Adventures Away...I hope...and pray!




Abstaining from Alcohol
By: Moquahontas


     Last week, I relapsed after 81 days of sobriety. Abstaining from alcohol has been one of the hardest things I think I've ever tried to do, besides graphing linear equations. After my husband caught me, tongue in bottle, attempting to slurp the last of the moisture from the creases of the bottle, I simply started to cry. I hadn't even realized that I'd taken a swan dive right off of the sobriety wagon. 

      Prior to that, to be quite honest with you and myself, I was drinking long before I put the bottle to my mouth that Saturday afternoon. My sponsor, Jackie is a Big Book fan (which I totally understand) and often quotes paragraphs from the AA Bible via text message. She asked that I call her every day and that I attend 3-5 meetings per week during my first 90 days. Needless to say, I stopped calling her around a week before I relapsed. I missed several meetings. I began looking for ways to run errands and do things by myself- isolating. I think I even started having lunch at my old spot where they give you a glass of wine with your lunch combo. Being that I was a "regular", I was already defeated, before I'd gotten there.

       I don't remember drinking or even how I set it up to drink during work hours. I know that after lunch, I could no longer function as a virtual assistant at the company where I was considered a "rock star". My coworker called my husband to come and get me. The embarrassment is endless but its useful. I have a chance to recover and it will be easier this time. Its easier each time you go through it and no matter how many white chips you have to receive, raising your hand and receiving your white chip is quite brave.
      
      Just for today, I give myself permission to have cravings and to have rough days where I feel yucky. I give myself permission to have days where I am not sure how I feel. It is what I do with these yucky uncertain feelings that matters. I plan to abstain from drinking forever, but I AM able to abstain JUST FOR TODAY.

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