Yeah!!!! Lovely and calm...

Yaaaaa Hoooooo to all of us who made it through Christmas sober. Yay for us! Yes!  Great job for all of us who said 'no' left, right, and centre to drinks. It's a tough time, for sure, and one so usually associated with drinking and celebrating.

We were at the neighbors yesterday for a few hours in the afternoon and I batted away pims and white wine, opting instead for Sprite (booooring) but who cares that's the way it has to be.  Then today up the road for lunch and I was 'no thanks' to white wine, then red wine, opting instead for water. Zzzzzzzzz. But again, that's the way it just has to be.

Sometimes I can't believe I'm not going to touch alcohol for the rest of my life, but other times I can't possibly imagine going back to drinking it hard out all the time. I think it's just going to get easier and easier and more and more normal and ordinary to be a non-drinker.

And the kids, the kids, it's all about the kids. If I stop being so self-obsessed for a moment and take a second to look around me at the little people who are in the middle of their childhoods, I feel really good. They have no idea how I have changed their early years by kicking their boozy mother to the curb.  Even I don't know what exactly the difference would be to the childhood they're having now vs the childhood they would have had if I'd remained a wine-guzzler.

I do know that sober me was able to stay up late wrapping presents and organizing stockings, stay calm at 10pm when little eyes are still open, not get too grumpy at 3am when excitement breaks through slumber again and be ok with a 6am start to the day.

Sober me was able to take the time to search for the special lego arm that was missing, build the fancy 3-D tank puzzle, drive to a picnic lunch and drive to the beach afterwards, jump on the trampoline late in the evening, snuggle on the sofa watching Back To The Future and have a long chat at bedtime about the merits of Moshi Monsters. Sober me is very locked into my kids and really spending time connected to them. It's a lovely reality of a calm sober life.

That flatness that I often talk about, which is really just a description of my adjusting to being sober all the time.. was actually just a quiet peaceful state of mind that permeated my entire Christmas experience.

So yay for me and yay for you and yay for all of us who take the leap, deal with the downsides but embrace the upsides of living alcohol free. Next, New Years Eve - a party in our home town with a big crowd of old friends. Should be interesting.....

Love, Mrs D xxx

Visualisation...

It's Christmas Eve here right now, 8pm and our kids are bouncing off the walls with excitement. Mr D has had a couple of wines. Me a cranberry and tonic and a soda with lemon. Bit sick of all the mini bottles of fizzy I drink, ginger beer, pink grapefruit etc. I think they're laiden with sugar.

It's definately hard doing the festive season sober... well only from midday onwards when I really feel like drinking is what would normally be going on to celebrate Christmas eve/Christmas day/boxing day/every day. This is only my second sober Christmas and last year was very noisy with us hosting 20+ people and me being all obsessed with and stimulated by my new sober existence. This year it's just the five of us for Christmas and being sober isn't so exciting and new any more. Anyhoo... there's nofuckingway I'm going to drink so... onwards and upwards!

I got into bed the other night with the laptop to watch the Russell Brand doco on addiction on YouTube. It's quite good actually.  Then I did some surfing around YouTube for sober stuff, as I  sometimes do, and ended up watching a BBC doco on Ecstasy, also quite good.

In between these two documentaries I stumbled across all these other bits and bobs about booze and drugs and sobriety. Amongst other things I watched a video from some female addiction counsellor/rehab worker giving tips for going sober. For the life of me I can't find it again now but she was talking about picturing yourself in your mind going up to friends who you'd normally booze with and shaking their hand being all strong and sober. Basically it was visualisation stuff and I think that this has been one of my biggest techniques in staying sober, and I'm still doing it today.

If it's tough going not drinking, and you're feeling low, or flat, or bored or bummed out... visualise yourself climbing into bed sober. Visualise yourself waking up with no hangover. Visualise yourself sober in the future. The immediate future, the medium future and the long-term future. This afternoon I have felt a bit flat I'll be honest. But I keep imagining myself waking up tomorrow morning with the boys all excited about their stockings and it's not normal drinking hours so I won't feel like the only sober loser then. I'll just be happy and hangover free and it'll be Christmas day!

Merry Christmas everyone! This isn't quite the joyous post I promised but as always I write just as I feel. And I feel fine. I feel sober. I feel low key.. actually .. it's peaceful. I feel peaceful.

Love, Mrs D xxx

The silly season...

I don't want to get all deep and meaningful and negative on it but I am finding myself driving around the streets at the moment looking at all the houses and thinking about all the stress that is building and all money that is being spent and all the inter-personal angst that is being dreaded and all the booze that will be sunk.

I know there are many many lovely, lucky people who are going to have smooth, trouble-free silly seasons .. but there are so many others that are going to be pushed to the limit by their mum, or get really angry at their brother, or annoyed at their friend, or worried about their sister, or sick of their dad, or so over the whole family vibe...or whatever...and so they'll drink and drink and drink...

Or maybe there'll be people who were a bit like me and drank to chase some sort of fun or happiness that I believed wasn't already in front of me.  Desperately trying to reach some nirvana of joy, believing alcohol was the only thing that has the power to give it...

In the past I've found Christmas tricky, with the crush of family dynamics that comes in.  Hard to step out of my comfort zone, my happy equilibrium that I've found in my own space with my own circle of people and my own routines and my own comforts and no-one around to prick my bubble.

So what did I used to do to chase the fun or ignore the undercurrents? Get boozed!!! Yeahhhhh!!! That'll help!!!!  Woo hoo!!!! Wines!!! Fancy cocktails!!! Bubbles!!!! Beer? Hhhmmm... not really my drink of choice but why not!!!!!

I've got a photo on our piano of me and my Dad on Christmas day about 4 years ago. I'm wearing a pink paper hat that came out of a cracker and a lovely blue dress that cost a lot of money with a pretty broach on it. I'm leaning into my dad and he's got his arm around me. We look very happy.

Except every time I look at it I remember that this was the Christmas that I drank steadily from 8am until 9pm. I didn't fall over or vomit or slur much even (as far as I know). I just steadily drank alcohol all day, starting with champagne breakfast and never stopping.

Oh my god, honestly, thank god I stopped drinking. Really. I had a serious problem. You know, lately I've been having those thoughts 'was I really that bad?' and pangs that I don't get to drink any more... I mentally swat them away swiftly and angrily but they come at me like angry bees.

I've just got to look at that photo of me with my puffy face and remember that I was addicted to alcohol. I was totally and utterly addicted to alcohol. Quiet, steady, heavy, seemingly-functional, middle-class alcoholism. And now all I have to do is not drink and I'm ok. Hallelujah. And Merry Christmas Everyone!

Love, Mrs D xxx

(sorry this is a bit glum now that I read it back. Will write a more upbeat post before the 25th!)

Purgatory...

I don't know who this anonymous person is who just left this comment on my last post but their words are unbelievably inspiring and are worth their very own special post I think.

I just love this. I love the idea it gives me to embrace that flat feeling that I get sometimes and see it as a positive rather than a negative. I love that. It's a practical tangible exercise that I can work on, one that I really think will help me in the weeks ahead of the festive season.

Anonymous is responding to my last two posts and is acknowledging yes, we have left hell, but no, we're not in heaven.....we're somewhere in between...just have a read...

I was thinking purgatory which is much better than hell, but still life with it's ups and downs. Like in purgatory, if it exists, there is a sense of waiting. What are we really here for anyway? There's sense at times of wanting to go back and another sense that is hopefully stronger, of wanting to move forward. I think heaven, and peace is ultimately what we strive for, and our destination.

Becoming sober is one step on that journey. And yes, other Mrs D, I agree that the moments like that when we feel flat, in a sense I too believe it is a glimmer at peace and if we choose to open our arms wide open to it, we can have it more and more and the flatness will seem more positive. It only feels negative because we feel like we are missing, like we are missing an old sense of ourselves. But that's OLD, and not not happy and not where we want to do. Let's make peace and heaven our destination. We don't get there overnight though, so let's allow purgatory to teach us the lessons we need to learn. There is some excitement in that too I reckon. Love and light x

To anonymous I thank you and send back the love and light that you so graciously offered to me.

Love, Mrs D xxx

So is this heaven?

So now I've left my personal hell behind, where am I? Am I in heaven?

Not sure. What I am, is sober all the time. Sober. All the time.

Yesterday we hosted a lovely christmas party/farewell for friends. 15 kids, 13 adults. Our house. Nibbles, drinks, pizza. Secret Santa (Mr D donned the suit!). Lolly scramble. Chatting, laughing fun.

I felt a bit flat. Sorry to say that but I did. Is it because I wasn't drinking? Maybe. Is it because I was tired from writing lots of my thesis all weekend? Possibly. But I think it was more to do with the fact that I was sober. Again.

Sober all the time.

So yeah... I love being out of my personal hell. I love not having hangovers and not having guilt and not feeling sick in my guts and sick in my head. I love respecting myself and feeling strong and healthy. I love that my skin is clear and I love that people think I'm amazing and strong. I love that I don't buy wine all the time and guzzle it like it's about to disappear from the earth forever. I love that I don't think about wine constantly and I love that I feel really in touch with my emotions. I love my blog and the online community that I have discovered and I'd have none of that if I hadn't decided to go sober and start writing about what I'm feeling to try and make sure I can stick to my resolve. I love all of that.

The flipside is, I am sober. All the time.

That's a fact.

Sober me.

Again.

