Report card on the last month...

Made it through the hell month - yay! Mr D flies home today - double yay! I'm really exhausted but happy.

I'll give myself an A for effort and general parenting skills (the odd super-grouchy outburst but overall pretty ok on the dealing-with-little-boys-front)…

An A- for overall mental health.. have kept myself feeling generally positive and good, busy and focused.. at times of stress or sadness or whatever (that emotional malarkey that comes with being a fully alert i.e. sober human being) I've managed my way through ok..

And on the not-drinking score I get an A++++++++++!!!!! I never crave booze, I never have mournful thoughts about what I'm missing out on, I never regret being sober or worry about the rest of my life having no alcohol in it. So BIG UPS to me that I am nailing this living sober thing - YES!

However on the other lifestyle / personal care factors I'm afraid I get a D.

Have gained 2 1/2 kg. Am in a black hole of piggy-dom. Sometimes I just eat toast for lunch. Just 2-3 pieces of toast covered with butter. Thoughts of making a green juice might flicker through my mind and then I just reach for the toast. Chocolate buttons have regularly been finding their way down my throat at night. Any excuse for chips and dip is fine by me. Sometimes in the afternoon I'll just eat 10 rice crackers - buttered. Yes you read that right. I put butter on rice crackers.

It's not been pretty. On the diet front I am seriously struggling. And exercise…. what exercise..? There is none. Other than running up and down to the car and in-and-out of kindy/school/the supermarket/various houses & shops etc I am doing nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

I may have nailed the biggest nasty of all - booze. But I'm no saintly angel gliding around with my lithe body, toned arms, ripped abs and washboard stomach. Shit no. Ha ha far from it. I'm definitely still a work in progress.

I get pissed off because I have a low-grade guilt about my diet (especially sugar) which is very reminiscent of the guilt I carried for so long with my boozing. It's not helped by my Facebook feed being full of 'I Quit Sugar'! recipes and photos of happy smiling slim sugar-free people. And so many bloody newspaper features and magazine articles about sugar and wheat and diet and general terrible-ness we do to our bodies …

It's enough to drive a girl to butter her rice crackers, I'm telling you.

Progress not perfection. Baby steps in the right direction. Go easy on myself.

I've got through this month.. I'm going to give myself a break and feel affectionate toward my extra kg that they helped me get through without killing the children .. and right now I'm going to go make myself a green juice.

Love, Mrs D xxx

My amateurish emotional management techniques...

I had this kind of low-grade hum of nerves (anxiety?) in my belly & chest this past weekend. I could feel it there… and I kept trying to pause and figure out what it was about.

- Mr D being away and me being on my own and solely responsible for the house & boys?

- Having a bit of work on - needing to write an article for the HPA's AlcoholNZ publication and needing to work up my presentation for these speaking events in October?

- The ongoing responsibility of monitoring Living Sober, making sure interactions are kept friendly, spammers are banished to cyber-hell and technical queries are answered?

Probably all of the above. I couldn't think of anything else specifically that I had to be worried about..

Or this just what being a raw (sober) human being with a busy brain entails..? Thinking, thinking, thinking all the time.. planning, executing, interacting, worrying, general rushing-around madness?

I just wrote a post over at Living Sober about the amount of naval gazing I do nowadays and how it helps. It really does. Even though some of the techniques I have developed from all my research are quite half-cocked and amateurish (I'm sure) - at least I'm trying.

So what do I do? Well for this low-grade hum of nerves (or anxiety?) in my body this weekend … three times I literally paused what I was doing and closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Once when I was standing in the middle of the kitchen, once when I was sitting on my bed and once when I was in the bathroom. I just paused, closed my eyes and took a deep breath, looked inward and thought 'what's going on in there..?'. Kind of tried to think it through and reassure myself with positive thoughts that everything was ok, I was doing fine, there was no immediate danger and this was just normal life.

Told you my techniques are sort of half-coked and amateurish…!

But it seemed to work somewhat. I think partly what is helpful is just pausing and recognizing how I'm feeling. Acknowledging it .. recognizing it.. accepting it.

