There may be a few reasons for this but the one I like to focus on, is that I'm happy. I met a boy. A wonderful, amazing, caring, smart, sexy man. And my desire to drink, to socialise, to have a beer or a wine just because I feel like it, returned.
And as my sexy man said to me, "You're just changing your relationship with alcohol". Did I mention that he is wise too? This statement is so correct. When I stopped drinking earlier this year, it was through shame. Shame at my behaviour when drunk, shame at the self-inflicted abuse of my body, shame at my self-destructive patterns that I carried all through my twenties (and allowed me to nurture a melancholy safety-net of negative self-talk that I would never be good enough to follow my dreams.)
And this shame made me scared to ever have another drink again. After I stopped drinking, I had dreams every night for months on end, that I got drunk either intentionally, accidentally or I was drugged by someone else. And each time I woke up, I was sooo relieved that I hadn't had a drink. I had a fear, a phobia almost, about what would happen if I drank. Not so much about losing control but more about being disappointed in myself. About regret and not living up to my own high standards, even though I couldn't really articulate what they were.
But on Cup Day, that fear took a backseat, when all of a sudden at my brothers house, nervous and happy after introducing my family to my beautiful boy, I decided to have a drink. To calm my nerves. To celebrate. To relax. To socialise. To live a little.
I drank lots of water. I only drank a little bit because I was driving anyway. And I felt great. So happy. And the next day, not a skerrick of a hangover.
Fast forward to last Saturday night. Celebrating my friend's 40th birthday, I had a few drinks. Not many. Two beers and four modest glasses of red wine. Again, I drank quite a lot of water. But for the next two days I had a hangover. That red wine in your veins, heavy limbed, dull headache and general blah feeling. After hardly drinking anything and eating a big wedge of pork belly for dinner! Surely the pig blubber would've soaked up any nasty hangover-producing molecules!
So that's where I'm at now friends. Two drinking experiences under my belt, one positive, the other less so and a gorgeous new boyfriend who helps me to articulate what I'm feeling. And now, with no sense of shame or fear, I know that I am merely drawing up a new contract with booze. A pre-nup if you will. For the first time in my life, I am renegotiating my relationship with alcohol in a refreshingly sober fashion.
