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I Could Be Celebrating My First Year Alcohol Free If I Didn’t Give In

by | Stop Drinking Alcohol | 5 comments

Today’s topic is

‘I could be celebrating my first year alcohol free if I didn’t give in and take a drink’.

I’ve heard this so many different times in different forms, and this one came up after the interview I did with Kevin Bulmer on his podcast a few weeks ago.

He wanted to have me on as a guest for his 1 year anniversary because he’d found a little bit of help through the videos.

I was really honoured to be on there to be honest.

It’s always an honour to get a mention, for somebody to say I helped them in any way, shape or form because that’s the idea.

It’s nice to hear it every so often.

I got an email afterwards that said this person had loved the videos and loved Kevin, and that they’d had interactions with him before, and then there was a sad note underneath it which said that if it hadn’t been for their own weaknesses, they could’ve been at that stage now.

They could’ve reached that one year milestone. So, I thought it was a good topic for a video.

It all boils down to the same thing: you’ve got to stop beating yourself up about your past.

What you’ve done, you’ve done.

What is gone is gone.

One of the biggest parts of this thing is the awareness that you need to change, that you need to get alcohol out of your life.

That’s one of the biggest issues especially in the beginning, and you can never go back from that.

You can’t go from being aware that alcohol is causing you problems to being unaware of that.

You can sweep it underneath the carpet as much as you want, or you can try and hide it by drinking more alcohol but it’s always going to be there.

That’s one of the biggest hurdles, and once you step over that hurdle, it will eventually get easier.

I was listening to a talk from a guy…I can’t remember where it was now, it was a couple of weeks ago, but he was talking about being in the moment but being aware of what you’re doing.

Looking at your situation from a perspective of your perceived problem, and he was talking about anyone generally, whether their problem was being overweight or having a drinking problem or whatever it was in life.

His point was that

we feel guilty about a lot of stuff that we’ve done in the past and we bring that guilt into our present.

When we’re doing something and thinking ‘oh I’m such a bad person for doing this, I’m an alcoholic’ which is a derogatory term in my book.

And, it’s getting to the point where you are doing the thing that you don’t want to do but while you are doing it, you’re feeling that not only do you not want to do this, but a lot of added misery you’re putting in there yourself.

What he was saying basically is, have an awareness of what you’re doing and the problems it’s causing for you, but at the same time doing it in a non-judgmental way.

Take things in the moment and look at it in a non-judgmental manner inside your own mind and to see the whole process through, see the drinking for what it is, see what it’s doing to you, and then make a decision later on in the cold, hard light of day.

Another point of this is that

what happened in the past is in the past, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it except change the way you view it.

So you can view the past in terms of the judgmental mind, or you can view it in terms of the learner mind, educating yourself and finding something in that whole experience that you can learn from.

It’s so nice this morning and the sun is coming up a little bit, it’s beautiful. I love this time of day.

You can see the sun just coming up.

I don’t usually do this, I hope you don’t mind.

We used to live in those apartments and we were facing this every single day.

It’s fantastic. I don’t want to go away from this.

Anyway, the whole topic of this was that you could’ve been where somebody else is now, and you can look at anyone and say that, ‘If I had studied well in school, I should’ve been here, I should’ve been there’.

But you’re not in this position now, you’re in the position that you’re in, this is reality.

You are who you are and you are where you are and you’re doing the things you’re doing because of the decisions that you’ve made, the thoughts that you’ve had.

This is pure karma at its most basic.

I’m not saying that in a bad way, it’s not meant to be bad.

It’s a fact, it’s reality.

This is your reality.

I want to have a 21-year-old body, I want to have a lot of things. A lot of things I have regrets about, like I should’ve done this or that, but you don’t know how your life would’ve turned out if you’d done those things for a start.

All you’ve got is this moment.

It’s the only time that you’ve got to do everything.

And, to be blunt, it’s this moment every time that you say ‘I’ll have a drink tonight and give up tomorrow’.

There is no tomorrow.

There is only now.

And as long as you put the alcohol into your mouth, what do you think the end result is going to be?

You’re never going to quit if you continue to put it off and procrastinate.

You’re never going to get anywhere.

So, look, what you’ve got is this moment and it’s your choice.

Every moment that you drink is your choice.

Every drink that you drink is your choice.

Every mouthful that you swallow is your choice.

It all boils down to choice, really.

It’s your decision to do or to not do.

In anything in life, if you want to lose 40 or 50 pounds off your body or you also want to continue eating the crappy food that put the weight on in the first place…there are two things that are creating a conflict, so one has got to go or the other.

So you either stop eating the crappy food and lose the weight, or you stop worrying about your weight and carry on eating crappy food.

Same thing with alcohol, you either stop drinking alcohol and get better physically, mentally, or you forget about quitting drinking and accept yourself as a lifelong drinker, and you stop watching these videos because these are just going to torment you.

I know it’s not as cut and dried as that, there are times when we think ‘yeah, I’m going to do this’ and we might get to two or three months.

But you have to be determined to do this.

You have to put yourself on the line.

