What lane are you in?

I was listening to a podcast (ha ha I feel like that all I say) and it categorized drinkers into lanes and I just loved it.

Slow lane
Middle lane
Fast lane

I am 100% a middle lane drinker. I’ve dabbled in the slow lane from time to time and I’ve been known to crawl into to fast lane on holidays but as an overall average I would say I am middle lane.

Here’s how I see the lane’s (in my opinion)
Slow lane – You drink only on occasion. You can go weeks without drinking and not give it a 2nd thought. You can moderate and have 1 or 2 drinks easily but every now and again you have a binge and get hammered but that’s OK because its only every now and then. Slow lane drinkers have no issue with how much they drink at all. They do not use alcohol as a crutch.
Middle lane – You drink on the reg! You may have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off but as that weekend draws closer you use that as an excuse to have a drink. Its nearly weekend after all. You tend to not usually just have one drink, you’ve opened the bottle you may as well finish it! You feel like you need that drink after a shit day at work, you take that first sip of wine and all that stress melts away. You cant imagine not drinking at the weekend. You binge drink. You have at least one or two hangovers a week. You sleep shit therefore you then eat shit then next day. You feel shit. Its basically just shit. You feel rubbish Mon-Wednesday as you are recovering from the weekend then by Thursday you start to feel human again and you get back on the grog. However you like to drink because you enjoy it, you like the taste. You think about cutting back on your drinking weekly.
Fast lane – You rely on drinking and you drink daily. Enough to get drunk most likely. You cant imagine not drinking and you are waiting for midday to strike to pour your drink because you convince yourself its then acceptable.

As you can see, I had a lot to say about the middle lane because that’s me. I also think its very easy to slip between the lanes but once you get stuck in the fast lane you find it more difficult to go back into the middle lane then the slow lane. In fact, coming from the middle lane into the slow lane is difficult too, moderation anyone! I have tried that many times and failed. This is why abstinence is working for me. I cant moderate. I’m the same with food.

I went for a run this morning and whilst running I thought about this no drinking journey and thought how similar they are. I am not a natural runner, I prefer resistance training but I run once or twice a week for my cardio. Before every run I think its going to be a struggle, I’m tired, my legs ache, its to hot, there are lots of reasons not to go. Then once I get going the first km is a really struggle, its takes my body a while to get into it and I have a mental struggle with it. Once to get into the middle of the run you think oh yeah I’m actually feeling good I can do this. Then there is a hill or two and you are just like FML this is tough, I cant do this, I’m going to stop soon, no i’ll keep going and i’ll stop at the next lamppost, then you get there and you say no i’ll stop at that road sign. Then all of a sudden you start to go down hill and then you start flying again and you’ve got through the hard part. You feel great. The its the last km, home stretch, you up your pace to do that big finish. You did it! You even did a personal best and you cant wait to go for that next run.

This is the perfect analogy for my journey.