Category Archives: Sober Travels and Adventures
Forest of Thoughts
On a quiet walk in the woods of Qualicum Beach this morning, I saw a tree growing on top of an old stump.
I reflected on the ability of one life to fuel the next. Again and again it appeared, new growth sprouting from the decaying past.
Some of us push away our past, hoping to deny or overcome the things we’d rather forget. But maybe we can instead embrace it, not erase it, and use it to fuel our futures.
Happy Trails
Oh the simple life. Crawling into our cozy van-bed with a book, quickly drifting to sleep and clocking a miraculous ten hours of deep rest, night after night. Amazing! I rarely sleep longer than seven hours a night at home. How is this even possible?
Our daily adventures look something like this: a gorgeous drive, a good meal, a pretty campsite, a nice walk, a deep sleep, morning coffee, repeat.
A cartwheel on the beach…and a hike through the forest at Porpoise Bay…
No make up for days on end! I literally have not gone a week without makeup since I started wearing it (hiding behind it) in the 7th grade.
There is a lot to be said for breaking routine and doing things differently. I realize how stuck in my ways I am at home – from morning coffee to bedtime tea. Being overly entrenched in routine is how I got stuck in the wine loop, and then I leveraged routine to break free.
I’m far from a “Free Spirit” (as our van boasts) but I am embracing this version of freedom on our vacation. It’s nice to know I can do this, to just *be* and just *enjoy*.
Van to Van Day 1.5
We are on a little road trip and I’ll share snippets when I stumble on wifi along the way.
Usually mid-April in our part of Canada is spring showers and new growth. This year, however, spring is taking its sweet time.
So when we planned an April trip in our camper van from Alberta to Vancouver Island, which I’ve dubbed “The Van to Van”, we had a certain (and fair) expectation regarding the weather and road conditions. *Snow* was not part of the equation.
We plan. God laughs.
Yesterday over morning coffee, as I was planning the zillion things I needed to do before leaving, my husband checked the weather and said, “There’s a crazy storm coming overnight. We need to leave today instead of tomorrow and outrun it.”
Yikes. I was barely going to get out the door at the scheduled time, never mind a day early! But it was either that or stay home for two more days, until the storm passed.
I kicked into high gear and packed, cleaned, plowed through the work on my desk, posted a Bubble Hour episode, dropped off the dog, popped in to see the grandkids, and made some granola bars to take along.
My husband also got busy doing the last of the van prepping, including filling the water tanks.
Minutes before take off, just as I was congratulating myself on calmly adjusting to a schedule change that would normally make me crazed and snappish, piercing blasts of noise rang through our house.
MEEEEPPPP MEEEEEPPPP MEEEPPPP
A recorded (bilingual) voice called “FIRE!!! FUE!!! FIRE!!! FUE!!!
Efffffffff. Seriously?
I dashed throughout the house to find the problem and discovered water pouring from a smoke detector in the basement, which had shorted the system and set it off. Filling the van with water from the hose caused a pipe to burst – there must have been some ice in the line. Efffffff.
There went my calm.
While my heroic husband contained the problem and shut off the water and breaker to the zone, I hauled out the carpet shampooer and sucked a gallon or two of water up from the flooring.
And then…we left.
We drove to the forecasted edge of the storm, three hours west, and spent the night in a parking lot. Scenic.
Nevertheless, we are feeling happy and relaxed and ready for adventure.
I can’t believe I can handle this stuff so easily. None of this would have sat well with me when I was living my life on the edge of insanity. Every blip along the way pushed me into major anxiety and upset.
Now here I am rolling along without a care in the world. At least for today…we’ll, this morning anyway.
We’ll see what happens this afternoon….!
A Week in the Life of a Sober Girl
(Full disclosure: I initially titled this “A Week in the Life of a Sober Grandma” but decided against it and not because I am vain but only because I thought you wouldn’t read it. Was I right?)
