Today I want to talk about the process of change, it’s one of the two of videos, that I want to do on just thinking about change and how that can affect you.

The first one is going to be about – this one – going to be about how it can sort of alter your life all together.

And the second one is going to be about how the process of change is very tiring, and you know, takes a while to get used to, right?

Most people when they think about change, they don’t really like it.

You know, people in general, we’re habit forming creatures, we like to do our habits, we like to follow routines, we like to do as many things sub-consciously as possible.

And it’s fair enough, we’ve, our brain is very powerful.

I think it’s the powerful, most powerful, computing thing known to man – if you want to put it like that.

And, it takes a lot of energy, you know, it takes a lot/burns a lot of calories.

I think it’s the third of the calories that we burn.

And you wouldn’t think that, you know, you’d think that – I’m six foot two, I weigh two hundred and odd pounds, two hundred and fifteen I think I’m at now.

And – I’m a big bloke – take a lot of energy, you know.

I eat a lot of food and it takes a lot to get me going, but to think that this, thing that’s up here in my brain, all this brain matter, takes a third of the energy that I take in – is sort of unreal isn’t it, you know?

But it’s the truth and it’s the reason why we don’t like to do things like change because…

Change takes a lot of thought

And thought takes a lot of calories.

And you know, if you’re thinking.

If I put in a hard day of thinking.

I’m thinking of videos or doing my writing, or whatever it is I’m doing, at the end of the day I’m just like a zombie.

I’m just focused on, all I can do is just sit down and watch crap TV, you know something that doesn’t take much energy to compute, you know to sort of, most of it goes over the top of my head anyway and it’s probably a good job, the stuff that I watch.

As I say, most people don’t like to change because it takes a lot of effort, right, it makes you feel uncomfortable.

For a start people, we’re evolutionary designed to save as much energy as possible or expend as little energy as possible and we’re also, we’re evolutionary designed to avoid discomfort and to try and maintain as much comfort as possible.

Another reason why people don’t like change, is because they look at the big picture and they look at, you know, the famous one for Alcohol is – “How can I ever quit alcohol for the rest of my life?” You know “It’s impossible, how am I supposed to do that?”

You know it’s a long time forever, forever is a long time, forever is what we don’t have particularly, but we have it in terms of our own lives.

Stop drinking for the rest of our lives, is a scary prospect

Now, I agree with that, but, it’s not the way that we work in general.

We work step by step, moment by moment and it’s the only way to deal with this is, it’s the only way we can deal with anything for a start is step by step, and moment by moment.

And, the AA have got right when they say – “Take every day at a time. Take every hour at a time or every minute at a time, every moment at a time”.

You know, as long as you’re not putting the alcohol into your body, you’re winning the battle, so to speak.

And that’s basically what we have to do here.

We have to, win the battle, and thinking about change, is a part of the process right.

It’s a part of the overall change process.

It moves you forward, right?

Just the fact that you’re thinking about it.

Thinking about what you’re going to do today, what you’re going to do tomorrow.

You know what?

It’s not about the alcohol right, it’s not about the drinking, it’s about the life-style

You know, the more you dwell on the alcohol and that aspect of things, the less time you’re going to dwell on what’s really important in your life and that’s changing all the variety of areas in your life that involve alcohol now.

I mean, as alcohol drinkers, I was, my, I specialised in drinking to leisure.

This, that was my leisure time, right, was drinking.

It was my speciality, that’s what I developed over the years.

And for the most part that what’s drinkers do.

We might start out drinking for fun.

We drink because we want to have a bit of a laugh, we drink because of peer pressure, whatever it is, but we end up at the end of the day, by moving into drinking for relaxation, moving to drinking because we want to socialise, we don’t want to be shy, we want to fit in, you know, all these different areas of life.

And eventually, we just drink because it’s the thing that we do.

It’s what we do after work.

It’s what we do at the week-ends.

It’s what we do at a funeral.

It’s what we do at a Wedding, or Party or to Celebrate or Commiserate.

It’s what we do.

And that is the specialisation of Alcohol as leisure time.

And then, you know, like, eventually that – because it’s a drug – because of tolerance levels and all those other factors, the consequences of drinking.

We have to start drinking then, drinking alcohol seeps into all the other different areas of our life that we don’t want it to seep in to.

Seep into like, driving cars, going to work, when you’re looking after children and all this kind of stuff, you know.

The bad areas of life, where we don’t want and of course now there’s the physical and mental consequences that sneak up on us, over the years right?

But what I’m saying is you have to start off this process by thinking

You have to think about the change first, before you can put the change into action.

So, you have to do a lot of thinking.

And you can over-think things, but if you focus your attention away from the actual alcohol and onto the lifestyle that you want to create.

