today's weather: B A S E L I N Eanxiety : 0 | agitation : 0
I had a severe craving for sweets last night and we unfortunately are not in the habit of storing snackables. I was too wound-down to run outside to grab something, so I resolved to be creative with what was available. I made a mental list of possible ingredients in the kitchen cupboards - sugar, honey, evaporated milk, vanilla extract. I thought of making butterscotch syrup but realized we were out of butter.
I remembered we had a lot of cocoa powder and a few sachets of instant coffee. Hmmm. I then instantly craved a mug of hot chocolate. Or perhaps a glass of iced mocha. Excellent idea. I mulled over it for several minutes before I finally decided to make some.
Why the extralong mulling, you may ask? While a cup of cocoa or mocha is definitely a good quencher for a nighttime sweet-tooth - and a relatively easy one to make too - my main problem was that the chocolate and/or caffeine would surely keep me awake for several more hours. And I didn't want that. Especially since I didn't sleep at all the night before. I could take my sleep-inducers, but I know from experience that my sleep meds are no match to stimulants taken so late in the day.
Suddenly I had an inspiration: I'm aware that a bottle of rum sits in the cupboard. My dad sometimes adds rum to his special-occasion baked chicken recipe so we often have a bottle handy.
I thought it would be a great idea to go irish. Why not? The relaxant would nullify the stimulant; it would give an extra flavor kick too. Wonderful. So I made me some mocha frappe with a drop of rum. Really yum. I had two extra-large glasses. And true enough, the caffeine didn't overpower the Benadryl, and I had no problem falling asleep that night.
Which led me to another bright idea. As I washed the day off me, I considered the probability that a shot of red wine before bedtime is a more healthful sleep-aid than my usual pill-cocktail.Drinking a small amount of red wine daily has health benefits.
Meanwhile, taking a large amount of pills every night (which I am currently doing) has side effects. It will even eventually take the toll on the liver (a fact I have been starkly aware of lately and obsessing over, since my father-in-law recently lost his battle with liver cancer).
I know that this would probably seem like an excuse to be alcoholic - especially considering I am bipolar and therefore addiction prone - but I have a good amount of discipline and self-control, plus a husband who will not likely allow anything remotely resembling an addiction.
Besides. It's not like our income can afford an addiction to something so not-cheap. *Snicker*
So anyway. Yeah. Why not? Red wine instead of my usual bedtime concoction of drowse-inducing pills. I imagine a lot of
