5 Ways to a Fabulous Sober Christmas

If you're approaching your first ever sober Christmas, you're probably feeling a bit nervous about the whole thing.

I remember.

I was terrified about the idea of Christmas without booze. I thought it would be really hard, dealing with the constant triggers. I expected it to be boring and joyless. I pretty much wrote it off, and just wanted to get through the whole thing as quickly as possible.

Now, I'm approaching my fourth sober Christmas, and I promise you that I am more excited about Christmas than I ever was when I was drinking.

Like all of these things, the first time is the hardest, because it's all so new. You've spent decades doing Christmas one way (drunk), so it's bound to be a bit peculiar trying to do it a totally different way.

I remember when I first got married, being really nervous about Christmas. You see, every family has their own Christmas traditions, timings and rituals that somehow become totally sacrosanct, and you know that as a 'new' family, you're going to have to compromise and merge your traditions to create a new template.

Well, learning to do Christmas sober is a bit like that. It will eventually be just as good as the old Christmases (way better, in fact), but it will be different. You'll have to find new rituals and traditions to replace some of the old ones. But you will.

So, here are my top five tips for a fabulous sober Christmas:

1. Be brutally honest about Christmas Past

Okay, this is the mental 'limbering up' phase. You can start working on this one right away.

It's very easy to look back at Christmas with rose tinted glasses, and to remember only the jolly times. That glass of wine while wrapping the stocking presents on Christmas Eve. The first glass of champagne while cooking the turkey. The glass of red wine with Christmas lunch, and the whiskey while you watch Christmas telly in the evening.

STOP RIGHT THERE.

Go back and look again. Remember what happened next. All of it.

Remember how you drank too much while wrapping the presents and got some of them muddled up (or was that just me?). Remember waking up on Christmas Day with a hangover, feeling meh, and unable to get excited about the day ahead.

Remember getting drunk before lunch, messing up all the timings and forgetting the gravy. Remember the family arguments and falling asleep in front of the telly, missing the end of the film you'd been really enjoying.

Remember Boxing Day, feeling like death.

Does any of that ring any bells at all?

The truth is, Christmas probably stopped being really fun several years ago. The booze wasn't making it better, it was actually sucking away the joy.

Whenever you find yourself yearning after the 'good old days', replace those images in your head with the real ones.

2.  Don't try to be Superwoman

This is really important.

You are doing an amazing and brave thing, for you and your family, in giving up alcohol. This is the very best Christmas present you could possibly give. You DO NOT need to make everything else totally perfect and prove yourself some kind of superwoman as well. Do that next year, if you must.

This year, keep it as simple as possible. Don't try to cram in too much socialising or hosting. Don't over promise. If necessary, claim some kind of illness and cancel some things. Just focus on you, and your immediate family. The rest can wait.

Try to build in some time when you can take yourself off and hibernate for an hour or two, and recharge your batteries.

3.  Think about What You're Drinking

Make sure that, throughout the day, you have special drinks lined up.

The choices here are totally individual. Some people find 'fake booze' - like alcohol free wines and beers - really helpful, others find them too much of a trigger. Work out what works for you before the big day, and make sure you have stocks in.

I will be having a Seedlip and Fever Tree tonic on Christmas Eve, a spicy Virgin Mary while I'm getting the lunch ready, and a glass or two of Torres Natureo alcohol-free red wine with lunch. The truth is, I'll probably finish the bootle of wine over the course of the afternoon, because old habits die hard.

4.  Line up Treats

We big drinkers get out of the habit of treating ourselves, as for many years our go-to treat has been a glass of wine (or similar).  Plus, drinkers tend to have very low self-esteem. We don't think we deserve anything special.

Over the next few days have a really good think about other ways to treat yourself over the Christmas period.

Since you're missing all those booze calories, you can buy yourself some yummy foodie treats for the big day. Go wild. It's only one day. Feel no guilt.

Download your favourite books, music and movies. Invest in a pair of snuggly cashmere socks.

I'm going to book my eldest daughter and myself in for a pedicure on Christmas Eve, and I'm taking the whole family to Winter Wonderland.

Plan a giant lie-in on Boxing Day, or a shopping trip to the sales. Think how much cash you've saved by not drinking over Christmas, as spend some of it!

Do whatever you know will make you feel special. Because you are special, and you do deserve it. You really do.

5.  Be a Child

I realise now that Christmas is actually one of the easiest times to be sober. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, so bear with me...

The hardest time, I think, to be a non-drinker is at a drinks party. The clue is in the name. The whole event is built around drinking. Often sober people are really badly catered for. You end up with a glass of water wondering what it's all about.

Christmas, however, is the opposite. There is so much going on, over and above the drinking.

Christmas is about friends and family, it's about wonderful food and fabulous company. It's about magic and gratitude and love. It's about music and singing and films and family games and presents.

There is just so much to focus on, and you can properly focus on it, in all its wonderful gaudy glory, when you are totally sober.

Look at children at Christmas time. They are hyperventilating with excitement about it all, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with booze.

Be like them. Be a child. See it all through their eyes.

And if at any point you're finding it hard, then fast forward to the next day, because you know that on Boxing Day you are going to wake up feeling absolutely fabulous and so proud of yourself for having done your last ever first sober Christmas.

Merry, merry Christmas to you all!

By the way, there is loads of info and inspo on the SoberMummy Facebook page, and if you have any friends planning a Dry January, then the paperback edition of The Sober Diaries is out on December 27th (whoop whoop!). You can find it here.

If you're in the USA, you can't get a hardcopy annoyingly, but you can download on Kindle or audio (click here).

SM x

How Long Does it Take to Break a Habit?

We're not very good at waiting for things.

We've become so used to being able to buy anything online and have it arrive at our front door within twenty-four hours. We have any information we might ever need about anything just a few clicks away. We can find a date just by swiping right. Instant gratification is the new norm.

When I quit drinking, I knew that the first few days, possibly weeks, would be pretty awful, but I thought that, fairly quickly, life would return to normal and I could forget about the whole thing.

How wrong I was.

You see, changing a deeply ingrained habit takes time. 

I spent nearly three decades persuading my sub-conscious mind to equate any social event with alcohol. Then, over time, I taught it that alcohol was necessary to deal with any celebration, any commiseration, any stress, any anxiety or, in fact, pretty much any emotion at all.

However determined you are that alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, prescription drugs (delete as appropriate) no longer have a role in your life, you cannot hurry up your subconscious. It will catch up with the new agenda eventually, but you have to, slowly, slowly, build new neural pathways to replace the old ones.

For fifteen years, I was a terrible smoker. I adored smoking. I saw it as rebellious and sexy, and cigarettes were the prop I relied on to get me through any slightly tough times. By the end, I would need to light a cigarette just to answer the telephone, and I was smoking around thirty a day.

Quitting was really hard. I didn't think I'd ever be able to enjoy a party again, or a meal with friends without the cigarette at the end to look forward to. How could I have sex without being able to light up afterwards?

It took a long time to persuade my sub-conscious to get with the programme. I missed it less and less, but the cravings would still blind-side me for months after I quit.

Yet now, the idea of smoking after a meal, or after sex, or indeed any time at all fills me with total horror. Why on earth would I do that to myself?

And, three years after quitting drinking, I'm starting to feel the same about booze.

These days, I hardly ever think about drinking. I don't notice what other people are drinking. I have to remind myself to buy wine if someone's coming round for dinner, and I never look at their glass with envy. In fact, I don't look at it at all.

But getting to this point took a while. You can't do it in one month, which is why Dry January can be a bit off-putting. The first month is really hard, and not long enough to see the real benefits.

So how long does it take to break a habit?

Many addiction experts talk about the power of threes.

