I have heard some people who stopped drinking say that they used up all of their entire life's allowed alcohol consumption in the first couple of decades of their life. I wholeheartedly believe that for myself. I drank enough in the first 38 years of my life to last a lifetime. All the booze that should have been stretched out over my life that normal drinkers consume - I consolidated it all into half the amount of time. I had enough drunken blackouts. Endured enough hangovers. Suffered through enough evenings where I didn't even want to drink but I did anyway - just because it was all I knew. It was the only option I thought I had.
This past weekend, we went to a Bruins game for my husbands birthday. They had to remind the fans on the loudspeaker that there was a two beer limit per customer at each concession stand. I remember that being such a pain in the ass in the past, because I used to like to get at least 3 drinks each so I didn't have to make multiple trips back out of our seats for more. I used to try to convince the guys to let me get an extra.
It took a lot for me to be there after a full day of soccer games. I was exhausted. I had to really dig deep, for my kids and husband. It was Evan's birthday so I put my party hat on even though I would have been just as happy to be home in my bed reading my book with the game on the TV. The introvert in me was beyond exhausted by the end of the first period.
As I watched the people around me get up and come back with their hands full of beers, over and over again, some of them acting more and more belligerent as time went on, I felt only relief though. Relief that I didn't have to find my fun in the bottom of a plastic cup. I was content without it. I enjoyed my snacks with my kids and didn't have that need for more. That distraction. The urge to escape and be somewhere else mentally and emotionally.
I remembered one night a few years ago being at the garden at a Bruins game and drinking so much heavy beer, feeling sick to my stomach but just continuing to drink anyway, powering through the nausea. I didn't know any different or how else to enjoy myself. I was drunk by the end, and I didn't even pay attention to my kids or to the game.
It is nice to know I don't have to do that anymore. It was a relief to know that I didn't have to drink. My biggest fear before getting sober was that I would miss drinking too much in situations like those. But the reality is - it could not be more untrue. I felt only happiness and relief to not be drinking. Excited to know that I don't have to feel the control of that substance ever again.
