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Drinkers Life a Whole Series of Delaying and Damaging Wasteful Excuses

by | Stop Drinking Alcohol | 6 comments

Today, I want to talk about a drinker’s life being sort of a whole series of delaying and damaging excuses.

I can only talk about myself and what I know about myself and the person I’m becoming as an individual.

At the end of my drinking career, once I had come to that conclusion that I needed to stop drinking, I thought that up unto that point that I liked the person who I was.

I didn’t, at all.

When I realise some of the stuff that I was doing in my life, some of the things that I had taken on, some of the behaviours that I was doing as a habit, they just filled me with sadness more than anything else.

Sadness that I hadn’t realised sooner where I’d gone, where this pathway had taken me, that I hadn’t spotted it or seen the many signs on that road that pointed to trouble and not nice consequences.

One of the biggest areas of regret for me were all the missed opportunities that I could’ve done.

There’s an opportunity cost to everything.

We’re all limited by finances and if you’re not, you’re certainly limited by time.

You’ve only got the same 24 hours in the day as all the rest of us.

So, you’re always going to have a degree of opportunity cost.

You can do one thing or another thing with the same hour or the same ten dollars or whatever it is.

You can say one thing or you can say another thing.

The opportunity cost is the thing that you didn’t do.

What you’ve done with the ten dollars is what you’ve spent it on.

The opportunity cost is what you could’ve spent it on, same goes with time.

These are facts of life.

But I’m talking about the opportunity cost of drinking, of taking any drug like this, of getting involved in such an addiction that you not only have the opportunity cost of the time that you’re drinking, but the opportunity cost of the next day when you’re hung over, or the opportunity cost of the actual time you spend thinking about these things.

These are also opportunity costs.

The more you get into this, the more those costs mount up.

When you’re learning something new and doing something positive in your life, those games tend to be communitive.

You tend to learn from one experience and you bring that thing to the next level in your life.

When you go through tough times, you toughen yourself up as a person.

You become better capable of dealing with certain issues.

Throughout all my drinking years, especially the last ten of fifteen years, I went overboard.

I was drinking at any opportunity I could get.

When you’re younger, you’re restricted by money.

One you get money, you have responsibilities you have to deal with.

There’s always going to be restrictions.

Unfortunately there are people in life who don’t come across these restrictions and they burn out very quickly.

For me, I can sort of chart my own course of all the excuses and bad decisions that I’ve made that have led me to these opportunity costs I’m talking about.

I think it all boils down to just bad excuses.

I’m drinking today so I can’t do this or I drank yesterday so I don’t feel like doing this so

I’m going to have a few drinks today to get over the drinking I did yesterday, and to sort of make myself feel better about the things I’m not doing today.

This becomes just one big excuse after another.

Like I say, it’s sad when you look back on your life in that sense.

I mean, I’m not saying I think that where I am now, I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t led the life I’ve led.

So, overall I’ve got no regrets because you can’t take the alcohol as a nice little thing.

Alcohol drinking is always in context of the person’s life.

How much they drink, who they drink with, and so on.

They should always be taken in context.

It’s one of the biggest problems with a lot of alcohol treatments is they treat the alcohol as an isolated thing.

They think you can take a person out of an environment, treat the person and put them back into their old environment and everything is good because the person has been weaned off the drug.

And that’s just not the case.

It doesn’t work like that.

It’s not just the alcohol or the drug, whatever.

It’s the behaviour and lifestyle that support it.

I often think there’s a form of self-sabotage in there.

The more you get into it, the more you delete your own self instincts about yourself, because you don’t believe that you can achieve a certain thing.

If you need alcohol to relax, for instance, or to sleep, or to socialise, then you haven’t got any confidence in your own ability to do this.

You’re relying on an outside source.

You’re relying on self-medication to help you overcome these issues that you have in your life, and this is never a good thing because it saps your self-confidence and the person that you are. It saps your core beliefs in yourself.

It’s a bank holiday here in Spain.

One of the biggest ones.

It’s the first time I’ve seen so many people out shooting.

