Lush Life

I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder dreadfully.  I do exceptionally well on lovely sunny days and want to kill kittens on miserable overcast days.  I'm a "Fuck winter in the ear" kinda girl. Today, despite being at the "ear-fucking" end of winter, was a remarkably lovely, sunny day.  I should have been hugging trees and singing The Hills Are Alive.  But no.

Whether it was just being tired from pushing myself in the garden yesterday while weeding the Pits Of Blackberry Hell or being fed up with Ella being so needy or really enjoying the relative silence of only one kid at home then noticing it shatter at 3.40pm or being reminded by the lovely-sunny-day-with-a-light-breeze that this would be a great day for a cider in the sunshine...well, whatever it was, today I really needed a drink.  Not just noticing that I would normally have a drink at this time or in this spot, or being reminded every time I take the Camparal (to stop the cravings) that I dont drink anymore. No no.

This was: "I.Want.A.Drink.Now!"

"This will pass this will pass this will eventually pass," the voice in my head repeated. There is no alcohol in our house so there was thankfully nothing I could do about it. And it did pass. And I fell asleep straight after dinner.

But not before I realised how precarious my sobriety is. 50-something days. 57 I think .(I'm too tired to do the math.) 57 days is nothing, not compared to over 1000 days of drinking to excess. Not compared to the 365 days I have to take the Camparal to ensure I am not going to go back to being a Lush.

I have made progress, absolutely, but it could be undone in the blink of an eye because I realised that if I'd had access to a refreshing cider or a lovely fruity Sav Blanc I would have had one. And then I would have had more.

I realised that there is no "I'll just have one" for me.  I realised that my alcohol dependance was not just about self-medication for pain that got out of hand.

I realised that I cannot stop at just one, and I never could. I am an addict, which is a very different beast to someone who was "just" physically dependant.

There is so much more work to be done here that I realised.

There is also a story to be told about my visit to the psychiatrist but it is a story that I can't quite bring myself to write yet.  In time.  Soon maybe, even.

Once I'm over the desire to drink again.