I promise you that my radio silence does not mean I’ve fallen off the wagon!
I’m still here and still sober. Not really much to report, and no interesting epiphanies or thoughts that are worth blogging about. I have mainly spent the last 3 weeks in isolation!
I’ll write more later, but have to put Thing 1 to bed…
I haven’t blogged for a few days, but I’m still going strong. I guess the biggest thing to happen recently was that I went Out. Not just Out, but Out Out.
I was with my former drinking buddy and a few mates. I had worried about it for a few days. How would I cope with them necking back the booze? Would I be tempted? Would I be boring??
To be honest, it was mainly fine. But I am regretting being such an open book about it all. Every fucker has a fucking opinion. And when their inhibitions are lowered by booze, well of course they just want to share it with you. Several times. I heard ‘I’m so so proud of you,’ a couple of times, which wasn’t too bad to hear. What actually quite pissed me off was the way she made me feel about Wolfie. (Yes, I have named it). “To be honest, I was kind of on the verge of saying something…” “I don’t think I’m quite as bad as you were…”
Now these comments came from a place of love, I know that. When I try to work out exactly why these hurt, I think it comes down to a few things. Firstly, and I’m hoping this is because my sobriety is still quite new and fragile, but what she said reaffirmed my unacknowledged belief that, yes, I was that bad. And if that’s true, can I ever drink normally again? Do I even want to? Those aren’t questions I want to even think about answering at the moment, I’m simply not ready. I don’t even know what will happen after 100 days, and I’m OK with that. Those comments catapulted me right back to 19 long days ago, as well as making me face a future that I have yet to decide. They made me uncomfortable.
Also, she was on the verge of saying something. WTF?! She was my partner in crime! At least as happy as I was that someone else drank the way she did. I think there may have been an afternoon at my place that bothered her, (I drank a lot because we were at my place and I didn’t have to go out), but never at any point did I think she felt like that. I don’t want her to be proud of me. I want her to be happy for me. Being proud of someone for something makes it more of a big deal, more of an achievement. Sigh, I guess I just wanted to not have to have this great big thing.
So, I’m going to shut the fuck up in the real world about the sobriety thing. It invites comments that I’m not ready to hear.
Going to bed. Nice and sober. Day 16 😁
I’ve not blogged for a few days, but that’s just because I’ve been a bit busy. It was Thing #2’s birthday yesterday (he’s 2), and although getting up at 5.45am was a total bitch (considering I’d been up until 1am the night before making a version of this delicious cake – mine looked nothing like it!), it would have been a million times worse if I’d been hungover.
Thursdays are a tricky day for both me and my sober buddy, so we met in the evening for some motivation. We went for a walk and had a coffee – in a wine bar. It was actually brilliant! We sat outside like rebels so we could smoke (don’t even start, one bloody vice at a time) and laughed our asses off. The place is a bit up its own arse, it’s going for an ‘industrial-chic’ vibe. In fact Hubby has never been in, as he doesn’t think he’s cool enough. He’s right.
To be honest though, when you’re shitfaced it doesn’t matter how hip the place is. You’re still going to trip down the stairs, fall off a chair and wee yourself before closing time anyway. You may as well be in a dive around the corner and not have to pay £7 a glass.
Next Saturday I’m going to a special concert to mark the reopening of the MEN Arena, bombed in May by a suicide bomber. I’m going with my drinking buddy. Tonight we were chatting on the phone. “We were going to meet late afternoon and grab some beers and food before the concert… erm, how will you do? Do you want to meet us later? Or, you know, we could meet you at the doors…” “For fuck’s sake, I’m not a fucking nun! I’m just not drinking alcohol at the moment. Don’t be a dick! I’ll meet you for beers and something to eat with everyone else!” “OK, um, will you be OK with that? What will you say?” “[Sigh] I’ll tell them the truth.” “You’ve got The Clap?” “Right on.”
You are an absolute fucking nob.
That is all!
😁
So, the pictures below show my garden at the start of June this year. With 2 small kids and the Summer holidays looming, the thought of having to take them to the fucking park everyday made me want to shoot myself in the head renovate my garden so they could have a place to play and I could have a place to drink wine and watch them play.
