I have not had any alcohol since Saturday evening, and I won't have any tonight. Likely I will have been able to go 60+ hours without a drink.
I miss the taste of Ledaig (my current scotch of choice), but I don't feel as if I am going through withdrawal from an addiction. That's why I did this: to see if I could do it, and to make sure I am not getting addicted.
Most of my life I drank very little, but I have begun to wonder if I have been drinking more lately; hence this brief dry period.
When I told Jack about this decision, he sent me this link from WebMD.
You might be dependent on alcohol if you have three or more of the following problems in a year:
- You cannot quit drinking or control how much you drink.
- You need to drink more to get the same effect.
- You have withdrawal symptoms when you stop drinking. These include feeling sick to your stomach, sweating, shakiness, and anxiety.
- You spend a lot of time drinking and recovering from drinking, or you have given up other activities so you can drink.
- You have tried to quit drinking or to cut back the amount you drink but haven't been able to.
- You continue to drink even though it harms your relationships and causes physical problems.
This brief period of abstinence is to reassure myself that 1, 3, and 5, especially don't apply to me. 2 and 4 certainly do not; and I don't think 6 does. Certainly I am not experiencing any of these symptoms.
So far, so good!