Spreadin My Wings
13/02/12 • 0 Comments

Its been ages since I’ve posted, I’ve been off living in a Melbourne doing lots of fun and exciting things, I’ve come back home to Adelaide but I’m only here for just over a week now before I head to sydney for a few days and then get on a plane to London to live! Its all pretty exciting and seems to be happening in some ways very quickly and in other ways really slowly, I’m not sure whats happening with my sense of time, but it definitely has something to do with the push/pull of the excitement to go away and the attachment to my home and beautiful friends. So I had a night recently where I made the active choice to drink. It was a friends 21st and seeing as I’ve been feeling really quite settled and a fair bit happier lately I decided that I would have [...]

Oh haiii sunday morning
15/01/12 • 1 Comment

Just a bit filled with joy at the mo thinking that it is Sunday, the sun is shining bright and I can handle its brilliance and I do not feel like throwing up and I’m up and out of bed and that is all because I am not hungover! Congratulations to all of you HSMers for also not being hungover, is it not a radical amazing feeling??!!! I think it is so important to acknowledge this! You go through the struggle of resisting temptation, potential personal or social anguish, a deep state of self reflection that can be sooo hard and this is one of the great reasons why! What a chance to seize the fish or whatever that phrase is In my world at the moment I am prepping for my visa application interview on Wednesday and packing for a trip down the Great Ocean Road on Monday morning! [...]

A.A. -Avoiding Avoidance
12/01/12 • 3 Comments

So my last post I articulated how I feel about courage. Those thoughts are still really resonating with me at the moment. Courage is not the absence of fear. This also helps if I think about it in conjunction with my new favourite obsession avoidance. No not avoiding things, avoiding avoiding things. Far out this takes some serious balls to do. When I used to drink (eh eh note the past tense! I say it with a point of self-pride now) I used to do it to avoid. Avoid the stress, anxiety, sadness, anger, shame, guilt, lethargy and replace it with drinking and drinking culture. Suddenly you don’t have to really actually face how much you hate your shit job and just want a better life because you are out getting drunk and everything is alive again. You don’t have to sit with your sadness or accept it you can [...]

Nineteen days have flown by!!
09/01/12 • 2 Comments

I cannot believe how quickly the days have flown by! I’ve got so used to not drinking, finding the right ways to explain what I’m doing or even avoid unwanted discussion if necessary. Being around people who are drinking is really weird, I’m still getting used to that. I still sometimes feel the urge to have a drink, it’s usually triggered by something; a nice day where I might usually celebrate it with a beer, the smell of a favourite drink, music or certain songs that remind me of drinking and partying etc etc. But it has become slowly easier to not just refuse a drink when offered because I know I shouldn’t but to really actually not want it, and to feel empowered by that knowledge. It’s the first real step I’ve taken towards loving myself. It’s a difficult concept, to love oneself enough to know that you have [...]

Steadfast and Soberr
04/01/12 • 3 Comments

So I’ve been away now for almost a week. I’m staying in my friends incredible house in Coburg, the place is goin to be demolished eventually so we are allowed to paint the walls, and as everyone here (pretty much) is a great artist there are so many good pieces all over the walls (including one room which is solely dedicated to pictures in black and white -its so good!). We had NYE here and it was a fun and totally hectic night as expected, everyone was drinking and there was booze a plenty but I did not partake! Went camping down to Lerderderg national park with six mates and again there was quite a fair amount of drinking but I did not drink a drop!! Instead I went on some awesome walks. Ended up sitting on a rock in the middle of a flowing creek in dappled shade writing [...]