Why should you quit drinking for good? High-bottom girls make the world go round!

Generally speaking, people are motivated to cut down on their alcohol consumption when drinking has become problematic or when they have suffered some negative consequences from drinking.

Cutting down could include trying to re-set the clock with the 100-day promise or one year no beer and then after having abstained for said amount of time hopefully you can drink again moderately.

This might work for some but it definitely didn’t work for me. Every time I started drinking again I picked up right where I left off. It might have taken me a couple of weeks or even months to return to the volume I was drinking but return I most certainly did.

This got me thinking about drinkers with a high bottom… (not the pert posterior variety I’m referring to, although that would be great to have!)

So what motivates a high bottom drinker to stop and STAY stopped? And does everyone have to reach rock bottom? Also, one person’s rock bottom can look wildly different to the next.

My bottom wasn’t that high, I looked great in hot pants when I was 18, not so much these days. (That’s the last bottom joke, promise)

I had experienced some pretty bad consequences, I was arrested for being drunk and disorderly when I was 20 (spent 2 nights in a holding cell) and suffered severely embarrassing and dangerous/violent moments throughout my drinking career.

On the other hand, I suppose you could consider me a high-bottom drinker because I was successfully freelancing from home, looking after my family, I paid rent and taxes and my marriage was intact. I worked very hard to keep this Norman Rockwell facade going for as long as I could.

Does the decision to quit drinking alcohol have to be motivated by such dire warnings as STOP DRINKING OR YOU WILL DIE?

Does that help or hinder the cause? I’m not disputing the fact that alcohol addiction can most certainly kill you. My last rock bottom moment when I fell and knocked my head on that koi pond I could very well have either died or sustained a life altering injury.

What I’m wondering is if we are framing it in the right way? You see, for me stopping drinking saved my life in 2 ways. The first most obvious are the health aspects, I have less of a worry about diseases and accidents that kill drinkers.

The second most important way it saved my life is that I am actually experiencing life. I have time and my consciousness back! I’m here! I’ve been absent from life for so fucking long.

This is how stopping drinking really saves your life – It gives you the most precious gift that anyone can have and that is time to be alive on earth! To savour each human experience, each nuance and detail, to really experience all of it, the agony and ecstasy. That is why I will never go back. Not the fear of the dire consequences that await me if I do (and I know they are real) it’s the absolute insistence of my soul to be ‘conscious’ for the rest of my life. We have such a short time on the earth why would I want to be dulled/numbed for it? We can’t numb selectively so when we numb, we numb all the beautiful splendour of life as well.

I’m not saying that when life is shit I won’t want to forget or numb the pain, I most probably will but I know that choosing to do that with booze means that I resign myself to a homogenous life in black in white when it could be in technicolour.

To be clear is a gift. Life’s downs are easier to handle sober and life’s ups are spectacular when you are awake to experience them.

So instead of the STOP OR YOU’LL DIE, we could also say: I CHOOSE NOT TO DRINK BECAUSE ALCOHOL STEALS MY TIME, ENERGY AND DULLS MY NATURAL WONDER.That sounds truer for me. Because dying from alcohol addiction can take many years, it really is a slow suicide. Also, that may never happen and you could die from something else…this is exactly the point…Do you want to spend the years you have on this planet dazed and confused or do you want to be free and clear?

Adulting all over the place

This weekend something happened that triggered me massively. I was in a state of panic fight or flight and just wanted to drink. Instead I went into the shed (the shed where I used to sneak drinks) and I breathed. I sat with my panic. I tried to remember the RAIN acronym (Recognise, allow, investigate, non-identify) but I couldn’t get past ‘allow’, I couldn’t remember past the word ‘allow’ because my prefrontal cortex was on holiday somewhere while my reptile brain was rearing to go.

I sat in the shed for a good 20 minutes and you know what? The feeling didn’t swallow me up and it did pass.

Still sober. Yay for me!. xxx

(PAWS) is it a real thing?

I’ve been feeling very ‘Pawsy’ lately. Been reading my blogging friends that are on a roughly the same day count as I am (91 days today). They all seem to be experiencing similar symptoms. Feeling generally down and anxious (not all the time) but sort of starting to wonder what the point is of being sober if you are going to feel shitty.

This got me thinking about PAWS. Is it a real thing? According to Wikipedia there have been few scientific studies supporting its existence. Because of this, the disorder is not recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or major medical associations.

This isn’t enough to persuade me that it doesn’t exist. Alcohol research that is truly impartial and will expose the true extent of harm the drug does and how addictive it is is sparse to say the least. Remember, research needs to be funded by someone and alcohol companies do fund research that will publish studies that are skewed or that tell half truths.

A recent survey by a US website called postacutewithdrawal.org found that ninety per cent of respondents to their online survey reported post-acute withdrawal symptoms (PAWS). These results come as a bit of a surprise because it was assumed that only a minority of people who break away from addiction experience symptoms beyond the first few weeks.

Doctors and medical professionals that specialise and deal with drug addiction and withdrawal all know about and have direct experience with patients going through PAWS.

The length of time and severity of PAWS is linked to the amount of years and the volume you drank.

Post-acute withdrawal occurs because your brain chemistry is gradually returning to normal. As your brain improves the levels of your brain chemicals fluctuate as they approach the new equilibrium causing post-acute withdrawal symptoms.

