“New Year’s Day–Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”
-Mark Twain
WEEK #1:
This is not your rum-of-the -mill sobriety blog! I am not an alcoholic – I only drink socially…to excess!
That said, I also cannot control my drinking once I get started. This Holiday season I drank beyond enjoyment. I have gotten in so much trouble over the years (read on, Dear Reader), so much hilarious, ridiculous and even serious trouble with my bad buddy booze! I want to gain control of the reins of the dark horses of drink. I could just stop drinking, cold turkey, like everyone else on New Year Day. Yet , I do not conquer this foe…he conquereth me! I don’t want to go to every party for the rest of my life spending all of my energy NOT drinking!!! I can’t stand the idea of salivating over every drop of champagne that I watch going down the gullet of my fellow revelers. And like many folks, the idea of never having a drink again is so depressing that I can never imagine quitting in the first place! And thus the cycle of drinking too much at parties, getting naked and/ or being obnoxious, throwing-up numerous times, passing out, waking up humiliated continues.
To just not imbibe any alcoholic beverage seems to be the drink of choice for most who need to cut the cord with the devil brew. I have done this for short periods of time – until some tragic, stressful or joyous occasion broke me down to drink again. My problem is that I want to keep drinking! I want to enjoy that glass of good red wine as I look out over the Tuscan hillside, that cold beer as I come in sweating from the garden, that glass of bubbly that curls my mouth into the smile of a celebration.
Am I trying the impossible? To tame a party animal who does not know when to quit…whom each drink seems to embolden her ferocious appetite…who doesn’t stop til she’s face down and the parties all gone home? For me and alcohol, “nothing succeeds like excess”.
Right now the pathways in my brain are deeply ingrained to drink to excess. After the second drink, the green light turns on and the whistle blows to PARTY til I drop. I need to do some serious rerouting up in the old grey matter. Some retraining of this party animal to jump through the hoop without it needing be lit on fire. To have fun and enjoy a drink or two like someone on a croquet court. Elegant and charming, not face down in vomit!
The Challenge: rewire my brain to be able to drink in moderation in one year’s time.
The Plan:
I will not drink any alcoholic beverages for 4 months.
The next four months I will only drink 1 alcoholic beverage per day (this sounds very hard!)
The last four months I will only drink 2 alcoholic beverages per day (is this the slippery slope?)
Dear Readers…(when I have some) Am I insane to think I can tempt the impossible! Or is their a middle ground between AA and Blotto?
I feel like to just eliminate alcohol does nothing to address my problem. It just removes it.
I want to gain control over this demon drink and not let it dictate how, when and where, I have fun.
But does booze by it’s very nature overtake our free will? Oh philosophy…makes one want to drink…and since this is day seven of my first week of abstinence….I will do the next best thing and go to sleep!
Booze Kitten 