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Don’t Allow the Programming of the past to Control Your Present or Future

by | Stop Drinking Alcohol | 6 comments

Today I wanted to talk about not allowing your programmed past to control your future. In most ways in life we are brought up with certain ways of thinking and certain things to believe in.

 

We are programmed from birth to look upon alcohol consumption for getting drunk, merry, tipsy, for use in celebrations, to relax, to socialize, to party, to wind-down, and so on and on. It’s not just a cultural phenomenon.This happens within families. It happens among friends. In this video, we are going to look at the most obvious programming. We will look at some of the most insidious types of programming: labels. We’ll look at how most of this programming is happening on a subconscious level. And we’ll look at what you can do about it.

A lot of those things keep us safe, for example we are taught to cross the road, avoid strangers and things which keep you on the straight and narrow and out of trouble.

This video is about some of the most obvious programming within alcohol and some of the most insidious programming in this and what you can do even though you don’t know it is happening.

We are programmed from birth to accept alcohol as part of our lives. When you see a child watching the adults around them, drinking, smoking, whatever they are doing, and this might not be on a conscious level, but it just all sinks in when you see something time after time after time. It becomes a part of your normal thinking and a part of your beliefs and how you think and eventually it becomes a part of something you will do in your life.

A lot of people will eat the same things and drink the same things that their Parents drank. A lot of people follow their Parents; it is nurture rather than nature. People discuss the gene and the disease theory of alcoholism but I believe most of it comes from your environment and what you see around you.

If you get programmed to do something by the time you get to eighteen, it is part of your movement into adult life to go out and buy your first drink. You can see how powerful that is.

I started drinking when I was twelve. I’m sure most people that are listening to this started drinking before they were eighteen. Because it is so culturally acceptable and acceptable within our society to do this, because we are surrounded by advertising and we have been surrounded by advertising all of our lives; advertising that is pummelling us with messages of ‘you can’t have fun without drinking alcohol, nor can you celebrate or relax.’

It sends out the message that there are so many different areas of your life that you can’t be happy in, if you don’t drink alcohol. That alcohol is part of our lives and for you not to drink alcohol you must be an odd one out. Particularly, if you come from the perspective of drinking alcohol and then you stop. Society makes you feel like there is something wrong with you. That you have a disease. That there is something wrong in your head; a gene that is not right, something that very few people have because normal people can go out and carry on drinking. They can drink without it having too much of an affect on them.

You don’t actually know what other people are doing. You might be out with somebody and you can see them getting drunk with you at the same time you are getting drunk, you might even see how much they are drinking but you don’t look at that; you only look at your own drinking habits.

You don’t see these people when they are at home or going through the hangover. You can’t feel their hangover or see their thoughts about what they think about their lives and alcohol consumption. The only time you will ever hear about their alcohol consumption is when they tell you, otherwise you won’t know if they are going through the same things that you are going through.

This is just part of being a human being, I’m not saying it is part of the programming but they use this type of thing to separate the wheat from the chaff. Most people are just like sheep, most people follow the herd, they don’t think about what they are doing to themselves or the damage they are doing to themselves, how much this alcohol is getting into their lives, what it is doing to their brain. What it is like to actually get drunk and what that’s doing to you.

Think about that for a second. What is your brain doing while you are drunk and you can’t really talk properly or keep your eyes open? All of these symptoms of part of being drunk; this word drunk – what does it mean. Think about it.

What is happening inside your brain, your body, your whole network of nerves that are controlling everything you do?

What happens to your nervous system when this alcohol gets into your brain and follows down throughout your nervous system?

What is happening in your body that makes you go drunk?

That word drunk and most people don’t think about that. Most people just think, “I get drunk because it’s fun” – they don’t even think that they get drunk because their parents or because my friends do it, it’s just a natural progression.