It's ok. Really it is. It's just a fact. It's just the way it has to be. So yesterday, yes, I did feel a bit flat. It was a party and other people were drinking. Wine! Beer! Whiskey! (yes the whiskey did come out towards the end canyoubelieveit?!). And I stayed sober. Sober Mrs D.

Is this heaven? Not sure. Whatever it is, it sure beats hell.

Love, Mrs D xxx

My private hell....

I'm not what I appear to be. I appear to be a happy, settled, middle class suburban mother of three. Happily married, in good health with a people mover, life insurance, successful relationships, a moderate interest in politics and an addiction to Reality TV.

I appear to have totally nailed this thing called life. I have the house, the car, the husband, the kids. Hell we've even got a cat.

But I have a sneaky secret and I'm locked in a private hell because I'm the only one who thinks it's a problem.

Wednesday is shopping day and I always buy two bottles of wine. They're gone by Thursday and the husband is lucky if he gets 3 glasses.

I make my decision at 10am the next day that I'm going to drink again that night. Wine is always on my mind.

The man selling alcohol down the road knows my name and asks me how my studies are going - he knows about my life. I hate that.

I attend a function and get a little too loud, a little too opinionated. I'm nervous and look at myself in the bathroom mirror knowing I'm drinking to much to cope. I drive home. I hate myself for doing that.

I roll my body over a swiss ball at the gym and my sick guts churn and my head throbs. I look at the ladies around me and wonder if anyone else is secretly hungover. I feel so miserable.

I'm conscious at home every time I take a big gulp of wine. Standing at the kitchen bench. Sitting on the sofa. Over and over and over and over and over and over again I gulp wine. I seem unable to ignore what I am doing. Can't anyone else see?

There are two voices in my head. One is telling me boozing is fun and I deserve it and I'm totally fine. The other is telling me it's not fun, I don't deserve it and I'm not totally fine.

I try to talk to my immediate loved ones. I try and write down every time I take a drink. I try to moderate. I have dry spells. But slowly and surely my drinking is getting worse. Heavier. Sloppier. Less fun. More miserable.

My personal hell is at it's blackest at 3am. I come to consciousness in my bed, my mouth is dry, my head is sore and my bladder is full. I walk miserably down the hall to the loo. I feel guilty. I regret. I just feel so unhappy.

Then one day, September 6, 2011, I'm sitting in my car at the intersection opposite Pac n Save with the indicator on to turn right. And the thought comes to me. I could just do it and stop right now. I could just fucking take that leap and remove alcohol from my life. And I do.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Weddings

We have four weddings coming up over the next three months, so on top of the four that I have already been to since becoming sober, that means by the time I have 18 months of sobriety under my belt I will have attended 8 weddings.

I must have lost the memo that advises not making any big changes or undergoing lots of stress or too much social pressure when you first give up the booze. Because in those 18 months I would have also gone through a relocation (emotion!) and written an MA thesis (stress!).

At least I should be bloody rock solid in my non-drinking come the end of March (my 18 mth mark). I'm not stupid enough to think that means I can let my guard down and expect not to have any pangs. I've had some bloody annoying pangs just in the last few days ... stupid sly wine-drinking fox still lurking in my brain and eyeing up Mr D's wine glass... anyway... won't dwell on those. Piss off stupid pangs.

The first wedding I went to sober I acted like a total freak and ran around fetching other people drinks all night. Desperately trying to show that I was still cool with alcohol?! Obsessed with other people needing to drink like I used to? Who knows.. but that's what I did.

Second wedding I smoked like a train all night, looked after someone else who got leggless and had quite a nice time in the end actually.

Third wedding I had it figured out a little better, had one Red Bull at dinner for a nice energy boost and danced until after midnight!

Fourth wedding, again one energy drink at dinner and quite a nice night (small wedding and I didn't know many people so it was never going to be a cracker).

Overall with all of these four sober weddings I look back happily and proudly at how I carried myself. Not like other weddings I've been to when I've got very sloppy. For me weddings used to be a glorious opportunity to get totally hammered with lots of other people! A heavy drinkers dream!

Looking forward to the next four anyway.. nice to know we won't have to pay for taxis on top of transport, childcare and presents. Nice to know I'll be trustworthy all night and not get loose-lipped or sloppy. Have to stay positive that I won't be missing out...

Love, Mrs D xxx

Thank you thank you

I think there are three main things that us sober people have inside that got us to stop, things which are keeping us dry.

1) A belief that change is possible. Believe it. It is.

2) A real desire to stop. We just do not want to drink alcohol any more and will put up anything to stick to that.

3) An ability and willingness to deal with shit raw.

It's this dealing with shit thing that will really test you. Parties etc become much easier to deal with sober. If it's a good party, warm with lovely people, fun and giggly, with great music or awesome displays, excellent chats or delicious food... you will have a great time regardless of the fact you're not drinking. Trust me. Probably not the first few you go to sober because you'll feel very strange and obsessed with the fact you're not drinking, and flat and odd and just out-of sorts. But after a few when you get used to it they're totally fine!

And don't get me started on the feeling you have when you wake up the day after having stayed sober throughout.......

This is not - by the way - true if the party is just a dumb party full of dickheads or bores or really trashed people. That party will never be fun, and even if you're one of the trashed people you probably won't look back on it as being super-fun.

No, I think the biggest trial in choosing to live sober is deciding that no-matter what shit comes at you, you will tough it through raw. That shit might come on day 5, or day 55, or day 555. But once you decide to live sober then that's what you are committing to do forever more - deal with shit raw baby.

The more I live sober the more I realise how in the long run that is a way better way to live, rather than numbing constantly like I did with wine. It doesn't make the tough time any easier at the time, but it so improves your long-term feelings looking back.

But I'm also working on accepting that there are those who don't want to deal with shit raw, that's why they continue to drink, and that's their choice and their right. What I choose for my life isn't what everyone wants. And I can only focus on me, as others lives are their business. This would be a hard position to take if I was living with a heavy boozer and I do so feel for you folk that are. Check out this post from Mr SponsorPants - very helpful in this regard I would think.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Hidden away boozers...

I was out on the back deck when I heard a tell-tale 'Clank' as a glass bottle hit others in a neighbor's recycling bin. It was followed by the sound of their back door closing. This is a neighbor whose property only connects with a tiny corner of ours and there are large trees blocking us from each other. So I have no idea who this person was, or what kind of bottle they were clanking into their recycling bin, but it was after 5pm so.....

Could it have been a housewife slowly filling herself up with chardonnay in the privacy of her own home? Lord knows that's how I used to do it. Tidily and neatly and privately filling myself up with wine and clanking bottles into my recycling bin over and over again. At least when I was boozing our bin was kept inside so no-one could hear me 'clank'. Although it did have to go up on the road to be collected once a week. Bottles spilling out at odd angles (I was very good at getting a lot in - you have to put them upside down at the end and just poke the thin top into gaps in the pile).

A friend of mine used to joke when she saw me at kindy - 'saw your recycling bin, looks like you guys had another good week!!' Ha ha! How I laughed. This was before I saw my heavy drinking as sad and dysfunctional.

Now our bin is kept outside and I do 'clank' glass into it regularly but it's usually bottles of ginger beer or other soft drinks. And it's funny, sometimes I feel like calling out should any neighbors be listening..."if you heard that clank I just want to let you know it's a soft drink bottle ok?! I don't drink alcohol any more .. ok??!!" But of course I don't.

I do look at others recycling bins on rubbish day thought I have to admit. And as I drive round the neighborhood I play 'spot the boozers'. And sometimes I look at people around town and wonder... who amongst them is a secret boozer wishing they could stop.

I get loads of lovely comments, and I love them all - heaps! Especially those from you anonymous folk who tell me that you're trying to give up, and I'm in a small way helping.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Navigating new social waters...

So here I am in a new neighbourhood slowly getting to know people. I'm crazy busy all the time going  in and out of school, pre-school, the supermarket, the library, the swimming pool, the scout den, the shops, school again, the pool again, sports fields, gyms, rah rah rah. Taxi driver me. The life of a full-time mum.

And I've got some interesting territory to navigate because I am new here and no-one knows me yet, and certainly they don't know my 'secret' that I'm a boozy lush who had to give up the wines a year ago because I was hitting it too hard.

Twice in the last week I've found myself chatting to other mums on the sidelines of various events and they've made comments about drinking. One was on Friday afternoon and the woman I was talking to said something like 'can't wait to get home and have a wine' to which I replied 'I was just thinking how nice that would be' .. because unusually I had just been thinking that it would be nice to get some relief from the stressed out, wrung out feeling I'd had all day. I'd been allowing myself a moment of self-pity that I couldn't escape on a Friday evening with a bloody fucking wine LIKE MOST NORMAL PEOPLE!!!! GGGRRRRRR.......

Sorry about that...

Anyway so she said that to me, and I responded in a way that gave nothing away about my sobriety. Kind of odd but, you know, it wasn't the right time to launch into an explanation.

Then tonight the same thing happened... a different  mum on the sidelines of another kid event making a comment to me like 'can't wait to get home and *mimes opening bottle* have a drink!'. She said it in a kind of solidarity-type way, like 'us busy mums we need our wines don't we!!' kind of attitude. Again I decided it wasn't the time nor place to reveal my boozy background so I just sort of laughed out a 'ha ha yeah' kind of response.

One day I'm going to have to come clean. I suppose I'll just judge on a case by case (mum by mum) basis when I'll open up.

I sometimes wonder whether I should worry more that people might gossip about the fact that I'm an alcoholic who doesn't drink, or whether they're going to think that I'm boring because I don't drink, or any number of responses they might have when they discover my deep dark secret.

