Update

I’ve been aware that I’ve been silent for a few weeks now and have been struggling to find the time to update! But things are good! Which silence usually indicates, as when it’s good, I don’t need to come and have these long chats with myself here!!

I’ll try to rewind to two weekends ago, I cant quite remember what happened and it doesn’t matter too much now to dwell on the details – but ah yes it was mothers day weekend… I had told myself or given myself permission to drink at some point that weekend, it must have been the Friday and I bought a special ‘big treat’ bottle of posh vodka in the supermarket. The kind that you wouldn’t guzzle. The kind you savour and drink socially. I decided that as I had arranged the day before to have a top up hypnotherapy session I could – she had offered me an appointment on the Friday evening, but my head said – go for the following week then you can have one last blow out. So yes I did exactly that!

Well there wasn’t any horrendous moments to be honest, I didn’t fall down or shout of cry, but I felt guilty the whole time, knowing I was been sneaky, knowing I was doing something that wasn’t good for me or my family. I drank the Friday night, the Saturday night and the Sunday from noon…Drinking in secret, holding my can of pop constantly so no one else picked it up by mistake and took a sip and learnt my secret. I did reach out to a friend and we went for a walk about 9pm on the Sunday as I was sobering up and I just knew this had to be it – I wasn’t having any pleasure from this at all, it was something else driving me to drink, the addiction and “I” felt like “I” was being forced and had no control over this.

My hypnotherapy session went great- the woman is a genius! We talked things out for about 45 minutes, and she helped me realise that when I drink (or starve) I am (in my own head) taking away my responsibilities – it makes me feel like I don’t have to be in charge – how can I be, Im drunk / sick / hungover / starved etc…and this state of me needing to be looked after is something that has been a common theme in my life. Anorexia, self harm, half-arsed suicide attempts – all just a cry for “please help me, look after me, let me rest…”. It’s exhausting.

I realised I have to take ownership of this, no one else. If I want to feel like a strong independent woman then I need to stop stripping myself of power as I have been, stay in control of myself. Stay focused, stay healthy.

So last weekend and this weekend have been plain sailing again since the top up. I think if I don’t focus too much on ‘not drinking’ that also helps. Just to not think about ‘drink’ or ‘not drinking’ at all. Close the dialogue and the door in my head. There is no option.

Next Saturday is my 36th birthday – as we can have 6 in a garden there will be a little get together between 5 of us girls ‘yummy mummies’ at my friends garden. This is some of the friends I usually drink a lot with. I feel strong, I know I don’t want to drink alcohol. They will be supportive. I have developed such an intolerance to alcohol that it is not worth me even having one, this is my truth going forward. It’s true though, one leads to more and then Im ill, mostly mentally as well as the morning after. I don’t feel like I ever need to drink again, and that’s great, because this time last year I wanted to give up for 6 months, or 100 days….and now I did that, and now I just know… not saying it will be easy from now, but I have shifted into another gear which Im mega happy about 🙂