Timeless, not in a good way.

I'm more this........

I'm anxious, I'm having quite bad dreams and I'm just not right. I'm also physically ill again, which doesn't really help. Don't get me wrong, I'm sober and lifes challenges seem endless but I'm happier than I have been for years. But, I have zero balance. Like none.

I've been pondering the chores/improvement/fun life balance too and thinking about what someone in our group said (nameless of course as our group is totally, like, confidential). When pondering this tree legged stool of which might be a life balance tool, they threw me off kilter by saying, I guess if you're all pleasure and no chores, its not good either.

That got me thinking, I've still got load of paperwork/life admin to sort out, so I keep slumping off into the garden/walking/anything-but-do-it. Its making me nigglesome  I think and anxious. But, if asked in one word to describe myself 'hedonist' would have been it. All about the pleasure see.

Which is probably why I'm writing instead of replying to comments. No discipline.

But I also take pleasure, like main-line-it by helping others. I so know I have issues. I'm a serious people pleaser. I'm not sure if its still an insecurity thing, or if its now so ingrained in who I am. I like to help, I like to be super busy. Why, I wonder, can't I just be still. Lots to work on there I'm sure.

I'm very good at being super-helpful in most aspects of my life, so I've taken on extra work, my boss is leaving, my kids are home, I'm doing driving lessons for one and trying to regroup relationship with the other. I'm helping a friend renovate her garden (yes of course I'll come and take out all of your giant decking on my first day off in weeks, can I bring my son so we can have a driving lesson afterwards too and we can spend some mum/son time?) I genuinely don't mind helping, shes a great chum and needs a hand and I love gardening. And this week we decide, its the perfect week to organise a house sale, much needed, has been on the cards for ages and just happens to have dropped into the equation too.

Case study for work, no problem. Next week OK. Of course. And, some extra teaching at work, yup no bother.

I realise I sound like a martyr, but really I'm not, I'm just not very good at saying no because I like helping people. Alarm bells right there, help people, don't help myself much eh?

In the midst of my self-made chaos I thought it would be a really good idea to arrange a big family sleepover with some of our dear chums (gin family chums). Remarkably this went really well, aside a day spent cleaning. I mean really, who cleans? Suddenly my husbands, 'maybe we should get a cleaner once you're working' seems like such a good statement. (I of course met this with, erm, you think I can't clean initially, but I see his point. Who wants to spend a whole day off cleaning the bloody kitchen. Not I.)

So in my shiny house, my friends arrived. I'd armed myself with many sober lovely juices and some alcohol free champagne like fizz. I texted and told my chum no gin for me, I'm not drinking. It was met with a bit of an eyebrow raise but respected. She even brought some low alcohol fizz (a nice thought but at 5% I didn't bother, mines was zero percent). I also ate more food that is probably safe, but I wanted no temptation and so filled up on food not booze.

So there was gin here, and I didn't drink it and sent it home. Something is working inside of me, even if it isn't balance. I was pleased about that. But, I know that I can't keep tearing about like a sober lunatic in other aspects of my life. I need to stand back and take some time to think.

I caught myself yesterday thinking, there's just no time. I need to make time.

Totters off to reply to comments, before I dash out the door, because you know I'm trying to get some discipline and balance in my life. I feel totally timeless, but not in a good way.

Last night I got home after nine, had a bath and then went and watered the garden. I got a bit of me time before I collapsed in a heap on the sofa. I'm not complaining, but I'm reminding myself that no time leads to overwhelm. Overwhelm for me, like many others, often leads to drinking.

I'm not drinking, so I must sort out this timeless thing.

Have a good one sober lovelies. And yes I know I need to give something up. There are only 24 hours in one day.

Turning a corner

Hey here I am, strikes a wave, smiles a bit and says hello. I'm out of my funk. And, I've turned a corner. With myself, with some of my friends and with my family I think. Mainly I think this is all in my head but I do 'feel' different.

