As I pack up my bags at the office, a quick look at my watch tells me its late; it’s been a long day but it’s been a good day  …

Lovely sessions with great clients, positive results and amazing progress.

I take a minute to reflect on how much satisfaction I get from the work I do.

I’m feeling good and I also realise I’m cream crackered!

My mind wanders to dinner and I throw around the options of the fridge contents into possible scenarios of speed, satiation and what needs using up. I then remember it’s taken care of this evening by hubby … good stuff. My contribution – wine.

It’s a couple of weeks into January and although I don’t do the ‘drink detox’ just hours into the New Year, I have the intention of reducing my quaffing quite considerably. In a house with both adults thoroughly enjoying the red stuff … and white for that matter, it can be quite a challenge to get both of us in the right frame of mind on exactly the same day.

It usually ends up with me instructing “no wine for me this week!”. By Wednesday hubby is throwing the idea of a bottle of fizz into the ‘will she, won’t she’ scenario and testing my resolve!

Generally, it breaks on Thursdays which is a day I work long and late hours. By then hubby is over his midweek hump and isn’t so bothered. It’s a pattern that’s been going on for some years now.

So I begin to have a ‘should I, shouldn’t I get wine’ conversation with myself as I’m leaving the office … I then pick the conversation back up driving along the dark road home. Then just for clarification, I have it again when I reach the turn off for the my local Co op.

The conversation is usually black and white which basically means ‘yes or no’? Usually yes, once I’ve asked myself the question and rarely on these occasions do I consult with my other half. Generally because I already know his answer!

I begin to question the self medicating numbness we all get when we indulge our senses. Whether it’s prescribing ourselves with an overload of food, booze, sex, exercise, work (really?), busyness and nonstop talking … they all mask something that we just don’t want to feel, whatever that may be.

So as I’m driving home having this conversation with myself, I decide to try and articulate the feeling I’ll be shunning if I drink wine. {I can hear some of you saying ‘Just drink the bloody wine for G’ds sake, what’s the big deal?!’}

Of course there’s nothing wrong with a couple of glasses of wine and thoroughly enjoying them, I’m not after going all out to become a mind numbing mess or even slightly incoherent. Just a couple of glasses to finish the day. But therein lies the problem, I’m trying to justify why it’s ok, it’s not actually a ‘give or take’ situation – I’m looking to find reasons for DO rather than DON’T and the simple fact that I’m in a push/pull gets me having this conversation with myself right now!

So, in a bid to ‘find my feeling’ and work out what I’m trying to avoid, I imagine myself arriving home with wine and how the next couple of hours play out ‘under the influence’ of a couple of glasses; then the scenario without the wine. This is how they’d sort of play out:-

Get home WITHOUT:
Get clothes wash on, get clothes out of dryer and fold said clothes, sort into ironing / non ironing and bedroom piles. Kitchen benches sparkly clean and floor swept, put kids stuff away, quick tidy around the house and then get organized for t’row etc etc.

Get home WITH:
Spend time with kids, eat dinner, quick tidy up, sit down and relax with wine.

… ermmm seems like a no brainer to me!!

Actually there’s probably something very wrong with the ‘WITH’ scenario … Why does it take wine to get me to sit down, chill out and relax?

Because I’m still in ‘doing mode’ when I get home.

Doing mode is what I’ve been in all day – it doesn’t necessarily have to be frenetic but my headspace is saying ‘productivity’, ‘organisation’, ‘completion’ … amongst other similar things. That wine is the switch that trips the mechanism.

When I drink the wine, the jobs still get done and well and later … I always spend time with my kids before bed, the kitchen will probably be sparkly tomorrow morning instead of this evening and the clothes can wait because we have many … this is my conversational reasoning (with alcohol). Without alcohol I need to get on top of things, not let ‘it’ pile up and I’ll only have to do it later when there’s probably something else needs doing. If I don’t do it now I’ll have to remember to do it later … and so the dialogue goes on and on in my head …!

So in my case it was a switch that ‘allowed’ me to leave the ‘doing’ behind. I just hadn’t worked out that instead of Me giving myself permission to do or not to do, it was the wine that had the voice and the control over whether I did or didn’t … crazy!

Now this doesn’t mean that if you have the wine conversation with yourself, or your partner is saying you work too many hours … or you just feel better after that extra bag of crisps or maybe that it’s because you don’t know when to stop too – that one’s mine, but what I am asking is,

“What’s your ‘conversation’ or distraction or self medicator and what are you medicating against?”

What makes YOU feel that you need that bottle of wine at the end of the day, or the middle for that matter or the extra crisps?
Whether it’s boredom, stress, pressure, pain, anger, sadness … whatever it is, we have to feel it, to heal it. By feeling it, we recognise it.

That doesn’t mean we have to dredge up every bad thing that’s ever happened but if you’re creating a diversion then better to know and make friends with your emotional enemies than have them come and shove alcohol or cake or work down your throat.

Get to know those feelings for what they are – work backwards, ask yourself what would happen if I didn’t eat that, drink that … if I sat quietly and listened to that conversation instead of nonstop talking. What would happen then? When you know, you may just be able to do something about it should you wish; alternatively you may be happy to trot along in blissful ignorance – your call.

We can learn so much about ourselves and our unhelpful behaviours by asking ourselves the right questions. If you’re on a journey of weight loss or trying to reduce your booze intake or even addiction, then these questions can go a long way to helping yourself.

So stay calm and don’t drink wine!

Big love ♥

Steph xx