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Here are a few of my past beliefs:
That I needed to drink alcohol to have fun.
That I need alcohol to relax.
That alcohol eased my anxiety.
Now I know:
I have more fun without alcohol involved.
I’m more relaxed when I don’t drink.
Alcohol is like fuel on the fire of anxiety – it makes it worse.
For almost three decades, I was convinced that the first set of statements were true and, of course, my behaviour reflected this – beliefs are powerful because they control our actions. However, the idea that what I believed could be wrong was foreign to me. This is what we humans are like – when we believe something, we think it’s an absolute fact. However, contrary to popular opinion, beliefs are not always true. Who knew? I thought I was always right about everything!
Not only that, but beliefs live in our subconscious mind, affecting what we think is right and wrong without us realising it; they serve to make us the people we are. They’re formed from the experiences we have throughout our lives and the information we digest, especially in childhood. When we were kids we didn’t have the ability to tell the difference between truth and falsehood, so we believed without question what we were told which is where our core beliefs started to form. Of course, I still believe in Santa Claus – my mum and dad would never have lied to me.
So we don’t get to choose what we believe, but when we become aware of it we can take back control. The way I found complete freedom from alcohol was by changing my beliefs about it. I mention this a lot and make no apology for it, as I hope the repetition will help make the message stick. When I changed my false belief that ‘alcohol was serving me and improving my life’ giving up started to feel fairly easy. I moved from a place of feeling deprived that I couldn’t drink any longer to simply not wanting alcohol in my life again. Suddenly, I felt like I knew the real truth.
While this might sound simple, I can’t just tell you to go and change your beliefs. If I could it would be really easy, but it’s something you need to do for yourself. Become curious about your own beliefs and start to question how true they really are. Do this by writing down the reasons you think that alcohol makes your life better.
My answers would have been:
It makes me relax.
It eases my anxiety.
It makes me funny.
It helps me to have a good time.
It makes me forget the stresses of the day.
Then start to dig into your answers one by one and ask yourself how much truth the statements hold, and also if the opposite might be true.
My responses to the first three answers would have been:
It makes me relax
I’ve actually been at my most relaxed in situations when I haven’t been drinking, and I know I’ve felt wonderfully at ease after a longer period of no alcohol. I also feel more tense the day after drinking.
So now, this belief is not feeling quite so true – hopefully, you get the idea.
It eases my anxiety
It does so for a couple of hours, but it’s always much worse the next day; then I drink again and the cycle of pain continues. I know from experience that when I have time away from alcohol my anxiety fades, so I don’t believe that alcohol eases anxiety, it makes it worse.
It makes me funny
I might believe I’m funny when I’ve been drinking – alcohol is the master of illusion. But I know I’ve had numerous arguments and become aggressive and short-tempered with alcohol inside me. A few hours after I’ve drunk I also feel sluggish and low unless I have another drink. The next morning I don’t feel motivated and often have headaches and a general lack of energy. None of this is funny.
While delving into your beliefs is a great way to question them and ask if they’re true for you, another method of changing a belief is to experience the opposite of it for real out in the big wide world. In fact, there’s no better way, because you then have cast-iron evidence of its falseness and it will naturally change to the new truth for you.
A great example would be this belief that I held for years: ‘I can’t have fun at a music gig without drinking.’ A few months after I quit, I attended my first gig without alcohol, and instead of racing to the bar as soon as I entered the arena to buy several pints of beer (so I didn’t have to keep queuing), I watched the support band. I found it incredible that I’d made it all the way to the main act without needing to pee. I would have usually had at least three visits to the toilet by this time, and multiple more trips to the bar replenishing my beer supply.
When the band came on (Mumford & Sons – you may know them) I became immersed in the music and atmosphere, dancing without a care in the world. I had the time of my life, and the most awesome thing of all was that I got to drive home (no waiting for taxis in a huge queue in the rain) and climb into my comfy bed, before waking up (hangover free) with vivid memories of the night before. Not to mention the joy that there was no regrettable behaviour or being sick to be ashamed of the next morning.
