I was going to write something to mark 3 weeks but I was busy working and didn’t get round to it. Then when I wasn’t busy working I was busy playing Xbox and still didn’t get round to it. I gave myself a few of those lazy ‘All that matters is that you don’t drink’ kind of days and thoroughly enjoyed being unproductive.
It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride again this last week or so. After the high of pushing myself out into the world to go to the buddhist centre I came crashing down to find out that the place I chose could be a bit dodgy. It is a splinter group of buddhism that have issues and have even been accused of being an exploitative cult by some ex ‘members’. They only study from the books written by their founder and have brought faith into it – faith in the teacher – which is the biggest red flag for me. I have no issue with faith-based practises but faith has no place in buddhism. I’ve found another centre, it’s further away but I’m going to try to get to that one instead.
I was shocked by the deep low that this discovery triggered in me. I was so depressed that I’d got it ‘wrong’ and so many old feelings of failure / fear of failure came flooding out. I slumped for most of the next day but did finally come round to thinking more logically about it. I reasoned out that it was mainly a quirk of geography (they run all the nearest buddhist classes to my town). I hadn’t heard of them before but I’d made the assumption that they would hold the buddha’s core teachings at the centre of their tradition as do all the others. I think it was a reasonable assumption.
I observed how I was judging and blaming myself and where my control freak tendencies were affecting me. As I felt all the uncomfortable feelings and thought it through I managed to learn a lot about myself and turn it around into a positive learning experience. Far more life-enhancing than drinking 😀
I’ve also had inexplicable high mood swings too. Sudden waves of feeling great have swept me away for no reason. The other morning I was making a cup of tea when I got back from work and I found myself jiggling around and singing in the kitchen and laughing at the WTF?! look on my cat’s face.
I’ve lost about 5lbs in weight. Not drinking (poison) and not eating sugary crap (more poison) seems to be meshing together well at the moment as the lack of the first is not leading to the latter. If I fancy something sweet I have a bit of 85% dark chocolate or some manuka honey stirred into natural yoghurt. My body seems to be saying ‘Yayy! thank you for not poisoning me hon! You rock and you deserve to feel great!’. The last thing I want to do is sound judgemental by calling sugar a poison. I know it has its place for many in early sobriety but I’m trying hard to rescue my dreadful health by going the whole healthy hog and so am reframing it in my mind in this way.
I bought a Nutri Ninja blender which I already love. I’ve fancied a high-powered blender for a few years but could never justify the hundreds of pounds they have cost. This was reduced to clear at the shop I work for and with my staff discount I got one for £54 – bargain! I’m trying a different smoothie variation each day and it’s such an easy way to pack in a load more fruit and veg each day.
Well, that ended up being a bit long and rambling so I’ll shut up now. If you made it this far then thank you, and have a lovely, sober day wherever you are X 🙂
tired of treading water 