How to Stop Drinking Alcohol
April 11th, 2007You are special. The reason you are special is because you have at your disposal the greatest and most powerful tool in the entire universe. Now if you do not know what that is, do not worry, most people do not. The reason most people do not know is because when you were born you were not given an instruction manual on how to successfully live your life and therefore you were not even aware you had this incredible life changing tool to use to your advantage. What I am talking about is your subconscious mind, it can do literally anything including teaching you how to stop drinking alcohol. If you have a drinking problem and want to know how to stop drinking alcohol and have been worried about how to give up alcohol and still go on to live a happy life without it, keep reading. What I am going to tell you is how I stopped drinking alcohol easily and without anyones help and how you can do it by changing your subconscious mind.
In school and the years after shool I never needed to consider how to stop drinking alcohol since I never drank alcohol for a number of reasons. If my parents found out I was drinking in school I would have been in so much trouble it just would not have been worth taking the risk, besides this I was heavily involved in sports and I did not really want to drink anyway. After I finished school I was still right into sports and I got very involved in weight training so drinking alcohol and weight training really don’t go together so I rarely if ever drank any booze.
By the time I got into my late twenties, I am 36 right now, I was a little burnt out with bodybuilding and weights and I had broken up with a girlfriend I had seen for a while and I guess I started to drink when I started spending more time away from my bodybuilding friends and more time with other friends who occasionally drank. I am the sort of person who likes to do things full on or not at all so after I started drinking on occasions I found myself wanting to drink more and more until I got to the point where I was drinking heavily every weekend. I still worked out during the week but with no where near the intensity I used to train with. All of a sudden a couple of years had flown by and it suddenly dawned on me that my life had virtually stood still over that period and I was no longer making any forward progress any more. This was when I first considered how to stop drinking alcohol while I analyzed my situation and I realized I was not only drinking too much, it was becoming a problem. At this point I began to think that I could not have any fun anymore without drinking alcohol and this realization shook the entire foundations of my life as I worried about how to stop drinking alcohol. I remember thinking to myself back then, oh no what have I become. It was one of the worst and scariest times in my life and the more I thought about how to stop drinking alcohol the more it stressed me out and the more I wanted to drink to escape my thoughs.
I kept thinking about how to stop drinking alcohol while I considered what am I going to do? One morning after a heavy drinking session I said to myself, I have had enough and I am not going to drink anymore but when the next weekend rolled around again I was back out drinking again. This had become a bigger problem than I thought and I worried about how to give up drinking alcohol all day every day for quite a while. Then I thought to myself I can use my subconscious mind to fix this, I do not need any help, this problem is all in my head.
Before I started drinking I always used to think drinking was a waste of time and money and I always thought I would never be a drinker since it just does not make any sense. So as I analyzed my predicament I realized I still felt this way, I still thought drinking was a stupid and an unconstructive way to spend my time but why did I still have the urge to drink and why was it so hard to figure out how to stop drinking alcohol? The answer was due to the fact that I had conditioned my subconscious mind into thinking that drinking would lead me to happiness and away from my problems but in truth, this was not the case. Drinking alcohol made me feel happy after the first couple of drinks, then it lead me to a dark place which was depressing and anything but happy. The day after, I often had a hangover, felt tired, could not perform my work or responsibilities as well and on many occasions I felt physically sick. On top of all this, drinking compounded my problems and my life stagnated, actually, it was worse than stagnation, I was getting older and not going forward so the longer I drank alcohol the more my life regressed. At this point I could see clearly that drinking was not making my life better, it was ruining my life and I would not let this happen. I decided I needed to hit this problem on the head and hit it hard.
