Tuesday, November 22, 2011

A Not So Subtle Reminder


Recall and reclaim the same passion for what you're doing that you felt when it was new.






Day 70


“Oh shit!” I thought as I rolled over in bed. I remembered I had got out of bed yesterday and I felt pretty good. And then it came crashing in. I drank the night before. Shit! Shit! Shit! Why???? I couldn’t remember. Still it couldn’t have been that bad or I wouldn’t feel as good as I did. I went out to the kitchen, the cap’n was already up. He gave me one of those old funny looks. The kind I used to dread. The kind I didn’t get any more. The kind I thought I’d never see again.

“What did I do?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“You don’t want to know,” the cap’n said.

“Tell me,” I pleaded, already sick at heart. “It’s worse not knowing and imagining the worst.”

The cap’n left the kitchen and came back with the black dress I had been wearing the night before. The smell of ammonia wafted up from the crushed material.

“I pissed myself?” I asked, mortified and so shamed.

How could I have let this happen again?

And now I lay there cringing in the dark, wanting to bawl. I hear a snore from the lump beside me. I sit up and look around. I’m home in my cabin on the mountain. I’ve been in hotel rooms for the last two nights. Just plain old hotel rooms with a king size bed, a microwave, and a small refrigerator. No kitchen, not even a kitchenette in sight.

“Thank God,” I whisper in the dark. “It was a dream.”

In the midst of mourning my traditional bottle or two or three of champagne that I’ve celebrated every holiday with for the last 20+years, I had this dream. I admit, I was considering that “special occasion” excuse and talking myself into just one. But I knew one wouldn’t be enough and shortly every day would become a “special occasion”, I just needed this dream to remind me. Of the shame. Of the heartbreak. Of the fear.

So today I’m out there just doing my best to conjure up something sparkly and bubbly just like yours truly plans to be on Thanksgiving Day and, thankfully, just like me it will be alcohol free. I’m taking suggestions. Someone on one of the boards suggested Ariel’s NA Champagne but I doubt I’ll be able to find that in my lovely little mountain village. They also suggested a virgin cosmo, I might have to shake that up.

7 comments:

  1. I didn't spot the day 70 at the top
    Ya scared me !

    Glad that pee soaked nighties are off the menu . Now there's a sentence I won't likely use again

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  2. Lmao

    Blogger must have either a crazy sense of humor or themed ads from the post . I just posted a comment - it returned me to the original post and there's an advertisement under it with blue writing saying "trouble with bladder control ?"

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  3. If pee soaked panties is the entree I don't want to see the dessert menu.

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  4. The Depends ad is displayed as I type this. lol

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  5. I have had a 'drinking nightmare' dream too - where I am waking up and just absolutely shattered that I have succumbed again. Oh the shame, the utter shame of it all.
    And then the quiet realization that it was just a dream and that I can get up and be free, just like that.
    I have been celebrating with a ginger beer - the tang is good and chilled even better. Congratulations!

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  6. Have a diet coke, smile and take in the new memories, friend....keep on keepin on, I learned that holidays are just like other days, just filled with more gratitude in sobriety.

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