Lavande

Yesterday was a long, stressful day, and I had half a glass of wine at a friend’s house last night, and I had an awful night…I think it was more awful because I felt guilty and stupid for breaking my promise to myself than because of the actual effect of the wine. Now I have a headache this morning (definitely because of the wine—I think my body stopped making the enzymes for breaking down alcohol, since it didn’t get any alcohol for the last three months, so it had a hard time breaking down the wine last night and it got to higher concentrations in my body than it normally would have), and I’m missing class, another thing I promised myself I wouldn’t do. That being said, today, I’m ready to quit. I feel like there needs to be a fundamental shift in my thinking about this. Instead of thinking to myself “I’m in the process of quitting”, I need to take the leap and actually quit. I wrote in a previous entry that I would mark this goal as completed after I had gone 6 months without touching alcohol. That’s because of the part of me that likes to be slow and thorough and plan things out in advance. But, really, what am I waiting for? I think that before today, I must not have been 100% sure that I wanted to quit. There was a part of me that thought…maybe it’s okay if I get to a point where I can just drink a little bit every now and then. But now I know that that is not what I want. I want to quit 100%, for good. I don’t want to keep on poisoning myself just a little bit…I want to stop poisoning myself altogether. And I want to reclaim my life, my confidence, and my happiness, now, today, right this minute! So I quit drinking today, October 7th, 2009. I’ll keep posting about how it feels to have quit. Thank you to everyone who’s encouraged me with cheers and comments!

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Woohoo! I need all the encouragement I can give myself for this goal because this is really tough for me. So YAY for 8 hours with no shopping or online “window shopping! I can do this!