This month (July), it’s 20 years since I quit drinking alcohol (had quit cigarettes that February).
To honour it, and hopefully help others going through similar, here are
20 things I think 25 Year Old Me would have benefitted from knowing
1) Yes it’s worth it
2) Yes, you can do this
3) No, you’re not going to give up and take a bottle of whisky to the woods in the snow (in July) and await the sweet relief of death
4) Yes you can enjoy life without alcohol
5) Yes you can FACE life without alcohol
6) Yes, you can even face bits of your past without alcohol
7) Yes, you’ll miss it a lot AND that’s ok
8) Holy macaroni, when social media gets invented, you’ll be SO relieved you’re sober
9) No, you won’t become unrecognisable. There’s more to you than alcohol
10) No. You’re not broken beyond repair. There’s a part of you that’s already healthy, happy and whole
11) No, you DIDN’T have to do it alone (I somehow didn’t feel like I deserved the support of an organisaton like AA)
12) Yes, the people who matter most will still like and even love you
13) Yes, you’ll make so many new friends
14) Yes, your world will expand beyond your wildest dreams
15) Yes, there is more to life than spending so much time in pubs
16) AND pubs will still welcome you when you want to visit and drink non-alcoholic drinks
17) Yes, you will, in time, learn to direct some compassion towards Drunken Mess you (us)
18) Yes, drinking too much, taking the edge off life, served a purpose. We can honour that as you find better ways
19) Yes, you have more willpower than you realised
20) Yes, when it’s obvious that something hurts, it’s healthier to simply stop doing that thing. Pain offers us information.
How about YOU?
You might be pondering your relationship with alcohol or something else entirely.
How might you put supports in place to make this challenging transition as easy as possible for yourself?
This blog post about how I quit crisps etc over two months ago has lots of journal prompts which you can apply to any habit you want to change.
How might you honour how far you’ve come in whatever way first springs to mind?
When you think back 20 years, what felt impossible for you?
What have you achieved?
What challenges have you overcome?
What have you survived?
What have you created?
Honouring it all – the good, the bad and the ugly, helps us harvest that shame and really grow and move on.
With love,
