7/12/17 - 3 Weeks - What is different?

I haven't posted in a couple days bc I got sick - I think I got some kind of food poisoning from the Renaissance Fair.  Kinda sucks bc I didn't even drink and have felt totally crappy, but at least I wasn't trying to cover up a three day hangover. I really was sick and everyone had to believe me - lol

How do I feel after three weeks with no alcohol (although may not be totally accurate as I have been sick)?

I haven't had a whole lot of physical change yet in terms of weight loss (have only lost 3 pounds), but I do feel less a lot less bloated and my skin definitely looks better.  I am sleeping a lot better which is also helping me not look so tired.

I think the biggest change so far is mental. My brain used to feel like this

                 

I don't know if that makes sense, but it used to feel like my thoughts were just like a thousand bees flying randomly through my head at the same time at a million miles per hour - like my head just truly never calmed down. Like a constant buzzing of anxiety about everything and nothing at the same time.

Now, it is just so much calmer in my head.  It is so hard to explain.  It's not like my thoughts were consumed by alcohol all the time. usually just in the morning when I blogged and on the weekends when I wanted to drink, but all of my thoughts just swirled around in my head. It was just easier to do nothing. To sit on the couch and zone out on tv during the week and use alcohol to zone out on the weekend. I would just get so overwhelmed by everything, I just chose to deal with nothing. I just felt stuck like my feet were in concrete. Life was just passing me by and I was not even moving forward.

My motivation is not back yet, but I have also been sick and healing from alcohol abuse.  I do, however,  feel calmer about getting started - a little less overwhelmed at the prospect of making and actually putting a dent in a to do list.  My brain feels more like this:




I am noticing way more all the time. Like there is more empty space in my brain to take things in . Like I am more away of everything around me. I am talking about even when sober. I always (even sober) just felt like I was in a tunnel or with those things that horse wear to point there vision straight forward.  I had just gotten so used to only looking at what I had to to get through the day - just the things I had to do  (teaching, laundry, cooking, cleaning, yard work, grocery shopping). I wasn't looking at the peripherals of my life anymore - the things I might want to do (hiking, bicycling, working out, finding a hobby, painting my house, de-cluttering, etc. I was just doing what I had to do to keep the appearance of my my perfect little life in tact but was too depressed to do anything that gave me joy.  The only way I found was on the weekends when I was drinking with friends. Which I now know is just a lie - it wasn't joy I was finding - it was relief of a craving to a poison I was addicted to . The same poison that was making the joy in everyday life impossible to find.

I don;t know if any of that make sense. It is so hard to explain.