Voting - it's important

Massachusetts is holding a special election to fill the late Edward M. Kennedy’s senate seat. Today is the primary.

Guess how many people were voting when I went this a.m.? One plus me. I just do not get people. It really bothers me that people do not bother to vote.

dh decided at lunch who of the 4 democratic candidates he wants to vote for. We ended up selecting the same candidate, which I think is nice. In the presidential primary we canceled each other out. I went Hillary, he went Obama.

Somehow, given the candidate of our choice is pretty progressive, I do not think he will win the primary. Sorry, that just seems to be the way it goes. First choice for me, Alan Khazei (co-founder of City Year); second choice and who I think will actually win, Martha Coakley (current Mass. AG).

Apparently Hormonal

I think not having sugar has made my hormones happier. I haven't really had any clue I was coming up on my period until this morning. My boss asked me to drive into Boston and drop something off for her. I felt overwhelmed and burst into tears (privately).

The overwhelmed part is a combination of a bad weekend for the Schnauzer (he NIPPED at my nephew!) ... and really that's it. That wiped out any good from this weekend for me. I know I can manage the situation, but I want to do more than manage it.

Progress

Yay for me. I had barely any sugar for the past four (now starting five) days (2 pieces - one Friday evening and 1 Sunday evening). I have lost 3 - 3.5 pounds. My body is weird like that. it is very responsive to changes in diet.

The funny thing is I have been on this sweets binge and my skin has been terrible (IMO - my SIL didn't agree when I made this comment over the weekend). I picked up the recent Clean Eating magazine this weekend and they had a little blurb commenting that sugar causes your insulin to spike which affects your hormones which can cause an increase in testosterone which causes your oil glands to work over time = acne. HHMMM!!

Anyway, I feel good taking control of this excessive sugar situation.

Sugar!!

Lately things have been both difficult and better. DH and I had a major issue arise. He asked me not to blog about it. I think we need to revisit that or I need to change my blog to private since blogging is a form of journaling for me and it helps me process. It is unfair to take away that option - I am sorry, I don't write physically often enough. If I tried to keep a handwritten journal about this my hand would be cramping.

Anyway, I don't know if it is stress or the change in seasons but I find I have slipped back into eating lots of sugar and lots of carbohydrates that are then immediately turned into sugar. I think I might be addicted to sugar. It makes sense since as an alcoholic I was ingesting loads of sugar on a daily basis and when I quit drinking my sweet intake definitely went off the charts. Lately my sweet intake has been off the charts again and I have been thinking about drinking more. Hmm...

So....the somewhat logical connection I made is that perhaps I am addicted to sugar. It would make sense, no?


Yesterday I did a bit of searching about sugar addiction and found this interesting site, Sugar Addict. I am going to try and stop eating so much sugar. Yesterday I had none - other than naturally occurring in fruit. It is tough for me because I do not drink coffee. I typically want sugar in the afternoon when I am dragging.

The web site above had some interesting book suggestions. I requested 2 of them at my library (Potatoes Not Prozac by Kathleen DesMaisons and The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Akron). I requested the Highly Sensitive person on disc. I hate books on tape, but self-help-y books tend to work on tape for me.

In other news I am on 2.5 mg of Lexapro and am pretty certain my remedy is working. Given the stress I have been under in the past few weeks the fact that I haven't had a break down and have just been a bit down and stressed about the situation says a lot.

Happy Holidays

My holiday cards have gone out in the mail so I can post them here!

Irregardless

A "pretend" word that people use incorrectly. Note I used it seriously in my previous post. I swear it has been culturally accepted. However, dh got a chuckle out of it at my expense and since I am so sensitive ("inadequacy" alert!)...it hurt my feelings! D'oh.

From Wikipedia:

Irregardless is a term meaning regardless or irrespective, that has caused controversy since it first appeared in the early twentieth century. It is generally listed in dictionaries as "incorrect" or "nonstandard".

The origin of irregardless is not known for certain, but the speculation among references is that it may be a blend, or portmanteau word, of irrespective and regardless, both of which are commonly accepted standard English words. By blending these words, an illogical word is created.

Holidays and Christmas Cards

Holidays, I tend to hate them (with a passion). Except maybe for Halloween - Halloween I like. Why? Maybe I don't associate it with all the family hoopla and boring meals accompanied by too much food and alcohol.

Irregardless, I realize there is something I do like about Christmas. I love sending Christmas cards. I have already ordered and received my holiday cards and will be writing them up shortly. Then I will send them to all my friends, family, and distant relatives. I am a bit of a fanatic about Christmas cards! Hmmm...even when I was travelling I sent Christmas cards from abroad.

So, it is good to recognize there is something I like about a holiday. Probably it is because I like writing letters and I like mail. Makes sense I should like holiday cards, doesn't it?

Drat

DH is fertile. Calling my gyn now.

Testing

Today is dh's appointment with the urologist - he dropped off some sperm last week. This week we find out how healthy they are.

If they are healthy I guess I need to call the gyn and find out if we can do some blood work and whether the blood work is a true picture of whether or not I am fertile.

