Dont know where I should post this but here goes...

[lulu41]

I am a mess right now I am approaching 47 around 2 stones overweight. On ADs but still carrying on drinking so not working so good. I want to change I want to be more positive but just cant get motivated to do anything ie. giving up the wine sticking to healthy eating. One minute I am positive the next negative I dont know what to do now - I know this is a rant of sorts but really really dont have anyone to talk to in RL. No real friends my partner is not really mine anymore. My kids are driving me crazy I really hate my life right now - I need help I just dont know where to go where to start and I am so sad that I take my crap out on beautiful kids

lulu I really don't know how I can help but didn't want you to go unanswered. Here's a bump for you anyway.

Set yourself achievable goals. Quitting drinking and going on a diet are big challenges right now. Start with smaller things.
Put on some feel-good music, have a rifle through your CDs and pick something you've not heard in a while. Then whilst that's playing, tackle the cleaning. Choose one room and put all your energies into that.

Not only will you be burning calories, but you'll feel better mentally for the exercise and you'll have achieved something today.

Set yourself little goals like this day by day.
Perhaps you could give up drinking for Lent, like I aim to do, so at the end of this month until Easter, stick to soft drinks. If you can't manage that, then have 4 days without alcohol every week (I don't know how much you drink but try to have an extra day without).

You are expecting too much too soon and then feeling bad when you don't achieve it. Lower your expectations and you'll get on much better.

HTH x

lulu - what is the single most important thing you want to change? is it to stop drinking? to make your life better? to be nicer to your DC? to lose weight?

Prioritise which is the most important. Then think of one step that you can take that will help towards achieving it. One step for one outcome - much easier to achieve than a whole lot of things at once.

Have you asked your GP about a referral for cognitive behavioural therapy? I'm no expert but apparently it helps you to change the way you think about things and subsequently your behaviour.

Thank you all for your posts.

I have read about CBT and am going to ask next time I go to see GP he is very much the kind of GP that hands out prescriptions and doesnt really want to talk!!!

I think the thing at the moment is that I need to stop drinking so much I am currently drinking a bottle of wine per night have done this for the last 7 day straight - not been this bad for a while its usually once or twice a week I do this but know its a negative spiral and it affects everything I do. Ie. how I treat the kids how i feel about evertyhing else but I just so want to feel numb right now dont want to feel anything so I drink Then feel like a crap mum when I shout at my dcs because I am hungover

lulu, I got myself into that position once upon a time as well with the wine. The only thing I could do to limit it was to not open the bottle. Once the bottle was open, it was all too easy to finish it. So - if you don't want to give it up entirely, buy small bottles. Some supermarkets do them.

The other thing I did was to find a "wine alternative" - the choices I made were Shloer (even though it is an expensive-ish soft drink, it is still less than half the price of wine!) and Waitrose blueberry juice. Looked right, tasted ok and no alcohol.

Good luck - once you get on top of that, you will find the other things start to improve as well. It took 4 weeks but I started to lose inches and pounds after 4 weeks.