Reaching Out

The last 48 hours has involved a lot of reaching out. 

I told my parents and key friends how much I’ve been struggling with depression, which is one of the key causes of my drinking, and should have told them years ago. They all reacted perfectly, with understanding and support. 

The fact I no longer have to keep up a brave face will help me a lot. I can be honest about when I need help rather than internalising it all, sending myself crazy and ultimately reaching for a drink. 

I also registered with a GP (I haven’t been registered since I moved flat earlier this year) and am booking an appointment asap where I’ll be honest about my drinking and my concerns about my liver. I need to move into 2014 giving myself the best possible chance of succeeding at being sober, with the aim of being happy. Happiness will never come without sobriety for me, it just won’t. I know that is an incontestable truth.

I hate drinking so much. SO much. And yet on the way home from the doctor’s I had to will myself to put down a bottle of wine I picked up in the supermarket when buying toilet paper. MADNESS. 

In the morning I’m going somewhere beautiful for 5 days with my lovely friends where I will run, read, relax and see it as my restorative rehab break. I was very specific with my friends about under no circumstances letting me drink.

I want to get back in the new year with the first week of sobriety and all the shitty physical symptoms of withdrawing. I see a pink cloud just a few days away. 

Happy 2014 all!

 

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I’m about to go away with friends for 5 days, and I wrote an email so stupidly honest, it made me weep.

And it turns out they love me: + depression – booze. Still. 

I am lucky. 

Wolfie Cocktail

 

It’s taken days for the fog of drinking to lift. DAYS. Last night I had the first good night’s sleep in ages, and am starting to feel the benefits of being sober again. I feel an aching in my liver, still, which came back straight away. That scares me more than anything. Either it’s psychological, or I’ve awoken some old damage. What’s even more scary is that if you added up what I typically drank in terms of units, there would be many many members of my friends and family who drink the same. They just don’t identify it as a problem in the way I know it was for me. 

 

But, onto recovery. When I’m next struggling with wanting to take a drink, I’ll think of the Wolfie Cocktail, my new ‘playing the tape to the end.’  

 

Just so you can all share in it’s lethal intoxicating effects…

 

Recipe:

 

1 parts mild buzz 

1.5 parts shame

3 parts depression

 

Best served over crushed self-esteem. 

 

Serving Suggestions:

 

Start with sipping at the buzz, which hits the back of your throat immediately. Slowly this flavour will fade, being replaced by the tang of shame and the creep of depression through your veins, Keep sipping until the buzz is overpowered by the other flavours. Repeat.

 

Alan Carr and Jason Vale say there’s no benefits to drinking alcohol whatsoever, and it’s true, for me, now. Because even when drinking in a social setting rather than alone, I can’t get the buzz I want, but get all the bad side effects. I had so many good feelings and experiences, I truly felt positive emotions whereas drinking dulls all of that.

 

I honestly don’t think I’ll actually pick up a drink again, after what I’ve learnt in the past few days, but I’ll always have the image of the Wolfie Cocktail to remind me why not.

 

Happy Sunday! 

 

The Headspace Challenge

I think for many of us, we drink for emotional reasons that it’s hard to come to terms with when we get sober.

I’ve had some very dark days of very low mood and anxiety since quitting drinking, which has got worse since I slipped up earlier this week. 

So, I’m trying meditation to help me learn to sit with my feelings and avoid squishing them with drink. 

I have experimented with meditation in the past, and this approach really helped me: http://www.getsomeheadspace.com/how-to-meditate.aspx

The challenge is simple- sign up for the ‘Take 10’ course for free by signing up, and dedicate 10 mins day to meditation for 10 days. 

I meditated last night when in an emotional storm, and it helped me so much. I’m going to continue with this.

Who’s with me? 🙂

 

 

Allowing myself to be happy, or, the balance between “should” and “want”

This post from Drunky Drunk Girl just summed up everything I feel at the moment, and the constant struggle that causes me so many problems. I wanted to reblog it to remind myself that I’m not alone in my struggles and that so many of us have issues that stem from the desire to be awesome, which makes us constantly strive for more, and ultimately, that helps us quit the destructive cycle of drinking.

Allowing myself to be happy, or, the balance between \”should\” and \”want\”.

via Allowing myself to be happy, or, the balance between “should” and “want”.

Sober Marathon

Alot of posting at the moment, and it’s helping.

Today’s thought’s are on the parallels between running and sobriety, which strike me so frequently.

This morning I’ve realised that that through slipping up and drinking, I haven’t failed, or lost, I’ve just had a blip. I’m a little Sober-Tiara-Wearing-Badass-In-Training, working towards a sober marathon.

When I first started running 8 years ago, did I lace up my shoes and knock out 26 miles, just like that? NO. I struggled along, one mile at a time, taking years to build up my fitness and courage to tackle the big distance. Today I ran up a hill near my parents house that used to terrify me, but it fact, it’s more of a slight incline than a hill. My perspective on the size of that “hill” has changed through persistence and practice, doing the same thing over and over again: putting one foot in front of another.

And when you do that, you make great progress. This year, I ran a marathon in San Francisco which is, excuse my French, a hilly fucker. Achieved something I never thought was possible. And I did it because I’ve kept my running consistent and worked towards a big goal, taking confidence from my training and previous races.

It feels like this year has been a series of short distance sobriety sprints. I did a 10k in August (25 days), a 5k in September (12 days) and a half marathon in November and December (41 days) with lots of training sober sprints in between. Even though I’ve slipped up, I haven’t unlearnt what I learnt then about sobriety, about how to practice self care and how brilliant sobriety is.

Like with running, I’m working towards a bigger better goal every time I lace up my sober sneakers. Sober marathon here I come 🙂

Things Wolfie Says

A list of things wolfie says to make me remember what triggering thoughts I have. I’ve done alot of thinking and writing this evening and it’s really helping me feel better, more proactive and less miserable.

So:

You deserve it- The old classic. We all know this voice. You’ve been sober for (what feels like) ages so GO ON! Have a drink. A treat. You deserve it.

You were never that bad– you never blacked out, did anything truly embarrassing other than some enthusiastic dancing and a bit of staggering around. You don’t drink like alocholics do. You are just a young girl, having fun! Right wolfie, what about drinking alone in my room night after night, mindlessly surfing the internet, achieving nothing. Drinking mini-bottles of wine in the toilet at work to ease a hangover? Yep, totally normal.

These feelings are unbearable– you need to drink, wine is the only way. Wine makes these feeling worse, Wolfie mate. Shush. 

You’ve slipped up before, and learnt from it– why not slip up some more? Learn some new things? It’s all part of the process. FUCK OFF.

You don’t have a drinking problems, you just have a problematic mind- I do have both- I have problems handling things, but they’ve driven me to a drinking problem and I can’t go back to drinking normally now. Take a long walk off a short cliff, wolfie. 

This will never get easier– it will, it will, it will, right?

So all together now in festive chorus FUCK YOU WOLFIE!