In today’s video, I’m going to talk about quitting when the going gets tough. There is no easy way out of a strong habit. The only way you get rid of any embedded habit, especially where a drug is involved, you have to break it down bit by bit.
You can create an internal culture of failure by giving into temptation. I’ll talk about some of the problems of quitting and not following through and some of the things you can do about it.
How are you doing? I’m Kevin O’Hara for alcoholmastery.com.
Today’s topic is quitting when things get difficult.
Are you going to quit when you need yourself to be strong the most?
When that internal need for strength is at its height?
When something happens and you have to make a decision, and you take the decision to quit what you’re doing and go back to the old way of doing things.
This is what addiction is all about, taking the easy way out, creating this internal, individual culture of failure within yourself.
There’s an internal conflict going on all the time where the easy way out, the instant gratification, the road of least discomfort always wins.
The problem with this type of thinking is that it has long-term detrimental effects on both your physical and mental wellbeing, especially when you’re taking a drug like this.
It just plays havoc with your self-confidence, with your levels of self-belief.
Every time you give in and say ‘I’ll do it next week’ and you make excuses and say ‘It’s not the right time now. I don’t feel like I’m up to it’, you have to ask yourself, when are you going to feel up to it?
Because if you’re hoping that suddenly down the road, this magic person is going to appear, that’s you as a stronger person and a person who is going to be able to deal with these things, then think again.
The only way that these stronger personalities come out of people is when there is a deliberate, self-directed, maintained and confident building of that person.
These personalities don’t just appear out of thin air.
Circumstances don’t make people. It’s how people react to circumstances that make the person.
So, if you think that down the road, something is going to happen that is going to lift you up into a person you wish you were, then think again.
Because what it’s more than likely going to do, is drive you much deeper into the self-gratification model you’ve lived all this life, and it is a model.
It’s a model for life.
It’s an easy way out of doing things.
You give yourself all the satisfaction that you can in the moment, and use whatever tools are at your disposal in the moment to forget about the future that you know is quickly disappearing out of your reach.
It brings a sadness to you, it brings a sadness to the people around you, but you can always hide from the sadness by having more alcohol.
Every time you quit, you’re just digging that pit a little deeper for yourself, digging that trap a little deeper for yourself and making sure that it’s a bit harder for you next time to get out of it.
You can see how this happens to people.
You give in a little bit, and your thoughts take over and you allow your thoughts to run down a certain path which is telling you to procrastinate.
You say to yourself ‘I’m just not going to do it now’.
In your own mind, you know that it’s a little personal defeat.
It’s the same way as when you do something, you might be modest about it, but deep down inside, when you’ve achieved something you know it’s a personal victory that has given you a bit of self-esteem, self-belief and confidence in yourself and your own abilities.
That confidence carries on into the next push forward.
It’s the same thing that happens every time you have that little personal defeat where you know that you should have carried on, and giving in was giving in, and no matter how much you justify it and say ‘I will try again tomorrow’, you know deep down that it was a personal defeat.
That can alter the decisions you make in the future, the way you think about things, the choices you make.
It can just have a very negative, profoundly negative impact on the choices you make, and that in turn has a profoundly negative impact on actions that you take.
Same thing happens when you do something and succeed; it makes a difference and next time you have a little bit more energy about the choices you make.
You have a bit more passion about the choices you make, a bit more motivation to carry on, a bit more momentum on your side.
It builds up momentum, and you make another good choice and keep pushing on. If you fail at something but you’ve tried, and you know you’ve given it your best shot, then you still get that push forward in your momentum, because you can look at this and say to yourself ‘I tried this.
I gave it my best shot.
Now I can sit down and figure out where I went wrong, and plan something to take me round or over that obstacle next time.
I just won’t make that mistake next time because I understand where I went wrong.
But when you give up, there is none of that.
It’s just pure abject failure, because you know you failed.
You know you didn’t give it your best shot.
You know you didn’t try.
Even if you say to yourself, ‘I did try’, but I’m not talking about that type of trying, I’m talking about the one where you commit 100%, and you can say ‘I gave it 100% but for whatever reason, I failed at doing this’.
