Children with Wine

3 different dinners.  Within the span of a year, I would guess - but months apart.

Notice the glasses of wine in front of the children - not me, I hated the taste of it.  We were not allowed to have milk.  Or water.  But a glass of cabernet sauvignon was perfectly fine.  I was 6 that first year.  that makes the sisters a few years older each.  so 8, 10, 12.

(also, wallpaper.  jeebus.)

I am so goddamned little in this picture I break my own heart.

Sweet Evil

I'm retarded. 

OH, close your comment window, I mean that in the classic sense - (Retarded comes from the Latin retardare, "to make slow, delay, keep back, or hinder," so mental retardation means the same as mentally delayed. The term was recorded in 1426 as a "fact or action of making slower in movement or time." The first record of retarded in relation to being mentally slow was in 1895. The term retarded was used to replace terms like idiot, moron, and imbecile ...)  Whut I mean is, I AM SLOW.

So, I was feeling like crap.  Like run-over-a-few-times roadkill.  Here are the facts:

1. We hit the road in March and were displaced peoples for about a month.  I drank truck stop coffee (SO GOOD) and ate Subway sandwiches and drank COKES.  Because I am trying not to ingest chemicals, so aspartame vs. HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) I chose the HFCS.  It was a delicious thing.  Many many carbs were consumed.
2. We got to San Diego and there was much rejoicing by our family and friends.  Many dinners out were had.  Lots of taqueria burritos and enchiladas and restaurant meals were scarfed down.  I gave in to temptation and had some cocktails (in my defense, not many!  but, SOME).  Cocktails = SUGAR.  Carbohydrates = sugar!  Plus more cokes because hey, delish new DRINK!  Tastes so much better than the diet stuff!  Many many carbs were consumed.
3. Truck stop coffee gave way to home made coffee but I was putting more and more sugar in it (DELISH!  what IS this new fangled ingredient?).  Many many ETC.
4. I have been high on sugar (and too many carbs) for over a month and I feel like CRAP.

I'm not a candy/sweets eater.  I will have a cookie after dinner or a piece of brownie maybe.  But I never eat candy bars or any of that crap.  why?  I dunno.  All my life, even as a little kid, candy bars have made me sorta sick to my stomach, and they make my mouth hurt HELLO CLUE, see?  I'm retarded.  Reeses is my FAVORITE candy, and just thinking about eating one makes my mouth hurt and my stomach ache.

Fruit makes my mouth hurt.  Especially pineapple.  But also:  honeydew or cantaloupe (but not watermelon), bananas (especially if they are too green), kiwi, strawberries, ETCETERA.  Hello clue!  It all makes my mouth feel like I've been chewing on particularly sting-y bees.  TINGLY!  but, not in a good way...

Full sugar cokes make my mouth HURT.  My gums and teeth absolutely ACHE.  Jeebus, hello CLUE.

Good grief, how can you NOT think I need a helmet and a short bus at this point?

This is the biggest reason alcohol makes me so sick even if I drink only one (not to diminish the fact that I'm and ALCOHOLIC and all that trivial stuff, har) but even ONE drink makes me feel horrific the next day.  This is due to the two-fisted whammy of the tonic water (tons of SUGAR) and the fact that my liver processes glycogen (blood sugar) badly and stops altogether when I add alcohol to it.

So, aside from the fact that I had coffee this morning (SUGAR) I am going to try and stay completely away from the crap I know hurts me (sugar and carbs) and see how I feel.  More protein, less crap.  Exercise YES.

We will all pretend to be SO SURPRISED when I start feeling great in a few days, OK?

Empty soda cans

I had a very strange thing happen to me last night.

I've told you all how peaceful my life is now, I don't have any real stressors at all, I take care of our house/laundry/finances/dogs but there is no schedule, no bells or alarms.  I never take this quiet for granted either.  I am so appreciative..

I'm living in pure PEACE these days, and I have been since we moved here a year ago.

