Three Weeks Later

That first glass of red wine was amazing. I almost couldn't drink it, couldn't get it past my lips because I had denied myself for so long.

But when I did take that first sip, oh my. I truly enjoyed it. I savored the experience, sitting with my daughter and husband, the Christmas tree all lit up, the room warm and cozy. I tried to put into words what this year has been like or what it meant, but really mostly I just sat there and said "Wow". 

I can't believe I did it. 

Since then, the experience of drinking has been uneventful. It has also been mildly not-as-enjoyable as I would have thought. 

The first Manhattan?  Just okay.

The first gin martini? Eh. 

After all this time I thought that they would be extra good. Could my memory of what alcohol tastes like be that unreliable? Or did my tastes change during the YONA?

In an effort to find the taste that I remember I almost slipped right back into nightly drinking, as if my year long abstinence was a dream that I awoke from, shook off, and quickly forgot.

But I'm saying no to that. It's not what I want.

I've decided that alcohol is now just a drink of choice on occasion. I want those occasions to be more like that delicious first sip of red wine on December 6th, and not at all like the every night glasses of nondescript wine that happened the year before the YONA. The rules that I wrote about before won't be needed because I trust myself to make the right choices.

I'm glad I had a Year of No Alcohol. 

I am also glad that it's over.

I Thought I Would Write More

Funny how that's the thing I've been thinking for the past 24 hours. I thought I would write more. 

I thought that having this blog to chronicle the ups and downs - and honestly I was anticipating more downs than ups - would encourage me to write more. I started with the expectation that I would post twice a week. Then I said I would post at least once a week. This last month I haven't written anything. 

Part of that is due to a family situation that has taken up a lot of my attention. I felt like I couldn't write about it, and writing about anything else didn't seem natural. But that's really just the end of the line. All through the year I didn't write as often as I thought I would.

A year has passed. What do I have to show for it? Some insight. Some appreciation for my own fortitude. Some gratitude for the support of those around me. 

I could have written a book. I could have learned a language. I could have practiced and been able to do a pull up or ten. 

Why this? Why no alcohol? 

I still don't know. 

Suddenly I'm okay with that. A friend told me recently that I have a tendency to make things my fault. I can turn most anything into being about my shortcomings. I'm not going to do that with the YONA. Sure I didn't do anything else, but I did this. 

I made a promise to myself and I kept it. 

A hundred times, a thousand times, I could have had a drink and no one would have been the wiser. I could have cheated but I didn't. That's really important to me. I've said in the past that I don't trust myself, but now I know that I can.

That will be helpful in the coming months as I navigate learning how to drink again. I don't want to go back to how I was drinking before. I won't make it a nightly ritual for "stress relief" or for rewarding myself for a difficult day. I can make a plan about when and how much I will drink, and I know that I can trust myself to do just that.

I did it. A Year of No Alcohol. 

Go me.

After the YONA, Part Two

I asked my husband the other night if this YONA had been hard for him. He said not really but I couldn't leave it there. I asked if he thought our relationship had been strained this year because we weren't going on as many dates, or hanging out at wineries, or going to a bar occasionally to unwind after a long week.

He responded by listing all of the things that have been adding stress to our relationship this year. He then said that none of them are going to go away when I start drinking, and he asked me if I really thought that me drinking again was going to "fix" anything. 

Well, no. Not exactly. Okay, maybe I did kind of think that.

I've been focused on the alcohol related things that we haven't done this year. I've been thinking that once we can "hang out" again, once we can share a bottle of wine or a drink or two that we will connect again. That's kinda sad, that I think the only thing or maybe just the main thing that is connecting us is alcohol. 

The fact is that we haven't spent much together this year because he has been working long and different hours getting a new business off the ground. We haven't worked out together because I've been dealing with foot and hip problems. We haven't gone on vacation or short getaways because we've used our time off to go see my dad who lives about three hours away. We haven't done much of anything at all because money is really tight. 

Me not drinking has been the least of our problems.

I am glad I haven't been drinking this year because it might have become the worst of our problems. I am glad to know that I can survive really tough times without turning to wine. I am definitely going to take that knowledge into this next year, which holds no promises of easier work schedules or better health or vacations or  more money.

After the YONA

I've been thinking about what is life going to look like after my YONA.

I don't want to go back to nightly drinking so I've been checking in with myself just about every night and asking "Would I drink now if I weren't doing the YONA?" Mostly the answer is yes. I wonder if that is because I haven't been drinking, so every time I think of drinking I think "yes". 

I'm concerned. I wonder if I have "it", whatever it is that makes conscious alcohol choices a normal and natural thing. Whatever "it" is that doesn't make one automatically say yes.

I've looked at other choices that I make. I almost always say yes to homemade cookies, but I can say no to them when they are store bought. I can say no to candy. There are two bags of Halloween candy sitting in the office and I am not tempted at all. I can say no to most bread, no to pizza, no to many other things that are okay in moderation. 

Can I say no to wine? Can I come home after a long day at work and say, and mean it, that I choose not to drink wine even though it is right there?

I'm not sure.

