Today, I want to talk about the problems of quitting drinking, and to know that old problems are always going to be replaced by new problems regardless of what part of life you’re involved in.
I guess it all depends on the type of problems you’re talking about.
How you look at problems, how you view them.
Some problems you want to have and others, you don’t.
Alcohol is a problem you don’t want to have in your life, because it’s causing so much destruction.
It gives you a bit of pleasure in the short term, but in the long term it doesn’t do anything for you.
It kills you slowly.
It affects your relationship, your health, your wealth, your spiritualisation, socialisation and so on.
I don’t think there’s an area it doesn’t affect.
So, I’m just saying that when I stopped drinking, it was because I’d come to a big crux in my life, a crossroads where I knew that things had to change, I had to change.
I had no choice but to get things into perspective and start thinking about what I was doing to myself and the people in my life, particularly my son and how I was infecting his mind and his decisions and his view of life, what he thought of as being normal.
And, I had to change.
I did change.
But that one problem that I solved by quitting drinking, or any problems I solved through quitting drinking left me with a new set of problems.
I was no longer toxifying my body, or my life but I had these new problems of what do I do now in my social life because I don’t drink anymore.
What do I do now?
How do I go out and enjoy myself?
How do I sleep at night?
How do I relax at the end of a working day?
All of these were new problems that I had that had to be solved.
So, that’s what I’m saying to you about your old problems.
Once you deal with those, you’re always going to have new problems.
It’s not going to be a straightforward, downhill battle from now on.
It’s not going to be a downhill road, I should say.
It’s not going to be an easy ride.
It’s tough to make these new decisions and deal with the new problems but they’re not the big problem that you had before.
The big problem is a downward slide.
It’s something you don’t want in your life.
It’s something that was never going to give you anything in the long term.
It was always going to take from your life.
So you can’t worry about these things.
You can only deal with what you’re going to deal with in the moment.
You can only look at things from this perspective, from where you are now, and think: what’s happening in my life?
What can I do in my life now with the issues I’ve got?
So you stop drinking, and that one thing has alleviated many different fears and anxieties, and it’s dealt with a lot of problems in your life.
You’re now faced with the task of moving forward.
Let’s take one instance, in going out and socialising, being with your friends.
You have to ask yourself a lot of questions about the places you’re going, the people you’re with, how you like to socialise.
It’s difficult to try and change the whole thing, but sometimes that’s what you need to do.
I stopped going to pubs.
I love going to restaurants.
After a few years, this is easy.
It becomes second nature to you.
There’s a certain gravity where it takes a long time to get over the hump, to get something out of your life because the habit tries to drag you back into your old behaviour and the places you like to go, to the old people that you’re with because these all provide a certain amount of comfort.
Comfort in the sense that it’s all very normal.
You’re used to it.
You don’t have to think about it.
You just go along.
This is what you do.
When you change, you have to change a lot of things about your life and the way you think.
You have to do a lot of thinking and that’s what brings the discomfort.
The initial thinking at the beginning is all very well worth it because it’s that initial thinking that’s going to pull you in a different direction and will at the end of the day mean the difference between you going back to your old habit and not going back.
If you continue to go with what your old lifestyle has brought you, if you continue to try to go to the pub and mix with the heavy drinkers in your life, and to do those things you associate with alcohol drinking, then not only is it going to be very difficult for you, it’s not going to get easier.
In most cases, it’s going to lead to a relapse, because you’re not getting that one essential reason for you being there.
There’s only one reason for being in the pub, and that’s to drink.
There’s only one reason for being with your drinking buddies and that’s to drink, to interact with them on that level.
If they’re getting themselves on that level, everyone else in the pub is getting to that level of drunkenness and you’re not, then what’s going to happen?
You’re continuously feeling you’re missing out on something, and there’s only one solution to that, and that’s to start drinking again.
If you’re going to continue to go to these places, that is.
These are problems you have to deal with.
They’re going to come up.
Leave one problem behind and the next will come along, but the problems that you have now are your choice.
These are your personal decisions that you have to make, but it’s your choice which direction you want to go.
They are lesser problems as long as you’re not putting the alcohol into your body.
You’re reliving yourself of all these long term consequences of drinking, of a lot of misery and a lot of suffering in your life.
That can only be a good thing.
If you have any questions or comments, leave them down below.
Come on over to the website and sign up for the newsletter, there are a few bonuses there.
Until next time, stay safe, keep the alcohol out of your mouth.
