Island life, part 2

11:01 am

Well, another gorgeous day in the islands. Yup, I could move down here. It’s 10 am (I slept late), my boyfriend’s off to work, and it’s just me — and at LEAST six open, unfinished bottles of red. Sigh. We’re house-sitting at this amazing pad that overlooks several cays over the north side of the island. There are palm trees, all sorts of plants and flowers filling the space around; a hot, humid stank to the air that I love; boats passing on the blue-green water down below; a pool, a hot tub, all sorts of “adult” toys like, cable tv; three cute dogs to keep me company if I go out for walks or do some yoga inside the house (they love getting on the floor with me, they think it’s roll-around-on-the-floor time). It’s a paradise and I can only say, fuck yes, I get to see it at 6 weeks sober!

Yes, today marks 6 weeks. I’m not sure if it feels all that much different, to me anyway. I have lost a few “wine gut” pounds, which is a welcome side effect. However, that could also be due to having been sick — or maybe just in “mini-detox” — for the past, well, 6 weeks, and not being able to keep much food down (TMI, but it’s true; this drinking thing really affected my GI tract, I think). Maybe my insulin mechanics and metabolism are changed, for the better, since stopping drinking. I don’t know, but I like it. Plus, I’ve had a few people tell me that I’m “glowing;” honestly, though, I wonder if that’s (was) just the hot yoga doing the trick.

Overall, I feel calmer. Or, calm. Ha! That’s just…weird, for me. I’m sleeping better, feeling better when I wake, and generally speaking, glad to not be sick and hung in the mornings, able to read and write and get some work done in the afternoons, and up for running and/or walking in the evenings. It’s all rather…spectacularly normal! I guess.

Yet…

I’d love a cocktail right now. A glass of chilled red or white. I’d love to finish off the one or two bottles that look young enough to drink, and then uncork another. When I think about it, it’s not that my body wants it so much as my mind. I could even do without the drunk feeling, you know? I could do without the drunk feeling but would love to like, dunk my entire brain in the booze and activate all those circuits that made me feel, well, BETTER — excited, happy, alive — when I was drunk. The burning feeling in my belly, the drunk part, the blackout part (duh), I could do without. But the essence of wine…ahh…I could definitely pour it all over my body, every pore…

Gah, the cravings never go away, do they? Time to watch me some Intervention, or simply, turn on the news…

Sometimes I think, what wouldn’t I be capable of blacked out? Like, could the Aurora (CO) killer have been simply blacked out drunk? Can you imagine waking up from having done that, and realizing that you DID THAT? Killed a bunch of people in a theater? I’m sort of looking forward to hearing him talk; to finding out exactly what set him off, if he’s messed up in the head, or if, really, he was simply on something. Like booze. He sounds messed up, but still, the shit you are capable of doing while drunk is astounding. Scary as fuck.

How do I continue to resist my cravings, after the sun and sand and ridiculously nice life I get to lead, at least for the next few weeks? I think about — remember very clearly, actually — all the shit I’ve done blacked out.

Which begins my next series of posts: shit I’ve done while blacked out that one, I never ever want to repeat, and two, could actually be harbingers of worse to come, if I drink again. And I shudder to think about this, in a melodramatic sort of way, cuz really, worse COULD happen — my blackouts just kept getting more classic and much worse. Nothing seemed to get me to stop drinking. And what’s worse than sitting in a jail cell, breaking your arm, crashing a car while driving blacked out, getting fired from your job for going batshit on your CEO at your Christmas party? Nearly breaking your face after falling headfirst onto something REALLY hard in an outhouse? Sometimes I wonder, what is my “bottom?” Dying? Killing someone else? At 6 weeks sober, it’s thoughts like these, that while dark and the opposite of the hot, sunny day outside, I NEED to keep up close, in focus, right behind my eyes. It sucks, and sounds slightly ridiculous to dwell so hardcore on what many people have experienced (to some degree), but for me, there really is a fine line between “oh, just one” and a nightmare to relive the next day…

Tags: alcoholic, alcoholism, cravings, depression, detox, drinking, sobriety, wine, women