Tuesday, September 28, 2010

A Change Will Do You Good

Today I'm thankful for changes and heaters in cars.

Day 13 (I'm pretty sure):Good morning to my loyal readers, all two of you. Did I mention I love comments? Anyhow… Years and years ago I went to comedy club in Denver and I remember something one of the comics said. He was a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. He said he would snort a little coke and that would make him too nervous and jittery so he'd drink some beer to bring him down then he'd get to feeling to down so he'd snort a little coke….In the end, he said, he figured out he was just trying to feel normal. (That's all I remember about that night except that he was very intolerant of us drunks in the audience. I hope he found a new venue for his act.) So this morning I felt a little jittery so my first thought was to have just a little Jack Daniels to smooth things out. Old habits die a slow death. But I didn't and it was just for nanosecond that I actually considered it.

The good news is that the jitters are not from alcohol withdrawal, it's been 13 days so I hope I'm past that. These were caffeine jitters. I thought while I was giving up alcohol I might as well revamp my whole life. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell my system. I used to mix my JD with diet Pepsi and as you know I drank a lot of JD and diets. Well now, that I'm not cutting my diet Pepsi with JD I got concerned about the amount of caffeine I was drinking so I switched to decaf Pepsi. However, in the morning I still drink Diet Mountain Dew (I've never been a coffee drinker) and unfortunately they don't make a decaf Mountain Dew. I mean that's kind of Mountain Dew's whole purpose. So this morning I've got a little caffeine rush. I can live with that.

Oh and I'm also on a diet. Too much at once? I thought so too. But one night I was having one of my late night chats with God:

Me: I'm thinking about going on a diet but that's probably too much right now.

God: Why's that?

Me: I should probably just concentrate on my not drinking right now. My whole focus should be on that.

God: Why's that?

Me: Well, that's what "everybody" says.

God: Who is "everybody"?

Me: The authorities on the subject. All the organizations.

God: What am I? Chopped Liver?

Me: Well, what do you think?

God: You're asking moi? I am honored. Seriously Kary, I think now is the time to try to make all those changes that you wanted to make but drinking wouldn't allow you to. Change your life as much as you can for the better so that you have even more reasons not to go back to drinking. The better your new life is the more unrecognizable and unattractive your old life will be.

Me: That makes sense.

God: You think?

Me: What if I fail?

God: At least you tried and isn't that what this is all about. What if you succeed? You sure as hell can't do that if you don't try. If you fail, just get right back up and try again. God knows, I mean, I know you're good at that.

Me: Okay, I'll try

God: That's my girl.

So I'm going through some reconstruction here and just like all construction projects there's a lot of debris. I have to tear some things down before I can rebuild and I'm sure there will be a lot of do-overs but hopefully the finished product will be better than even I expect. So along with the not drinking, I'm dieting. I have a problem eating when I'm drinking heavily and I do lose weight but I don't think that's a good diet plan. I'm pretty sure the toothpick legs, nine month gestation cirrhotic belly is not a good look for me. I'm also exercising and writing. I was reading the moderation board the other day and several of the posters said they used drinking to slow them down. Hell, it didn't just slow me down it paralyzed me. Now, I lay in bed at night and instead of passing out my mind races with thoughts and ideas. I worried for a bit that I might be manic but I figured out that this was just a backlog of brain activity that had been dammed up by alcohol.

So today I'm out there doing my best to stay normal and change at the same time.

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