I woke up today after a really good sleep ( finally!) but still early. I gloried in my lack of a hangover!
As I couldn't sleep again I used the time to do my sober homework reading and listen to some of today's audio lessons. I sat and read and listened, and wrote in my journal, sipping from a cup of herb tea, while the early morning thin winter sunshine streamed in through the open window and a few brave birds sang outside.
I experienced no banging headache, no sour taste, no squinting because the light was too bright, no puffy face. Wonderful!
When was the last time I ever woke up feeling regret I wasn't hungover? Never.
Once I went beyond light social occasional drinking, (30 plus years ago!) I always regretted drinking next morning. Always.
Did I mention waking up hangover free is marvelous? Well, it is :)
20/01/2020
18/01/2020
I am not broken
I am not broken. Things were done to me, bad things by bad people. That does not make me bad, It does not make me broken. It makes me strong. Strong because I survived. Strong because I am trying to change and improve and grow. Strong because I recognize bad things happened and I refuse to let them drag me down any more.
I drank to bury pain. To hide from my demons. To not have to think about bad stuff that had happened. To damp down my anxiety. All it actually did was make my existing situation many many times worse. Since stopping drinking my anxiety has reduced, I am calmer and sleep better without as many nightmares. I am more able to cope.
I drank to bury pain. To hide from my demons. To not have to think about bad stuff that had happened. To damp down my anxiety. All it actually did was make my existing situation many many times worse. Since stopping drinking my anxiety has reduced, I am calmer and sleep better without as many nightmares. I am more able to cope.
07/01/2020
End of the first week
Well. Here we are again.
If anyone was reading this blog before , the lack of entries for the last year or so probably told you the chances were I wasn't happily getting on with a sober life, too busy to post.
No. It was because I had started drinking again, and was too ashamed to say. Which is really odd, as I don't know you (that's if anyone is even reading this!) so why I should feel Ive let you down is beyond me!
Anyway, I digress.
I continued with counselling, and that has helped a lot with dealing with some of the horrors of my past life, but the family stuff got worse, until finally I had to cut a family member off completely.
Other, difficult stuff at home added to the stress, and, possibly predictably, I started to drink again (and eat unwisely as well)
For many months I drank moderately, and kidded myself I was "fixed" Ha ha. "Look! See! I can drink like a normal person!" Yeah, right 🙄
But eventually I went right back to as bad as I'd ever been, consumption wise. I'd cycle round, stopping for a day, a few days, a week, then back to drinking as much as before.
You know the cycle:- Drink, Drunk, Repent, Repeat.
Sigh.
and then, in the last few months of 2019, I was drinking more than I'd ever done before. To a frightening level, always in the evening, never before 6pm, but which meant I was pretty permanently pissed in the evening or hung over in a low level way the next day.
I hasten to add I work from home so there was never any question of driving anywhere under the influence, but it meant I just didn't drive very much in the last couple of months of 2019.
Thus socially isolating myself even further from friends and my (non alcohol based) social life of crafts events, meet ups, coffee and chat.
Which made me feel even more worthless, lonely, depressed and sad, so I drank even more to make myself feel better (aka numbing out all my feelings)
Of course, my tolerance was by then so high, most of the time I still functioned, despite drinking a lot at night. I did jobs, I cleaned, I gardened, I functioned. Sort of.
It took a fairly frightening health scare in Dec, along with the increased tension in my marriage, to make me realise I had to stop drinking.
We've been married a very long time (think decades) and I knew things would go very wrong indeed if I didn't do something, as the arguments we've increasingly been having were (mostly) down to me picking fights over trivia or not really being present due to yet another hangover.
And then, that health scare... Let's just say getting chest pains over the Christmas break and being taken to hospital in a blue lighted ambulance is seriously frightening, not to mention the guilt I felt at the NHS staff dealing with me because in my mind I was taking them away from what I felt was a more deserving patient, one who hadn't inflicted damage on themselves by drinking (I was convinced it was an alcohol related illness)
As it turns out, I'm OK, it was a very bad chest infection, not alcohol related (not directly, but of course my immune system is a bit rubbish due to the drinking)
But the scare I had, along with the relationship issues, with the mention of Divorce for the first time ever, after decades of marriage, the increasing ill health I've had, the anxiety, the depression, the lack of getting stuff done due to being permanently hung over have all made me think.
And most of all, the self-loathing I felt every fucking time I broke yet another fucking promise to myself not to drink.
So. I thought about what to do. I tried to see my GP, but couldn't get an appointment until mid Jan. I tried calling the local drug and alcohol team, but their waiting list was very long. So I did some research and decided to do it myself, with lots of sober tools lined up.
