Hiiiiiiii you guys!!! How was your weekend?!? My other half left for the beach yesterday!!! I’m so happy for Jenny that she gets to enjoy a week at the beach with family!!!  Soooooo what’s the plan you say?!? I’m going to take over the posts for this week so she can really enjoy herself.  What have I been up to…so nice of you to ask…This weekend I  went to the gym Saturday and Sunday morning…check!

BAM

KABOOOOOM

This is my new favorite ritual…meeting my adorable parents and sometimes my sister at gasp…8am at the gym…on the weekend!!!

Oh how my life has flipped, turned upside down (do you see what I did there…fresh prince-in’ it up).  Then we have breakfast at Whole Foods…what could be healthier?!

Just four months ago I would have been so epically over hung from a night out at Saints and Scholars that all I would have been capable of doing was eating Bojangles…main lining Diet Dr Pepper and hiding in my dark , freezing cave of a den…frequently napping and texting apologies to my friends and Victor, the owner of the bar for loud, inappropriate things I yelled and glasses I cheerfully smashed. I have always been a big drinker and quite frankly I never really trusted those who didn’t drink. I’ve briefly touched on this subject before. I don’t know if I’m an alcoholic but I do know without a shadow of a doubt that I have a drinking problem.

I’m your classic binge drinker…like everything in my former life this was just another excess. It’s safe to say that I was always the drunkest person in the room and I think the only reason I still have friends is that I’m a happy, fun drinker.

I don’t know anyone who had more fun than me in these pictures and in the moment…but the feeling the next day…to quote Jenny and Howard McLaren…wooooooooof!  No one was more unaware of their limits than me! The regret, the guilt, the dress I barfed on in my sink,  the actual hangover, the void in my bank account,  the lack of a voice, the empty Cookout trays, the stranger in my bed, the inability to recover as quickly as I did when I was 18…oops I mean 21! This last picture is from Aruba on my 30th birthday. It was the best of times and it was the worst of times…We literally drank and smoked from 11 am to 3am for a WEEK! When I got home I felt like I was 130. I think my body was trying to prepare me for this ultimate fate…I was hitting rock bottom. But I’m the type of girl who has to put her hand in the fire and at the time I prided myself on not being a quitter…I persisted and just kept partying my ass off! My body had had it and at the beginning of this year I was sick for three months culminating in walking pneumonia…you guys…I GAVE MYSELF WALKING PNEUMONIA! Bc I couldn’t see the correlation between my partying ways and my declining health…probably because I was wasted! So when Jenny and I decided to change our lives, I knew I had to quit smoking (I only smoked when I drank…but I drank all the time!) And I knew the only way that was happening was if I quit drinking. I told myself…just for a month so you can really focus on getting healthy. Well a month flew by and I was shocked to find out two things…one I didn’t miss it…like at all and two I felt one trillion times better! Today is my 120th sober day. I feel amazing…I genuinely don’t miss it and am not bothered or even tempted in the least being around others who are drinking. Who am I?!? I believe so strongly that everything happens for a reason so I’ll close this story with this little coincidence. Last week I decided that I was going to give up drinking for a year.  My boss sent me a link to a blog where a woman my age who I totally relate to gave up alcohol for a year. I hadn’t really started taking about it bc I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit…I had told a few clients and a handful of coworkers…but I still just didn’t know. So Saturday I went to my Mecca…Trader Joe’s. I stocked up on lots of healthy food for the week and even splurged and got some beautiful fresh flowers…fresh flowers are my favorite!

As I was checking out, Jackie whose line I had been in a handful of times, was so pleasant and just chatting it up about everything in my cart. She then slid my new obsesh…raspberry lime sparkling water over the scanner and said don’t you love this!? I felt an overwhelming urge to tell her about my newly found sobriety…so I did. And to my amazement she began to tell me about her own success…she had been exactly a year on her own journey! How cool for her to confide this huge milestone to me…a relative stranger. But this one small exchange between two people helped me solidify my plans for my own year without alcohol. Then she became even cooler and almost made me cry…she leaned over and quietly told me that my flowers had been taken care of by Trader Joe’s to celebrate the good news. So to Jackie…congratulations and thank you soooooo much for opening up to me…it happened at just the right moment, and thank you soooooo much for my flowers!

Who needs another reason to love Trader Joe’s?! But there it is. So many things have happened since Jenny and I started on our journey to health but what keeps getting reaffirmed for me literally everyday is that if you are honest and open…there’s no telling all the wonderful people and stories you will find. Xoxo Jackie! And here’s to the next 245 days of clean living. Love you all!!!!!