Sober March Challenge #marchingtosobriety

MissMaggieMuffin

RaeBeeBaby wrote: »

Day 14 and still dry as the Sahara!

Although, it sure seems like I am being tempted at every turn. Tonight two of my friends wanted to go out for happy hour. It's something we do about once a month or so. Yummy appetizers and wine is the usual fare. I reluctantly agreed, but was thinking all day that I would cancel if I didn't feel up for it. Why put myself in harm's way? Then one of my friends texted me asking for a ride because her car was acting up. Ok, well then I was pretty much locked in.

I did really well. They each had several glasses of wine and I had 4 glasses of lemon water. I'll probably be up all night, but pretty proud that I resisted.

@RaeBeeBaby, congratulations on resisting temptation but still being able to enjoy your friends - I know it isn't easy, so well done!

donimfp

Yay for you, RaeBeeBaby! That is really impressive. Still going strong on the 15th (The Ides of March, the day Julius Caesar was warned about! Gotta be careful). Pi Day is March 14 because Pi is 3.14. It's nerdy, but it's an excuse to eat pie. I resisted. Have a great day everyone. If you see Brutus and a bunch of other Romans approaching, run!!!

AlisalGal

Great job, @RaeBeeBaby! I'm going to see Mama Mia with a group next Wednesday and am planning in advance what to eat/drink to avoid the inevitable bottles of wine at the pre-show dinner. Everyone at work was talking about Pi Day (always March 14- 3.14, mathematical formula for pi) and I thought about pie all day - lemon meringue, pizza pie, chicken pot pie!

RaeBeeBaby

Wow, I've really been out of the loop as I've never heard of Pi day before!

There's a thread on MFP about a low-calorie high protein cheesecake that I bookmarked. It's made with light cream cheese and protein powder. Some people add blueberries or other fruit. I'm going to try that sometime this week. I've also found a recipe for a low-cal crustless pumpkin pie that I want to try. I made a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving that had almond milk and egg whites and it was pretty darn good. Nobody knew it was low-cal except me!

KombuchaKat

yeah so, I was so totally in but then my birthday happened last week and this past weekend was a doozy...like I'm still a wee bit hung over today from Saturday doozy. I'm getting tired of this, so today is my new day 4. I keep debating on whether or not to give up the sauce for good. I know I'm not so bad that every day is a struggle but once I start that's it. there is no 1 or 2 for me. It's no drinking or all out craziness. I've read some of your other stories and feel less alone. I know I'm not the only one. And I know it's the sauce that's keeping me fat, tired and gross. It makes me depressed. Then I stop drinking for a couple weeks, binge again and the cycle starts over. I keep thinking next time I can control things and then whoops, nope that didn't happen. This stops now!

KombuchaKat

donimfp wrote: »

Becky_45, I can SO relate to your struggle. I have no idea why this time I'm making it (so far). Day 8. It's a psychological struggle for sure but getting a teensy bit easier day by day. I started reading "Drinking, A Love Story" by C. Knapp (courtesy of my best friend who orders the delicious non-alc. drinks). Knapp was a cray cray alcoholic, and I can't relate at all to the EXTENT of her drinking, but some of her insights about WHY she drank and why it was so hard not to I'm finding really helpful. I'm also finding it helpful to treat myself like a diva, which is absolutely not me. Propped up in bed with magazines, drinking Perrier by night, working out by day. And I'm determined to really treat myself on day 10. My husband better hide the checkbook.

I read that book and loved it. Like you I can't relate to the day in and day out aspect of her addiction but I see a lot of the excuse and rule making. Rules I always break and have excuses for. To be honest I feel like I could just let it go if there was not such a stigma in doing so. I mean, I love the way it makes me feel, I won't lie about that. But there are times I get so anxious about going out and drinking it would just be easier to not do it. But then whenever I go out and just drink fizzy water everyone asks me why I'm not drinking and it turns into a huge production...maybe that says something about the company I keep.

KombuchaKat

RaeBeeBaby wrote: »

I love the idea of treating yourself with something special! Kind of like rewarding yourself for weight-loss with something other than food.

Here's a few things that are helping me, so maybe will help some of you, as well.