The Symptoms of Post-Acute Withdrawal

The most common post-acute withdrawal symptoms are:

• Mood swings
• Anxiety
• Irritability
• Tiredness
• Variable energy
• Low enthusiasm
• Variable concentration
• Disturbed sleep

“The brain has tremendous capacity to heal, but it doesn’t heal quickly,” says Dr. David Sack, CEO of Promises Treatment Centers and Elements Behavioral Health.
As the body moves toward homeostasis, says Dr. Joseph Lee, Medical Director of the Hazelden Youth Continuum, it has to reach a “new kind of normal” in the process. Some people experience a more prolonged withdrawal, he says, “and it takes a long time to recalibrate.” In fact, instead of feeling better, many addicts in recovery feel worse.

The biggest thing Sack’s seen in his patients is increased anxiety. People are “more nervous, more anxious, less resilient; and that anxiety is experienced as fear, as uncertainty, a greater sensitivity to rejection.” Some of this excessive reactivity is linked to the glutamate neurotransmitter system, as many drugs of abuse block glutamate. In response, the body ups its production of this chemical, even after the drug is taken away. 

“The advice I would give is to be patient with the time it takes to heal and feel better,” Parrish says. “These tough issues weren’t created overnight, and they won’t disappear overnight. I have learned that when I feel particularly “PAWS-y,” that means I’m subconsciously working something out—this makes dealing with the symptoms of feeling a little crazy and not sleeping less exhausting. It won’t last forever.” 

extract from https://www.thefix.com/content/paws

I found this video from Annie Grace and Doctor Dr. Jaffe Ph.D from the Alternatives Addiction Treatment in Los Angeles that explains why it takes a while to feel better.

 

Groundlessness – Hide the whiskey, mama needs to breathe through this shit.

So you know that 12 steppers advise not to make any major changes in the first year of sobriety?

This is sensible advice because getting sober is a full time job without having additional stress going on. Sometimes life just doesn’t work like that and we are forced to make these changes before we are ‘strictly speaking’ ready or strong enough to deal.

My husband recently quit his job and is planning to freelance. I am a freelancer. The thing about freelancing is that there is no guarantee about a paycheck at the end of the month and income varies greatly from month to month.

I was and still am very sure that it’s a good thing he quit BUT the reality of not having the steady income each month is freaking me out. I am getting really bad anxiety and feel generally ON EDGE.

I am future tripping into my bag lady future on an almost hourly basis.

I am feeling very exposed and utterly unsure about everything. Not just the money, just life in general. I can be diagnosed with an awful disease tomorrow one of my kids can get sick. My husband can keel over from a heart attach at any time. The world is such an uncertain place, nothing seems solid to me anymore.

All of these things can happen at any time and how will I cope? This is the groundlessness Pema talks about. This is scaring the shit out of me. This is where we are faced with reality in all its fucking uncertain glory!

There is no escape from the groundlessness of being. This is the nature of life.

We want to cling to something to give us security and hate it when things change but change is the only constant and ultimately the resistance to change creates the suffering.

I want to drown myself in a bottle of whiskey and just curl up and hide from all of this. I don’t have that option anymore. I have to face this, sit with this groundlessness, this exposed insecurity and breathe through it.

Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what’s waiting out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.Pema Chödrön

My love song to alcohol

All of these words match how I feel about booze. I know it will be back to bother me but I am changing the lock and I’ve thrown away the key. Happy friday sober peeps!

Being my own Mark Darcy

In the society we live in we are constantly being fed subliminal messages that there is something wrong with us, that there is something missing. We need to be thinner, smarter, richer, better at everything. If we can only attain those things THEN we’ll be happy and content.

In Pema Chodron’s book ‘The wisdom of no escape’ she talks about accepting yourself exactly as you are now.

(If you are getting bored of my excitement with this book then don’t read any further.)

She says that the compulsion we have to constantly ‘improve’ ourselves can be seen as a subtle (sometimes not so subtle) act of aggression towards ourselves. What? An act of aggression? That’s a bit strong, surely wanting to improve myself is an act of kindness? This is a radical concept for me to wrap my head around.

There is so much about myself that I want to improve. I want be thinner, smarter, richer and better at everything!

How can I look at myself in the mirror and say the words “you are enough – JUST AS YOU ARE” and really mean it. Just as I am, with my flabby bits, my short attention span, my short temper, my bank account going into overdraft often. Just the way I am? It seems impossible! She’s basically saying that I need to be my own Mark Darcy who likes Bridget just the way she is… aaaaand I don’t know if I can do it.

It feels wrong to like myself just the way I am. As if my liking and accepting myself just the way I am will somehow mean that I won’t ever improve myself. As if I am accepting my lot in life and nothing will ever get better.

It’s counter intuitive because I was taught to push, and drive myself further. Striving for perfection…ahhh hang on a minute….striving and never arriving!

There is something to this…this is where the self care and compassion thing is going to come from, from a deep love and acceptance of myself just the way I am with all my flaws and rubbish. Enough with the self-punishment already, it hasn’t worked in the 38 (almost39 years) I’ve been on this planet. Maybe it’s time to try something different, something radical?

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