Drowning Everything in Wine
I stood in the hallway with tears streaming down my face, crying to my husband that I knew I was drinking too much and I wanted to stop, but I didn't know how to work it into my life. Everyone I know around me drinks. I’m not drinking in excess, I’m drinking more than I’m comfortable with. Every party, holiday, afternoon, dinner, birthday party includes too much wine, beer, tequila and vodka. I knew that I was sleeping badly, sweating at 1:00 a.m., up at 3:00 a.m and my skin looked like shit.
I was spending hundreds of dollars a month on trips to the store to refill my stock of wine and worried when a friend was stopping by, that one bottle of red wine wasn't going to be enough for the afternoon.
I was putting on weight, ten pounds a year, after loosing so much weight when I was juicing and running every day, just four years ago. I would rather drink wine than eat, trying to negotiate my calorie intake between food and alcohol. A girl has to choose right?
I had just gone through one of the most difficult times in my life. I had ended my relationship with a business I had helped build from the ground up, but more importantly I had ended my relationship with a woman I looked at like a sister and loved to the depth of my soul, and I wasn't truly appreciating what it was doing to me and how I was drowning those feeling every day.
I would wait for the clock to strike 5:00, or earlier if I needed to start dinner early. Every night opening a bottle of wine to go with cutting veggies. It made the evening a party, a fun part of the day while I waited for my husband to make his way home. Everything was better with a glass of wine. Everything was more fun, more exciting, and when Jim would walk through the door I was relaxed and ready to start a Tuesday night.
Brunch was about Bloody Mary's, lunch was a shared bottle of wine, dinner was wine, and it wasn't even like I was getting drunk, it was just a huge indulgence of calories and habit. But it didn't faze me at the time because everyone does this, right?
I remembering hearing the data that women over the age of 60 is at a greater risk of alcoholism and alcohol related illnesses. As I thought about that fact, and looked around at my peer group and women older than myself, it made perfect sense. I mean, come on, I always say "these little kids of mine are what keeps me out of the bars!" And I say it only half kidding.
Unlimited time, extra cash, no college tuition to be saving for, and martinis and wine billed as fun and sexy, I mean, why not?
Because that shit is aging you and killing you and the older you get, the less ability you have to metabolize the same amount of drinks you did when you were younger.
Little did I know that when Jim would walk in the house and my face was red as a beet, and he would know in an instant that I had just had a beer, it was because my body was reacting negatively to the hops and alcohol. Little did I know that my skin was yelling at me to stop the insanity and quit drinking so damn much. Little did I know that no matter how little I ate, the alcohol was finding a home around my waist, as fat.
And little did I know that alcohol was raising my estrogen levels, and was perhaps what has contributed to my Estrogen-Positive Breast Cancer.
And this is why I am so grateful for my breast cancer. It has woken me up to what the hell I was doing to myself. It has given me a really great reason to get my shit together and stop abusing my body. It has changed everything and put parameters around alcohol to seven drinks a week. It has allowed me to quit drinking at home alone while making dinner, and now I don't even think about it.
I ration my drinks to friend time, and time out with my husband. It is not "mommy juice," or the start of the evening. It is not my go-to drink at lunch and I don't feel the need to get drunk at Easter brunch, which would have been a done deal last year.
I'm sure I will still indulge here and there, but it isn't a train running down the tracks with no way of stopping it.
Breast Cancer has been a blessing in this sense. Maybe this is what I needed to get myself on track? Maybe I would have just kept going on the way I was, even though I knew each and every day that what I was doing, wasn't really what I wanted to do, but didn't know how to change.
Nothing is an accident. Nothing is a mistake. The Universe and God has my back, and cancer is no exception.
If you want to change, don't wait for something like cancer to make you change. Ask for advice, look at what you're doing and make the changes you want to make buy cutting back, fixing it, or whatever is needed to make your life what you want it to be. I'm blessed to have fixed it, I feel better, don't sweat at night or wake up all night anymore and everyone tells me how great my skin looks, especially my husband.
