182 days ago I sat with Jamie I was drunk and I had been drinking regularly for years and I had reached a point where I wanted to take control of it. COVID and lockdown hadn’t helped but it was just an excuse to drink every single day, I had been doing that, way before March 2020. I had been contemplating stopping drinking for a while but the hardest thing to do is break the habit, to just not drink for a day but with intention of not drinking again for a while, it’s frightening. After all I actually like drinking I like the way it makes me feel, I have had some great times drinking…

So 182 days ago I said I wanted to give up drinking for a year to see if I could, and see how it made me feel? I have succeeded so far but there are 182 more days to go, so this is only the halfway point.
I feel good, generally, I am almost stone lighter at 13st 9lbs but I think my sleep quality is what I am most aware of, I can sleep through most things where as pre 13 Nov I couldn’t, I was a light sleeper unless lots of alcohol was involved.

Will I complete the next 182 days, I don’t know, the hardest thing is denial. Surely a glass of red wine with a meal wouldn’t matter, or a beer in the garden listening to TMS but that is not giving up drinking for a year? The sun is shining today and summer is coming so there are many obstacles in my way to stop me achieving 364 days or one year sober but I am determined to do it!

….but I won’t beat myself up too much if I found my self sat watching the Jags Broncos 30 October with a beer in my hand, maybe? #letsride

Just lately I have found it increasingly difficult to concentrate especially at work, manifesting itself in my mind flicking between lots of jobs and finding it almost impossible to complete jobs that take any length of time over ten minutes, say? I used to be so focused on what I was doing and able to achieve a high completion rate on all jobs but just lately I have so many jobs on the go and don’t seem to be able to find time to finish any of them because something will always interrupt me and then it might be hours or days before I come back to the job and only when someone chases it, and that is just not how I like to work.

I keep wondering if it’s because I don’t believe in what I am being forced to do or the way the direction my work is going, my workload has increased massively with prep work for the computer system but it is not just work I am struggling with it’s everything. I wonder if it has anything to do with sobriety and the reason I say that because that’s been on my mind lately too.

Today is 75 days since I had my last drink, and I have to say it has been pretty easy most of the time but sometimes like now I would love to drown out a night with a session the urge is not enough to ruin 75 or #oneyearsober but it does take up a lot of brain capacity wondering if I can do it, do a whole year and all the things that are heading my way that I would normally celebrate with a drink like concerts, my birthday, holidays cricket, summer etc and then it becomes enormous and seem impossible but also not the end of the world if I don’t do it so why bother I am not doing it for health reasons I needed a break from the habit of daily drinking for the only the reason just to drink.

Maybe work and drink are related right now I am stressed with my workload I don’t believe in what I am working on and normally I would turn to alcohol to just relieve the that stress for a night but I have chosen not to have that option and then that makes things worse.

I love me cup of Camomile and Honey tea before bed and I do not have any trouble getting to sleep at night my sleep is much deeper without alcohol and really I don’t need it but I would love a bottle of wine right now and I bet I will read this back tomorrow and realise the blog point changed throughout because I didn’t concentrate?