Today, the topic is 10 things that you don’t want to hear about quitting drinking alcohol.

The first one is that quitting drinking alcohol is not a magic bullet. You just don’t stop drinking alcohol, stop at any habit in your life and everything else will fall into place, it just doesn’t work like that. You know, a lot of people think alcohol is at the root of their problems. And once they get rid of this one thing, they think that everything else will fall into place. And for a lot of people, I think alcohol is at the root of the problem, but it’s a behavioral issue, it’s something that you’ve been doing for a long time. And it has sort of stretched its tentacles into all different areas of your life. And so, you’ve got a lot of work to do, at the end of the day, and this is where most people fall down is because they think that quitting drinking alcohol is the is the thing to do. It’s only the start, right? The rest of it, you have to alter and move around things within your life, you know, alter behaviors, change habits, get rid of some habits, bring in other habits, you know, you have to get rid of some people in your life, and you have to start associating with other people.

Number two, is that after you’ve quit drinking alcohol, there’s still a lot of work to do. But it’s like, now, as you start out on this journey, the quitting drinking alcohol is the simplest part of it. It’s the most straightforward, right? You don’t put the alcohol into your mouth anymore. There can be nothing more straightforward than that. Right? The rest of it is all determined by you as a person, what you want, how you live life, what age you were, you know, what your likes and dislikes are, and how you think about yourself as a person, how you want to think about yourself as a person. And this all takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of thinking. But as I said, I think it is all worthwhile. You know, you have to sort of break down all the areas where you used to drink alcohol, all the areas where you get into cravings and the trigger in aspects of your life. And break down the areas where you’re having problems. And try and figure out where it is that you need to make the changes. And then make those changes gradually, bit by bit by bit.

Third thing that you might not want to hear when you stop drinking alcohol is that you actually get your inhibitions back, you know, not a lot of the alcohol while you’re drinking at least lowers your inhibitions and allows you to step outside of our shells, you know, become people that we are, people that we want to be or do we want to be that person who allows us to sort of chill out and relax a little bit. And, you know, that’s the perception of relaxation. From my mind, certainly, when you stop drinking, that you realize just how on relaxed you were as a person. And I have realized this until quite recently, you know, one of the big areas of my life that forced me to drink a lot more than I did, and sort of ramped up my drinking levels was the death of my wife, and that just to hide the pain. But when I think back on it, I’ve always dealt with emotions or unwanted emotions in that way. And not only do you deal with unwanted emotions that way, also after a while of drinking, and for different purposes, you need to drink alcohol in order to feel an emotion, right? You need to drink. You know, you can’t go and have fun. This is your perception anyway, that you can’t go and have fun without drinking alcohol. You can’t relax without drinking alcohol. So these are emotional states.

The fourth thing that you might not want to hear about after you have quit drinking alcohol is that, you know, in most circumstances, in most cases, you’re going to lose some of your friends. In my case, a lot of my friends are people who I thought about as my friends, were the people who were just there, and we encouraged each other to drink, we encourage each other to have that one more or two more to stay in the pub a bit longer. And whenever relationship is revolving around alcohol in this way, if the glue that holds your relationship together is on the alcohol, then that relationship is going to quickly come apart. And, you know, I’m not saying this, just from your perspective, you know, you’re going out and drinking with drinking buddies, and beating their company and listening to the same conversations and they don’t change, they’re the same, you’re changing, right? So you listen to that same conversation over and over again. And it’s gonna become boring, repetitive, and you’re going to be wanting to seek other things, but from their perspective, as well, you know, that the whole thing about having drinking bodies is that you know, what, plays out in Vegas stays out in Vegas, right? That kind of thing, is when everyone’s on the same level, everyone’s drinking the same thing, everyone’s on the same level. And once you’re on a different level to them, you know, you’ll find them drifting apart from you, as well. So it’s just a fact of this whole journey. But you can’t hold on to these people. Because if you do try and hold on to them, then they will try to convince you that what you’re doing is wrong.

Number six, is that some of the things that you used to do in your life, are not going to seem as important to you anymore, some of them are even going to be repulsive, you know, from, from my perspective, just sitting in a bar now, without doing something else is kind of repulsive, right? It’s kind of like you’re listening to people and you’re thinking, “What the hell am I doing in here, you know, you listen to what comes out of people’s mouths, where, you know, before he used to lap it up, and it was all good, fun. And, you know, while you were sort of in the same level, as they were, you know, going back to friends and that kind of stuff, but, you know, there’s certain parts of your life, which are just not gonna hold that appeal to you anymore. You know, one of the things that I used to love doing, and after a drinking session was eating a lot of fast food, I still love a bit of fast food, but the same sort of stuff, I can’t stomach anymore, you know, that kind of rubbishy food. But don’t worry about these things, this is all what you lose in one area of life, you gain in another, you know, you the gaps that are made, from the things that you don’t like to do any more, you’ll fill in, you know, but now it’s another area, which takes work, and it’s another area, which takes a bit of time and patience, and breaking things down into chunks and doing it one chunk at a time, and approaching it like that. And once you approach things like that, then you’ll find that it’s a lot easier to deal with and to handle.

Number seven is that once you do stop drinking, and you’re more than likely going to start looking back at your life, and some parts of your life with regret, with shame, with thinking that you should have done things differently, and you wish you could have done this, or you should have done that, you would have done that, and it’s a natural response, it’s not something that you can get away with. And maybe some people have tried to help you in the past, and you’ve sort of thrown that help back in their faces. And now you feel and you think about it, and you understand yourself a bit more and you understand where these people were coming from. And, you know, you might feel a bit of guilt about it. But I say there’s no point in dwelling on this kind of thought. 

Number eight is that once you quit drinking alcohol, this is gonna uncover a lot of different problems, a lot more problems than you initially thought that you had. And now that might seem mad, and you might be thinking of “Fuck’s sake, I thought alcohol was a bad enough problem. But now I’ve got to deal with all these other problems as well.” You’re telling me it’s not as bad as it sounds, right? Just think about alcohol of your behavior as alcohol as being like this; the outside of an onion is the best way of describing this. And you take away the the alcohol and you uncover different things.

The ninth is you’re going to become boring to some people, some people are going to be used to be such a fun guy. You know, I used to go out with you and I used to have loads of fun now you just become boring. Well, what I have to say about that is somebody else finds you boring, right? That’s their problem, not you. Nothing to do with you. That’s their perception of you, and why should you care about that? You know, there are certain people in your life who you should care about what they think. You know who those people are. And they’re the only people that you should really care about what they think about you. So, even if these people think that you’re boring, it’s not the end of the world. But you’re gonna get it, you know, some people are gonna think you’re boring, some people are gonna think you’re mad, some people are gonna think that you’re an alcoholic, the big a word. It doesn’t really matter. If you go around in life thinking, and hanging on what other people think of you, you’re going to be tossed to and throw like a piece of wood. You go down your own route, you choose your own route. And if people want to choose to follow you down that route, then you that’s all in good. If they don’t, then that’s there to fit.

The final one is that you might have to rethink who you are. When you’re changing, you can’t remain the same person that you used to be. That’s just not possible. Change means that you are not you anymore. You see, a lot of people don’t do things, don’t change in their lives because they feel that, “Well, that’s just not me.” People who don’t do this or that because it’s just not them. Well, that’s obvious. You know, if you don’t do something, it’s not you. In order to do something, you’ve got to change the person who you were.