40 days: perspective

I quit drinking 40 days ago, though at the time I didn’t know it. A month or so earlier, I had started to see a counselor, not because of the drinking, but because I was feeling crazy. I didn't think I could go on as I was. While I was at it--more or less in the spirit of expecting a medal for my honesty--I mentioned that I was drinking too much, and that I should probably try to get a handle on that. No mention of quitting there. Just needing some help, that's all. But after a few weeks talking to the new counsellor, I was getting decidedly uncomfortable. I was talking about the same things, having the same problems, making no changes. Simply by telling this woman what was going on, I could see it differently. I needed to make a change. 

Even though I didn’t think booze was my biggest problem, I decided to give it up for a week, which extended to a month, then 100 days, and finally for good. It's still only 40 days, but I am not really looking at end times anymore. I don't want to go back. Ever. But because I was going to meet my counsellor again today, after a long break, I thought about what had changed over the 40 days.

One big thing is perspective. (I mentioned before that I'm studying psychology, and I'm especially interested in theoretical work dealing with the dialogical self and perspective exchange. If anyone wants academic refs, ask and I'll send them along. I won’t use them here, and I'll do my best to stay away from the academic jargon.)

Stepping outside the immediate moment and seeing yourself from a different point of view is one of the keys to human agency. Being able to see things from multiple perspectives allows people to think about things--problems, ideas, habits, whatever--from more than one angle. Integrating those perspectives into new thinking is part of how we form identity. Whether we are aware of that happening or not, it’s how we become who we are. You become you by integrating the voices of the surrounding culture--parents, teachers, friends, ads, the whole kit. That’s the theory.

Part of the work that needs doing is to be aware, to really hear those voices, separate them out from each other, and question each one. As in, is what I’m thinking is what I really think, or is just something I’ve accepted unthinkingly because that’s what we do as people? And that’s what I’ve been doing.

The first thing I noticed was that I looked forward to drinking a lot more than I enjoyed drinking. That was a revelation! I might spend a good part of the day really keen on the wine I planned to have that evening, but almost all the pleasure was in the anticipation, and the rest was in that first few minutes. (No use denying that there was some. There was.) I didn’t know what to do with that right away, but I noticed it.

Second thing was, I actually enjoyed the no-booze drinks I was making more than I enjoyed wine. It’s true! I tried lots of different things, usually with sparkling water in there somewhere, and they really did taste better. Also, I felt better.

I read lots and thought lots, and before too long I started to wonder, what if I was wrong about wine? What if it’s overrated? Now that’s not a familiar line of thinking for me. It was a point of view I’d never considered, I guess. After a while, there was no mistaking it. I didn’t miss drinking all that much. I liked the rituals of eating, and drinking something special along with that, but I still had all that. Mostly, I missed looking forward to drinking. Is that messed up or what? It was like the old Tom Waits line:

 “the obsession’s in the chasing,

not the apprehending,

the pursuit, you see, and never the arrest.”

OK, where am I going here? Perspective. Stepping outside the moment to see what is going on behind the scenes. I used to think mindfulness meant paying endless attention to myself, gazing fondly at my navel, if I could find it in the soft folds of belly. That never seemed like it was going to solve anything, and I’m far too curious about the world for my belly fat to hold my attention for all that much time. But now I see it differently. Mindfulness is about perspective. Living in the moment, yes, but also questioning that moment.  Stepping outside the moment to try and see what cultural or family scripts I’m acting out. Then asking, do they even make sense anymore?

Sometimes I’m wary of the way our culture talks about the self. Introspection can go badly wrong if it doesn’t include a healthy dose of getting outside the self and bringing some new stuff in, seeing if that works any better than the old stuff. There must be some me in all this, but I think it’s probably not some isolated, inner self trying to get away from the world. Maybe the self is more like an active process, living and breathing and taking up stories and casting off others, saying yes to this and no to that and seeing how things go, then changing what’s not working. I’m not sure about any of this. I’m just thinking here.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to for 40 days. So far so good. I feel a lot less like a messy pile of confusion and more like a whole person. I’m a work in progress, like everyone else. But I’m working on it.

Booze culture. It's everywhere.

