Mar 15, 2020
A gentle reminder, in the storm of this Pandemic, that YOU are AMAZING.
In these very anxious
times, with concerns for your health and the health of your loved ones, it is
easy to spiral into fear, panic and self-pity, and it would be understandable.
We don’t know what is going to happen in the next few weeks, months or even days.
But to be honest, we never know any of those – it’s called life.
We can plan, and then
our plans can change dramatically, and out of nowhere, because ultimately, we
are not in control of any external situations. The only place
we have any control over is our own inner world.
This week I took a much older friend shopping, he wanted to go with me as an outing after a coffee, but the sight of the grabbing crowds and empty shelves in the usually sedate supermarket frightened him.
He needed toilet paper and there was literally none. I told him I had plenty to share (which in this non state of toilet paper was not true, but knew I would deliver what he needed in a heartbeat), yet still he looked around bemused at the shift in his world view of the things he took for granted.
He went to put his
finger in his mouth in anxiety and then the miracles started to happen.
A young women with
two small children who probably would have passed him by, busy in her own
world, stopped his hand gently and said, “Oh don’t do that yet love, we’ve got
to look after you” and squeezed some of her hand sanitiser into his, before
rubbing them together for him.
Another woman, seeing
his confusion, at the people swirling around him, stopped her shopping and
started to chat to him, asking him questions, and making him laugh.
10 minutes later,
there was a tight group of us, all strangers, standing together, drawn like the
incredible magnets we women are to another human we sense in need, gossiping,
giggling, comforting and brightening all of our day’s.
As we slowly
dispersed, thanking each other profusely for the small time out we had taken to
support each other, my friend turned to me, relaxed, all anxiety gone, and
said, “That was lovely wasn’t it, I have had such a nice time”
These women are who
we ALL are, underneath the stresses and worries of life. An underneath that
comes rushing to the fore, for others when they need it most, yet the rest of
the time we don’t even notice the existence of that us.
Yet we always instinctively know
how to reach out, to care, to support, to encourage, to show love, compassion
and kindness, because it is our natural state of being.
When you are standing
in YOU, there is nothing you can’t do, achieve or be. Nothing.
When you are standing
in YOU, you are your true, brave, resilient self, with grace and ease.
That is who you
are, always.
Your instinctive
reactions are just that, led by your instinct, that superpower that
you have learnt not to trust as you have bought into a world of acquisition, of
having more and of doing more, at huge cost to your being.
Too often you
innocently buy into that world, and the way of living of that comes with it, that
leaves you depleted, overtired, under nourished, under comforted, under
supported and misunderstood, by YOU.
When you are living
in that way, you become disconnected with who you are, and in the disconnection
you drink.
You drink to find the
connection, the support, the comfort, the peace, the calm that is lacking.
And even when you do
come into the awareness of those inner neglects, and you desperately want to
drink differently, you don’t know how break your drinking cycle, and you become
more fearful, more stressed, less calm, less peaceful, without knowing why, and
so the cycle continues and grows.
Do you recognize you
here?
The reason you struggle to change your drinking is two-fold
1 Alcohol is your learnt method of comfort (in whatever way comfort is needed in the moment), so by trying not to drink, or not drink as much, you are saying to you, that you will deny yourself that comfort when you need it most.
2 You don’t know how change the way you drink. And in that not knowing, you believe you are weak, a failure, flawed, and so much more, that take you even further from who you are, leaving you even more in need of comfort!
It is that simple. That is your alcohol trap.
I DO know how to change the way you drink, effortlessly, and it is NOT hard – (watch my free Understand Your Alcohol Trap Masterclass, to help you understand, http://bit.ly/2w2gPUY and check out my Testimonials page to see how easy my clients have found changing (not stopping), the way they drink)
I was trapped for 28
years in my alcohol hell not because I was a weak failure, who was hopelessly
reliant on alcohol, but because I didn’t trust who I truly was.
Who I truly am, is
who you truly are too.
The women who stopped in the shop are all of us.
Good, kind, loving, compassionate, resilient, doing your best every day to be your best, instinctive women who are gentle warriors at heart, but who have lost a little bit of faith in you, because you have tried, but cannot change, the way you drink.
