IN THIS CHAPTER
•RECOGNIZING GENUINE PLEASURES •WHAT YOU’VE ACHIEVED SO FAR •TIME TO MAKE A NEW CHOICE •KNOW YOUR ENEMY •ENJOYING THE REMINDERS
As you prepare for your imminent release from the alcohol trap, it’s time to cement a positive, excited mindset.
In Chapter 8 I talked about the all-too-common phenomenon of the convict who reoffends soon after being released from prison, because he’s frightened by the unfamiliarity of life on the outside. If you happened to know an ex-con like that, who was struggling to believe that he could cope with life outside prison, wouldn’t you want to take him under your wing and show him how much better life is when you’re free?
You’d probably begin by listing all the wonderful things you can do at your leisure, when you want to do them, not when you’re permitted to do them. Things like:
•Seeing friends
•Going for a walk
•Driving a car
•Having a nice meal
•Having a lie-in
Of course, he would know all these things, but he might have lost sight of just how enjoyable they are. When you’re in prison and denied the usual pleasures in life, your idea of pleasure changes.
The alcohol trap is a prison. When you’re addicted to alcohol, you lose the ability to enjoy the things you enjoyed before you started drinking. The alcohol-induced illusion of pleasure takes the place of genuine pleasures and becomes your be all and end all. But that’s all it is: an illusion. The genuine pleasures still exist and they’re still enjoyable. If you knew an ex-con who was struggling to see this and risking his freedom as a result, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to make him see things as they really are?
If you could do that for someone else, why not do it for yourself? Think about all the pleasures that you have enjoyed in your life without drinking and start looking forward to enjoying those pleasures to the full again. It will help if you write them down. Your list may have a similar look to the example I gave for the ex-con, and the more you think about it, the more you will add to it. Take your time. There’s no rush. What’s important is that you establish the right frame of mind to quit with a feeling of excitement and certainty.
In Chapter 1 I explained how Easyway works like the combination to open a safe. In order to use the combination successfully you need to know all the numbers and apply them in the correct order. You may have found that frustrating at the time. You were eager to discover the cure to your drinking problem, and the prospect of reading through the whole book may have seemed laborious. But you have followed the instructions and now stand on the brink of becoming a happy non-drinker. You have come a long way towards achieving the state of mind necessary for you to quit and remain free for the rest of your life.
Congratulate yourself on your achievements. Remind yourself that there is no need to feel miserable; on the contrary, you have every reason to feel excited. You’re setting yourself free from a prison that has brought you nothing but misery and stress and you’re choosing a life that will bring you a happiness you may have forgotten even existed.
Perhaps you think that’s an exaggeration and that you have no reason to congratulate yourself. You may be still feeling the effects of your drinking and struggling to convince yourself that this is going to be as easy as I say. It’s time to address the fear of success.
The fear of life outside jail can keep the prisoner in the trap. He feels secure in his prison because it’s an environment he knows. Even though it’s a life of slavery, he fears it less than the world outside, which is alien and riddled with uncertainty.
When we relate this fear to stopping drinking, we have established that it’s caused by illusions. These illusions have been put in your brain by many influences, each of which has a vested interest in you continuing to drink. You’ve been brainwashed into believing that drinking gives you some sort of pleasure or support.
You’re also afraid that the process of stopping will be an ordeal that you will not be able to bear for long enough to succeed. Remember, with Easyway you succeed in becoming a non-drinker the moment you finish your final drink and feel no desire ever to drink again.
Some people see the alcohol trap as a hole in the ground: something you fall into easily but struggle to get out of. But that’s not the case. Though it may feel like a deep, dark hole, there’s no physical effort required to escape. You simply need to make a choice. It’s a simple choice between taking a step backwards or a step forward. You can either choose to remain in the trap for the rest of your life, becoming more and more enslaved and miserable, or you can choose the opposite:
There is no benefit whatsoever to being in the alcohol trap. You were lured into it by a set of illusions that were conjured up for you by people with a vested interest in you drinking. You took a step backwards. And you’ve found that it makes you miserable. So now you just have to choose to do the opposite. Take a step forwards. It’s as simple as that. The fear of success can only stop you if you continue to believe that you get some pleasure or support from drinking.
Some of our fears are instinctive. For example, the fear of heights, fire or the sea are natural responses that protect us from falling, getting burned or drowning. There’s nothing instinctive about the fear of escaping from the alcohol trap.
THE FEAR OF STOPPING DRINKING IS CREATED BY ALCOHOL ITSELF
Once you’re free from the alcohol trap, you’ll be amazed at how easy it was to escape. You’ll find that you’re able to derive far more pleasure from life and your only regret will be not having made your escape sooner. At the moment you may still feel like someone struggling to get out of a deep pit, but once you do get out you’ll realize your fears were groundless.
