I started abusing alcohol on a steady basis late in life, a few months after turning fifty, to be precise. This coincided with finally “making it.” My husband and I had just bought our own condo. and I was a few years into having my own successful private psychotherapy practice. It all came together, including living near a vibrant town center with a lovely bar and restaurant where I’d hang out with some colleagues and even made a few new friends. For almost five years, I was riding this gravy train of “making it,” lubricated along with wine and mixed drinks, especially on weekends but on my one day off during the week too. In my own way, I was luxuriating after years of having less, believing, a lot of that time, that I didn’t deserve much. I’ve since learned, after letting go of drinking (now over a year ago), that, often in many instances, less is actually more. No alcohol has meant more health and well-being for me and my husband. And there are so many other ways to meet each day in celebration of having “made it.”
Here’s to everyone who’s alive and meeting each day. You’re here. You made it this far and, to those I actually know and like, I’m so glad we’re friends, family, and/or somehow associates in life. Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!
The Practical, Fanciful Pagan 
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, too! Thank you so much for being there in times of need and times of pleasure. You have been such a blessing.
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Cheers to your health, and even more to your believing in yourself and enjoying all your blessings! This is a brave post.
I am curious about how you define the term “abusing” here. Obviously you need not answer. Just to clarify: this is my word-nerd part voicing, not a probing personal question. I wonder because over time, I’ve heard the word used a lot (alcohol, drugs, food, etc. I mean, not other activities associated with abuse) but it seems to vary in how they define it. I remember learning ages ago abuse is different from addiction (but people who are addicts abuse). Subsequent experience and understanding subtleties of language and efforts to avoid binaries led me to question that early education…).
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Thank you.
By “abusing” alcohol in my instance, I mean over-using it on weekends, almost every weekend, when I was drinking up until October of 2021. I did not have direct, classic withdrawal symptoms when I stopped drinking, so I had not gotten completely addicted to that substance. I’m sure I was leading to addiction eventually happening for me if I kept on drinking.
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