Category Archives: Thoughts

Floundering

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Giving up alcohol has been relatively easy. Wait. Let me finish. Not buying wine or beer has been easy. The insomnia, the anxiety and the unease is the crazy bit. 3am and I am wide awake. I have taken to writing instead of tossing and turning. I am hoping the insomnia will stop by itself. Hoping that it will last only another week. I am normally an easy sleeper. Out like a light within ten minutes. That seems so long ago now.

Abstaining from alcohol is actually the starting line, not the finish line. I have all this free time on my hands. I feel lost in knowing what to do next. I then tell myself slow down. You have been drinking for years, what makes you think the answers will fall in to place so instantly. Give yourself a break. Slowly, slowly. We all know what happens when one overdoes something. We are not repeating that again.

Constipation, insomnia, anxiety, teary moments, unease, lethargy, no joy. I thought that I would wake up with energy, no hangover, no lethargy without alcohol. This has not proven to be the case. Am I behaving like a child and sulking about what has been taken away and not focusing on what I have been given? Probably. My liver, my heart, my brain, my blood are screaming with gleeful delight. I might not be able to feel it just yet but they must be enjoying feeling cleaner. 

Healthy eating is not happening. I know what I eat and drink. My sweet tooth is still there. I am not one to jump on the scales and obsess about weight and calories. However I do have a complex of feeling overweight constantly. I do not diet. I don’t believe in them. I do want to change my lifestyle. That I believe in. Diets are fads. Lifestyle changes are that. A better change that is a good habit added to ones life.

A gym membership is what I invested in a year ago. I am going fairly regularly now. I do feel good after having walked, stretched and lifted something. It is money well spent. Considering I have done little in the way of exercise for a decade it was a necessary expense. It wasn’t quite kicking and screaming to get there but it was close. It got me off the couch.

The pounding in my head

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As I listen to the sound of the neighbour’s party music and loud raucous voices, I don’t feel the slightest bit envious. I am not missing the drink. The constant need to have a drink in one’s hand. To say something witty or profound. No. let’s pass on this round. Let’s pass on the conversation. Let’s sit back and wonder why? Or not. I really cannot be bothered.

Reaching for a glass, pouring the contents of a bottle into said glass, not to the rim, yet a generous pour none the less. Consuming the contents of said glass at a rather fast pace. What is the hurry? you say? Well. I’m not really sure. But as the rabbit said I mustn’t be late. There is no rhyme nor reason for someone to drink fast. It is neither better nor worse whether with company or alone. Alone there is no competition but a race to get to the end of the bottle. Again there is no race, but an imagined one. There is no reasoning with one of the competitors once the race has begun. They must finish the race no matter the consequences. It must. It really must.

Essentially holding a glass or a bottle in one’s hand is a coping mechanism, is it not? A desire to fit in, regardless of the crowd. As they say you cannot fit a square into a round hole. But you can sure spend time trying. Alcohol numbs the noise of the voices in your head. The ones that tell you you are not enough. Why we listen to them is beyond me. Why do we have them in the first place?