You can’t action your way to change
"Just tell me what I need to do in order to feel more in control of my drinking."
The actions that you need to take are to Decide and Manage urges.
Decide. Commit to filling out a Drink Plan every day. Plan what you are going to drink 24 hours in advance and stick to what you have planned because you want to know that you keep your commitments to yourself. Read more about how spending these 2 minutes will really set yourself up for success here.
Manage your urges. Use the Urge Interruption Technique and or the Craving Hack meditation to help you ride out the cravings when they hit. Know that you get a dopamine hit from achieving a task (like surfing an urge) so you WILL get both a near term reward for doing this and a longer-term reward of unwinding your habit.
But actions alone will not make change "stick."
You know this if you have ever gone on some fad diet. You probably lost some weight but couldn't wait until it is over so that you can go back to "normal."
I remember proudly announcing that I couldn't wait to "re-tox" after my first Dry January experiment.
We can tell that these actions are being fueled by willpower. And willpower does help us do many things in the short-term, but it is finite.
Sustainable change happens, or the new actions "stick," when your underlying beliefs line up with them. This is what they mean by alignment btw.
For example, if you believe:
you need a drink to help you sleep or to relax
that it will help you when you are tired and need a boost
that you deserve a drink
that the only way to quiet your racing mind is with a drink
that normal people drink
It makes a lot of sense why you keep turning to it.
Obviously, you need to sleep and relax and sometimes you need a boost. You do deserve a reward and to settle your mind at the end of the day. There is nothing wrong, AT ALL, with any of these desires.
Because as long as alcohol is the solution, then efforts to get off of the hamster wheel will be temporary.
So, the question is - how much of a role does alcohol have to play in getting you these results?
Alcohol does help people fall asleep (or pass out), but it doesn't add to a peaceful night's sleep. Just ask yourself - do you wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety about what happened the night before? Wondering if you said or did something "bad?"
I know it seems hard to believe, but alcohol is both a stimulant and a depressant. For the majority of the time that it is in your body, it is releasing adrenaline and cortisol. These are stress hormones. So while the messaging is that it reduces stress, it literally increases stress!
Sure, you are an adult and can have a drink whenever you want one! But when it comes down to it, do you want to deserve a life where you have control over alcohol?
What other creative ways can you think about getting these results independent of alcohol?
You can't action your way to change, sustainable change requires a shift in your thinking as well. Because we live in an alcohol focused society, some of these beliefs have been told so many times that we believe them as true. This is the work of seeing them as optional and then unbelieving them.
