I’m back …………….

I’m back.  Sorry for disappearing without explanation.  Honestly, I think I just got tired of the counting drinks.  Funny, many people have questioned why I go to all the work.  Most or all of these people think that it is just easier to quit and that is what I should do.  But, I don’t want to.  I do admit, however, that the counting and all the stress of monitoring my drinking did get to me.   Thus, I took a break from posting.  I never intended for it to last 5 months, but it did.

 What many of you want to know is “how was my drinking during that time?”.  I can honestly say that I am sure that I went over my 15 drinks a week a number of weeks, but far from all.  The worst drinking was over a 2 week stretch of the Christmas holiday.  BMy drinking never came close to the point it was during my big drinking days, not even over the Christmas holiday.  I wish I could say that those days are over and I had no desire to drink more than I did.  The truth is some days I did and some days I didn’t, but the one thing that always seems to keep me from going overboard is the fear of having someone in my family, primarily my wife, see me drunk and suggest I stop again.

 When I went over the edge about 4 years ago, I got to a point where I could not stop.  I could not go one single day without at least one drink.  I never came close to that this time.  I remember when I was getting ready to ask for help (this phase lasted over a year), I was scared to death of thought of quitting, either for a short period of time or permanently.   As this January came around, I headed into my annual 4 weeks of sobriety.  I think this is my 4^th or 5^th year not drinking for 4 weeks in January.  This year, as in past years, I did not fear it at all.  I did not dread it at all.  I really looked forward to it.  Why?  One, because I felt I needed it from drinking too much in December.  Two, because I think it helps me mentally to know that I can do it on my own.  And, three, just because I start each year with a health kick that always includes some dietary change that I won’t waste blog time with.

 This year my goal was to go from Jan 2^nd to Jan 31^st.  Well, I already blew it, but don’t feel guilty at all.  I blew it because my wife and I were invited to a friend’s birthday celebration at a very expensive restaurant.  When I first told my wife that I would not break my dry spell, even she said I was crazy.  Crazy because there was going to be very good wine, the kind that we cannot regularly afford.  So, with my wife’s blessing and encouragement, I went off the dry train for one day and picked up the next day. 

 Other than the birthday party, the dry train has been very, very easy.  I will admit to having a few small cravings on a recent Friday night, but that passed with food.   And, on the weeknights, I have had absolutely no cravings at all.

 I don’t feel guilty for the one night as I was not looking for excuses to drink.  If I were, I could have found many.   While I was on day 3, I met a bunch of high school friends at a restaurant for a few drinks.  I think they were all still in holiday mode as the drinks were consumed in large quantities.  I stayed for 2 hours and drank nothing but water and it felt good.

 Now, what happens after 1/31.  Well, I haven’t quite figured it out yet.  However, I am thinking of a new  plan, something different from counting out 15 drinks a week.  One with a little less work, but also riskier.  My current plan in draft stage is to buy one 1.75 liter of vodka at the beginning of every month.  By my calculations that comes out to just over 9 drinks each week.  Considering, I really do not drink that much beer and wine (actually very little beer), I think I can be safe in saying I can have as much beer and wine as I want, but will not buy any more vodka if I run out.

Now, I know many of you are thinking that this could backfire in a huge way.  However, I really don’t drink that much beer and wine, primarily because I almost always drink beer and wine in front of my wife.  They are not like vodka where I can easily drink a 3 oz shot in the basement by myself.   I don’t run to the basement and chug a glass or 2 of wine.  I don’t hide the wine and beer.  So, that would leave me about 6 beer and wine drinks for the weekends (to add up to 15 total after the 9 vodkas), which is more than I normally drink.  I don’t usually drink Mon-Thurs.

 This plan would reduce the stress of counting while still having controls in place.  So, that is where I am at now.  I know many of you are thinking, that if I am really enjoying a sober January, why not just keep going?  Well, because I like to drink. Others of you are thinking “well, the plan sounds risky, but it might work if you buy a liter of vodka each month, instead of the 1.75”. Still others may think, why not just cut out the vodka all together and just stick with the beer and wine. Well, these are probably things I SHOULD do, and may do down the road. I am just not ready yet.

Back in moderation mode

Well, I am back in moderation mode.  I did over drink in the summer, especially the latter part of August.  I am not sure what happened, but I just kind of gave up on the moderation.   And, if I didn’t know already, if I don’t have strict limits on my drinking, I will drink too much.

 I did not go crazy.  I never got staggering drunk or got in any trouble.  My wife said something to me one night suggesting I looked buzzed, but I brushed if off and that was it. 

