Procrastination, I swear I could get a masters in it! Here is how my mind worked for years over how to start, stopping drinking.

I want to stop drinking or at least to have a healthy cut-off switch with alcohol. I have niether…I could blame it on an extremely stressful life the last 3 years but I was drinking before that! The stupid thing is I like sober me more than drunk me, but drunk me tells me that’s stupid and buying one more bottle of wine today wont hurt… there’s always tomorrow, right?

Only I have had 1000s of tomorrows …..

You don’t have to be a drinker to have issues around procrastination, but in my experience, drinking certainly doesn’t help. Before I really started drinking, I was on top of things. If I needed to get something done, I did it both well and in a timely fashion. The longer I drank, and the more I drank, the less that was the case. I’d put things off even though they were easy to take care of. I’d write something down in my planner or on a to-do list knowing full well that I would never get around to it. I would often tell myself, “I’ll get to that after I’ve had a couple of beers.” Yeah, right.

The more alcohol tightened its grip on me, the less I could be bothered to do pretty much anything. It got to the point where absolutely EVERYTHING that wasn’t drinking seemed like a monumental task. The simplest thing, like taking five minutes to rinse the dishes in the sink and put them in the dishwasher, was just too much. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Snidely had totally hijacked my brain.

As far as he was concerned, anything that wasn’t drinking “took too long,” because anything that wasn’t drinking was eating into my drinking time. Things would pile up and pile up and I would get more and more stressed, but I could never light enough of a fire under myself to get up and get things done.

Everything was too much, too boring, not worth doing, worth putting off til ‘later’ when I was drinking. Later never came of course. I don’t know which was worse in the mornings- looking at the mess from the night before or the hangover! The two combined were lethal! I hated the state of my kitchen in the morning!! And I resented everyone else for not ‘doing their bit’

Now I have a tidy house again, most of all I have a routine!!! I used to think routine was boring but now I love it! It makes life so much easier!! I always wake up to a tidy kitchen! Yay! I usually have a mental list, I do the things I hate first, to have them out of the way rather than push them further down…. and because I don’t spend all my days thinking about drinking (and/ or suffering the aftereffects of the night before ) I get plenty of time to do the things I enjoy too 👍

I remember how it felt

I really do 

I remember how I always felt overwhelmed and unappreciated

I felt like everything was a bit off and I couldn’t quite catch up

So I’d punctuate the end of my day with just one glass

Trying to find that sweet spot of calm

But someone would always interrupt

And then I’d need another and another until the bottle was empty

Just one more I’d say as I ran out for a second bottle

But I never found that sweet spot, not until I finally accepted that what was in that bottle was sour for me

And the day I put a cork in it was the day that I started to live in that sweet spot

That sweet spot turned out to be about knowing myself, setting my boundaries, loving myself completely … giving myself a chance to simply be

Every sunrise is a gift

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Start today and take it one day at a time

Just do the Next Right Thing – Empowering Me

More Reading :

One Day at a Time

Demystifying Sober – Survival Guide From My First 10 Days Alcohol-Free

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Here is a creative approach to getting going on stopping drinking and turning your life around.

Alter Egos

This sounds weird but bare with me. I’d like to introduce you to someone, she’s called Suzy. She’s great, she’s everything I’m mostly not but wish I was.

She’s cool, fun, doesn’t procrastinate, is on top of her work, is patient with her kids, and not snappy with her husband. She’s wonderful to be around. I’d really love to be her. I admire her so much.

She’s got it all figured out, she’s happy alcohol-free and doesn’t often miss that glass or bottle of wine at all. She finds sobriety more fun actually as there are many more opportunities that come when days aren’t wasted feeling crap or hungover.

She’s someone who has a routine and follows it, she eats healthy mainly but with fun foods thrown in. She’s balanced, happy, chilled and thriving.

She’s beautiful in her heart and always kind, she’s confident and strong and she’s a brilliant friend in a crisis. She’s the right side of emotional and has lots of self-restraint because she knows life isn’t all about instant gratification.

She’s who I want to be.

She’s Suzy, my alter ego. My version 2.0, or 3.0, new and (vastly) improved.

Apparently, this is an advanced kind of visualisation technique where you create an alter ego and “act as if” or something.

I was doing it without realising it I guess when my life got stressful and I felt overwhelmed. I thought oh I’ll just let Suzy do it this week, she won’t mess about and keep putting things off.

It didn’t always work because my brain knows I’m not her. Now I know I’m not going mad imagining I’m 2 people though I might explore it further.

Apparently, Beyonce has an alter ego “Sasha Fierce ” and lots of athletes, actors do aswell. Their alter egos have the qualities they feel they lack eg: confidence to get on stage and they call on their alter egos when they need that confidence.

So Suzy and I will stay friends I reckon and hopefully I’ll get to be more like her.

Do you have an alter ego and if so how do they help you?

I found a link about it if you want to read more about this concept.

The ‘Batman Effect’: How having an alter ego empowers you

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More thoughts on Procrastination and Stopping Drinking from our BOOM Rethink the Drink Community :

I never get anything done when I’m drinking. When I feel overwhelmed I procrastinate. Today I’m 9 days alcohol free! So this week I made a list of things I needed to do and committed to getting at least 2 things on my list done a day. I find if I plan to do too many things I get nothing done. Setting a realistic goal of maybe 2 tasks is less stressful and helps me actually get things done. I have managed to tick off everything on my list this week except one thing. I’ll add that to next weeks list.

I’m a huge procrastinator! Always have been, but I would call myself lazy…and once the drinking took over… everything piled up! The mail would pile up, bills to pay…stuff for the kids school…I’d wait until the last minute…clip the dog and cats nails, in the morning when I’m sober…oops, started drinking as soon as I got up… walk the dog…hmmm, as long as I can walk straight…eh, tomorrow…I’m much more productive sober, everything isn’t such a chore.

Yes, I procrastinated especially anything that required driving. Grocery store? Nope. Greenhouse for flowers I loved to plant? Nope. I’ll make due with what I have. Doctor? Hell no! Loved going to auctions, thrift stores, garage sales for that vintage find. Exciting to find a treasure! No longer. Go to a dementia support group to help others? No. Walk my dog? Too drunk.

I procrastinated on things that were enjoyable and part of who I was/am. I was in an abusive relationship! Now I can’t wait to get going except the virus and winter have interfered. Double lesson here.

I procrastinate submitting Christian articles to Christian magazines. This is self-doubt and low self-esteem trying to stop me from rebuilding a new life from the ashes of widowhood and drinking.

May we all enjoy a sober day with blessings.

At the weekend, to found a better way to cope with the new homeschooling situation I wrote up a proper schedule with rules and aims for each day and got a tick sheet for my son. So the morning started with a bit of resistance but fit the majority of the day, it went really well!

Organisation is not a strong point of mine so I felt super proud of myself today. My son even gave me a couple of compliments on my teaching so that is a definite win 🤩

Hooray!

This is a success made possible by sobriety. I wouldn’t have been sat working out schedules and writing legible affirmations and considering aims at 11 pm when drinking before. My writing would have been a mess and hard to read the next day. Very likely left unfinished before bed. I wouldn’t have felt as focused and committed in the morning. I would have been drinking due to the stress of it all and waking up to find nothing had changed. Sobriety lets me make changes to ease the stress.

Thanks, sobriety for giving me the clear-headed ability to find solutions and implement them more easily.

Don’t let the shame of the stigma keep you from saying

“I think I have a problem with drinking”