When we start drinking in the first place it is very difficult to enjoy what you are doing because it tastes so horrible, the feeling isn’t really that nice – when you get drunk and you get that spinning around feeling and you feel like you want to be sick – that is your system saying “What is going on? What have you just put inside me? I’m trying to get this out as quickly as possible and I am going to hammer you with all these bad symptoms because I don’t want this put in again

Most people are like sheep they will just follow on and do the same thing that their friends are doing. They will follow the herd and that’s it basically. The same thing can be said for cigarettes. Twenty or thirty years ago most people smoked; 60 or 70% of people smoked and there wasn’t any second thought about it.

Obviously, a lot of people didn’t smoke, but it was thought to be a part of normality, a part of society. Our Parents did it; we do it. Our Friends do it; we do it. Our Teachers do it; we do it. Judges, the Policeeveryone around you is smoking and so you do it. It is part of the programming.

I am not saying that you are wrong to be a sheep, I was a sheep in the same way, it’s the certain things you do, the food that you eat, the language that you speak. We’ve got this innate conscious ability to understand grammar and syntax and all the different components of a language and you don’t even have to think about it, it just happens as you are learning the language, it just becomes a part of normal everyday life; in your language.

But, listen to someone’s else’s language, for example Japanese and it sounds like you wouldn’t be able to understand the syntax or grammar of that, if it bit you in the arse, so it is all in context.

You eat the same foods because you live in a certain country that tends to eat that type of food; you live in a family that tends to eat that type of food. And so on and so forth, so everything about your life is structured in this way, so many things. We go to College because this is what people do, you go to School at a certain age because this is what people do, you leave School at a certain age because that’s what people do. You get certain jobs because that’s what people do …… onwards and onwards.

So, this is the most obvious programming that’s happening and there is not much you can do about it and from that perspective there is no shame in having got to the age that you are and having done what you have done. Whether that’s smoking, drinking, taking any of the other drugs, eating whatever food you’ve got or getting into the state of not exercising, because that’s all part and parcel of who you are and what you have been brought up to do -so there is no shame in that, but you are in a position now where you have woken up to a certain part of it.

You understand the consequences of what you have been doing. You start to think about it and start to think “Well, maybe I could do something differently. Maybe I should do something differently” and then you think “Yeah, I have to start doing something different” and then you start looking for information and information is power.

Once you get to the stage where you start to understand things about what is going on and understanding what the alcohol is really doing to you, understanding that all the advertisements and what you have been told about alcohol is basic programming, brainwashing that has been happening to you over the years that isn’t; when you get to that stage, then you can do something about it.

You understand the patterns of your habits and you can start to change those patterns and the pattern change happens not from this high level of habit. The habit is a big thing that is encompassing but:

Each habit is broken down into the behaviours

Each behaviour is broken down into the individual rituals

Each individual ritual is broken down to the individual blocks of things that you do to make up that ritual for example sitting down at a bar stool, having your glass in a certain place with a coaster underneath it, liking the same beer, whatever it is, all those little blocks that make up the ritual.

And basically, underneath all that, underlying everything else are the thoughts whether they are conscious or subconscious and it is those things that you can change bit, by bit, by bit and that is how you deal with any habit change.

Deal with things which are on the lowest common denominator, which are your thoughts. Your thoughts change;

the little parts of the ritual and the little parts of the ritual change the rituals themselves;

the rituals themselves start putting impacts and interrupts into the behaviour;

the behaviours will eventually change the habits;

you will get rid of a habit and you build a habit on that basis.

Another point is you are capable of changing, you are capable of changing from this minute to the next minute. It doesn’t matter who you were ten years ago, it doesn’t matter what you learnt ten years ago or what you did or thought ten years ago. It doesn’t matter what you thought or did six months ago or a month ago or a week ago or yesterday. It doesn’t matter what you said or did five minutes ago, it only matters what you do now and if you make the decision, you take the commitment to do it, you can change anything by a bit by bit change.

So, you don’t have to think about the future and think “I have to give up drinking and quit drinking alcohol for the rest of my life. I can never have this again.” That is a self-defeating way of thinking.

Once you get into this by a year or two years and you really feel like you’ve left the alcohol behind you for ever, you are focused on where you are going and what you are going to do, how you are going to make the improvements in your life, however you are going to move yourself forward, onwards and upwards, then you can start saying to yourself “I am never going to drink alcohol again” and be comfortable in that.

