Vacation Sober

Ahhh. Vacation! Yes!

I started writing this before we left but I didn't get a chance to post it, so well, here it is from the beginning:

      I am really looking forward to our vacation at the beach. We are going to unplug! No electronics! The funny part is that I am hoping that I will be ok with that; little addicted to it all? Hmmm maybe.

So I was sitting here at my desk, and thinking about what I have learned about being sober on vacation, and I was trying to remember what my vacations were like when I was drinking. And you know what? I don't remember. I can not remember! OMG. I know I took vacations, well, maybe I did not? No there had to be some. Well, I don't know if I don't remember because I was always drunk or because I just didn't go. Probably a little of both. Sigh.

Our last vacation was exhausting. Yep. That's what I remember the most and that it seemed as if everyone around us was drinking. We stayed at a kid friendly resort; it actually advertised itself as kid friendly! So naturally we thought it would be "safe" right? I mean parents don't drink around their kids right? Wrong. At the pool, in the game room, at the snack stand - they were drinking everywhere. I didn't expect this at all. But of course there is a big difference between how I would have drank and how these people drank! This was two years ago with 3 years sober and I found myself very envious and resentful. The "why me" hang over me the first few days and I couldn't shake it. They seemed like normal folk, aren't we normal folk? Ugh. Well no, in a way we are not. But, today I have to say, that I feel much more confident in my sobriety. So I am hoping that I will not have such a hard time :)

 Read more about my last vacation: Sober Vacation

      And now sitting in the car, on our way back from the beach, I am exhausted again! It was all just none stop, go, go go! But we had an awesome time! I have actually learned how to focus on those great moments and be grateful for them! And I took a billion pictures, with my phone, because I forgot my camera! Yep! Building new memories! These are the "Good old days!" - As my sponsor says!

And yes, once again there was drinking around us! Strangely enough, way less than at the kid friendly resort, but... I still had the same feelings of resentment that they could and I couldn't. Yep. Still there, at least for the first day. Good grief, it is hard to believe that It is still so easily to get my mind wrapped up in the illusion of glamorous drinking. I must say I admire the people that say they were able to put down the drink and never look back! That's not me I guess, and well, that's OK. With time, it has become much easier, that is for sure. I definitely don't have the same cravings and craziness in my mind as I used to have in the first year or so of sobriety.

I think the difference now is that I have my tools and I actually use them; it has sort of become a habit! I immediately look for things I can do to get my mind in different direction, instead of letting myself dwell on the feelings and letting them fester. Usually I first tell someone, like my sponsor or my husband who is also in recovery - but they were not available because I was at the pool with the two older kids when my first drinking feelings came on. So then I knew I just needed to stop staring and focusing on the drinking people, so, I got in the pool and chased my kids around pretending to be a shark! Lol! In a matter of minutes I had totally forgotten about being resentful. Lol! Good times! Later, I cheated with the no electronics rule a bit, well the phone doesn't count does it? - so I read a whole bunch if great blogs; that is a great tool, I tell ya it is so nice to have this cyber support that you can access at any time!  I am so grateful to be sober, and to all the sober bloggers, thank you!

-Maggie

The Mental Obsession.

I don't often have a lot of free time on my hands. Why? It's not cause I can't have any. It's because I intentionally avoid it. It seems that when I have too much free time, my mind automatically tries to fathom some elaborate plan to drink.

In the past I actually drank many times after creating these elaborate plans. Except the plans never ended quite right. The plan always started with trying to secretly get drunk and then sober up before I had to do whatever I needed to do later.  It always made sense; I could drink till like 3p, then have 2 hours to sober up and pick up my kids. Yes that sounded perfect, but it never ended that way; I would continue to drink and not be able to pick up my kids, or go to work, or meet someone. It was very clear that when I stared drinking I never knew what would happen.

Yet I worked really hard on making these crazy plans. I think this is part of the mental obsession that the AA literature talks about. It only seem to have made sense to me, no one else. And it absolutely made no sense. Who does that? Alcoholics that's who!! Normal people don't think about drinking in the way we do. Normal people don't create plans to drink and get away with it. Normal people don't drink like us. They do not have the mental obsession like I do. 

But in sobriety I don't have to do any of this. I can make better decisions. I have choices!