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Books I Recommend to Support Your Sobriety

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In this blog post I will share with you the books I recommend to support your sobriety. 

Reading books is one of the great joys of my life and even more so since I stopped drinking. Being able to fully focus on a novel or a personal development book since being sober has enabled me to expand my mind beyond anything I could have imagined.

By the time I stopped drinking, I had been reading every personal development book I could get my hands on for about 17 years. What started out as a hope to find some answers to the difficulties I was facing at the time became an obsession, one that I still have today.

I love other people’s ideas of what might work to help me feel better about some aspect of my life, trying them out and seeing that part of my life improve. Wayne Dyers quote – “Don’t die with your music still in you.” is one that fuels my love of writing and my determination to one day write a book for you – it’s in progress!

Sometimes the ideas I’ve read about don’t quite hit the mark, and there are some books that I could quite cheerfully burn after trying to read the first chapter! After years of reading this kind of material, I’ve come to learn what I like and what I don’t.

Personal Development Inhibitor

One of the things I have learned about working with you is that alcohol is a perfect personal development inhibitor. When you open the bottle to alleviate or avoid stress, depression, fear, anxiety or any other negative emotion, you are preventing yourself from learning valuable life skills which will contribute to your personal growth.

When you are facing a stressful situation without alcohol, you have no choice but to work out how to handle the root cause of your stress. If work is the cause, then your sober mind will speak to your manager, deal with any backlogs, learn new coping mechanisms or change jobs and do whatever is necessary to remove the stress.

Using alcohol at the point of feeling stressed stops any of those opportunities from presenting themselves. This leads to a stuck situation that has no hope of being resolved.

Personal Development Books

When you stop drinking you are often left in a position of having little to no normal life coping skills. If you have been drinking since you were young, the chances are you never managed to learn appropriately about what to do when life gets difficult. Sometimes the feelings can be overwhelming and will often lead you back to alcohol because you feel adrift and scared that you don’t know how to cope.

This is why I always recommend personal development books to clients when I am one-to-one coaching.

If you have stopped for a while and gone back to alcohol, it may be that this is why you started again. Sobriety can leave a growth vacuum that you need to fill with learning that will support your personal growth. Here’s a list of books that I have read that I regularly suggest to my clients:

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life by Dr Wayne W Dyer

Probably my favourite book of his. He shows you how the ancient wisdom of the Tao can be brought into today and give you strategies for changing the negative thinking that often stops us from fulfilling our true potential.

The Source by Dr Tara Swart

I have re-read this book a number of times. It’s a lovely blend of science and spirituality and Dr Swart shows us how both disciplines can and do work together.

 

Atomic Habits by James Clear

This is a great book for understanding the nature of habits and offers lots of advice on how to change yours. Whilst he doesn’t talk about alcohol directly it’s a useful book that will help you understand how your drinking habit works.

Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Allione

This book offers you the chance to personify your demons and give them what they really need. It’s an incredibly powerful exercise which can have rapid results.

 

The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Simply presented Buddhist wisdom directly from the Dalai Lama. This is a seasonal read for me.


The Empowered Highly Sensitive Person by Amanda Cassil, Phd

This book is for you if you know you are a very sensitive person.

Drink? The New Science of Alcohol + Your Health by Professor David Nutt

This is the only alcohol related book I recommend. Non-preachy and non-judgemental, you will learn about how alcohol affects your body and mind and will help you make informed choices.

Lastly, I am a huge fan of anything by Wayne Dyer so here is a link to a page which lists all of his books: CLICK HERE.

I hope you find at least one of these books useful and I would love to hear from you if you do try them.

Much love always, Jules xxx

P.S. If you would like to get more personal book recommendations and would like to consider working with me one-to-one you can find out about coaching HERE.

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You Can Give Up Alcohol

You CAN Give Up Alcohol

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“I can’t do it!”

 
Of all the phrases I hear in my coaching sessions, this is the one I hear most often. 
When you experience a day that is filled with so much stress, doing and overwhelm you will probably open a bottle of wine and the mental torture begins.
  • “You see, you’re useless.”
  • “God, I’m pathetic, I can’t even stay sober for 3 days straight.”
  • “I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay sober for any length of time. I just can’t do it!”
A whole week of staying sober is obliterated in a tirade of personal insults where you tell yourself that you’ve never achieved anything good in your life and so, obviously, you can’t stay sober.

