Giving yourself self care is NOT self ish.

We are trying to do something amazing and swim against the tide of "alcohol is normal".

It is NOT - it is a poison to all and for some of us, it very rapidly becomes a huge problem, whatever level we were drinking at (whether stepping off the down lift at a high or low bottom)

This last time of starting sobriety, from Day 1 onwards I basically hibernated as much as I could (family and self employed work allowing) did as little as I could (ditto) used ready meals and raided the freezers - normally we cook from scratch here with homegrown stuff but that went by the by. I did this as much as possible for the first two weeks.

That was one of the things I had not done the previous (many) times I had tried to be sober long term - this time I was determined to add  other tools to my sober tool kit which already had a lot of self care in it ( blogs, on line support, my journal, exercise, meditation, etc ) But I had lapsed, again, so I heeded Belles wise words about doing it differently.

I have learned my lesson - if you lapse, do it differently next time so add something else into all the other stuff you did before.

Originally, I tried to moderate, then to just stop drinking. That had limited success (!) I have ongoing, can't really be altered stress in my life and I drank to blot it all out or to self medicate for stuff I don't want to think about.

The first time I lapsed I had a look around for sober support and joined some online groups. These were really helpful for a while. Then I lapsed.

So I added a subscription to Headspace rather than just doing meditation by myself.  This worked for a while to distract me, then I lapsed.

I joined Sober Sassy Life and worked my way through 30 days. This was great and I started to examine why I drank. I was sober for 45 days,  then I got stressed and I lapsed.

I then made a cosy retreat for me in  the spare room so some nights when I could not sleep I could watch Amazon Prime and dvds on my laptop. I managed 35 days doing this, then I got stressed and I lapsed.

The next time I lapsed ( I went away on a holiday and there was lots of drinking going on), I worked my way through Club Soda's MOB and the 30 days of emails and exercises. This helped me to examine even more deeply why I drank, which was uncomfortable, but eventually ( you guessed it, under extreme stress) I lapsed.

The next time I lapsed, I added in more sober books and sober blogs, which I read. No good adding sober tools if you don't actually use them! But, eventually I had a period of overwhelm and high stress and really shitty things happened and, I drank to blot it all out. Didn't work though.

Finally, this time round I have added in sober treats and Belle's lessons and sober podcasts.

This time around I have basically prioritized ME over everything else, in order to get back to being the best wife and mum and friend and person I could be to everyone else again - but without the crutch of alcohol propping me up when I felt down.

I am sorry if this sounds a bit incoherent as it is hard to express in words but honestly, honestly please look after yourself first - you really do have to look after yourself before you can even begin to look after anyone else. It is the first rule of ANY survival situation - plane crash, first aid, survival stuff.

And I NEVER gave up on the idea that I could be sober, that there was something better than drowning my sorrows in wine.

Never give up. Keep on trying. It WILL work for you one day.