A time, a place
It's time, for change
As I'm sure many of you are aware over the course of the past 12 months I alongside my loving family have been through some extremely challenging personal situations which I will not divulge into in this post. However, when faced with tough periods everyone has their own way of dealing with them, at first I was doing quite well all things considered. I went to the gym, I talked at length to people, I kept myself busy with music, however after long periods of time this began to subside and I slowly drifted into more typical coping mechanisms of excessive heavy drinking, smoking cigarettes and having what is simply put a terrible diet of meat pies, kebabs and chicken parmas.
I knew that eventually something would have to give, surely there could only be so long I could go on drinking, smoking and eating my way to an early grave - or at the very least to a constant feeling of running on 70 to 80% at best. People I'm closest with would know I probably consume 50 standard drinks on average per week at least, so in reality to put it plain and simply I am an alcoholic, I don't go a day without a drink nor a drink without another 3 to go along with it. I've known for quite some time that my drinking has been holding me back for a long time, just as my pot smoking did before that. (Sorry if you didn't know family but at the same time - how did you not know?) I remember saying to myself halfway through 2016 that my car was the only thing stopping me from becoming an alcoholic and looking back I could not have been more right. Most of you have heard the story of how my car was stolen late last year, it's one of my go to stories - always gets a laugh or two. That incident of my car getting stolen did change my life, it meant I never had what I saw as a good enough excuse to not drink.
I have seen over the course of my life exactly where this kind of self destructive behaviour can lead. With that in mind late last year I decided that I would have a month off the grog. That's right, I of all people would be the dog that's not on the grog. Over the course of the past few months I've thought long and hard about what else I was doing to poison my body and soon came to realise what else I needed to cut out... The cigarettes.
I love a good durry like any other arty farty latte sipping leftie north of the Yarra but have come to realise that aside from the illusion we put out that darts are classic that there's not a lot of point in them. I've quit smoking before and I'll do it again.
At this point I am going to bring you to the biggest shock of all, so prepare yourself. As I mentioned briefly earlier I believe my diet has long been a major source of poor health for me, essentially living on chicken, milk and cheese surely cannot be good for the body. With that in mind I decided that I would give up meat for the month, but that only solved half of the issue. My one true love was still there, dairy. I decided if I were to truly do what I wanted to do I would have to give up animal products entirely, it's something I have wanted to do for a long time and this seemed like the ideal place to at least give it a test run. I know it's hard to believe that, the King of meat pies would be doing this but I believe the time is right.
So I have decided to live for a month as a straight edge vegan. My month began on the 31st of March and will end on the 30th of April. It has been hard, particularly giving up beer, my trips to the shops now take over an hour instead of 15 minutes but there are little wins every so often, like the natural chip company's salt and vinegar chips or almond milk coffees for 2 dollars at a cafe near my house. I'm less than a week in but my body already feels better than it has in years and I can already tell I am going to save myself a lot of money this month. At the end of the month I know I'll be faced with some dilemmas and I have already decided that I won't be going back to animal products in my food. I said goodbye to meat pies and chicken kebabs last Thursday, I'm hoping to find some vegan pies to review for you all on Instagram so don't despair - my campaign against charging 20 cents for a container of sauce will continue. Beers on the other hand, I can tolerate and don't object to for environmental issues and durries, well who really needs them anyway.
I know people often raise funds for charity when attempting a month like this. I haven't anything in particular in mind but a lot of my issues in the past 12 months stem from mental health issues so I encourage people to donate to beyond blue. I have made a little fund raising page below!
https://beyondbluebash.raisely.com/simonashby
Lastly, I have thought long and hard for months about this, I have done my research on veganism, I know what I'm getting myself into, I've got vitamin B supplements (one that's got plenty of vitamin B12 in it), I know you can be healthy and consume animal products, I haven't had a moment of clarity or an epiphany, nor am I trying to impress a girl. I'm doing this for me, myself and I so all I ask for is your support and acceptance.