I spoke to a few people I know and to be honest, this did not help at all. Some people told me I should just try and restrict my drinking to one day a week or one day a month. This would not work for my type of personality, if I was going to drink I was going to drink when I wanted to or I was not going to drink at all. Some people told me I should go to meetings with other people who also wanted to know how to give up drinking alcohol but this certainly would not work for me because I am very independent and I did not want to sit around with a bunch of people talking about how to stop drinking alcohol and how bad it is. Some of my other friends suggested I did not have a drinking problem because I did not drink everyday and I should just chill out. Some of them even said that if I stopped drinking they would never see me anymore and this was true. I had become friends with people who I only ever drank with and never had anything else in common with. This only made me feel worse and I did not care if I lost drinking friends as I would rather lose them as friends than keep drinking.
After consulting other people I knew intuitively what I had to do and that was go back to a version of myself before I started drinking. I did not want to go back to the exact same life I had before since I had evolved in certain ways since then, as we all do, but I was much happier before I started drinking so that was a good place to start.
I analyzed a typical week and looked at all the times I would drink alcohol and made a plan to fill in all those blocks of time with other activities. I started working out in the gym almost everyday, I started eating better and preparing all my meals for each day. I planned to read more books, go to the cinema and watch movies every week, go for long walks that would stimulate endorphins in my brain and give me a natural high to replace the high from drinking and I worked on some other goals that I wanted to achieve.
The most important thing I did was to set a definite date to stop drinking alcohol and stop drinking permanently. If I was going to do this and make it work, I had to go all out and give it my full attention. If I failed it would be psychologically devastating for me and make it so much harder if I tried to do it again. I knew it would take an incredible amount of will power to stop cold turkey and never touch another drop of alcohol ever again but what choice did I have, I knew I could not go on living with alcohol in my life and I visualized every day how much happier I would be as a non drinker. I knew what it was like to be fit, healthier and a non drinker only a few years back and that was what I focused on. I didn’t think about being sad because I could not go to parties, chasing girls and getting smashed, that was all superficial anyway and never made me happy like I thought it would. So I set a date about a month ahead and kept telling myself that after that date I would never drink again or think about it ever again and you know what? I could not wait, I was so sick of feeling tired and depressed all the time. It sort of felt like I was a little kid again waiting for Christmas Day to arrive so I would get some presents.
I did not put any pressure on myself to cut back on drinking on my quest to deal with how to give up alcohol permanently, leading up to the day I set to stop and in the last week especially I had some huge nights and got completely wasted. This was actually a good thing indirectly because I remember waking up some days in that last week and thinking I can’t wait for this nightmare to be over. The night before the first day of my new life I drank the last of the alcohol I had in my house and went to bed pretty drunk and woke up the next day thinking the day has finally arrived, I can never drink again.
That was a few years back now and I have never touched a single drop of alcohol since. I did it by getting clear with my subconscious mind that I needed to do this. I could not go on any longer being a drinker and even if I lost friends, which I did, I did not care. Even if I could not socialize the same way I used to, and I could not because I no longer liked to spend my time around people drinking, I did not care about this either as I will spend my time doing other, more constructive things. To be honest it really was not all that hard to stop drinking alcohol and the fact that so many people thought I would not be able to just stop without any help, made me even more determined to stop.
Today I cannot believe I was ever a drinker, it just does not make any sense to me but the truth is that I did go through a period in my life where I was drinking heavily and it only served to make me a better person and teach me to make wiser decisions in the future. I have no problem with other people who drink and I have no difficulty socializing with people who are drinking although I rarely do this as I would rather be doing other things. I lost a few friends but hey, friends come and go so that is no big deal, I have picked up other friends I would not have if I was still drinking. One more thing I have not mentioned but should is all the money I have saved. You really cannot imagine how much money you spend on alcohol until you finally stop, so that is a great added bonus as well.
If you are wondering how to stop drinking alcohol but think it will be too hard, than it will be. If you believe you can get your head around the idea of how to give up alcohol and most importantly, you really want to stop, you can do it. Somewhere in your mind you may have made a subconscious conviction to yourself thinking that to stop drinking alcohol will be extremely difficult but if you can get inside your head and think of all the reasons why your life would be so much better and happier when you stop drinking alcohol, you need to focus your attention on that and not on how difficult it will be. I am just an ordinary person like you and I did it the way I mentioned above by formulating a concrete plan and it can work for you to since you have the same subconscious power that I have. It is only your mind that makes it a big problem. That same mind can make it a small problem if you want it to and then you can easily step over it.
