Thinking outside the box

There is a box of wine sitting in my fridge at home.

It's mostly empty, and was left there by a friend about a week and a half ago when my boyfriend had people over. In the old days, there is no physical possibility for a box of wine to remain inside my fridge for a week and a half. True, in the old days you could check and see a box of wine in there every single day for a week and a half, but in those days it is extremely unlikely that it would be the same box of wine. What you would have seen was three or four different boxes of wine as they replaced the original.

This box of wine is the same one. The exact same one. No replacements. It's just sitting in there, maybe a quarter full, waiting for someone who does drink (not me) to come along and imbibe.

The last few days, that box has been bugging the HELL out of me.

I'll be strong, and to tell the truth, whether I relapse or not has very, very little to do with the contents of my fridge. I am a 2 minute walk from a wine store, a 5 minute walk from a beer store, and a 10 minute walk from an "anything with alcohol content" store, plus about a billion bars and pubs. Also, my credit card is completely paid off and I have money in both my chequing AND savings accounts. I am probably in the best possible condition for me to arrange a giant bender as I will ever be. Shame, really. I guess this is the paradox: when I'm drinking, I can't afford to drink, and when I stop drinking I can afford anything I want, including drinking!

But back to the box....a few days ago I lifted it out of the fridge, not to drink it, but because I was curious. I wanted to know how full it was. It was depressingly light...if I were drinking, it would not have been enough, not by a long-shot. The boxes hold, I think, 3 or 4 bottles' worth of wine, and I'm pretty sure I can pack away three quarters of a box in one night, if I'm determined. The box in the fridge probably has about two or three glasses worth.

A day after I checked the contents, I saw a mostly-empty glass of wine on my boyfriend's computer desk from the night before. I actually had to stifle an impulse to just gulp it down - one harmless little swallow. I can even taste the sour tang of day-old wine right now, and feel the warmth in my face and belly. Mm-mm.

I hate to think it, but I'm worried that, for whatever reason, I might be in relapse territory. It's time for me to think very, very hard about what that would mean. A huge part of alcholism is the denial, and I think that I'm at least partly in denial about how difficult not drinking really is for me. It's incredibly seductive to think that I could have a little binge (Ha! "little binge!") and then just hop back on the wagon. One of the blogs I read (Immortal Alcoholic) talks about an end-stage alcoholic who has refused detox, because he wants to be healthy, but not stop drinking. I completely understand this. Man, I feel this. If I could be simultaneously sober AND drunk? All the time? Man. How awesome would that be??

But that's fantasy. Reality is that if I take one drink, that is the first step down the road to losing each and every single one of my dreams and goals, hurting people that I love and who love me, and giving up on a real and well-lived life. I'm not ready for that, yet.

The thing is, I'm just starting to understand what my life as a sober person could actually be. I've spent so much of my life as an adult being a drinker that I'm realising now that I actually have no idea what I'm capable of. Certain ideas I have about myself - my laziness, my lack of ambition, my flakiness - might just be artifacts of my alcoholism and not even close to accurate about myself. What if I'm actually a hard-working, ambitious, reliable person? What would that mean?

Fact is, I don't have a reliable framework yet for thinking about myself as sober. I don't really know who I am. I've had plenty of time to figure out who and what the drinking Marc is, that's comfortable (-ish) and familiar. But thinking about myself outside of that wine box is strange and more than a little frightening. I don't know who he is, yet, but I have a feeling that he's better than the wine box me. So its worth it getting to know him.

Wine with Dinner?

Last night was dinner with my partner's parents. I'm slow to warm to people, but I've known them for 3 years now, and they are nice, engaging people with interesting things to say, so at this point I'm slowly letting down my guard, but we're not there yet, so sometimes I get a bit antsy at visiting with them so often (we see them on average every second week, whereas I see my family once or twice a year) but it's always a good time.

They are a family with deeply ingrained rituals, and one of those rituals is wine with supper. I stopped drinking back in October, but they still, without fail, offer me wine every single time I come for dinner. I suppose this is where telling them that I am a recovering alcoholic would be useful, because I feel like they would ultimately be respectful of that. But not right away, and that's why I'm not comfortable telling them that. So my not drinking is a resolution, to be examined and renewed next January.

Thing is, I haven't figured out what the polite exchange for someone choosing not to drink and for others not to press the issue is. It's bad enough that the temptation is there, but typically I get offered alcohol two or three times right away. I have to say "no thanks" two or three times before they stop. It's frustrating and embarassing to me.

I don't want to tell them that I have a drinking problem, because, stigma and shame aside, I don't want to hear another person tell me I don't have a problem. This also happens all the time: "I can't drink because I have a drinking problem," "Oh, Marc, you're fine! I've never seen you get out of hand. Here, just have a beer!"

If you read this and you are a drinker, please do not say this to anyone. It is incredibly awkward and the person you are telling it to should not be required to share with you the embarassing, shameful, tragic, and just plain sad experiences that have led them to stop drinking.

Anyway, with my partner's parents, I think I'm going to start bringing "fancy" flavoured soda water to dinner, and hopefully that will satisfy tradition enough that they don't feel obligated to ask me to drink wine.