I was talking to a friend recently who was feeling down about the impact lockdown was having on her day to day mood. She was lamenting all the things she couldn’t do and all the grim statistics around covid in the news.
She was very upset and angry. The interesting thing was that she was questioning why I was not as annoyed as she was as she felt this was a normal reaction to what’s going on around us. Now don’t get me wrong I am like everyone else- I am not immune to how tough things are right now. And I feel truly sad for all the people who have suffered terrible losses due to this pandemic.
But while there are a lot of things we are not able to do right now and not in control of, we do have a choice as to what to make it mean, how we want to show up in the world and what we want to focus on.
And it struck me that our relationship with alcohol is very similar.
When I was drinking I could have given you hundreds of reasons why I was drinking , why it was too difficult to stop or cut down long term and why it wasn’t my fault.
For example:
It was the way I was brought up
All my friends drink
I need alcohol to socialise
I know I drink too much but so does everyone else
I need alcohol to handle stress in my life
It is how I bond with work colleagues
I have drank all my adult life there is no way I can change now
My last health check was fine so alcohol doesn’t impact me
Non drinkers are boring
Life is not worth living without alcohol
etc etc
If you want to stay stuck there is plenty of excuses to choose from. But please recognise this. If you decide to stay stuck you are making a choice.
And there is another choice.
You can decide to change your relationship with alcohol. Yes it might be scary to make a change, but it is not as scary as deciding to carry on drinking. Excessive drinking has become normalised in our society but the health impacts are very real.
You don’t have to have all the answers figured out and you certainly don’t need to do it alone. You also do not have to wait until you hit rock bottom to decide to change. There is help and support every step of the way. You just need to decide you want to change.
PS
If you do decide to make a change you will discover that life is actually better without alcohol. More exciting. You create a life you no longer want to numb from.
If you want to make a change please get in touch.
Have a great day
Sandra