So here goes. I have been thinking of doing this for a while. Feb-fast was on the cards, but so was a team reward and recognition BBQ (read: Piss-up). Last October (sober October) was on the cards, but so was the Grand Final mark II, a Thailand holiday (inclusive of an 8 hour bus (booze) trip & friends wedding) & a work trip to India (which included happy hour on the pool deck every night). I even considered one of those alcho-stop drugs like Fevola is on. And so on and so on, you get the drift.

See I’m not an alcoholic, I can go 2 weeks without drinking easily, but I like a drink (or 20). There-in lies my problem (I’m not an alcoholic so I don’t have a problem, well yes, yes I do). Yesterday’s Age article could not have come at a better time.  After 3 nights on the booze in a row (big for me considering I’m not on holidays and I’m certainly not 18 anymore), I was at home after a marathon 12 hour vomiting session, feeling rather sorry for myself yet again. And yet again, hoping to god I didn’t do anything too stupid (in particular because I was out with people from work each of those 3 nights).  The black outs used to come after massive nights, & even sometimes as an excuse to deny what I really did / said / sent on text, but these days they are always real. And the older I get, the scarier that thought gets.

I probably should describe the “sober” me at this point. I am a very typical E(borderline) NTJ.  The extrovert in me comes out in full force when I’ve had a few, and you’re all my best friend, and you know everything there is to know about me (and a lot of other people). I’m very driven at work, recently promoted to middle management, and plan on moving to senior management in the near future. If I keep drinking the way I do, this may well hinder how far I can go (especially considering I have a lot of friends at work, and having no idea what I have said or done could come and bite me on the ar$e one day).  Considering how driven at work I am, and how stubborn I can be, and how much I like to be in control, when it comes to my personal life (cutting down drinking, stopping smoking, losing weight, saving money etc) I suck at all of this. My enjoyment of a few bourbons after work on a Friday (and a cigg to go with it), far outweighs the memory of how I felt last week after those few turned into 10 in only a couple of hours.  By the way, when sober, I am not an open person about anything that matters in any sense, so even typing this all out scares me (I’m also a numbers, not a words person, so forgive me ).

It actually clicked to me this morning that I can remember the first time I ever got pissed. It was just over half my life ago (I’m almost 32 for those wondering). Scary thought, I’ve been drinking longer than I have been working. Even scarier is the $$ I have spent on grog (average of $100 a session, at a minimum of once a fortnight is…. well, you do the math). In that time I have done lots of things I would rather forget, some last week, some last year, some 10 years ago. But there are also plenty of things I’d rather remember much much more for different reasons. Like weddings, birthdays, the Oktoberfest in Munich (Ok, who am I kidding, that goes hand in hand with beer). 

Anyway, like most people on here, I love a drink. There is nothing better than having a drink while at the footy, or celebrating, or while sitting in a beer garden on a Saturday avo in summer. So I will struggle (I guess if it was easy none of us would be here right?), and I have no intention of quitting alcohol all together after the 3 months is up. I want to cut down, enjoy a bourbon for the taste, and stop drinking just to get pi$$ed (the amount of times I’ve started with this theory and forgotten it after the 5^th drink is beyond funny).

So wish me luck, I’ll be thinking of all of you this weekend too (or even tonight as I have just had a feral day at work and could go a bourbon right now)

Carts…

I’m Kristy. I’m twenty-eight. I have a grown up job that I’m passionate about. I have beautiful friends. I love a social outing. I especially love a drink. And today I read Jill Stark’s article in The Age reflecting on her experiences during a three month period of kicking the booze.

Timely. On Saturday morning at about 4am I found myself clutching for dear life to the porcelain bus. From what began as a night focused on seeing a Comedy Festival show, turned into an eight hour bender ending oh-so-eloquently with myself sticking my fingers down my throat. Of course, the clarity of this happening was not, well, very clear at all. So I embarked on an assessment of all devices that contacted the outside world; Facebook, Twitter and the mobile phone. The first two clear (I am a notorious for hammering the social media platforms when completely on my ear so that was a massive relief) but the phone had shot off multiple text messages to an array of friends, acquaintances and strangers.

