Another sober day, hooray! Feeling tired now, but it was a solid week day.

Despite waking up in the middle of the night more often than not and hating myself and swearing I would never drink again, in the past two and a half years, I’ve only taken a couple breaks from drinking.

There was Dry January of 2021. This was spawned by us both feeling like we had been drinking way too much during the pandemic. We both felt like we could use a re-set. There was zero intention to completely quit. I felt like I was doing something SO radical, just to go for a month off alcohol. I made it 14 days before I started secret drinking by myself when no one was home. I did that about three times. Also, my husband and I decided that if we went out to dinner it didn’t count if we had drinks at dinner. Of course. We’re so logical. Also, we considered 4 weeks a month, regardless of what the calendar said. So I drank about 6 days out of 28. I white knuckled my way through all the sober days. Most evenings had some-to-many hard cravings.

There was Dry January of 2022, the success of which was very similar. This time, though, it was spawned because for the first time ever, my husband found one of my secret bottles of booze. There was a huge confrontation. We’re both drinkers, but he had no idea that I was sneaking alcohol. A lot of things fell into place for him that day and he realized I’d been doing it for awhile. I was so ashamed. He was dumbfounded. After his initial shock and some anger, he was very supportive. I swore that if I took another month off (this was literally on New Years day that he found this), and then I still had a problem, I would seek help. I swore to never hide drinking from him again.

Then we were at mid-October of 2022. I had gone right back to secret drinking on and off after Dry January. I secretly pre-drank before our friends came over, then drank some more, and ended up being super drunk in front of them. At one point I came inside to drink water and try to force myself to be more sober (never has worked for me) and I ended up passing out. Our friends and my husband were still out on the porch socializing. I woke up at 4 in the morning with a huge portion of the night missing. My husband was so embarrassed that I just ghosted everyone. I had to admit I had been secretly drinking again, because it did not add up how I had gotten so drunk so fast.

It’s crazy to realize it, but I had been drinking WAY too much for around 10 years, and this was the first time anyone outside of my marriage had been impacted by it. And I was mortified. And my husband was, rightfully so, pissed off. Still supportive, but pissed at the same time. So I quit for 4 solid weeks and this time I did not cheat one time. The 29th day, my parents came to visit for a week. I told my husband, that I HAD to start drinking or my parents would raise eyebrows. The last thing I wanted was for my mother to be judging me for having a problem with alcohol. And with that, I went back to where I had been before very fast.

I’m only on day 9 this time. I can’t wait to be on day 29 because it will be my longest stretch. I have to say, even though I’ve had some hard times in the past 9 days, this time seems very different. I hope I’m not jinxing it. About 95% of my waking hours I feel so sure that I never want to drink again. The urges seem so much less. Instead of feeling like, “I just have to get through this sober period and then I can get back to drinking” I am daydreaming about what might life might be like for me if I never go back to drinking.

I’ll end this post with another plead to the universe – let this feeling stick for good!