My View of HSM (Chris Ruddock)
25/05/10 • 2 Comments

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 …. My original thoughts of what a person achieves out any HSM period (naïve as they may be) was that they no longer will need or want alcohol in social situations, especially where alcohol is used in situations were it is used as a significant bonding tool.  This led me to believe that I should no longer need alcohol in the following situations: -       Going away celebrations, -       At the football, -       Sunday afternoons on the deck with house mates, -       Birthday’s, -       [...]

Over It… (By Chris Ruddock)
21/03/10 • 19 Comments

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 [...]

Feel like a drink? (Chris Ruddock)
23/02/10 • 2 Comments

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 [...]

Dressing My Issues (Chris Ruddock)
05/02/10 • 0 Comments

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 [...]

Image in a New Light (Chris Ruddock)
30/01/10 • 2 Comments

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 [...]