It's my seventh day of not drinking and so far I'm doing well. I was averaging two glasses of wine pretty much every night since March of 2020, with the exceptions of when I had Covid and when I had surgery last year and was on painkillers. (And also when I could not get out to buy any wine during either of those times).
I thought I would miss wine more than I do, miss the buzz and the ability to sleep two or three hours in a row, dead to the world.
Maybe I do miss it some, but I can't afford to miss it. The Surgeon General's warning about alcohol causing cancer scared me. Of course, I never kidded myself that drinking as much wine as I was could be good, but I supposed I had my head in the clouds or chose to be purposely ignorant about it all.
Other alarming factors include how much weight I've gained since I began drinking and how much my acid reflux worsened and how I had nightmares even stronger than my pre-drinking ones.
Two things are helping me stay on track: chamomile tea and (more importantly) my cat. I discovered that if I tell my cat each morning before I leave for work that I will not go the liquor store, I don't go to the liquor store. And being a certifiable homebody, once I'm at home I stay there and resist the urge to use an alcohol delivery service.
It may sound silly that I do this. After all, my cat has no clue what I'm saying nor what wine is nor the damage that it causes. But if there is one being in this whole world I have never lied to, that being is my cat. He is also who I am responsible for and whom I want to be there for as long as humanly possible.
There's a very good chance I'm lying when I say "maybe" I do miss wine. I know I miss it: I miss how it numbs my pain about the world and about difficult family situations and how it mellows out some of my horrible edges. But I can't afford to miss it and I won't miss it.
I just won't.
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