Went for a liver check. Since I quit drinking or using any type of painkiller, it’s three years now, my liver has rejuvenated itself by about 50%. When I first found out I had a fatty liver, my doc said she didn’t think mine would be able to repair the damage, even with the giving up of the wine and Advil etc. But…she was wrong! I adore my doctor. Since I could not reverse diabetes on my own, (I am now on a low dose of metformin) she may have just figured she would not get my hopes up. So, good news!
I am an introvert in an extroverted environment and drinking alcohol was a way to feel relaxed in social situations. Before that I used pot. Also cigarettes. I admit, I did a cig in one hand and puffed off a jay with the other when it was passing around. Best buzz was from wine, I gotta say. But cigarettes were a close second. What I miss most about drinking (I quit smoking like 40 years ago) is feeling relaxed at parties. We have such great neighbors and friends. I was here in Florida for almost a year before I had to quit alcohol for my poor liver’s sake. So everyone has met Party Cindy.
What with my fatty liver and then the short term memory loss, getting sober is for the best. I mean, I have been sober for years at a time: with my kids, I did not drink when pregnant. Ate a lot of ice cream (Baskin Robbins chocolate almond) though. And then when I my ex told me I was a drunk, I believed him. I believed everything he said. He went to college!!
I kinda wince when I think that my kids saw me inebriated. Or at least tipsy. But probably feeling no pain and dancing around like a lunatic. But not to the point where I took Antabuse and puked at the kitchen table in the afternoon because I could not quit. That was my grandpa. He tried all his life to stay sober. He never could. My grandma was teetotal. And a Baptist. They seemed to go together. Yet all her praying and all my mom’s screaming could not make Grandpa whole.
This is not the mental illness chapter. I think short term memory loss, at least in my case, is from a tiny stroke. Or several. Neurologists here in Florida are in great demand, so I won’t know for sure what is causing my little blank spaces. I can still write but it comes way slower. I don’t mind. I have time. I said this before but learning new things can be difficult and the internet is new every day. That’s fine. I have ai to help me now:) The only illness I have had since I was small is the introvert thing. I had claustrophobia too but it only happened a couple times when I was young. I thought anxieties were very bad. I hid them best I could. Being an introvert in my family was almost like a mental illness. My parents were extroverts. But then they drank, too. Especially at parties. I remember waking up in the morning and finishing off all the cocktails at the bottom of the highball glasses.
Remember my mom was still a teenager! She never did drink much. My dad drank more but not as bad as my grandpa. Gramps dressed as Santa every Christmas but one year he brought our presents to the house next door. He seemed to be a jovial drunkard. Well, but he could get mean. I remember him throwing hot pancakes full of butter and syrup right into my little brother’s face. Because he looked like my mom where my other brother looked like my dad. It is horrible to be the oldest child and know you cannot protect your younger siblings.
That little brother had a drinking problem too, until he gave it up. He never went to meetings or took Antabuse. I attended a few meetings to prove to my husband (ex) I was trying to be better. But I could not relate to the AA people, who had done things like pass out in the city and waking up as a rat chewed on your fingers. This was a woman. Her brain was fried. I felt so bad for her but I had nothing in common with her. So I guess for my ex-husbands sake I took another year or so off drinking.
I am not sure really to this day if I was so bad. I could have just one drink. On rare occassions. I’d say I was more of a problem drinker. I read so many memoirs of drunks. Every single one of them had a much sadder story than mine. My former father-in-law pulled me aside at a family dinner and gave me a lecture about drinking. “If you want it, ask for it.” ???? I did not know where he was coming from, but just to be polite I said “okay.”
I thought about that later. At my wedding shower, held in his basement, his younger son was the bartender. The boy was hammered. My bridesmaids were all beautiful and he was a kid. He probably thought it was fun to get drunk in his own house. But could that have been where the liquor went? My former brother-in-law let me take the rap for his sneaking of the good stuff? And perhaps my husband had been consulted?
My mom also would claim I was a drunk. Not to my face. Just to other people, in the family and to her friends. By then, my mom was not a teenager anymore. She just acted like one. In later years she would say she never got a proper childhood. She never got to have good times as a teen. But I don’t know. My dad said she partied plenty. Meanwhile, being a teen sucked! I would not go back if you paid me. I didn’t tell Mom that.
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