In order to achieve this success you need to clear your mind of all doubt. Understand and accept that your fears of trying to live without alcohol are based on illusions. In reality, you have nothing to fear.
On the subject of falling back into the trap, I’m sometimes asked, “How can you know for certain that something will not happen?” In other words, even if you do manage to quit drinking, how do you know you won’t fall into the trap again? After all, the chances of being struck by a meteorite are infinitesimally small, yet nobody can say with absolute certainty that it will never happen to them.
That’s very true; however, you have a considerable advantage over potential meteorite victims: if a meteorite is going to hit you, there’s nothing you can do about it, whereas only you can make yourself go back to drinking. You control that decision and once you’ve seen through the confidence trick that lured you into the trap in the first place, you will have no difficulty in deciding to stay free.
If you still have doubts and fears at this stage, don’t worry, that’s not at all unusual. You’ve been brainwashed into thinking you have to go through some painful ordeal and make huge sacrifices to become a non-drinker, and that even if you do succeed, you will be forever tempted to drink again. I have explained that this is not the case and that recognizing this fact is purely a matter of changing the way you look at the situation. Once you’re in the right frame of mind, you will change your perception and the fear will go.
My second instruction was to keep an open mind. If you have followed this instruction, you will have seen through the illusions to the true picture: that alcohol does absolutely nothing for you whatsoever. It’s neither a source of pleasure nor support; in fact, it takes away genuine pleasures and leaves you feeling insecure. If you are still unclear on this point, go back and read through the book again, making sure you allow your mind to take it all on board.
Relax, let go of your preconceptions and allow the true picture to take shape in your mind, like the STOP diagram in Chapter 6. The key to seeing through any illusion is not through willpower; it’s through letting go of your existing perceptions and allowing your mind to see it another way.
NO GET-OUT CLAUSE
Some drinkers, once they get it into their head that it’s just fear that prevents them from stopping, try to allay that fear by telling themselves they can always start again if it gets too hard – that quitting doesn’t have to be final.
If you start off with that attitude, you’re very likely to fail sooner or later, because you have allowed doubts to remain in your mind.
Instead, start off with the clear certainty that you’re going to be free forever. Don’t allow fear to continue to dictate your life.
You’ve already come a long way in the process of unravelling the brainwashing that has kept you hooked on alcohol and putting yourself in the right frame of mind to escape. Now you’re going to start taking the practical forward steps that will see you become a happy non-drinker for the rest of your life.
Your first positive step was choosing to read this book. You had a choice: you could have continued to bury your head in the sand and stumble further and further into the miserable slavery of drinking.
Instead you decided to take positive action in order to resolve the situation. All I ask is that you continue making positive choices.
As we move forward, there are three very important facts that I want you to remember:
1.Alcohol does absolutely nothing for you at all.
It’s crucial that you understand why this is so and accept it to be the case, so that you never get a feeling of deprivation or sacrifice.
2.There is no need for a transitional period.
With drug addicts this is often referred to as the “withdrawal period”. But anyone who quits with Easyway has no need to worry about the withdrawal period. Yes, it may take time to repair the physical damage caused by alcohol, but the moment you stop drinking is the moment you become free. You don’t have to wait for anything to happen.
3.There is no such thing as “just the one”.
Just one drink is enough to make you a drinker and must be seen for what it is: part of a lifelong chain of self-destruction. People who see that there is no benefit to drinking alcohol have no desire to do so, not even “just the one”.
Many addicts suffer the illusion that they can never get completely free. They convince themselves that their addiction is their friend, their confidence, their support, even part of their identity. They fear that if they quit they will not only lose their closest companion, they will lose a part of themselves.
It’s a stark indication of just how severely the brainwashing distorts our perceptions, that anyone should come to regard something that is destroying them and making them miserable as a friend. When you lose a friend, you grieve. Eventually you come to terms with the loss and life goes on, but you may be left with a genuine void in your life that you can never fill. There’s nothing you can do about it. You have no choice but to accept the situation and, though it still hurts, you do.
When drinkers, gamblers, smokers, heroin users and other addicts try to quit by willpower, they feel they’re losing a friend. They know that they’re making the right decision to stop, but they still suffer a feeling of sacrifice and, therefore, there’s a void in their lives. It isn’t a genuine void, but they believe it is and so the effect is the same. They feel as if they’re mourning for a friend. Yet this false friend isn’t even dead. The purveyors of these drugs make absolutely sure that their victims are forever subjected to the temptation of forbidden fruit for the rest of their lives.
However, when you rid yourself of your mortal enemy, there is no need to mourn. On the contrary, you can rejoice and celebrate from the start, and you can continue to rejoice and celebrate for the rest of your life. Get it clear in your mind that alcohol is not your friend, nor is it part of your identity. It never has been. In fact, it’s your mortal enemy and by getting rid of it you’re sacrificing nothing, just making marvellous, positive gains.