So last night I was lying in bed (watching Big Bang Theory I just love that show) and I got up to get water and realized I was grrr grouchy.  Pissed OFF.  And I stopped walking just STOPPED and said to myself "self, who are we mad at again?" (cos I couldn't remember who had ticked me off THIS time) and the answer?  nobody.  There was NOBODY that I was mad at.

I had this emotion, like an empty shell, just roll through me.  Like an old coke can rolling down a desert street *clank clang clank* with nothing inside.

That isn't the first time either.  I'll get all IRRITATED and have to think, and then *huh*.  Whudya know.  I'd been working on Ebay for the last hour and nothing is irritating me, I'm in my pajamas and things are selling and hmmm...

So, here is a question.  Or a hypothesis.  Hypotenuse.

My brain is so used to cycling through these negative emotions.  FOR YEARS there was more than one candidate for each one.  I mean, ask me 5 years ago 'who are we irritated with again?' and *FLIP* there goes the 2-foot list. 

NOW?  Now it seems as though these emotions, this negative energy, are all just echos of past drama.  Empty soda cans rolling down the streets of my brain.

Can you just be USED to so much crap that your brain sorta goes along as if it was still there?  Like a movie where a building is abandoned, but the machinery keeps on moving, starting itself up and then shutting down, on a schedule somebody forgot to re-program?

It made me laugh, actually.  Like I said, it isn't the first time.  Sometimes Jeff will ask me "what did I do exactly?  WHY are you mad at me?" and then I have to dig my toe into the dirt and say 'oh gee, nothing, sorry, durr Imma DORK sorry'. 

This 'living in peace' stuff - man, it's giving me insight into myself that is so useful.  I live with a LOT of empty echos.  I was running for YEARS from monsters (some real, some my own idiotic creation), *panting* and *huffing* and RUNNING and creating chaos (tossing chairs behind me!  rolling kitchen carts into paths!) and the actual monsters had LONG been gone, most of them vanquished and dead, some of them *poofed* into smoke.  My defenses were up WAY longer than I needed them to be, but I was so used to living defensively, to expecting the next punch (so to speak), the next slight, the next irritation - that I didn't stop when I got to the finish line.  I blew right past it, never saw it.

Quitting drinking, I think, is really finally letting me see that the noise in my head is all just residual echos, and has been for quite some time.  I drank (a lot) back when I 'needed it' to help me survive all of that crap, to help me cope and relax.  Then I drank because I was used to drinking.  I was using it to quiet demons and it worked so well, I didn't hear the door slam when they left.

I don't have those demons chasing me anymore, there isn't ANYTHING about my old life that is still around.  I mean, I've known that intellectually - shit, it even says so on the side of my blog, that nobody is around who worries me anymore.  Nobody who irritates me either!  But muscle memory...  I had never given my under-brain a chance to catch up to my frontal lobe.  It's been years wasted on being a defensive asshole toward NOTHING.  Shadow boxing.

I'm free.

The cave - depression, menopause, insomnia, and chemicals

A comment I made at Mulder's site got me thinking (*ow*).  I've never really talked about this anywhere - a couple people, and Jeff knows, but I just don't talk about it. 

I quit my job, with Jeff's blessing, and my last day was April 15th, 2011.  I haven't been employed since then.  I joke around about being a lady of leisure, about lying around eating bon bons, how great it is not to work.  And, by god, it IS great not to work.  But the reason I quit?  Depression.  And most people don't understand depression.

Depression had me choking in its sweaty fist for over 5 years.  And I had reached a breaking point by the time I quit my job.  The depression and resulting anxiety along with my natural inclination toward being weird had completely isolated me.  I was doing nothing at work, mostly the least I could do and keep my job, although I can screw off most of the time and then accomplish more in one day than most people do in a week.  (I used that ability until people started catching on to me.)  I had previously loved my job, but I could no longer see the point of anything.  I was making it, but then they changed everything, every program at work, and I had to take classes on top of changing my position and tasks, and I just couldn't do it.  I couldn't take one more step.

