Solitary in Sanity

because my midday emails express just what i’m feeling, just when i’m feeling it, i’ve pasted one from Tuesday below. today, i got a hair cut, left the house for a meeting with clients and things were much,much better.

Each day things get worse, not better. Like with death they say time heals you…but with this, the longer I go without being pregnant, the worse it gets. I cry at the sight of babies, baby things, pregnant women. I know I will have a baby one day, but that doesn’t help my philosophy of getting through today. It hurts today, I don’t care about tomorrow or 10 months from now.

I’ve been crying every night since Thursday. I comforted myself by saying it was only at night, I just need to keep busy with work, dinner and reading during the day/evening. Well I started crying before and my heart was pounding so much I was afraid of a panic attack. So I laid down and fell asleep.

I’m waking up early, exercising, eating right, keeping busy with work, trying to stay positive. Nothing is helping to ease the sadness.

I’ve run out of tools in the toolbox.

—

I need to get back here.

Number of warm, lingering hugs I received: 30+

Number of desserts I ate: 5

Number of times I feigned a smile: 10+

Number of tylenol taken: 8

Number of panic attacks I had: 2

Number of full balanced meals consumed: 1

Number of times I wanted a drink: countless

My visits have gone down significantly since I announced my pregnancy. Would you all like me to just fall off the wagon and go insane? : )

by the end of the week my mind races and races and when i try and tell myself to slow down, it’s only a reminder of why people drink. and not people who drink alcoholically, just those one or two’ers at your average happy hour. a nice drink helps to slow the brain, wind down the week, let the relaxation begin.

i could use that right now. but i know someone really special who does not.

Last night my darling husband got drunk. This is noteworthy because as a consistently responsible drinker, getting intoxicated is a rarity for him. I felt like he was finally letting loose and having a good time because it was the first big event in which he didn’t have to take care of me. When I was drinking, I always complained that he never got drunk (misery loves company). Then once I was drunk I would chastise him for always telling me to slow down…even though just a few hours prior it’s likely that I asked him to tell me to stop if I started getting out of hand. I tried doing the same for him last night and I got the same result – a slurred “i’m just trying to have a good time.” I had to stop and laugh. I know those words too well. Luckily for him, he does not. His good times don’t normally result in mornings greeted with a massive headache and followed by hours of self-deprication.

Yesterday was just one of my strange sober experiences. Now that summer is unofficially here, I am sure to have many more. It’s funny that most people will just think it’s because I’m pregnant. They know nothing of what it took to get to where I am, and little of my drinking demons. That’s okay. Giving up the drink for pregnancy and motherhood sounds far more glamourous than being an alcoholic. Although, hiding it isn’t something I plan on. Clearly.

I told someone the other day that I feel like I am cheating sobriety by being pregnant. When the little lemon is born I will have one year under my belt, but just 3 of those months will have been conscious efforts. Then comes several (fingers crossed) months of breastfeeding and before I know it, it will be well over 18 months since I had my last drink.

Well, nothing too exciting here…just typing out some thoughts to quiet my mind before bed. Have I mentioned how crazy tired I have been? Goodnight.

8 weeks ago, I wrote the following:

Today sucked. My body is (for lack of a better term) completely spazzing out. Completely. From my brain down to my crampy midsection and aching lower back. I made plans with a friend to meet at the coffee shop because Jim was going to be out this evening and I knew it would be very, very hard to avoid cracking open one of his beers. Or, heading to a local bar and ordering a bottle of wine. She’s not here yet. She probably won’t show. Jim won’t be home for at least two hours. There’s still time. Tears are welling up in my already tear-tired eyes. And if it weren’t for the group of PTA moms squawking in the corner, I’d probably let them flow. Some days I simply hate being a woman and hormonal. It’s the current cause of my physical and emotional pain and some days I can’t get to my rubies and love songs place and it all hurts too, too much.

Today Jim and I were at dinner. He had a beer and I thought to myself “Man, I want a beer.” The next thought? “Well you can’t have one. Tough. Deal with it.” And I did. It was that simple. No crabbiness. No anger. No why me? (in a whiney voice)

I haven’t felt the way that I obviously felt while writing that passage in a long time…or at least it feels like along time. In reality, it’s been just 8 weeks? Crazy. How much better will I feel in another 8 weeks? I can’t even begin to imagine.

If my life and sobriety were like one of those fancy charts that fancy people use, it would feature a line trending UP.