I'm touched by the reaching out I've had and will reply to each comment soon, I promise. My work/life/home balance isn't' great at the moment. Some of this is me, some of this is those around me, some of this is work and some of it is just the time of year and life. My online/real life balance has been seriously knocked, so I've mainly had a computer holiday. It seemed the only way to go forward and not get overwhelmed. And, overwhelm for me seems to be drinking. But, that being said, I do feel like I've turned a bit of a sober corner. More about that later......

Funny that today then, having made room in the crazy life of children arriving back from uni (car loads of stuff, how many boxes have I shifted??) I managed to make room for my SMART meeting, which I'd missed last week due to family stuff too. I really wanted to go and for once I moved non-essentials to allow me to get there. It was worh the trip.

We looked at life balance today and had a chat about it all. I have to say as much as I enjoy SMART there are a few thing they do with the way they phrase things that could be better. Or maybe just my inner-layman prefers easy words. So we did this.......to try and see where our lives were balanced (or not)! And, for me in the midst of juggling several family balls and work, life balance was the perfect topic for me.

The Three Column Technique.

TO DO: What I have to do (work for money, chores cooking etc) (Smart calls this Practical)
COULD DO: What I do to improve me (self help, college, self improvement, educate or challenge me) (Smart calls this Purposeful)
SHOULD DO: What do I do for fun. (Things to relax and have fun, with myself or family or both) (Smart calls this Pleasurable)

So you write these three at the top of a page or a white board and think about what you do for each. Generally I think the emphasis in life for many of us is on the chores and we do a bit from the other two columns. Sometimes the third column lacks the most the fun part. So ideally its about looking at what you're doing in each part of your life and trying to get more balance.

Interestingly I use to do the first two almost 24 hours a day, inbetween a bit of the last column which was always drinking. Which lead to the chores/work being sloppy and the drinking being the only pleasure in my life. I felt like I deserved it, I worked SO HARD. But, that also meant the wine kicked in and my brain went bye-bye and nothing was constructively done at home. I really did work hard, but I didn't really give it my all.

Make sense?

I found it an interesting exercise. I know my balance still isn't right, but I'm getting there, sort of, somehow. Or at the very least I know its not quite there yet, and I know it needs work.

So, this corner I turned. I went and got brave and got an opportunity to tell my best drinking buddy who was staying last week. And, to be fair I was dreading her coming. She's a drinking thurst as big as my own. Or that's how I perceive it. So I was dreading her arrival. I am trying to work on 'acceptance' that if she wants to drink in my house, whilst I can make a lot of noise, I can either accept that she does or really fall out about her not coming with booze. We're booze heads that's what we do.
But, here's the thing. I didn't ask her not to bring booze but she didn't. She brought delish juice.

RESULT.

I had immense guilts over the weekend of 'punishing her' by not allowing her to drink. But, I rid it out and talked to my husband about it. He said, if it bothers you, tell her. If she's your friend, she'll understand.

Later in the weekend, we were talking about stress and accepting the things we can't change. I think the phrase 'if you can't change it, you can change your reaction to it' came out. We're both having to work at our lives and our self esteem. Her issues are different but a bit similar to mine. Anyways, long and short of this tale is that I said, 'asking you not to drink really stressed me out, but I know right now I can't have booze in my life'. Her reply was simple and sweet she said she loved coming and it was a bit of a holiday for her liver being with me. She didn't mind staying and not drinking (I don't know if this is kindness or just that her drinking voice isn't as bad as I thought it was).

So you see, a bit of a corner.

In the meantime I'm going to really look at my work/life/fun balance and see if I can't fathom how to have my online and real life in a bit more balance too.

Thank you so much for reading and posting and mailing, I'm sorry if I'm slow but I'm trying to get a balance!

I would have been 8 months sober today if I hadn't drank on my birthday, but I'm in the 37 days on my living sober little counter. And that's OK.  I learnt a lot about 'just the one' and how it mangles your sober head, so onwards for me!

Hugs, sober love and light.

Sober-invisible-girl

Am here. And sober. Although Wolfie is trying to make me invisible.

