Back home in sunny London :)

Well it’s 23:15 and I’m finally home in London laying in bed. What a week! It’s been so busy and I am exhausted. I was worried how I was going to cope out of my comfort zone, back home in Wales but it was nowhere near as bad as I imagined it would be. Like so many things in life, it never is.

This is going to be a brief post as I am itching to get to sleep just so I can wake up in my own bed ha ha! Again, I am amazed and grateful at how much you can get done whilst sober and not suffering the effects of a filthy hangover. I spent SO much more quality time with my mum and other sisters. I was present. And actually somewhat pleasant to be around. I would normally spend my evenings there drinking with old school friends or my sisters (me being the ring leader of course and egging everyone on to get Pissed so I could blend in) and then the days moping and napping on the sofa. I would snap at my mum if she wanted help around the house. I’d talk her into “having a lazy day” with me so as I wouldn’t have to get dressed and go out. But this time there was none of that. I was up 1st every morning, which meant I could enjoy the quiet and tranquility of sitting in the garden with a cup of tea and my book. I helped and did most of the housework to give my mum a break. And I felt good about it. I wanted to do it. Myself and my sisters today completely gutted her living room and dining room and re painted for her. It looks fabulous and I know for a fact there is NO possible way I would have summoned up the energy to do that if I had been drinking.

On the drive home which takes about 2 hours 15 mins, my sister said “we should be picking a few bottles of wine up now. It’s Friday night and we deserve it!” and I won’t lie, when she said it I 100% could have drank it. All of it. But imagining wanting to drink is NOT the same as having the intention to actually follow through with it. I acknowledged that yes, it would be nice to relax with a few glasses of wine this evening….but unfortunately it is not that simple for me. I have 26 days sober now and I am NOT wiling to throw that away. Because let’s be honest, it wouldn’t just be a few glasses this evening would it?! If I could drink like that and know it wouldn’t be a downward spiral again I wouldn’t be sat here blogging! Ha ha 🙂

So no regrets. No bad feeling. I am happy. Happy to be in bed, and wake up tomorrow to start day 27.

I have done A LOT of sober blog reading this week to keep me strong and it has been a lifeline. So anyone out there who reads this………..thank you.

Good night xxx

Travelling earns me cake!

So I’m back home in Wales and can safely say I have seen enough of the M25 and M4 motorway to last me a lifetime! Or at least until Christmas 😉 I like being at home, but I also like having my own space. I’m a grown and independent person now and this is my childhood home, where the grown ups make the rules ha ha! I always feel a little like I’ve outgrown this place. It’s comforting being here, but I always do look forward to going home again. That sounds awful doesn’t it? It makes me sound like I don’t like being around my family. Which can sometimes be true ha ha! But I do love them all I just like my own space. I have 3 nights here and then I’m heading back to London to have the weekend in my own flat to relax and re centre myself before heading back to work on Monday.

All in all my two weeks off work has been a success. I have made it through without drinking a drop. And as much as I’d love to say I had no wobbles at all, on the whole I expected to find it a damn sight harder than I did. I feel a lot more settled in this sobriety malarkey now. I know that I shouldn’t feel lulled into a false sense of security, because I’m not naive enough to believe that I won’t come across hurdles in the future. But I’m not battling the daily cravings anymore. Evenings used to be my witching hours….between 5pm and 9pm. That is all a lot easier to deal with now. I feel that maybe I have broken the habit of automatically pouring the wine. I have learnt other ways to occupy my evenings and my time. And that can only be a good thing right?!

When I was in wales on the weekend for the surprise party I spoke to my mum a little bit more about my not drinking. Neither of us mentioned the dreaded “alcoholic” word. In fact that’s a word I HATE. I think with that word people (and i) picture a down and out. A dirty old man swigging from a can of special brew at a bus stop at 9am. We all know that that isn’t a realistic picture, but due to stereotyping that is what our mind conjures up. I did mention to her that I felt my drinking was sliding out of control and that I was finding online sober blogs to be a real help. She was really supportive and said that was great but I could tell that knowing was enough. She didn’t really want too much detail to deal with. I’m fine with that and I understand. We have a history of alcoholism in our family, with my grandad and uncle both my mums side suffering this terrible disease. I may go into that in more detail in a future post. But my point being, I can imagine my mums worry at not wanting to see her daughter suffer the same ills. So for her, knowing I have recognised and am doing something about it is enough. And I know she is proud as she has made a point of doing something really thoughtful for me 🙂 She would normally buy me a nice bottle of rose or pink fizz to enjoy on a visit. But today she was really excited about showing me a lovely cordial and bottles of soda water she has bought especially for me. Something so simple yet so kind and thoughtful meant the world to me. It’s like she is silently telling me she understands and she is here to help 🙂

So today has been a good day 🙂 I am sat with a cup of tea, watching master chef and eating cake. A slightly larger than normal slice as I feel my drive on the motorway from hell earned me it! Ha ha 😉

Xxx

Just leave me the hell alone!!

