Mission Accomplished. By Isobel Lindsell

Over the past 4 months, I have gained a number of accomplishments through removing alcohol from my life. The main ones (which I have outlined in previous posts) being, realising the role that alcohol plays in my lifestyle, and waking up to the beauty that i have been blind to since I came home from my year in paradise - an intention I defined in my first ever blog.

Initally I set out to complete 1 year’s HSM. This post is to tell all my fellow HSMers (not with remorse!) that I did not complete this, through my own deliberation and choice. I did think, when contemplating ending this, that after a while I would feel like I had failed. 1 year was a period of time that I set myself and mentally prepared to see through to the end, and being the determined person that I am, I thought not achieving this would feel like a downfall, something that could easily be judged as a weakness – this feeling spurred me on at times when I could easily have drank, but am glad I didn’t.
However, as time passed and I thought a lot more about what I am gaining from this experience, I realised that this is not about anybody else. This is, and always has been, a journey for me to embark on to gain the wisdom on a part of my life I felt was an inadequacy – that I have done.

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3 months down… the first big milestone… the first big pot-hole. (Izzy)

It has been over a month since my last post – Life has been full since then!

Last night I went out with my boyfriend Jack and his friends and family to celebrate the bank holiday and, privately, i wanted to celebrate my 3 months of sobriety. Since the 1st of March, not a sip of that sweet, sweet pear cider, southern comfort, jack daniels or any of my other favourites has passed these lips. It was a wonderful day – a big group of us went to a lovely pub in Chipping Norton (where Jack lives) to soak up the beautiful English summer sun (which we have had an abundance of recently! I am LOVING it!!), to watch a live band and indulge in some gorgeous barbequed fodder. I felt that feeling which I remember having when I first stepped onto Australian soil; when I was at Global Gathering in Brisbane; when I got home and hugged my family…. you know that feeling of being so happy, loved, lucky and at peace with everyone you’re with and everything that surrounds you. THAT feeling! It was amazing. The day was long and hazy, and I loved every minute of it.

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A spring-clean (by Isobel Lindsell)

This gorgeous week has been, for me, one of much contemplation, realistion and scrutiny in relation to my health and general morale. I have experienced a markedly intense urge to ‘tidy up my life’, both literally and metaphorically.

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Tick follows tock… (By Isobella Lindsell)

… time.

That word has been on my mind for the last two weeks. I always imagine it to be a movement – that life is in motion. We are forced to resort to metaphors to discuss ‘time’ – and the majority of these suggest it a form of conveyor belt – ahead just fog. … Continue Reading

Stream-swimming (Week 3) by Isobellaaa

Ok. So, 14 days in and still… I have felt no change, no intense feelings (positive or negative) related to my HSM and I will, as ever, only take that as a good thing. A part of me, for whatever reason, wants to feel great challenge – I think deep down I took on 12 months so that I would – but I know for a fact that this currently is the calm before… well, I guess the cloud! I am not expecting a ’storm’ but come the summer (which is obviously Australia’s winter), and come the festivals, the parties, freshers’ week, mine and many other of my loved-ones’ birthdays et cetera… I will feel a slight burn. That will bolster my belief that I am making a difference to the way I live.

Plus, HSM is just re-iterating the fact that everything I do and say from now on is because I choose to, and not because i am influenced to by alcohol. This just gives me extra justification to shove myself into situations where I feel uncomfortable without alcohol as a social lubricant or the nostrum to correct the unnecessary self-consciousness everyone has experienced at one stage or another… the ‘beer jacket’ we so often need in the blustery climes of the United Kingdom. Which is why it was hilarious that when my best friend Rosalie and I decided to bathe in the icy cold waters of the beautiful River Windrush, we were completely sober and were just enjoying the frivolities of life in the beautiful English Cotswolds.

There were two idiots on a bench near the stream as we were walking up it, disapprovingly calling us ‘crazy bitches’, and a number of elderly couples who found it hilarious. One would have thought it would be the other way around – the more mature sector of the population to be the ones who looked down their noses. Maybe as you get older you realise how you would live if you could live your life again. Obviously an extremely sweeping statement but… I didn’t see the two chavvy lads getting off their backsides and playing in the stream… I reckon I could have convinced the others (had it been 15degrees warmer!).

One down… 51 to go. And NOT counting (By Isobella)

So… a week into my 12 month HSM and, as I had anticipated, I haven’t even noticed it! For me, it has been no big deal whatsoever. My friends hold a different opinion though, as I found out at a recent gathering at the pub quiz. When asked why my glass of coke didn’t smell like Jack Daniels or Bacardi, I told them all about HSM and their initial reaction was one of disbelief. One could expect their reaction if I was a complete alcoholic, but they know I don’t drink much. It seemed to me that whoever it was declaring such a promise would be greeted with the same response.. infact I think I would have been given a more positive acceptance if I was a notorious boozer.

