Six Months and Counting

Wow. It's really been six months since I've had a drink. I've been sober for half a year.

Has it been easy? In some respects yes, in others, hell no.

My life is in upheaval. I lost my job, and money is really tight. There isn't much out there for a lowly LPN. I'm facing the prospect of no longer being able to afford the medications that keep my fibromyalgia at bay. I'm thinking about how much pain I will be in when this cycle of meds runs out, and how quickly my health will deteriorate. This terrifies and angers me. I'm still pushing my way through school to get my RN, even though I don't know how I'm going to continue to pay for it. We're counting every penny, and just praying that we don't come up short.

Do I want to drink? Yeah, sometimes I do. When I start thinking too much and start to despair, I remember how a couple glasses of wine used to shut off my brain and stop the despair in its tracks for a little while. I think about how a little shiraz took the edge off my fibro pain so that I could move and function. I think about how a couple shots of Jag in the middle of the night enabled me to fall back asleep and stop me from tossing and turning in bed all night, worrying about the future.

Oh yeah, booze helped me through a lot of tough times.

But then I think of the other side of that coin: The horrible hangovers that only more booze could cure, ignoring my children because I was too drunk to deal, the blackouts, caring about nothing more than when I could get another drink. Drunken meltdowns, idiotic arguments, thinking I was in control and making sense, only to find out that I was acting insane. Spending food money on booze. Nearly getting my car repo'd or my electricity shut off because I spent the money on booze. Half-assing my job because I was so hung over I could barely function. Keeping my hands in my lap during meetings and care conferences because they shook so badly.

Homer Simpson said it best: "Alcohol: the cause of, and answer to, all of life's problems."

I choose not to drink. I choose to live. Right now life hurts, and feeling the burn sucks ass, but the alternative to feeling it is far more dismal to me than what I'm going through.

Two men in my home group committed suicide in the last week. Both had relapsed, and the shame they felt was overwhelming. I'm quite sure both were hammered when they made the final decision that they couldn't go on.

Alcoholism is deadly. Come hell or high water, I choose to live.