Have you already tried to stop drinking for a while? Or maybe you thought you'd slipped into drinking a bit more than is good for you and that it might be wise to cut back a bit?
If you're the kind of person who can just have one glass of wine or a pint of beer and then stop, then I'd hazard a guess that this blog and Dry January groups or other sober-curious communities probably aren't where you're at.
For the rest of us who find moderation somewhere between 'a challenge' and 'nigh on impossible' ... well, read on!
There's so many posts about people who are embarrassed that they cannot have just one drink, or who set out with the right intentions but then somehow a switch is flipped and they lose control and then drink to excess. This might be exacerbated by friends (not friends?) who seem to positively delight in watching us fall off the wagon.
There's a great deal of shame expressed, not only about what you might have done when under the influence, but also how people who might otherwise seem very squared away, organised, disciplined, committed to diet and health simply find themselves unable to control their alcohol consumption.
Add to that the feelings of disappointment or guilt when, in spite of our best intentions, we "failed" and gave in and drank the alcohol we had promised ourselves to avoid. Check out my blog on The F Word for more on failure and why it's banned in my writing or in our mentoring sessions!
We may also find our partners, family or friends heap these emotions on us. Maybe they think that we can be shamed into stopping drinking. Maybe they think that all we need is a good talking-to, so we can be shaken out of whatever complacency we feel about our alcohol consumption. Maybe they have no idea how many negative emotions are already coursing through our veins, and that them pointing the finger at us is on top of the fingers we are probably already pointing at ourselves. These opinions, theirs or ours, are very unlikely to make a difference to our long term behaviour.
But what is not well known and which must be remembered is that it is the alcohol itself that makes moderation such a hard task. Combine this with the non-moderate habits we have acquired, it's asking a huge amount of ourselves to "just have one" and walk away.
I'll look a bit more at the science behind this in my next blog - because it really truly is a scientific answer, not an emotional one - but in the meantime try to put those negative emotions back in their box. I know they are very real and very powerful and I don't want to ignore them, but they are deeply unhelpful to your alcohol free journey and we must not let them get in the way of progress.
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