Thoughts at five weeks

This is just one of my notes to self, but any feedback would be appreciated. I was thinking today, 5 weeks into this that I feel as if I am not concentrating so much on 'not drinking'. Not that I am craving drink or anything, infact I've been really pleased that I've had no major cravings and one or two minor episodes. The thing I'm concerned about is my last long spell of success was 10 weeksish in toal and I seem to remember feeling the same then at a bout this stage, the focus on being/kjeeping sober subsided and I started to feel 'normal', thought I'd cracked it. Not so bad maybe, but 5 weeks later, last time I drank again. So it wasnt immediate, and I dont recall thinking at anytime I couldnt drink normally or anything, as far as I was concerened I approached life with a 'I dont drink' attitude. I suppose I took my eye off the ball. The exact reason I drank again did seem to have something to do with thinking I could drink normally again, but there didnt seem to be any thought process connected with that.

Now last time I didnt keep posting here or have any other grounding. I was quite heavily into the RR method and I think I took on board the concept that if one was going to make that lasting/final decision never to drink again, then why dwell on drinking..after all it wasnt something I was going to consider doing again. I think the counting days thing brought this up in my minds as I think the RR take on that is why count days when we have stopped for ever. The concept of thinking about possible relapse was thought to be pointless as it just wasnt going to happen. Or maybe I misinterpreted something all together?

Anyway I was just mulling over this and wondered if anyone had any similar feelings and how do we keep sobriety foremost in our minds when life in general starts feeling normal? Am I over simplifying this or over complicating it or an I just paranoid and mad??!!

Money makes the world go round

One of my first goals in sobriety is to get to grips with my spending. Never been good with money and though its caused me no real problems latelty (the past's another matter), I want to improve.

Drinking had a great impact on finances. Not only the cost of doing it but knock on effects like spending on takeaway food as I couldnt be bothered to cook. Not drinking has its own impact though, as there's nothing like going out shopping at the weekend when youre not hungover.

This last week I have written down every penny spent in a effort to see where my money goes. That in itself has helped greatly with impulse buying and so probably doesnt reflect my true recent habits. Its been difficult to get a true picture though as when I see offers like BOGOF on food items I use a lot I have to stock up. I probably need to spend one week just buying what we eat in the week. And there are other one off non food stuffs which arent regular spends. Anyway its a start.

The knock on effect from not drinking is that we have eaten less takeaway food and I am enjoying cooking more. Menu planning for the week would also help but I am starting by using what we have and going from there.

I have also started organising my money in the bank. My bank lets me open several online savings accounts that I can label for different things which helps seperate things and I've made a spreadsheet to keep track. So I now have accounts for long term savings, emergencies, car maintenance, bills and everyday expenses all in seperate accounts. I still have some credit to pay off but its not out of control so saving while doing that makes me feel I'm getting somewhere.

Saving money is new to me and I can see it becoming a new obsession but I suppose a valuable one. I love to log into my account and look at it!

Weekly goals:

• Start to track of a full month of spending when I get my April salary to get a bigger picture and plan an ongoing monthly budget.
• Put money away into various saving accounts when I get paid. Trying to keep as much as I can through the month and then saving it doesnt work! My need to be adjusted when i get a better picture of a full months expenses.
• Plan menus on a weekly basis from what I have in stock and write a shopping list based on what we need. Shopping without a list is another big weakness of mine.
  
• Cut down on smoking. This weeks money tracking has given me an honest view of how much I smoke. I know its on the 'to go' list but this early in sobriety I'm not doing too much at once.

Probably enough for this week!

Longer time, still no post

Well here I am again more than one year on. Not very much further forward but as of today I am 30 days sober.

I have decided to start my blog again but want to change how I approach it. Last time it was primarily a recovery blog, but I soon got caught up in the recovery Blogging social circle and found it distracted me (particularly when I wanted to be distracted) from my primary purpose. I spent more time Blog hopping than thinking about my own recovery and that became really time consuming.

This time I want to broaden it to other areas of my life which I need to work on, but are fundamentally connected to sobriety. I have been looking at stuff like how I handle money, how I spend my sober free time and generally organising my life. Things I didnt consider before. eg. I can be a spendthrift but being constantly hungover prevented even me from going out and spending! Now I am feeling better I feel I am rewarding myself by buying stuff, nothing exrtavagant and generally for my house and everyones benefit etc but I know I need to keep track of that. Delayed gratification was never something I was good at.

I want to work out a budget and learn how to handle my money better. Healthy eating is on the list as is giving up smoking and doing more, no some, excercise. I didnt really find it helpful to keep psting about how long I was sober and how hard it was etc. I want to grow and look back to see how I have grown and recognise what works and what doesnt.

There endeth my first post in a year!

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