Beyond the Struggle

We people like to see results from what we are doing. If we start a diet we like to see results at least in a few days when we hop on the scale. And if we change our attitude towards others, we like to see that the people around is treat us differently. If we do such a drastic change like going AF, we want to feel the life altering feeling everyone is talking about, if not in a few days at least in a few weeks.  When we do not see the changes as fast as we have pictured, we get disappointed. Especially if everyone around us seems to get more results. End when the results fail to arrive, we start to question if this alcohol-free endeavor is really worth it. We have a very short memory for how bad it was when it was the worst when we drank so we desperately long for the positives to become so apparent that we cannot neglect them. We do not want it to be a struggle not to drink - we want it to be something we just do because we like it.  All lifestyle changes is abou...

Like ripples on water, my determination spreads in the center an action of self love sourced from a moment of clarity when I asked myself the question “When was the last time you thought about alcohol without guilt?” Like ripples on water, one conscious decision leading to another Because when I remove the cloud of alcohol, all decisions become conscious. I have no one but myself to blame - it’s just what I choose to do or not to do. It’s scary, but it’s also so thoroughly liberating. Like ripples on water The love I’ve chosen to give myself spreads to everyone around me. The love I give, I feel being returned because alcohol is not clouding my love receptors. I see the people I love because I’ve chosen to see myself, I see their needs because I’ve chosen to see my needs and I love them because I’ve chosen to love me. It  all starts in the center with an conscious action of self love to stop drinking and spreads like ripples on water. Onward and upwards, comrades!...

If you take a deliberate blip that’s totally ok. It’s just to continue living your AF lifestyle and you’ll be fine. There’s one reason I refrain from doing it, though. A deliberate blip may seem more harmless than one “that just happens” but there is one big difference: it signals that this AF thing is temporary for you. It’s like you’re taking a pause from alcohol but longing back all the time for things to get “normal” again. I’m not saying the same goes for everyone but for me the switch happened when I embraced that I would be AF not until a specific date but just continue to see where it leads me. I exchanged discipline for curiosity. When I switched my focus from the goal to the road I realized that I didn’t really care where the road ended anymore. My AF road aligned with my life road and let’s be honest, who cares about where your life ends? It’s what you do here and now that matters. Onward and upwards, comrades!

Your were my happy face paint, my crutch and universal happy switch You were my boredom repellant, my coping mechanism and my ego booster. You dulled my feelings and promised me that moments in the future would be way better just because you would be there to hold my hand. Who would I be without you? I was your happy face, your advocate and best client I was your boredom fighter, your half empty ego vessel and your husk believing life is about coping I let myself become numbed and put the real me on the altar as the sacrifice for a shadow and a serial regretter. Who would I be without you? You showed me who I really was. But not in the way you thought. The biggest transformation I got from you was not by leaning on you but by kicking you out. The biggest happiness lingered in the moments you told me didn’t exist. The clearest perspective was given when I woke up without you, not when lying on my back talking to the stars all by myself. I still do not know who I will be...

When did I know that I had enough? What woke me up? What little voice in me told me that I would be better off without alcohol? We all have different journeys and different standards. I don’t think there is an absolute measure for what is enough. Me understanding that I had problems with alcohol was not so much about the exact quantities. My strongest warning sign was when I started lying about it. How much, how often and why. Not only to the people around me but especially to myself. “It wasn’t that bad yesterday, there where other people that were way worse, it was totally worth it.” The race towards the bottom starts slow: little bit further down every week. And on the way down I slowly lowered my standards to stand my own behavior. My awakening came when I found that I was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards. Something in me told saw that the mental image of myself did not match the one I was manifesting in the real world. That realization can be pretty t...

I used to run about 10 km (6.2 miles) three times a week when I was drinking. When I stopped drinking I stopped running. It seems the only reason I was running was to push away the bad conscience of me drinking to much. I feel it’s time to start running again so I joined this local runners Facebook-group. They said on today’s post that they was going to run “a little longer” but they didn’t specify how long “a little longer” is. It turned out the shorter round (which I took) was 23 km (14.3 miles).  😂 I could NEVER have done this round today if it wasn’t for me being AF. My AF body has untapped potential!  👊 💪 💕

I wanted to love you - God I wanted to love you. We had so many things in common. I loved the concept of us, I saw you as the symbol for a rich life and I loved us as parents. But when loving becomes a struggle instead of an ease, when thinking about how to love becomes more natural than actually loving and when we seem to always misunderstand each other we just have to draw a line beyond which we do not try anymore. By not loving you I’m loving you more but in another way. When all the demands of a loving couple are removed I can love you for who you are as a human. When I see you shine I know that it was the right decision. And when I can breathe more easily I know that what we burdened each other down. We were not made for each other and even though that was the most painful process to understand I am so much happier and stronger today. All love stories do not end with getting old together but they can still be beautiful. If we let each other go and move on. I wanted to love yo...