My contacts revealed that I was obviously doing quite well with the male population, revealing the acquisition of about five new names who I could not identify in the slightest. The only clue to their purpose was by occupation: ‘Ben Architect’, ‘Ben Music’, ‘Patrick Teacher’… You get the picture. My tail was (and is still somewhat) firmly planted firmly between my legs.

Last night I had a long conversation with my cousin about where exactly our lives are actually headed. Upon the realisation that we couldn’t work out which weekend we were meant to catch up in the last month because the hangovers were so seamlessly sewn together from one week to the next, we actually pondered if, as people, we had become completely boring. Said Sarah, “Kristy, OMG, this is outrageous! We think we’re so hilarious, but we can’t even remember much from one week to the next! I mean, we don’t actually do anything other than drinking and speaking complete utter shit with our friends. How do we even have material for conversations?!”

I mean to say she can speak for herself, I still go to see music, comedy, gorgeous restaurants. The unfortunate truth of the matter is that the feature event is not actually the event itself, but the talk and the drink. I have become a complete snore.

Recently, I was dating an absolutely gorgeous, intelligent, driven and overall super amazing guy. We had similar interests and were so fiercely attracted to each other. It appeared that we were so swept up that this pretty much could have been the real deal. Then he disappeared off the face of the earth (in a dating context anyway). What appeared to have happened in the relatively short span of seeing each other was that legitimate activity for a date is in fact bar hopping until the small hours, ending back at my place with takeaway riesling and having an amazing (I mean RIDICULOUSLY amazing), inhibition free rest of the evening… only to wake up a mere shadow of the stunner the night before: hungover, not only feeling, but looking incredibly shit and paranoid about having hangover breath. Not exactly a fast track down the aisle. Helloooooo.

So with the culmination of these incidents and too many others to mention, I sit here on a Sunday night not exactly knowing if I am actually capable of this abstinence business. I haven’t told any of my friends or family and I am not quite sure how it is going to be received. My parents are likely to have a good chortle and my friends, well, they’re a lovely supportive bunch, but given I’m one of the party time ring leaders I hope they don’t become too lost with their esteemed one heading up the party sans rocket fuel.

Wish me luck!

I broke.

I thought I could go through the three months of Hello Sunday Mornings without a drink but I couldn’t.

It happened during my first couple of days in the US for a working holiday. I caught up with a couple of old friends I hadn’t seen for 12 months who took me out to my first taqueria and I buckled and had my first beer in over 2 months. It was incredible.

I thought it would just be one, a single break, but it’s hard to stop at just one beer. Once the seal has been broken it was hard to turn down another beer a couple of nights later at a gig. And then I hit the music and interactive festival SXSW in Austin and my resolve had taken a complete thrashing, there was no denying that I was no longer doing a Hello Sunday Morning.

What sucked about breaking was that I had been doing it as a team effort with Nick and Tait from Native Digital. I felt like I had let down both of the guys in having a drink as well as myself.

I’m not going to beat myself up about it though. I started Hello Sunday Mornings to help me get a clearer head, to focus on growing the business and to get a little perspective. I certainly achieved those things in the process so I’m proud of the time I was in it. However I quickly noticed how the sense of well being that I gained from not drinking any alcohol at all disappeared.

I hope to do another Hello Sunday Morning in the future though I haven’t set a date yet. It was a great experience and definitely brought me closer to Nick and Tait and helped me to achieve my personal and business goals.

Ned

Hi,

My name is Bek and I’m in my 3rd year of uni studying a Bachelor of Speech Pathology. I decided to take this journey after experiencing a personal hurt in my life. I knew drinking would only worsen the situation and I would end up doing something stupid that I would greatly regret and so, instead of taking the risk, I decided not to drink. After doing this for 2 weeks which included some big events including my friends 21st, our college commencement dinner and “Future” music festival I decided to join HSM and keep it going for a further 3 months. 2 of my closest friends have deciced to do it with me and I have started telling the people I live with on college which has bought forward an array of opinions – none of which worry me as I am happy with my decision. HSM will give me a chance to sought out some of the negatives in my life and replace them with positives – being alcohol free will greatly benefit this cause. The greatest challenge I feel I will encounter on this journey is the peer pressure from the other 250 people I live with on college – binge drinking is a major aspect of the culture in colleges but this is why I have choosen to undertake my journey now and not at an easier time when at home on holidays.; I want the most from this experience!

