We have friends staying with us for New Year’s Eve. Everyone drinks a lot, but I would like to start my sobriety today rather than wait for tomorrow. I am so utterly fed up with drinking – I find I don’t even like it anymore. It feels so futile and stupid. I guess I can’t really remember the last time I actually enjoyed it.
As the evening draws near, I am going to take the time to prepare nice food, and chat to our friends, and try and find some peace in this day.
I am feeling so drained.
A Dappled Path 
So pleased your still alive! I admit to checking the London obits once in a while, hoping not to see your name. New Year’s Eve is a hard time to stop, but it’s always a hard to to stop, as you well know. Please do try to line up some real support this time–tons more resources than there used to be, and it’s dry January!
I haven’t posted much in 2017, but mostly that’s because I hardly think about drinking anymore (it will be three years in February). It is ridiculous how much better–fuller, happier, richer–life is when 90% of it is not spent waiting for the next drink or regretting the last one. I’ve had to deal with hard things and happy things over the last year, but every single event is better–easier, more vivid, realer–than it ever was when I was drinking. You cannot possibly overestimate the joy of shaking an addiction. You regain control and can live a truly decent life, whatever that means to you. Your choices are your own, and they are clear and good and not influenced by that most recent bottle of Pinot Noir.
All that said, you’ve got to go through hell to get paradise. There are no short cuts, that’s the bad news. But there’s also no one, including you, who is too addicted or special to make it to the other side, dragging by the fingernails through what seems, but it not, endless mud–that’s the good news.
Good luck and bon voyage!
I’m happy to see your name too! If you have time write a blog post and let us know how you are doing!
Anne
I am so glad to hear from you. Annie x
Hang in there Annie!!! Make sure you have non-alcoholic drinks ready for yourself…maybe get stuff to make Shirley Temples, which look fancy and festive (and are delicious)!!! Plan to escape to your bedroom if you must and take care of YOU first! Remember how alcohol makes you feel every time you think one drink might be nice…play it all the way through and remember how it makes you feel. Remember the gut wrenching feeling you would have in the morning if you drank…and DON’T DO IT!!! Stay strong and know you have support here, no matter what. Tonight might be hard, but tomorrow is a brand New Year! A year you can become your true, authentic self! I am not drinking tonight with you!!! Hugs!
Thank you for being here. Annie x
Welcome back! Come to the light side: we have cookies. 🙂
Cookies sound good! Annie x
Hugs.
My advice…tell your friends you are feeling down and exhausted. And that you don’t feel like drinking…and that you are seriously going to not drink in 2018. For you. Your health and well-being.
People are usually supportive if we are honest.
Big hug. 2018 can be your year of stillness and peace and freedom.
Anne
Honesty is key. Everyone expects me to drink. So I’m going to have to change that. Annie x
Boy did you show up at the right time!!! Amazing how He works, ask for a sign and
you have it. You’re my sign Annie! Time to
love myself again. Hope you remember
me. Mary
Mary! Of course I remember you. Annie x
Good to see you back. 2018 is your year! You can do this… Xxx
Thank you! Annie x
I‘m so pleased you posted again. I can only imagine how fed you feel about drinking. I was a heavy drinker for decades right into my fifties. I was always going to give up tomorrow. I saw myself as a hopeless case, never able to get over that hump, and it ran on until my mid fifties when being 2 stone overweight and having massive health issues, I gave myself a chance and a break. I was exhausted from all the the thoughts and vicious circle. Now 10 months on it was absolutely the BEST thing I did.
I think what I‘m trying to say is, it’s possible and so worth it. I‘m a better person for it and more accepting of myself. Happy New Year and thanks for writing.
I thi
Thank you so much for your advice. Annie x