I don't go to bars, and I live in a green lefty kind of city where it seems everyone bikes and juices and cleanses and does yoga and eats local. I live in a bit of a bubble. So it's surprising how many references there are to drinking in my day-to-day life. Yesterday, I nipped out to a local farmers' market to get out of my own head. There was a little booth selling homemade cordials, and I stopped for a taste. The woman at the booth makes the cordials herself, and she talked a bit about her flavours, ingredients, methods, that sort of thing. I chose a lemongrass-plum cordial (very tasty!) and the woman commented that it would be great with gin. Now I haven't been very public about quitting drinking, but I said, kind of without thinking, "Not for me, I quit drinking a while ago."

Well, the reaction! The woman selling the cordials said, "Oh, I love my drink. I'd never give that up." A guy standing next to me tasting a sample said, "No, I wouldn't go that crazy! Give up drinking! Sure, I'm cutting back on sugar, but booze? No, that's just nuts."

I'm not making this up. Two strangers, reacting to what I really thought was a throwaway line, while I was buying a no-alcohol beverage! And they were so adamant. Maybe I'm naive, but I really was surprised. I said I wasn't suggesting anything, I was just trying the cordials because I don't drink anymore, and that set off another round of exclaiming from the two. Holy! I mean, I wasn't ripping the gin from their cold dead hands or anything. I was in no way preaching. I don't care all that much who drinks what. I walked away with my cordial, leaving them raving to each other about not giving up drinking. Weird moment, that. Did I hit a nerve?

Then today at the grocery buying sparkling water and limes. (Hey, I sound like I'm always buying drinks. I do like having tasty drinks around!) It's a tiny store, and people bump into each other there enough times that eventually everyone gives up pretending not to see anyone and actually says hello. So the guy next to me in the lineup peered into my basket and said, smiling, "Let's see, looks like margueritas?"

I said no.
"Mojotos?"
I shook my head.
"Plain old gin and soda with lime?"
Finally I answered, "Nope. Sparkling water and lime, actually."

He looked blank for a sec, and then said, "That's so healthy, yes, chelating, and the lime helps with the chelation, really really good for you, now I like a drink myself once in a while but yes, so healthy..." and proceeded to canonize me for buying water while defending himself for liking a drink. I tried to change the subject to the baking soda and sea salt he was buying, but it didn't take, and by then I was done at the till.

It's everywhere. The funny thing is, I was mostly worried about telling people I know that I'm not drinking. So far I've only told a few, but everyone has been amazingly supportive. (They're probably relieved.) But in both these conversations with strangers, I really did make the people uncomfortable, just by not joining in on the "I love booze" chatter! Sure, I could have just smiled and nodded, but I actually didn't want to pretend.

Later on, when I picked up come cooking wine (it really is for cooking) I braced myself for another round of the same, but the cashier just commented blandly on the weather. I smiled and nodded, "Yes, beautiful day." What a relief!

"This whole sober thing is starting to get boring."

It's sunny and hot here again, another beautiful summer day. I have a paper to finish and an exam to study for. But I'm off work for the next few days to finish all that. I have a fridge full of yummy food, sparkling water, and tasty homemade drink concoctions, including rhubarb-lemonade, raspberry cordial, and iced mint-lemongrass tea. My partner is away for a few days for a family celebration that I can't attend because of the above-mentioned paper and exam, but at least I have time to get things done, and he won't have to deal with deadline-cranky me. I'm pleased he could go to the family thing, as it's in a space steeped in history for him, and he needs the break. All good, right?

So how is it that, as I'm getting out of bed, I have a clear, resounding thought, "This whole sober thing is starting to get boring"? Wait. What? Says who? Yes, it will be a little lonely, but I like time alone. I have craploads to do, but it will be done, one way or another, in a few days. I have time later on to nip out to the farmer's market for fresh garlic (oh my god, so much better than the withered stuff you buy in the grocery!) and go for a run (my second run!), so I won't be staring at a screen all day. It's a lot to do, but it sounds like a pretty good plan for a day.

I'm studying psychology, and one of the things that especially interests me is the link between language and the self. The things we say to ourselves come from the world around us, and we become who we are, in part, by the voices that get incorporated into the inner dialogue. And holy, it's noisy in there! I once did a 5-day silent meditation retreat: five days just sitting, paying attention to where the mind goes when it's let off-leash. I hated it. By the end, I was mentally replaying TV ads from the 70's ("you'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent..."). I had hoped for something more sublime, world peace and shining-light-of-truth-visions maybe, but I am a creature of my times. We all are.

