MC today. Shared some updates from week and what's coming up this week. I gave brief recap of conflict that occurred with T2 (over charging me for e-mail) and how I handled it. MC seemed impressed by how I dealt with it.

MC asked what we wanted to talk about. I asked if he had any thoughts, and he said, "Well, I do have one thing. I know this will be frustrating though." I suspected it was one of two things. And I was right--he wanted to mention again about how H and I seem to do many things that revolve around alcohol. Like when we're describing our weeks/weekends, we mention going to x pub or y taproom.

MC asked if either of us were concerned about our alcohol use. Similarly to how it's gone the other times this has come up, I said I was concerned about myself, H said he wasn't concerned about himself. MC asked why I was concerned. I said how I partly use it for anxiety, which he said was red flag. And how if we're out of beer, I feel need to get more. And that I sometimes drink during the day.

I said, "I may have even had a beer before coming here." (appointment was at 2 pm). MC asked, "So, did you have a beer before coming here?" I said, "Yes, I did." MC said, "May I ask why?" I said because of anxiety. He seemed a bit bothered by that. I said, "It was one beer, I'm not drunk." And said I suspected since he saw teens that some came in impaired by alcohol or drugs. He said yes, that sometimes he'll say, "I'm not terminating you, but we can't conduct a session with you in this state." I asked if he was going to give me a breathalyzer or something, reiterating that I wasn't drunk. How in the past, sometimes I took a Benadryl before session to calm me down (not with beer!), but that made me sleepy, so I didn't.

He said if it was about anxiety, then he wanted me to be able to deal with anxiety in session, to have those emotions come up. Then made reference to the "wise person" who had talked earlier about how she'd had a conflict with T2 and worked through it. I was like, "Well, I had a beer before each of those sessions, too..." (original session and half-session to resolve issue).

At some point in there, MC mentioned how we said we'd taken D with us to some of the places. He asked if there were other parents there with their kids, which felt rather judgmental of him (especially because most are restaurants). H said yes, that there usually are, plus we go at like 4 or 5, not later when it's busy. MC seemed a little surprised by that.

He asked more about the drinking affecting our marriage, and I said how it feels sometimes like we enable each other. Like, "Want another beer?" "Well, if you're getting one..." I said how it feels like I need to cut back, but I was finding it hard to do that consistently. How in the past, I'd managed to stop smoking (years ago) and drinking soda (a couple years ago) on my own, but was really struggling with this. MC said maybe because it's a different thing, if I'm using it to cope with anxiety. Which is a red flag. He called out one or two other things as red flags for me, too.

I said I knew I had to talk about it to T2 (we haven't really addressed it yet--it's only been 5 weeks). How T1 tended to kinda hand-wave it. That I definitely needed help with it. Think there was some other stuff in there too.

Was time to go. I'd initially thought about trying to space out sessions a bit--like instead of next Monday, doing next Thursday, then skipping a week, then going to every 2 weeks. But as soon as we started talking about scheduling, I got teary. So I asked H if it was OK if we just stuck with next Monday, then discussed it after that. He said was fine. I think I'd expected today to be more of a light session, so this felt like a weird one to start spacing sessions after (want to do that because things seem better with me and H, so I feel like much of why we're still going is for my attachment to/transference for MC).

Usual handshake/"Good to see you." Then headed out.