So let the journey begin!

Bek

My name is Hamish and I’m a boozer. Man have I hit that shit hard over the past ten years. In that time its pretty much responsible for getting me into every bit of trouble, success and everything else in between. There have been times in my life that I wonder if I would have got where I am without it.

Right now my life is pretty amazing. Job I love, Women I’m crazy about and a new town I’m excited about living in. So I wondered if it was all so good maybe it was time to go forward without my old mate booze. This seemed a daunting task to be honest. After watching Chris’s amazing HSM video I decided I needed to do this for one simple reason.

I deserve it.

I’ve worked really hard to get to this point of my life but I’ve decided that my boozing is holding me back. Its become a habit and one that has lost all meaning as to WHY, I just do. For the next three months I’m setting myself the goal of growth. It’s going to be amazing and I can’t wait.

Naturally I’m a fairly social creature and that in turn brings the booze and plenty of it. However I’ve decided I need to deal with this and do it with confidence. If anyone inquires why I’m on the water and not the champers I’ll tell them, and with pride.

I don’t want to leave booze forever but I do want to have some distance and change our somewhat violent relationship. I say this because at times I’ve boozed to get drunk, to numb the senses and in someway escape dealing with raw emotion and honest assessment of situations. I’m not running away any longer, I want this honest discussion with myself and over the next three months we will be doing plenty of that.

I plan to share some of this discussion with you on here and in person and just want to say to all of you doing this…well done, good for you and I hope to meet some of you as we all say Hello Sunday Morning together.

Growing into adulthood in Australia, I felt bathed in alcohol,  every social ritual was glued together by alcohol and every rite of passage linked to its excess. In my youth I loved it. I abused it. I went too far. At the time I don’t remember it as a choice as much as a path we all took, a rite of passage. Now older, wiser and still capable of regressing, I want to take a good look and make a conscious choice about how I contribute to the culture of drinking and work out where I stand. What do I want to role model?

So here I am, Suzie Wiley, Architect by day, seasoned drinker and lover of pinot noir by night, setting off for 3 months alcohol free. “Yikes, really?’ Yes really. I plan to take this Hello Sunday Morning for a spin and take a good look at this ‘booze culture’ how it affects me and those I love. I will be brutally honest, and share it. Confronting? A bit, but I do love a good dare.

Hello Sunday Morning will be my wing man, providing me with inspiration, a digital home for my adventure, discipline, a place to check in, be accountable and share my experiences in blog posts like these – (thanks guys, you are an awesome voice)

So where do I start. Why do I drink? Why do you?

I’ve had a think and I drink to…

Connect Drinking is social for me, it is about sharing and connecting. I don’t tend to drink alone. I guess that puts me in the class of binge drinker. I tend to have 1 or 2 with friends, or wait for a party to ‘get boozed.’ Rightly or wrongly I love a party when heaps of people get a bit loose.

Support I often drink in support, when others want someone to drink with my need to not drink never seemed as important as their need for support. I have a habit of putting others first. This will test me. Some people may fight me doing this, want me drink with them, and feel I am invalidating their choices. I plan to tell them it is not about judgement, just observation. Here’s hoping they believe me.

Celebrate I love celebrating. Celebrating people, events, small things, big things, anything really. January is normally a big month for me so right now is where the true challenge lies. I love to have parties, do I just wait out 3 months without one? My birthday January 30 will challenge me. Australia day will challenge me. I’ve been invited to a hen’s weekend. Another challenge. Every friday night will challenge me. I love that glass of red as a full stop to a big week. *sigh*

Nurture and Love. I have enjoyed many a true and authentic conversation with loved ones over a drink, when I need advice and support, or perhaps they do. Not sharing a wine with a teary friend who needs support, will REALLY challenge me. Why is it sharing a sparkling water doesn’t feel as nurturing?

