The end of another year approaches the old New Year Resolutions begins to enter our mind sets! There will be many different resolutions but one I have no doubt will be popular as I am sure it is every year, will be the cut down, or stop all drinking Alcohol all together.
So have you started to think 2015 might be your last year of drinking? Well congratulations, this is the first step towards sobriety, like everything it starts with an idea, and you my friend have that, you have also done some sort of search to end up reading this blog! so again congratulations, it is not easy to admit to yourself that you may have a problem but wanting the change & readying your mind and are the two first most important steps anyone can take, and you have taken them so please make sure you take the time to appreciate this achievement.
However, setting an exact date to stop drinking is unfortunately setting yourself up for failure, in theory the idea is great, from this day forth I will not have a drink, but like most new years resolutions the goals are to high and quickly become unrealistic and to hard eventually killing of all the motivation you started with back in late December.
I wanted to stop drinking for a good year before that faithful last drink, and I cannot to this day tell you what it was that triggered that switch in my head which finally gave me the power to actually not want another drink, but one thing I can tell you is, I tried to set many Saturday's and Sunday's as my last drinking point, but they all failed, it wasn't until I was completely ready that the time was right.
I am not saying do not use a new year resolution as motivation or to help reach your goal, just don't make it the day of reckoning, do not say to yourself form the 1st of January I will not drink anymore, you are putting a huge amount of pressure on yourself and setting yourself up for failure.
A more wise timely approach would be to set 3 or 4 smaller goals, goals that you want to achieve in a certain time frame, Goals that will help reach your end goal of quitting drinking. Remember it is a new years resolution, you have all year to accomplish it so give yourself a chance.
Hear are 4 idea's of smaller goals to help you reach that goal by the end of the new year.
1) 2016 (Or what ever year it may be) Will be the last year I ever drink alcohol. - This allows you a year to reach that point, this allows your mind to find the right time, it also puts a small amount of pressure on it to find it within that year.
2) I will distance myself from friends who are a bad influence on me and my drinking problem. - This takes time and when it comes time to quit drinking ditching those friends who are only friends due to Alcohol becomes a necessity so do it before and make your life easier.
3) I will start a journal, documenting how much I drink, how often & how much i spend, I will then reflect on this each week. - Tracking exactly how much you are drinking will help you realize how damaging alcohol is becoming to your health, your mind & your wallet!
4) I will not drink any Alcohol on a Sunday - This could be any day of the week, but pick a day where you do not touch Alcohol.
The point of this blog is not to bag out new years resolutions, or to discourage anyone, it is simply to identify that there is more to quitting Alcohol, then just deciding to quit, your entire life will change, and if you are not ready for that change neither is your will power and you will inevitably fail.
Set small goals for yourself, each year, each month, each week, each day, each hour. they will lead you to sobriety, it is not a race it is a marathon, remember, your alcoholism did not start the first time you got drunk!
Good luck, and please if there is anything I can ever help you with drop me an email or hit me up on social media, I am always willing to help.
Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur
www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com
Sunday, 6 December 2015
Wednesday, 11 November 2015
What do you look forward too?
What in your life do you look forward to? This is one question that keeps coming up consistently in my 8 month sobriety.
One thing I do know is what it was that I used to look forward to. I used to look forward to the end of my work day, and boy did I look forward to the end of the working week! But not for the reason's I should have! It was so I could drink. I could not wait to get those beers down my throat, to de-stress my day. Friday was just party night. The way I saw it, I had no commitments on Saturday, so it didn't matter how messed up I got myself because I could just sleep it off all day Saturday. At the expense of spending time with my family and kids, and at that stage of my life I did not care.
So I'd trained myself, over the course of 15 years, to look forward to drinking, to look forward to getting messed up to the point where I could not remember a thing. Even when I got to the stage of my life I knew this wasn't healthy and I should not be doing it, but I was still looking forward to it!
That is one of the biggest shifts in lifestyle I've had to deal with since being sober. I don't seem to look forward to anything like I used too, well at least look forward to anything the way I used to look forward to drinking and inevitably getting drunk!
Here in Australia we had a big horse race Tuesday just gone, called the Melbourne Cup, other wise known as The Race that Stops a Nation. This day has always been a day that I have looked forward to and really enjoyed, however this year has been the first year without it including alcohol, and guess what! My enthusiasm towards the build up and the fun I actually had on the day just wasn't there like it used to be. Don't get me wrong, I still had a good day and spent some quality time with my kids, but I ended up heading back to work not long after the race, where every other year going back to work just wouldn't be an option.
