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How to Give Up Alcohol? – Don’t Waste Time Feeling Sorry For Yourself!

by | Stop Drinking Alcohol | 9 comments

Today, I want to talk about feeling sorry for yourself.

I think feeling sorry for yourself is just such a negative energy suck.

It doesn’t do you any good at all.

Dale Carnegie said – I’ll read this quote out – ‘feeling sorry for yourself and your present condition is not only a waste of energy, but the worst habit you could possibly have’.

That’s Dale Carnegie.

I couldn’t agree with him more.

Talk about something just totally screwing around with your self- confidence, your self-image, and taking away from your power to do stuff yourself, to take control of the situation.

It’s basically blaming something else, blaming someone else outside of your situation, blaming life, blaming the situation that you’re in on your present condition or your present discomfort, or whatever it is that you’re going through.

It doesn’t do any good at all.

It does absolutely no good.

What truly happens when you feel sorry for yourself is you diminish your ability to handle a particular situation.

You’ve got to stay strong, you’ve got to maintain your confidence that you’re heading in the right direction with what you’re doing with your life.

Getting alcohol out of your life is a good decision.

And if you feel sorry for yourself and start thinking ‘well it’s not my fault, it’s the situation that I’m in, life is unfair’’.

Sometimes life is fucking shit.

Sometimes, life isn’t fair.

Other times life is fair, that’s just the way it is.

You’ve got to get over yourself.

You’ve got to realise that in order to get through this and in order to push yourself towards the better things in your life, you’ve got to overcome this hurdle.

And that’s all alcohol is, it’s a big hurdle in your life, it’s a big obstacle that’s standing in your way.

You’ve got to forget how things are supposed to be, and concentrate your energies on how you can make the situation better.

And, the only way to make this situation better is to stop drinking.

That’s the only way to do it.

At the end of the day, your alcohol drinking habits are causing this problem, and the more you procrastinate, the more you try and find ways around this, the longer your process will be.

Things are not going to get better no matter how much drinking you do, no matter how much you think that ‘I’ll just drink for another day, drink for another week. I’ll give up for the next week. I’ll give up after that’.

That’s never going to come because it’s a lot easier to put things off than to actually do them today.

You’re never going to be stronger, you’re going to be weaker for it, because feeling sorry today sort of gives you a license to put things off, and then you’ll feel sorry again tomorrow, and that will give you more license to put things off.

You’ve got to persevere, push through.

Never forget that sometimes the things that cause you the most pain in life are the things that you learn the most lessons from.

I can go back to many of the days that I’ve had since I quit drinking and the shit times that I’ve thought about going back on the booze and I didn’t, and pushed through the envelope and just got out the other side, and just thought to myself ‘’I’ve managed to do that’’.

And how did I do that?

By thinking about it.

The biggest lesson is that alcohol never really did it for me.

The lesson that I learned most of all from quitting drinking and being able to go through these times of crisis – crisis?

They’re not many, just trivial things; that’s our problem in the western society, our problems are very trivial compared to some people.

What’s the old saying ‘’I felt sorry for myself when I had no shoes until I came across a man with no feet’’.

That’s life, isn’t it?

But the biggest lesson I learned when I stopped drinking alcohol – and it was only when I stopped drinking alcohol that I learned this lesson – was that it never solved any of my problems.

Drinking in reality, only made problems worse.

At that time, the instant gratification thing was great and all that.

Being able to take a drink and just forget about things in that moment.

But I don’t know what that was doing to my underneath, to my psyche underneath.

Because I never felt happy, especially when I was drinking on my own.

I never felt happy about what I was doing.

I felt quite sad.

It sort of heightened the emotion being on my own.

Underneath it all, you always know you have to face this problem sooner or later.

So, I think it might mask things, but it doesn’t hide the underlying fear or whatever it is that you’re trying to hide; it’s still there.

And you know it’s going to be worse in the morning.

It might not be ten times worse in the morning, but it’s certainly going to be worse by degrees, and the more you drink to ignore, the worse the problem is going to get, especially because at the end of the day, you’re diminishing your own capacity to handle these things.

Feeling sorry for yourself is because you’re focusing on these very trivial things most of the time.

There are people in this world, I remember a girl, tiny dancer, she was a young girl – she is a young girl-, she survived.