If the PnP method is truly luck then I find it hard to believe we were lucky for 5 years - especially when we were drinking and partying, etc.

Do you know how hard it is to find information on fertility tests for women? It doesn't appear to be cut and dried. I guess I am a small percentage, but I do not want to under go an invasive surgery if I am not fertile in the first place. Doesn't it make sense to check that out first?

If we are both fertile then we will have to discuss the tubal ligation versus vasectomy. Obviously a vasectomy is way less invasive, but if dh is unclear about what he wants it isn't fair to put that on him. I think the IUD is out due to the sensitivity to copper. I still think we could just freeze sperm and then if he remarries he'll have that! ;-P

How to Recognize Problem Drinking

Am I drinking too much?

YES, if you are:

A woman who has more than seven drinks* per week or more than three drinks per occasion

A man who has more than 14 drinks* per week or more than four drinks per occasion

Older than 65 years and having more than seven drinks* per week or more than three drinks per occasion

*--One drink = one 12-oz bottle of beer (4.5 percent alcohol) or one 5-oz glass of wine (12.9 percent alcohol) or 1.5 oz of 80-proof distilled spirits.

When I was drinking - and I am not talking about excessive drinking, I am talking about when I thought I was drinking moderately and it didn't really affect my life - I drank at a minimum 2 drinks a night - probably more considering the wine glasses could be pretty big. That amounts to a minimum of 14 drinks a week - more than a MAN should be drinking. Double what a female drinker who drinks "Too much" drinks. Hmmm....guess I really did have a problem.

It wasn't ruining my life at this stage - after all I was drinking moderately (it was ruining my head, though), but I am sure it would have eventually gone back to ruining my life.

Talking to L about my drinking I explained to her that the first time I ever drank (when I was 15 or 16), I drank until I blacked out (and some guy [a "friend"] took advantage of me. Sweet!). I was never-ever confused about the fact that drinking wasn't good for me, personally. I always had very mixed emotions because from the beginning I COULD NOT control myself around alcohol - I drank and drank until I woke up the next morning not knowing what happened. Now, someone with a better sense of self-preservation or less depressed, would probably have stopped drinking. But not me. This continued for many years through many destroyed friendships.

L says the fact that I blacked out the first time I ever drank suggests I am actually allergic to alcohol. Makes sense to me.

Here is the $100 question - one of a handful that people do not like to answer honestly:

Has my drinking become a habit?

YES, if you drink regularly to:

Relax, relieve anxiety or go to sleep

Be more comfortable in social situations

Avoid thinking about sad or unpleasant things

Socialize with other regular drinkers

To me, this spells PROBLEM.

I'm Healthy

That is the affirmation L gave me at my EMDR appointment on Wednesday. I went in feeling like crap emotionally.

The past week and a half I had been wondering why anyone was ever friends with my when I was really fucked up or really depressed. I was also thinking a lot about drinking.

My dh has been drinking on a fairly consistent basis. Not a lot on a regular basis, although also having nights of excessive drinking, and it has been wearing on me. It is REALLY hard for me not to drink and I do not feel like that is recognized. Add to the fact that things have been stressful because I have been questioning his drinking. Well, I was thinking about whether or not I needed to start drinking again to ensure my marriage continued. How weird is that? Pretty extreme, but I feel like being sober is such a downer. Especially if all your friends drink too much. It's all the circle you hang with, ya know?

The funny thing, is the reason I stopped drinking is because I know eventually I would RUIN my marriage if I continued.

So, in talking to L about the drinking she basically said I was crazy and I am healthy, why would I want to give that up? She also thought I was right to be concerned and I have been feeling crazy (and like an absolute nagging b!tch) because dh says there is no problem.

Regarding the "Why was anyone ever friends with me when I was so fucked up" thought. She asked what dh said when I shared that. He said that people can see the good in me obviously. I also mentioned it to my friend Lola and she commented that I didn't let people know how bad it was.

We opted to do a small EMDR session on this thought. Lori asked me to remember the first time I thought/felt this. I told her my memory and she said, "Well, your memory contradicts what you are feeling!" Holy cow, it does.

The memory was from when I was really screwed up and doing a lot of coke. We had gone to a friend's friend's apartment in Mission Hill. I had a fair amount of coke on me but it wasn't really a crowd to do it with. I did it secretly earlier in the evening and then after everyone passed out a friend's boyfriend and I ended up hanging out in the bathroom doing the rest. Of course, when you are that messed up - drinking all evening, high as a kit - with good company there is always the possibility for heavy intense conversation assuming the other individual is intelligent. He said, and I recall this moment so clearly, "you're so smart why do you do all this shit?" I had no real answer for him.

What's funny is I took this statement and made it into such a negative. I may be smart, but I am such a fuck-up. I turned it into everyone only seeing me the fuck-up versus seeing the person hiding behind being so fucked up.

It took L to point out to me that my memory says the exact opposite of what I was feeling. Now that is so obvious. Pretty cool.