How Do I Cut Down or Stop Drinking?By Michaela

If you find yourself with an alcohol problem. The question that you may well find yourself asking is what do I do about it? It’s helpful to understand some of the background, ok so I am motivated, so that means I am a motivated drinker, alcohol is addictive, ok I get all that, so what do I do about it?

In all likelihood, you would have tried to do some things yourself so far, that would have brought you to reading this blog or watching the corresponding video. Maybe you have tried to google answers or access and you are read now. My name is Michaela Weaver and I am an expert in helping people to break free from alcohol and other addictive tendencies so that may be overworking, over-drinking, smoking, over self-analysing, criticizing, all of these things that we do. And so, its alcohol specifically right now that I am addressing. What do I do, how do I undo all of this? That very word ‘undo’ is an extremely helpful word here. There is so much misinformation and so much backlog of historical words, phrases, thoughts, ideas around how to solve a problem around alcohol, let alone how to solve it, so I am going to simplify it right down for you.

So, if you find that you’re a drinker that functions, so you work, you do your day, whatever it is that you do. Maybe you have a drink in the afternoon, maybe you are drinking in the evenings and maybe you’re binging on the weekends. Any combination of any of that then this blog and accompanying video is definitely for you and so is the work I do.

If you find that you’re in a position where you are literally unable to function without alcohol, then you will find value in what I am saying. However, the solution here is probably not what you’re going to need in its entirety, and you are likely to need some medical intervention.

I work with people who are high achievers or maybe not necessarily high achievers, you may be holding down a home, running a family, whatever, you do stuff in life.

The first thing to understand is that this is an undoing, it’s almost like an unlearning. So the problem has been is that we have learnt the wrong thing. This is a massive oversimplification but let’s start here.

It’s about unlearning, at the very, very deep level, so deeply embedded in the unconscious, subconscious (we tend to call it) mind, are a set of conditionings that overtime link alcohol to life. And that can be that alcohol is embedded in all aspects of life, whether its sitting on the couch watching a movie, having a nice celebratory breakfast in the garden, whether it’s the normal things of going out and socialising, alcohol is in it.  If you are drinking for boredom, happiness, anger, frustration, out of loneliness, any of those things then alcohol is heavily integrated, embedded and known at a subconscious level.

What we need to do is unravel all of this. We need to cut the threads, cut those associations, that is part of the first step. The very first thing that you will need to do, it’s my process of the Science of Transformational Freedom which is embedded in the Social Secret.

The Science of Transformational Freedom and the Social Secret, in essence there are three stages:

1. To remove fear and doubt
2. Mindset shift – change in mind
3. The Pillars of Sustainability – Thriving and sustaining

To Remove Fear and Doubt:

When we are paralysed with fear then action is impossible and so the first thing is to do that. We often fear success and we also fear failure. Knowing that you have done other things in your life before that you’ve never knew you could do before you did them. Let that be a seed, of giving you self-efficacy which is a kind of belief, a belief that I can do things I have never done before.

And so, if you have said ‘Well Michaela I have tried to stop drinking before, or I have tried to give up drinking before Michaela, but it just didn’t work.’

You will learn that there is nothing to actually ‘give up’ but we are actually very entrenched in that belief of benefit here. The reason it didn’t work is because, you would have been using the same method that you would have used to achieve anything else in life which comes from determination, it comes from using all your rational thinking, planning, ‘I can plan it, I can put restrictions on myself, I can do this and that etc.’ That doesn’t work here, it just plain and simple doesn’t. You can take comfort and relief; to know that there is nothing wrong with you. If I gave you a Hacksaw and asked you to provide me with a bowl of beautifully prepared peeled potatoes. You are going to find it really difficult to do this. It is not your fault if you can’t do it. You need the right tools, the right understanding and you need the right techniques.

And so, when you understand that then you can put fear aside and just think ‘ok, I’m not so sure about how this is going to be but I am confident that I can do it with the right tools, with the right techniques and with the right process to enable me to do it.’

What we often do is stab in the dark, watching YouTube videos, maybe we will do some of this and that, pick up a book etc… and we don’t have a process in place.  It’ like trying to build a house and all we have is a bucket full of cement and a vague idea. It’s just not gong to work. So, remove fear and doubt.

The second part of the process is a mindset shift, a mind shift, a change in mind. There is a lot of talk out there about mindset shift, who haven’t really been effectively trained in enabling that and so be mindful.

