Yesterday, I wrote about the many falls on my journey to change my drinking patterns. I reflected on how falls are only failures when we stop trying. Changing habits is not easy for most people. Sure, we hear stories of these “burning bush” moments, such as the person who goes to an AA meeting for the first time and never touched another drop of alcohol. Or people who decide to adopt a new diet and do so overnight with no looking back. Most of us are not like that. Most of us dip our toes into the waters of change, sometimes wading in deeper and deeper and frequently running back to the safety of the shore. We know what to expect when we stick with our tried and true habits. Going deeper into the waters of change means venturing into the unknown and doing things that are a bit uncomfortable, even having to go against the current. And it is hard. And we go back to what we know. And then dip the toes in again. Each time, if we pay attention, we learn something new, get a little stronger, and are able to stay in the water a little longer.
My point here is that if you are adopting new habits or breaking old ones (and honestly, if you are breaking an old habit it might be a good idea to replace it with a new, healthier one so you are doing both adopting and breaking at the same time), be patient. Be persistent. Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t. Review and revise your plan. And just keep going. Keep trying.
I did end up having drinks last night. My husband and I are moving into a new home that we purchased. We decided to move out of the rental and into the new house slowly, so as not to disrupt our work schedules. Yesterday we took a bunch of stuff to the new house. We loaded his SUV and made a couple trips. Let’s just say that packing, moving, and the projects and money involved in buying a house are not at all my favorite things. Moving is very unsettling to me and I am quite uncomfortable with not having my space organized. And there are the projects to be done – removal of the kitchen floor and remediation of the mold we discovered under it. Do we replace the floor with all new flooring (it’s laminate) or try to save money by putting what we are pulling up back in and only replacing what was damaged? There is a possible leak in the water line to the washing machine. We need to purchase new screens for some of the windows and doors and blinds for the west-facing bedroom windows (ever try to fall asleep on a hot Western summer night in a west-facing room without adequate window coverings? It sucks). We need to buy couches so we don’t have to sit on lawn chairs while watching tv. We have to buy a lawnmower. And pray that the swamp cooler works once we buy a ladder to get up on the roof and de-winterize it. Holy shit. This all is adding up financially and time-wise. And with my paltry social services caseworker salary, there is enough to pay student loans and buy food and not much else. We will get through all of it. My husband is able to help me keep things in perspective.
We went to the store and bought some beers (for him) and vodka (for me). He suggested that I try the locally distilled vodka (called Five Wives, a nod toward Utah’s polygamist past). It is gluten-free and pretty darn good. I had three drinks. Then four as I was trying to fall back to sleep. There is still some left. I suppose I will have that tonight. I will also tell my husband that I don’t think I should drink again for a while, as it a) disrupts my sleep and b) I seem to obsess about it when I start. At least when I drink vodka. Not so much with beer. All this time, I have been hiding my drinking. Not sure that I have done so well, but I drink soda water or sparkling water every night and you can’t tell whether there is vodka in my glass. I kept wanting to just finish the bottle, like I have so many other nights, so I would be able to start again the next day. I wanted to drink myself back to sleep when I woke in the middle of the night, as I’ve done so often in the past, especially the past 6 months. I mean, I’m obsessing right now just by writing about the presence of vodka in my kitchen.
Hopefully, telling my husband will help me to stay off the sauce. Either that, or it will keep me hiding my drinks. I really don’t want that.
This post was originally going to be about my career questions, but it has become long, and I really dislike really long blog posts. So there may be two posts today.
Uncaged and Unbroken 