It takes three days for the toxins to leave your body.

It takes three weeks for the worst of the physical withdrawal symptoms to recede.

It takes three months (or around 100 days) for the worst of the mental cravings to go.

I would add that it can take over a year before you get to the point where it never even crosses your mind to go back there.

I'm sure that the reason a lot of people quit quitting is that they've done a few days, weeks or even months and it's still hard, and they can't believe that it should still be difficult, or that it's ever going to get any better.

I promise you, IT WILL.

100 days seems like a very long time when you're struggling. A year feels like an eternity. But it's nothing in the context of the rest of your life.

There are some tricks you can use to give your sub-conscious a kick up the arse.

If you're quitting alcohol, change all your passwords to ilovebeingsober, for example. Just typing that several times a day will help.

Make a vision board showing what life without booze/cigarettes/sugar will look like - happy, healthy and energetic. Put it by your bed so that your sub-conscious sees it every single morning.

Write a list of all the reasons you don't want to drink/smoke/eat rubbish and put it on the fridge door.

Don't give up giving up. Don't give up on yourself. Don't give up on life.

If you do find yourself constantly back at Day One, then read my post The Obstacle Course (click here). It's one of my most popular blog posts and many, many people have told me it's helped them.

To find out more about the ups and downs of the first few months sober you can read my book, The Sober Diaries, here (UK) and here (USA).

I also post daily information and inspiration on the SoberMummy Facebook page ('like' page to stay updated).

Love to you all,

SM

Understanding the Wine Witch

One of the keys to beating addiction is understanding the wine witch.

If you've ever been addicted to anything, you'll know instinctively what I mean. If you've never had an issue with moderation (lucky you), then this post may help you to get inside the head of those who do.

I really can't remember when I first met the wine witch. I think it must have been sometime around my late twenties. I know that when I was at University I would drink sometimes, and not drink at other times, and not think about it at all in-between. It just wasn't on my mind.

But, at some point, a little voice started to take up residence in my head. At first, it was barely noticeable, it felt just like another regular thought. It would say things like ooh, she looks fun, looks like she enjoys a drink or two. You should make friends with her! or Hey, it's still early! Why not have one for the road?

So far, so normal.

The problem with addiction is that it's progressive. Those thoughts which used to float by once in a while start to appear more often. You begin to be familiar with better buy an extra bottle, just in case you run out and what about a wine box? So much more cost efficient!

By the time I quit drinking, the wine witch was a permanent resident in my head, fretting about when I was going to drink next, how much I was going to drink, where I was going to buy the drink from, how many bottles were in the recycling bin, and so on.

Sharing your head with all of that on a daily basis is exhausting, as well as totally distracting. It's difficult to achieve anything else in your life when you're dealing with all the constant chatter.

So I quit.

The problem was, that when you start to fight your addiction, the internal monologue initially gets WORSE.

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? YOU FEEL AWFUL! YOU NEED MORE WINE! YOU ARE BORING WITHOUT IT! LIFE IS BORING WITHOUT IT!

You start to feel like you're going a little crazy. You know logically, with your conscious mind, that the booze has to go, that it's no good for you, but your sub-conscious mind is still addicted - it hasn't caught up. You're effectively waging an ongoing battle in your own head.

This is where the wine witch comes in.

You need to give that voice a name, a personality, so that you realise it's NOT YOU. It's your addiction. And once you separate that voice from yourself, you can understand it, and you can beat it. You can't keep fighting yourself for very long, but you can fight an evil enemy.

Addicts choose different names and personifications for their addict brains. I love the wine witch, because wine was my thing. Alan Carr talks about a snake which has taken residence in your belly. George Michael sang about The Monkey.

Why can't you do it?
Why can't you set your monkey free?
Always giving in to it.
Do you love the monkey, or do you love me?

As soon as I named and pictured my enemy, I knew I could kill her. I understood that she would try every trick in the book to try to persuade me to drink, because that was how she gained her strength. I knew that the only way to destroy her was to deprive her of alcohol.

I would imagine blasting the witch with a machine gun. I'd fry her with my dragons (thank you, Game of Thrones). I'd clobber her around the head with my stiletto heels. I was The Bride in Kill Bill, wreaking furious vengeance whenever that witch stuck her head over the parapet and started bleating about just one won't do any harm...

The longer you go without a drink/drug, the weaker the wine witch or monkey becomes, their voice less strident, less insistent. But just one drink brings them back to life with a vengeance.

It takes a while to kill the witch. For me, it was about 100 days until she started quieting down, and six months before she really shut up.

Then, one day, I realised that I hadn't heard from her at all for some time. I was free. I had tapped my red shoes together and gone back to Kansas with Toto.

And that silence, that freedom, is the most magical feeling in the world.

To find out more about the ups and downs of the first year sober, read The Sober Diaries here (UK) and here (USA) in hardback, Kindle or audio.

I also post daily information and inspiration on the SoberMummy Facebook Page ('like' page to stay updated) and you can follow me on Instagram, @clare_pooley and Twitter, @cpooleywriter.

Love to you all,

SM x

Filling the Hole

When you quit drinking it usually leaves a big hole. It certainly did for me.

So much of my life revolved around drinking - at parties, in restaurants and bars, and at home alone - that when I stopped, there was a huge... gap.

I've discovered that it is crucial to fill that gap with something else, ideally something that allows you to switch off, to get out of your head, the way that alcohol used to do.

My readers have found all sorts of ways of doing this - running, yoga, drawing, knitting, gardening, jewellery making, and much, much more. The crucial thing is that, whatever activity you pick, it keeps you in the moment. 

If you're in the early days of quitting, and you're really not sure how to fill the hole, then here's my advice: think back to when you were a teenager. What made your heart beat faster? How did you spend your spare time? What did you want to be when you 'grew up?'

Many people tell me that when they quit drinking they re-discovered long forgotten passions. I read a story about a lady who loved to ice-skate as a young girl, but stopped when she became an adult. She took it up again in middle age, and it's now her greatest joy in life.

Another lady told me that she was passionate about horses and riding. When she quit drinking she got back on a horse for the first time in twenty years. She can't believe she left it so long.

It is never too late to rekindle that fire. And, if you find the right thing, you'll discover that it gives you a much greater high than alcohol ever did. And without the hangover. Perhaps you'll even turn it into your new career....

My 'thing' as a teenager was words. Writing, reading, anything and everything. So, when I quit drinking, that's what I went back to. I set up this blog and started writing every day, for the first time in nearly thirty years. This blog led to my book - The Sober Diaries.

Then, as you may remember from a previous post, I applied to do a three month novel-writing course.

I've spent the last three months lost in a fictional world in my own head. It's been the most intense and mind-blowing experience. At times I've felt like I was going a little crazy. And apologies for not posting on here very much through that period.

But it's not just the writing that I've loved - it's the course itself.

There are fifteen of us in our group, and our ages range from twenty-three to around sixty. We come from very different backgrounds, have different careers and interests and are writing totally different novels, but we all have a shared passion.

I spent decades choosing companions by their ability to match me drink for drink. It's wonderful to have a diverse group of friends with something completely different in common.

I've loved spending two evenings a week discussing great literature and our own (not so great) attempts, rather than just exchanging idle gossip down the pub.

So, why not spend some of the money you've saved on not drinking doing an evening course? It'll keep your hands and mind busy, introduce you to a new social circle and may become your new passion.

Learn to make pots! Discover how a car engine works! Find out how to do your own decorating or plumbing.  The world is your oyster.

Do tell us what you're planning to do in the comments below.

I'm still posting information and inspiration daily on the SoberMummy Facebook page here. If you 'like' the page then Facebook will keep you updated.

