It’s been almost 9 weeks since my last drink. 8 weeks and 6 days, to be precise.
I’m not too sure how it happened. It wasn’t really a planned thing - it started off unintentionally. A couple of times I was planning to drink, I ended up not feeling up to it. Then, after the first 10-ish days, it seems to start to get easier. I start feeling good about it. I start going through days without even thinking about it.
Then, I realise I’ve set a new personal best, and I want to keep it going. Three weeks became four, became six, became eight, and here I am. Last year, I went 15 days without a drink after I had my wisdom teeth out, and that was the longest I’d gone in many years (probably since 2016, when I started drinking heavily), but I hadn’t been able to repeat it. I fell into a comfortable routine of moderation, drinking once a week, maybe twice if it was a bad week.
Of course, it helps when I start to see the scales move. For the last 8 or so years, there hasn’t been a lot of movement, after the initial big gain when I started drinking. Looking back at my records, I seem to have lost about 2kg a year since then, with a few years that didn’t have much movement. But the losses have been so incredibly slow, it doesn’t feel like much.
Then, when I stop drinking, I start to see the lower intakes add up. I start having weeks where every day had an intake of three digits. And I liked seeing that in my log. I start to see the scales move, faster than they have for years. So far, for this year, I’m down 4-5kg - and it’s basically all been in the time since I’ve stopped drinking. Dietitian is keeping a close eye on me, and is Setting Goals again, but I’m not particularly worried.
The less calories I consume, the less calories I want to consume. And the idea of wasting 1,000+ calories to get drunk just doesn’t seem worth it.
My birthday is tomorrow, and it’s looking like it’ll be my first sober birthday since I was maybe 16. Between the years of smoking, and the years of drinking, it’s been a long time. Usually, I would buy something different to drink for birthdays and Christmas etc, a nice little treat instead of my usual wine and spritzers. I haven’t even bought anything, not wanting to tempt fate. I figure that if I do decide to drink on the day, I can just get same-day delivery, but at this point I have no plans to. It’s always a sad time of year, especially with mum’s birthday next week, but it’s just one of those things I guess I need to figure out how to navigate without always leaning on alcohol.
I always say that it’s not forever. That’s too much to consider. The goal has always been moderation, not abstinence, I’ve always wanted to be able to just have a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, but I don’t really know if I can. Maybe I could. But part of me just doesn’t want to break the sober streak, I want to see it get to 10 weeks, to 12 weeks. There is something about streaks that I never want to break, whether it’s MyFitnessPal (5,216 days as of today!), Duolingo, Wordle, or my sober streak.
The other recent news is that, about three weeks ago, I ended up needing surgery.
I’d had a tiny lump for maybe a couple of years now. It was barely noticeable, a tiny bump, perhaps the size of a pea under the skin. So I never got it checked out, because it wasn’t causing any issues, and I didn’t feel comfortable having it looked at as it was situated on my butt cheek. It seemed like the most embarrassing thing. So I just assumed it was a harmless little cyst, just chilling.
Then, in the space of a few days, it blew up. Day by day, it slowly got worse, going from the size of a pea to an egg in less than a week, the pain increasing in step with the size.
I realized it couldn’t wait two weeks to see my regular GP (bad timing for her to be overseas!). I started to worry about things like sepsis, and my anxiety started to peak. Thankfully I was able to get in to see a female doctor, at least. She gave me two antibiotics, but said it would probably need surgery, and if it wasn’t improving within 24 hours, I would need to go to the hospital.
The next day, it was still getting worse. Thankfully, I had my bestie support worker, S, that morning, so she took me to the hospital. I saw a doctor within 15 minutes, the surgeon an hour or two later. I was in surgery 6 hours after arriving, and home almost exactly at the 24 hour mark.
The concept of surgery and general anesthesia makes me incredibly uncomfortable. It squicks me out, more so than worrying about the pain. I hate the idea of going under. It’s always scary to me, and it was my first time doing it completely alone. When I had my bronchoscopy, I had mum there to hold my hand. When I had my wisdom teeth out, S was there the whole way until I was out. I had a bit of a teary moment when the staff moved me down to get ready for surgery, just a little sniffly. When I woke up, I just cried for a while. I don’t know why I always cry when I’m coming out of anesthesia.
But at least it’s done. It immediately felt so much better, even though I now had a big gaping open wound. When it was first done, I could see the layers of fat. I just wanted to stick my fingers in and rip it out.
All that to say, I’m feeling much better now. The first 3-5 days home were pretty bad, and I tried to avoid movement as much as possible. It took about a week to get my energy back and start getting back on my feet and back to my normal routine. It’s mostly better now, as long as I don’t sit directly on it. I’m out of the woods now, but boy, that was a hell of a week.
Shameless hospital selfie. I always feel so weird without piercings
Nurse Sephi taking good care of me post-surgery