Less alcohol- January 2018- one day at a time

Alcohol-free night for me last night! We’re on vacation right now and spent the entire day hiking and exploring craters and Indian adobe ruins. A fascinating and beautiful day with my husband and daughter. It would have been easy to have a few drinks at the end of the day, but instead my daughter made us lemonade and we sat together and did crossword puzzles on my iPad, while snuggled under a blanket on the sofa. Spent my bonus calories (hiking calories + no alcohol calories) on a slice of banana cream pie, one of my all-time favorites!

@JulieAL1969 Thanks for posting the snapshot on cravings. Very interesting and insightful!

Here’s to another bright, adventurous day! Hope everyone is doing well and I look forward to seeing all your updates!

Yay! SLEEP!!! @kittybenn, thank you for the app recommendation. I listened to a few of the sleep meditations yesterday and then just mentally went through one of them last night (without the app) and was asleep before I could finish thinking through it. First really great night of sleep since Jan. 1. It makes a big difference.

One possible little "breakthrough" last night. I don't know if anyone else experiences this, but at night I crave wine because I feel "empty." Water and herbal tea just don't seem to do it, and I become tempted to eat something filling like cheese and bread just to fill up that emptiness. Hard to explain. It's not emotional emptiness but a real feeling that something is lacking in my body. Last night I had a little orange juice mixed with Perrier, and that seemed to finally do the trick. Maybe it's the sugar I'm missing. I don't eat sweets at all (don't like them), but I know alcohol has a lot of sugar, so I'm thinking that's what I've been "empty" for. That may have also helped the sleep.

Also, for a good substitute, you might try a shrub. You can Google shrubs. They've been around since at least the Renaissance. Tait Farms has some good ones. They are fruity and also vinegary. Mixed with sparkling water they are a really good wine or cocktail substitute.

I can't believe it's the second week. I'm so proud of all of us, no matter which specific path we're choosing for this January. Oh, my non-alcohol goal is to use my Clarisonic every night, followed by awesome face cream. It's not too hard a goal, but when drinking I can easily fall into bed with makeup on. My mom, who is 85 and looks like Jane Fonda in terms of how she is aging, hasn't missed the nightly "take off the makeup and moisturize" routine ever in her whole life. Somehow I didn't inherit that discipline, but I'm working on it.

Big congrats to those of you that have maintained Dry January! I am so inspired! I failed this weekend, which is not a surprise to me. As I have mentioned before, I just don't think I have truly welcomed the idea of giving up alcohol forever yet. I think I need to get a copy of the Naked Mind.

My fail came on Friday night as I was cooking. I was doing well until I realized I was out of chicken broth and had to send my husband to the store. So, of course I told him to get a bottle of wine. The good news is that I only drank half of it (about 12 oz, so 2ish glasses?), and I was okay with that. Then we stayed in again on Saturday night too and I only had one glass of wine...good going. But last night I had 3 glasses, which is more than I wanted. Starting over again tonight.