Day 19

The no caffeine is actually easier than I thought it would be. Of course I haven't completely given up my habit because I'm still on decaf coffee. But there has been no afternoon PG Tips in nearly a week (this is quite a feat when you live with the English). Thank goodness for rooibos. Though you have to get the yuppie expensive kind, because the Trader Joe's brand tastes like weak Lipton's with a hint of cinnamon. Yuck. Rooibos tea (red tea) is magical. It is herbal but you can put milk in it. It is especially comforting on these frigid days in New England (at the end of May...sigh).

The first two days were horrible though. No, the first day was abominable. I spent most of it asleep. The next day there was less pain but I felt sluggish. I've felt fine ever since. I think the alcohol was harder, but there just aren't as many good alcohol substitutes. There are so many freaking beverages available to us in this country. Constant drinking is essential, whether it's water, coffee, or alcohol. And you walk around with the drinks. My sister was telling me about how they don't have cup holders on strollers in Europe and I thought about how ridiculous it is that we need to be drinking something all of the time. Almost everyone in this town has a Dunkin Donuts cup in their hand. Seriously, you look weird if you don't have one. It's not like people in England don't like their caffeine, but there it is a break. You sit down somewhere and drink it out of containers that you wash and reuse. And also everything here is so big. Drinks and everything else.

Day 15: Decaf

I'm going to try to write about my alcohol-free experiences now, but please understand that my skull is currently in a vice grip.  

It's the first day I can drink alcohol, but surprisingly I don't really want to run out and drink a mimosa.  Partly it's because of this insane headache and partly because of the whole morning-drinking stigma. I may buy a six-pack when I go to the store today, but I may not. I don't feel like doing anything right now except maybe lie on the couch and watch Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore again. Maybe with the commentary.

I think the most important thing I learned about my drinking habit is that it is indeed a habit. The sadness and annoyance I felt as I watched others partaking of various spirits showed me my attachment to drinking.  The attachment is definitely emotional and psychological as opposed to physical, as I didn't really notice any physical differences when I stopped drinking.  (I did notice that I was hungrier sometimes, but I think this was more to do with my need to fill the no-booze void with snacks.) 

We were invited to dinner at the neighbors' house on Friday night. I wasn't even looking forward to it because all I could think about was the wine I wasn't going to be drinking. Sure enough, I felt mild anger/annoyance as the first bottle was opened and I was served my glass of San Pelligrino. But by the time the meal was served (and the other guests were onto the second bottle) I didn't even feel like drinking anymore. I'm not sure if I ever really feel that I need alcohol. It is almost completely influenced by what people around me are doing. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with this information, but it's interesting. Because of my introverted nature, I also rely on alcohol to make me care less about what people think of me, especially when I'm in a group where I don't feel very comfortable (most groups make me feel this way, even groups of people I know well). Again, not drinking in a group is another way of experimenting with my discomfort level. Instead of reaching for the thing that gives me a sense of comfort, I can sit with the discomfort and see what happens. 

Caffeine is clearly a whole other thing. I drank decaf this morning and now I am battling some serious discomfort of the physical variety. My plan right now is to drink decaf this week and switch to herbal tea next week. 

Throughout this whole experiment, I have been drinking tons of water, to ensure that dehydration isn't a factor. Also getting enough sleep (which I almost always do).

I'm going to go stare at a wall now.

Day 11

Next week's decaf has been purchased.  Caffeine so far today:  2 cups of PG Tips and then a large iced coffee at the place where I do my work.  I almost ordered decaf but then didn't.  The little angel says: Prepare for next week and start cutting back now!  The little devil says: No, you dumbass, drink all the caffeine you can!! Next week they're going to take it away!  (They being me.) As is true in many a tiny devil/tiny angel scenario, the tiny devil won. For some reason I picture him looking like that alien that sometimes guest starred on The Flintstones.

I think the after-work alcohol cravings have lessened.  I didn't even think about the stuff yesterday.  Just gotta get through next weekend.  I almost bought O'Doul's today at the grocery store, but that seemed dumb.  I don't like gross beer.

Day 9

I'll be better able to test this theory next weekend, but I think the lack of weekend alcohol is harder than the lack of after-work alcohol.  I didn't know this.  But the weekend was hard.  The hardest was going to my favorite restaurant/bar in S'ville and not having the BBC Lost Sailor IPA, which for all of you IPA lovers is truly amazing. (Maybe next I'll do a blog about beer; who knew I was so into it! Just take it away and I'll be into anything, by golly.)  There were no tables so R and I sat at the bar, surrounded by martini and beer drinkers who were watching that horse race on the TV.  It was pure torture for about 10 minutes and mildly uncomfortable for about 10 minutes and then fine.  The food there is also very good so I focused on that.  I think the worst part was being in the middle of the weekend funfest, where everyone seemed to be partaking of the vino and I felt like the prim schoolteacher that I actually sometimes am.  It's not about getting drunk, it's about wanting to be a part of the festivities, the fun club that requires a pint or martini glass, not a water glass filled with seltzer. The answer is probably don't go to bars when you're trying not to drink.