Make this your time to
Take responsibility for you to Let This Go NOW.
Stand up for YOU, no-one else can do it for you.
No-one else can invest in you and get the results you want and deserve.
No else can deliver your freedom, only you (with some inspired and unique coaching from me, another woman who has been where you are now and is effortlessly free).
Own YOU, invest in
YOU, and you are free.
Love & respect to
you
Sonia
—————–
I created the unique, 6 week, 1-2-1, Rapid Alcohol Recovery Method, for incredible women like you, who know that the life they deserve is not found in a wine bottle, and who are committed to taking the easy steps to becoming effortlessly free.
It is the solution I developed from the experiences of my drinking life, my sudden effortless freedom, the extensive research into the human design and the training’s I have invested, which I have bought together, and use to successfully coach 100’s of women to powerful freedom.
Some of my clients have been to rehab more than once, and then ‘failed’ when they stepped back into their lives, and yet all of them have found the peace around alcohol they deserve, through this process.
None of my clients
want to never drink again, all of them want to lose their ‘need’, which they
do, effortlessly.
At the end of the 6 week, Rapid Alcohol Recovery Method, you will be completely relaxed and comfortable around alcohol & alcohol situations, and still be able to enjoy the occasional, social drink.
The Rapid Alcohol Recovery Method isn’t for you, if
- You want to continue to rely on the energy exhausting methods of willpower, motivation and control.
- If you are not ready to step into YOU.
- If you are not looking to invest in being your best you, then it is not right for you.
- If you are looking for a magic wand – this is not a ‘learn a few new strategies and you are done’ process. It is a way of living that asks you to take loving ownership of you and, to work commit to being that you.
The Rapid Alcohol Recovery Method is for you if you are,
- Ready for your life of freedom from the stress, anxiety and pain of your drinking.
- Ready for lifelong change.
- Ready to invest in being your best you, one time and for life.
- Ready to own how amazing you truly are and to care for you in the way only you can.
If now is YOUR time to own your freedom from your alcohol pain and to regain your peace, let’s talk. Before we do, and in case you missed it earlier, take a look at my recent Testimonials, and decide if you are ready to make the best investment of your life, and step back into the strength, comfort, love and support of YOU.
If your decision is “Yes, this is my time, I am ready to be free!”, I offer a complimentary Exploratory Call, to see if the Rapid Alcohol Recovery Method is right for you. This call alone will give you comfort and support.
—————————-
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). I wrote it for my son, as an apology for his younger years, and as an attempt to explain the un-explainable.
Feb 11, 2020
During my drinking years, my first waking thought was a dull, painful, despairing “What’s wrong with me?”, a thought that created the unexpressed sob of sadness, lodged, frozen in my chest, cooling the warmth of my loving heart , and all because I had drunk too much the night before, as I did every ‘night before’.
Each day , without fail, I would look in the mirror, into my frightened of life eyes, and promise myself that I would not drink tonight.
In all my promised ‘not tonight’s’ I would be the sober, engaged, emotionally stable mother, partner, friend I longed to be, but couldn’t quite find. And I would mean those promises from the bottom of my wounded heart.
Today would be the day that everything changed, that I changed.
Today would be the first day of my in control drinking life – I never promised myself a ‘never drinking again’ life – let’s not get carried away here, the thought of that was terrifying. No, I would settle for a safely ‘not every night drinking’ life. My decision was made (again).
And I would feel a little better about myself. Just enough for me to face my day and one-in-a-million son, with a crushing hug of love and a smile of hope, if not quite the happiness we both deserved.
But unbelievably, every day as the hours slipped by, my thinking would shift and the old thoughts of alcohol would, seemingly out of nowhere, sneak back in and, as they settled, they grew, literally multiplying in size and intensity, as I attempted to calm them, to control them, to plead with them, to find ways of working my way around them. It was both exhausting.
I would be pleading with myself, to protect me from me. To protect my health, my wellness, my mothering, and what almost felt like my sanity, from the harsh noise in my head.
I would be begging me to stop, and for reasons I never understood (but do completely now), I couldn’t/wouldn’t, and ultimately didn’t listen, and again, as with almost every night for 28 years, I seemingly ignored every instinct for my wellbeing and the wellbeing of my son, and drank, in tears after the first few sips (scratch that, gulps).
