This is something I shared on my personal facebook but I wanted to share this here too as I love this community.
I decided to start making myself chips for non-drinking milestones. I need to take this completely seriously if I ever want to heal my bladder and drinking for me is bad news anyhow as I come from a line of alcoholics and am one myself. But most importantly if I EVER want to heal my bladder I need to stop drinking altogether. I have medicaid now and a urologist, no excuses.
I am very sentimental and like the idea of chips. In a few days I will make my 7 day one but this is my 24 hour one which may end up being the most important. If I fall off the wagon this will be the one I pick back up. I really feel ready to not fall off the wagon though. I want to be ice skating on a frozen lake in 5 months dammit so I have to baby my bladder and do anything this urologist says.
I slept holding my chip last night and imagining my new healthy life, feeling content and ready. I will do this. I can do this.
Woke up and started making a huge pot of the healthiest damn vegetable soup ever because I have been eating constantly for the first 5 days of not drinking so if I'mma eat constantly it needs to be healthy, low calorie food. I want to be fully healthy not just sober. :) Man, I feel like I really can beat this shitty disease. I was referring to the IC as the shitty disease but god damn if alcoholism isn't the shittiest too!
The app that is helping to track my sobriety and keep me inspired.
An app simply called "Stop Drinking" but falsely claiming "EasyQuit" is a huge help to me. It not only tracks my time sober but it tells me how many drinks I have passed, how much money I have saved, and let's me see important health related milestones such as when my brain cells start regenerating and when grey matter in my brain begins to increase. It goes all the way up to like 10 years, or 15?, when your risk of heart attack is back to the level of just slightly more than if you never drank at all.
I naturally rebelled for awhile after hearing I can never eat any processed food, fruits, soy, chocolate, alcohol, coffee, or caffeinated tea again but, in the end, being able to have a working body is the most important. Food for fuel not for pleasure will be my new motto and you don't put the wrong fuel in your car even if it's more expensive. Only the right fuel goes into my body now. :) I will be posting updates every time I make a new chip. The next chip is in a few days! _
I can tell this is it. I finally got too fed up to keep rebelling against the idea of extreme life-long changes to my diet in order to beat this disease. Bland food forever? Fine, as long as I can enjoy being outside among the trees, bird, squirrels, people! It will probably take at least 6 months of diet and treatment to get serious relief according to every IC'er I talk to but I am ready.
