Now I find just one thing that makes me forget

Detox day 35

RED RED WINE, or white, or rose, or sangria, although that has a lot of useless sugar and juice getting in the way of my beautiful numbing agent. Wine. If you love it, you know. I don't need to tell you. If the following sentences have ever left your lips before the glass touched them.

I cant wait to get home and have a glass of mommy's happy juice.

Why doesn't this box of wine come with a straw?

Just one glass. Ill take your biggest glass.

Wine ... Its whats for dinner.

Is it wine o'clock yet?

My love affair started off very innocently. I never drank in my 20's. In my early 30's I moved on to having a glass or two with girlfriends. An occasion on a Friday night to go with our meal. Or around a bon fire. I did not like beer at all. And hard liquor seemed like a party ender to me. So wine was an easy go to. It seemed so grown up and sophisticated. Then my ex husband left to Police Depot when I was 34. A 5 hour plane ride away and I was left with a 6 year old in a new apartment. We had sold our home so he would be able to move when he was placed after training. How does this relate to wine you ask? Well I have a secret. I was scared to death. OF EVERYTHING. Things that go bump in the night. Ghosts. The dark. Our creepy neighbor across the hall who was way too friendly. I was alone for the first time in my life. And on top of that I had to be the brave one for that little girl. Somewhere along the way I discovered wine made me ... not so scared. It kind of numbed me, stopped that inner dialogue and allowed me to drift off to a much needed dream land. And very soon an occasional glass became a nightly necessity.

So when my ex husband and i decided to go our separate ways when he graduated and I started immediately seeing a bartender who encouraged my wine consumption it was a lightning bolt mixed with a powder keg. Anyone with half a brain could have seen where this was going ... toxic emotionally as well as physically. I was poisoning my life on so many levels. He had a 14 beer a night habit ... A slow night was rare and it would be 8-9. So I kept up with him like any good girlfriend would. At first because it was fun, but later through much counseling i discovered it became survival ... I could only handle him if I too was drunk. And when we would go through our breakups ... the boy would leave but the wine would stay. After all at this point it had become my best friend, my confident, my medication, my counselor, my ritual. I would even go so far as to say it was part of my identity. In January of 2019 I bought the book, "how to stop drinking" by Allen Carr. I read it feverishly and ironically that was the beginning of the end of our relationship. On our 5 year anniversary he took me to our local watering hole. Me with green tea in hand. He sat down and ordered a beer and I thought, nope, I have to leave. If I don't this will always be my life. Its been two years and i would love to say I walked away from him and the wine. But alas the wine had turned out to be a harder thing to break up with. I honestly could say at that point I thought it was him that was causing my over drinking so I surmised that if i left him one glass should cut it ... but it was too late the monster had been created. I still drink now and then ... I am not saying I am sober. I am on day 35 of the boyfriend detox and day 5 of the wine detox. I have been sick this week so it wasn't as hard to not indulge. So why quit wine along with men? I am so glad you asked.

1. Wine makes me dumb. I make foolish decisions as previously stated in my first entry. I lose my whole sense of what would be a good decision. On a night were i should go to the gym and watch a feel good movie have a hot bath and go to bed, I end up creating a dating profile or texting an ex or man in general. I think I am oh so charming and I want to share it with the world. I wake up with regret not abs.

2. Extra calories. If it weren't bad enough to doubt your worth or singledom at 42 the last thing I need is a spare tire and bad skin, due to some fermented grapes. Alcohol also affects so much physically, tired eyes, spots, wrinkles, rosacea, it blocks nutrients and takes priority away from burning fat. Not to mention the sluggish fog the next day, the way it interferes with the normal sleep process. I did a test one week on wine one week off wearing my fit bit and my quality of deep sleep and awakeness was drastically different. I felt so scientific I almost bought myself a white lab coat and a beaker.

3. Processing emotion. You may think a glass of wine, a chick flick, and a good cry is going to help. IT DOES NOT. You aren't really processing the emotion if you are inebriated. I firmly believe you need to feel it to heal it. When my dad died last year I didn't drink a drop. I wanted to be present, to mourn fully. And yet I haven't placed the same perspective on dating and breakups. I drink them away. They do not go away. They are actually magnified because you have put off processing the emotion and now you are hung over, tired, with crappy skin, aging faster than you should and your jeans are too tight. And in my experience your house isn't very clean either ... And your bank account is the only thing getting thin.

So for these reasons as well as many others. I have decided to stay away from the devil's grapes.

The grapes carry wrath for me that I don't need. And just a sidebar here. If you do drink while doing a boyfriend detox lock up your phone. Your facebook will thank you in the morning. I fully believe phones and cars should both come with a breathalyzer. Wine is a great motivator to post passive aggressive posts and look like a fool.

I haven't set a time limit on either of these ... giving up wine or men. However I feel like I will know when its time to get back in there ... for both. For me not all alcohol is created equal. I can have one beer or two on a hot summers day. With wine there is no shut off. If one glass is good ... passed out on the couch with an empty box in the garbage is better. (lets be honest it doesn't usually make it to the garbage)

Getting honest is key for this process, while some of this was hard to write and admit to, you cant change what you don't acknowledge. Thank you Doctor Phil for that one. So here I am being vulnerable and painfully honest. I read somewhere that "today is the future you created yesterday". That hit home ... If I had just made this effort to be alone years ago I would already be there. And I would have avoided lots of heart ache, my own and others. So if you cant make these changes for the you of today ... Do it for the you of tomorrow. She will thank you.