I had NO friends.  The Ever Patient France was the only person I really ever TRIED to see.  She would walk at this one lake with me and let me vent.  I was appalling.  I was negative and fat and upset and miserable and cranky.  I hated everything or I cried, but mostly I was in bed.  Completely not joking here - I was in bed for about 4 of those 5 years.  I would get into my PJs when I got home (4:00 in the afternoon) and stay put until I had to get up the next morning.  I worked from 7-3, or 8-4 - the ONE THING that saved my working ass that whole time was that I was NEVER late to work, because my hours were so flexible.  I started any time before 9:00 AM, and then left 8 hours later (I didn't take lunch).  So no matter what time I got there, if it was before 9 AM, I was good.  I would never have been able to make it otherwise.

Some nights I slept.  Most nights I didn't.  (Insomnia is a bitch that still has me cornered, but it's the last vestige of the whole thing.)  Insomnia - oh my jeebus, it is the worst thing in the world.  (okay, fine, cancer is worse whatever).  I would go sometimes 4 nights in a row without sleeping, and then have a nervous breakdown.  I really get just so bad if I can't sleep, and I usually can't sleep.

I was taking welbutrin and trazodone and then ambien and zanax.  I was taking an ambian AND a zanax every night just to sleep.  I kept right on drinking like a fish because I had always done so - all of those chemicals and my hormones made a delightful bouillabaisse in my system and um... it didn't help.  But I didn't know any better.

Menopause was what pushed me over the edge into that dark place.  I am chemically susceptible to depression - it runs in my family.  Our brains are predisposed to it.  I do not manufacture enough serotonin or dopamine for my brain to work right.  I know now that my dad was depressed and manic.  I recognize the signs (in hindsight - not that I give a fuck about what was wrong with him).  I have been medicated for it before, during bad times, and then managed to pry myself loose.  Exercise has been the only thing that ever kept me sane, but I never knew that.  I had no idea that trying to get skinny to catch another man was the reason I wasn't living in a box under a freeway.  But a lifetime of stress, the alcohol and drug abuse I subjected myself to, and then the chemical disaster of menopause pushed me into a hole that I eventually didn't even WANT to climb out of.  It was bad.  It almost ruined my marriage.  Mike's last couple of years at home were SO difficult.  (He was an asshole due to the surge in testosterone that happens to boys, and I had no patience due to [see above]).  His surge in testosterone coincided with my menopause, and that was a nuclear bomb looking for a Hiroshima Party Bar.  It's a testament to how great we are that we still managed to make each other laugh, and we were still pretty close and GOOD during that time.

But oh, it was a TRIAL, ask Mike, lord we had some fights.  (your fault shut up MIKE)

I tried - OH I TRIED.  I knew exercise was key for some reason, (hence the lake with The Ever Patient France) but getting THERE from the hole of depression (that sounds dirty) is just impossible.

I have posted before that doctors didn't even think I was in full blown menopause, but uh, you know your body, ya know?  My hormone levels were within normal ranges for the nation, but not necessarily normal for ME.  But things were very bad.  They wanted to put me on HRT, but something stopped me, even as bad as things were I just couldn't see putting that crap in my body.  PremPro (or whatever) is made from synthetic hormones (or they can't patent the compound!  Follow the money!) and also pregnant mare's urine I SAID HORSE PEE.  No, thankyaverymuch.

The job I had was working for a clinical trials management firm.  I did financial stuff, nothing to do with the drugs, but it taught me to research, and I had access to some pretty big brains.  And I am a HUGE advocate of being your own doctor.  I may only have a degree from University of Google, but 5 minutes of research saved my husband from having a pace maker put in (the doc switched medications instead, at my insistence, and lo and behold, the issue went away).  Researching HRT drugs caused me to recoil in disgust and I wasn't going to do that to myself.  Natural HRT is a great option, but it isn't covered by insurance (of course) and it isn't an exact science - I just didn't want to screw around with chemicals, even natural ones.  (Suzanne Sommers actually wrote a great book and did a huge amount of research into that, I recommend starting there if you're interested.)

I knew that I was chemically borked.  And now let me tell you a HUGE secret.  For about a year, way on back in 1996, I went and got myself hooked on crystal meth.  Yep.  You've all heard about how bad of a drug that is, but maybe you don't know what all is IN that Turkish Delight.  Looky.

