I recently had a great conversation with my parents about HSM! To date, our conversations about the HSM concept have not been as constructive as this one.

The conversation started at dinner, where I brought up that I finish HSM in two or so weeks!  I explained to them that for the last month or so I had been feeling as though my HSM had been unsuccessful ….

Read the rest of this entry →

I sit here, on a Sunday night 4 and a half months in to my 6 months of abstinence from alcohol….. and to be honest, I am kinda over it!

This would be the first time you have heard from me in a while,  since the amount of bloggers exponentially grew over night from 10 to approaching 50.  My reason for this being -  I felt my voice had become completely lost and didn’t see the point any more.  I would love to hear the opinions of the earlier bloggers on this point…. is this just something I am feeling or is it something of a common trend??

Before I get back to being over it, I want to make one point clear…. regardless of how I fell about my HSM journey to date, I will see it through until the end.

Anyway…… I am over it but not clear on my reasons why!

• There are times where I just feel like a drink… for no other reason than I want one.
• I don’t think I have experienced/learned anything new for a while now.
• I feel very comfortable not drinking in setting where alcohol is in abundance.

Not drinking feels more like a chore now than anything else….

I feel like I have learned a lot about my drinking beliefs and want to put what I have learned into practice.  I believe that my journey does not encapsulate 6 months of non drinking, I will learn even more than I could imagine when I have that choice againg….. I just want to get there already!!

I have expressed my current feelings with a number of friends, which I am assuming gave them an opportunity to express their opinions.  I have been told by a number of people that they think HSM is a little pretentious as no one has failed yet….no one has shown them selves to be human.

Personally, I don’t completely agree with these views, however, I do believe that HSM as a program needs to experience its own challenge.  How will it deal with someone that does not complete their challenge.

I would love to get your thoughts on my feelings of being lost amongst the magnitude of bloggers and my thoughts of HSM being brought back to earth a little.

C

All the recent media exposure that Chris has received has been somewhat focused on how his drinking changed after the 12 months (e.g. how many drinks did you have when you finished?).

This theme of questioning has made me think a lot about how I want my drinking behaviours to change when I finish.  Starting my HSM I said that i don’t believe that they will change drastically as I was using HSM as a catalyst for change in other areas of my life.

However, recent activities and being asked ‘how much are you looking forward being able to drink again’ has made me re-think my stance.

What I want to have changed!

- When I have a drink I want it to be because I actually want a drink

- When I no longer feel like drinking I want to be able to stop regardless of what people are doing around me! I don’t want to fall into drinking in order to connect with the people around me and feel as though I need to continue drinking with them to continue connecting.

How am I addressing the issues that I have brought up recently?

I noticed that the usual blueprint for my posts have been me defining a issue that I want to address…..but nothing about how I am going to tackle it, nothing that will actually provide others with value or another point of view on similar issues someone may have.  So now I am going to write about it….

To be honest I actually have NO idea how I should go about dealing with these particular issues…. and I know that there probably is a more effective way of going about it than what i am doing.

As a refresher (for me mostly) these are the points I wish to make better:

• Be confident in you ability to make decisions
• Don’t let others opinions affect you!
• To be completely comfortable with my body image as it is now!

So what am I doing??  I am adopting a basic positive self-talk method (like the technical talk)!

Whenever I am faced with a hard decision, feel as though I am letting someone’s opinions affect me personally or just feel like CRAP about my body – firstly, I acknowledge that I am thinking this way and then tell my self; ‘Be Confident’, ‘Don’t care what others thinks’ or ‘Your not overweight, your fine don’t worry’.

That is what I am doing….personally I think that this method is only dealing with the top of the ice berg and not tackling the core of it!!!

I would love to have your thoughts on what I am doing and how I could do it better!

My post this week is really in relation to one of my major goals or issues, which I just realised that I have not spoken about in much detail.

Mental note – Write goals post….

Anyway, the issue that I am referring to is my negative body image issue.  It is something that became quite serious when I was about 10 years old for a variety of reasons.

When I began my HSM one of my major goals was to change this by; getting fit, loosing weight and achieving a more attractive body.  At that point I believed that was the way in which I had to over come my body image issues.

After almost 3 months of dealing with issues and trying to get fit I still find it really confronting and hard to; admit to my body image issues and also to walk around shirtless in front of anyone that is not my family or girlfriend (however I still find it hard sometimes around her).  The reasons I find it hard is because it is like letting down my force field (that being my shirt) and allowing people to see what I really look like – which I think is not attractive!!

However, since starting some intense training with fellow blogger Brendan I have realised that I am approaching this issue in the wrong way – I NEED to be 100% comfortable in my own body right now before I can achieve the traditionally attractive male body.   Until I can do that and be comfortable and happy with my body I wont get anywhere.

