Day 24

I've just read another wonderful post entitled Six Reasons to Stay Sober by Mrs D aka Lotta Dann on the online Living Sober community she built, https://livingsober.org.nz/ 

I already know the benefits I'm experiencing from living-sober are massive but in true copy-cat fashion I'm going to name a few...

I too have a new-love in herbal tea, while Peppermint is my staple, it seems there are endless flavors to try. I recently absolutely delighted over a flashy expensive Hot Spiced Cinnamon tea, it was a blissful experience, the flavors took on a three dimensional ability ! Actually ! My other reasons to stay sober are many and so so so important ! I've learnt that the act of refusing to harm myself with alcohol has induced other self-loving actions. I'm taking long walks, I'm swimming, I'm allowing my thoughts and feelings to process, I'm eating mindfully, I'm engaging with loved ones fully; spending full days with them without wanting and waiting to bail-out back to my secret-bubble of withdrawal and drink. My mind is clearer, my thinking deeper, my body is healing, depression and anxiety are no longer crippling my moods and days. I'm able to recognize triggers and work through it, I'm writing and reading, two  great loves of mine that can't be enjoyed when I'm boozing, I'm doing things I've not done before, I'm discovering that I like things I didn't know I did.

Addiction has plagued most of my life. As a fourteen-year-old I drank to black-out and continued to use alcohol and drugs most days until falling pregnant at sixteen. Then as a young solo-mum of three beautiful beautiful beautiful children, in 2004, I was handed a meth pipe. I've been free of methamphetamine-addiction for five years but cross-addicted back to alcohol and have struggled to stop multiple times for well over a year. I've not spent five years drinking until black-out but I had become a bottle a night, sometimes two a night, wino. A pattern emerged, every month or so I would have a complete emotional collapse, a meltdown, an alcohol induced breakdown, where I wanted to die. Swooning over a cup of tea may seem insignificant but a little more than a month ago, I was sobbing on my shower floor, drunk and suicidal, so now being able to sit sober and still and love myself with a cup of  flashy tea is pretty cool. There's no gray area anymore, no moderation or tricks that can make me drink safely. Drinking and sobriety for me has become as black and white as life and death.

For the first time in my life I am choosing with a will as strong as steel to live life without circling a harmful addiction. For me, relapse became common because sometimes the familiar, no matter how awful it is, is less scary than the unknown and the unknown for me is knowing how different and good my life can be without being dictated by a harmful addiction. 

Day 22

When I reflect on my state of mind and the wreck that was my body on Day One, I'm amazed to be celebrating twenty-two days of sober-living, twenty-two days of not harming myself with alcohol and the self-hate that floods me when I find myself gulping wine from hidden bottles so not to alarm family of the time and amount needed. Truth is I don't need it. Truth is the benefits of having stopped drinking are already massive at just twenty-two days.

Day 12

I've not felt like writing for the last five days. The adrenaline from my drunken breakdown two weeks ago, the adrenaline that had me recommit to sobriety and walk 40 kilometers in a few days and bake Quince has worn away and I'm feeling low. Low and tired. It's this feeling of mild depression that has triggered my drinking over and over and kept me stuck. I am learning that it is okay to not feel okay. I am learning to feel the feelings. They are uncomfortable. But I am sober and boy will I thank myself in the days, months and years to come if I stay sober.

Day 7

I've done things this past week I've not ever done. I've baked Quince for four hours to find it really does become a divine sugary treat, I've walked everywhere instead of driving and made discoveries I'd never make confined to the car, I've tried new recipes (I won't be making the chickpea soup again). Not drinking really does leave many empty hours to fill and a mind and body and confidence capable of doing new things.

I swam today, just a gentle breast stroke for 450 meters or so. The water was cool and the sun shone brightly on my lane. I think this must be self-care, a new practice. There is something so calming about still water, I love feeling the work and stretch of every muscle. After the first few laps the movements became effortless and my mind rested only on my actions and present moment. The thinking stopped.