So here is Plan A. After the initial celebration weekend I am only going to drink on Fridays or when we go out to eat. I will not drink on a night before I work, which includes working on Sunday morning at church with the Children's Ministry. 

I admit, a part of me is sad that I have decided only to drink on one night of the week and is afraid that I won't stick with it. However, if I can go for an entire year without drinking I can certainly go six days in a row. On the other hand, once the YONA is over will I have the incentive to keep my promise to myself? 

That's part of what this is all about. (There are so many things, aren't there?) I want to know that I can trust myself. I want to stop making promises and breaking them when the going gets tough. 

I think that learning moderation is going to be more difficult than practicing abstinence.

Bourbon

I've been wanting bourbon today. 

It hasn't overtaken red wine as my first choice of first drink, but it has definitely been on my mind. It's the smell of it, the first sharp taste of it, the smooth sliding down the throat of it. 

As I get closer to the end of the YONA it has been increasingly more challenging to keep the "want" at bay. It was easier when I had months and months to go - the end was so far away that thinking about it wasn't productive at all. Now that I am closing in on two months to go I have allowed myself the luxury - and by luxury apparently I mean torture - of thinking about drinking again. 

I won't quit. I won't get this close and then ditch it for the momentary satisfaction of a glass of something. 

But I won't lie either. I am really looking forward to that first drink.

71 Days (Not that I'm counting)

I just spent some time re-reading this blog. I've been all over the map, haven't I? I was glad to be reminded of some of the strokes of insight I had, in particular this one:

"I need to let go of the things in my life that are holding me back in order to make room for the things that God wants to put there."

No doubt some of the things that are holding me back are my beliefs, one of which I crushed this week in another moment of insight. I have been believing that this whole Christianity "God thing" was a phase. I have been waiting for myself to drop it, the way that I've dropped dozens of programs and grand plans before it. They say that it takes three weeks to make a habit but for me it has taken almost a year. 

You know, I've stuck with the YONA even during the really hard times. I've stuck with it in times of celebration and boredom and anger and pain. Just go with me on this one, but that is what I need to do with God as well. I need to stick with him even when I don't see the point or the purpose, even when all I want to do is the spiritual version of ditching the YONA and grabbing a glass of wine. I'm not sure what that would be, but it seemed like a good analogy when I started that sentence.

Anyway.

I needed this year to prove to myself that I have staying power with something that makes no rational sense at all. 

God and the YONA

A faithful reader asked me to explain how God relates to the YONA.

The short answer is that there is no relation. But since I couldn't spend a year writing about how I wasn't drinking I had to write about something and God is what has been on my mind this year.

The long answer is more complicated and it begins with me deciding to believe that God exists and that he loves me. (I don't believe that God has a gender but am using he because using she bugs me) From there I asked myself "What would it be like to live as if God existed? What would it be like to live as if the Bible were true?"

I was raised a Catholic, but not a very well educated one. The fourth of five children, I was left out of the religious education that my older siblings got when my parents decided they couldn't afford four children in private school. I went to "CCD" (Sunday School not on Sunday) off and on, but since I couldn't even tell you what CC or D stands for it didn't have a huge impact on me.

Catholic God was scary. Church was boring and sometimes scary. I walked away from the Catholic Church when I was in college, went back for a visit to get my daughter baptized, and never returned.  God was awkward to talk about and if I were to be honest I was kinda mad at him for some stuff that happened when I was a child.

My daughter, who never went to church as a child, has had a solid belief in God for as long as I can remember. What I don't remember is talking to her about God, so I have always considered that a sign that he exists. I wasn't going to be on speaking terms with him, but I was glad that he was a presence in my daughter's life.

Years passed and I got a yearning to go to church. I didn't want to go to a Catholic church, so we went to a non-denominational Christian church. It was there that I slowly began to accept that God wasn't such a bad guy. He didn't just want to punish me for doing wrong things. I couldn't quite call him God yet - when I spoke of such things I always said The Spiritual. I was connecting with The Spiritual. 

More years passed, some of them non-church going ones, and I once again wanted to connect. We found another non-denominational church, and it was there that I slowly began to accept that God loves me. He wants to have a relationship with me. He has been calling to me all these years, waiting for me to turn in his direction. 

There's a song lyric that I love which describes what I think about that time. 

Be Still, I'll never leave you

When you're far, I am near

"Don't Give Up On Me"

MercyMe

No matter how far away I was, God was always right there with me, waiting for me to turn to him.  And believe me, I was pretty far away many times.

So all of that lead up to my question to myself last fall, right before I started the YONA. What would it be like to live as if Christianity were true? I stopped asking questions (I can hear the shrieks of the atheists from here) and decided to just trust and believe. 

I don't think that anyone has ever convinced anyone that God exists. I go on faith. I have decided to live like a believer. So that is why there are posts on here about God and my search for him in my life. I believe you have to be looking in order to see his presence, and while I am in the beginning stages of life as a Christian I have seen him and felt him often enough for my belief to be justified. 

God didn't tell me to give up alcohol, although he did have a hand in telling me what day to start. When December 6th hits - in 94 days - I know he's not going to mind me going to back to drinking. While connecting with him I've learned something about moderation, and that's a good thing.