Happy as a dog's tail

Today it's sunny and warm, that last bit of glorious weather just when you thought summer had folded away the blue skies and headed south. I found a new route for my bike ride to school, which takes me past a small lake as well as a whole lot of green, though there is still a fair chunk of industrial wasteland. Today I rode as fast as I could to see how late I can leave using this new route and still be on time, and I saved exactly two minutes out of forty, which made me laugh. It was fun, but it would probably be easier to get up two minutes earlier and take my time! Class discussion was great. Afterwards I had coffee with a friend, then biked home and ate some lunch. Any minute now I will plunk myself down at my desk and get back to work. 

It all sounds mundane, just an ordinary day. And it is. But I wanted to write because today I am happy, really deeply happy. I enjoyed every second of biking. In class, I was engaged in discussion, and though it's hard work, the three hours flew by. I had a good talk with my friend. The pear and brie I had when I got home tasted like the best food on earth. I feel like a layer of pond scum has been scraped away and I am right smack in the world, more than I have been in ages and ages. 

I can't give being sober all the credit. The sun is shining, my class was good, my friend was free for a rare hour, I had a local pear from the farmer's market in the fridge, my bike is out of the shop after a few days in and the gears actually work again. But because I am sober, I am here and aware, and I can appreciate those things all coming together on a a truly great day. So that's me, day 67, happy as a dog's tail. (Thanks to Polish poet Anna Swir, from whom I stole my title.)

Imagination and memory: some thoughts at day 60

Lately I've been thinking about how memory and imagination are intertwined, and how they both play an important role in my new sobriety. I'm still trying to practice mindfulness, slowing down and noticing my thoughts, and I keep on seeing how little memories crop up when I'm not expecting them. Every bus ride contains traces of every other bus ride I've ever been on. Same for bike rides, cups of tea, mornings at work, and on and on. And with every memory, imagined future moments are all tangled up with the memories, so it's hard to know whether I'm looking back fondly at some past event or looking forward longingly at something that might happen. Reminds me of the great Kenneth Koch poem, One Train May Hide Another. (I'll link to it at the end so you can read it if you like poetry but don't already know it.)

Yesterday I started classes again, and already I have a taste of the busy months ahead. On the way home today, I realized I had a free afternoon, and no early plans tomorrow. Lots to read but no pressing deadlines. I had spent an hour at the library after class, so I was late coming home for my lunch, and therefore very hungry. In short, this is the exact kind of afternoon when I would have taken myself out to a cafe, ordered up some wine along with lunch, and sipped away the day, reading and making notes. Sounds lovely, but by evening I would either have a headache and be cranky, or I'd just be drunk.

Why am I talking about this? Well, this afternoon, riding the bus home from class, I had a brief image of that sippy lunch. First it was like a little pang of longing. But I'm trying to pay attention to these instead of running from them, so I stayed with it, watching. And yes, I was reminded of the many previous times I'd stopped off for lunch. OK, memories. But those memories were also laced with a sense of anticipation, looking forward to doing the same thing again today. That's the imagination part. I always think of memory and imagination as separate, but it's interesting to see how tangled up together they really are when you really look.

Since I've decided, for absolutely sure, that I am not drinking, that winey lunch wasn't an option. But I thought, OK, if this is me imagining how lovely that lunch would be, imagine something else. First, I imagined the headache and fuzzy thinking I would have after the hypothetical wine. Not much fun that. Then I went in a different direction, imagining what I would make for lunch at home: a glass of sparkling water, tomato-pepper-parsley salad, a few slices of havarti. A slice of really good sourdough bread, buttered, because I do love the butter. Some plums and yoghurt for dessert. An espresso and 2 small squares of my new favourite chocolate. (It's an 85% dark chocolate called AlterEco "Blackout." I know. I guess some blackouts are better than others!) With all that detail, the late afternoon lunch at home sounded better, as well as better for me.