She had cancer and stuff like that.

There was a Facebook page about her and there was just so much positivity coming from her.

Smiling face despite all the crap that she was going through.

She was I think 7 or 8, and all the chemotherapy, and she lost her hair.

Every time you saw a post or a video, it was always with this little baldy girl smiling her head off.

So, it’s only when you see some real shit in your life that you can appreciate other people.

You just want to look around today and look how privileged we are in the west.

Even poor people are privileged, so-called poor people.

It’s only when you go to places like India…it’s all relative, I know that.

At the end of the day, it’s focusing on what’s wrong in your life.

There’s so many good things in life.

There are so many things in everyone’s life to be grateful for.

Whatever that is, your health, your fitness, the fact that you’ve got a choice in things, you can make a decision and sort of go ‘’this is my choice to do it.

It’s always my choice to do this, always my decision’’.

At the end of the day, the only way out of feeling sorry for yourself is to stop feeling sorry for yourself.

To say ‘’what am I doing? I’m a grown ass dad over here. In order to get through this situation, in order to get out the other side, I’ve got to push myself through and I’ve got to put up with the discomfort. That’s it. Period. And I’ve got to do that.’’

So, there’s no way around this.

Focus on the positives.

Every day you don’t take a drink, you’re getting further and further away from the alcohol and towards a good life, a new life.

Re-focus your mind on the things that you can actually do to make a difference in your life.

Re-focus your mind on the fact that there are people in much worse situations than you, even in your own society.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself, it’s totally counterproductive, you’re not going to achieve anything by it and you’re totally sapping your energy.

You’re sapping your self-confidence and ability to do the things in your life that you want to do, you’re just taking the power away from yourself.

That’s probably one of the most rambly videos that I’ve done for a while. Hope you got something out of it.

If you did, give us a thumbs up. Come on over to the website and leave a comment down below, subscribe to the newsletter.

STAY FOCUSED ON WHATEVER YOU WANT TO DO, DON’T DOUBT YOURSELF.

Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!

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9 Comments

  1. Vicki

    Hi Kevin,
    Today I am joining you on the journey of sobriety. I had my last two glasses of wine yesterday morning and after watching your videos for a while, I have been planning to quit. All of a sudden it hit me. My father was an alcoholic and I had a miserable childhood. For some reason, I began to see alcohol as my enemy instead of a constant companion/friend. Alcohol destroyed my childhood and contributed to my low self-esteem and unhappiness. I didn’t drink until I turned 16 but I didn’t start the binge drinking until college. I married 33 years ago after graduating college and became a teacher. I drank socially for 25 years but when my daughter left for college, I began to drink everyday. Since 2006 (ten years now) I have struggled with alcohol abuse. I joined AA in 2012 and that lasted 6 months because I had a Natzi sponser and I began to feel brainwashed and like it was a cult. I’ve tried counseling, Smart Recovery and even Celebrate Recovery. It wasn’t until I started listening to you that I began to see the real evils of alcohol and now I am just angry that I depended on the crap for so long! I am feeling so empowered and inspired by you that I am hoping that this time I can stay off the booze for good!

    Reply
    • mark green

      Your vids inspire me Kevin. tried stopping before as we all have, however this is the first time ive not missed it, not been mardy, actualy enjoying the battle. love the scenery too on your walks.
      onwards and up up upwards….mark from Sheffield.

      Reply
  2. Donna Speranza

    Thanks for the uplifting video! On Point!

    Reply
  3. Frank Netter

    Hey Kevin,

    Just wanted to say thanks for your posts. I actually stumbled upon the audio clips/podcast on iTunes and listen while I walk as well. You’re helping me a lot! Keep it up.

    Reply
  4. Mark

    Kevin, Thank you for the videos!! Most help I’ve ever received.. As you would say I’m moving onwards and upwards!! Mark

    Reply
  5. Adrienne

    So glad I came across your videos. Yes, there is discomfort, but every day I am able to power through those moments, I feel in control of myself and my life, my thoughts, my responses to life around me, in a way I haven’t felt in years! Im gaining some of the hope and optimism I used to love about Myself! It almost feels like a second childhood! Thank you for choosing your path. I find value in many things you say.

    Reply
  6. M

    Actually I didn’t find this one rambly at all – spot on, push through that negativity.

    Reply

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