I spent the last few days of 2019 tapering off alcohol, just in case I was physically addicted
And on NYE I had one glass of wine at 8pm with dinner, two units of alcohol, as my final part of tapering off.
And that was it.
I'm now 7 days sober and feeling good.
I'm using a whole host of online support, Club Soda MOB, The Sober School Getting Unstuck course, Jackie Elliott's 100 days to a Fabulous Sober Life, Annie Grace's The Alcohol Experiment, Belle's 100 day challenge and Head space and Calm for meditation.
I have bought all of these resources over the last four years, trying and succeeding with each one to stay sober, for sometimes 30, 50, 75 days was my best ever achievement of consecutive sober time. But each time, something happened, I drifted away from my sober support network and went back to drinking.
The reasons why I lapsed are something I've been examining closely and with the aid of my fabulous counsellor I've worked out at least some of the reasons why I did that. Same reasons and patterns of behaviour, every time!
I'm also going to an AA meeting today, and will try to get to at least one or two a week, but it's not so easy living where we do as there aren't many near us. I'll also try online meetings
My GP appt is in two weeks time.
So far I've honestly had no cravings and I'm pleased at how I feel. I'm under no illusions that this is going to be a piece of cake (something I've eaten a lot of, in the last week!)
But it feels different this time.
If anyone was reading this blog before , the lack of entries for the last year or so probably told you the chances were I wasn't happily getting on with a sober life, too busy to post.
No. It was because I had started drinking again, and was too ashamed to say. Which is really odd, as I don't know you (that's if anyone is even reading this!) so why I should feel Ive let you down is beyond me!
Anyway, I digress.
I continued with counselling, and that has helped a lot with dealing with some of the horrors of my past life, but the family stuff got worse, until finally I had to cut a family member off completely.
Other, difficult stuff at home added to the stress, and, possibly predictably, I started to drink again (and eat unwisely as well)
For many months I drank moderately, and kidded myself I was "fixed" Ha ha. "Look! See! I can drink like a normal person!" Yeah, right 🙄
But eventually I went right back to as bad as I'd ever been, consumption wise. I'd cycle round, stopping for a day, a few days, a week, then back to drinking as much as before.
You know the cycle:- Drink, Drunk, Repent, Repeat.
Sigh.
and then, in the last few months of 2019, I was drinking more than I'd ever done before. To a frightening level, always in the evening, never before 6pm, but which meant I was pretty permanently pissed in the evening or hung over in a low level way the next day.
I hasten to add I work from home so there was never any question of driving anywhere under the influence, but it meant I just didn't drive very much in the last couple of months of 2019.
Thus socially isolating myself even further from friends and my (non alcohol based) social life of crafts events, meet ups, coffee and chat.
Which made me feel even more worthless, lonely, depressed and sad, so I drank even more to make myself feel better (aka numbing out all my feelings)
Of course, my tolerance was by then so high, most of the time I still functioned, despite drinking a lot at night. I did jobs, I cleaned, I gardened, I functioned. Sort of.
It took a fairly frightening health scare in Dec, along with the increased tension in my marriage, to make me realise I had to stop drinking.
We've been married a very long time (think decades) and I knew things would go very wrong indeed if I didn't do something, as the arguments we've increasingly been having were (mostly) down to me picking fights over trivia or not really being present due to yet another hangover.
And then, that health scare... Let's just say getting chest pains over the Christmas break and being taken to hospital in a blue lighted ambulance is seriously frightening, not to mention the guilt I felt at the NHS staff dealing with me because in my mind I was taking them away from what I felt was a more deserving patient, one who hadn't inflicted damage on themselves by drinking (I was convinced it was an alcohol related illness)
As it turns out, I'm OK, it was a very bad chest infection, not alcohol related (not directly, but of course my immune system is a bit rubbish due to the drinking)
But the scare I had, along with the relationship issues, with the mention of Divorce for the first time ever, after decades of marriage, the increasing ill health I've had, the anxiety, the depression, the lack of getting stuff done due to being permanently hung over have all made me think.
And most of all, the self-loathing I felt every fucking time I broke yet another fucking promise to myself not to drink.
So. I thought about what to do. I tried to see my GP, but couldn't get an appointment until mid Jan. I tried calling the local drug and alcohol team, but their waiting list was very long. So I did some research and decided to do it myself, with lots of sober tools lined up.
I spent the last few days of 2019 tapering off alcohol, just in case I was physically addicted
And on NYE I had one glass of wine at 8pm with dinner, two units of alcohol, as my final part of tapering off.
