Focus

As usual Friday really is the most confusing day of the week for me! So far today though...I am feeling so happy and so grateful.

This week has been a roller coaster. If you are reading this and you are considering recovery or attempting recovery please know...it is OK to feel a huge range of emotions. Feeling feelings is really important actually. I learned so much from this shitty sober week.... It gets better. 

I didn't drink this week and I had so many things thrown at me that would typically give me every logical reason to seek out my "warm blanket" of ice cold beer and an empty mind. 

Instead I felt feelings. And it was not easy! After spending an entire day feeling desolate, sad, depressed, angry....just lots of yucky stuff...and not drinking...I woke up the next day and felt grateful. I have been practicing trying to focus on the good. I spent a day trying to notice and be aware of all the beauty that surrounds me. The most mundane things made me smile because I just focused on the good. 

Case in point...I took my girls grocery shopping last night. Something that is typically a chore with 2 little girls. But, we laughed and looked at pretty things and talked about our days...I didn't rush them....I didn't get irritated...I didn't get frustrated...I let them stop and check things out. I let them pick out their own herbal teas like mommy. I didn't tell them to shhhhh when they were laughing so loud that everyone was staring. We walked out and my youngest looked at me and said "Thank you mommy that was SO much fun!" 

That's the good stuff. 

Now...that's not to say...."Focus on the good! It is so easy! Even the worst day will be beautiful!" That would be a blatant lie. Some days just suck.. And some days you owe it to yourself to let it suck. Feel crappy and move on. 

It really DOES get better.
 

*Friday*

Fridays are apparently becoming very symbolic for me.It's Friday...and for the first time on the little journey of mine I have no anxiety or hesitation about it. I can honestly say that. I'm just happy it's Friday. 

Friday has usually been a day of mixed emotions for me. 

...Anticipation of the high. 
...Anxiety about the high. 
....Determination not to chase the high.
....Regret about the decisions I knew I would be making.
....Justification about the decisions I would be making.
....Denial that any of this was a problem.

yuck.

It's really been so exhausting in retrospect.

Today I'm excited to have "Make your own pizza night" with my amazing daughters. They are so excited about it. I'm excited to watch Dateline with my husband...in a clean home. Im excited to not have to jump out of bed in the morning and be able to sleep in...even if it's just till the girls let me.

I'm excited to do it sober. To not have a beer in hand while making said pizzas. To be able to cuddle with my husband...because I don't need to sit upright to drink the beer in my hand. (hot tea is much less intrusive for so many reasons) I'm excited to get up in the morning rested. Without guilt. Without regret. Without a pounding heading.

With patience. With peace. With hope.

Hopeless would describe the way I have felt so much of the time these last several years. Just hopeless. I would wake up with dread sometimes. Overwhelming guilt. The reality that we would never change and this was just the life we had.

No one from the outside looking in would know.. We're a super fun family, with great kids. We really have it together. They don't know that Mommy drinks every single day. That I've bought beer when we needed milk. That mommy and daddy tend to pull all nighters on Fridays or Saturdays and then sleep the following day away. They don't know how much money we have spent to support these habits and the toll it takes on our family. We really have it together.

I am so looking forward to the day when I can say that it's true. We really do have it together. Just taking these small steps makes it feel like more than I've ever had before.

Hey Friday...

It's another Friday! 

I am excited...like genuinely excited...to go home and clean my house tonight.

The weekend seems to give me a slight pit in my stomach though where I crave some excitement. Feel like I'm missing out. Feel like I deserve to tip a few back and unwind... I really feel such a sense of peace though I just try to hold on to that. This too shall pass.

So in looking ahead...this week I have been working on Step 2. Faith. I have seriously gotten some incredible signs. A friend told me that God doesn't have to be the same for everyone. I don't know who God is for me yet. What God is for me yet. But...I am finding Faith. And I have Faith...that I will know these things in time. For now I find comfort in the peace that has come over me like a fuzzy blanket. I used to say beer was my fuzzy blanket...this blanket is fuzzier.

On a side note....as if trying to change my life for the better wasn't enough...here are a few other positive side effects of abstaining for alcohol....

• I am losing weight like CRAZY. I weigh less now than I did a few months ago when I was at the peak of working out like a Maniac. I have lost 4 lbs in 12 days...
• I have a little handy app on my phone called "I'm Done Drinking" - when I downloaded the app I had to enter how many beers a day on average I would drink and how much each beer would cost. I low balled it.. Apparently I have saved over $70 dollars and over 8,300 calories in 12 days. 
• No hangover...nuf said.

Just some little useless tid bits of information to help remind me that this is a good change. 

Leave the past in the past and look forward to what's to come.

xoxo

Friday

It's Fridaaaaay. My first sober Friday...eh probably since I was pregnant over 6 years ago. I've been anticipating Friday afternoon. Bracing myself. I'm trying to avoid Facebook, hoping none of my friends call. My husband and I are hopping in the car with our kids after I get out of work and driving an hour away to get dinner. It's something to do...it's different...and we can avoid temptation in the familiar places. 

Honestly though...I expected Friday afternoon to be harder. I've definitely had the voice in my head creep up and say "it's Friday...relax...you can certainly have a drink or two" "you've been so good all week". I'm learning though (...in the obsessive reading about addiction that I've done this week) that the voice is the disease...and it is trying to trick me. I've been in this place before. Given myself a couple days "off"...felt great about myself. Confident that I don't have a problem after all. Maybe I CAN have a drink or two tonight.

Tomorrow I'll have 4...maybe after 4 I'll decide to convince my husband we should get drugs too...we have money in the bank after all. Then 4 will turn into 15 and I'll wake up on Sunday the same way I did last Sunday. Only this time I'll hate myself even more.

I know myself. I know how my disease works. I clearly see now, that it is in fact a disease and I do have a problem. A serious problem. 

Facing this fact...admitting it to myself...admitting that I really am powerless over drugs and alcohol...is bringing me a strength I haven't had before. It's pretty amazing actually.

So this Friday I will hop in the car with my family...go for a long drive...go out to dinner...and relax on the couch when I get home...with a cup of hot tea. It sounds amazing. And normal. And healthy. Everything I have ever wanted. 

I hope every Friday is just. like. this.

xoxo-Meghann