The long-held belief that I had to drink to have fun at a gig had been well and truly destroyed; I now knew differently because I’d experienced it for real. It even made me start thinking about all the other gigs I’d been to in the past, and I regretted being so blind drunk that I hadn’t enjoyed them like the Mumford & Sons one. This was how I wanted all gigs to be from now on.
If you haven’t done so already, take the time to write down all of your beliefs about alcohol. Be totally honest and open with yourself, and dig into whether the statements you made are true. You need to be like a detective looking for evidence to prove or disprove the statements, and once you’ve gathered all the information together you can ask yourself whether the original belief still holds true or not.
For me, I found that challenging my beliefs was the biggest game-changer on the journey to complete freedom from alcohol. Once they’d shifted, I simply realised that I had no desire to drink, and I was motivated to start sharing the message about the dangers of alcohol and the ease with which you could cut it out of your life if you really wanted to.
To start changing your beliefs, I recommend you continue reading this book, and also work your way through the steps below so you can analyse them in more depth. Here are a few examples of beliefs that you might firmly believe to be true:
Without drinking each day I’ll never be happy.
Drinking enables me to feel confident in myself.
Alcohol lowers my inhibitions and enables me to meet new people – I could never do this without drinking.
I’d like you to look at your own list of beliefs and follow the same process as I have detailed below. Try and assign feelings to each one, because it’s the emotions that sit at the root of the pain and misery caused by the beliefs. As an example, I recently went to a wedding and believed it was acceptable not to wear a tie as I’d heard it was a fairly informal affair. The belief itself caused me no pain – there was no reason for it to. But when I arrived at the wedding and saw all the guys with formal suits and ties, I suddenly felt negative emotions. I thought that people were judging me and I felt embarrassed. It wasn’t the belief that upset me, it was the feeling of self-consciousness that went with it.
So let’s assign some emotions (or feelings) to my examples above:
Without drinking each day, I’ll never be happy – worry, sadness.
Drinking enables me to feel confident in myself – self-judgement, shame.
Alcohol lowers my inhibitions and enables me to meet new people – I could never do this without drinking – shyness, unhappiness.
These are just examples; you can make your list as long as you wish and add as many emotions as you like. Once you have written it, you need to recognise that these beliefs are false truths; you need to replace the old beliefs with new and truthful ones, and back them up with evidence so you know they represent the real truth for you. Also, rather than writing ‘I can’t’ or ‘I won’t’, try to use statements such as ‘I feel’ or ‘I can’.
Let’s look at how I might express myself using my examples with a new truth.
The statement:
Without drinking each day I’ll never be happy.
Could become:
I am happy (give yourself some reasons why, with examples), but I have a hard time not drinking every day. So I’m working on this to become stronger.
The statement:
Drinking enables me to feel confident in myself.
Could become:
I can be confident (give yourself some reasons why and examples), but I use alcohol as false armour and I’m working on changing this and experiencing life without it.
The statement:
Alcohol lowers my inhibitions and enables me to meet new people – I could never do this without drinking.
Could become:
I can meet new people (give yourself some reasons why, with examples) – I feel like alcohol makes it easier but I’m working on this so that I can grow as a person.
Now look back over your statements and say them out loud to yourself. Which one feels like the truth for you now? Which one feels better? Which one do you want to stick with? Look at your ‘new truths’ and take some time to reflect on them. Keep working on your beliefs, and if one comes up that’s creating negative emotions, it’s time to bring it out into the light so that you can create a new and more positive version. Use this strategy to work through the situation whenever this happens.
I hope that the information I’ve shared in this part of this book will have already enabled you to start challenging many of your beliefs about alcohol and how it might be serving you. This strategy will enable you to become mindful about your beliefs, so you can start catching yourself in the act of believing false statements about alcohol, and ask yourself ‘why’ when you experience negative emotions.