And in the end I got through just fine.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Soberversary breakfast..

I've got the most gorgeous photo of my sons approaching the bedroom on Saturday morning with my soberversary breakfast. Son #1 was holding a tray with my card on it (I shared the picture they drew on  Facebook) and a bagel that had been warmed in the toaster then covered with cream cheese. Son #2 was holding a mug of tea in one hand (made with lukewarm water, I don't think they waited for the jug to actually boil) and a glass of orange juice in the other hand. And son #3 was holding a new cookbook for me behind his back.

It was all organized by Mr D before he went away for the weekend and executed by the boys themselves. It was so cute!! I'd been under strict instructions not to get out of bed .. so I'd been lying there in the half dark listening to them get it sorted .. and thankfully thought to grab my phone and snap a photo as they approached the door. I've got it set as my wallpaper now. I love it. They all look so excited and cute.

Taking a soberversary breakfast to their mum.

What does this mean for their lives? They know that mum going 3 years without alcohol is something big and fun to celebrate. Obviously they don't fully understand alcohol and addiction .. but they know there is an element of danger attached to booze, and they seem to have a strange deep knowledge that mum is doing something big by not drinking any more. I don't know how exactly this translates in their minds but I know they are really proud of me. I can see it in their faces. They understand just enough to know it's a big deal.

It is a big deal.

I love that my boys are growing up with the full facts about booze - that it can be fun and enjoyable but it has a dark side. I love that they know alcohol can affect people differently - that they have a mum who doesn't drink alcohol and is open about why that is ("because I can't control it, because once I start drinking it I find it very hard to stop") and they have a dad who models moderate drinking.

They'll all try alcohol.. one or more of them might have 'the gene' (is there such a thing?) and go through a period of drinking too much..? Maybe..? Maybe one or more of them won't drink much at all..? Who knows..? Maybe the world will change dramatically in the next 10-20 years and alcohol won't be as prevalent and wedded into our society then as it is now. I don't know.

All I know is that right now we are bringing up our boys with full knowledge about the pros and cons of booze, and an understanding of the importance of honesty and self-awareness. And as parents that's all we can do.

That, and teach them how to boil the jug.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Almost 3 years sober!

I'd give myself a B- right now on my targets for this intense month of parenting without Mr D around. I'm managing ok. Me and the boys have set some very clear rules about behavior and they're doing ok. They're busy, boisterous boys - completely self-absorbed, wonderful creatures in development - and we're muddling along ok.

Yes sometimes I yell but that's just a fact of life and I'm not going to beat myself up about it too much. It's ordinary yelling I'm sure and there are loads of hugs and calm interactions going on during the days as well. Every evening ends with a sober me chatting with each boy in bed, reading a story or having a cuddle and I'm happy about that.

Every night when I walk out of each boys room I say 'I love you', and in that moment I am thankful for being sober, it's a very good moment to practice sober gratitude. I'm very present now at that 8pm-ish point in the night and I never used to be because I had a drug in my system. Sorry to be so blunt about that but that's how I call it now. Alcohol is a drug and when I drank alcohol I was under the influence of that drug. Even one wine makes a difference. Only now that I have no alcohol at all in my life can I see what an impact that drug made to my connectedness.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love being sober?

So anyway the parenting is going fine but the self-care not so much. It's the bloody sugar again. I just wrote a post over at Living Sober about this.. you can read it here. I've been a very bad girl. So starting today I am sugar-free for September.

Take that you fucking Sugar Witch living inside of me!!!!! I'm going to starve you to death!!!!!!! I'm going to stare you down and resist your cravings and in doing so I am going to feel strong and good once more!!!!!

I am three years sober on Saturday. Hhhmm what to do, what to do..? Maybe not much at all. Maybe just have a lovely ordinary sober day. Maybe just kiss my boys goodnight with an 'I love you' and feel just so happy that I have that shit booze out of my life.

Yes. That is enough.

Love, Mrs D xxx