The Battle of Willpower to Stop Drinking

Let me introduce you to a couple of friends of mine.  Well, actually they are just a couple of interesting characters that I bump into every now and then.  I don’t know them very well, and they are always fighting.  Awkward!  Recently I have got to know and understand them both a little better.  I warn you that if you want to get to know them you will have to understand them better also.  We all know Will Power, we deal with him every day.  Most days he is a nice person, but other days he can be a bit cranky.  On these days he tries to push us around and try to make us do the things that we don’t want to do, or the kind of things that we would rather put of until tomorrow.  Sound familiar?  Have you ever tried to use Willpower to Stop Drinking?

 The Battle of Wills

What you may not realize is that Will Power has a cousin called Willnot.  We will call him “Won’t” for short.  I thought it strange that I had never met Willnot, and I thought I had never heard of him.  But I did know him, and embarrassingly, I knew him only too well.  I like Willnot.  He was the calming voice in my head that told me to stop worrying, stop working and come and hang out with him and his friends.  He had a whole bunch of friends called relax, defer, delay, wait, postpone, adjourn, dawdle, procrastinate, goslow and itcanwaituntiltomorrow.  Strangely, after the passage of time, some of these fellows became my own friends, some better than others.  I got on extremely well with procrastinate.  I have to confess I still hang out him sometimes.

Willpower to Stop Drinking

Will Power doesn’t want me to hang out with Willnot, and this is when the trouble starts.  Arguments on the inside – you probably can’t hear it.  But it is there.

Will Power starts shouting at Willnot, and Willnot yells back that it is not his fault.  Will Power especially doesn’t like procrastinate, but hey, he is my friend, and he has been good to me, so I feel compelled to stick up for him and probably even lie to cover up that Will Power is wrong and that Willnot was right all along.

Because as we all know – Will Power is no match for Won’t Power!

Beware, this could turn into a family feud!

There are many examples of this ongoing battle in our lives, and this is the reason why I think it is vitally important that we get to know these characters, and learn why they say the things that they do, and why we need to understand what they are saying.

These are the voices that we hear inside our head, and far from being a symptom of psychosis, or bipolar personality disorder, these voices are the logical and reasonable thoughts generated inside our brains, and belong to the conscious and sub-conscious minds.

 

Conscious versus the Subconscious Mind

Our minds are highly evolved nerve centers with the ability to sense and process vast amounts of information, manage the millions of bodily functions that occur every second, and keep us alive and safe from harm.  And while it is doing all that, our mind still manages to keep multiple conversations going on inside us – all at the same time!

Interestingly, neuroscientists can show us the ancient parts of our minds are still a vital part of the human brain.  And we share these elements with most other animals, both warm and even cold-blooded.  We know these elements as the subconscious mind.  That is the part that keeps us alive, controls the heart beat, breathing, and everything else important to life.

 

What about the Conscious Mind?

The part of the human brain that has developed and evolved is what we call the conscious brain and humans use this element to stay alive.  To think, learn, recall and the development of reason and logical thought.  The human brain has evolved a larger conscious mind than most other animals.  This is how humans have learned to use logic and reasoning to advantage, and to dominate over other species.

What we need to know about all this is that the conscious brain is responsible for that voice inside our heads.

The Battle of Wills is really just a manifestation of the Conscious vs the Subconscious Mind.  It is important to understand how this affects our lives.

Otherwise is will be like a civil ware inside your head!

 

The Basic Human Needs

 All people have a basic priority of human needs, as expounded by Maslow in the “Hierarchy of Needs”.  What this means is that we all have a fundamental set of requirements.  Such as the need for safety, shelter or love that determines nearly all of our decisions, or emotions, and our everyday behaviors.  This is a natural and good thing, as it is what keeps us safe from harm, away from danger, and prepared to protect ourselves from any or all of the risks that we face in the course of our day.

 

The Need to Avoid Pain

When we have satisfied the basic levels of the Hierarchy of Human Needs, we reach the position that we consider as the most secure, and we settle and become familiar with that level of perceived comfort and safety.  We call that success!

