5 Things to help Roll Day 5 Sober into Day 6

Is today supposed to be your “day 5” of a A Sober October ? Maybe it is, but maybe it is your third consecutive “day 1″…. and since it’s Saturday well, we might as well throw the towel in and try again, “later”…. wait for Dry January? Maybe this sober thing is just too over-rated?

Maybe today is your true day 5, but the feelings are coming at you from every direction, and you’re overwhelmed, and the same towel mentioned above is getting ready to be tossed into the fire, thinking that life is so much easier to manage when we are drinking, so might as well change the goal to “Damp” or even “Moderating”.

I’m here to ask you to reconsider.

Getting sober isn’t a snap-your-finger decision. It is HARD. Motivations fade, and the allure of alcohol continues to entice us. The voice that it’s just “not fair” whines in the background and that whine gets defining for most of us around day 5 sober.

It is right. It isn’t fair. Life should be able to include good health, happy memories, good food, and just the right amount of wine. But life unfurls, sometimes beautifully like the fluffy clouds that are passing by our heads today…. and sometimes it’s like the angry wind, tattering the ends of the family flag and bending the family flagpole, mercilessly.

So today, my message of hope includes doing the next 5 things. If life feels overwhelming, and you just don’t know what to do today, start with a list…. sometimes, just writing it down will help you focus on what needs to happen right now.

I will start with a scribble of things that have to be done, in the near future. I just scribbled down 17 things that I should do, and now that they aren’t swirling around in my brain, I can breathe easier, because I’ve acknowledged them. So yes, I have to get out the Halloween decorations, and I need to order dog food, and I need to call the doctor as well as my sister-in-law, because today is her birthday…. so as I prioritize what I should do first, the birthday wishes for my sister-in-law float to the top, and the laundry pile stays where it is. And that is OK!

Once the list is written down…. what can you lovingly delegate?

Before I continue, if you don’t have kids to delegate to, skip to here- Do the Quick Things First

Sometimes parents want to do it ALL for our families, whether it’s doing the household chores or changing the oil in our cars, we feel like WE must DO it. What if we share the burden?

Recognize that post-it notes come in packs of 25! Once you have the chores written down, what if you created a post-it note for each child? My mom used to say that if you are old enough to create a mess, you are old enough to help clean it, ha ha…. there’s a lot of truth to that. No, your three year old little girl can’t change the sheets on her bed, but she can put the pillows onto it, once the bed is made. If your eight year old son received 4 new shirts for the new school year, tell him that he needs to go through his closet to find 4 shirts that he has outgrown. If your teenage daughter is bored because there’s nothing to do, give her a post-it notes with 5 family chores to pick from. Maybe some of them will be chores that you had on your to-do list? Perhaps she won’t fold the towels in the same way you do… so you can either tell her why you fold as you do and ask her to do the same, or you can “let it go” and let her way be the way the towels will be folded for the next week. If you feel like the list is just too much to do alone, then leave it on the kitchen counter and invite others to help with it.

One time, I did a “House Renovation” list, as we had moved into our home and there were big plans to make it our own. Things like “removing popcorn ceiling”, “pulling shrubs near the fence”, followed by “shrubs to the dump”. I left this list on the refrigerator and went out of town for a couple of days. Imagine my surprise when I returned home to find the prickly holly bushes planted along the garage were gone! (Yes, there IS a fence near them, but the shrubs I wanted pulled were still obnoxiously growing, standing tall along the back fence line. OOPs. Lesson learned for me, to be clearer in my delegation list, but I couldn’t complain, as my two teenage sons had pitched in and put a dirty check mark next to those two items. )

So today, look at your list. Find 5 things to check off. The chores that you find overwhelming? Those chores gets delegated to someone else, or wait until you have the headspace to take them on .

Do the quick wins first:

1. Walk the dogs.

2. Get the mail.

3. Shower.

4. Make your bed.

5. Unload and reload the dishwasher.

The physical list of “things” can be tackled, but let’s not forget the self-care of things to do: journaling your thoughts, listening to podcasts, reading books, calling loved ones, hugging someone, cuddling with your pet, exercising, snuggling under covers, sleeping, showering, putting on clean clothes, doing your hair, shaving, putting on makeup, donning cologne, wearing matching socks!

And all of these things are so much easier to do SOBER. Yes, without alcohol fueling our emotions, or draining our energy, we can do these seemingly hard things. By just doing these 5 things, sober, we are protecting our Quit, and allowing Sober October to play itself out.

Maybe on November 1st, you’ll decide that being sober is just not for you? But to give it the entire month…. to string 31 days of distance between you and the bottle, you will have a clearer perspective about your relationship with alcohol.

Don’t let the whisperings of a “happy hour” speak louder today than your goal for a happy life.