Day 21 - Taking Stock

Waking up hangover free on my 21st day Without Wine, I realized that I have not been alcohol free for this long for at least 12 years.
So I thought I would take stock of some physical changes :

• My skin looks clearer.

I have always hated my skin. I am very fair (redhead before the grey set in), as a teenager I had dreadful acne, and I've always had very high colour - sort of like I'm blushing the whole time. Years of my skin trying to cope with the daily dehydration of alcohol, and attempting to purge my body of doses of poison, my skin has become dry and ichy, blotchy with large pores that were accentuated by nightly sweating.
Today, the blotchiness has gone. The redness has toned down considerably. My pores look tighter, and the rough dry patches have all but for a couple of areas around my nose, disappeared. For the first time in years, I see my freckles!

• I am sleeping better.

Part from feeling refreshed in the morning, the dark circles around my eyes are reduced. I still have days of feeling listless, but in the most part, I feel energetic. My productivity has increased, which has lead to ...

• Less depression.

Getting stuff done has increased my feelings of self worth. Not having to worry about stupid things I've said, or written on facebook, having enjoyable evenings with my husband, pottering around in the garden, a cleaner house...a myriad of small things have added up to add to my state of general happiness.

• Weight loss

The BIG ONE. Well, I haven't weighed myself yet, and I don't think I have lost pounds and pounds, but my face is less puffy and my clothes feel a little more comfortable. I'm not ready to step on the scales yet.

Do I miss Wine? No. Today, as I'm writing this, I can say honestly that I don't miss it at all. I know that this may change, so when I am facing down my inner Wine Bitch, I will re-read this blog.

I hope it helps anyone who is new to this journey, or even if you are not.

Have a great weekend. xx

Day 20 - Another Day in Paradise

No really, it is another day in Paradise - remember way back when it was the first day of summer holidays when you were a child? Six weeks of sun and freedom stretched out in front of you......that feeling is one that I have been recapturing over the last 20 mornings.
I open the front door, and sit in the morning sun with my coffee. I walk through the wet grass to my garden, and putter around my greenhouse. I watch the swallows dive and swoop after insects, and occasionally a shadow passes over from an eagle soaring in the morning thermals.
I feel reconnected, if that makes sense.
Have a lovely Friday.
#sobersummer.

Sad Movies

One of the best things about being alone in the house, is all the time I have to get on and do productive things! Ha ha, I wish!
No, the best thing used to be that I could drink as much wine as I liked.
So this time (first time sober and alone for a few days), I DID make a list of all the productive things I could do (and I have actually done some of them), AND I made a list of all the movies I want to watch, without my husband, sighing, and shifting around in his chair, and making loud phone calls....you know....Chick Flicks ( otherwise known as any movie that doesn't have a high speed car chase).
So one of my picks for last night was "Still Alice".
It's a real tear-jerker. Julianne Moore is spectacular as Alice, a highly intelligent linguistic professor, who gets diagnosed with Alzheimers. The film is about her demise, her struggle to hold on to her mind and her memories.
I sobbed just about all the way through. Even my cat who dislikes being cuddled, curled up on my lap.
Tears poured down my cheeks, snot ran like a river from my nose. Not pretty.
It was really sad, but the one thought that rattled around in my brain, was " That poor lady had a horrible disease through no fault of her own, and I was drinking myself to death"
I know. Sounds a bit theatrical, and not very British.
But we are only given one body. We get to do with it, what we will. Some people look after it, exercise it, feed it nourishing stuff, rest it......and some of us abuse it with alcohol, sugar, and a lifetime on the couch. And then look to the health care system to patch us up.
I am hoping that I can reverse the damage. I am hoping that my body will forgive me. I am hoping to live a long life, free from disease. And I hope that all of you do too.
And tonight I am watching Bridesmaids II.

Day 18 - Stop It!

It seems really bizarre doesn't it (this is what I was thinking last night), we pour a liquid down out throat, it alters our mind, sometimes robs us of memory, makes us say things we wouldn't usually dream of saying, and makes us dehydrated, and feel horrible the next day. So what do we do?
We drink more and more and more.
How stupid is that?
This is a really short bog today, because I am posting a link to a video that hopefully will make you laugh as much as me

 https://youtu.be/85xjGEi89aI

xx

Day 17 - Alone at last...