In life, sometimes, it’s the smallest choices that make the biggest difference.
It’s those little choices where you say ‘I feel like giving in and quitting in this moment, because I feel like shit. I feel like packing it in and going to the pub and getting pissed’.
But it’s a small choice were you say ‘I’m not going to do that now. I’m going to give myself 10 minutes or a half an hour. I’m going to get up off the couch now and stop thinking about it, and I’m going to change my environment. I’m going to walk or go out on a run, or just do something to bring me out of this thinking that I’m in’.
This has a profound effect on your overall decisions.
It has a profound effect on how you move forwards.
This is a moment-by-moment journey.
It’s not something you take in massive week or month long bounds, or something you take and you’re there a year later and you’ve quit.
It’s a step-by-step journey that is going to require some discomfort at the beginning.
It’s just a necessary evil.
It’s a part of this process, and there’s nothing you can do that is going to get away from that.
Take it step by step.
You take it in those small chunks, 30 days at first, and just go for it.
Commit yourself to doing that 30 days stretch.
Don’t commit yourself to a lifetime of abstinence form alcohol, because it sounds too tough.
Don’t say in that moment ‘I’m facing these cravings now and this discomfort, and I know its going to last me for a whole month’.
Take it as 5 minutes.
Take 5 minutes and have a time out and say ‘I’m going to change the way I do things’.
It has a profound effect.
A profound effect is the opposite way where you give in and say ‘I’m going to sit o this couch, and I’m going to think about this stuff and wallow in my own self-pity’.
That has as much of an impact in a negative way, than the other way where you take 5 minutes and have a positive impact on yourself and shift your mind-set away from thinking about the drinking.
Always try and think about any difficulty, any problem that you have in a positive way.
Look for the solution.
Don’t look at the problem and look at how bad you feel or how miserable you are or how much discomfort you’re in at that moment.
Look at the solution.
How can you change the way you think right now?
Don’t think about it an hour down into your day or a day down the road.
Think about it now.
What can you do in this moment, to change your mind-set, to change the way you feel? I guarantee that if you change something small about it, it will have a snowball effect on your behaviour and on your thinking.
For me, just getting out walking and doing something and listening to something and changing the ay my mind is thinking, works wonders.
I often have a trick to go to sleep when I can’t go to sleep and my mind is just going over things, and that’s to play Beethoven’s 5th symphony in my head.
And, I just allow this to go over and over again in my head, and what it does is, it stops my brain from thinking.
You can’t do two things at once.
Your brain can switch between two things, backwards and forwards.
So if you try to stop your brain from thinking about your problems, it will go ‘I don’t want to think about problems’. Then it will think about problems. It’s backward sand forwards, whereas if you have something like playing music in your head, it’s something that you’re familiar with.
It’s something that can block out everything because you’re completely concentrating on just this one thing.
It does work.
Before I know it, I’m always waking up in the morning and not having to think about it.
So, think about that.
Always try and look at things in a positive way.
Don’t quit on yourself when there’s no need to quit on yourself.
Look at things in a small time-frame of what you can do in a moment to overcome whatever the problem is, whatever the discomfort is.
Look at what you can do in a small time-frame to overcome that.
Until next time, leave a comment down below.
Come on over to the website and leave a comment there.
If you want to get the alcohol mastery starter pack which has a couple of videos and courses in it, there are a couple of books and a few other bits and pieces to help you start out on this new and absolutely wonderful journey.
If you get on with this thing with a great state of mind, you’ll never look back again.
You’ll just look at what is in front of you and what’s going right with your life, and just get rid of this toxin.
Until next time, keep the alcohol out of your mouth and stay safe.
COURAGE DOESN’T MEAN YOU ARE NOT AFRAID. IT MEANS YOU DON’T LET FEAR STOP YOU.
Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!
One of your best yet…TY
Mr. O’Hara,……Sir!
Today’s day 200 alcohol free. I’ve watched and benefited from 100’s of your videos, but few more than today’s.
Thank you,….SO VERY MUCH!
Bill Duprey