Peaks and troughs....

The longer I live sober the more I get to know my natural rhythms and flows. Ups and downs. Peaks and troughs.

I've just been away from home for 9 days.. busy busy family holiday with loads of other people around and very little (no) time to myself. Looking after the boys on my own mostly (Mr D was only with us for the first 3 nights), driving from place to place to place throughout the days, not getting my usual 8ish-hours of blissful sleep every night, harder to keep eating healthily, extended family matters taking up more brain-time than usual, lots of planning and negotiating activities.

I'm not complaining, it was a great holiday! Really stimulating and fun. Lovely reconnecting with a lot of my family. Fun being out of my usual routine and away from my house which I usually spend endless hours in. And the boys had a super-fun time with loads of activities and sleepovers and input from grandparents, aunties & uncles, cousins and friends.

It was all good.

But I KNEW that I would come home exhausted and I KNEW that after about 3 days at home I'd hit a bit of an emotional slump. I know now from having lived raw & sober for 3+ years that a big energy output like that I've just had on my holiday takes it out of me and I'll have a corresponding 'low' in the week following.

I know this and I was prepared for it.

So yesterday it hit and sure enough I felt exhausted, a bit low and itchy and irritable. I ate bad food. I surfed mindlessly on the computer too much (note to self: stay away from dailymail.co.uk!). I felt a bit blah.

{ha ha while I was writing this I just went over to the dailymail.co.uk and spent 10  minutes looking at crap paparazzi shots of celebrities. I MUST BREAK THIS ADDICTION!!! Mrs D is Going Without The Daily Mail starts NOW!!!}

Yesterday as 5pm approached I realised I was stuck in this emotional rut and needed to do something about it. Not something to avoid it and make it go away (like drink 5 glasses of wine). Something to just acknowledge that I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I needed to take care of me.

So I went to my bedroom and put my comfy pants on (comfy pants are my new 'glass of wine'. I wrote a post about that on Living Sober - here). I shut the curtain and turned on the lamps. I fizzed up a bottle of soda water using my SodaStream and poured it into a large goblet with ice cubes and lemon slices. I lit a scented candle.

These things sound trite and dumb but it was more about what was going on in my head. I was calm and gentle with myself. I was understanding myself and my rhythms. I was accepting my mood for what it was - it made sense to me and was ok. And I was being kind.

Nothing escalated with my internal feelings or behaviours with my family. I didn't freak out. I just went gently through the evening and then fell into bed and slept for NINE HOURS.

BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!! Try THAT with a belly full of wine!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm still tired today but that's ok too. I know that it will take me quite a few days to get fully back to normal. I know that because I stay fully connected with myself now 100% of the time. I don't blur myself and make myself harder to understand. I am sober, alert & aware of my feelings 100% of the time, and now only after months and months of living this way am I really starting to reap the benefits.

And people still ask me if I miss drinking. Ha ha no way. All of these benefits - like greater self knowledge - they can't be quantified. They are immense and wonderful.

That's my experience anyway.

Love, Mrs D xxx