1. For me this is a Lenten challenge - not just March but until Easter Sunday. Lent is a period of personal reflection. Lenten abstinence is about self-sacrifice and strength of will. It's not SUPPOSED to be easy!
2. Positive self-talk. I tell myself that I'm strong enough to do this. Alcohol doesn't rule my life.
3. Weight-loss. I know by the end of this self-imposed abstinence I will like the number on the scale!
4. It's good for me physically. My body (especially my liver) will appreciate the break.
5. My husband and mother are both doing it. I won't be the one to give in first! (Too competitive!)
6. I'm finally using up all the fancy teas hanging out in the cupboard and drinking the La Croix sparkling water that's been in the pantry for a year.
7. I'm trying some new drinks and resurrecting some old ones that I haven't had in awhile. A friend told me about Golden Milk. It's coconut milk with turmeric, ginger, honey and some other spices. Supposed to be very detoxifying. I'm also making two batches of homemade Kombucha - something that I used to do but haven't in a long while.

Love Golden Milk and I brew my own Kombucha! Some bars in my city have Kombucha on tap...it's a nice way to have a "drink" without having a drink. Wish more of them did it...

RaeBeeBaby

KombuchaKat wrote: »

RaeBeeBaby wrote: »

I love the idea of treating yourself with something special! Kind of like rewarding yourself for weight-loss with something other than food.

Here's a few things that are helping me, so maybe will help some of you, as well.

1. For me this is a Lenten challenge - not just March but until Easter Sunday. Lent is a period of personal reflection. Lenten abstinence is about self-sacrifice and strength of will. It's not SUPPOSED to be easy!
2. Positive self-talk. I tell myself that I'm strong enough to do this. Alcohol doesn't rule my life.
3. Weight-loss. I know by the end of this self-imposed abstinence I will like the number on the scale!
4. It's good for me physically. My body (especially my liver) will appreciate the break.
5. My husband and mother are both doing it. I won't be the one to give in first! (Too competitive!)
6. I'm finally using up all the fancy teas hanging out in the cupboard and drinking the La Croix sparkling water that's been in the pantry for a year.
7. I'm trying some new drinks and resurrecting some old ones that I haven't had in awhile. A friend told me about Golden Milk. It's coconut milk with turmeric, ginger, honey and some other spices. Supposed to be very detoxifying. I'm also making two batches of homemade Kombucha - something that I used to do but haven't in a long while.

Love Golden Milk and I brew my own Kombucha! Some bars in my city have Kombucha on tap...it's a nice way to have a "drink" without having a drink. Wish more of them did it...

I live in a small town so no Kombucha on tap here, but I know several places in the bigger cities nearby that do that. So many yummy flavors, too!

The Golden Milk (Dr. Weil recipe) was a little "earthy" for me with the fresh turmeric. I tried it again with the powdered and liked it better. However, I did make a turmeric/ginger/elderberry tea that I've been sipping on for a couple days. The husband has a bad cold and I DO NOT want to get it. His 3rd time of being sick since Christmas and I've managed to mostly avoid catching anything besides a little swollen glands and minor sniffles. Herbal medicine works! (IMHO)

So for the Kombucha, I didn't have a scoby so decided to grow my own. I know it can take weeks (up to a month even) for the magic to happen. I was checking it daily and after a week I lost patience. One of my friends (the one I picked up for happy hour) gave me a scoby baby last night when I dropped her off so now I'm off to the races! Funny looking scoby as she used roobios tea for her last batch and the baby is pretty reddish. We laughed about it because we both agreed it looks like a placenta. (Sorry if that's TMI!)

RaeBeeBaby

AlisalGal wrote: »

Great job, @RaeBeeBaby! I'm going to see Mama Mia with a group next Wednesday and am planning in advance what to eat/drink to avoid the inevitable bottles of wine at the pre-show dinner. Everyone at work was talking about Pi Day (always March 14- 3.14, mathematical formula for pi) and I thought about pie all day - lemon meringue, pizza pie, chicken pot pie!

If the pre-function dinner is at a restaurant with a full bar you can ask the bartender to make you an amazing non-alcoholic drink. The place I was at last night has a whole list of non-alcoholic beverages and specializes in various flavors of mojitos. I drank lemon water because I'm on a budget right now and didn't want to spend the extra $5.00, but I definitely want to try one the next time.

donimfp

So I am a Kombucha virgin. Never had one. Kind of scared of it. What does it taste like, and is it a good sub. for alcohol? (I'm drowning in Perrier)! I'm with RaeBeeBaby about the pre-Mamma Mia drink. Get something delicious. My daughter and I saw Mamma Mia a couple of years ago and it was so amazing. You'll love it. I love the movie and didn't think the stage production could measure up (no shots of Greece), but it was even better. My 10-day-in reward was to buy tix to Beautiful on the 26th. By then it will be a 10- and 20- day reward.

