Moo's Plan

[DeeBee]

Moo's Plan

Oh well done Moo!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us -- it often makes me stop and think about where I am in my journey and how I can get to where you are:-)
Love
D

[redhibiscus]

Moo's Plan

I loved how you weighed the pros and cons. And writing it out helped you so I think I am going to copy you and try it too.

[mooderator]

Moo's Plan

NOTE TO SELF

Having gotten oven my friday night beasty due on craving thing well as documented above, I rolled on to a successful saturday night (historically the hardes night to be AF by far) at home AF cooked dinner for family. Then thought I would be AF for the weekend as that is what I had planned. But then on Sunday night at about 7, just as I was about to start cooking meal 2 for parents (who were staying) I really fancied a couple of glasses of wine and decided to have them. The reason I did have them is it was not the craving type that I had experienced on Friday. I was with my family, I had been AF the night before and fine with it and I just wanted a couple od drinks. The only thing stopping me was that I had planned not to. I didnt wrestle with it, I made a positve decision to have a couple of glasses of wine. Over the evening I had somewhere between 3.5 and 4. I have put 4 on drink tracker for the sake of accurate recording.

I had a nice evening and didnt feel the want or need to go on ad on and get wildly drunk, but I enjoyed what I had. I found that I was awake at about 3.30 for an hour so my sleep was broken, probably in part due to the AL and in part due to having had a lot of sleep the last two nights. I awoke this morning with no hangover, just that slight awareness that you have had a drink. All in all, it was what I think of as successful drinking. I cant quite shake the feeling that I should not have had it. Its slight, but it is there. I imagine that is more about the fact that I had planned not to drink and stated so here. There have not been many times when I have had AL when I stated I would not. Maybe once or twice before.

I just wanted to record the way it all went. I am very well aware that in truth it is probably my time of the month beasty in action, but the results are no longer disasterous, in fact I find I am behaving MORE (not entirely, but more) like a normal drinker as time passes.

I am learning not to chase the BUZZ and that might be the biggest break through I need in the long term. So its all fine. What I do find is that having had a couple of glasses of wine the craving is then satisfied and I know I will not want to drink now for a few days. I am therefore swapping my nights around in my mind. I was going to allow myself to drink Thursday night before the wedding when I will be out for dinner with family and friends. I am now going to do that one AF, partly to prove I can and partly as I have to get up very early to be a fresh and lovely maid of honour! So no more booze until Friday. I feel more settled now I have typed it all out. This really helps me, this diary.

Its bank holiday monday. I am going to the gym today and then swimming. I will eat well and then be good tuesday and wednesday too. Lots of water and lots of sleep. I have to be a beautiful maid of honour!

[mooderator]

Moo's Plan

Off to wedding.

We go today off to my best friends wedding. The PLAN is to be AF on the first two nights away i.e. WED/THURS. These will be spent with family rather than in a hotel. The first night (tonight) should be easy as most of it will be spent travelling down. So when I get there I will be craving tea and an early night! The second night we are all going out for a meal. I WILL DRINK one DIET COKE, the SPARKLING WATER and I have a great reason not to drink as we have to be up and out the house by about 7am ready for the wedding.

The FRI and SAT there will be AL involved. The plan is to try and stick to chamagne, drink plenty of water, make sure I eat and generally try not to overdo it.

[mooderator]

Moo's Plan

LIFE IS JUST LIFE

at the moment...

Have been coming here most days and recording on drink tracker, but til now no real compulsion to post. I read mod squad daily. I modded well throughout the wedding weekend. I did drink on the wed and thursday nights in the end, but modded really well, and I am happy with my performance at the two wedding days. I drank slowly, did not get drunk, drank plenty of water and only over dosed on dancing. I have been AF since saturday. I havent missed AL at all this week. I am AF again tomorrow for sure, then we have friends coming to stay for almost a week. I will still be working an ordinary week so I will be very busy. I have given myself permission to moderate whilst they are here. No doubt I will have a couple of glasses on saturday, but will try and be careful otherwise as work the next day and looking after guesties generates more cooking and cleaning too.

