dealcoholizeddiva-blog

[dealcoholizeddiva-blog]

Summer Patios - Wine Free??

This has been one of my biggest mental obstacles.  One of my greatest pleasures used to be going to a restaurant or pub and having drinks on the patio. This is my second AF summer and since summer only just started to arrive in Ontario...we had a very wet Spring...I couldn’t believe that my brain pulled this mental glitch on me AGAIN.  I met some girlfriends for appys & drinks at a place that has a great patio.   My knee jerk response was to order a margarita or glass of red wine, it actually nearly came out of my mouth!  Then I slapped that wine demon down and ordered a club soda, with OJ & cranberry. Not so surprisingly, the patio still had that awesome, relaxing, summer feeling and I even splurged on a more decadent appetizer since I wasn’t wasting my WW points on booze, so I felt not the least bit deprived.  I truly feel that the best way to beat the boozy myths and cravings is to face them head on and examine the validity of them.  When I treat my wine demon like a spoiled child and explain to it why having the wine would be a bad idea and wait out the ensuing tantrum, I always feel like the Diva wins!  

#soberaf #soberlifestyle #dealcoholizeddiva #alcoholfree #boozefree #winefree #patioseasonisthebest #soberliving #soberlife #soberissexy

[dealcoholizeddiva-blog]

Fifteen Years of Insomnia Cured!

So one thing that is crystal clear is that my wine habit was absolutely the cause of my insomnia.  For over 15 years I would get about 3-4 hours of broken sleep a night.  I had started to drink wine again after more than a year of abstinence.  It took only a couple of weekends of wine for the restless nights & insomnia to creep back in.  Then miraculously about 10 days after I stopped ingesting poison again, I slept through the night & woke fully rested and ready to take on the day.  I’ve had a restful night’s sleep every night since.  Even if you “only” drink on weekends, you are affecting your sleep patterns every day.  Just another plus in the sober lifestyle column :-)

#beautysleep #soberissexy #dealcoholizeddiva #alcoholfree #soberlifestyle #sober #silencingthewinedemon #sobriety  #nonalcoholic

[dealcoholizeddiva-blog]

What do you mean, you don’t drink??!!

At my high school reunion this past weekend, I had a couple of weird experiences that surprised me.  I shouldn’t have been surprised by the reactions of virtual strangers to what was in my glass (& can), but I think because I’ve been so transparent about my choice to live an alcohol free lifestyle, this is not a reaction I typically get anymore.  First let me preface this by saying that I did not drink in high school.  My drinking didn’t start until university, so most of the people I reunited with on Saturday night have never known me to be a drinker.  I think that’s why it was so weird to me that they were so shocked that I wasn’t drinking.  Since most of the people there arrived alone, most of them would have been driving home.  Surely that fact alone would make one believe that a good portion of the crowd would not choose to drink that night?  Sadly that was not the case.

The first instance came when I had a glass with club soda & a splash of cranberrry & a lime wedge.  One of the women in the group I was chatting with, asked what I was drinking because it looked so light & refreshing.  When I told her it was soda & cranberry, she was genuinely puzzled...”What?  No vodka? No gin?  Just soda & juice???” .  Then one of the other women offered to get me a “real” drink as she was going up to the bar.  I laughed & said no thanks, I don’t drink booze.  So she said she could get me a glass of wine!  I just started laughing.  I mean honestly, why is it such a crazy notion that someone would choose not to poison themselves and/or risk their driver’s license & freedom?  These are not kids.  These are women nearing 50 yrs old. 

Another similar encounter occurred later in the night when I was just drinking club soda straight from the can.  “You’re not drinking tonight??  How boring for you!”  “Let me buy you a drink!”

Obviously, these poor people don’t even realize that they are caught in that sticky web of addiction already. 

In both cases, I briefly explained that I have for many reasons decided that alcohol really doesn’t do me any favours beyond a 20min buzz,  but I’ve discovered that it does make me gain weight, lose all motivation, and causes me to have insomnia for weeks at a time.  The buzz is just not worth the rest of the negative side effects & certainly not worth waking up the addictive little wine demon inside of my head.  Once I opened up, this group had varying reactions, from “good for you! - but in a pat-the-child-on-the-head kind of way, to pity, to YIKES - How do you have fun??, to OH, are you an alcoholic?

As the night progressed, I had a couple of comments about how I was having a great time & laughing and not even drinking....how weird! 

