How stop alcohol addiction-1

This is a test everyone should do every couple of years, whether they are worried about drinking or not. The point is to take stock of yourself and see just how you are developing. Imagine you are a wide-eyed 15-year-old again. Now go and look in the mirror with those fresh young 15-year-old eyes.

What do you see? Does it make you happy, or would you rather look away?

Is this how you thought you'd look when you grew up how has it turned out so far?

I took this test more than four years ago and I failed. I looked in the mirror and what I saw betrayed that young teenager I had been. If he had come and stood beside me wouldn't have wanted him to recognize me. I was flabby, unfit, and unhappy about it.

Today I took that test again and I passed. Four years after turning my back on a drink I can look straight into the mirror with pride.

Giving up drinking was the best thing I ever did. Instead of suffering because I can't have a drink, pulling long faces and feeling bored, not drinking has flooded me with confidence. I am a new man and it's great.

Can't say no to alcohol, Why do we drink?

One of the main reasons why we drink is to give ourselves confidence, in the belief that a few glasses oils the tongue and sets us at ease-especially with strangers.

There are, of course, plenty of other reasons: loneliness, wanting to please others, being frightened of feeling left out, using drink as a bridge between each other, drinking to impress, or just wanting to shut out the world in an alcoholic haze. And lt is often not just one of these reasons but a combination. We are all at times a bit lonely, frightened, unsure of what to say, anxious about meeting people-friends as well as strangers and we turn to the bottle to help us over these fears and stumblings. It is a short step from this to using the bottle whenever life 'closes in'. Then you have a problem because life can 'close in' at any time. It doesn't help to drink. For example, the lonely woman sitting in her house with her memories turns to drink as a comfort-but she is still lonely and lost. The young adolescent, stammering his awkward, gawky way to a first date, reaches for a drink to straighten his words-but in his heart he is as shy as ever. The tired business man forgets his office worries by blurring them out with several large nightcaps but his fears are only put off for a couple of hours and, in the morning, they return.

How many people always have a drink before chatting someone up at a disco, or going to the pub for a 'loosener' on the way to a party? Quite a lot. For the big drinkers, going out for an evening and not drinking is like going out for an evening without their clothes on. They just wouldn't do it. Like their clothes, they see alcohol as essential. This is of course a myth. They are using drink as a crutch, scared they will fail without it.

Watch the changes day by day

Far from helping, alcohol is a hindrance. Throw away the crutch and you'll realize you don't need it. The drink isn't a passport to success and happiness; these come when you stop drinking. In just a couple of months after giving up, you can change from an overweight, slobby, depressed drinker into a fit, slim, healthy-looking teetotaller. The change doesn't take place overnight, but with every day things get better and better, and the transformation is wonderful. And that's how it is for anyone who decides to give up drinking.

Too many people think that sober means straight. They're Wrong-being sober is being smart. Only when you give up drinking do you see this. So do it now, swap beer for attractiveness, swap drunkenness for confidence. Be honest, go and have a look in that mirror and if you don't like what you see do something about it today.

If you think you can't, you're wrong. All it takes is you. Each time you say no it gets easier and easier until it becomes part of your life, an automatic unthinking response. As natural and as easy as breathing.

On the face of it, saying no seems such an easy thing, politely declining a drink with a few well-chosen words and a gracious nod. Simple. So why write about it? Because it isn't like that. Especially if you are weak-willed, half-hearted, addicted, or just plain scared, 'no can seem the hardest word to say. But saying no is very easy, if you plan what you are doing, stick to your guns, take command, and refuse to give in. Sounds a lot? Well, it isn't.

Accept you are different

Saying no is hard because the pressures to drink in today's society are enormous. Putting it bluntly, the biggest pressure is that not drinking means you are different from the rest. Despite what we think, we are a uniform society, extremely conventional, and we don't like people who are not like us. We are prejudiced against them-so it is hard to become one of the different people. But don't despair. The situation is very, very far from being hopeless. Admit honestly to yourself that you are committed to not drinking and that because of this you are different.

Once you accept it, realize that being different is rather special and enjoy it. Don't feel small, feel big. You are no longer one of the crowd-you know your own mind and go your own way. It is this feeling of independence that is the key to saying no. When you say no you are moving out of the mainstream, not into some horrible little backwater but on to Une crest of a wave, a wave that will carry you into new exciting waters.

Say no, and keep saying no, and pretty soon you won't think twice about it.