Calm

Photo from recent holiday with family

Day 8 today. I have completed a week without drinking alcohol and I am really proud of myself. I feel like something is shifting for me again this time round and I’m hopeful.

I went to attend an AA meeting last night with my cousin. I was super nervous but when we arrived, there was a lady sat outside. She said it had been cancelled and there was no one else there. All a bit strange. It’s clearly a very very quiet meeting anyway and I suspect one that is not going to work for me. I will find another though. I need to at least give it a chance to help and support me.

We went for a coffee instead. We shared stories and talked openly. I felt very content with life when I arrived home afterwards. Yesterday was a good day. Today has been more challenging. A work meeting first thing was very tough with having to give difficult feedback. The other person responded by accusing me of things via an ‘anonymous’ other. Things I absolutely know I have not done and would never do. The accusations were hurtful but so off the wall from how I would ever act or behave, I knew she was lying. I faltered a little but then remained calm, refocused and challenged her. She started to backtrack. She is fairly high up in our Trust and her lies could be very dangerous for me so I have followed up with an email this evening. I’m not looking forward to her reply but I’m also not going to allow someone to ruin my professional reputation through a form of gaslighting.

I craved for a drink on the way home from work. I know it was about how I’d been made to feel that morning. I had listened to some of AA’s booklet ‘Living Sober’ on my way to work and I kept thinking “Claire, don’t have that one drink. Just don’t stop anywhere for it. Get on the train, go home, eat and get in the bath. Go the rest of this day without alcohol and choose again tomorrow”.

It worked 😁 , for today anyway. I’m grateful for that and I value the advice I’d heard/read in the booklet. I’m now home and actually I’m bone tired. It’s only 8.30pm but I’m truly ready for bed tonight. I remember how important it was to go to bed early in the first weeks of sobriety. To sleep when I could and needed to. I recall that dealing with difficult emotions and feelings, without then reaching for alcohol at some point, is actually exhausting in those initial stages. I do however feel calm and that, my friends, is worth it’s weight in wine.

Love Claire x

Couldn’t say it any better …

I’ve done all I can do with my work situation. Sometimes you just have to tell people to fuck off and then walk away.

Claire x

Sleep

I have had some trouble sleeping this week. It’s made me tired each day and a little bit grumpy. I adore sleeping and I hate feeling tired and lethargic. Today is good though because, although it’s cloudy and a little chilly, it’s Good Friday and I slept well, albeit having very weird dreams. That’s for another post!

I often listen to bedtime and sleep meditations when I’m in bed. Hypnotic ones from a variety of apps I have accumulated. The one I was listening to last night included a visualisation technique which I found helpful. I had to observe and notice the thoughts swirling around my brain, of which there were many, and visualise a box, chest or some type of container. It could be any size I wanted; mine was fairly large. I then had to visualise all my thoughts going into the box, one by one. Once they were all in there, I put the lid on the box and put it away somewhere for the night. It had to be out of the room I was sleeping in, just outside the bedroom door or miles away if that was preferable. I stuck mine at the bottom of our garden. I didn’t want it in the house at all. The meditation guide instructed me to visualise coming back to bed, leaving the box containing the thoughts and worries until the morning, where it could be reopened and dealt with. I did feel lighter and more at peace.

She then asked me to visualise something positive that happened during the day. To focus on one thing that had made me feel good, at peace or happy and to embrace that feeling. I thought back over my day. I’ve been working in the hospital all week with a very heavy clinical schedule. It’s been refreshing to work with patients again. I thought back to one of the little boys I had seen earlier in the morning. A little 5 year old with a repaired cleft lip and palate. He had been very wary initially but I kept grinning at him (under my mask!), asking him about what he liked and enjoyed and generally joking around with him. He began to relax and at one point he looked up at me and gave me the most enormous smile. It was absolutely adorable. I felt so happy because he was smiling and enjoying the session. Thinking back to that moment and visualising his big smile and how it had made me feel was lovely. I lay in bed, anxious thoughts tucked away in my box in the garden, with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.

I was asleep before the 20 minute meditation had ended. I woke up this morning feeling refreshed and positive and ready to take on the day. I have unpacked my thoughts from the box and some of them didn’t need dealing with. They were simply me overthinking and getting stuck in a negative thought pattern. Others can be sorted. None of them involve challenges that are insurmountable. There are now blue skies peeking out behind the clouds and if I can make an anxious little boy smile with happiness, I can do anything.

Claire x

I’m okay

Very quick post to check in with my lovely community here. I’m ok and simply plodding along. Good days and not so good, but I guess that’s the same for everyone right now. There has been a lot happening this past week. Just some challenges to deal with. I’m continuing to read your posts and comment when I feel able. I don’t have a lot to report or say so I’ll wait a little while longer to write my next post. I’m extraordinarily tired of things just now, with a very cloudy and befuddled brain. I only have so much energy each day, so I am reserving what I have for the ‘essential’ activities. When the lethargy starts to leave me, I will write again.

I am here, lurking in the background and finding strength and light from your stories and musings. Thank you.

Claire x