I questioned them and asked why, from their point of view, it was that they felt they couldn’t complete it themselves, why alcohol was such an integral part of our socialisation, and Sam said:  “You just NEED a pint! One day soon you will just NEED to drink. It’s like food!”. Obviously this was intended to be taken with a pinch of salt, but they too believe they have just grown accustomed to partaking in drinking on occasions when we are all together (purely because of ‘peer pressure’ for want of a better phrase. More the subtle need for recognition of the fact that you are drinking as much as the others and are therefore a ‘team player’). A mental addiction rather than physical which, despite this, they said they would find it ‘impossible’ to conquer if the need to arose. I guess I will learn more about the way it affects my group of friends when one of them isn’t drinking out of pure desire, not necessity. I’ll also learn more about how I feel, at the bar with friends and receiving more of the “Not drinking??! Are you driving? Or are you just sick in the head?” comments.

On the other side of the coin, my vow to gain new experiences was entirely fulfilled this week, by meeting up with a girl I met in Australia and instantly connected with. Bernie lives in Bristol, around 2.5 hours from where I live (which seems like nothing when you consider how long you have to drive in Australia to visit someone who lives in Brisbane when you live in Melbourne!). We have intended to rendezvous ever since I returned home from my travels, but on all 3 occasions obstacles have arisen requiring us to reschedule. This time however we both kept our time free, saved some money and drove to Wales to take in some new scenery,  to breathe new air and live differently for a week. We stayed with her grandparents, two of the most hospitable, friendly and down-to-earth people I have ever met! A week of exploring the coastline of Pembrokeshire in West Wales, having picnics and walking the winding lanes of Eglwyswrw (!) was heavenly. Every evening we returned to the bungalow to eat a home-cooked meal, followed by an hour or two of cross-stitching and giggling, complemented by hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmellows! This, apple juice and copious amounts of tea (as usual) was all I needed – I didn’t long for a night out on the town or a swifty cider… I was living in the now. My brain was not fogged with the remainders of  ‘a good night in Daventry’, I was not worrying about anything, or wanting for anything. This is the feeling I had constantly during my year abroad and HSM is motivating me to fight for it here and now. I already feel emboldened by my will, by having something in my life to aim towards, to talk about, to focus on, and i’m hungry for more.

My first post! By Isobella (Blogging from the UK)

Hello Sunday Morning! My name is Isobella.

I live in a tiny village called Byfield. I wake up in the morning to hear the peacocks squawking at the top of their lungs, to the smell of the bread my mother bakes every night, to my cats doubling as hotwater bottles and to the rolling hills of the countryside I am fortunate enough to live in. I have a little house, a beautiful family, and I consider myself the luckiest girl in the world! I don’t believe in ‘God’, I believe in love and green energy. I also believe in creating my own reality. I live my life by this motto, so much so that I have ‘You Choose’ tattooed on my wrist. Every morning I wake up knowing that today, I can create heaven, or I can create hell (and who would choose to do that?!). However, within that, I do acknowledge a certain amount of predetermination in the form of fate, or destiny, or fortune. And on the 10th May 2009, I was fortunate enough to meet someone in the most beautiful place on earth, through pure circumstance, or luck. Lucky that he liked my Nikes enough to tell me, lucky that he stayed at the same hotel… Lucky it was Chris Raine.

As of that day, learning about HSM has been the flowery path from one garden in my heaven to the next. My last feeling similar to this was arriving in Australia, on a year-long trip I decided to take, alone and free with nothing but my backpack and the prospect of my emotional and spiritual growth. That I achieved, with the help of lots of beautiful Aussie sunshine and an abundance of Tiger Eye! This time, I look forward to a year of sobriety inspired by Mr C.K. Raine. I’m not the world’s biggest drinker anyway – I wondered what was the point in my abstinence. However I also wondered what the point was in my drinking at all. The latter pondering was the most predominant and I now find myself at the start of another exciting journey of discovery.
One reason for me leaving everything I had ever known and diving out of my simple little village life was to break free from… well – exactly that. I found myself in a routine I was comfortable with but not satisfied. Having lived the most exciting, scary, amazing year of my life and learning the multitude of lessons that a 19 year old does in such a situation, I now find myself in a similar position to where I started. I’m home, I’m settled, I have a routine. Time to shake it up (without running off to the other side of the world!). HSM, you are my snowglobe.
During this next year of my life, I look forward to turning 20 and starting university, the latter I am pretty sure I will be the first person to do sober!! I am VERY intrigued. With alcohol as my ‘no’, my ‘yes’, my motivation shall be to every week, do something major that I have never done. Be it go and see a band I have never seen, go to a place I have never been… simply sense something entirely new to me. I take a solemn vow that: as of 1st March 2010, I shall not touch alcohol and EVERY DAY, my life shall satisfy my curious nature.
Bring it on – Go hard or go home.

As Christopher McCandless so wisely wrote: “So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”