And then I think who gives a fuck what people think, if they get to know me and like me and if I like them we'll be mates regardless of my relationship with alcohol.

It's just the way it has to be and I refuse to be ashamed (fighting talk).

Love, Mrs D xxx

Why it's better...

Rather than whittle on about how I'm stressed again (MA) and emotional (kid dramas) and tired (lots of solo parenting) I'm going to try instead to articulate why I think it's better to go through tough feelings sober and raw, rather than reaching for a wine or five.

I could use all the well-worn phrases like; I just feel more connected to my feelings and I feel a lot more whole and I can understand more clearly but I remember reading shit like that before I got sober and those words just washed over me. They're such well worn phrases that they've almost lost their meaning.

Christy had a great turn of phrase; "How amazing that we can sit at the table with these funky depressed moods and just have a stare down with those suckers until they get bored and leave us be."

So why is it so amazing?

Well I had a major emotional upheaval earlier this year and had to pack up my life and leave a community that was rich with love and warmth and support. It was so hard and boy did I cry. I cried and I cried and I cried. I cried so much it was ridiculous. I couldn't stop the tears. I cried saying goodbye to my sons' school teachers. I cried saying goodbye to my neighbours. I cried all over my friends. I cried doing the dishes. I cried in bed at night. I cried driving the car. I cried so much I stopped even trying not to cry and was just an openly crying sooky mess. I cried as we left and I cried as we transitioned and I kept crying even after we arrived.

And then I stopped crying, and I kept moving forward, and ... well it's all gone. Not gone like I've pushed it away but gone like I dealt with it. I didn't hide the problem like filing away a bill I didn't want to pay. I paid it and it went away. Now I feel really at peace and resolved about the whole move. Not that I don't care to have left those people any more.. but clean like I expressed to myself and the world my sadness. And unbelievably that alone made it better. Nothing changed except how I expressed my feelings but just doing that made it better.

So (I'm working this out as I write) just expressing and honoring how you feel about something, cleanly and wholly, makes it better even though you can't change the thing itself.

Now when I think back to that time of the relocation and all that emotion and all those tears I feel clean. I feel really clean about it. It's hard to explain but it feels great. Resolved. Done. It feels like I totally honored my feelings by expressing them so openly and in a way that kind of cleared them.

Ok even now it's hard to explain, this is a bit convoluted sorry.

But to try and apply this logic to general sober life now, fairly regularly I get in funky moods .. grumpy, stressed, sad (but I am a fucking full time mother of 3 demanding boys and a bloody supportive wife trying to write a difficult MA thesis sorry just had to rant there) But instead of pretending I'm not grumpy, stressed or sad (which wine consumption used to help with) I actually just let myself be grumpy and stressed or sad and ... well overall it feels much better. Much better. Cleaner. It just feels cleaner. Better.

It's hard to articulate, and once again I don't think the words are doing the feeling justice. So don't just take my word for it. Try it, you'll understand too.

Love, Mrs D xxx

On the up!

And like a phoenix from the flames (being a bit overly dramatic there) my sober mojo has returned and I have risen from my funk to once again be feeling fine and dandy about things.

I'm riding those waves of emotion like a pro don't ya think?  Well .. actually not really .. I still think that all the moaning and groaning that I do on here about being in a funk and stressed and all of that is kind of a failure.

But then I think well I am writing a blog charting my journey in sober living and I have to keep updating so there is going to be a bit of naval gazing now and then isn't there.

And then I think that actually me moaning and groaning and even admitting to having low moods is an entirely new thing for me and I shouldn't feel like it's a failure to do so.

And then I think am I thinking too much?

And then I think what shall I cook for dinner, and that I'll buy some herbs to plant this weekend.

And then I think I'll do some more work on my thesis tonight, and I wonder yet again how the hell I would be able to do this MA if I was still boozing.

And then I think back to my low mood over the last week or two and I feel really good about how I sat with those feelings and got through them without drinking.

And then I think isn't it amazing how I never want to drink.

And then I think how my sobriety just keeps getting longer and longer and longer...

And then I boil the jug and make a cup of tea....

And I feel just fine.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Working on it...

I was at my local store stocking up on a few supplies including beer to give to the guys who are going to help me put up the new trampoline.  The lovely store owner laughed as I put the 6-packs on the counter, saying 'Ah ha! While the husband's away..the wife will play!' or words to that effect (he knows Mr D is away on business for the week).

I laughed and said 'not for me! I don't touch the stuff'.. to which he replied 'I don't like beer either actually' and then we moved on to talk about the US elections.

Later as I was driving back from dropping the boys at scouts I was thinking how that store owner has never known me as a drinker. If we'd lived here before I got sober he would definitely have been aware that I was fond of red wine. As it is this beer is the first alcohol I've bought from him ever.

And as I was driving thinking about him and our conversation, I suddenly imagined myself actually buying red wine and taking it home and drinking it. Pouring. Drinking. Pouring. Drinking. Pouring. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking.

Gross. Honestly, the thought of going back to all that pouring and drinking is gross. Awful. I think I actually pulled a face to myself in the car imagining all that pouring and drinking.

So thank fuck for that. I have no temptation to drink. None. Which is a total blessing because sober living is a bit raw and tricky for me right now. I'm stressed and emotional, to put it bluntly. And am working very hard on my new strategies to cope.

As always so many lovely comments and lots of wise advice is coming my way on here. And I am determined to meet this living-raw challenge head on (albeit with tears and gritted teeth right now).

I'm working on compassion and forgiveness, breathing and thinking clearly and calmly, and just general positive thinking. This will pass. I will learn. And hopefully, like the brilliant Byebyebeer has, I will grow to love my feelings. Even the tricky ones.  And hopefully, like the clever Daisyanon says, I will start to really grow up, without any masks. (That Daisyanon link will take you to her blog but she doesn't post often. Her immense wisdom comes to me in comments. I'm very lucky).

I am slowly finding the real me. So this is what they mean about the second year being difficult. I see that now. First year all your energy is on just removing the booze and living without it. Second year, learning who you really are.

How fucking cool is that? (Positive note to end on!)

Love, Mrs D xxx

Slippery world...

It's amazing to me really that after more than a year of living sober I'm still learning how to do it. I shouldn't be surprised given I spent 20+ years using lovely wine as an emotional-smooth-all, obviously it's going to take longer than just 1 measly year to entrench new life strategies.

These aren't strategies for the smooth times. Like recently how I've been firing on all cylinders, fist pumping the air with my oh-so-strong-and-clever-sober-me hat on, rah rah rah-ing about how great it is to live sober.

This is the times when one or two little things happen, my amour gets chinked a little or some stress or sadness or something comes into the picture and ... suddenly I'm a little low. Not crazy bad, but low none the less. Flat. Smiling less often. Everything feeling just a bit harder, needing a bit more effort.

I'm sure this is normal but honestly this is new for me. This. is. new. for. me.  Wine was my great leveler. I didn't have lows like this. I used to pride myself on always being upbeat! Not naval gazing! Not moody or hormonal! Oh great easy-going me! Wine gave me that. It took a fuck of a lot away as well but it gave me a state of same-ness that I no longer have.

It's amazing to think that drinking steadily like I did has that much affect on your life but this has been the great journey of discovery I've been on since I became sober. It's astounding to me how taking the wine away has led to so many changes including me having these low patches. They feel entirely new to me. I need new strategies to cope with them.

I was reading an article about the show Nurse Jackie and apparently the new season has the pill-popping nurse heading to rehab and becoming sober.  The producer was talking about the character and her new sober journey: "You know that slippery world of having feelings now that you're sober? She's still her, but she's on a shakier footing now. She doesn't quite know how to get through the days in a way that's familiar. There will be some adjustments."

So I'm adjusting too.

What do other people do? Have shopping addictions? Drink a lot? Take pills to lighten the mind if it's really really bad?  For me, exercise definitely helps and achieving things like my studies. I clean a lot and I focus on the small banal things around me that make me happy. Hence that last post about food and the weather and smiling faces. I really try to bring my focus down to the immediate good things in front of my eyes. And yesterday, well I just made myself smile more often, and that definitely helped.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Appreciation...

I seem to be going through a bit of a low phase after my extreme 'oh wow I'm so wonderful what a fabulous strong sober person I am' phase .. now I'm kind of feeling like actually I'm that boring loser that thinks they're really cool but actually is kind of self obsessed and boring and a kill joy.

Just because I'm hearing stories from girlfriends about fun Friday night wine sessions - pizzas! laughing! dancing with the kids! getting a bit lippy! - and have just received an invitation to a big going away party (the bloke who is leaving says to Mr D 'tell Mrs D to get a babysitter and come along! be great to have her there!').  Yeah.  I could do that ... but it's at my old workplace, a high stress, high performance, high-wired, highly fun, boozy environment and as much as I'd really like to go along and prove that I am still that person it will be a party all about getting hammered and I'd feel a bit sheepish and nervous that it'll be the new sober me showing up not the old fun party girl.

Woe is me.  Harden up. Ups and Downs. Ups and Downs. Life. Normal life. Normal sober life.

Some good things:

Got some fabulous new cookbooks for my birthday - really enjoying making some tasty new things! (crunchy carrot salad with coriander and almonds and a lemony dressing, Moroccan chick pea salad with green beans, chocolate pikelets!)

Getting warmer here in NZ - am about to start tidying up the garden in this house we are renting and plant some herbs and flowers. Am buying the boys a trampoline.

