Day 1600 how many days of a daily blog?!?

Once again I hit a wee milestone that I like to celebrate. 1600 days eh?! Doesn’t time fly!

So I like to do a wee recap of my stats on a milestone day…..

2.071 days without alcohol.

This is by far my biggest achievement to date. I self medicated my anxiety and stress for years…. I assumed everyone noticed at the time but it seems that no-one really did. I explained yesterday how it was the one thing that got me through the stress of my last job.

I was incredibly unhappy. Wine was the one thing that took all of that away…. For the few hours that it lasted. It’s a dreadful drug. It made me more and more depressed when I actually thought it was making me happy.

Giving it up was very hard. It took incredible will power. In a world where alcohol is the norm, it’s hard to stand back from the crowd and say I don’t want that anymore. It’s the only drug that people actually encourage you to take. I stuck to my guns and as hard as it was, I could see that my life was much better without the drama of it all… without the alcohol induced highs and lows.

Some would see it as very boring. The drinking me would have laughed at the sober me… I would have felt threatened. Sometimes it feels to me like it is very boring but it’s way better for me than the drama it caused in my life.

I’m scared to drink now in case I went right back to it so I’ll just keep counting those teacups! (that’s what we do on the Try dry app☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️)

1,471 days without anti depressants.

That is huge. I was on antidepressants for most of my adult life. Through my divorce in 2002, through various job losses to factory relocations in the Far East or Eastern Europe…. I’ve never coped that well. I am quick to flare up to stress and the anti depressants kept me on an even keel…. Until they didn’t.

Suicidal thoughts in Dec of 2019 were quickly caught by my GP at the time and my meds changed from Fluoxetine to…. Wow I can’t even remember the name! They knocked me for six but got my head back on the straight and narrow…. Setraline… that’s it. I’m not taking any meds anymore and I’m so very proud of that too. Who’s to say the amount of alcohol didn’t cause the need for the antidepressants. I will never really know.

667 days on HRT

I’m not sure if I see any benefit to HRT really other than the epic sleep I get from progesterone!! Who knows what I would be like without it?! Maybe neither up nor down but I read up on all the benefits and I believe it’s the right thing for me just now. Others may disagree but we all have different journeys to take.

613 days fasting 

Wow… what started as a “I’m putting on weight I have to try something different” has turned into a daily thing for me. I LOVE FASTING! I fast every day. Sometimes for as much as 19 hours and I have never felt bloated since I started. Some days I only manage 12 but I’m not putting my life on hold for it. The days I can do a big one, I will.

My life has changed so much since my big job with the long hours and the high pay that felt like blood money.

I am so much happier. I know I have my bad days but this is streets ahead of where I have been.

Endless days sat in Gran’s chair will no energy of thought to even clean my teeth. It’s been so hard but it’s been equally so rewarding.

I’ve done all of this by myself and stuck to it. I don’t give myself enough credit for that.

My latest “fads” which seem to have become lifestyle choices are running and being veggie/vegan.

I really wanted to start running in 2024 and have run my first two 10kms this year already. I am so lucky to have such a great village running support. The girls have made it so easy for me. Their encouragement and support has been second to none.

Lynsey and I managed a 5.4k this morning before work. I ran a PB for 1k, a half mile and a mile!!

My glasses are actually steamed up… the sweat was dripping from my head before I jumped in my cold shower!

The veggie/vegan thing is still a surprise to me… as if the rest of what I do is not!!! My body just doesn’t want meat just now. I don’t know why…

As I munch on my feta pasta bake… I will just keep going with this for as long as I need to.

So yeah, I have to manage my mental health on the daily.

I am an empath and I have to be careful who or what I give my energy to. My head is very quick to tell me when something is wrong and I’m very in tune with that.

I cannot allow myself to very go back to the person I had become over 6 years ago.

Writing this daily blog keeps a lot of it in check for me. So while it works I will keep on with it.

Travelling keeps a lot of that in check for me too. So I need way more of that too!!

Thanks to everyone who comments, likes, messages and supports my rambles. It means so much to me. If I can help one person by writing some of this (other than myself) then it will always be worth it.

Stay safe everyone ♥️♥️♥️