Day three - In the shadow of our pale companion

 If I look at the official definition of an alchoholic, I'm not one. At least I don't think I am. 

I always liked drinking : I began in my teens, drinking beer and wine, but rarely straying from that. Even today, I rarely ever touch the harder stuff, my stomach doesn't quite agree with it. I'll have a shot or a cocktail every now and then, but it's wisest if I don't mix things up very much.

As I grew into my adult age, things didn't overly change - I'd mainly drink in a social way, or more rarely at home. There were way too many times when I drank myself sick, to my eternal regret, but eventually I (mostly) strarted to learn my limits. But about a decade or so I began this ritual, part of which I still do : every wednesday evening, I'd draw a long, hot bath, and while in it I'd drink a bottle of red wine. It was only once a week, what could it hurt? What it eventually led to was me drinking a bottle of wine almost every night.

And here's the thing : I rarely felt that urge to go out and buy booze just because, I can safely say that for the most part the actual drinking was a source of pleasure. Not only just the drinking by itself, naturally, but eating crap along with it, then drinking a big bottle of Coke every day to help with the hangover, and also I sort of but not really felt like I was sleeping better because I was drinking. I wasn't, I still don't sleep as well I should.

But... this escalated a bit these past few years. Probably last year was the worst one - I went from drinking a bottle of wine to drinking wine and beer, then to two bottles and ultimately to three - though these didn't occur very frequently because they made me feel like I was truly stretching my limits. The thing is, I can (and could) stop (and stopped) anytime. I haven't drank at home for a while now, nor do I feel that urge that the truly addicted feel. I can do fine without the booze. But having ingested untold gallons of poison surely helped me arrive at where I am now. I don't now nor have I ever felt the need to search for any kind of help; in this instance I always knew that I had the strength in me to commit to stopping. 

I do ponder if the mental energy that I have to allocate for that task keeps me from having the strength I need to feel for the other, just as important, things I have to work on. 

So one step in me moving forward is to sever all ties with the poison I imbibed. As I wrote so so long ago in a story I published in a long defunct blog, though possibly not quite verbatim because I dare not revisit that piece of the past at this very moment, 'Let water be your best friend'.