One week!

Well, that's it - a whole week sober for the first time since October 2013.  And it's been a doozy of a week: crazy biz trip which included being around a fair amount of drinking people as well as usual biz trip stressors.  I have consumed enough tonic water to insure that I will be malaria immune for the rest of my life!  I didn't really know that I liked tonic water but I do.  Maybe there is something to Belle's theory of bitter is better.  Anyway, that's my #1 mocktail for now, with or without lime.  

The week thing is interesting as a function of counting days.  When I got sober the first time, the day counting was huge as it typically is in AA - single digit days, 30 day chips, 60 day chips, 90 day chips, etc to the grand finale of the 1 year medallion, with cake and everything.  I really liked getting those little pieces (and the cake, or in my case because the home group met in the am, it was breakfast pastries) and I was  compulsive about the day/week/month/year counting.  But it was always like I was counting the time I had been depriving myself, successful in avoiding a temptation or made some sort of sacrifice (wearing of the hair shirt, carrying the cross, I dunno...but a subtle negative connotation).  

This time around, I think I don't care so much about the day count.  Obviously Day 1 was key (so much so I had to do it more than once to get it right, haha), and I think the first couple of days are just so touchy that it's hard not to be hyperaware of the time that's passed/what time it is.  And of course, I don't think I'll just forget that I stopped drinking on January 2, 2015.  But I do think the perspective of 'I am happily free of the beast and I DON'T want it even though I CAN have it' (mangling my interpretation of Jason Vale's message) lends itself to more of a positive and empowered focus than 'I've got a disease that wants to kill me but I've managed to conquer it for this many 24 hrs by not doing something I really want to do.'  Does this make any sense?

Anyway, I am happily free of the beast today and I've felt that way for the last few days (it's not like a week is an eternity anyway, maybe in a few days I'll have that hair shirt on).  And of course any period of sobriety is worth celebrating for someone who struggled with putting the drink down, so I'm not knocking milestones (or day counts for that matter).  I just feel a different perspective and I think it augurs well for me to feel good and strong and happy with not drinking, that it's a choice I have made and am happily and voluntarily living with.  Not something I 'must' do because I have a disease.  

I like Vale's theory that the disease stops once you stop feeding it (ie, addiction is only a sickness as long as you are taking the drug; if you stop taking it, you stop/cure the disease).  It's really just how I think about it - either way, the name of the game is not drinking, and whatever thought process works to that end is a successful one.

It's not just the thoughts though.  What's been really great for me this time is really knowing I am not alone and that there are lots of women all over the world very much like me doing very much the same thing for very much the same reasons under very similar circumstances.  That was something that I just never really found in AA.  There were NOT very many women who had teenage (or any) kids living at home.  There were a lot of other kinds of people and a lot of them didn't have jobs.  Some did, but more didn't.  And I found both of those differences meaningful after a while.  They say not to compare but to identify, but I felt there were at least as many differences as common identifiers - with VERY limited exception, the only real thing I had in common with most of the folks in AA was a problem with alcohol.  So here in the sobersphere, I feel much more surrounded by people I can REALLY relate to on that level as well as the other aspects of our lives - kids, jobs, husbands, friends, neighbors, socializing issues.  I am grateful for and excited about that.  It just feels more authentically supportive, I guess.

So I'm at the end of my first week sober and very happy to be there, and I'll remain generally aware of the days that pass, but I think I may drift away from counting them.  We'll see.  Now off to watch some silly TV and settle into my couch with cats and a kid or two, maybe some chocolate and probably a bit more tonic water :).  I'll go to bed sober and wake up deliciously rested and bright eyed and happy to have a weekend!  Sobriety rocks and so does the sobersphere.  I hope everyone has a great sober evening and a lovely weekend! 

Hugs,

SR