A Woman’s Life

Women, through various circumstances, often find themselves in situations where it is required of them to do more than they ever could have imagined they could bear. When we drink regularly we unconsciously make our lives so much more difficult. 

We Care

We do the lion’s share of caring for children and our elderly relatives. Yes, these are often joyful choices we make, but if you’ve ever been a single parent with an absent father, you will know the daily stress, fear and grind of keeping everything together so those you love can thrive. The hours are punishing and, of course, we are at the bottom of the list for care.
 
When our children are at their most vulnerable ages we go to work because a) financially we have no choice and/or b) we have skills and talents that deserve to shine in the world so we can operate as whole women. Childcare is costly, so the financial balance is often calculated on the head of a pin. When we come home, often we have to make sure the house runs smoothly.
 
Every time one of our children is in trouble, we drop everything, juggle like a crazy woman and run to them. We empty our purses for them and give them anything we have that they want. We lie awake at night worrying about their adult choices, forgetting that they are in fact, adults. (They will always be our babies won’t they?)

We Move

We move cities and countries for a better life and make sure that every item is carefully packed and itemised. This ensures that children’s toys are unpacked first to keep them occupied and tea-making necessities are next.  Many years ago, I was admitted to hospital with a burst appendix a couple of days before a house move and spent months afterwards finding socks in pans and pencils in the bathroom so I know the value of proper packing!

We Work

We push hard to educate ourselves and work harder than some to ensure we can get the promotion that puts us in a pay bracket that allows us to breathe. To have all of this we have to live in a state of perpetual exhaustion and start to feel resentful and hopeless about the future. 

We Suffer

From childhood through to menopause and beyond we suffer huge and small aggressions from men, society, crap employers, financial institutions – blah blah blah – and in the majority of cases we just have to suck it up. Each aggression either makes us more aggressive or wears us down just a little more. 
 
If you have an old trauma, the expectation is often that you should ‘get over it already’. Or you don’t talk about it so you don’t make other people uncomfortable and you don’t believe anyone actually cares about this stuff anyway. There is no time or money for therapy and that trauma sits like a tightly coiled spring, waiting for the next ‘thing’ to set it off.

We Change

It’s only this year that the menopause is being talked about in organisations and women are being supported for what can be a crazy, scary and depressing time of their lives. The changes to our bodies and minds can induce lunacy because we feel suddenly out of control. Of course, we just keep going because we have to. 

We Age

Wandering to retirement, sometimes with not enough money to stop working, is terrifying and the prospect of working till you die sometimes looks like a real possibility. Seeing your body age in a world that demands you stay young is frustrating and makes you feel like you’re out of control and it’s too late to do anything about it. 

We Persist

And through it all, we keep going, we manage and we drink. At this point, you might be arguing that alcohol should be on prescription for free because it’s one of the only things that will give us some sort of temporary peace!
 
Of course, what I have written above is maybe a slightly exaggerated set of scenarios and if only one or two of them applies to you then it’s hardly surprising you have relied on alcohol to cope. 

You Are Strong

But if you have lived through or are in any of the situations I have described above then the strength you have had to draw up from within yourself is immense.
 
You have the strength to stop drinking because you have learned how to be strong through the simple act of living your life. You have overcome immense challenges in your life and along the way you have learned new things about what you’re truly capable of. 
You have made huge decisions to improve your life by moving to another country or city, getting out of an abusive relationship or changed jobs when it felt like a risky move.
Which means you absolutely have the strength to give up alcohol. You can do it because, contrary to what you may have been telling yourself, this liquid poison has no personality so it isn’t going to fight back if you decide to drop it as your best friend. It isn’t going to send you threatening messages or stalk you down the supermarket aisles threatening to jump in your basket.

Try This Exercise

Take out your journal and answer this prompt:
The things I have done in my life that have required me to be strong are…
Keep writing until you remember everything. Read it back once you’re finished and underline the words and phrases that highlight just how strong you have been until now. You will see just how amazing you are.

You CAN Give Up Alcohol

Face alcohol and be the woman you always are, strong, capable and easily able to overcome this tiny, insignificant, health-damaging liquid that makes you believe the lies it tells you. Be your own heroine.
 
I promise you that you can do it. The detox is uncomfortable but brief and the necessary reframing of your thinking is so much easier once you’re clear of alcohol.
 
