Full Time Care

OK, so I was wrong. It’s actually the fourth day since my partner decided she’d stop drinking, rather than the third - and today she’s downstairs with a couple of bottles of wine. Now, I could take this as a defeat on her part, but in fact I’m pleased with her progress. Why?

Well, at the worst time, she was drinking a LOT every day. I’m talking litres of cider or virtually all of a (big) bottle of rum here. Then she realised just how this was affecting us and calmed down a bit, switching to wine (less volume than cider, less potent than rum). For a while, she was doing an alternate day thing: she’d get drunk one day, sleep off the hangover the next and start again.

The last time she tried to cut down, she made it to three days before failing and starting the two day cycle again. One time she managed five days, but that was exceptional. This time round, it’s four days. Not a really big difference, right? Right.

However, there’s a difference in the way it’s happened: she doesn’t want to do it. Today’s drinking is a reaction to the physical withdrawal, not the psychological (anxiety) problem. She actually feels awful about it and is trying her damnedest to drink as little as possible over as long a period as possible - the two bottles are just a reassuring safety net in case she has trouble stopping at one. She knows she’s going to have to go through it all again over the next few days, but she just couldn’t take the withdrawal any more.

Maybe I’m deluding myself. Maybe it’s all just starting again. Maybe not. I don’t know for sure, but I really feel there’s something that’s changed.