IN THIS CHAPTER
•FEAR OF THE PAIN •THAT PANIC FEELING •WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS •KILLING THE LITTLE MONSTER •WHEN DOES IT END? •PREPARING FOR YOUR FINAL DRINK
When you quit with Easyway, any withdrawal symptoms become a source of pleasure, not pain.
Throughout the book I have talked about withdrawal as the feeling that we interpret as “I want a drink” – the Little Monster that cries out for alcohol. I have explained that this feeling is so slight as to be almost imperceptible. Perhaps you’ve assumed that I’m talking about a different withdrawal to the one you go through when you quit for good.
There is a common misconception among drinkers that in order to stop drinking permanently you have to endure a painful withdrawal period as all the toxins leave your body. You will have heard of delirium tremens – the DTs – and other feverish symptoms that afflict withdrawing alcoholics. The fear of these symptoms is enough to prevent a lot of drinkers from even trying to quit. As with all the other reasons drinkers give for not stopping, it’s a myth.
Most drinkers who quit experience no abnormal physical symptoms during withdrawal, no sweats or shakes, no headaches or palpitations. We only think we have to go through some terrible trauma because stopping on the willpower method can be psychological torture and that can itself create physical symptoms. But every night, millions of drinkers manage to sleep for eight hours and when they wake up they’re not in agony after having to go so long without their drug. If the physical effects of withdrawal were so bad, it would wake them up during the night, desperate for a drink. But most drinkers manage to last well into the day before they have their first drink. Not only are they getting by quite happily without any physical pain, they’re not even aware of any discomfort.
Sure, they probably look forward to their first drink and if someone stood in their way and prevented them from having it they might well get very angry, but that is not a reaction to physical pain, that’s panic at the thought of being deprived. When you’re confident of having your next drink, this panic recedes. If it were a physical pain it would be there all the time, like toothache.
Most problem drinkers are familiar with the “panic feeling” that sets in when they don’t know where the next drink is coming from. It’s like a smoker running out of cigarettes. Smokers will go to great lengths to replenish their supply, often walking miles through the rain, late at night just to stock up on their little “crutch”. Drinkers too will make incredible efforts to ensure they’re not denied the opportunity to drink, sneaking out of the house, lying about where they’re going and even putting themselves in dangerous situations.
But occasionally you meet a heavy drinker who claims not to know the panic feeling. We know that drinkers lie, to others and to themselves, but there are some who genuinely never feel this panic of not knowing where their next drink is going to come from, for the simple reason that they’re so frightened of finding themselves in that position that they take every precaution to make sure it never happens! In other words, far from being less affected by the panic than most drinkers, they’re even more consumed by it.
The truth is that every drinker who is denied the opportunity to drink when they expect to experiences the panic feeling. But this is not the same as physical pain, and when you remove the desire to drink, the panic disappears.
So let’s examine just how serious withdrawal can get. You may have read about the symptoms:
•Anxiety
•Irritability
•Mood swings
•Nervousness
•Depression
•Confusion
Firstly, these are not physical symptoms, they’re psychological. Secondly, they’re symptoms that every drinker suffers to a greater or lesser degree, WHILE THEY’RE DRINKING. These symptoms are all caused by alcohol, so the one way to guarantee that you suffer them is to go on drinking.
The physical symptoms you may have seen mentioned include:
•Tiredness
•Headaches
•Stomach upsets
•Weak and aching muscles
•Heart palpitations
•The shakes
•The sweats
•The shivers
•Difficult breathing
This set of symptoms is very similar to the symptoms of flu; in fact, they’re often described as such. No doubt you’ve had flu on several occasions in your life and you probably expect to get it again, but the thought of getting flu doesn’t induce panic. Even though flu can make us feel lousy, we can put up with it relatively easily.
If I offered you a deal: a week’s flu in exchange for a lifetime of freedom and happiness, wouldn’t you take it?
Even if the withdrawal symptoms were painful, wouldn’t you endure a little pain in exchange for your freedom from slavery to alcohol?
The fact is we’re very well equipped to endure pain. Just as an experiment, try squeezing your thigh and digging your fingernails in, gradually increasing the pressure.
You’ll find you can endure quite a severe level of pain without any fear or panic. That’s because you’re in control. You know what’s causing the pain and you know that you can make it stop whenever you choose.
Now repeat the exercise and when the pain is as much as you can bear, try to imagine that it wasn’t you causing it but that it had just suddenly started and that you knew neither the cause nor how long it would last. Now imagine that pain being in your head or chest. You would immediately panic.
Pain is not the problem; the problem is the fear and panic that pain induces if you don’t understand why you’re feeling it or what the consequences might be.
