Skip to main content

Starting your alcohol free journey today?

I was recently asked about my experience of alcohol harm.  My honest answer was “I haven’t had any experience of alcohol HARM.”

No disasters, no loss, no tragedy, no ultimatums, no bereavements, no medical emergencies, no hospitalisations, no family rifts, no relationship breakdowns, no criminal convictions. Not even narrow escapes or wake-up calls. Not for me. Not for anyone in my family.

I was just a regular person in a regular job regularly drinking “up to the limits”. Except when I drank more than the limits of course, often as part of work socialising, hospitality events and awards ceremonies, but also at home. Not dependent, not addicted, just habitual drinking, too much and too often. Some sections of the sober community call this “grey area drinking” although I don’t really understand why – when I write this down now, it’s totally clear it was too much, no ifs buts or maybes, and definitely no grey area about it for me!

I don’t honestly remember why I had a go at Dry January 2019. Maybe I’d heard about it and it sounded “fun” as a bit of a challenge.

I got through 2019, then went back to drinking, then found an amazing new job which turned into a nightmare of unbelievable levels of stress and anxiety. I sadly decided to leave that role and wasn’t working by the end of 2019.

I had also eaten a lot, as part of the difficult work situation. It was emotional and stress eating without a doubt, but when DJ2020 rolled around I was the heaviest I’d ever been. I committed to DJ2020 as part of a “get a grip campaign” mostly focused on getting back to a healthy weight, for the first time since 1994.

So I signed up to DJ2020, started a healthy eating campaign, and increased my exercise routines : nothing special, just trying to complete the Apple Health Three Rings Stand Exercise and Move challenges daily.

I’m still on DJ2020. Other than one day when I convinced myself I really needed a drink as a toast (when I really really didn’t!). As of 1 September 2024 I’m 1,704 days alcohol free.  I’ve lost 25kg or around 65lbs.

I don’t share any of this to brag, or make out that I have all (or any!) of the answers. I do however write these blogs to encourage and support anyone, from Day 1 to Day 1000 and beyond, to share my experiences and learnings from my own journey, and to let you know that you’re not alone.

Location: 11000 Carcassonne, France

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marshmallows and Making Changes part 2

  Yesterday we looked at the Marshmallow Experiment from the perspective of the rewards we might get for delayed gratification.  Today I want to look at the strategies that the children adopted when faced with a 15 minute wait for the promised reward. Now clearly for a 5 year old, 15 minutes in a stark university research room, sitting at a table with a marshmallow in front of you will feel like infinite lifetimes of terminal boredom!  But their distraction and avoidance techniques are likely to be natural ones that we as adults are able to leverage successfully in our own lives. The Stanford marshmallow experiment is important because it demonstrated that effective delay is not achieved by merely thinking about something other than what we want, but rather, it depends on suppressive and avoidance mechanisms that reduce frustration (my emphasis).  Read that again. It's not just about thinking about something else. It's about finding ways to suppress and avoid ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hello World! Hello Sober Warriors!

I've been thinking about this for some time and I've finally come to the conclusion that my experience as "sober warrior" can help other "sober curious" individuals on their journey, whether that involves simply exploring the alcohol free lifestyle ("sober curious") or completely embracing life alcohol free ("sober committed").  The thing is, it's a journey. So many times I read people writing that they have "failed Dry January". The F word deserves a blog all of its own ... watch this space! But like all journeys, sometimes we take a wrong turn (occasionally our choice, occasionally persuaded by others). Sometimes we just can't summon the energy to progress today. Sometimes life intervenes and all our best plans are thrown to the wind.  It's also like babies learning to walk. No-one ever accused a baby of "failing" for falling over. We encourage them to get back up and try again. And each time they fall, t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Importance of Time

  Over the years I've not spent that much time on myself.  About 15 years ago I signed up for a challenge. I would be a member of a sailing crew and I wanted to be a great team member, so I invested time in getting fitter and stronger so I wouldn't let the side down. I got into the best shape I'd ever been in (with the seriously unexpected side effect of losing all interest in consuming alcohol, even before I'd ever heard of Dry January)!  So, I guess I was working on me, and obviously getting fit cannot ever be described as a waste of time, but I didn't do it for ME. I did it for the team, for US. So when the team fell apart in some spectacular circumstances, I lost the reason to carry on that path and lost the gains I'd made. But since I've been working on my alcohol free life, and also working on my nutrition and my health, it's become really obvious that I'm working on ME for my own sake, not for anyone else. And it takes up a LOT of time! I...
Post a Comment
Read more