What I'm doing

At work.  I feel... puffy.

I can remember exactly one time in the last three years where I didn't go to bed completely plastered.  That one time, I was babysitting a niece overnight a few months ago.  I was going nuts without a drink.  My niece's parents aren't heavy drinkers, but I knew they might have something in the house, so I searched all over their kitchen.  Didn't find any there.  I finally found some in a basement closet, the bottles tall and leaning atop some shelves.  I stared at them for a while.  Should I?  Would they notice if some is missing?  I just want one drink anyway.  Would they be mad that I was drinking while caring for their daughter?

I walked out of the basement closet, back upstairs, and grabbed the baby monitor and my cigarettes.  Outside in the cold, the eaves of the house dripped on me as I smoked, holding the baby monitor to my ear. 

I didn't drink that night.  I knew I just wanted one drink -- that is, one after another. 

Every day, I get home at five thirty, and my husband -- who is collecting unemployment, which exacerbates the situation -- and I pour our first cocktails.  Unless I stopped by CVS on the way home from work, I scrutinize the bottle to see if we'll have enough for the night.  We go through 750 mL of vodka in a day and a half.  Anyway, so our first cocktails.  This is while I'm having "Erin time" upon getting home from work, which means I sit in front of my computer.  "Erin time," for the record, is not at all different from the rest of the evening, except during "Erin time," my husband knows not to talk to me very much.

Second cocktail.  Haven't started dinner yet -- hell, I might not eat.  Too much trouble to make dinner anyway.  And the dishes aren't done, so now I know I'm not making dinner.  "Erin time" is winding down, but on the outside it looks the same.  We are both sitting in the office at our computers, looking like Cartman from South Park.  Playing video games, mostly.  We also watch a lot of Netflix.

Third cocktail.  One of three things has happened by now:
(1) I got my shit together and started dinner (I did this last night!  awwwww yeah);
(2) Adam drops hint after hint about how he's "kinda starting to get hungry, lover," and then I snap at him that his legs aren't broken, and he offers that we just fend for ourselves tonight for dinner...I'll maybe make a little something for both of us;
(3) He gets McDonald's; I don't eat. 

Fourth cocktail.  I make random drunken comments on Reddit.  I read Feministe and get pissed at men.  I play an MMO and make drunk comments to people on my headset.  I pee like crazy. 

Fifth cocktail.  I give up on the MMO because I'm starting to get sleepy.  I've been drinking for almost seven hours.  I watch Netflix until my brain is swimming and my common sense reaches me and says, "You don't want to feel like this much shit tomorrow.  Go to bed." 

And usually, I do so, but sometimes I make a sixth cocktail.  Or we make the inaccurately-named "half cocktail."  There's nothing half about it.  That keeps me up until at least two, I never remember it the next day (even though I'm just watching Netflix, but sometimes I can't remember picking a big fight with my husband) and the next morning, I am walking death at work -- and that's assuming I didn't call in for the morning.

Whenever I call in, Adam gets pissed.  And when I can't remember fighting with him.

But I drink enough to fill an entire work day.  And on Saturdays, sometimes we start earlier than 5:30 pm and stay up later than 2 am.  I've gained 50 pounds in the last two years, and he's gained 40.  We've got bags under our eyes, and we snore like crazy.  Our stomachs are fucked up from the alcohol and the ibuprofen the next day (three in the morning and three at 5:30 with my first cocktail to knock out the afternoon headache).  We're spending $60 a week on alcohol, and it would be more if we didn't get shitty SKOL from CVS, which is $10 a pop. 

We never get anything done -- we are constantly just sitting.  I sit all day in a cubicle, and then I get home and sit all night in a computer chair.  I don't even do anything productive in the computer chair, even though I keep saying I'm going to organize my music and do the taxes.

So here's our plan:  Enjoy it while it lasts this week.  Next week, we begin weaning.  Knock it down to two cocktails, then one, etc. a day.  We then pack up and live in the woods for 2-3 days, no alcohol. 

I feel "ready" about 98% of the time.  We both keep mentioning how excited we are.  However, I get fleeting thoughts like, "Oh man, am I really doing this?  I love to drink," but then I go back to excited.  "Will I even be able to do it?" but then I go back to confident.

I've just started to hate myself too much.