Lots of love to you all!

SM x

You are a Superhero!

I was sent a wonderful Elizabeth Gilbert quote today, which I had to share:

"The women whom I love and admire for their strength and grace did not get that way because shit worked out. They got that way because shit went wrong and they handled it.

They handled it in a thousand different ways on a thousand different days, but they handled it.

Those women are my superheroes."

And those women are my superheroes too.  And those women are you. Because if you are fighting an addiction, then you are handling it in a thousand different ways on a thousand different days.

It's really easy to feel angry at the cards that you've been dealt, to tell yourself it's not fair. Because it isn't fair.

I have spent many an evening glaring secretly at Mr SM as he sips his large glass of wine, then puts the bottle back in the fridge without feeling the need to finish it. How can he do that?

But the truth is that dealing with your addiction and coming out the other side will make you a superhero. 

You'll discover a strength you never knew you had. I'm not entirely sure about 'grace.' I still don't feel terribly graceful, but I'm not going to argue with Elizabeth Gilbert.

You'll find that you like yourself again, and you like other people more, because you realise that beneath all the messiness of relationships and friendships, they're dealing with shit that's going wrong too.

It'll make you brave. Because once you've faced your fears and your demons and won, you'll realise that you can do it again and again. Next time shit goes wrong, (and it will at some point), you'll know exactly how to deal with it.

But the problem is that we often keep all the stuff we're dealing with quiet, because we're ashamed, because we don't want to put a downer on the conversation, or because we don't think people will understand. I didn't tell most people I'd quit drinking for years.

So, as a result, no-one tells you how strong and brave and extraordinary you are.

So I'm going to. Listen up, because this is important.

YOU ARE A SUPERHERO. YOU ARE STRONG, BRAVE AND EXTRAORDINARY. 

Be proud of yourself. Stick your face on that picture of Wonder Woman and put it on the fridge so you can remind yourself every day what a hero you are.

There's lots more information and inspiration on the SoberMummy Facebook page: click here ('like' page to stay updated)

To read (or listen to) my book, The Sober Diaries, click here UK, here USA, or here Australia.

To listen to my TEDx talk on Making Sober Less Shameful click here.

Love to all you superheroes,

SM x

What Will You Do Next?

Last week was Eminem's ten year Soberversary.

(When my children were small they were convinced that his name was M&M and that he had a sideline in chocolate manufacturing).

I found an article from the New York Times that was written shortly after Eminem left rehab. He'd just released his first new album in five years - Relapse - inspired by his addiction and recovery.

In creating this album, Eminem said "I'm kind of just coming clean and exhaling."

Like so many people who've written to me, Eminem found that "the deeper I got into my addiction, the tighter the lid got on my creativity... but when I got sober the wheels started turning again."

"When I got sober the lid just came off. In seven months I accomplished more than I could accomplish in three or four years of doing drugs."

(To read the full article visit the SoberMummy Facebook page. 'Like' page to stay updated).

It's amazing what people start doing with their lives once they quit drinking.

The combination of more money, more energy, more creativity and more time creates a rocket fuel.

For many, though, it doesn't happen as quickly as it did for Eminem.

For me, the first year was all about healing and introspection. I did pick up writing (this blog), for the first time in decades, but, like Eminem, that was very much about 'coming clean and exhaling.' It was therapy.

It's often the second and third year after beating addiction that people's lives really turn around.

Many of my readers have started new businesses, climbed mountains, run marathons, become jewellery designers, yoga teachers, writers or artists. One lady has started doing an open-mic poetry reading session, another is doing stand-up comedy.

It feels a bit like that lid has been pressed down so hard, that when it's released it explodes with the power of a jack-in-the-box.

So, what are you going to do now you're sober? Please tell us in the comments!

I am, this evening in fact, as the picture above suggests, going back to school. I'm starting a three month novel-writing course.

It's something I've wanted to do for YEARS, but never would have managed in the drinking days. For a start, I'd have told myself that I wasn't good enough. Secondly, its in the evenings! 7-9pm! It would have interfered far too much with my drinking time.

I'm a bit nervous. I'm wondering what the other fourteen students will be like. There's bound to be at least one that winds everyone up. Argh! What if it's me?!?

In other news, Mr SM is having a mid-life crisis.

He hasn't bought a Harley Davidson yet, but - after our brief flirtation with summer last week, he's bought a GIANT gas barbecue for the garden. Everyday new accessories arrive for this beast. A smoker. A rotisserie. A metal suitcase filled with barbecue tongs.

On top of that, he's started cycling to and from work. More accessories. He's started mumbling about lycra. OMG, I'm going to have a MAMIL* for a husband.

(*Middle-Aged Man In Lycra).

And, finally, a BIG, BIG thanks to all of you who've left reviews of The Sober Diaries on Amazon. I looked at my UK page yesterday (okay, I confess: I look at it every day), and there were TWO-HUNDRED reviews. You are amazing, and I am overwhelmed.

To see the reviews, or to buy a copy of The Sober Diaries in hardback, Kindle or audio, click here for UK, here for USA and here for Australia.

To watch my TEDx talk: Making Sober Less Shameful, click here.

Love to you all!

SM x

Repairing the Damage

I am not the same woman I was ten years ago.

The process of beating addiction requires you to tear yourself apart, layer by layer, and then to reassemble yourself, as best you can.

Then I got breast cancer, and dealing with that was very similar. I was shattered, and had to gradually rebuild.

I didn't just end up emotionally scarred, I was physically scarred too - an ex-lush with only 1.75 breasts and a big gash where one of my my sentinel lymph nodes used to be. Not to mention the damage inflicted by three lots of childbirth and breast feeding.

It's very easy to emerge from all of that feeling damaged. Flawed. Imperfect.

That's why I loved a performance I saw recently by the amazing feminist poet - Megan Beech.

(Megan's debut poetry collection was brilliantly titled "When I Grow Up I Want to be Mary Beard.")

Megan performed a piece about living with depression. She compared her relationship with mental illness to the Japanese art of Kintsugi.

Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum, thereby creating a piece much more beautiful and unique than the 'perfect' original.

It is said that when this new art emerged in the late 15th century, collectors became so enamoured with it that they would deliberately smash valuable pottery so that it could be repaired with the golden seams of kintsugi.

Kintsugi is not just an art, it's also a philosophy which treats breakage and repair as part of the unique history, or story, of an object, rather than something to disguise.

In a book about mended Japanese ceramics, Christy Bartlett writes "not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated."

Another brilliant poet, Leonard Cohen, said the same in these lyrics from Anthem:  

Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That's how the light gets in.

And the truth is that those repaired cracks and flaws are what makes us unique and precious and beautiful. We shouldn't be ashamed of them, we should celebrate them - highlight them in gold and make them shimmer.

It also makes us brave and fearless, because we know that even if something is thrown at us that makes us shatter again, we have the ability to rebuild, and to - eventually - emerge even better.

I like to think that understanding Kintsugi can make us less judgemental too, that instead of criticising the flaws and imperfections of others we can see them as marks of a bewitching individuality.

So, if you are feeling battered and bruised by life, then don't be, because it's those scars which make you beautiful, unique and courageous.

There's lots of new stuff on the SoberMummy Facebook page, including much heated debate on the Liz Jones article about the misery that is sobriety (*angry face*). 'Like' the page to stay updated.

To listen to my TEDx talk on Making Sober Less Shameful click here.

To read about the ups and downs of the first year sober in The Sober Diaries click here (UK), or here (USA) or here (Australia).

To hear Megan perform her kintsugi poem, click here.

Love to you all!

SM x

5 Reasons Why Ex-Drinkers Rock

If you've recently quit drinking, and you're giving yourself a hard time about all those years of bad behaviour and self-indulgence, then stop it right now.

