I thought I’d write a bit about how I quit drinking alcohol. In another article I described why I stopped drinking alcohol, and how much my life has improved ever since then. To summarize, back in 2004 I was developing a list of new year’s resolutions, and I suddenly realized that my alcohol addiction was the main reason I hadn’t accomplished my goals years before. It had sapped my time, energy and money – and it did so morning, noon and night.
The sudden revelation that it was alcohol that was sabotaging my efforts to accomplish my goals made me very angry … at alcohol, not myself. I determined to do something about it, and to change from the man I was to the man I wanted to become.
I was also immediately aware that once I removed alcohol from my life, it would logically become easier and easier for me to achieve my goals. And it has. I’ve lost weight, I have more energy, and I feel much healthier. I also think more clearly, I’m genuinely enthusiastic about my future, and I’m on pace to more than double my income this year as compared to last year.
However, if you are wondering why you should listen to MY advice – someone you do not know – instead of your doctor, or someone else whose opinion you trust. My answer is that you should consider ALL ideas to overcome alcohol addiction, because you just never know when some little “crazy idea” will work wonders for you, until you actually try it. What worked for me CAN work very well for lots of other people, including you. Just give it a couple of weeks, and you’ll be living an alcohol-free lifestyle. Now, let me tell you how I quit drinking alcohol:
The First Step: I remembered the bad times I had drinking alcohol. I constantly reminded myself of the times I got sick, or wasted all of my money, or just “felt lousy” due to drinking. I not only remembered the bad stuff, I tried to RE-LIVE it all over again so I would become more disgusted at the prospect of drinking. I tried to conjure up the same bad feelings I had before to reinforce my commitment to change. In fact, I purposely remembered the bad times involving alcohol as often as I could, even if it meant doing so every 5 or 10 minutes!
FIRST STEP SUMMARY: It is essential to constantly REMIND YOURSELF of all the negative experiences you’ve had while drinking alcohol. Remember the vomiting, the headaches, the stomach aches, and wasting your money. Remember getting in fights, or saying stupid things, or hurting others – emotionally or even physically. Dwell on and relive the bad feelings that were CAUSED by alcohol. All of these bad things WERE in your life BECAUSE of alcohol. Let the NEGATIVE feelings grow inside of you at the very mention of the word alcohol. Begin to HATE alcohol for what it’s done to you in the past. Let the NEGATIVE feelings about alcohol OVERWHELM any positive feelings you USED to have about alcohol. I can tell you for a fact that there is NO ONE who is more of a positive person than I am, and yet I can also assure you that by being deliberately negative about alcohol you’ll quickly want NOTHING to do with it. You will soon identify IT with EVERYTHING that ever was NEGATIVE about your life. (article continues below)