October Challenge

I consider my drinking still to be moderate and I’m happy that my drinking habit is quite stable.  When I’m at home, I tend to drink one or two glasses of wine at a time.  In September, I think I was drinking more often though and to address this, I’ve decided to cut out alcohol for October.  It’s also partially because when I cut out alcohol in March, I felt really good (but I had also started exercising at that time too) and I’m curious to see whether this will happen again.

It also feels different this time, as it doesn’t feel so much like a challenge.  In January, I drunk like my old self and March was only a short time after that, so it felt like something I must do.  This time, it feels quite easy not to drink.  Well, it’s only been four days so far.

I have one exception for drinking in October and that is, if my friend from Taiwan comes over, I’ll have a beer with him.  This exception is in place because the last time he came over was in March and I think he was a little disappointed that I didn’t share a beer with him.

Who’s the expert on alcohol?

Doctors, psychiatrists, nurses, addiction workers, alcohol specialists?

Perhaps it’s you!  You probably know more about hangovers, how drink affects you, the ‘drag effect’ it has the day after, how being extremely drunk feels than most of the experts mentioned above.  You know this because you have experienced it directly.  Yes, some of the experts have been drunk, but have they been drunk as many times as you?  Do they know more about the effects of alcohol on you than you?

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, the Outliers, he talks about the 10,000 hour rule.  This rule states that you need to practice for 10,000 hours to become a master at something.  This is not to become an expert but a MASTER!

So let’s be conservative.  Let’s have a baseline of ‘a bottle of wine’ (or 4-5 pints of beer) for being ‘drunk/under the influence'.  Perhaps this takes four hours to drink.  Including some disruption to sleep and the day after effects of alcohol, perhaps we can add another four hours.

This is the baseline.  There have probably been times when you drank for much longer and in larger amounts.  Obviously the day after effects of these sessions also last longer, but we’ll keep the drunk baseline at 8 hours.

How many times in your life have you got drunk?

Times the number of times in your life you’ve been drunk with 8 hours.  Are you a master yet?

I drank a lot for a long time.  My calculate come out as roughly 3,900 times I’ve been drunk in my life (perhaps it’s a bit lower than that? It seems obscenely high) but that gives me 31,200 hours of experience of getting and being drunk.  That is Zen mastery.

Even if you’re not a master yet, you are still an expert.  You know how alcohol effects you.  You know more than most doctors how you feel when you’re drunk.  You know a hell of a lot about the day after effects of alcohol.  Use this knowledge.  Is it what you want in your life?

Answer the following questions;

When you are drunk, how does alcohol affect you?

In a good way?

In a bad way?

What do you do when you feel bad whilst drinking?

How does alcohol affect you the day after?

Getting up?

Motivation?

Energy?

How often are you affected by alcohol the day after?

You know a lot about alcohol.  Use this knowledge to motivate you to drink less.  It’s not normal to wake up with a hangover.  It’s not normal to feel shitty for a morning or a day after drinking.  It’s only normal to you because you’ve made it normal.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  Cut down and be a moderate drinker.

Change Your Life - Bonus Reasons

Being Drunk; How Many Times before you Start to Cut Down?

How many times have you been drunk in your life?

How many times do you need to be drunk before you consider a change?

One change that will help you moderate your drinking.

Reasons why to moderate.

Other articles that might interest you.

How to be a Moderate Drinker?

Why don't more Moderate Drinkers moderate?

You drink at home – GREAT!

Whilst the health authorities, the government and experts lament about the number of people drinking ‘behind close doors’, if you’re a heavy drinker and want to modify your habit, there some great news!

It’s easier to modify at home than in a social environment!

Why?

Like the old saying, your home is your castle, you’re the one who wears the trousers there.  You are the King or the Queen, the President, the Dictator (or however you’d like to call yourself) of the environment there.  You control everything and that’s great news for modifying your drinking.

