alcohol

Because Life is So Precious
Embed from Getty Images

Have you ever pondered the odds of your being born a human being? The top of the food chain? On planet Earth? Let’s look at some numbers.

If you go back 40 generations, starting with you, then your parents, then grandparents, great grandparents, and so on, how many people would you guess had to be involved? In 40 generations? Hundreds? Thousands? Try more than 2 trillion. That’s trillion with a “t.” Let’s not even get into the odds of all of those people meeting and having a productive roll in the hay together, nor consider going back another 40 generations, lest our heads explode.

There’s a Buddhist story that if you threw a lifesaver randomly into any of the oceans on the planet (around 140 million square miles of them), and if there was only one turtle in all of the oceans, the odds of you being born would be akin to the turtle surfacing for the first time and poking it’s head through the lifesaver. Which is to say, almost no chance at all.

And what about death? Have you ever considered the chances of dying? Let me grab my calculator… Oh, wait, I don’t need it. Chances of dying: 100%. Guaranteed.

Do you know how precious and fleeting your life is? You were born, against all the odds, not a flee, nor a rat, nor plankton, but the highest of all life forms: a human being.

After the absolute miracle of your being born, how crazy is it to poison yourself and ruin your life with alcohol? I’ll tell you how crazy: 100%.

Wake up! Now is the time! Do something with your mindbogglingly precious life! The past is the past — forget it. The rest of your life begins right now, in this very moment. Do you want to make something of it? Or just continue as you have been? Drinking, unhappy, unhealthy? You know the answer.

This is your shot. Your life. Once you’re gone, you’re gone. You will never have this chance again. Ever.

KTB

But All My Friends Drink!
Embed from Getty Images

Most of my friends drink to some degree or another, do I just end the friendships now that I’ve quit drinking?

It’s going to be difficult to stay off the booze if your friends are all heavy boozers. Here are some straightforward pointers for dealing with this problem.

The Best Kind of Friends

We have to choose our friends carefully, because the people we spend our time with have a big influence on us. The people you want in your life are:

  • Kind
  • Decent
  • Honest
  • Healthy
  • Fun to be around
  • Inspiring
  • Motivating
  • Supportive
  • Genuinely interested in you
  • Reliable
  • Trustworthy
  • Positive
  • Loyal

People who are truly your friends, who care about you, will respect your decision to kick the booze. They will support you one hundred percent.

The Questionable Friends

Embed from Getty Images

You might want to question the depth of the friendship with friends who tease you about quitting alcohol, and try to coax you back into drinking. Are they really your friends? Would somebody who really cared about you want you to be drunk? Would they let you drink and drive? I think you know the answers to those questions.

It’s not that they’re malicious, that they are intentionally wanting to jeopardize your health, your happiness, your life. It’s more likely that they’ve just given up caring about their own lives. If they don’t care about what happens to themselves, how can they care about what happens to you?

Choose Wisely

George Washington said: “It is better to be alone than in bad company.”

A Buddhist would advise: “If you cannot find a good companion to travel with, walk alone, like an elephant roaming the jungle. It is better to be alone than with those who will hinder your progress.”

While it might not be easy to completely sever the ties with the heavy boozers in your life, you should seriously consider reducing time spent with them to a minimum. And spend more time with your true friends, the ones who respect and support you. Or maybe try spending more quality time with family, or alone. Read an inspiring/entertaining book, learn a new language or skill, work out, practice yoga, meditate, there are endless healthy ways to spend your time.

To kick the booze, you must become a different person. A better, stronger, smarter person.

Give it a go, you’ll be AMAZED at what you are capable of.

KTB

Do This and You Won’t Drink
Embed from Getty Images

There’s one simple thing that you can do that will stop you from drinking: THINK.

  • Think about how bad you’re going to feel with that hangover tomorrow if you drink today.
  • Think about the fact that you’ll be poisoning your precious body if you choose to drink, destroying your liver, your heart, and your brain, among many other things.
  • Think about the money that you’ll be wasting, money that you could be saving and putting towards a new car, or a great vacation, or setting aside for a rainy day.
  • Think about the stupid things that you’ve done under the influence of alcohol — do you want to repeat those?
  • Think about the promises made but not kept, and all the things you’ve said under the influence of booze that you’d like to take back.
  • Think about the fact that all of your worldly troubles will be waiting for you with a vengeance when you awake.
  • Think about all the things that need to be done tomorrow that won’t get done if you drink.

And then think about the benefits of choosing not to drink:

  • Think: you won’t wake up with a hangover tomorrow, filled with regret and berating yourself.
  • Think: you won’t be poisoning your precious body (it will appreciate it more than you could know).
  • Think: you’ll be saving your hard-earned money for something so much better.
  • Think: you won’t be tempted to do those stupid things that booze would have you do.
  • Think: you’ll be better able to cope with any problems that you might be dealing with. We all have problems in life; drinking does not solve any of them.
  • Think: you’ll have much more energy tomorrow, and you’ll be able to think clearly, allowing you to attack the day and get things done.

There’s a moment when we make a final decision — it’s a split second — like a light switch. It’s on or it’s off; I choose to drink, or I choose not to drink. The next time you’re getting ready to flick that switch, think about the guaranteed consequences of the choice that you’re about to make:

  • Drink and you will suffer.
  • Don’t drink and you’ll be a better, smarter, stronger person.