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If sobriety has been an invitation to rethink my identity, imagine the challenge of being a newly retired workaholic. In case I haven’t had enough trouble wrapping my head around the concept of “I am not what I do,” it is not uncommon for people to ask, “What will you do with all your time? You are too young to retire!”
First, let me say that I am very glad I got sober first and then retired. Recovery has helped me to understand why I felt the need to lose myself in my work and how to feel good about myself apart from approval and accolades. No small task!
I suspect that the freedom that comes from the less-structured routine of retirement could lure many drinkers into a rapid escalation of their consumption and that the red flags of mounting addiction could be masked by fewer obvious consequences. (Has anyone experienced this? I would love to hear from you.)
So what DO I do with all this time? Here are just a few things I have done this past week:
On Tuesday I was interviewed for this video series by Sarah Roberts of “Sobriety Starts Here”. I was a bit under the weather and nervous about being on camera but Sarah is a great interviewer and I am truly honoured to be part of this series:
Later that same day, I recorded a Bubble Hour interview with author of “My Self” Kelley Kitley about her experiences as a woman in recovery who works as a psychotherapist. You can listen here
After finishing two interviews, I went to my sister’s house for one of her amazing Ayurvedic Foot Treatments – a 90-minute process on a heated table. My sister is an incredibly talented healer with a gift for picking up on other people’s energy – I know that sounds “woo woo” but there is no other way to describe her sensitivities.
When she first started working on me I said, “I have been doing recovery interviews all morning and I have a lot of other people’s stuff stuck to me!” She understands exactly what I mean by this – that I am hanging onto the stories and emotions that go with being vulnerable about ourselves and holding space for others.
“Oh, you sure do,” she murmured softly and began gently brushing my arms as she moved around the table. Soon she was massaging my feet and I went into that floaty almost-sleep stage that is somehow better than sleep. Pure heaven.
Wednesday mornings are busy and delightful. I have a standing date with my 80-year-old mother to take her for groceries and then out for errands and lunch. While she toodles around the grocery store, I sit at the coffee bar and read. She is losing her vision and no longer drives, and also she carries a flashlight in her purse to help her read labels and menus and such. You would think this might slow her down but honestly the reason I drink coffee instead of going around the store with her is because I can’t keep up. On the first outing I lost her twice and gave up. We are both happier this way.
After groceries we went out looking for new lamps. She moved into an assisted living facility when my dad was sick and was too busy to decorate or make their 
new apartment cozy. It has been a year now since my dad passed away, and she is ready to make some changes. We have been doing little bits each week – while she puts her groceries away, I move furniture or set up some new purchase or do some little job she has saved for me. On this particular day, we struck out on finding her new decor but she did succeed in cracking me up. I pointed out this cute ceramic frog in HomeSense and without missing a beat she quipped, “Looks like he just got kick in the slats!”
Such a sweet old lady.
Wednesdays are also a big day because its “Survivor” night and although my enthusiasm for the show is dipping ever so slightly – though I have never missed an episode in 36 seasons – this season we have a pool of ten friends betting on the outcome. Ever week my husband send out a funny newsletter with updates.
Tonight I have a side bet for a $10 Tim Horton’s with my friend Susanna that no one will play an idol. We met over dinner on Monday night to discuss our side bets and we laughed ourselves silly over the nonsense of it all. Susanna and I were only drinking water but we were having the most fun of anyone there.
I continue to get up early every morning and do my “Morning Pages” exercise, and now I have added writing another 500 words on my novel afterward. Yes, I am writin
g a novel! I am no longer scared to say it because I am really doing it. My goal is to have the first draft completed by my birthday in June.
Even at the cabin on the weekend, with a houseful of guests and a fridge full of groceries in need of cooking, I managed to get up early and write for an hour before becoming the hostess with the most-est. I cooked huge meals including desserts, skiied the mountain from top to bottom repeatedly, played with my grandsons, and slept like a baby every night.