In Your Castle.  You control Policy!

·         You control what you buy. 

·         You control what and how much alcohol to store.

·         You can control the labelling on your alcohol.

·         You can have messages in your house.  Like in Animal Farm “Two legs bad, Four legs good”.  For example “one drink is good, any more is bad” or “More than two, Alcohol makes you feel like poo” (Anything that helps you remember how too much alcohol makes you feel).  “Alcohol steals my time”.  You already know in what you don’t like about ‘drinking’, use that knowledge!!!

·         You control how alcohol is displayed.  Perhaps, it could be locked up, so it’ll give you a couple of extra seconds to think about drinking.

·         If there’s a soft drink you like (doesn’t have to be sugary), make sure you have a supply of it.

So take control.  Modify your drinking.  It’s easier in the home.  You’re the Boss!

Next time – How I learned the skill of ‘stopping after one drink in my home’.

Why do we drink? Part 2

Last time we watch 10 adverts for alcohol and tried to work out how they were selling alcohol to us. 

Knowing why we drink can help us questions those reasons.  Are they valid reasons?  Are we deluding ourselves?

Allen Carr is famous for helping people quit smoking and drinking.  His approach to quitting smoking focuses on debunking myths surrounding smoking – it’s physically addictive, it’s beneficial (i.e. helps against boredom, helps concentration, relaxes me etc). 

Here’s a video of him explaining his method for smokers to quit.

Allen Carr Explaining How Smokers Can Stop

Alcohol Relaxes Me (My interpretation of Allen Carr)

Alcohol relaxes me. It’s true that when you start drinking, alcohol changes the way you feel.  That’s probably why after a hard day of work, people like this change in state that alcohol provides.   But if you carry on drinking, up to the time you go to bed, then alcohol disrupts your sleep.  You might fall asleep faster but alcohol disrupts the second half of your sleep, leaving you tired in the morning.  Not only that, alcohol’s a depressant, which basically means it slows down your brain activity.  That’s why after a heavy night, most people feel ‘washed out’ the next day. 

Alcohol and alternatives for relaxation.

	Short term	Medium term	Long term
Alcohol	Changes how you feel	Negative	Negative
Meditation	Changes how you feel	Positive	Positive
Exercise	Changes how you feel	Positive	Positive
Cold Shower	Changes how you feel	Don’t know	Don’t know

Allen Carr's Fourth Point from the video

I've found this to be true.  I was surprised at first but when you see someone getting more and more drunk, it's really isn't a pretty sight.

Back to the adverts

Advert 1

It makes things different.  Something unexpected might happen.  You’ll be living but with a different tune – fun because it’s different.

This is held to be true by many drinkers because many drunken nights led to unexpected things happening.    But I also think a bit of alcohol blindness is happening here as well.  Too many people think of ‘drinking’ as the ‘night out’ but the effect of alcohol last much longer.  Unexpected things might happen on a night out but nothing much tends to happen the day after a night out.  The day can be lost because you’re recovering from the night.  So you lose the chance to do different and exciting things in the day because you’re too wasted.

This gets to be more true as you get older.  Perhaps, you don't even have the excitement of going out because you drink at home.  If you're in your 30s, 40s or 50s, you've probably done this over a 1,000 times before.  What's going to be different if you get drunk one more time?  The end result is likely to be the same, especially for the day after.  Many heavy drinkers write off the day after, simply because alcohol is determining their routine.  They deny themselves the chance to do something different the next day.

Advert 3

It’s a manly thing to do.  Men and beer relate.  When men and beer get together, you can relax and have a good time.   The pub is place for a man.  If you drink and you’re a man, you’re still a rebel – young at heart

Whilst men like to drink beer together, is it really a manly thing to do? 

·         Beer, especially helps towards man boobs.   Man boobs are the very antipathy of manliness, cause in part by alcohol increase oestrogen, a female hormone.   Alcohol in general is seen by many as empty calories, which can lead to putting on weight. 