The constant cry from my heart, during those sad, isolating times, where I was so far from who I knew myself to be somewhere deep inside was, “What’s wrong with me?” and “Why can’t I change?”
And the answer, the simple compassionate answer, that I now know to be absolutely true of myself, and true of you too, is that nothing was wrong with me (or you).
I wasn’t broken, or flawed, I wasn’t weak or a failure, I just didn’t know how to stop, and nor do you. Because if you did, by God you would.
I hope that your drinking life isn’t the same chaos as mine. But the fact that you are taking the time to read this, means that you drink in a way that concerns you, and that concern ultimately is about your inability to stop – maybe not completely, but to choose when you drink, rather than feel compelled to, and to be able to let go of your energy sapping alcohol thinking, feeling storm that overwhelms you to the point where you have to drink to end it. You just have to.
I understand you completely and I know why you can’t (just for now) make the changes you deserve.
You drink in the way you don’t like for ONE reason and ONE reason only.
To make yourself feel better – whatever feeling better is to you in the moment.
And here is where the problem truly lies, you drink with the INTENTION of making yourself feel better, which of course is in direct conflict with what you KNOW on every intellectual level possible, that feeling better will not be the result.
In fact you are completely aware that you will feel worse, and that knowledge makes absolutely no difference, as your INTENTION, your perceived need for alcohol as your method of ‘comfort’ is always so much more powerful.
So, what is your intention behind your evening glass of wine?
Maybe it’s to find a little peace, a bit of calm, some you time, some confidence, to feel less lonely.
Or maybe your evening glass of wine is a marker at the end of your working day, before you start on your most demanding ‘evening’ job of being a mother. The job you love most in the world, and gives the most to you, yet takes the most from you too, both physically (cooking evening meals, homework supervision, dog walker, extra curricular activities driver – wow, that’s exhausted me just writing it), as well as emotionally (confidante, comforter, worry remover) whatever you are needed to be when you are at your most depleted.
When you are tired, probably hungry and needing some quite time and a bit of comfort yourself.
And in the absence of acknowledging your own basic, simple to deliver, with a little pre-planning, tweaking and communication requiring needs, you ignore you and push forward and use wine to deliver the ‘comfort’ you truly need.
You treat yourself as though you are a machine and wine is the fuel of your engine. Wine ‘get’s you through’, ‘helps you relax’ and of course it doesn’t do either, but you have learnt to believe it does, and then you beat yourself up for trying to comfort yourself!!
Do you recognise you here? I definitely
recognise me.
You go to bed, ‘wined up’, probably have a poorer nights sleep, feel low the next day and promise yourself, ‘not tonight’.
You are back on the hamster wheel of your drinking, and you will stay there in discomfort and unhappiness, until you start to shift your awareness of you back to you, and acknowledge and care for you.
Ultimately you cannot change because you have lost sight of who you are, what you need and your deservedness and self-loving responsibility for delivering those simple needs. And, in your innocent awareness of what is going on, you focus on the alcohol being the problem that needs to be addressed, when it is your lack of understanding of you, lack of connection of you to your needs and self-care of you that is the issue.
Then, (and here’s the A word again), in the absence of any awareness of what you are lacking, your ‘need’ for alcohol, or your fear of life without it, will never go. It can’t. For now you feel that alcohol brings you ‘comfort’ and you cannot live uncomforted.
Effortless change starts with the intentional awareness of what you are looking for, in intention, when you pick up the glass for your first drink.
From that intentional awareness, you can start to gently question yourself and listen to your answers.
Take the few seconds that is all you need to ask yourself “What do you need from me right now darling?” then pause, breathe deeply and allow your answers to bubble up from your heart, from your soul. They always come when you allow them too, when you ask yourself with kindness and love. One thing I can absolutely promise you is that alcohol will not be one of them!
Allow yourself to receive your gratefully acknowledged, heartfelt answers of “I need some rest/quiet time, a hug, some fresh air, a kind word, nourishment” and you will notice with relief that you can deliver all of them to you. Even the hug and the kind word.
Everything starts with with how you are towards you.