Perhaps you're a 'normal drinker' (curse you), and have a newly-sober friend who you're kind of avoiding because you're worried that they might not be any fun, or that they'll start judging you. 

Well, that is so lame.

Here are five (of the many) reasons why ex-drinkers are the best people around:

1. We Are People of Excess

We talk about having 'a genetic tendency towards addiction' as a bad thing. And in some ways it is. It's why we got into a bit of trouble with booze and ended up quitting altogether.

But being an addictive personality, an all-or-nothing person, is also an incredibly wonderful thing.

You see, we are not just excessive in our love for alcohol, or nicotine, or shopping, or whatever, we are also excessive in doling out love, in following our dreams, in indulging in our passions for other things like art, literature, running or yoga.

Whatever we do, we like to do with all our heart, its just that, for a while, that mainly involved booze.

2. We are Survivors

We made it through days, weeks and months of taking one day at a time and battling with our inner demons.

We learned how to pare ourselves down to the bone and then rebuild ourselves, piece by piece. And every emotion, every set back we dealt with head on, with no props or anaesthetics to blur the edges.

And we came out of all of that strong. We know that we can walk through fire and emerge, not only unscathed, but fiercer, because we've done it before, and we can do it again.

3. We don't Judge

In today's society we are always judging each other and ourselves. We scrutinise each other's Facebook and Instagram feeds, we gossip and we bitch.

Well, we ex-drinkers know better than anyone that no-one is perfect, least of all ourselves. We don't look at the glossy social media and fall for it, because we know that everyone has a secret pain, that we are all gloriously, messily flawed.

So we don't judge. You can tell us the very worst thing you've ever done, and we'll nod, give you a hug and say "I've been there too."

4. We Make Really Good Friends

Because of all of that, we are really good friends to have around. And we value our friendships, because for a long while we didn't deserve them, and we're terribly grateful to anyone who stuck around.

We nurture our friendships too. We don't just meet up at parties and tell the same stories on a loop, we'll get together for a coffee and a good chat, for a long walk, for a trip to an art gallery or a yoga class - in fact we'd prefer that.

And if we do meet up at a party, we'll give you a lift home.

5. We Have Stories to Tell

And ex-drinkers are far from boring.

If you want to hear tales of a life well-lived, of triumphs and disasters, of excess and passion, then talk to the ex-lush. And they'll tell them without slurring or repetition.

So hurrah for you! Hurrah for us! Hurrah for them!

WE ROCK.

To read my tales of drinking, and then not drinking, in The Sober Diaries, visit my Amazon page. You can read the first few chapters free with the 'look inside' feature.

Click here for daily inspiration and information on the SoberMummy Facebook Page ('like' page to stay updated), or follow me on Instagram @clare_pooley.

Love to you all,

SM x

Because You're Worth It

This week's flower delivery

Shortly after I gave up drinking, I read a fabulous piece by my favourite journalist, Caitlin Moran. It was her letter to teenage girls. She wrote this:

Pretend you are your own baby. You would never cut that baby, or starve it, or overfeed it until it cried in pain, or tell it it was worthless.

Sometimes, girls have to be mothers to themselves. Your body wants to live – that’s all and everything it was born to do. Let it do that, in the safety you provide it. Protect it. That is your biggest job. To protect your skin, and heart.

Buy flowers – or if you are poor, steal one from someone’s garden; the world owes you that much at least: blossom – and put them at the end of the bed.

When you wake, look at it, and tell yourself you are the kind of person who wakes up and sees flowers.

This stops your first thought being, “I fear today. Today is the day maybe I cannot survive any more,” which I know is what you would otherwise think.

Thinking about blossom before you think about terror is what girls must always do, in the Bad Years.

Ever since I read those incredibly powerful words, I have spent the equivalent of two bottles of wine per week on having fresh flowers delivered to my house.

Every Tuesday, I wake up to find a box of incredible blooms sitting outside my front door. I bring them in, take them out, one by one, chop off the ends of the stems and arrange them in a vase, feeling like a 1950's housewife, and place them in the centre of my kitchen table.

Then, all week, I can tell myself that I am the kind of person who wakes up and sees fresh flowers. I remind myself what I've achieved. I tell myself that I deserve good things in my life. I feel grateful for the wonders of nature.

And the flowers make my family happy too. (I think. Perhaps they don't even notice them!)

So, if you've just quit the booze, think about how you might be able to spend some of the money you used to spend on your poison-of-choice in a way that could, every single day, remind you of how bloody amazing you are. And how wonderful life is.

If you have any good ideas, please tell us in the comments!

By the way, it really is worth reading the whole of that Caitlin Moran letter. It's as relevant to the middle-aged as it is to teenagers. She talks about how, in times of trouble, you should focus on just getting through the next minute - a hugely helpful trick if you're battling the wine witch.

So, I'm putting a video of Caitlin reading her letter on the SoberMummy Facebook page this evening. Also new on the page is the inspirational story of Tom Hardy, and what he managed to achieve after he dispatched his demons.

To visit the SoberMummy Facebook page click here. 'Like' the page to stay updated.

Love and flowers to you all,

SM x

Make Life Simple

Back on Day 96 I wrote a post on de-cluttering and an idiot's guide to feng shui (click here).

It's quite common for the newly sober to become obsessed by cleaning and de-cluttering. It keeps our hands busy and off the wine bottle, and it gives us back a sense of control over our environment and our lives.

Plus, in the early days it really helps if you can keep your life as simple and uncluttered as possible, that way you can focus on you, and the important stuff, like not drinking.

So it helps to evaluate your life mercilessly, to work out what makes you stressed and, therefore, want to drink and ditch it, perhaps just for a few weeks, or - if possible - permanently.

I decluttered my house, pared down the wardrobe so it only contained the stuff I was actually likely to wear, went through the fridge and freezer binning anything past the use-by date and any duplicates (why three jars of redcurrant jelly?), then said 'no' to any additional work, school or charity commitments that weren't absolutely necessary.

Then I found that, once you've simplified everything down to the essentials, you can see what's really important, and what's needed. You discover you're missing a pair of black trousers, butter and a fitness regime.

Over the last two weeks I've taken exactly the same principle and started applying it to my e-mail inbox and it's changed my life!

I used to get hundreds of mails a day, but most of them were just trying to sell me stuff I didn't want or need. Every single company I'd ever bought anything from or shown interest in felt able to bombard me with endless junk.

Am I the only person in the world that hadn't worked out how easy it is to UNSUBSCRIBE?

Just in case the answer to that query is 'no', here's what you do: just scroll down to the very bottom of the junk mail until you find the word 'unsubscribe', then click it and follow the (usually simple) instructions.

I've been doing this about fifty times a day for the last two weeks and, as a result, I've completely de-cluttered my inbox.

Instead of receiving hundreds of junk mails a day, I now get a small handful. The vast majority of mails I receive are proper ones. Ones from people I've actually met, or at least spoken to.

This means that now, for the first time, I can see what's important. And I can see the gaps. I suddenly realise that I'm not half as busy or in demand as I thought I was. It's given me the incentive to mail some friends to organise stuff and to tout for more work.

I'm totally addicted to UNSUBSCRIBE (once an addict, always an addict). If only I could use it for the rest of my life. Competitive parenting: UNSUBSCRIBE! Refereeing sibling arguments: UNSUBSCRIBE! Endlessly loading the sodding dishwasher: UNSUBSCRIBE!

If you've received this post by e-mail and it's just cluttering up your inbox and irritating you, please feel free to UNSUBSCRIBE.

