Day Twenty-Eight: The Airport Experience

I'm at the Cairo airport, drinking a cappuccino and blogging!  One idea that I fully embrace from the sober community is "the firsts" of sobriety.  The most mundane thing can be the biggest shake-up or realization that it has been decades since I [fill-in-the-blank very or situation] sober.  Airports are one of these experiences.  Airports had become a place of luxury, excess, and pub crawls.  Husband and I would book longer layovers to avoid stress and to allow us to bar hop around the airport: finding the perfect environment and the IPAs or types of wine we couldn't find in whichever developing nation we currently living in.  We would spend tons of money on booze and bar food and brush it off-it is the beginning/ending of vacation-we deserve it!!  It was mostly fun, but then I was be so dehydrated on the plane, have to use the bathroom and be too foggy to read whatever beloved book I had planned to read for hours straight on the plane. Remorse usually set in: too much $$ spent and precious time lost in the flog of drink.

I'm traveling alone today and going back to my solo travel style of my early 20s when I was too poor to drink in airports.  I will sit here with caffeine, reflect on my new dry experiences and read some of my book when I'm ready.  I'm feeling good about all of this.

When I'm feeling good,  this all seems too easy.  Stop drinking?  No biggie!  Just decided and here I am. Then I re-read yesterday's post or many of my previous posts and realize that I'm manic and really don't know how I feel about all of this. (and the obvious: I have never been successful at stopping my drinking before) It really is an experience that starts close, inside me and slowly my understanding and sharing is rippling out, little by little to my life.  I image it to be like a little kid explore her world.  First you know your house, then the yard and driveway, then the street, around the block...exploring out in rings from your home, from your center, into the greater world.  One step at a time when you feel ready.

My center: in my own head and my immediate actions.
First ring out: Husband and Dog Face
Second ring out: my inner circle friends
Third ring out to infinite: uncertain 

So, I'm about to see old drinking friends and I feel really shaky about it.  Too far out from my center.