Such a beautiful weekend, so far. I just turned 44. Today is our 12 year wedding anniversary. We’re hanging out at the lake with my in-laws. My heart is full and my mind is clear.

I love coming out here. My in-laws bought this place right after I quit drinking, so I’ve only been sober here. Sober and happy. Sober and relaxed. Sober and recharged.

I have had some of my most intense sober buzzes here. Moments filled with intense joy that brought me to tears.

I’m feeling so happy and thankful. I just wanted to share.

Blissfully yours,

W.

Hello! Just a quick check-in while I’m feeling the impulse. Blogging from my phone. Not a fan.

I mainly wanted to get down the thought I had about this year and back to school, versus last year.

I really feel like last year was all about learning how to do work/school/parenting sober for me. It was my first complete school year of sobriety and it was full of ups, downs, revelations, and observations. A handful of triggery moments, though those really show up in my brain as “THIS is why I can’t drink”, not “I wish I could drink.”

This year, so far, feels like my first year learning how to do work/school/parenting  (homework, routine, etc) like a grown-up. Putting plans in place. Forming new habits. Recognizing how important it is to take care of myself. The importance of giving grace out with reckless abandon.

It’s so exciting meeting myself. I am proud of these days I’ve given myself and my family.

Still true as I approach 500 (!) days:

– Nothing in me wants to drink alcohol. I’ve had my share.

– I really enjoy socializing sober. I really enjoy leaving when I’m ready.

– Sober sleep is awesome.

– I’m thankful for Clausthaler.

I’m sure there’s more, but that’s all the time I have. Hopefully more, sooner rather than later.

Love, W

Today was my first day back to work after the holidays. It was so hard to get myself up and moving this morning! Not nearly as hard as it was last year, though!

I’m a maker. I love to make and give handmade gifts. That was a lot more doable when I was a stay at home mom. Now, I have good intentions, but zero time.

This year I showed myself some grace. I made some things, bought some things. All gifts were well received.

I’m mentioning the gifting because our last Christmas gathering was YESTERDAY. I am Christmased out, y’all.

So, I was tired today, but I was not hungover. I returned to work after two weeks of celebrating, eating, making, giving, enjoying my family…

I returned to work knowing that there was a lot to do. That there is some stressful stuff coming up. That there are some things I’d rather not mess with, but I have to do them anyway.

But, I did not return to work with a 2 week-little sleep-way too much alcohol-surviving on coffee and sugar-hangover. I did not return to work completely exhausted. I did not spend today thinking about the beer I “deserved” when I got home.

I am so freaking thankful I don’t drink anymore! I am thankful to be clear-headed. I am thankful to be able to think, “I don’t want to deal with this right now,” instead of, “I can’t wait to get home and have a beer. ” I am thankful for a beautifully regulated nervous system.

This year is so much better. So much better.

Tired, happy, thankful,

Wendy P

I’m a generally happy person. Sometimes annoyingly so. I’m glass half full, look for the positive, don’t worry things will get better, WE GOT THIS…

I’m also really good at looking for the positive from deep within the sand my head is shoved in. No negative for me, thank you, the positive must be just a little deeper here. Could you hand me my shovel?

I don’t want to discount my positivity. It’s one of my greatest strengths. If it doesn’t annoy the shit out of you, I promise you’ll find it quite endearing.

I’m learning, though, that I can’t out cheerful some things. One of the gifts sobriety has given me is the chance to sit with the tough stuff. Look at it. Feel uncomfortable. Acknowledge that it’s hard and unfair and hurts and it’s not going anywhere until I deal with it.

I used to deal with it by getting happy via a 6-pack. My happy, happy, cloudy cloud. But my cloud was getting way cloudier and I was losing my happy. I knew I was crossing a line when I started getting really mean with my husband sometimes. He is my favorite person on this planet and most assuredly doesn’t deserve a mean drunk wife.

