Day 17

Day 17

Nothing coherent to write.

Home with my feet up and the dinner warming in the oven, I’m sat with my thoughts, which are surprisingly serene.

It’s occurred to me tonight that, through the fierce effort of journaling my sobriety, I am also writing away my usual stress and anxiety. I’m pleased to say I feel just right today.

This might be a passing feeling. Tomorrow could be a disaster, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I’m grateful for right now, and I can’t recommend writing enough. It’s therapeutic, raw, honest and at times, fun.

No one else must read it, unless you let them. So, I’m letting you know, in the hopes you might try a good ol’ keyboard purge. An empty head is kind of lush, as if my mind where off holidaying on a beach somewhere. It's nice to give it a break sometimes, God knows it deserve one.

My dinner’s ready. Goodnight xo

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Day 18

I promise I’m not one of those dick heads who brags about how far they’ve run all the time. This is the first and last time I’ll do this –

Today was a pretty good day. Fridays are the shortest at work. I was home by 3pm and ready to take my new trainers to the pavement. I did a few stretches (I had to watch a video because it’d been so long), laced up and hit the beach. It was very cold, very windy and I still had lunch bowling about in my stomach.

Jogging is supposed to clear your head – I think this will happen around the same time the “deep sleep” kicks in, which I understand is Day 30. When the challenges we’ve set ourselves become habits and before long, a consistent and subconscious routine.

Jogging did not clear my head. If anything, my body felt like a mason jar full of trauma and someone was shaking it about, trying to get the bottom unstuck. Toxic thoughts rattled around my head like razor blades, and I came home with a cold, throbbing pain in the back of my skull.

I am fucking exhausted. Everything hurts. You really don’t know how unfit you are until you’ve tried to run towards or from something.

Whether we get there is another thing. I made it. I’ve warmed up, cooked a delicious dinner and am now in my happy place – on my bed, candle on, low-fi music on the Bose, tapping away and talking to you. Running or writing, I’ll empty my head one way or another.

Running, like sobriety, is a weighty reminder that nothing worth doing is ever easy. The mental pains are somewhat more taxing than the physical ones. They can really mess with you if you let them.

I’ll leave you with a quote I love (mostly because I just love him): “as an outsider, don’t worry about failure, because failure will take care of itself. Focus on success.” - Henry Cavill

P.s. I did come full circle but the app stops in town where I popped into Sainsbury’s to pick up some stuff for tea.

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Day 19

My wild Friday night turned in early at 7:30pm after I gobbled some cheesy gnocchi bake and drifted off to the sound of Russell Tovey reading The Picture of Dorian Grey. It was a delicious, almost perfect, deep sleep.

5.30am (progress!), I leapt out of bed. Writing, pacing, planning. I checked in on my university modules at 6am. I finished a work project by 7am. I food shopped in quiet, empty isles and ate breakfast (something I never used to do). Salmon, avocado and eggs on toast. I went to the laundrette and washed EVERYTHING, read up on my new Psych material whilst I waited for the dryer cycle to finish. I ran errands, banked money to save and not waste on wine. I took an afternoon nap and rounded off the day with my first sober evening meal at an Indian restaurant with family.

Home, and in my happy place once again, I’m settling in with my sleep tea and an excellent audiobook called ‘When the Body Says No” by Gabor Mate. Currently, I’m learning of a woman who developed MS after caring for her husband with a bowel-tumour diagnosis, who – during his recovery discovered such vigour and lust for life - proceed to cheat on her with another woman.

How often do we stop and think about what we’re going through? What we’ve been through? Have you ever paused and tried to reconcile the person you were with who you are now? Doubtless, you’ve considered if there’s connection between our emotions, psychology and our physical health?