So, six months post HSM.

HSM was a great platform for me, during my HSM Journey I reflected on allot of things, so I figured in this post I’d touch on many of those things.

Hello Sunday Morning: Hello indeed. One of the first things anyone thinks about when they start drinking is the hangover they might end up with. In the year before I started HSM I think, at a quick guesstimate I managed to waste at least 39 Sundays being hung over and in bed. I’m not really conscious of the time I waste because of drinking, I’m not talking about the night of enjoyment but just choosing not to waste the day in bed makes a real difference to my life. Aside from this my weeks are better, I feel my focused on what I want now, I know where I want to be and I use my time away from my paid work more effectivly, before HSM I spent alot of this time drunk, now I spend it focusing on my business, fitness and family.

Alcohol as a social Lubricant: Prior to HSM I used alcohol to ease things in a little when it came to socialising, it was easier to relax when I was drinking, it was easier because I felt a part of something.  After the first few months of HSM I came to the conclusion that just being somewhere was enough, if someone invited me, it was for me, if they expected me to drink, then they could shove it because I no longer had to rise to their expectations and my own expectations had changed, I no longer expected that not drinking would make things harder, I accepted that it shouldn’t. HSM gave me a great confidence, I could dance without caring, voice my opinion without reprimand and best of all I could chose my own path for a weekend. I was no longer locked into the back to back weekends of drunkenness and partying, and oddly enough, it felt good, it felt better.

I’ll miss out if I don’t drink: Once I got used to the notion that I didn’t need alcohol to have fun, this idea became completely ridiculous. I didn’t miss out, actually I gained. I have more energy when
I’m not drinking and I look after myself far better so I’m ready and willing to back up another all nighter.

Alcohol and City Crime: Go figure, and article in this week’s Border Mail (Albury Wodonga’s local rag) states that after two years of declining numbers of assaults in the city, violence is now on the rise. A total number of 439 assaults were recorded in my “lovely” local city in the past year, and I assume that these numbers might even be higher considering the number of assaults which I can only presume would go unreported. Apparently messages in relation to alcohol related violence were “not getting through”. After spending countless nights out sober in Albury over the past 9 months, it doesn’t surprise me at all really. Apparently we are a city in crisis, and no one really knows why, but the issue seems to lie with those consuming the alcohol and whether or not they take responsibility for their actions. Now, I know there is always the argument that maybe those involved aren’t just on the juice, but more so the powder and pills too, but I think socially as alcohol consumers we really suck at looking after ourselves and making sure that we aren’t the ones at the pub arguing with the bloke who looked at us for too long or power spewing on the dance floor.

Alcohol is an excuse for my bad actions: No, it’s not, and anyone out there who is telling themselves it is, is an idiot and needs to reconsider their personal values (harsh statement right..). Post HSM I have some regrets, I’ve looked back and realised that some of the things I’ve done when I was drinking were just plain stupid, they were all me and I chose to do them (not the alcohol I had in my system at the time) I just thought it gave me an excuse to be a dickhead and it didn’t.

More alcohol means more fun: When I used to go on a holiday, I would always factor in my alcohol consumption. If I’m going to Mackay for 2 weeks, I will drink 10 nights at $45 per night so ill need $450 for alcohol. About 38 days into HSM, I started to think about the atmosphere and how it influences things, how when I was 14 and drinking, 3 drinks was enough, the atmosphere and the taboo were enough to make up for everything else. Now I realise that in some cases more alcohol might mean more fun, but in most it doesn’t and that self medicating ones way through a crappy situation by drinking really isn’t good for you.

The ‘friends’ you drink with: This was something I didn’t enjoy about HSM, finding out who my real friends were. I’d grown up with a few people, spent the bigger part of my life drinking with them every weekend, they were my best mates. But after I started HSM I realised that these people couldn’t give two hoots. Sure they were there, and I saw them 3 nights a week, and I enjoyed my time with them immensely, but once I stopped drinking, and subsequently hanging out with them 3 nights a week, we weren’t so important to each other anymore. I couldn’t ring them if my pop died, I couldn’t ask them to look after my dog while I was away, and really, they couldn’t expect those things of me. We were drinking acquaintances.

Alcohol and Love: You’re at the club (you know the trashy one, where all the leechy guys hang out and the girls all wear miniskirts and push up bras). Rhianna – Only Girl (in the world) is playing and your mackin’ strong with some cute guy you picked up, thinking “I wonder if he’ll call me, should I go home with him”, it’s a typical night really. For all those people out there who are searching for the love of your life at the pub, you probably won’t find it, and sucking face with someone and giving part of your self esteem away won’t help either. While doing HSM I had to opportunity to go into a pub and look at just how many people are only there to sleeze onto another person and have some quick action. Alcohol probably won’t help you find your true love, and sometimes using it to “loosen up a little” might just result in you being “too loose”…

After all of this I can say, YES, I STILL DRINK, nowhere near as much nor as often as I did before, but I enjoy it more, I don’t spend hundreds of dollars when I go out, I just buy a few drinks that I actually like the taste of and I stop when I stop enjoying them.

