Welcome to stop drinking alcohol week 31 – Don’t wait until you’re sick before you stop binge drinking!

Q & A

In answer to a comment made by Joe Mahoney:

I did it on my own. Most people do. It’s a fact that most people who quit drinking do so without the help of any organization, any pill from the doctor, any lifelong support from other “alcoholics”. Most people who quit drinking, quit and move on with their lives.

Don’t Wait Until You’re Sick Before You Quit Drinking

Don’t wait until you’re sick to do something about drinking! Don’t think to yourself, “Oh, I’ll just drink another year and see how the alcohol is affecting me, then I’ll see if I’ll cut back” … That’s like closing the barn door after the horse has run away….

Do it now while you’re healthy.

Ask yourself what you can do to remain healthy, to make yourself healthier…

John Beever made a great comment:

This is just what I’m saying, we get used to the feelings that go with heavy drinking, and we accept them. We don’t change partly because we accept that we’re going to feel crappy, we accept that as part of the territory.

We also don’t think bad stuff is going to happen to us, they always happen to the guy next door, or across the road, or around the block. We don’t think we have a drink problem yet, there’s always a bloke in the queue in front of us who’s buying more booze.

Feeling Worse But Getting Better

In some cases, we will need to feel worse in order to get better. That’s just the way it is. It’s our body’s way of detoxifying from all the poisons. How many symptoms we feel depends on getting our heads around the idea that we’re not going to have any more alcohol.

Some people say that thinking about the long term is a bad idea when quitting.

WHY?

I primed myself for quitting before I quit. By the time I gave up I hated alcohol and I hated everything it stood for in my life. I was so happy to be able to say to myself “I’m never, ever going to have another poisonous drink again and I am going to enjoy watching this enemy slowly die”.

Beating the cravings and the side-effects means you must get into the frame of mind where you hate everything about drinking.

Quitting is Simple!

It’s so simple to quit. You just stop drinking. Unless your side effects are life threatening, you must brave it out. You must put up with the cravings, put up with the sleepless nights, put up with the nausea or the sweats, or the shakes, put up with whatever it takes.

All of these bad feelings will pass.

If you don’t quit you will get sick! That is the reality. If you’re searching around for advice about quitting, you already know you’re on a dangerous road. You don’t need me or anyone else to point that out to you.

The human body is not meant to consume alcohol. We are not designed for it. When we get drunk, our body is having an adverse reaction a poison.

Do you remember the first time you ever got drunk? Did the world as you know it start to spin and real out of your control? Did you feel violently ill? Did you spew your guts up?

I remember all of that. It took a long time before I wanted to repeat the experience. It took a long time before I was able to drink any great quantities of alcohol again. It wasn’t very pleasant. When you drink alcohol for the first time, your body reacts that way because you’ve just consumed a toxin, it’s designed to do that. You experience the ill-effects because your body is telling you to avoid drinking this substance in the future, and you do for a time. You remember the terrible feelings for a while, but it’s in our nature to forget these feelings. All it takes is a little pressure from your mates and you’re off again.

Have you ever said “never again” when in the clutches of a really bad hangover? We all have! Do we drink again? Of course, every time!

Most of us are like the ostrich who buries its head in the sand. We don’t want to know about the health risks, we tell ourselves that everything will be alright, even when we know that this is not true. We see the dangers all around us. We see the alcoholism in others, we see the damage that it’s doing to others and to ourselves (once we admit it), yet we continue. We lie to ourselves because that’s the only way we can keep up the pretence that we are sane, rational people… that we are in control! A person who drinks heavily is in control of nothing.

Quit while you’re ahead….

So, that’s Stop Drinking Alcohol Week 31.
Thanks for visiting the site.
Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!
Kev

Previous Tallies

Stop Drinking Alcohol Week 28
Stop Drinking Alcohol Week 29
Stop Drinking Alcohol Week 30