The other night, I was talking to my partner about missing wine sometimes, and he said, "That sounds like nostalgia. What you're missing wasn't really what you had in the first place." He's not given to saying this sort of thing, and I was struck by how right he was. I think memories are tricky. For me, I'm reminded of things that happened before, and it's easy to confuse memory and longing. Habits are strong, we know that. But I can remind myself how some of those apparently lovely things really play out, and then put some effort into imagining another, better choice. Right at the point when I'm caught up in the loops of memory and imagination, I haven't made any choice yet. Lots of this remembering, imagining and longing is passive. It just happens, and I can be swept along. But it doesn't have to stay passive. I can engage with it, and switch it to something different. I think it might work like weeding the garden. Every time I notice myself easing towards wanting wine, I try to slow down the automatic thinking and switch to some better version of what I might do. What am I remembering? What do I really want?

I'm starting to see how this is a part of the work I have to do, over and over: paying attention, untangling memory and imagination, looking to see the better plan that remains hidden behind the first one. It really is like Koch says in his fine poem:

      It can be important
      To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.


Anyway, that's me today. 60 days without wine, and mostly I don't miss it. I am sober. Sometimes clear and sometimes not. Emotionally up and down, but that's getting more manageable. Strange as it might sound, I'm loving noticing how some of these pangs and longings work, and staying with them until they shift. It kind of takes the power from them, makes them all less scary somehow.

OK, now I had better go get some of that reading done.

Happy sober days all, and thanks for reading! (And for those who are curious, here's that poem. Enjoy.)

Addendum: Oops. Today is actually day 61. 60 was yesterday, but it's a nice round number so I'll leave the title of the post as is!

Bike love interlude!

My partner and I were away for a few days on a bike trip to visit his parents. It's a long ride, with some very large hills (mountains?) and I guess this is the first time I've ever done it without at least some trace of a hangover. What a revelation.

First, even without the hangover, it still wasn't easy. To get there, we rode about 85km of bigs ups and downs, then took a short ferry, then rode another 30 km with one big uphill plus lots of rolling hills. Coming back it's the same distance, 30km+ferry+84km, but somehow that part seems even longer. Holy mother, that's a lot of cycling! My legs were rubber by the end. A couple of times late in the ride, when I really didn't think I could do it anymore, I said it might be easier for my partner because he is stronger. (Can't you just hear me whining?) He said no, being strong makes it doable, but it's just not easy. Ding ding ding! Remember this, me who tries to shirk out of hard stuff. It's not easy for other people, just because they are strong/fit/capable/whatever. I'm not the only person struggling here.

Having said that, the big hills were a lot easier than I had remembered them. Each time, once I got to the top, I was surprised. I had remembered them as being a lot higher. On the other hand, the smaller hills seemed bigger! How is this possible? I think I only remembered the huge, nearly impossible hills. But really, the route is a long, beautiful bike ride with a lot of big hills, a lot of medium hills, and plenty of little rolling hills.

What else? Starting out, I wasn't as edgy and scared as I used to be. I felt strong, happy to be out riding. But towards the end of the ride--and this happened both on the way there and back--I was exhausted, and I had that same irrational, nearly weepy, feeling. My "I can't take it, I need a drink" feeling. Except I didn't need a drink. I just needed to bike another 20km, and I was tired. I don't think I'm expressing this well, but this was amazing to me: before I quit drinking, every day, at some point late in the afternoon, I used to have the kind of mental exhaustion that now I only get after 100km of hard riding!

Anyway, we had a great trip. Up hills and down. We rode in the sun and in cool cloudy weather. On the way back we got rained on and missed a ferry, then dried our clothes and carried on when the next boat came. We ate cheese and sausage and tomatoes and plums at a lake that's at the highest altitude of the route, and read signs to call the "turtle hotline" if we saw turtles trying to cross the highway. Alas, no turtles. We did see ravens and bald eagles, and one brown bear. A few turkey vultures fluttered above me when I was creeping slowly up a steep hill, but they didn't quite take me for carrion after all.Close, but still moving.

During our visit, I had been worried about not drinking because we always drink wine in the evenings when we visit, but no one cared. I didn't bother making an any big explanation about not drinking, and no one asked. Sometimes people drank wine or beer, sometimes not, but it absolutely didn't matter one bit what I did. I bought enormous quantities of sparkling water to make myself my special drinks (not boozing but still obsessive, me!) and that's what almost everyone else drank most of the time, too.

I guess my one big lesson from the trip is that nothing is as hard as I think it's going to be, but it's not easy either. Once again I'm realizing that I remember things in black and white, while they mostly fall some surprising place between the two. Roads are neither vertical nor flat. Not drinking is neither impossible nor dead easy. Pretty obvious, I guess, but it seems I have to learn everything the long way round.