I have to say I am somewhat surprised at how difficult this has been.  I would like to see what happens if I go for longer without alcohol, if the craving wanes.  I'll give it some time.

Thank you to my brother who just sent me info about wheat-free beers. He and I have shared many a hoppy beverage together and he understands.

Day 8

I'm feeling cranky.  The idea that I can't have something that I want is making me crankier.  Right now I feel like the world is full of people constantly swilling booze.  It seems dumb that I'm doing this whole thing and I know that I'm probably going to feel like this with each item that I give up.

One thing that I've been trying to practice more in the past few years is being ok with discomfort. Yes, I could go out and have a beer right now, but I could also wait and see what happens if I don't.  Chances are I won't explode.  I might feel really, really bad.  Even if I drank a beer right now I might still be cranky.  And anyway, what's wrong with being cranky once in a while.  A lot.  Right now it sucks.  It's a cold stupid Sunday night and I have to go to an 8-hour training session tomorrow.  And one the day after that.  And I will not have beer after either one.

For some reason I just had a memory about when my husband and I were breaking up.  As you might imagine, it was a very surreal and sad time. We spent a lot of time talking, fighting, and crying.  One afternoon we decided to take a break.  Not call a truce or anything; we still knew more or less where we were heading.  But we decided that for the length of time it took to watch The Holy Grail we would be ok.  So we watched The Holy Grail and it just seemed really funny as it always did, even though there was all of this sadness and pain in the background. Watching it together, it just felt like us, without all of the crap and ridiculousness that had been building up and hiding for years. What I'm going through now is obviously much more minor (but maybe you can understand how even minor pain can trigger some major pain), but this memory seems like a reminder that there can be Monty Python even in the middle of the worst stuff.  In fact, you don't even have to create Monty Python, it's just always there if you are willing to see it.  Then you can go back to being sad and miserable again if you want but maybe underneath all of that there are knights who say ni.

Day 7

Yesterday was a beautiful day: about 70 degrees, no wind, sun. Everyone was on porches and sitting outside restaurants and bars and there was that weekend feeling everywhere.  I had a really great day because it was my first Friday off in a while; one of my jobs ended for the summer and for the next month I'll have three-day weekends (woo-hoo)!  As I was driving home from doing errands, I watched at a stoplight as a woman seated outside a bar was served some kind of tall wheat beer with a lemon.  In case you were wondering, all of the above description to me equals one thing: beer.  (Just one.  Just one beer consumed outside).  The thrilling it's-almost-summer-and-also-the-weekend feeling requires a celebratory beverage in my world.  Poland Springs just doesn't cut it.   

I did not drink a beer.  Instead, R and I walked into the square near our house and ate a place that doesn't serve alcohol.  It was fine.  The craving went away and I didn't think about alcohol for the rest of the night.  I am quite aware, however, of the eight days remaining in my beer-free world.  It's beer that is important to me (you may have noticed).  I could give or take the other forms of alcohol.

I will also have to forgo beer when I give up wheat.  I just thought of that.

Day 5

My main focus right now as far as detox goes seems to be worrying about May 25, the day I give up caffeine.  I'm planning tactics to wean myself off of the substance starting next week.  I think I will drink tea only next week, and then decaf coffee for the first couple of days of the non-caffeine experience.  My real habit is with coffee, so after the first few decaf days, I think I'll try to switch to herbal tea.  I want to see if I can give up even the false comfort of decaf.  I am more attached to coffee and caffeinated tea than I am to alcohol, I think, as far as the comfort factor goes.  

Healthwise, I can't really tell a huge difference after a 5 days without alcohol.  I think maybe I sleep a little bit better.  Also, I sometimes get a bloated feeling that I haven't had in a while (though I also get that once a month as well).

A lot of my curiosity about a life without booze stems from some work I did with a healer in California a little over a year ago.  He is a medical intuitive who could work over the phone and he was helping me with horrendous chronic back pain (which was alleviated thanks to him, a chiropractor, an angelic physical therapist named Sunshine, and a cortisone shot).  In one of our sessions, he asked me if I had been drinking the day before.  I had in fact gotten completely (though accidently) shitfaced at an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner held by my very good friend.  I was so weighted down with the toxins from this that he could feel them all the way in Boston (of course, this is kind of what he does).  He told me that I shouldn't drink alcohol, that it was bad for my particular body chemistry.  He said that he didn't give this advice to everyone, that in fact a lot of people can drink as much as they want and aren't affected by it.  But he said that it was poison for me, and I knew when he said it that it was true.  Not just because there is alcoholism in my family or because I'm thin or because alcohol is "bad."  I just knew it at a gut level, have always known it somehow.  And yet here I am today, still drinking (though not on this particular day). I do envision a life someday with no alcohol in it.  I just wish that certain kinds of beer weren't so yummy.