I used to try and just shout down the voices I didn't like, but that doesn't seem to work for me. They just come back loud and strong when I'm tired. Instead, maybe I need to try to hear what the "I'm bored, let's drink" voice is saying. Yes, it's saying drink, and no, I won't do that. I get that much. But what else is going on there? Maybe the answer is just, yes, parts of today will be tough, and a bit dull. Just accept that, and get back to work. Life is not some bright and shining every-moment-is-a-party gig. No? Dang.

OK, back to editing that paper. Then garlic, then a run, then more writing. Later, I can lie around and read a mystery. A bit boring, a bit all right. That's my day.

Running! Sunshine! Exclamation points!

This afternoon, instead of coffee and chocolate (which actually gave me a headache and kept me up too late yesterday, grr), I gave myself a run as a reward. That's correct! Me, who used to say, "OK, if you write a few pages and start reading that article, you can have a glass of your favourite rose with lunch." Which would, of course, lead to much more wine and not much productive work. I've decided that those days are over for me. But I am still trying to write the paper I mentioned yesterday, and it's harder work than usual. (I think, honestly, I'm somehow using most of my energy taking care of myself, paying attention to not drinking, remembering why I'm not drinking, reading about other people who are not drinking or are trying to stop, and on and on. It's taking a lot, and I don't have as much leftover for the academic heavy lifting I need to do this week. That's OK, I guess. I can admit that and get something handed in anyway. I'm trying to, anyway.)

Yesterday I was thinking I needed a new system to reward myself when I'm hard at the schoolwork. And I have committed to taking up running again, thanks to Lilly at http://onetoomany1.wordpress.com/ who is organizing a virtual run training group for the 100 Day Challenge folk. (Look at me! Not a joiner, never been a joiner, joining 2 groups in one month! Hooray!) I had planned to start today, but wanted to get some schoolwork done before I left the house. So I made a deal with myself: write 5 pages, then go for a run as a treat. And I did! (Well, I wrote 4 but it was close enough for me.)

And the run was glorious. Now I haven't run in a while, so no real runner would call what I did running. A walk to warm up. Few minutes trotting slowly, a little walk, repeat a few times, then walk home and stretch. It added up to 20 minutes running, another 20 or so walking. And I felt fantastic. I was smiling at babies. Smiling at toddlers. Smiling at other runners. Smiling at tomato plants. At bamboo plants. OK, you get it. A big smiley face on sweaty old me, out running! It's way too early in my little running attempt to have had a hit of those infamous workout endorphins. It was just so bloody good to be outdoors, in the sunshine, with the kids and plants and cats on doorsteps and the whole of summer, not one of them caring a jot if I wrote a good paper or a crappy one, or anything else about me for that matter.

I know it's important to be able to get outside of your own mind, and it's something I find hard to do. Especially when I'm cooped up indoors on a school project. But this was simple. Free. Healthy. And a possible start to a new way of rewarding myself, which I was in dire need of finding.

I'm 31 days sober today and it's feeling pretty good. Happy trails!

Procrastination, anxiety, and rewarding myself without booze

This week I have to finish a paper for a class I'm taking and study for an exam this coming Friday. It's a lot of work, and I'm having trouble being as committed to it as I usually am. I went back to school as a "mature student" (aka older person) a couple of years ago, and I had a relatively easy time meeting deadlines, finishing assignments, reading class readings, studying for exams, etc. I could do whatever it took. My usual method was some combination of scaring myself into submission and bribing myself with wine at the end of the day. And you know, that did kind of work. Yes, I felt like crap a lot, and I did write some exams hungover as hell, but I have done well in my classes and done the work I needed to do. So far.

Now I need some new methods. Without the spikey anxiety I get from booze, I am a lot calmer, but I am used to using that anxiety to fuel a lot of work. Without the prospect of wine to check out at the end of the day, I have found myself procrastinating, not coping all that well with deadline anxiety, not really getting a lot done, and worrying that I suddenly can't get it done after all without my finely honed terror and anxiety system. (Yes, I know, that's just the voice telling me to drink, working in crafty ways. Except I'm not going to drink. And I have to write a paper.)