In that simple asking of me, what I needed from me, and trusting myself to consistently easily deliver, my ‘need’ for the non-comforts, of alcohol no longer existed. It really was as simple and self-loving as that.
There is no effort to changing the way you drink, there is never any effort in loving yourself. You have simply forgotten how to.
Yes, it is very helpful and supportive to have some simple strategies to keep you safe as you re-connect with you, but they are part of who you are, nothing new to learn, just to re-connect with.
Change seems hard to you because you are putting all your energy on trying to PUSH open your door to peaceful freedom, when all it needs is a gentle PUSH, you just can’t see the sign.
If you are ready to re-connect with who you are, on the most joyful journey back to peace and freedom, let’s talk. I offer a COMPLIMENTARY 20 Minute Recovery Coaching Call, and that alone will offer you the start of the awareness you need to be peacefully free.
If you are ready to be peacefully free, with ease and confidence, contact me here.
The life you and your loves deserve it waiting for you it and it always will be, it is who you are and how you are designed to live.
Love & respect
Sonia
If you would like to know more about how my unique Recovery Coaching works, take a look at my How I Work For You page.
And, finally, I promise, if you would like to know more about my journey into and safely out of addiction, here’s the link to my Internationally Acclaimed book, This Isn’t Me. x
Oct 31, 2018
To make lifelong change to any Unhappy Habit (to change the way you drink/eat/shop and all the rest), you need to accept where you are now.
Accept that you are lost and confused about what you do, without judgement or criticism. It simply is what it is, nothing more, nothing less, and you want/need/must change it.
You don’t even need to now the ‘how’ of the path you took to get there, that is truly not relevant.
Its ‘how’ you maintain the Unhappy Habits NOW that matters, the rest is just a journey into your ’emotional past’ that has often long since gone, which can be both painful and pointless, when it comes to moving forward, other than it holds valuable information that you can use if you choose to.
So let’s start with taking a little look at at the structure of our Unhappy Habits, of what they would look like if we could actually see them. And for this purpose, the analogy of an iceberg is perfect, as it represents both your physical acts and the emotional intentions that drive them.
Above the water is the smallest part of your iceberg, and make no mistake, that smallest part can be pretty damn big. Its icy tip symbolizes your behaviour and its visible consequences.
It’s what you see reflected back at you in the mirror.
It’s the weight you hate, the signs of your alcohol consumption, the dehydration and anxiety in your dull eyed stare.
It’s in the stress you see so clearly etched on you own face when you have drunk, yet again, in a way you promised yourself you wouldn’t. When you have eaten an amount, you promised yourself you wouldn’t. When you have spent money you don’t have on stuff you don’t need….
As well as the looks of hurt, confusion, and lack of trust that you see in the faces of your children and your loved ones, when you have done again, what you promised them you wouldn’t, as well as the lies, desperation and hopelessness that are the ever present companions of what you DO.
That cold white ice is the what you ‘do’ of your habit – what you put into your mouth, what you spend, and seemingly, very sensibly, when you try to make changes, that’s where we start. I mean, if something you are doing isn’t working, just do something else, right……….
So, you circle our visible iceberg warily, thinking through your options, taking into account what has and hasn’t worked before, maybe there is a new diet plan, a new quit drinking, inspirational, motivational, prayer book even, that might just work this time.
And with your new information, you attack your icy peak with our unprotected hands in an attempt to mold it in to the new, improved ice sculpture version of yourself, which sadly you have learnt to feel we can never really be….. because my God, you have tried before and always ‘failed’ to maintain your new ice shape.
The ice shape that is the slim you, the sober you, the one that just isn’t who you are right now.
And why do you feel you can never be this new version of you?
That’s easy. You have been practising your ice sculpting skills for years and they always ‘fail’ you.
At best you have been able to create a temporary ‘new’ you, but then LIFE and the ice starts to shift and re-arrange itself as you try desperately to shape it back into place, until with bloodied, defeated hands you give up and accept your drunk/fat/broke destiny, without even acknowledging how brave you were to try again.
And I want you to know and accept this now…..the very fact that you keep trying means that you are the bravest of the brave.
Ok, so deep down, long lasting empowering, relief and release giving change does not come from working on your icy peak….. Agreed?
