Ready to Restart, Again

Well, I've ended up drinking for most of an entire week now, but somehow, I've managed not to do it publicly, or even in a way that my DH knows, although I think he may just be in extreme denial of the obvious.

I've reached that point again, though, where I'm just questioning why I'm doing it in the first place. It's not relieving any stress, I'm not even enjoying it (can't seem to get a good buzz going, and I end up realizing I've gone over the edge where it's too much and not pleasant at all), and combined with the HRT, I've managed to pack on an extra 4 to 5 pounds in a week's time (I also tend to eat a lot more when I drink, unlike many drinkers who eat nothing or eat less, and I eat food that's higher in fat and calories than I normally do). On my small-boned 5-foot frame, that's quite a bit extra, and it shows, and is impacting my wardrobe very negatively (as in, nothing at all fits except for sweat pants). Maybe it's because I've drunk mostly vodka this time, rather than wine, that I'm not enjoying it. Whatever, the reason, I just feel like I'm ready to give sobriety another good long shot.

I do have to say that one reason I had such good luck with it for nearly a month is that my DH was home (he didn't work all that time), so 1) I didn't really have the opportunity I normally do with him being gone during the week to purchase alcohol, and then to have uninterrupted hours to drink, and 2) I wasn't lonely and depressed, so I wasn't motivated to drink, as I normally am. I think the most difficult thing for me to learn to do will be just to cope on a daily, or even hourly basis when I'm by myself, and not want to just numb my senses and while away the time by losing it in a stupor.

Blowing It

Well, I totally blew my nearly month-long run of sobriety. Did it sneak up on me and take me unawares? No. I big fat planned it out. Which maybe is why I didn't even enjoy it.

I went to lunch with my friend on Thursday. She was already seated when I arrived 10 minutes late, and had ordered a Diet Coke. She wasn't sitting there already sipping a glass of Pinot Grigio or Chianti. So what do I do? When the waitress comes to take my drink order, I look at my friend and ask "Is that all you're going to have?" So I guilt her into having a glass with me, even though she's "trying to be good" for caloric reasons, not drinking issues, which she doesn't have as far as I know.

All well and good. I completely enjoy the glass of wine, I'm eating, so I just have the slightest and most pleasant little buzz when we leave, but as we've spontaneously decided to go get manis and pedis and I'm anticipating being utterly pampered for an hour, I say "Too bad we didn't have another glass of wine."

On the way home (after the nail place), I stop at the liquor store, but since they don't have the UV Citruv I want, I don't buy anything, but I KNOW I'm going to get it the next day when the DH is out of town for 2 days, because I want a veg-out day in front of the tube, accompanied by pretty pink martinis.

I do go the next day, and make my purchase, and proceed to try to get drunk. I finally have to up the ratio of liquor to mixer by 3 in order to start feeling anything other than a mild fuzziness. I'm feeling pretty much in the zone for about 20 minutes, and then I wake up when it's dark, drooling on the leather couch, and manage to make my way back to the bedroom, where I crawl into bed with my makeup on and teeth unbrushed and sleep until dawn the next morning.

So what was the frigging point?

Googling Menopause

Actually, I've been googling hormone replacement therapy. Here's one thing I found that's a little scary:

Risk factors of osteoporosis include:

• Age–risk increases as you grow older


• Being a woman–women have less bone tissue and lose bone faster than men


• Body size–small, thin-boned women are at greatest risk


• Ethnicity–white and Asian women are at highest risk


• Family history–having parents with a history of fractures


• Sex hormones–abnormal absence of menstrual periods (amenorrhea) or menopause


• Anorexia


• Lifetime diet low in calcium and vitamin D


• Certain medications, such as glucocorticoids (prescribed for various diseases, including arthritis, asthma, and lupus) or some anticonvulsants


• Physical inactivity or extended bed rest


• Cigarette smoking


• Excessive use of alcoholic beverages

Okay, so I'm reading this list, and I'm thinking Me. Me. Me., checking them off as I read. The only ones that don't pertain are physical inactivity or extended bed rest and cigarette smoking. Although I smoked about a pack a day (more when I was drinking at a bar), I quit over 20 years ago, and have only had maybe 10 or 15 cigarettes in all the years since then.

Then I get to the last one.

Excessive use of alcoholic beverages???!!

This is the first I've ever heard of that being a contributing factor to osteoporosis.

Crap. I'm screwed.

And, I've been SO wanting a drink (not in a gotta have one way, but just an ooh, a martini would be soooo good kinda way) for the last couple of days. I'm going to lunch with a friend on Thursday who's not in the loop on the alcohol-problem-self-outing, and this particular friend and I always have a glass of wine or two -- heck, let's just by a bottle-it's cheaper! -- when we go out for lunch, and then yesterday I was reading an article on summer entertaining, and there was a recipe for a lovely peach sangria, suggesting Gerwurtztraminer as the wine to use as a base, and I L-O-V-E Fetzer Gerwurtztraminer, so that got me to thinking that maybe I'd just pick up a bottle of that on the way home from my lunch date...

You see where this is leading. It's the whole alcoholic rationalization process that leads to the downward spiral back to where I was a month ago.

Maniacally Menopausal

Well, I had my follow-up visit with the OB-GYN doctor today to go over my blood work results. He said I'm fully into menopause. Not pre-. Not peri-. Not entering. Fully, as in full-blown-and-raging-all-out menopause.

I was a little surprised, a little sad (?), but mostly just relieved to know that no, I am NOT crazy, my hot flashes really HAVE increased exponentially in a very short time, and that some of the other crazy-hormonal stuff I've been pretty sure I was going through really does seem to be actually attributable to hormones gone wild.

I guess the real word I'm looking for is "validated." I feel validated. I'm NOT a crazy psycho bitch; I'm just maniacally menopausal!

I start hormone therapy tomorrow. Yay.