New companions in sobriety..

I was a very easygoing, steady, upbeat woman proud of her even temperament and low-maintenance behaviour.  I used to comment (proudly) to Mr D that I was an 'easy wife'.  I wasn't often grumpy or tense or tearful or brittle.  I cruised along for the most part. 

Great, successful way to live, right?  Only problem - I managed all of that by self-medicating my negative emotions away with wine.  I had softened the edges, evened my personality out by being a steady, heavy wine drinker.  Not prone to almighty binges (not because I didn't hit it extra hard sometimes, because I could handle and process large amounts of alcohol) but absolutely reliant on wine as an emotional coping aid.

(Quick side-note: some people try and make me feel better about my boozing now by reassuring me that I wasn't a 'terrible alcoholic'.  Their definition of 'terrible alcoholic' is someone who crashed cars, vomited in public, lost jobs or kids, made a public spectacle of themselves or in some way hit a spectacular rock bottom that everyone witnessed.  I've had to get forceful to explain to them how 'alcoholic' my steady heavy private drinking was.)

Anyway, almost six months ago I decided to remove my beloved wine (my medication of choice), just Take It Away! and as a result Mr D and I have some new house-mates that we are getting used to living with.

Grumpy Mrs D.  If you read my last post you met her.  She gets shitty, usually about tangable things like tiredness, demanding kids, MA stress or hormones (time of the month).  That was another one of my statements before sobriety - 'I don't really get hormonal'.  Yeah, well now I understand why that was.

Sad Mrs D. She gets melancholy sometimes, feels flat and a bit low.  Some bits of life are just sad, that's a fact.

Impatient Mrs D. Most often comes out when the kids are ... well, being just kids.  Or when annoying things happen like computers crap out.

Self-absorbed Mrs D. Oh my god I'm sick of her!  She is so obsessed with herself and the fact she gave up wine.  Get over yourself girl, you're not that special. I think I'm going to have to stop blogging one day just to stop talking about myself all the time.

But not yet!  And this is not a doom and gloom post.  No way.  Meet my other new companions.

Strong Mrs D. I'm proud of her.
Honest Mrs D. People are inspired by that.
Sensitive Mrs D. She can relate.
Loving Mrs D.  I feel this more intensely.  Love for my family.  Love for my friends.  Love for myself.
Real Mrs D.  Warts and all, here I am.

xxxxx