The urge to isolate and self soothe with booze is so strong in our heads sometimes isn't it? It's still where

I am. Belles audio this week on friends hit a chord. If its (sober) just too hard, up the self care, up the treats, repeat, repeat, repeat.

So instead of drinking, this sober girl of few words polished the table and put sober flowers in a beer Tankard. Let me tell you polishing does not come easy to me. So things must be bad if I've turned to cleaning as a distraction.

It's been an oddly triggery week or two,

Lots of self worth conversations, in my head, mainly. And whilst I know I'm not alone, something inside of me is trying to keep me isolated. I'm incredibly 'urge-y' at the mo, but guess that's cos I'm in month one again. Which is a bit bugger-ish. I had kittens about applying for a job (too stupid) which has really unsettled me, the route of these feelings is something that perplexes me and equally terrifies me. I've thought about therapy again but, if I'm honest, that's a whole

Can of worms I'm not ready for yet. Ironically I've got an interview for the job I deemed myself too stupid for.

I seem to have dumped myself into a vat of overwhelm at the moment. Wallowing in it. It's almost like I'm trying to self

Sabotage. Like really, how old am

I? Take some responsibility girl!

Talked about a lot of this with a sober chum (thank you for not letting me hide) and at my SMART group today. Must write more about that later. Loads of new folks at the group today, some sober, some day 1, all kind and helpful.

So, today has been about sharing and self care. Treats newly in the cupboards and trying to keep working through my inner craziness. (Mind on my outer craziness remains intact). And I must connect more with the sober community.

It's essential for my long term happiness.

Kids are home soon for a while (couple weeks) whilst I'm excited, I'm nervous.

So nervous in fact I bought a bench for my garden. I've told myself if it all gets too much indoors, it's my sober bench in my sober garden to escape too.

Sober, screwdriver girl I will be later. If urges strike, I'll be ready, sober toolkit in my sticky, muddy mitt. Sober bench to build. That should put a smile on my face shouldn't it?

And for the record, no two glasses of wine 21 days ago were not worth this crazy head. But we know where we are in this journey so it's helpful to understand it gets better!

Someone shove a pink cloud over please. Doesn't have to be large.

Happy thoughts folks.

Sober-invisible-girl

Am here. And sober. Although Wolfie is trying to make me invisible.

The urge to isolate and self soothe with booze is so strong in our heads sometimes isn't it? It's still where

I am. Belles audio this week on friends hit a chord. If its (sober) just too hard, up the self care, up the treats, repeat, repeat, repeat.

So instead of drinking, this sober girl of few words polished the table and put sober flowers in a beer Tankard. Let me tell you polishing does not come easy to me. So things must be bad if I've turned to cleaning as a distraction.

It's been an oddly triggery week or two,

Lots of self worth conversations, in my head, mainly. And whilst I know I'm not alone, something inside of me is trying to keep me isolated. I'm incredibly 'urge-y' at the mo, but guess that's cos I'm in month one again. Which is a bit bugger-ish. I had kittens about applying for a job (too stupid) which has really unsettled me, the route of these feelings is something that perplexes me and equally terrifies me. I've thought about therapy again but, if I'm honest, that's a whole

Can of worms I'm not ready for yet. Ironically I've got an interview for the job I deemed myself too stupid for.

I seem to have dumped myself into a vat of overwhelm at the moment. Wallowing in it. It's almost like I'm trying to self

Sabotage. Like really, how old am

I? Take some responsibility girl!

Talked about a lot of this with a sober chum (thank you for not letting me hide) and at my SMART group today. Must write more about that later. Loads of new folks at the group today, some sober, some day 1, all kind and helpful.

So, today has been about sharing and self care. Treats newly in the cupboards and trying to keep working through my inner craziness. (Mind on my outer craziness remains intact). And I must connect more with the sober community.

It's essential for my long term happiness.

Kids are home soon for a while (couple weeks) whilst I'm excited, I'm nervous.

So nervous in fact I bought a bench for my garden. I've told myself if it all gets too much indoors, it's my sober bench in my sober garden to escape too.

