Give me time

I checked my nomo sobriety clock app this morning and I see that it’s my 90 days today! Yay!

I have written a bit lately about the roller coaster feeling the past few weeks, and this past weekend a couple of things happened that really drove home to me why I’m happy I’m not drinking these days.

#1 – On Friday I had an all day meeting in the city – one that I have written about during early sobriety as it is a meeting that I have once a month, always on a Friday and it always used to be followed by a date night with drinks blah blah blah… anyway… I was driving home from the meeting (no date night after it) and was really fighting the “I just want to pick up a bottle of wine on the way home” sad little feeling. Instead of pulling into the little store that sells wine, I pulled into the gas station to buy some munchie stuff to take my mind off the wine urge. There were two older guys in there, dressed in the reflector type shirts that people working outside wear. They were drunk. Really drunk. Making lewd comments, REEKING of alcohol. They thought that the comments that they were making to other customers were funny but honestly I couldn’t pay for my stuff and get out of there fast enough. Oh my gosh, I thought as I drove away, that could have been me – stupid drunk making stupid “funny” (obnoxious) comments to strangers. I don’t think I’d have been leering at younger women and making lewd comments but who knows…

#2 – When I got home, I was clearing off the kitchen table and noticed that my new drivers license had come in the mail. We have to get new ones here every 5 years. I had gone in to renew it in mid December, so was about 6 weeks sober at that point. I opened up the envelope and looked at the pic on my new license in utter shock and disbelief. I pulled out my old license and put them side by side as a lump formed in my throat and I fought back tears. I looked TERRIBLE in the new one. I mean, absolutely completely horribly terrible like an old alcoholic woman about 20 years older than I am. I still want to cry about it actually, and I’m not a vain person at all but those two pics side by side, from only 5 years apart were so strikingly different it’s unbelievable. I have been avoiding having my picture taken the past couple of years but I guess when I look in the mirror I’m not seeing just how bad I really look. I’ve been looking at myself through beer goggles I guess, or wine glass goggles.

#3 – The boyfriend, who has cut his drinking way way wayyyy back over the past couple of months to once a week when he goes out with friends and a few beers here and there after he’s been working outside or whatever, had some drinking buddy friends drop by unexpectedly last Wednesday evening. I’ll give him kudos, he had one stiff drink and several beers, not much at all. Then on Thursday evening he had work function and had about 6-7 drinks there. Friday he had a retirement party after work and drank quite a bit. Saturday one of our neighbours (a very heavy drinker) dropped by in the afternoon and they drank all afternoon and all evening, hard and fast. I was out all afternoon but just after I got home they invited his wife over for dinner. Her and I are pretty good friends so we had some really good conversation and laughs. Boyfriend got a crappy night’s sleep, I got a great one. Boyfriend was dragging ass all Sunday feeling awful and I got out, had fun, went to a wedding show and out for dinner with my son’s fiance. Woke up this morning to no power so I got ready for work by flashlight while the boyfriend called in sick because he didn’t want to go in to work without having a shower.

So these are things that I learned over the past few days:
– drinking heavily really did change my looks, a LOT. (I’m sure that smoking also contributed significantly)
– All of those times that I went grocery shopping or ran into a store after I’d been drinking, yep I’m pretty sure now that people could smell it on me.
– After months of the boyfriend carefully moderating his drinking, it was really really easy for him to slip back into old habits for 4 days straight, and feel like crap after it.
– I really do get a lot more done and accomplished when I’m not drinking.