I know you can do it because I did it. I have lived through many of the things I have listed above and when I stopped drinking I realised what an amazing woman I am. I will never allow anything to stop me from living the life I deserve and I owe that confidence and clarity to my sobriety.
 
Rise up. Be the woman I know you are.

Much love always, Jules xxx

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Alcohol, The Menopause and Your Second Life

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Are you struggling with your menopause symptoms or wondering if alcohol is responsible for how you’re feeling?

Symptom Checker

Check out these symptoms of menopause and see how many you identify with:

  1. Hot flushes
  2. Weight Gain
  3. Fatigue
  4. Bloating
  5. Night Sweats
  6. Mood Changes
  7. Sleep Problems
  8. Nausea
  9. Irregular Periods
  10. Joint & Muscle Pain
  11. Itchy Skin
  12. Hair Loss
  13. Brittle Nails
  14. Dizziness
  15. Bladder Infections
  16. Dry Mouth
  17. Difficulty concentrating
  18. High Blood Pressure
  19. Digestive Problems
  20. Headaches
  21. Weak Bladder
  22. Dry, Tired, Irritated Eyes
  23. Memory Lapses
  24. Irregular Heartbeat
  25. Osteoporosis

Symptoms Related to Drinking Alcohol

Now, go back to the list above and ask yourself how many of those could also be related to your drinking. I counted 17 out of the 25 I have listed here from the days when I was drinking. Interestingly, the muscle and joint pains I used to experience have gone away since I stopped drinking.

How many are you experiencing right now?

What’s The Source?

If you are drinking and know you’re at the right age for menopause how do you know what is causing your symptoms? If they are so similar, how do you know what belongs to menopause and what belongs to alcohol?

Don’t you deserve to find out? Removing alcohol from your life will enable you to deal effectively with your menopause and be 100% sure that it’s this that is actually the cause of your symptoms and not alcohol.

Wouldn’t that be a better and easier conversation with your doctor? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to be able to list your symptoms and have those dealt with instead of any of them being dismissed as being alcohol-related? You wouldn’t have to lie about how much you’re drinking and would get the treatment you need for the symptoms you have.

The Easy Stuff

Sorting out symptoms and getting treatment is pretty straightforward. Yes, there might be a bit of back and forth getting the right kind of HRT and medication, but you will be clear about your end goal and will know when you feel better.

The Real Challenge

What isn’t so straightforward is how you handle you at this time. So many things are changing. Your body either no longer does what it’s told or you have to work twice as hard to make it obey. You can see shades of older women in your family in the mirror and sometimes that makes you feel older than old and you know that your days of making babies are pretty much over.

Your mind becomes a minefield of lost thoughts and dangerous ideas that make you feel like you’re going mad. Alcohol can cause depressive and anxious moods and thoughts, so the mixture of the two can be a miserable cocktail.

The World

In society being young, male, and virile are the hallmarks of a worthy member of society. Even older men are described as distinguished or silver foxes and are revered and worshipped as models of human ageing. We are told over andover that this is how it’s meant to be done. Of course, men can still have children well into older age, so they are still seen as useful contributors to society.

This view is never afforded to women. I can’t even think of a phrase that positively describes an older successful woman. Can you?

We are just ‘women of a certain age’, we are in ‘the change’ which almost suggests we have become not ourselves because we are no longer able to produce babies.

A Triple Bundle of Crap

Just think about it. If you are 1) female 2) menopausal and 3) a heavy drinker – that right there is a triple bundle of crap that puts women at a disadvantage. Being female is always a struggle unless you live in a cave on your own – the moment you interact with the outside world someone will tell you that you’re wrong. Being menopausal is a struggle because it’s a huge proportion of the population doesn’t understand what it’s like. Recently, I have seen some heightening awareness by organisations to be more supportive but it’s still early days and the support can be patchy or non-existent.

And if you dare to admit that you might be drinking alcohol, thou shalt be judged and judged negatively.

While juggling home, family, job, elderly relatives and your own changes it can feel like alcohol is the only way to provide some much-needed respite.

No More Babies

Coming to terms with the idea that you will no longer be able to have children may be causing you untold stress.

If for whatever reason, you haven’t had any children this time of your life can be a distressing time that forces you to come to terms with having to watch that door close for good.

