Day 8

I’m about 19 minutes away from ticking over into day 8 as I start writing this. Still going round in circles a bit but at least they are fairly large circles of weeks rather than days.

I’m being easy on myself, not trying to do too much at once. I’m working on my artwork when I feel like it but not pushing myself to achieve anything at all other than not drinking at the moment. Netflix binges are currently my friend and that seems to be helping. I know that can’t be a long-term strategy and would just be transferring my addiction but for now, it’s good.

I feel like I have a fair bit of energy and am clear-headed which is lovely. These are two things that have eluded me for a long time due to nagging illness. I’m eating low carb at the moment which actually doesn’t take too much discipline for me – as long as I’m not drinking of course – forget about any level of discipline after a few glasses of wine. I love fatty food and tons of vegetables and I just feel so much better when I eat like this.

I talked to an old university friend earlier who also happens to have been my partner in crime for a large amount of my past heavy drinking. He mentioned he was about to have some wine and beer tonight and I said I was still on a not drinking kick. He commented that the amount he drinks these days seems to be slowly decreasing with age. I wished I could join him for a drink and pondered how different that was to me and then told him mine was going in the opposite direction which was why I was looking at quitting. He wasn’t at all shocked. We talked about it a bit longer, no heavy confession session or anything but it felt good to be able to tell him about some of my worries around booze. It was slightly triggery but nothing too hard to manage.

I’m listening to lots of interesting podcasts at the moment. I find it an easy way to make a positive use of the time freed up by not drinking. Listening to new things feels like it expands my world rather than it shrinking and turing in on itself when I’m drinking. Sobriety, neuroscience, psychology, buddhism, biohacking and health improvement are my favourite topics at the moment.

Well, I think it may be time for a netflix session now. Wishing everybody a happy, healthy and sober Sunday x