Thanks all for the well wishes. I just spent 3 hours plowing through as many posts as possible and figured I'd better post my update before I nod off. I'm on the west coast for vacation so it's 11 pm, not 2 am. It's very heartening to see how well so many of you are doing. I still have more threads to get to but this site makes for a great night's reading (AF entertainment
).
The past weeks have been strange for me--the numbers definitely do not tell the story of a path to "cured" individual but I'm not sure exactly where I am. My surgery was originally scheduled for Wed 11/23-the day before Thanksgiving in the US-and I had to be NAL free for 5 days before it. I find out the Friday before it's been rescheduled to they don't know when but I had to be ready to go in at a mamont's notice. After much wrangling I finally got Thurs 12/9 confirmed. Surgery (robotic laparoscopic hysterectomy) went well even though it took 7 hours instead of 2 because of old scar tissue from emergency appendectomy & numerous large fibroids. I was in the hospital for 2 nights (I would have stayed just to keep getting Dilaudid every four hours, aaahh I can see how people become morphine addicts), sent home with Percocets (oxycodone) and Lortabs (hyrocodone). Basically took them as prescribed until they ran out which was last Wednesday 12/23, no NAL or drinking during that time. I had a nasty withdrawal from the painkillers for 2 days (headaches, couldn't sleep). Friday 12/24 went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner and that triggered the margarita cravings (which I only get cravings for in the Mexican restaurants I'm in a few times a year). I didn't drink at dinner that evening because I hadn't taken NAL, but the next day I trip-trapped off to the grocery store to get all of the margarita fixins'. This triggered another habitual behavior. For the past several years the boyfriend and I have spent the holidays on the west coast in a vacation rental home on the beach. The past few years have been a haze of alcohol here, with me plotting to drink and hiding it because we're under the same roof (when we're at home I typically drink alone in my apt). We're talking progressively worsening bad stuff on these trips-me passing out at friends' xmas parties, vomiting in the bathroom and trying to pretend it was food poisoning. Even though wine is my usual drink of choice, vodka is easier to hide in my luggage & coffee mug. Problem is I end up drinking it as if I were drinking wine which spells trouble. So I ended up buying a bottle of tequila for margaritas, another bottle of tequila to hide how stiff mine actually were so when my boyfriend checks the "public" bottle in the freezer it doesn't look like I've swilled half the bottle, and another bottle of raspberry vodka to get me through the week (this was so mindlessly stupid since all I wanted was a freakin' margarita and it turns out I didn't even really want it-more on that later). So I get home and mix myself up a stiff one, tastes not as good as I had hoped but I sucked down, and then another one. That's how I ended up at 9 units for the week. Well, that night I was MISERABLE. Still going through codeine withdrawal, plus NAL side effects, and tequila brewing in my stomach. Slept horribly, woke up feeling like crap. No desire to drink Sunday during day and felt guilty and "trapped" by all of the booze floating around the house and hiding in my luggage. There's also a wine rack full of red and white that I haven't even thought about touching. Even with the painkillers it was blessed to be AF for 3 weeks, I felt so normal. I had one beer Sunday night and it was cold and very pleasant (Longboard lager by Kona Brewing Co for the beer aficionados here). No desire to drink more after one even though there were several more frosty bottles in the fridge. Monday (yesterday) I slipped back into old habit. Without even thinking, as soon as BF left around lunchtime for a motorcycle tour I opened up the vodka bottle and started sipping stiff vodka tonics. I ended up drinking 16 ounces of vodka over several hours which is just shy unit-wise of the three bottles of wine I can tuck away in a sitting, but vodka makes me feel different and I usually have terrible blackouts with it. By the time my BF came home that evening I wasn't falling down drunk or anything but I'm sure he noticed I was acting strangely and I went to bed early, feeling mentally and physically crappy (like, "why?"). No AL today, zero cravings even though we went out for Mexican food and BF asked me if I wanted a margarita with dinner. I made light of his question and said I'd satisfied my tequila cravings on Saturday.
I guess right now I feel like I'm in all sorts of limbo. I just went almost 3 weeks without drinking, which surprisingly wasn't hard at all even before the surgery. I'm in an environment that is a little familiar to me (stay here 2 weeks every xmas for past 5 years) but has 100% association with drinking excessive amounts of AL every day and can't get out of here to walk on beach because I'm still in post-op recovery. I know I shouldn't castigate myself because on paper my numbers look great and I have no doubt without NAL I probably would have shown up for my surgery drunk/hung over and washed down my codeines with wine afterwards, so the fact that I had the ability to follow instructions and not drink for so long with no struggle is a huge milestone. I feel like don't know where to go from here. I don't want to go back to even 50 units per week where I was pre-surgery. I got drunk yesterday on vodka, which I hadn't drank in almost a year (and never since starting TSM, no taste for it). I currently have no wine cravings and I feel like I should pour the rest of the vodka & tequila down the sink because the thought of it feels me with dread-not because I crave it, but rather because I don't crave it and I'm afraid I'll drink it anyways which sounds like the stupidest thing ever. I feel like I'm a mighty mess. Sorry this post is so long and scattered but I feel completely caught up now with what the past several weeks has been like and I'm telling myself not to overthink things, just go with the flow (I think I just advised someone here to do that in their thread). I need to follow my own advice but feel very uncertain. As Dickens opined, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Missed you all and I look forward to spending tomorrow reading more posts and checking out our new site members. G'nite ya'll.
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Turns out I had added an extra week in because of my surgery. I last drank on Sunday 12/5, which was the first day of my Week 10, and didn't drink until Saturday 12/25, which was the last day of Week 12. So even though I hadn't drank in almost 3 weeks the way the dates worked out I technically only had one AF week. 
Even though my earlier posts make it sound like I was in the depths of despair I gave myself a good ole slap upside the head (since none of you were around to do it for me 
) because even though I was feeling bad about the margaritas & vodka I'd drank I'm still only at 11.75 units for this week with 2 AF days so far. I also spent some time reading through the admin posts on many of the topics (excellent info there 
) and realized in many ways it's a good thing for me to be drinking here while on TSM because I have such a strong association with being on this vacation, in this house, and doing nothing but drinking. I gave myself an attitude adjustment. Maybe I'll have a couple of margaritas tonight, maybe I won't, but (for now) I feel much more in control.