HSM helped me to learn that not drinking is ok, it’s easy to get swept up in our drinking culture and to really go overboard. I know that  in many ways doing HSM can make a person a little cocky about their relationship with alcohol, but there is a sense of value that HSM can bring to you personally and I think that any individual considering HSM should really get out there and just do it, give it a chance, you’ll probably enjoy it. HSM helped me to appreciate one drink. Just one, or maybe two. And to appreciate who I spend the consumption of that drink with.

Sunday Better Spent

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Officially, my Hello Sunday Morning is over, sigh.

Hello Sunday Morning has been an integral part of my life, something which I am very sad to say goodbye to, it has given me the opportunity to explore areas of my life which I have never explored before. And has given me a forum for voicing truths.

HSM has been the platform for teaching me a whole bunch of things, many which sound a little cliché.. these are the things I’ve come to preach while doing Hello Sunday Morning:

• “Confidence is the key” Anonymous – Confidence is amazing, learning to love yourself enough to be able to dance on a dance floor sober, jump around and say stupid things without alcohol is a gift. Being able to laugh at yourself is a really wonderful thing.

• “No amount of sugar filled non alcoholic drinks will help you blur out the mess that is The Capital Nightclub Wagga Wagga” Mel Armstrong – that place is the pits! (Except Corey the bartender, Corey you are cool) Further to this I have learnt, if there is a place that is so pitiful you have to drink to get through it, just don’t go there, don’t do it! If its shit, go somewhere else! Your night will not get any better, no matter how much you drink, a shit venue is a shit venue, that is that.

• “Life is full of beauty” Ashley Smith – Beauty is remembering something simple from your childhood. Beauty is seeing someone on the train with the same T-Shirt as you. Beauty is seeing someone having a bad day at 8am and it bringing a smile to your face. Beauty is being at the pub in winter, with two hoodies on and wearing your favourite sneakers while seeing girls walking around in singlet tops, short skirts and heels and laughing into your coke. Beauty is not a drunk girl at the pub with her rack out.

• “ The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process” – Barbara Colorose. People’s reactions to HSM are most intriguing. Some of you have said that HSM is some pretentious wank, a bunch of exhibitionists wanting to feel good about themselves, but it’s so much more than that. It’s about choice, it’s about empowering  people to make their own choices, it’s not about stopping drinking forever and it’s not about telling people to drink less, it’s about  empowering each other to make choices.
  On the flip side, many people have said that watching the Hello Sunday Morning experience has enabled them to assess their own drinking culture, this is what HSM is about.
  Thanks to Chris Raine,  (http://hellosundaymorning.com.au/category/chris/ ) for creating this,  you have allowed so many people to “pick up what you have put down” and opened this great forum for discussion, online and in person.

• “A goal without a plan is just a wish” Ivan Campuzano – When I began HSM I had a few goals, the most important was to somehow receive a shred of understanding on how my Dads addiction with alcohol would be relevant to a social environment and the things he may have had to experience. Alas, I understand little. But what I do know now is allot about how people view social drinking and interaction and how much drinking has become a complex part of our culture. We drink for a range of reasons. Plenty of which are not positive, and quite often we mask this with false confidence. When it comes to my Dad, I am so proud. I’m proud of his voice, and I’m proud of his honesty. My father is a man who lives by his convictions. He will always candidly tell you about his past, guts and all. I experienced some judgement when it came to doing HSM, allot of people assumed I was a reformed alcoholic of sorts, something which they spoke of like it was a dirty word, I’m sure this is something which my Dad had to deal with allot, it helps me to understand how easy it is for life to be full of false starts and I now think that Binge Drinking is in many ways dirtier then Alcohol addiction.

• “Truth is what stands the test of experience” Albert Einstein – Exposing yourself and your truth to others can be an amazingly beneficial process. Honesty is something we rarely reveal and in delivering it we get to create truthful and progressive relationships with those around us.

• “Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us”. Peter De Vries  – The hardest part about HSM is not having one drink, just one, being able to enjoy the sweet taste of a wine, or being able to try a sip of some freshly opened liquor.. oddly enough, after HSM the hardest part is still not having one. My view of one drink has now changed. One drink is pointless, one drink is an unnecessary intake of kilojoules, I don’t understand the point of it now, it has lost it’s appeal, one drink will give me nothing I didn’t already have, water tastes better and is not full of sugar.

• “The children are watching us” Di Sica – I’ve become a firm believer we as adults need to take responsibility for what we create an inspire in the next generations, a pre-loved family member of mine likes to harp on about how dysfunctional and misguided the youth of today is, hello? we as youth are apart of what you made! As young adults, we have to be responsible for this.

•  “You need to be willing to give everything up, even other people to be comfortable with just yourself. When you can get to that place. You start qualifying people and things as to whether they will add value in your life or not, with a willingness to not have them at all” Chris Raine. I’ve lost friends over Hello Sunday Morning, and I am happy.

