Week 22

Brain Physio

Sep 19, 2022

Sobriety

Today I have been sober for 22 weeks. 154 days.

This week I passed a couple of ‘milestones’. Friday was 150 days. Sunday was 5 months. It’s a little strange when I reflect on these milestones. In one way it feels like I have been sober for ever, yet on the other hand it feels like this last five months has gone by in a heart beat. I’m sure a lot of you can understand that. Kind of like when your birthday or Christmas feels like it’s ages away, you kind of forget about it and before you know it, it’s come and gone.

The positive I’m choosing to take away from that, is that this must just be part of my life now. It’s just normal for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still well aware that I’m only one drink away from potentially undoing all the work I’ve put in, however I feel like if I were struggling more than I am, time wouldn’t feel like it’s flying by as much as it is.

I am fuckin’ terrified of complacency though. I guess that’s kind of how it works for me. I attach fear to the things that I so badly want to avoid. Maybe in regards to sobriety I even lie to myself that the consequences of my actions will or could be far more severe than they actually are. In a strange way, it’s like it protects me from myself. Kind of like riding a motorbike with helmet on. Almost every time someone takes their bike out for a ride, they return home safely. In hindsight, the helmet wasn’t necessary on that particular ride, but that wasn’t known until it was over. So people just wear them anyway, because they don’t know at the time if it’s going to be necessary on that ride. Do I need to apply that level of fear to things I am desperate to avoid, all the time? Probably not. But if I do, I feel safer. If I do a risk assessment and discover complacency is a risk to my sobriety, it’s up to me to put a control measure in place to best avoid it. So yeah, things are going well. I feel more and more like the guys who doesn’t drink, rather than the guy who is trying not to drink. I got to this point, in part, due to a potentially over the top fear of becoming complacent, but it works and for now, I need to stick with what works. I’ve worked too hard to this point to change anything or add any additional risk.

For me, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Fine Tuning- Brain

I have decided to start seeing my psychologist again. That might sound strange to some, given I’m doing so much better than I was five months ago all of my own bat. If I’ve done the hardest part on my own, why now would i enlist the help of, and pay for a psychologist? It seems like I shouldn’t need it, right?

This time around, I’m taking a different approach. If you were on a new fitness regime, losing weight, improving your strength and/or fitness and suddenly hit a plateau, what would you do?

Current Parramatta Eels coach Brad Arthur has come under some scrutiny lately for not taking this current squad to a premiership over recent years. Many people believe this year will be the end of Parramatta’s ‘premiership window’ if you believe in such a thing. The criticism is that Brad Arthur doesn’t have whatever it it is that will get the last little bit of whatever this team needs to win a premiership.

Professional athletes do it all the time. When they hit a stalemate and can’t seem to improve, they try something new. Sports psychologist, nutritionist, life coach, personal clothes folder, whatever. Essentially, they enlist a service to try to squeeze a little bit more out of the lemon, because they’re not where they want or need to be to remain competitive. Remember when Kevin Walters got hoodwinked by that bizarro mind coach and bought him into origin camp? That kind of shit.

The point I’m trying to make here is that just because you’re doing well at something, doesn’t mean you can’t be better at it. Find an easier or more efficient way. Now I don’t believe I resemble a professional athlete in any way, shape or form. I do think though, I am at a point where I would gain more out of regular psychologist appointments thatn I would have some months ago. Why? In my early days of sobriety, my head was all over the place. I was far too manic in my thoughts. I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to actually absorb anything anyone was saying to me. I was very much in my own head. I guess at the time, I was just kind of kicking about in a rip in the ocean, with no real idea what I was doing. I got out of it though, somehow. I’d say the rip just naturally dissipated.