In the past when people asked me how Chris (Raine) was finding his 12 months without alcohol and what stage has been the most challenging, I always say the same thing….

“I think that he finding is journey really rewarding and he reported to me that the 3 month mark was one of the most challenging stages…”

When I used to tell people this i really didn’t give it much thought or significance, however, as I am fast approaching my 3 month point I have a deeper understanding and appreciation for what he said.  Although for me I am not finding this 3 month point challenging so much, rather  – A Defining Point!!

3 months in and I have finally started to feel empowered about what I am doing again, like i felt in the first few weeks.  However, the difference between the beginning of my HSM and now is that my empowerment came from doing something that will influence others, where as now i feel empowered to be tackling my own issues and growing as a human being.

I think that anyone that takes on a challenge like HSM will have different experiences at their defining point, but I believe that everyone needs to do at least 3 months in order to make any difference….

Recently, while Chris Raine an i were escaping the clutches of our business course, we were discussing HSM in general and my personal journey! In that conversation he made me realise something about myself and my journey so far….

That is – I am too comfortable and not inspiring others around me!

I have Fantastic family, a beautiful girlfriend and good things always happening for me!

However i am just letting these things happen to me, and if I continue along this path or line of thinking only good things will happen in my life and my success will be limited! If I want unlimited success, to become a leader, to push the boundaries and only GREAT thing to happen to me i need to;
- Push myself further and not settle for comfortable!
- Also, strive for more in order to push others around me and not rely on others to push me!

From this realisation I have though about my journey and how I write my blogs – from now I am going to change my tactics! My blog posts will be smaller but more frequent! Each week I will look for a lesson I have learned or an issues I need to address – then blog about them!

Rather than waiting for something interesting to happen for you to read about, I am going to write for me – so I can look back over my posts at the end of my journey to see how I addressed different things and the lessons I learned!

Here are the first two points I have identified that I need to work on to push my boundaries;
- be confident in you ability to make decisions
- don’t let others opinions affect you!

Keep you posted

Chris out!!

Hey Guys

Here is my first video blog. It is an account of my Christmas experience without alcohol and a reflection on my HSM journey so far…

Enjoy!

Chris Ruddock Video Blog 1 from Chris Ruddock on Vimeo.

This year, I hate to say it, but I was dreading New Years Eve. A New Years without alcohol did not excite me at all, even to the point where I thought – I don’t need to celebrate bringing in the New Year it’s just another night.

Despite this I bite the bullet and went out to a club in the valley, alloneword.

As I was driving in I was quite worried about how the night was going to pan out, obviously cause I was not drinking but that was not the only reason. I had organised to meet a mate of mine out, as we had not spent much time together in months. In the past this mate and I were very close, we travelled to Canada together and partied with each other almost every week. However, unfortunately our lives grew apart after I returned from Canada, as my drinking and partying behaviours slowed down while he was still away. Naturally I became concerned with how our night would be seeing as up to this point I was beginning to believe that we were only really friends because we partied a lot together.

I am glad to report that my concerns were truly unwarranted! The friendship that my mate and I shared was NOT solely formed on a mutual love for writing ourselves off. Biting the bullet and going out with on New Years eve was probably the best decision I made over the holiday’s with regards to my confidence not drinking in social settings.

I had one of the best new years in ages!

In the video blog that I recently posted I concluded that Christmas was a lot easier than I expected but it brought to the issue of ‘what is there to celebrate with other than alcohol’ to light.

Over the weekend was my birthday and I can now safely say that I was completely wrong about there being nothing special to indulge in for celebrations.

This insight came about while I was food shopping with my Mum on Saturday. Towards the end I asked mum ‘ what else do we have to get?’ she rattled off a few things that I didn’t pay attention to but what she said last caught my attention – A special water for you! That caught me by surprise, looking back on it now it would have been very easy for me take that as she was teasing me. She wasn’t though she was making a special effort to ensure to I had something special to enjoy on my birthday, but more importantly she wanted to make me realise that there are alternatives to alcohol in celebratory times!

As well as celebrating my birthday with my family I had a small BBQ at my place with my close mates! I must say that it is such an honour to have a bunch of friends that are so supportive and value my friendship regardless of whether I am drinking or not.

I believe that anyone that begins a similar journey will realise the same thing!!

Chris Ruddock has been with HSM from day dot. From a research trip to the Normanby Hotel on a Sunday to looking after the HSM events, he is just as into in this project as I have ever been. He is a great friend whose support and commitment I have the deepest respect and appreciation of.

HSM Interview – Chris Ruddock from Chris Raine on Vimeo.