Slice of Life Day 24: one week sober

I could stop drinking at any time, I just don't want to.

Well, I still don't want to, and yet here I am. I'm not teetotalling here. I'm not against alcohol on principal, I just needed to instate for myself a serious cutback. Drinking every day (even if its just one or two) is no longer what I want to do to my body. That's not true, I still want to do that to my body but I'm making the conscious decision not to. For many reasons both mental and physical health related. So after about six years of drinking at least one or two almost every day (and more than that when I'm partying), here's what I've learned from being sober for one week. Let's start with my expectations:

"clearer skin, improved energy levels, lower anxiety, better sleep, healthier organs, decreased food budget and an increase in productivity and exercise"

clearer skin? no

improved energy levels? so/so

lower anxiety? no

better sleep? when I can fall asleep, yes

healthier organs? dunno

decreased food budget? yes

increase in productivity? no

increase in exercise? no

So okay it was not an instant fix. Turns out there are areas of my life that need an overhaul that are not related to alcohol consumption. I guess I knew that. It was nice to think that such simple change would help. Oh well. Here's what else I learned. 

Not knowing what the night will bring is bliss when you're drinking, and a nightmare when you're sober. Sober me spends most of her time wondering how soon I can ditch whatever it is that I'm doing and go snuggle in bed with a book. Even at 8:30pm on a Friday surrounded by fun people with an invitation to an after party in a basement in a funky part of town. If I had been drinking I would have been ALL. OVER. THAT. Sober me went home and read a Nora Roberts book instead and fell asleep to a youtube video of a man restoring a rusty old coffee grinder. Ridiculous.

Observation number two: my body is lighter than it was. I can take the stairs two at a time without getting tired. I crossed the monkey bars on a playground and traversed a balance beam with no issues. When I say lighter I don't mean weight. I've been craving a lot of sugar to make up for the lack of alcohol sugar I would normally be consuming. I need to nip this right in the bud because there is no way I'm going to replace an alcohol addiction with a sugar addiction. No thank you.

Observation number whatever: triggers are a real thing. I used to think that the universe was giving me a sign that it was time to drink when I saw people sharing a beer on t.v., or I wasn't doing very well at pool. Apparently those are actually called triggers. And that when a trigger happens and you tell yourself I don't really need to be doing this right now. I could keep going if it really mattered but it doesn't so I'll just slip in a drink here or there. That is a Not Good thing. So yeah.

So where am I at with this whole "not drinking" thing? I don't like it. I'm having less fun, I think about it pretty often, and I feel left out when I watch other people drinking. Am I going to keep doing it? Yes. Because ultimately I think it is the better choice for me. Once again, I'm not looking for a 100% abstinence kind of situation. I'm going to try and keep it to a once a week or less type of indulgence. I think. I hope. I'm going to keep trying anyway. Hopefully I will still be able to come up with interesting things to write about. We'll see.