Or it might feel like a kind of freedom.

Whichever way it’s affecting you, it’s significant and deserves the time and space to work through and accept your new reality or take action.

Will Alcohol Make It Better?

Adding alcohol at this time in your life is like setting fire to yourself. There is no way that alcohol can help you through this time in any effective or meaningful way.

There is no way you can come to terms with your changing body when you are ingesting a gazillion calories and increasing your risk of breast, and other, cancers.

You can’t get even a little bit close to sexy if you’ve always got a thick head. And you will never be able to sort your menopause symptoms out.

Whatever issues you have in your relationship and your feelings of being less attractive will only come out in arguments about the dishes when alcohol is leading the charge. If you are thinking – “I went through an early menopause and thought I’d turned into an old hag over night.” then your relationship will need an honest conversation about what is changing for you. 

Your Second Life

Of course, there is a different way to look at it. You can take a positive approach and look for the opportunities that might be available to you.

Perhaps if you’re menopausal you care a great deal less about what other people think of you than you used to. If that’s the case then is there something you have always wanted to do but feared others opinions? You can be free to pursue the things you always wanted to.

You have decades of experience in work, raising children and life in general that lots of people would benefit from if you wanted to share your many skills.

Perhaps, like me, you are beginning to recognise that the way you spend your time needs to be making a positive difference to someone or lots of someones?

What if you now have enough confidence and the time to work towards being the CEO of your company, or get that promotion you know you deserve?

Succeeding at Your Second Life

What if you stopped drinking alcohol and decided to make the years beyond your last period the best of your life?

I have a vision of an army of women who have their shit together, who have their health working for them, who have figured out what work they want to do, have figured out how they want their relationships to be and more importantly, know beyond a shadow of a doubt who they want to be.

Giving up alcohol when you’re young is a great idea but giving up when you are older is a double win. You know what you want from life and know how you want to spend your time.

I have always thought that women need to stop drinking themselves into an early physical and emotional death so that we can offer the much-needed balance that seems to be missing in the world right now.

Try this out quickly – think about your last days on the planet, what are the answers to these questions:

  1. What legacy am I leaving behind?
  2. How did I spend my second life after menopause?
  3. Who did I help?
  4. Who did I love with my whole heart?
  5. How does it feel to have been sober for decades?
  6. Did I live my life to the full?

My answers to those questions are all positive ones. What is it going to take for you to be able to answer them just as positively?

As a sober coach, this is where all my focus is; helping you change your life so that it’s easy to answer those questions positively.

If it’s only alcohol standing in the way, let it go my love. You are wasting the best years of your life.

To help you get clear about your relationship with alcohol and your menopause experience I have created a free download just for you: 6 Simple Steps – Get it here.

Much love always, Jules xxx

P.S This seems to be a very well-informed and useful site on all things menopause: A Vogel.

How To Have A Fabulous Sober Holiday

How To Have A Fabulous Sober Holiday

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Holidays are a time that we should all look forward to but when you are trying to quit alcohol it can be a minefield. Despite all of the good work you’ve done, you think you might struggle to stay sober and the pressure to drink will get to you. 
It doesn’t have to be that way. A little bit of thinking ahead and pre-planning will ensure you have a fantastic holiday that you return from fully rested and ready to continue your sober journey.

Purpose

Decide beforehand what the purpose of the holiday is for you. Do you need a week or two of total, deep relaxation? You will come home more tired if you drink. Do you need some time to think about a big decision you need to make or a goal you want to achieve? Plan some thinking and journaling time.

Drinks

Before your holiday get into the habit of drinking water. If you’re not used to it at first it tastes a bit boring but after a short while when your taste buds adjust you will learn that there is nothing sweeter than a cool glass of water. If it’s a sunny destination it’s important to stay hydrated so establishing your water habit before you go will make it easier to continue.

Drinks

Go online and find out what you can about the hotel or area you will be staying in. Check their online menus for mocktails and alcohol-free drinks. Spain is pretty good for this.

Sightseeing

Do some research on local heritage and historical sights that you can visit. While everyone is still in bed with their hangovers you can be on a bus to somewhere interesting and even magical, meeting new people and learning something new about the place you’re visiting. Plus you will be able to afford it as you won’t be spending money on alcohol.

