Patterns emerging

Last Saturday I taught singing for my usual 9.5, then did a birthday gig 7.30-9.30 and then a second gig 10-12.I earned about £500 and worked hard all day. I was offered booze at the second gig and was a 5minute walk from home so could easily have accepted.

This weekend I’ve taught again, we’ve had shows so it’s been very busy and intense and then I’ve just gigged 8.30-11.. again it was an open bar at a house party and I could have had a lift from my in laws so very easily could have taken advantage of the situation, hung around for hours talking to people I don’t know just to keep sipping the free booze…

I get home and other half is lying on the sofa where he has been since 6pm after a day out watching the local football club…similar routine to every Saturday. Now I feel really angry. Like really pissed off. Then as I was taking my make up off I realised that the idea of having a drink tomorrow afternoon was in my head. Which is funny cos earlier driving home from work I was thinking “ thank god It’ll be a week since I’ve had a drink and I’ve not wanted one at all and I felt sick at the thought of it.

I get home tonight, feel full of resentment towards him and suddenly “you deserve a drink after work tomorrow since you’ve been working so hard and he’s been doing fuck all.

Now, the good thing is, I’ve spotted this, and I’m not going to fall into that trap…but it’s god damn annoying isn’t it! Instead I’m going to send him a message from my bed here telling him how I really feel and why it makes me feel crap, like I have to go out and earn money as we are totally skint but then he doesn’t work at all unless it suits him. It’s totally unfair. I do not want to spend my Saturday nights after teaching out singing again, i want to sit with my kid and relax. I do want to gig but “when it suits me” rather than being a necessary thing I have to do. It takes the pleasure out of it.

The afternoon will be difficult tomorrow now as this thought is scratching away, and my 4 year old has a party in a social club(cheap booze) which it would be acceptable to drink at on a Sunday afternoon but I’m not going to be that mum. I was that mum a few weeks ago and it still churns my stomach thinking about it. Remembering who I was talking to at the school gate, knowing if I was them I would have known I was drunk, it’s not right.

Send positive sober vibes my way thought please just for that extra boost x I can do this 💪🏻

The day after the day after the night before….

I spend my hang over days just wishing the time away and desperate to wake up feeling ‘normal’ the next day. The truth is today I still feel a bit sick to my stomach and tired and groggy.

I know why I drank, I knew that I shouldn’t yet I allowed myself to try ‘just one’ and before I’d even had the first drink my addiction took over and I ordered a double vodka to drink at the bar before I even took my wine back to the table where my family were sitting. I managed to have two more double vodkas secretly, only the bar staff watching and seeing of course – this woman has issues. Then we went home, the family thinking i’d had two drinks, in fact I’d had 4.

We went out for tea early, I didn’t want to cook and wanted to drink. That’s the top and bottom of it – I put my drinking before my family and it sucks. I hate it, but I know that I have to accept that it happened and move forwards with another strong reminder of why I am a non-drinker!

I am a non-drinker because –

Alcohol makes me irresponsible, when I have alcohol it becomes more important to me than my kids, when I have alcohol I am unreasonable, when I have alcohol I am argumentative, when I have alcohol I do things I wouldn’t normally do like walk the dog at 1 am in the morning talking to strangers. When I have alcohol I am selfish and self centered, I talk to people but I really just want to talk about me and I don’t actually listen, I am a bad friend when I have alcohol. I waste money when I have alcohol. My body can’t tolerate alcohol – especially the amount I put in all at once.

I went to look at a rental property on Sunday afternoon which I believe is what made me feel unstable and my brain kindly thought “oh do that thing that once helped you and eased your problems for a few hours. Now that thing has become the problem. And I know it!

This whole cycle I’ve created with my partner is the thing that is driving me mad. We need to work on the relationship rather than me just throwing in the towel and saying I’m leaving every time he does one thing that upsets me. We talked openly about this yesterday and that was a positive that came out of the drinking session.

I’m prioritizing my sober books and the online course, rather than thinking ‘well I’ve not had a drink for 2 weeks so I don’t need to do any work on myself regarding this. There’s no excuses being made here or anything, I’m just admitting this difficulty once again and I have faith in my brain that the connections it needs to make are being made, the re-wiring that alcohol = bad and non-drinker = good is a phrase I’m saying over and over in my head, non matter how simplistic it seems it works for me. I have previously stayed away from this as I didn’t want to feel it was so black and white, but for me it really is, there is no in between now, and there hasn’t been for many years….I don’t envision or want to envision any thing different – for me alcohol is poison and I do not want to hurt myself and the others around me anymore.

For a few moments yesterday It felt just too hard, and I had that old feeling of just wanting to give up on everything, give up on life as it feels so uphill. I knew I had to wait 24 hours to feel physically better which is what I’ve done and I know I can overcome this with the help and support of my partner and my good friends that I confide in.

Here’s to a dry Christmas!

Fucked up

I messed up last night . I’m trying self care today and have had a really good heart to heart with my partner and he’s going to help me. I have to stop these mind games I play with him. It’s not fair on anyone. It had been over two weeks since I last drank and on Saturday night I was offered a lot of free booze several times and saying no thank you was easy for me.

Yesterday I went to look at a rental property and just decided to take the kids to the pub instead of cooking. I have no money so this was stupid from the start. My head hurts too much now but I will come back and do this work tomorrow

Food for thought

So I did my first sober week for a long time last week like I had planned, but then Friday nights meal out I did drink, hence my silence here. I had spent time planning my drink request, and the surprise in everyone’s faces, but at the last minute I chickened out. I had two glasses of wine with the meal. That would have been ok, but I went upstairs to the toilet before the meal and snuck a double vodka, and then I stayed back after the meal to ‘catch up with a friend’ and basically cadge another free double V from the restaurant manager since we are good friends. Anyway I did go home and nothing bad happened, although I felt sheepish.

So on Saturday morning I booked a zoom call with my life coach/ hypnotist Melanie Gillespie (she is amazing!!) and even though it’s pricey I knew it would be what I needed as she has helped me so much before.

I have a recording of Monday’s zoom call which Im going to go through on my day off (next Monday) and write down the key points, things like just knowing I am a non drinker takes drinking off the table completely, even if it’s free or whatever – a vegetarian wouldn’t eat a meat sandwich just because it was free, so why should I put poison in my body just because it’s free or everybody else is? I have completely prioritised my children over alcohol and that feels great. I have a scale in my head with the image of the kids on one end and the image of me in a drunken mess at the bottom of the stairs – or not even that bad just me sitting have an alcoholic drink (which will eventually lead to the bottom of the stairs again with a child in my arms)….which one is more important is easy to visualise and easy to know what the next step or right thing to do is.

Something I’ve read in soemone

The “ikk”

I have that feeling … it’s Friday I’m going for family and I just feel really sadBecause I’ve been confident about not drinking all week since that episode last Thursday. But after todaymy mum is being her usual narcissistic self and it’s Remembrance Sunday I went to visit my brothers grave and now I just had an argument with my husband well he’s not my husband but you know just about money he has a lot of money tied up on things which he’s saving for later life but I just have this feeling I’m not gonna live that long and it’s not fair.no think I’m being really selfish thinking like that aren’t I. I just feel sad.