Valentine’s Day

 It’s Valentine’s Day today. A day of love, roses, champagne, jewellery, dinner, wine. Well usually. 

We won’t be opening a bottle of champagne or a bottle of wine.

Instead I bought my husband a stunning card. It was the only one of its kind in the newsagent. It’s been ages since I bought a card and when I took it to the register to pay I discovered it was $17.99.

I almost choked. But it’s beautiful and most importantly it’s not gushy. I am not a gushy individual and I cannot bring myself to buy heartfelt, emotional cards with sentiments someone else has written that in no way reflect the way I feel. This card simply says, I’m hooked on you.

My husband is my best friend. We’ve had some tremendously difficult ups and downs. We nearly separated six years ago. But he’s also my best friend. I miss him when we’re not together. He’s always the only one I want to tell about my day. He’s the one I want to go adventuring with. We have heated discussions and companionable silences. We’ve been together now 17 years. That’s heaps of history too. It’s lovely to be able to say, remember when. 

So, he’s worth $17.99. Besides I’ve saved $60 on a bottle of champagne and $40 on a bottle of wine.

The rise of brunch

 I have friends who we only ever catch up with at drinking establishments and with whom we drink a lot of wine. There’s one couple who we really enjoy spending time with and we haven’t seen them since I stopped drinking. I had been trying to work out how we would do it. Anything I organised would be difficult and so I just didn’t organise anything. But then I got a phone call from the husband. We haven’t seen you in ages, and we’d really like to catch up before the operation.

It was a new ABC comedy series based in the Adelaide Hills which solved my problem for me. They used Uraidla as a location and it occurred to me we hadn’t been to Uraidla in over a year. It’s a beautiful little township which over the last few weeks has been ‘reimagined’ and is now one of the coolest places in the Hills to hang out. A renovated pub, new cafes and a little local produce and handcrafts market has made it a destination just right for a weekend brunch.

At brunch you drink coffee and orange juice, not alcohol. This was the perfect solution and as such as headed to Uraidla yesterday morning and had a long lazy brunch with a poke around the recycled timber and salvage store. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in ages. It was the perfect catch up. 

So now I have my solution, I don’t need to meet friends at pubs anymore, or even for dinner. Brunch is my go to catch up with friends event. I’ve already booked in my next one...

Kicking the scales

 Last Saturday when I weighed myself I was the lightest I’d been since quitting the alcohol. Three days later, after having exercised every day, eaten well and drunk plenty of water I was two kilos heavier. I was utterly despondent.

Complaining to a gym bunny colleague of mine, she told me not to be so hard on myself. Asked me how I was feeling and if my clothes were fitting better. 

Well they are. I have reduced in size, toned up, my clothes fit well and I’m actually enjoying picking out and wearing an outfit. I’m bringing clothes out of my closet I haven’t worn in ages and I’ve treated myself to a couple of fancy new skirts and a dress. She told me to kick the scales. She knows someone who lost two dress sizes and not one kilo because she built muscle, toned up and lost inches. 

I now look at my wardrobe longingly. I have a extensive collection of clothes, shoes and handbags and now there aren’t enough days in the week to mix and match my outfits. I have been taking more pride in my appearance and I’ve had some compliments about well I’m looking.

In a private conversation with a colleague who’s also a good friend I told her that not drinking is addictive. I’ve not felt this good in as a long as I can remember. My body, my skin, my hair, my posture is all thanking me for it. 

How can I go back? I don’t need to. I don’t want to. I feel like I’ve cracked a massive secret. That by removing things that don’t benefit you physically or mentally you’ll feel amazing seems such an obvious concept. 

So from mow on I’m going by how I feel and how my clothes fit and kicking the scales to the kerb. 

Popcorn

 I went back to Pilates last week when I returned to work. Karen, my teacher, works me hard. So much so I can feel my glute muscles all the way through the week to my next class.

She observed that I was still glowing from my time away. I told her I’d quit drinking and that was more likely the source of the glow. She was amazed I hadn’t mentioned it. 