Lots of smiley faces wherever I go in this community. Building up lots of new contacts and look forward to getting to know some people better (and them me).

Got some nice second-hand gumboots at the school gala on Saturday - good for gardening and next year's rugby season (sideline supporter me). Also got a nice hat, some ginger crunch, some new cassette tapes for the car (Michael Jackson, America, The Eagles, Queen), a great crafty cushion and some Russian fudge.

Some fun new shows have started on the tele - Amazing Race, The Block, Married to Jonas. Reality TV addict me.

Onwards.....

Love, Mrs D xxx

Goodbye & Hello

I think talking to myself is something that I have done a lot to get to where I am now.  I wrote in an earlier post about a letter I wrote to myself on the morning that I stopped drinking forever. And just the other night while Mr D was out I found in my bedside drawer another letter I wrote to myself.

I think this one was written a few months before I stopped forever when I knew there was a big issue and I was trying very hard to moderate.  But it's a bit goofy because I am just talking to myself and use my own name throughout...!  I will reprint it here but do know that I was using my real first name, not Mrs D.

It's written in blue biro on two pages of a reporters notebook. One page is headed 'Goodbye' and the other 'Hello'. There are capital letters and underlining throughout.

Goodbye

- To the 'rebellious' Mrs D
- To the Mrs D who throws common sense out the window when it comes to drinking
- To the Mrs D who ignores the inner voice that knows it is stupid
- To hangovers, headaches + sick guts
- To wasting time worrying + beating myself up about drinking
- Say goodbye to a need to GET HAMMERED every time I drink
- To telling myself 'stuff it' it's ok to pound it harder
- Say goodbye to allowing the HUNGER for drink to dominate
- Say goodbye to thinking the only way to have a good time is by drinking LOTS FAST
- Say goodbye to the old Mrs D
- Grow up, move on, embrace a different second half of your life

Hello

- Say hello to the Mrs D you want to be for the rest of your life
- Say hello to a Mrs D who is grown up, reliable & sensible when it comes to drink
- Say hello to a Mrs D who is happy to stop drinking when the feeling is enough (think about going to bed, sleeping + waking up in the morning)
- think about that image of the person you want to be. Who feels together, sorted
- Hello to a mother who is not going to cause her sons any worry or harm
- Drink slower. Enjoy it. Remember the effect is delayed. STOP.

My boys are watching a dinosaur programme on Animal Planet in the room next door. The house smells of the delicious seedy dukkah I just made (for the first time). It is Saturday morning and I do not have a hangover. Hello, hello, hello.

Love, Mrs D xxxx

A journey home

Two years ago we went on a holiday over a long weekend, driving for 4 hours to meet a bunch of old friends for a long weekend. These are other couples we've known since we've all started having kids. Lovely people.  It was 3 days of drinking and eating and chatting and catching up and playing games with the kids and just hanging out in a big holiday park together.

It wasn't a great time for me. I don't know what exactly was going on back home at that time - usual busy life nothing special.  Certainly a lot of drinking, this was me heading into my last year of heavy drinking when my intake was  really starting to escalate and it was getting harder and harder to control the amount of wine I poured down my throat.

Photos from the weekend show a puffy, unhealthy me wearing clothes that were badly chosen and ill-fitting.

The first night I tried to create some kind of crazy boozy party buzz which really just means I was getting hammered and willing others along with me and my enthusiastic attitude to wine.  There were a few that hit it along with me but all in all the night was a mostly gentle one and I vividly recall at the end feeling a bit flat that it was over and I had to head for bed.

I don't know what I was wanting? I had the people, the environment, the holiday but I couldn't settle into that.  I had to chase that boozy high that doesn't actually give you anything you don't have already in front of you.

On the last night I just went for it without caring that no-one else was. Hell for leather drinking.  Pestering others to get wine out of their units after ours had gone.  Talking total rubbish. Slurring.  Noticeably dysfunctional. Wrong. Stumbling into our unit at midnight completely and utterly written off.  Crouching over the toilet vomiting vomiting vomiting.  Lost a dearly beloved earring that holiday and I'm sure it went down the toilet along with the contents of my stomach.

The next day I put on the facade of being ok, packed up our unit and got the kids into the car. Waved goodbye to our lovely friends and drove for four hours back home.  It was an awful journey home. I cried all the way. I felt unhealthy. I felt dysfunctional. I felt sad. I felt lost and I had this nagging gritty burning feeling that things just weren't right here and something had to change.

Just under a year later after growing that nagging, gritty burning feeling into a staunch determination and making a huge decision I drank my last drink and became sober.

And now, this weekend just gone. Same blueprint, same holiday. Same friends, same holiday park.  Different me.

Photos just downloaded onto our computer show a more slender me. A more alert me. A happier me.  But the photos don't do it justice.

The feeling that I had as I drove the car home yesterday, remembering that same journey home two years ago, and feeling as I do now, was UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE. If I could take that feeling, bottle it and sell it online I'd be a very rich woman. I felt happy. Healthy. In control. Strong. A better friend. A better wife. A better mother. I felt calm and I felt settled.

Mostly I just feel so very thankful that I have been able to discover that a life without alcohol is totally possible. Nothing is less fun, ever, if you do it sober.

Sorry about the smug tones in this post but I just had to share.

Love, Mrs D xxx

I'm not that kind of alcoholic

I never stumbled drunkenly down the street out in full view of the public (mind you, if there'd been a camera in my house late at night you would have witnessed a fair amount of stumbling).

I certainly never drank so much that you'd ever see me vomit (always managed to get inside the house and kneel over the toilet if I ever did go that little bit too far).

I never lost any terribly important belongings when out on a bender (lucky I don't count favourite earrings as important, or that pager I once lost on the streets of London).

My drinking never affected my ability to work a job competently (although I always enthusiastically participated in work drinks).

I held down very successful interpersonal relationships despite my heavy drinking thank-you-very-much (but it's amazing how much better, stronger and more real they feel now).

I didn't go broke because I spent all our money on wine (but we are saving hundreds of dollars every month now that I don't constantly buy the stuff, not to mention all those painkillers to deal with the headaches).

I never had a face reddened by broken capillaries or terribly bloodshot eyes (although looking back I did have a certain puffiness to my appearance that has now completely gone!).

I never offended anyone while loaded to the point where I had to apologise to them the next day (but I did spend a lot of time in my own head wishing, wishing, wishing I hadn't said that thing I said the night before).

No-one ever had to talk to me about my drinking, asking if I worried about how much I drank or telling me to cut back (only because drinking steadily and heavily is totally accepted in our society and for a long time I didn't let on to anyone how dysfunctional and unhealthy my drinking was becoming).

I was in complete control. (I wasn't in the slightest, truth be told. I had no control over how much I drank. Once I started, that was it, I was on a mission to get more in me...get more in me...get more in me).

I was happy being a drinker! (I wasn't actually).

Ok, so maybe I am that kind of alcoholic. Whatever that kind of alcoholic is. If that kind of alcoholic is the kind I describe in parenthesis above, then that kind of alcoholic I am.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Stereotypes...

Wow you should really check the new video out on the Crying Out Now website, there's some incredibly foxy ladies in it (!! ha ha !!).  No but seriously this site is a godsend and was very helpful to me in my early days.  I remember watching their first video and crying looking at all the strong sober women holding up their signs (maybe it was the Katy Perry song that got my tears flowing).

I do agree with a lot of what Ellie is writing here about changing the way the world thinks about what an alcoholic is.  The word has such a stigma attached to it. So much so that even though I do think I am an alcoholic (someone who cannot control their alcohol intake) I hardly ever say that out loud.

I'm very open about telling people that I have a problem with booze and that's why I don't drink it.  I told a woman who I hardly know while were were on holiday, and I also told a new neighbourhood friend at a school quiz night the other night. But when I do this I don't say 'I'm an alcoholic'. I say 'I have a problem with alcohol' or 'I was finding it hard to control so I cut it out altogether' or 'I was drinking too much and I'm better off without it in my life'.

I very rarely say 'I'm an alcoholic' because it just sounds so full on and dramatic, and like there's a whole lot of really dark and terrible shit in my past, like I was a disheveled, slurring, sloppy, stumbling loser, out on the streets or lurking in seedy bars.  When in actual fact when I was drinking far too much I was a tidy, outwardly normal suburban mum. One whose slurring, sloppy, stumbling loser tendencies were confined to the privacy of her own home.

And this is the whole point - no? There are so many of us alcoholics who don't fit the dirty homeless  stereotype - yet we keep the stereotype in place because we don't identify as alcoholics publicly.

Does the word matter?  Do I have to use the word alcoholic? Can't I say 'problem drinker' or 'dysfunctional drinker' if I want?  At least I'm being open.

One other thing Ellie said in her post kind of freaked me out though.. she says 'I don't think that one can stay sober long term completely online.'  Well holy shit, I'm doomed. Online support is all I do.  Am I destined to start drinking again if I don't seek out face-to-face support??  NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Don't let it be so!

Love, Mrs D xxx

Using my techniques

I realise I'm still using my techniques hard out.  Yesterday was a tough day, long day with the kids being whiny and moany, just feeling a bit flat and lonely, definitely felt like I could use a little something 'for me' as the day was drawing to a close.  I don't automatically think of wine at 5 o'clock any more.. but it is definitely a time of the day when blood sugar/energy/patience levels are down.  There has to be a reason for cocktail hour doesn't there.

