How ya doing? I am Kevin O’Hara for AlcoholMastery.com. Today I wanted to just talk about your personal reasons for quitting drinking. I mean what exactly do you think that you are going to get out of this? Because this is, to all intents and purposes, this is the thing that’s going to keep you on the journey more than anything else. It’s gonna make sure that you don’t go astray. It’s going to pull you forward instead of pulling you backward, right? And it’s important to have your reasons for quitting set out properly.
If you can write them down, then all the better it is for you and better it is for your journey and this is just because if you’ve got them in your head, it is easy to change them. I’m not saying you shouldn’t change them. You should, but it’s easy to forget some of your reasons to quit, right?
So, now, why are you quitting? What is it that sparked you off in the first place? To sort of say, well-that’s it for me. I am having no more of this. Now, I know, for many people it might be–you just got up one morning and you’ve got a really bad hang-over and you start to think to yourself, well—y’know, I just can’t–I just can’t handle this anymore. I feel ill, and I feel like I can’t do this and it’s often those momentary feelings…that pain in the moment and that’s a reason why that’s not likely to last right in the future because as soon and the pain is gone, then your motivation is also gone. If your motivation is like you had an argument with somebody, and you feel crap about the argument, then if you can’t carry that feeling along with you, as soon as you made up with that person and the anger is forgotten then so is your motivation to quit. Right? So you have to keep this motivation strong. That’s why it is important to sort of sit down and work through your reasons for quitting and break them down onto different areas in your life. Look at your short term reasons to quit…your health your fitness levels, look at the things you want to do in the short term that you’re not doing because you’re a drinker.
I want you to look at your short term and then look at your long term reasons. I’m all for sort of sitting down and spending a few minutes every so often and thinking about your future and trying to visualize yourself. Put yourself in the position of where you are going to be in five years time, ten years time, in a couple of different areas. For instance, where you gonna be if you stop drinking alcohol. Where are you going to be if you don’t stop drinking alcohol and just compare the two. Y’know it doesn’t take much to sort of understand that quitting drinking alcohol, that future is going to be a lot brighter than the future where you don’t quit drinking alcohol, where you carry on drinking, right?.
Y’know everything changes. Any problems you got now as a result of drinking alcohol are going to disappear, because you don’t drink anymore—no more hangovers, money in your pocket, more health, more pride, more trust from other people. So many different…I got about 250 benefits and that is sort of only touching my personal life. Everyone is different. Just as everyone’s got different reasons to drink everyone’s got different reasons to stop and different benefits that go once they do stop.
I’m not going to let this one go too far, but just to say –Look, you need to get it down on paper. You need to solidify, make concrete your reasons to stop.
Why is it that you want to stop drinking? Get those down on paper.
Really think about this.
Put some time and effort into it. Because, y’know, that time and effort will be repaid over and over again and over again once you get to the stage where y’know you’re second question yourself after you stop drinking. Y’know—why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself through this pain? Like a video did earlier on and I was talking about once you get the cravings and stuff you’re in that momentary discomfort which is all it is, it is all you have.
That momentary time in your life where you feel that and y’know its alright thinking about the discomfort in the future or the discomfort that you felt in the past, past discomfort is always seen as—sort of, Thank God it’s over and I don’t have to go through that it again. Future discomfort you can always think about it in terms that it is tomorrow.
Y’know I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to get to that stage. I can get strong enough to deal with it, so it is just a different perspective. When you are in the now, in the moment and you’re going through all the discomfort that you’re feeling—you’re going through all the cravings and you question yourself and think—Do I really want to do this? All I have to do is have a drink. All I have to do now is give in. I can carry on tomorrow. You pushing the discomfort into the future again, and then you need these reasons. You need to understand why you are doing it. You need to understand that if you don’t stop now, the discomfort in a year’s time is going to be worse.
