Being kind

I’ve made it to Day 2. I’m ambivalent about day counting, but I think I need it at the moment, to try to build up some momentum. I’d got into such a spiral of waking vowing I’d never drink again, only to open a bottle as soon as it got dark; I thought I’d never escape, and I began not to care, that’s the scariest thing of all.  Building the days slowly and thoughtfully feels important.

I went to a school concert last night, and in the interval I bought fizzy elderflower for myself and a friend. At home, my husband asked if I’d bought wine. I guess it’s not surprising that he hardly believes the conversation we’d had that very morning, and he still thinks I’d start drinking again all too easily. It made me feel slightly nervous; I need to prove to him, and to myself, that I mean it. But I know it’s a familiar mantra to the problem drinker: I will stop drinking, I promise. And these words mean nothing unless they’re accompanied by action.

In the meantime, I am paying attention to the comments about kindness – something I’ve often been puzzled by in sober blogs, the idea of ‘being kind’ to oneself. But after many many many attempts to get sober, I think it means that I need to move slowly and carefully through these early days, not taking on too much, not giving myself opportunities to fail. As Angie says on her blog -itstimetogetsober – it is easy to be motivated when you’re feeling rubbish and can’t bear the idea of drinking, less easy when those memories start to fade. That’s a danger point for me, when I start to feel better and think I’ve been imagining the whole problem.

Some people have suggested I look into rehab. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I don’t think I’m going to do that; and if I’m not going to do that, I need to make sure I’m doing other stuff to support what I’m trying to do here: I’m going back to my meetings, every day if I can, even though they partly terrify me, and by turns make me scoff at myself and think I’m being ridiculous. This time, I’m planning to listen, not freak out and go and buy wine on my way home in some weird attempt to ‘cancel out’ what is happening, and maybe, just maybe try and see if the meetings, and the people there can help me. The counsellor? Not sure what I’m going to do about that yet, as I kept cancelling, even when I paid up front.

Achingly slow, but tiptoe-ing along.