Well, It’s been a challenging year trying to stay on top of coaching clients, managing my new rental property, adopting a puppy and being without childcare for my 4-year-old son. I’ll admit I haven’t been the best at keeping up with my newsletter. With my son back at preschool a few times a week, my puppy turning 1 years old, and my rental property up and running I am now in a place where I can sit down and start writing again. I feel like I can finally breathe a little, phew. So, without further ado, I wanted to share with you my past year of sobriety.
Exactly a year ago today I had my last alcoholic drink. During the prior years I began to drink less and less often, maybe a drink per month. I found the less I drank the worst I felt the next day. Which really made me question why I was putting the stuff in my body to begin with. The more I age, the more I realize, just how important it is to take care of your body, from eating healthy, to exercising often, resting when needed, managing stress, and sleep….oh sleep. It’s sooooo important now.
I picked up a rock on the beach the morning I vowed to not drink anymore. I remember trying to go for a beach run and feeling like absolute garbage, it was one of my worst runs. I decided at that point I wasn’t going to let alcohol ruin anymore days after for me. I hung onto that rock as a reminder of that promise I made to myself.
Like many others, I found I would drink to cope with stress or when I was put in social situations. What this year taught me, as well as others stints of sobriety in my past is how to cope with and manage stress in healthier ways. For me it’s exercise and movement, burning off steam through exercise is the best and healthiest stress relief for me. It also taught me how to be confident in myself enough to not only be sober in social situations when every else isn’t, but feel comfortable in telling people why. The surprising, and sad part about our society is if someone says they aren’t drinking, there is always a question of why, and it’s either assumed because they are pregnant, have an early morning, or they are a recovering alcoholic. However, when someone says they don’t smoke, there is always a response of “good for you.” I think we can all step back and think for a moment about how we can encourage and celebrate those who don’t drink alcohol, and not pressure or pry. Just look at them the same and say “good for you.”
The message of this newsletter is more about behavior change than my quitting drinking. So many of us have traits that we don’t like about ourselves, habits we want to break or new ones we want to create. The often-overlooked aspect about behavior change is the many attempts and failures that come along with it. There were several times in my past in which I had “dry” times in my life: a dry month, several months before competitions; almost a year repairing a leaky gut; the year and a half I was pregnant and breast feeding; and then this past year. The truth about behavior change is you are going to attempt to create or stop that behavior multiple times. Each bout being a little longer than before. It will be multiple attempts before you mentally get to a point where you feel ready to completely break free of something. So, don’t get discouraged the first or second or third time you fall off the wagon. You are creating new neural pathways that take some time to etch out a new path. Be patient and kind to yourself.
When you decide to take that first step set yourself up for success by:
avoiding situations that will cause you to slip up
pick activities to do in place of ____
question the why behind your actions
ask for social support
and most importantly, create a daily visual reminder of the new habit you are trying to make
Every habit starts with a single decision. As that decision is repeated, a habit forms and grows stronger. I decided to stop drinking for a full calendar year, I’m not drinking today or plan to tomorrow but having an end helps make that initial step less scary. This one decision helped make a thousand other decisions for me. Since I didn’t drink, I went to bed earlier and slept better. I no longer ate late night unhealthy snacks when I was buzzed. I surrounded myself with other non-drinkers who enjoyed being social in other ways. You see the pattern developing? Every action that I took from that day forward was a vote for the type of person I wished to become. Ask yourself, who do you want to become?
Bad habits can set you back just as much as good ones can lift you up. You are the one who has the power to change aspects of your life that are no longer serving you.
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