However, any attempt by external influences (or that pesky voice of reason) to move you away from that position of comfort can be greeted with an immediate and garrulous response from your comfortable conscious mind.  To avoid any discomfort from change, and to restore what we are more familiar with, the conscious mind will automatically try to drag us back to the status quo.

Even when we really desire something to change, get a better job, take on extra responsibility or training or new goals; it can turn into a Battle of Wills.  When we aspire to have a better life, often we choose to do nothing about it.

Beware, the Battle of Wills is becoming a civil war!

 

Will Power is no match for Won’t Power

The subconscious mind cannot help itself from its single motivation, which is always to ensure self-preservation.  This an entirely reasonable position, after all, it is the subconscious that manages all of the myriad of tasks involved in keeping us alive, and fortunately for us, it never wavers in this task!

For example, the subconscious always steers us away from threat and the preferred position is always toward reward.  This may or may not be obvious, but when it comes to the plentiful society that we have created around ourselves, the pleasurable option is all too obvious.

Away from Threat, Towards Reward

We are surrounded by pleasure, reward, relaxation and abundance!  At every turn we take, we are confronted with an opportunity to stop, delay, postpone and procrastinate.  Because everywhere we look, we are presented with an opportunity to turn away from threat, obstruct the journey of change, and select an easy reward.

Because as we all know – Will Power is no match for Won’t Power.

 

Hunger and Thirst

 Time for some examples; we will start with the basic human needs for food and water.  For most people in a western society, we have more food and sustenance than we could ever hope to consume.  We are surrounded by fast food outlets, supermarkets, voluminous refrigerators, cupboards full of food, and maybe even a stash of supplies in case of emergency.  I think I am safe in saying that we have enough to eat and drink.  So why do we make a fuss about it?  Are we afraid of running short?  Are we afraid of going without?  I assure you we will not die of thirst!

But as we all know – Will Power is no match for Won’t Power.  This is exactly why we are so worried about going on a diet, because the Battle of Wills has been lost.  That is exactly why most attempts at dieting are prone to failure.  Once we make a commitment in our minds to going on a diet, the human need for food and water goes immediately into overdrive, and even on the very same day as you start a diet with all of the very best of intentions, by about lunch time, your Will Power is being tested to the very edge of its limits, your hunger is screaming at you more loudly than you have ever experienced before, and all it takes is a brief second for the battle to be lost, and for the triumphant Won’t Power to raise the victory flag.

 

How is your relationship with Alcohol?

How is your threat level now?  Has that question raised any chattering inside your head?  For many people, this subject creates a great deal of inner turmoil.  As we have already explored, when the Battle of Wills is stirred within our mind, the conscious vs the subconscious minds start arguing immediately.  The conscious mind cannot help itself, it immediately tries to take control, but instead, it simply starts babbling, and making all sorts of garrulous noise inside your head.  The conscious mind has been triggered into action, but it doesn’t even know where it is going!  Sometimes it seems as though the only way to stop the noise is to choose reward over threat, choose pleasure over pain.  Having a glass of alcohol will have the desired affect by releasing a wonderful sense of calm.  Alcohol offers a simple and easy way to stop the jabbering and gibberish.  Excellent!

Proof yet again that Will Power is no match for Won’t Power!

 

So where is the problem, you ask?

The problem is that here we have an addictive drug.  Alcohol is a poisonous chemical that is not natural for the human body, and is actually toxic to all living things.  As if the subconscious needed any help to identify the reward, then along comes alcohol and demands your attention with a delicious flood of feel good chemicals inside the brain.  Subconsciously you are compelled to avoid pain at any cost, and thus make an obvious decision to accept alcohol, despite the risk.

 

Is Alcohol Bad for Us?

Yes it is!  Alcohol is a poisonous, toxic, mind altering chemical that causes immense pain, disorientation and illness, yet our brain has been tricked into choosing this pain as a better alternative to going without.  How has the natural order been upended?  How can an addictive drug deceive our brilliant brain into making such an obvious mistake?