 I will need to make note of this for next summer.  For now I am back on schedule with my 15 drinks a week, and even plan to make up for some of my over drinking.  For the next couple of weeks I will keep it to 10 or even less.  It should be pretty easy as I will not buy any vodka for 2 weeks.    I may go longer, but I have a birthday coming up in a couple of weeks.  I know, I know a lame excuse.  But, I will not allow it as an excuse to go over my 15 drink a week limit.  Just as an excuse to back to 15 from whatever lower number I end up at for the next 2 weeks.

 Business is very busy, basketball is back in full swing and I have a major presentation coming up on 9/19 to over 100 business people at a country club.  I certainly have no room for alcohol in my life during the work week.

 

 

I have been bad

Sorry for not updating this summer.

Honestly, I have slipped.  It started 4^th of July week.  Having the 4^th on a Wed through me off.  I drank on Tuesday since I had Wed off, then we had a BBQ at my house on the 4^th and I drank then as well.  Drinking 2 days during the week when I am usually dry put me over for the week.

Each week since, I have gone over my limit of 15, not by a lot, and not in increasing amounts, but over just the same.  I think there has been simply too much temptation with people visiting from out of town and too many opportunities to go out mid week.  Time and time again, I just said screw it, I am still in control  and “it is summer”.

This past week is the only time I went significantly over.  One of my best friends died this past Friday at the age of 51 from liver failure.  He and I have known each other since we were 7 years old.  He basically drank himself to death.  One might think that would be a cause NOT to drink. But, myself and friends did the opposite and had many toasts to our buddy.

So, there it is. With the funeral coming up and some out of town guest coming, I have pretty much resigned myself to not getting back on track until Labor Day. 

This is not a good thing and I am not  making excuses; however, I can at least say that work is good, my workouts at the gym are good and other than going over my drinking limits and my buddy passing away, all is pretty good.  My drinking has not even come close to my old levels from years back.   But, I know, if I don’t get back on track soon, things will change for the worse.

Surfing the urge

I knew I was behind on postings, but didn’t realize it had been 3 weeks.  Probably the main reason is that I have gone over 2 weeks in a row and didn’t want to admit it.  How much, I can’t say for sure. I have mentioned this before and should have learned from prior mistakes, but the problem is I stopped measuring the drinks.  I have kept mostly to my dry days Mon-Thurs, and kept mostly to 15 drinks a week.  But, when I don’t measure the drinks to 1.5 oz, I can and did go over.  I know because I backtracked after finishing a 1.75 liter bottle of vodka.  After doing the math, I knew I had gone over my 15 per week drink limit. 

 Honestly, I think I knew I was doing it and kept doing it anyway.  Is that a problem? Absolutely.  Is this where I realize that alcohol is trying to sneak back into my life in a bad way?  Maybe, not sure about that.  What I need to do; however, is start measuring again.

 Another thing I noticed is that the cravings to drink on week nights have come back, a little.  I would think that it could be the result of any of the following:

- result of the extra drinking on the weekends.

- summer time

- or because I have been working out less

- or a combination of all 3

 What I mean by the working out less is that after working out 6 days a week including 3 days of basketball for a long time, my body became run down and I had several nagging injuries that wouldn’t go away.  So, I took 4 days off one week and then 3 the next, all mid week. When I don’t have to get up at 5am to exercise, it is easier to say, what the heck,  I will have a drink.

 The good news is that except on one occasion, I have not acted on it thanks to things I have learned in the past. The first is one I have mentioned many times, I eat a lot, more than usual anyway. It works almost every time that when my stomach gets full, I lose the urge to drink.  The other way around the urge works in combination with the first, and that is to “surf the urge”.  People in AA and Moderation Management talk about this often.  In AA, when you have an urge to drink, you call someone.  The thought is that urges pass over time, sometimes it takes minutes or it can be hours.  You just have to get through a short period and it tends to go away.  For me, rather than call someone, I eat. The combination works well and an hour later, I have lost the urge to drink and am very glad I did not succumb. 

 Anyway, that is my update.  Tough week coming up with the 4^th and all.

How much does that vodka “really” affect me

2 weeks behind again but all is well, kind of.  I did go over a bit on Memorial Day weekend, by about 4 drinks (19).  However, I am not going to beat myself up over it.  I think that most people who drink will drink more during a 3 day weekend than a 2 day weekend. 

