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Acceptance and Accepting (Transcript)

Hi, how are you doing? I’m Kevin O’Hara for Alcohol Mastery, in this video I want to talk a little bit about acceptance and accepting certain things in your life. Good things and bad things.

I want to start it off by paraphrasing an old saying, it’s an old prayer and it’s been used by the AA and I think it’s one of the better things that they use. And it’s “you accept the things that you can’t change, to have the courage to change the things that you can change and to have the ability to distinguish between the two”.

Accept What’s Inevitable

I think one of the principles of building a solid foundation for your future is to accept that there are some things in life that are going to be inevitable. There are some things in your life that are not inevitable, that you have complete control over. And really it’s those things that really matter, that you have to push yourself forward, have courage in and participate.

Building Future Foundation

I think one of the principles of building a solid foundation for your future is to accept that there just are some things in life that you can do nothing about, they’re just inevitable, and they’re going to happen regardless.

There are other things in life which you can do a lot about, they’re not inevitable and it’s up to you but they will…you can only influence them by having an active participation in them, you won’t influence them by doing nothing.

For instance, one of the things that is inevitable in life is that the past is gone, you can’t do anything about it, it’s like a foreign country as they say, you can’t change it. you can definitely learn by it, so by all means, look back into your past in order to become educated but, that’s about it. Don’t have any blame, no regrets about anything you’ve done in the past because it doesn’t do anything in the present,

Accept Your Past, Believe in Yourself Today

“Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.”
That was a quote from William James who was the founder of American Modern Psychology. It basically boils down to, take responsibility for your past, accept it and move on.

The present is the only time when you can truly do anything, in this present moment now, it’s me, I can only take this step forward in this present moment and then it’s gone… it’s in the past.

Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda!

Don’t waste any of the present time worrying about worries or regrets or things that you might have done wrong, things that you should have done right, the could have dones or the should have dones or the would have dones. There’s no guarantee that you’re going to be here this time tomorrow, but you have to act and live every moment like you’re going to be here for the next 100 years, otherwise what’s the point! You just sit down and wait to pass away?

Accept Your Life and Move Forward

Another thing that I’ve learned, the older you get you learn this more and more, just to accept the differences in people, there’s people that are going to be richer than you, there’s people that are going to be healthier than you, there’s people that are going to be, way better looking than you, people that have got bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger other things that you. There are so many differences, you just have to accept it and move on. if you don’t where do you stop you know, you can’t keep making comparisons. If you’re going to make comparisons, make comparisons between yourself today and yourself yesterday.

Are you are improving yourself, are you getting better, are you doing things that are moving yourself forward towards your ultimate goal and your ultimate mission in life. Your ultimate meaning in life, I think that’s the most important thing, only be in competition with yourself.

Look After Your Body and it Will Look After You

Something that’s really not acceptable is destroying your body. You know, it’s a complete lack of respect for yourself, not only for yourself as you stand now but your also robbing your future self. If you sit down and visualise who you would like to be in ten years time, would you like to see that person in the misery of you still drinking alcohol, still poisoning yourself, suffering the consequences… because that’s basically what you are doing. It’s an inevitable thing if you are destructive with your own body, what’s not inevitable is that you have to go into your advancing years, getting to old age with a completely shagged out body.

The Concept of Self-Hate

I think you can really extend your shelf life by eating the right kind of stuff, getting the right kind of exercise, feeding your brain on the right kind of stuff, positive energy. It’s a real old 70s saying, give yourself a bit of love but, I’m telling you that’s the way. I was listening to an audio book about the Dalai Lama and he was talking about Western Society and he said, he couldn’t believe, when he heard that a lot of people in the west hated themselves, he couldn’t get his mind around that concept at all of hating yourself. That really struck a chord because there’s so many people, who might not hate themselves in general, although there are those types of people, but they hate certain things about themselves.

Change What You Don’t Like

Don’t hate the things that you are. by all means say “well, I’m not accepting this and I don’t want this for myself, I want to change it”, but change it, don’t hate it. That’s just a negative emotion.

As part of the process of quitting drinking, accept that you’ve got to stick at it, if you are going to achieve this at all, you got to have the determination to succeed. It’s just one of those things that you’ve got to do.

Another thing that you have to allow for and accept is that, changes take time to implement themselves, the whole process of change takes time, it’s not going to happen overnight and if you don’t allow for that kind of a change to happen, you’re going to fail.

We Live in a Disposable World

We live in a world where change is almost automatic in some things, it happens so quickly we’ve a thousand TV channels, we’ve got everything that we own can be changed, and some people change it really regularly. I mean, I remember talking to my Granddad and he was telling me that when his father was brought up, a pair of shoes would last a lifetime and the suit of clothes that they bought would last a lifetime. if they lucky enough to have a car, it would last the bones of a lifetime. The house would last a lifetime, marriage would last a lifetime… all those things. Now like we, don’t do those things anymore.

Some of that is great, I’m not disagreeing with that, I’m not trying to say that that’s the wrong thing but there are some processes which are exactly the same, they’re never going to speed up.

There is no magic pill in this. In dealing with the alcohol, part of the process is you get rid of the alcohol first, the alcohol disappears out of your life very quickly, at most it’s gone out of your system within a week.

Active Participation

Then you have to deal with the tangle of wires that is your life… that is all the accoutrements of your life, all the areas of your life that have become habitual to you that you have to change.

So your first have to sort them out, which ones are which, and then go through the whole process.

Remember as well that, you have to accept that once you change the madness, once you get that madness out of your life, that things are going to get better. things are going to get one hell of a lot better! But it does require your participation, your active participation in the whole thing. It’s a process where you have to figure out the areas of your life that need dealing with and actively dealing with them.

If you don’t, if you sit on the couch and wait for things to happen to you, it’s not going to happen to you. The likelihood is you’ll go back down the same route again.

You really have to act… or give in to the inevitable, the inevitable slide.

Something that you can do is to look at your own life, look at it as it is now at this moment. and look at the things that are in your life that are acceptable, that are going to happen and stuff that is not going to happen, you don’t have to accept that it’s not inevitable. There’s so much of that, I think so much of your life is not inevitable, I think you can do so much if you put your mind to it.

I think anybody can do a lot if they put their minds to it, so.

Until next time, I’m Kevin O’Hara for Alcohol Mastery, Onwards and Upwards.

Accepting

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4 Comments

  1. Mojowomyn

    Hi Kevin! Just checking in….177 days off the sauce! But who is counting?! LOL

    Reply
    • Kevin O'Hara

      You’re rocking it!

      Reply
  2. Melo D

    Thanks Kevin. Lots of good info.

    Reply
    • Kevin O'Hara

      Cheers Melo!

      Reply

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