new year, new..?

i took my last drink on december 13th. i guess technically it was the 14th since i had my last drink after midnight. since then i have restrained from drinking, but it's hard. it's really hard. and people have everything to say about the matter because everyone thinks they know. but how could they know? they didn't binge drink almost every night for nearly eight years and then follow that with a roller coaster struggle to stop. and while to most, stopping entirely seems rather extreme, they weren't with me on those nights that i don't remember, or the mornings i woke up wondering where i was. they weren't there when i regurgitated everything and then some for three days straights. they weren't there when i was curled up on my bathroom floor for hours wondering why - why did my internal organs hate me so? in fact, i had so strategically worked out all the different people i partied with that no one person was around enough to realize how bad it was, or witness my many awful decisions. even my best friends only heard about some of it and way after the fact. yes, i lived in a little world called Denial for a long time, but isn't that only the more telling that i had - correction, have - a problem?

so things i learned the first time i quit (it lasted for a whole year and a few months):
- i live in a dark dark place for at least 6 months
- i can't stay in bed all the time
- my real friends will still be there at the end of the tunnel
- avoid people who tell you "come on, you can have just one drink"
- avoid people who tell you "you just have to do it in moderation"
- avoid people who tell you "you do not have a problem"

knowing all of those things, i thought the second time around should go more or less smoothly since i have been through it before. i was wrong. because now i'm back in the dark place. and i want to stay in bed all the time. and i don't want to do anything. and i'm angry for no reason a lot of the time. and the stupidest things make me lose my temper. and add to that this time around i'm not just quitting drinking, but i decided to quit in the holiday season. do you have any idea how much drinking happens over the holidays?? plus there was just too much time spent snowed in with too many people in my house (family people, you know what that means). oh, and my evil gramma just died in late november and i have huge internal struggles because i still think of her as my evil gramma and she's gone now and there will never be going back to fix things and i have to deal with the fact that she was evil, even though you're supposed to only say good things about the dead. the evil gramma thing makes me want to drink - a lot.

but this is a new year. the holidays are over. so at least a lot of the temptation is gone too. there's an opened bottle of grey goose in the next room, but i just have to not think about it. if i don't think about it, then i won't feel like drinking it. of course the more i tell myself don't think about it, the more i think about it and want to drink it. argh.