So the answer to the question, “When will I be free?” is, “Whenever you choose to be.” You could spend the next few days, and possibly the rest of your life, continuing to believe alcohol was your friend and wondering when you’ll stop missing it. If so, you’ll feel miserable, the desire to drink may never leave you and you’ll either end up feeling deprived for the rest of your life, or you’ll end up going back to drinking and feeling even worse.
Alternatively, you can recognize alcohol for the mortal enemy that it really is and take pleasure in cutting it out of your life. Then you need never crave it again and whenever it enters your mind you’ll feel elated that it’s no longer destroying you.
Unlike people who quit with the willpower method, you’ll be happy to think about your old enemy and you needn’t try to block it from your mind. On the contrary, enjoy thinking about it and rejoice that it no longer plagues your life.
DON’T MENTION THE ELEPHANT!
It’s important that you don’t try not to think about drinking after you’ve quit. Trying not to think about something is a sure way of becoming obsessed with it. If I tell you not to think about elephants, what’s the first thing that comes into your head?
Exactly!
It‘s what you’re thinking that’s important. If you’re thinking, “I’d love a drink, but I can’t have one,” you’ll be miserable. But if you’re thinking, “Isn’t it marvellous, I don‘t have to drink any more, I’m free!” then you can think about drinking all you like and you’ll be happy.
I asked you to approach this process with a relaxed, rational and open mind, because that helps you understand the alcohol trap and the Little Monster that complains when you don’t satisfy your urge to drink. During the first few days after your final drink, the Little Monster may be grumbling away, sending messages to your brain that it wants you to interpret as, “I want a drink.”
But you now understand the true picture and, instead of drinking, or getting into a panic because you can’t, pause for a moment. Take a deep breath. Remind yourself there is nothing to fear. There is no pain. The feeling isn’t bad. It’s just the slight uncomfortable feeling that occurs when alcohol leaves your system. It’s what drinkers suffer throughout their drinking lives.
In the past your mind interpreted the pangs of the Little Monster as “I want a drink” because it had every reason to believe that alcohol would satisfy the empty, insecure feeling. But now you understand that, far from relieving that feeling, it’s alcohol that caused it. So just relax, accept the feeling for what it really is – the death throes of the Little Monster – and remind yourself, “Non-drinkers don’t have this problem. This is a feeling that drinkers suffer and they suffer it throughout their drinking lives. Isn’t it great! It will soon be gone forever.”
During the first few days in particular you might well find that you forget you’ve quit. It can happen at any time. You think, “I’ll have a drink,” and then you remember with joy that you’re now a non-drinker. But you wonder why the thought entered your head when you were convinced you’d reversed the brainwashing. Such times can be crucial in whether you succeed or not. React in the wrong way and they can be disastrous. Doubts can surface and you may start to question your decision to quit and lose faith in yourself.
These occurrences won’t catch you out if you’re prepared for them. Have your mindset ready so that when they occur you remain calm and use them as a reminder of the wonderful freedom you’ve gained. Instead of thinking, “I can’t do this,” you will think, “Isn’t it great! I don’t need to drink anymore. I’m free!”
The associations that you had with drinking, such as seeing friends, eating out, going to parties, etc, can linger on after the Little Monster has died. For drinkers who quit with the willpower method, this can seriously undermine their efforts. In their minds they have built up a powerful case against drinking, they’ve decided to become a non-drinker, they’ve managed to go for however long without drinking, and yet on certain occasions a voice keeps saying, “I want a drink.” They haven’t killed the Big Monster and so they still think of drinking as a pleasure or support.
Although you will no longer suffer the illusion that you’re being deprived, it’s still imperative that you prepare yourself for these situations. Occasionally forgetting that you no longer drink isn’t a bad sign, it’s a very good one. It’s proof that your life is returning to the happy state you were in before you got hooked on alcohol, when your whole existence wasn’t dominated by a poisonous and highly addictive drug.
Expecting these moments to happen and being prepared for them means you won’t be caught off guard. You’ll be wearing a suit of impregnable armour. You know you’ve made the correct decision and nobody will be able to make you doubt it. Instead of being the cause of your downfall, these moments will give you added strength, security and pleasure, reminding you just how wonderful it is to be
FREE!
•Addiction is not a hole in the ground – there is no physical effort required to get out.
•It’s easy to get out of the alcohol trap – you just have to make a different choice.
•Have no doubts about the choice you’re making and be certain that you will succeed.
•Remember, alcohol does nothing for you whatsoever.
•There’s nothing to wait for. The moment you stop drinking is the moment you become free.
•There’s no such thing as “just one drink”. If you take one drink, you will take another and another and be back in the trap.
•Rejoice at ridding yourself of your mortal enemy.