Road trip!

Feeling great! Fun pop songs keep coming on the car radio and I'm turning them up and getting hit with happy endorphins. I'm buzzing.. my energy has lifted right up in advance of this wee 'speaking tour' that I'm going on.

I feel a bit dumb calling it that.. but not sure what else to call it.. I've got a busy itinerary for the next 4 days where I fly down south, get picked up by one of the organizers, taken to meet some people at a bar (yes! a bar! sober people go to bars!), then to the venue to check that the projector etc is working, then out for a meal with some of the organizers, then back to the venue to speak and tell my drinking and recovery story to whoever shows up, drive to a nearby location to stay with a friend for the night, get picked up in the morning and driven to another town, out for dinner with more organizers, then to the evening event to present my drinking & recovery story again, home to stay with an old family friend, get picked up and driven to another town (I'm not sure of all these drive times? Some 30 minutes some more than an hour?), do an afternoon event telling a slightly shorter version of my drinking and recovery story to whoever turns up, rest at the motel, do an evening event telling my drinking and recovery story to whoever shows up, back to a motel to sleep, get picked up and driven to the airport early in the morning, fly home.

Phew!

Can't wait. I'm sure I'll be nervous whenever I first stand up to speak but I really just want to breath deeply and take the opportunity to honestly and openly tell my story. I want to stand up as being proud of my recovery and explain how I experience life differently now that I've taken the alcohol away. And I want to talk about what's happened to my 'professional' life with this blog, the book and now our fabulous new community website Living Sober (which is an amazing, powerful and transformative space btw) so that more people get dragged into the online recovery community.

I just drove to the waterfront and got a takeaway decaff flat white (coz that's how I roll nowadays) and listened to a Tara Brach podcast to try centre myself somewhat. I want to try to balance this 'up' energy that I need to have to get through all of this busy-ness..with a calmness inside of myself. I want to remember very clearly why I do all of this… it's not to show off or for glory.. it's so that people who might right now be stuck in a boozy nightmare can see that there is a way out.

If one person imagines they too might be able to get sober after hearing me speak over the next 4 days then all my effort will be worth it!

And I'm very looking forward to coming home on Friday and spending the weekend lying around in my onesie. That will be nice.

Wish me luck!

Love, Mrs D xxx