So, all is well in the land of Moo's modding. Life in general is a little tough, dealing with the loss of mother in law and all that goes with it, plus life being very hectic. I am still thinking seriously about an AF October. Or maybe 30 days running from 27th September after my wedding anniversary. I think this would be good for me. It feels like the right time to do it. Bearing in mind I initally did 8 weeks incorporating Feb/Mar/April. It will mean I have been "occasional drinking/modding" for 5 months and I will be ready for another significant period of AF time. 30 day feels like a good period of time, there is something tidy about saying a whole month.

I will give it some more thought. I do intend to have an AF weekend before my anniversary, this will give me a short AF run about 10 days perhaps more. Thats about all for now folks.....

I will try and get a bit more into posting again on the Squad page. Its is odd how once you lose the habit it gets hard to resume it. I am still logging in and reading, so why dont I want to post. I am really not sure.....well maybe this is the start of posting again...!!!!!!

[DeeBee]

Moo's Plan

Moo, I too go through phases where I feel I don't have anything to contribute to the boards -- it's just a phase. Go with it. Don't feel pressurised to post just because you "should". As long as you're not hiding (which I also did once when i went on a bender) then I feel it's all part of your journey.
Hope that made sense:-)

[mooderator]

Moo's Plan

Yes Deebs it does make sense. I am just happy lurking at the moment. Its funny, but as supportive as the boards are and as much as I love the people, sometimes (rarely, but now for sure) it feels exhausting to need to respond properly to everyone. I just dont have it in me at the moment. I am just starting to feel like typing here again. I always value your comments. You are a true buddy x x

[mooderator]

Moo's Plan

hello!

I am trying to get into posting again, mainly because I want to. I have guests here and its incredible how much extra time it requires! I think tonight is my guests last night, so tomorrow they will be off. Its been lovely, but it will be nice to get the house back to normal and have the weekend to ourselves after recent times. Me and Mr Moo need a bit of space. I think the guests want to take us out tonight for dinner as a thank you, so I will probably have a couple of glasses of wine, but then its strictly AF for a bit. We have our wedding anniversary the following weekend and Mr Moo has booked a lovely restaurant, so we will share some wine then no doubt, but thereafter I am looking to an AF October. i started another thread to see if there was a small group that for whatever reason might like for form a community of support to do this. Its always nice to have and give extra support. August and September due to life events and death events for that matter have ended up being much more of a modding time than just occasional drinking. I am pleased that I have been able to cope well with this and actually there have been no nasties, but I am ready to get my nose back to the grindstone and get the focus back on me. Hence I have decided on 5 weeks AF, which encompasses all but the last day of october. This feels like a nice period of time to put in AF, in order to get in touch with myself again and make sure there are no bad habits forming etc.

First things first. After tonight I will be on a run of 10 days AF before my anniversary. This will include this weekend, and it will be the first weekend completely AF for a few weeks, so I am pleased, no, relieved to be doing it. I feel as though I really need some time for me. I cant take any more time off work, as I had 2.5 weeks off when MIL died. So, I have to treat the weekends as mini-breaks at the moment. Thus I am starting to think of all the ways I can treat myself this weekend. I hope to get the guest washing sorted and the house cleaned before the weekend, so that I can just have some relaxation time. A bit of extra SLEEP, some time to sit quietly in the BATH, perhaps watch a good film, or catch up on some TV that I like. Go SWIMMING with Mr Moo, Go WALKING with Mr Moo. I am actually looking forward to this weekend already and its only hump day!

Thats it for now....I am going to try and post daily here for a bit.....

[DeeBee]

Moo's Plan

Have a lovely dinner with your guests tonight Moo.
Sounds like you have a good plan to get some much needed MOO time in this weekend -- good for you.

[mooderator]

Moo's Plan

Thanks Deebs.

