Category: Inspiration

It’s New Year tomorrow and I’m still deciding on my New Year Resolutions. I’ve scoured the internet and found some of the top 10s, whittled down my list to one or two. Next year I’m definitely going to try to be fitter, happier and spend less time online and more offline.

After a quick Internet search, I’ve found some of the most popular resolutions from around the web:

1. Lose weight, join a gym
2. Eat more healthily, give up the snacks and take outs
3. Improve confidence, and have a bigger smile
4. Give up smoking, save your health
5. Be more active, get more energy
6. Meet more people, have a spring clean
7. Change jobs, get out of the rut you’re in
8. Drink less, even try to give up completely
9. Lower stress, worry less, especially about work
10. Get offline more, do a digital detox

[Source: 50 New Year’s Resolution Ideas And How To Achieve Each Of Them]

New Year Resolutions have been happening since the year dot. Like most of us, we use them to set goals, learn languages, to get us moving, stop procrastinating or for some, to make life changing changes.

10 years ago I started my New Year Resolution early. About 10 days early. I’d tried to give up drinking, or at least cut down, many, many times. I’d set myself New Year Resolutions, but somehow I could never really get passed the first week or two. This time though, I wrote it down and posted it on the shaving mirror. I told my family that I was giving up drink and was done with getting hangovers anymore.

I think writing it down was one of the things that helped me most.

Because it worked.

Apparently, according to the statisticsbrain.com website, you’re more than 10 times likely to succeed in your goal, by simply making it your New Year Resolution. Do yourself a favour and write it down, put it in a public place, let others see it and work towards your goal.

Other times motivation comes out of the blue. The sudden death if AA Gill, a journalist at The Times, from lung cancer two weeks ago reminds me once again that you can’t assume anything. Making it to retirement isn’t a right, or a guarantee. His diagnosis to his passing took just a few weeks. Some people don’t have as long as that even. He gave up drinking at 30, but continued as a smoker for a mother 15 years or so.

Life is too short.

If you’re thinking of giving up drinking, then why not join with Cancer Research UK or Alcohol Concern, both of whom are doing Dry January events at the same time as raising funds for their charities.

Joining in with an event will help motivate you and keep you on track.

Whatever you decide to do, good luck, write and let us know what you’ve chosen to do and tell us how you’re getting on.

Happy New Year!

Sure, we’re now in the holiday season. Thanksgiving has just passed and that’s the traditional count down to Christmas. To be sure, this is probably the hardest time of the year to give up drinking. What with office parties, drinks with friends, invitations to this and that, and the last thing you want to do is stand out and be the one not drinking.

But, help is indeed at hand. I gave up on the shortest day, December 21st and survived. I once enjoyed binge drinking with friends…but I made it through and with some tips, you can too.

Firstly, if you’ve decided you want to limit your drinking or finish completely, listen to your own thoughts. Well meaning advice from friends around you, that one drink will be fine, don’t listen to them. To be honest, i always thought that people were saying these kinds of things to help them, not you.

Have a couple of strategies on standby, after all every boy scout should be prepared, and so should you be. Have an excuse for not drinking, you’re on medication, you’re driving, or your other half is on a night shift and needs the car back. Whatever it takes, have a white lie at the ready.

Don’t be afraid to tell the barman that you’ve given up drinking, and that you’re drunk friends will try to buy you drinks, but tell him/her that you just want soda water with ice, lemon and an umbrella just like your friends – it’s just between you and him.

Act drunk. Most people on a night out who drink will be quite drunk after an hour or two and won’t remember the night’s events the following day. You will though! As they start to get loud, then do the same, as they start to sing, do the same. Mimicking might help you fit in more and be a boost to your confidence. Either way, so long as it helps you stick to your goal of not drinking that night, then anything goes.

Stay cool, stay sober, keep on track. That’s why we say, “Take it a day at a time.” Because at the start, that’s all you can really do and it’s the process that helps you pull yourself out of the rough and into the clear, and into the new you.

With some strategies and a game plan in your head before you go out over the Christmas period, surviving the holiday season will be easier than you can imagine.

If you are newly sober, or have abstained for a while, write up in the comments what your experiences of the holiday season are and what you did to keep on track.

Happy Christmas

James

P.s. If, you drink an alcoholic drink by mistake, don’t beat yourself up, start over and try again..!

Get ready and fasten your seat belts. Ready to quit a life lazing around recovering from hangovers? Since giving up drink I’ve noticed a general improvement in my health. Passing up on the booze has completely changed the way I live life now. I’m not only more positive and happier, with a family around me, I’ve found new things to do and lead a proactive life to the full. Health-wise I feel good. Though I’ve had asthma since I was a kid and had to take a range of medicines to keep it in check, over the last few years I’ve gradually reduced my medication to almost nothing and I’m fairly sure that it has been because I stopped drinking.

I read on the Asthma UK website that alcohol can cause wheezing, which is something that I used to do a lot before, especially if we drank in smoky bars and clubs. My chest’s got better because I’m going to bars a lot less now, but also nowadays when I do go they’re all smoke free. Here in the UK a smoking ban in places of work came into force about 8 years ago.

The long walks I’ve taken up and more frequent cycling has helped keep me more active, all of which has helped keep me in a positive frame of mind. I find that I’m getting more jobs done both at work and around the house. Far less lazy than before, I’m more pro-active and I find that I’m generally getting a whole lot more out of life, than I did before. It’s one of the main benefits of not drinking. Since living the sober life I’ve got used to being useful in every waking hour of the day, literally from the moment I wake up till I go to sleep. So with my running shoes laced up, I’m able to go out and enjoy life to the full again.

If you’re thinking of giving up drink or are stuck where to start, then get in touch and write a comment below. It has given me a completely new purpose and outlook on life. I’m able to do things now that I just couldn’t focus on doing before. Add your voice today.

I’m eternally grateful for my experience and it is because of this I now find myself charting a new course and in the process managing to turn my life around. I never imagined that this would be the outcome, but it has been. I found books in the last 6 months I wish I’d found years before. Coupled with some coaching I received through work, I’ve had a very good opportunity to explore every part of my life to date and work out how I would have done things differently. The books I found helped me so much this far, I talked about in my last post. Go read it, if you haven’t already and let me know in the comments what you think of them if you go on and buy them.

At the time, when I was drinking I had no idea that this little pot of gold was there waiting for me. Because I always drank at parties I found that ‘I always did what I’d always done, so I always got, what I’d always got’. Now I can go to a party, dance (because I learned a new skill – Salsa) and enjoy myself in ways I never thought I could before.

Those of you reading this blog as you start out on your own sobriety journey are probably blissfully unaware what benefits are waiting once you find yourself well and truly on your journey. The best thing is, if you’ve decided to give up drinking you are already on this trip. You will change your life no matter what, because to be successful you will need to change. In changing you will find many new things and you’ll look back and wonder why you didn’t do this earlier.

This is the special part that keeps me going, unsure but excited about what the future may still have in store for me. My experiences before, during and after giving up drinking and the process of change has shown me that more or less anything is possible. And it is for this reason that I am eternally grateful.