The Buzzard vs. a Sober Curious Beer Lover

I biffed it. One of the hardest times to not drink is when I'm home alone, and I'm alone all week this week while my partner is out for a work. The buzzard doesn't really come at me as hard, when he is here. Drinking, two days in a row, and I went harder last night. I'm starting this blog at 3am, and I'm awake feeling hung over already and sitting with a case of the regrets. There is a storm in my gut. There is so much I wanted to do today, and it is going to be that much harder. I wanted good sleep, so I could get a ton done before my first meeting of the day. I wanted to get up early enough to run before it gets hot, but I think that is going to be hard and painful. I hadn't been counting days in these posts, because I've been stringing together some sober days at a time,  as I work up to a Dry July. I didn't have a great streak, but maybe that is something I should prioritize. I think I need to start counting now. June 24th here we go. This relapse is...

While I'm trying to figure out for myself what I want my relationship to alcohol to be, one of the things that scares me is telling people. There is a difference between telling people why you've quit vs just that you aren't drinking. Having to talk about the why is part of what scares me about committing to a forever sobriety. Right now, if it comes up I'm just saying that I'm not drinking today, or right now. Because of the pandemic, I'm not really around too many people so it isn't something I've had to confront. My partner is an obvious exception to this pandemic isolation. We live together and so if felt necessary to say something. I've told him that I'm not drinking because (he already knows) I need a exercise to stay happy and I need a goal for my training to exercise (true) so I've picked a race in a few months that hasn't been cancelled yet (true) and that because it is so hot in the place where we live, training early in the ...

I was drinking a lot. Not the cliche alcoholic kind of waking up with a bottle in my hand under a park bench kind of rock bottom alcoholism, but the pandemic-drinking-isn't-cute-anymore kind. How bad is bad enough, I made this blog anonymously, so I might as well be honest about it. I also want to be able to remember later, when I've figured out what works for me, how big my progress has been, but - I think I'll write a separate post about that.  I recently read The Sober Diaries, by Clare Pooley, as part of my er, sober curiousity. Basically around the end of May, I decided I needed to make a change, and that I would start it out with break from alcohol. It was harder than I expected, especially the first week. Reading this indulgently honest kind of content was my replacement treat when I felt like drinking. I could keep going in this genre, by finding blogs or by starting the next book on my list Mrs. D Goes Without, but then I thought about what was missing from the boo...