It's time, for change
As I'm sure many of you are aware over the course of the past 12 months I alongside my loving family have been through some extremely challenging personal situations which I will not divulge into in this post. However, when faced with tough periods everyone has their own way of dealing with them, at first I was doing quite well all things considered. I went to the gym, I talked at length to people, I kept myself busy with music, however after long periods of time this began to subside and I slowly drifted into more typical coping mechanisms of excessive heavy drinking, smoking cigarettes and having what is simply put a terrible diet of meat pies, kebabs and chicken parmas.
I knew that eventually something would have to give, surely there could only be so long I could go on drinking, smoking and eating my way to an early grave - or at the very least to a constant feeling of running on 70 to 80% at best. People I'm closest with would know I probably consume 50 standard drinks on average per week at least, so in reality to put it plain and simply I am an alcoholic, I don't go a day without a drink nor a drink without another 3 to go along with it. I've known for quite some time that my drinking has been holding me back for a long time, just as my pot smoking did before that. (Sorry if you didn't know family but at the same time - how did you not know?) I remember saying to myself halfway through 2016 that my car was the only thing stopping me from becoming an alcoholic and looking back I could not have been more right. Most of you have heard the story of how my car was stolen late last year, it's one of my go to stories - always gets a laugh or two. That incident of my car getting stolen did change my life, it meant I never had what I saw as a good enough excuse to not drink.
I have seen over the course of my life exactly where this kind of self destructive behaviour can lead. With that in mind late last year I decided that I would have a month off the grog. That's right, I of all people would be the dog that's not on the grog. Over the course of the past few months I've thought long and hard about what else I was doing to poison my body and soon came to realise what else I needed to cut out... The cigarettes.
I love a good durry like any other arty farty latte sipping leftie north of the Yarra but have come to realise that aside from the illusion we put out that darts are classic that there's not a lot of point in them. I've quit smoking before and I'll do it again.
At this point I am going to bring you to the biggest shock of all, so prepare yourself. As I mentioned briefly earlier I believe my diet has long been a major source of poor health for me, essentially living on chicken, milk and cheese surely cannot be good for the body. With that in mind I decided that I would give up meat for the month, but that only solved half of the issue. My one true love was still there, dairy. I decided if I were to truly do what I wanted to do I would have to give up animal products entirely, it's something I have wanted to do for a long time and this seemed like the ideal place to at least give it a test run. I know it's hard to believe that, the King of meat pies would be doing this but I believe the time is right.
So I have decided to live for a month as a straight edge vegan. My month began on the 31st of March and will end on the 30th of April. It has been hard, particularly giving up beer, my trips to the shops now take over an hour instead of 15 minutes but there are little wins every so often, like the natural chip company's salt and vinegar chips or almond milk coffees for 2 dollars at a cafe near my house. I'm less than a week in but my body already feels better than it has in years and I can already tell I am going to save myself a lot of money this month. At the end of the month I know I'll be faced with some dilemmas and I have already decided that I won't be going back to animal products in my food. I said goodbye to meat pies and chicken kebabs last Thursday, I'm hoping to find some vegan pies to review for you all on Instagram so don't despair - my campaign against charging 20 cents for a container of sauce will continue. Beers on the other hand, I can tolerate and don't object to for environmental issues and durries, well who really needs them anyway.
I know people often raise funds for charity when attempting a month like this. I haven't anything in particular in mind but a lot of my issues in the past 12 months stem from mental health issues so I encourage people to donate to beyond blue. I have made a little fund raising page below!
https://beyondbluebash.raisely.com/simonashby
Lastly, I have thought long and hard for months about this, I have done my research on veganism, I know what I'm getting myself into, I've got vitamin B supplements (one that's got plenty of vitamin B12 in it), I know you can be healthy and consume animal products, I haven't had a moment of clarity or an epiphany, nor am I trying to impress a girl. I'm doing this for me, myself and I so all I ask for is your support and acceptance.
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