So I realised I was doing that technique where I look 'through' those tricky hours 5-7pm and visualise myself doing something lovely for me after the kids are down and the house is in order and the work is done. This was something I had to be very conscious of doing in the early days when I was retraining my brain to operate without wine. I visualise myself doing something lovely (sober) later on and it gets me through.

Sometimes it's climbing into bed with a book. Sometimes it's having a bubble bath. Sometimes it's lying on the sofa with a cup of tea and a biscuit watching the news which has been recorded earlier, or the Kardashians. Sometimes it's getting the cookbooks out and planning some meals. Sometimes it's going online for some shopping or reading of blogs.  Whatever it is it's for me and it's me doing it sober.

I actually had a 'pang' yesterday which was annoying. I was thinking about Christmas Day and suddenly had a sad feeling like something would be missing (bubbles or some sort of alcohol presumably). I was pissed off, haven't had sad pangs like that for a while. So I had to work my grey matter hard to think about Christmas day, really think about it and picture it all lovely and warm and fun despite no alcohol going down my throat. Of course it will be! I'm not going to give alcohol all the power to make anything in my life fun. Alcohol doesn't have the power to make anything better for me.  Bloody alcohol.  So I 'thought' that pang away and do now have an image in my mind of a lovely Christmas Day rich with love and food and treats where I am sober.

I've got to keep working my techniques and thinking positively and keeping my brain sharp and alert.

Now, time for a cup of green tea and some thesis writing......

Love, Mrs D xxx

Holiday snapshots...

So I think holidays are always going to be a little difficult. Difficult because you're away from your routines and security. And difficult because there are lots more social occasions and reasons to drink. There was a lot of drinking around me over the past 9 days. Did I want a drop ever? Never.

Some sober snapshots from my first trip back home:

1) Out to dinner at a restaurant.  Ordered a mocktail. Bartender bought a cocktail over.  Shit. Sent it back. Took another 20 minutes before the alcohol-free version arrived.

2) Someone I don't know terribly well popped over for a visit.  Everyone was having a wine and I was handed a bright green lime drink. She said 'you're not drinking?' to which I replied in a very matter of fact manner.. 'Nope.  Got a problem with it.  Was finding it too hard to control so I stopped altogether over a year ago'. The look on her face was priceless - she was stumped! It was great. Lay it out so baldly and you take away any heat or mystery. We moved on pretty quickly to talk about something else. Felt awesome.

3) Dinner party at someone's house. Pudding was strawberries soaked in liqueur. Felt some pressure to eat it. Asked the chef how much alcohol was in it. Was told 'a tiny bit' but having it sit there all liquid and raw freaked me out.  Decided in the moment given the potential for tension and offending the chef and making a drama that I'd have four small strawberry quarters carefully drained.  Drank two huge glasses of water with it. My first experience of such an issue.  I now have a new line in the sand - won't have any food with alcohol in it that hasn't been cooked down.

4) Drank some alcohol-free sparkling grape juice at a dinner that was so like the real thing I felt very very strange about it. It honestly tasted like booze. It was a weird sensory experience.  Wasn't nice, unsettling.

5) Was asked by someone to bring their wine upstairs as we were getting ready to go out.  It was a long walk up those stairs with that glass in my hand.  I held my arm out in front of me a bit.

6) I slept badly on a selection of beds and sofa beds (3 different houses).  Grew progressively more tired as the holiday went on but still woke up every single morning happy with no hangover.  Holidays like this in the past have been an endless succession of miserable hangovers.

7) A party on the last night with a crowd that is traditionally very boozy.  Was the last thing I felt like doing, but drank a very large sugar-free red bull on the way over, got a second wind and had a lovely, chatty, fun evening - dropping people off on the way home at midnight! Once again proving to myself that I do not need wine to have fun. I do not need wine at all.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Dinner-parties-o-rama

Crazy busy sober weekend.  Hosted a dinner party here on Friday night with a chef friend taking over my kitchen and doing all the cooking.  It was with a big group of old friends and at one stage I was laughing so hard my cheeks hurt and my mascara was running.

I better be honest and say there was a point at the table later on after pudding where I was just feeling kind of ... well .. sober I guess.  But that's because I was, and am, always.  Sober me.  That's the reality.  But overall it was a great fun night and I tried very hard to appreciate my together state when I cleaned my makeup off at the end of the night and put on night cream (terribly grown up).

Next day up bright and early (couldn't have done that with a hangover!) to take the boys down to the waterfront to ride their scooters.  I love waking up without a hangover and it always makes up for that slightly flat feeling I have in the evening when I am hit with the soberness of everything.  I read somewhere that you never wake up regretting not drinking the night before, and that is so true.

Then Saturday night we went out to a dinner at someone else's house! Another great night, this time meeting people I didn't know before. I am so much more comfortable meeting people when I'm sober all night.  I feel so much more together and happy chatting away with my wits about me (and not worrying that anyone is watching me hit the wines hard like I used to).

Our little guy is 3 today.  I'm so happy for him and the other boys that their mum is no longer a boozer. But I'm also pleased that Mr D can model moderate drinking.  Booze will be a big part of their lives, living as we do in an alcohol-soaked world, so they need to see that it can be enjoyed by some and handled well.  In addition to knowing that for some people (like their mum) it's very hard to control and for those people it's better to remove it completely.

Oh how that makes everything seem so easy! If only it were.  For today at least, it is.  I'm sure some more gritty phases will come.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Seven comforts...

Still thinking heaps about the fact that I'm sober all the time. Kind of over it but for some reason it's pretty front and centre of my mind.  Lately I've been thinking lots about how it's lucky that I actually don't want to drink alcohol.  I said to my dad the other day 'it's not the not drinking that's hard, it's the learning how to live sober that's hard'.

I keep a very clear picture in my mind of that boozer that I was, and it makes me shudder. I always think of how I'd go to the toilet 3-4 times in the evening, progressively getting more and more pissed .. doing the short walk to the loo and then sitting there staring at the back of the door thinking 'I'm pissed'.  So gross.  Stupid solo boozer me.  It was quite a solitary pursuit, my drinking.  Especially in the latter years when I was mostly at home because we had kids and Mr D was a shift worker so going to bed very early in the evening.

I also think how I was always driving and debating whether to buy wine, and always stopping at random bottle shops to grab a bottle or two. I never had stores in the house... had to get on the day what I wanted to drink that night.

I grabbed a random book from the library in the 2 minutes the boys gave me to look.  It's called The Gentle Art of Domesticity and in it the author talks about how the number seven is often a magic significant number in fairy tales (seven dwarfs, ravens, years, brides, sisters, daughters, brooms, wonders and spells).  She then lists the seven things that give her great domestic comfort. A fun exercise.  Here are my seven domestic comforts that give me great pleasure and happiness..(not counting my family, that goes without saying).

1) My bed.  Love it.  Have a new cover that makes it even more heavy and snuggly.

2) The fluffy white rug at the end of our bed.

3) The radio.  It keeps me company. Keeps me stimulated. Keeps me entertained. Keeps me informed.

4) My cookbooks.  A growing collection now that I have really started focusing on teaching myself how to cook better.

5) Gorgeous tea cups.  I have a large collection of tea cups.  They're everywhere.

6) Our rice cooker.  It's new! It cooks rice!

7) Girly stuff.  Jewellery.  Hair products.  Hand creams.  Lotions and potions. Scarves. Nail polish.

I'm working on appreciating all the things that I have, that I love.  Learning how to feel good in a raw state without having to fill up with wine.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Keeping on keeping on

Met my deadline and delivered the draft of my horror chapter to my supervisor on Friday at 4pm.  Was expecting some kind of lovely release but she emailed me back after half and hour with a 'congratulations on meeting another deadline' followed by 'start on the next chapter while you're waiting for my feedback'.  Sigh.  So no let-up in the MA pressure and I'm giving myself 2 weeks to get another chapter drafted.

Have I said before there's nofuckingway I could be doing this study if I was boozing?  Yeah, thought so.

It's kind of a bummer that the longer you are sober the less you appreciate it.  I have to keep reminding myself - Look! No Hangover!  Look! No guilts!  Look! No sick guts!!  Look! No abundance of wine bottles in the recycling bin!

Met an old friend for coffee yesterday morning.  Haven't seen her for 5 years.  It was super lovely catching up and I have to admit really fun telling her my sober news.  She was a bit taken aback at first - surprised and lots of 'so how much were you actually drinking?'  It takes a while for me to explain to friends in those kind of instances why I had to stop and for them to finally nod and get it.  Telling the story of my last night of drinking usually does it.

A Monday night.  We had decided to have an alcohol free night.  Me racing out to get wine while Mr D was out at Keas with the boys.  Driving over the pram in my haste to back out of the car port.  Grabbing two bottles of wine.  Drinking most of one on my own really really fast.  Getting down on my hands and knees and putting it at the back of the cupboard so Mr D didn't know how much I'd had. Him getting home and laughing at how I hadn't managed to have a booze free night. Us drinking the second bottle together.  Me sleeping like crap. Me crying and crying and crying the next day. Me hiding alcohol.  Me out of control.  Me being deceptive. Me being dysfunctional. Me on my hands and knees leaning into the back of the cupboard.

'Where was I going with that behavior?' I ask my friends at that point.  Pause.  'Where was I going?' Pause.

That's when the nod comes and the understanding. Yeah .. you had to stop.

I'm working hard on trying to appreciate the little things every day. Keep it small and lovely.  Keeping on going.  Sober life... year two ... I'm coming at ya....

