Dry 6

[sydneysideup]

This is the thread for the alcohol free. Happy and hopeful, continuing from Dry 5 here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/a2137624-DRY-5?msgid=50943574
Whether it's been an hour, a day, a week or a year, join us here.

Hi Deirdre. You sound very chipper! I am very envious of your ClubSoda event- would be good to see you all IRL. :) Good on you re the Poland trip.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/healthy-living/virginia-ironside-why-i-gave-up-alcohol-2172619.html

an article posted on the Dry january thread I found interesting.

Hope you are all well. :)

I am going to start to tell people I am not drinking. That is a big step for me.

Nice one Corn!

Thanks for sharing Corn interesting piece indeed!
And I second rb - nice one :)

Good stuff Corn , are you nervous/excited/both ? Thanks for the article, interesting. What she writes about AA are my thoughts about it, I can't see myself as powerless and believe I personally have the power to change myself. I do know people get along with AA and fair play to them. We all think and do things differently, whatever works for you.

Well done on standing up to the school Deidre. I raise you about two months from my last run! Went today and a wee 4k near killed me. Still it's a start and looking forward to getting on track again.

Biggles/Deirdre here. Name comes from a toy suitcase thingy that I found under dd's bed

mollyonthemove - I like it

Corn - I think that's a fantastic decision on your part, and very brave. Don't be embarrassed about having stopped drinking - be proud, even if it's just a quiet pride inside.

Thanks for posting that article; I really enjoyed it too. A refreshingly honest account from someone deciding to stop (and yet another person flouting society's convention that someone wanting to stop drinking must by definition be an out-of-control drunkard).

My app (thanks for the recommendation Lucy - love seeing it tick by) tells me that today I am one hundred and eeeiiiiigggghhhty days AF. Crikey. 180 days of freedom from the miserable brain-ache that is drinking or attempting to moderate. I am very very grateful for the leftfield thought-bubble that seemed to elbow its way into my head sometime in July 2014 that stopping was the answer, and not something to be feared.

teapot

"Look at what you could have won...."

Sober treat? Now you're talking. My finger is hovering over the 'click to buy' button on a 100% Hungarian goose down duvet. But that is perhaps taking the 'sober treat' concept a little too far

Hello all and sorry to leap in. I just wondered if you could point me to to app you're talking about? Apologies - it may well be up thread but I can't immediately see it.

Many congratulations to you all, you are an inspiring bunch

No worries SmallFox - the one I use is called "I'm Done Drinking" and I think it was about sixty of your English pence to download.

180 days is fantastic! Well done. Sod it, go for the Hungarian goose down duvet - sounds well posh to me

teapot when sleep is so important to us? FAB sober treat
smallfox here you go: itunes.apple.com/us/app/im-done-drinking/id452705683?mt=8

Thank you Lucy!

Ps Teapot - when I gave up drinking on 1 Jan I knew I was going to spend a lot of time in bed (sleeping..). I bought new top thread Egyptian cotton duvets and an amazing Hungarian goose down duvet. I slightly wept at the expense but it's already been worth every penny. As soon as I get up in the morning I cannot wait to get back to bed again! Not great for my productivity but amazing for my general well being. Go for it!

Bloody marvellous Teapot kudos to you Mrs. Don't be bothering with the hovering, click that button. Well deserved!

I agree teapot Hope you have clicked that button now!! What a great sober treat. :)

I'm in bed now, actually. Utterly blissful.

Night all. :)

You're terrible Muriel. I bought it. Good grief, I need next to no encouragement to set fire to money.

This being the modern world, it's arriving tomorrow. Wow!!!

Hungarian goose! Who knew....still, it's hard enought to get my wife out of bed in the morning so I'll keep it to myself! Our littlest one's been playing up this week so haven't had much sleep :/

Poor shivery geese in a Baltic winter :(

Whoo-hoo, hope you enjoy teapot. Don't think I've ever leave me bed if I'd a duvet like that.

I hear ya rb, littliest here has a cough and been spluttering constantly beside me the last few nights.

Sounds stupid but Im actually really proud of my dad, he stopped drinking very start of Jan and hasn't touched a drop since. This is a man that usually has a few beers topped off with a few hearty measures of whisky most nights. Considering telling them I'm stopping for good. With all that has happened I think they will understand more now.

I do still think back on the good times I've had drunk or miss that 'ahh' feeling at the end of a hard day with the first sip of wine. At the same time I know that drinking had got pretty damn boring and thats ignoring all the foolish, embarrassing or reckless situations I'd got myself into. Had got me boring where the highlight of my day was locking the door for the night and sinking deeper into a bottle by myself. Not that my life's a rollercoaster of fun but it's real and it feels genuine. If I choose to spend a day lying around reading a book it's what I enjoy doing and not hours wasted in a fuzz or a state of headachy anxiety.

Hi All!

Just a quick blatant bragging post to say I am enjoying a lovely sober congratulations treat of a night in Soho House which is amazingly cheap if you don't drink! And paid for by saved up booze money. So they're basically almost paying us to stay here!

Don't mind if I do....

Have a massage. Eat chocolate fondant. Take a bubble bath in the middle of the lovely bedroom....

Sober life rocks x

Oooh sydney I loves me a bit of Soho House. Well, that was in the olden days (as my DC would say), pre-children and with me probably making a tit of myself by drinking too much. The food there is pretty reasonably priced.

My sober treat arrived (thank you Lucy for rebranding it as something I could justify to myself ) and was ridiculously warm and cloud-like. Good job as my house is freezing at the moment. 182 days today.

I'm having a really difficult time with my DC's dad at the moment. He didn't show up for contact last weekend and has given no explanation for it (I know the reason is that he's annoyed with me regarding the divorce). I have had to take a stand and suspend contact until he can assure me that he will see the children as he is meant to according to our court order. They have been in absolute bits since Friday and are missing him so much. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, desperately trying to protect them but at the same time they are really missing him.

sydney ooh lush!! Now that's what I call a sober treat!
teapot so sorry to hear about difficulties with the DT's dad. Not fair of him to punish them for being angry with you and not very mature either if I may say so I'd be hiding under that lovely deserved sober treat duvet and drinking tea until I'd calmed down :)

Thanks Lucy. I've arranged with a child psychotherapist to come over this weekend to discuss the best way to deal with it all. It's been going on for two years now and shows no signs of improvement despite having been through the court system to get a court order. I stupidly thought things would settle down once a routine had been established.