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February 27 - March 9, 2025
After writing I felt a lot less like drinking. Writing felt like tipping the jumbled contents of my head onto a table and slotting them neatly together, like a jigsaw puzzle. Pictures formed. So, I started writing privately too.
There shouldn’t be any cringe around choosing to do something positive for your body and well-being.
‘I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim.’ – FRIDA KAHLO
‘Shame is a soul eating emotion.’ – Carl Jung
‘New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.’ – LAO TZU
Intrigued, I read up on it, and found that vitamin B is vital for energy, appetite and mood regulation.
Toddlers need regularly timed, long sleep, clockwork food, fresh air and exercise, comforting when they’re upset and nighttime baths. Now apply that principle to yourself. You deserve it. Yes, you do.
Environments with a watery element (a river, the sea, whatever) were shown to be especially engaging and mood-lifting.
‘People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.’ – HARPER LEE, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
As Albert Einstein said, ‘The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.’
In eight totally separate studies, gratitude was shown to lessen feelings of depression.
‘A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.’ – ROALD DAHL
That is such a beautiful quote!
Richard Wiseman, a psychologist and author of 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot, says, ‘When you gossip about another person, listeners unconsciously associate you with the characteristics you are describing, ultimately leading to those characteristics being transferred: to you. So, say positive and pleasant things about friends and colleagues, and you are seen as a nice person. In contrast, constantly complain about their failings, and people will unconsciously apply the negative traits and incompetence to you.’
BUT, WHENEVER YOU DON’T DRINK, PEOPLE SEEM TO FEEL THEY DESERVE AN EXPLANATION. AS IF YOUR STORY IS PUBLIC PROPERTY. IT’S WEIRD AND AT TIMES, VERY ANNOYING.
Alcohol doesn’t make people funnier, it only makes them louder.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says, ‘You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage – pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside.’ My bigger yes (which was much, much bigger than wanting to do the Macarena and not be seen as a wet blanket) was to stay sober.
Marc Lewis says that ‘dopamine is the fuel of desire, not fun’ and that ‘wanting something is not the same as liking something’.
A writer called Monica Drake went viral with her quote, ‘The Buddhists say if you meet somebody and your heart pounds, your hands shake, your knees go weak, that’s not the one. When you meet your “soul mate” you’ll feel calm. No anxiety, no agitation.’ Huh. Really? My soulmate won’t scare the shit out of me? Good to know, Instagram quote.
‘You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.’
‘Drinking can cause memory loss... or even worse, memory loss.’
‘Don’t try harder. Try different.’
(Or serious vagina, as Betty White of The Golden Girls would say. ‘Why do people say “grow some balls?” Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.’)
Hahaha I love this
