Ride On

First of all, thanks for all of the words of encouragement.  It's greatly appreciated.

So yeah, I got slightly intoxicated Friday night.  Not only that, but I also drunk posted on my own sober blog.  I'm not gonna lie, it's a little hard for me to not laugh at that...at least a little.

I woke up Saturday morning feeling that all too familiar minor hangover....slight headache, cotton mouth. All things considered, I've felt worse.  I was low on energy most of the day which made me mostly useless.  The hangovers I remember.  The low energy day of uselessness that follows a night of drinking was one thing I had forgotten about.

As for the overwhelming sense of shame and regret that I assumed would follow my first slip-up....well, that wasn't there.  In fact, I didn't really feel any shame at all.  Sure, it would be nice to be celebrating my 80th something day of sobriety, and that's gone now, but I'm ok with that.  I goofed.  It's not that big of a deal....or at least I don't feel like it is.  I'll try to learn from this and be better next time.  I felt way worse mentally last year after 21 straight nights of drinking.

The truth is when I started this journey I never figured I'd be sober for the rest of my life. I started off thinking I'd go 100 days, but after about a week of sobriety, I gave up worrying about reaching some big number.  I kinda figured at some point I'd decided to have a few drinks on some special occasion, and then get back to being a sober guy.  I guess I didn't figure that being forever sober was necessarily necessary. 

The one big regret I have about falling off the wagon is that it wasn't planned.  I assumed, or hoped, that if/when I did decide to have a drink or two....or three, it wouldn't be a spur of the moment type of situation.  That's not so much what happened Friday night.  Not at all.

So the bad news is I slipped.  But the good news is I've been dying to get back on the sober train ever since....even before I sobered up Friday night.  So that's what I'm doing now. 

Part of me thinks that if I can go 80 days between drinks, then I'll have far better things to worry about than sobriety.  But I also know that this is a slippery slope.  It took many years for my occasional drunken party behavior to turn into a nightly drinking ritual.  And 80 days doesn't fix that.  My sobriety done sprung a leak.  Now I need to make sure that this slow drip doesn't turn into a steady stream.

So yeah, Day 2.

Day 1 - blindsided

Well, it happened.

I drank.  I'm not sure what happened.  Nothing really happened.  No Gene sightings.  It felt like I was on autopilot.  Friday night. Nothing to do.  I went to the liquor store and bought a bottle of vodka.  I wasn't in a bad mood or pissed off for any reason. 

Next thing I know I'm drunk.  Not crazy drunk.  I had a few and I'm feeling the all too familiar buzz.  In six or seven hours I'll wake up dehydrated and feeling like shit.  Not knowing why I made this decision.  But I did.  And now I start over.

Really not looking forward to the morning guilt that I'll no doubt be feeling soon.

A few months ago I longed to be the guy who could get hammered once and awhile and then lay off the booze for another month or two.  Maybe I am that guy.  Who am I kidding?  I started this blog because I'm not that guy. 

I'm going to go drink a lot of water. 

This is actually day 0.  Tomorrow will be day 1.

Dumbass here.  I apologize to myself.

Day 79 - Streaks

A few years ago I decided that I was going to start running again. I've been an on again off again runner for over 20 years....more off than on.  I had read an article about streak runners.  Not the run-around-naked-through-the-Quad people, but people who run every day, no matter what.  Some streak runners are going on twenty plus years of daily running.  Crazy bastards!

I was fascinated!  So of course that became my new thing.  I started running at least one mile every day.  The first day was easy...even I could run a mile.  The second and third days weren't bad, but I was beginning to get a little sore.  Days 4-7 were rough.  My legs were sore and wanting a day off, but I powered through. 

After the first week my legs apparently realized that the dumb ass upstairs no longer believed in rest days, so things started getting easy.....and then fun.  By the end of the first month I had started increasing my distances.  One day I did a 65 mile charity bike ride and then came home and ran my mile before a bachelor party.  My friends thought I was crazy.  Things were good.

On the afternoon of my 100th day I didn't feel well, and things got worse as the day went on.  But that evening I decided to get a really slow mile run in and go straight to bed.  As bad as I felt before the run, I felt ten times worse after.  I ended up with the flu and a broken running streak. 

