"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."
Overcoming Addiction Quote by Sun Tzu (544 BC - 496 BC)
Day 29
I know longer grieve the loss of alcohol, not much anyway, but I do still get urges. This weekend I had some of the strongest I've had this go around of abstinence. I wrote about the nostalgia of Fridays and I felt it Friday, by 2:00 pm my brain had done all it wanted to do. I wanted to keep writing but it stubbornly crossed its arms and stuck out its chin and said, "I'm done for the day." Old Drunk Kary May said, "If you gave it a little drinky-poo you could probably coax a couple more hours out of it and you'd probably get better ideas than you have all day. Luckily,Sober Kary May muttered out of the corner of her mouth, "Bullshit" and I listened. So I'm no further along in my bestseller but I'm not back to Day 5 either.
It was a lazy weekend. We had planned to go to El Paso and then cross to Juarez to buy some pesos while the price is good with the plan to save them to use down there this winter. However, we finally figured out that if we got shot down, the funeral expenses would cost more than the couple of hundred dollars we would make so we stayed put. By Sunday I was in an edgy mood, one of those where you feel like you should be doing something but there's nothing you want to do. I reminded myself of a 10 year old me whining to my mother, "I'm bored." And then shooting down every suggestion she had. So I went for a walk. While I was out walking I saw a young girl, probably about 13, riding her skateboard. I could smell her teenage girl smell as I walked by, a combination of some light youthful perfume (in my day it would have been Love's Baby Soft or Heaven Sent) and grape bubble-gum. She was really pretty and you could tell by the way she flipped her hair she knew she was going to be wreaking havoc among the high school boys in a year or so. She had the requisite boy "friend" trailing after her, the one that clearly adores her but she'd never think of as boyfriend material.
I was only a year older than her when I had my first drink. From that moment on I was always waiting for my next one. I want to talk to her, tell her not to let alcohol alter the path she is meant to take in any way. Not to let it even kick a pebble in her way much less hurl the boulders that it has in mine. She wouldn't listen, of course. I didn't.
Monday the cap'n had invited another temporary co-worker over to the apartment we are staying in for dinner. I think it says something for the trust he has regained in me to even invite someone considering the invites I've had to cancel in the last year because I was too drunk or hungover. I went out and bought a bottle of red and a bottle of white. It's been a long time since I've met someone new without the benefit of alcohol and I thought seriously about having a little glass of red while I was cooking. No one would know. But damnit, I would. So I didn't and after the initial introductions, I didn't even miss it. It was a nice evening and it was a relief not to have to be "on" all the time which is how I always felt when I was drinking. Never listening, always thinking of the next witty comment I could make. When the evening was over and the cap'n walked him out to his car he told the cap'n, "You're a winner, she's a real cutie." (I've always been a cutie, never a heartbreaker like the little girl on the skateboard is going to be) I could tell the cap'n was proud when he told me this and I was proud of myself, too and I can honestly say, "I don't regret not having that glass of red wine." That's another event under the sober belt with results that beat out the old drunk record.
A few minor victories, but victories none the less.
So today I'm just out there doing my best to catch my thoughts up and convince my brain that it's not Miller time.
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