Two weeks before I woke up and thought, “I think I’m done,” I yelled at my daughter with so much venom that I scared her. I never want to see that look on her face again. I am so ashamed that I made her feel like that. Never again.

It’s not that sobriety magically takes care of it all. When I put down my 6-pack shovel, kid worries, debt, clutter, body fat, etc, were all in my sandy hole with me. I had no choice but to load them up and start climbing out.

The beauty of hard, abrasive things, though, is that they have the power to slough off the dead stuff.  (See what I did there!?!) I can’t out happy my problems, but I can look at them with clear eyes and my positive spirit. I can put down my shovel. I can open my toolbox.

Annoyingly cheerfully yours,

Wendy P

Day 250! That’s kind of a nice round number of sober days in 2015. Crazy, awesome, and still feels miraculous to me.

We’re heading out to my in-laws’ lake house here in a bit. I’m super excited about it. There will be tons of fireworks, I’m sure. We were out there for the 4th of July and it was astounding. People (not us) clearly spending over $10,000 on massive fireworks displays. Amazing and impossible to describe. We were out on the boat in the middle of all of it. I was just over 2 months at that point, feeling all of the feelings still. It was so intense!  Fireworks everywhere, my beautiful family, overwhelmingly thankful to be all in for that moment, breathtakingly present…I’ll never forget it.

Don’t worry, I’m not expecting tonight to live up to that! 😉 I am excited to hang out with my family, enjoy the beautiful show provided by the reckless spending of others, eat myself sick on smores, and most likely be deep in gorgeous sober sleep when midnight rolls in.

I can’t wait to see what the new year brings! I wish for you a year filled with moments, breathtakingly amazing to mind-numbingly mundane, and that you will be all in to see the gift of each one of them. 😘

Shalom y’all,

Wendy P

I’ve only had one Day One. I don’t think that has anything to do with my super sober skills. My Day One was percolating in my subconscious for a couple of years, I think.

My Day One was created by:

• Countless attempts at moderation – glasses of water between drinks, only drinking on certain days, after certain times, only this much, no more than x…ad nauseum
• Many, many, many miserable 4am wake-ups, sweating, heart pounding, dry mouthed…just writing that exhausts me
• Days lived operating under a low-level hangover. Tired, grouchy, easily irritated
• So much time lost to thinking about drinking! That part really gets me. I wasted so much freaking time!
• Questioning, comparing, calculating to convince myself that my drinking was normal, safe, not spiraling into a constant cloud of dread

Lots of other building blocks, too.

I am so dang thankful for whatever stars aligned to make my Day One stick. I will do whatever it takes to protect my sobriety.

I can’t imagine how exhausting it is to keep Day One-ing it over and over. But how freaking strong you must feel when you finally stick your Day One landing!?! I am so impressed by the bloggers who just keep trying. Who build on what they’ve learned about themselves, until they find the right combination of strength, grit, pride, faith, joy, and delight in their own self to really set their sober foundation. It’s so exciting to see.

I don’t know if I could be that strong. I won’t take my precious one Day One for granted. I sure as hell don’t want a second one.

I’ve blogged before. I loved it. It was a sort of mom/raising a child with Down syndrome/crafty/frugal blog. I made some great friends through that blog. It helped me reach out and find support when I really needed it.

When I woke up on April 26, 2015, and thought, “I think I’m done,” my first impulse was to google “sober blog.”And sure enough, there they were. People willing to share their successes and failures. People being funny and open. Sober people.

So now, 8 months into my sober gig, I feel like I should maybe give some of that support back. I’ve resisted blogging again, because of how much time I devoted to it years ago. Also, my irl friends and family eventually read my blog, making it kind of hard to keep it real. I’m not planning on being anonymous. If someone I know stumbles across this space, that’s cool.

I’m so freaking excited about my sobriety! I think at 43, I’m finally figuring out how this adulting thing works. Here we go…