There was an unusual amount of snow in the mountains for the last weekend of skiing. If you are lucky enough to live somewhere that has flowers in April, I both envy and pity you! We are a few weeks away from green leaves and flowers here in Alberta but they will come soon enough. Meanwhile, we have been having fun in the snow.
Note – I am looking over at my family in this picture but I cropped them for privacy. You understand. The important things to note are the smile on my face (I love them all so much!) and the crazy amounts of snow under my bum.
I got back from skiing and immediately recorded another Bubble Hour episode, this time with my friend Jan. Listen here.
Those are the highlights. I left out the boring bits, like the bookkeeping I still do for our rental properties and the large quantities of time I spend plucking my eyebrows. I did not mention that we have been watching “Barry” on HBO and eating ice cream, or that I almost beat my high score on “Wooden Blocks” while simultaneously watching “The National”. Oh and Rick Mercer’s final show deserves a mention – treat yourself to a half hour of that fine Canadian humour.
In short, being sober and retired still means lots of activity – entertaining, going out, staying in, connecting, creating.
And one more thing I’ve been doing this week – crying. My heart goes out to all affected by the horrific bus crash here in Alberta that has taken the lives of 15 teams members of the Humboldt Broncos. I don’t think anyone who has heard about this tragedy has been unaffected. It is almost too sad to contemplate.
So there you have it, a glimpse into my girl/grandma life. Next week we will embark on a ten-day camping trip to Vancouver Island. More goodness to come….
New Year’s Eve
Happy New Year, everyone! May your night be filled with La Croix and sparkles!
I can report that I have had no problem staying sober on the past few new year’s eves because I’ve been otherwise incapacitated.
To recap:
Dec 31 2015: Suffered gallbladder attack on annual family ski trip and drove myself 150km home to see the doctor, leaving my husband to cook dinner for a dozen or so guests at cabin. Spent New Years Eve alone, watching Netflix, wondering why God invented gallbladders. Here I am going for surgery a few days later. Hurray for Canadian health care!
December 31, 2016: Again, the annual family ski trip did not work out well for me. But, hey, I got out of cooking the New Year’s feast for the crowd once again! The family put together a great meal. Afterward, I laid in bed and people kept coming in to snuggle with me and visit. It was super sweet and I felt very loved. Definitely no temptation to drink champagne at midnight that year.
Which brings us to THIS year….
I’m not going to lie, I have been a little anxious leading up to today. What fresh hell might this year bring?
I awoke with a nosebleed but that was the limit of medical crisis, thankfully. Heaps and heaps of powdery snow came down and it is truly a magical wonderland outside. Not wanting the ski patrol to drag me off the hill again the in toboggan-of-doom, I played it safe the groomed runs despite the waist-deep powder all around. It was exhilarating to be back skiing after laying around all last winter. I couldn’t stop smiling as out there, marvelling with gratitude that the body can get so sick and be so strong again in just a year.
I am having too much fun to want to spoil it by drinking!
PS – the visits to this blog have doubled over the past week, which happens every January as people consider going alcohol-free in the year ahead. The comments section of this blog have always been the heart of the magic, so I invite long-time readers to share a word of encouragement for newcomers. If you are considering sobriety, feel free to post a question or say hi in the comments (anonymous is fine!). Recovery is all about community and sharing. We are all in this together.
Away Again
Back from one trip, leaving already for another. Lest you should think all I do is travel and live the Life of Riley (some days I think so too!), excuse me while I hustle for my worthiness by noting that in the 10 days at home between vacations I hosted two family dinners, babysit my grandkids twice and my niece’s little ones too, sat chained to my desk for several days doing (much loathed) accounting for our business, vacuumed, went to Costco and bought a new vacuum, revacuumed (Dyson V6 – holy hell what a miracle machine!), did 12 loads of laundry, lost 5 lbs, endured a migraine, recorded a Bubble Hour episode, played my first game of curling since breaking my leg (yah, I’ve still got it!), got new boots (see photo above), attended a “Lean In” luncheon, and last night had a great time at a dinner party (for the foodies, the hostess served from Donna Hay’s Easy Entertaining recipes: onion & feta tartlets, grilled salmon, stuffed zucchini, and some kind of fennel slaw. A true Canadian desert: Saskatoon pie from a Hutterite Colony – if that’s garbledegook to you then you need to put Alberta on your bucket list!).
