Amayzine

If you haven't drunk for four months

If you dream almost every night that you are drunk, do you have some sort of withdrawal symptoms?

Who knows. I wouldn't label myself as an alcoholic too quickly, but it seems like I have something vague of it. Because I haven't had a drop for, what would it be, about four months no drop of alcohol. And that's quite an adjustment in a busy life full of drinks, parties, and dinners. I suddenly realized that since my 15th birthday, I have had an alcoholic treat on every birthday. And usually more than one. That's 14 years in a row. And this year not. That’s going in the books, that’s for sure.

So I suddenly realize how much my friends drink. How different people are when they are tipsy. Quite, eh, from the weak chit-chat. Repeating things a hundred times. That haze. I can see it immediately in someone's eyes. I hear it in someone's nonsensical babble about jokes from the past that are actually no longer funny because they are told again at every gathering. And then you sit there completely sober with your pregnant body there. Your feet hurt and honestly? After about three hours, you’re done with it. It’s quite a new dimension in life. I suddenly see pubs as they really are. Drinks are fun for a while but absolutely not until the last gasp. I also smell beer as it really smells. I see everything through sober glasses. I feel quite fresh, clean. Advantage. But I also feel a bit boring. Friends text: ‘Hungover’. ‘Hangover’. ‘Headache’. ‘Drunk’. I literally don’t remember what being tipsy feels like. It feels lonely, up there on that sober mountain.

This is all happening when you haven't drunk anything for four months because you are pregnant :

You suddenly notice that Saturday is a very long day.
You also notice that Sunday is a long day. And that the weekend lasts quite a while.
You have time for family.
You look forward to a new day.
You don't feel like McDonald's.
You fantasize about a big glass of fatty Chardonnay.
You are secretly counting down to the day ‘when it is allowed again’.
You know that alcohol-free gin exists. And that ginger ale with mint is a kind of cocktail.
You know how quickly everyone around you gets tipsy and you know that you actually talk just as nonsense.
You feel dull, even though you know you can't do anything else for now.
You google whether you can eat cheese fondue then, because alcohol evaporates, right?
You don't feel like any Christmas dinner at all. And also not for New Year's Eve. Cheers.
Oh god, it must be the hormones, but eh, I haven't drunk anything for three months. It already feels mentally like four. Still at least five, six to go. How terrible. Oops.