 

The answer lies in our subconscious mind

Where have we developed such a powerful sense of Will Power?  The problem is core to the development of our subconscious mind, and the way it has been exposed to a system of influences during our upbringing.  These external influences come from a variety of exposure, such as:

• Observing the way family and friends relate to alcohol
• Social acceptance of alcohol
• Alcohol promotional advertising
• Manipulation psychology
• Cultural conditioning
• Social Proof and
• Social Evidence

As you can see, there was never really a fair fight, between Will Power and Won’t Power, but we knew what the outcome would be.

 

The Alcohol Trap

The Alcohol Industry is huge, and millions of people around the world consume it.  It is a vast machine that is intent on meeting the immense demand.  Now this is potentially acceptable if there were appropriate controls in place.  But there is not.  The massive alcohol industry is fuelled by massive marketing budgets all trying to out-compete one another and to increase their own jealously guarded share of the market.

 

Supply and demand you might say?

Not really, because the over arching message being conveyed is that alcohol is safe.  We are led to believe that alcohol is controllable.  That it enhances your enjoyment of life, and somehow improves your social life.  This message is all pervading, reaching every corner of our society.  All age groups are aware of it, and even if you are too young to drink now, you are certainly being conditioned to accept the inevitability that you will be allowed to drink when you are old enough.

 

Cultural Conditioning with alcohol

Is it any wonder then that despite the indisputable evidence of the negative consequences of heavy drinking.  People continue to be brainwashed by all the positive propaganda that they are continually surrounded by.  Despite all the warnings to “drink in moderation” the bombardment of advertising tells us to drink more!  The ‘benefits’ of alcohol have become part of their conditioning.   Yes we have been culturally conditioned to accept the risk of consuming a toxic, poisonous and mind altering drug.  We have been completely fooled to think it is safe to teeter around the edge of the trap with an addictive drug.  Even though deep down we know that drinking alcohol can have a negative influence on our lifestyle, the battle of Wills has been lost.  Will Power never stood a chance.

Unless you want a different outcome.  Unless you want for something better.

 

The moment of realization

Is this article triggering your Ah-hah or light bulb moment?  Have you had a threshold moment of realization when, even for the briefest of moments, you can see through all of the lies and deception that have been created by cultural conditioning?  Sometimes it takes several ah-hahs to finally tip us over the edge!  Never mind, you are fighting a massive battle on the inside to reach this moment of realization.  The voices inside your head and even on the outside are not happy with you right now!

We are well aware that we are drinking too much.  But for how long can we keep doing the same behavior, simply because we are afraid to change?  Surely it is easier to give up now, voluntarily, than to wait until it is too late.

It just doesn’t make sense, we know alcohol causes pain, yet we are unable or unwilling to change.  When a person decides to reduce the consumption of alcohol, the threat level within themselves, as well as amongst their peer group and family members, is raised to painful levels due to the reaction of the subconscious mind.  The Battle of Wills immediately turns to full-on warfare.

 

But as we all know – Will Power is no match for Won’t Power.

Even your moment of realization will not be strong enough to save you if you procrastinate.

Over time, even the strongest motivation will be worn down by the incessant chattering gibberish that comes from within and also from the outside.

Even the love of your spouse or children will not be enough motivation to stop.

Even the strongest medical advice will not prevent the urge to drink, well not for long anyway.

Not many people have the power to stop – using Will Power is destined to fail.

But you are not alone.  We all know that we will probably have to stop one day, either by choice or by medical necessity.  Why not take control and stop drinking now!

 

Don’t rely on Willpower to Stop Drinking

 The secret we have to share with you is that you can stop drinking with our safe, no threat, no humiliation, and easy to follow process that you can do in the privacy of your own home.

You do not have to give up drinking using Will Power.  Join our on-line course to find a better, safer method that does not rely on Will Power to stop drinking.  And this is why is will not fail, and it won’t let you down.  You will no longer want to drink.

It worked for me!

You too can avoid the alcohol trap.