My last day 1 ever.

I read Jason Vales book yesterday (yep, read it all in one day!). On my way home from work, I said out loud to myself in the car "I am never going to drink again" and I knew with every ounce of conviction in my body that it was true... and I cried because of how happy that sentence made me.
I am never going to drink again, and I am so excited for this new life ahead of me. I'm excited to be getting rid of hangovers, regrets, muffin tops, empty bank accounts, drunken rambling, being overemotional, causing arguments and most of all I am excited to be getting rid of a poison in my life.
Talk soon.
B xxx

Internet support and love

Well Im three views away from 1000 which I find kind of amazing - that people would want to read my ramblings 1000 times. Crazy! I think that support on the internet is soooo important especially for the recovery community. So often we feel isolated and alone, like we're going crazy, and it's such a touching experience for us to know that someone else in the world feels our pain. I don't want that to sound too dramatic or sad because it's not. It's an uplifting and encouraging world to be a part of and I'm thankful for all of your support.

From the bottom of my heart,

Thank you.

This is it. Giving that shit up.

Right. Monday was not day 1. Went to my Dads house for dinner, got really sad, they gave me wine, got more wine on the way home. Tuesday I co-hosted a wine tasting at my work so.... you can imagine how that went. I didn't drink much at all but still drank. Last night, got sad, drank wine. You see a pattern here.

Over the last few days I've been getting chronic stomach aches that are really nasty and horrible. I finally talked to my Mum about it and she suggested I probably have a stomach acid imbalance so I did some googling and low and behold ALCOHOL is a huge factor (as well as stress and coffee, two other things that are close to my heart).

Obviously it's not a shock that wine is acidic - I'm well aware of that. But the fact that wine could be causing me physical pain at such a young age has really disgusted me. Not only is it basically poisoning my body when I drink it, it's now also causing me horrible pain. So that's it. I'm getting that shit out of my life and restoring my body to its natural state. I owe it to myself to make my body the best, happy place that I can...and wine is poisoning me.

Im off to do some Yoga now because I'm feeling really angry at myself. I've been thinking about a bus driver I met last week. Everyone was sluggishly dragging themselves on the bus, immersed in their phones and looking generally disheartened. Every time someone walked on the bus the driver asked them how they were doing today, usually met with "yeah alright" as they walked past him. Every time someone stopped the bus to get off he would say to them, down the bus "Have a safe and happy day, smile lots and I hope to see you again!". Young people on the bus were giggling and pointing at him, and most just ignored. It struck me, as I sat watching this, how incredibly sad it is that we live in a world where being kind and happy to strangers is seen as 'weird'. I aspire to be as happy and carefree as that bus driver.

So, have a safe and happy day, smile lots, and I hope to talk to you all soon.

B xxxx

Little slip up

So it was my night off from work and I was cooking a really nice meal and I decided that I wanted a nice glass of wine to go with it. I was busy cooking and actually forgot to open the wine (which NEVER happens) for quite a while so in the end, I had two glasses and my partner had one and then we watched tv and went to bed. So I'm not really sure whether I'm thinking of that as a complete failure because, while I did break my promise and decide to get wine, it wasn't in an emotional fit and I didnt race home and inhale it. Weirdly enough I actually felt kind of half-half about it. It went really well with the food but I didnt really feel like having anything after that.....which is really odd for me.

B xxx

Day 7!

Morning all!

Well here I am on day 7! Yesterday was fine but day 5 was a bit of a struggle. I don't know why but I was at work and I just wound myself up thinking "all these people are here buying wine and I'm not allowed, that's so unfair why am I doing this to myself wah wah wah". Realistically, looking back on it, I just wanted a glass of wine and was trying to give myself an 'out'. I didn't want to be strong, I didn't want to stick to my word, I just wanted a damn glass of Syrah. Even at the time, though, I think I knew deep down that it was a decision. If I had gone home with wine, it wouldn't have been me being overpowered by my urges, it would have simply been me making the decision to drink wine and wallow in my bad mood.

