An essay on self-indulgent whining…

I miss that puffy pink cloud of super early sobriety. This has been a trying time and I wonder if I would be handling it better drunk. I would be in a cycle of numb and hungover that keeps me from feeling anything long enough to sustain rage or sorrow. This polarized election has caused stress fractures in some of my relationships. And it sucks. It has caused issues between me and my mother. Then my brother got into it with mom on facebook and bystanders dogpiled my mother. No matter how much I disagree with her, I hate to see people gang up on her. So now there’s a thing between my brother and me. So I have to figure out a way to fix this. We are family. That has to be more important. My dad is dead. We are what we have left.

A year ago I posted snarky observations on facebook but I wasn’t losing any sleep over my snarky observations. It didn’t keep me up at night. Nothing kept me up at night because I got drunk and fell into bed. My life was slipping by me in a steady drip of booze but I didn’t hurt much. Which explains why people get drunk.

I have no desire to drink. I hated going out to buy alcohol even if there was a sheet of ice on the road. I hated packing away little airplane bottles to take with me when spending nights away from home. I hated the horrible anxiety I would wake up with. I hated sitting in a state of suspended animation at social gatherings, not drinking there and waiting to get home so I could have a drink. I hated wondering if anyone was on to me. Four months of sobriety has shown me how much too much alcohol messed up my life. Not drinking is the easy part. I just don’t. I don’t even remember how I stopped exactly or my last drink, because I didn’t know it would be my last for a long while. I just knew I would benefit from drying out so I decided to stay sober for two weeks. There must be something good about it because two weeks has become four months.

I fell off my hippie diet, I have had a cold for 3 weeks, have not had the energy to get any exercise and I have been off ssri’s for months. So basically I have a huge case of the anxious heebie jeebies. That feeling where being awake is being in a state of anticipating disaster. But I can observe input and output. I am not being mindful that I get appropriate nutrition. I am not being mindful to avoid the spikes and drops in blood sugar that make me a nervous wreck. I am not getting any exercise. I am not taking medication. So surprisingly enough, doing nothing to manage anxiety is yielding a lot of anxiety. Sooooo first I am going to take a nap because yeah, just going to. I refilled my ssri. I will go grocery shopping for decent food and go to gym even if I just cycle gently. When my nap is over. I’m not stuck in the ditch, my traction is just a bit wonky.

In news of progress, I met up with an old friend for dinner. I reached out. I said I’m sorry I just disappeared. I was unhappy, I was drinking too much, I neglected some relationships. I would like to be friends again. She graciously made time in her schedule. It was a lovely evening. I have to believe that despite all the stumbles, bit by bit I will put a life together that is better than ever. I feel like Beck lol…”things are gonna change, I can feel it.” And if you are my age, you know that you were meant to laugh at that part of the song because Loser. God DAMN, my midlife crisis is spectacular.