A PATH LESS TRAVELED (by Sean Tomalin)

Have you ever been in a room full of people, but felt completely alone? Or felt like everyone is looking at you, talking about you? That is what it can feel like to be out without drinking, knowing that no matter how much you might want a drink, you cant. As everyone else loosens up and starts to get that ‘Dutch courage’ and come out of their shells with the help of booze, you are you. You have no reason to feel any different than how you did when you arrived. There is no alcohol-induced confidence taking hold.

I am generally a pretty quiet person. I get along with most people and in a small group, I hold my own quite well, but put me in a large group and I tend to feel a bit underwhelmed and you will tend to loose me in the crowd. I guess that is partly why I like to have a drink. So, take away the drinks and ‘Friday night drinks’ becomes a whole new experience. It is strange being somewhere as familiar as your local, or a friend’s house, but feeling so far out of your comfort zone that you consider leaving. It is the same place. The people are (mostly) the same. The barman knows who I am and is supporting my HSM by providing me a never-ending supply of water. Why should this all feel so different?

I am 3 weeks into a 26 week commitment to remain sober and I am realizing very quickly that not having a drink means so much more than just ordering a glass of water or a lemon, lime and bitters. Take away the familiar feeling of having a cold beer to end the week, a glass of wine with dinner and a few scotches to forget how bad today was and you are left to fend for yourself, so-to-speak. I have never, and still don’t consider myself to be an alcoholic, but there is something about knowing that you can’t do something that makes you really want to do it. Some people would call that character building, others would call it insane. Either way, it is tough.

Now that I have said all of that, I find myself questioning my own motives. I thought about doing HSM for around three months before committing to do it. I knew why I was doing it and what I wanted to get out of it. Who would have known, after only 3 weeks that the reasons I chose to start HSM are now not so important, and I have found a whole new set of reasons to finish it. To be honest, one reason I chose to do this was to prove something to someone else; now I want to prove something only to myself. Another was because I wanted to learn more about who I am; now I want to re-invent who I am.

I have a new focus, a scary, exciting new focus.

I am slowly assessing a lot of aspects of my personality and attitude etc, breaking them down and rebuilding. I want to get to February 19^th and have a whole new disposition. To get there, I’ll continue to walk the ‘path less travelled’ and to be the one standing out in the crowd. I have decided that this will be a bigger challenge than the one I originally set out to achieve, not for the booze, but for what I want to get out of it. I hope that other people who are reading these blogs will get something out of my experiences too.

Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps, till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself.
W. C. Doane

PHOTOS AND IMPRESSIONS (by Zara Hawley-Hales)

Hey my name is Zara (Hawley-Hales) and I have just recently joined HSM.

It has taken me nearly a week to sort out all this online stuff since I haven’t had internet due to moving recently. So sorry for the delay on my first post but here it is…

I have this gorgeous wooden box my parents brought me when I was younger which has some baby clothes, photos, school report cards and every other keepsake inside it you can imagine, on top of this box are a few of my many billion photo albums… Anyone who knows me well enough understands how much I adore my photos.

… Continue Reading

MY NEW MATES (By Lee Crockford)

So; I’m feeling a bit lazy this week and Chris Raine bought a new fan-dangled blog cam: Ergo, a video post! I’ve been told this is HSM’s first… oooooo!!

Lee Crockford HSM Video Post from Hello Sunday Morning on Vimeo.

Boozeless in Bali (By Jo)

Before you read my first post I must apologise, this was written 2 weeks ago while I was travelling around Bali.  Follow-up post coming soon!

Shanna, myself and Di, Sanur, Bali

So I’m 2.5 weeks into my HSM stint, writing this entry on a bumpy bus on my way back to Ubud.  I’ve spent the morning white-water rafting in the Telaga Waja River with three good friends, Shanna, Nic and Di – just amazing.

This is a girl’s trip, something Shanna talked me into, and I’m so glad I succumbed to her hassling!  Bali and its people are gorgeous, I’m not looking forward to heading back home to freezing Canberra in a week’s time.

… Continue Reading

Why do we do it? (by Carl Blunck)

Six months of not drinking – check

First weekend back and regretting it – check

Debt coming down – check

Fitness improving – check

New mind set – CHECK

I’m not sure about others who have done this, but for me…  I’ve spent the past 6 months trying to answer the question of why I drink and what does it mean to me?