Love, Mrs D xxx

Riveting TV

There's an amazing story that has been airing on TV here in New Zealand on a nightly current affairs show. They devoted an entire programme one evening (half an hour) to the story of an alcoholic woman called Charlene. Charlene was very brave to let the cameras in to her house to record her drinking habits, and then follow her as she detoxed for 5 days.  It's pretty raw stuff but handled very well by the reporter, who also interviews her GP, and the detox nurse provided free by an agency here in NZ.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Alcoholic-Charlene-begins-detox/tabid/367/articleID/268771/Default.aspx

The programme received heaps of feedback .. and the following night they aired a follow-up which informed us that Charlene had gone back to the booze.  So much of what is talked about in here had me nodding and understanding .... so much that I know about this addiction and how hard it is to kick.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Charlene-goes-back-to-the-booze/tabid/367/articleID/268941/Default.aspx

I hope these links work overseas - let me know.

There is such a huge problem with alcohol in our society - on the macro level (hospitals, police etc) and the micro level (thousands of individuals and their families), yet much of it goes unspoken. How many families never talk about the huge elephant in the room that is one person's drinking? We watch it escalate, we worry, we talk amongst ourselves but not to the person drinking.

Someone like Charlene has gone a long way down into the addiction - for her there is no avoiding the elephant in the room, her drinking is such that the rest of her life and relationships have all but been halted.  But for the thousands of others who are still 'high functioning' despite the drinking clearly being an issue .. why don't we speak up?  Is it because the line between normal drinking and dysfunctional drinking is so blurred.  When does one person go from being ok to having a problem? How do we measure that?

I know for me the process was gradual, and a lot of it private.  No-one else could hear my sick thought processes regarding my beloved wine (Have I any wine in the house for tonight? I should try and not have any tonight but bugger it I will. Is there enough left in the fridge? I'll just slurp the top down quickly before anyone sees. Just one more before bed. Just one more. Just one more.)

I even had to convince Mr D that I had a problem, and he lives with me!  Heavy steady drinking is so accepted by all of us.  It was only because (thank fucking god) I started saying out loud to myself and a few loved ones 'this is wrong, this is dysfunctional, this has to stop' over and over and over that I managed to get sober (although Mr D can see clearly now that I've taken the wine away what a difference it has made).

I just feel sad.  Sad for Charlene and so many others.  I wish there could be a groundswell of change in our society starting from the bottom up. All of us need to change our attitudes and our opinions.  Going out and getting hammered is not cool. Neither is steady heavy drinking in the home.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Got my wings now...

Had a lovely soberversary.

Rode for an hour on the bike at the gym watching Channel E with headphones on.

Went to posh deli for lots of foodie treats with the little guy in tow (he chose marshmallows and one big green apple).

Had a long hot shower back home and took my time choosing clothes, laying out outfits on the bed (I never do that).

Went online and bought some second-hand cassettes to listen to in the car which has no CD player (The Beatles, Paul Simon and The Cranberries - best I could find).

Had lovely long phone call with my baby sister.

Did puzzles with the little guy on the floor.

Went to scooter park with all the kids after school. Bought nice takeaway coffee.

Ordered Indian takeaways for dinner, me and the boys all ate too much but boy was it yummy.

Kids watched cartoons before bed - big treat.

I finished up on the sofa watching the final of my current favourite Reality TV programme with a mug of green tea and a piece of coconut ice.

Thought about how my life is like a pencil drawing.  Now all sharp edges and clear. Before with wine it was like something had been smudged all over the top of it.

It was an interesting day, emotionally.  Actually I just felt calm and quite at peace.

Yes there are hard times, those sharp edges cut sometimes, but I like it like this.  It's challenging and interesting and ... well frankly I just don't want to go back to being that boozy mum who was so reliant on wine.

Mr D left a present in my top drawer when he went away - texting me from the taxi en route to the airport telling me to go look at it.   A lovely broach, silver with wings.  Wrote me a card which says "On your one year anniversary. I'm very proud of you, you are an inspiration to us all.  You got your wings now."

Yep.

Love, Mrs D xxx

I'm not saying goodbye

Phew! Glad I got that out of my system. Man, I'm really sorry that I can't be a shining example of a nice calm sober person who glides through being so serene, happy and contented to have taken away that nasty wine.  I'm not her.  I'm a bloody emotional 40-year-old stressed out by her MA and her three rowdy young sons and hormones and general life stuff.  

Tricky stuff.  Life.  But shit, I'm not going to be a dickhead and say goodbye to the only support network I have.  I don't go to AA and while I like to think that I'm big and hard and strong enough to do anything I want..!  I'm not.  So here I am and here I'll stay.  I might not be so regular at posting because I do have to give birth to 40,000 words of utter genius (my thesis) but I'll stay connected because to do otherwise might be foolish.

Take a look at what Mary said to me after the last post...

"What happens when we sober up Mrs D is that we find ourselves facing the problem of living. Sometimes the problem of drinking to avoid living seems simple by comparison. Life just keeps happening. Good, bad, wonderful, ugly, awful, intense and unstoppable, all of it. But it will get easier and those milestones count. One year is great. You don't want to start all over again, counting from day one. Continuity and sober time means something, little by little we find we are learning how to live, learning how to deal with thesis loneliness, stress, small children, eating patterns, bored brothers-in-law, moving house, publishing books, working at marriage, facing illness, facing success, travelling, making friends, living life to the full. We stop looking for comfort or numbness in external gratifications like smoking and sugar. We look inward and outward, we get better at relationships and work. We ride out the storm again and again."

Why would I say goodbye to that kind of loveliness and wisdom?

I've described sober life before as being like an emotional roller coaster. Monday (the non-punctuation day) was me racing down a steep section with my arms raised my mouth wide open and an ear-splitting scream coming from my mouth.  AAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

Today I'm cruising round a gentle corner.  Writing a different section of the current chapter of my thesis, material I'm comfortable with (not like those nasty theorists that had me in a spin on Monday).  Windows open and a breeze flowing through the house.  Mr D packing in the other room ready to go overseas for a week.  Lots of treaty foods in the house for me and the boys to enjoy while he's gone. Heart beating more calmly. Thoughts flowing more freely.

This time last year I was only hours away from my final binge. This time last year I was a boozer. Today I'm not. Roll on tomorrow.

Love, Mrs D xxxx

(here's some extra punctuation to make up for the last post.. ..,,!?";...!! (),,.??!!" ;; " , . , . ,,?"!!"

Punctuation can go jump

too much coffee two a day is all but more compared with the one or none i've been having all my lovely green teas are a thing of the past right now too much sugar as well have been going to bed with a bowl of cereal topped with 3 desert spoons of sugar what the hell is that compensating for the coffee i suppose

classic reactions up and down and up and down spent all day looking at the computer screen trying to write not sure if i achieved much at all felt low teary at times went out to the garage to have a cigarette am i pre-menstrual

saw a photo of my brother in law having a glass of bubbles on holiday relaxing on a deck chair with his sons looked so nice had a pang of course classic reaction to feeling low transfer it all on to the fact i don't drink alcohol started thinking that my sister and brother in law who live near us now think it's boring coming here because it can't be lets have a drink or two energy just come for food but of course i'll be sober coz i'm sober all the time more classic sad pangs about alcohol where really this is just another day in the cycle of life

am i still learning how to live sober i thought i had it nailed so excited about one year have been planning my final post saying goodbye to blogger thinking one year is all i need but now i'm crying writing this i don't think 365 days is any different to 364 or 370 it's just on and on and can i really say goodbye to my friends my only support sherry emailed me today because i commented on her blog that i was feeling blah and i cried while i read her email how can i say goodbye to that i'm silly if i think i'm stronger and bigger than support even if it's faceless support on the computer it's real and warm and necessary anyway i know what sherry looks like she emailed me a photo once she's beautiful

don't even care about the one year in fact i think it's silly to mark it like a big deal it's just another sober day in a long line of sober days my eyes are all red now my boys are asking what's wrong i'm just saying nothing i'm just a bit emotional today and the middle guy just said did you miss us today mum i said yes

too much naval gazing another reason for not blogging any more all me me me all the time struggling to find things to write about outside of just the workings of my head because i'm alone a lot writing my ma and i don't have the same friends network here in my day to day life that i used to have so there aren't a lot of interactions to report on i am getting sick of myself but here i am blahhing on to my computer screen with tears rolling down my face bloody hell i'm going out to the garage to have another cigarette don't think for one second i'm actually going to drink but you know a sober life is more emotional and all that

love mrs d xxx

Almost one year

It's coming pretty easily right now.  Just busy living and not thinking or caring about the no-alcohol thing.  Got a bit of stress on with my MA, have been forcing my way through some heavy-duty theorists ... trying to understand what they're saying enough to write them in my own words and not feel like a fraud.

Mr D is really busy at work and has been having a few boozy nights out and that's fine by me - he can have them. I think it's good for him actually, to blow off some steam with colleagues or friends every now and then.  He has a very stressful job and is a great husband and dad, he's also a normal drinker who can have some blow-outs and then not touch alcohol for a week or two and not even really notice.

Me, no such luck.

I've been hearing stories from friends about boozy parties. I'm the queen of the living-room disco dance and don't need to be determinedly filling myself with wine (as I used to do) to enjoy them.

As I said to a mate, I feel like I'm in Magical Sober Land which is such a different head-space to what I used to be in I don't want to tip up the apple cart.  I think I understand now that my heavy wine-drinking was me not feeling fully happy in my own mind (that plus being a good-time party girl and someone who didn't want to deal with serious emotions).