We did have a lovely dinner. And the best part was I only had one drink with my main course (cider) and didnt want or have anymore. So I modded really really well. I am pleased with that I must say.

The guesties left this morning and I am working from home all day so I was able to see them off which was nice. I am really ready for some space now I must say. I have a busy work week next week so I must recharge my batteries a bit. I plan to try and get the house de guested this afternoon and back to normal. Then tonight me and Mr Moo can go to the pool for a swim and a steam and a relax. I have made a vat of veg soup for dinner the next few days to give me a bit of a detox from foodie extras and dinners out etc.

Thats about all at the moment. I will be AF now for a bit. I dont imagine I will have issue with that for the next couple of day. The weekend may pose a bit of planning but we shall take it a day at a time. At the moment I feel grateful that the house is mine and that there is no reason to drink.

Love Moo

[mooderator]

Moo's Plan

I have had 7 lovely AF evenings, taking in all of last weekend and this full week. I feel as though I am back to it now. I just had to recommit and having done that it came easily. I am allowing myself some wine tomorow night as its my wedding anniversary and we are off out for dinner, but I plan to be sensible with it.

I plan only to drink saturday evening and then I plan to go 2 weeks AF after that. It may well be that I go longer, but at this point I am commiting to an AF weekend in the middle of two AF weeks. After that is done I will reassess. Too much foward planning seems to make me think too much about it. There is something to be said for the one day at a time principle.

At the moment I feel really positive about being AF. I am enjoying it and not missing booze. That is where I like to be. I am back on track as an occasional drinker again. As SUNBEAM says...every weekend is not an occasion. But this one is!

[akgirl]

Moo's Plan

Happy Anniversary

:goodjob:

[tawnywitch]

Moo's Plan

Moo, you have inspired me and I am not going to treat myself to the mini bottle of wine tonight, thank you

[mooderator]

Moo's Plan

Thanks AKGIRL and pleased you did not have wine TAWNYWITCH. Well done.

Can report that I drank 4 glasses of wine on the night of my wedding anniversary. I suppose this is still technically more than mod amounts, but as an amount for an occasion, I personally am happy with it for now. It was drunk over 4 hours, savoured, and enjoyed. I was at no point "drunk", but I did have my little buzz. I slept fine and aside from being a little tired today, did not have any other symptoms of hangover. Now to me that is successful. If I only do that every so often. And the less often the better, then for me, at present, this is not the end of the world. I would definitely like to think that will be my maximum quantity now. That is something that I do need to decide on as there is still the off occasion when I go out and have not preset a limit and things go wrong. For me this is the next stage. Aside from getting lots and lots of AF time in before Xmas, I am now setting this as my limit. I am aware it can still be improved upon, but I am doing this my way.

I have started another thread about an AF october. This is something that I want to do for me, but now that I have started the thread and we have lots of people involved I also want to do it for them. My personal AF time started today. I did want to enjoy my anniversary without event and I have done that. I now commit to being AF for 35 days at least. At the end of October, I will reassess where I am and then decide what comes next. I am taking it a day at a time still, but have some general plans. There is only likely to be one sticking point for me and that is when family comes to stay at some point this month. My SIL likes a few drinks and we normally partake together, so I will have to be very strong/have my reasons/excuses ready for then, but otherwise there are events or occasions at which I would want or need to drink.

I am pretty happy that I am back to normal with the week days after last week, that is to say totally AF sunday to friday. Historically saturday has been the time when the beasty comes out to play, thus I tend to PLAN my AF saturdays in advance just I would ones where I do drink. I have planned to go to the cinema next saturday night so that will something nice to look forward to this week when I wont be thinking about drinking.

Here we go then....back on track and experimenting with L-GLut too. I have bought some in case of cravings which do occur here or there. IT seems to do something. I will keep you posted....

[DeeBee]

Moo's Plan

A belated Happy Anniversary Mr and Mrs Moo:-)