One month... should be feeling happy

Day 28.

So, one month today. I should be feeling happy, but I'm not. I just feel an overwhelming sadness. Sad for my dad and how his life turned out to be. I'm sad that I didn't do things differently. But I can't go back. It is how it is. Will I ever come to terms with it??

We have the funeral tomorrow. Two of my brother are already at his place (which is in another state) and mum and I are flying up there tomorrow morning for the day. It's going to be really hard and I'm dreading it really. But I think it's important that I go. I will regret it forever if I don't go, I know I will.

I really could have done with a drink the last few days! But I didn't have one. Just 3 days until the end of July and I will supposedly be allowed to have one again. The original plan was to not start drinking again. But now I don't know. I've never had a month off drinking before and I'm thinking maybe I will be ok now? Maybe I will be able to just have a few on the weekends and then not drink during the week? Now that I know how good it feels not to wake up hungover everyday, surely I won't let myself fall back into old patterns? We went out for dinner on Friday night and of course everyone else was drinking. One of my friends has kindly offered to put a bottle of bubbly in her fridge so we can celebrate at her place on Friday afternoon. Why didn't I say anything to her? I didn't say yes but I didn't say no either. I've found it a lot easier than I thought to not drink for a whole month. But maybe it's because it was for a good cause and no one questioned it. I didn't have to say 'oh, I have a drinking problem so am not drinking anymore'. I just had to say 'I'm doing Dry July' and everyone thought that was great. In fact, so many people told me they were impressed because there was no way they could do it!  And I admit I felt a little bit smug because I've been able to do it and they couldn't. But I'm not special. I needed to do this. And I probably need to continue to do this.

I've been thinking how ironic all this is. Here I am not drinking for the month and it's during this time that I found out that my father had died. And he was an alcoholic. He was never able to conquer his demons and it ruined his life. I should learn something from this. I have so much to process over the coming days and perhaps for a long time to come. I've been thinking I should probably look into seeing a councellor. I don't know if I can do this on my own. I'm the type of person who keeps everything bottled up and finds it very difficult to talk about my problems, which isn't healthy at all.
So I think that's what I'll do.

A x