Pondering, pondering....

I'm still in a slightly flat low key mode and am thinking this is a flat slightly low key mode that has nothing to do with being off alcohol, it's just a low key state that is lingering for a while.  But because the 'sober' facet of my life is the big new feature I attribute every mood and emotional state to the fact I don't drink.  I mean sometimes you just get a bit flat and low key don't you?

On another wondering-about-it note, I'm wondering when does drinking emotionally turn into problem drinking?  Like I can say now that I was drinking heavily to deal with emotions and that I'm having to relearn how to live without that crutch.

But then drinkers like Mr D have alcohol at emotional times yet he's not a dysfunctional drinker by any stretch, not like I was.  He can stop after 1 or 2 if he wants.  Can go without.  Can take it or leave it.  These things I couldn't do.

Yet he still associates all those emotional 'moments' in life with booze.  Celebration, Bubbles!  Difficult conversation, whiskey.  Hard busy day working, cold beer.  Nice meal, nice wine.  You know what I mean.  Where is the line that you cross into dysfunctional drinking?

Also, I think for the first few months of my sobriety I was feeling quite aggressively 'sane', like I'd seen the light and realised what a fallacy alcohol was and how we've all been brainwashed to accept this mind bending, awful tasting liquid as a regular part of our lives.  One that we turn to in times of pain, anger, sorrow, joy or celebration.

That won't always be the case in our society I thought. It was almost an arrogance that I was superior because I had 'become enlightened' and had taken the 'big bold, oh so clever' move to live without it and I would show everyone how possible it was to still enjoy life but with the booze removed.  Alcohol industry take that! Mrs D is one of the first to lead the charge in  a worldwide change in attitudes towards drinking that will lead slowly to alcohol being treated as tobacco is.  Outlawed, frowned apron, becoming rarer and rarer.

But that feeling is slipping away as I look around and it seems like that will never happen because - my god! - bars and cafes and bottle shops are everywhere.  E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E.  And booze is in almost every house and workplace. Everyone drinks.  Mostly in a functional, moderate manner.  'It's ok' (society says to me), 'we all handle this fine.  It's just you sorry.'

So now I'm starting to feel a bit more humble and .. well .. flawed.  It was only my excesses and abuse of the liquid that meant I had to remove it completely, and now I'm a lonely sober boat in a booze soaked world.  Aside from you other lovelies that is.  But you know what I mean.

I dunno.  Maybe this humble state being more ashamed of myself is a better place to be than a cocky know-it-all.  Or maybe this is just another stage in the learning-to-live-sober roller coaster.  I can't bloody wait to be 2 years sober.  I really can't.

Love, Mrs D xxx