Sober

“This… is gonna suck.” I thought to myself while I poured out my favorite wine into the kitchen sink. Alone. With no one to tell me I “ought to,” and no one to judge if I had just decided to“finish it off” instead.

I took this video last year for the sole purpose of accountability to the few friends that I still talked to. (post separation from my husband) I knew I would need to give them evidence to keep me honest, and make me do what I felt was smartest, kindest, and healthiest for me at the time.

It’s rarely admitted that wine TASTES better and FEELS better when you have fresh rough edges to “soften.” Being a single momma of 3 young kids, and working through divorcing who I thought was the love of my life, and someone I still very much LOVE, was PLENTY of reason to want to “wine down” every chance I could. This is why I didn’t. But GOD, did I want to.

Everyone’s relationship to alcohol and substances is their own quest. I don’t hold condemnation for others stances. My issue with alcohol in particular however was two fold.

1) I have PLENTY of rough edges I want softened… meaning. I’ll never run out of excuses to drink, and one will not soften the types of edges I want to feel less sharply. 2) Addiction, runs rampant in my family line. On both sides. Why would “I” be any better resisting when I have similar tendencies like they do?

Once I felt the sting of how hard it was to get rid of that bottles remains… I had my answer for what was best for me.

So deciding to “cope differently” to get “different results” I started to channel my energy, emotions, and time into a few very simple things I considered “healthy” and worthwhile. Instead of getting drunk on my weekends without kids and crying in my bathtub…I sat and moped for a few min. *still cried in the tub* Gathered my wits, and did things like write this poem instead.