Things I Did While Drinking That I Wish I Hadn’t

I don’t really like having regrets. I make mistakes, lots of them. And I make choices in the moment, like everyone else. Sometimes, I look back and I’m not happy with some of those choices. But I was where I was. I did what I did with the cards I was dealing with at the time. But if I’m honest with myself, as I’m learning to be in this process, I can tell you that I have some regrets that have to do with things I’ve done while sipping a glass of wine or post bottle-of-wine that I’m not proud of. Or that just plain sucked. I will write them down because I’d like to leave them here for good. 

– Broke my foot

– Broke my tailbone

– Told someone I love to “Fuck Off”

– Put my children to sleep 

– Read my children bedtime stories

– Watched movies with my kids

– Drove

– Started an argument (or 50)

– Fell asleep during movies 

– Left somewhere I needed to be early

– Got home late because I needed to sober up

– Often had a glass of wine in my hand in the evening or on weekends around my kids

– Didn’t say what I meant

– Said what I meant even though I knew it would hurt someone

– Broke up with someone harshly

I’m sure there are more. But these are the ones I’ve been thinking about lately with which I need to make peace. 

 

Thanks for reading, for witnessing, and for commenting 🙂

 

A Little Bit About Me and My Anxiety Disorder

I have an anxiety disorder and one of the reasons on my TOP 10 list for drinking every day was that the wine helped with my anxiety. And it did to some extent. But I do believe that over the years, it was causing my anxiety to increase when I wasn’t drinking. I started having lots of skipped heartbeats and tachycardia (heart racing) during the day. And my blood pressure, which was always normal, began to get higher in the past year. My anxiety is now centered around my fear of having a heart attack. There’s even a name for it – cardiophobia. A lot of people with family history of heart disease have this due to watching parents and loved ones suffer through or die from heart attacks etc.. My primary care doctor put me on a beta blocker to help with the palpitations and blood pressure and insisted I see a cardiologist since heart disease is huge in my family (And to see a psychiatrist for anxiety issues).

One of the things about anxiety is that it’s hard to rule out what is panic/anxiety stuff and what are actual real cardiac concerns. My friends and family joke all the time that my symptoms are all in my head and that I’m just a nervous wreck. And that is *mostly* true. But the chest pain and heart symptoms finally got the point where I went with my Dad to his cardiologist for an appointment, had a panic attack there in the office because I was so freaked out about being there in the first place, and managed to break out in hives while they took my blood pressure – which was 165/96. Now, no one knows what my blood pressure would have been if I wasn’t FREAKING OUT. But the Dr. heard a murmur and decided to do an echo-cardiogram and a stress test to see what was going on. Turns out, I have mitral valve regurgitation (MVR). MILD. Level ONE. NOT A BIG DEAL. But omg. I freaked. Blood pressure 148/92. (MVP is when the mitral valve doesn’t close all the way and a little bit of blood goes back into another chamber and the heart has to work a tiny bit harder to get all the blood through – many people have no symptoms. I do – which sucks).

Of couse, now, I’ve read ALL OF THE INTERNET on MVR. Apparently I’m not going to die. Well I am going to die, but not suddenly from MVP. They don’t *think.*

But what I do need to do is stay on my beta blocker and keep my blood pressure down. And anxiety doesn’t help – exercise and losing weight does. And limit alcohol (done) and caffeine (now THAT sucks). I’ve been afraid to exercise for almost a year because of the chest pain and palps but now I’ve been cleared to walk, run, swim … so anything but lift heavy weights. So today I started with walking 2 miles. And guess what? I DIDN’T DIE!

All of this stuff is hard. So hard. Removing alcohol and allowing all of my fears, phobias, and anxieties to all just hang out. Sitting in a room every day with strangers and considering all the ways that I’ve been hiding out behind bottles of wine and the lengths I’d go to to make excuses, DAILY, for my non-presence. Absence.

