10 days sober.

I have been sober for 10 days. Quite the achievement for somebody whose response to any situation is to celebrate (or commiserate) with a beer. Or wine. Or prosecco. Or gin. Good day at work? Have a drink. Bad day at work? Have a drink! Cat fallen out of the bedroom window again? Drink. You’ve washed and dried four loads of washing? Drink. You finished watching every episode of 13 Reasons Why Season 2 and only cried 8,362 times? Drink.

I honestly don’t know where the huge shift in my brain has come from and yet alcohol is no longer the centre point of every activity; I’ve even managed to attend a beer festival and a cider festival over the bank holiday weekend and enjoy the ambience (or lack there of in one case) with a coke or a coffee. However, while I’ve been focused on not drinking (and prior to this point, focusing on drinking), I have let my physical health slip and that needs to change as I can’t focus on being the best version of myself if I’m not nourishing my body, and my mind, the way I should be.

One of the many joys of quitting booze is the mountainous, volcanic eruption all over your face of every spot that your body has stored up over 20 years of binge drinking alcohol abuse. I’ve read a few articles about face mapping recently and how the areas on your face that are covered in spots are linked to problem areas within your body.

My current 10 day long breakout is focused on my chin. And the area between chin and cheek. And my nose. And my forehead. And my neck. Which is super fun because I’m a picker and find it physically impossible to leave them alone, thereby making them worse. I never realised that this was a psychological condition (skin picking disorder, part of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder family). All of these facial areas are linked to the digestive system and stomach (I will admit I have been eating shit to compensate for my ridiculous craving for sugar and carbs, booze withdrawal anyone?), liver (booze withdrawal and detox anyone?) and general illness (I work in education and have been plowing through echinacea due to Summer term bugs flying around!).

The moral to this story is that I need to get my diet, and exercise, in order, but how?! As all of my willpower is currently focused on remaining sober, I’ve signed up for a 28 day health programme with my local fitness trainer which includes meal plans, abs work outs, thirty minutes of cardio and hitting those ten thousand steps a day. This way, somebody else tells me what to do (and I would not mess with my trainer, she might be tiny but she could definitely take me!) and without alcohol derailing all of my best laid plans, I can do this.

I’ve tried this before, however my drinking has ALWAYS derailed my attempts at getting fit and healthy as the minute I’ve had a couple of drinks, I start making terrible food choices. It also never helped that when I spent hours at the pub, I never had time to work out! Not an issue now as I have more time than I know what to do with…

The health programme starts next Monday and so this week, I am going to start with a daily workout (this is wishful thinking and probably a lie), focusing on hitting my 10,000 steps a day (successful two days in and in close competition with my Auntie on a Fitbit challenge!) with some beginner cardio runs as a starter for my half marathon training. My cardio during the 28 day challenge will focus on running since I have a 5k colour run coming up in July and a half marathon in October. And no, I don’t know how I’m going to get from 5k to 13 miles either.

Next up is getting my diet under control. Every week we meal plan, buy all of the ingredients we need to cook specific meals and then hardly cook any of them. This week, since I’m off work, it’s the best time to get control of my eating habits and start creating healthy habits that I can build on over the next month. So I made a lasagne. Healthy. At least it’s home made right?! Luckily, from next week, I will be on a prescribed meal plan which I have always enjoyed and am already prepping for.

Aside from the out of control diet and lack of exercise, there have been a few other key things that I’ve struggled with since I stopped drinking. This time around, I have been sleeping better though still not great. Last time I stopped in January, it would take hours to fall asleep and then I would wake up at 3am. I spent many an evening filing paperwork and sorting out boxes in our newly moved into house. Nothing makes you feel better about yourself than an existential crisis while the rest of the world slumbers peacefully.

And I can not physically drink the amount of water my body is telling me that I need. I must be drinking 3-4 litres a day and yet I’m still battling with sandy flipflop dry mouth, hopefully this should ease up within a few days as I approach the two week mark and the physical symptoms of withdrawal diminish.

My anxiety has decreased, my capacity to see joy everywhere in the world has increased and my mental health is flourishing. I have so much free time that I have almost got the house in order and started ticking off all of the to do list jobs that I have been deliberately ignoring for months! These small wins feel amazing and motivate me to continue on this overgrown and slightly tumultuous edge of the mountain path I am on. It might not be the right path for everybody, but it’s definitely the right path for me.

Here's Captain Niggles and I being sober and mean.