Making more announcements to friends and family which is strangely empowering and intimidating at the same time. Basically what I'm doing is announcing to close people that I'm a problem drinker. I mean normal drinkers don't give up alcohol do they..? So that is refreshing in some ways, a relief to be brutally honest to everyone about my secret dysfunction but also really scary as I'm setting myself up to be watched now. There has to be no failure!
I dunno, to be honest removing alcohol hasn't proved a problem yet although it is early days early days early days.
Anyhoo I'm reading Kelly Cutrone's "If you have to cry go outside" and while she's quite (understandably) full of herself she has a great chapter on finding inner strength and silencing negative thoughts. She's got her own spirituality (and I know AA talks about recognising a higher power) and credits a lot of her self discovery and empowerment to finding and following this spirituality (some yogi called "Mother"??).
Personally I'm not reaching outside of myself yet for empowerment, am going to just find the power in me. I do think I'm strong and if I can really prove it to myself by making this big scary change alone then there will be no doubt!
Some great quotes from Kelly Cutrone:
"The mind uses fear throughout our lives as one of many blunt objects with which to clock our soul over the head before gagging it, binding it with black electrical tape, and throwing it out of the driver's seat and into the trunk"
"So I started to play ball with my fears. "Bring it!" I'd say when seized by that familiar pit in my stomach. .. I asked my fear exactly what it had to say to me. .. I followed my fears to their worst possible conclusions, .. , and what I realised each time was that no matter what happened, I was going to be fine. I remembered that family and tribe members are key, but also that ultimately I have everything I need to survive inside of me."
"I believe that the universe constantly rearranges itself to support your idea of reality. If you're always thinking Life sucks, and I suck, you're definitely going to see a lot of dismal shit out there. On the other hand, if your idea of reality is that you're a privileged, elegant human being and every day you think, I am a privileged, elegant human being I am a privileged, elegant human being then eventually you will become a privileged and elegant human being. It may take five minutes or it may take five years, but that will become your experience of yourself."
Go Kelly!
Love, Mrs D xxx
Oh, I like that saying! I am privileged (and have worked hard for it) and I desire to be more elegant (and I am blessed with many attributes that could enable this). But oh dear god the numerous stories I could tell about being perfectly inelegant while on the booze or as a consequence of the booze. Cringe worthy. Like the countless times I have spilt wine on people, sprayed wine from my mouth as I have choked mid swallow (this was last year in a murderously embarrassing moment). I have a very elegant friend and I can see that without the booze, I could hold myself higher. I am truly grateful for everything I have been blessed with, wish I could have been blessed with the ability to drink just one or 2! Boo hoo.
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