All About the Alcohol.

As I previously mentioned, I decided to drink this month, which means that I didn't meet my one month goal.  I have a really immature relationship with alcohol, and doing no drinking challenges really contribute to that type of relationship.

When it comes to alcohol I have a very 'feast or famine' mentality, where I can either completely abstain, or I drink like a college kid.  For very short periods of time I can find that happy medium of having one or two small drinks and then being done, but then something happens, a party, a friends break up, bad days, and I start heavy drinking.  It's always the same, I never drink alone, but one drink completely lowers my inhibitions, and I forget that today I'm only going to have that one drink, and someone offers me another one, and I take it, and then the shots come out, and then another drink, and before I know it I'm completely wasted.  Even though I was only going to have one drink.

I realized that this was becoming a problem, so I cut back to only drinking on weekends.  I'm a social drinker, drinking is a big part of my social network, and the majority of my close friends live(d) on my street.  The weekend turned into Fun Friday, Saturday BBQ's, Sunday dinner with the family, Monday Bachelor night and suddenly I was only weekend drinking from Thursday-Tuesday.  Taking Wednesday's off seemed totally legit.  And for me, drinking was always around food, so binge drinking turned into binge eating.  I would literally undo every stitch of progress I had made every Friday-Sunday.  Five days of hard work completely ruined.

In May I decided that I wanted to get serious about my health and weight loss, and I worked closely with a few amazing people from my gym, and I cut out all alcohol and completely changed my eating habits for 9 weeks.  I came out of those nine weeks on Fourth of July, and was ready to binge drink.

Drinking a margarita at a 9am 4th of July parade.

Until I started drinking.  And then I realized that I didn't like feeling that way.  I really feel like I came out of those 9 weeks with a much healthier relationship with alcohol.  I had two or three more opportunities to drink in July, and I kept myself at a 1 to 2 drink limit, and I didn't even feel tempted to drink more.  That was a huge win for me, and I felt my relationship with alcohol changing.

So, when my sister and a few other people wanted to take 30 days off of alcohol I volunteered to do it with them.  After all, I had just made it 9 weeks, and had barely had anything to drink during the month of July, so it wouldn't be super hard.  And the thing was, it wasn't super hard.  But I felt like all of the hard work that I had put in those 9 weeks were slipping away, and I was getting back to the 'feast or famine' mentality.

I was walking through Target one day, and I saw the wine aisle and I thought that one glass of wine sounded really nice.  Just one, with my husband over dinner.  A totally grown up, mature way to enjoy alcohol.  But I was on the challenge, so I told myself no, that I could have my one glass (and many more) in September.  And then another similar thing happened, I even poured myself my one glass of wine, but I felt too guilty to drink it.  I promised myself that I could have that one glass (and many more) in September.  And that was the light bulb moment for me.  I was denying myself healthy amounts of alcohol with the promise of binge drinking later.  And that was when I quit the 30 days no drinking challenge.  I was undoing everything that I had worked so hard for, and going back to that immature relationship.

My goal has never been to completely give up alcohol, but to grow up and drink like an adult.  I don't want to crave binge days.  I want to be able to have one glass of wine, or one cocktail and be done for the night.  And I felt like I was on the right track in July, but that the denying myself the ability to make healthy choices, and promise of poor choices later that came with the August challenge was a turning point for me.  And so, I quit, had my cocktail and felt fine.  I didn't want to keep going.  I wanted to be done drinking, and so I was.  I know that this was the right choice for me, and that I am committed to continuing my healthy lifestyle.  Moderation is key, and I'm tired being caught in the feast or famine cycle.