Holidays Are Hard

Getting sober is one thing but staying sober is a whole load of other decisions which must be consistent and correct. In many areas, I lose interest after 18 months and become lax, slap dash, then move onto something else.

I'm on holiday and I must admit, I'm struggling.

The last 2 evenings I've thought a lot about wine. How I would like a glass. Could I risk one night 'off'? How it would enhance the enjoyment and how it would console me when the kids play up. How it would make me feel dreamy and romantic and gently blur the edges. Isn't going on holiday about getting away from it all? Wouldn't wine help me do that?

These are dangerous thoughts and it has taken a lot of effort to contain them and revisit them to date. And they are still there. I have been playing the movie to the end: I would have a bottle of wine in the evening I know, so I'm not pretending it would be only a glass or anything, I would stop drinking as it would be bedtime and although I would want more, I would accept that this night was over. The next day I would regret it but I would cope with the hangover and think it not too bad. I would then wonder if I had been over reacting with all this sobriety stuff? I think back to others' stories, how without exception they regret drinking, without exception advice us not to try and without exception end up back where they once were, trying to turn day zero into day 1.

I think about this and wonder how I could do it to not have these eventualities. Would it just be one night? Every other night? Weekends only?

The fact that I have spent so much time thinking about all these issues tells me it is wrong. I should just forget it all and not even go there to consider it.

The over whelming issue that has made me continue to abstain is this very fact: drinking and wine has occupied a large proportion of my thoughts in the last 2 days, to the exclusion of many other things. This is typical of what the wine itself would do; lead to continual bargaining, rules, new rules, changing and modifying the rules before eventually saying 'sod the rules'. No matter how much I want wine I DO NOT WANT to go back to how life was before I stopped and I know that if I have wine tonight, I will have it again tomorrow, and more the following night and continue for the rest of my break and take it back home with me at the end.

bashing it out on the keyboard has helped a little but I remain frustrated that I will not allow myself to drink- tonight.