Ritual I love ritual. I have a lot of rituals built around alcohol. Pinot Noir at the beach house with my dad, a beer at the norman with my brother. A cold beer with mum at her place in the afternoon sun. BYO wine at Makanan with friends. I will feel like I am dishonouring these rituals, not doing them justice? I will feel like I am missing out. Isn’t life too short for that?

Habitat. I’m an architect. I love my space and spaces in general, places I feel truly at home. There is nothing like a weekend afternoon at home or when a friend pops over and you host them with a wine. A glass of wine in a bath with the rain falling outside the window? There is something about alcohol that enhances our connection to space. I will be sad not to celebrate some spaces with a drink over the coming months.

Explore. Let go. Test my boundaries. See what happens if I’m out of control.

When I look at that list I realise they are a lot of things that are core to me. Who I am.

Have I wound alcohol into all aspects of myself and life, is it a glue that holds together people and rituals? Can I just slip it out and expect to not miss it?

What do I hope to get out of this?

Courage. To be completely authentic, explore, experiment, adventure, connect and create – and to do it without alcohol.

Conversations. I’m guessing this will start a series of conversations about why we drink, everytime I don’t, someone is going to ask why? Even today when I announced to some girls at lunch my intention, a great healthy conversation ensued. Im looking forward to more. Let’s chat.

So from the view of Day 1 it should be an interesting 3 months, my relationship with bubbly water is about to get serious.

Whatever you do, invite me as normal, don’t change a thing. I want to do this head on.

About two months ago something happened that has happened many times before. I got drunk, I f**cked up and I paid the price. Following the Saturday night the usual self loathing set in and days of solitude and regret ensued. During these times I have only a select few people who I let in to what is almost a mourning period; I hate my life, I hate the person I have been on the weekend, I hate that my body will essentially shut down and I hate myself because there is no one else to blame.  Hate is powerful, hate is evil and hate threatens to destroy. Some of you may think I am using the word too freely but this is my experience and this is how I personally have felt.

I don’t know what was different about this particular weekend, but something snapped and I couldn’t take the self inflicted destruction anymore. It had broken me down, I felt completely defeated and I felt out of control. BUT! Ihad a revelation; I was stopping drinking for 3 months. This thought isn’t uncommon. A declaration that my drinking life is over is actually quite a familiar sentiment for me. I have screwed up that many times and tried (but always failed) to redeem myself through exaggerated, desperate apologies and an empty promise to never drink again. One of my best friends who didn’t want to talk me after this particular night broke through my pathetic tears and sobs and vehemently said to me, “Yeah I’ve heard that before. I’ll believe it when I see it, Anthea. No matter how much you preach that you are a changed person what you did on the weekend proves you haven’t changed at all.” Her words cut me like a knife. Then I decided that 3 months was hardly enough time to entirely shift the dynamics of my relationship with alcohol. So six months it was.

You need to understand something about me here; if you knew me, if you knew how I drink and who I turn into I drink you would understand that this is a totally impossible task, one I have failed at time and time again (and I’m only 21). I have been kicked out of groups because of the behaviour of my drunk alias “Cynthia”, it has taken me (literally) years to repair relationships I have destroyed, I have had my drink spiked twice (I think), I have smashed my face on a concrete toilet floor (that’s right – I was so drunk I fell face forward off the loo), I have shattered both my front teeth from falling over and have a permanent crack in one, I have woken up in a house of someone I don’t know, I have passed out asleep (alone) on a train overseas and ended up in the middle of nowhere and I have become an embarrassment to my brother and my closest friends.

So that’s me, and that’s where I’m coming from. I am almost two months in so I have a lot more to say but I thought I would open with an introductory paragraph. Also while I say no to alcohol, I say yes to faith. Not the read-the-bible-embody-all-that-is-good kind of faith but the kind of faith that is truly looking into the greater meaning of life and I am going to try to retrain myself to regain the sense of wonderment that we are even here at all. So bye-bye Cynthia and Hello Sunday Morning!

P.S. Why didn’t I start this 2 months ago when I actually stopped drinking? I have said so many times that I am stopping and haven’t that I was afraid I would start writing and look like a fool when I told the world I hadn’t actually been able to do it. But two months in and here I am!

