Day 2 and I'm a Liar

Despite not drinking yesterday, I was up for most of the night again. More anxiety, more worry. Most of it around my plans for tonight. It's my monthly mommy playdate, which really means it's one night where I get together with some mommy friends and we drink our way into oblivion while discussing the finer points of parenting, our husbands and our efforts to just keep ourselves sane.

I've tried to steer these dates away from wine for the last couple of month, suggesting different meeting times and locations. But for whatever reason, wine at someone's house is always the winning option.

I got out of bed this morning filled with dread. As I made a smoothie, I thought about texting the hostess and implying that I might be pregnant as an excuse for bringing a different beverage. The fact that I'm not pregnant and that I see her all the time made that not so realistic. I tried to envision different methods of avoiding wine for the evening but cranberry juice in a wine glass is hardly convincing.

A normal person would just call and say, "You know, I'm not feeling wine tonight. How about hot cocoa?" But I am not a normal person. There was no acceptable alternative in my brain. So I took the mature route. I lied. I texted her at 6 a.m. and said I had to cancel because my daughter was sick.

Her reply, "Aww...hang in there. We just had the crud at our place."

I was momentarily relieved and then riddled with guilt. Seriously, I've gone from lying about my drinking to lying about not drinking. Is this my future, one lie after another? I won't be able to keep them all straight.

The upside, however, is today, I am not drinking. And that makes Day 2.

Starting Over

I didn't sleep for shit last night. I went to bed at 1 a.m. and was up at 3:45 p.m. It's funny, insomnia is what I think led to my disordered drinking. I'd have a glass of wine at night to unwind, which led to two and then three. I'd go to bed, only to bolt awake as soon as the alcohol burned off. Up in the middle of the night wide awake is not good when one has to work in the morning. So I'd get up and drink more to fall back asleep. Then I'd get up with my alarm and be bleary-eyed and groggy so I'd jolt myself with caffeine -- sometimes a pot or more of coffee throughout the day. Then, I'd be too wired at night to sleep. So guess what I'd do? Yup...another glass of wine to "unwind." Rinse and repeat.
When I woke up this morning, I realized that I don't drink because I suffer from insomnia. Alcohol is causing my insomnia. And lately after drinking, I am paralyzed by anxiety, which feeds my insomnia.
So I started my day with a smoothie and a vitamin. Not perfect but a start as I start over.
Even right now, I don't know that I am quitting drinking but I know I need to. My husband works again tonight, and it seems that is when I drink myself into a stupor most often. So I called a friend and scheduled a post-dinner playdate for my daughter. I had company till about 9 p.m. Most of the night is gone and I haven't thought about getting some wine. Now, if I can just immerse myself in bed and bath routines with my daughter, I might make it to bedtime without a drink.
And so my sobriety will begin.

Drunk and Brooding

The bottle and a half of wine sitting in the house since Thanksgiving finally got the best of me tonight. Funny, I have a case of beer in the fridge and I don't pay it any mind. But that bottle of wine hidden in the back of the cupboard calls to me like a seductive lover.
After Saturday's two-bottle binge, I didn't think I'd drink for quite some time. I didn't sober up until Sunday night. Monday was the first day of clarity. Tuesday was better. Today sucked.
Been reading sobriety blogs. Scary. I've spent a lot of time over the past month telling myself there is no way I could be an alcoholic. I'm a successful professional. I'm a mommy. I'm the person everyone goes to when their world is falling apart. I am the glue that holds my team, my family and my friends together. I'm the voice of reason, the responsible one, the capable one. How can I be an alcoholic, a slave to the bottle? Not me; no way.
And then I read these blogs, especially the "drunk mommy" blogs dedicated to alcoholic moms. And their stories are too close to mine. They aren't degenerates with criminal records and broken relationships. They have it all together on the outside, and like me, they fall apart on the inside when they are all alone and no one is watching.
That's what happened today. Sunday and Monday were easy days not to drink. My husband was off work and hanging around the house. Tuesday, I had an event to attend after work that ran until late in the evening. But today, today was quiet. I worked from home (didn't even need to get out of my pajamas), but felt busy and occupied -- until my husband left for work. I lasted about an hour before I cracked open the bottle of wine. Instead of having dinner, I finished the half-bottle left over from the weekend.
Now I'm here...feeling defeated, a failure...but too drunk to do anything about it. So I'm drinking water, lots of water, in hopes of being sober by the time my husband gets home. If not, then I hope to be in bed so he doesn't notice.