It should be a pretty easy decision, right?

Just think.

KTB

Cut Yourself Some Slack
Embed from Getty Images

If you swore that you’d never have another drink — maybe you promised yourself that “this time, I mean it” — but you succumbed to the urge and drank, don’t be too hard on yourself. There are literally millions of people fighting the very same battle that you are.

Cut yourself some slack — you are human — and do all that you can to treat the hangover.

It can take days to fully recover from a night of boozing, but with each day you will get progressively better. It might help if you write down just how awful a hangover makes you feel, and refer back to those notes the next time you are considering drinking. Somehow, we seem to quickly forget how bad the effects of alcohol can be.

Start Over

If we break our promises, we have to get up, dust ourselves off, and start over. Try to be aware of the situations that tempt you to drink, and then try to avoid or change those situations. If you’ve had a terrible day at work, and the norm is for you to hit the booze, do something healthy instead. Go for a walk, read something inspiring, remind yourself that by choosing to not drink, you are making yourself a better and stronger person.

You have to break the bad habits, and create new, good habits. I recently purchased some new glasses because my old ones made me think of wine. A small change with a big effect.

You can do this.

KTB

Burn Your Money
Embed from Getty Images

If you’re struggling with alcohol, if you’re waking up with hangovers, missing days from work, not doing the things that you should be doing, here’s some advice: when you feel the urge to go and buy booze, just burn your money instead.

You were going to spend it on booze, let’s say $10 (maybe a lot more?), and booze is the very thing that’s causing so many things in your life to go wrong. By burning your money, you’ll be out the $10, but you’ll avoid the hangover and all that goes with it.

Would you pay somebody $10 a few times a week to make your life miserable? I think not. So why spend money on booze, knowing that it will continue to make your life miserable?

The next time you get the urge to buy booze, read something inspiring, or go out and do something different, or spend your hard-earned money on something fun or useful instead.

It gets easier as time goes by — I promise. And everything in your life will improve.

KTB

New Glasses and a Fancy New Drink
Embed from Getty Images

I’ve had a set of stemless wine glasses for some time now, and when I hold one of those glasses it really wants me to pour some wine into it. So I decided to pick up some new glasses today — a set of four for the price of a cheap bottle of wine. They have a completely different feel to the wine glasses.

I also picked up some lemon and lime flavored Perrier water. I’m not a Perrier drinker, but I thought it might make a nice change. I was right! A nice glass, the Perrier, some ice and a slice of lemon, and it feels quite decadent. And healthy!

I’m going to reserve this healthy drink for the times that the old me would have had alcohol, thereby replacing an old, bad habit, with a new, healthy one.

Small changes can make a big difference.

KTB

What To Do with All This Energy!
Embed from Getty Images

This time last week I had a horrible hangover. I decided it was time to kick the booze. I spent half the day in bed, the other half figuring out how to get this blog up and running.

A week has passed, and I’ve had no alcohol at all.

Sometimes, the old me would drink during the week, maybe after a particularly stressful day, but it was guaranteed that I would unwind on a Friday after work.

A typical routine was to pick up some take-out and drink wine. Initially it would seem fun and relaxing. Then I would go to bed, fall asleep for a while, and wake up in the middle of the night, feeling awful, and unable to get back to sleep again. Tossing and turning for the rest of the night — berating myself, and feeling guilty.

Last night (Friday night), I skipped the wine, and just made a nice meal at home. It was a stressful week at work, and I definitely could have used a drink. But I chose not to.

And today I’m so glad that I did! Because I got a good night’s sleep, woke up and had some coffee, and now I have so much energy! Whereas last Saturday I got next to nothing done, today I’ll do laundry, pay the bills, and get out for a bike ride. And that’s just this morning!

If you’re suffering with a hangover right now, I feel for you. And you’re not alone. Here’s an article that might help you through the day.

Just remember, it’s never too late to kick the booze. You could choose to start right now if you want to.

KTB

Close Encounters of the Booze Kind
Embed from Getty Images

The eve of Day 2, and I’m feeling highly motivated to kick the booze for good, though I did have several unplanned encounters with it today.

This morning I was looking at some vacation destinations for a hard-earned trip that I’m planning with my other half. Most of the photos of the accommodations had glasses of wine in them — by the jacuzzi, beside the stove in the kitchen, on tables beside sunbeds.

Then I picked up a piece of Mahi Mahi at the store (silly expensive – I hadn’t noticed the price until it was too late), came home and googled a garlic sauce recipe to go with the fish. The first recipe that I clicked on was made with white wine.

And while at the grocery store, I was whizzing through gathering bits for the week, and rounded the corner of an aisle into the booze section — I had to go through it to pick up some bread — surrounded by towering shelves of wine and beer.

Booze is everywhere. It’s “normal” to drink, “they’d” like to have us believe. It makes it tough for a person trying to quit. But knowing that that’s what you’re dealing with is a big help; you can come up with some strategies to counter it. And you should.

Remembering that the poison in those attractive bottles, and cans, and boxes has the potential to kill you might help; that alcohol can quickly cause an intelligent person to make really bad decisions; that it ruins so many relationships, with friends and loved ones; that excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years.

Some sobering thoughts indeed.

KTB