I recovered from the flu, but the running streak was gone and I never made it back to 100 days.  I learned a valuable lesson though.....streaks can be a great motivational tool.

That's definitely one of the reasons why I've been successful so far with sobriety.  I have a good streak going and I don't want to have to start the counter over.

I found an app called "Days" recently.  It's a very basic tool that keeps track of my various streaks.  Well, actually there's only one streak right now, but it's showing a big fat "79".  Anything that allows me to do less math is a good thing. 

Now I have to come up with some other streaks to start tracking.....like maybe how many days can I drive past a Whataburger without stopping.  Or how many days in a row can I wear the same pair of socks......kidding.

Anyway....yeah, streaks!

And still sober!

Day 76

I was wandering around inside of my head today when I asked myself a question that I'd asked over 76 times since I started this crazy sober journey....."Why am I not going to drink tonight?'

For well over two months the answer had been the same:  no hangover, I'll sleep better, no post drinking shame and guilt, etc.  When I first stopped drinking, I think answering the question every day was my way of convincing myself not to drink.  But a few weeks into sobriety the answers, although the same, turned into my way of reminding myself why I wasn't drinking anymore.  I was past needing to convince myself.  For the most part anyway.

Today, for the first time, the answer changed....instead of running through the same list of reasons that I'd been relying on for two plus months, my dome gave me a different answer.  "I'm not drinking tonight because......I don't want to!" 

I don't know if that means anything, but it sure feels like it does....especially because there was a little attitude in the answer.  Kinda like, "You're not drinking because you don't want to.  Now quit fucking asking me that question!!"

It's the same type of attitude that Eight gives me every morning when I wake him up for school.  Now I know where he gets it. 

Maybe I'm past having to remind myself why I'm not drinking.  Maybe it's my brain's way of telling me to quit spending so much time thinking about sobriety.  Maybe I'm getting a little too big for my britches with this whole, "Look at me, I'm sober" business.  It's times like these when I forget to lock the door and Gene sneaks in for a chat.  I hope he wears those cool demon shoes if/when he does come back.  

Day 70 - If it's not one thing......

I'm happy to say that I have had no urge to drink over the last week....none, zilch, zero!  That's been nice.  I can now say that I'm cured!  I don't have to worry about the occasional drink anymore.

Haha Drinky!  Try again!

I know.....one day at a time....stick with what works.

I don't know why I used to drink so much.  Obviously I was trying to escape something, but I'm not terribly interested in diving into the inner working of my dome to try to figure it out.  At least not now. 

What I do know from my personal history is that when I have mustered up the willpower to eliminate one bad habit, another bad habit often replaced it.  Enter sugar!  I've never been real big on sugar.  I enjoy a little ice cream now and again and the occasional birthday cake, but I've never had a problem turning it down.

But since I quit drinking it seems like the sugar cravings have increased.  And it's not just sugar....refined carbs in general have become a problem.  Potato chips, bread, pizza.  Stuffing my face full of refined carbs makes me feel good and stuffed.  The problem is I'm hungry again ten minutes later.  When I started this sober journey I had grand plans of dropping the 20 or 30 lbs that have been following me around for the last several years.  So much for that idea.  I guess it's time to rethink things. 

I might be pushing the limits of my willpower by thinking that I can eliminate junk carbs while still abstaining from the happy juice, but I think it's time to give it a shot.  If it becomes too much, I'll eat a pizza and leave the liquor store alone. 

In other news, Seven turned Eight yesterday.  He had his party at Soccer Zone.  He had a great time and I learned something new.....I thought I was in fairly good shape, but after three hours of soccer, dodgeball, and basketball......Holy Mary Mother of God was I wrong about that.  I was pretty worn out last night (and sober) when I went to bed.  When I woke up this morning, everything hurt.  Everything!  I'm sure the five cupcakes I ate yesterday didn't help matters.

It's been a long weekend.  I'm looking forward to going to bed sober soon.