• Muriatic Acid
• Acetone
• Methanol/Denatured Alcohol
• Red Devil Lye

• Lithium Hydride (Battery Acid)

• Ether
• Freon
• Anhydrous Ammonia
• Hydrochloric, Acetic and Sulfuric Acids
• Benzyl Chloride
• Lead, Mercuric Chloride
• Prozac
• Protease Inhibitors (HIV Meds)
• Ritalin
• Laxatives

The girl that gave me my first line to snort apologized to me for YEARS after.  I was 35 years old, just screwing around on my "off" weekends, and had no idea what chaos I had wrought.  It - well, one thing.  I'll tell you one thing it did.  It made me sweat.  Not so bad, right?  But, uh - did you see all the acidic things in that list?  It made me sweat acid.  To put it delicately, I STANK.  I was ALL THE TIME sweaty, since my body was trying to fight off this poison.  It made my breath stink.  Any place you can think of that you might possibly not want to smell like acid sweat *ahem*, did indeed smell and stink of acid sweat.  How's that for pretty?  I also only did it every other weekend, when Mike was at his dad's.  So, much like the binge drinking of later years, my body was UP and then down and it ruined so much more than you would think.  Por ejemple, it ruined my metabolism!  Sweet, right?  yeah.  That is one of the reasons I can starve myself 6-ways to sunday and never eat, and I never lose a pound.  I am now SUPER prone to sinus infections.  2-week long, knock you over SINUS infections.  Greaaat.  I'm schmaaaart.

Just like drinking, nothing bad (on the outside) happened to me.  There was no bad scene, no arrest, nobody found out about it, Mike never knew.  I was in (and truly hooked) and then got myself out (true grit) in a year.  But what it did to my already weak chemical make-up was horrific.  And I wouldn't even have a clue about that until menopause hit me.  (what it does to your teeth is no fucking joke.  I was SO LUCKY.)

Once I was sure that anti depressants and chemical HRT wasn't going to work for me, I researched the hell out of stuff to figure it out.  I have never told a doctor about my drug use, not out of shame, but those people at Kaiser don't give two rat's asses about any of that crap.  They want to fill your scrip and move on to the next patient.  So I had to do my own repairs.  I had to figure it out on my own.   I basically went to school on the interwebz.  It's been very enlightening.

Amphetamines ruin your dopamine situation.  That is a kindergarten way to put it, but other than I copy & paste a buncha scientific crap, it's the easiest way to put it.  I already either wasn't manufacturing enough dopamine, or my receptors weren't picking up what was being put down.  I squeezed every single drop of dopamine out of my cells using meth, and there just wasn't any more.  GONE. 

Dopamine is your 'feel good' chemical.  Its absence is one of the causes of depression.  Carbs produce a dopamine-like substance!  That is one of the reasons fat people stay fat - it literally FEELS GOOD to eat crap!  not just the sugar high, it's the dopamine effect.  It's a handy little chemical.  Too bad my body barely produces ANY. 

So there I was, a horrible walking chemical soup.  And I came to the only conclusion there was.  I wasn't processing the chemicals I already had in my system.  My body was already overwhelmed.  I needed to NOT add any more to the problem.  So I took away ALL added chemicals.  I started eating whole foods.  No more (or minimal) packaged foods.  I (mostly) only shop on the outer edges of the grocery store.

DO NOT THINK THAT MEANS I EAT HEALTHY.  I told myself, if I wanted it, I could have it.  I just had to make it myself.  Macaroni & cheese?  I learned how to make it.  Butter, flour, milk, viola! magic fatty fat.  Chocolate cake?  sure, just make it.  My rule was, I had to know each ingredient and be able to say it.  No more methylsilosylicathiacan-ish.  A frozen or boxed food had to have less than 3 ingredients on the side (peas:  frozen peas).  And uh.  it worked.

