36 days sober: My longest sobriety stint in 21 years.

Two and a bit weeks ago (and two and a bit weeks in to being sober), I restarted my health kick with a BANG and joined a 28 day shred that last year, I failed to make it past 8 days on. This time around has been verrrrry different to the last time where I was allowing my resistance to win (by drinking booze/eating shit/not exercising, I can’t succeed because it’s too hard and I don’t really want to anyway), whereas this time I have kicked it so far up its resistancey arse, it doesn’t even know what it was that it didn’t want to do.

This two and a bit weeks also coincides with my two busiest working weeks (GCSE time, woop!) and aside from a couple of minor transgressions (a full fat mocha with cream towards the end of an intolerably long and arduous 12 hour day and a Lidl Snickers or Twix here or there), I have been able to stick to both the healthy eating plan and the exercise plan.

So what is it that is so different this time? Have I developed into a fully functioning human being capable of adulting in any situation? Am I a lover of spinach now? Do I love exercise so much that it equals life and pizza has ceased to exist? Well no, actually. The difference this time is that I go home after work (occasionally popping into the pub to see friends for a coffee or water and immediately going home after one), so I have time to both exercise and meal prep for the next day. I have been sober for 51,840 minutes and not spending a majority of this time in the pub (or sat on my delightfully squishy, fat arse nailing a bottle of wine in front of Netflix) has completely revolutionised my productivity.

Alongside twenty to thirty minutes of cardio (via Youtube, if you fancy a banging 20 minute, no equipment necessary, how much can every inch of your body possibly hurt workout, search for Millionaire Hoy or Joe Wicks The Body Coach) and a ten minutes abs workout (Youtube again, I have really enjoyed Abs for Beginners from Bodyfit by Amy because I can actually do most of the moves instead of feeling like a beached whale attempting to get back to the sea and immediately giving up because it’s too fucking hard and I would in fact rather die), since GCSE’s finished (and with them so did my twelve hour days), I have started walking to work again. My walk is just shy of 2 miles so I am easily smashing my 10,500 steps per day goal, often averaging around 15,000 steps per day.

In short, I’m working out with cardio and abs five days a week (Haha! More like four, please don’t kill me Tara), following a healthy eating plan, walking to work every day, hitting over 10,500 steps every day, spending time outside in the sunshine listening to self-development podcasts and treating myself to a weekly cheat meal.

While I was drinking, all of this was impossible to manage. I would spend so much time in the pub or drinking at home that I didn’t have the time to do any kind of workout or meal prep. Or I went to the pub directly after work and after three pints was in no fit state to work out without causing myself serious injury, so we would stay and have a couple more. Or I was so tired from a combination of poor sleep, hangovers, poor diet and general lack of functioning, that I couldn’t physically make myself work out. And as we all know, when you’re tired or hungry or stressed, remaining motivated and committed is increasingly difficult.

This time, I won’t say it’s been easy but it has been a fraction easier. Don’t get me wrong, there have been days where the last thing I wanted was to get home and workout, especially the days were I had to drive Hubs to work 45 minutes away, drive home, get ready for work, be there for 7am, manage a million exams and screaming teachers, I mean students, and then still be at work until 7pm setting up for the next day, before driving to collect Hubs from 45 mins away, getting home, cooking dinner, prepping food for the next day and generally wanting to die. Before going to bed and doing it all again the next day.

Luckily, we have amazing friends who have supported me with Driving Miss Davey to work (we’ll get into his medical driving ban in a later post) and I have been able to recognise that I can’t do everything myself and that I have to ask for help. In fact, I don’t have to do everything myself. There were even a couple of times over the past few weeks where somebody dropped off or picked up Miss Davey for no reason other than I needed a break.

Looking after my physical health has helped me to look after my emotional health, which has helped me to look after myself as whole. It sounds bananas, but now when I get home from work, I go upstairs, get my workout gear on and bang out thirty minutes of sweaty brilliance with Ya Boy Mill Hoy. I’ve even started fist bumping him at the end. You need to watch it to know… And trust me, the first time he did that at the end of a workout, I had planned out how I would kill him.

I’ve begun to notice recently that everything is about routine and routines are easy to keep when your routine is not down the pub. Sorry easier. Routines are easier to keep when your routine is not down the pub.

I’m still a snappy bitch sometimes. And I still want to stab Miss Davey in the dick when he doesn’t provide any emotional labour (or any fucking labour at all) for household roles. And sometimes I still feel fucking miserable for no fucking reason. Last Sunday, I didn’t leave my bed all day, cried all the way to drop Dave off, cried all the way home and then cried for most of the day (cheers Father’s Day!). Sometimes, the crippling depression that I have always hidden can hit me like a sack of shit and now, on those horrific days, I tell people what is going on and that there will be no speaking for a while.

Five days down from where I was on Sunday, I’ve had a tough couple of days of engaging with people and smiling at work. By Wednesday, I felt OK and the requests made of me that I couldn’t handle the day before and made excuses not to, I could face.

And all of that is nothing compared to how bad it was before I stopped drinking. This occasion took three days to climb out of. I’ve been trapped in those depression cycles for months at a time in another life.

This time, I haven’t stood near the door with my hand on the door handle, crippled with anxiety about going outside. I haven’t cancelled meetings with friends because even though I love them, the thought of being around people makes me feel physically sick. I haven’t experienced a harrowing panic attack where I can’t breathe and feel as though I am dying. I haven’t laid in bed, cuddling a pillow Davey and sobbing into it for hours at a time while the cats parade around me and point out that this is why they love Daddy more. Oh wait, yes I have.  

These are all of the reasons that I used to drink. To numb the painful edge so I could get out of my house or into a bar. Now, without my self-medicating self-sabotage, many of these issues that I was dealing with are easier to manage. I’m not saying I’m completely emotionally stable, I’m not even sure that I ever will be, but I am more emotionally stable than I was before.

This first challenge, of facing my emotions instead of drowning them in drink, of acknowledging that I am depressed and cancelling plans in an act of self care, of watching so much back to back Archer on Netflix the TV switches itself off because it thinks I am dead, has been difficult. But it has been worth all of the pain to know that I could have drunk and I didn’t. I mean, I also didn’t work out and ate a family sized pack of chocolate under the duvet but, you know, small wins. Today is a new day and a fresh start.

The combination of not drinking, exercising, a healthy diet and sunshine really is the best tonic. Speaking of which, I must buy swanky tonic to try out my new Seedlip Non-Alcoholic Gin! Just remember, you will have bad days and that’s OK, we all have them. How you deal with them is what will make you succeed, whatever your goal is.