Doom and Gloom

It's all a bit doomy and gloomy around here.

Since the Brexit vote on Thursday the pound has fallen off a cliff, stocks and shares are down, the Prime Minister has resigned, and half the Labour shadow cabinet have walked out.

It looks very likely that the next to leave will be all the good people of Scotland, as there'll be another Scottish Referendum.

Boris and Gove, who led the 'Leave' campaign, seem to have gone curiously quiet, and nobody's got a clue what to do next.

The black and white nature of the referendum vote and all the emotive language used in the debate, stirring up issues like immigration and inequality, has turned families and neighbours against each other.

Then, to add insult to injury, we got knocked out of the Euro 2016 football championship by Iceland. Iceland, who have a population the size of Croydon.

Not only is Tom Hiddleston no longer single, but he's flaunting his new bird all over the media.

And, worse than all of that, last night was the final episode in this series of Game of Thrones. We have to wait at least a year to find out whether the White Walkers can be defeated, and if Daenerys, Mother of Dragons, and Jon Snow will ever snog.

At depressing times like these it's very easy to find your mind fast forwarding to Doomsday scenarios.

Mine goes something like this: aarrrgggghhh. Mr SM is going to lose his job. We'll have to sell the house at a fraction of what it used to be worth. The kids will need to move schools. Then all the stress will bring my cancer back and I'll DIE and my children will be MOTHERLESS until Mr SM gets seduced by a large breasted, face lifted temptress who doesn't love them and spends all the remaining family money on HANDBAGS.

We drinkers are very prone to what is known as 'monkey brain.' I like to think that it's because we're all very clever and creative. Perhaps we're just slightly unhinged.

In any case, many of us used booze as a way of silencing all the endless CHATTER in our heads at the end of the day. When we quit, one of the hardest things to deal with is all that noise.

Plus, it turns out that all those random thoughts make us miserable.

A chap called Matt Killingsworth created an iPhone app that tracked the happiness of 15,000 people on a daily basis all over the world. He discovered that 'mind wandering', or monkey brain, makes us unhappy.

Funnily enough, even if our wandering minds are thinking about lovely stuff we are less happy than if we stay in the moment.

So, when we stop drinking we need to find ways of stopping our thoughts getting out of control, of staying in the now, that don't involve booze.

Many newly sober folk take up running, or yoga, gardening, colouring, knitting - anything that keeps you totally focussed on the task in hand will do.

Or why not try a box set - like Game of Thrones? Oh, bugger.

Love SM x