If I should be alarmed at anything is that I had planned not to drink on Memorial Day and I did. I had already had 15 drinks on Fri, Sat and Sun. And, I know that a 4^th day of drinking in a row would have affected my work on Tuesday.  However, a friend came over for the day with partner and son and we all ended up having a bunch of beers in my back yard. I guess the good news is that this all happened earlier in the day, between 1 and 4pm. And, I was able to stop drinking when the left.

 The rest of my “program” over the last 2 weeks has been on schedule with no drinking Mon-Thurs and 15 on the weekends.

 I was in Manhattan recently on a business appointment and I noticed a number of business people drinking over lunch.  That is something I don’t see much of these days, so it caught my eye.   It made me think about something.  I have always had this feeling that I have a very high tolerance to alcohol (see prior posts if you can find them regarding how people process alcohol differently).  Yet, I cannot drink while working.  What I mean by that is even a little bit, like a 3 oz glass of wine throws off my whole day. I have trouble concentrating and focusing after putting any alcohol in my system. 

 Yet, when I am not working, I can drink 8 vodka drinks in 2 hours and hardly feel anything.    Really?  The lesson to me is that I may not feel like those vodka drinks are affecting me; however, if 3 oz of wine can throw off a whole work day, the vodka is probably doing a lot more damage than I realize.

The Stop button

Many of the problem drinkers/alcoholics (still don’t know where the line is drawn) I have met say that their biggest problem is not having an off switch.  After that first drink, it is off to the races and they can’t stop.   While I can’t say that has never been a problem for me, it has not been a big problem.  My problem was not being able to go a day without booze, even if it was one or two drinks.

 Yesterday, I had a late business meeting that ended around 6:30pm.  I was with 2 partners from my organization and we all decided to stop for a beer after the meeting to discuss how it went.  I rarely drink on Thursdays, but this felt like a perfectly good reason to make an exception.  I am happy to say that my off button worked just fine. After one beer, I had no desire for another.  It helped that none of us had a second, but I can honestly say that had my associates ordered a second, I would have declined.

 Then, I had to deal with the walk through the train station and the train ride. This used to be a huge problem for me. Night after night I would say that I was not going to drink, yet “every” night I picked up a beer, usually a 24 oz. Last night, I had absolutely no interest in a beer for the train.  One and I was done for the night.  Even with plenty of wine, beer and vodka in the house, I had no interest.  Of course it also helped that I had basketball at 5:30am, but hey, whatever works.

Busy is a good thing to keep the drinking low

Sorry for the gap in my posts.  I expanded my business by purchasing a new franchise territory as of May 1st.  What this means for me right now is a lot of extra work.  Hopefully, it will pay off financially down the road.

On top of that, if you have read any of my recent posts, I have been competing in a speech contest.  The last round was this past Saturday night where I presented in front of 300 people.  I did not win but it was an awesome experience.

The other good news is that both expanding the business and practicing for the speech has kept my drinking low.  I have been sticking with my dry days Mon-Thurs.  This past week leading up the contest, I added Friday as well and did not have my first drink of the week until after 9pm on Saturday night.  I felt I needed to stay dry to prepare for the contest.   I think 6 days dry in a row accomplished that (sun-sat).  It sure was good to have a stiff shot of vodka after the contest though.  I was well under my 15 max for the week.

I can tell you those 6 dry days really felt good.  It just proves that even 15 drinks a week can affect you.  Some will of course say, “then why drink at all?”.  My answer is that I also enjoy drinking and I think that 15 drinks is a good balance between the 2.

For the other weeks that I missed reporting on, I was right at my maximums of 15 drinks for the week.

Excuses NOT to drink

I can come up with a million reasons to drink. One of the ways to counteract that is to have as many as possible reasons not to drink.  I have discussed this many times. 

 Some of my reasons for not drinking are to be a responsible parent and husband and to be a responsible business owner.  However, it is the more specific activities that help week after week.   As of now, those are: basketball, softball, public speaking, important business appointments and any time I have to drive somewhere.  I need to make sure I have a constant stream of these activities scheduled each week to give me enough excuses not to drink, especially on the weekends.

 This past weekend I ended up with 12 drinks, 3 under my 15 max. The reason was because I had a very important speech contest last night (Mon).  Not only did I need a clear head to practice on Sunday, I needed to be at my best come speech time.  So, my normal 5 or 6 Sunday drinks did not fit into my schedule.

 As it turns out, I had 3 on Sunday, all after 5pm when I was done practicing, but still too many.  I will admit, yesterday (Sun) was a tough day. The drinking urges were very strong, but the desire to do well in the contest was stronger.  I decided to give myself a reward, however, and allow myself to have the 3 drinks I was under last week after the speech contest last night. 

