Monday, March 16, 2009

Moderation

Moderation is a place I'd like to live in. One where a few drinks here and there are nothing, and they don't drive one to buy liquor to fill in the next day (or two, or three).

Moderation doesn't seem to be in my body in any way, shape, or form. The only thing that keeps me from putting something I like (like red wine) into my body is an actual physical consequence. And, like most people, it needs to be a fairly immediate consequence. Like most humans, it's very hard for me to internalize the long term and make it real.

Goddamn evolution. Providing all the incentive to eat the "tastiest" stuff and none of the will power to say, "there will be more of this tasty stuff tomorrow", so you can shut off the "need to eat" for today.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

An on again, off again thing

This blog has turned out to be. I'm drinking tonight, so you know the sobriety hasn't stuck yet.

It's long past the hour I usually pass out and I'm still awake. This always makes me hopeful. That, and the fact that I haven't consumed the normal quantity of alcohol yet.

I've been, fairly honestly trying to quit again for about three weeks. The good news is that I have managed to cut back. I'm mildly OCD. This is part of why the alcohol is so hard to kick: when I set a routine it Must Be Followed, and the alcohol is a deep ingrained part of the routine. I've been working hard at modifying The Routine with some success.

Before, I used to drink two glasses before dinner, then one immediately after, and continuing on at a rate of about one every 30-45 minutes until I passed out or reached the bottom of the second bottle of wine (have I mentioned that I'm a wino?). Since trying to modify, I've almost entirely eliminated one glass before dinner. Occasionally I am still drinking that second glass, and those are the nights I crash the hardest.

I really do want to quit, but there are honestly two people inside my head most of the time now, the sober one and the alcoholic. The alcoholic is persuasive, to say the least, and the sober one is so uptight that morphing into the alcoholic seems like a release from the strain. I know there are better ones, but the alcoholic is the easy answer. Who doesn't like an easy answer?