Sober awards

Rewards. Hmm. I know it’s important to treat ourselves kindly, especially in early sobriety, and I’ve been planning a few different sober ‘rewards’ for my early milestones (got through a day? Yay – I deserve something!! Probably a biscuit). I’m struggling with the idea of it being a reward though. “Reward” makes me feel at best, like a toddler being given a star for eating my tea, and at worst like a faithful puppy, or some sort of crack-addicted lab-rat.

So I’m going to have sober “awards” instead. A tiny difference, mere semantics, I know, but in my head it at least elevates me to primary school level, along with my eldest son who keeps coming home with star-award certificates for being awesome. (Yes. I’m biased. It’s my job).

A few sober awards I’m planning for myself:

Day 14: flowers for making it to two weeks.

Day 20: some really nice bubbles. Probably the Philosophy Cinnamon Bun variety, which I’ve long coveted.

Day 42: an important one, as it’s a day past my previous record, and on the other side there will be a brave new world. It will also, coincidentally,  be Christmas day. I’m planning a candle. An expensive, scented one. And I’m going to light it on Christmas day night, when we finally get back home, to mark the event.

Day 100: well, y’all know about the Hotel Chocolat extravaganza I’m planning. I’m going to be rubbing myself all over with those muthas..

A quick round-up of the week; I went to a Mindfulness session one evening. For someone like me who just cannot. stop. thinking (also read “catastrophising” here, it works too) it was a very useful experience. It felt good. I’ll be going again, and attempting to start a daily practice.

Apart from busting through some crushing tiredness, the only challenge was last night, and it wasn’t challenging in the end, just a nice evening. I live in a small market town, and we make a big event of such things as tree lighting. My childen were involved in a parade carrying little lanterns, there was a brass band, carols, hog roast, and the ubiquitous mulled wine.

It was a lovely event, but my small people are still quite tiny, and by Friday evenings usually sociopathic with tiredness. I used this as an excuse to trundle us all off home for hot chocolate sharpish after the tree was lit. We bundled them off to bed, Mr Red made me a verdita (pineapple juice, mint, coriander, lime juice, jalapenos) and we ate nachos and watched Game Of Thrones. At bedtime, I found myself looking forward to my clear-headed, relaxing start to a new saturday. It hasn’t disappointed me so far!

Red xx

Ps any other ideas for sober awards/treats/whaddever you call them?? I’d love to hear what everyone else does. As you can probably tell, I’m having to pep-talk/award myself through this!! xx