So, logically, the only other part of your iceberg to look at is the huge, submerged and brutally ragged, confused mass that lies beneath the water, you inner world, that supports your visible peak.
Dark and seemingly unknowable, this is the foundation of your iceberg, and it is formed by what you have learnt to believe is the only truth about both yourself, and your habit.
What your habit brings to you. How you will without it, who you will BE without it, what you will lose, how you will cope, and added to that is your experience around your habit in the good times – and there were good times, because if you hadn’t experience the good, before you lost control, you wouldn’t believe in its ‘power’ to make you feel better.
And together, all of the above has solidified, been frozen into what you accept as your reality.
Do you recognise yourself here?
Do you recognise the feelings that come up when you try to approach change, even just in your thinking? Before you take any action?
Do you recognise the discomfort, fear, anxiety that always shows up first in the pit of your stomach simply at the thought of making changes?
Those feeling are the only evidence you need to know that you have a belief about what you do….it is the seemingly freezing cold, menacing, submerged part of your iceberg that you believe will rip at you apart both physically and emotionally, if you get to close to it, and so you flinch from even approaching it, dwarfed and cowed as you are by its unseen but definitely felt, size and power.
Many brave souls who have understood this truth still take up the battle, donning protective clothing and attacking the submerged iceberg with all the weapons in their personal arsenal. They launch missiles of self-hate, recrimination and abuse at its silent mass, they meditate, join support groups, read endlessly on their poison of choice, and hope that one of these explosives will detonate on impact, smashing a tunnel to freedom. And still, no, that doesn’t work either.
So, what does?
To melt any iceberg you simply have to raise the temperature of the surrounding water.
And in the case of your Unhappy Habit, I mean the temperature of YOU.
To choose to bring out your sunshine of compassion, forgiveness and love of YOU to YOU, and let it shine down brightly, warming the air and and in doing so, allowing in the light to the Self-Awareness that is key to any transformation.
Self-Awareness can only be found in an expanded state of you. In your state of harsh Self-Judgement, Self-Criticism & Self-Despair, you shrink yourself down into a tight knot of fear and pain, and no new awareness’s can come in.
You rehash old information, that constricts and confuses you further. You tighten the straight jacket of your mind and completely close down any opportunity to the intuitive learning’s from your heart, that give you comfort, trust and faith in you, and allow you to look at what you DO, when and why differently.
Every new Self-Awareness brings questioning to the boundaries of what you believe and your experience.
It allows for the possibility of a different view of the reality you had previously created, and a different view, is an expanded view, which allows for different strategies and different behaviours, easily.
And as your self-awareness grows, you learn to have confidence in yourself, to pause and breathe before you ACT your Unhappy Habit, to recognise the patterns you run BEFORE you act, and to create new ones that truly do offer the comfort and support you are looking for. That is your always and forever TRUTH.
And in doing so, your icebergs naturally melt BECAUSE you expand your understanding of both yourself and your Unhappy Habit.
As you grow, any confusing thoughts and beliefs, frozen for so long, take on a softer, gentler shape, allowing us the flexibility to gently challenge what you DO, what you believe it gives you as well as finally feeling and accepting what it takes from you without your inner battle, all of which gives you the magical, joyful opportunity to act and be who you were born to be, who you are meant to be, habit free, happy, healthy and HEALED.
And the gift of letting your iceberg completely dissolve, it that you are left with an untroubled expanse of water, peaceful and calm, with no need for us to do anything, just to ‘be’.
I hope this message gives you comfort and insight and hope. I hope it resonated with you – it is my truth, and it is yours too. And I hope that it takes you to looking at yourself and what you DO differently.
The ‘different looking’ is the start of your incredible journey back to YOU.
If you need help in understanding & changing any Unhappy Habit, please contact me HERE today.
My LIFE Recovery Coaching comes from a place of deep understanding and compassion of a former addict, a lost woman and Mother, who now lives in acceptance of who I am, who loves who I am, and who is daily HEALING.
Be kind and gentle with yourself.