Read

Choose a book or two to read and set yourself a goal of finishing them before you come home. A chunky novel is a great idea but you could also consider a personal development book that will help you learn something new about yourself.

Exercise

Obviously, you’re there to relax but you might want to try yoga and meditation at sunrise, or a beach class that looks fun. Check out places nearby that would be good to walk to.

Sunrise/Sunset

Do some research before you go to the best spots to witness the glory of a sunrise or sunset and make a plan to go there. There is something quite breathtaking about watching the sunrise – there are often fewer people around too.

Postcards

Every couple of days or when you’ve visited somewhere interesting, buy a postcard and send it to yourself at home. Tell yourself how wonderful it is to be having a sober holiday. They will take a few weeks to arrive and when they do you can pop them on your fridge or on your vision board to inspire you to stay sober.

Things to Remember

Feel Proud

?️ Be out and proud about the choice you have made to eliminate this poisonous crap from your body. Tell anyone who will listen how wonderful it is to be sober and to be finally working towards achieving a goal you have always dreamed about. Your confident stance will often stop people from trying to encourage you to drink.

Get Value For Money

?️ You paid a lot of money to go on this holiday so it would be a real shame to spend it sitting in bars getting drunk and then missing the best part of the day in bed with a hangover.

Avoid The Early Pressure

?️If you are with people who drink try meeting them a little later after they have already started drinking. Once most people are a few drinks in they won’t be that interested in what you’re drinking.

Lie

It’s okay to lie. If you don’t feel comfortable telling people you want to stop drinking and have to explain yourself, you don’t have to. No one has the right to pressure you into drinking, even if it’s gently, but if you don’t think you’re strong enough to resist it’s okay to tell others any story you like that will preserve your sobriety.

You Are In Control

You are in control of what goes into your body. Prepare for your holiday by thinking about what you want to say when you are faced with the option to drink. If you practice some stock sentences before you go they will pop into your mind more easily. “No thanks” is often all that is required when said confidently. 

Think Ahead

Play it forward. Take a few minutes to play both alternative holidays forward in your mind. First, think about what your drinking holiday will be like and how will it feel to come back home. Next, play forward your sober holiday and imagine how it will feel and how you will be when you come home.

Don’t Be Fooled

Remember ‘marketing magic’. Never forget that a lot of the ideas and images you have about the ‘perfect holiday’ come from pretty aggressive alcohol marketing. These adverts show healthy, happy, glowing people with great relationships and a healthy attitude to alcohol. Make sure you check in with yourself about how much of what you are looking forward to is what you really want or what you have been trained to want by clever marketing. Don’t feel like you’re a failure because you fell for it all because everybody does. Staying sober in the long term will help you see the truth of what a genuinely wonderful holiday is really about.

Are you struggling to get off the drinking hamster wheel of drinking death? I know it can feel like a real struggle, going round and round the same loop of sober days and drinking failures. To help you jump off that endless wheel I have created a free printable for you called Give Up For Good : The Only 10 Things You Need To Know.

In it, I will share with you the 10 most important things that you need to know and understand in order to be able to find that precious last day one. You can get your free copy HERE.
In the meantime, have a fabulous holiday and make memories to last a lifetime for all the right reasons.

Much love always, Jules xxx

P.S. If you are newly sober and loving it but unsure about the future and your ability to stay sober in the long term, I can help you find your BIG WHY for free in my 30-minute Big Why Booster Session. By the end of this session, you will be excited about your sober future and have some actionable ideas to help you move forward. BOOK IN HERE
tips for giving up alcohol

How A Marmalade Jar Can Support Your Sobriety Journey

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This time of year is a great time for New Years Resolutions and generally getting clear about how you want the coming year to be. Without goals you will definitely end up somewhere at the end of the year, but without goals you could end up somewhere you didn’t intend to be! 

If you haven’t yet made any sober goals for this year you can download My Sober Year for free which is a 27 Page Workbook to help you get clear about what your dreams actually are. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Doing something to positively visualise what you want for your future has been shown to have incredible effects. 

Writing your goals and dreams down gives them additional power and just over a year ago I started a DREAMS JAR so that I can see all my dreams in one place. 

Marmalade Jar

All I did was wash out an old marmalade jar and put a sticker on the front. Nothing complicated. Obviously if you’re creative you can go to town on your design.