Day 64 - Busy week

Last week was spring break.  We had plans to go out to the cabin both weekends, but those plans all fell through.  My father in law has been ill so my wife went down to Houston on the first Saturday of spring break to spend time with him and help out my mother in law.  This of course left me alone with the kids for several days....which typically would have meant much drinking, at least after the kids went to bed.  Not this time around.  I didn't even have the urge.

By Wednesday my wife wasn't ready to come back so the boys and I went down to Houston for a few days.  This made me a little nervous.  My mother in law is a 5:00 wine drinker and she and I had kinda become drinking buddies over the years.  She was surprised to hear that I was on the wagon, but it wasn't a problem and it certainly didn't bother her.

What kinda got me was the fact that I can't remember the last sober night I had spent at the in laws house.  Much like our California vacations, I was used to drinking every night there....heavily!  I would typically have a few drinks in the evening and then power down once everybody went to bed, which was usually fairly early.

The boys and I arrived in Houston on Wednesday at about 4:00.  I wasn't the least bit surprised to see Gene Simmons there....bastard!  We exchanged pleasantries and he asked if we were hammering down while I was there.  I told him it wasn't happening this time around.  He quickly got the hint and didn't stick around long.  As he was leaving I told him his wig wasn't fooling anybody.   He still doesn't have much of a sense of humor. 

That was the last time I saw him, although he texted me a couple of times while I was still in Houston.

The five year old and I came back Saturday.  He had a birthday party to go to.  My wife came back with Seven last night.  Seven will be changing his name to Eight on Saturday, so try to keep up.

So, 64 days in.....Still feels good.  Still sleeping incredibly well.  I haven't really thought about how long I'm going to take this streak.  I'm still clinging to one day at a time.  I haven't really thought about the fact that I'm on a streak lately.  When Gene stops by and I contemplate a drink, I don't seem to have to fight the urge to abstain.  There's no internal struggle.....I just think about how nice it feels to go to bed sober and wake up unhungovered.   The novelty of that may at some point wear off, but so far it's working.

Day 52

Day 50 kinda snuck up on me.  Now here I am celebrating day 52 of this journey.  A few things:

"Most things I worry about never happen anyway."  I'm not sure where that saying came from, but I got it from a Tom Petty song many years ago.  It seems like making the decision to sober up was the biggest hurdle....a hurdle that I struggled with for many years. But once I finally made that decision, everything just kinda fell into place.  The journey has been fun....at least so far. 

I think I worried too much about how I was going to do it, or if I'd be able to do it.  Turns out what I really needed to do was.....just go ahead and do it.

One of the things I've learned about myself over the years is that I form habits incredibly easily....good and bad.  If I find something I like, I tend to stick with it religiously.  At my old job I got into the habit of going to Subway for lunch.  It only took a few times before I was hooked.  I used to go almost every day.  Same sandwich, same time.  I supported that franchise for a good two years.  It was part of my daily routine.


I guess that being an easily-forming-habit-guy can be a good thing so long as the habit is a healthy one.  Exercising is a good example.  I started exercising at an early age, and I've consistently done so ever since. 

Unfortunately, I'm pretty accomplished at forming bad habits too;  diet soda, junk food (I can usually resist junk food, but it's a slippery slope)......alcohol!!!!!!!

Booze, like many other things in my life, became a habit.  It was a slow process, mostly because I fought it for a long time, but it eventually became part of my daily routine.  And once it became part of my day, it was really difficult to control.

When I decided to stop, the first week or too were tough....because just like going to Subway at 11:05 every morning used to be a part of my day, making that first drink at 8:30 every night was just what I did.  It felt right.  If I didn't do it, I was all out of sorts.

But once I settled into sobriety, the sober habit quickly formed. Instead of making that first drink at 8:30 every night, I either sober blogged myself or I read sober blogs.  It didn't take long for that new habit to form and become the new norm.  I think that's why this has thus far seemed easier than I thought it would. That was a horrible sentence!....this that thus.

Anyway,  It's been a fun journey.  I know that Gene will be back at some point and that's ok.  One day at a time has worked so far, so I'm sticking with it.

Now it's time to go to bed.......sober.