Walking home from the pools I received the call I've been bracing for, my Miss 16 will stay where she is, she won't be coming home. I've been a little numb since. I know the tears will flow when I let them, when I allow myself to really feel it. It sucks. I hate it. But she is happier where she is. She has thanked me for not fighting her decision and I have peace knowing that she knows I want what's best for her.

Day Five

I'm commanding myself not to panic because if I do I'm not sure I'll stay sober. Recent events have rocked me to the core but they have also launched me back into sobriety. If I was to drink now with my emotions and resilience being as they are, turbulent and low, I am afraid of what I might do. So I will continue to tell myself not to panic. I will continue to tell myself to seek stillness and breathe myself calm. I will not panic. The sky is not falling, I'm not homeless and my children are safe. I will not panic. There is a verse in the bible that says, Be still and know that He is God. While I don't consider myself a thriving Christian, I'm broken at best, I do believe in a God who loves me completely so I will not panic, I will be still and know...

Day Three

I locked in Day three when I first woke, not because I feel strong, I feel like absolute shit. I feel like absolute shit but I'm so desperate for change. There were many tears yesterday, tears of self pity, tears of self loathing, tears as I packed up my daughters room, tears of hard truths, tears because I couldn't sleep, tears when Mum texted me messages of love and hope, tears as I said out loud to the walls and ceiling, "every one just stay away, I don't want anyone near me ever again, just stay away." And the tears are falling now as I write, remembering how it felt to say and mean those words. I need to be alone. It feels right that I'm alone. Perhaps I know that in order to rebuild myself, find my legs again and stay sober, I need to first completely fall apart.

Day Two, part two

Today has been hard. So hard. I've been a sobbing depressed mess for hours, eight hours ! There have been moments when what I felt was both indescribable and painfully uncomfortable. There's been so many tears, I'm sure I've dehydrated myself by crying, my hands look dehydrated and my grandmothers wedding band is loose, (pause while I search and find out that yes it's possible to dehydrate oneself though crying and chuck back some water).

The tears have stopped and now it feels like all the emotions have settled heavy in my stomach. It's extremely uncomfortable. I've become so used to drinking my feelings away. It's nothing short of a miracle that I've not gone and drunk my Day Two away. 

Day Two

It's been a rough morning. My Miss 16 has said she doesn't want to live with me anymore. She's been staying with my Miss 23 since Sunday. Sunday was bad. I'm resisting the urge to explain all the stresses and irritations that led to my shocking behavior on Sunday but I'm stopping myself and admitting right here right now that my life has become too messy to pretend another day that my drinking isn't keeping me from becoming mentally sound. The brutal truth is that on Sunday afternoon I sank a bottle of Rose within half an hour, hid the empty then screamed at both my daughters in front of my grandson Mr almost 3. I shut myself in my room, I pounded the wall and screamed for everyone to get out. It was an alcohol induced panicked rage.

Hearing this morning that Miss 16 doesn't want to return home is hard and I am so aware this moment that if I drink today it will get messy. I won't want to stop. I am telling my legs they are not permitted to walk to the bottle store across the road and I am telling my arms they are mine. I am telling my hands they are not allowed to pick up a drink. Drinking today would be unsafe.  

Day One...again

Hello Day One, again, it's been a while. Sure I've had alcohol free days but with no decision made to recommit to my broken and neglected sobriety. I've just spent a long time editing posts I wrote last year and publishing them back to this blog because two weeks ago I sat and butchered them all with drunken edits. I broke my rule which is not to come near this blog when drinking. I've managed to recover some truth of last years journey but a lot has been lost because I drank and didn't like what I was reading. I tried so hard to convince myself, again, if I just cut back the drinking I'll be fine and so I deleted anything that disagreed with that.

Anyway, here I am. Day One and desperate.  

Twelve Days

Today marks twelve days. The honeymoon phase has come to a screeching halt, it's a mental game now. Thoughts creep in and I choose to delete or save. I'm feeling weak and anxious but am fighting hard not to give in to relapse. It would be so easy to numb it all away with a cheap bottle of red....or I can fight to keep moving towards change, good health and freedom.

Curve Ball !

