The Stoptober and Go Sober October Challenge: Day One - Eeek!

Hey, you made it here, excellent! I wasn't intending to write so soon after yesterday's panic attack post, but I think this may be of interest. A week ago, whilst chatting to a good friend over a Sunday afternoon beer, he announced that he would be doing the "Stoptober challenge", whereby thousands of people over the UK (and hopefully wider afield too) will pledge abstinence from their beloved cigs or alcohol (or possibly both, you exceeding hardy types) for the entirety of this month in order to raise both awareness and money for charity. I really want to get behind it, on the basis that they encourage people to push themselves and well as setting realistic goals and achieve them, a vital skill for those living with a mental health condition. I sincerely hope that it will engender folk to consider the needs of others as greater than their own and ultimately, do themselves a multitude of favours in the process. "Stoptober" and it's more recent sibling, "Go Sober October", have been running successfully for several years now as an initiative of the charity "Public Health England", with the former founded on the belief that if a person can quit cigarets for 28 days, then they are five times more likely to stay off them for good. Sparing untold thousand from a potentially horrific slow death seems to me a worthy enough cause to write about, at the very least. Over 200,000 people all over the world have signed up so please consider taking a few seconds to check it out.

Aside from the obvious merits, the money raised and the countless lives saved as a result of hedonic and chemical restraint etc, it's also a great opportunity to brings one's own notion of self under the 'me'croscope for a short time and peer down it with curiosity. We all have fixed views of ourself - in my case, for instance, I see myself as a moderate drinker and evening/social smoker. Boil away the excuses, siphon off the self-rationalisation, and at the bottom of the beaker two facts remain: I drink and smoke, and when I do, I enjoy it. It's this kind of honesty we need if we are to muster the strength and garner the courage to stand up to our often unhelpful habits, thought-patterns and peccadillos.

If we are currently unwell and wish to get better, to support our ongoing battles in the most effective way, we would be doing well to make naked honesty and self-compassion our starting point; the last thing anyone wants to do, especial people living with a mental health condition, is spark of a cycle of low self-esteem or self-flagelation. In the crucible of our minds and hearts, we must forge the twin-edged, diamond-tipped sword of Wisdom and Insight if we are to stand a chance in Hell of cutting through our own bullshit, of piercing the heart of Truth. In short, we need to be able to discern fact from value-judgement. 

But why complicate matters? Why the poetic idioms? I hear you ponder this aloud, and you have a point. But please bear in mind that real change comes from within, and more specifically, from deep within the depths of our own being. To plumb these depths, to dredge up rank filth and discard it from our psyche, we must engage both the rational and the emotional, the factual and the imaginative, unifying our conscious and subconscious minds. Change is tough, but worth it. The seeds of our emotional response to change are very deeply sown, and we must therefore utilise every tool in the shed if we are to weed out our old unskilful habits and ways, roots and all, from the verdant gardens of our lives.

If we are brave enough to chose to change ourselves, or to do something worthy for a noble cause, wouldn't it be lovely that was all there was to it? No self-importance, egotism or conceit. People doing things not out of a desire to be the centre of their own personal psychodramas, or for attention, but merely out of a simple, clear synthesis of rational, intellectual reasoning with a deep emotional response to the infinitely greater web of suffering to which we are all a part of . We must establish the empirical facts: smoking harms you and others around you, even those yet to be born! Smoking is also expensive, anti-social and places increasing demands on an already over-stretched healthcare system. In addition, most mental health medication (SSRI's, Beta-Blockers etc) have their effectiveness hindered and hampered by alcohol consumption above a very meagre level. This we all know. 

Simultaneously, we need to become increasingly aware of our value judgements: I smoke therefore I am a bad, stupid, selfish person, and worse if I fail. This negative reinforcement gets us no-where. Sentiments whereby we judge someone (including ourselves) as better or worse, or something (depression, drinking etc) as absolutely and fundamentally good or bad often create more suffering in this world, not less! If we can stop this overly-simplistic, dualistic, limiting way of seeing our endeavours, then we can start to implement change safe in the knowledge that our attempts will be less ego-driven, less out of fear of being seen a certain way, less self-referential i.e. doing things to look good and gain favour with our peers. Our attempts to better ourselves tend to become more balanced, more for the benefit of others with a bonus of it benefiting us too. We start to focus outward, becoming more other-orientated, which is no bad thing at all. If we struggle with anxiety or depression, then this could be just the ticket...!

I myself will be abstaining from alcohol, and hopefully cutting smoking back to a weekly basis, if at all. I'm almost certainly going to be coming off Mirtazapine next week, so I might smoke a shit-load from the stress, but in light of recent events (a rather undignified public episode of cerebral dysentery, see previous post), whatever happens, I need to be kind to myself. Piling the crushing weight of unrealistic expectation onto already broken shoulders will only end in beers. I know this from personal experience, but that would be another story...

Time and time again it is clearly shown that for people with mental health issues, connecting meaningfully with others is a huge part of our recovery, as is facing up to some hard truths about ourselves and overcoming old habits of thought. What better incentive could you need to sign up? But wait!! For a start, what if you don't drink or smoke? What if you are not in a position to handle such changes? What if you are so keen to be well that you inadvertently make yourself worse? 

We are all embryonic, we are all growing, changing, becoming. We just need to check our intentions every so often, that's all. Nothing to it, and remember, this is not a competition, but an opportunity to connect with other people in a meaningful way, something we could all do with a bit more of... Perhaps for the next month, you too could just cut down the cancer-sticks and ease off the ethanol? Failing that, perhaps check to see if any friends, colleagues or fellow patients/inmates are doing it, and offer to sponsor them instead. Who knows? It's up to you...

The future is unwritten, and we have no fate but that which we make ourselves. If you do decide to get on board the Stoptober Express, fear not, it will pass quickly. Be brave, be realistic and above all else, be kind to yourself. That way, your dreams can be as big as they want. Just please do us all a favour, be a dear, and leave the ego at the door when you step into the future. And wipe your feet, if you'd be so kind... ;-)

Your friend, 18 hours in,

The Dharma-Farmer xx