To change anything something you don’t like about what you do, or yourself, you have to ACT differently to what you are currently doing.
If you don’t ACT differently, you will get the same result. You know that, and in the context of alcohol, you will continue to drink in a way that causes you stress, unhappiness, pain and despair.
However, what you don’t recognise is that if you try to make the changes to your drinking with ACTIONS that haven’t worked in the past, you will still get the same results, and label yourself as a ‘failure’. Blaming you and not questioning the methods, the ACTIONS you take.
When it comes to alcohol, the methods of change include,
- Setting limits around alcohol,
- Having alcohol free days
- Avoiding people/places/situations that you have learnt to label as ‘triggers’
- Being mindful around alcohol………
All your focus is on some sort of avoidance of alcohol, and that method rarely works, plus they keep alcohol firmly in the forefront of your mind….an exhausting way of living isn’t it?
I know that alcohol is not the problem (in intention), and that it absolutely is in result. I also know that you act on the intention (the feelings that you hope alcohol will bring). That is the truth
In intention, alcohol is your ‘solution’….the solution to feeling low, tired, bored, lonely, under nourished both physically and emotionally….and if you take a pause and re-read this, you will recognise this truth too.
So, joining the dots, when you try to limit your ‘solution’ (alcohol), you feel anxious, deprived, fearful of life, and think those feelings are caused by alcohol……they are not.
And because you are so entrenched in all your personal and social conditioning around alcohol, you don’t look beyond what you have learnt to accept as a truth, when in fact is what you believe to be true about you, your drinking and the ‘power’ alcohol has over you is nothing more than an ILLUSION.
You don’t crave alcohol. You crave BALANCE, connectedness, YOU.
How do I know this is true?
I struggled (such a painful understatement) with my inexplicable drinking for 28 years, and I tried every known and some crazy methods of changing my drinking by focussing on how/when/why I drank, instead of who I was when I drank, and who I was when I didn’t drink…..that is the difference that made the difference to my drinking, not alcohol.
I realised that on the days I didn’t drink, I felt better, not because the next morning I didn’t have a hangover, but BEFORE I picked up the first glass…..that I felt better, more CONNECTED, more BALANCED within myself.
I also noticed that the days I did drink, I felt less CONNECTED, less in BALANCE….it was that simple and so my aim became not to ‘not drink’, but to be more in BALANCE….it was the key, the easy, effortless key to my ‘miraculous’ change.
You may have forgotten in the dark confusing cloud of your overthinking around your drinking, that,
- Alcohol does not/cannot change.
- If you can drink less one day, you can drink less every day.
- If you can be alcohol free one day, you can be alcohol free every day, because I intentionally repeat here, Alcohol DOES NOT/ CANNOT change.
And if alcohol stays the same, the only other party that changes is YOU.
But you don’t become weaker or stronger, you become more in balance or less in balance.
You feel the gap within you, the void and you drink to close that gap, to ease your inner tension, that comes from being out of balance, that the further you go from being balanced and connected, the stronger your ‘craving’ for alcohol is……does that make sense?
So, you need to change your conversation from,
“I need a drink” to “I need balance”
When you change your conversation, different feelings come up, different though processes, different answers, different ACTIONS……and your alcohol monster loses its power. I promise you
You can easily deliver balance, rest, hydration, kind self talk, hugging yourself, going into gratitude – here’s a wonderful truth about gratitude, the more you do it, the longer the list gets…..
So, please, stop accepting TRUTHS that are LIES around the power of alcohol, and take the energy you expend on finding external solutions back to where it needs to be, gently shining a light on who you are being to YOU when you crave alcohol, and then change the word alcohol to BALANCE…..
A different conversation, the TRUE conversation and you will get very different results easily.
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”, wrote it for my son, as an apology for his younger years, and as an attempt to explain the un-explainable.
