Tag: vacations

Sobriety: Satisfaction guaranteed or double your money back

Belle 4 Comments

On day #12 of sobriety, i wrote that alcohol was a ‘place’ to go.

Now i realize that sobriety is a place, too.  A completely different kind of place.  Sobriety is like a vacation. It’s a special deluxe resort where you can have a break from obsessive thinking.

You know. Obsessive thinking.  “Tired of Thinking About Drinking!” For me, it’s the wolfie voice that I heard loud and clear and continuously while i was still drinking:  “Is there enough wine? did he drink more than me? how early is too early to start? should i have one more (of course the answer is always yes). I’m going to feel terrible tomorrow, oh fuck it let’s drink anyway. oh god, i should stop, oh god is there enough booze, someone should go and buy more. oh god i drank too much my life is a misery my can’t i just drink less and enjoy it why am i pouring it in with no signs of stopping.”

to contrast that delightful picture, sobriety is a Place To Go To Have A Break From That Shit. It’s place where there is relief from the noise. it’s weirdly calm and peaceful in sobriety. it’s like a vacation.

Cindy (day 6):  “I have been working on not drinking since November 2011 (after 30 years). Since that time I have put together lots of pearls of sobriety.  Some made up of 60 days and others 10 days.  I have never relapsed, only had one day slips.  I joined the 100 Day Challenge because I think it is time to put together a number of continuous days of sobriety. I don’t like the feeling of always being at risk of going back to drinking away my feelings. I think a stretch of continuous sobriety would ease that fear” [emphasis added].

Sobriety. A place to go where you can feel less afraid. A place to get away from fear. OK, sometimes in sobriety you feel shitty and have sucky days. you had sucky days while drinking, too. But in sobriety you don’t have to be afraid anymore. There are other cool people in the sober place, on the sober vacation. They are there with you, saying “yeah man, i was dying out there, glad i got here.”  and you can be unsure and knock-kneed. you can think “my problem isn’t as bad as theirs, i don’t need to do this sobriety thing.”

But there’s no denying it. Sobriety is a resort vacation that is BETTER than advertised. You know those luxury 4 star all inclusive resorts that turn out to be dumps when you arrive?  Well, sobriety is the opposite of that. It’s waaaay better than the photos, so much better in fact that it’s almost impossible to describe. You’ve got to come here to see it for yourself.

You might as well try it.

Leigh: Thanks! Think I’ll just go ahead & do it this time

me: might as well see what all the fuss is about 🙂

Leigh: Better be worth it or you’re in big trouble!

me: satisfaction guaranteed or double your money back. we should have a bet.  a pool.  put in money. if you stay sober you win. ok, we don’t need a pool. you win more than money by being sober 🙂 🙂

Leigh: Win more & save more money by being sober. After all, I’ve never woken up the next morning after drinking thinking “I’m glad I did that. Money well spent.” Looking forward to being a real quitter!

Team 100 Update: 40 people have signed up, welcome to Kat (194), Katie (6), and DDG (33) — our newest members. I’m on day 294, Lilly is on day 42, MG is 14, Sunflower is 29, thirteenpointone is 321, Whineless is 23.  I’d love to have updates from TMcA and VP.

how does it feel?

Belle 6 Comments

Book giveaway winner announced here (WhinelessinWashington)!

My new sober penpal Jenny wrote:

“Tell me how 7 months (sober) feels?”

what a question! talk about getting right into the meat of things 🙂 here was my answer:

how does 7 months feel.  what an interesting question. It feels like a big number that I didn’t create.  It’s like I’ve gone to bed and gotten up 230 days in a row without drinking, and that doesn’t seem possible.  you know, it’s like anticipating a big vacation and thinking that the time will NEVER pass, and yet it does, steadily, day by day.  it’s just like that.  and it’s like arriving on a big vacation and not wanting it to end, even though some days are crummy and boring, you still don’t want to go back to ‘real life’.  and I hope that in time, I’ll feel more confident that I’m never going back. the further away I get from ‘there’ will convince me that I get to stay ‘here’ … and then perhaps I can look forward a bit more than I am already …

