Day nine and the challenge begins
I've had it pretty sweet up until now, as I've been on my Christmas holidays. Zero stress, lovely weather, I could spend all day nothing if I wanted to. Today is my first day back in the office, and I know this is when the hard work is going to really kick in.
I've been working from home for almost four years, and during that time my drinking has really ramped up. I enjoy the work, and it has been very, very good to me (I run my own business, and have been able to achieve a lot of nice things through it), but I have definitely been treating the stress with alcohol. The first email I read this morning, on my first day back, was a client saying they'd reevaluated their budget, and weren't going to do any marketing this year. Gah. I can already feel that familiar tightening of the chest; anxiety; and also, if I'm going to be truthful, that feeling of being rejected (childhood issues much!) Not being deemed good enough; being rejected, often causes me as much stress/hurt as losing however much money per month.
Normally I would be raging and stressing about it, but I'm going to try to keep calm, look at it rationally (i.e. the world is not falling in on itself, I will get another client to replace them, you can't waste energy being mad with people - it is completely their right to make their own decisions etc), and find non-booze ways to unwind at the end of the day.
I have to say - the first morning back feels excellent without a hangover! It's funny, I always thought that hangovers meant you had to have your head in a toilet - probably a legacy of being at uni, when hangovers usually did involve that level of illness (probably due to the ridiculous mixing of drinks, as well as the quantity). It's only today, as I crack into work with a clear head, that I realise that I have probably had some form of hangover every day for the past 1460 days. That's a lot of wasted hours!!!