A deeper dive into the drinking stuff.

About a year ago I decided to start taking my health more seriously. So I stopped drinking regularly, I started in on the yard for exercise, and I began changing my diet. As of today I am somewhere on the scale that I never thought I’d be. People get MAD when I tell them that my 50(and counting!)lb weight loss was mostly due to cutting alcohol, as well as sugar. Really though, legit disgust and annoyance is the response I get. There are so many people that panic at the idea of drinking less. I used to be like that. Panic in the pit of my stomach at the thought of giving up my cocktail hour. That feeling was part of how I knew that I needed to slow. the. fuck. down.

I’m not trying to get on any kind of soapbox here. If you know me IRL, you know that I have been a solid drinker since my first night at Penn State. I’ve called friends at 4am when I’m too shitfaced to drive, I’ve rearranged my budget so I would have money for the club. As I got older, the drink changed, but not the amount–it was like I was proud of my bottle a day wine habit.

Now that I’m out of that daily drinking phase it’s hard not to notice how much the outside world is always pressuring us to drink. I have shirts and cups and all sorts of art dedicated to drinking. I’m slowly purging it all. I don’t need alcohol to define me any more. Sometimes in my memories feed on FB it is nonstop drinking memes. A year ago it used to make me feel ashamed and sad that so much of my 30’s were spent in a buzz. I missed a lot of life that I can’t get back. I had shitty priorities. I was selfish. That is all true, but what’s done is done and there’s no point feeling shitty about it now. NOW what I can do is better. Be better. Do better. I sat with my sadness and shitty feelings until I could pull the thread about WHY. I felt the feels, accepted them, and let them go.

I don’t need to live in the buzz because everything I’m building in my life is coming from a place of love, joy, and peace. When you are doing things that serve the best part of you, being numb all the time is just a drag. I used to worry that people wouldn’t find me interesting or want to hang out with me if I wasn’t buzzed cuz THAT was how I was so delightful and charming.

Well hell, that’s not true at all!!

In fact I am WAY more delightful and charming and beautiful without the buzz.

I had high hopes that the changes would help me remember. Nope!! My memory isn’t any better–sadly this is something that isn’t going to change. I am a forgetful person. I have ADHD. I am smack dab in hardcore perimenopause. I do try my best. I have systems, I’m constantly working on them to adapt to the ever changing demands on memory. TBH I’m at the point where I am totally going to start writing notes on my hand, or my jeans. I used to doodle all over my jeans when I was younger. My teachers yelled at me constantly, but years later it was so comforting to know that this was from my undiagnosed ADHD.

But I digress.

I did not stop all at once. It was a process. I started cutting off one day a week. Sometimes I would backslide, sometimes I would accidentally go days at a time without realizing it. My brain is best tricked this way….slowly eliminating until it’s like it was never there. And nowadays I get home and it doesn’t even cross my mind to have a cocktail. If anything, I am having a harder time with the sugar and not having soda…but that is a discussion for another day.

I hope all y’all have a lovely day!