I had a bit of a challenge on my hands. I got a few gardeners in for quotes. They never came back. I don’t blame them to be honest, it was like nature had reclaimed a small patch of land for its own. I was tempted to call National Geographic so they could do a bloody case study or something. Seriously, the photos don’t show just how much fucking nature there was in there! I felt a bit bad, you know, for killing stuff, but I had to start somewhere.
#1. It’s not going to get better on its own
Every single evening, after work, after the kids were asleep, I single-handedly started mowing, digging up shit and generally killing stuff.
#2. You can only do it yourself, but that doesn’t mean you’re alone
#3. You cannot anticipate the amount of crap that you will discover
It started fairly slowly, but already just after mowing I could see the other side of my garden some progress.
#4. Baby steps are actually massive steps. On Day 1 you cover a lot of ground.
I was unprepared for the amount of crap that I would have to actually remove from the garden.
I ended up leaving all my garden tools out there overnight because I was so exhausted that I just couldn’t bring myself to put them away.
Can you see that small bush formation behind the 6ft stump on the left hand side? That was my nemesis.
#5. The things you think will be easy, may be hard. And the hard things will probably be easier than you realise.
That ‘cute little bush formation’ comprised no fewer than 20, yes fucking 20 small box privet hedges! It took me about 6-7 hours to dig that shit out. And then, well I’d already used up 2 brown bins so I had no idea what to do with them. Fortunately, I plonked them on Facebook, and some woman rocked up in the world’s smallest car (Toyota Aygo) to collect them for free.
#6. The Universe will provide if you give it a chance.
For some reason known only to the previous owner of our house, the box privets were protecting the World’s Largest Bracken Plant. I didn’t know it was the world’s largest bracken plant until I had to start digging the fucker up. That took another 2 days:
When I had unearthed the crown of the bracken, a little face popped out at me to say hello. I ran inside to google ‘lizards in the UK’, only to find that yes, they existed, the one I’d seen was a baby (excellent), and even better, they were fucking protected. Thereby followed the world’s politest eviction ever, where I went to the crown every 5 mins to knock on the see if they’d gone. They finally went. Which left me with this:
A great big hole in the grass. Fan-bloody-tastic.
#7. You may have some holes to fill.
By this point, the lawn had well and truly pissed me off, so I turned my death ray to the borders…
Then, well I could no longer put off the inevitable. I was going to have to dig up the lawn if I ever wanted anything to grow there again. To be honest I wasn’t entirely sure I if I did want anything to grow there ever again, but the thought of going to the bastard park everyday the kids having a nice garden to play in kept me going.
#8. Remember the big picture when dealing with the little shit
I dug up the entire fucking lawn. By hand. By myself:
That machine in the background is a tiller I rented but never bothered to use.
#9. You will surprise yourself
I couldn’t believe that I had managed to get it to that state. It had taken me from 2nd June until 16th July, every single night. I calculated that I had spent around 100 hours ripping it all out. Then it was time to call in the cavalry:
I knew that if I laid the sand and turf myself I’d probably fuck it up, so a nice colleague who used to be a landscape gardener came round to do it. “Where the fuck were YOU 2 months ago?! Thank you!” I said.
#10. Be realistic in what you can achieve alone.
#11. Call in the big guns whenever you need.
#12. Enjoy the fruits of your labour.
So today has been eventful.. Lazy morning with the family and then I took the kids out to go blackberry picking with my mate. We stopped at 2 pubs. At the first I started to feel a bit of a jolt, which felt like I hadn’t taken my meds. Turns out I hadn’t taken my meds (duh!). My mate asked if I was OK, and then asked how the 100 day thing was going. ‘Day 4’, I said. She immediately beamed at me and told me well done. ‘I couldn’t do 4 bloody days’, she told me later. I assured her that it hadn’t been very easy, but mentioned a few things that had helped. I’m chuffed that she was genuinely supportive, I’d hoped she would be.