I have 3 things I look forward to now since being sober, my Family, my day job & my side projects. This isn't a bad thing by a long shot, it has allowed me to grow immensely as a father, as a partner, as an employee and as a entrepreneur so in overall, it has allowed me to grow as a person. I do feel as if something is missing, I still get that urge to have a good time, and the only way my mind seems to know how is to think about drinking.
Will this change over time? I guess only time will tell and I am going to make sure I give myself the time I need to figure out what it is in life that I can do for fun that does not including drinking!
Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur
www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com
One thing I do know is what it was that I used to look forward to. I used to look forward to the end of my work day, and boy did I look forward to the end of the working week! But not for the reason's I should have! It was so I could drink. I could not wait to get those beers down my throat, to de-stress my day. Friday was just party night. The way I saw it, I had no commitments on Saturday, so it didn't matter how messed up I got myself because I could just sleep it off all day Saturday. At the expense of spending time with my family and kids, and at that stage of my life I did not care.
So I'd trained myself, over the course of 15 years, to look forward to drinking, to look forward to getting messed up to the point where I could not remember a thing. Even when I got to the stage of my life I knew this wasn't healthy and I should not be doing it, but I was still looking forward to it!
That is one of the biggest shifts in lifestyle I've had to deal with since being sober. I don't seem to look forward to anything like I used too, well at least look forward to anything the way I used to look forward to drinking and inevitably getting drunk!
Here in Australia we had a big horse race Tuesday just gone, called the Melbourne Cup, other wise known as The Race that Stops a Nation. This day has always been a day that I have looked forward to and really enjoyed, however this year has been the first year without it including alcohol, and guess what! My enthusiasm towards the build up and the fun I actually had on the day just wasn't there like it used to be. Don't get me wrong, I still had a good day and spent some quality time with my kids, but I ended up heading back to work not long after the race, where every other year going back to work just wouldn't be an option.
I have 3 things I look forward to now since being sober, my Family, my day job & my side projects. This isn't a bad thing by a long shot, it has allowed me to grow immensely as a father, as a partner, as an employee and as a entrepreneur so in overall, it has allowed me to grow as a person. I do feel as if something is missing, I still get that urge to have a good time, and the only way my mind seems to know how is to think about drinking.
Will this change over time? I guess only time will tell and I am going to make sure I give myself the time I need to figure out what it is in life that I can do for fun that does not including drinking!
Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur
www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com
Wednesday, 4 November 2015
Update
Wow another month has past! I can't figure out if I thought time went quicker while I was drinking or quicker now that I don't? I definitely am more aware of where my time goes now.
So like all my sober months prior to September, it was a busy month, I squashed in a week long family holiday down in the beautiful South West of Western Australia, and managed to pick up a virus which I am still not 100% over. But all being said and done I still managed to give this project a bit of time albeit a little less then the past couple of months and something I want to work to rectify.
Last month I spent most of the time on social media, my goal is to establish a small following across multiple channels and populate them with relevant quality information. I am starting to get a small following and hope this increase over time to help with the social media updates I recently started using a bit of software called HootSuit, which allows me to post to multiple social media channels at the same time and schedule when those post's go live, I currently have it set up to post to Facebook, Google+ & Twitter, I have been adding to Instagram (Alcoholic_entrepreneur) and Pinterest (alcoholicentrep) individually and have decided to put more focus on these two channels as I believe social media can be over whelming and you can get lost in the hustle if you do not focus on one or two channels at a time.
A big positive that came out of September is I received my first email opt in, I have had the site up now for a few months with the email opt in on a couple of the pages so to receive an opt in has given me great hope and excitement, I am still unsure and am still learning how to set up regular emails and send out to my huge email list of one person, but with time and determination this will get done.
I'm going to keep this Months update short as it doesn't feel as if I did a great deal this month and what I did do was small behind the scene social media things. But I will be making up for it in the October update.
Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur
www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com
So like all my sober months prior to September, it was a busy month, I squashed in a week long family holiday down in the beautiful South West of Western Australia, and managed to pick up a virus which I am still not 100% over. But all being said and done I still managed to give this project a bit of time albeit a little less then the past couple of months and something I want to work to rectify.
Last month I spent most of the time on social media, my goal is to establish a small following across multiple channels and populate them with relevant quality information. I am starting to get a small following and hope this increase over time to help with the social media updates I recently started using a bit of software called HootSuit, which allows me to post to multiple social media channels at the same time and schedule when those post's go live, I currently have it set up to post to Facebook, Google+ & Twitter, I have been adding to Instagram (Alcoholic_entrepreneur) and Pinterest (alcoholicentrep) individually and have decided to put more focus on these two channels as I believe social media can be over whelming and you can get lost in the hustle if you do not focus on one or two channels at a time.