KombchaKat, I think you probably speak for many of us (certainly me). Simple moderation with no thought to it would be so nice, but somehow I am just not wired that way. I look forward to the day when alcohol doesn't even cross my mind. That day is a long way off, I'm afraid, but the rewards meantime are adding up, so that's good. I don't know if I could have done this, even though I intended to be alcohol-free for Lent earlier, without the wonderful group in this thread.

KombuchaKat

@RaeBeeBaby @donimfp without hijacking this thread too much Kombucha is very easy to make at home and delicious! Store bought is usually a bit more mild, when you make it at home it's only as "tangy" as you let it get over time. Like apple cider it will turn to vinegar the longer it ferments. IM me if you want some more info on homebrewing, I've made my own going on 10 years. RaeBeeBaby I'm glad you got a full grown scoby, growing one usually does not work out. You can buy them online with starter liquid as well, in fact I started with a kit from Kombucha Brooklyn, which is a great resource for info as well (unfortunately I think it's more expensive now because this stuff is so trendy). Now I do continuous brewing with a vessel from Kombucha Mama, likely the most extensive source of info on Buch.

For me it's a good replacement because I primarily drink beer and wine. Mostly beer. One of my friends makes it as well from a mother I gave her years ago and sometimes when I'm over there I drink her kombucha rather than an adult bev. I think I might make this an ongoing thing. I might also start bringing some of my own buch to share and drink when I go to other friends homes.

donimfp

Day 17! Luckily St. Patrick's Day has never been a blip on my radar. I got some tart cherry Kombucha (made by Buddha Brew in Austin) yesterday. YUM! They have a zillion flavors and sell at our Farmers Market, so I am a new fan. Also bought some St. Croix "grapefruit flavored" water. If there is grapefruit in there, they sure hid it well. I am a tart/bitter (as opposed to sweet) girl, so looking for things that bring those and are not wine/alcohol. Have a great weekend, everyone. We're almost there (well, for us Lenten people, we're a month away, but March is half over). Man, I can't wait till I'm not counting down.

RaeBeeBaby

Day 17! WooHoo! It seems to be getting a little easier for me, at least the last few days. I've been out several times this week at places with lots of drinking going on. My niece was down from Washington working in a town nearby so we met her at a place (cowboy tavern) where the bar is center stage in the restaurant. Not really that tempted. Then last night I had a ladies group meeting potluck where wine is always served. I brought my own lemon water and only had a tiny little temptation. It probably helped that the wine was all riesling, which is not my favorite (too sweet). I'm also a tart/sour/bitter girl so anything too sweet just doesn't appeal.

@KombuchaKat - I enjoy hearing about the kombucha! I go through phases with drinking it and not sure why. I really enjoy it but then I let a batch get too "fresh" (as my son calls it) and then I get sidetracked. My friend who gave me the scoby grew her original from scratch so I thought I'd give it a try. I've got one batch going with the new baby and am going to leave the other one sit and see if it will actually grow one. I've done some natural fermentation so am always keen to try things and see what happens. I've made my own apple cider vinegar for several years now. This past year I made pickled garlic, sauerkraut and kimchee. The kimchee was my favorite by far. It was delicious! All this talk about kombucha has me wanting to try the kimchee again, so I'm going to get some napa cabbage at the store today.

@donimfp - whenever I buy the store brands of kombucha, my favorite is Brew Dr. Love. It is very different in that it has kind of a floral flavor with jasmine, lavender, chamomile and rose. I'm going to attempt to do a secondary fermentation of my kombucha with some lavender and see what happens. Love experimenting.

Oh, and something funny to share. At my meeting last night we had a presentation by a doTerra essential oil person. It was interesting and she talked quite a bit about probiotics and natural healing. Mostly stuff I already knew from my own reading and research. The leader of our group kept saying stuff like "I'm sure Rae does that. Oh ya, Rae makes that or grows that. She's our hippie girl". LOL

donimfp

My own "hippie girl" is my daughter. She is a music therapist by profession but is seriously into herbal medicine, natural healing, etc . . . has traveled to Hawaii for herbal medicine training, etc. When I told her on the phone yesterday I bought Kombucha and was loving it, she said, "Mom, I told you YEARS ago to drink kombucha and you said you were scared it would kill you!" I had to laugh, but if you look that $**t up on Wiki, you'd think you'd fall over dead if you drink it. I figured HEB wouldn't carry it if their customers were dropping like flies.

AlisalGal

I really like kombucha, I'm glad I've never looked it up on Wiki and got scared off (and I'm not gonna look now!). I've been on a real tea kick lately, trying to have herbal tea in the evening to stave off the desire for a drink.