I now feel more ready than ever to benefit from some help. I am in a good place to actually go there with the view of working with the psychologist rather than just hoping they’re going to magically fix me like I’ve done so many times in the past. Maybe it’s like when you need surgery. like a knee reconstruction or something. First you see the surgeon, they do a heap of the heavy lifting, then you see the physio. The physio helps you very incrementally get back to where you used to be through exercises and a whole bunch of stuff you have to do on your own at home, that I don’t do then get in trouble for not doing next appointment. So maybe me getting sober was the surgery, and whilst it was a success, generally speaking, I’m still hobbling around a bit. I haven’t actually fixed the reason why I needed the surgery in the first place. You know how sometimes someone does andleft ACL because they have a dodgy right ankle? That sort of shit. So now I’m going to see a physio to build muscle (coping mechanisms) around the injury. This way, if the weak point finds it’s self under pressure again, I’ll have built up muscle around the weak spot to compensate for the weakness. But you can’t waltz into physio straight off the surgeons table. You gotta spend some time eating endone, watching netflix and having people bring you food and shit. I’m past that now though, it’s time for me to do some of the hard stuff. Often physio is actually the hardest part of recovering from an injury. It doesn’t hurt until you actually have to start using the area again. So i guess I’m viewing my psychologist as some kind of brain physio. I’m hoping they will help me pad my weakness with strength through some hard fucking work. Get to the core of why the injury happened, peel it right back to it’s core and then build around that from the middle out while adding extra layers of strength around the injury.

As I’ve said before, I don’t believe I have a problem with drugs or alcohol. I believe I have a mental health problem that significantly effects the way I behave when I do drink or what drives me to drink. Whilst it’s a great thing nip the bad behavior in the bud and often the best place to start, I don’t think I’ll be solving any issues unless i get to the core of why I want to drink in the first place and why I drink differently to most. That’s what I’m trying to do

Inspired by Tim Fulton's 'Running Rare', I’ll explain how I went about booking in to see my old psychologist. Just in case it helps someone.

If you have never seen a psychologist before, ask your GP who they would recommend. If you don’t have a regular GP just book in with someone somewhere and ask them. Worst case, google psychologists in your area that specialise in whatever the thing is that will help you the most. I used to see my psychologist a year or so ago. So I looked her up to see if she was still practicing, she was. I rang them and asked them if she’s currently taking on new appointments, sometimes they aren’t. She was. I asked the receptionist if my Mental Health plan had and subsidized appointments left on it. The receptionist said that it did, but because I hadn’t been in the last 12 months, I would need it reviewed and by my GP to have it reinstated. Of course, you can see a psychologist without a mental health plan, but it’s the expensive way of doing it and most won’t see you without a referral. So jump on a plan when you’re getting your referral and save yourself a few bob. I told the receptionist I was seeing my GP soon to have my script filled for my medication anyway so I would get one then. She was happy to make me the appointment knowing that I was seeing my GP before the date my psychologist could fit me in.

Just so happens my psychologist is pregnant and will be taking all of next year as maternity leave. Selfish, I know. So that only leaves me the rest of this year to get stuck into my work. I wasn’t sure if I should find someone else or stick with her. I chose to stick with her because I have already done so much work with her already. If I started with someone new, I would have to spend the first few sessions catching someone new up to where I already was with the psychologist I had already been seeing. So, I can start this Thursday back where I was, or I can find a new psychologist and potentially not even get up to where I was up to until possibly sometime in the new year. I have ADHD. I don’t have the patience for that shit. So Thursday with the old psychologist it it. Wish me luck.

Fine Tuning- Body

Late last year I started using a nutritionist to help me drop some weight and fuel better for my running. It worked really well. If anyone wants a great online nutrition coach click here to see what James has to offer. He’s a gun. My problem though, was that I was just too time poor… or maybe a bit lazy, to enter all the data i needed to keep progressing. Whatever the case, I knew I was no longer committed enough to justify the investment. It was my fault, not James’, as i said, he’s brilliant. A realistic nutritionist who understand sometimes, we drink, eat takeaway, have a day off etc. Not a gym bro wanker who puts you on a strict diet of plain chicken breast and broccoli.

I was just so busy with work and life that I no longer had the energy to put the data into My Fitness Pal and record my workouts as strictly as I needed to. When I found out I’d be moving to the coast and becoming a father, it was the perfect out for me. I could justify not spending that money on myself anymore because I needed to save that money for more important things later down the track. I ended up blowing most of it on drugs and alcohol but my intentions were right.

I’d heard about The Alfred App at Running 4 Resilience. I think maybe at the time I kinda just, didn’t want to know about it. After my experience with My Fitness Pal and what I’d learned from my nutritionist James, I just kind of wasn’t interested. I thought I could do it on my own and didn’t need any help. Recently though I felt like it was time to start tuning up my diet a little. I’d put on a bit of weight but my main concern was my attitude towards food was on the wrong trajectory.