In short – I drink because it’s a quick and easy way to be care-free and it means that I get to be equal with others.

… Continue Reading

Truth, Dare and Consequences (By Tiff)

I’ve been going to type this post for the last seven days and have guiltily put it off…… yes I’m sure you can guess the reason why.

I had been going along swimmingly, actually not even missing drinking and then an interesting situation came along.

I was in Sydney doing a personal development workshop that challenged me – in a good way (well a week on I can now see that it was in a good way) and had the thoughts of “oh my god I can’t do this”. But of course I knew I could, I was just crapping myself in that particular moment. Therefore, the dare.

And yes, of course I did do it, sucessfully, or to the best of my ability anyway. Dare accomplished!

… Continue Reading

Underestimation (by Pip Doyle)

OK, I have learnt something already, & it’s only the first Sunday morning I’ve said hello to for awhile.

I was really worried yesterday about the patronising kid-glove treatment my fam was going to inflict on me yesterday, particulary mum.

Well, truthfully I still haven’t told them, but later on, I pulled mum aside & just got it over with.

‘Im doing this thing’, I said with a sheepish, sage undertone.

‘I don’t want to announce it or anything, but I still think it’s a bit important’.

Mum immediately grabbed my left hand to see the sparkler that wasn’t there.

I proceeded to say quite ordinarily, that I’m not going to booze it up for awhile, but what I don’t want is a hoohaa around it, I don’t want the whispers that Im not drinking, or the supply of bubbly grape juice that “looks like champers” to feel included….I don’t want the why’s & how’s just yet, it was a snap decision that I don’t have an answer to just yet.

Well didn’t I underestimate my mum. She was awesome. I prayed & wished she would just be normal & cool about it, & holy smokes, she was better than that. No hoohaa, no big deal, just a kiss on the head & a ‘good for you’.

Underestimating my mum was lesson number one learnt.

The least I can do is give the rest of the fam the same courtesy. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

Oh & I forgot to say a very hello Sunday morning to everyone – Im having a bloody ripper day.

Finding the divinity in typing (heidi osullivan)

I have tried to write this ‘first’ blog so many times that it’s just not funny anymore. I usually type up to about 4 or 5 lines, sometimes even 2 paragraphs, and then emotions such as doubt, seep into my previously blissful centred state. Once the doubt creeps in, the whole purpose of writing gets blurry and before I can ground myself back into “why I’m doing this” my little finger on my right hand is pressing the delete button so hard into the keyboard that you’d think I was trying to hide something. The words I type are then gone, the motivation for typing them is then gone, and my connection to why I’ve chosen to do such a significant and life enriching thing in my life is then gone too.  So as you can see, I’ve not had excessive contact with the delete button (or backspace button if you use Microsoft like me) this session.

… Continue Reading

To announce or not to announce? (by Pip Doyle)

If I decide to give up on cheese (perish the thought) do I announce it? Not really.

If decide to get a mortgage, yeah, you might kind of announce it.

If something seriously life-changing like having a baby or getting married, an official annoucement is usually expected.

But booze?

I’ll let you in on my secret. I’ve just started a new job this week & it’s kickass, I loved my first 5 days. Until today. It’s Friday, and you know what that means – Friday drinks.

… Continue Reading

I LIKE THIS ‘NO HANGOVER’ BUSINESS (By Sean tomalin

Of my HSM ‘yesses’, the one I have been focussed on so far is to read more and to learn more about myself.

‘Learn more about myself’

Interesting concept… How do I learn more about myself? Look to my past? I first thought that I have been doing too much of that lately, but I stumbled on this passage about happiness, written by Henrik Edburg.

‘Tomorrow isn’t here yet. Yesterday has passed. Now is the present moment. And all three of them are always the present moment when we are living in them.
So there is no real space where you and I can change or live in except the one you and me are in right now; And now; And now.
But still we insist on spending much time regretting yesterday, or fearing tomorrow. That’s normal. But it isn’t so useful.’

I realized that I haven’t been looking to the past, but dwelling on it. There is a big difference. I have been dwelling on the things that have gone wrong, the mistakes I have made and the turmoil that has ensued, and I have been getting caught up in that very turmoil, reliving the events over and over. What I should have been doing is assessing the situation from a different perspective and then learning from it. If there is something for me to take from it, take that and leave the rest behind; if there is no lesson I can learn from, leave the experience in the past, where it belongs.

… Continue Reading