Now I look to other things to keep me happy.  Really trying to not let the little stressful or miserable thoughts crowd in but try to lift my eyesight (metaphorically speaking) and widen my view to what a full, lovely life I have.  Do the things that make me happy - studying and exercising my mind, the gym and exercising my body (not so much lately as the kids have been sick), enjoying my cooking and trying new recipes out, keeping the house neat and ticking over nicely (confession: I find washing and folding laundry extremely satisfying), keeping in contact with all my far-flung friends, caring and being kind to my family, loving and snuggling my little boys as much as I possibly can.  And loving and supporting Mr D.

I cannot believe that almost one year ago I was still boozing and about to make the biggest decision of my life.  To remove alcohol completely and wrap myself in a warm cloak of sobriety.  Thank god I did that.

Now, back to those bloody theorists.....

Love, Mrs D xxx

Why I love being sober..

I chatted with a friend the other day about about all the stuff that had been going on lately and opened up that it had been a hard time 'sober-wise' as I'd been hankering for a glass of wine to help me deal with things.  Told her that I'd pushed through OK (with the help of half a cigarette that tasted awful) and things were smoothing out now and I was getting closer to my one year 'soberversary'.  She said, "I often think of you. How amazingly strong you are. I wish I could drink less."

Ok so there's a lot going on here.  1) she's concerned she drinks too much 2) she's being honest with herself about her drinking and working to keep in as under control as possible and 3) she thinks of me and it helps!

I'd be a big fat liar if I didn't admit that I love that people are impressed by me giving up booze.  It's a vain, big-headed thing to say but it's definitely one of the big positives about living sober and I'll take the good along with the bad.

Good = people are impressed, people think I'm strong, I think I'm strong!, I respect myself more, I have a much healthier self-image, I make more effort with my appearance and personal grooming (the extra bits like nails and eyebrows), I'm saving money, I am healthier, I am calmer, I am more considered in my approach to interpersonal matters, I am ensuring my kids won't carry any shit from having a heavy-drinking mum, I am choosing a sustainable way of living well for the second half of my life.

Bad = I'm different from the majority, I won't be able to be 'silly pissed' at parties and might have to retreat if it's difficult to mesh with people who are getting tipsy or drunk, I have to deal with tricky interpersonal stuff in a raw and real state which is sometimes not as appealing as blurring the edges with wine, the angry and sad versions of myself are more pronounced when they're around, I don't get to taste alcohol any more.

These are the facts.  This is what I have chosen.  No regrets.

Love, Mrs D xxx

An early start...

So the two little boys woke us at 5.15am.  Boy were we annoyed.  5.15am is THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!!!!!!!  So there were lots of stern words as we tried unsuccessfully to get them to stay quiet until the sun came up or at least one bird started to chirp.

I lay with my head buried into the pillow feeling grumpy... grumbling .. grumpy .. but then .. made myself pause for a minute .. head buried in the pillow.. and think .. think of the wider picture Mrs D .. the bigger picture .. the whole entire picture.

It was 5.30am... my sons were giggling, my lovely husband was grumbling into his pillow next to me all warm and snugly in our bed .. the sun was about to rise on a clear Saturday morning and despite being a little tired I was also clear.  Clear headed and sober.

I'm bloody 40 years old and I've kicked a dysfunctional drinking habit to the curb and I am sober.

My life has it's ups and downs, way more than it used to.  Sometimes it's tricky. Sometimes it's gritty and I get grumpy or sad.  Sometimes shit happens to people around me and relationships get strained.  Life is tricky, people are complicated, people get sick, shit happens.  Shit happens all the time.  But dammit, all I have to do is not drink alcohol and I'm doing ok.  I am doing ok.

So I got up (I'm not going to embellish here and say all day was peaches and roses) but I got out of bed a damn sight happier that I could have done.  There was no hangover or guilt or concern about my alarming wine consumption, just a tired mother-of-three getting into the day earlier than she would have liked.

I'm feeling better.  I'm glad to hear people telling me that soberversaries can be hard.  I'm kind of annoyed once again to realise that I'll probably always be glum that I can't have a glass of wine or three to unwind.  But I can't.  I didn't.  I don't.  I used to.  Boy did I used to guzzle wine like it was water.  Hard and fast, lots of it.  In the glass it went.  Down my throat.  Bottles in the recycling.  Go get more.  In the glass.  Down the throat.  Wine, wine, wine, wine, wine. Not for me no more.

Now, off to make pizza with Parmesan cheese, thinly sliced potato, anchovies and rocket at the end to finish. Yummy!  A pink sparkling grapefruit juice to drink with it while I sit on the sofa, read my supervisor's notes on my draft chapter and watch the All Blacks play Australia.  Who needs wine.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Vulnerable? Odd? Not sure...

Hi all .. just a quick post, realised I'm feeling a bit odd and want to write it out to examine what's going on.  Have decided that I'm going to buy a packet of cigarettes in the grocery shop today and have a sneaky one before I pick the kids up at 3pm.  Haven't had a ciggy since Christmas when I was indulging a little, like it was my 'treat' for getting through the silly season without booze. Some stern talk from my lovelies out in the blog-o-sphere helped me decide that was bloody stupid and I stopped before it became an intrenched habit.  But now I've decided I want one or two.  That I 'need' one or two, or 'deserve' it or something.

Also feel like getting a Red Bull (!!shock horror!!).. I dunno .. this seems kind of minor and silly but the truth is I'm feeling a bit weird and ... vulnerable...?

It's all this talk of the one year soberversary which is looming.  I suddenly feel very overly aware of my 'point of difference' again, my sobriety, my living a dry life.  I feel like it's all very tenuous and delicate.

Mr D had a MONSTER glass of red wine after work yesterday (it was the only one he had but it was probably actually more like 2 1/2 glasses in one glass, it was that big).  It sat on the edge of the bench for 10 minutes or so while he helped get the boys to bed and .. I walked past it a couple of times .. and fuck it was really like looming large in my vision.

And then I let myself totally imagine just grabbing it and sculling it down real fast.  It wasn't an entirely pleasant imagining but I totally went there in my mind.  Like .. it would be just so easy.

Fuck.  This is annoying.  But anyway...

So, off to buy some cigarettes.  You know, for a treat.

And don't worry .. there's nofuckingway I'm going to actually have a drink because I don't do that because I'm an alcoholic and I'm way better off with that booze out of my life and I love being sober and I'm proud of myself and other people are proud of me and oh yes aren't I so clever and strong wow oh wow look at me clever sober fucking clever sober me.

Sorry.

Off to have a ciggy now.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Things that happen...

I put white wine in my chicken casserole tonight and leaned over the pot as it bubbled away evaporating down.  Smelled nice but didn't trigger anything much.

They were doing wine tastings at the local supermarket - offering little plastic cups filled with good quality white varieties as shoppers entered the bread section. 'Not for me thanks', I said with a smile, then spent the next 5 minutes imagining myself explaining to her why I was turning her down.

Making plans for my 'soberversary', and how I'm going to make an elaborate cake and order myself some treaty takeaways to have for dinner.

Met my deadline for my first chapter of results to my supervisor, emailed it off last night.  Stoked! Totally stoked with myself.  Couldn't have done that if boozing.

Loving reading the new bloggers who have come on the scene and are still early days (less than 90), as it's so good reading them and being reminded about all that gritty, hard work that we do early on in recovery when we're re-training our brains.  Bless every one of you.

Woke up this morning after yet another long heavy good sleep and tried hard to remember what it was like to wake up hungover and knackered after being awake in the night with a fizzy brain, taking endless trips to the loo and feeling terribly guilty.

I am reminded constantly that things can change in a heartbeat, that life is hard, and that I am so pleased to be fully present in the midst of my extended family, clearheaded, openhearted and sober.  That is such a good thing.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Yo..(lack of imagination with post title)

So I've been a bit grumpy, had a tummy bug on the weekend and didn't eat properly for 4 days, have had two drinking dreams, kids are being really demanding and I'm up against a deadline with my MA so am spending all my spare time writing and the rest of the time stressing that I should be writing, hence the grumpy-at-the-kids attitude, Mr D isn't around half as much with the long hours for his new job so I'm doing a lot of the parenting stuff alone and my young guy is now toilet training so I'm cleaning up a lot of accidents, it's raining and I feel like a bit of a stress cadet.

So! Time for some gratitude as someone sensibly suggested to me.

1) I am so fucking happy I could scream it from the mountain tops that I am sober!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I fucking love that I am dealing with all of this shit without the added complication of necking loads of booze.  Sorry about the swearing.

2) My boys are beautiful.  They are noisy, rowdy, pushy, demanding, argumentative wonderful bundles of life. They live life at maximum level and as their mum I have to constantly negotiate, mediate, placate and nurture them not to mention feed, water, clean and rest them but I love them so much I really do. They are good, crazy, special boys.

3) I just bought a lovely scented candle.

4) I have a great husband.

5) I have many many lovely friends scattered around this country and around the world and even though I am still sad to not be close to my friends we have just moved away from I have decided that friends are like precious jewels that you gather up and they never go away.

6) I am actually really enjoying this MA work (although it is hard to be doing it while being a full-time mum, but that is my choice).

7) I have my health, aside from the afore mentioned bug, and did I mention that I am so-fucking-happy that I am looking after myself and not slowly ruining myself with booze??!!

8) I am one month away from being one year sober and that, my friends, is a very very good thing.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Thanks and an apology...