Don’t be bothered in saying it to yourself now, at the beginning, when you are feeling it, when you have just made that move, that disconnection from the alcohol past to the non-alcohol present. You’ve just done that now and you have decided to do this. If you make it now it’s such a big thing!

“I’m never going to drink again” “Wow! that’s so much of a head fuck!” Why would you do that to yourself? You don’t have to, so take it on a day by day basis and take it in chunks of thirty days and then when you’ve done the thirty days, do another thirty days and then once you’ve done that, do another thirty days and eventually these thirty days will add up to six months and eventually it will add up to a year, two years and then you can start saying to yourself – “I’m not going to do this anymore.”

The only thing that is stopping you from doing this is you, regardless of what else happens in your life the only thing that is going to stop you from moving forwards and into moving into that life you want is you.

It’s either going to be a lack of focus or it’s going to be some limiting belief in yourself or in thinking about things along that line for example “I can’t do this forever“.

Forever is a long time, “I can’t do it forever”, so it’s keeping that focus, keeping yourself moving forwards and keeping your feet firmly on the ground and doing it day after day after day.

Focus on the day, focus on the next day, worry about tomorrow and worry about the next day and the next day. Focus yourself on the future, don’t focus on the past because the past has got nothing to offer you.

You can learn as much as you want from the past but at the end of the day if you keep focusing on the past; that’s what you are going to have. Focus on the alcohol; that’s what you are going to have.

It is why people that go to places like Alcoholics Anonymous and I don’t want to keep shitting on AA because I do believe in them in some ways, they were the only thing around for a lot of people; but doing this thing were you go in week after week, after week and you say “I’m Kevin, I’m an alcoholic it’s been X number of days since I had my last drink ” and thinking along the lines of “I’m only one drink away from going back to being an alcoholic again” what is that doing to you?

That focus is focusing on the alcohol, what is it doing to you? Think about it, if you were trying to lose weight for instance and you went into a weight watcher meeting and every time you went in there you had to stand up and say:

My name’s Kevin and I’m a fatty or I’m obese and it’s been X amount of days since by last Hamburger” and then everybody sits down and starts telling each other stories ” I remember this one time when I went into McDonalds and McDonalds burgers and fries are my favourite food and I was eating these Burgers and fries and then I decided to get more, so I went up and got another tray of Burgers and fries and I decided to get two burgers and some fries and this really creamy strawberry milkshake and then I got a chocolate milkshake and it tasted so good. I remember biting into this Burger and the grease was dripping out of the burger and I knew it wasn’t doing me any good, I knew it was going to be filling my arteries with clog busting shit but I couldn’t help myself, it was so good tasting with that burger bun and that beef patty and all that grease dripping out of it, but anyway, those days are in my past now.”

Imagine what that would do to your system, to your resolve, to your self confidence, to you as a person. Imagine two years down the road, still going back when you’ve lost all the weight and you’ve lost 100 pounds. You’ve got into a great regime of exercising and nutrition and you’ve managed to get your mindset in a certain way but you’re still going back to this meeting this weight watchers meeting and you’re still going in there saying, “I’m Kevin, I’m Obese it’s been X number of days since my last burger.” Imagine just what that would do to yourself.

It just sounds so stupid because people wouldn’t do it so why would you do it with alcohol?

What I am saying is that the focus of where you put your focus is where you are going to go. If you keep focusing on the past, keep focusing on the alcohol guess what’s going to happen? Even if you don’t, you will still day be fighting this thing day after day. You are fighting and that’s what they all say, “It’s a fight, it’s a fight until the day you die” and no wonder it’s a fight under the day they die, because they are forcing it on themselves.

They are forcing the focus of their minds onto the past instead of saying from day one, “I‘m not thinking of the past any more when thoughts come into head, the alcohol thoughts I’m going to think about it and accept it, I’m even going to feel good about it and think about the cravings and what they are doing to me but at the end of the day this is the way I’m going to force myself to go.

