Advice from a small town girl

You know, I’ve always thought of myself as a basically honest person.

In fact, I like to think of myself as above average in that regard. When I find paper money on the street, I attempt to find its owner. Usually, when something is my fault, I confess.

I don’t steal.

I don’t lie, unless it doesn't matter.

“Aha!” you say. “There she goes, down that slippery slope of making God-like decisions.”

For who am I to decide what matters?

But that’s a bit off track.

The lies I’ve been thinking about lately are the ones I tell myself.

I've been telling myself some of them for a very long time.

A couple of weeks ago, the person I live with tried to tell me that losing weight would be nearly impossible as long as I was consuming alcohol. In any amount.

That’s what he was trying to say, anyway.

I, of course, heard him say that I drink too much, which of course wouldn't bother me if I didn’t drink too much.

I told him, in no uncertain terms, that I would quit drinking when he quit smoking (a pretty safe bet.)

About a week later, in a conversation with a friend, I found myself saying all those things that alcoholics tell themselves before they realize they are alcoholics.

“I can quit any time I want - I just don’t want to.”

“I only drink wine. As long as those bottles of the hard stuff in the pantry stay untouched, I couldn’t possibly have a problem.”

“If I quit drinking for a week or a month, I don’t have any withdrawal symptoms.”

Uh-oh.

The final straw was waking in the night with weird cramps in my feet. They didn’t really hurt, although it was uncomfortable enough to wake me up. It felt like someone was pulling on the tendons to my toes, causing one or two to curl into a ball. At least that’s what it felt like.

The next day, I went to that source of all wisdom, the Internet, where a diagnostic program gave me three possibilities. Further reading revealed that one of the causes of each of those possibilities could be alcoholism.

Mind you, there were other possible causes, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, chances are it's a duck.

I’ve always liked ducks. They’re much nicer than geese.

My history with alcohol goes back to high school, and I’ve consumed it almost daily for probably 25 years. For most of those years, it was one or two glasses of wine each evening. Any more and I knew I’d regret it the next day.

The funny thing about alcohol is that you build a tolerance for it, and that’s not a good thing. Over the past couple of years, I’ve graduated to four or five glasses each evening, and sometimes an entire bottle.

I’ve been saying for quite a while now that I have a problem with alcohol.

I just didn't mean it. Because I can quit anytime.