In case you missed it, there was a piece on Moms and drinking on 20/20 last night, featuring Stefanie Wilder Taylor. I am so, so grateful today. My future children will never, ever see me drunk. I won’t miss a single moment because I am under the influence.

121 beautiful days. Thank you. Thank me.

I’ve sung her praises before, but if you enjoy Stefanie Wilder Taylor, be sure to read this interview with her over at Drinking Diaries. Below I’ve pasted  my favorite part – a.k.a the part when I was nodding my head in “Yes. Yup” agreement (that and the part about When A Man Loves A Women, a movie that i  was always strangely attracted to. recently, after my husband asked how we can ‘fix’ me, i had it in our Netflix queue faster than i could reply “we can’t”).

What did you like most about drinking?

The thing I loved, loved, loved about drinking was the way I felt after a couple of glasses of wine. All the edges were smoothed out, I liked everyone around me just that much more, things seemed more doable. Drinking felt like an audible sigh. If I could’ve figured out a way to capture just that feeling every night, I would never have quit. I just couldn’t walk that line between slightly buzzed and asleep for more than thirty minutes. There was also the slight problem that I never felt like I’d had enough. If buzzed was good, drunk would be better and it never was.

_______________________________

Yesterday while G-chatting with my BFF (i always feel like she thinks i am slightly overreacting with this whole drinking thing), she helped me get through a rough day simply by listening. I really, really wanted a drink. I was convinced that one of my burps tasted like a gin & tonic – that’s how bad it was. I explained to her that having one day where I allowed myself to drink would never, ever work. She responded by saying that I was able to do it before my wedding; a time when I was conscious about my weight, skin, overall appearance. I had to explain that yes, I limited the amount of days in a week that I drank (down from 6-7 to about 2-3), but never how much I drank once I started. I went on to say that in my belief, an alcoholic (or problem drinker, to put it nicely) isn’t defined by how often they drink, but by what happens to them after the first…or say, the third. A ‘normal’ drinker will stop and say “Whoa, I have had a little too much to drink. I better stop.” A problem drinker keeps on drinking until (in my case) they go to blackout—->pass out phase.

I want that “Whoa” Factor so badly that I can taste it. Or, burp it. I don’t have it, and I know that I probably never will.

Fast forward to dinner with said BFF and this fine young lady: They both had one drink each. I was jealous and awkward at first, especially staring at the extensive craft beer list on the chalkboard in front of me, but at the end of the night I realized: one would have never been enough for me. I would have been chuggin’ long after their brains told them to “whoa” the hell down. And that my friends, is the difference.

I’m 13. The May sun is tanning my unprotected rail thin body as I lay on my friend Janice’s roof. We’re listening to the Fugees.

Except I’m not. I am 27 years old, lying in the backyard of the house that I own with my husband. His band’s music is playing on my laptop. And it’s the April sun that sunning my 45 SPF covered face. My body, no longer rail thin, has a few great curves and a few not so great ones.

I’ve been.done.lived. a shit-ton of shitty things in the past 15 years…but one thing remains: the sheer joy and excitement I feel as the weather starts to heat up. You see, back then none of this anticipation had a damn thing to do with alcohol, drinking or the like. Sure it probably had something to do with a few pimply boys, platform sandals, and sneaking out of my parents’ house just to wander the streets until dawn, but it had nothing to do with getting drunk.

I open my eyes and stare at the sun (still a risk taker at heart). I really could use a cool new pair of platform sandals.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated by alcoholic status. For a while, talk of it was absent because it was going surprisingly well. No, this didn’t leave me thinking that I wasn’t a problem drinker and sure, why not throw back a few? It has me thinking that I was a recovering alcoholic with superpowers. Then warm weather hit, outdoor dining began, and baseball season commenced. One would think that if I made it through all of those snowstorms without a big glass of red or heavy pint of ale, I could swing this. Wrong. Much like holidays (major fail in terms of my sobriety), warm weather brings with it a thousand and one reasons to drink. Boy do I want one. Not to ease the pain or the stress, or to kill the thoughts of inferiority, but just because.

What this has brought about is all that “why me?” bullshit that I went through in the beginning. Why do I have a problem? Why can’t I drink responsibly? I am stronger than most people – why can’t I be strong when it comes to controlling my alcohol consumption.

I know the answer to this. But fuck. shit. balls. I want to be pissed off right now.

later- i’m feeling better now after a nice meeting with an OT in training. she used me for a mock case study…seeing myself in those terms (all typed out and fancy) and her ideas for treatment made me feel silly about complaining. but i will leave this up here anyway.