Mine sits on the shelf above my desk and in there are my dreams and some of them involve you. The more women I can help to live a brilliant sober life, the more my dreams will come true. There are also personal and family ones and crazy, out there ones that I know can come true. 


dreams on my shelf

Dreams Come True! 

Today I was tidying the office and realised I hadn’t looked at my Dream Jar in quite a while, so I popped off the lid and started reading them one by one. 

I was utterly blown away to discover that 4 of my dreams have come true! Three of them were related to the successful launch of my membership group and some other business objectives. 

However, I had totally forgotten about one of them which was very personal and almost cried when I realised it had come true. As I looked at all my other dreams I just knew that all of them will come true one day and I am doing everything I can to make that happen. 

Dream Jar

Your Dreams

Creating your own Dreams Jar can be an incredibly powerful way to help you get clear about what you want from sobriety and life in general. It’s really easy to focus on the practical task of giving up alcohol but that, for me, is only a tiny part of your story. 

When you are living an alcohol free life, you will have more money, more energy, better relationships, better sleep, less, if any, anxiety – the list is almost endless. What dreams could you fulfil with the gifts that sobriety will give you?

Most Loving Thing Jar

Alternatively, you could have an ‘MLT Jar’.

If you filled it with all of the Most Loving Things you can do for yourself when you are triggered and want to drink, it can be a source of immediate inspiration just when you need it. You could keep it in your kitchen if cooking time is your danger time, or anywhere that works for you.

Gratitude Jar

Alternatively, you could have a Gratitude Jar and fill it with the things you are grateful for. It doesn’t have to be every day of course, you could just pop one in there when you recognise something that sparks gratitude and appreciation in you. 

When you are feeling down you can take them out and read them when you need to remember why you are trying to get sober which will put you right where you need to be emotionally.

You can find your passion by living a sober life. What dreams are in your jar? What is the Most Loving Thing you can pop in your jar today? What are you most grateful for today? 

If you are ready to quit drinking and transform your life into a one that is filled with your dreams you can join Sobersistas amazingly compassionate, connected group to get the help you need. Find out more here.

Much love always, Jules xx

P.S. If privacy is more your thing you can work with me on a one to one basis. I am a qualified coach who specialises in sobriety for women. Find out more here. 

5 Easy Ways to Help You Change Your Drinking Habits

5 Easy Ways to Help You Change Your Drinking Habits

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I came across a video today about establishing new habits that really made me think and so I have adapted the advice to help you with those habits you have that often trigger you to drink.

Environment Design

How you have your environment designed dictates much of your behaviour. If your wine glasses are displayed in a glass cabinet and your bottles of wine are in that ‘handy’ built in kitchen rack then you are more likely to be triggered to drink because your mind and body will just automatically move in their direction. If you come home from a stressful day at work, kick your shoes off and automatically walk into the kitchen, your body already knows the movements required to get a glass of wine. Do you have clocks displayed in prominent places so that you always know when it’s ‘wine o’clock’? Have you established an evening routine with the family that is centred around you being able to relax with a glass of wine? Do you reach for wine without checking in to find out what you really need in that moment?

Take a few minutes to think about your environment and what is going on in your home that enables your drinking.

Tips:

  • Put your wine glasses in a cupboard where you can’t see them.
  • Move the wine rack out of the kitchen and into the garage.
  • Store your wine on the highest shelf in the house that requires you to go upstairs with the stepladders to get at it.
  • Invest in some gorgeous tumblers and display those in your glass cabinet.
  • Buy storage boxes that fit into your fitted wine rack and use it for healthy snacks, dog leads etc, IKEA is great for this.
  • Get rid of your clocks and live out of time for a while.
  • Before you drink, check in to see if you are hungry. Place healthy snacks like fruit and nuts somewhere visible, preferably in the same spot you usually pour a drink.
  • Drinking more water is always a good idea. Use pretty glass jugs filled with water and station them around your house. I have a bottle that sits on my desk and a jug that lives on my kitchen table. I now have a routine where I fill them up first thing in the morning and if I finish them by the end of the day I have had 2 litres. It always makes me feel great.

Scale Down

Giving up can feel like a massive undertaking and can also feel overwhelming when you know it’s going to be a while before you have mastered the art of being sober. Do you get demotivated quickly because you keep failing after a couple of days or weeks of sobriety? Often the problem is that your expectations are very high and you make them almost impossible to reach (check in with yourself in case this is self-sabotage).

