Now that Max is entering a period of sobriety and quiet calm it has become increasingly important that she take advantage of her downtime to acheive things. This weekend just passed she has failed to take hold of free time and ride it for all it is worth and now she is discontented and unmotivated.

Friday night she stayed sober, spent seven hours and fourty five minutes in one drinking establishment and not even a drop of ale passed her lips. Stayed out until 4am with a bunch of drunken (also based up to the eyeballs) friends and not a drink for her.

Because of the lateness of Friday, Saturday was spent sleeping, comfortably and happily until 2pm, followed by an extremely large breakfast. Max realises that the whole point of this entry is that her weekend was boring as all hell and perhaps repeating it in minuate detail could be even more boring. Thus to summarise; lots of things were cleaned, weed smoked, and there was an outing to Bankstown to celebrate the birth of three of her relatives, nothing acheived and levels of dissatisfaction with life were amplified again.

Max having recently joined the brigade of the self righteous non-drinkers is disturbed to discover many things;

The first is that she is uncomfortable talking about herself in the third person, easy to change.

The second is what people think of me, oh dear. I have sobered up not a moment too soon. Apparently I am viewed as a bitter alcoholic with a substance abuse problem. I kind of hoped there was more to me then that? Surrounded by party people, I did not realise that I stood out as a beacon and catalyst for drug abuse. People take my announcement of a month of sobriety and a reticence to take any drugs (mostly there are a couple of exceptions, but they ain't exactly every weekend kind of deals) in horror, the disbelief scares me. Surely people don't think that if I change my consumption habits I will cease to be me? Surely there is more to me then that?

Thirdly free time should be cherished. Weekends should be productive and filled with activities that make me feel good, sleeping all day does not count. I should be writing a novel, doing a course, I don't know, shit take up crochet? All of those things I have wanted to do for ever but never had time for.... Art classes, amateur theatre, music lessons, dancing, croquet, tennis, hack, poi, frisbee, hula-hoop, making movies, walking by the sea, photography, yoga, swimming, projects, diving, charity work, volunteering, cooking, wine tasting classes, learning a language and so many other things.

Let the newness wash over me and take me away on a sea of contentment. A chapter starts; each page fresh and new, filled with inspiration and fun, a life lived to the full not squandered in a seedy bar. We can all have dreams can't we? I don't want to be a different person, just happier. Maybe not being me is the place to start.