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.      

Be Less

So I was reading a book a couple weeks ago and the author suggested that sometimes we should ask God what to pray about. I thought it sounded like a good idea so that night I asked God "What should I ..." and before I could even get the question completely formed in my mind the answer came. 

Be less.

It's like he had been waiting for me to ask.

Now, be more, I get. I am always looking for ways to be more healthy, more helpful, more friendly, more consistent, more fun. But less? What do I need to be less of?

There were some immediate answers. Be less self critical. Be less demanding. Be less impatient. While those are all things I need to work on, I didn't think that was the direction God was leading me. Those are all really just a different way to say be more. Be more self accepting. Be more flexible. Be more patient.

In the following weeks I mulled this over. I said little prayers asking for more information, but God kept quiet. Obviously this was an assignment for me to figure out. 

Be less.

I've noticed that while thinking about this I am at peace. It flies in the face of the "not good enough" thoughts that took over my brain long ago. It takes away the striving, all of the "I should"s and the "I ought to"s. 

I've also been contemplating why I'm here and what I'm supposed to be doing. I read a lot of empowering words, people telling other people that there is a grand purpose for our lives and we should risk all to achieve those things. There is only going to be one me in the world ever and I have an important part to play. I need to get at it!

Talk about stressful. This is the ultimate Be More.

So while I still can't put into words what I think Be Less means I sense it has something to do with not trying so hard. I am no longer focused on the big "why am I here and what should I be doing?" question and more focused on today, right here, right now. 

Be less.

I am looking at the trees and not the forest, and certainly not the path through the forest while trying to figure out where it ends and what I should be building as I travel along it.

I think Be Less is just another way for God to wrap his arms around me and say "Hush".

Eight Months Down Four To Go

About ten days late with this post, but I just passed the two thirds mark for the YONA. 

I no longer am afraid that when I start drinking again I will fall back into the same old patterns. This past week was challenging and not once did I wish I could drink the pain away. Not once did I try to eat the pain away either. It was just abundantly clear to me that neither one of those options would make me feel better. 

I reached for God to help me through the tough times. Unfortunately, if he was there I didn't feel his presence. So I sat and felt the pain, and then I cried and I felt the pain some more. And when I thought I was done with it, and I was all on board, opening my heart again with a promise to God that I wouldn't hide, I was blindsided by a pain, a heartache, that left me reeling. 

Here's my heart, I said to God. I won't wall it off. I won't hide it to keep it from being hurt. I will keep opening up and trusting. And then I got slammed.

What do I make of this? What kind of answer is that to give me? 

This is faith, or at least it is my faith as it currently stands. I still trust God. I don't know why the heartaches happen, and I don't know why I was knocked down just as I was standing up again. What I do know is that even though I didn't feel him this weekend, God was with me.