Take a few moments to think about what overwhelms you when you think about giving up.

Tips:

  • Decide that you’re not going to drink for the next 5 minutes. Don’t give yourself any other expectations beyond that. If you manage 5 minutes ask yourself if you can last another 5 minutes. Doing this every day builds your resilience muscles and eventually you will be able to stay sober longer and longer.
  • Decide on your new rewards and commit to doing them for 2 minutes. If getting fitter is part of your goals then put your walking shoes on and just walk around the block.
  • Have one glass of water before you have alcohol and then decide if you still want one.
  • Have your evening meal before you drink. Sometimes you’re just hungry and in coaching sessions a lot of women have told me that once they have had dinner they are less interested in drinking.

Change Your Entry Points

Often so much of what we do is automatic behaviour that you can have a drink in your hand and wonder how that happened. Are you aware of your drinking entry point? Is it that moment when you take your shoes off as you come home from work? Is it that  moment when you close the door on the kids bedroom? Is it the second you close the door on the dishwasher?

Take a few moments to think about your usual movements leading up to drinking.

Tips:

  • Change your pre-drinking routine just one night a week to start with. Do something fun that everyone looks forward to. Play board games with the kids, go for a walk, call a friend. Disrupting your routine will enable you to ride that temporary habit trigger.
  • Place your trainers where you take your shoes off and put them on, even if you don’t leave the house. Eventually you will.
  • Arrange a call with a friend at the time the kids go to bed.
  • Put a healthy reward on top of the dishwasher and have that instead.
  • Set a 2 minute alarm where you just sit and do nothing. Promise yourself that for 2 minutes you will just be. Watch the thoughts that rise up.

Community

Many of our habits are reinforced by the communities we live in. At the moment I feel like a bad neighbour because my front garden is overgrown with weeds and my neighbours is pristine. I always tell myself I don’t have time but actually I think I spend more time thinking about what a bad neighbour I am and justifying not doing it! What we wear, how we behave are dictated by the tribes we belong to. If you think about the clothes people wear in their particular tribes you see it everywhere – think hippies, punks etc. We model our behaviour on those around us so your ‘tribe’ is predominantly negative and you spend time with lots of people who drink then it’s going to be difficult to avoid drinking. However, when you are in a community that models the behaviour you want to adopt you’re more likely to adopt the desired behaviour because you will feel that you fit in.

Take a few moments to think about who your tribe is, where you spend most of your time, how you reach out for help.

Tips:

  • Find an accountability partner. Check out this post in the group to help you find yours.
  • Reach out. I will always be there for you and so will your fellow Sobersistas.
  • Stop thinking that the group is only there for success stories – it’s not true and those posts aren’t there to intimidate you and make you feel like a failure. They are what you will be writing in a very short space of time.
  • Log in now and ask for support – it’s what you’re paying for after all.

Use Alternative Rewards

Often the immediate reward for drinking is numbness and/or relaxation. When you know staying sober is going to be a long term project it can feel deflating to have to look too far into the future. If you’ve tried and failed before you know that in the short term that the detox is going to be uncomfortable and your routines will be disrupted and you will have WAY too much time on your hands to think every negative thought you’ve ever had about yourself. Thinking about the benefits of sobriety when you know they are way off into the future is just annoying. What you can do is pull the long term benefits to the present moment by giving yourself an immediate reward.

Take a few moments to think about what you believe around how long it will take to really feel the benefits of sobriety.

Tips:

  • Work out how much money you spend on alcohol in a month. Let’s say it’s £5 a day, that’s £150 a month. Go to the bank and get £150 in £5 notes and pop them in a glass jar near your usual drink making spot. Every day you don’t drink take one five pound note and put it in a separate jar that is for a reward of your choice like a full body massage. Promise yourself that you will only use this money to buy your alcohol.
  • Use the same idea but with coloured marbles. Fill a jar with two different coloured marbles and give drinking and not drinking their own colour. Take out the appropriate coloured marble each day.
  • Decide what would feel like a reward for you instead of drinking and do that instead.
  • Every day you don’t drink, post in the group. Claim each day as a massive success.

Much of our drinking comes from the habits we have established over time and repetition. This means that your new sobriety habit can be established in the same way.

Much love always, Jules xx