I keep thinking about having a cigarette. I keep thinking I'll text Mr D asking him to bring a packet home with him after work. But then I think about actually having the cigarette and I feel kind of sick. So I don't do anything about it. But I keep thinking about it. I'm very stressed. I have 3 1/2 weeks to go until I get rid of this goddam piece of shit thesis.
I think about drinking in an abstract way like 'I used to have that option' but there are no real cravings there or gritty thought processes which is really interesting and quite heartening actually. 18 months sober and I'm under extreme stress about to deliver my MA and I'm not craving booze. That's good.
I certainly wouldn't win any "Calm Mother of the Year" awards right now though or "Loving Wife" accolades. I'm not a pretty stressed person by any stretch of the imagination. I'm a shouty, teary, unhealthy, tense, locked up stressed person. I think Mr D and the kids will be delighted when the normal me comes back.
But hey, I'm sober so yay for fucking me.
Some great things about being sober...
No hangovers.
No sick guts.
No headaches.
No avoiding things.
No crap sleeps.
No worry about my insides.
No spending lots of money on wine.
No overflowing recycling bin.
No guilt.
No addiction.
No crutch.
No embarrassment.
No worrying.
Some not so great things about being sober.
No avoiding how I feel.
No calming my stress.
No taking the edge off.
Other ways to achieve the above.
Exercise.
Positive thinking.
Trying really hard to do it on my own.
I'm a work in progress. I'm not really managing to do it on my own. Well, yes I am. I am doing it on my own but it involves a lot more outward stress on the people around me and I feel very messy, lurching from one emotional state to another. But maybe I just have to not worry about that and know that for all of us, the collective, me being sober is way better in the long run. I could be drinking my way through this stress but I'm not. So there's more shouting and tears but hey, at least it's real.
Real. Yes that I am.
Love, Mrs D xxxx