For pictures from my Europe trip with my mom and sisters mentioned in my last post, visit my Instagram page @unpickledblog. (Btw, that trip worked out wonderfully. If you have teenage girls that are driving you nuts with their squabbling, take heart that they’ll get along fine in their 50s.)
My trip today is to a little spa on Vancouver Island to meet two friends from high school whom I haven’t seen in nearly a decade. We lived in dorm together at a Lutheran boarding school in the 1980s and life has taken us in dramatically different directions since. I’m flying on points and the three of us are sharing a room, so this is definitely a budget-friendly trip. I won’t worry a speck about splurging on a few massages (3!) and several yoga sessions (6!) while I’m there (4 nights!).
I’m also excited that I’ve connected with some women in recovery on the island who I’ll meet up with. We don’t know each other but they’re familiar with my work here and on the podcast and a mutual friend put us in touch. I love sober meet ups!
Now you may not believe this, but right before I left my husband convinced me to join him on a trip to visit his mom in Palm Spring five days after I get home again. I started to rattle off all the reasons I should stay home (month end, year end, guilt…) when I realized I could easily bring my work along and manage just fine.
Why not? Life is for living, and I’m all in.
(PS speaking of sober meetups, I’d love to have coffee with any readers in the Palm Springs area when I’m there in the first week of November. Leave a comment here or drop a message on my Facebook page if you’d like to connect. I’ll be staying in Indio.)
The Secret is to Know When to Stop
I was running yesterday — yes, running, more on that in a moment — tossing around ideas for what to write. Where to start after the past few weeks? Life has served up extreme ends of the spectrum this year – so happy, so so very sad – it’s hard to talk about one without slighting the other. (For a recap of this year’s rollercoaster, listen to the intro on last week’s Bubble Hour. Then, of course, listen to the rest of the interview after because Meaghan’s story was captivating.)
We are spending the week at our family’s lake cottage on Lac La Biche, situated in the edge of Alberta’s Boreal Forest. Sometimes there are 18 or more of us here and it’s a blur of beach towels and corn cobs and trying to remember which phone charger or coffee cup is mine.
This week, however, there’s only three of us and the focus is on puttering – clearing, burning, building, cleaning – and relaxing in equal measure.
I take long walks every day, something I’ve done since first coming here in the 80s as a teen (gah!). On a recent walk, I reflected on how grateful I am to have healed so quickly and completely from my broken leg and got the idea to try running a few paces. I was dressed in jeans and flats, so I didn’t want to appear to actually be out for a run — not that there was a soul around to see me anyway. But oh my gosh!! I ran and it worked and it didn’t hurt so I just kept running. And the next day I dressed more appropriately and alternated between 100 steps running/walking. No pain! No swelling!
I was so excited that I didn’t turn around at the usual spot, I kept going until our little side road joined the highway and then without thinking I stepped onto the skinny shoulder of the busy logging/oil route. Every minute or two a rig would rumble past but I didn’t care. I felt reckless and free and powerful. I could run! (And then walk, and run, and walk, and RUN!).
When I got back to the cabin, I burst through the door with sweaty jubilation, eager to share my achievement with anyone who’d listen. When it came out that my route had taken me onto the highway, my family was understandably horrified.
“That is so dangerous – don’t do that again!”
So yesterday I set off for another run, mostly motivated by the fact that I’d forgotten to pack milk and had been substituting whipping cream in my coffee since arriving. The events of this year have contributed so a 15 lb weight gain as it is, and something should be done. Clearly that something does not involve black coffee, so running it is.
I found myself on the route towards the highway, debating whether to turn back at the stop sign or (secretly) run the forbidden loop. Sure, I had promised I wouldn’t, but there it was.