Day 17, and I am alone in the house until Friday morning. My husband is on a fishing trip. He lives for fishing (ex commercial fisherman) and I love the fresh seafood, so I never complain when he disappears for a few days, and then returns with lovely halibut or salmon.
And not mention, the "alone time" that I also enjoyed as an excuse to drink more wine...
"Well, I deserve a treat too, maybe a book this afternoon with a lovely glass of chilled white wine..." except it was never one glass, more like two bottles (because I started around 2pm in the afternoon), and more often or not, I would wake up about midnight, still on the couch, no dinner, no recollection of the last few hours, missed calls from my husband, feeling like crap.
So this time will be my first "sober alone time".
So I am prepared.
I have a list of stuff I want to accomplish - cleaning out closets, working in the garden, catching up on admin for our businesses....and I have planned healthy meals (need to shop for them), and I have a couple of bottles of non alcoholic wine (I tried beer, I don't like it...the wine is ok with a couple of ice cubes, and topped up with soda water).
So I am prepared.
For the first time, I realize how much of a hermit I have become.

Day 15/16 Sunday = Funday

I have always loathed Sundays. It was always the day that I couldn't put off Math homework anymore ( although it was often finished on the bus to school Monday morning), and it was the day that my Mum frantically cleaned the house before she went back to work on Monday.
Mum worked full time, as soon as we were old enough not to need after school care. She had a career, but was of the "have it all" generation, that meant that she was guilty about us when she was at work (she need not have, we were fine) and guilty if she took time off, because of the pressures of her job.
Consequently, weekends were like this

Saturday - dragged around supermarket for the morning, visit grandparents in the afternoon
Sunday - house work all day, obligatory Roast Dinner, run around like a headless chicken making sure we were ready for school.

Mum was in a bad mood on Sundays, and we (my brother and I) had to also spend the day doing chores / homework.
 My job was to iron shirts. I actually didn't mind doing this, I watched "The Waltons" as I was ironing.

However, when I was older, I was usually ironing with a hangover, having been to a party and indulged in under- aged drinking (mostly cheap cider, unless someone raided their parents drinks cabinet, in which case, we could be drinking anything from Creme de Menthe to Cooking Sherry).

As an adult, the Hangover Sunday was the norm. The last time I had a hangover on a Sunday was 9th May 2015 ( Day 1 of sober life) which also happened to be Mother's Day in Canada, and I had fifteen people to dinner.

Yesterday (Day 15) I wanted to start a New Trend. Sunday = Funday.

My husband got up early and made me coffee in bed (lovely) and then we stole my stepson's VW convertible buggy (he shouldn't leave the keys in it), and bombed around the Island, checking in on Farmer's Markets that I  have never visited in the ten years I have lived on Vancouver Island (hangover, remember), and stopped and had lunch in the pub ( totally not a problem for me ) and then spent the day in the garden.

It was a FUN DAY.

But the trouble with Sunday Funday? It's still followed by Monday, and today I found myself channeling my mother and cleaning the house like a mad woman!

Charity Begins.....where?

In Canada, there is a small surcharge on bottles and cans of pop and alcohol (more for alcohol containers for some bizarre reason, after all they are all made of the same material *scratches head in bewilderment *), and it's possible to claim this surcharge back, if you return your empties to a Recycling Depot.
This poses a dilemma for the copious drinkers among us (well, me). On one hand, it's nice to get some money back (almost like you earned it), and in the past it was usually enough to buy another bottle of wine (it's only a few cents per bottle, so do the math), BUT on the other hand, there is the shame and embarrassment of the truck load of empties.
"Goodness me"....I would say..."we haven't done our recycling for ages " ignoring the exchange of judgmental glances between the Depot staff (imagined).
There was (is) an alternative, we can wait until the local school has a bottle drive to raise money for a sports team, and then the kids (driven by their parents) will come to collect the bottles and cans.
Last time I could have climbed into a hole and buried myself with dirt.
"Dad, Dad...look at HOW MANY THIS LADY HAS!!!" The kids were whooping with excitement at the goldmine of empties.......never again. (Also bear in mind that I live in a very small community and have an English accent, which is memorable, so I can just imagine....." Yes, that alcoholic English Lady, poor thing, AND they eat terrible food..."
So my charitable acts stopped immediately, and we went back to removing the Pile of Shame to the Recycling Depot once again.
This morning, I got to redeem myself on the charitable front. I donated my loose change to the local athletic teams who were cooking up hotdogs outside the grocery store.
On past Saturday mornings, usually I wouldn't have been at the grocery store that early, and I would have certainly avoided the Hotdog stand because the smell would have made me even more queasy.
Today, I dropped my coins in the box, smiled at the parents and refused a Hotdog. They are disgusting little parcels of mystery meat.
And they say the English eat terrible food!