So far today, I walked in circles around my tiny apartment for a few hours. Then I made a deal with myself: write 2 pages, then have a coffee and two slivers of chocolate. I wrote three, and had a little extra choc with the coffee. (It's 85% chocolate, so not a whole lot of sugar, so I'm staying out of that trap at least.) Then 2 more pages and I was allowed to skip around on some blogs for a while and write a bit here. Yes, sad but true, I am writing as a reward for writing. How's that for circular reasoning?

It's tricky, balancing genuinely having to get things done with trying to go easy on myself in my newfound sobriety. I'm not sure I 'm all that good at it, to be honest. I'm so all or nothing, so for a while I've been all, "Don't worry about school, focus on yourself" yadda yadda. But the school is something I really want to do, so it shouldn't be in opposition to "treating myself well." The irony is, I'm especially interested in motivation, and I'm starting to have some ideas about how that might work. I've used what I'm learning to help me with quitting drinking, and that's fantastic. But I still have to slog through this hard work today, rewarding myself with treats and walks and, hopefully, at the end, a job well done. That will be a much more worthwhile treat from the wine. Only it's a new system, and I'm still figuring it out!

OK, back to it.

(Not) coming to my emotional rescue

I have never trusted emotions. Mostly they have got me in trouble. I am often completely overwhelmed with tears at inopportune times. A tricky conversation with a boss; a friend who is trying to talk about her own sadness; early morning despair: they have all sent me from 0-100 on the crying jag scale. It's no fun at  the time, and afterwards, it seems pointless. (Then there's my object-rage, but I already talked about that the other day. Enough already!) I love my partner, so I know what that feels like. But for a long time, I've had a sense that I wasn't tuned into the full range of emotions, just the zero of dead numb, and the 100 of way-too-much-for-me. Once in a writing class, a teacher gave me feedback on a nuanced scene I'd written, saying I should describe what the character was physically feeling in her lonely, disconnected moment. My answer was something like, "How the hell should I know?" I was always suspicious of people who could talk about emotions in explicit, articulate detail. I thought they were just bullshitting, and I prided myself on having a fine-tuned bullshit meter.

And then I quit drinking. Holy mother, do I feel emotions! Big ones, small ones, all the nuance in the world. And they're happening to me all the time. Who knew?

Last night, my partner and I were eating dinner. Poached halibut on fennel and zucchini, homemade minty-lime-fizz concoction to drink, apricots with yoghurt cheese and a sliver of dark chocolate for dessert. It was yummy! Still, it wasn't all that unusual. We both love to cook, and we eat well. But last night, I thought about how often on similar nights I had quickly slid into numb oblivion, leaving my beautiful partner to do his best making sense of my rambling drunken patter. That's a sad thought, so I felt sad, and in the middle of a lovely conversation, I started to cry. I felt a surge of grief over all that wasted time and energy, and what I now see as the daily insult to the beautiful person who kept on sharing himself with me even though I had persisted in going blotto.

I cried, yes. But I didn't dissolve into an uncontrollable heap of sobbing and end up with a massive headache and a wrecked evening. I just cried, and explained why I was sad, and asked to be held for a few minutes. And then it was gone. It wasn't a wallowing, furious sadness. Just the sensible grief at what I truly have wasted and can never get back. It was a real, normal, life-sized emotion, something that tuned me in to what was going on and helped me see it in a new way. This is all new to me. Maybe I am learning to feel my emotions, and to appreciate them. Maybe they will scale up from zero and down for 100 to life-sized proportions, filling out that whole range in between. I could live with that.

Honesty and blogging, and reading Brene Brown

Last night I started reading "The Gift of Imperfection" by Brene Brown, which has been recommended on a couple of blogs and in the comment sections of a couple more. Self-help can make me a little queasy, even though I have read craploads of self-help books over the years. But Brown's book is good. And it made me think abut what a funny thing it is for me to write a blog that's public. Now, I don't think a whole hell of a lot of people are reading here. Outside of three spam sites that scan my every word, I don't get a lot of readers, and I'm fine with that. But still, I have been noticing that I am self-editing, being careful not to say things that might be upsetting to a future, possibly non-existent, ultra-sensitive reader. If I say things are going well, I feel compelled to follow up with some "I know it won't always be so easy" comment. But I am not writing this to garner readers, or to placate people who are also quitting drinking and who might read here but who have a different experience of this. Brown talks about living whole-heartedly, and she says to do that it's essential to accept yourself the way you are and not try to be someone else. Ideas of perfection and performing to them skewer self-acceptance, and that puts a big old damper on whole-hearted living. Well, that's what she's saying so far. I'm only 25 pages in.