If, however, you'd like to join my e-mail list then go to the home page of my main website (if you're on a mobile device, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on 'view full website') and you'll find a box in the top right hand corner saying 'subscribe my e-mail.' Just stick your e-mail address in there.

(All mails are blandly titled 'A New Post From SM', rather than anything embarrassing like DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ALCOHOL?)

Love to you all,

SM x

Hope Versus Expectation

I read all the comments you fabulous people leave on my blog. I'm sorry I don't always reply to them.

They are always kind, wise, often very funny, sometimes extremely poignant, and really helpful - both for me, and for all the lurkers our there.

(It's okay, no shame in lurking! We've all done it. Come out when you're ready).

Sometimes a comment gets stuck in my head and it takes me a while to figure out why.

That was the case with this one from Tams62:  My therapist has tried to lead me down a path of "hoping" for things vs "expecting" things...It has helped me to not feel so let down and discouraged.

I loved the distinction between 'hope' and 'expectation' but wasn't entirely sure why, then yesterday I worked it out....

Yesterday was hard.

I had to clear up the house in Scotland, pack the cases to go South, lock away anything staying North, empty the fridge and all the cupboards, clean, squeeze everything into the car (leaving enough space for three children and a dog), then drive for nine hours back to London.

Usually Mr SM and I share all this. Yesterday, as Mr SM had fled back to the office several days ago, I had to do it all on my own.

And, you know what? It was easier.

(The packing bit, not the driving bit. Nine hours without a co-pilot is hell. We made it, fuelled by coffee, Rowntree's Fruit Gums and an eleven hour long talking book of Philip Pullman's Amber Spyglass to keep the children happy. But by the end I had to be levered out of the driver's seat, a gibbering wreck).

I tried to work out what made it less stressful, and I realised that on previous occasions I've spent an inordinate amount of energy worrying about what Mr SM is doing (or not doing).

Usually on a packing day I get up at least an hour before Mr SM does, so by the time he saunters out of bed (at a reasonable time) I'm already feeling like a martyr.

He then has this really annoying habit of deciding to deal with endless e-mails when we only have a short amount of time left before we can leave.

I bang and crash around him, loudly emptying cupboards, washing up and harrumphing, as my blood boils to the point that steam is coming out of my ears.

He's used to this, so just types away regardless, issuing storm warnings to the children. ("Watch out folks, she's gale force seven, gusting eight!").

By the time we leave I am super stressed and extremely cross. It takes an hour or two of the journey before I'm back on speakers with the husband. (I suspect he relishes the peace of the silent treatment).

But yesterday I had absolutely no expectation of Mr SM doing anything (except going to his office several hundred miles away). And I was calm, organised, relaxed, happy.

The reason expectations are so toxic and so stressful is that they involve other people's behaviour, which is out of our control.

When people refuse to behave how we expect them to we take it personally. We get upset, or angry. And, if you're in the early days of quitting, this can be a major trigger.

If you expect nothing, you can't be disappointed.

But hope is different. Hope is about being eternally optimistic and positive. It's a good thing to hope that someone will help you, so long as you don't expect it.

I've also realised that men, and children, are very much like puppies.

Nagging them to do stuff just doesn't work and makes the whole household unhappy.

Instead, rewarding them when they behave the way you'd hope encourages them to carry on.

So now I try really hard not to nag Mr SM to load the dishwasher, but when he does so without asking I go totally overboard with the praise and thanks. (You'd think he'd split the atom rather than just put a few dirty plates in the right place). And he is - I think - doing it a little more.

I found this great quote from Stephen Hawking:

My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.

I'm not sure I'll ever get my expectations down to zero, but I'm working on it, and doling out lots of puppy treats along the way....

Love SM x

P.S. If you're receiving this by e-mail, I hope the title has now changed to something less embarrassing! If so, it's all thanks to amanconcernedforhiswife. If not, I give up.

Post Acute Withdrawal and Vitamin B

Day 121.

Isn't that a great number? Like a swan swimming down a stream.

I digress. I'm having another attack of the PAWS. Luckily, I have this blog, and a handy post entitled Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome.

I re-read it. PAWS is often viewed as cyclical - occurring approximately monthly. And, spookily, my last 'episode' ended almost exactly a month ago.

I did beat myself up a bit about becoming obsessed - believing that everything had to be about alcohol. After all, everyone has ups and downs and attacks of the 'blues', not just recovering alkies.

But what makes PAWS different, at least in my experience, is that the general ennui is accompanied by extraordinary tiredness and a bizarre brain fug.

Despite sleeping a solid 7 hours, I wake up really tired and 'heavy' and desperate for another sleep by mid afternoon. And I constantly do things like walk into a room and forget why I'm there.

I completely forgot that #2 had a dress up day at school a couple of days ago. There are mothers at the school who run companies turning over gazillions of pounds, yet their sons turned up in homemade Viking invaders kits. I don't even have a proper job.

This isn't like me at all. Even in my days as a high-functioning-alcoholic I managed to keep all the balls in the air by way of endless lists and sticky notes all over the front door.

Here's some of the PAWS symptoms listed in my previous post: tiredness, low enthusiasm, irritability, memory lapses, anxiety and variable concentration. Tick, tick, tick to all of them.

Then I remembered fabulous Anne (ainsobriety) commenting on my last PAWS post that Vitamin B can help, and I found this article on livestrong.com.

Apparently, alcohol dependence is a major cause of B vitamin deficiency, as your liver burns through these vitamins when it metabolises alcohol. B vitamins include folic acid, riboflavin and niacin.

Eating more foods rich in these vitamins plus taking a B complex vitamin supplement can hugely aid detox and recovery, in several ways. Here's what they say:

Niacin (vitamin B-3) can make withdrawal easier, while thiamine (vitamin B-1) is used to decrease fatigue and to increase effective brain functioning and memory. Pantothenic acid (vitamin B-5) helps rid your body of alcohol and supports adrenal function....

..... B vitamins help alleviate the intensity of PAWS. For example, vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine) aids in the production of melatonin and serotonin, chemicals that help in improving sleep and decreasing anxiety....

.....Due to a B-vitamin deficiency caused by alcohol dependence, your body may begin recovery with some deficits, including an inadequate iron level and neurological difficulties such as poor memory, depression and confusion. The vitamins B-6, B-1 and folic acid (vitamin B-9) are vital in your body's ability to create and maintain adequate iron levels and in avoiding neurological problems.

Funnily enough I've been craving foods recently that are rich in these B-vitamins - smoked mackerel, salmon, pistachio nuts, avocados, endamame - all foods that I used to eat only occasionally, but are now firm staples of my diet. It's amazing how - once we're sober - our bodies can tell us what they need.

I've been through this before. I know it'll only be a few days before I hit another 'up cycle'.

In the meantime, like that swan in 121, I'll keep madly paddling below the surface while seemingly gliding along it.

So start supplementing your vitamin B levels, and have a great day!

SM x

Clutter

Day 96, and my current obsession is clutter.

We high functioning alkies, in order to remain high functioning, become masters of prioritisation. We identity all the really important plates and we make damn sure that we keep them spinning.

Much of this is about external appearance. If everything looks as if it's in control then we can kid ourselves that it really is. We're like swans - apparently gliding effortlessly over the water, but in reality paddling like crazy through all the fish poo.

So I would like to bet that many of you have homes that look, on the surface, in pretty good order, but if you look in the cupboards, under the stairs, under the bed or in the cellar they are stuffed with clutter.

When you're drinking a lot you simply don't have time to deal with loads of stuff, to work out where it goes or what to do with it. So you shove it in a drawer and pour another glass of vino. Am I right?

And, here's the spooky thing, didn't we do exactly the same thing with our minds? Oh dear, here's a little emotion that I don't really like and don't know what to do with. Shove it in a recess and pour another drink.