I’ve been training really consistently thanks to mostly to my routine being so down pat. I think consistency is far important than how hard you train. You can go and smash yourself up in the gym or on a run, then be busted the next day and train poorly or not at all. I think training moderately for two or three days straight is way better than having a massive session then not being able to move for three days. I had found a good, consistent rhythm with my training and thought that now I’d be ready to start tracking what I ate again. Not to be a psycho about it though. Just to have a better idea of how much I was eating compared to my output. So I thought I’d give it a go.

I had heard founder of Alfred Benny Alexander talk about his why, in regards to Alfred. He says tracking calories works, but it’s too hard. Alfred makes it easy for you. When he claimed it only takes a minute a day, I was a little unsure if I could believe that. I was skeptical, mostly because I’m just a bit of a cynical arsehole like that. I was pleasantly surprised to see that everything he said was true. It’s simple, quick and easy. Nothing complicated. You can literally send a message or photo of what you are eating to Alfred and you get a a calorie estimate sent back to you by a university nutrition student. It’s quick too!

What I like about it is that you can’t set a crazy weight loss goal. I set mine to the maximum and even then I think it’s based somewhere around half a kilogram a week. Some might think that’s not enough, but this isn’t about going on a crash diet and there a bunch of information online like this one that suggest slower weight loss is more sustainable. Often people who lose a lot of weight in a short period of time just kind of… put it back on. From my experience, it’s because the the changes necessary to lose large volumes of weight in a short time are not sustainable. What is sustainable is making incremental lifestyle changes over time. It’s about being mindful of what you eat. Understanding what is calorie dense and what isn’t. Alfred has been perfect for this and it’s already helping me make much better decisions around what I eat. I had a tub of Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer for three fucking weeks! I only ate it on Saturday after a half marathon. I simply didn’t think it was worth the compromise of the massive amount of calories for the satisfaction it gave me in return.

Another thing I really like about it is it gives you a calorie target range. So often you hear of people eating ‘less than’ this amount of calories or keeping under a certain number. Alfred give you a ‘fuel metre’. On Friday I finished the day in a 500 calorie deficit. First thing Saturday morning I ran a nice, slow, half marathon. Even though I took fuel with me on the run, I started to cramp up around the 17k mark. Now thanks to Alfred I know that next time I want to run distance, I need to make sure I’m not in such a big deficit and Alfred will tell me how much more I need to eat to make sure I am in the calorie target range I need to be in. I’m looking forward to testing it at the Beach 2 Brother Marathon in a fortnight in Port Macquarie.

Do you track calories? Why, why not? Have you been on a crash diet that worked but didn’t last?

One Thing at a Time

It feels good to be tuning up my eating and soon, hopefully my mental health too. I have never been so excited to get back to my psychologist and I know I have my sobriety and my attitude towards that to thank for that. When you’re in this head space it can be easy to think ‘why the fuck didn’t I do this sooner’!?

Here’s why… You can’t do everything at once. You just can’t.

I don’t think it’s bad thing to pick out an unhealthy habit you have, set a date and say, ‘right, from this point onward, I’m not doing that shit anymore’. Especially when a bunch of other people are doing the same or similar at the same time. You can create a community of like minded people all trying to achieve a similar goal. Build your own support network type shit. That is good.

Where I think people struggle is they try to do too many things at once. How often does a new years resolution work?

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I’ve spent 16 years on and off trying to quit bad habits. Smoking, drinking, drugs, coffee, junk food, whatever. I’ve spent the same amount of time trying to implement healthy habits. Exercise more, eat more whole foods, get better sleep etc. One common trend I have noticed, in myself anyway, is that every time I try to do a bunch of them simultaneously, I almost always fail. I go okay for a little while, but eventually, I run out of puff. I just don’t have the energy to give each goal the attention it requires.

Look, there may be some outliers out there, but from my experience, doing a complete u-turn and trying to make a bunch of changes all at once is just too fucking hard. I think each individual change you want to make deserves more respect than that. If you have identified it as something you need or want to change, you have to respect it accordingly. The way I look at it, is each change you try to implement is going to take up so much energy. We have a finite amount of energy each day. If you try to implement too many changes in behavior at one time, you’re limiting the amount of energy you can invest into each behavioral change you’re trying to make.

