Today, I want to talk about the right time to quit drinking.
I know I’ve talked about this a few times but it’s just one of those things that keep cropping up in the comments and emails.
You’ve really got to look at this from the perspective of how long you’ve had a problem with alcohol.
I’m talking about anyone who drinks.
Anyone who drinks alcohol has got a problem with alcohol.
Anyone who smokes cigarettes has got a problem.
We’re no longer in that time when anyone smoking is considered normal.
They might be normal in their own circumstances but at the end of the day it’s a toxic habit that has no benefits at all, and even though we’re not there yet, in the wider world, alcohol is going to be on that list of things that people shouldn’t be doing to themselves.
It’s a drug.
It’s a toxin, it’s not good for you no matter who says otherwise.
I read a fucking article recently of this guy who said – he’s actually a Scandinavian doctor – this dickhead came out and said you can drink up to a bottle of wine a night, or 5 pints a night and you’d be better off doing that than drinking nothing. That kind of nonsense is deadly.
This guy wrote a book about it.
I’m not going to put the book’s name down.
Basically he was working for a company that was researching the effects of alcohol on people.
It was another one of these companies backed by alcohol companies.
It was one of the major newspapers that carried it.
Obviously it was just a clickbait, they just wanted their story read.
So, for me, even one drink means that you have an alcohol problem.
You’re putting alcohol inside your body. Another question you should be asking is how many times have you felt the need to moderate, and how many times were you successful?
I got an email off a guy yesterday, and he was saying that he’d successfully quit drinking, he was off it for a year and a half, and that inevitability came around and he said, ‘yeah, I’m able to control it, I proved it to myself, and I think I can go back and moderate. I can take a couple of pints on the weekend, or at dinner’ – I can’t remember exactly what he was drinking -, he said it took him a while but he was back exactly where he was again.
That’s the way of it.
When you like drinking for a specific reason, your brain automatically goes back to that same time.
Even if it didn’t, that’s what your brain wants to do.
That’s what your mind wants to do.
Yo want to drink because you like the buzz.
So, what’s the point of drinking one or two glasses just to prove that you can? Just to prove that you’re being sociable?
They say go to any café now in the world and have a look at the people sitting outside and smoking their e-cigarettes or bongs, they look miserable.
If the chance came and someone walked up to them and said ‘here’s a cigarette. It tastes like one, smokes like one, feels like one and gives you the same buzz as a cigarette’, they would switch back to the cigarettes again from their e-cigarette.
It’s only a poor substitute.
We’re coming back to the drinking in moderation thing again.
You can kid yourself as much as you want that you enjoy one or two glasses of wine, but at the end of the day, what you want to do is get drunk.
There will come a time when you will give in and say ‘I’ll have an extra one tonight. One more will not make any difference.’
That’s how all of this starts out.
Alcohol is a drug.
No matter how much you pretend it’s not, and think you’re in control, it’s only an illusion.
The only thing that is in control is your body’s reaction to the alcohol and you can’t control that.
That’s a natural response to any toxin coming into your body.
Your body will eventually tolerate it.
When you’re thinking about if it’s the right time, ask yourself all these questions.
Have I ever tried to cut down before?
Have I ever tried to stop before? How long have I been drinking?
How long have I considered myself to have a problem with alcohol? You’ll get your answer.
There is no right time to quit.
The poisoning is happening every day, all the time.
Every time you pick up the bottle and take a swig, that’s more damage done to your body.
Think about all the problems that are happening in your body because of your drinking.
All the problems that will happen in the future, maybe next week, next month or next year because you’re drinking alcohol.
That all disappears, all those problems and stress that we go through because of this.
When you’re talking about the poisoning and toxicity, alcohol is a toxic element.
When you think about it from the perspective, this immediately lifts when you stop, all of it.
The only thing that is replaced is you get discomfort because you’re changing yourself, you’re getting outside your comfort zone.
But isn’t that worth it?
It doesn’t take that long.
You’ll get such a buzz when you have completed your first week away from alcohol.
If you get your head in the right place, you’ll get such a buzz after 2 weeks, 6 months, a year.
That’s one of the best feelings, being off booze for a year.
What are you waiting for? At the end of the day, people who wait like this, how do you know you know you’re not putting this off for the rest of your life?
If you keep waiting until you feel you’re going to be stronger, how do you know you’re ever going to be stronger?
Because you won’t.
That’s not the way this works.
You put things off, when you procrastinate, that person tomorrow is going to be a weaker person because you put this off today.
It’s as simple as that.
Every time you put it off, you hold on to all the stress and worry causing you to think about quitting drinking.
All the stress and worry is still going to be there, it’s even going to be more now because there’s the stress of thinking about putting it off, that’s also in your head now.
You putting it off till tomorrow is you seriously thinking that you can do it tomorrow.
I’ve done this a lot of times in my past, it’s very easy to say ‘I’ll do it next week’, you’re pumped up in the moment.
The closer you get to that time when you have to quit, the more stressed you get, and the more stressed you get, the less you want to do it.
You get fearful.
Fear is the thing that’s going to stop you.
Fear is bullshit.
It’s only inside yourself.
It’s not anything outside.
Nothing outside is causing you to feel fearful, it’s your reaction to it.
Your reaction is what’s going to stop you all the time.
You don’t have to have that reaction.
You can just say ‘instead of thinking about it until tomorrow, I’m going to do it now’ there is not time like the present.
There is no time like right now for doing any of this stuff because right now is the only time you have to do this.
If you keep putting it off till tomorrow, tomorrow never comes.
Get it over and done with.
Put up with the discomfort.
Put up with feeling a bit shitty for a while, none of us want to feel that.
I’m going to do a video about that.
If you have any questions or comments, leave them down below.
I’d love to hear what you have to say about the right time.
Is it the right time?
Is there a bad time?
I think quitting when someone has just died, maybe.
And if you’ve quit, good for you.
Come on over to the website, and you’ll find the audio underneath the videos.
If you want to help out with the videos, be a patron on patreon.com, just search for alcohol mastery.
There’s never a right time to wait for. So, whenever you get the chance, take a risk.
Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!
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