I know i didn’t plan to quit forever. i just found that once I got going, i liked being sober more than i thought i would. it’s BETTER than before. yes, sometimes, i act like it’s a gift that can be thrown away. yes, sometimes i act like nothing can touch me. but in truth, it’s just like i said to Jenny. i get up every day, and i continue to enjoy my life, and i do the things that work. i don’t focus too much on how many days anymore (mostly because the number is so huge, and in some ways it’s a truly impossibly large number). i don’t worry too much when i get teased for not drinking.  i know he’s jealous. i know he can’t figure out how to get here where I am. I’m OK with that. I will try to gloat less, and be more humble. But 7 months feels waaaay more awesome-sauce than i thought it would 🙂 and so yes, sometimes i gloat a bit.  i dance around the kitchen relishing in my newly found genius. yes.  guilty as charged.  go ahead and fucking sue me. I’m sober. and. loving. it.

prunes, vacuums, and nature

Belle 17 Comments

thank god it’s all over, the holiday season. didn’t realize how exhausted and stressed i was, how near to drinking i probably was 3 or 4 times.  I didn’t seem to remember that it would take me a full 10 days of my 14 day vacation to truly unwind (i’m there now!). i’m glad the whole holiday/celebrating thing is finished, that new years eve is done, that my 6 month sober-versary has passed — and with it any ideas i had of ‘maybe i can drink now that it’s been 6 months’.  done with that kind of thinking. now i can go back to my regularly scheduled sober life.

and i feel pretty great. strangely empowered. better than i’ve felt in a long, long time.  I’m a girl who loves her vacations, that’s for sure.  i like working when i feel like it, sleeping, running, and frigging around in the kitchen.  i like planning for the new year without actually doing anything to advance my plans!  (I am a girl who loves a plan, but i might even like MAKING plans, and scheming new plans, more than i even like having the finished plan. I like the chart paper on the wall, i like the vomiting of ideas, deciding which ones to pursue, what to prune.)

What to prune.  This brings me to today’s a-ha moment.

i’ve been on autopilot for so many years, that now being 6 months sober is providing me with an unusually clear perspective and a quiet sense of determination.  Pruning.  I’m about to prune some of what i do in Job #2.  Eliminate a few services that are irritating and not worth it anymore.  what’s HILARIOUS is that i found a note from november 2011, where i identified that i wanted to prune Job #2.  And then i didn’t do any of it.  i kept drinking (January to June) and then beginning in July, all i could focus on was getting/staying sober.

Now that i’ve been squirted (splat!) out the other side, i had a look around was like “yeah, now’s the time. do some pruning.”

And as soon as i figured out the first thing to prune, a new idea came into my head to take its place, hopefully bigger and better, something i’ll love doing instead of something i feel obligated to do.  you know, that stupid fucking trite saying about ‘nature abhors a vacuum’ … well.

well that’s all i have to say about prunes, vacuums, and nature.

Here are my 2013 things i’d like to do (not resolutions).  I record them here so that i can torture congratulate myself later when i check them off one by one [sorry Amy if you’re seeing these more than once]:

  • get 100% caught up on paperwork, filing, banking, accounting
  • trim 3 things from my business #2 which isn’t doing very well
  • add 3 new things (not yet imagined) to business #2 to see if it perks things up (i have one of them imagined already)
  • build my passion job #3 thingy to a more steady and reliable stream of income
  • I’d like to lose 15 pounds, then re-evaluate, and perhaps lose another 5 after that (this was a 2012 goal that I’m carrying forward; I’ve lost 7 of the original 15, but still have a bit to go)
  • I’d like to eat my way down to the bottom of my freezer (this was also on my list for 2012, that I’m carrying forward)
  • read 52 books in a year.  This year I read 40 34
  • continue to run 3-5 times per week
  • continue to be sober until July 1st which is my one year s0ber-versary. I can re-evaluate then, but I suspect I’ll remain sober.  it suits me.
  • have one night away per month, with or without husband, for mini-vacations since we’re not able to afford real vacations this year.
  • I’d like to be thin, with long hair, eyebrows done from the salon, nice nails, and have a good (real) tan.  then I’d like to go home in July to see my sisters… yes, even at age 46 the sibling rivalry continues … it can be pretty motivating. I’m trying to let this go.
  • I’d like to be in bed by 10:30 most nights, and 9:30 pm at least one night per week.

In general, I’d like to experience the feeling of being ‘done’ with a bunch of loose ends.  I’m spread a bit thin, and I think the kindest gift I can give myself this year is to do fewer things better.