Happy to report I am still sober and feeling strong. I just wish that the people in my life would butt out and leave me alone. I may be being over sensitive, but every time someone says “so why aren’t you drinking?” I feel like punching them in the face. I feel like a spotlight has been thrown on my face, blinding my eyes and everyone is staring at me. Why the hell is it such a big deal to everyone?! (I am feeling very ranty today so I apologise in advance….). I feel like people are picking on me….and this probably is all in my imagination but I can’t help it. for example, I FINALLY after losing it 6years ago (drunkenly) renewed my driving license. it was always a bit of a pain when going clubbing as it was my ID. I’m 28 years old but still get ID’d a lot. So it came a few days ago and my sister said in a snide fashion “no point in even having that anymore, now you don’t drink.” she also made the same point whilst we were having lunch out with friends today. Everyone laughed along and cracked a joke, and I felt I had to too. I feel that to explain my sobriety away, I have to pretend that it’s a chore and something I don’t want to do. But that isn’t the truth. I WANT to be sober. I have no major desire to be drunk.

I think my major fear is that people will now assume I’m “boring” because I don’t get shit faced on a regular basis. I mean, just because I don’t choose to throw filth down my neck, act and look like a complete idiot and waste obscene amounts of money on booze, doesnt mean I can’t have fun and be ME.

Arghhh I don’t know. I don’t know how I’m feeling. To be honest I’m probably more annoyed at myself than anyone else as this is all my fault. If I hadn’t been such a bad drinker and idiot for so long this wouldn’t be an issue.

I’m going to sign off now because I’m just wallowing and getting myself more annoyed!

Speak soon x

Ok……take two on this post! I walked away, had a cold drink with plenty of ice (diet pepsi!) and ran myself a nice cool bubble bath. It’s boiling here in London, that’s why it wasn’t a hot bubble bath! I am a bit more focused and relaxed now and can maybe have a little more perspective on how I’m feeling.

I’ve had a really busy week. I am used to being in my own comfy sober bubble. I can handle that. It was a much nicer, safe place. However I have to learn to deal with sobriety in ALL situations. And whatever comes with those situations. Wether it’s the urge to drink, or people’s reactions.

I think the stress of the birthday party, the worry that everyone would enjoy it, the travelling and being back home in Wales, a place I’ve ALWAYS been drinking in has shifted me somehow. My sister and I travelled back to London Sunday morning as she and my younger (15) sister had a concert in Wembley to go to that evening. We are heading back down to Wales in the morning until the weekend to spend a bit more quality time with my mum. So I have my little sister staying here at the moment. I have given her my room and I’m crashing on the sofa. And that is totally fine, and I dont begrudge her that as a guest. But I am feeling grouchy and tired. I was used to waking up soberly every morning with a spring in my step and we’ll rested. The thought of heading back to Wales in the morning and spending 4 more nights not in my own bed fills me with dread. That sounds dramatic, but going to my bed, my little cocoon of peace clear headed always put a smile on my face and made me feel at ease. I think after this week I can get back to my routine and start to feel more settled.

With regards to other people’s reactions I think I just need to be Teflon! Let their negative energy bounce back off me. One of my traits is being one hell of a stubborn cow ha ha! The more people told me I should cut down on my drinking the more I refused to listen. I will now just be reversing that. The more people scoff at my not drinking makes me more determined to prove them wrong. I am not doing this for anyone else. I am doing it for me. But if their reactions spur me on, then hell…..i’ll take it!

I’m going to stop being a negative nelly now and remember the fact that it has been 22 days clean and sober. That is a HUGE achievement for me. I honestly can’t remember ever going this long before.

So fuck it……yey to me 😉 I may celebrate this evening with an icy bitter lemon in my beautiful hot pink sober glass and toast myself ha ha!

HAPPY MONDAY people 🙂 xxx

Negative energy….