It's working.  I feel *whispering* good.  I'm UP and doing laundry and walking the dogs and taking care of our banking and business and WTF?  Who am I?  But its taken a couple years to fully detox.  I think that getting all the extra chemicals OUT left some room for the dopamine that I actually produce to be FOUND.  Like, the noise quieted down and now my cells can find the good stuff.  (I have to think in pictures, it's the way I understand things)

Stopping drinking was the second to last piece of the puzzle.  I miss drinking every single day.  But it isn't a craving so much as a habit...?  hard to explain, but Mulder said it very well, that 'what the hell am I going to do on a patio without a drink' feeling.  When I taste alcohol, I taste Drano.  It's weird, but I know that it poisons me.  It affects my sleep, my energy, my mood for a week at least.  I am only, in the last week, finally detoxed from Vegas.  That was almost a fucking MONTH ago.  Alcohol alters the chemicals in my (weak little hot-house flower) system and it knocks me off track for that damned long. 

The other thing I have to do is GET OUTSIDE.  Here's a real scientific theory for you:  Exercise creates endolphins that swim in my blood stream and eat the depression like Pac Man eats those dots!!  (Postcards from the Edge quote:  'I'm in it for the "endolphin" rush')  that's how I have to think of it, anyway.  Exercise creates dopamine and blah blah it helps.

The last piece for me, was finding out that I needed to actually add back in a couple of things.

1.  Magnesium.  I take at least 700mg of magnesium a day.  It's like calcium, not some wacky supplement.  It helps my sleep by a gabillion percent.  Your body wont absorb calcium without enough magnesium.  I also add Epsom salts (magnesium) to my baths (I love to soak in baths).  If your kids ever have 'growing pains' or after a long day walking or running, or they need to really relax, add Epsom salts to their baths.  Women in labor are given magnesium to slow down or stop contractions.  Do your own research, I'm no doctor.  This is working for me.  I STILL TAKE AN AMBIEN EVERY NIGHT.  I'm hoping to cut the dose down soon.  I no longer take a zanax tho.  (getting off zanax is no joke, I don't recommend doing it like a chump, like I did, and just stop taking it.  You will hallucinate.  It's bad.  See your doctor for advice on that, I'm not kidding, that was a bad night a few months ago.)

2.  Taurine - this is an amino acid that helps GABBA production in the brain, which helps stabilize mood and helps with anxiety.  My anxiety comes when I lie down and close my eyes, my brain goes off like a rocket.  This is helping with that.  Taurine is also found in drinks like Red Bull.  The energy you get from those drinks isn't caffeine, it's from the Taurine.  I think it's awesome, but I don't drink those drinks, I just take the pill form.  I don't like the way they taste.

This stuff IS helping, but it is slow going.  This stuff, whatever you supplement with, has to be absorbed into your body, then into your cells, and then it starts working from way deep inside you and you don't notice the effect for a few weeks.  I recommend first cutting out any chemicals that you possibly can.  Then only add ONE THING AT A TIME, and wait a couple weeks or a month to see if it works or not.  Or causes a rash or something.  Go easy on your body, even if you're healthy.  Especially if you aren't.

I had to do a ton of research to find those two things.  And I don't even take a multi vitamin.  Just those two things.  Please do your own research.  I prefer to read anecdotal evidence by people who are actually using medications, not clinical trial data from medical institutions, but you decide for yourself.  Information is power.

My POINT is.  Your body is this huge vat of chemicals that are supposed to work together.  And mine were already screwed up from genetics.  I screwed them up even more eating McDonald's and snorting lines of crap and drinking like a fish.  When you get old, as the saying goes, all your chickens come home to roost.  Mine came home in a big way.  If you suffer from depression, I feel your pain in the biggest, biggest way.  Eating whole foods and all can only help.  But it takes a while to detox from everything, and not everyone has the luxury of lying in bed waiting for results.  Most people have jobs and kids and expectations.  I AM SO LUCKY, I know it.

I wish someone had told me the SCIENCE behind why I didn't feel good back when I would have been able to do something long term and productive about it.  I can only spackle the holes at this point. 

