Quitting alcohol is always going to cause a little bit of discomfort, but the tough times are never going to last.
This morning, I just want to talk about the discomfort of quitting drinking alcohol, and how the tough times are never going to last long.
If you’ve put so many years down, like me, then you know that you’ve been through so many tough times and hard knocks, but you’ve weathered the storm, and you’ve gone through it.
However you’ve gone through it, you’ve gone through it and times have gotten better.
It’s the same with the whole world, look at the economy over the last few years.
We’ve gone through some serious times.
It could’ve been worse, but.
At the moment, the English part of me is a little worried about what’s going to happen after Brexit.
I’m all for expansion and integration and people being free to do things, to travel.
I’m in Spain now because of the European Union.
My opinion is that they totally got that wrong.
It’s put England’s future into a lot of uncertainty.
A lot of tough times ahead and I don’t know if the whole thing is going to go through or not.
At the moment, as I’m making this video, I read that it’s not an absolute certainty that they have to abide by the referendum, they don’t have to do it.
It has to go through the parliament and the parliament has to go through and actually press the button so to speak.
There’s a lot to do before anybody has any sort of inkling about what’s going to happen in the future, and I don’t think that uncertainty is going to last a long time.
Anyway, tough times are there for all of us.
When you do go into a change like this, when you’re attempting to change your life in any meaningful way like this, then it’s going to cause discomfort because we really like to stay firmly inside our comfort zone.
We don’t like to get outside what we know.
It all goes back to our wiring that’s been evolving for millions of years.
It goes back to when we were living in the caves.
What we wanted to see every day was the same stuff.
We wanted to walk the same paths, we wanted to make sure that everything was similar.
Novelty was the thing that caused us to sit up and take notice, and it’s the same thing now.
Our brains react to novelty and that’s a good thing,
but in this sense, when you’re being faced with being eaten by a big fucking cat, or something with big teeth that will chew you up and eat your family, then novelty is not a good thing.
Novelty here brings a lot of fear.
So, we are wired to avoid novelty and to like the same thing in the same way every single day.
We love that and we feel more at peace doing that.
But, in our modern world where there are so many people who are trying to force us to do bad things to our bodies in the form of food or drink or whatever it is, then this comfort zone can be a very bad thing.
It can bring you to addiction.
You can get addicted to a certain thing just because you’re used to doing it, and that’s what it all boils down to.
It’s just you being used to doing a certain thing in a certain way, and that being aligned with the drug value of alcohol or food.
It’s a potent cocktail.
But it’s all worth it in the end.
Any discomfort you’re going to go through, and you can look it as tough times or exciting times.
You can look at the past and what’s gone behind you, the alcohol that you can no longer drink, the times that you can no longer have, the friends that you might have to get rid of, the places where you might never be able to visit again, the pub.
I remember the pub that I used to go to was like Cheers.
Do you remember the old sitcom?
It was a lovely place – it wasn’t a lovely place, it was made to look lovely.
A bunch of fucking alcoholics sat in a bar drinking all day long, and there was a guy behind the bar who was basically feeding their habit.
But it looks all comfortable and everyone was friendly.
But when you look underneath it all, there was nothing friendly about most of them, they were all bitching or arguing in a funny way.
That was the show.
That’s the way I used to look at the pub because I had this sort of fairy cake mentality towards the pub.
It was lovely to be there and I had all my friends, and this is where we met up and this is where memories were made.
This is where memories were lost.
These people weren’t my true friends when I look back on it.
They were just my co-conspirators.
We were all drinkers and we were only there for one reason – to get drunk.
If it was a coffee shop and they only sold water or lemonade, then we wouldn’t have been there.
We were there for the alcohol at the end of the day.
Anyway, the discomfort is not going to last.
It’s a gradually diminishing thing.
Once you stop looking at the past like it’s something that’s worthwhile, and once you start focusing on the future.
Not focusing on the tough part like what you’re about to go through, but getting to the excitement of it, what is there for you.
There are two ways of looking at the future, the positive or the negative way.
You’re either more positively minded or more negatively minded.
Negatively minded people are going to say ‘’It’s going to be a tough time. I’m going to have this and that. What’s going to happen to me? I should probably go back’’, and positive minded people are going to say ‘’what’s waiting for me around the corner? What opportunity do I have now? How can I look at the future?’’ and see it in a positive way.
I’m telling you now it makes you stronger.
Deal with this thing, get this fucking shit out of your life, get rid of the alcohol altogether.
Push through this and just persist.
Keep going because when you do this for yourself, you not only make your body and your mind stronger and healthier and more able to deal with these things, you become your own inspiration.
My journey, everyone says to me that I’m inspiring them.
I inspired my dad, I know I inspire a lot of people around me to reduce the amount of alcohol that they’re drinking, at least I know I’m inspiring my son.
But, the biggest thing is being an inspiration to yourself.
You grow in self-confidence, you grow in your attitude towards yourself and your abilities.
You can see things.
You can see that if this is possible, then anything is possible.
You can say ‘if I can overcome this hurdle that I never thought I’d be able to, then what else can I do?’ and it gets easier and easier to do these other parts because you get stronger and stronger in your own mind.
And that’s where it matters the most.
Whatever happens outside, whatever anyone else does, it doesn’t make a bit of a difference because what really matters is what’s going on up here.
What really matters is how you view your abilities and your actions, the decisions that you make, that’s where all the benefits are going to come from.
You quit drinking, you push through the discomfort.
As I said, it starts out up here, then goes down and as the days go by it becomes less and less.
You think about alcohol less and less. And that’s just true with anything.
The discomfort will be less because your outlook will become higher.
Your confidence in your own abilities will become higher, more advanced.
Your personal evolution is all that you should care about, because how yu evolve and interact with the outside world all depends on what’s going on upstairs.
People say ‘how can I influence other people?’ the best way of influencing other people is by influencing yourself first, by becoming your own biggest inspiration.
If you can do that, I’m telling you, you will become an influential person.
If you have any questions about this, then leave a comment down below.
I’d love to hear what you have to say.
What stories you have, have you got suggestions for videos?
This is going to be a long year, 365 videos.
I’m enjoying this to be honest, I really like doing the videos, I like going out walking.
It’s the summertime now, so this is easy.
We’ll see how it goes.
I’m not going to give up though.
It’s going to happen, period.
Stay safe, keep the alcohol out of your mouth.
Keep inspiring yourself.
That’s what it is all about at the end of the day.
The baseline foundation is you being an inspiration to yourself.
Keep strong.
There’s going to be discomfort but keep it going.
INSPIRE YOURSELF!
Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!
That’s the best one yet – I’ve one more day – boxing day at my friends where we’re having a cheeseboard and wine. My diary is marked in advance for the 27th – what I call my ESCAPE DAY. This video came just at the right time so thank you. And your story about Cheers made me laugh.
cheers Colin 🙂