A broad abroad

Association.  Now there's a thing.  And this happens a lot in addiction, certainly in the early days and certainly to me.

I'll give you several examples:

Manchester Airport, 4.30am. There's a person sat next to me drinking a beer. 

Me: " that was me, that. I used to drink at the airport"

On the plane.

Drinks trolley goes round,  someone orders 2 red wines. 

Me: "that was me, that.  I used to drink red wine on planes"

In a taverna on the seafront.

Someone orders a large white wine.

Me: " that was me, that.  I used to drink white wine on the seafront"

And so that thought process plagued me for the first few days of my first trip abroad as a recovering alcoholic.

And I'll come back to that in a minute. 

I precision planned this trip, in relation to crisis management and back up plans. I knew going abroad would be one of the biggest triggers since I stopped drinking. 

So I had to cover all bases to make sure I would succeed.

I identified my triggers:

Warm weather 

Tavernas

Airport

Plane

Boredom

So then I had to risk plan each trigger.

Warm weather: have a Solero and shut the fuck up, as Peter Kay once quipped. Nothing I could do about the warm weather other than enjoy it. So, soft drinks,books, pool. 

Tavernas: I was self catering. Planned to cook every meal, reduce trips to the Tavernas, reduce the risk.

Airport: Big risk. Holiday starts when you get through security! So I booked a hire car for when we got to Majorca. Can't drink if you've got to drive a hire car. 

Boredom: I don't do sunbathing. So I took 2 books, Animal Crossing, headphones and art supplies. 

Sorted!! Was well chuffed with my risk planning. I do it for a living so I should be at least decent at this stuff 😊

What I didn't account for, was  association. From the moment at the airport when I sat next to someone with a pint, all I could think of was how I used to do the same.

And this lasted for the first couple of days.  And it made me utterly miserable. 

With association came feelings of worthlessness. "Look at them, ordering a wine. I can't.  Coz I'm a fucking stupid lush" 

Those kind of really unhelpful thoughts.  

Did not plan for this at all.

And at the same time I had planned to be fully on my Slimming World plan, as I've been proper nailing it.  

But instead of feeling good at being on plan,eating healthy home cooked stuff,  it exacerbated my sense of worthlessness to " oh great,  I'm a fat stupid fucking lush! Can't drink, need to diet"

Really helpful thought process. Thanks, Shaz brain..

So I reached out to my fellow journeymen in my SMART recovery group, and basically cut myself some slack with the diet.

All it took was a slice of cake and a milkshake to give me that sense of being on holiday. And in doing so, I relaxed, and in relaxing, the association issue lessened.

I began to enjoy myself, still ate healthy but made sure i had some treats and I genuinely didn't expect to do enjoy it as much as I did. 

I maintained contact with my fellow recovery family more than I normally did at home and that made me realise that I need them more than I thought.  I've been going once maybe twice a month to the meetings,  I need to go weekly.  There is something very comforting about being with people who are also fighting addiction and are recovering. 

It's imperative to my abstinence that I maintain links with these guys. 

So that's basically it.

Very successful holiday.

Apart from the part when the suntan lotion had alcohol in it and reacted with my disulfiram.

And the part when I had tiramasu for the first time.  And found out it had fking Tia Maria in it and it reacted with my disulfiram 

And when I nearly drove off a cliff coz I got lost in the dark. 

🙈