And that was it.
I'm now 7 days sober and feeling good.
I'm using a whole host of online support, Club Soda MOB, The Sober School Getting Unstuck course, Jackie Elliott's 100 days to a Fabulous Sober Life, Annie Grace's The Alcohol Experiment, Belle's 100 day challenge and Head space and Calm for meditation.
I have bought all of these resources over the last four years, trying and succeeding with each one to stay sober, for sometimes 30, 50, 75 days was my best ever achievement of consecutive sober time. But each time, something happened, I drifted away from my sober support network and went back to drinking.
The reasons why I lapsed are something I've been examining closely and with the aid of my fabulous counsellor I've worked out at least some of the reasons why I did that. Same reasons and patterns of behaviour, every time!
I'm also going to an AA meeting today, and will try to get to at least one or two a week, but it's not so easy living where we do as there aren't many near us. I'll also try online meetings
My GP appt is in two weeks time.
So far I've honestly had no cravings and I'm pleased at how I feel. I'm under no illusions that this is going to be a piece of cake (something I've eaten a lot of, in the last week!)
But it feels different this time.
01/01/2020
New Decade, New Year, new month, new start.
Right then.
Jan 1st 2020. New decade, new year, new month, new start.
Had a lie in this morning, then listened to a sober podcast from Belle. Caught up with a few blogs. Feel a bit brighter and stronger today.
Off to see the GP about help for the low mood I have been in for so long
Happy New Decade, everyone!
Love, Sober Growing x
04/09/2018
A difficult day. Sept 2018
I had a councelling session yesterday, which was interesting and draining and thought provoking and a mixture of up and down emotions, so nothing unusual there!
I get on well with the councelor, they are very good, very empathetic and very skilled at getting me to look at difficult things from a new angle. They also pull me up when I start blaming myself.
I finally opened up about the extent to which I had been self medicating with alcohol in the past; I had touched upon this to a certain degree in previous sessions but yesterday I was very honest about just how much and how often I had been drinking, and how difficult I found moderation.
My councelor agreed that it was a good idea to stop, at least for now, and to see how my mental and physical health improved. I slept very soundly last night for 10 hours.
I get on well with the councelor, they are very good, very empathetic and very skilled at getting me to look at difficult things from a new angle. They also pull me up when I start blaming myself.
I finally opened up about the extent to which I had been self medicating with alcohol in the past; I had touched upon this to a certain degree in previous sessions but yesterday I was very honest about just how much and how often I had been drinking, and how difficult I found moderation.
My councelor agreed that it was a good idea to stop, at least for now, and to see how my mental and physical health improved. I slept very soundly last night for 10 hours.
03/09/2018
Day 3
Today has been a funny day, lots of family drama and a couple of crisis. Tbh I'm so tired of it all, but unfortunately I can't walk away!
Still sober, though.
DH and I watched the Adrian Chiles documentary on BBC last week, as a result we both decided no more alcohol in the house. DH is a "normie" and has no problem with alcohol at all; he can take it or leave it, and even he was perturbed by what he saw. So, the odd pint or glass of wine for him when out eating at the most. Me, the plan is to stick to soft drinks for at least 100 days, then see how I feel about doing another 100 days.
Still sober, though.
DH and I watched the Adrian Chiles documentary on BBC last week, as a result we both decided no more alcohol in the house. DH is a "normie" and has no problem with alcohol at all; he can take it or leave it, and even he was perturbed by what he saw. So, the odd pint or glass of wine for him when out eating at the most. Me, the plan is to stick to soft drinks for at least 100 days, then see how I feel about doing another 100 days.
02/09/2018
Day 2
Feeling good, woke feeling bright eyed and refreshed this morning, which is unusual for me even when sober.
Today I picked stuff from the garden and made some jam, and did some bills paying and decluttering. All huge steps forward given how hard I find it to get started on anything recently.
But now I'm very tired and I'm going to bed soon.
Having depression and anxiety and PTSD is exhausting. It's so so hard to get started on anything even if the motivation is there. And that's during long periods of sobriety. Everything feels like I'm wading through treacle to do it.
Today I picked stuff from the garden and made some jam, and did some bills paying and decluttering. All huge steps forward given how hard I find it to get started on anything recently.
But now I'm very tired and I'm going to bed soon.
Having depression and anxiety and PTSD is exhausting. It's so so hard to get started on anything even if the motivation is there. And that's during long periods of sobriety. Everything feels like I'm wading through treacle to do it.
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