·         Alcohol lowers the sexual performance of males.

·         A sports field, a garage and a kitchen are also places for men. 

Advert 4

Beer is better than a beautiful woman.  It taste really good too.

Both might seem like good ideas but ultimately they both lead to trouble.

Advert 7

Beer makes you dance and brings out your hidden talents.

Arguably for some people, they only dance then they’ve drunk some alcohol.    From my personal experience and of seeing friends the day after, alcohol is usually disastrous for developing ‘hidden talents’.   It’s a huge time killer.  After big nights, it usually leaves you useless the next day.  This can be from tiredness and also from the ‘downer’ affect alcohol has on your nervous system, leaving you unmotivated and feel disengaged.  

What can we learn from Allen Carr?

·         Understanding and questioning why we drink will help us change our view of 'drinking'.

·         Many of the reasons why we drink are based on false beliefs. This is good in a way because we can question and address those beliefs.

·         It's easier to change your habit, if you believe it's easy.

·         Like smokers who need to smoke to relax, drinkers who need to drink to relax ( or socialize, or feel comfortable, or address boredomness) are putting themselves in a vicious circle.  It's a form of complusive behaviour.  If you put a heavy drinker next to a non-drinker/moderate drinker, who do you think is more relaxed?  And if you take away the drink - would their behaviour change?

·         And I'm sure a lot more.

Allen Carr also has a book that helps you quit drinking, even though its called 'Allen Carr's Easy Way to Control Alcohol'.  From the reviews on Amazon, it seems very anti-drinking and a lot of reviewers who had read the book, ended up quitting alcohol.

Remember, you can change your drinking habit.  You can quit if you want or you can modify it. It's your choice.

http://themoderatedrinker.blogspot.com/2011/10/moderate-drinker.html

Why do we drink? Let’s learn from the Advertisers

Understanding why we drink is an essential key to changing the way you drink.  Many of the ‘whys’ are based on myths about alcohols;  Alcohol relaxes me, alcohol makes me more social, the more I drink the better I feel, etc.   People like Allen Carr believe that tackling the ‘drivers’ of drinking removes the desires to drink.  Allen Carr basically turns reasons to ‘drink/smoke’ into reasons not to.  
 

Why learn from the Advertisers

Because they’re expert at influencing behaviour and using ‘positive’ association with the product they’re pushing.

Best 10 Alcohol Ads from Australia

Sorry, I'm having terrible embedding this video, so there's just a link.

These are my thoughts, feel free to adds yours too.

Advert 1

It makes things different.  Something unexpected might happen.  You’ll be living but with a different tune – fun because it’s different.

Advert 2

Beer tastes great and it’s quenches a thirst.  It’s related to sex, the tongue and the couple snogging. It’s related to the night and excitement.  The swimming with the ice – it changes your state and refreshes you.

Advert 3

It’s a manly thing to do.  Men and beer relate.  When men and beer get together, you can relax and have a good time.   The pub is a place for a man.  If you drink and you’re a man, you’re still a rebel – young at heart.  You might be married but if you're a real man, you still drink beers with the boys.

Advert 4

Beer is better than a beautiful woman.  It taste really good too.

Advert 5

Something magical happens when you drink.  You become very creative and a carnival atmosphere prevails.  Drinking beings the community together.  Everyone is happy when they drink.  It’s ok to hijack a beer lorry, if you’re hijacking it for the community use. 

Advert 6

Drink beer if you’re a man.   (nice play on the ‘politics of rounds’).

Advert 7

Beer makes you dance and brings out your hidden talents.

Advert 8

Beer solves the biggest of problems, even drought.

Advert 9

Australia is great because of Bundaberg Rum.  The UK sucks and because we all like our alcohol, we all want to move to Australia for Bundaberg Rum. 

Advert 10

Beer is epic!  It’s classical and makes us do great things.

