T2 today.
Sat down, he asked what I wanted to talk about today. I said alcohol use and mentioned how it had come up with MC Monday and recapped that briefly. He asked what I thought about my drinking. I said I thought I needed to cut back that it was a problem. So he asked about my relationship with alcohol. I asked if he wanted the whole history, and he said if I wanted to share, then asked if it was OK if he took notes (he only had the first session). He ended up filling both sides of a legal pad!

Talked about going out drinking frequently in my mid-20s then eventually getting DWI (and the circumstances surrounding that, which were hard to talk about). I said what my BAC was (0.18), expecting him to be horrified, but he wasn't. If he was judging me for anything I said all session, he did a great job of concealing it. (Unlike MC on Monday...)

Talked about concerns about my drinking over the past few years and how much I was generally drinking now. At one point he clarified that it was mostly beer that I drank, and I said yes. He said, "How do you stay so skinny then?" I laughed for about a minute and was like "Yeah, I'm not really *that* skinny. But thanks. And I've always had a pretty fast metabolism. I could definitely stand to lose 10 lbs. though."

I had been playing with my rings and bracelet all session, and he asked, "Are you feeling very anxious right now?" I said, "Yeah, pretty anxious. What gave it away, the fidgeting?" He said that, the way I was talking, the fact that I seemed to be jumping from thing to thing. He asked if that was how I generally felt. I said, "Well, right now I'm particularly anxious because I'm talking about this stuff with someone I haven't known that long really. So I don't know how you'll react. It's not generally this bad except for something like this or in a social setting." Said how I'd had full-on panic attacks with T1 or a couple times with MC, where I felt I needed to get out of the room, but this wasn't nearly that bad.

I said, "In general, though, I do tend to have lots of thoughts running around in my head at any one time." He said, "If you feel like that, I can see why you'd want to use something like alcohol to deal with it." Which made me feel like he understood and wasn't judging.

I asked about strategies to cut back on drinking. He said to just stop, without having some way to deal with the anxiety, probably wouldn't be that successful. Because then I'm dealing both with not having the alcohol plus the stronger anxiety feelings that would arise. He asked what other things I found to be calming. I mentioned yoga, going for a walk, listening to music.

He said that if, say, I normally would have a beer at 3 (for example), first, do one of those things instead, ideally something somewhat active. Then, when I'm done, if I still want the beer, OK to have it. But ideally I wouldn't. So doing that once a day would cut drinking by 20-25% (considering 4-5 beers/day). Then after a bit, try to add in an activity (could also be something like playing instrument, doing craft) for another time slot when I'd usually want a beer. Which sounds like something I could actually do.

Talked about a few related things--like how my H continuing to drink at his regular level could be an obstacle. How that's often an issue, if one partner wants to make changes (whether eating healthier, drinking less, etc.), but the other one doesn't. And also sobriety vs. moderation (which he said is harder because you have to keep monitoring all the time). I actually wonder if he's had some specific training in addiction, because he seemed to know what he was talking about.

At the end of the session, he said, "I want to say again, like last time, there was nothing you said this session that would make me not want to see you next week." I said, "Even if I told you I'd had a beer before session today?" He replied, "I just assumed that you had, based on what you'd said. It's OK, just don't show up drunk." I said, "I wouldn't do that," and he replied, "I didn't get the sense that you would."

I paid, and it seemed like he wasn't going to hold out his hand for me to shake. Maybe he forgot I'm a hand-shaker? Then he did, we shook hands, and he said "Take care." (other times he'd just said "have a good week.") I said "You too," and headed out.