Me v alcohol
25/03/12 • 2 Comments

I think I am winning the battle with alcohol, I have had a stressful couple of weeks and have wanted to turn to booze, but, I haven’t. I have turned to chocolate and food to deal with my anxiety and this is what my next goal is going to really address. I have realised how much I used alcohol as a crutch and now I am using food as a crutch, but I will keep trying. I am keeping up my marathon training and am much happier in general. How nice that this morning my husband and I took our boys out for a hike and then had coffee and cake afterwards:) previously we would have not spent the money, instead prioritising it on other things including booze (how smug did we feel this morning). We both agreed it was a much nicer way to spend our money and the [...]

On the road to struggle street.
28/02/12 • 7 Comments

Well fellow HSMers, I am struggling! I have hit a real low point and am finding it hard to pull myself back up. Personal and work issues are getting me down and my anxiety and depression is starting to creep back up the scale in my head. I have so far managed not to use alcohol to numb/delete the thoughts but have been eating the last two days instead (which only makes things much worse). Although in some ways I know I am still being strong not drinking I am finding it really hard to deal with the emotions I am feeling and the fact that I try anything not to deal with them (in this case eating chocolate, oh, and spending money). Along with this my goal is not just to abstain from alcohol, but to lose the weight and gain a healthy lifestyle in all ways and this [...]

Choices?
31/01/12 • 4 Comments

Life is about choices! I have been studying part time for the last 6 years while working full-time and raising a family and on Friday I found out that I had passed my final exams and it was all over!!! So I had a choice to make, did I choose the bottle of Moet like I had always imagined or did I choose to celebrate with juice and break my HSM? Well fellow HSMers, I chose poorly! I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would but it felt like I should be celebrating in this way, the way I had imagined for 6 years. When I reflected about it on Sunday  I decided I had a choice to make. I could choose to carry on with my HSM journey and treat this as a minor blimp or I could do what I always do with goals, give [...]

Facing the future?
11/01/12 • 4 Comments

Well I thought the hard part was going to be not drinking, how wrong was I? Always in the new year I think about what I want to acheive out of the year, what changes I want to make, where I need to improve life and reflect on the past year. I thought I did this, but now I am facing this time of year again without alcohol, I realise now that whenever I face a slightly challenging thought I have a glass of wine or a beer.  I genuinely have so many thoughts I can’t process them, I feel like I want to change direction in my life but am not really sure how or where. Do I want to change job or travel or learn a language or adopt a child or shave my head – who knows, when I work it out, I’ll let you know. One [...]

Here’s to the next six months!
01/01/12 • 5 Comments

2012 has started with a category IV all day hangover, enough to remind me why I am doing this. I wish I could bottle how I feel right now and revisit it when I need to, in say a few days time! I am very excited about the next six months and look forward to making some really positive changes in my life. I anticipate at this point that my friends will struggle to deal with this, interested on others tips on how to manage this without trying to sound like you are trying to convert everyone, anyone?