So instead I decided to go and join my partner and his friends at the bowling alley. I really didn't feel like socialising but it also meant I wouldn't be sitting at home feeling sorry for myself! I ended up actually having a really great night and once I was distracted from my bad mood I didn't miss the wine at all, and I woke up the next day at 6.30, clear headed, and went out for breakfast with my man :) I'm beginning to really enjoy this feeling and although my eating hasn't been exactly a Heidi Klum diet this week, I'm feeling really happy and healthy, and tonight I'm heading out to my Mums for the night which always feels very 'healing', and I get lots of animal cuddles from the pets.

University starts again on Monday and I'm officially in my final year of my degree (I graduate half way through next year) so now is the time for me to really crack down on my studies and with the amount that I work (4-5 days a week) I don't have any time to waste on hangovers!

Have a wonderful day, all.
xx B
P.S. as a sidenote - One week in and my little blog has 280 views?! I know that's probably not even a huge amount compared to others but wow! :)

More little victories, some thinking, and some background.

Afternoon all! Well it's day five now, I got through work again yesterday and then headed over to a girlfriends house. Three of my friends flat together and one of them just completed her degree so they all wanted to get pizza and wine to celebrate. I went with them to the bottle store and walked around looking at the wine thinking "it would be really nice to have a glass of red right now", but then decided to break down the anxiety that I was suddenly feeling and realised that the elusive 'glass of red' would not actually be worth the disappointment I would feel in myself by breaking my 30 day promise (I will explain later). So I passed on the wine and then even got a stir fry dish from the Chinese place instead of pizza!

So a bit of history. I've always been the kind of person to have a million things on the go at once. I went straight from College into University, at age 17, while always working about 4 nights a week in restaurants. I can never seem to sit still in one place (or city) for too long, and two weeks after my 18th birthday I flew over to the Philippines by myself to work with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which was amazing. A year later, in my Summer University break I moved to Sydney for 4 months over Christmas with my then-boyfriend, and I think this is where I began drinking a little bit more. Before we left, I quit drinking for 8 weeks as part of a diet and was feeling great, until we got over there. Our relationship was... I wouldn't say "falling apart" because nothing dramatic ever happened but we essentially just turned into friends. I was really lonely and couldn't find a job for about a month so I just walked by myself around the beaches and then sat at home in our dingy little apartment, drank wine, cried, and watched movies while he was at work. I had some amazing experiences over in Sydney but I felt really lonely. Fast forward a year later and we finally break up, with him telling me "well you have put on weight and I am a guy, you know, so..."

(Note: I was a size 12-14...the average national size). So my drinking picked up a little there again. I was never the "blackout drunk" type, I probably just drank by myself a little too often, at maximum a bottle of wine in a sitting. About half a year later I tried to stop drinking (again as part of a diet) but I kept saying to myself "well I've eaten salad all day so I deserve a glass of wine". This is the first time ever that I've tried to stop drinking for the sake of not drinking and it's actually going much better than I thought that it would. I've been thinking about my drinking habits and I believe that they are more on the side of negative drinking patterns/alcohol abuse as opposed to alcoholism or alcohol dependence, although I am acutely aware that I have the right genetic mix that would lead me down that path if I didn't keep myself in check.

With that in mind I've been reading a lot about "moderation management" which is quite useful for people like myself that have negative alcohol use patterns but aren't dependant or alcoholic. The theory is that you abstain completely for 30 days, and in these 30 days you learn tools to say "no" and you learn lessons (which I have been learning) such as "you can totally just not drink needlessly and life will still go on". You also learn tools to deal with stress without 'phoning it in' and picking up wine, which is important for people like me that tend to reach for a vino after a stressful day at work or to deal with sadness. After that 30 days, you set rules for yourself (mine will be, no drinking during the week, or at home without a purpose) and you stick to those rules, no exceptions. I firmly believe that I have the resolve needed to do this, although I am also aware that I may finish these 30 days and decide to keep going because, frankly, I'm feeling really good right now!

Have a beautiful day.

B xx

Little victories

Today, after a long break-less shift, I politely declined my free staff drink. My boss then offered me a fresh, free bottle of Pinot that we recieved as a sample, and I also politely declined that.

So there's that. *cue victory dance*

B xx