This is why I believe I that this particular foray into ‘turning my life around’ has been my most successful yet. When I decided I had to get sober, that was the only thing I wanted to change. My goal was and still is, to just be sober for today. It was and at times still is fucking hard. I don’t know if i would have had the mental energy five months ago to worry about a daily calorie target or how many fucking flights of stairs I walked up in a day whilst struggling with my sobriety. I think if I tried to implement any more changes at that time, maybe I wouldn’t be sober now. I had to show this goal the amount of respect it deserved. It deserved a lot of energy and attention.

For me, the most successful approach by far, has always been to pick one target and dedicate all your energy to it. Do it for long enough until you notice that it starts to take up less and less of your energy. There is no amount of time that these things take, there is no linear metric, rather a feeling within yourself. I found early on that going to the gym and/or running every day helped me with my sobriety, so I leaned into that. I found they worked hand in hand, rather than against each other. It helped me clear my mind, zone out, balance my fucking chakras, whatever. So I was happy to do both simultaneously. Being sober meant less sleep ins, more energy to burn. Too much energy and nothing to do is a dangerous mix for someone like me. I didn’t set myself any goals for my exercise. Initially I was going for the mental benefits primarily. I wasn’t even really training to a plan right at the start. Just go to the gym for an hour. Do what I felt like doing for an hour. If you do what you enjoy, especially while trying to form the habit, you’re more likely to stick to it.

Eventually I started to feel more and more confident that I would be able to maintain my sobriety even if I started to set some other goals for myself, while maintaining my underpinning goal of staying sober. If I started to prioritise an exercise goal, or any other goal over during this period, I would simply have to let it go. I had to be really selfish for a little while and at times it was difficult to make peace with. I would just remind myself ‘at least your not drinking’ and it seemed to work. If we apply too much pressure on ourselves with these goals, when life starts throwing spanners at us, we don’t have the energy to dodge the bastards. Our goals have to be malleable to our circumstances and we have to have the ability to realise that sometimes it’s okay to do something that doesn’t align completely with our goals completely especially if life is slinging shit at us.

Gradually I started to sign up for a few runs and set myself some modest targets in the gym. I was running and training anyway. May as well apply a little direction and structure to it while I was there. Never anything too strict and never thinking they were things I simply had to achieve. Just some loose goals to give some purpose to what I was doing.

Now I feel like I am ready to start up again with my psychologist. I’m already not drinking. I’m already doing the inner work on my mental health through writing these blogs, working on how open I am with talking to people about my issues, seeking out people and conversations that help me with these topics. Why not try it with a professional, one I who is already familiar with me and some of my story? May as well put a bit of a structure around that too.

Same goes for reintroducing calorie counting back into my life. If I go over my calorie target for a day, who gives a fuck? I’m still not drinking, the main goal! There’s always tomorrow anyway. I’m going to have to eat again tomorrow too, unless you’re one of those fasting weirdos. Four hours without food is too much for me, let alone 24. So, if I have to eat tomorrow I may as well use this quick, easy-to-use app to track what I am eating. At least then I can be mindful of what I’m putting into my body and make more educated decisions around what I do and don’t eat.

For me, it’s about small, sustainable adjustments that can be temporarily shit canned at any time if I absolutely have to. The only contract you have with this shit is with yourself. If my psychologist appointment is a bit too much for me, I’ll give it some time before booking another. If I have bad day mentally and don’t want to know about calories for that day, I just won’t track the fuckers for that day. I can’t think of one good thing that will come from applying too much pressure on myself to make sure I hit these targets or achieve these goals. It’s counterproductive for me. Think of someone quitting smoking. Three days ago they were smoking 20 cigarettes a day. Yesterday they only had two, but today they had three. Is today a failure because they had more cigarettes than yesterday? Or a success because they had much less than the 20 they’ve been smoking every day for years?

Set yourself targets that are relative to the amount of energy you have to invest in achieving them. If you want to quit coffee and think it’s going to add stress to your life, don’t try to quit eating sugar at the same time. Why the fuck would you do that to yourself? There’s way more fun ways to harm yourself. Don’t set yourself up to fail. Prioritise your main goal over any of the smaller ones. Don’t sacrifice it because of some cool new trendy goal you’ve just thought up. Remind yourself of your why.

Baby steps, guys. Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that shit…

What have you found to be the most effective way of setting, achieving and prioritising your goals?