You know that feeling when something you've been waiting for for a long time is about to finally be, happen, arrive ?  Yesterday I was super-crazy-excited, can't wait excited...only to have a freight train of a curve ball knock me over today. And immediately after said ball tried to ruin me, I was driving home, absolutely gutted and it hit me, the moment I've been bracing for, the excuse, my reason to drink. BUT it seems that having a booze free week and feeling great because of it and having words from a book on recovery swimming in my head, (thank you Clare Pooley!)  have done wonders because I was able to tell those thoughts to piss off. I was able to counteract my own automatic thinking with a mindful response and here I am safe in bed feeling proud as punch. Yes I'm upset but I'm super relieved I haven't smuggled a bottle of wine into bed with me.

Sweet Six

Six days sober! Six sweet days. I feel great. In The Sober Diaries, Clare writes about the pink cloud or the honeymoon phase. I'm there. But I've been here before so before the cravings hit, while I'm feeling sweet, I'm cramming in as much work as I can. By work I mean actively working at keeping sober and enjoying it. I'm not moping, I'm not depressed, I'm up, I'm perhaps a little manic. I'm very busy. I thought of myself as a bee today, buzzing around collecting and storing precious pollen away to keep my coming days sweet.

Here I am

I began blogging in 2013 in an attempt to find the writer in me I desperately needed to exist. At the time, I was suffering from methamphetamine addiction; nothing could be found, nothing good anyway. Five years on, I'm living in a different city, addicted to a different poison. While the thought of ever returning to the days of meth-induced-psychosis, (I tried boarding a plane to Singapore without a ticket or passport), week-long-comedowns and sex with strangers makes me want to vomit, change my identity and build an actual time-machine...I have become a wino. I have cross-addicted. I am a bottle-a-day, sometimes two wino...a drink alone in my bedroom, hide the empties wino.

 A few days ago whilst aimlessly wandering the library, The Sober Diaries by Clare Pooley caught my eye from a display stand and I have not been able to put it down. Reading and writing have always been close to my heart, for as long as I can remember I've dreamed of being a writer. Typewriters excite me, libraries feel like home but when I'm drinking every night it's impossible to read or write. My drinking keeps me from dreaming let alone becoming.

Two Days Old

Having clocked up forty something days of alcohol-free-living only to relapse, it's hard not to feel like a big fat failure. I need sobriety and now I want it even more. With reflection, I can see that I stopped practicing good self-care and then when an event happened that sucked the little energy I had and exposed some deep-seated grief, drinking seemed the only out.

Following relapse I was struck with a solid dose of depression. Depression...I never know how long that nasty little devil will suffer me with his paralyzing presence but I do know there are tools in my self-care box so essential to my basic health and healing that when left unopened for a while, it swaps out with a high risk of relapse that will almost absolutely trigger a bout of depression where normal actions become snowy mountains I can't climb. Teeth aren't brushed, appointments are cancelled, thoughts and feelings plummet and even though I know alcohol helped me there, a drink while in that place, still seems like a refuge, a safe place to numb and hide. Except it's not safe, nothing about the way I've been drinking is safe. The despair may pass out for a time, then I wake feeling ill and hating myself a little more. Hating the smell, the taste, the behavior, hating that I can't remember all the things I'd said and done but sure I'd been sloppy, annoying, awful. Most of all I hate the weakness. Drinking leaves me feeling so incredibly weak. I have a cycle, a pattern. I manage to travel along well for a week or two without getting drunk and then as soon as the shit hits the fan somewhere I binge and breakdown. Its an ever-circling-sameness-of-destruction.

It came to me this morning to treat my sobriety as if she were a newborn. She is young, only two days old. She is presently so fragile but has the potential to grow strong and old. Because this baby is so young she needs a lot of feeding and rest. She needs fresh air and sunshine. Right now she needs a little walk. Not too fast or far. She's delicate and yesterday she could barely crawl. The moment I stop protecting her, I neglect her. She is too precious. Too important and must be kept safe.

I'm reminding myself now as I write to be thankful when the depression lifts as it has now but to take it easy. Rest. Eat well. Read and watch things that bring comfort or educate. Pray. Meditate. Small steps Little One.