A big positive that came out of September is I received my first email opt in, I have had the site up now for a few months with the email opt in on a couple of the pages so to receive an opt in has given me great hope and excitement, I am still unsure and am still learning how to set up regular emails and send out to my huge email list of one person, but with time and determination this will get done.
I'm going to keep this Months update short as it doesn't feel as if I did a great deal this month and what I did do was small behind the scene social media things. But I will be making up for it in the October update.
Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur
www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com
Tuesday, 13 October 2015
New Work Space
Most of the work I do on my side projects is done late at night after the kids are in bed, sitting on the couch, although this is definitely a convenient and comfortable option, I find it distracting and hard to really knuckle down and get in that working zone that you need to be in to do real amazing work.
Unfortunately we have a very small house, and all 3 of the bedrooms are taken, so there is no space for a study, or somewhere I can go to get away and work.
Back when I was drinking I spent a lot of time in my backyard shed, it was my little escape area, a place I could go and drink in peace without getting bothered, I always had idea's to turn the shed into a bit of a man cave, mainly to make my drinking hangout a little more comfortable, but as with most of the idea's I had when I was drinking they remained just that, idea's, obviously I have stopped drinking alcohol so the want to turn the shed into anything related to alcohol has gone.
So the shed has sat there not really been used for anything but storage the past 7 months I started clearing it out a bit a few weeks ago and that's when the idea came to me to turn it into a mini office. It has power, it has space, it already had a work bench albeit it needed a lot of work.
So for the past few weeks I have been moving things around to clear the bench so I could get to it and see what needed to happen to make it workable, once I saw it in all it's glory it was clear it needed replacing so that's what I spent my weekend doing.
I bought a new piece of pine would wood from our local hardware store Bunnings which would fit the stand that was already in the shed perfectly, I also bought some varnish, sandpaper and a little roller kit. so I was fully set to go by 6:30pm on Friday night, so I got to work sandpapering, once I'd finished sanding I had time to give it the first coat of varnish and let it dry overnight.
Saturday morning it was still a little wet so I left it till the afternoon and gave it another coat, there was only a little bit of paint left so I decided to let it dry again and give it a third coat.
By Sunday morning it was dry enough to move back into the shed, so I moved it back in there. once I got it in there I realized I need a high chair, as it was a rather high bench top and the piece of pine added an additional 30mm to it. So basically what I was looking for was a bar stool and a comfy one that would allow me to sit and work for a few hours at a time. I checked our local Gumtree and found one exactly like what I had in mind for 30 bucks, the guy who was selling it was only about 20 mins drive away so I went and picked it on the Sunday afternoon .
All the pieces were starting to come together there is still a lot to do, from cleaning dusty shelves to finding additional storage for things that I don't have space for in the shed, but this will just be chipped away at over the next few weeks and eventually it will be a comfortable working environment.The Alcoholic Entrepreneur
www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com
Tuesday, 29 September 2015
Alcoholic Focus
Focus is extremely important in almost all aspects of life, whatever it is that you are doing, the more focused you are, the more successful at it you will be. This is exactly the same with recovery, remaining focused is very important. I have lost my focus over the past couple of weeks. I have had a virus which has knocked me around a bit and we have also had a family holiday during this time, so my routine has been thrown out quite significantly and this has had a knock-on effect to my focus.
It has now been over 7 months since I had my last drink and for a while there, the thought of drinking had not even entered my head, however over the past couple of weeks I have noticed that thought creeping back in, ever so slightly. Not in a way that would compromise my sobriety (at least not yet) but in a frustratingly, annoying way. I have been wondering why and what may be causing this to happen. The weather is starting to warm up and the days are becoming longer, this used to always make it easy to have and enjoy a drink. My Aussie Rules Footy team, The West Coast Eagles, are doing extremely well this season and have made the Grand Final, usually a big day of partying and drinking. But these are mere challenges. This is life and life goes on in sobriety, you decide how you go about these events and how you avoid drinking during these times. My problem is not the weather, or the fact that my football team has achieved something it hasn't achieved in 9 years, my problem is my lack of focus.
I have allowed the past couple of weeks to affect my focus and my mindset. With this, allowing old ways of thinking back in. I was talking about it with my partner last night and just talking about it was helping me feel better and get focused again. Writing this blog is doing the exact same thing.
