Becoming Teetotal
My 2nd time → “back to Teetotal”
I first tried a break from alcohol in 2016. For various reasons. I just wanted to stop drinking.
I'd read a few “sober blogs” and had been increasingly unhappy about how much I was drinking and how much mental energy I was expending on thinking about how to moderate it.
So I stopped. Just like that. It was easy, really.
Other people were the problem. Not the not drinking. People. It became obvious that drinkers just don't like a non-drinker - it makes them feel as though they're being judged, or makes them question their own relationship with alcohol. And they get uncomfortable.
I blogged about it for a while at https://makeittea.wordpress.com/ (don't look for it, it's long-gone) and I enjoyed the writing of the blog posts. And I enjoyed the positive feedback I got from the few people who read my posts.
I started drinking again in early 2017 - but regretted it. Regretted giving in.
After a heart-attack in 2018. After developing Rheumatoid Arthritis in 2019. Being on a bucket-load of medications. After the 2020 Covid-lockdown-shielding-wine-o'clock adventure.
After all that….
Enough was enough, and I stopped again in April 2021. Although I didn't do it in any ceremonial way. There was no “Today I stop drinking” watershed moment.
I decided to not drink one day, and then the next day I did the same… until after a few days I thought “I'm just going to keep this going….”. It took a few more days to realize that this was my chance to do it “properly”. I had sympathy and support this time. There wouldn't be the silent (and not-so-silent) peer-pressure.
This time, unlike the first time in 2016 (when I was doing it for no obvious reason and thus I was an annoyance to everyone around me) I was doing it with good, medical reasons.
And everyone forgave me now for being a teetotaler. I wasn't judging them after all, and I wasn't just being a martyr, wasn't being holier-than-thou….
If anything I was a poor victim.
“Health Reasons?”
“Can't drink because of your medications?”
“You poor thing!”
But if I'm honest, I gave up this time, in 2021, for the same reasons as my first try, 5 years earlier.
I wanted to stop & I enjoyed the peace and freedom of not drinking.
The new “Day One” was April 23rd 2021, but I only know this because I've just checked back in my diary. I calculate today to be day 1765. I've had 5 sober Christmases, 5 sober Birthdays, 5 sober Wedding Anniversaries. 5 sober New Year's Eves.
Anyway…. back to blogging….
I found on the *Wayback Machine* one archived capture from my old long-deleted makeittea.wordpress.com blog and the capture has several of my posts.
I might make some new posts out the the recovered material from Wayback Machine and published them here….
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