After that night in the hallway Jim never threw drinking in my face. He never gave me a hard time. Maybe because he knows me enough to know I would figure it out like I do everything. He probably couldn't have done anything to fix me, not that I wanted him to, but that night was my first step in acknowledging that where I was, wasn't where I wanted to be. God was listening, that is obvious, I have cancer to prove it.
I was spending hundreds of dollars a month on trips to the store to refill my stock of wine and worried when a friend was stopping by, that one bottle of red wine wasn't going to be enough for the afternoon.
I had just gone through one of the most difficult times in my life. I had ended my relationship with a business I had helped build from the ground up, but more importantly I had ended my relationship with a woman I looked at like a sister and loved to the depth of my soul, and I wasn't truly appreciating what it was doing to me and how I was drowning those feeling every day.
I would wait for the clock to strike 5:00, or earlier if I needed to start dinner early. Every night opening a bottle of wine to go with cutting veggies. It made the evening a party, a fun part of the day while I waited for my husband to make his way home. Everything was better with a glass of wine. Everything was more fun, more exciting, and when Jim would walk through the door I was relaxed and ready to start a Tuesday night.
Brunch was about Bloody Mary's, lunch was a shared bottle of wine, dinner was wine, and it wasn't even like I was getting drunk, it was just a huge indulgence of calories and habit. But it didn't faze me at the time because everyone does this, right?
I remembering hearing the data that women over the age of 60 is at a greater risk of alcoholism and alcohol related illnesses. As I thought about that fact, and looked around at my peer group and women older than myself, it made perfect sense. I mean, come on, I always say "these little kids of mine are what keeps me out of the bars!" And I say it only half kidding.
Unlimited time, extra cash, no college tuition to be saving for, and martinis and wine billed as fun and sexy, I mean, why not?
Because that shit is aging you and killing you and the older you get, the less ability you have to metabolize the same amount of drinks you did when you were younger.
Little did I know that when Jim would walk in the house and my face was red as a beet, and he would know in an instant that I had just had a beer, it was because my body was reacting negatively to the hops and alcohol. Little did I know that my skin was yelling at me to stop the insanity and quit drinking so damn much. Little did I know that no matter how little I ate, the alcohol was finding a home around my waist, as fat.
And little did I know that alcohol was raising my estrogen levels, and was perhaps what has contributed to my Estrogen-Positive Breast Cancer.
And this is why I am so grateful for my breast cancer. It has woken me up to what the hell I was doing to myself. It has given me a really great reason to get my shit together and stop abusing my body. It has changed everything and put parameters around alcohol to seven drinks a week. It has allowed me to quit drinking at home alone while making dinner, and now I don't even think about it.
I ration my drinks to friend time, and time out with my husband. It is not "mommy juice," or the start of the evening. It is not my go-to drink at lunch and I don't feel the need to get drunk at Easter brunch, which would have been a done deal last year.
I'm sure I will still indulge here and there, but it isn't a train running down the tracks with no way of stopping it.
Breast Cancer has been a blessing in this sense. Maybe this is what I needed to get myself on track? Maybe I would have just kept going on the way I was, even though I knew each and every day that what I was doing, wasn't really what I wanted to do, but didn't know how to change.
Nothing is an accident. Nothing is a mistake. The Universe and God has my back, and cancer is no exception.
If you want to change, don't wait for something like cancer to make you change. Ask for advice, look at what you're doing and make the changes you want to make buy cutting back, fixing it, or whatever is needed to make your life what you want it to be. I'm blessed to have fixed it, I feel better, don't sweat at night or wake up all night anymore and everyone tells me how great my skin looks, especially my husband.
After that night in the hallway Jim never threw drinking in my face. He never gave me a hard time. Maybe because he knows me enough to know I would figure it out like I do everything. He probably couldn't have done anything to fix me, not that I wanted him to, but that night was my first step in acknowledging that where I was, wasn't where I wanted to be. God was listening, that is obvious, I have cancer to prove it.
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