One year later… my Hello Sunday Morning journey!
14/02/12 • 16 Comments

A year and two weeks ago I started a 364-day Hello Sunday Morning. When I stopped drinking, I didn’t really expect or believe that I could actually go sober for that long a time period. I didn’t think I could do it. Even now, it seems like a crazy decision – an undertaking that was bold beyond my capabilitis. But I was driven to it because I was desperate. My drinking was out of control: I felt anxious and depressed all the time, and I felt ashamed because I kept the worst of my habit hidden. I was not the loud party drunk who stays up all night having a great time; I had been that when I was younger, but as I hit my late twenties I turned into the quiet stay at home type. I was no longer always drinking to have fun. More often, I was drinking [...]

HSM: Tell your friends?
19/12/11 • 1 Comment

I have been doing HSM for almost a year now. Wow. It has been a wild ride! Still a little way to go but I’m stoked with what I have achieved so far. I have had a million conversations this year about drinking and a recurring theme is that the people around me have a general concern that they are drinking too much. I have tried not to be too evangelical about encouraging people to try Hello Sunday Morning, because I don’t want anyone to feel harassed about their life choices (I generally think that setting a good example is the best way to effect change)… BUT… Having experienced first hand the benefits of doing a HSM, I really want to tell people about it! I think it’s an amazing experience for anyone, whether they have a problem drinking or don’t; at the very least, when you’re not-drinking, you see [...]

Looking towards the end
03/11/11 • 8 Comments

A year is a long time to do anything, particularly to give up something that you like. I’m now 9 months (ish) into my HSM and still can’t quite believe that I am here, sober, and not really wanting to drink. I have moments of course but they pass fairly quickly. In two months my self-enforced hiatus from drinking will be up. That’s been on my mind a bit. I’m not excited about it ending nor fantasising about that first drink I have, which is where I thought I would be now. Instead I feel a bit trepidatious about how it’s all going to go down when the clock ticks over into ‘ok drinking time’. Has this year been long enough to have changed my habits and attitudes towards drinking? I think so. I don’t even really want to start drinking again, I don’t think – I certainly don’t want [...]

Adelaide: When I talk about getting plastered
07/10/11 • 2 Comments

Tomorrow I’m heading to Adelaide for the weekend to take part in the Festival of Unpopular Culture. There are loads of free and cheap events happening around town, including panel discussions, walks, gigs and crazy cinema. If you’re in Adelaide you should check it out! Of particular relevance to this blog, I’m appearing on a panel called What I Talk About When I Talk About Getting Plastered. It’s about the sociology of alcohol, drugs and youth. (Sounds a bit high-falutin, but basically we’re just going to be chatting about drinking culture!) Here’s the official spiel: There’s a pretty fixed way of looking at alcohol and drug abuse as a medical and psychological issue. And there’s a fixed culture of drug and alcohol use, which becomes particularly notable at the extremes. In between that space, there’s the reason most people drink and take drugs: Intoxication is actually kind of fun and [...]

Rediscovering reading
22/09/11 • 9 Comments

Since my last post about being fed up with being around drunk people, I’ve been socialising less in the evenings. Or, socialising differently really. I’ve been out to a couple of dinners and got along to a few literary events, and spent practically no time sitting in bars with people just drinking, which has been nice. I wonder why it took me so long into my HSM to start to reconfigure my social life? One of the things I’ve started doing again is reading in the evenings. I’ve always been a big reader but in recent years it has been more of a daytime activity, thus I’ve been doing less of it. But in the past few weeks there have been many nights where I’ve come home, made a cup of tea, and sat down and read a whole book. Sure beats being in a pub watching people get drunk. [...]