I made myself a care package

A few days ago I did a little smart thing to try to protect my beautiful little alcohol-free space. I had plans to get together with my sister and brother-in-law at my nephew’s lacrosse game on Sunday afternoon. I was not pleased with this turn of events. My desire had been to take my nephew to the science museum (10 years old! it’s so fun to watch the changes in how kids navigate a science museum at 5, 7, 10, 12 years old). And then his sports schedule got in the way. But my sister suggested that perhaps

On alcohol as not the only escape

Continuing from a couple of days ago… one of the aspects of drinking that I found most troubling is the quick, easy deflation/escape, the ease with which it helped me escape from being present in myself. This is separate from the health/relationship/productivity issues involved in being drunk and picking oneself up and dusting oneself off after an evening of drinking. The escape itself, and the habit of escaping, is the bigger deal for me.

Alcohol was not my only mechanism of deflation/escape

Disentangling things up stream

Like a lot of people, from what I read, deleting alcohol as a chilling-out mechanism leaves a huge vacuum.  At first you wonder what to replace it with at the end (or in the middle) of a long and/or stressful day. And then you find a few things