Life is full of blind corners and one of them hit me out of the blue last week.

I was parked in a marked bay on the side of the road, waiting to pick up my Mum after her French class.

It was 9.30pm, I had Triple J on the radio and was just thinking how quiet Northbridge is on a Tuesday night… as distinct from the weekend, when its heaving with girls and guys out to party (and depending on the time of night, out to vomit on the footpath, or punch each other in the head)…

Then, in my rearview mirror…. LIGHTS. SIRENS. SQUEAL. SMAAAASH.

The police had been pursuing a guy with a suspended license, who decided that braking was not in his repertoire and instead he would try and jump from the driver’s seat to prove that he was not the driver (!)

My car was his brake. Oh and the huge 4WD parked in front of me – that was my brake.

I knew I was injured straight away – I felt the pain shoot through my back as my body was thrown forward like a rag doll. And because I was parked, I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt.

I could see in the rearview mirror still and got a glimpse of the police jumping out to arrest the guy. I thought I would just stay put in case they were chasing him because he was on a shooting rampage (you never know!).

The Police did an amazing job – they were so attentive and caring. Then the ambulance arrived to assess me, put on my neck brace and take me to emergency.

Then, hilariously, due to a communication error about what kind of accident it was, a giant wailing fire truck full of beefy firemen arrived to cut me from the vehicle (which I clearly didn’t need!).

I would have been in heaven if I could have actually turned my head to look at any of them. Mum tells me they were suitably hot. DAMN.

Anyway, aside from my car being a write-off (I patted myself on the back for being smart enough to have comprehensive insurance, since the other guy didn’t even have a license!) my injuries should heal in a month or so and I will be back to normal. Well, a more enlightened version of normal.

It’s all the things we take for granted that get thrust into the spotlight when accidents happen, isn’t it?

If he had been going 10kms faster, I could have gone head first through the windscreen. I could be a paraplegic or have brain damage. It might take four people to roll me on my side so I could wee into a pan that a nurse holds under me. But thankfully, I am one of the lucky ones. I still have my dignity, my body and brain in one (albeit shaken and sore) piece.

It’s  all these basic elements we forget are held so tenuously in the hands of fate – the things we cling to as fellow human beings: dignity, compassion, loyalty…. These are the things that get us through. We are all in this together, as Ben Lee so wisely says.

So, how many of those things do we throw away when we binge drink? Dignity – check. Compassion – frequently. Loyalty – sad, but often true.

Hello Sunday Morning is about redefining our relationship with alcohol, yes. But also, it gives us the chance to redefine our perspective on life.

Since the accident I have had two dreams (nightmares) in which I had downed an entire bottle of passion pop (poor taste, subconscious, poor taste). I felt like I had committed the worst of betrayals. Yet it was only to myself. But why is betraying yourself any more acceptable than betraying a friend? If you don’t like yourself a great deal, then it makes sense that you would have no regard for how you end up.

To take Sunday morning (and any other morning for that matter) for granted by wasting it on a hangover is a slap in the face to the healthy, full-bodied life we’ve been given.

If this sounds melodramatic or over the top, feel free to scoff. But come back to me when you’ve been at the scene of a serious accident and tell me it hasn’t changed your mind.

A friend of mine is about six weeks away from having a precious baby girl. Yesterday, some of her friends organised a ‘baby blessing’, something I had never been to. It was a real salute to the mother, something we don’t really have in our culture (don’t even mention hallmark mother’s day) and amongst other things, we all lit a candle and spent a minute thinking about everything our own mum’s went through to bring us into the world.

I know it sounds wanky, but it was really awesome.

And splashed across the news this week, of course, were the tragic stories of the young men we have lost to war. Good men who loved their families. I’m sure those wives and children would do anything to have one more Sunday morning, one more chance to hug him tight and say I love you.

I will never forget a beautiful phrase my Mum wrote to me in a letter when I was in London… “we are all human, fragile, unable to see round corners”.

So from now on I’m going to spend some time every Sunday being grateful for everything we have, aware that the next corner will bring unexpected challenges and adventures. Maybe this is the religion of a new generation.

Say hello, and thank you, Sunday Morning.