We always have a reason: something terrible unforeseen happened, something fantastic unforeseen happened or we were just bored and thought “Something gotta give!” and pressed the f&$k-it button. It’s like when we are caught off guard, we don’t have the strategies ready which leaves an opening for the wine witch. It’s like we’re playing a theatre role and if we forget our lines we just drop the role and start speaking like ourselves on stage or just plain leaving. No serious actor does that, if he or she, forgets a line the most professional thing to do is to just continue, and improvise and see what happens. The other actors on stage will fill in and help you. When we blip we’re like a really bad actor, pretending that we don’t want to drink but if something unexpected happens we drop the script and just goes off stage. Is that really what we wanna do? Why is it so easy to be a bad actor? Is it because we don’t believe we can be a good one and improvise? Maybe, but I t...

All ways to stay away from alcohol are good ones and we all have our own set of arguments and whys that works for us. One popular argument is that “alcohol is poison”. It seems to help many and that is good. There is something with it that I find hard to stomach and will try to describe what. One of the best things for me with going AF is the increased ability to be aware of my thoughts and feelings. When not numbed by alcohol I have had and easier time listening to what they really are trying to tell me. I think it’s important to connect how I feel with how I think for my whys and arguments against drinking to stick. When I was drinking I didn’t have the ability to do any of that. Either I was inebriated, hungover or just anxious. The truth that I couldn’t handle alcohol was too scary so I avoided thinking or feeling any deeper. Instead - I used labels, and lots of them “That thought is STUPID” or “That feeling is UNNECESSARY”. Labels to avoid inquiries of what they really ...

Like i described in an earlier post I lost my father when I was fourteen which has given me some experience of loss. Sorrow is a painful process and it takes time but I got through it step by step. About five years after he died I woke up with a question in my head: “Who would I be if my father was still alive?”. I didn’t know the answer to the question but I knew that I was done grieving. Even if the event as such was traumatic I couldn’t deny I liked where it had taken me and I wouldn’t want to be without the experience and life events the death of my father had brought me. I wouldn’t know who I was without him dying. Quite a flash of insight. Every now and then I grieve that I can not drink but those episodes are, thank God, way shorter than five years. More like flashes of nice memories of me drinking. But if I think a little harder the memories of stupid things I’ve done and horrible mornings are way stronger. And the question “Who would I be with alcohol” is fairly eas...

Earlier in my journey when struggling with not drinking a lot of thoughts entered my mind. “I will not be able to survive the night without a glass”, “This wine is so expensive I can’t turn it down” or “I’ve been so good not drinking that I deserve a glass”. When these thoughts arrive, and we have decided not to drink the natural response will be to FIGHT them. Fight the thoughts. Make them go away. Push them with force out of our minds. The problem is, as anyone who has seen “The return of the Jedi” knows, that fighting something will make it stronger. And the thoughts keep coming back stronger and stronger until you go to bed, take a bath or cave. So what should you do? Instead of fighting - invite the thoughts into your finest marble room within yourself and offer them tea. When you sit there with them you listen to what they really want: “I will not survive the night without a glass”. Repeat the thought and really envision you dying on the floor with a water glass in your ha...

In my dream I could fly. I spread my wings and soared to the sky and saw the whole world like a big mat beneath me. I heard the wind in my ears while I dove downwards again faster and faster. I flew between trees in a forest and over fields of golden barley. I flew by the sea over a white beach stretching mile after mile. I landed and sat down in the sand and watched the sun set in the ocean. When I wake up I still have the wonderful feeling of freedom and calmness in me coming from the dream. But something else makes the feeling last: waking up well rested without feeling hungover gives me other wings, my AF wings. Even if I can’t fly physically with them - I can psychologically. I can soar to the sky, giving me peace in an otherwise hectic work day, fly between trees when I’m dodging unnecessary conflicts with my kids or fly over an endless beach when I appreciate my life in full by measuring the string of small joys that makes up my everyday life. We all have AF wings, if...

