- How are you thinking about your drinking?
- How are you feeling about your drinking?
- How are you DRINKING?
- Is your mind free of the tension and stress of your daily thoughts around whether to drink or not tonight?
- Of trying to rationalise last nights drinking?
- Of not sure what else you can do tonight to relax without a glass or two?
And how do you feel in this place of inner struggle, a struggle that no-one else can see, but which makes you feel like crying in your confusion and helplessness?
The more you struggle to control what you do, drink, the stronger the urge for a drink is….do you recognise that?
But it is not alcohol that causes that struggle.
Your drinking is what you do when you ‘give in’, your drinking is what you do to end the struggle, but it is NOT the cause of it….it is not alcohol that takes you to the wine aisle, when you promised yourself wouldn’t go there again.
It is NOT alcohol that you lose control over, it is the FEAR that overwhelms, that you lose control over and the FEAR that you drink to COMFORT (and if alcohol is not your ‘poison’ of non-comfort, you will recognise this in the way you eat, overspend, hoard, gamble….the painful actions you take)
So, in the context of your drinking, what is the FEAR really?
FEAR is the sign that you have the belief that alcohol brings you something (it all falls under the umbrella term of ‘comfort’), and that you will be denying yourself ‘comfort’ when you need it most.
You don’t feel ‘deprived’ or ‘missing out’ of doing anything that you believe makes you feel better, comforts you.
It is FEAR, that is the foundation of your struggle to change your drinking. Nothing more, nothing less, and then you add to it the other fearful beliefs you hold around alcohol such as;
- The FEAR around the fact that you just don’t understand why you drink
- The FEAR of how hard change will be, and for how long it takes for the change to settle
- The FEAR of how you will cope, how you will fit in, how you will relax, how you will feel confident in situations, deal with certain people
- The FEAR of the memories of your past failures which makes the thought of trying again so much harder
- And a myriad of other FEARS that you might not be able to even identify.
Your drinking trap is FEAR, not alcohol
I can even tell you where your fear shows up in your body. Sit for a moment and ask yourself,
“How do I feel about not drinking?” and notice the location and sensation in your body.
It is always a FEAR based feeling, (you might label it unease, anxiety, loss) and it always shows up first in your gut, which is your centre of self-esteem, your centre of self.
It is the same for everyone.
Yes, it might then grow into the heavy sadness in your heart, the black cloud of confusion in your head, but it always, always starts in your gut when you think about trying to change your drinking
Your FEAR is the blackout blind that blocks you, that cuts you off from freedom, that closes down opportunities to see, think, feel and drink differently.
Let go of the FEAR, and change, any change is easy. NEW yes, hard NO. JOYFUL yes, stressful NO.
To make the changes you long for, and deserve, you MUST stop looking at the answers in alcohol.
You MUST stop using avoidance tactics, counting units, setting limits on ALCOHOL.
Why? Because all these do is keep the FEAR under control, until something changes in your life, and you have no awareness of what is going on inside, with no strategies to re-balance, and so your old drinking thinking comes up, you don’t understand why, and you start to feel the FEAR of your successes slipping away and you return to your old drinking to comfort yourself.
Please, please read that again and let it settle. It is the TRUTH.
If the methods of change you have tried before haven’t worked consistently, give up those methods.
Finally accept what you know to be true, because you have the evidence, that they don’t work!
Open your mind away from them and ask yourself,
” If this hasn’t worked for me before, why do I keep trying it?”
The answer is, you don’t believe there is another way….DROP that now.
Until you do, you will keep pushing your exhausted spirit in a direction it doesn’t want to go, and as you know, just doesn’t work…..
Here are some more truths, which is you accept them, will change your life, effortlessly, without FEAR
- Change is NOT hard
- Change is NOT stressful
- Change does not come with FEAR
- Change comes through learning something NEW
- Change comes from having strategies, practical and spiritual that you can lean into easily
- Change brings EXCITEMENT for a new future
- Changes delivers PEACE, FREEDOM and LIFE as it is meant to be lived.
My drinking didn’t change because I suddenly became stronger, it changed when I became WISER, when I looked in a different direction which allowed me to feel differently, to shift my FEAR and then to use simple strategies which have taken me back to me, to my center, to my heart to my trust, and it will be exactly the same for you.
My message is simple, accept that it is FEAR that keeps you trapped and in need of comfort, so it is FEAR that needs to be understood and let go of, not alcohol.
Walk into your FEARS….you won’t find a terrifying alcohol monster ready to drown you, to watch you sink into oblivion. In fact you won’t find anything to wound or harm you, in you.
You will only find more of YOU, the loving, kind you who is frightened and desperately needing to be understood, to have your basic simple needs met, to be comforted, to be accepted, to be LOVED and cared for by YOU….and I promise you darling, when you do that, when you look within for the answers, they are always there and they are always easy to deliver.
I hope this helps you start to understand that alcohol is not what traps you, and starts you to have the compassionate, non-judgmental conversations with yourself that will ease your fears, because then, with some practical steps and spiritual practices you will find peace and freedom around alcohol, and in life, easily.
If you are ready to step out your FEARS, to simply LET THEM GO, if you have had enough of being exhausted over your struggle, if you have had enough of feeling overwhelmed by your drinking, ashamed of who you are when you drink, let’s talk.
Most of my clients drinking change from DAY ONE in WEEK ONE, and all who follow my unique 6 week Rapid Alcohol Recovery Method process, change by WEEK TWO, because from the very first session, they understand and release the FEAR
The hardest part, the bravest part of change, is to step out of what you think you ‘know’ about your drinking, to accept that there is another way and that you just don’t know how to access that other way, and to say, ‘Help me’….
When you do that, you commit to becoming you again, the woman who drinks socially, who doesn’t hide her drinking, who doesn’t lie about her drinking, who is present and connected to life who has taken a journey of Relief, Release, Peace and JOY
Be kind and gentle with yourself
Sonia x
PS. If you would like to understand more about my journey from 28 years of alcoholism, to peaceful freedom, take a look at my internationally acclaimed book, This Isn’t Me (click on the link HERE), reviewed by Ranvir Singh of Good Morning Britain as “Beautiful & devastating”,
