On the normalization of women’s drinking, or how women are being screwed over once again by the advertising industry

Good morning, people. Once again I find myself so fully occupied with life logistics that the stream of blog posts I draft in my head goes untyped. But I think of this little cyberspace of mine and I’m reading what other bloggers in the sobercybersphere write and I have a lot to say about what I’m reading and experiencing. But that’s for another day.

The Washington Post had a very nice article today called “For Women Heavy Drinking Has Been Normalized” about the social phenomenon we’re seeing

Receptivity

To me, quitting alcohol is not so much a thing in itself as it is a component of finding peace within myself. Finding some place to be quiet, warm, content, peaceful. Quiet.

Alcohol was part of my racing around looking for this. It was a major element of my resistance to myself (though not at all the only one) — resistance to my own peace, to my anxiety, to my fears. I’m convinced that peace is found on the other side of letting go of that resistance. The layers are many and subtle. It’s the journey.

4 months without alcohol: 4 ways of staying put

I had my last beers on Christmas eve, more than four months ago. The new year came in, the winter persisted one, two months and part of a third month, and then spring broke through. I’m being driven further into my own mind and body not having that alcohol escape anymore. The tensions that I reacted to by drinking now lie out in the open. Some of the triggers weren’t even tensions, they could simply be the fact of the day drifting around to 3 p.m. and a bar and grill nearby.

In March I wrote about my selection of ways to repel from discomfort, and today I’m thinking about ways I’m learning to move toward discomfort.

My approach to quitting drinking: Put in place a few conditions and let self heal

Here’s my overall approach to this quitting drinking thing. I am doing a small number of practices that calm me down and settle me, and not doing some that jar, jangle, or fry me, and then waiting. Living my life, giving myself time and space to heal. I feel that there is a force toward health and wholeness in me (in everyone), and my job is to get out of its way. I’ve become an expert at interfering with it madly, and it’s time to stop.

This approach depends on an assumption I’m making being true – in that sense it’s an act of faith.