I love getting comments.  I'm quite addicted to them actually.  Every time I write a new post I spend the next day or two obsessively checking to see if anyone has commented.  I am always so happy to hear from people, I really love it when people respond to what I have written.

I love the wise people who help me in tricky times.  I love the lovely people who just say kind things and 'keep going' kind of supportive messages.  I love the thankful people who say your story helps me. I even loved it that one time someone was rude and told me to 'have a bloody drink and stop whining' because it made me mad and all the more determined.  Plus it gave me great material for a bite-back post.

But I want to apologize for not responding to individual comments.  I know a lot of other bloggers do respond to each and every comment directly at the bottom of their own posts - and for me personally I love checking back after I've commented on someone else's blog to see if they've responded to me.  It's so great!  Like a disjointed chat room.

I am so so tempted to start doing that myself, and I've kept mulling over whether to or not.  But the thing is, I just can't.

And it's because of my bloody MA research.  I am actually in the middle of writing a 40,000 word thesis!  I've had a terrible few months of not-studying, what with the house-sale and relocation, have really faltered for a while there but am finally back into the swing of things and am starting to get into some heavy-duty analysis of my data.

I'm actually meant to be working right now while I type this.  And, you see, that's the problem.  I already 'waste' too much time on blogger when I should be working on my studies.  Of course it's not a waste.  Blogging is my secret sobriety weapon and my blogger buddies are my secret support network, my home group, my lovely faceless buddies spread around the world give me so much strength and hope every day.  I love that we're all lumped together in a crazy blog-o-sphere, opening up and supporting and talking and listening.

But if I were to start responding to comments, on top of trying to comment on others blogs as much as possible, plus keep posting twice a week .. I just wouldn't get my MA done.  So that's all I wanted to say right now. I want to tell you all every time you comment that I agree, or thanks, or me too, or wow really! or some such.  But for now, I'm not going to let myself.  Until I put this MA baby to bed anyway.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Up and down and up and down

I'd be lying if I said I never had pangs about drinking.  I do, in a sad 'yeah it would be really nice to have a couple of glasses of wine tonight' kind of way. But, as all good boozers know, it's never about just a couple of glasses of wine.  I've never been able to see the point in a couple of glasses of wine, might as well go for the whole bottle.

(I just imagined drinking a whole bottle of wine and felt quite sick actually).

I've come off my high from the weekend and had an absolutely appalling day yesterday which ended with me yelling at the kids.  It was just a bad day.

Then this morning I'm all tearful about god-knows-what and grouchy about the state of the house and just feeling kind of joy-less.  It's a down alright, and it's come after the up of last weekend.  Ups and downs and ups and downs.  The normal waves of any life I suppose, but felt more acutely now that I live sober.

So yeah .. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I have pangs of sadness that I'm not a lucky moderate drinker who can use alcohol wisely and reap the benefits of a few nice drinks on a Friday night. But I can't.  Just like I'll never have long legs or lovely smooth olive-coloured skin, or be really artistic, I can't drink well.  And so I don't drink at all.

I have to put it in that camp of things that are unchangeable.  The length of my legs I can't change.  Nor can I change my predilection toward heavy wine consumption.  Could I have avoided becoming an alcoholic with a different life-path? Who knows.  That I'll never know.  I think the reason that moment I finally accepted that I was an alcoholic (you can read the post here) was so profound was that it was a deep, total acceptance.  Like a surrender.  Yep, I'm an alcoholic, that means I can't touch alcohol.  Period.

It's a bummer.  It's a bummer.  It's a bummer.  It really is a bummer.  But it's a fact.  So there.  Get over it.  Harden up and get on with it. You can't drink (I'm talking to myself now, clearly going mad here), so suck it up, put your head down and get on with living sober.

Will do.

Love, Mrs D xxx

P.S. I got an email from an online pharmacy/healthcare provider place in the States to tell me they've included me in their list of top sites regarding alcohol addiction.  The list is here. The email was sent to the 'Mrs D is Going Without team'! Ah, that would just be me.  Just little old sober me sitting at my desk, in my living room, in my house, on a street, down under in New Zealand.

A birthday party.

Our middle boy has just turned 6 and we threw a wee party for him on Saturday.  There were about 15 adults and 18 kids at our house for Saturday afternoon.

Luckily Mr D and I enjoy throwing parties and we planned a treasure hunt, a disco competition and lots of yummy nibbles and drinks.

And I thought - bugger it.  Just because I don't drink any more doesn't mean no-one else shouldn't.  Opening a bottle of bubbles can really set a fun tone I think so I bought a couple during the week and had them in the fridge ready for the party.  Mr D went out in the morning and got some beer, and I also had some Virgin Cosmopolitans - a little pink bottle I've found from a company that is making a range of virgin cocktails pre-mixed. They're yummy.

So there I was popping the cork and pouring away for those who wanted it.  A few were happy to accept and a few had pink drinks with me.  Most of the blokes had a beer and the party was away! I was busy organizing the games and helping with present opening and making sure the food was going around and just chat chat chatting with our friends and did not give a toss that I wasn't sharing in the booze.

On the contrary I was actually delighted not to be.  I so love that I've discovered that I can just do everything just as well and happily without boozing.  Normally - before I became sober - I would have gone through the whole party much the same but slowly and steadily filling myself with alcohol.  I don't think it would have been too noticeable, but I would have probably bought at least double the amount for the party and had a bottle or two of red wine for 'after' when people had gone home.

As it was I waved our friends goodbye, tidied up, watched some tele, cleaned my face, put night cream on and went to bed.

Who am I??!! Who is this person who is so unbelievably happy to have realised what was so wrong and made it right.  That's me, yippee!  Sober me.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Yelling from the mountain top

Someone emailed me to ask how the hell did I just decide to stop and then stop?  It does sound so easy when put like that.  And while it hasn't been easy to learn to live without wine smoothing the way .. it actually has been easy for me to not touch the stuff.  I have poured wine for others, sniffed it, had the smell wafting across the table on numerous occasions, bought it, encouraged others to drink it in front of me, and never once since the first few weeks of cravings have I actually thought to pick it up and swallow.  How come?

I do feel really lucky that I feel like this.  But I do think that all the re-training of my brain that I did early on really really helped.  Reading books like Jason Vale's 'Kick the Drink, Easy!' really helped me see wine not as my friend but as the enemy.

Not the enemy so much as that person that you thought was really good for you and then you slowly realise that they're actually a really negative influence and a liability and that you're better off slowly retreating from that person and avoiding hanging out with them.

Like that really un-cool person that you just wish would stop hanging around trying to be your friend when you just find they get in the way and make dumb comments.

I can happily fill the glass of wine and hand it to a friend because I just don't want that stuff in my body twisting my brain and sending it back into an obsessed place which I am tricked into thinking is fun when it's totally not.  I don't want that shit getting in my way, turning me back into that loser (in my own eyes that's what I was) who believes nothing is fun if you're not drinking. 

I actually hate the alcohol industry now for all the brain washing it does to make you think nothing is fun or social without booze.  It's simply not true.  This country is awash (pun intended!) with news items at the moment about our awful drinking culture and the toll it takes on our emergency, medical, social and other services.  But all the chatter is from politicians, medical professionals, the 'experts' etc etc.. but where are the ordinary people standing up saying 'this has got to stop!"

I feel like standing on the top of the mountain yelling for all to hear 'TAKE THE BOOZE AWAY I PROMISE YOU LIFE IS JUST AS FUN!!!'  I'd probably have to add 'AND YOU'LL GAIN BACK LOADS OF TIME YOU DIDN'T EVEN REALISE YOU WERE WASTING' and then follow up with 'OK SO YOU MIGHT BE MORE EMOTIONAL BUT EVEN THAT FEELS RIGHT IN THE BIG PICTURE'.  By now I'd probably have a sore throat from all that yelling but I'd just have to add 'IT IS TOTALLY POSSIBLE TO LIVE WITHOUT ALCOHOL - REALLY IT IS!!!!'.

All the lucky normal drinkers wouldn't need to really respond.  But how I wish all the hundreds of other dysfunctional boozers like me would give sobriety a go.  How much happier would so many of them (and their families) be? 

Righto, time for a cup of tea after all that yelling. Bye!

Love, Mrs D xxx

Whine and moan...

... and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and whine and moan and aarrrggghhhhhhh!!!!!!

That's all I goddam bloody hell do! Quit bloody whining and moaning would ya!  Blah blah blah-d-blah.

Right.  Good.  Now I've got that out of my system I can move on.

I love waking up every morning.  I honestly do.  I love waking up with no guilt, no dry horrors, no need for panadol, no distractions from what's actually in front of me. I've started feeling way more grateful for the fact that I wake up every morning after a good sleep with no sicky feeling in my guts and ready to start the day.

Ok so sometimes that day contains a bit of stress or grumpiness, but it's not overwhelming.  I think I have this belief that to feel grumpy or stressed, and certainly to act to others (my children or husband) like I'm grumpy or stressed, is a FAILURE. I have this stupid long-held belief that it is a FAILURE (use of caps for emphasis, is that too much?!) to be a grump or snappy or shitty.  That I am FAILING (that's the last use of caps I promise) if I am anything but cheery and sunny all the time.  Well how stupid and dumb is that?  I'm going to try harder to stop feeling like that.  I mean, I'm also going to try harder to control those moods and not let them 'run away' on me (i.e. get way too shitty or grumpy) but if I do act like that sometimes - well that's just life.

Now, better get studying, I've got a child-free day and should be working on my thesis!

Love, Mrs D xxx