Online Alcohol Therapy

“I wish I could quit drinking so much, but I just don’t have enough willpower”.

As a therapist, I hear this quite often, but perhaps we need to explore what willpower really means in order to find a solution to the problem.

The capacity to resist the urge to drink arises initially from various motivations – like the desire to avoid a hangover, or the need to be able to concentrate at work the next day, or the preservation of a close relationship perhaps. If sufficient motivations can be brought to mind, and they feel more compelling than the potential pleasure of alcohol, then a person can exercise self-control and not drink despite wanting one at the time. This is a reasonable definition of willpower.

Some people seem to have more willpower than others regarding their drinking, but perhaps only because alcohol has not taken on so many important functions for them (like stress-relief, confidence boosting, avoiding boredom etc.), or they have found other ways of achieving those results.

People with alcoholism are unable to resist the urge to have a drink, despite knowing that in balance it’s not doing them any good. Partly this is because short term consequences are often more effective at influencing behaviour than long term consequences, and in the short term the pleasure/relaxation of a drink outweighs the negative effects tomorrow or at some indeterminate time in the future (or so it seems to them). A strategy to deal with this tendency of course is to concentrate on the negative effects of alcohol in the short term, rather than the vague long term ones.

People can learn to have more control over their urges to drink, to predict when they are likely to occur so they don’t come as a surprise, to learn to bring to mind all the ‘pros and cons’ rationally, or to address those needs that alcohol has filled some other way – and so they increase their willpower.

There is no doubt that the most popular self help book for people with alcohol problems is this one by Allen Carr.

He achieved his deserved reputation with his initial book about stopping smoking, and such was its success that he’s now written two books dedicated to drinking. This one is for those who want to regain control, but don’t want to stop completely.

If you don’t want to buy the book, but are interested in the cognitive approach that it uses, try having a read through our articles and worksheets on relapse prevention.

While this one is written specifically for those of you who have decided you want to totally stop drinking. Again, like his other book, it concentrates on the cognitive aspects of your alcohol problems – what you are telling yourself internally about alcohol.

Sometimes the terminology used when talking about alcohol problems can be quite unhelpful.

In fact, when using the terms ‘alcoholism’ or ‘alcoholic’ (which everyone does, including this site), the emphasis can be that the problem is with the alcohol itself.

But the problem actually stems from the state of mind that the alcohol gives you, not from the chemical as such. The importance that this state of mind takes on for you, the preferability of it despite the huge costs to other parts of your life, that is actually where the problem lies.

Similarly, people often refer to alcoholism as a disease. But what actually is a disease? Well, it is

“an abnormal condition that causes discomfort, dysfunction, distress, social problems, and/or death to the person afflicted, which is associated with specific symptoms and signs”.

The symptoms of the condition ‘alcoholism’ are generally agreed on as:

• tolerance – the need to consume more in order to achieve the same effect,
• withdrawal – the experience of unpleasant physical effects upon stopping drinking,
• craving – a preoccupation or prolonged urge to have a drink,
• loss of control – the inability to stop drinking at a sensible level once you have started.

You may have periods when you experience all four of these symptoms, and therefore you could be classified as an alcoholic. There may be other times when you’re not experiencing all of them, so you merely have ‘problems with alcohol’. But do you have a disease?

A disease is something over which you would have very little choice – “I don’t want this disease any more, I’m going to make some changes” would seem slightly ridiculous. So the way you view your alcohol problems, what terminology you use – will determine what you feel you can do about them.

If you view it as a set of problems, you will be motivated to solve those problems, but if you say to yourself “I’m an alcoholic, its a disease, it can’t be cured” then what are you likely to do about it? Not that much, I would suggest. Some people seem to have more control over their alcohol problems than others, so perhaps it is not a black or white condition, but one with varying shades of grey in between.

There are many different factors involved in an alcohol dependency, from genetic predispositions, or inherited behaviour from parents, perhaps learnt behaviour from society, to our beliefs about ourselves, our coping strategies, our self worth, our levels of anxiety and the stability or instability of our moods.

Different people will have different causes for their alcohol problems. The way to solve them is therefore to make yourself more aware of what factors are involved in your personal problem. Then you can go about making some changes to those underlying issues.

We’ve now opened our free support forum for anyone with alcohol problems.

There are no expectations that you must be sober, it is just a community space where you can share your experiences and hopefully get some support from other people in a similar situation to yourself, whether you want to give up drinking completely, or if you just want to cut down.

You need only provide a valid email address to join – but this will never be displayed, so you can remain completely anonymous.

Join the forum or just have a look first.

An interesting study by Hertfordshire University recently discovered that talking about your cravings can actually reduce their power over you.

Although they used chocolate, not alcohol, the principle is exactly the same. The test subjects who were encouraged to talk about their desire for chocolate subsequently ate 50% less than those who were told not to talk about it beforehand.

If you try to ignore your cravings, or suppress them and pretend they’re not happening, then you can end up drinking even more. So if you want to beat your cravings for alcohol, just acknowledge them and talk about it with someone who is supportive.

