It’s relatively easy to decide to quit drinking – not so easy to stay sober and stick with it. We’ve all been there. The morning after a heavy night, feeling dreadful and absolutely determined that this will be the last time we’ll ever drink alcohol. Only to return to the demon drink a few days or weeks later, rose-tinted glasses disguising exactly how bad we felt after our last boozy session.
There are several common reasons for this tendency to resume a drinking habit after a short break. The pitfalls I see most frequently on Soberistas.com are outlined below – but remember, once you’re aware of them, it becomes easier to avoid them!
1.Boredom
If you don’t find something else to do to fill up all those boozing hours, you will get bored. And when you’re bored, the desire to drink is likely to be very difficult to resist. The key to overcoming this obstacle is to get busy – find a new hobby, clear out your wardrobe, paint the spare bedroom, start running, learn a language…whatever it is, just make sure you’re not sitting there twiddling those thumbs!
2.Loss of self
Lots of people use alcohol to help lift them out of the humdrum. Drinking can inject excitement into your life. It can also become an integral part of your identity – once it’s gone, it’s easy to feel a little lost. Self-esteem is key here. If you think you are using booze to help you feel confident/sexy/funny/sociable perhaps you need to consider building your self-esteem in other ways (counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, exercise and mindfulness are all good methods of achieving this).
3.Impatience
It’s very common to expect the tricky phase of adjusting to staying sober to be over and done with really quickly. This, however, tends not to be the case. When people expect that within a month of quitting the booze they’ll have shed all their excess weight, be sleeping like a log and have battled all their internal demons, they are bound to be hugely disappointed when reality hits. Things may take quite a long time to settle down. I estimate that it took me about 18 months before I felt properly adjusted to my new alcohol-free life. The weight didn’t come off until I wrapped my head around my unhealthy eating habits (a good 3-4 years after quitting drinking!). My self-confidence was only restored after a couple of years. So, patience and realistic expectations are vital. The magic won’t happen overnight…but it WILL happen!
4.Alternative strategies
Many people use alcohol as a way to combat stress together with a whole host of other emotions they don’t want to feel: anger, jealousy, sadness, and bereavement. When you stop drinking, you MUST seek out alternative strategies for coping with emotional struggles – exercise works wonders, and having a warm bubble bath in candlelight can be an effective solution for stress management. Talking to friends and sharing the weight of your anxieties or keeping a journal and getting everything off your chest via writing are both helpful in this respect. Whatever works for you, be sure to turn to that as a strategy instead of hitting the bottle.
Believe in yourself and stay sober
It is doable to stop drinking permanently and stay sober. However once the initial excitement of embarking on this new chapter of your life has faded, it’s essential to put in place practical solutions to stay sober. Look at it as a long-term plan and have realistic expectations in terms of time scales. Don’t forget to believe in yourself. You can do this!
Editor’s note
If you’re finding it difficult not to drink too much, you might find our course on deciding whether to stop drinking altogether or reduce your drinking useful. Click here to find out more