In fact, we often panic at the slightest feeling of discomfort if we don’t know what’s caused it and fear it might be the beginning of something severe.
Observe drinkers, especially when they’re denied the opportunity to drink. They’ll be restless and fidgety. You’ll notice little nervous tics, they’ll be constantly doing things with their hands or grinding their teeth. This restlessness is triggered by an empty, insecure feeling, which can quickly turn into frustration, irritability, anxiety, anger, fear and panic if they’re not able to satisfy their alcohol craving.
Get it clear in your mind: alcohol causes this feeling, it doesn’t relieve it. As long as you understand that, you don’t need to feel any sense of deprivation when you stop.
IF YOU CONTINUE TO DRINK, YOU’LL SUFFER THAT EMPTY, INSECURE FEELING FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
The psychological symptoms I listed above are what drinkers suffer when they try to quit with the willpower method. Perhaps you’ve experienced this yourself. They’re all symptoms of anxiety, induced by the feeling that they’re being deprived of their pleasure or support. As long as you believe that you’re being deprived, the almost imperceptible withdrawal pangs – the tiny cries of the Little Monster – will continue to induce fear and panic and you may suffer physically.
Ignorance and illusion are the twin evils that combine to turn a small signal in your brain into panic and mental torture. Imagine having a permanent itch that you were not allowed to scratch. Imagine how that would torment you and think about the amount of willpower you would have to summon up to resist scratching the itch just once. Imagine also that you believed the itch would last for the rest of your life unless you were allowed to scratch it.
How long do you think you could last before you scratched the itch? If you did manage to hold out for a week or even more, imagine the relief you would feel when you finally gave in.
This is a description of the torture that drinkers go through when trying to quit with the willpower method. For them the urge to scratch the itch lasts long after the Little Monster has died. It’s triggered by everything they ever associated with drinking, such as unwinding after a day’s work, meeting friends and going to parties. They think, “I used to drink on these occasions,” and they still believe they’re being deprived. The Big Monster is still alive, telling them that they need to scratch the itch.
Remember, the perception of drinking as a pleasure or support is a figment of your imagination, left over from the brainwashing. It’s like applying an ointment to a spot in the belief that it will clear it up, when all it does is turn the spot into a rash. If you were in that situation and I told you all you had to do was leave the spot for a few days and it would clear up on its own, you would have no need or desire for the ointment.
When you have your final drink, you will find it easy to become a non-drinker because you will realize that the empty, insecure feeling of wanting a drink was caused by the last drink you had, and that the one thing that would ensure you suffer that feeling for the rest of your life would be to drink another. You will experience none of the suffering that you went through on previous attempts because you will no longer believe you are being deprived. On the contrary, you’ll experience a wonderful feeling of freedom. Once you realize that the pleasure or support is just an illusion, you will feel no deprivation and, consequently, no misery or torture. Just a marvellous feeling of elation.
When you’ve finished your final drink, you may be aware of the withdrawal for a few days. Remember, this is not a physical pain, it’s just the faint cries of the Little Monster wanting to be fed. However, light though it is, you should not ignore it.
It’s essential to keep in mind the fact that the Little Monster was created when you first started drinking and it has continued to feed on every subsequent drink you’ve had. As soon as you stop drinking, you cut off the supply and it begins to die.
In its death throes the Little Monster will try to entice you to feed it. Create a mental image of this parasite getting weaker and weaker and enjoy starving it to death. Keep this mental image with you at all times and make sure you don’t respond to its death throes by thinking, “I need a drink.”
Remember that the empty, insecure feeling was caused by your last drink. The feeling itself isn’t pleasurable but you will enjoy it because you will understand the cause and know that the Little Monster inside you is dying.
It’s like vigorous exercise. When you push yourself hard it becomes uncomfortable, but the feeling doesn’t make you panic. You enjoy the feeling because you know that you control it and that it’s an indication that you’re doing yourself good.
Take a sadistic delight in killing off the Little Monster. Even if you do get that feeling of “I want a drink” for a few days, don’t worry about it. Remember, it’s not a drink you want, it’s relief from that nagging feeling which will go away permanently provided you never drink again. If you were to have a drink, it would guarantee you suffer it for the rest of your life. It’s just the Little Monster doing everything it can to tempt you to feed it. As long as you see that, you will find it easy to starve it to death. You now have complete control over it. It’s no longer destroying you; you’re destroying it and soon you will be free forever.
You’re probably thinking, “OK, but how long before I’m cured?” The good news is you can start enjoying the genuine pleasure of being a non-drinker from the moment you finish your final drink. Unlike the willpower method, with Easyway you don’t have to wait for anything.
