No Goodbyes

Y’all know we are hopefully getting ready to move, right?

Well, when this whole process started I was so excited and had no clue it would be so long and drawn out. As soon as we found our dream house, my mister called a pool guy, we picked out our refrigerator, checked on a rubberized flooring to install in our new garage, got a quote for custom blinds, and I began packing boxes. I figured that since we already had our pre-approval letter, the hard part was over. Oh boy was I wrong! Buying a house is a grueling process that takes LOTS of patience. (Patience is NOT one of my virtues!)

While I was preparing dinner tonight, specifically the salad, I got my lettuce out to wash and reached down to get my salad spinner….guess what y’all. It’s packed away in a box, ready to move in to our new house that we may or may not get! Ooooh dear. My lettuce is sitting in my colander drip drying as we speak.

See here, the lettuce for our salad is drying...Ghetto Style!

I washed my cucumber, cut the ends off of it, and went for my peeler and you guessed it….it’s packed! Mouse turds!

Luckily I had everything I needed for my homemade french fries and they made it safely into the oven with no issues. Hallelujer!! For those who don’t know (MOM), that is the ebonics version of Halleluja – instead of YA say YER and really put some major emphasis on your YER.

I know you are following along aloud, mom. I can just hear you!

*and I’m laughing…..aloud!*

Hopefully everything will go through….and according to our timeline. We are still scheduled to close on August 8th….tick tock tick tock, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage peeps!

So I know that in my last post I started writing some Thank You messages….which I am not done with. BUT have no fear, this is no indication that we are saying goodbye to one another. I am still going to continue with the Scram Bracelet Diaries, post-Scram. As I said, my journey is not over. It is just beginning.

I am sure you want to see how this sobriety thing works out for me.  Frankly so do I! I value, appreciate, and need your support. Am I excited to be getting my Scram off in 2 short days? Of course! But I am also scared to death to get it off too. Right now at this very moment I do not want to drink. I know where I’ve been and I see where I’m going. But I also know that alcoholism is a very real disease and that there is no doubt about it, I suffer from it. There is no cure for alcoholism. I will live with it and battle it every day of my life. I have made the decision to do everything I can to overcome my biggest demon.

My mister and I have had many conversations, while I was drinking and now that I am sober, about my struggles and he definitely supports me. We had gone round and round with the same conversation about the 100%, all or nothing commitment I am making. I am happy to say that after much discussion, we have come to a place where he totally gets it. Whenever we would talk about it, he would always give me the scenario of having one drink and for me to imagine that if I drank any more than one, the Scram Bracelet would go back on my leg for the rest of my life. Well, in theory I suppose I can kind of see the point he is trying to make….kind of. BUT, I think he finally understands my retort of “but why?” Why even go there? Why do that to myself? Why tempt myself? Why tempt fate? Why toy with the inevitable….that maybe for a week or even a month, that may work, but not for long. At some point, I am going to reason that I can have just one more. One day, just one drink isn’t going to be enough. One drink is going to give me that tingle that I feel run down the side of my neck that feels so good. That tingle that runs down the side of my neck that I get from one drink is something that my mister doesn’t understand. *Actually he laughs at me * But whatever. I laugh at him for stuff he does that I don’t understand too. The tingle in my neck is like some sort of an ON switch in my brain that says “woooah dude, this feels gooooooood! More please! And on the double!….wait, I meant make it fast but while you’re at it…… MAKE IT A DOUBLE!” That is the ON switch that was enabled on June 8th after that first double vodka and lemonade that made it okay for me to tell my fiance (now my mister) “Yes honey, I’m going to bed. Goodnight. Talk to you in the morning.”  and then turn to my friend and say “Let’s go get into some mischief, shall we?”. That is the ON switch that said DRIVE! You’ve got places to go, people to see! Drive that car while the party is still hoppin and the drinks are still flowin! That is the ON switch that tells me on Sunday morning that the hangover from Saturday can go away with a beer. You know, my favorite saying (next to “It’s never too early for a drink”) was always “The best detox is a good retox”, also referred to as “the shampoo effect” – washing out a hangover with more alcohol. It seemed to work great, but when you become a “responsible” adult it turns from innocent fun to irresponsible, out-of-control, dysfunction.

Okay, maybe in a previous post I said that my “weak” employment history/job hopping ways were due to being in school for so long, which is why the bank didin’t want to count my earnings in our household income. The truth of the matter is (and I’ve recently come to get really honest with myself  and now you on this one) I am the reason I have a “weak” employment history. There were times I went to work still drunk from the night before. Please, people….no one is going to have a good job, much less keep a mediocre one very long with that type of behavior. I have been 100% honest with you the entire time I’ve been writing this blog, but I wasn’t being honest with myself. I truly thought and wanted to continue to believe that my weak employment history was because I was a lifelong student earning this amazing education and multiple degrees, and how dare the bank not feel that my income is stable and dependable enough to figure in to our household earnings…..

I guess you could say that the lightbulb has come on. The closer I get to being 100% accountable for my own choices, I have really become aware of where sobriety has gotten me. I am able to identify, to connect the dots that all of this time I have been running in place, spinning my wheels, merely existing in mediocre jobs rather than beginning and growing in a career, and that is 100% attributable to this disease that I never understood or identified as a disease.  I always thought  it was just me being a normal twenty-something, doing the things that twenty-somethings do. Somehow, despite all that alcohol, I managed to earn a Bachelor’s Degree and then a Master’s Degree. It probably wouldn’t have taken quite as long had I not been concentrating so hard on my drinking career. I have resented my Master’s Degree, even recently. Thinking “yeah, a lot of good this has done me, it has gotten me nowhere but in student loan debt.” What I have finally realized is that it was the drinking that got in the way of my education really paying off! Now, even in my early sobriety,  I am really seeing the benefits of the education I worked so hard for. Each day that goes by, I see so blatantly how much I am growing and excelling in my career and it feels amazing! (So amazing that I JUST may have some really big news for you next week!)

I NOW know that the forward motion I am experiencing in my life and in my precious relationships is because I am sober. The successes in my life right now would not and could not be possible in the presence of alcohol. Giving in to my addiction is not an option for me.

I am SO thankful for this revelation.

I have never felt more ALIVE!

I know that my mister and I will never need to have the just one drink chat again. I think he needed some time to mourn the loss of his drinking buddy, but he understands that this is what needs to happen, that the success of our young marriage and the prosperity of the family we dream to continue to build together depends on my sobriety. He knows that I choose HIM over and above a Sunday afternoon in a bar with beer and football. I promise I’ll be an even better football buddy without alcohol! And our bank account AND OUR LIVERS will thank us both!

I don’t know if I have given my mister quite enough credit over the 6 months of Scram. I try not to be that sickening newlywed, so I don’t go on and on about how great he is. But he is. He’s great….and hot too! He has stood by my side through it all. When I had to tell him what had happened, his reaction just reaffirmed that this was the man that I was supposed to marry. He didn’t blame me or point fingers at me. He was supportive and stood by me at every turn. As if the first year of marriage isn’t hard enough….throw a SCRAM Bracelet into the mix and if you survive that, you’re golden!

I love my life, I love my family, I am so incredibly blessed and grateful!