After going to bed feeling all positive and virtuous, I had the most vivid drinking dream…. it was hideous. They’re so disorientating too as you wake up dehydrated and exhausted as if you have been out on the lash and then in panic that you’re going to have to confess to everyone and lose all your friends from the sober-sphere. However, they’re always great for reminding you of what you left behind. They’re never the rose-tinted spectacles version of drinking where you’re sipping one drink whilst calmly gliding down a river in a boat like in some Merchant-Ivory film… nope they’re more like being sucked into a Bukowski novel of awful sordid events…

They say addiction is like having 3 bins and 2 bin lids and you sort one aspect out and another pops out… That’s how I felt on waking this morning. Of course it didn’t happen, but these dreams are so realistic it feels like it did. I forgot to say my serenity prayer. I forgot to do my daily reading. None of it did me any favours mentally.

Busy at work too. Kids still on school holidays. Never thought I’d say it, but I’m craving a bit of routine! Meal-wise, I was all on plan with healthy choices and good portion sizes. Got home late from work at 7.30pm and the Saint was just putting a chicken in the oven to roast… I was not pleased! It needed cooking (it was supposed to be on Sunday but I was sick and so he had made soup instead) and he’d been out all day with Child3 to an amusement park, so it was going to be a late dinner… I was really grumpy. I decided to go and do an exercise video to distract me from my hunger and tiredness. It worked – 20 minutes of exercise and good endorphins flowing around my body… Then I got sucked into signing up for a 14 day fitness challenge. I’m feeling unfit and a bit heavier than normal. It did strike me that I had found time to do a 20 minute exercise video but not do 20 minutes of reading today…

In OA they say if you focus on your weight you’ll lose your abstinence, but if you focus on your abstinence you’ll lose your weight. I feel I’m doing all this wrong 😦

I need to carve out some proper routine even during the school holidays and prioritise the step work and OA for a bit I think. As my sponsor would say, I’m concentrating on the problem (food/weight) not the solution (the steps and the programme).