Day 30

Eight years ago, I stopped drinking for close to two years and didn’t think twice about it.  At that point in my life, I was a competitive athlete and working with a personal trainer.  Alcohol was not part of my meal plan – neither was bread or fried foods – so I stayed away from it.  I cancelled my membership to a wine club which sent me two bottles of wine each month.  I was working toward a goal at the time, and I wanted to make sure that I did everything that I was supposed to do in order to receive the best outcome.  And I did.

What’s different now?

I think about that wine club membership – two bottles a month?  Before I stopped drinking this time, I was probably consuming a case of wine a month.  Today, I’m not working toward anything other than a healthier lifestyle.  Back then, I would drink every now and then, so it was easier to stop but this time it had become more of a habit.

Where do these things even begin?  When I used to smoke cigarettes, it started out with me only smoking in social situations.  I would never buy cigarettes; I was always the person who would “bum” one from someone else.  Eventually, that turned into a real habit and it was years before I quit for good.

It pretty much started the same way with alcohol – only drinking socially.  Although, when I moved into my first apartment after college, I thought it was a “cool” thing to have a bottle of wine in my refrigerator.  Not all the time – I may have done it once or twice.  Drinking socially was interesting because I never even knew what to order half the time.  Then Carrie Bradshaw introduced me to the Cosmopolitan and that became my drink.  The girls from Sex and the City made drinking look so damned glamorous and chic.  There was a time when I was on a quest to find what bartender made the best Cosmo in town.  After years of vodka, cranberry, triple sec and lime I switched to tequila.  Shots of tequila that is. Until finally I settled on wine.

Wine has been my drink of choice for more than 15 years and today I am 30 days alcohol-free. Back when I was training for the stage and not drinking, I never even thought about alcohol – not even on a cheat day.  I didn’t miss it and I didn’t want it.  I want to get back to that feeling.  I don’t have cravings, but I do think about it.  On Fridays, I think about how I used to stop at Total Wine on the way home from work to prepare for the weekend.  When I sit on my patio with a cup of coffee I think back to when I used to sit on the patio with a glass/bottle of wine.  I really would like those thoughts to stop entering my head.

I’m working on it.  I’m working on ways to shift my thinking whenever my wind wanders toward the bottle.  It’s a process and I’m grateful that those thoughts are just thoughts and never turn into action.

30 days, Baby.  😊