6 Years, 1 Month and 1 Day Ago... My Heart Broke

6 Years, 1 month, 1 day ago, my heart was lifted as high as it could be, hopes and dreams soaring, just to be pushed off a cliff and sent hurtling to the jagged rocks below, where it proceeded to shatter.

You see, 6 years and 2 months ago, I found out I was pregnant.

My Children Are Electronically Deprived

That's right, I'm one of those mean parents who hasn't given my children access to every little gadget man-kind has created.

We have a Wii, that is hooked up in the family room to our large flat screen TV. That's about as fancy as we get. We use it for Netflix, and we have an assortment of sports and fitness related games, things that make the user MOVE their body instead of sitting still and vegging out on nonsense.For those mind-numbing days, we do have 2 MySims games and Oregon Trail (because HELLO, what childhood is complete WITHOUT Oregon Trail?!?!?!). We don't really play the games every often, 90% of the time, when the Wii is on we are watching Netflix (and even THAT is limited). We rarely watch Television and when we do, Netflix and VHS movies are about it.

11 Days... and COUNTING!

I can hardly believe how fast the last ALMOST two weeks have gone by considering everything...

I haven't had a drink in 11 days. 

This is HUGE... the longest I've gone without a drink in the past... well, I don't even know how long I've been drinking constantly... anyway, the longest I've gone without a drink was probably one day, I may have hit the 48 hour mark (or close to it) before I bought another bottle. None of that was by choice I should point out. It would have been the super hubby telling me "We can't afford to buy any booze tonight, so what's there is it."

I've been known to roll change, borrow money from my children (my KIDS, seriously, what the hell kind of example was I setting for them?!?!?!) and willingly overdraw accounts and probably have knowingly bounced checks because I needed to drink.

I can only imagine what our bank account will start whispering after it realizes the strain it has been carrying has been lessened.

I feel amazingly good.

The bath I took after my last post was great, I didn't feel any different after the bath (aside from the fact that I also took the opportunity to shave my legs, so there's that) but by the next morning I felt good, better than I had since I quit drinking. Then we had a fun filled day with the family on the 4th and headed out the next morning for our 4 day long family camping trip. That's another blog in itself.

We got home yesterday around lunch time and spent the rest of the day cleaning up, unpacking, doing laundry and just generally resting from the trip... we needed a vacation from our vacation, haha.

Today I woke up feeling energized, it was like someone hit my RESET button.

I got up, I started a load of laundry, made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, got the boys both doing their chores (Oldest son doing dishes, youngest son folding laundry), then the boys went off to play with boy-next-door2, while I worked on doing more laundry (washing it in the machine, hanging it on the line to dry, then bringing it in as it dried and putting it on the couch), I even managed to work on stabilizing the clothes line (had to dig out some of the SAND from the area it was in and add some of the CLAY from the other side of the yard... seems to be working well so far!)... I also managed to clean the house, edit photos from our camping trip and get those uploaded to Facebook so friends and family could see them (I'll show you some when I get a chance to blog about our trip, may take a few posts haha), in addition to all this, I also worked in the garden a bit and kept the kids under control without losing my cool OR craving a drink! Hubby was pleasantly surprised when he got home :)

I haven't craved a drink for 3 days.... though I did have a dream that I had been sober for a number of years and slipped up by drinking a shot sized mixed drink, spent the rest of my dream upset because I had to start over being sober again. I felt guilty about it when I woke up, and it's been on my mind all day. It made me more determined NOT to drink anymore.

I still can hardly believe it's been 11 days. It's flown by and I don't know how it managed to pass so quickly! Thanks go out to everyone I've been venting and talking to CONSTANTLY about all of this for the past almost 2 weeks, I'm sure you're getting sick of hearing about alcohol and my awakening, but it's helped immensely for me to know that I have a handful of people I can lean on when I need it.... I'm still working up the courage to face everyone else who knows me with all of this... that's the hardest part.

