Day 14. At 7:00 tonight it will have been exactly 2 weeks since I last drank any PST. And, no desire to ever drink it again at this point. While I feel about a million percent better than I did the first week, I am still not back to 100%. I might be hitting 60%, but every day seems a bit better. Actually slept from 11pm to 4am and 6am to 7am (6 total hours!) so I feel more rested and alert today. My legs are tired and sore, but I think that is mostly because I have been forcing myself to workout and walk more than I have in the past 4 years. Mornings seem to be the worst for some reason. Seems like the first few hours after getting up, I feel more anxious and depressed and it takes a couple of hours to get my head on straight. May still be sleep related or maybe my brain still working to repair itself--I abused it pretty hard for 4 years so why would it do me any favors and hurry? Attitude is improving a lot each day as the light at the end of the tunnel gets bigger (hopefully it is not an oncoming train...) as I decided I am going to push forward on my terms regardless of how bad I might still feel. Kind of feel if I want things back to normal, I need to make that happen instead of just waiting for it. I am meeting a friend for lunch who is a recovered alcoholic and has been dry for 12 years. He almost lost everything in the process but eventually got his shit back in one pile. I am not sure I am ready to share what I have been through with anyone I know just yet, but he would definitely understand.
Had kind of a funny thing happen yesterday at work. I actually made it to a weekly planning meeting which is the first one I have felt like attending in about 3 years--I simply just stopped caring and it is my own company. Everyone was surprised when I walked in. Anyway, one of our big customers requested we complete a difficult project for them and the group felt that it was too challenging and we would fail at it. I was shocked, and said something like "This company does not shy away from challenges. We find solutions and we make our customers successful in the process. That's what our fucking mission statement says. If you guys can't figure this out, I will find a team that can." And then there was like 30 seconds of dead silence as everyone stared at me. And it occurred to me that their expressions didn't say "What a fucking asshole". Their faces said "Where in the hell has this guy been" (or probably, 'Where in the hell has this asshole been'). So, we figured out a plan to complete the project.
Little things like that are happening everyday as things become more clear. I think when I jumped off into withdrawal, I had unrealistic expectations of what was going to happen. I thought I would feel shitty for 2 or 3 days, my head would clear in a couple more and then bang, I was back to me. Nope. I have never went extreme cold turkey from anything before so I really had no baseline. I had read that PST WD was longer than most and that length and strength of use affected it, but I think I was in denial. I tend to be somewhat impatient and want things done quickly. Well, PST recovery works on its own schedule--it has been 2 weeks and I am still not well. All you can do is lean into it and hope that the next day is better than the one before, which it usually is. Not to get too philosophical, but I guess the lesson I have learned is that recovery is not so much about winning the war, but winning battles. And, if you win enough of them, eventually you may win the war.
