Finally the conclusion

The last week of IkPas and my last blog. In all honesty, I didn't find it very difficult. I haven't had any really tough moments. The fact that my girlfriend participated and that the catering industry was closed helped me a lot.

This dry month has brought me a lot of physical and mental health. Lost a few kilos, lowered blood pressure (less than I had hoped), slept well and lots of energy. Simply put: just comfortable in my own skin.

In my third blog, I instructed myself to think about how I could avoid falling back into my old behavior.

With blogging I forced myself to take a good look at my own drinking behavior and that has made me much wiser. Drinking to relax can be off the list. This month I read that this is counterproductive and I have experienced that it is really not necessary to drink alcohol after something (in) exciting. In fact, it is enough to suppress or replace that need and then it will soon be over.

It has also become really clear to me that I drink out of habit. Once created in bad times and sustained for so long that it has become a matter of course at all kinds of times when it is not necessary. And just too often a glass that actually adds nothing more. I think now that I know this, I better resist those habitual moments. An important simple measure: no more sitting on the couch in front of the television.

But what really stuck with me is that euphoric, pleasant and rewarding effect. I think that's the most important thing to me. Make me feel good. In recent years I have learned that the most important thing for me is to live for my vision. This requires 2 things for me. Of course I have a vision of what I want with my life, which I now have. But the second is even more important: the courage to live the vision. That has not always been so obvious to me.

I don't know to what extent 'fitting' contributed to that, but I didn't lack courage this month. I resigned and gave my first training to a group of young people. I finally continued something that had been slumbering in the background for a long time.

With all this beauty, January can't go wrong and I am convinced that 2022 will be a very good year. I wish everyone a lot of strength these last days. And I hope that 2022 will be a beautiful and dry (enough) year for you too.