’t NOT do something just because it’s bad for me. I need a REASON. That’s so effed up.
I started on this journey through sobriety initially because I was looking for ways to lose weight. My doc told me I was pre-pre-diabetic. And to that I said “hell no!” Staying 40 pounds overweight was not going to happen. And so far I’ve lost almost half of that since I started paying attention last summer (woo hoo!). I’m almost down to the weight I was just after I gave birth to my son. That weight gain has been hanging over my head—around my waist, to be more accurate—for going on 7 years now. It’s just been creeping up and creeping up.
I see a lot of good things happening to me these days, I can envision things I want to achieve, and witness things I’m actually achieving. But, honestly, I find it hard to credit my sobriety for these changes. It’s not that I don’t think that sobriety contributes to these improvements—I know that abstaining from alcohol has helped me cut calories and keeps my mind clear—I guess it’s because the difference between the before me and alcohol-free me seems to be not so stark—at least to my own eyes.
Things have been stressful the past week or so. I’m tired and feel like I have so much I need to get done. So in off moments—when I’m transitioning between tasks or hungry or whatever—I have these thoughts. I don’t feel the urge to drink right now or anything like that. But I don’t feel confident that this is it for me—that I’ll never drink again. I don’t know what I’m trying to do. I feel the pull, the desire to just check out for a bit.
I know that there are healthy ways that I could choose to help me turn off my brain, and often I turn to them—stretching/yoga, going for a jog, dancing the hell out of a favorite song, taking a bath. But sometimes I get tired of being good. Sometimes I don’t want to do the right thing.
I guess I’m just glad that right now that these are just thoughts. I’m not plotting or planning, just listening to myself. A part of me hears myself saying all of this and thinks, “Ain’t this some shit? I ought to be grateful that I stopped myself from going down that road. I should be glad that I am heeding the warnings, listening to the wise ones, learning from the cautionary tales.”
And another part of me whispers,
“That’s great and all, but I want to see it for myself. I want to be sure I’m on the right path for me.”
Who wins?
I guess we’ll see.
~~
This alcohol-free post was shared to the Boozemusings Community by THE SCRIBBLY SOBERNAUT who is a member of the BOOM Community Rethink the Drink and blogs on WordPress at this address https://scribblysobernaut.wordpress.com/
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