ashaw
Cathlete
I want to share my story and if it will help just one person on here its all worth it.
I made a decision to quit drinking during the pandemic, on June 14, 2020 and it has been one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. I'm 45 and have been married to my current husband since 2006. I never really drank much at all before we got together, other than a frozen margarita on a Saturday night at my favorite Tex Mex place. What started out as true social drinking, enjoying a cocktail while at our weekend house or enjoying a glass of wine with a nice dinner, slowly snowballed out of control over a long period of time. My husband drinks every night, so I began to do the same thing and pretty soon I was having one or two cocktails followed by one or two glasses of wine with dinner. And when you fix your own drinks at home, the problem is you can make them as strong as you like. I was working a job that was extremely stressful and when I'd get home, before even changing out of my work clothes, I'd run to the bar at our house and fix a drink so we could go sit out by the pool and visit with our neighbors. Slowly, without me realizing it, my drinking was morphing into a coping mechanism for stress in my life, my job, my marriage, etc. It also became a reward for putting in a good day's work, or whatever I was happy about at the moment. My husband never saw my drinking as problematic, in fact, he was usually the one who would fix me another drink or pour me another glass of wine and then there were times after I'd really had way too much that I might say something that I wouldn't remember the next day. And he would call me out about it, not in a bad way, just oh you said such and such, but I didn't want to talk about it until the next day. It took me several years to taper off drinking because I wasn't sure if I wanted to quit or if I could actually quit, and try to figure out what was going on. I switched from cocktails to wine, then I would only have two drinks at night, then only one, then I'd only drink Friday and Saturday nights, then only Saturday night. It also seemed like when I turned 40, alcohol was no long agreeing with me. Finally, I quit drinking "publicly", but the one thing I was still doing was secretly drinking straight out of the bottle. I probably drank way more like this than when I was fixing actual drinks in a glass because a sip here and a sip there adds up. I couldn't go more than 2 or 3 days without drinking. I would miss work because I was "ill", usually a stomach bug was my go to illness, but in reality I was feeling like crap from too much alcohol and terrible sleep. The more this went on, the more I actually hated alcohol and what it was doing to me. Despite all this, I rarely missed a workout, even if I had to do it later in the day. I don't know how I worked out the day after heavy drinking, maybe my workouts were just mediocre crap and I did the bare minimum because my workouts have improved so much there's no way I could crush Cardio Slam or Strong and Sweaty Boot Camp the day after drinking. At the start of 2020, I was actually stringing together some alcohol free days and felt so good. On the morning of June 14, 2020, I woke up feeling pretty crappy after secretly drinking the night before and I decided ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. The pandemic was a godsend because the shutdowns and stay at home orders meant our socializing had completely stopped for the time being. Finally, i was able to remove a lot of the people, places and things that triggered me to drink. I won't lie, it was hard in the beginning, but all I had to do was fight the urge to drink when my husband would fix his afternoon cocktail. I had an important doctor's appointment at the end of July and I wanted to have at least one month free of alcohol before that appointment. I had no other plan after that. I made the month and then my husband and I unexpectedly contracted covid at the beginning of august 2020. I didn't get all that sick, my husband spent 9 days in the hospital, was on supplemental oxygen and steroids. Thank God he has made a full recovery. And he did quit smoking cigars! After having covid, I was scared to drink. Then it was like I rolled into my birthday, thanksgiving, christmas and new years without alcohol and was kicking butt. Not having to be around my husband's family at thanksgiving or christmas was a bonus too because they were all so annoying at christmas 2019, I drank like there was no tomorrow to dull the boredom and felt horrible on christmas day. I was really nervous about life opening up again after covid subsided and vaccines helped life return to some semblance of normal. I passed quite a few tests being in situations that normally would've driven me straight to the bottle. In 3 months, I'll have 2 years alcohol free!!!!!! I found a wonderful smartphone app called Pocket Rehab, where you can connect with others who are struggling with various forms of addiction and it helped me immensely. In fact, there was one lady on there who was close to my age and i kept reading her stories of how great she was doing after quitting drinking and I kept telling myself, these are real people, just like me and they can do it, so why not me? I even got bolder and tried to tell my husband that my drinking was becoming problematic and even that I drank to excess at christmas 2019 because his family was so annoying that day and he just didn't get it. And by God I was going to slay this dragon because I didn't want him pointing the finger at me about drinking too much. I had people tell me that I should get a divorce in order to quit drinking, but my problem was my problem and I didn't want to throw away an otherwise pretty good marriage just because I had a problem with my drinking and he didn't. I've been a Cathelete for over 10 years and I've treated myself to a nice load of Cathe's dvds and I'm having the time of my life working out. Light weights, heavy weights, circuits, HIIT, kickbox, I'm crushing it all. The stress in life that once drove me to alcohol now pushes me away from it. My sleep is so much better, I'm so much more productive in my day at work and in life. If anybody here is struggling, don't be afraid to reach out for help. The path to sobriety looks different for everyone. I knew I wasn't a 12 step and meetings kinda person. The pandemic combined with Pocket Rehab was what worked for me. Cathe is my inspiration and role model and I'm sure I'm not the first one to notice that it seems like she's aging in reverse!
