Day 52

I’m creeping up on my record of 58 days and feeling good about my chances of passing that this time round. I have had a few bursts of emptiness, restlessness and craving but I’ve been able to dismiss them reasonably quickly this week.

Yesterday I had a quintessential morning of relaxation and self care. I sat and meditated for almost an hour followed by an hour of yoga. After the yoga I crashed out on the mat and meditated some more to a recording of sea and river sounds. I had started with woodland sounds but my cat was freaking out looking round the bedroom for where the birds were at so I switched it. I finished off with a long soak in the bath with a novel. Lovely! I felt amazing afterwards, I really should make an effort to do all that regularly. Even a 10 minute meditation session daily makes a difference.

I’m not feeling physically great today though, I have a sore throat and feel like I’m coming down with a cold. I have a lot of fatigue, shortness of breath and muscle weakness with some recently added dizziness for good measure. My lower legs are also going randomly numb or tingly. I don’t know if this is some long drawn out withdrawal thing or just my untreated thyroid being cranky. I should go back to my GP but I don’t hold much hope of getting any help if past visits are anything to go by. Although I’m happy with my downsizing choices in life, the only time I regret turning away from a high income is when I’m dealing with health stuff – I wish I still had the money to get private help. Hey ho…

I seriously think I need to quit coffee because I keep having a horrible feeling as if I’ve drunk too much of it, even when I haven’t had that much. It’s as close to anxiety as I’ve been for many years and I really don’t want to go back there. I keep saying I’ll quit, but I go into an addictive loop of thoughts and behaviour which are so similar to the ones I have around alcohol. Cross addiction? Yes, I think so! I’m using it to alter my state of mind, for which it’s pretty effective but I’m definitely suffering adverse effect from it, which are crap, but don’t stop me from doing it all over again the next day. Sound familiar? 😉

Well, that turned into a bit of a whinge-fest. Please come back pink clound and rescue the world from my grumpiness. It’s really not all bad. I’ve done lots of reading, sleeping, listening to podcasts, artwork, decluttering, soap making, sitting in the garden and other such happy, constructive things. I’ll end on that more positive note.

Hugs to anybody who’s struggling. Have a lovely sober weekend folks x