RaeBeeBaby

I'm working my way through the tea collection. So far:

Stash Pumpkin Spice
Tazo Green Tips (a little bitter)
Stash Strawberry Pomegranate
Yogi Raspberry Ginger Digestive Vitality (meh)
Stash Coconut Mango Wuyi Oolong (yum!)
Planet Teas Planet Chai (spicy)

and my all time favorite
Steven Smith Teamaker Lover's Leap (incredible but only available in February)

The Lover's Leap has a Ceylon black tea base so I'm using it for one of my Kombuchas. I'm so stingy with this tea that I won't even offer it to people. Maybe next year if I can get some extra. I bought the very last box they had and they are sold out now until next year.

And just purchased today at the grocery markdown shelf:
Tazo Organic Peach Cobbler (review TBD)

donimfp

All the teas sound awesome. I'm headed to the nearby Farmers Market to try to get some Tangerine Sea Salt Kombucha. The Tart Cherry Melon is doing the trick. It's quite sour/tart. OK, I caved in to St. Patrick's Day yesterday (didn't take much to make me cave). I had 2 glasses of wine and one light vodka/Perrier. That's a lot of alcohol after 16 days without, although it's not much at all compared to what I typically drank/drink before March. Now my challenge is to go back to abstaining. It honestly wasn't all that great. I have a slight headache this morning. I hope today isn't back to as difficult as the first week of March. Argghhh. I'm determined not to get down on myself because I know where that would lead.

AlisalGal

@RaeBeeBaby thank you for all those tea suggestions. I'm a creature of habit and usually only drink the same teas over and over - Constant Comment, green tea, a couple herbal teas I've come to enjoy. I find a lot of herbal teas taste "soapy" to me, I don't know how else to describe it, but I'd like to expand my list. I particularly want to find herbal teas that taste great cold because I know sooner than later, the hot summer weather will be here.

donimfp

@AlisalGal, I'm like you with the teas (in a rut). However, I have found that peach or peach/ginger herbal tea is delicious iced. We didn't have a winter here in central TX this year (just one day!). It was in the 80s much of Jan. and Feb. and now March, so cold drinks have been the thing. I did just discover that half Kombucha and half Perrier is really yummy to me. I like bubbles, and the kombucha I have is pretty intense, so it can stand dilution.

AlisalGal

I like the sound of that, I'll give it a try!

donimfp

Hope everyone's hanging in there. 2/3 of March gone. I was really dumb to have drinks on St. Patrick's Day because it is SO tempting to have drinks again. I just left my (home) office to get a latte at Starbucks as a treat, hopefully to distract me from cravings. So ridiculous! But I guess this whole exercise is worth it just to wake me up to the fact that this is a problem. Any strategies anyone else is finding helpful, please share. I've lost 6.8 lbs. in March, so that's probably the biggest motivator. I'm thinking having alcohol at home is probably not wise. It's much easier to moderate when out for a meal or social occasion. blah blah blah. I also think not drinking makes my face look better. Is that weird?

RaeBeeBaby

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. I'm still hanging in there with nary a drop of alcohol. Several hours of hot yardwork this past Sunday sure had me wanting a cold beer! But, I resisted. Having no beer in the house probably helped in that regard. (Although I have wine and several bottles of hard liquor, a beer was what I really wanted.)

@donimfp - Congrats on the 6.8 lb loss! That's awesome!. You're not dumb for having drinks on St. Paddy's day! You made the decision to do it and now you made the decision to get back on the wagon. It's like weight-loss. We make decisions every single day, sometimes we regret them, but we have to move on. No point in beating ourselves up about it. Oh, and I can see your beautiful blue butterfly picture now!

@AlisalGal - I make a lot of mint tea in the summertime and I also like the peachy flavored ones. I've made iced tea with Constant Comment tea plenty of times, but the herbal ones are nice if you are avoiding caffeine.

Normally, I'm not a soda drinker but I bought some diet root beer the other day because I thought my husband would enjoy it. I've been drinking it, too, and it's pretty tasty AND zero calories. It's Honest Fizz Organic Root Beer. I will be buying this again before the week is out.

So, less than 10 days until the end of Marching to Sobriety! At this point I'm wishing I had decided to limit not drinking to the month of March (rather than all the way to Lent). My husband asked me yesterday how many days left in March, so I think he'll be sticking with his original commitment. I just counted for myself and it's less than a month to go now until Easter - 25 days to be exact.

donimfp

Glad to see I still have company. I'm doing Lent, too, @RaeBeeBaby. I think I need the extra time to get more of a handle on this. That one day of drinking made the temptation stronger, I've found. I'll be glad to have another 16-day stretch under my belt. So far, tart cherry kombucha and diet ginger ale are saving me. They are the most "cocktail-like" substitutions I've found. I wish someone could invent a non-alcoholic wine that really tasted like wine. My recovering friend told me it took a good 3 months before her mind wasn't focused on not drinking. I can believe it!! Have a great weekend everyone.