So when we get sober we start clearing out all those rejected and neglected emotions that haven't gone away but have sat there getting mouldy and making us all sluggish and dysfunctional.

It's no surprise, then, that we start feeling the need to do the same thing with our environment. Our gardens (see Gardening) and our homes.

The link between our spiritual selves and our surroundings is the basis of feng shui. I have to confess that I'd always filed feng shui in the 'life's too short for all that up itself nonsense' drawer. But now it makes total sense.

Here's what feng shui has to say about clutter: Clutter is low, stagnant, and confusing energy that constantly drains energy from you. Depending on the feng shui area of your home and where your clutter is located, it can also negatively influence, or even completely block, the flow of energy and events in many areas of your life.

Funnily enough, the two areas of my house that I've started decluttering first are my kitchen and the entrance to my house. Having done some (quick) research I've discovered that the kitchen is the area which is related to your health, especially your liver. How spooky is that?!?

And the entrance to your house is known as the 'mouth of chi' and where your house gets its 'energy and nourishment.' If your 'mouth of chi' is all blocked you're screwed (executive summary).

Now, if you've only just quit drinking and are still in that slight-state-of-shock pink cloudy state, then do park all this and come back to it in a few months time. If, however, this is ringing some bells with you, then here's a link to how to clear your clutter with feng shui.

But, because I'm feeling generous and giving today, I've done a SoberMummy summary:

1. Don't try to do it all at once. Take one small area at a time and spend no more than thirty minutes on each session.

2. In those 30 minutes separate all your clutter into 3 piles: 'keep', 'bin' and 'don't know'.

3. Only keep stuff that you love, or is useful and you have a place for. If you don't love it, or have no use for it and nowhere to put it - BIN IT. (N.B. by 'bin' I obviously mean take to the charity shop/recycle or sell!)

4. Take the 'don't know' box away for a few months, then go through it again doing 'keep', 'bin', 'don't know' until it's eventually empty.

This process is hard work - physically and emotionally - but hugely rewarding. According to feng shui, we are like plants, and we cannot grow without space and light. Clutter saps health and vitality, restricts finances and stifles relationships (apparently).

Let it go (oh God, now I've got that terrible 'Frozen' song in my head for the day) and feel the energy flow.

Since my decluttering frenzy (before I even read all the feng shui stuff), I've created my little herb garden outside my front door, plus a tank filled with the children's tadpoles (which I now think of as my equivalent to the koi carp pool!).

By the front door I have a hook for the dog leads, and pegs for all the children's school bags. And all those bowls filled with bits of stuff have been emptied out and categorised.

I have a long way to go, both with the physical and the emotional clutter, (I haven't been anywhere near the cellar - known in our house as 'the pit of despair'), but I can see chinks of light starting to break through.

Happy Friday everyone!

SM x

Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms

Day 87, and I'm struggling.

I had been fine. Upbeat, energetic, seeing light at the end of the tunnel. But the last few days I've felt despondent and tetchy. And I'm tired. Physically tired and emotionally drained.

I sleep like a log - 7 hours - but wake up feeling exhausted. Then, by mid afternoon, I'm falling asleep in a chair. By evening I've run out of the energy to do anything except collapse in front of the telly.

So I googled something along the lines of 'fatigue after quitting alcohol.' I got all the usual stuff about withdrawal symptoms in the few days after stopping. I know that. I remember the total exhaustion of day 1-5. But this is DAY 87!

Then I found all this stuff about Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms (here's a link to one of the best explanations I found). It's also known by its more cuddly nickname PAWS.

Oh bugger.

Apparently, PAWS is the second stage of withdrawal from alcohol (or any form of drug) and occurs after the initial intense physical withdrawal stage. As the brain chemistry gradually returns to a new equilibrium it tends to fluctuate causing emotional, physiological and physical symptoms.

These episodes appear to be cyclical - some people swear they are lunar, occurring every 28 days or so or literally at the full moon. Good God I'm a werewolf!

The 'pink cloud' phase followed by 'the wall' is the first episode of PAWS, but these symptoms can reoccur for up to two years!

The good news is that each episode gets shorter and less intense, disappearing within a few days. And if you're aware of them and ready for them you can cope.

Apparently, being unprepared for an attack of PAWS is a major reason for relapse. You think everything's getting better, then BAM! It feels like you're back to the beginning. You lose faith that it's ever going to get better and reach for the bottle.

Symptoms of PAWS include: mood swings, anxiety, irritability, tiredness, low enthusiasm, variable concentration and sleep disturbance (including bad dreams in which you drink heavily!).

I also read that a number of people experience terrible memory lapses during episodes of PAWS. This was actually a relief to discover, as two days ago I was asked in a shop for my postcode and couldn't remember it!

I've had that postcode for nearly a decade and am constantly using it. I had a panic that I was getting early onset Alzheimer's. Imagine - 2 decades fuzzy through drink, a few months lucid, then off with the fairies again!

So, what do you do about PAWS?

Here's some advice I found: You can't hurry recovery. But you can get through it one day at a time. If you resent post-acute withdrawal, or try to bulldoze your way through it, you will become exhausted. And when you're exhausted you will think of using to escape.

Basically, you just have to go with the flow. Ride it out. Like PMS. Each episode is short and gets shorter/easier. The good times get better/longer. So they say.

We had bad spells when we were drinking too, didn't we? Loads of them! Only this time we don't have the false friend to help us through.

Love to you all!

SM x

Gardening

Day 83.

The thing about being a high functioning alcoholic is that you have to learn to prioritise.

There are not enough sober hours in the day to keep absolutely everything functioning perfectly, so you learn to pick your battles.

In my life, priority number one was keeping the children (and husband) happy. Properly fed, clothed, achieving. Homework done, music practice done, playdates arranged and executed, homemade costumes created for various 'dress up days', cakes created for bake sales, and so on. That, in itself, is a full time job.

Next in line is the house. We have an old, relatively big (for London) house which we can't afford to maintain properly. So not only do I have to make sure that it's clean and tidy, but I'm also constantly running around with pots of filler, damp proof paint etc, trying to stop it looking as if it's about to fall down (which it is).

After the house and its inhabitants comes me. And, I confess, personal grooming had started to slip a little. Who has time for appointments with the gym, the dental hygienist, the eyebrow threader or the waxing lady when there's serious 'socialising' (aka drinking) to do at the weekend, as well as all the house-kids-and-husband stuff? Not me.

And right at the bottom of the list? The garden. All too easy to shut the doors and just pretend it wasn't really there. Especially in the winter. Between the months of October and March the only member of the SoberMummy household who spent any time in the garden was the dog. With inevitable consequences.

Once the man from Sky arrived unexpectedly early for an appointment to fix a satellite dish. It had been raining for several days and I hadn't been into the garden to 'clear the lawn'. The man from Sky refused to erect his ladder on our lawn due to 'health and safety' and hot footed it back to HQ. God I felt like a slut.

But now I have eons more time. And over the last two days I have totally transformed my garden. The lawn is manicured. The borders are weeded. I took all the old, broken, plastic garden toys to the dump. I've planted lots of bedding plants. I've trained honeysuckle and clematis over the old Wendy House.

There's a little herb garden outside my kitchen door. I've even ordered an outdoor sofa (cost: a massive 30 bottles of wine equivalent, but worth it). And today we have two families coming round for a barbeque.

And not only is my garden looking lush (the only lush in the SM house now), but the act of gardening has given me a real high.

It appears that I'm not the only one to discover this. Apparently researchers have proved that gardening lowers blood pressure, increases brain activity and produces an 'upbeat feeling.' MIND - the mental health charity - has funded 130 ecotherapy projects across England.