Being bored by not drinking is self pity and lack of fantasy in disguise. Curing anxiety with alcohol is like treating stomachache by hitting yourself repeatedly with a little hammer in the head. Being social AF does not prevent you from having fun but instead you understand when it’s not fun anymore and go home. People that can’t take you being sober are most of all scared. Be gentle with them and you might find something interesting. Dancing AF is a lesson in self love and fantastic if you dare. Be gentle with your loved ones and don’t expect them to come around just because you’ve seen the light and know that you will not drink anymore. Lack of trust can not be mended with words, but with actions. Onwards and upwards, comrades! Love you all! 

"Little boy" drawn by eldest daughter. The little boy in me is happy. The little boy in me is proud. The little boy in me looks at the adult me with sparkles in his eyes and says: “I want to be like you when I grow up!” “Well you can, little boy, you can be anything!” The little boy picks up his ball and runs away over the lawn. I stand and look after him. It’s a sunny day in the park. I see how he plays with the ball, lets the ball bounce and just follows it wherever it goes. When the ball takes an unexpected turn he giggles and chases it further. I would like to live my life like that: just following it, joyfully. I stand there and feel a warmth in my belly just by knowing that the little boy is proud of me and does not worry about me. Where my life has taken me the little boy looks at me with sparkles in his eyes and I know that when I wake up in the morning I have nothing to hide. “So you’re back. Did you have fun playing with the ball?” “Yes. But I got...

My body, my greatest instrument, I LOVE YOU! You have given me so much joy, carried me through life and never complained. I have not always been nice to you but you have always done your best. When I have slept too little you have made the next day far better than I deserved. And when I have been ill you have made sure I have gotten well as fast as possible. When you have been so good to me, why have I been so cruel to you? Alcohol? Really? What did you do to deserve that? My wonderful liver has worked double shifts to both take care of the alcohol and the crappy food I have eaten when being drunk. And my poor brain that has been tricked into thinking that alcohol was a good thing has still helped me to get back on track once I took the decision to not drink anymore. And my heart that has pumped and pumped no matter how many beers I’ve drunk. Sorry wonderful body for having neglected you! I will not do that anymore! I will from now on give you real endorphins by running instead ...

Back home again in Stockholm. Who knew that going for a work trip to another country would be such a trigger... Well - I knew. I REALLY knew. One of the first times when I just let everything go after being sober for 8 years was when I was away in Finland in 2016. Alone at the hotel. No friends to meet up with. Just me and 5 hours to kill. I had drunken one time before at a restaurant but that was with my wife, kind of supervised. And only one glass of wine and one beer. I was at this restaurant in Helsinki and had just finished my Coke. Something just flew threw my mind: what if I should order a beer instead? The thought was only possible because I had had wine with my wife the month before. I could never had done that it if I hadn’t had those glasses with her. The abstinence spell was already broken. Now, alone at that restaurant, it was like the monster awoke in me and I just heard myself order the largest beer they had. And I drank it. Fast. I ordered another one and necked th...

Sometimes the sorrow of not being able to moderate hits me. Why can’t I enjoy alcohol in normal doses? All the broken promises to myself of stopping at just a few glasses. If I would have been able keep those promises I could still have been able to enjoy that glass of wine on Friday night or that drink when coming to the hotel and sitting on the balcony watching the sun set in the ocean. Of course these feelings are just me feeling sorry for myself. There is no magic solution, I can not cherry-pick which sides of me that I would like to keep. I come as a package with alcohol problems and all and the experience of them have deepened me as a person and given me more compassion towards myself and others. The same goes for all in this group: the pain alcohol has inflicted on you makes you such fantastic and understanding people. You can not really appreciate life until you have felt how it would be to loose it. And you can not truly feel whole until you have mended what was broken....

Big trigger on work trip in another country in a hotel room. Historically this would be me going to a bar nearby and having a couple of beers and then go to the liquor store to finish the job. Just want you to know that right now the fact that I would have to admit here that I had failed and reset is the only thing keeping me from drinking. I won’t and I thank you for that.

I’m not letting you slow me down. I’m way too valuable for that. I’m not letting you take away precious time from my life, not letting you eat away hours being numb and not feeling how my life really is. I’m not letting you take away my potential. I’m not perfect but I know that I can be pretty awesome if you’re not there in my way. I’m not letting you humiliate me before myself and my loved ones. I’m not letting you disappoint me for not being true to my word or not holding promises to the people that mean the most to me. I’m not letting you shorten my life. Because when you’re not around I understand that every minute matters, every moment has the potential to change the direction to something better. And by willingly shortening my life I send a message to myself and the cosmos that my life doesn't really matter. Which is so far from the truth. I’m letting you go. Because I know that in the void of you, other much better things fills up. You’re taking the dishonesty and ...