The other big thing, and it's not new at all but it's worth mentioning: I love riding my bike! Love it love it love it! It's one of the best things in the world.

Now the wee vacation is over and I'm back at work, about to start classes again in a couple of days. More steep hills ahead, but I'm facing them better than I had before I started this sober thing. Fifty-eight days today without booze. So far so good.

Happy hills, everyone!

A few good things

I'm working tonight, and a woman just told me she quit journalling because she didn't want to reminded about how much her life sucked. Sometimes I do that too, just write about the things that aren't going well and then forget about jotting them down when they are. So here goes, some notes about a few things that are going well these days:

1. I look better. I'm not vain, but I'm vain, you know? I know this sounds superficial, but it matters. This past week, several people have asked me what I was doing different. I'm not super public about quitting drinking, because most people wouldn't have known I drank a lot in the first place. But I do look healthier. My face isn't puffy. My eyes aren't red. I've lost a few pounds, but it's more that I don't have that blown up look that booze gives. An old guy who comes into work, he used to be a big drinker, and I think he clocked what's going on. The other day he gave me a knowing smile and said, "Looks like you're taking good care of yourself. It suits you." I would have thought that would be embarrassing--what, did I look like crap before? (Ah, yes, actually.) I just  said thanks, and he said, "Keep it up."

2. I feel calmer. A few weeks ago I wrote about rage. Oh man, was I angry a lot. And now I'm just not. I still get overwhelmed sometimes. At home the other morning, I managed to knock a cup of coffee all over a library book and a stack of magazines, costing me the price of the library book and making me late for work because I had to sop it all up before I left. And then I was late for work without even having had a coffee. All that and I was calm. That would never have happened when I was drinking lots. Never.

3. My mind is clearer. This coming year I have a lot going on. I have to write a thesis, apply for grad schools, write the GRE. All stuff people mostly do when they're younger. I had been feeling swamped by it all, and now I'm not. It's still a lot to do, don't get me wrong. But it's not as scary, not as insurmountable. I'll do what I can with it, and see how it all goes.

4. I'm less worried about how I explain not drinking to other people. I'm not completely comfortable with this one. This coming week, my partner and I are going to visit his parents for a few days. They like wine, and we have always had long lingering dinners with multiple glasses. This time I won't. I'm not sure what I'll say yet, but I don't think I need to make any big explanation. I'll just make sure I have fizzy water and lime on hand, and I expect there won't be much drama about it at all.

5. I  sleep a lot. I sleep like a log for nine or ten hours many nights. How is this possible? I thought quitting drinking would mean I'd have whacks of time. I'd be up with the birds. No such luck. Probably it's healing sleep or something, I don't know. But I have tons of energy when I am awake, so I'm counting it as good.

OK, that's enough with the list. Everything I've said is true, but it doesn't really capture it. I feel more like myself, and I feel like a new person. I had no idea how much better life would be without drinking. No, it's not perfect, and things are still hard, but there's an enormous difference, and no amount of me trying to enumerate what  that difference is seems to capture it. Whatever it is, I'm pretty darn grateful. Today I'm 50 days sober. Hooray for that!

Balance, round 2

Yesterday was rough. I tried to do too much but couldn't, then tried thinking about balance and congratulated myself for dropping one small plan out of a still too busy day. I was surprised to find myself cranky and tired with a full-on tension headache all day. By the time I got home from work, I was weepy. Wine would have handily shifted that mood for me, and I was feeling mighty sorry for myself that I couldn't indulge and just check out for a few hours. I ended up whinging to my partner about my sorry self, and then eating some yoghurt and drinking some sparking water. Then I felt OK, and it was late, and so I went to bed.

What is this check out thing, anyway? I hear other people talking about it, and for me it's one of the big things I got out of drinking. I know that. I knew that even when I was drinking lots. The other day I wrote a long post about that, called "Get me out of here," but I worried it sounded too unstable and deleted it without posting. Lucky for me, a day or two later Amy at Soberbia said more or less what I was thinking, except that she said it with more charm and wit, and she offered some way out that I hadn't seen. (Thanks, Amy.) So I see that getting out of my head is part of what I do, drinking or not. But where else can you go?