The First Step...

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You always hear that the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

Here I am, admitting it. I drink too much. This is no surprise to most people who know me personally, and really wasn't much of a surprise to me. It was more of an awakening.

It was a sudden awakening. Early on a Friday morning, I was browsing around reading some nonsense articles, killing time and enjoying my morning cup of coffee. Then it happened, I came across some not-so-nonsense articles about the things no one tells you about quitting drinking, or alcohol detox. Some of the things mentioned really made me think, and I decided to take the plunge and do what any other modern woman who might have a problem would do... I Googled it. I googled "How to tell if you're an alcoholic", I answered some questionares and surveys and the results were pretty conclusive. I am an alcoholic.

I broke down in tears. I had to admit to myself that Yes, I have a problem with alcohol. Come 3pm EVERY day, like clockwork, I'm craving my first drink. My stress levels go up after 3pm because that's when the kids come home from school during the school year, and that's also the time of day that their cumulative issues flare up the worst. Immediately following that comes the hubby home from work. It's not always bad, but things can get a bit tense, to say the least. He is working 7 days a week lately to help make ends meet because his REGULAR job doesn't have enough work for him. I'm home now and working from home, but by the end of the day, I'm burned out from working and dealing with kids and trying to keep things in order, running errands, doing doctors appointments and just generally trying to make sense of things. On top of the fact that I drink. Too much. And that stresses him out. Noticing a pattern yet?

There is SO much more too it, and I'll leave it with that and the fact that we were sometimes going through 3 BIG bottles of booze per week... and I'll just say that hubby might max out at 3 drinks if he's in the mood... most nights it's 1 or none.... I'm sure I don't have to give you too many chances to guess where the rest of that goes...

Admitting it to myself was hard. Admitting it to other people has been increasingly harder. I talked to my brother first. I knew he would be the least likely to judge me, and I HAD to say it to someone else to really make it "real" you know? I waited impatiently for 2 hours for him to come online so I could talk to him. He has been really supportive.

Next I told Hubby. I was terrified of telling him. I told him via text message. I sent the text with a warning, that I didn't need judgement, criticism or "I-told-you-so's" that I just needed to tell him this and that I needed him to say "ok" and "I understand". He responded with "ok..." and didn't say anything for 2 hours after that. When he finally did respond he was still in shock.

When I picked him up from work that evening, he was glowing. Told me how proud he was of me, and that he's just been waiting for me to see that I had a problem. He's been a huge part of my success so far in giving up alcohol. Because Yes, I'm an alcoholic, and I know that I have to give it up. It is not easy, it hasn't been easy and I'm sure it isn't going to get any easier.

As of right now, I have only told maybe 8 people who know me personally about this. And that doesn't include my parents. I'm not ready.

Honestly, this is a new thing for me still. It's been less than a week, 5 days to be exact, almost to the minute, since my last drink.

I picked a good week to quit drinking. Hubby was home with me through the weekend, just down the road for the last 2 days for work, tomorrow is a holiday and then Thursday we are headed out for a 4 day camping trip to help us all refresh and de-stress.

So far my withdrawl symptoms have been fairly mild, maybe leaning a touch toward moderate. I've been super tired, like I can't seem to wake up completely. I've doubled up the coffee a couple of days when I would normally just have the one cup. I'm also quite irritable. Think, PMS-like, even though that's not due for a couple weeks. I've been trying to "trick" myself subconsciously by drinking sparkling lemonade from a wine glass, and making STRONG iced tea (which I'd normally drink with rum)... definitely drinking lots of fluids. And craving comfort foods like crazy... I'm giving myself until the end of our vacation/camping trip before I worry too much about what I'm eating, I think I deserve it this week. Momma needs to spoil herself.

Tonight I am going to do some deep meditating, and take a Full Moon Bath (its a ritual thing) to help remove some of the negativity surrounding me. Here's to hoping I feel better after this week!