It's believed that gardening works by providing a sense of 'control', which is the psychological nemesis of stress and anxiety. Plus, the act of gardening is a form of Mindfulness - it makes us focus on the 'now' and takes our minds off problems in the past, or fear of the future.

Even looking at gardens helps produce a sense of calm. The notorious New York jail - Riker's Island - uses horticultural therapy to clam prisoners and prepare them for release.

I remember a fabulous scene in Sandra Bullock's film 28 days (about an addict going into rehab). One of the rehab 'inmates' asks the counsellor when they can start dating. The counsellor replies that first they should buy a pot plant and try to keep it alive. Then try the same with a pet. Only once the plant and pet are still alive and thriving for a year should they think about trying the same with another human.

My new plants will, hopefully, thrive and grow, providing a living 'sober counter'. And we won't have any more problems with our satellite TV.

Have a great weekend all of you! And, to my UK friends, it's a Bank holiday woo hoo!

SM x

People in Glasshouses

Day 63, and I've been thinking about the saying 'people in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones' or, in other words, don't judge others unless you yourself are blameless. And, let's face it, who can honestly claim that?

It's odd how supportive we 'struggling sobers' are of each other, how non judgmental, when, as problems drinkers, so many of us were totally the opposite.

Looking down on others is a major piece of weaponry in the wine witch armoury. Like the classic Monty Python sketch on class where "I look down on him because I am upper class, and he is middle class" and "I look down on him because I am middle class, and he is working class", we all like to have someone who can convince us that we are not at the bottom of the pile.

In our world, the expensive wine drinker looks down on the cheap shot drinker. The cheap shot drinker looks down on the strong cider drinker. The strong cider drinker looks down on the meths drinker. The meths drinker looks down on the crack cocaine head. And so on...

We judge others in order to tell ourselves that that is what a real problem looks like. Not what we have. Oh no. Carry on drinking!

I, a classic 'maintenance drinker', would look at the 'binge drinker' and think "look at them with their blackouts and their embarrassing behaviour! Thank goodness I don't have a problem, ho ho." Meanwhile they would look at me and think "Look at SM with her daily drinking habit. And she even drinks at lunch time several times a week! I only drink at weekends. Thank goodness I don't have a problem, ho ho."

Obviously, we both have 'a problem', it's just that the (relatively small) variations allow judgement and denial to skip merrily into our thought processes hand in hand and make themselves a home there.

Think back. Have you ever felt a vicarious thrill when you've heard a friend discussing someone else's drink problem? I'm ashamed to admit that I have. I've even joined in! "Yes, wasn't so-and-sos behaviour terrible the other night? They really need to do something about their drinking. Can you pass that bottle over, please?"

It strikes me now that, once you start the process of being judgemental, it's difficult to stop.

I was horrified when I first had a baby at how judgemental mothers are of each other. "I may not feed my child solely on organics, but at least I don't give her chocolate like x and y do." Or maybe "I might have gone straight back to work after #1 was born, but at least I use a nanny who speaks English, unlike a and b." And so it goes on, as if we can only make ourselves feel better if we believe someone else is worse.

For me, one of the major revelations about getting sober is that I have suddenly become almost completely non judgemental. Having now realised quite what a (hidden) mess my own life was, I look at people who I might have judged previously with compassion. I know that nobody is perfect, that everyone has their secrets and their demons. We're all just muddling along as best we can.

Now I genuinely like a huge number of people an awful lot more than I used to. I'm interested in them, their lives, and what makes them tick. I smile at traffic wardens. I let people in from side turnings when I'm driving (unheard of in central London). I buy dishcloths from unemployed doorstop sellers. Maybe I have, finally, become nice. Or, at least, nicer.

I still worry a lot about people judging me when I (finally) confess to my alcohol issue. I have to keep reminding myself that those who do are, most probably, those who haven't yet confronted their own problems.

There's a great saying we should all have tattooed on our hearts: Judging a person does not define who they are....it defines who you are.

Mummywasasecretdrinker is an entirely judgement free zone.

Happy Sunday!

SM x

Is Alcohol Free Beer Evil?

Day 61! Yee Hah!

About 2 weeks into the sobercoaster I discovered Becks Blue 'Alcohol Free' Beer.

Now I've never been a beer drinker. All weak, gassy and full of calories (that's a description of me and the beer, incidentally). I only ever drank beer if I was on one of my many (doomed) attempts to 'moderate'. Wine was my thing.

But when the wine witch strikes, and you need something to stop you killing someone, you have to have coping strategies.

My list includes: (1) Hot bath with bubbles and candles (works well until #1, #2 and #3 pile into bathroom asking for help with homework/whereabouts of favourite toy/refereeing sibling disagreement. (2) Sharing with likeminded friends in the blogosphere (also easily interrupted) (3) Drinking hot chocolate, 'mocktails' or alcohol free beer.

Of the above, the beer option is often the quickest, simplest and most effective antidote. Becks Blue is so like the real thing - it looks the same, tastes the same and smells the same - that I swear the first time I drank one I felt tipsy. It just goes to show how deeply programmed our brains are to equate certain cues with drunkenness.

Then I discovered that 'alcohol free' beers are NOT actually alcohol free. Plus, many experts strongly advise against them on the basis that they can lead to relapse. I freaked out. So I did some investigation.

Becks Blue is, it is true, NOT entirely alcohol free. However, it has only 'trace' elements of alcohol in it. Less than 0.05% ABV. This means that it is impossible to get intoxicated by drinking it. You would have to drink at least one hundred beers in a short space of time to get any effect at all from them.

However, remember that whole dopamine thing I've been obsessed by? Well, tests have shown that, in addicts, even the smell of alcohol, even the thought of alcohol, produces the dopamine reaction in our brains. The danger is, therefore, that drinking AF beer intensifies our cravings and can lead quickly to us reaching for the real thing. We need, the experts say, to get used to living life without any alcohol 'substitutes'.

It's true that drinking AF beer does trigger the old addict responses in me. I start thinking "I'd love a Becks Blue, but I'd better wait until after 6pm. Should I have another one? Hell yes, I deserve it, I've had a hard day...." etc etc, just the way I used to think about wine. But, oddly enough, that's part of the reason it works for me. I've kidded my brain into thinking that it is a proper treat - it is naughty. Much more so than fruity mocktails.

I do realise that I'm keeping the addict voice alive, and that I could be treading a dangerous path, but I've been drinking an average of 8 AF beers a week for the last six weeks and so far it has never triggered the desire to have a 'proper drink'. Quite the reverse - it makes me feel that I have had a proper drink and, therefore, keeps the wine witch off my back for a bit.

Not only that, but Becks Blue has helped me out in social situations too. An old friend of mine, a big drinker, dropped by last week. She and my husband tucked into a bottle of Chablis. Now when I last had a serious go at quitting this friend took it as a personal insult and gave me rather a hard time about it.

Given how rarely I see her (she lives out of town now) I didn't want to ruin both of our evenings with a tense exchange about booze. (I realise that her reaction is indicative of her own issues with alcohol, incidentally). So I quietly poured a Becks Blue into a glass and avoided any interrogation. Simples.

I posted the question "Is AF beer evil?" on the fabulous Soberistas website. I got a really mixed response. Some people said hell yes, do not touch with a bargepole, whereas there were several big fans.

I think that the truth is you have to know your own triggers. I was never a beer drinker, so beer isn't one of mine. I would never consider touching AF wine.

I also feel that, at least in the early stages, you have to love yourself a little, and if that means eating a bit too much chocolate, spending a bit of cash on shoes or drinking a few Becks Blues then so be it. Now that I am a yoda level 'quitter' I can give up all those habits further down the line....

