Notice Anything Different Yet? (Apr 2020)
-by now you should start to notice how much of a badass you are. That was my morning motivation this morning when I made my sober pledge 🙂
So here are a few of the things that I have noticed, badass or not:
- How much people drink on TV; in Netflix series, in films, in dramas and soap operas. They’d always had a bigger wine glass than me but now, they always have a big glass of something or a beer when they come in from busting a murderer, having an illicit love interest or disposing of a body.
- There are a lot of sober curious men and women out there and they’re posting it on Instagram, writing books and articles about it and tweeting their observations. It’s been that old adage of once you become aware of it, it’s everywhere you look. I’ve ordered a few of the books to read as I become more ‘sober curious’. I’ve already mentioned Catherine Gray’s but check out these too:
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- It’s too frightening to look into the future and it’s pointless looking back at the past. Take each day as it comes.
- I’m not alone in my friendship groups, there are a lot of us wondering how we ended up with such a bad relationship with alcohol and why we can’t just enjoy the odd tipple here and there. I think part of the problem is that we were the generation at whom it was heavily marketed and sold as affordable. We could play drinking games because booze was cheap and easy to get hold off. We could find alcohol that we liked the taste of at 15 because it had so much sugar and colouring added to it that it was like pop.
- It’s ironic that in some of my favourite pictures of myself with friends and family we’re holding up a glass of something. Of course, that’s because I was having a good time because I was enjoying a social drink but behind that photo there will have been anxieties and lost happiness the next day for certain.
- Non alcoholic alternatives aren’t all they’re cracked up to be and actually don’t help in the rewiring process. It’s like if you go on a diet; you need to change your eating habits and consume healthy non processed foods for example. But you don’t, you eat low fat yogurts, diet cereal bars and fake cakes. That’s when you’re more likely to give up and go back to the same old unhealthy ways. No habit changes or rewiring has taken place. My only exception to this has been Brew Dog Nanny State beers with a curry!
- The next day you never regret not drinking.
- It’s more about mindset than it is about will power. I had many nights and morning afters when I said ‘Never again’ and thought I meant it. Many days when I woke up and my first thoughts went back to what I had consumed the night before quickly followed by regrets. Those days didn’t help me to make the change. I had to find a reason for me to stop, to understand why I was finding it hard to control and understand how I could do it. But that could just be the sober control freak part of me!
- Ovaltine is actually quite nice.
- You do become HAPPIER!! They all said it in all the books and I didn’t believe it. If alcohol is causing you anxiety in any way then stopping drinking will lead to a happier existence. This bit is still under review……read next blog!