Reluctant Writer

I hate this blog...or the idea of this blog, I should say. I hate that I think I have a problem I can't solve, and I really hate admitting that in public. Nobody even knows I have a drinking problem. My husband suspects, but he doesn't say anything. Maybe he's afraid of what I would say. For the last month, I've been on eggshells waiting for him to say something about that night last month...or the two similar nights since. But he doesn't. The closest he's come to confronting me is to ask me Saturday on our way to church if I had been drinking. I had...a lot. I thought I had started early enough to be sober by the evening, but the alcohol seemed to hit me all at once about 30 minutes before we walked out the door. Actually, he walked. I stumbled.

I lied and said I had a couple of glasses (try 5) and asked, "Why do you ask?" He said he could tell. I was acting "too chill" and, "well, I can kinda smell it on you." Nice. Not good at all. We didn't discuss it after that.
The only reason I started this blog was because of my sister. She's been sober over 2 years, though I didn't have a clue until she hit the six-month mark. She kept her sobriety a secret because she was afraid to fail. She's never set foot in a meeting, never told anyone about her struggles. Only her husband and I know she's in recovery. I asked her over the summer how she flipped the mental switch. How she went from drinking two bottles of wine and a six-pack a day in hiding to nothing all on her own.
Then she confessed her secret. She blogged. She has a random, secretive blog that she started at the beginning of her journey to sobriety. She says she doesn't post daily but as often as she needs to. She writes about her urge to drink instead of giving in. Those urges are less frequent now. But the blog -- the online record of her recovery -- keeps her honest about how far she's come.
She says she can tell it took her a full month to detox from the alcohol coursing through her body. Her posts were scattered, erratic. She still held onto the fantasy that her drinking problem was temporary, that she just needed to get control before she went back to drinking. Now, when she looks back, she sees the disease talking -- the alcohol-induced haze. She's reminded not just of who she was back then, but who she has become now. And, according to her, that's enough to keep the urges at bay.
So, I figure if it works for her, it might work for me, too. Even if I don't make it to sobriety, I'll have these posts to remind me that right here, right now, I think I have a problem. And really, that's the definition of a problem, isn't it? If you think you might have one, then you know for sure you do.

Enough is Enough?

This photo was taken exactly one month ago and it's the most embarrassing injury of my life. The night before, I drank over two bottles of wine while attempting to cook a month's worth of meals for my family in a single day.
I woke up the next morning with a throbbing head, throbbing knee and no memory of much else. I hobbled to the bathroom and this is what I found when I dropped trou.
I don't remember how it got there. I assume I fell. I must have fallen. It hurt like hell but I didn't have much time to think because I was starting a new job that day. I snapped this photo in the office bathroom as a reminder of what happens when my drinking gets the best of me.
A month later, my knee is still bruised. Whatever happened, nobody saw. My husband hasn't mentioned it. My daughter is too young. I tried to piece together what happened but I've since given up. I wear long pants 24/7, hiding evidence of my over-indulgence from everyone -- including my husband.
I wish I could say this photo also marks the last day I drank. It's not.
It just marks the first day that I realized I have a drinking problem. I've spent the last month trying to wrap my brain around this problem. When it did it start? When did I lose control? Why? How? How did I have self-control at one point and then lose it all? I have no answers. All I know is that a year ago, I could stop at one glass of wine. Today, I will drink until every bottle in the house is empty or I pass out. I've tried controlling it. Tried abstaining. To have "just one." But the wine calls to me now, beckons me. The sound of its siren's call is deafening. I can't drown it out.