It’s moment by moment.

Every moment that you decide not to have a drink is a moment in the right direction.

As soon as you have a drink, that’s all gone.

So, the advice I’ll give you is to start today.

There’s no other time to start this.

You can’t start yesterday, you can’t start a year ago, you can only start today.

You can only go from now.

You start today and every moment that goes by, you say I’m not having a drink.

That’s it.

Once the alcohol goes out of your system, once you stop drinking and you don’t put it back into your body again, that’s it.

There’s no more to it than that.

It’s undoing all these years of this framework that has held up your drinking, that’s where you will find the difficulties, and that’s when you have to use your brain.

You’ve got to sit down and think about this thing because no matter what I say, no matter how many hundred books you read, you’re never going to come up with a solution for yourself because you’re unique.

You’re your own person.

You require your own specific requirements about which things are going to motivate you, give you fun or relaxation and all that kind of stuff.

We’re all different.

You’ve got to think about those things.

I can give you a lot of different directions to follow and suggestions to follow, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to do a lot of the brainwork yourself.

You’ve got to implement all this.

No one is going to implement it for you.

Start from today.

Don’t put the alcohol into your mouth, that’s the major step.

If you put it into your mouth, that’s where you’re taking a step backwards.

You’re re-enforcing your framework again.

What you have to stop doing is you need to stop believing that drinking, any drinking at all, is okay.

It’s not okay.

It’s poison.

It’s toxic, not only to your body but to your mind.

You have to stop doing this.

Take one day at a time.

Take one moment at a time.

Don’t put the alcohol in.

Put some serious thought into what you’re going to do as an alternative and how you’re going to break down these relationships that you’ve got with other people who drink, relationships with your environment.

All that kind of stuff then comes into play and that’s where the hard work is going to be.

If you tackle that and if you can deal with these other people, the stuff outside yourself and what’s going on in your mind…if you can do that, then you’ll have no problems with this drinking.

It’s uncomfortable in the beginning, but as you go forward, the discomfort disappears very quickly.

It’s not something that is going to hang around.

Two months, three months and the discomfort is getting less and less.

Eventually you just won’t think about it at all.

I still think about alcohol 3 ½ years later.

But it’s like a fleeting thought.

You hear people saying that they still think about alcohol and what should they do?

It doesn’t mean anything.

You probably have so many different thoughts pouring into your mind that you don’t want to be thinking about, but you pass them off.

But because you’ve been off alcohol for x number of months or years, it comes to your focus.

You take notice of it and go ‘’Oh Jesus, I don’t want that’.

It’s reality.

It’s not the thought that matters, it’s how you deal with the thought.

If you have any questions or comments, leave a comment down below.

Come on over to the website where you’ll find the audio version and you can download that.

Until next time, stay safe.

Keep the alcohol out of your mouth.

Once you do that, you can deal with this framework and all the underlying structures.

You’re freeing up your time and giving your mind a chance to heal.

You’re giving your body a chance to heal.

And the more your body heals, the more energy you have.

The more your mind heals the more brainpower you have.

The more you can think about these things that I said earlier about how to deal with your environment and thoughts.

That’s what it boils down to.

NEVER LET A STUMBLE IN THE ROAD BE THE END OF THE JOURNEY.

Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!

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5 Comments

  1. John Swisshelm

    Great Video as always Kevin, I’m so down right now, i was a month sober and i fucked it up yesterday, went down to see my ole buddies at the bar, i thought i could just drink water, didn’t happen, i should have known better.Gosh i was felling so great off the booze for a month, back to square one again, i will never give up though, if i do i will lose the battle, i will beat this drug,thank you for all you do Kevin.

    Best regards
    John Swisshelm

    Reply
  2. Dez

    Nice one Kevin
    I first tried to give up after my 21st birthday after starting at 13, i had enjoyed it but I knew this would lead, now coming at 59 still battling demons and the last few years have been the worst. There is always something coming up and I’ll have a drink that day and get back on the wagon and you know were that leads. I’m only 4 days clean this time and a couple of old mates are coming up this weekend, but this time I’m going to put them off (or I hope so) cheers for the videos and the good work.

    Reply
  3. Mandy

    Dear Kevin,

    This is a fantastic video, as always. Thank you for stopping and letting us see the start of the new day. (I think that is quite a nice metaphor for this whole business of letting go of the alcohol – each new day is a new beginning and each new day builds on those which came before.)

    i am constantly astounded at how well you look now in comparison to the sad and bloated man who began this almost 4 years ago. You look fantastic! There is a luminosity about you. Your skin and eyes are so clear, a fabulous testament to getting the booze out. You are doing wonderful things for so many people!

    Reply
    • Kevin O'Hara

      Glad you found a metaphor in there 🙂 I am usually up between 4 and 5. It’s been getting darker and darker in the mornings. Sometimes I just walk in the dark, the stars are beautiful 🙂

      Reply
  4. Patricia

    Great one Kevin! Loved the sunrise. And I like you doing the videos walking. It’s a reminder to us all we’ll be healthier when we’re booze free. Thank you!

    Reply

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