So, in an effort to be more honest and whole-hearted, I am going to describe to myself how I'm doing on this round of quitting drinking:

1. It's not that hard. When I tried quitting (or moderating before), the hardest part was the ongoing see-saw between "will I or won't I?" and "when will I?" and so on. That stuff is exhausting. And it didn't ever work. This time there is no see-saw. I am not drinking. Period. I am not wasting my energy deciding and re-deciding. On the occasions I've "wanted" a glass of wine, or more accurately, that I've thought about wine, I just remind myself that I have already made that decision, and it took time to make, and I am not making it again. End of story. The time limits I set helped here: first I wasn't drinking for a week, then a month, then 100 days. It's only day 27, so now I feel like, in the interest of playing nice with others, I should bow my head and say "Well, it's early days yet, who can say what will happen to me" etc. Except saying that makes this all seem like some random even that is happening to me, not the result of a considered decision and some serious follow-through on that decision.

2. Reading blogs helps, but too much isn't good for me. I wrote to Belle at http://tiredofthinkingaboutdrinking.wordpress.com/ that the voices of the people who had succeeded in quitting had been really helpful to me. It's true. I needed a new way of framing my thinking around the booze, and reading was helpful to me in getting that. But I can be a tad obsessive, and too much of anything is mind-numbing. Limiting blog-reading to twice a day seems like a good idea, so I can actually get something done besides not drinking, which isn't actually doing anything and so can't possibly take that long.

3. What I eat matters. Yesterday I commented on a discussion about sugar on Mrs D's fantastic blog. (Here's the post:  http://livingwithoutalcohol.blogspot.ca/2013/08/a-post-about-sugar-and-food-and.html.) Of course, I said I wouldn't necessarily recommend eating the way I eat, but why say that? I am not assuming what I do suits everyone, but surely giving up a few foods for a while if you're getting obsessed with them and then introducing them back slowly isn't the most draconian food program ever tried! But that same old inner voice that says, "Careful don't offend anyone, people really like their sugar," that results in me offering a disclaimer I don't quite mean. When I actually quit eating sugar and wheat for a while, it made people damned uncomfortable. My boss referred to it as "Your new flaky eating routine." Never mind that I lost 20 pounds and had way more energy, and I wasn't asking anyone else to do the same thing. I was only, once again, refusing the offer of a mid-afternoon apple turnover. I didn't care if anyone else ate ten of them! After all the flak I took there, I'm careful mentioning it. At the same time, quitting drinking has been way lower profile for me, since I am not being offered drinks all day long everywhere I go, and that might be a part of why it's easier.

4. I am not a smiley, smooth-the crisis woman. I act like that sometimes, because I have strong opinions and don't mind a good debate, so I try to make up for that by being agreeable. The truth is, I can be abrasive, and that doesn't always go over well. We all internalize voices from the surrounding culture. (See #2 above. It can be super-helpful!) But trying to defer to invisible criticism is just incorporating the wrong voices into the inner dialogue. This is a blog, for pity's sake, a paltry online record of something I want to write about. If there are critics out there who might trip across it at some future date, surely they have better things to do than chime in with my own self-criticism.

OK, that's it for now I think. I quit drinking, and I'm not going back. It's not that big a deal. I don't have to pretend to some great internal struggle that's not there. Even cataloguing the tiny drink cravings here and there seem to be giving them too much credit. Sometimes I think I might step in front of a bus, but I don't. No medals there. Once, when a coworker was pregnant, I kept wondering what nursing must be like. OK, fine, but I didn't actually do it, nor was I promoted for not doing it. Random thoughts happen, and they don't have to run the whole show. That is, in part, what human agency is all about. I'm glad I'm doing what I'm doing. But I won't try not to pretend it's something it's not.