If you have ever tried to stop drinking before, then obviously you have the desire to stop.  But do you have the willpower and mind set to get you through the tricky period of withdrawal?

So what is the problem?  The problem lies in the subconscious mind.  The problem has been put there by the long term advertising and promotion of alcohol.  The false messages are subconsciously being implanted at the deepest levels of our minds.  And often we don’t even realise it has happened.

The problem is always the same.  Our cultural conditioning and social acceptance tells us about the perceived benefits of drinking alcohol.  What Benefits?  The lies simply prevent us from understanding the fundamentals of the alcohol trap.

Stop Drinking and Stay Stopped

Most good advice about drinking too much alcohol is just to cut back and you’ll be okay.  Drink in moderation!  But what if cutting back is exactly the problem.  No matter how hard some of us try to cut back, the problem is not with our resolve to avoid alcohol, the problem is with alcohol itself.

You know the problem – as soon as you have just one drink, some of us inevitably find that one drink leads to another and then another.  Sound familiar?

As soon as we find ourselves in that social environment, or that tired time after work – beware.  How about that time of release from all the pressures of the day?  You know, when that first drink seems to give such a pleasant boost to our feelings.  And so in our subconscious mind, we believe it okay to just have another drink.

Don’t get caught again!

Rather than deal with those troubles and stresses of the day, we try to shut them out for just a little while, or when all of those voices or thoughts in our head become too loud, it is sometimes relaxing just to make peace for a short while.  But the trouble is, we know the stress will come back as soon as we stop drinking, so we choose to have another drink, and then another in a vain hope that we can keep hold of those happy feelings for as long as possible.

But it is not possible, and eventually we find that alcohol does not solve our problems, it only makes them worse.  The stress and troubles do not go away, they only get postponed until they come roaring back to bite even worse than before.

And then we get the inevitable remorse and regret that we get when we have been overcome by alcohol again.  As usual, no matter how strong our resolve to avoid alcohol, we end up back in the same situation, drinking too much alcohol, and wishing we hadn’t done it!

Maybe the best advice is to stop drinking completely!

Wait a minute – that is not the usual advice.  Most people say it is okay to keep drinking, just cut back a bit, drink in moderation, we all drink too much alcohol sometimes, you are not an alcoholic, no harm done…

And what about advertising – you never hear them tell you to cut back or quit!

It is very easy to get social approval to drink alcohol, after all it is legal and everyone does it.  But does that make it okay?  You see advertising on TV, newspapers and at all sorts of sporting events.  But I haven’t seen the opposite line being promoted very often, or very prominently.  Alcohol promotion is everywhere, and the image is always one of having fun with friends, being carefree, liberated, and in a social situation where everyone is drinking together.  This is called social approval.

Isn’t it strange how we don’t see promotional images of drinking too much alcohol by yourself.  Do you ever see times of hardship, or in times of sadness on TV?  This is not the image that alcohol advertisers want to portray.  Consequently, most people are not conditioned to see the downside of the consequences of drinking too much alcohol.

Until it is too late, and alcohol

has taken control of our lives

What happens to all of those young happy drinkers on TV or in the advertisements?  Do they wake up feeling bad the next morning after drinking too much alcohol?  Does alcohol leave them feeling bad the next day like you and me?  Were those people on TV able to stop drinking after one bottle of fizzy pop, or did they keep on drinking till they felt sick?

We will never know, because the problem with alcohol is always hidden behind the façade that society builds around the stigma of drinking too much alcohol.  So long as we are seen as being able to “handle our drink” then there is no perceived problem.  In fact, being seen as someone who can drink too much alcohol comes with a badge of honor amongst red blooded men.  This badge of honor becomes a yolk around our necks when we discover that we have a problem with alcohol.  Our friends will not offer any sympathy to a poor soul who has succumbed to the addictive force of alcohol.  Someone who cannot control their addiction to alcohol is no longer seen as wearing a badge of honor, but rather someone who could not handle their drinking.

What we are really looking for is help to stop drinking

But where does one go to get help to stop drinking?  And should we believe the advice that we got?  Advice that states “cut back on alcohol”, drink in moderation, or even avoid alcohol during week nights.  Have you tried these things, and find that it just isn’t working?  Then what should we do, or where can we find more help to stop drinking?

What if I have tried to quit before?

AA is not for everyone, and some people have found that they have tried quitting alcohol and failed, or prefer to find a better way to quit drinking.

Many people have successfully quit drinking on their own, and this is an excellent choice, if you can keep your resolve to avoid alcohol.

The problem with these methods is that you need to rely on will power to quit drinking, and even if there is a very good reason to quit drinking, sometimes using will power alone is not enough.

Sometimes the best advice is to quit drinking completely.

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