It’s making me nervous. A

nyway, I don’t know what the self-sabotaging is.

I think it’s definitely led by fear.

I think it might be fear of success, what happens if you do this thing and if you are successful in a certain area, does it mean you have to stop this drinking?

And that’s what I found.

In my life, alcohol was the big thing holding me back from things, from almost everything I wanted to do in life.

Because I’d rather do the drinking.

For me, alcohol became like a little cupboard I could get in and close and not have to face the world, not have to deal with the fact that I wasn’t achieving anything, or that I wasn’t getting success that I’d dreamed of when I was younger.

Alcohol became that escape for me, and that’s just terrible because it doesn’t give you anything.

At the end of the day, it only makes things worse for you.

We live in a world where we’re consumers.

We buy stuff and consume, and buy more and consume.

We’re being tricked all the time, whether it’s taking drugs, smoking cigarettes, we’re being tricked into living a life that is a complete fucking lie.

It’s self-destruction on a shelf.

We’re buying into this every fucking day.

This is what I’m trying to fight, an internal fight all the time.

I’m trying to get rid of this thinking and ask myself questions about everything I’m doing.

Including things I’m buying and why I’m buying them, motivations behind me buying it.

We’re sometimes our own worst enemies because we can get inside our own heads and justify all these things.

We make up reasons to justify drinking or smoking or buying things we don’t fucking need, buying the next car, wanting the next car.

Consumerism is destroying us as individuals and as a society.

We’ve become very shallow people in the midst of all these.

Greed.

It’s not our personal greed although we’re buying into it with the things we want, but the personal greed of others who have got no qualms at all about using whatever tools they have to psychologically convince you that you need this product or that, you need to drink to be happy and have fun, to socialise.

How many celebrations do you see now that don’t involve alcohol to some degree? When people win something, when a team or an individual wins something, first thing they pop open is the champagne.

Wedding parties, massive birthday parties, all involve this fucking poisonous toxin that’s wrapped up in a bottle with a big bang.

It makes us all feel good.

There’s a bang and there’s a spurt out, and all these.

When you drink it, you get the bubbles in your nose.

Psychological fucking warfare that is, and we don’t get it.

We don’t realise that it’s happening and it’s so sad.

We’re on this never ending search for happiness and fulfilment and we’re never going to find it in those areas.

The old saying goes you can’t buy me love.

But you can buy a lot of instant gratification, but how son does that disappear?

Very quickly.

The new soon becomes the old and you’re fed up with it and you’re looking for the new new in your life.

Sad way to live.

You’ve got an internal universe in your head that is ripe for the picking.

You’ll find everything that you need inside your head.

There’s a big wide world out there that is ripe for exploration.

Someone else might have been there before but you haven’t been there.

There are people you haven’t talked to, experiences you haven’t experienced and all the time, we’re stuck going down to the shops and buying shit or going down to the pub and drinking ourselves into a stupor wondering the next move to make.

This is a bit of a rant, I know that.

It’s just something that makes me sad about myself that I think in these ways.

I’m trying to get myself away from that kind of…I don’t want to say stupidity, but it’s something that we’re bush wagged into thinking.

We’re being led down this path and that’s how a lot of us think, but we can’t get ourselves out of it.

We can’t think.

They say self-directed behaviour change, making choices and thinking about all this shit, thinking about the decisions you’re making in your life, not only the financial ones, the emotional decisions, thinking about why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Is there a better way to do this?

My better way might not necessarily be your better way.

I’m just saying think about the decisions you’re making, the excuses you’re making for all the shit you’re doing in your life. I’ll end this one now.

If you have any questions at all, leave a comment down below.

I’d love to hear your alternatives to this.

Do you feel your life is being wasted away in this consumerist culture or by the excuses of trying to get this immediate satisfaction rather than waiting and pushing yourself to do better?

Subscribe to the channel, give us a thumbs up.

Until next time, stay safe and keep the alcohol out of your mouth.

THE NEW SLAVERY IS CONSUMERISM.

Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!