I'd love your views on this one.

SM x

Role Models

DAY 60!!!

I heard yesterday that a new movie of Absolutely Fabulous is being released. I was overcome by a huge wave of nostalgia for the wonderful Patsy (Joanna Lumley) and Edina (Jennifer Saunders).

In the early 1990s, when I was in my twenties, Absolutely Fabulous (or AbFab as we called it), was my favourite comedy sitcom - along with Friends, obviously. Not only did I adore Patsy and Edina - I actually wanted to be them.

And with my great fondness for nicotine and alcohol, plus my high paying advertising job, love of Harvey Nichols and convertible sports car, I was a pretty good approximation. For me, they were not an ironic comedy duo, they were role models.

So when I heard the news yesterday I looked them up on YouTube for a trip down memory lane (isn't the interweb just marvellous?).

Now please, please check out this compilation of 'Edina and Patsy's Finest Moments'. The amount they drink, in just this seven minutes, is horrifying. But at the time I honestly thought that drinking every day, and with abandon, was cool, rebellious, kooky and cocking a snoop at the establishment and the uninspired.  Just like Patsy and Edina.

These two were obviously extreme examples, but they weren't my only role models. My parents drank every evening. Gin and tonics before dinner. Wine with dinner. And, for my Dad, a brandy or whisky afterwards. They were never drunk, but often drinking.

All my friends drank, at least they did whenever we met up, and I assumed they did at home too. I never felt any concern, stigma or shame about daily drinking, or drinking at home alone.

The 1990s were, if you remember, the era of the 'ladette'. The cool girls who refused to be demure and cute, but worked hard and played hard with the men. Zoe Ball, Denise van Outen, Tara Palmer Tomkinson and the like, were pictured out drinking hard every evening (or so it seemed).

One of my main reasons for quitting now is so my three children don't grow up thinking that drinking every day is normal. Their example will be a mother who doesn't drink at all, and a father who drinks from time to time in moderation (goddamn him!).

Then, hopefully, even if they've inherited my 'caution to the wind' genes, they will at least question their habits well before I ever did. With luck, and good role models, they will keep their cucumbers unpickled (see Moderation. Is it Possible Part 2 if you don't get the cucumber reference - it's important!) and be happy, moderate drinkers throughout their lives.

I could hate Patsy and Edina for leading me astray, but I only have myself to blame and, the truth is, I still have a huge fondness for them in all their flawed fabulousness. The problem is that their new film, I'm sure, will portray them as unchanged - still chuffing and chugging away twenty five years later.

Yet we all know that, if that were really the case, they'd either be in rehab or dead. But where's the comedy in that?

An absolutely fabulous day to all of you.

SM x

Journey to Freedom

Day 59, and my latest reading material is Veronica Valli's 'Why You Drink and How to Stop'.  Subtitle: 'Journey to Freedom.'

Now I love a good analogy, so thought I would share one of Veronica's.

According to Valli, the first few months of sobriety are like waking up at 3am to catch a flight to Barbados for a much anticipated dream holiday.

Woo hoo! Really? I'll tell you why in Valli's own words:

"For those few seconds, when the alarm goes off in the middle of the night, in the pitch black, when you are in the deepest of sleeps, dreaming about a wonderful fantasy, you have to grope around trying to still that intrusive bleeping. Your mind begins an argument with itself, where for a few seconds, you consider just closing your eyes, just for a couple of minutes, to experience that warm, comfortable, seducing lure of sleep again."

"Despite knowing that you don't have long to get to the airport, there is that voice telling you just to shut your eyes and go back to sleep and everything will be OK. The pillow is so soft, the bedding so warm and comfy. The pull is intoxicating. Nothing matters more than the bliss of sleep, of unawareness. But of course you force your tired eyes awake and stand blearily in the shower with the excitement in your belly and the adrenalin beginning to pump through your veins. Because you know that very soon you're going to be on a plane to Barbados and what a wonderful feeling that will be."

"The first few months of recovery for an alcoholic are like the first few seconds of being awoken by the alarm clock."

"Even though you know that where you're going is the most wonderful place you'll ever visit; even though you know you would be devastated if you gave in and shut your eyes and woke up to realise you'd missed the plane; even though you know all of this - there is still a strong temptation to go back to sleep and block out all of those possibilities and experiences for the sake of a few extra hours of nothingness."

"This is what the alcoholic experiences in early recovery. For so long they have lived half asleep, half aware, missing their lives, and now finally the opportunity has arrived for them to be fully awake, fully conscious of their experience. But its very tempting to go back to sleep; this is because recovery is hard and painful at times, especially in the beginning. Even though Barbados will be great, the getting there can sometimes be uncomfortable, painful, irritating and inconvenient. The drive to the airport, carrying bags, queuing at security, airline food, cramped seats, all of those things we'd rather do without, but we put up with them because of the destination."

I have three questions. (1) Is it possible to get an upgrade and avoid all the discomfort? (2) Do you get a complementary cocktail on arrival? and (3) If anyone's got to Barbados yet can they send me a postcard and let me know if it's all it's cracked up to be? Because if it's not I'm going back to bed....

Love SM x

Simple pleasures

When I quit drinking 58 days ago, I didn't realise that it would have ramifications on pretty much every aspect of my life.

One thing that has totally changed is my relationship with breakfast.

Back in the smoking-like-a-chimney and drinking-like-a-fish years which characterised my twenties, my standard breakfast was two or three Marlboro Lights and a jug of strong coffee, accompanied by a hacking cough. Nice.

Then I gave up smoking, ramped up the drinking, and rediscovered a love of food. I gained at least a stone (that's fourteen pounds to you Americans, and about 7 kilos for the continentals).

For the last few years my standard breakfast has been a boiled egg with toast (how British is that?). Pretty healthy. A good start to the day. But I was never terribly excited by it. Apart from anything else, it's hard to be enthusiastic about anything much with a constant low level hangover.

But now, not only do I wake up feeling perky, I wake up ravenously hungry. If you think about it, BS (before sober) I would consume, on top of my supper, a bottle of wine containing at least 500 calories. Then, having drowned out any willpower, I'd probably have raided the children's snack drawer for kit kats. No wonder I wasn't hungry at breakfast time!

Oddly, my favourite breakfast of old - the egg - is no longer at all appealing. It's just not sweet enough. Many of us crave sugar when we quit - apparently it has a similar effect on the dopamine (happy hormone) levels as alcohol. Alcohol is, after all, another form of sugar and grain, just in liquid form. It's very common for alcoholics to use sugar as a coping mechanism in the same way as they used alcohol. Oh God, will it never end?

So now I find that the best way to keep the sugar cravings at bay is to have a 'healthy' sugar hit at the beginning of the day. Move on you boring old oeuf, and hello 'SoberMummy's Sunrise Suprise' (the suprise being OMG no hangover!).

How to make 'SoberMummy's Sunrise Suprise':

Take 3 big spoons of plain Greek yoghurt. Throw in a handful of fresh berries (I like raspberries and blackberries best), and sprinkle with a really good quality granola.

(Note: for those children of the 1970s (like myself), do not confuse granola with that horrible, dusty muesli that our mothers tried (in vain) to get us to eat instead of Golden Nuggets or Coco Pops. Granola is way more yummy. And crunchy).

This breakfast is my new addiction. All the major food groups represented: good fats, low GI carbs, fibre, calcium, omega acids and vitamins. And it's seriously yummy.

Now I know why they say breakfast is the best meal of the day.

Huge congrats to Kags, one of my first readers, who made day 50 yesterday. She has a really sweet tooth, so this post was in her honour.

Love SM x