My Cat Has Acne. And other stories.

Pillsbury Doughgirl/Stay Puft Marshmallow Lady/Michelin Woman **Read in Geordie voice-over stylee** It’s Day 67 in the Big Sobriety House and Kia is refusing to get on the scales. Over the past few weeks, a lot of people have asked me if I have lost weight. For some unknown reason, I keep saying no, probably because I haven’t lost a stone every other day… But I have lost weight. I’ve lost almost a stone since the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man/Michelin Man/Pillsbury Doughboy picture taken in Berlin in April. In April, my weight gain was out of control and I weighed in at the heaviest weight I have ever been at. Over sixteen stone for those of you saying, “you looked great” or “you carry it so well”. Not a healthy weight for a 5’ 9” 33 year old woman to weigh. According to the NHS, a woman my age and height should weigh between 9 (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, I haven’t weighed that much since I was 11!) and 12 stone, putting me at 4 stone overweight from the top bracket. My weight at ...

My two months sober gift to myself! Bought in my favourite shop in Sheringham on our recent hollibobs. I am two months sober. Pretty good eh? I almost wasn’t though. Prior to my sobriety, my life was beer. I worked for a pub and a brewery. My social calendar revolved around beer festivals, tap takeovers, beer launches and homebrewing. I loved trying new beers, visiting taphouses and breweries in new cities, meeting people with the same passion for beer that I had. And I miss it. I miss my social life, I miss beer festivals and I miss the opportunities to catch up with people I know and adore through these events. I miss drinking. I miss trying new beers. I miss going to Tap Takeovers and my favourite bars. I miss having that fake confidence to talk to strangers, meet new people and even to just talk to people I know. I miss the passion I had about beer and talking about it, drinking it, debating it. I miss the fact that beer was what bought us all together and now I struggle to o...

Here’s the biggest confession I will ever make in my life. Bigger even than the one where I admitted I am an alcoholic. I am addicted to Jeremy Kyle. I am more ashamed of this than I am of anything else. I love it and hate it in equal measure. It is the TV version of alcohol to me. I know I have to stop but I can’t. We bought our house in November 2017 and, up until last week, we didn’t have a TV aerial as we have never really watched TV (who would when you have Netflix and Amazon Prime at your fingertips) and £80 - £100 to have one fitted seemed like an unnecessary expense for something that we didn’t actually need. A couple of weeks ago, Hubs fitted an aerial himself (while I was at work) to much exclaiming of “Guess how much it cost! Go on, guess!” to anybody who was close by to our house at the time. In case you were wondering, it cost £20. (Plus £50 for the retractable loft ladder, £200 to board out the roof space, £80 to board and re-plaster the bathroom ceiling after he put hi...

Last year, somebody told me that counselling was like picking at a scab so it can never heal. I couldn’t disagree more with this comment and made sure they knew it. Because you know me, I’m not shy in getting my point across. Counselling, for me, is not about picking the scab, it’s about healing the skin underneath the visible wound and making sure that you don’t have to cover that part of you up for the rest of your life. I first accessed counselling at University. I was suicidal, again, unable to develop relationships with people on my course, or manage the workload and a full time job and a massive drinking habit. I drank every day at Uni. Fuelled by a diet of takeaways and garlic pizza. I couldn’t afford my rent half of the time but I could always afford a bender. Or worse, two, three, four bottles of wine alone at home. This series of counselling was created purely to get me through my course, make sure I didn’t kill myself and embarrass the University and to meet a very basic...

A very pleased Hubs who hasn't watched a single football match since we met four and a half years ago but is now an expert in football and the England World Cup team. And how to get wankered on four pints of Fosters.  Last night I had my first experience of watching England play football booze free. I mean, I was booze free. I can’t guarantee they were. Certainly not judging by how they played in the second half… We watched the match at a local pub where we managed to bag a table with a few friends and Hubs could sit next to me with a fucking four pint jug of lager (albeit shit lager) while I nursed ginger ale all night and was silently judged by strangers for putting Seedlip into it as though it was real gin. Watching football sober is great because you can identify, just prior to any kind of stoppage time like half time, full time, penalty time (cheers England), when to go to the toilet at the most efficient, less queuey moment. After my first visit, I walked pa...

My "no-fucks given here" shoes worn at Newmarket Races at the weekend. I made incredible memories with astonishingly brilliant people and that is all you can wish for in the world. If you're not laughing until your throat is sore, have you even laughed?! Breaking the cycle can only be done when you make the choice to end it. Start your own cycle, make it amazing and fill it with unicorns.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not an advocate of Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m not an advocate of any kind of scriptured religion that preaches tolerance only to those with the same beliefs who look the same and sound the same. But one thing I have seen come up over and over again in the Sobriety groups I follow on social media, is the concept of taking ownership for the wrongs you have committed in the throes of your addiction. I feel that, over the last few months, I have been making living amends by changing the way that I am living to enable me to live my best life and to s...