Trying Not to Drink Isn't Easy - Don't underestimate it

In 2009 I made it six months without drinking.  In early september, to the day after six months, I decided to have one drink.  Then I decided, even BEFORE having the one drink, that I'd have to have two drinks.   Only two drinks would make breaking my non-drinking spell worth it.  If I wanted to have a drink, that is, a drink would mean having two drinks.  Besides, since I'm heavier than most people, two drinks is really like one drink anyway.  And so I did it.  And then I watched a  movie, and thought nothing of it.  After about two weeks, it became easy to indulge in a drink, or two, or four, on a weeknight, and on the weekends, if we went to a social event, I could easily have four drinks, or more, depending on who needed to drive (if we drove). By New Year's eve, I was totally smashed on a regular basis, and could drink enough, while talking to myself rationally about drinking, to black out.  If you've ever blacked out, you know how startling it is--and worrisome, but you learn, if you want to keep drinking, to pack that experience up and put it in your pocket to think about later.  Right.  So by mid-april, I felt like shit about myself again, wasn't happy in my job, and failed an important test I should have passed.  Yep, felt like spring.  That was april 2010, too, which, basically feels like yesterday right now.  And then in May friends came from out of town, and the year before I skipped out on drinking endeavors with them (though these friends certainly understood) and I made sure to catch up.  I went to work the next day hung over and dragging.  I swore that I should stop drinking for a little while again, after all, it was a year since I stopped the first time (March 2009)... and then June 25 came.  I went out, but was early.  So, I ordered the same beer I had the time with my out of town friends.  It was over-sized and foamy and german and delicious and I ordered a second even before my friends came to join me.  By the time they came I was already completely under water.  Didn't stop me from partaking for half the night.  The next day I called into work sick, and decided, half way through a stunned and aching hangover, that I should stop drinking for a good long time, like a year.  By the way, I get severe, massive, slow-moving, churn your guts out type hangovers that don't stop for about 20 hours.  Yeah, well, hopefully I won't ever get one again.  Let's keep on keepin on everyone, no matter how much it hurts right now.  All the pleasure had to balance out some time anyway.