The Mindset shift involves a lot of unlearning, it involves building new neural pathways, it involves understanding how the whole dynamic of an addictive trigger works and to cut the cord. Cut the connection, so alcohol just isn’t in that and then we learn to reduce and remove those trigger points as well.

So, the mindset shift really is where you get your power back, where alcohol may have taken some or all of it in this scenario, where you get control. Where you know you are stepping into your power, you have knowledge, you have the Social Secret. And that is a way to realise that everything in life is so much easier and better without alcohol dragging you down.

It’s about knowing that there is a better way of living. Everything about alcohol you will learn is negative. It has negative impacts everywhere. It’s a great self-saboteur, it’s a great critic, it’s a great supplier of feelings like guilt, shame, anxiety, lowering of confidence, all of those things. So, The Science of Transformational Freedom, dives into unravelling the deep subconscious/unconscious conditioning, so that the whole of your mind is singing from the same songbook.

There is no conflict that ‘should I drink, shouldn’t I drink’ and all of that is all gone.

Thereafter there is a process which is exciting, it’s exhilarating, it’s really great fun of adapting to this world where everybody drinks and you are happy, you are thriving, you are living your best life, the best way possible for you without this dragging you down. Now that applies whether or not your initial intention is to cut down. You would have been trying that already and in all likelihood it hasn’t worked. So maybe your intention coming into this process is that you just want to cut down. That’s fine, that’s a great intention. Any intention which changes and wakes up to the fact that, hey, hang on a minute, there is a problem here. That will move you forwards. Maybe your intention is ‘I just need to take a break here, I know I need that.  I don’t want to say forever, I don’t want to say never, I can’t do any of that.’ That’s beautiful and all fine too. You don’t need to. With my clients I make it really clear that I don’t want them to do ‘forever’s’ because, that very suggestion for a strong, intelligent, ambitious person, you can’t ever do that again. What kind of response do you think it will get? Probably something like ‘Don’t tell me I can’t …’

So, we never say that. This is all about choice and power. It’s not about disempowerment and lack of choice. To be honest if you absolutely explore it, alcohol is the route of disempowerment and lack of choice. Let’s be clear about that.  We are looking at having total choice, total power, total control, that’s what you want, and I know that, I get that, and it was what I wanted to.

So, adapting to life and building the pillars of sustainability, if you think of a house, on a raft on an ocean. That is what life with alcohol is like. It’s all over the place. When we have a good intention, such as ‘I’m not going to drink’ and when we have the tiniest little wave, a little flutter of wind on the ocean, the tiniest little bit of instability on that ocean, that comes in such as a stressful day, somebody said something I don’t like, or I have said something to myself that I don’t like, I have had a thought or a memory, I’m feeling stressed etc… Anything that will completely rock the boat and tip it. So the pillars of sustainability are just so reassuring, stabilizing and calming, knowing you have got your own back no matter what.

The Third part of the process are the pillars of sustainability give you resilience (and I don’t mean being tough and being strong that’s not what resilience is about), a strong sense of security internally that no matter what you have got the learning, the awareness, the wisdom that those pillars will be sustained. Even if one of those pillars gets a bit of a knock.

There are others that hold you up, so that you are living a life of expansion not contraction which is what alcohol and all these other things do they just contract and limit us in our lives. Expansion. So that you are feeling totally strong and great in yourself. You know you have got the world and your life sorted and that’s powerful and that is not in the slightest bit boring. That is interesting, entertaining, enlivening, it gives you connections socially that you never knew were possible, you are doing what you love, you are socialising, if you have got a business, it’s run from a point of expansion and not fear and limitation and life is just rocking at such a higher frequency.

That is the process, number one, remove fear and doubt, number two, change mindset – science of transformational freedom, we also work with memory there is a huge amount we do around that as well and thriving and sustaining and living your best life now which is what we all want. So, that’s the process, if you are not happy with where you are at that is what you do. Whether or not its stopping completely is your intention or learning to cut down in a way that begins to break these chains for you, or taking a break for a few months, get in touch and start your new journey to free yourself from the chains of alcohol.

You can now watch my video relating to this blog post on YouTube, simply click on the below image and it will take you there.

If you want to escape the alcohol trap, find out more by booking your free seat on my Free Masterclass.

#alcoholaddiction #nomorealcohol #Thealcoholcoach #alcohol #motivated #highachiever