It makes sense to focus on the future; focusing away from the alcohol; focusing on what you want to get into your life instead of what you want to get rid of. So, all these things, all these self-imposed labels like alcoholic, sober, recovery these are all things that are just holding you in your own self-perpetuating prison.

It’s a prison that you’ve constructed and one that you could knock down at any time by just not thinking about things from that perspective, not thinking about alcohol any more from that perspective.

Think about alcohol when it comes out, if it comes through your brain allow the thought to come through, think about it and think “Yep just a thought about alcohol I don’t have to do anything about it” and just let it float on by and then carry on with your life and if you do that over and over again the thoughts will become less and less. You will smile when those thoughts come up you’ll think “Yeah, that’s gone now, it’s out of my life.

If you have any questions at all leave them down below in the comment section. If you want to sign up to the alcohol mastery starter pack there are a few difference courses in there to try to help you out in the first few days when you are quitting so go over to the website https://www.alcoholmastery.com and sign up for that. It will be there on the first page, it will come up as a pop up no matter where you are on the site if you are there for the first time, just put your name and email address in the box and I will get it out to you.

Take very good care of yourself and keep the alcohol out of your mouth. Try and think about the propaganda and the programming that has been going on in your life for all these years and think about it from an outsider, an observer looking in and once you’ve do that and you understand that it is just programming that has been forcing you into making those decisions over the years, it is easy enough to get over it.

Once you get the control over your thoughts and you can understand why you are doing something, it is much easier to deal with in the future.

“Never let your past experiences harm your future. Your past can’t be altered and your future doesn’t deserve the punishment.”

Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!

 

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6 Comments

  1. ron

    Grteat Vid Kev haha loved your description of the Fat Obese burger eating Woman (Why are there so many fat People about now cant remember many when i was growing up ? ) some of them can barely walk ! Thats exactly what it was like in the AA meetings i attended for about 3 months ,i rememebr one day in a meeting one of the people in there asked me if i could get him some co codamol Flu remedy from the chemist as obviously they would’nt serve him anymore.hed just swapped one addiction for another , One person had commited Suicide . i got pissed off with old Fred’s drunkalogue every week listening to his woes over and over reinforcing his belief that he’ll never be free and will be forced to attend awful meetings for the rest of his days , no thank you !

    Reply
  2. Shona

    Thank you Kevin.
    I’m 14 days in and feel great.
    Very helpful video.

    Reply
  3. Willliam

    Very clear and concise, a great help Kevin many, many thanks your video’s are really helping now I’ve decided to stop drinking.

    regards,

    William

    Reply
  4. Nick

    Thanks Kevin, your videos are all either Great or Brilliant. This one was brilliant for me. So much common sense yet things I need to be reminded of on a regular basis. Tried to stop many times by reading stuff on the ‘net’ but the way you have set this series up with daily help over a full year is what I find so amazing.I will make it now I have received so much good advice during my first month and a half and look forward to my ‘daily fix’. Thanks again

    Reply
  5. Tatyana

    Thanks so much for your video, Kevin. What you said makes a lot of sense. Alcohol has been my go to problem solving substance. Of course, it has also been a problem creating substance. But anyways, I grew up in a country where alcohol was such a big part of every day life. First time I drink till I black out was when I was about 10. It was to celebrate New Years and I was with my mom and her cousin. I have the fondest memories of that day. Needless to say, I started associating alcohol with safety and feeling great. I started drinking almost on daily bases when I was 16 and continued with some periods of sobriety here and there.
    23 years later I am to the point where is has to completely be out of my life and the thought of never ever drinking gets a bit scary.
    I think that your suggestion to take it in periods of time, 30 day chunks is great and I shall do that. As for AA, I don’t agree with the model but it had helped me in the early stages of sobriety and I think that what I’m going to do now while I’m on my 2 day of being sober. After a year of being sober, I will reevaluate and go from there.
    Thanks for your work! Happy I have found your site!
    Tatyana.

    Reply
  6. Mary

    Wow, so powerful ! ! Thank YOU Kevin !
    Mary 🙂

    Reply

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