It struck me today that sometimes the universe just provides. I’m not religious or anything like that, but a few years ago (10 be exact, Christ I am getting ooooold!), I walked the Camino de Santiago. On some days, the Camino just provided whatever it was I needed. Need a poo in the middle of nowhere? Here’s a ditch. Been walking for 4 hours on the meseta, when the guidebook said there was literally fucking NOTHING between you and the hostel (except for another 12km of fucking desert), out of water and knackered? Here’s a little cafe that no-one knew about, and yes, they serve BEER! When I first started this journey (albeit 4 days ago lol), it occurred to me that I could do with a mate who knew what it was like. And voila, the universe provided.
This evening I was at Tesco’s, getting some supplies for tomorrow (I’m stupidly doing a 5am car boot sale). I resisted the wine, but had to do multiple transactions for some change for tomorrow (you just know some dickhead will want to pay for 50p scarf with a £20 note). Not sober, I wouldn’t even have been there. Sober, I did my transactions and ended up with an unusual coin. Turns out it’s collectible. Reward?!
So, I made it through last night, thanks to my buddy and some sober tools. I mowed the lawn, blogged, messaged and had a fairly early night. Next test will be today when I meet aforementioned mate (who called me a dick lol!) with the kids. This normally involves some form of imbibement, but I’m going to just play it cool. I doubt she remembers that I’m even doing this, think she was a bit squiffy when we talked last week.
I’m struggling with this evening. It’s only 7pm and all afternoon my brain has been screaming for a Pinot night. This is made even worse by the fact that OH has announced he’s not feeling well so is going to bed early. Normally that’s carte blanche for me to get shitfaced and do shit online. I could easily do it without him knowing. Even if he knew, I don’t think he’d bother much. He’s not a drinker, like hardly ever. He doesn’t understand why it’s a bit all-or-nothing with me. He doesn’t get it. I could almost play him, say something like ‘well, I thought about what you said and you were right. I can just have some every so often‘, but that wouldn’t be true to myself. If I weren’t writing this right now, I’m pretty sure I’d be off down Tesco Express getting 2 mini bottles of Prosecco and a half bottle of vodka. Siiiiigh.
And that’s it now, both kids are down for the night at 7.20pm. OH has told me not to bother waking him up and I’m going to have some dinner.
That right there is a sign of change. Dinner. In the last few months I had given up eating dinner, mainly because it ruined my buzz. There’s nothing like 2 glasses of wine on an empty stomach! I’d also quit dinner because I was trying to lose some of the weight I’d regained (more on that in a mo), and I knew that I was going to drink most (if not every) night, and in my pinot-riddled brain, I could swap one for the other, right?!
So, yeah I used to be quite fat. For most of my 20s and 30s I was around the BMI 33 mark. When #2 was born nearly 2 years ago, I had some complications. I’d had an elective section on medical advice but during the surgery they didn’t close up properly. A few hours later on the ward I was bleeding out, but couldn’t feel anything. They literally piled about 6 nurses on top of my abdomen until they could get the bleeding to stop. A few weeks later at home I caught sight of myself in the shower handle. I was black from my rib-cage to the tops of my thighs. I’d lost all sensation in my abdomen and all muscle tone. I just cried. About a month afterwards, I met a friend who had had some great success with a local slimming club and on a whim I went along.
I also had some fabulous success, getting to a weight I’d never dreamed of, and then sometime in the last 10 months, it all went out of the window.
So today 2 pretty amazing things happened. 1) I went back to club and rejoined as a brand new member, all history erased, ready to start again, and 2) I found myself a buddy in this journey. I should also mention that today I did a shop, built a seesaw, entertained 2 preschoolers, had a nap, ordered some school uniform and did a wash and hung it out. I’m not entirely sure what OH did, but at some point he got the paints out with #1 and tidied a bit.
There are 17 weeks until Xmas apparently. I have a few lofty goals for then:
I had a few lofty goals for tonight as well, but I’ll leave those until tomorrow. I’ve done a lot today. My one remaining goal to accomplish today: don’t have a fucking drink.
Don’t forget your sober drink 🙈.
Have sent the hubster out for hot chocolate and normal chocolate. I’m in my pjs on the sofa waiting for him and will curl up with my kindle and get an early night.
I’m actually quite looking forward to this…
Tired of mental noise 