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If I can’t chill out and relax by drinking alcohol, apparently I can easily do so by sitting in heated pools and breathing steam sauna air or just curling up on a cot in the oxygen room. It was fantastic, and so was the bibimbap. If not for Dryuary, I probably would have just suggested a glass of chardonnay otherwise.

While the number of my activities has increased, so has the number of my sleep hours. My sleep is off the hook, and the importance of this really can’t be overstated. My sleep schedule has been really whack in the past, and I can’t blame that all on midnight feedings, as those were over a decade ago. I guess I can point to some of my A.V. Club TV reviews without screeners, trying to create poetry while fighting eyelid droop around midnight. Because of several evenings like that, I have had certain nights where I would just wake up at 3 .m., wide awake. Idiotically, I pounced on this insomnia as “me time,” scrolling through twitter feeds or watching Grey’s Anatomy reruns as if peering at a blue screen in the wee small hours of the morning was living my best life. So a good night’s sleep for me has been the anomaly for a while, not the rule.

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Until Dryuary. Now I drop off well before midnight and sometimes wake up with my husband at 5, giving me a chance to tidy the house before leaving for school a few hours later instead of giving our resident mouse this winter a gourmet buffet on the kitchen floor. And I haven’t been this caught up on laundry in years. I pointed to my increased energy level last week, but I think we can trace that back to this sleep thing. It’s impressive.

My list of positives so overwhelms my list of negatives that you have to wonder, why would anyone (like me) drink again? What’s actually in it for me? That doctor I talked about last week called alcohol a “necessary poison” and I kind of like that description. But I no longer want to use it as my primary stress reducer or fun enhancer.

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After all, everything is exactly the same without the alcohol: The kids are still going to drive me crazy, the laundry’s going to pile up, a band at a club is either going to suck or be great, singing “Surrender” at the top of my lungs is always going to be a blast. Alcohol only affects how I deal (or don’t deal) with the tough times, and may even be blowing my fun times by blurring reality too greatly. With nine days to go, Dryuary has already offered me that reset I was hoping for—raising my regular-life bar so that I no longer have to rely on alcohol to do it for me.


Weight: Gained 1 pound. Trying not to freak out about it, as I’m still six pounds down overall. And I expect my body would have to resettle itself a bit. Fingers crossed for the final tally next week.

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The jeans barometer: Size 10 stretchy gray jeans, you’re up next on the tourniquet meter.

Most regretful non-drink: I really wanted a drink when my husband and I got into a snipe fight over the fact that we still have this mouse, even though we bought a bunch of traps weeks ago, so why are they not up yet? Yes, I should have just put them up myself, if I was not worried about losing a finger. Then he went to the store, so no one was home, and I was extremely close to grabbing the bottle of white that got opened when a friend stopped by the other night. Stress-ate pita chips instead. It was not the same. But yeah, after the chardonnay, the mouse would have still been there anyway.

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Non-alcoholic drink of the week: I highly recommend trying this mocktail option, even if there isn’t one on the menu. Lots of “mixologists” appreciate a challenge like that just to make something special without the easy benefit of alcohol. Now that my tolerance is (hopefully) at a more normal level, will be searching out more non-toxic options even when Dryuary is over.

I really love hearing about how you all are doing in the comments, please let me know. Also open to any mocktail suggestions!