Happy New Year everyone 🙂

100 days

Belle 14 Comments

100 days yesterday. bought myself a new pottery teacup as my reward.  i’m just back from a wonderful 4-day vacation, warm temperatures, lots of lounging, walking, eating good food. and upon arriving home, my 90 day reward (a big electric griddle) had arrived in the mail, so now there may be homemade english muffins in my future.

on my vacation, no cravings to drink. no thoughts whatsoever.  thankfully, it looks like a quiet week work-wise, which would be a blessing since the day before we left for vacation i think i worked 16 hrs … and the first day of vacation required a 3-hr nap to reset : )

get to the point, belle!

All is well now. i have laundry to do (who cares). i have a desk full of paperwork (yippee). and i really need to go to the big store and get big groceries (blech).  all is well. wouldn’t want to be anywhere other than here …

i’m quiet, but not drinking

Belle 6 Comments

I’m quiet, but not drinking.  Just swamped with passion job #3 thingy. Tomorrow is another long day.  The contract that i started last week DID get me to do more work for them this week, and have already asked for something for next week.  So they’re not going away. (PS/ their request for next week is based on a sample that i took into my original meeting with them, that was not part of the work that they asked for.  but once they saw the sample, they’ve changed their business direction slightly to include that aspect of my work. Note to self – think outside the box, give them more than what they ask for. I’ve also been giving them other random samples each week with their new (requested) work, just so that they can see the range of my abilities.  fun fun stuff!)

and in the middle of all of this, yes, I ran today … even though i got up at 7:30 am and have been going non-stop ever since (now it’s 9:39 pm)!  AND i will run tomorrow.  I realize now that not only do i feel much better when i run (duh!), even for 18-20 minutes, but it also gives me the opportunity to fall in love with my town again, each and every morning. Today, outside the fish shop with the big front step, as i ran past at 8:30 am, the smelly fish guy in his rubber apron and knee-high boots was helping granny down the big step: granny, her cane, her wheelie cart.  There was a big line-up waiting to be served, and the fish guy is there helping granny get out onto the sidewalk safely.

Expect more silence from me.  On friday we head out of town for a 4 day weekend. it’s supposed to pour rain. we’re going to some armpit community not far from here, just to be away. i suspect there will be reading and bad TV… there will be vacation sex. there will be bad random food in weird touristy restaurants. there will be a church or two for photographs. my husband will collect rocks and chestnuts.

Good-bye summer. I’m done with you.

Belle 6 Comments

This is going to be controversial. But here goes. I don’t like summer.

It’s true that I love vacations, and i really like living in a temperate climate. I i certainly don’t much care for winter of any kind.  I like 20C/72F with blue skies. I can skip everything else, thanks.

summer is filled with expensive events, sloth, gluttony, and a general lack of structure and routines. and me, I’m a girl with a plan. I don’t like to be tightly belted in (like, for example, i never get up with an alarm clock, year round), but I do like to do the same thing pretty much every day. Summer throws me off.  Because everyone ELSE is off doing random things. and I’d prefer everything stayed the same.

Want to go visit friends? “Sorry we’re away for July.”  Want to get the dishwasher repaired? repair guys aren’t working on Fridays for August.  Want to send a business email and get a response? Fat chance.

I like to work, and i have very cool job(s). But in the summer both of my major sources of income dry up for different reasons, basically because everyone else is on vacation.  I can send out a newsletter to my clients in May and get 100 responses. I can send out something in July and get 10 tiny answers.

Also, in lots of places in Europe, there’s very little going on in August. It’s Superior and Painful Deadsville. Stores closed, favorite cafe closed for 3 weeks, butcher shuts his doors, the limited Sunday shopping halts, the farmers’ markets have very few stalls. There’s no car traffic. The neighbors above and below are away.  It’s quiet.  Too quiet for me.

I’ve experimented with working minimally in August, to try to match the European trend where little gets done, but mostly i struggle the entire month, yearning for things to get back to normal.  In my regular school-year life, i’m creating projects, i’m selling events, and when I send out an email there are actual physical humans on the other end reading them.

Also, this summer, i’ve been … well it’s obvious, isn’t it? … i’ve been working on being sober.  since july 1st.  that’s my entire summer.  and now i’m super very thankful that the ‘working hard at being sober’ part is over.  So thanks summer, see ya later.

Let’s raise a toast to September, the time of cooler temperatures, red leaves (depending on where you live), and NEW notebooks with NEW erasers and NEW pens and NEW shoes, and NEW possibilities and NEW opportunities, and NEW friends, and NEW plans, and NEW projects.

