Sober Day #38- Travel & Kindness

Another flight today.  No wine.  It was OK.

I'm sitting at a resort outside Atlanta, temp nearly 80 degrees, sunny, looking out over a beautiful lake.  And at home everything is at a standstill due to an ice storm.

Traveling alone can make me pensive.  Today I've been thinking about what I was using alcohol to avoid, to mask.  What parts of my best self do I find uncomfortable to acknowledge, to appreciate?  Using a guideline for this trip of making self-care and sobriety my top priorty (screw anything that interferes with this!) is an interesting experience.  I am appreciating myself, perhaps even cherishing and celebrating myself.  This, I think, is something those of us who turn to excess amounts of alcohol do not do well.

What, I think, just what if, I treated myself like this all the time?  With honor, tenderness and care?  (as distinct from shirking necessary duties, turning into a lazy slob, or not doing anything productive!)  I mean, just what if I believed it was true?  That I am a good, kind, honorable being with a right to exist and a duty to be true to myself?

If I'd started from that place, I don't think alcohol would ever have seemed attractive?  How do we learn to be so mean, so careless and hurtful to ourselves?

The good part, however, is that we can recognize and change this.  This is a journey we are all on, and I am so grateful for this cyber-community the celebrates and reinforces this new world-view and self-view!!!

Sober Day #37- Time Crunches and Alcohol

Like many people, I've always had sort of an uneasy relationship with time.  I have this Endless To-Do list, and seem to have an underlying magical hope that time will expand to accommodate my needs.  When, strangely enough, this doesn't happen-  I end up frustrated and mad at myself.

And, I am an introvert.  At work, I function very well as an extrovert-  but I definitely need time alone to recharge (as opposed to DH, who draws energy from parties and social functions).  And especially 'making time'-  quilts with my sewing machine, and glass beads using my torch and kiln.  None of these items travel well.

I have been out of town for most of the past two weekends, and will be gone for the entire weekend the next two weekends.  Since I really cherish my weekends at home, my 'nesting' and 'making' time-  this is very hard for me.  Time seems to shrink, giving me barely enough time for necessary activities of daily living- and packing, and unpacking, and packing...

Usually this kind of a time stack would have me grabbing and gulping glasses and glasses of wine the I 'deserved' because of the stressful situation.  And then (serendipitously?  Coincidentally?) I read Sober Mom Write's post yesterday.  All about taking care of oneself, making life as stress-free as possible. Having only One Job:  staying sober.

And my Poor-Me-I-Need-Wine status started to crumble.  I started really thinking about what I could NOT do, what tasks and obligations I could put off, reassign to someone else (even if this meant paying them to do so) or just plain not do.  And about how I might 'treat' myself, add in some things that feed my soul even with this hectic schedule.  The specifics of these actions will obviously vary from person to person-  and my list is growing steadily.

I'm not sure whether not reading Sober Mom Write's post would have led me to give in to that calling of wine, but I do know that reading this post had a profound impact on how I am planning my support for the next weeks.

Self Care, I guess, is a major component of successful abstinence!