Christmas Eve!!!!!

I am full of snot and can't taste anything but other than that it's all good!! We are away from home staying with family, doing lots of mixing and mingling. Kids are exhausted but excited and happy... and I am much the same.

Bought myself a lot of fresh limes at the supermarket yesterday so I can dress up my soda water tomorrow. That's all I've got planned for a treaty Xmas drink to be honest which is a bit slack but it's all I'm really wanting.

I've had sober Christmas's in the past where I made a huge effort to concoct mocktails etc but this year being away from home and less fixated on my drink alternatives means fresh limes and soda is all that is really required.

Sat with some friends who were all chomping into the wines last night. Didn't bother me much.. they can have it, I'm happy with my alcohol free life. It was interesting watching it happen because that was me for soooooooo many years but now I just look and think 'yuk'! Not that my fiends are yuk, or that they were acting yucky.. it's just a very personal reaction to do with myself only which is 'yuk I don't want to go back to that life where I necked wine constantly and lived like an entirely different person'.

Yes I'm more low key than I probably would have been in the past and yes I probably go home earlier so I can snuggle into bed all cosy and warm. But that's ok. I've had a good many years of late nights boozing and now my life has taken a different turn.

I did have a dream last week in which I was feeling really left out of a party because I wasn't drinking. It wasn't a nice dream and it left me feeling sad for a day afterwards, and perturbed that there is obviously still a part of me somewhere deep inside that feels on the outside (of what?) now that I'm not boozing any more.

But I've chosen not to dwell on that feeling. See it as an understandable factor in my range of emotions - understandable because the world is awash with booze and I used to be too. And as always I have to stay very focused on my truth and the undeniable fact that for me personally living sober now is the best way for me to be. The alternative is just too shudder-inducing to think about.

Anyhoo... I've got washing to hang out and presents to wrap and kids to entertain and nibbles to prepare in advance of tomorrow, and a toilet to clean and it's Christmas Eve and I'm a sober housewife and happy with that!

Love, Mrs D xxx

Proud and tired and messy and alive.

I delivered my manuscript!!!!!!! Oh the relief!!! Job done. Well - there's still quite a bit to do but the BIG job is done which is figuring out the structure of the book, what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, then saying it in 60,000 words. Hours and hours and hours I have spent sitting at my laptop writing.

Now it'll be edited and checked and proof read and checked and typeset and checked and then published in the middle of next year.

After I delivered it I felt really strange. After having this writing project as a constant pressure in my life for many months having it gone is weird. I felt directionless for a day or two. But still busy with household and kid and work stuff. Then I got super exhausted and grumpy. Still really busy. And then teary - this morning I had a wee cry on Mr D.

But after the tears I felt a wee bit better. Tears are little messages from the soul, and the are healing. Finally now after many years of sobriety I can see that feeling a full range of emotions is necessary. As much as I dislike anger and sadness they are there for a reason (go watch Inside Out if you want to know why!! Great movie).

Anyway, so now there is a bunch of stuff to do before school ends and we head into Christmas and New Years and the long summer holidays. I have a huge list to check off, about to head into town to get shit done.

I have no big worries about the Silly Season ahead. Not concerned about other peoples drinking. Not hung up about me not drinking. Just ordinary sober me forging ahead with plans and celebrations.

I love being sober. Even when I am crying or feeling grumpy or just plain exhausted and worn out I love being sober. I love being authentic and fully alive to all the sensations of being a human. I love being opened up to so many new ways of thinking about life and having many new super-powerful and grounding tools and techniques to draw from when the going gets tough (all charted in my new book). When I was boozing I was very narrow in my thinking and closed off to much of my experiences. Now I am wide fucking open - raw, real, and recovered. Sober.

Sober Mrs D closing off 2016 proud and tired and messy and alive.

Wouldn't want it any other way.

Love, Mrs D xxx

Goals..

I have just reached 5000 likes on my Facebook page so am doing a giveaway there - to enter all you have to do is comment on my latest post and I'll select a name at random to win. The prize is a copy of my first book AND an exclusive early copy of my new book when it comes out next year!

The link to my page is here.

I am just putting the finishing touches on the manuscript of the new book now. I have to admit this book-writing process has been rather fraught and emotional - for a variety of reasons - but I have pushed through and have pulled together something I am happy with. My publishers are also happy with what they've seen and they'll get an editor to help polish it up, hooray!

Other than that things are good here, busy but trucking along ok. Mr D and I went to Coldplay last weekend with was huge and cheesy fun! They gave every concert-goer a light-up wrist band on arrival that flashed in time with the music. They also had confetti cannons, and huge colourful balloons floating around ... it was fun. I milked the experience for everything it offered, singing along, waving my hands in the air, just feeling really happy and present for the entire thing.

I have been so drunk at so many concerts and basically wasted the entire experience by being focussed on getting to the bar, going to the toilet, falling over, puking etc..it is so great now to attend music events and really just feel the atmosphere and let the natural emotions of being in a big crowd wash over me.

My goals for the next wee while are; deliver my manuscript, enjoy travelling away with my family, have a lovely time reconnecting with people over Christmas, figure out how I'm going to get fit, keep using my recovery tools to maintain a decent level of calm and happiness, stay in contact with the online recovery community, and stay sober!!!!!!!!!!

No stupid, foul-tasting, brain numbing, emotion stifling, carcinogenic liquid for me!!! No way.

I love my sober life, and I will not go back to being the boozy disconnected housewife I once was EVER. So there!!!

Love, Mrs D xxx