Sober, screwdriver girl I will be later. If urges strike, I'll be ready, sober toolkit in my sticky, muddy mitt. Sober bench to build. That should put a smile on my face shouldn't it?

And for the record, no two glasses of wine 21 days ago were not worth this crazy head. But we know where we are in this journey so it's helpful to understand it gets better!

Someone shove a pink cloud over please. Doesn't have to be large.

Happy thoughts folks.

Sober struggles and perspective. Or the great log debate.

Yesterday after my SMART meeting (see yesterday's post!) I went for a walk on the beach. I'm often there and collect random bits of wood. 

Cue some sober analogies. The wood in front of me, I can easily lift. Jobs a good one. 

The wood further up the beach however I have my eye on. It's a fecking tree. It's amazing how I think somehow I can just collect a whole tree. Alone. With no help. The mutts are there for scale, not their handing tree lugging skills.

I actually laugh at myself. If I gather the smaller bits of wood, it takes longer but eventually their weight makes a tree.

I know I can't effect great change in my life straightaway. Anyone who knows me knows that determination though.

So instead of beating myself up and reliving the first few weeks sober with hatred and self-loathing, I need to see the bigger picture.

Simples. 

As I'm running from Wolfie later and shovelling sugar in my face I must be kind and remind myself this is a process. Small steps. Day at a time. One blip doesn't mean I'm goosed. 

I think the positivity of day counting is so useful, unless or if you stumble. My living sober counter reads over 200

Days sober  (minus one in my head) my real days since last drink are Only just in doubke figures. Fighting against the self-flagellation of those numbers is difficult and the why bother voice is loud and gruesome. Counting is helpful until

I stumble, then the numbers (which don't lie) taunt me. Probably rightly so. But it's knocked my sober confidence.

I'm sober today, I battled through yesterday sober.  

As I picked up those bits of wood from the beach, I remind myself that two glasses of wine isn't worth this mind battle. It needs perspective. Two glasses this year. Two since last October. 

So much hope still.

So I write this sitting on the train in my suit, (yes heels too, how ridiculous huh?!) I've a presentation for one of my jobs. A funding proposal to write afterwards. I'm sober. Taking each day at a time. It's all I can do. I may just stop counting days as its making me grumpy at my stupidity. And grumpy is a trigger for me.

Best take each day as it comes. It's all I can control. Like small bits of logs, those I can manage.

Being a SMARTIE and Kryptonite

Being a SMARTIE - Worth a watch, with a huge thanks to Leigh for making this video about being involved with the SMART Recovery Programme.

I'm still pretty up and down truth be told, I don't know if that's returning to work or an interruption of my sober momentum making me feel all off kilter. Who knows. All I do know is that being sober right now is challenging, going back to work is challenging, big funding report I have to write this week is challenging.

Life is a bit challenging. And, I'm not sure why. I've motivation, I've tools and I've enthuisam (I write this wondering where my enthusiasm is. Perhaps I'm just tired. But, I'm sober.

So I'm off to my SMART meeting today here's a link to meetings where you might be HERE. After a three day stint at work which is very physical and demands a lot of thinking on your feet, its welcomed. Sometimes folks ask me what we do at our meetings so here's last weeks session.

The format is always the same and there's an outline HERE. Meetings are FREE and I think very forward thinking, no dwelling in the past, just working on NOW and the days to come. We walk in, have a cuppa, often say a shy hello to fellow 'smarties' and get settled. Opening statement is read after a few gentle 'rules' of the meeting are put in place, be polite, confidentiality is always respected, that kind of thing. My favourite one is

'no labels, we are first and foremost 'human being's, who just happen to have had an addiction issue in our lives at some point, there are no labels in this room'.

We then settle and check in, say how our week has been, anything that seems relevant like 'managing stress', or 'triggers' is written on a white board. It allows us all to decide the topic we'll discuss each session. I like that its 'our' group and we all decide what to talk about.