Day 3

I feel sluggish and sickish this evening.  I don't think this has anything to do with lack of beer.  I am on my way to eat crepes and ice cream.  

Oh, I just noticed that the sickly gardenia plant has new leaves.  Cool.

I realize that there will be days when this blog will be boring.

Day 2

I'm having a kind of stressful evening at work (I'm a tutor at a boarding school).  One of my charges is driving me nuts with her lack of communication.  Just the thought of a nice Harpoon IPA makes me somewhat calmer, but there is no beer in my near future.  This is when I want to drink the most, as I mentioned yesterday: after work.  It not only helps me to "unwind" (what that means, exactly, I'm not sure), but it feels like a little gift after I have to put up with teenage BS all night.  I see this pattern not only in my little life, but in our culture overall:  work, work, work, reward, reward, reward (or zone out, zone out, zone out). Example (one I've voiced many times in the past): I worked 8 hours at a job I hate today, therefore I deserve this three-hour head-freeze in front of the TV with beer or other junk food.  I don't have a 9 to 5 anymore, but after working with kids for 5 or more hours, I don't really want to do any kind of intellectual gymnastics.  But I think my time would be better spent staring at a wall than watching sitcoms (which is why I can't have cable). Or what if work IS the reward?  There are always little gifts interspersed throughout my work sessions (like today one of my other kids and I had a nice conversation about propaganda during the Cold War, and another one made me laugh really hard with a wacky what-if scenario).  Maybe I will try to remember those too so I don't have to work so hard toward the beer at the end of the tunnel.  (That's the whole problem with everything: the straight ahead line of working toward an end, instead of work as just one aspect in the cycle of life.  It's the patriarchy, of course.) Or maybe I'll just have some ice cream when I get home instead.

Day 1

Welcome to Detoxathon.  No health crisis led me to this decision:  to try to give up five comestibles which have become staples of my diet.  I'm going to try this diet experiment simply because I'm curious about my relationship with the following:

Alcohol

Caffeine

Sugar

Dairy

Wheat

One of my favorite bloggers mentioned recently that her acne cleared up after quitting sugar. My skin has never been really horrible, but I've tried pretty much every topical everything to clear up my minor acne and nothing works.  (I'm 35 and tired of having zits.)  So I'm curious about that.  Also, I have ideas about which of these foods will be the most difficult to do without, both physically and emotionally.  I want to find out if I'm right.  So here is my plan.

May 10-May 24  No Alcohol

May 24-June 7 No Caffeine 

June 7-June 21 No Sugar

June 21-July 5 No Dairy

July 5-July 19 No Wheat

I realize, of course, that two weeks may not be long enough to completely purge the effects of these substances from my system.  Nor may I truly understand what it is to be a dairy-free person, for example, after only two weeks.  But as of right now, the thought of a day without coffee is terrifying, so I have to start slow.  If I discover something miraculous about my wellness as a result of this experiment, I may try another round of this dealy-hoo starting in August.  Or maybe in a month when there aren't so many yummy foods or beers to be had.  Of course, the advent of summer garden foods is upon us so maybe I'll be so happy with my plate of fiddleheads and asparagus that I'll forget that a person could also be eating ice cream. (Please note that I have considered the fact that I can't have real ice cream for a solid month. In summer.  And yet I sally forth.)

One oath I take as I begin this experiment is to keep my sense of humor about it.  It's not meant to torture or control me.  It's about my health and my well-being and finding out what makes me feel how.  I'm not going to punish myself if I eat something I said I wasn't going to eat.  Or if I go to a barbeque on the 4th and find out the only entree is cheese, I won't be rude and not eat anything.  Oh, and what if I go to Indiana during this time period, which is more than likely? Indiana, hometown of most casseroles and a dessert called The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford (all of the things in the list above are in this thing)?  Well, I'm not sure.  But I will write about it here. 

So starting today: no alcohol.  I had a Corona on a porch last night so hopefully that will hold me for a while.  I've felt for quite some time that I would feel better without alcohol.  I don't drink tons, but alcohol is definitely a part of every week.  I take after my family: you get home from work, check the mail, open a beer (or bottle of wine).  This is how you unwind.  You only drink one beer, but it is essential to the unwinding.  I recognize this as a habit, and have lately stopped buying so much alcohol.  I can also unwind with a can of fizzy water (though it isn't as comforting).  I think that alcohol will be the easiest of the substances to give up, mostly because it's a beverage.  Beverages seem easier.  I won't be able to go to my neighborhood bar for two weeks, but that seems ok.  I will have a beer on Memorial Day to celebrate.  I don't feel like drinking right now and it's nearly beer time.  In fact, R. is just now bringing me tea. 

P.S.  For those of you who are wondering why I'm not giving up meat as a part of the experiment: I did that already.  That experiment was a part of my marriage and it didn't really work for me. In fact, the whole marriage thing didn't really work, but I have a whole other blog about that. Anyway, God made me a carnivore (just like he/she/it made some of you veggies).