Depression isn't something you can jolly your way out of.  It isn't a MOOD.  It's a real, debilitating chemical imbalance.  Sometimes brought on by situations, sometimes exacerbated by PMS or pregnancy/childbirth or menopause (men, sorry, I know you have it too).  If you've never suffered under the tyranny of depression, please don't judge.  Just, be like poor E.P. France.  Get your friend to go outside once in a while.

(P.S. to TW - I am going to go get my thyroid levels checked as soon as our new insurance kicks in.  :)

PEA ESS I made myself sound ugly.  So vanity dictates that I prove I don't look like those people on 'Intervention'

Last summer

♪ Her name was Lola. She was a showgirl.♫

So I went to Vegas.  I got to see Mike!  and Erica.  And my friend, the ever-patient France.  (ha ha, we stayed at the Paris hotel.  I never got tired of saying "France is in Paris!" I am a laugh riot.  She loved it.  Every. single. time.) (not really she got all eye-rolly at me) (she's a bitch) (not really. *sigh*)

I'm actually pretty lucky in Vegas.  I usually stick to video poker, I bet max on a quarter machine, and I cash out immediately when I hit any jackpot over a coupla bucks. 

I won this on $20 on our first night there.  BUT, because my stupid KIDS were with me, I gave them each $100.  THIS turned into a theme, MIKE. 

I kept handing him cash and teaching him how to play in Vegas - how to sit at a blackjack table ($5 table, he started on his own at a $15 table, asshole lost $100 in about 15 minutes MIKE).  But there is much to learn about Vegas.  Not just WHERE to gamble (Fremont street ONLY, i don't usually ever even go to the strip) but where to sit at a blackjack table (what position, because that position will really matter if you take or don't take a card and the rest of the table will hunt you down if you do it wrong aaahhh!), how to only use ONE HAND at a table.  Don't touch your chips until the dealer says ok (especially with roulette), not to mention how to tip (everyone.  Often.  Tip dealers, waitresses, the room maids, EVERYONE.  But you know, we were high rollers and tipped $1 often.  A buck.  I was like that 'Most Interesting Man In The World' guy, if he was a bum).  We had fun and he got good at blackjack and won me back $100!  *plink* the sound of a drop in a bucket.  har.

I love hanging with my kid.  He enjoyed himself but said that if he goes back it wont be with his mommy.  huh.  HOW ODD, amirite?

Erica (left), me (center), Mike (right).



Anywhoozle.  This isn't so much about gambling as it is drinking.  More like, Vegas Sober and uh, that's just a stupid place to be.

It took forever to get to Vegas from Southern Maryland.  2 hours driving to the airport, park, ride a bus to terminal, fly to Detroit, change planes (run!  because it's always the furthest away!) get into Vegas, take a monorail to baggage claim (oh I wish I was kidding), find Mike, take a shuttle to the hotel, check in...  by this time I was like a chihuahua on crack.  I was weird and vibrating and my sinuses were jacked up because of take offs (X2) and landings (X2) and I was just ...  oh hell, I was feeling ODD.  And I was sober, and usually by this time I am drunky drunk from airport booze and airplane booze and everything is glowing and soft edges.  no.  Not this time.  Long car rides in traffic, airports, airplanes, buses, shuttles, monorails - that shit smells, people are disgusting, and being sober is no way to travel.

Erica was already there, they got her stuff and brought it to the room.  She had driven from So Cal - she had bought SO MUCH BOOZE for the room.  Huge bottle of vodka, orange liquor, 12-pack of Guinness, etc.  And there I was.

I don't LIKE drinking anymore.  What in the fuck happened to me?  I quit in desperation right after Thanksgiving.  Now I cannot stomach the stuff.  It tastes like ass.  And I feel poisoned as soon as I drink one.  Like I drank arsenic or Drano or something. 

I gave myself permission to just have fun in Vegas, and I didn't.  Not really.  Not much at all.  because...

Vegas is so ugly when you're sober.  I NEVER noticed before.  Because I have always been smish-smash-HAMMERED there.  Like, use your phone and take a picture of your room number because you will forget that and everything else!  Like, falling down drunk.

