Where Do You Want to Go after You’ve Quit Drinking? (Transcript)

My name’s Kevin O’Hara for Alcohol Mastery and today, I want to ask, what is it you wanna get out of quitting drinking?

The Means to an End

This is really a question you have to ask yourself, because drinking is only a means to an end. It’s only the vehicle that you use in order to get yourself into the emotional state that you wanted to be in. Or to get away from worry, to hide yourself away from your debts or whatever it is that you’re using drinking for.

The Big Hole

The drinking is only the means to the end, so once you’re stopping drinking you’re making your life better, but you’re not actually moving yourself forward in any way. What I mean by that is, just think about alcohol as the massive part that it played in your life before you quit.

For me, like I said, it’d be a day or two drinking at the weekends, plus I’d be drinking during the week. But those two days at the weekend would screw me up for the rest of the week.

And when I wasn’t drinking, I was sorta thinking about drinking or planning the next big session, or whatever. What would I be doing that evening, what was I gonna drink, that kind of thing.

So when you quit, there’s a massive void there that needs to be filled. If you don’t find something to do to fill that void, you’re gonna be in big trouble.

Tangible and Specific Goals

So when I’m talking about goals, I’m talking about something that’s concrete, that’s tangible, that’s specific, that’s measurable and verifiable for your own sake.

An idea that gives you a lot of passion.

For instance, say that you’re wanting to travel. Don’t say, well, my goal is to travel the world. It’s not specific enough. It might be the overall thing. If you’re gonna spend your whole life traveling the world then fair enough.

So you say to yourself something like, you wanna be in Sydney Harbor in December to watch the beginning of the Sydney to Hobart Race.

You could say you want to be in the Farrow Islands on March 20th, 2015, 9.46 am to watch the next complete solar eclipse.

They are specific goals that you can put your finger on, that you can plan for, that you can make steps towards achieving it.

Setting Yourself Up For Success!

Really it’s all about setting yourself up for success, asking yourself what do you want to achieve in your life?

What do you want to be remembered for? It doesn’t have to be the greatest thing on the planet. It could be just a personal target of being the best granny that you can be, or the best grandpa that you can be, the best mother or father, the best son you can be, the best daughter you can be… they’re worthwhile goals as well as anything else.

Set yourself up for achievable goals.

Don’t say to yourself, “I wanna walk on the moon,” ’cause how many of us are gonna get the change to ever do that?
Don’t say to yourself, “I wanna play Premier League football at a professional level” – I tried that, I couldn’t do it though. They wouldn’t have me.

It’s just so important to have something that you’re aiming towards, regardless of whether it’s 10 years in the future or 20 years in the future. You can build in the steps that you need to do, the steps that you need to take. Just think about it like the top of the ladder, each step is a rung.

Or it’s one side of a river and the other side of a river, and each step is a stepping stone to the way across.

Being Flexible

You take one little bit at a time, and if it changes – if your plan’s change, so your plan’s change. If your end destination changes and you don’t wanna do that anymore then so what?

At the end of the day, it’s getting you up and away from alcohol and thinking into a different mentality. Once you think in that mentality, you get stronger by the week.

Every week that you do these things you get stronger, and stronger, and stronger. And the stronger that you get, the more clear and focused you become about your ideas, the more you can think straight about what you wanna do, and you’ll change things as you go along.

The Great Journey Ahead

I’ve changed several times over the course of the year, even the end result I know sort of where I want to be…the end product…it’s in the future anyway, so.

So the thing is just to think about your journey as a journey. You have to have a destination in mind before you even start out. Even if you’re gonna change the destination as you’re going along. You need to have at least a vague idea of where you’re going.

If you’ve got any comments at all about the video leave one down below, or go to the website.

Until next time! My name’s Kevin OHara for Alcohol Mastery.

Onwards and upwards!

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So, that’s Stop Drinking Alcohol Week 42.
Thanks for visiting the site.
Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!
Kev

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