Sonia x
PS. if you would like to know more about my personal journey, from Pain to Peace, and from Hurt to Healed, 28 years of alcoholism, to peaceful freedom, take a look at my internationally acclaimed book, This Isn’t Me, described by Ranvir Singh, of Good Morning Britain as “Beautiful and devastating” (click on the link HERE). I wrote it for my son, as an apology for his younger years, and as an attempt to explain the un-explainable and it was where I started my journey back to LOVE
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Jun 23, 2018
It’s 6 am and I am up and out in the garden with my Gorby Girl and a huge cup of green tea. I would like to tell you I am in my daily sober zen zone, that I have stretched and meditated, and am calm and focused on the day ahead. Except I am not. My puppy is running around barking at frogs, I have just spilt tea on my leg (it really hurts) and I am emotionally gearing myself up for a visit from one of my gorgeous brother’s who drinks like a fish. Happy Saturday!
Now as a formerly (drunk) mother, you may think that I shall be employing some form of majestic, iron clad willpower to resist the tidal wave of booze that is coming my way this afternoon. That I must be putting my emotionally protective soldiers in place, bayonets ready, to ward off any temptation. Maybe planning out my strategies and the conversations I might need to employ to stay in my sober zone. None of those are true.
I have willpower, an abundance of the stuff in fact, but I never utilize it to not drink. I don’t need to.
We only need willpower to resist doing what we desire, the things we do want to do, not the things we truly don’t. And because of our desire, it is the hardest, least successful method of long term change.
Last week was tough for me on a number of levels. I won’t bore you with details, but it ground me down and certain events caused me a great deal of emotional upset. For me, drink is off the table. It’s just not an option. There is no desire. Been there, done that, nearly killed myself, so no thanks. Cheesecake however holds center place. I think for the last 5 days out of 7, I have bought cheesecake to comfort myself. And on some levels it has.
We wouldn’t eat the crap, drink the booze if there was no sense of comfort gained, temporary though it only ever is.
However last night I went shopping and didn’t buy the cheesecake. I saw it, still wanted it and an inner tussle ensued. This time though I employed my PAUSE and in that pause, before my willpower was called into action, I re-thought the ‘why’ of my ‘need’ for cheesecake I understood and acknowledged the ’emptiness’ I was trying to fill, and let the thoughts of cheesecake drift away. Great stuff. I left the shop contented, in peace and went home happy.
However, had I actually allowed myself to enter into the internal dialogue, the fight of should I/shouldn’t I, the self-justifications versus the recriminations, I might have been able to walk away with my willpower coming out on top (doubt it though). But how would I have felt? Triumphant, yes (over ignoring a cheesecake……..!), but also exhausted, probably on some inner level upset that I was missing out and definitely fearing the next time I would have to employ my weary willpower.
But by recognizing my thinking of what I expected from this over sweet, processed sugar fest, by asking myself what I actually needed emotionally, by acknowledging how I was feeling and giving myself an emotional cuddle – I have even got into the habit of putting my arms round myself wherever I am and whenever I need it – I was able to let go of my desire, my ‘cheesecake want’ and move on without even asking my willpower to join my unhappy inner party.
At the risk of repeating myself, which I will because this point is so important, we only need to use willpower against something we desire.
Understand and acknowledge the emotional ‘why’ of your wants and desire is lessened, making choice much easier because you no longer feel you are missing out on anything. And when you truly feel you are not missing out, desire simply drifts away and willpower becomes redundant
Initially, in tougher time, at least to start with, desire may well come back, maybe in a different form, but the same strategy of understanding and acknowledging does work and you will build your truly comforting resilience muscle. So much more effective than any willpower.
So, this afternoon I will have my lovely, kind, funny and no doubt very drunk brother to stay. He will come back from the pub with my son – God help my precious boy – where he will, no doubt, have honoured our Irish heritage with a few ill thought out ditties before stumbling back here with vodka.
I will be sitting serene(ish) in my garden with my tonic water, struggling to understand his anecdotes. My willpower though unemployed in that moment, will be fiercely called upon tomorrow morning, as I am already weary with the knowledge that I will have to get out of bed and walk Gorby at 6am on a Sunday morning after only 4 hours sleep.
Love & respect
If you would like to know more about my journey to sobriety, check out my memoir, This Isn’t Me.
