Life is like driving a car

Morning, done me morning run and LOVED it, took in and took some lovely pictures of me 3 favourite views from my morning run. It took them because I thought, i’d share them on the blog. As well as taking in these beaut views, this half an hour run in the morning genuinely sets me up for the day. Todays thoughts included, Mom, Lauren, Danielle, Pat, Mick Holmes, Me – after the shite day on Tuesday, I did have to work at pulling myself back around all day Wednesday, but it was well worth it. 

Over the past 47 days, I have abstained (well apart from two occasions) from drinking. There have been many a day, when I have come home from work, particularly after a shit day and thought “fuck it” and cracked open a can. Or have been longing for Friday to finish, to get home, slap Pj’s on and crack open a ‘Few cans, plus wine, plus chocolate.’ Then do the same on a Saturday evening. Fuck me I have been doing this for the past 15 years. When I started out on this alcohol experiment, my initial plan was to test myself and see if I would feel any better without alcohol. 

Now I am not trying to justify myself here when I say, “I didn’t have a problem with alcohol”, some may disagree, but hey thats fine. Actually after writing that, I have realised NO its not!! 

I do sometimes find it frustrating at times, working in the addiction and recovery field, working with people who have or are suffering from addiction.

Whilst there are many approaches and theories as to what’s the best approach to take to address your addiction, I still ultimately, I think that its the individual who has to work it out for themselves. 

Addiction or dependency,  is like a bump in the road, we call life,  we can be happily cruising along the road and then “BAM”, we hit a great big fucking pot hole, we didn’t see it coming, we will blame others, “Fucking council” for not filling the fucker in Or complain that “we pay our road taxes for nothing”.

But ultimately, had we been looking at where we were going, that pot hole could have been avoided. But life’s not always like that is it?  

Take the driving analogy, Life can be like being on the road, heading for our destination, sometimes we will know where we are going,  sometimes we will need directions, other times were just winging it, hoping, trusting that were heading in the right direction, we will find our destination eventually. But on our Journey I will guarantee  that we will be distracted by, road signs, unplanned diversions, other fuckwits on the road cutting us up, but hey thats just like life! ‘personally I believe I have just been slightly distracted. 

And of course we all need a ‘Piss or coffee break” or more importantly we need to full the tank up again or else we ain’t going fucking no where. 

I don’t believe that focusing or dwelling “too much” on where we have been or come from is helpful, after all if we keep focusing too much on the rear view mirror, we are doomed to crash into another pothole, or even worse. 

But I do believe that checking in and occasionally looking in the rear view mirror, helps us to check we haven’t, made a wrong turn, or cut someone up by mistake, or run someone over whilst not focusing on where we were going. 

Before doing me alcohol experiment I’d been just driving, I hadn’t really been focusing on where I was going, how long it would take me, or who I would share my journey with, I wasn’t so bothered about any hitchhikers I might offer a lift to on the way, I was “just driving”

During the past 47 days, all I have done, is decide to take a break, I have pulled the car into a lay-by and had a break. Since my stint with drugs over 20 odd years ago, I have only hit a few other pot holes on me journey, the biggest one was losing Dad, and there have been a few minor ones along the way, but the car is still in tact and I am still driving.

How many times have you driven the car, but never really taken in the views or sights around you, because your too busy focusing on the road and where you are going? 

All I am doing is focusing a little more on not just the destination, but trying to enjoy the journey and take in the scenes along the way. And this mornings views whilst out on me morning run, have made my day already.