I believe writing this blog and working on this website are keys to my ongoing recovery. When I am working on these projects, my mind is focused. Focused on what blog post I am writing next, what feature I want to add to my website, what photo to upload to Instagram, Pinterest or what to update on Facebook or Twitter, you get my drift... The point is, I don't want to have the time to think about alcohol. I don't want the thought of it to even enter my mind especially at this stage of my recovery, 7 months in, so therefore I need to be extremely focused and have my goals of sobriety & entrepreneurship clear in sight.
Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur
www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com
It has now been over 7 months since I had my last drink and for a while there, the thought of drinking had not even entered my head, however over the past couple of weeks I have noticed that thought creeping back in, ever so slightly. Not in a way that would compromise my sobriety (at least not yet) but in a frustratingly, annoying way. I have been wondering why and what may be causing this to happen. The weather is starting to warm up and the days are becoming longer, this used to always make it easy to have and enjoy a drink. My Aussie Rules Footy team, The West Coast Eagles, are doing extremely well this season and have made the Grand Final, usually a big day of partying and drinking. But these are mere challenges. This is life and life goes on in sobriety, you decide how you go about these events and how you avoid drinking during these times. My problem is not the weather, or the fact that my football team has achieved something it hasn't achieved in 9 years, my problem is my lack of focus.
I have allowed the past couple of weeks to affect my focus and my mindset. With this, allowing old ways of thinking back in. I was talking about it with my partner last night and just talking about it was helping me feel better and get focused again. Writing this blog is doing the exact same thing.
I believe writing this blog and working on this website are keys to my ongoing recovery. When I am working on these projects, my mind is focused. Focused on what blog post I am writing next, what feature I want to add to my website, what photo to upload to Instagram, Pinterest or what to update on Facebook or Twitter, you get my drift... The point is, I don't want to have the time to think about alcohol. I don't want the thought of it to even enter my mind especially at this stage of my recovery, 7 months in, so therefore I need to be extremely focused and have my goals of sobriety & entrepreneurship clear in sight.
Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur
www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com
Thursday, 24 September 2015
How i am turning a drinking problem into a Entrepreneurial way of life
12 months ago I was drinking alcohol almost daily and to excess, when I say to excess I mean to the point of blackout, I was well and truly an alcoholic and I did not see a way out, I knew I had a problem and I knew something needed to change or I was on a quick journey to a place I did not want to be. It took me a long time to realise I had a drinking problem, you see I was a high functioning alcoholic, I still held down an important job, I paid my bills on time, I kept up a good appearance around family friends and general society, but that was because I planned my drinking times, planned my hangover times and did my best to hide the amount I was drinking from everyone including myself.
But once that idea of having a problem had entered my head it grew and kept growing over the next 6 months. I eventually got to the stage of not only knowing I had a serious problem, but knowing I had to stop, which was a big step towards stopping, but it wasn't until I actually wanted to stop drinking that things started to happen, but I was still in a dilemma, I wanted to stop I just didn't know how, I couldn't imagine my life without alcohol, how would I have fun? what would I do on my weekends? what would people think of me, I was extremely confused and torn, something I can compare it too is when you are in a bad relationship and you know it is the healthier option to just part ways and start your life fresh but you just can't imagine how your life is going to be without the other person and you are scared to make that break!
Well after some time some pretty serious soul searching and a few more drunken slumbers that never ended well, I finally did manage to stop, I decided to stop while I was on holiday and I haven't started again since, I can remember sitting on that beach on the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia, thinking to myself why am I sat here drinking by myself, I don't want to be drinking this drink but here I am sat here drinking it, why? I got drunk that night, very drunk, but I woke up the next morning and something had changed, I felt a change I cannot explain but it was there and to this day I have not picked up a drink.
I had stopped great! I had manage to break the cycle, but now I had to remain stopped and I felt completely lost, I didn't know what to do with myself, I had already started doing some small blog entries and found it really helped, so I kept going with it, but since my first few blog entries something had changed, since that faithful night on the Gold Coast I had found a new found energy I felt I had a message that I could spread and above all I felt and wanted to grow these blogs into something more.
I had extra time, I had spare income and I had added ambition with idea's and passion to go with it, so I continued to blog more frequently, but I still wanted more so I started investigating getting a website built, once I had sourced a web developer and the page was under way I registered the domain name www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com was born. I was already using the name the alcoholic entrepreneur, in my original blog but this made it real, I had my own domain name with my soon to be own website, this was exciting, I was creating a home base for myself my idea's and my recovery.
The site is still a work in progress and I tweak it most weeks trying to find that perfect formula I have also set up social media accounts and am beginning to get a small following, I am working on a book and have idea's to implement course to the website to help with recovery education and entrepreneurial dreams.
