Day one down…

… 365 to go! Although I am not treating this as a countdown to “when can I drink again” I’ll be clear about that right now. I am committing a year as I want to experience every event (every birthday, holiday, bad day, good day) without alcohol and document what it is like. A month seems too short, forever seems like an impossible mountain.

I have felt rotten all day. I even had to have an afternoon nap. Its the last day that we had as a family before Guy goes back to work tomorrow, and I was so hungover I lost two precious hours asleep. What a dick.

I am very lucky in that I have a mentor, someone who has just completed a whole year sans alcohol. We have been texting for just over a week and she has been a godsend already. She has been extremely honest about what is coming, and some tips on how to deal with it. However, the two pieces of advice that have really been amazing today, were:

1. Play the movie to the end (more on this in a mo…) and

2. Turn the negatives into positives.

After feeling so dreadful all day, my usual approach would be to have a glass of wine with dinner to take the edge off. The advice about ‘playing the movie to the end’ was about thinking about what that would mean. It would mean that I probably wouldnt just have one, (as I am off work tomorrow) so I would have multiple. I would then snore and keep guy awake, (which is extremely selfish as he has to be up for work) and not sleep so well myself. I would then feel awful again tomorrow… And so it goes on. This also feeds into point 2 about turning negatives into positives. Because I have made the decision to forgo a glass or two tonight I know I will be feeling tip top tomorrow, so me and Jossy (my daughter) are going to go to the zoo. I’m excited already!

So, lets do this 🙂