Face into your new life and new problems with enthusiasm and knowledge that they’re not going to be anywhere near as bad as the problems you’re leaving behind, as long as you look forward and try to learn something about yourself and push yourself in a positive direction. I guarantee you that life is much better.
I’m never going to go back just purely because of making that decision to stop and refusing to go back and lead that old life again, and my life is just growing exponentially.
I feel a completely different person.
It feels like a dream or a nightmare.
THE PAST IS YOUR LESSON. THE PRESENT IS YOUR GIFT. THE FUTURE IS YOUR MOTIVATION.
Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!
Kevin,
Well I quit drinking about 3 months but then started again. Not as heaven but just the same I started. ptetty sure my frustration level got the best of me and it happened. Told myself the next day that it’s a new day for quitting. I’m not happy with myself all the same. I could feel my mind becoming clearer with out the alcohol and I liked it. The peer pressure was a bit of a challenge. I really don’t know. Just wanted to say I was scrolling through emails today and listened to your video! Old problems replace new ones. Thank you!! I needed to hear it!
Never quit quitting.
Pauline
How do I stop the cravings?
Hi Debra. If you go to the search box in the sidebar of the website, on the right. Type in Cravings, and you’ll find a good few vids on the topic. Hope that helps.
Debra, this is a long response but it’s worth reading, it cured me fully, I would literally rather drink my own piss than a glass of wine.
Cravings are the problem when quitting (no shit Sherlock I her you say)
You want a drink, but you have decided your better off without one. You can then abandon the idea of a drink or continue to want one.
You’re not likely to abandon the idea because you have already decided you want one. Part of you thinks you’re better off having one, it must do or the thought would have not been thought in the first place.
So now you want something you can’t have. Your brain at some level won’t give up the annoying idea at some level it wants a drink. You fantasies about it, it’s all you think about, you are unhappy, and you can’t embrace anything else.
You have 2 choices drink or don’t. If you drink the craving will stop. The drink appears to be the difference between happiness and misery. If you don’t drink it’s like the day is wasted, eventually all you know is how unhappy you are without the drink and believe you will never be happy again. This is the horrible spiral of craving. A spiral you will eventually loose out to.
If you haven’t drank for a couple weeks, none of this is physical, it’s all mental and triggered by something triggering a subconscious thought. This spiral can last forever. AA believes it does (this does not have to be true)
If you get a trigger and then don’t drink the spiral starts. It gets worse and worse and eventually you drink. This will end the horrendous spiral, it also registers in your subconscious and the now the drink has even more power at a subconscious level. This is the addictive process in full flight. The attempting to stop and failing takes addiction to a higher level. It’s a smart horrible industry that sells this shit.
The spiral is the structure of addiction. The triggers themselves are brief reactions to things but they set the spiral off, the fantasies into action. This is a two edged sword the cravings are bad, but on the plus side they are all in the conscious mind. Hence drink or not is a conscious decision. Therefor to crave or not is a conscious decision. You are not drinking for supposed benefits you drink to end the misery of craving. (Sorry Jason vale, Alan Carr but you are very wrong)
To remove the spiral of craving you need to understand the drug spiral. Or whenever you feel a bit depressed or down you will start to crave. Triggers will enter your head, it’s what you do next that counts. If you let this start you off thinking how great it would be to drink, you will spiral. If you think of some future holiday being miserable without a drink you will spiral.
You have to think of alcohol as a greedy spiteful loan shark, a loan shark that loans feelings. It will advance you good feelings, but you will have to pay back with unhappiness. Lots of it, it is greedy, it doesn’t care if you live or die.
So understand when you drink you get a 10 on the happiness but later that will be the 10 plus interest so -20 Also remember if you drink you will feel like a failure
I am 100% convinced this is how you beat the craving and what’s more it’s relatively easy and painless and the more thoughts of alcohol the faster your cured.
In short.
Absolute Key!!! Do not let the thought of a drink slosh around in your head alone.
When the thought of drink enters your head don’t let it fester into a spiral identify it as the greedy spiteful loan shark who wants to lend you a 10 but wants 20 back, plus your health and your dignity. Think how absolutely shit you will feel when the drink wears off, think of how you will feel when you wake up in the middle of the night, you know this is all mental. You must hit the thought of a drink hard with negatives, the more potent the negatives the far quicker the subconscious will learn the process, once the subconscious has the process you will automatically and so quickly you won’t see it but you will subconsciously and consciously stop wanting a drink.
I’m slipping back so thank you all made sense I know the trigger is anxiety.