The physical damage that you are causing to yourself is going to be worse. The mental damage that you are causing to yourself is going to be—not just physically to your brain, but when you give in on something like this, you sort of, you build up that character inside of yourself that says you’re weak, you’re not strong enough to do something like this—that you are a failure and all this kind of stuff. It just adds a little bit more fuel to that little bit of the fire. And that it sort of gives you a little less of belief in yourself; whereas when you don’t give in, when you carry on with what you are doing and you say…fuck you to the alcohol. Fuck you to the person who is offering you alcohol. When you say I am not going to that place now, again.
I am going to this place. I’m having my goal as going on holidays and where drinking 20 pints of beer a day on every day of my holidays because that is what holidays are all about lad. You don’t do that anymore. You start to say, “I am not going to do that anymore. What I am going to do is fit in as many see as many things as I can. Do as many things as I can. Be with my family mentally, physically as much as I can.” When you start to change that direction, you start to build every small little bit…you start to build on your self-confidence. You start to build on your faith in yourself that you can do this and behind of that are your reasons to quit. Not only to quit but your reasons to push forward to begin your new life. Right? That’s what it’s all about. They say you quit drinking once and you never go back on. It’s finished. You’ve done it in that one single moment. Because, in that one single moment when you never have a drink again, you are no longer a drinker. You still have to deal with that drinker framework that still has been built up around you’re the things that you do in life, but that is just a process, it is a progress you have to make bit by bit, right?
But what are your reasons for wanting to–push yourself forward. What are your reasons to push yourself to a certain goal? Why do you want to achieve a certain thing in your life? What is this goal in the future? What is it about that that is going to pull you forward? What is magnetic enough about this goal that is the be all end all that is going to pull your forwards regardless of all the temptations…of going back to your old drinking life, right y’know?
These are the reasons that Ii am talking about, that you need to get clear with yourself. This is your motivation. These are the reasons that you can pull out at any time and sort of refresh in my mind about why I wanted to stop drinking. You don’t have to write it down. You can a video of yourself while you are drinking. And say to yourself this is what I don’t want in my life anymore.
This is the reason I am stopping drinking. And this is the things I want to achieve in my life and here’s why, y’know. I want to achieve in my life because of this… this and this. And the more emotional you can put into these reasons the better. Like I say, one of my biggest reasons for quitting drinking and wanting to move forward in my life is my son. And there is so much emotion behind that. I could feel what it was like. Y’know, feeling myself as being a dickhead, y’know? And just sitting there after drinking all night long and there he looking along the beach. I keep this in my mind all the time, y’know. All the visualizations that I’ve done where I see my son looking over me when I am ill, if I don’t stop drinking. These are all powerful, emotional and pulls away from alcohol, y’know, that I will never go back to drinking, y’know.
On the other end of the scale is the things that I am achieving in my life. The life that I am building for myself; basically gives me a powerful reason not to go backwards. It keeps pulling me forward—mutually exclusive—the goals that I’ve got now—the life I have got now. Now, if I ever go back to drinking alcohol my life that I have got now is finished. I cannot do this life and drink. I cannot do the things I am doing now, and drink. I can’t do this and drink and take any drugs, y’know.
Look, I’m going to finish it there. If you have any questions about this…if you have any comments at all, leave them down below. And until next time, stay safe, keep the alcohol out of your mouth, keep dreaming big. Make your list of reasons why you want to quit. Keep them close at hand those first few days for this is when you are going to need them the most. Y’know these reasons will be embedded into your brain once you get down the road. Y’know, once you’ve got two or three months into your journey, you’ll know all these reasons by heart. You won’t need your list anymore, but those first few days you’re going to need it and this is your encouragement, your motivation. This is your inspiration to move forward y’know so and no matter what I say or anyone else says, the biggest inspiration you’re going to find is going to come from inside yourself… from those motivational reasons as to why you want to quit, why you want to move forward with your life.
I am Kevin O’Hara for AlcoholMastery.com.
Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!
Hi Kevin
You have great resolve to never drink again. Do you ever miss it?
I don’t miss the alcohol. It was such a draining part of my life, sucking out my time, money, self-respect, trust, health, and on and on…