Well I did it! Went to my Mum’s surprise birthday party last night and did it sober style. Woke up this morning clear headed and sober ready to tackle day 20 🙂 Wasn’t without its difficulties though…. had a massively busy day which was stressful. Reminder to myself…..never be the organiser of a surprise party again! Now I’m thinking about it, I don’t think I had any major cravings to drink yesterday. I mean, it was always in the back of my mind how natural and nice it would be to enjoy a glass of wine, but it didn’t affect me like it did a few days ago, when my whole body craved a drink. It was more a sort of fleeting feeling and then it went away. Which is good…..I can handle that better. I think the more sober days I have under my belt the more there is to lose for me. I don’t have the “maybe I will drink tonight” feeling anymore. In the early days, and in an early post I talked about actually planning on drinking one evening…..leaving the choice down to fate. Whether my sister came home with a bottle or not. Luckily for me she didn’t and the choice was out of my hands. I feel that now, I don’t have the internal battle of whether or not I want to continue on the sober journey. I have kind of come to terms with the fact that this is my life for the foreseeable future. Now I just deal with the day to day practicalities of actually BEING sober. And believe it or not, I think that is slightly easier.

The actual meal part of the evening last night wasn’t bad at all. Everyone was drinking around me, but I didn’t stand out at all as there were so many distractions that no body even noticed I was sipping a soft drink. When I was asked I just responded that I was driving and making sure everyone got home ok. After the meal I had arranged for everyone to come back to my Mum’s house for drinks and music…..general birthday merriment! This is where is became a little awkward for me.

My sister who has known for a while that I’ve laid off the booze knew I wasn’t drinking last night. But as soon as she had a few drinks in her she kind of turned a little bitter and nasty even, towards me. I was upset to be honest, and it made me feel really self conscious. Now, I am aware that she was pretty drunk herself as her, my friend from London we bought down with us and my aunt had been drinking A LOT of wine at the meal. And I would like to think that she didn’t mean to hurt my feelings or make me feel bad, but that is exactly what she did. It was just little comments like “oh you’re such a boring bitch without a drink!”. I used the fact that I was the only sober adult present to look out for everyone and make sure nobody did anything too wild. So when I politely suggested at gone midnight that it probably wouldn’t be the best idea to vandalise the “for sale” sign outside our neighbours house, I was greeted by a chorus of “Ohhhhhhh god! Loosen up….just because your SOBER!!!” The word sober was spat as if it was something atrocious. It would have sounded just as horrible of they had shouted “Ohhhhhhh god! Loosen up….just because you’re a MURDERER!” It was spoken like being sober was something disgusting and socially unacceptable.  I honestly didn’t expect to get that reaction. And it only got worse the drunker people got. And I thought it would be the other way around. I assumed that as people slid into wine induced joviality nobody would give me a second thought.

I don’t really know what to do with how I feel about people’s reaction. As I have said before, I’m pretty well known in my family for being a massive drinker, so maybe it was just a surprise to see me sober at a party. My auntie actually said “gosh…..it just doesn’t seem right you not drinking with us”. I’m going to have to just hope that it becomes normality for the people around me too, so I don’t have to deal with the negativity. I have enough of that for myself.

Now this next little thought process is going to seem so self righteous…..but I noticed last night that drunk people are idiots! This will seem a little “you can bloody talk!” coming from me but it’s true. I know I only have 20 days sobriety, and I am in no place to pass judgement on people after my behaviour a lot of times, but I felt so annoyed with people last night! You literally can’t make a logical point to a Pissed person. It’s like sense and reason goes out of the window. They were playing fun drinking games, but some of the things that were being said and laughed at were so outrageous. I kept thinking I was so glad I wasn’t the one humiliating myself for a change. I had the luxury of ferrying people home, checking into the hotel I booked for my friend, my sister and myself and finally relaxing. While everyone else passed out for a restless and drunken sleep, I put my pj’s on, had a hot shower, made a cup of tea and watched a film. I woke up this morning and felt great. Physically great anyway. I still felt a little upset about the stick I got last night but I’m kind of over that now. Everyone else on the other hand………look and feel joke crap ha ha! I shouldn’t laugh, but I feel that this is karma for being mean to me last night 😉

Well I just read this back and it’s quite rambling so sorry about that. I’m going to go make myself lunch now as everyone else is having a hungover nap…..! I’ll leave you with a picture of the birthday cake…..and if they sleep much longer this bad boy is getting cut by ME mwaahaaahaaaa! (that was my evil laugh by the way)

Happy Saturday xxx