Day Forty-Five: Drinking-Life Habits Fading

I always have slept with a giant glass of water on my nightstand. Sometime or multiple times during the night I would wake up and I would guzzle the whole glass down and re-fill it and go back to sleep. Mindset: must rehydrate as soon as possible-must start recovery.

In the last six weeks I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, and I half-asleep panic and reach for that salvation water-must rehydrate...and then I don't drink any because I don't want to have to pee. Or there isn't even a glass there anymore because I don't need it. I'm not dehydrated and I don't need to damage control.

Another fading habit is the panic wake up mental check list in the morning. Scanning the hungover stomach and head, the piecing together the memories of the night before to see if I remember going to bed of what came before. No more black outs! No more hearing secondhand about what Shelly did or said last night.

I've also loosened up on my Type-A personality control of my eating and exercise. It hopefully is a fading habit or could be a phase of relaxing and forgiveness because [    ] is better than drinking. Ice cream? More camembert and bread? Yes, ice cream and cheese are better than drinking. Not working out today, that's ok, I'm healthy by not drinking today. I think it is because the exercise and food control was needed for me to believe I was healthy and intact and the more my drinking was out of control, the more I focused my controls on the facades of health: food and health.  I used to push myself to run harder and longer through my hangovers.  Balanced, I thought.

I've always enjoyed life, but it has been in the extremes and with force. I have found since drying out that I haven't needed to flex my will on my living as much. What a healthy six weeks!