I'll follow this up with a video of Allen Carr talking about his method for giving up smoking.  It's equally applicable to cutting down or getting up drinking.   And attempt to tackle some of the reasons these ads give us that 'drinking' is 'great'.

Any ideas about why we drink and thoughts on the adverts, please add a comment.

Why Don't More Heavy Drinkers Moderate?

Who’s this for;

Heavy drinkers who want to cut down on their drinking but so far haven’t found a way.

Moderation would be easier if we did the right things.

If you want to moderate, do what moderate drinkers do.  They drink in a way that’s different to heavy drinkers.  Learn some of the skills that moderate drinkers have and your drinking will become more moderate. 

Unfortunately, this is not what a lot of heavy drinkers do.

Why don’t more heavy drinkers moderate?

You wake up with a steaming hangover and end up doing nothing the whole day.  You feel like shit, not only because you’re hung-over but also because you’ve wasted another Sunday.  You really want to cut down.  So you stop drinking for a week. 

End result.  You feel much better but when you start drinking again you’re drinking like you always have.  And then you forget about moderation until the next time you drink way too much.

Drinkers who want to moderate confuse ‘abstinence’ with ‘moderation’.  Abstinence and moderation are two different things.  They are two different skills.  Abstinence is not drinking.  Moderation is drinking small amounts which are not harmful to the body.

Abstinence

If your goal is to moderate your drinking then abstinence at best can provide you with some breathing space.  It’ll detoxify your body and you’ll feel healthier.  But abstinence by itself is unlikely tomoderate how you drink. 

So how can you moderate?

You moderate by learning the skills that moderate drinkers have.  These are the skills that will help you cut down.  They work because they give you a new way of drinking.

What are these skills?

·         Learn to stop after one drink.  (I recommend one at first because it’s simple and the effects of the alcohol are light). 

·         Drink water or a soft drink with alcohol.

·         Learn to say to no to alcohol.

·         Understand why you want to drink – then question this.  Most of the reasons we used for drinking are based on myths or misunderstandings about alcohol.

·         Increase the gap between your first drink and your second drink.  Perhaps use a timer or alternate on the drinks i.e. soft drink than alcoholic drink etc.

·         Increase the gaps between every drink you have.

·         Think long and hard about the pain and trouble alcohol has brought you.  You already know that too much alcohol is bad for you.  Use this knowledge.

·         If you go out, start off with a soft drink.

·         Opt out of the round system.

There are probably more as well but if you learn two or three of the above, I’ll guarantee that the way you drink will change and you’ll be drinking less on more occasions.

So if you want to  moderate your drinking, think like a moderate drinker, do like a moderate drinker and the end result, you'll drink more like a moderate drinker.

Drink Awareness

What's this post about

Recording what you drink and how this is helpful. It will also introduce you to a very useful online tool.

Why?

Recording what you drink will give you insights not only about how much you drink but also when, with whom, where, how often, to what extend etc. It will help you understand the ‘structure’ of your drinking habit. This information is incredibly useful if you want to change your drinking habit.

Drink Awareness

You’re already aware that you drink too much. You’re probably already know where and who you drink with but when you start recording how much you drink, these facts become more salient, more real. You also become more aware that it’s a pattern. It has a rhythm. It has a structure. It’s a HABIT. This is important because once you can see the ‘structure’ of your habit, you can target weak points in that structure to change it for the better.





Video - How one or two changes can make a big difference to a structure.


Structural Weakness in Drinking Habit – some examples from my life.

• I drank mostly at home. I didn’t realise it at the time but this was a weak point in my drinking habit. It meant that I could try out changes without the added stress of peer pressure. There was my girlfriend but she was fine with me making those changes (maybe because she thought I would failure??).
• Stopping after one or two drinks was a skill I didn’t have. It was vital to becoming a moderate drinker.
• When I started drinking (not the first drink ever but the first drink in the evening), my default attitude towards drinking was positive. I associated it with being social, talkative, having fun, good personal stories, etc. I didn’t think/remember all the negative things about drinking like the hangovers, being out of control, puking up, bad personal stories, feeling drained the next day etc.