Part of the balance I think I need is to accept myself as I am, and that includes accepting that I'm not some chillax yoga queen who beams serenity at the world. At the same time, I'm not someone who loves to boast about being busy. I spent years recovering from major depression, working part-time and walking on beaches, reading fiction and poetry and soaking up the world. Not busy then, no. After a while, I wanted to get out and do stuff again. And that's what I'm doing. To much time out wasn't good for me, wasn't balanced either. I'm trying to do the things I want to do without getting overwhelmed. I guess that means sometimes it won't work, and I will get overwhelmed, and all that means is I have to back it off a little bit and keep trying to figure it out.

And in all this, I'm not drinking. 48 days today, sober. So that's something! And despite a few weepy bits here and there, and a sincere wish to get out of here once in a while, I'm mostly doing fine. Better than I was 49 days ago, that's for sure.

I've been reading about habit and creativity and imagination, and I'm simmering some ideas on that, but I see I've chattered enough for now. I'll go out and enjoy the sunshine and try to put all that together another day. If you got this far, thanks for reading!

Day 47: Balance?

Since I finished up with the summer semester, I've been working as much as I can to help pay for classes in the fall. That means I am working 10 days out of 11, so I'm tired. Not complaining here, I like my job and classes, and the setup suits me well, but I get tired. OK, who doesn't?

Last night after work, I asked my partner to pour me a wine. He looked at me, surprised, and I heard what I'd said and laughed. "No I meant drink. You know, fizzy water with lime or something. I'm just so tired I can't speak properly." It was true. I went to bed early with plans to catch up on my sleep. I work a full shift later today (checking watch: I leave in 20 minutes) so I had the morning free. In addition to catching up on sleep, I planned to track down and read a couple of articles that might be useful for the thesis I'll write this coming year, go for a run, read some blogs and maybe write a post. Along with the usual shower, dress, eat, make dinner to take with me, etc. Oh, and I'm always 5 minutes late for  work, so I have committed to myself to be on time from now on. Sounds like a nice morning off, right? OK, probably not. By midmorning, I decided instead to spend a few minutes thinking about balance.

Like many people who drank too much, I'm not very good at balance. I actually get a lot done, and I could while I was drinking, but I have usually done it in an all or nothing way that I don't think is healthy. I either terrorize myself into doing something because if I don't... (insert major catastrophe here), or I'd give myself a much-deserved break and skive off from whatever responsibility was looming. It worked OK, if you don't mind big doses of terror and exhaustion and drinking large amounts of wine to fuel it all and then calm the poor exhausted and terrorized self. But I started to mind that, and now I see that finding some better balance is essential. Except I have no idea how it's done.

I have read truckloads of self-help advice on how to find this elusive balance, but I haven't found a great deal of wisdom for me there. Years ago, when I worked in a bookstore, I flipped through a book recommending concrete steps to a simpler life. One was, "Sell the damn boat." The writer explained that you probably hardly ever use the boat, and it costs so much, so just get rid of it. At the time I could barely pay rent. No boat to sell. Find a new book. Other advice hasn't helped a lot either. Yoga actually raises my blood pressure. (Yes, I measured it to check. I wish I were exaggerating.) I'm not guilt-ridden, so I'm not doing classes, running, or any of those things to please some external arbiter of my well-being. I just like doing them.

So balance remains elusive, but this morning I made what might be a small step in the right direction. I let go of the run. Yes, I read, I showered, I ate, I made dinner to take, and if I get out the door in 10 minutes, I will be on time for work. So no proofreading here! Not running won't mean I have given up on my running program thereby ensuring that my mental health will slowly erode until I find myself fat and unhappy, drinking bottles of wine every night, having failed miserably on this new regime by letting that thin edge of the wedge slip in when I was tired. Nope. All it means is I'm busy today, and a bit tired. Easy, right?

OK. It's not easy. As I wrote the last sentence I had a quick thought, "Maybe you could have fit in a quick run instead of writing this." Yes, maybe. But I'm trying to balance some things, like everyone else, and I'm doing it in a way that's new to me. I'll keep trying. And if I'm out the door in a few minutes, I'll at least be in time for work, so I will have accomplished most if not all of what I hoped for the morning.

If you're reading, good luck with your own balance. Any tips on how you do it--other than selling the boat--are welcome!

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.