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Todd on How to Get Nothing from your 30
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It’s easy. Willpower your way through it. Make a post-30 plan, and watch it evaporate because while you were absing from alcohol, instead of trying hard to become the kind of person who doesn’t need to drink, you were just hard to not drink for 30 days.
I’ve done this. I used to think that moderation was simply a matter of mechanically setting and following a certain number of drinks on a certain number of days. Over the last 3 years I’ve learned over and over that that’s not how it works. It’s more simple, but not so easy.
So, how do you drink moderately? I don’t know. I’ve only done it successfully for a few weeks out of probably a total of a year’s worth of trying. The sense of the list can give the guidance on that one.
In thinking about why my moderation wasn’t working, I eventually came to an inevitable conclusion. I didn’t just have a bad habit, like checking Facebook too much or not flossing. Cutting my intake from 12 drinks a week to 6 wouldn’t bring some huge benefit, in the same way that increasing my exercise time from 2 to 4 hours would. Basically, I was calculating alcohol on the same continuum that all the other ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldn’ts’ in my life exist on.
Last week I wrote about the last drink I had. I didn’t really want it, but I watched helplessly as I poured it. I was sober, but I was not in control.
My conclusion was that I had not been ready to moderate because alcohol has somehow gained the ability to exert control over me. I had a picture in my mind of what addiction was, and since I didn’t fit that image, I thought I was free from the problem. Now I realize that addiction comprises a wide range of factors, some of which definitely describe me.
Another reason moderation was frustrating for me was that when I’m waiting to drink, I’m planning it, thinking about it, rationalizing it, questioning it--putting a lot of time into it! And so let’s say that I successfully moderate and have two drinks in two hours. Those drinks have also cost me perhaps one to two more hours in prep/thinking/logging time. Suddenly the groundwork to enjoyment ratio is skewed, which is stressful and therefore encourages more drinking. Stress encourages drinking, drinking causes problems, problems create stress...
When I’m truly absing--not just waiting a few weeks to drink again, but really living an abs life--these do not happen.
Alcohol is like a magnet--the closer you get, the more it pulls, but when you’re far away there’s hardly any effect at all. If you spend your whole 30 days waiting for day 31, then the magnet is constantly pulling on you, wearing you down and weakening your willpower. Not a good place to be.
So let’s live the April 30 as if we were perm abs!
Woah ... Did I just freak you out, give you a jolt of deprivation stress?
What’s the difference...? If you’re not going to drink for all of April anyway, then do a little mind exercise with me. If you could be free from the shackles of control that alcohol has over your life, how would you live for the rest of your life? What changes would you make RIGHT NOW, as if you were leaping up after the schoolyard bully had just been sitting on you for too long?
After you’ve started your daily habit or habits, a great next step is to fully take in mentally the change that this is effecting in your life. So you’re not just going through the motions, but really letting
the change sink in.
For me:
I’'m the kind of person who gets up early in the morning to start each day in a grounded way.
I’'m the kind of person who enjoys my physical being, exercising a little more each day.
I'’m the kind of person who is open to the good things the world has tooffer me each day.
Baby steps...
Todd on How to Get Nothing from your 30
------------------------------------------------------------
It’s easy. Willpower your way through it. Make a post-30 plan, and watch it evaporate because while you were absing from alcohol, instead of trying hard to become the kind of person who doesn’t need to drink, you were just hard to not drink for 30 days.
I’ve done this. I used to think that moderation was simply a matter of mechanically setting and following a certain number of drinks on a certain number of days. Over the last 3 years I’ve learned over and over that that’s not how it works. It’s more simple, but not so easy.
So, how do you drink moderately? I don’t know. I’ve only done it successfully for a few weeks out of probably a total of a year’s worth of trying. The sense of the list can give the guidance on that one.
In thinking about why my moderation wasn’t working, I eventually came to an inevitable conclusion. I didn’t just have a bad habit, like checking Facebook too much or not flossing. Cutting my intake from 12 drinks a week to 6 wouldn’t bring some huge benefit, in the same way that increasing my exercise time from 2 to 4 hours would. Basically, I was calculating alcohol on the same continuum that all the other ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldn’ts’ in my life exist on.
Last week I wrote about the last drink I had. I didn’t really want it, but I watched helplessly as I poured it. I was sober, but I was not in control.
My conclusion was that I had not been ready to moderate because alcohol has somehow gained the ability to exert control over me. I had a picture in my mind of what addiction was, and since I didn’t fit that image, I thought I was free from the problem. Now I realize that addiction comprises a wide range of factors, some of which definitely describe me.
Another reason moderation was frustrating for me was that when I’m waiting to drink, I’m planning it, thinking about it, rationalizing it, questioning it--putting a lot of time into it! And so let’s say that I successfully moderate and have two drinks in two hours. Those drinks have also cost me perhaps one to two more hours in prep/thinking/logging time. Suddenly the groundwork to enjoyment ratio is skewed, which is stressful and therefore encourages more drinking. Stress encourages drinking, drinking causes problems, problems create stress...
When I’m truly absing--not just waiting a few weeks to drink again, but really living an abs life--these do not happen.
Alcohol is like a magnet--the closer you get, the more it pulls, but when you’re far away there’s hardly any effect at all. If you spend your whole 30 days waiting for day 31, then the magnet is constantly pulling on you, wearing you down and weakening your willpower. Not a good place to be.
So let’s live the April 30 as if we were perm abs!
Woah ... Did I just freak you out, give you a jolt of deprivation stress?
What’s the difference...? If you’re not going to drink for all of April anyway, then do a little mind exercise with me. If you could be free from the shackles of control that alcohol has over your life, how would you live for the rest of your life? What changes would you make RIGHT NOW, as if you were leaping up after the schoolyard bully had just been sitting on you for too long?
After you’ve started your daily habit or habits, a great next step is to fully take in mentally the change that this is effecting in your life. So you’re not just going through the motions, but really letting
the change sink in.
For me:
I’'m the kind of person who gets up early in the morning to start each day in a grounded way.
I’'m the kind of person who enjoys my physical being, exercising a little more each day.
I'’m the kind of person who is open to the good things the world has tooffer me each day.
Baby steps...
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