As I was getting ready to leave, one of my high school friends came up to me and asked if I would mind chatting with her about my sober lifestyle.   It seems she has been suspecting for a while now that she is drinking too much and would like to have a friend that isn’t too busy denying their own addiction, to support her in her exploration of alcohol free living. 

Two things became clear to me that night:

1. Our society has been brainwashed en masse because alcohol really is the only drug that you have to justify NOT taking. 

2. If by being open about my quest for a life that doesn’t need alcohol, and responding with humour when the ignorant masses (I mean this in the literal sense, not as a derogatory term) ridicule my choice not to imbibe poison, I can help just one person to not feel alone in their own struggle with this drug, then it is all worthwhile. 

PS. in the group photos that we took that night, I am one of the few that doesn’t have a shiny red, or blotchy red face 

#soberlife #dealcoholizeddiva #highschoolreunion #alcoholfree #soberissexy #sober #nonalcoholic #mocktails #youcansocializewithoutbooze #thisnakedmind

[dealcoholizeddiva-blog]

After a successful & sober high school reunion last night, & a hectic horse show with my niece this morning, I'm relaxing on the deck with refreshing grapefruit & rosemary mocktails on this beautiful Sunday afternoon 🙂  

#mocktails #falseoxdrinkingvinegar #sobertreats #soberissexy #sober #dealcoholizeddiva #nonalcoholic #alcoholfree #myepiclife #alcoholfreelife #soberlifestyle 

[dealcoholizeddiva-blog]

Yep.

#soberlife #dealcoholizeddiva #winedoesnotfixproblems #unicornwithattitude #alcoholfreeliving #sober #soberaf #soberlifestyle #alcoholfree #dealcoholized

[dealcoholizeddiva-blog]

This is on my fridge.  It’s a part of my “New Beginning” strategy.  I walk past it at least a dozen times a day (I work from home & drink A LOT of tea).  Every day that I am on plan with my WW lifestyle, I colour a pink petal. For every day that I defeat the wine demon & choose not to have wine, I colour a purple petal.  Simple & sort of silly, right?  BUT, I can’t believe how much it affects my subconscious.  I REALLY want to add colour to it!  This little colouring book page has completely flipped my motivation switch back on. 

 #sobertools #wwcanada #dealcoholizeddiva #dealcoholized #sober #soberliving #wwfreestyle #soberliving #colourtherapy #motivationaltools #alcoholfree

[dealcoholizeddiva-blog]

New Beginnings - Again...

In October of 2017 I joined WW (formerly Weight Watchers).  Within a month I realized that my wine habit was sabotaging my journey & after 25 years or so of steadily increasing wine consumption, I decided to take 3 months alcohol free to see if it really made a difference.  From 5-6 bottles of wine a week, to none at all seemed like it would be difficult.  It wasn’t!  It’s like a switch flipped & my whole brain (conscious & sub-conscious) were aligned for the first time ever.  I have journals from 10 years ago and the recurring theme in all of the entries is my wine habit & how I couldn’t break out of the cycle.  I only ever drank in the evenings, except on vacation, and I am successful in my career, so I don’t fit the stereotypical mold of what a woman with an alcohol addiction looks like. 

Fast forward to today and for the past few months I’ve been struggling.  I was happily completely AF for 15 months, but decided to do little “experiments” to see if I could enjoy a few glasses on occasion.  Inevitably I felt like crap the next day and I’d decide not to drink again....for a month or so, until the next time I told myself to “experiment” with it or my guy decided to buy me a bottle of wine as a “treat”.  My partner is a heavy drinker and honestly the more I abstained, the more it annoyed me when he was drinking.  So after a vacation with a friend where we drank every day, I’ve slowly fallen into the pattern of a bottle of wine once or twice a week for the past month.   My guy loves it when I drink with him.  Obviously it validates his own drinking to be around others that drink, and also when I’m drinking wine, I’ll stay up later with him, and of course regret it the next day when I’m dragging my ass through my work day.  He is on disability right now & doesn’t work, so sleeping in until 10am is normal for him.   Apparently, we have some work to do on our relationship if I need to be buzzed to be around him! Yikes!  After drinking on both Friday & Saturday nights this past weekend, I decided on Sunday that I needed a new beginning...again...

#dealcoholizeddiva #soberliving #sober #soberlifestyle #newbeginnings #thisnakedmind #relationshipsarechallenging #alcoholfree #dealcoholized