6 Months Sober

Today I reached my first significant milestone, I have gone 6 months without an alcoholic drink 6 months ago today i sat on a beach on a wet night drinking a couple of long necks (700ml beer) asking myself what I was doing? I didn't want to be drinking those beers yet I still had them in hand and was still pouring them down my neck. Something changed in me that night, to this day I can not explain what it was, but something changed and since that day I have remained a different sober person.

I realised I had a problem with drinking about a year and half before that night, i had plenty of arguments with myself during this time trying to convince myself I did not have a drinking problem I was in denial and did not get real about wanting to actually stop until about a year before that faithful night on the beach in Queensland, That year was tough, and it's ironic i sit here 6 months from my last drink thinking and reminiscing about the time it took to get my mind in the right place to be able to put that drink down and not pick another up.

I guess even though my last drink was 6 months ago I had decided to stop drinking long before that and I need to keep in mind that although these milestones are great reminders of the progress made, and far I have come, the journey had started a long time prior to these 6 months, the struggle was there and the struggle for me at least was harder prior to putting the drink down I had to convince myself it was the right thing to do I had to convince myself I had to do it and I had to want to do it. It was only then, that I knew I was ready to put that drink down once and for all.

So as I sit here on the 22nd of August 2015 about to head to bed knowing I have 6 months of sobriety to be proud of, i am still very aware of the fight and the struggle I had long before these past 6 months even started. Each milestone for me will be a simple reminder, a reminder of where I was in my life, why I choose to take a different path in my life and why going back will never be an option.


Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur

www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com

Time the Currency of the Mind

Time, time is an amazing thing and a thing I never gave a lot of thought to in previous years in my life. It is one of the most important things in life, without time we have nothing, waste our time on things that don't matter and don't give us anything in return and we have regrets! put our time to good use and we create amazing possibilities & wonderful memories!

I value my time a great deal more now than I did whilst I was drinking, I felt anytime I was not drinking I was just waiting and almost wasting the time I had until I could finish whatever boring or obligatory task I was doing and head to the pub or the bottle shop, thinking about it now, it almost felt as if my life was not complete without having that drink, I wasn't having fun I wasn't living, it's amazing looking back now and thinking about how I had allowed myself to be so consumed by a substance I clearly no longer controlled.

Today is very different, I cherish each and every minute, I plan my days and any downtime I get as anyone who has read my previous blogs would know, I spend with family and spend on projects like this blog. These two things alone are plenty to keep my mind occupied and my drive and passion for life to burn brighter than it ever did while I was drinking alcohol.

I am going to keep this post short as time is something I will be writing about rather often as I use my time differently over the months and years, but one thing I really want to drum home in this post is how important time actually without time we have nothing.

Think of time as the currency of the mind, teach your brain to use time to your advantage to create awesome memories and to plan and set up your life to be more comfortable in future years.

All too often we use our time to sparingly, wasting it on doing nothing to better ourselves our relationships or our life in general.

We all only get one life and we all have the choice in what way we spend the time given to us, just always be mindful that at some stage your time will run out, and will you look be looking back on the time you spent in your life and have wonderful memories filled with achievements & success, or a life of regret, wastefulness & disappointments.

I know the life I had infront of me if I continued drinking and living the lifestyle i was, was not going to be fun, it would not have created happy memories and it definitely would not have been filled with achievements & success. But I left that life behind in February 2015 and my new, better life is completely different, the drive passion and love i have in my life now is all I need to create the wonderful memories, achievements and success.


Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur

www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com

July Financial Report

My first ever monthly financial report, as you may have already read, I averaged my weekly spending on alcohol while I was drinking to $120 Per week, so over a month on average I was spending $500. A fair amount of money no matter who you are, I vowed to save at least $80 per week and use that money towards building up The Alcoholic Entrepreneur brand and other small projects which I will documenting the progress and finances.

The past months main focus has been the website, I registered the domain name (thealcoholicentrepreneur.com) through godaddy.com which cost $11.95 for a year registration and I set up the hosting through Bluehost.com they were running a special for hosting at $2.95 Per month I paid up front for a year so a total cost of $35.40 Bluehost.com's normal price is $5.99 Per Month $71.88 Per year. So it definitely makes sense to keep your eyes out for special's when looking at hosting as the savings can be rather large.

Once the website was registered and being hosted I hired a web developer, I used Elance.com and found a great developer from India with the rate of $7.50 Per Hour. we agreed on 60 hours to complete the work which worked out to a total of $450.00 This was paid weekly over 3 weeks at $150.00 per week.

So that brought the total spending of the month of July to $497.35 which is over the amount I had agreed to save each month by $177.35.

Although the bulk of that spending occurred in July some of it was spent back in May and June, and for this reason I am happy to allow the additional spending this month.

July		Saved		Spent		Earned
Week 1 1/07/2015 - 7/07/2015		$80		47.35		0
Week 2 8/07/2015 - 14/07/2015		$80		150.00		0
Week 3 15/07/2015 - 21/07/2015		$80		150.00		0
Week 4 22/07/2015 - 28/07/2015		$80		150.00		0
	Total:	$320		$497.35		0
Difference:	-$177.35

My goal for August is to make sure I get a bank account set up for The Alcoholic Entrepreneur so the saving's and spending will be separate from my personal accounts, i will also focus on finishing the site and get do a small amount of advertising by the end of the month to try and increase traffic.

I don't foresee a lot of spending in August so I should be able to save majority of the $320.


Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur

www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com

Watch what you Watch!

Netflix recently arrived in Australia to much fanfare! we are just a little bit behind over here as you can tell! But hey better late then never.

Well it is great and has opened up a hole new world of TV at our figure tips that we did not have prior so we have been watching a few shows that we would not of other wise of  heard of. 

One of these shows in called "Shameless" a show starring William H. Macy as Frank Gallagher an alcoholic who spends his time scheming his way to more drugs and alcohol while his 6 kids try their best to cope with raising themselves, each other and pressures of society.

It didn't bother me, and i still don't think it does, but at the same time this weekend has been a little different, I've had feelings i haven't had in a while, feelings like I'm missing something as if i want a drink!

I have know way of knowing if it had anything to do with the show or i was just having a off weekend but at the same i can't rule it out. One of my biggest ideology's to help with recovery is to train my brain that drinking alcohol and especially drinking alcohol expressively is not the norm and to distance myself from it as much as possible for at least the foreseeable future.

Watching TV shows & Movies with excessive drinking, drug taking or general lack of responsibility can big time hinder your recovery, you may not know it at the time and you may not think anything of it before watching something that may impact on you negatively. I do think it effected me in a negative way although i did manage to get through it and learn from it, i do however think it is worth considering where you are with your recovery and frame of mind before watching any type of movie or TV show that could reflect negatively on your end goal.


Success built from failure,
The Alcoholic Entrepreneur

www.thealcoholicentrepreneur.com