I made a decision to quit drinking during the pandemic, on June 14, 2020 and it has been one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. I'm 45 and have been married to my current husband since 2006. I never really drank much at all before we got together, other than a frozen margarita on a Saturday night at my favorite Tex Mex place. What started out as true social drinking, enjoying a cocktail while at our weekend house or enjoying a glass of wine with a nice dinner, slowly snowballed out of control over a long period of time. My husband drinks every night, so I began to do the same thing and pretty soon I was having one or two cocktails followed by one or two glasses of wine with dinner. And when you fix your own drinks at home, the problem is you can make them as strong as you like. I was working a job that was extremely stressful and when I'd get home, before even changing out of my work clothes, I'd run to the bar at our house and fix a drink so we could go sit out by the pool and visit with our neighbors. Slowly, without me realizing it, my drinking was morphing into a coping mechanism for stress in my life, my job, my marriage, etc. It also became a reward for putting in a good day's work, or whatever I was happy about at the moment. My husband never saw my drinking as problematic, in fact, he was usually the one who would fix me another drink or pour me another glass of wine and then there were times after I'd really had way too much that I might say something that I wouldn't remember the next day. And he would call me out about it, not in a bad way, just oh you said such and such, but I didn't want to talk about it until the next day. It took me several years to taper off drinking because I wasn't sure if I wanted to quit or if I could actually quit, and try to figure out what was going on. I switched from cocktails to wine, then I would only have two drinks at night, then only one, then I'd only drink Friday and Saturday nights, then only Saturday night. It also seemed like when I turned 40, alcohol was no long agreeing with me. Finally, I quit drinking "publicly", but the one thing I was still doing was secretly drinking straight out of the bottle. I probably drank way more like this than when I was fixing actual drinks in a glass because a sip here and a sip there adds up. I couldn't go more than 2 or 3 days without drinking. I would miss work because I was "ill", usually a stomach bug was my go to illness, but in reality I was feeling like crap from too much alcohol and terrible sleep. The more this went on, the more I actually hated alcohol and what it was doing to me. Despite all this, I rarely missed a workout, even if I had to do it later in the day. I don't know how I worked out the day after heavy drinking, maybe my workouts were just mediocre crap and I did the bare minimum because my workouts have improved so much there's no way I could crush Cardio Slam or Strong and Sweaty Boot Camp the day after drinking. At the start of 2020, I was actually stringing together some alcohol free days and felt so good. On the morning of June 14, 2020, I woke up feeling pretty crappy after secretly drinking the night before and I decided ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. The pandemic was a godsend because the shutdowns and stay at home orders meant our socializing had completely stopped for the time being. Finally, i was able to remove a lot of the people, places and things that triggered me to drink. I won't lie, it was hard in the beginning, but all I had to do was fight the urge to drink when my husband would fix his afternoon cocktail. I had an important doctor's appointment at the end of July and I wanted to have at least one month free of alcohol before that appointment. I had no other plan after that. I made the month and then my husband and I unexpectedly contracted covid at the beginning of august 2020. I didn't get all that sick, my husband spent 9 days in the hospital, was on supplemental oxygen and steroids. Thank God he has made a full recovery. And he did quit smoking cigars! After having covid, I was scared to drink. Then it was like I rolled into my birthday, thanksgiving, christmas and new years without alcohol and was kicking butt. Not having to be around my husband's family at thanksgiving or christmas was a bonus too because they were all so annoying at christmas 2019, I drank like there was no tomorrow to dull the boredom and felt horrible on christmas day. I was really nervous about life opening up again after covid subsided and vaccines helped life return to some semblance of normal. I passed quite a few tests being in situations that normally would've driven me straight to the bottle. In 3 months, I'll have 2 years alcohol free!!!!!! I found a wonderful smartphone app called Pocket Rehab, where you can connect with others who are struggling with various forms of addiction and it helped me immensely. In fact, there was one lady on there who was close to my age and i kept reading her stories of how great she was doing after quitting drinking and I kept telling myself, these are real people, just like me and they can do it, so why not me? I even got bolder and tried to tell my husband that my drinking was becoming problematic and even that I drank to excess at christmas 2019 because his family was so annoying that day and he just didn't get it. And by God I was going to slay this dragon because I didn't want him pointing the finger at me about drinking too much. I had people tell me that I should get a divorce in order to quit drinking, but my problem was my problem and I didn't want to throw away an otherwise pretty good marriage just because I had a problem with my drinking and he didn't. I've been a Cathelete for over 10 years and I've treated myself to a nice load of Cathe's dvds and I'm having the time of my life working out. Light weights, heavy weights, circuits, HIIT, kickbox, I'm crushing it all. The stress in life that once drove me to alcohol now pushes me away from it. My sleep is so much better, I'm so much more productive in my day at work and in life. If anybody here is struggling, don't be afraid to reach out for help. The path to sobriety looks different for everyone. I knew I wasn't a 12 step and meetings kinda person. The pandemic combined with Pocket Rehab was what worked for me. Cathe is my inspiration and role model and I'm sure I'm not the first one to notice that it seems like she's aging in reverse!