SOBER?  Vegas looks like a 50-year old show girl in the morning.  No makeup, cigarette dangling from her mouth, tits sagging in an old kimono bathrobe.  UGH LEE.

Night & day.



It was like sitting in one big smoky bar for 4 days.  I know, you all know that.  But for me, Vegas was always some glittering ball of FUN! Happy! Party All Day! land.  This time, the mask slipped.  Do you have any idea how many times dealers/waitresses/bartenders roll their eyes at you?  All of the times.  ALL of them.  They hate you.  But I was sober so I saw it.  I saw them.  I don't blame them.

I wasn't that much fun.  I was walking that line between joining the party and MANAGING the partiers.  I was FUSSY a little bit, like your dumb sober friend, you know?  I was drinking, but um...  I was FORCING myself to drink.  It was the most ridiculous spot I have put myself in in a LONG time. 

Being sober truly does suck.  And being drunk feels HORRIBLE anymore.  It isn't FUN, it doesn't feel all swoopy and delicious.  It feels like I'm sick, like I've eaten bad shrimp salad and I need a doctor.  I'm not used to seeing all the hard edges of life.  All the stains on the carpet and banged up doors (PARIS), all the tired eyes of waitresses and the Job Patience look of blackjack dealers.  I'm used to letting myself see everything as BEAUTIFUL because my life was hard enough.

Now it seems my life is no longer hard, and I no longer need the booze.

It's just SO WEIRD.  It's been 30 YEARS of drinking.  *poof*  the desire is gone.

I don't even WANT to drink.  I don't like the taste anymore (!?).  I know so firmly that ONE = ALL OF THEM so the first one seems stupid and ugly now.  I can't even explain it.  I'm done drinking, I quit on a whim, and I am sorta bereft. 

I am now between worlds.  Firmly.  Can a person just talk themselves out of drinking?  Because I miss LOVING IT.  I miss the party all night aspect of life.  I was in bed (or whining about it) by 10:00 PM every night in Vegas.  good lord.

I don't drink anymore.  But I don't know (yet) how to live SOBER. 

Average Joe

Eleven days so far of the oh-nay inking-dray.  I made it through a weekend that included my birthday without getting ammered-hay.

 I don't feel icky.  I don't have any cravings or urges.  I ALSO don't feel all riled up LET'S DO THIS COUNT ALL THE DAYS!!

It's more the feeling after you have had a cold and then realize you feel ok and normal/regular again.  But the feeling normal?  Feels really good.  I'm not all high on the thought of quitting - you know how you get when you start a new diet?  Planning, counting, get a new notebook or excel spreadsheet to calculate every calorie in, every ounce out?  Yeah, not like that.  I actually had to look at a calendar to count how many days.

I HAVE experienced severe pressure from nice meaning folks who also drink OOOPS ink-dray.  When I say there is nothing to do around here but drink, I aint just whistling Dixie.  And these people are OUR kind of people.  All super smart (Government contractors in a field that specializes in ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ *snort* I always fall asleep during that part, I don't know what they do blah blah gubmint work) and broken and fun.  I've never had girlfriends before I moved here - they are fun and funny and we all don't get together very often because we are all loners, ha, my kind of friends.

ANYwhoozle:

We meet for happy hour and I'm more than fine with a diet coke or sometimes a tonic with cranberry.  I'm not tempted or triggered - I don't feel all pious or anything, I've just played that tape to the end and it doesn't work for me anymore.  But they get sort of - I dunno - offended?  They joke, but they pressure.  I finally had to say 'stop it' in a very firm voice.  They apologized. 

Eleven days in and I feel more um - awake?  Like my synapses are firing again.  Not all fast and hot, just like, I can remember to get olive oil at the grocery store now.  I've been sleeping well.  Of course, I've also been remembering to take my magnesium (if you can't sleep try magnesium it rocks the hizouse.)

I've been reading and researching narcissism for about a year now.  I only JUST started writing this blog.  And all of this was like (close your eyes this is a gross metaphor) squeezing a zit.  I feel like I'm getting the poison out.  Letting the steam out.  Pick your anology (anything but zit, what was I thinking).  But I don't feel like I need the noise anymore.