To understand how I help clients, take a look at my Working with Me page, and Practical Techniques for Recovery page.
Or join the Breakthrough Community Newsletter for regular updates and support
Jun 17, 2018
9am. Today is the day you won’t have that glass of wine at ‘Wine O’Clock’, usually a loosely acceptable 6pm. Maybe you drank too much last night. Maybe your waistband has more of a bite to it then the expected nibble. Only you know – although you may also have the creeping dread that others might also know too after last night……. Anyhoo. Today’s the day. No more booze.
11am. Nope, still not drinking tonight. Feeling better, a few strong coffees inside you, maybe a pastry to replace the lost carbs, a nice little sugar spike to lift you up. Better still, you were really on it this morning and ate something that has actually benefited you, think eggs or porridge. Whatever, your resolve is strong.
4pm. God you’re tired/bored/fed up, or even had a great day. For good or bad, a glass of wine is in order. You need and/or deserve it and, “What the heck, you don’t have a problem with alcohol and you’re only going to have the one (thankfully a bucket sized one with your new on-trend wine glasses….)
Sounding a depressingly familiar cycle? It was mine.
So, where has your resolve gone? The fact is that, even though you don’t articulate or acknowledge the thoughts, you feel you have no choice but to drink.
All the self-justifications you come up with are designed to hide the fact that wine has started to control you. Your ‘good reasons’ for drinking are trying to protect you from a knowledge that will cause you pain. It’s not you, it’s how our brains work.
Breaking News! Even if this cycle happens every day, you can change your drinking, and simply, when you understand how.
There is always a space, a pause, between your ‘I need a drink’ hijacked thoughts and the physical act of picking up the bottle, pouring a glass and then drinking it, and in that pause is immense power.
In that pause is who we want to be, the non-drinker in control of our actions, the more engaged parent and partner, with healthier self-esteem, self-respect and a looser waistband. In that pause is US.
Pausing before taking action changes everything, instantly.
I remember on the few occasions I was able to not drink, that I used the pause. I didn’t know it then, it came as one of my insights, but it resonates completely now and it works.
The truth is that I couldn’t have stopped my drink cycle once the bottle, not even the glass was in my hand, but I could stop before I picked up the bottle.
I could, and did, for some reason and out of nowhere, take a few deep breathes, remember through the storm clouds of my addictive thinking, who I wanted to be, acknowledge the damage my drinking was causing and understand completely that it would only make everything worse. I could even, and this is probably the most powerful part, grasp a glimpse of who I really was. And I could, in that moment, in that pause, not pick up the bottle.
Yes, I always felt shaky afterwards, but shaky with relief, not desire for alcohol. I clearly remember my watery, tearful smile of truimph in the mirror, but I didn’t understand what emotional acrobatics had taken place. And, as usual, the not knowing, meant not understanding and so I couldn’t move forward and repeat the cycle. I had no insight and no awareness. I do now.
Practice Your PAUSE
The next time the thoughts of “I need a drink” come. PAUSE. Ask yourself, “Why do I need a drink?”
Before you mindlessly reach for the bottle, the glass. PAUSE. Ask yourself, “What will happen if I do drink?” and “What will happen if I don’t?”
Recognise your thoughts for what they are. Yes, they are, for now, a habit, a repeated behaviour but you have the choice to act on them or not. They have no physical expression unless you give it to them. PAUSE
Recognise that the feelings/emotions you want to avoid, will pass. You know they do. They always do. PAUSE
Then breathe slowly and deeply, still your mind, let your thoughts drift to a beach, a sunny day, your children laughing, whatever makes you happy. This will change your emotional state. Hug yourself in comfort if necessary and remember who you really are, not how repeating your habit makes you feel. PAUSE, then act.
The pause allows you to think clearly, it allows you to see the urge for what it is and the reality of what it offers. In seeing your urges for what they are, simply thoughts, they become weaker, you become stronger and you will be free x
As with any new practice, PAUSING may feel strange, but it will also feel empowering. It does work and every successful pause makes the next one easier.
Love & respect
If you would like to know how I help clients, check out my Working With Me page.
If you want to know a little more about how I overcame 27 years of alcoholism, take a look at my book, This Isn’t Me
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