last week did not go as planned

Last week didn’t go quite as well as I hoped.  I knew I was going over my limit for the golf tournament, but I had planned to still average 15 drinks a week for the week before and the week of the golf day.  The week before, I had a decent start with 12 drinks, 3 short (I know in my last post I said it was 13, but I recounted and it was 12). So, that means I could have 18 for the golf week.  I had nine on the golf day leaving me with 9 for the rest of the week.

I felt pretty good about it and started by going dry Tues, Wed, Thurs and having 2 on Friday.  I had planned to have 5 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday.  I failed.  My wife and I dropped off our daughter at a friend’s house on Saturday eve and went out to dinner to celebrate her 50^th birthday.    I ended up having 4 drinks secretly and split a bottle of wine with my wife over dinner. Since there is about 5 drinks in a bottle of wine, that means I had 6.5 for the night.  I did not drive.

At this point, I still didn’t feel too bad, but for whatever strange reason, I had 6 more on Sunday.  In the end, what I effectively did was to treat the golf day as an extra day and had almost 15 (my limit) during the rest of the week. I tried to look back and think about what went wrong on Sunday and what the triggers might have been, but there really was no reason, I just did it.

Even more alarming was that I had my first drink on Sunday around noon.  So, I never got drunk.  I think I had about one drink an hour for 6 hours, but still not a good thing.  OK, so I move on. 

This week I had planned to go sober Mon – Thurs.  But I went to a Toastmasters meeting Monday night and found out there was a small party afterwards with wine and appetizers.  I really didn’t want to stay as it was 9pm before the party started and had hoped to say good night to my daughter before she fell asleep, but I was visiting another club and really did want to stay and network.

The good news is that someone offered to pour me a glass of wine and I agreed.  But, the first pour was only about 2 oz.  In the past when I was boozing more and would have been looking for a buzz I would have been mortified, 2 oz’s: are you kidding me !!!  However, on this night I was glad.  I chatted for a while, poured myself about 2 more oz’s, sipped and enjoyed.  Amazing, I had about 4 oz of wine over a half hour period.  It felt normal and I enjoyed it.

Sober last night, sober tonight, sober Thursday will complete my 3 days dry minimum for the week.  Then, I have to prepare myself to stay under control for my wife’s birthday party this Saturday. We are having about 42 family and friends at our house and I am doing all of the cooking.  My first goal will be to delay my first drink until around 5pm. The party starts at 3pm.

Golf went ok

I say the golf day was mixed. The good news is that I had about 8 drinks on the golf course and one at the picnic after for a total of 9.   That breaks down to 8 drinks between 10am and 4pm (the others in my 4some started drinking at 9am) and then only one drink between 4pm and 9pm.  I walked home.

The bad news is that I had about 8 drinks on the golf course.  8 drinks over a 6 hour period is not a lot, but it was too much for a 95 degree day.  I had this feeling that I needed to get my drinking in early so that I was not that buzzed when I got home.  I would have had more fun if I had 3 drinks on the golf course and 4 or 5 at the picnic.  As the picnic went on you could see people including my brother and a bunch of my cousins were starting to get buzzed and having a great time singing songs etc.  I was now sobering up and feeling the effects of a long day drinking in the sun.

The problem is that I didn’t want to go home buzzed so I did it backwards.  Had I reversed it and had just 3 drinks on the course and 4 or 5 at the picnic, I would have enjoyed both better. Oh well, live and learn. At least I didn’t keep drinking after golf and go home sloppy drunk.  I was able to stop and had one less than I planned on. I consider that a success.  Also, I finished up the prior week with only 13 drinks, 2 less than allowed. That was kind of in preparation for what I knew was coming on Monday.

Going over the limit on Monday …

This coming Monday, I am going to go over my 5 drink limit, not sure how much, but I will.  I knew this months ago. I am not a golfer but play one day a year in a charity tournament named in memory of my father. Golf will be in the morning and early pm followed by a great picnic until around 9pm.  There will be around 100 people, most whom I have known for many years, many cousins and old friends. There will be a lot of drinkers there.  

 2 and 3 years ago, I stayed sober the whole day as I was in AA at the time. Last year I had around 5 drinks as I had a softball game in the eve and needed to be somewhat alert. Unfortunately for me, the game was right next to the picnic area so I got a lot of harassment.  This year I am figuring around 10 drinks, but they will be spread out over about 10 hours.  I do not have to drive at any point during the day. (you probably wouldn’t consider my shots off the tee drives either as I suck at golf.)

 Helping keep me in check will be my wife.  She won’t be there but I am sure she will be a bit worried.  I will tell her I am drinking but not how much.  I can not come home drunk and with 10 drinks in 10 hours I won’t be.

 This week has gone well. I stayed dry the last 4 days in a row, Mon-Thur.  Today is our last softball game of the season. So, I expect I will have a beer after the game and a couple when I get home.

Dangerous week …

Last week was interesting.  I made my goal of 15 drinks for the week and went dry three days, but went over by one and had six on Sunday.   There were two areas of potential danger that I will have to be on the lookout for, especially given that I went over my weekly and daily on the prior week.

On Saturday, I had my first drink at around 11am.  I have not done that for a long time.  Starting too early in the day was a big problem for me in the past and something I will need to avoid going forward if I am going to be able to moderate effectively.   Even more dangerous is that I told myself early in the day that I didn’t really care how far I went over my daily limit of  five as long as I stayed under the 15 for the week.  I was prepared to even go has high as 10 (borrowing from Sunday) and go dry on Sunday.  Luckily, that did not happen.

The positive thing that happened was that after a couple of drinks before noon, I did not have the desire to keep going and did not have my 3^rd drink until around 6pm. I then had 3 drinks between 6 and 9, completing 5 for the day.  Overall, not bad considering I never got drunk and really had nothing more than a tiny buzz.  But, I recognize, it could have gone bad.  In the past, working in the yard by myself was a trigger and that is what I was doing.  I had some vodka in the garage that had been there for quite a while. I saw it and just said wtf and took a drink, not good.

Sunday was disappointing because I have not had six drinks on the day before a work day in a long time. And, with my business not going well, that is not a smart thing to do.  I did feel the effects a little on Monday morning, but did not have what I would call a hangover.

Overall, I am not too concerned that I am slowly slipping back into my old ways, but it is something I am cognizant of and will have to watch closely.  It all seemed much easier a month ago.

Had a slip ….

I disappeared again for the last couple of weeks as I lost my computer again, crashed and had to be mailed back to HP (again).  While using my wife’s computer, I am careful not to leave any tracks so I do not add to the blog.

Well, I had a slip last weekend.  I went over both my daily and weekly limits.  I don’t know exactly how much I drank as I didn’t count and no longer keep track by how much I buy.  I can tell you it was still below what I was drinking a year ago, but I went over my daily limit on 7/4 at a party and that put me over my week limit of 15 as well.

I think what set it off was stress.  At the end of last week I lost a big deal that I had been counting on.  Actually, I didn’t lose it or at least not yet. It was postponed for a couple of months.  Work has not been going well and money is tight, so it stressed me out.

Thinking back it was a similar situation to what I was going through 3 years ago when I first went for help.  The company I was working for back then was struggling and I was downsized.  After a very good 11 year career with that company, all of the sudden everything was crumbling and I didn’t know what I was going to do.  My drinking went way up.

I should know better now to recognize such triggers.  Actually, I think I did recognize it. I just really didn’t care, I felt like letting lose for a weekend and I actually enjoyed it.  Now it is time to rebound and get back on track.  Increasing my drinking would only make it tougher to make a go of this business that I have invested so much into.  So, today I start over again.