STOPTOBER

So I’ve been absent from here for about three months now. Why?

Well after that first taste back in July, I started to get back on it. It started with that one pint of Peroni on 11th July. I stayed sober until the following week when I went to a family BBQ. I actually didn’t want to drink that day but towards the end of the evening I had one glass of wine. Again it tasted weird but I was clearly starting to open the door to alcohol again.

Here are my summer stats:

July: 6 days with moderate alcohol consumption (25 sober days)

August: 21 days of mixed moderate to heavy alcohol consumption (10 sober days)

September: 23 days of mixed moderate to heavy alcohol consumption (7 sober days)

So there you have it. The proof that moderation doesn’t work and that alcohol can quickly take a hold of you again. I totally got the taste back for Peroni, Moretti and San Miguel. Wine, less so but that didn’t stop me drinking it.

So here I am on 4th October. I am now committed to doing Stoptober. Jackie and Steve are doing it with me too. Having broken my six months of sobriety or ‘pure living’ as I like to think of it, I am now finding this next session quite hard. I am so pleased that Jackie is doing it with me and I think we’re helping to be the inspiration for each other. We can and we will do this!

All of my reading told me that I shouldn’t revert to alcohol and I now know they were right but I always had a niggling desire to know if I could moderate. What the summer has taught me is that I am clearly an ‘all or nothing’ type of person. I have to get back to the mindset that alcohol is not a choice. If the choice doesn’t exist, you simply get on with life. I need to struggle through the next couple of weeks to get back on track.

Lessons from this summer:

Alcohol makes you fat. I have put 5 pounds on in weight. I started cranking up the beer consumption, reducing my exercise output and STILL eating my chocolate treats. The hips don’t lie!

Alcohol makes you want more.

Alcohol makes you lose discipline and control.

Alcohol is not my friend.