As the red sign got closer and closer, and my mind bounced from blogging ideas to sneaking onto the highway like a naughty child, I suddenly felt an accountability to YOU, dear reader, to “do the next right thing” – just as I’m always telling others to do, even though this time it had nothing to do with alcohol.
Or did it?
Who do I hurt when I indulge the part of me that says it’s okay to do something risky as long as I keep it quiet? Who do I slight when I think “no one knows”? Myself, that’s who. If I know, someone knows. Secret behaviours can be just as dangerous as running on the highway.
I decided to capture this moment of awareness to post here, to show you that you’re with me, to remind us all to just keep going and do the next right thing.
Tom Cochran was right: the secret IS to know when to stop – be it drinking or withholding truth or putting heavy cream in coffee or not writing.
Afloat But Not Adrift
Having conquered 100km of The Cotswolds on foot, we moved on to the next phase of our adventure: a cruise on the Rhine River from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Netherlands.
It is pure luxury but booze is everywhere – including the cake and chocolates here in Germany where we toured today. It keeps me on my toes and I have to remind myself that there are things I could do to further protect my sobriety, if needed: call the desk to have our mini bar cleared of alcohol and pull a waiter aside and tip him to be my guardian angel (removing wine glasses from my setting and delivering a preagreed order on arrival). If I were travelling alone, I would do this on a heartbeat. As it is, my husband is very considerate and gives me accountability and support.
I’ve grown weary of my puffball hair and booked an appointment for a blow out with the onboard stylist for the hefty fee of 35 euros. Hopefully it will last a day or two. I have otherwise purchased nothing but a book at Heathrow airport (“The Year of Living Danishly” by Helen Russell) and a teensy amber angel today in Heidelberg, so paying for a few hours of sane hair feels justifiable. I’m telling myself it’s also a courtesy to the other passengers, because this current mass of fluff and doingers I’m sporting is plain disrespectful to onlookers. (Post salon update: normality restored!)
We’ve been on board 2 days and have toured castles, listened to opera (which I loved, who knew?), and walked a thousand cobblestone streets already. I write this from a quiet balcony, watching the beautiful German shores go by. Because we are between cities, the internet is quite weak so I am unable to upload photos for now. More to follow when conditions allow, because I so want to share this wonderful experience with you.
PS – Sober is better!
Killin’ It
Remember six months ago when I broke my leg skiing? Today I walked 25km – the most difficult portion of our week-long walking tour through England’s Cotswolds. Hills, muddy trails, fields of sheep, steps, I did it all. I’m so grateful to be healed and strong again.
Remember six years ago when I quit drinking and thought vacations would be a drag? We have been smiling and laughing this whole trip.
Remember six hours ago when my flat iron refuse to work on a converter? Welp, that’s not even bothering me. Look at this picture, wonky hair, no make up, sweaty and full of JOY!!
If you’re struggling today, keep going. Do the next right thing, and then the next, and then do it some more. Things will get better. I promise.
PS – We were overtaken by no less than 5 elderly couples today. I’m talking, WHOOSH! Brits are serious walkers, they don’t mess around. As I watched yet another pair of silver heads bob past us and into the distance, I remembered “COMPARISON IS THE THEIF OF JOY” and giggled.
Carry On
Yesterday we walked 8 miles in the rain through fields of cows, past gorgeous old homes, moss covered graveyards, and finally into Stow on the Wold where we spend the night in a 400-year-old inn.
My recently-broken leg is holding up well. I was limping for the last half mile and needed to rest once we arrived but within an hour I was back out exploring the town.
A walking tour is a great choice for a sober holiday. We are too tired for much besides supper and a good rest at the end of the day.
This morning we set out for a second day of walking and promptly got lost, so we turned back and returned to the town square where we bought fresh cheese and bread for a picnic along the path (once we locate it!). Then I suggested we stop at the local coffee shop for the wifi, bathroom and a Flat White before heading out again. Cheers!
