Sobriety date...

Had a farewell lunch with a bunch of girlfriends yesterday.  9 of us went to a tapas restaurant in town. Was really lovely and fun.  Low-key and sweet and a little bit sad.  There was a moment after we first arrived when drinks were being ordered and I felt a bit of a pang that I wasn't having wine with the rest of them.  There was some talk of 'cocktails and mocktails' but that idea got abandoned and they went for a Sav Blanc instead and I ordered a homemade lemonata.

I always seem to find it a little bit hard at that moment when the drinks are first being ordered or poured.  When the energy in the room changes and there's a fissure of excitement - alcohol is entering the room! - excitement mixed with a little naughtiness and fun.  I feel a bit awkward and don't know what to say or kind of where to look and inside of me I feel sad.  I worked pretty hard yesterday at pushing that thought away and sure enough 15 minutes later when the drinks were all out and we had moved on into just chatting and looking at menus and I didn't care that my glass wasn't filled with wine.

They had 2 bottles between 8 of them so it was hardly a boozy lunch.  If I'd have been drinking I would have suggested 'Bubbles!!' to start with and then wine probably.  I would have gone home with a little buzz on and gone on to drink a bottle or more at home.  I keep reminding myself about that.  How if I started drinking when out I would head home with only the thought of continuing drinking at home.  Once I started I wouldn't stop.  There was lots of sad determined drinking done in the home.  It might not have looked sad from the outside but I think of it as extremely sad.

I don't want to slip into complacency when it comes to my sobriety.  I think of my brain as a muscle which is going to keep needing to be exercised to remember why I gave up, and how dysfunctional my drinking was, in the last few years especially.

I went on a great crafty website yesterday and bought myself a lovely silver pendant that you could get personalized on the back.  I asked them to put "6 September, 2011" on it, which is my sobriety date.  I'm still taking this really seriously.  I think the more time that goes on and the more used to living sober I am the more active I have to stay in my resolve to stay off the booze.  I'm reminding myself in the mornings how I used to feel when hungover, and am taking the time to pause and breath and think about my body and my mind and how clear it is.  How differently I would feel right now if I were chugging back the wines like I used to (especially with all this stress associated with the move, I can't believe in 2 weeks everything will change).

Next thing to think about .. what do I say to all the new people I am going to meet about why I don't drink?

Love, Mrs D xxx