HSM has allowed me to come to the conclusion that sometimes you’ve just got to allow yourself, to follow your feelings and respect your own impulses, even if you can’t fully explain or justify them. If something feels right, it’s right.

I don’t know what’s in store post HSM, drinking socially again will certainly teach me some more things.. I’ll keep you all posted, until next time, be yourself and live by those silly cliché quotations which give you motivation.  And watch this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI , Mary Schmich with Baz Luhrmann WILL make you smile.

The start of unnecessay intake.

This weekend past I had the amazing opportunity to meet some fellow HSM Bloggers, being a tad isolated down south, it was definitely a treat. I met Chris and Gabe at Bimbos in Melbourne, it’s a dark and romantic kind of pub which serves super cheap pizzas.

Meeting Gabe and Chris was pretty super, it was close to one of the strangest encounters I’ve had since starting Hello Sunday Morning because it occurred to me that it was the first time in 3 months that I’ve met people socially who I haven’t had to explain that I’m not drinking to, and why. And surprisingly, we didn’t fluff on about HSM much at all. It was casual, fun and spontaneous – all of the things you want from a night out, and all of the things I feel I’ve become better at since starting HSM.

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I’ve loved HSM so far, and not had many nervous jitters, it’s been almost blissful, until now.

The past week for me has been particularly shitty, tears and all for a number of reasons:

1. I’m  nearing the end of my Hello Sunday Morning journey and I’m starting to think allot about how HSM has affected my current life, and whether I’m getting everything I can out of this Hello Sunday Morning experience.

2. Shit is hitting the fan – Apparently Autumn is the opposite of Spring when it comes to ‘the seasons of love’, its ‘breakup season’, some of my mates are having tough times and it’s got me thinking.

3. I’m a girl – Emotions are a crazy hormone driven ride of psychosis.

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So I’m on the home stretch now, not far till the end, 37 days in total, so I thought I would focus on the major positive things which HSM has helped me to obtain.

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Something I neglected to mention in my last post, was a little incident which occurred on the Tuesday  (the day after  VIC public holiday) I didn’t mention it because I hadn’t considered it relevant until much later.

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Hi I’m Mel (most people dont know my real name though, I’m really ‘Shorty’ &  have been for 11 years), I’m 21 years old, I come from regional NSW, the border city of ‘Albury/ Wodonga’, I grew up in a neighbouring town called Jindera, population 4000. I’ve had a normal life, grew up in a working class family with great values and ethics,  a younger brother, a dog and AMAZING parents (and step parent too). I finished my HSC in 2005 and got a full time job, bought a unit and RESPONSIBILITY. I’m a Disability Support Worker, I work in day and residential programmes with adults with disabilities. I also own my own part time, design and jewellery business (much effort).  I live for live music, AFL football matches, outdoor adventures, travelling, afternoon stubbies of ‘Old’ and  Fruity lexia (‘cos it makes you sexier). Today is my first REAL day of HSM.

I began my Hello Sunday Morning journey in October 2009, well, it was a false start, I intended on starting HSM but I didn’t want to commit to being locked into the obligation of not drinking, partly because I would be obligated, and being obligated would make it harder, also because I would miss plenty of ‘big’ events, more so, miss out on drinking at these big events. Now I’ve decided it’s an inevitable part of my HSM journey,  that I will miss out on drinking at a number of social events, regardless of when I start.

Alcohol, for me, is a social lubricant, I can survive without it but I suppose like everyone I do drink to feel included, mainly weekends, but I also have my mid week drinks, and the occasional after work piss-up. Drinking is something I’ve always had around me,  My father was an alcoholic, because of this I’m the luckiest person I know.

Despite my Dads choices (no, not mistakes, just life) my brother and I never went without, we were given the best chance at every opportunity available, we have both been able to learn and mature greatly from our experiences. A big part of our exposure to alcohol was respect, Dad knew he had a problem and he always explained that with any addictive substance, when you use it, you have to learn how to respect it, and if you ever forget, you might end up like him.

In 1999 my Dad set off, 2313.4 km’s north, to Townsville to attend a rehab centre. Dad was alcohol free for 3 years, and oddly addiction free for 11 years.  Part of my HSM journey is being able to somehow have some idea, a true respect and appreciation of some of what an addict, my Dad, had to go through and experience, socially and emotionally, it’s important for me, even if it is only an extremely small part of what addicts struggle with.

While I’m with the HSM crew I also want to reclaim my weekends (I haven’t been getting out in the bush nearly enough) and lose 6kgs (3 months should be plenty of time).

Back to the BIG things I’ll miss while being with HSM, the things I’m worried ill have more false starts over; holidays with my old flat mates, my 22^nd birthday,  my old mate Casey’s 21^st, gigs in Melbourne, May holidays, almost every AFL football match of the season!

Will my Hello Sunday Morning experience be like a fad diet? Will I be cheating on the side?  Hopefully no false starts…