It’s just a mood, not a decision.

i’m fine. and sober. thanks for all the well wishes. i’m in the middle of my two-days-per-week of catering (thursday/friday) and so i’m busy and tired but i’m well.

i’m glad that i have the sober world full of very genius people who kindly share their useful (and often hilarious, and sometimes completly off-base) comments when I reach out with my ‘pangs’. I think having a cold was a real problem for me. not being able to taste, in my line of work, is crippling to say the least. i couldn’t cook meat because i couldn’t smell it to see if it was ‘off’ (it looked funny). we ate a lot of pasta earlier this week! i really was suffering from a woe-is-me feeling … and i seem to have mostly recovered. i’m back to running today, even though i still have a cough, hooray!

the other really great thing that i did – and that i’ve done before – is i decided “yes i am going to drink wine, but not tonight.” this approach is useful because I know that no matter what happens, i won’t make a rash, fuck-it, decision that i will regret. and usually after a few hours, or days, the feeling has passed, and i forget…

i actually used to feel this way about my very first career (teacher) when i was 21 years old. i’d graduated from the education program, went to work in a classroom, and a year later i stopped to do my master’s degree full-time.  and i never returned to the classroom. I used to say “when i wake up in the morning 7 days in a row wishing i was a teacher again, then i’ll go back to teaching. But if i just feel like being a teacher for a hour, or for a day, then that’s what you call a mood, and it’ll pass.”

thankfully i’m able to apply the same logic to drinking.  until i really want to do it continuously without wavering for days in a row, then the answer is NO, wait it out, it’s just a mood.  It’s just a mood, not a decision. And moods change.

 

Belle

I want to put this online, to hold myself accountable. I want to document the noise in my head. I'm tired of thinking about drinking. date of last drink: june 30, 2012

  • Ha! I think I’ll take that on board. Not just for my drinking ( well, not drinking now) but also my job ( is it a job or work or profession or career?) as a teacher. I’ve done that for far too long ( pays well for a part time week so I stay stuck!). So “if I feel like being a teacher for an hour or a day, then that’s just a mood”. Ha ha, think I should quit then

  • When I first quit, i would say I’m quitting for now. Meaning later I could drink if the mood struck me…the mood hasn’t struck me yet
    And im couple of years in..but I still say im quitting for now. Whatever works to get you through those white knuckle moments. Glad u r feeling better..we all have those moments on our journeys. ((Hugs))

  • Sounds like a decent coping strategy to me. Go for it. I second up the commenters remark about taking care of the chest cold and not letting it get deeper. I really like the mood idea. They surely do change don’t they !~!

  • It’s a wacky time of year and we’re all feeling it. Solidarity in Sobriety is called for, let’s circle the wagons, or sacrifice a virgin (I’m safe) or something. ; )

    I do the same thing you do, I still get a little melancholy when I think about a trip to some wine country without wine so I tell myself, “Maybe in five years…..”

  • I like that approach. Moods change… They sure do. Keep feeling better! Don’t push the running if that cold is on your chest. Bronchitis and pneumonia are zero fun. xx