I cannot describe to you the difference just 11 days has made in my relationships with others (another post). I had NO IDEA how gone I really was until recently when I started being there. Here.

And I know there’s so much more being HERE to come. And right now that feels exciting.

Double Digits

I remember being so excited about turning 10 because DOUBLE DIGITS! This meant I had arrived at what I’d likely always have from that point till the end of my life – two numbers. (Yes, I was always an existential ponderer like that. Don’t get me started on my crisis about if ants are so tiny, then if we pour water on them, then, we are like GOD because we made their rain). Ten days is long. I can’t imagine ten years. #ODAAT because in ten years I’ll be 52 and that seems impossible and makes me want to cry. Ten days and 42 is perfect.

I have been cleared to drive (broken tailbone debacle) and so I actually went to my office yesterday and did some paperwork for the first time in three weeks. It’s been a nice little break from treatment planning and kids and trauma and ALL THE PROBLEMS. One day I will write about therapists and self-care. A lot of therapists drink. And I know why. Anyways…I worked. And then I went to an 8pm meeting which was really, really hard for me. 8pm meetings end at 9pm – which is my bedtime. Not only was the timing all wrong, but it was a slow meeting with lots of long-winded peoples. The therapist in me gets really frustrated in some meetings. In my mind I’m like, “Give that guy a talking stick and set the damn timer!” But I’m practicing having a beginner’s mind and so I breathed out my control freak thoughts. More like yawned. A lot.

But I made it there and I made it through the meeting and I ran out of there at 9pm into an amazing thunderstorm. I was tired but it was a good tired. A productive tired. I didn’t need to stop on the way home to pick up a bottle of wine. I just drove straight home where I was greeted by four long dogs and partner who was, of course, sitting on the couch watching Long Island Medium because she’s obsessed. She looked up as I came in, smiled and said, “I’m proud of you.” And that, my friends, is what I call a great day. Maybe ten years and 52 won’t be so bad after all…

 

Serendipity

I don’t drink sweet tea. Ever. I drink UNsweet tea with stevia. And if I don’t happen to have a stevia packet with me, I’ll do just UNsweet tea, extra lemon. But here’s what I’m learning about being sober, you want ALL THE SUGAR! And when I consider how many calories I’m saving myself per day by not drinking a bottle of wine (around 1000) then I think a girl can have a fucking sweet tea. Am I right????

I’m a southern girl. But not like that. I went to a performing arts school here in New Orleans and then I moved away to Boston and became gay to piss of my parents (apparently) (ask them, they have all evidence) and then I got married to a woman (Exhibit 557, “daughter marries JEWISH woman across the Mason Dixon Line in a Non-Denominational {shhhh Jewish} ceremony with trans Catholic priest officiating!!!!”) I lived un-happily married for a few years, adopted 2 amazing kiddos from foster care (I work in the “system”) only to get a divorce (cheating-ass-bitch) and move back home to the land of sweet tea and drive-thru daiquiri shoppes. I’m not like that, I’ve never taken the lid off the daiquiri while driving leaving straw paper intact, sipping away because it’s legal because THE STRAW PAPER WAS INTACT!

So I’ve been back here in New Orleans for almost three years. And if I wasn’t a budding alcoholic during my divorce, I surely came to the right place to test those family genes.

But today isn’t all about my story, because today I am sober 24 hours. That means that all day yesterday and so far today I have not drank any alcohol. At all. And really, that’s not so hard for me. I mean, I’m not gonna say I haven’t thought about the fact that I’m sitting outside by the pool on a warm and sunny day and GOD DAMN! I should have a glass of rose in my hand. But sweet tea is ok. Especially when I add the mint from the garden.

I’m gonna need to grow a lot more mint. And maybe switch to decaf tea.

***I’d like to thank John, from http://6yearhangover.wordpress.com/    who randomly added me a a friend on Twitter yesterday. He could not have come into my life at a more appropriate time. Serendipitous, for sure. I needed to read and I needed to write again. And I need to not drink alcohol.