RaeBeeBaby

Another day down and we're over halfway there!

I wish I could find tart cherry kombucha. That sounds delicious! My kombucha experiment went awry. I looked at it yesterday and it was starting to mold. UGH!!!! Not sure why as I followed the instructions, but it was definitely not looking healthy. So, down the drain it went.

Re: the non-alcoholic wine I don't know if there is a good one. Someone brought my pregnant daughter-in-law a bottle for her baby shower. I took a sip and it tasted like prune juice to me. There's a brand called Fre that a friend said is pretty good, but I'm afraid it would make me want to drink more. Better for me to just stay away.

I had a coupon so I bought some Suja Drinking Vinegar. I know it sounds weird, but it's actually pretty tasty and only has a very slight vinegar tang. I've heard apple cider vinegar is good for weight loss, so maybe this will be, too. I also bought some diet Zevia ginger-ale yesterday. I've certainly been expanding my horizons in the libations area lately!

RaeBeeBaby

donimfp

@RaeBeeBaby, Hahahahaha. So true.

Very much like that tart cherry kombucha are shrubs. Don't know if you've ever tried one, but they are vinegar-based drinks and are delicious. I've ordered them from Tait Farms. http://www.taitfarmfoods.com/shrub/
There's also a company in San Antonio that makes really good ones, but the name escapes me now. If you Google "shrub" you'll find all kinds of info. They date back to pre-Shakespeare days. I've even successfully made a couple myself, but buying them is so much easier. When my BFF quit drinking 3 years ago, we toyed around with those, but I'd forgotten until you mentioned the vinegar. Of course I mix mine with my best friend Perrier.

I disagree with your friend about Fre. A few years ago when I had to do the colonoscopy prep thing, I was going crazy for the 24 hours before because I do not like sweet things (like 7-up or Sprite), and the thought of drinking chicken broth grossed me out completely because I'm as close to vegetarian as you can get without actually being one. So my brother-in-law, who's on the medical faculty at Duke so I trust him, said I could drink some nonalcoholic white wine (nothing red). My husband bought me some Fre. Ugh. I'd rather drink nothing. Or even something I don't like much. And I think you're right. The nonalcoholic beers/wines are probably psychologically not the most helpful thing. Check out the shrubs, though.

Sorry about the mold. That's the kind of stuff that convinced me kombucha would kill me. But so far, the Buddha's Brew from Austin has been fine. They also have a tangerine/sea salt flavor that sounds so good, but I haven't found it yet.

RaeBeeBaby

I've successfully made kombucha many times in the past, so I absolutely KNOW when it's good or bad. I think the scoby might have gotten contaminated in the transfer between my friend and me, but who knows?

Funny about the shrub. My mom just mentioned that yesterday! She's also on the wagon for Lent so we are each other's support in that regard and trying different things. She asked me if I'd ever heard of a shrub and of course that led to some hilarious discussion about landscaping.

Mom: Have you heard of a shrub?
Me: Of course, I have them all over the yard.
Mom: No, no - it's a drink.
Me: Why would I drink a shrub? Aren't some of them poisonous?
Mom: No, a drink called a shrub that's made with vinegar. Etc etc

(Of course, I kind of knew what she was talking about all along. I just love to tease her. She's an easy target.)

She also said a lot of people drank shrubs as a "refreshing" summer drink before lemonade and before someone figured out how to add carbonation to drinks.

KombuchaKat

Going to a fancy French restaurant tonight with some of the attorneys I work with. I SO want a nice glass of wine! However I think I will see if I can get a virgin cocktail or maybe just some sparkling water and let them treat me to some nice oysters instead!

KombuchaKat

Hum, Kombucha getting moldy is actually pretty rare. I'm not saying that it didn't happen but if you try to brew again you can send pics to the Kombucha Mama and she will verify if it's mold. Sometimes the culture spew all sorts of things but it's just some yeast. If anything I think it might have been a kind of unstable SCOBY since it was grown from store bought I think? I just got my new scobys in the mail and started up my continuous brewer again. Also going to make some water kefir which I always liked and it crazy easy to make. That has a super quick ferment so I had some ready in a couple of days. Flavored with some ginger, YUM!

KombuchaKat

I had a very small sip of wine last night at the fancy French restaurant. It was described as "like rain falling on wet rocks"...so I was intrigued. But that was it. Enjoyed my crazy fresh oysters and a nice fizzy lemonade.