10 Steps to Quit Drinking Alcohol: #3 and #4
(Go back to step one)
3. Remember the Bad Times: Sometimes you may feel an urge to drink because you’re remembering a happy time involving alcohol. When you catch yourself thinking like this you need to recognize it as a mirage, and immediately re-focus your thoughts to ponder the negative experiences you’ve had involving alcohol (please read: Remember When Alcohol Made You Sick). What negative experiences got you to the point of saying “enough is enough!” How many times did you get sick? How many times did you hate yourself for getting drunk, and vowed never to drink again?
The key is: DON’T hate yourself any longer. Instead, hate the idea of drinking alcohol by remembering how much anguish it has caused in your life. You must be very aware of how your mind can play tricks on you when it only remembers the good times involving alcohol. Pick the two or three WORST times of your life involving booze and refer to them whenever your mind tries to fool you into thinking that alcohol brings good times. It doesn’t, and deep down inside you KNOW it doesn’t.
Tip: Always remember the BAD TIMES that alcohol caused you.
4. Know the Reasons Why to Quit Drinking: There are dozens and dozens of great reasons to quit drinking alcohol, from your physical health to your financial outlook, from relationships and your love life, to your mental and spiritual life. Make a list and study it twice, and then come up with more reasons. The MORE reasons you come up with the EASIER it will be to get over your alcohol addiction. Knowledge is power, and the more you study alcohol abuse the more knowledgeable you will become about what it is doing to YOU.
The important thing to realize is that MY reasons to quit may not be YOUR reasons to quit, nor that of anyone else. YOU have to come up with reasons that matter to YOU. I’m sure there are a few very personal and private reasons you may have to quit drinking. Maybe even reasons you’d be embarrassed to tell anyone else about. That’s fine. Just write them down somewhere so that only YOU can see them. Then study them every day. THOSE are the reasons you must get your alcoholism under control.
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