I have no expectations of where this will all lead, I am doing it because it is helping, it is helping keep me busy it is helping me keep focused on my recovery and I am enjoying every minute of it, I spent my time and money on alcohol before my sobriety, sobriety to me is about opportunities, opportunities that were not available while drinking. Don't just get sober, get sober and get rich!
Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur
www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com
But once that idea of having a problem had entered my head it grew and kept growing over the next 6 months. I eventually got to the stage of not only knowing I had a serious problem, but knowing I had to stop, which was a big step towards stopping, but it wasn't until I actually wanted to stop drinking that things started to happen, but I was still in a dilemma, I wanted to stop I just didn't know how, I couldn't imagine my life without alcohol, how would I have fun? what would I do on my weekends? what would people think of me, I was extremely confused and torn, something I can compare it too is when you are in a bad relationship and you know it is the healthier option to just part ways and start your life fresh but you just can't imagine how your life is going to be without the other person and you are scared to make that break!
Well after some time some pretty serious soul searching and a few more drunken slumbers that never ended well, I finally did manage to stop, I decided to stop while I was on holiday and I haven't started again since, I can remember sitting on that beach on the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia, thinking to myself why am I sat here drinking by myself, I don't want to be drinking this drink but here I am sat here drinking it, why? I got drunk that night, very drunk, but I woke up the next morning and something had changed, I felt a change I cannot explain but it was there and to this day I have not picked up a drink.
I had stopped great! I had manage to break the cycle, but now I had to remain stopped and I felt completely lost, I didn't know what to do with myself, I had already started doing some small blog entries and found it really helped, so I kept going with it, but since my first few blog entries something had changed, since that faithful night on the Gold Coast I had found a new found energy I felt I had a message that I could spread and above all I felt and wanted to grow these blogs into something more.
I had extra time, I had spare income and I had added ambition with idea's and passion to go with it, so I continued to blog more frequently, but I still wanted more so I started investigating getting a website built, once I had sourced a web developer and the page was under way I registered the domain name www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com was born. I was already using the name the alcoholic entrepreneur, in my original blog but this made it real, I had my own domain name with my soon to be own website, this was exciting, I was creating a home base for myself my idea's and my recovery.
The site is still a work in progress and I tweak it most weeks trying to find that perfect formula I have also set up social media accounts and am beginning to get a small following, I am working on a book and have idea's to implement course to the website to help with recovery education and entrepreneurial dreams.
I have no expectations of where this will all lead, I am doing it because it is helping, it is helping keep me busy it is helping me keep focused on my recovery and I am enjoying every minute of it, I spent my time and money on alcohol before my sobriety, sobriety to me is about opportunities, opportunities that were not available while drinking. Don't just get sober, get sober and get rich!
Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur
www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com
Wednesday, 9 September 2015
How to stay sober when on holiday
Holidays are a great way to put your head down and relax, but when you are trying to change your lifestyle sometimes they can work both ways.
I am currently away with my family in the south west of Western Australia an area famous for it's beautiful country scenery and its wineries. There are 8 adults and 5 children, 6 of the adults I am with drink, 4 of them drink heavily in a similar fashion to what I did before I decided to stop drinking, so not needing to say, there has been and will continue to be plenty of alcohol around for the next week.
Now sometimes situations like this can be avoided or put off for a while, but this for me is a family tradition that means allot to me so I do not want to miss out because of a life choice I have made.
So to be able to go on a holiday like this knowing I want to remain sober and still enjoy the time with my family there are things that need to be done.
The first thing you have to do is make sure everyone you are going on holiday with understands that you are not drinking, they do not need to know everything you could for eg. just tell them you are having a week to give you body a break, or you are doing a cleansing month, whatever you feel comfortable in telling, i do however suggest if it is you family to come out and tell them the truth, let them know the reason's for wanting to stop drinking and let them know that you have stopped drinking and plan to stay stopped and would really appreciate that they did not offer you any alcohol, I also make clear that I do not expect anyone to change their drinking habits to make me feel better or help me as this is not necessary.
The next is to get your mind right, you need to know yourself and keep telling yourself that you will not be drinking, no matter how tempting that one drink at that lovely winery may seem your mind is already made up before that situation even becomes a reality, this is something very important in the early stages of recovery, you have to know how to convince yourself of something and commit to it. each challenge and each commitment is real and they all add up to the greater good.
Finally have fun, enjoy the time with your family & or friends, enjoy your life in sobriety and remember why it is you chose this life, you wanted to spend your time making wonderful memories without alcohol distorting, dramatising and dominating every aspect of your life, especially your holidays!
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