When I reflected on this conversation later two things became startlingly clear. I am no longer embarrassed, trying to hide or uncomfortable with telling people I’m not drinking. But perhaps more importantly, it feels normal.

Karen asked if I’d found it difficult and I sad yes I had, particularly in the first month and in the lead up to Christmas. But the words that came naturally afterwards made me realise how far I’d come. I said to Karen, I don’t even think about it anymore. And that’s true. On the weekends when I slow down a bit and have time to think, I don’t even think about having a glass of wine. The connection between Friday and Saturday nights, watching movies and drinking wine has been broken. It’s not a habit anymore. 

That’s a milestone if ever I saw one. However my popcorn consumption has increased exponentially...

Net neutral

Living in a wine region with loads of fabulous wineries on your doorstep for 15 years means we have a lot of winery memberships. Every month boxes of wine appear at the post office or on the doorstep. So now we have a quandary, what to do, do we cancel the subscriptions, do we continue with one or two so we have wine in the cupboard when we have guests over, go to dinner parties or need to give gifts?

We’ve decided to cancel all but one membership of a favourite winery so we’re left with a half dozen bottles being delivered every month. 

Once we’d done this we didn’t give it much thought until we were on holidays and the friends we were away with asked us how much money we thought we’ve saved by not drinking and we worked out that in three months we’d saved $1000. As we’d not thought about this at all it was something of a pleasant surprise to realise this. 

However given that on our trip we’d bought and managed to lose a brand new set of solar panels, a recently purchased electric drill and seemed to require new fishing equipment at every place we camped I think we came out of the last month net neutral. 

Velvet skin

One of the most surprising things about not drinking is my skin. While I’ve been away camping my skin has completely transformed itself. Every morning I would brush the sleep from my eyes and one morning I noticed that it felt like velvet. I’m a 44 year old woman so this was intriguing. At first I wondered if it was because when I’m away camping I don’t wear any make up. But it’s not that. My whole body feels soft and smooth. 

I’ve done some googling and I can only put it down to not drinking any alcohol. My skin has hydrated and is positively glowing. Every time I shower I can’t help wondering at this. My skin, in my memory, has never felt or looked this good. 

I read one article that asked how much would you pay for something that made you look younger, reduced puffiness, make your skin bright and clear and cleared dark circles. Such a thing would be priceless surely? But it’s so simple, just don’t drink any alcohol. 

Having never gone without drinking for so long before I am amazed by how good my skin is. The feel of it rivals my pre teenage son who has gloriously soft skin. I’m just utterly enamoured with having velvet skin. I think this has to be my absolute favourite outcome so far.

In my googling I came across this article on Bored Panda and it really is incredible to see the change in people’s faces and bodies when they quit drinking. It’s worth a read. https://www.boredpanda.com/before-after-quit-drinking/

Celebrity Sober

When I was growing up celebrities tended to be well known for their addictions. It seemed that celebrity went hand in hand with alcohol, drugs and partying. Kurt Cobain, Kate Moss, River Phoenix, Brittany Murphy, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Ozzy Osbourne, Elton John, George Michael, Rob Lowe - the list goes on and on. 

I find it fascinating that many celebrities now are celebrating their healthy sober lifestyles. Brad Pitt, Zac Efron, Sia, Lana Del Rey have all battled with addiction and are now talking openly about recovery and life without alcohol or drugs.

However there also seems to be a growing trend of sobriety amongst celebrities whose looks and work ethic are part of their brand. Jennifer Lopez, Bradley Cooper, Blake Lively all don’t drink. 

I think we’re seeing a movement towards a different kind of role model for future generations. Studies are showing that Generation Z are drinking less. 20% less per capita than Millenials drank at their age. I also find it interesting that social media may play a part in this insta/Snapchat generation. Who wants images and video of their drunk messy selves being shared all over their networks.

Here’s a list of 60 celebrities who don’t drink for various reasons. It’s rather fascinating. 

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/g11644970/celebrities-who-dont-drink-alcohol/

I think even this guy is sober now and that’s saying something.