15 Minutes alarm

Put The Plan out here today. And to remind me and check on me I set my (kitchen) alarm every 15 minutes. Put a sticker on the alarm to say I need to check what/how I feel, relax if I am not relaxed and check if I am following the plan. It’s my variation on the productivity check techniques I learned at business school :-).

The technique is working. I am not following the plan too well yet. I have spend I think 3 hours on The Plan while I actually needed those to do what was in The Plan. Pffffff. I still need 7 minutes of cleaning and 15 minutes of cupboard reorganising or so. AND I have not done any work for my GP3 meeting this Thursday. I did stick to my eating schedule which is good.

Deviations: blog reading and -commenting, Facebook chat, visiting the foundling to see if he had certain features a possible owner spoke off. He did not. Speaking with the new owners. Then speaking with an other neighbour that I handed the next pieces of carrot cake that I got from this domestic goddess man. (don’t tell…). And I had not counted in doing shopping.

What did I learn:

– I can plan a day including the evening but in the evening I want to do unplanned things. Could be the same but planning restricts me. So I’d better work harder during the day. Let’s see…

– I spend a lot of time doing things like blog reading and writing that I had not planned. Need to think about that.

– The more the day proceeds the less relaxed I get because I feel guilty that I have not stuck to my planning. There is another thing with me and work or planning or life: I can never be happy with what I did. It should have been better….

I will see what tomorrow brings. I’m gonna do my online anti-addiction training now and that’s it.

Happy that I quit, but it’s getting normal I guess. Not happy with how I deal with the plan yet but maybe I should give myself some time. I keep on thinking that I can hear you all think: Da fack?! Doesn’t have a job, can’t even plan 15 minutes of cleaning in a day?!! Well, that is where my struggle is. I let myself go for a long long time. Not proud anymore, getting myself down with The Plan. BULL!! I am doing exactly what I should be doing. This IS how it IS!! I can only leave from where I am. I need to remind me not to put the blame on me; this is exactly how strong alcohol is. And, it did get me at my weakest point guess. Well, there is no better time than now. (Or rather tomorrow….;-))

Day after normal day 3

Went to bed at 1:something last night. I just can’t wind down when I’m socialising till late, can’t sleep. Or, maybe I have the feeling I can’t sleep, never tried to go to sleep, would always drink till I could sleep. This ‘frenzy’ in my head is something that I, at the moment see as the biggest danger for me for relapse. Don’t know where it comes from. Breathing deeply changes it to normal tiredness. Which could mean it is some sort of lack of oxigen or surplus in carbondioxide. Or that breathing deeply is a relaxation technique that helps me focus on the here and now. Let’s find out.

Did my online free anti-alchol training. Have done it 8 or 10 times by now. It’s a little boring. They keep on showing the same photo’s of alcoholic and softdrinks and I need to push the right button. But then again, drinking every night again, and again, and again is not really exciting either. Might as well put some time in it since they promise wonderful results. And indeed, after the umpteenth photo of a glas of beer I get this dunno, bored feeling. They say the technique desensitizes. I guess that is a fancy word for ‘boredom’.

I’ve got one of these hickups again, something is out there waiting for me to understand and learn to manage and I’m going ‘Nooooooooooo!!!!’ What is it? I think it is organisation of the daily tasks. Yesterday and the day before I realised how rewarding it was to eat and sleep at the right (pre-set) times. And now I feel like it has been soooo exhausting, ‘I really do need a reward’. I want to sleep. Apart from that I do need to sleep because my head is spinning, I do need to realise that this simple level of organisation is a very important step if I want to deal with the hypoglemic part of the food and alcohol cravings. Pfffffffff… IdontwanttogothereiwanttosleepIdontwantittobedifficult. IwanttobeabletodowhatIdid whenIwas19butbetternowandwithoutthedrinkingandIdontwantittobedifficult.

Aaah, I do not believe I can organise my life, that is half of the energy. Going to sleep now.

And woke up 3 hours later. Got some extra flyers out in the neighbourhood for the kitten. Still tired. Must be starting to hybernate already. To bed early.

Happy that I quit. A little too tired to be proud.

Doing stuff

Getting restless with only feeling and thinking and reading and learning and being sensible. So, this morning I thought I was going to do stuff today. Brought back the newly bought expensive juicer, bought a new version of my old one second hand for 6 Euro’s. That’s all, no chance on a roll in LHOP yet. Time for Stephan Covey’s book on ‘Priorities’. Aaaaahrgggg, NOOOOO!!! Not another book!!!!

Ooh, no, I did the online alcohol TOP training. Same as last time. I can actually feel it de-sensitizing me for seeing alcohol. Would like a special version with my favorite brand of beer though. I doubt if I will ever be tempted by the hard liquor bottles that they are showing, they are not in my system.

For those who like to know I have had very little drink think and only 2 short moments of slight cravings up to now. But I am still not doing stuff so avoiding frustration. Let’s see.

Alchohol TOP training

Did the first chapter on the alcohol TOP training. Which is a (free) online training to help say no to alcohol. They try to change behaviour by changing your un/subconcious reaction to booze. It starts of with loads of questions about drinking habbits and enquires after the mental state. Some of these were difficult to fill in because the form partially assumes that I am still drinking. And, as I said, 80% of my mental problems disappeared immediately after stopping with drinking.

What have I done in the training? Pushed photo’s of alcoholic drinks and non-alcoholic drinks away and towards me. Also, with the use of the cursor keys copied the way an arrow directs. These arrows where stuck on photo’s of drinks again.

The excersise with the pushing and pulling was especially tiresome because sometimes I had to pull alcoholic drinks towards me while this is EXACTLY what I do not want, it feels counter-intuitive. I mailed them to ask a question about that. ‘Yes of course I did!!!’