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6 Comments

  1. Sharon

    This was very funny and meaningful, Kevin. Thanks for sharing. One of the things that we get in to sometimes is retail therapy. This is just another way we escape whatever it is we are trying to soothe.

    Reply
  2. Dako

    This is very true, and I am really glad you talked about it. We are dragged into consumerism so big corporations can make huge profits at our expense, in terms of money, time and health. There is way out of this according one theory, i.e the biggest asset we all have is our limited time on this planet. For this reason time is the only thing that is really valuable and money should be replaced by it. Meaning; if you do some work for 8 hours in a day, you earned 8 hours per that day. In this way nobody can accumulate wealth in ridiculous proportions. Because maximum hours you can work is 24 per day, and probably it is hard to imagine somebody doing it for prolonged period of time. So the main driver – Greed will be eliminated. And this will lead to a beautiful thing i.e. because everybody is paid in the same worth unit – hours done per day, it is does not really matter what work you do. For this reason people can really do/work what they really like i.e. shop assistant will get paid 8hours per day, and bank manager will get 8hours per day, it is same pay for any job, so what is the reason to do what you do not like? The only problem I see is this; because majority of wealth is accumulated by minority of people with huge power, they are not going to allow that wealth (and future wealth) to be taken from them. Apologies for such a long comment but I am really glad that you Kevin digging deeper and deeper into this addictions and brain wash matter.

    Reply
  3. Mick

    Hi Kevin, thanks for the video and being so open about your own regrets/thoughts.

    When it comes to brain washing and being manipulated by the marketers etc
    I think one of the problems is that in general people think they are immune to it.
    or at least think it has little effect on them. This goes for most things not just the particularly nasty alcohol peddlers.

    The alcohol industry spends a not so small fortune trying to get us to believe that the billions they spend trying to get us to drink only promotes brand loyalty.
    Everyone including them know this is bullshit. They target people like I was, the last thing they want is the 7 or 14 bottles of wine guys to do is quit, they are happy to let you drink until it kills you.

    Unfortunately the human animal is particularly good at believing in made up things, thats how we mange to work in large numbers together, so the key part of our success as humans.
    Money, borders, religion, monsters, laws, all made up by man. Not real but we believe in them and act as if they are real. so for all intensive purposes they are.

    If you notice the money, religion etc was invented/made up as we stopped being hunter gathers so we could all work together being farmers. So believing in made up things is how we got in this mess in the first place. Ha Ha

    Reply
  4. Cheri

    I’ve been meaning to respond for awhile now. I travel a lot and listen to your videos on the road so it’s harder to respond but it’s past time to let you know how much I appreciate your work! I’ll be honest and say that I’m still struggling with consistency but am making progress. I’ve been drinking for forty years now – functionally – but it’s been a problem the whole time and I see that now. There is a long list of things you say which strike home with me (and others) on a deeper level, but one “Ah Ha!” light bulb moment in this video was the “seeking something outside of yourself to get through the day”. I pride myself on being a secular humanist and sincerely believing in the power of ourselves, our internal fortitude, our minds, our connection with the universe on a cellular level. At one with nature and all that business, right? The missed opportunities, the thinking about needing something to get through the day, to manage anxiety (now realizing how much it creates) and to feel comfortable, social, relaxed, etc – his in direct opposition with my life philosophy! No wonder it makes me feel regret and shame, above and beyond the acknowledgement of the dependence. I know you understand what I mean and again, I’m a work in progress but headed the right direction and I’ll keep absorbing your wisdom, dear Kevin. Thank you so much, good sir! With sincere gratitude…..

    Reply
    • Lisa Bates

      Cheri!

      Could have written that all myself! ?. 40 years for me also! “High functioning” also. Still a work in progress.

      Like Kevin says in this video. The internal fight! Justifying everything!

      I can go the beginning of the week not drinking. Then weekend! Socialise=drinking. Waking up feel crap the next day leads to more drinking”.

      Champagne is my killer. Kevin explained it perfectly.

      But like you…thankful for Kevin! And still trying to succeed. Onwards and upwards…sometimes backwards…but we still move forward right? ?

      Reply

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