I’ve always been a bit of a lightweight. Perhaps it is because I am so similar to my mother who after two drinks is a whole new level of ecstatic at Christmas. I’m unfortunately the same way. Two drinks and I’m pleasantly buzzed and a third does me in for the night. I am a huge wine fan, and with one day each week on the Farrell’s diet for a “Fun Day” wine almost always makes the cut.
The downside is that I feel I have a small window of that fun, uninhibited creativity before I just want to go to sleep, and tonight I was debating the merits of opening a bottle and taking the risk of tanking some of that productive energy. While making supper, I was thinking back to how productive I was in college and wondering how I managed it, and then realized with the force of a ton of bricks that I had forgotten just how my relationship to alcohol was at that time.
My Relationship with Alcohol
It was this that made me realize that my abusive relationship with my ex was just as much with alcohol as it was with him. After every explosive drinking binge, I would get a great week filled with flowers, and mostly kindness, and most of all, near sobriety. He would avoid the drink in an attempt to remedy the increased damage he had inflicted on me. But it was always short lived. As the weekend approached, he would find an excuse to go to his usual haunt with the usual suspects, and while it might not have been as bad as the last episode, it would start the whole cycle over anew, and my internal clock would begin to count down the days to when it all would go to hell again. And in the most literal sense of it, the waiting itself was the worst hell.
My booze-free college days
All of my college years didn’t go down like this. For the first couple, I had a great time with friends, going out and having a great time. I had a boyfriend freshman and sophomore year, and there were some great times enjoying a beverage and playing cards late into the night. But after that relationship ended poorly and my PTSD got way out of my control and chronic pain decided to join the party, alcohol became something of a boon. For one, I was from that point forward on very strong medications, none of which played well with alcohol. Overtime I became comfortable with dosages and knew when I could indulge, but for the most part, I didn’t feel well enough to go out with friends and I self medicated not with alcohol, but with food.
By the time I met my ex, I quickly learned that alcohol would be a clear indicator of things going wrong. Whether the alcohol caused it or was something that entered the scene after the tailspins would start, I may never know. What I do know is that if I drank, it gave him an excuse to go way over the top and it always ended poorly. Because of this, I never really drank. He would find plenty of excuses to get obliterated and mean on his own without me handing it to him on a silver platter.
Learning to enjoy wine
Perhaps this is why I just never understood the value of going out to “get hammered” or lose control over myself. To me, it was just dangerous to so many levels. Its amusing to realize that I really only started to enjoy going out and having a glass of wine after I had turned 24 and was well into my first job after college… more importantly, a good 9 months after I had put my ex in my rear-view.
It also was a clear sign to me just how far I have come, to be able to have forgotten something that had been such an ingrained practice for so long. So I opened that bottle and poured a glass for the evening.
Cheers to moving on and healing!
Hi! I'm Alyce. 