Calculations: Today is my 6 year wedding anniversary : )  Today is Day #67 sober. I have been writing 30 minutes a day since September 1st, and even managed to write 3 of 4 days while on vacation; will make up the missing 30 mins this week. So far my 30-day September writing project is quite easy and fine (go figure!) Compared to quitting drinking, maybe all of the rest of my 30 day projects will seem painless by comparison! Let’s hope.

i like vacations more than real life

Belle 15 Comments

If you knew me in real life, you’d know that I say this all the time:

“I like vacations more than real life.”

And maybe everybody says this. But i really mean it.  I’m a goal-directed girl, and i can work really really hard if i know that there’s a reward coming.  vacations are the best reward for me.  four days of beach, movies, french pastries, reading on the beach, listening to podcasts. Even the travel itself is part of the vacation: planes, trains, metros. I just open up my book and read until we get there.

This was my first sober vacation (yes, thank you very much, today is day 66). I did OK 3 out of 4 days, which is pretty good.  I drank lots of tonic water, tons of tea, gallons of bottled water (Badoit with tiny bubbles), and only one day did i want to kill my husband.

We had a movie pass for one full day during the 4 day vacation, and the movie pass gave us unlimited access to see movies back to back. The first one we wanted to see started at 11:30 am. Seems reasonable. Woke up at 10:30 am (gotta love quiet hotels with dark curtains that let you sleep forever). Headed off on foot to the movie part of town. Figured we’d get breakfast on the way.

Now, breakfast in France is tricky business. France is an entire country full of people who don’t eat eggs (or protein) for breakfast. Coffee, pastry and juice — YES. Eggs and home fries and bacon and toast — NO.  Yogurt and fruit and granola — NO.  Tofu scramble? Definitely non.

So let’s take this newly sober girl, who’s used to eating lots of protein, and let’s give her … oh, i don’t know, a regular french breakfast which is straight sugar and adrenaline:  coffee, OJ, croissant, and then white bread with butter and highly processed strawberry jam.

She eats it all, of course, it’s very yummy.  And off she goes to watch the first movie.

Fast forward 2.5 hours, the end of the first movie. Starvation isn’t really the right word. It is more like an all-encompassing feeling, head-to-toe blanket of murderous rage.

I cannot seem to communicate to my husband that i am STARVING and that i have to eat right now.  No i can’t sit on the beach and eat baguette with cheese. I need to eat an entire cow. Are you listening to me? If i don’t eat a whole chicken, head first, in the next three minutes, i’m going to fucking implode.

My husband really cannot figure me out, and so i say something shitty like “why don’t you pretend just for one minute that you love me, you know, like you used to, and just for one minute imagine that what i’m saying is important to you.” He glares, he really has no idea why i’m yelling. And this makes me even more furious so I start shrieking, in a crowd, and yes people actually turn to look at the poor man whose wife is going off on him.  He says “do we have to run?” (i’m walking very very quickly, yelling, not looking back to see if he’s behind me any more). Yes, we have to run, I say, I have to eat something. He says: “fine, you can go alone then.”

which means we’ll get separated in this big crowd.

And I really really don’t care. At all. I keep walking and i don’t look back. I’m as close to drinking as i’ve ever been in 66 days. murderous rage. completely out of proportion to the event, and i know i’m hungry but i can’t seem to control my mouth, or my mood, or my pace of walking, or my yelling.

i arrive in front of a bad hamburger place. Husband is behind me (of course). We eat. I try very lamely to explain. I say “please don’t be a dick.” and he says “please don’t be crazy.” and then i start laughing.  because crazy is exactly what I am.

There was no alcohol involved. I ate some cow and felt better. The burger was terrible but did the job (the French aren’t great on making American-style hamburgers either, but in a pinch they’ll do).

The next day (yesterday) I ate terrible runny eggs for breakfast (runny yolks and runny whites). Husband had to avert his eyes, it’s truly gross. I didn’t care what they looked like, i knew i needed protein. And thus, yesterday, the runny egg day, i had the best day of the entire vacation. Relaxed, happy, even, un-anxious, well rested. We sat on the beach for 3 hours reading. We had tea and quiche for lunch (Look!  More Eggs!).  We bought apples to eat on the trip back.  We got home late last night (11:00 pm) and went out to our favorite corner place for roast chicken.

I have more to say about vacations, about september, about this time of year. but i’ll save it for later.  this is already too long and i want to put in a few more pictures : )