The body I wear

Moderation is something which I have been thinking about a lot recently, particularly now that I have stopped drinking completely. For years I have sought to be the type of person who could 'moderate' - able to have a few glasses of wine with friends over a meal and not been the one who always suggested getting another bottle. The idea of moderation would allow me to have just one drink with work colleagues, it would mean that I didn't need to finish the entire bottle of wine when at home by myself. It would mean that I would able to go days, weeks even without a drink and crucially this would be easy for me. Unfortunately, that sort of moderation always eluded me because for moderation to be sustainable it has to be effortless. If your moderation takes effort then you are essentially relying on willpower which invariably, at some point, breaks.So this is why, for me, giving up alcohol completely has been the only way to be able to be effortlessly in control. I enjoyed drin

It is now 55 days since I stopped drinking. I have tried many, many, many times before to moderate my drinking. I have tried a few times to stop for short periods (Dry January etc). It has always been unsuccessful, and horrible. I would be miserable, angry and feel extremely hard done to. Attempting to moderate just made me want alcohol even more - it become the forbidden fruit, desirable because I wasn't allowed to have it. This time however has been so different and I'm trying to understand why. Obviously there have been times where I've had cravings but those have been so short and easily managed. Previously, just the idea of  not being 'allowed' alcohol would make me tense and desperate for a glass of wine. I wouldn't be able to relax if there wasn't something to drink in the house, and I had to know that there was enough - the horror of running out but being unable to drive to get more was unfathomable. And of course if there was alcohol in the house

This new body is not mine. I don't recognise the way it feels, how it moves, how it fits and folds into space. I keep getting stuck to myself.....or I should say that my body keeps getting stuck to itself because  my body and myself are not the same entities. Sometimes I have to lift my arm up to rearrange the flesh which has got trapped by my side. As I sit here I can feel the bottom of my breasts resting on the round, firm roll of my stomach. The fabric of my shorts gently pulling round my thighs which spread generously across the train seat. There are times when I stroke and feel my stomach, because I am so unfamiliar with its new density, its volume, the way it moves in rhythm with my walk. I am expanding. I am taking up more and more space. My skin is growing, stretching to hold in the waves of fat that I am cloaked in. My body is not big enough to accommodate its new size, it is literally crushing itself. When I sit down the weight of my stomach pushes against itsel

I guess I am here because of the wonderful blog by SoberMummy , well because of that and the fact that my body no longer fits me. As I sit here I can feel parts of me touching other parts that shouldn't be anywhere near each other - stomach rolls onto the tops of my thighs. Back and side fat rubbing against the inside of my arms. My inside thighs pushing against each over, lack of space forcing them up creating little mounds in my lap. Parts of my body stick to each other that really shouldn't do. My mind still hasn't adjusted to quite how big I am. I think I can fit through gaps that I can't. I see images of people celebrating drastic weight loss and have to do a double take when I realise that I am at the 'before' weight. And I am so very, very unhappy. What has this got to do with SoberMummy ? Well today is my 48th day of not drinking. This is probably the longest I have ever gone without drinking for two decades. During those two decades I had many f