When I had it-quay inking-dray the last time, it was just before we moved here last January.  I had 6-months at that time.  But the thing is, I had quit because of finding out that I wasn't alone, I think - because of all y'alls blogs.  I didn't just suffer child abuse - there was a whole THING around what my parents were.  I didn't have to explain it to any of YOU - we all lived it (in varying degrees).  Which had made my poisoning myself rather passé.  (then I moved here and *glug*)

It's a weird place to be.  To be sort of healed.  Well, as I commented on Q's post, my cracks seem to be glued but not FIXED.  But it's closer than I've ever gotten before.  Just the knowing WHAT the mental aberation is sort of helped.  I don't have the same burden.  I'm not explaining this very well.

I don't feel the need to drink.  That is weird.  My baggage, while still there, feels lighter.  That is weird.  I'm not mentally berating myself for being different.  That is weird.  I'm throwing away all 87 pairs of jeans that don't fit me.  Wait - that's another blog topic.

I'm not making any promises, as they say in AA - one fucking day at a time.  But I'm also not counting days.  I don't want to feel anything but just average anymore.

Life at Dysfunction Junction (1 in a series)

Attention class!!  This is Narc Coping Skills 101 - please get out your #2 pencils, etc.

At dinner, we were not allowed to have ANYTHING to drink.  No water, no milk, nothing.  We could, however, have a small glass of cabernet sauvignon if we wished.  (food, as we all know, is a great way to have power and control over your minions.)

Notice glasses of wine in front of children

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If he ate dinner with us, it was because HE cooked (he wouldn't eat anything so pedestrian as MEATLOAF, for chrissakes) but that meant he had also been drinking wine for hours.  We would sit down to dinner (all 8 of us) and he would start pontificating about something, droning on-and-on-and-on about politics or something - Georgia sat to his right and more than once during these lectures she would sneak gulping drinks out of his glass of wine.  We thought it was hilarious - she was around 10 and would get a buzz.

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For my high school graduation, they allowed me to GO to various parties (rather than have one of my own).  My mother went out and bought me a couple bottles of Boone's Farm wine *shudder* to take with me.  I puked HARD that night.

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One of my sisters got me drunk for the first time - I was 15?  She took me to a party with her, I was drinking tequila sunrises *shudder*.  I puked HARD that night.  (One sister also got me stoned the first time.  One sister snorted lines of coke with me the first time.  It was the 70's.  Drugs were de rigueur at the time.  Have you SEEN Scarface??)

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All they drank (usually) at home was wine.  Dad got CASES of some goddamned cab sauv labled "Bottled exclusively for the Alexander Kravitzes" - who knows how much that cost him.  We never had any of their friends over, so he must've taken it with him to parties.  Imagine talking to HIM at a party.  What a pretentious ass. 

If they stayed home they would stay up in the 'grown up' living room, listening to jazz and smoking cigars (BOTH OF THEM SMOKING HUGE CIGARS) and drink drank drunk.

They would go out FANCY sometimes, to LA - suits and organza dresses from Saks Fifth Avenue (<--quite posh in the day) and come home SMASHED.  She was his Dancing Monkey on those nights, a barbie meant to be shown off and be quiet.

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The fights were EPIC.  Wine bottles thrown, screaming, crying (her) hiding in various places (us), pots and pans *bang* and *smash* (him).  I have no idea if they were ever hungover, I was NEVER around them in the morning.  Or anytime I could escape, really.

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I would say ALL of us ended up with addiction problems.  Some solved it by only EVER having one glass of wine, maybe once a year.  Some of us are (WERE) still bathing our livers in vodka.  A couple toned it down and can have a drink or two before dinner and stop there <--wtf?  And our kids - shit balls.  They ALL (the older ones, the ones high-school and up I am guessing) have drinking issues.  THAT didn't make it out of the filter.  Behaviour modeled is behaviour  copied - hey!  Shouldn't that be a bumper sticker or tee shirt??  Shyeah...  drinking problems.