Is it time to break the cycle of drinking too much alcohol?
Daily stresses, added to the distress of dealing with life issues, can turn people to drinking more alcohol. Alcohol addictions or drinking habits build up if you use alcohol as a way of numbing the challenges in life, of which there will always be some to deal with. The secret is to find new coping strategies to deal with life, without alcohol being an escape from what is going on.
When you drink to a certain level your tolerance for alcohol becomes higher, and you don't feel drunk. You may feel fine and you might even be alright coping quite well. But there is a tipping point for everyone where you begin to drink more until your levels are unsafe or unhealthy. Alcohol can temporarily numb bad feelings, but in the end your emotions will need to be faced head-on for you to create a good life.
Losing your tolerance
Eventually, if you carry on drinking you will begin to lose your tolerance as your body may struggle to process the alcohol. You may begin to feel the alcohol sweat in your skin, have disrupted sleep and feel sluggish. Your liver may no longer be able to deal with the burden of the alcohol. The liver is the most forgiving organ in the body if you treat it well, as it regenerates regularly but eventually even the liver has its limit. A drinker can go on to develop liver disease, a swollen spleen and other complications.
Has your drinking been creeping up over time? Is your health progressively deteriorating? Are you struggling to see a way forward? Does a life without alcohol seem impossible? Are you more afraid of giving up drinking than you are of the health implications of drinking too much? Are you drinking to oblivion? Is your health progressively deteriorating? Has your drinking already affected your relationships?
Alcohol and relationships
The cycle of alcohol pushes the people you love further away. You may have become some of the following: unreliable, unreasonable, abusive, lashing out, blacking out, being embarrassing, arguing, insulting, saying things you regret later, falling over, unable to communicate or unfaithful due to drinking.
For those in relationships with a partner who has become alcohol dependent or an alcoholic, it can be a lonely, frustrating and destructive partnerships to be in. Alcohol can fuel the relationship problems then the relationship problems can fuel the drinking so you end up caught in a vicious circle. To cope with the alcohol adversity in the end alcohol becomes your companion and your partner becomes a distant friend. But the destructive relationship with alcohol can cause the drinker severe anxiety, panic attacks, and depression as well as the inability to perform at work. The endpoint to alcohol dependency can be a person sitting alone in a room with a bottle with no one left around them.
Difficult life events can leave you spiraling down
The following events can be catalysts for turning to a glass of wine, spirits or beer: a bereavement, work stress, family problems, ill-health with a family member, money stress or loneliness. But remember, these are all issues which can be resolved. People are coming through similar events all of the time. You just need to find a route through your challenges. It is good to identify what might be happening in your life that is leading you to drink too much.
A client recently had a relationship breakup as a result of their own drinking being 'out of control'. They had gone beyond hearing or caring about what they were doing to themselves and loved one. This is a story I have heard over and over again. It can leave a partner feeling trapped with the only solution being to finish with the drinker.
Breaking habits
As a therapist helping people to break the habit of drinking, I hear the same things over and over again ' I don't want to put my girlfriend, boyfriend wife or husband through it again.' 'Alcohol crept up and just became the thing that I do'. 'The alcohol began controlling me rather than me being in control of the alcohol.'
A life without alcohol can seem impossible but there are solutions to break the habit of alcohol and deal with the problems in your life, which may be causing you to drink to excess. I teach clients to become alcohol-free with hypnosis by reprogramming their subconscious mind which holds their drinking habits and distress habits of dealing with life problems. By improving the way people think it is possible to establish new, safe and healthy habits about alcohol.
How to become alcohol-free
I suggest you work on the subconscious level by listening to hypnosis downloads to break drinking habits or have one to one hypnosis sessions to re-program your thinking around alcohol and your life issues.
I recommend my hypnosis recordings
'Take control of alcohol'
'Stop binge drinking for women'
'Stop binge drinking for men'
Also, my hypnotherapy book 'Cut the Crap and Feel Amazing' published by Hay House has an addictions chapter to help you take back control.