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April 14th, 2007 at 2:42 am
To drink or not to drink, that is the question? [After William Shakespeare!]
Your article on the excesses of alcohol and the notion of stopping the use of the “last legal drug” at a stroke was interesting if perhaps less convincing than it might have been. There is no doubt about the psychological impact and ultimate dangers of binge drinking and the article certainly made that point in relation to your personal case. Some people have a desire to stop drinking and the notion of identifying the problem, setting a date and sticking to it is certainly one answer.
However, most people don’t want to stop drinking alcohol moderately and require facts on the dangers or benefits of constant alcohol use even in moderation. In my case for example, I have a relatively strong physical frame for my age, train hard, but have a slight “podgy belly” which will not go away. I have taken advice on training, diet and lifestyle from medical and other experts and have made little progress reducing it.
Having had a strict training regime and diet for some time with little effect, my conclusion is that the “pot belly” can only be related to my moderate alcohol consumption. The question is how do I address that?
Researching the subject on the internet reveals only contrasting, seemingly justifiable arguments supporting both sides - to drink or not to drink? The dilemma is illustrated by two seemingly informed, but polarised examples.
www.potsdam.edu maintained by the venerated Professor David Hanson advocates the health benefits of moderate drinking as part of the overall human diet and even states objectively his ideas of moderation, which incidentally can be as high as four beers a day.
On the other hand www.rochester.edu maintained by the University of Rochester USA offers a convincing biological argument opining that alcohol reduces the amount of fat the body burns for energy. This apparently informed and well respected blog concludes that coupled with the high calorific value of alcohol, the resulting effect of alcohol consumption is that the body is forced to store an excessive amount of unburned fat calories, often in the form of a “beer belly” and thereby impacting the general health of the body.
The argument over alcohol and the “pot belly” rages on.
Are there any other opinions out there?
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Hi,
Very nice article. I am going through the same problem myself. From not drinking alcohol (and I am the same person like u…either I do something to the max or I dont do it), I have reached a stage where I am drinking every day to unwind. I have 2 drinks to unwind…and then I have more to feel drunk and high. It is devastating on my self esteem, because I hate myself for doing it. But I cannot stop it. I dont know how u did it…I can image the immense self control u will need to do it…and that is what lowers my self esteem because I cannot accept that I am actually a slave of something.
August 10th, 2007 at 4:07 am
Thanks for submitting this to the carnival of all substances. You’re in it. Stop by and say hello
http://everyoneneedstherapy.blogspot.com
September 19th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
I kind of have a similar issue, however I don’t have your kind of personality where I go all out or nothing. I may have a few drinks here and there but not to the point of getting drunk, but do mostly drink on my own and do it to subdue my feelings when it’s painful to have to deal with things. I know within myself that it’s not healthy but yes, it is one of those things where alcohol is so acceptable in society these days and so easy to get.
Basically it is like you say. If I really want to give it up for good, period, then I will need to tell my subconscious that I will never drink it again ever. That’s the challenge, and I admire you for doing what you did.
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I think this article is brilliant. It takes a similar approach that Alan Carr did in ‘the easy way to quit smoking” and “the easy way to quit drinking”.
Some of the main premises include:
1) We are brainwashed into thinking that “quiting” is hard
2) In the case of smoking “we only have a cig. because of the one that we had an hour ago”
3) Zero is the easist number.
I read the quit smoking book 3 times and have been smoke free (not even one puff) for over 14 months!
I stopped drinking 2 weeks ago. I was a moderate drinker but only on very few occasions would I stop after 2.
If you are reading this go get two books:
1) Easy way to stop drinking by Alan Carr
2) Under th inlfluence (dont have the author’s name but all drunks know this one)!
Better and Better one second at a time