For many people deciding not to drink alcohol at all is easy. A lot of people subscribe to the Dry January or July with great gusto and feel really good about abstaining for those months.
I think this is a brilliant way to rest your liver and get into a healthier mind set; however, for many it often causes more grief emotionally when they start drinking again.
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Why?
There are a lot of people who are secretly worried about how much alcohol they drink, so they feel really good when they decide not to drink for a period of time. However, when they go back to drinking they feel challenged again, emotionally. They get very irritated and annoyed with themselves, because they don’t understand why they just can’t seem to cut back.
This in itself causes a fear within that person that there is something really wrong with them, which can cause anxieties about their drinking. Ironically, this drives people to drink more because alcohol relaxes them and allows them to escape the fear.
I believe that most people have the ability to drink less but they need to understand that the ‘all or nothing’ syndrome of either drinking a lot or not at all is psychologically an unhealthy and unbalanced habit.
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For example, Kate comes to see me because she is angry with herself that after having a Dry July she has gone back to her old drinking ways. She doesn’t understand why she still can’t seem to cut back. Kate knows she is good at not drinking but she also knows she is good at drinking a lot!
Kate has a very common problem that many people are not consciously aware of. Kate’s unconscious mind has alcohol references that in a millisecond will present themselves to her as soon as she starts drinking again. Her mind assumes that when she drinks, she drinks a lot.
