Looking Back (Sept. 2016)
Originally posted Saturday 24th September 2016
Day 35. 5 Weeks! Looking back at the recent past.
It’s almost time for bed at the end of Day 35. That’s a full 5 weeks completed. By far the longest time I’ve gone without a drink (that I can remember) since I first started drinking about 35 years ago.
I don’t have much to report about the process of not drinking over the last few days. Everything is going okay. I’m handling the occasional regret at missing out without too much trouble. Feeling pretty happy. At the positives of sobriety which are presenting themselves, and at the absence of the negatives of drinking, as they fade into the rear view mirror.
In the meantime I’ve been mulling over some of the things that were disturbing me about my drinking, in the lead up to the decision to quit.
Here’s one thing….the transference of guilt for drinking too much, and how that just lead to more guilt and fed into The Shame.
Mrs MIT and I drink together. We drink approximately the same amount. I’m a 6 foot 2 inch man and she’s a 5 foot 3 inch woman. So it’s an uneven partnership!
We open a bottle of red wine most evenings and drink it reasonably slowly over a meal, watching TV, or a DVD or whatever. The first bottle seems to take an age, it could almost last all night. But of course it doesn’t last. By 9pm it’s empty. There’s still an hour, or two, or three, before bed time. We’re still engrossed in a film, or a TV programme.
I know we’re going to open another bottle.
I know we’re going to drink it all.
I know these things.
But I sit silently.
Waiting….. waiting…. waiting……
Then she picks up her empty wine glass. Waves it from side to side…. “it’s your round”
Result!
"Slowly slowly catchee monkey."
I say silently, under my breath…. “I wasn’t going to have any more wine, really. But since I’m going to get you another glass I might as well have one myself.”
I open the second bottle. Not my fault. I’m not to blame.
She says “we’ll just have one glass and put the cork back in”.
Yes, very sensible. The first bottle took an hour or more to drink. We’ll not get through another bottle before bed, but ONE more glass. That would be good.
I know we’re going to drink the second bottle.
We always do.
We have the first glass. Seems to have gone down rather quickly! But, I don’t pour out a refill. We’re only having one glass. I’m not going to be responsible for finishing the second bottle…. I wait….. but not for long…..
She says “go on then, let’s have another glass”.
Result! We’re going to finish the bottle. Of course we are. But the important thing is… it’s not my fault. I wasn’t even going to have any more. But since she’s having one, I might as well join her. But it wasn’t my fault.
I knew at the outset that we’d have two bottles but I was hoping she would start the ball rolling, asking for “one more glass”. Was happy that she’d crumbled first.
This scenario repeated many, many times. Not every night. Some nights we really did just have one bottle between us. But on days when it was obviously the right thing to have that second bottle, I always made sure it wasn’t me to blame. Even when I really wanted to keep drinking, not wanting the night (well, the wine) to end early.
This is one of the things that I’ve lumped into The Shame. The guilt that I transferred the blame for drinking to someone else, even though I was expecting, hoping, wanting to keep drinking. She wasn’t twisting my arm. I wasn’t joining her reluctantly. I just pretended I was, to make me look like the Good One, and her the Villain. And she’s a small woman, and I’m a big bloke. She should really drink less than me, but I wanted her to drink more, so that I could justify drinking more myself.
No more.
No more transfer of blame.
No more guilt or shame.