Recording the amount you drink.

I started with pen and paper. I recorded the actual drinks that I drank. I actually started when I began making changes to my drinking habit. This was still useful as it gave me vital information on where I was succeeding and where I was failing. I did very well at home but less well at parties and in the pub. Seeing the pattern of failure allowed me to consider the failures more objectively and make new adjustments, so that I coped better with those situations.

Mydrinkaware

I now use Mydrinkaware. This has many advantages over pen and paper.

• It converts drinks into alcohol units. This helps you understand the different strengths of drinks more.
• Allows you to see the information visually.
• Allows you to see the amount you drink in different ways i.e. money, calories, exercise needed to burn off the drink. This is useful if your motivation involves money, weight loss etc.
• Doesn’t take much time.
• Lets you set up ‘favourite drinks’. Which makes recording quicker.
• It also has a lot of other features. I haven’t tried these out but they might appeal to you.

If you’re not recording your drinking habit, I strongly recommend that you start. Do it for a limited period. Perhaps 2 weeks. It will certainly let you see your drinking in a different way.

Mydrinkaware is a very useful tool for recording your drinking. It’s fun and simple. It also converts your ‘drink record’ into many different graphs, in a way that pen and paper can’t do.

Become drink aware. Become a moderate drinker! Leave your hangovers behind!

Other posts that might be helpful for you

How to become a moderate drinker

Alcohol - Scary Yourself with Numbers

Triggers - Making changes that work

A Sober Look at Drunkenness

Who is this article for?

Heavy drinkers who want to cut down on their drinking.

How

By becoming more aware of how drunkenness looks, especially from when you're sober. Also by getting photo or video evidence of the affects of alcohol on you.

Why

Because drunkenness looks much worse when you see it sober than when you're drinking



Drunkenness doesn’t seem so bad when you’re drunk. It’s just part of life and perhaps everything is funnier and more acceptable when you’re drunk. I was repeatedly drunk for 25 years of my life but it wasn’t until I was sober that I realise how bad drunkenness can make you look.

I remember on one of my first nights out as a moderate drinker, seeing people’s eyes red up, hearing their speech slow down and finding their fumbling speech more annoying as they became more repetitive. I was surprised at how ‘destructive’ drinking could be. Since then I’ve seen it on numerous occasions and when people get very drunk, it really doesn’t look good. But when I was drinking heavily, I simply didn’t see these things in the same way.

Here are some videos from YouTube on drunk people. I hope you’re sober!







These videos are not for laughing at, though I admit I did laugh out loud a few times. These videos are a lesson. If you wake-up and can’t remember what happened the night before, have hangovers often and regularly get drunk. You’ve probably done something similar many times over. When you’re drunk though, it just seems like a laugh! It’s only when you’re sober that you realise how badly people might be perceiving you.

Possible Method to increase your motivation to drink less.

Research has found that ‘Before’ (and after) photos work better for people on diets or trying to gain muscle than just written diaries or goals. Researchers believe that a photograph is more graphic and makes the problem look worse than if it was just in writing.

I believe that photographs and videos could work just as well for people who get drunk often. The ideal times would be when the person is very drunk or hung-over as these are the times that alcohol has its biggest impact but the drinker is least aware of the affect. Video would be great as you’ll be able to see how alcohol affects your movement and speech.

Ideally, the photos and videos should be seen daily and especially when you start drinking.

This is just an idea. It’s not proven but I can remember waking up without knowing what happened the night before and being drunk on a regular bases, but I didn’t fully realise how bad my behaviour was or whether I just made excuses. Also my sober self didn’t have the direct evidence on the effects of alcohol on me, perhaps photos and videos can provide that evidence.