Think about all the areas of your life where alcohol is involved and think about them one by one, little by little and what you can do next, instead of drinking tomorrow, when you come home from work, what are you going to do?

So instead of going home and drinking – what are you going to do?

So, you, like I said in one of the other videos, you can go to the Gym.

You can go to the movies.

You can do something that you wouldn’t normally do.

And it’s basically you get a chance now, to re-design your life, right?

And to learn – which is what it’s going to take – you’ll going to have to learn how to do all these things, in different areas.

It’s a tough part, it’s going to take work and take hard work in some areas, but it’s well worth it.

And what’s your alternative?

Your alternative is to carry on drinking, right?

So, you don’t want to do that.

As a way, the biggest change that you’re going to make now, is taking the alcohol out of your life.

Once that’s not there and once you say to yourself – “Well, that’s no longer an option, right, so, that’s in my past.”

Then you’ve got no choice but to move forward, so that big change is – stopping drinking.

You move it outside and that becomes the foundational stone for everything else that you’re doing.

The final point for this video, just remember that…

You’re making these changes in your life and not because you personally need to change, right?

It’s not about you as a person.

It’s about the behaviour that you’re doing – right.

It’s about the alcohol drinking and it’s a separate thing to you.

If you say well, the alcohol bit, behaviour is me.

I’m the alcoholic, I’m this, I’m that, I’m the other – right?

Then you’re assigning personal blame to yourself.

It’s nothing to do with that.

It’s the behaviour, it’s separate to you, it’s just something that you do and it’s something you can change.

If you say to yourself, well, you know – “I’m an alcoholic” – this is what the AA preach us on.

They don’t preach it but they, this is what it ends up being, is people that go to AA.

Because it’s drummed into them, every time they go there and they stand up and say – “I’m Kevin – I’m an Alcoholic and I haven’t been drinking for X number of weeks, months, years” – whatever it is.

That over time, this is just drummed into you, – that you are an Alcoholic.

You’re an Alcoholic.

And twenty years later, you’ll still saying to yourself the same bullshit, right?

I’m an Alcoholic.

And I’ve said this before.

You wouldn’t say this if you were obese and you lost the weight.

If you’re a Smoker, and you stopped smoking.

If you were a heavy drug user, a Heroin user, and you stopped taking heroin – you wouldn’t say this.

You wouldn’t say this in any other area of your life

I used to be.

If you were a Painter and you went to College – you know, if you were a House Painter.

Or if you were, a Carpenter or a Brick Layer or any of those things.

And you went to College and you learnt how to become a Doctor.

You wouldn’t all of a sudden keep saying – “Well I’m a Carpenter.”

You would say “I’m a Doctor.”

Right you change in life, this is what life is all about, it’s dynamic and changes – you change.

And it doesn’t define you, because them, you know, you retire and you’re no longer a Doctor, you used to be a Doctor and blah de blah! – you know it’s the same thing.

So, what I’m saying is that it’s only a behaviour and your drinking is only behaviour, so just think about it along those terms that, when you’re talking about moving forwards and trying to find new ways of doing things.

That this is dynamic.

This is behaviour, it’s not you.

This is nothing, no reflection on you as a person.

What you’re doing now is you’re going to change the behaviour into something else

You’re going to evolve into something else and this is a great thing.

You’re getting yourself back on track again, from what you always were.

When you’re drinking it’s sort of a devolution, you know?

Rather than evolution, because you’re getting into this spiral of – you’re – instead of doing a variety of different things in your life and variety is the spice of life.

You’re gradually and slowly tightening up the noose around your life-style, so that everything evolves around one thing – Alcohol.

And that’s the killer, it’s nothing to do with the alcohol, nothing to do with you as a person, it’s the behaviour and it’s that habitual response that your body is all the time going to throw up to you.

So always remember that, that you know separate yourself from the behaviour – right?

You can always change the behaviour, you can change the thought patterns, you can change that habits, right?

You can not change you as a person and if you believe that that is what you are, then it becomes that much harder for it to change.

Look, that’s it for today.

I’m going to go now and carry on with my walk.

If you have any questions at all about this, then leave a comment down below, give a thumbs up if you like the video, subscribe if you haven’t already subscribed.

If you want to support the channel at all, come on over to http://www.patreon.com/AlcoholMastery or you can just go over to http://www.patreon.com and put in AlcoholMastery at the top and you can become a Patron of the show.

It’s whatever you want to donate, is brilliant, it all helps out and keeps the videos flowing, so…

Keep the alcohol out of your mouth – right? Main thing.

Stay safe in your life and Good Luck to you.

I got lost there for a bit… I’m going to carry on walking now! Good Luck! Take Care!

“Change is not an event, it’s a process”

Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!

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