 I won the contest and had the drinks. I enjoyed them and felt I earned them. For the record, I know this is cheating, but I am counting them for last week.  Again, I think I earned it.

 The real good news is that winning the contest gave me another reason not to drink, that is the next contest.  At the next level, I will be delivering the speech to over 300 people in May.  Since the next contest is on a Saturday, I plan to not drink Mon-Sat, or at least until after the speech on Sat.  I will need to be at my best, and that means no alcohol.

A busy schedule keeps the booze away

Sorry I missed my update last week.  The week before last I went over by 2.  Easter Sunday is what got me. I thought I planned accordingly, but still went over.

 It started with an annual Easter Egg Hunt/picnic for family and friends at 11am. This is not your typical city or recreation Easter Egg Hunt.  It is complete with Bloody Mary’s and beer. Then, I cooked dinner for 14 family members at my house.  I had 2 drinks at the picnic, then took a couple of hours off, but still ended up having 7 before the day was over.  That put me at 17 for the week, 2 over my 15 limit.

 Last week I ended up at 15 with 4 dry days.  What made it easier was that I had softball practice at 6:30pm on Sunday night.  Typically, I would have had a handful of drinks by 6:30 on Sunday night.  However, because of softball, I waited until after practice to have a few drinks.

 This week I think I will be at or under 15.  I went dry Mon and Tues but had a drink last night.  Why?  Well, I have many excuses. The one I used last night was that I enjoyed a beer to wind down after giving a speech.  I gave a speech at 8pm.  Speeches always get me nervous, excited, and edgy so I had a beer with dinner when I got home.

 Next Monday night I am at the 3^rd level of a speech contest.  Therefore, I plan to go dry on Sunday so that I am at my best on Monday.  This should make it easy to keep within my limits.

 One would think that family and job would be enough to not drink, but having things like basketball, softball and speech contest help quite a bit.

 

Drinking and driving

December is done and I survived. As mentioned in my last post, I did not count.  I did go over my limits, but don’t think I went too overboard.

 The one thing that kept me in check was I had to drive a lot, not far, but a lot.  And, since drinking and driving don’t mix, I ended up waiting to late in the day when I was home to get buzzed. 

 I did learn a nice trick. Actually, it is not new, but I made good use of it this holiday season.  I have lots of relatives within a mile. When visiting one of them, I will hold off drinking for a while, then tell my wife I am going home to get our dog.  While home, I take a hefty shot of vodka and bring some more with me.  I then tell my wife who is not much of a drinker, that she needs to drive home while I walk home with the dog.  This allows me to get a nice buzz and enjoy the party without the risk of drinking and driving.

 To many people, the thought that someone would plan like this is disturbing.  Only an alcoholic or at least someone with a drinking problem would think like that.  But, is it really crazy?  I am ashamed to admit it, but among my family and circle of friends, most simply drank to excess and drove home anyway, often with kids.   I think their thinking was that because it was just a short distance, it really was ok to drink and drive. 

 So, I ask which way of thinking is more troubling?  The guy who hides shots of vodka and plans how he doesn’t have to drive, or the one that drives drunk.  Of course you will say both.  Unfortunately, that is not the world I live, nor do most of you I suspect.

 I can also admit that I don’t drink and drive mainly because I don’t want to get caught.  I am cocky enough to believe that even with a BAC of .15 I drive better than the majority of the people on the road.   I often walk my dog through our commercial district in town and it seems like every person I see is talking on a cell phone or texting while driving.  I even see parents doing it with their teenage children sitting next to them.  Nice example.

 So as not to contradict anything I said in a prior blog post, I also have engrained in my memory the thought of the mom holding her 6 year old daughter’s decapitated head in the back of a limo after it was severed in a crash with a drunk driver a few years back.  That certainly deters me as well; however, fear of getting a DUI is the main reason I don’t drive.  At least I don’t do it.

 The one day that I know I went overboard over the holidays was yesterday.  I had 14 drinks.  It was spread out over 10 hours, but still a lot for one day.  I think the reason I did it was because I knew it was my last day drinking for 4 weeks.  Today, I start my annual dry January, well at least 4 weeks.  I will not drink from Mon 1/2 until Mon 1/30.  It seems like it would make sense to just finish the month out, but I am traveling to Chicago on business on 1/30.  I know that when I am done,  will have a drink or 2 with some of my work peers. 

I have actually been looking forward to a dry 4 weeks.  I know that is easy to say tonight as I am usually dry Mon-Thurs anyway.  I might change that thought come the weekend, but I don’t think so.

 Happy New Year …..