It takes just a few days for the physical withdrawal to pass. During this time, people who use the willpower method tend to feel completely obsessed with being denied what they see as their pleasure or support. Then, after about three weeks, there may come a moment when they suddenly realize that they have not thought about drinking for a while. It’s an exciting feeling… and a dangerous moment.
They’ve gone from believing that life will always be miserable without being able to drink, to believing that time will solve their problem. They feel great – surely this is the cure. It’s time to celebrate. What possible harm could it do to reward themselves with just one drink?
Clearly the Big Monster is still alive. They still believe that they have been denying themselves some sort of pleasure. If they’re stupid enough to have a drink, they won’t find it rewarding at all. It will give them no feeling of pleasure or support. The only reason they ever experienced the illusion of pleasure from drinking is that it partially relieved the symptoms of withdrawal. But now that they’re no longer withdrawing from alcohol, they will not even experience that illusion.
But that one drink is enough to revive the Little Monster. Now panic starts to creep back in. They don’t want their efforts to quit to be blown away so easily and for nothing, so they draw on their willpower and try not to give in to the urge to drink again. But after a while the same thing happens. They regain their confidence and the temptation to have “just the one” rears its ugly head again. This time they can say to themselves, “I did it last time and didn’t get hooked, so what’s the harm in doing it again?” They’re wandering back into the trap.
Does this ring any bells? Anyone who has tried to quit with the willpower method is likely to have experienced something similar. With Easyway, when you realize you haven’t thought about drinking for a while, your first thought is not to celebrate with a drink, it’s
There is no feeling of deprivation. You can relax from the moment you finish your final drink, and rather than interpreting the feeling as “I want a drink”, you think, “Yippee! Isn’t it marvellous! I don’t ever have to go through that misery again.”
Many ex-drinkers who quit with the willpower method never get to the point where they can say that with certainty. They’re never quite sure whether they’ve kicked it. The physical withdrawal symptoms feel like normal anxiety and stress, so when they experience these feelings they interpret them as “I want a drink”. Of course, drinking at this stage wouldn’t even give the illusion of relieving these natural pangs as they have no withdrawal, but they don’t know that. They’re still convinced that alcohol will help. The real stress is now increased because they believe that they’re being deprived of a support that will ease the situation.
They’re faced with a dilemma: go through the rest of their life believing they’re missing out, or find out for sure. Sadly, the only way to do that is to drink again. If they do, they find that their stress is not relieved – in fact, it’s increased by their sense of disappointment at having giving in to temptation. But they’ve revived the Little Monster and the outcome is that pretty soon they’ll be drinking just as before.
Soon you’ll have your final drink and make a solemn vow never to drink again. If this thought makes you panic, remind yourself of these simple facts:
•The alcoholic drinks industry depends on that panic to keep you hooked.
•Alcohol doesn’t relieve the panic, it causes it.
Take a moment to compose yourself. Do you really have any reason to panic? Nothing bad is going to happen as a result of you stopping drinking. You have only marvellous gains to make.
Perhaps you’re afraid of going into unknown territory. There is nothing unknown about what you’re about to do. It’s something you’ve already done thousands of times before, every time you’ve drained your last glass at the end of the evening. This particular drink will be a very, very special one. It will be your last.
ALREADY STOPPED?
If you stopped drinking before you started reading this book, that’s fine, provided you’re confident that you have killed the Big Monster and you have no doubts whatsoever that you’re not making a sacrifice or depriving yourself in any way. It’s still important that you make the vow.
Very soon you will feel stronger, both physically and mentally. You will have more energy, more confidence, more self-respect and more money. It’s essential that you don’t put off this wonderful freedom, not for a week, a day or a second. Waiting for something to happen is one of the reasons why drinkers using the willpower method find it so difficult. What are they waiting for? To find out if they’ll ever drink again? There’s only one way to find that out… so instead they’re just left waiting, waiting, for the rest of their lives.
You become a non-drinker the moment you finish your final drink. What you’re achieving is a new frame of mind, an understanding that drinking does nothing for you and that by not drinking you’re freeing yourself from a life of slavery, misery and degradation.
Replace any panic you may have felt with a feeling of excitement. You no longer need to be ill, incapable, secretive or dishonest. You’re about to discover the joy of taking control. Rejoice! This is going to be one of the best experiences you’ve ever had.
YOU’RE ABOUT TO BECOME FREE!
SUMMARY
•The ordeal of withdrawal is psychological, not physical, and Allen Carr’s Easyway removes it.
•See the physical withdrawal as the death throes of the Little Monster and enjoy killing it off.
•Be aware that everyday pangs such as anxiety and stress feel the same as withdrawal, but drinking will not relieve them.
•Drinkers suffer withdrawal pangs all the time. Non-drinkers don’t suffer them at all.
•Get into a positive frame of mind: feel the excitement of what you’re achieving.