Last week we did a wee group discussion about irrational thoughts and trigggers. They called it the 'ABC's' its kind of about why we react the way we do to events that can be 'triggery' for us and make us think about drinking.

ACTION or ACTIVATING EVENT - What happened? Somethings made me upset/angry.

BELIEF (UNHELPFUL or IRRATIONAL) - Drinking will make this better/go away/less stressful.

CONSEQUENCE - Drink is my usual outcome from these types of events. I isolate myself, makes me feel worse, lose credibility with family/friends. Not sure when I'll get a sober day next.

And we try to turn the outcome into a different route that doesn't involve drinking or using.

DISPUTE - Drinking won't make it better, it might numb it for a while but the feelings will still be there and perhaps worse when I'm sober again and I also am dealing with self-loathing and the upsetting event. So actually drinking makes it worse.

EFFECTIVE NEW BELIEF - Drinking isn't better, I should have done something different, had a cup of tea/a bath/taken myself off for a walk. Talked through my upset.

So its been a helpful wee exercise for me. You'll find a worksheet to it here.

My issue and I don't know about yours is that when I'm suddenly faced with a reaction to an event like drinking, this can all go out of my head. The events leading to drinking, I often find myself isolating myself from others. I don't reach out or ask for help. My 'brain' switches off and my 'booze-o-guzzler' switches to full steam ahead.

I think if I reflect on last weeks drinking properly, I still had an emotional response to make me drink. It was a 'happy' event, but still emotional. So my ABC's for last week were.

A - Birthday, a celebration time.
B - One drink won't hurt.
C - One drink 'kindled' (thank you Do!) the fire for many more drinks and I ended up lying to husband and buying more booze to drink in secret.

What I should have done is D and E

Disputed the belief that I had which one drink wouldn't hurt.

Effective  new belief is now - one drink does lead to more.

But that's easier said than done sometimes. SO I just need to remind myself I am only human and a person who has addiction issues with alcohol.

Its like my Kyrponite. I know this for sure now.

I can't touch it and be super-sober-girl.

So that was my SMART meeting last week, I'm off to get dressed and head to mine now. Wonder what you thought about it and how you stop that voice isolating you when the urge to drink strikes.

Best foot forward

So the hugest of thank you's for the helpful comments on my drinking last week. Oddly enough, I've not beaten myself up over it, I've not been anything but a bit sad and glad all at the same time. Its been a bit of a revelation. Like the brick to the head I think I was needing.  Because you know why be really kind to yourself when you can use a brick to the head. 

Sober is better, end of. I'd lost my sober treats too along the sober path so I'm on those again, not hard at this time of year, the garden is waking up and there's always something cheerful to find to treat myself too.

I also started back to work yesterday. I'm not sure I would have been back so soon if I hadn't had your support, been sober and taken time to just work through the emotions of the past month. But, I'm back. Yesterday in the persisting rain (8 hours of rain, all day) I spent the day slowly getting back in the swing of things. Thankfully it was a quiet day in the garden. But, it was productive and my nerves at returning abaited throughout the day. 

Here I am sober and ready for life again. I'm not sure that would have been the case if I was still drinking. Even driving there would be been a challenge with our new drink driving laws. So all this is positive.

As for days sober I guess I'm on (212 - 1) or 5 depending on the thought process, I guess 5 is a good humble solid number. Its a journey after all. You've got to start somewhere, I've not let the lack of momentum slow me down, it was merely a blip. A lesson learnt. And, a good one at that. Maybe it needed to happen, who knows. But, the learning from it has been huge. For that I'm very grateful.

And these dear reader are for you. Some anemones** from the garden. A whole bunch delivered straight to your heart from me.  With the hugest of thank you's for your advice and love and support. I promise, without overwhelm to get to each and every comment very soon. I've so appreciated the support you've each shown. Thank you.

** well when it warms up they will be ready, for now they're just leaves and promise, slowly unfurling. Just like me, they'll be ready to bloom one day soon with your patient eye upon us.

Best get a wriggle on, I'm not even dressed yet and work calls.

Have a fantastic day folks! Best foot forward and all that.