Have you become dependent on alcohol to give you self confidence? Many of our clients say they have no self confidence left because of their drinking. Sometimes they feel so guilty about their behaviour, towards their families for the pain they’ve caused them, for instance.

Eventually you might lose your belief in your own abilities or worth. If you can’t socialize comfortably when you’re sober, if you don’t think you’re entertaining / clever / open enough without having a drink first, then your confidence obviously needs to recover.

When you try to cut down on your drinking, one of the things people often have difficulty with is their lack of confidence in themselves. To rebuild that self esteem again takes time. When you feel good about who you are, then you’re more confident. You need to observe yourself – notice when you are judging yourself negatively or blaming yourself for mistakes you think you’ve made.

Part of this comes down to forgiveness. We all make mistakes, we’re human after all. But forgiving yourself for pain you’ve caused loved ones can be particularly difficult. Very often we are far more forgiving of others than we are of ourselves. Mistakes or failures are just incidents, or certain things you are still learning, try not to see them as evidence of a defective personality – there’s no doubt still plenty of things that make you a valuable person.

The process of rebuilding your self confidence also requires recognizing your ability to deal with difficult feelings or difficult situations without alcohol – you don’t fall apart, it’s just difficult that’s all. If you don’t believe you can cope with life without being drunk, then you won’t.

And believing in yourself is what self confidence is all about.

Quite often, people trying to beat alcoholism will need to make some changes to their lifestyle as well as their drinking habits.

Your alcohol problems are not separate from the rest of your life, they are very much connected. So you might have to ask yourself – what needs improving in the rest of my life to help me beat this addiction?

You should perhaps take a look at how you tend to unwind, how you relax. How do you cope with stress?

Is alcohol your only way of de-stressing?

How do you tend to have fun in your life – does it always involve a bar or a bottle? Maybe you need to find some new ways to have fun?

Do you get enough exercise? (Government guidelines suggest 30 minutes daily rigorous exercise as a bare minimum) It’s one of the best ways to combat stress, feel good about yourself and release some of those natural happy chemicals (like serotonin) to prevent depression.

What about your diet – do you eat healthily, with lots of fresh vegetables, fruit and whole grains? Or are you eating lots of sugar and fat? You are what you eat, nothing more, nothing less, and your brain and nervous system need plenty of essential nutrients if you’re going to keep your moods stable.

Are you getting enough opportunity to talk honestly about how you’re feeling, without being judged or ridiculed? Have you got enough supportive people in your life?

Do you have any sort of spiritual practice or beliefs? How do you remind yourself that you’re connected to the rest of the world, that you’re not isolated?

Above all, make sure you don’t tie yourself in knots by thinking you should do all these things, but you don’t so therefore you’re useless. Making yourself feel guilty won’t help at all. Motivating yourself is the key (and often the most difficult part).

What needs to change in your life, and how is that going to happen?
Set yourself some step-by-step goals to make sure you take action.

Struggling with addiction is stressful – when you’re trying to stop drinking you can end up in a cycle of battling with cravings and guilt, having to remember all those things that you’re supposed to be doing differently.

It can be exhausting, so much so that it creates its own cravings. But stress is all about your perceptions of your abilities – if you tell yourself that “I can’t do this”, then of course you’ll feel stressed about it.

If you tell yourself that, “yes this is difficult, but I think I can do it”, then you’ll feel more confident. It’s simple really, you just need to get into the habit of saying positive things like that to yourself, eventually you’ll believe them.

What you’re trying to do right now is very difficult, so recognise that you need to off-load to people, to talk it through, to schedule in some relaxation time, some treats for yourself. If you’ve got a family to think about too then this can be hard to justify: “I’ve been such a strain on them already, how can I ask them to sacrifice even more?”, or “How can I take time away from my children when I’ve already been neglecting them because of my drinking?”

The point is, you need some time to relax if you’re trying to stop drinking, because it’s an incredibly draining task. Acknowledge that, be honest about it. You can’t be strong all the time!

You’re trying to stop drinking, and maybe you’ve been successful for a while. You’ve managed to control your alcohol intake to reasonable levels, or you’ve managed to stay completely sober for some time.

So then what do you do if you have a lapse? You drink again, far more than you intended to, waking the next morning feeling terrible, that you’ve let yourself down maybe?

How you view this lapse will determine how you react to it. If you see it as a sign of failure, then your self esteem will suffer, you’ll lose hope and end up believing that the changes you’re trying to make are not possible, that you’re simply an alcoholic, you just can’t help it. This sort of belief can then lead you to drink even more – so a single mistake turns into a full relapse.

Or you could look at your mistake as just another occasion where you slipped back into old routines for a while. But that needn’t be a reason for you to give up hope, just a flag to remind you that, for the moment at least, you need to be very vigilant about your behaviour.

Observe your own feelings and thoughts, be aware of when you’re in the sort of mood where you usually want a drink – and do something about it, something different. (See – Dealing with Cravings). Acknowledge that you’re feeling weak or emotional – talk to someone about how you’re feeling generally. Don’t try to struggle through it alone.

Don’t forget, the best way to handle your feelings is to express them – talk about it. That way a lapse can remain just that, something you can learn from rather than an excuse to relapse completely.