Lately I have been reflecting on my journey to giving up alcohol. I joined this site as a nightly drinker and found it hard to go just one night without alcohol. Something had to change and I decided I had to give it up. Everyone here knows that giving up your “friend” is really hard but I knew I didn’t want that friend around anymore. Everything about it was so time consuming. I was either drinking alcohol, thinking about it or recovering from it.
This post is not to tell my story but to maybe give someone a different way to look at your journey. This post is to say what worked for me, what gave me that boast in my tough times. I think the single biggest factor for me was what I mentioned before, I simply did not want to be drinker anymore. Previous times of attempting to stop drinking I told myself what I couldn’t have. When I decided I didn’t want to be a drinker anymore my focus shifted from what I was denying myself to something I could gain. Not a long list, just one focus, to be a non-drinker.
As we all know, the mind is a powerful and it can play tricks on you. But we can play tricks on our minds too and I think that is what I did. Rather than thinking about what I couldn’t have I thought about what I wanted. In the tough times the desire to be a non-drinker won out over the desire to have that drink.
Everyone is different and has to find their own way. If you’re current focus is not working, finding a new focus may help. In the end, it’s what works for you. Good luck everyone.
