I wouldn’t have called myself an alcoholic. I also wouldn’t say I had a good relationship with alcohol.
I am 29 now and can say I have a much better than my relationship 10 years ago. Hell, I started partying when I was 15. It was too young, but also pretty typical I think for a normal kid in a small town. Then college. Oh, I would label almost every college student an alcoholic.
You don’t have to crave alcohol the moment you wake up in the morning to be an alcoholic. I think there are many types. The functioning alcoholic, the weekend alcoholic, the college alcoholic. I was the college alcoholic for sure. I didn’t drink every day, not even every weekend, but when I did, the goal was to get drunk! I mean sometimes blackout drunk. Very, very, very stupid. (Sorry, Mom, if you are reading this, I am sorry, even though I think I have told you this before.)
Well, then you grow a bit. Grow out of the blackout drunk and but still find yourself drinking too much. This is my mid to late 20’s. I found myself thinking about drinking an hour before every social event, not wanting to wait for my first drink. Once the appropriate hour hit in the late afternoon, it was drink time! Going out to dinner, the first thing on my mind was “What will I drink and I want to order it before we even get our table”. I didn’t like it. I felt it had control over me. I would start and still drink too much than I know was good for me. I wouldn’t be belligerent, but over years of drinking I had built a big tolerance for it. I am talking two two and a half bottles of wine in one night, just me. That is too much and I wouldn’t black out, nope I could “handle it”.
Oh, then the next day. Horrible. Why? So not worth it. A cloud of depression over me all day. Victim to my own behavior.
So, I decided lets stop drinking. Let’s have a dry month. Maybe 3 months. Well, this was discussed for months. I had every excuse in the book. “We have a wedding coming up, or a party, or a weekend away” or “Well, I like a glass of wine when I cook” or “ I can just have one, no big deal” (except one was never really just one).
Then, one day I committed. I just said “ I am starting”. The goal was 90 days.
I am at 125 days now and feeling good. I am so glad I did it. I wanted to prove to myself that I could, I wanted to see if I could decrease my desire around alcohol too….and I did.
I don’t crave it. I don’t desire it. I don’t need it.
See, if you have the urge to drink and you allow the urge, feel the desire, but you don’t give into it and you do this over and over and over again. You are literally retraining your brains desire around alcohol.
Every time I didn’t reward my urge to drink a glass of wine with a glass of wine, I sent a signal to my brain that I would survive without it. We give into our urges our desires so easily because the brain wants what is easy. It wants to operate efficiently and exert the least amount of energy. So, resisting, not giving in is harder, meaning the brain has to work harder so it fights us. But when you succeed, it signals the brain that it is okay and it begins to lessen its desire.
It is a process, just like anything. There are techniques and tools and thought work and brain science behind re training our desires around anything. I have successfully retrained mine around alcohol. I don’t know if I will ever drink again, I haven’t decided, but I really love that I was able to do this and I love how I am feeling.
So, if you struggle with your relationship with drinking, if you want to stop or just drink less, it is 100% possible to do. To gain control and for it to become easy.
Let me know if you want some help with this, I would be happy to assist.
Cheers,
Emily Elizabeth