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This morning I woke up with a severe hangover. I knew as I was drinking last night (red wine, in case you were wondering; I was with two girlfriends) that I was overdoing it and that the hangover would be fierce, but I pushed on. I say “pushed” because while I was having that last glass it was a physical effort to get it down. But I still wanted it.

After getting out of bed, tidying up the kitchen (which I only did because I have a friend coming over this afternoon), and running to Starbucks for a coffee and a coconut water, I set up shop on the couch with my laptop and started reading my favourite blogs. Lately, these are mostly blogs about sobriety. This is telling.

My husband is out of town so I decided to open Photo Booth on my MacBook and take a picture of me with our cat to send him. When I caught sight of myself on the screen, I wanted to cry. My face was puffy and bloated, my cheeks were blotched, my skin discoloured. And I had a double chin. How long have I had a double chin? Probably for a while now. My weight has been creeping up steadily and at my last weigh in, I was 170 lbs. I never thought I’d see the 170s. Or the 160s. Or the 150s. And I know that my weight gain has everything to do with how much I drink, what I eat while I drink, and what I eat the day after I drink. It’s a never ending cycle of poor choices.

If this hangover was a rare thing, I wouldn’t be too concerned. I’d probably laugh it off, even tweet about it. But lately I like to pretend that I never really drink. I am quick to post photos to Instagram of my lattes or cups of tea, or tweet about movies I’ve seen or books I’ve read or exercise classes I’ve attended. But I never bring up how I’m dying for a glass of wine or how my head aches from overdoing it the night before. Also telling. I don’t want anyone to suspect.

I don’t even know how this came to be, but drinking is my main activity. It’s what I do when I get home from work. It is what I do on the weekends. It’s what I look forward to the most. When I drink, I sleep poorly, often waking up at 1:00 a.m. and staying awake for hours. Every time my eyes snap open in the middle of the night, I allow myself to get scared. I tell myself that I have to stop. I tell myself that I will not have anything to drink for a few days. I worry about my health; I worry about cancer or liver disease. Often I will get up in the morning and pour out the remaining wine from the open bottle (if there is any) to ensure I don’t come home from work and use the whole “It will go bad if I don’t drink it; once it’s gone, THEN I’ll stop for a few days” excuse. But by 3:00 or 4:00 pm, despite feeling exhausted and sleep-deprived (or perhaps because of it), I’ll inevitably think about how I might buy a bottle, or even a mini bottle. And then I do and the cycle continues. Again, I don’t know how I got to this point. It’s been so gradual.

When I decide I won’t drink and actually follow through, I am grouchy and angry. I feel like my life has no meaning. I am restless. I snap at my husband. I am uncomfortable in my skin. But if I make it through the first night and get that wonderful, deep, refreshing sleep, I feel a thousand times better the next day. I go to the gym. I work hard. I have more energy. Sometimes I even go two or three days. But inevitably I drink again. Why wouldn’t I? It’s either a reward for accomplishing something, or it’s the weekend, or we’re going out for dinner, or I’m seeing friends. And then it starts again. Not good.

I don’t want to label myself at this stage. I don’t want to consider giving up drinking forever, at this stage. But I recognize that I have a problem. I also feel like I am wasting my life. There is so much I want to do, simple things that other people just do as a matter of course: learn to knit, take on various house projects, read more books, watch movies, spend time with my husband, be more intimate with my husband. None of these things happen when I drink. I also want to get healthy: eat better, exercise more, lose weight, fit into my clothes and feel great about myself. I know that drinking is a barrier. I don’t want things to spiral out of control. It feels like they already might have.

My ultimate goal is to reduce my drinking drastically while finding my lost passion for life. I hope this blog helps. I feel like I am standing on the edge of a precipice.