Online Alcoholism & Addiction Counselling

Focussing on negative thoughts as opposed to positive ones leaves you feeling depressed and unmotivated.

If you concentrate on how many mistakes you’ve made, or how you haven’t managed to stop drinking like you wanted to, maybe how you’ve ‘failed’ yourself and those around you, then of course you won’t feel good about yourself. Notice when you’re thinking these thoughts, and take control of them. Here’s where you need to make a choice to -

Concentrate on positive thoughts instead :

• What will improve in your life when you’ve cut down or stopped drinking?
• How much better will you feel?
• What improvements have you already made?
• Have you managed some slight reductions already?
• If so, what benefits have you started to notice because of that?
• Are you still essentially a good person, even though you’ve made mistakes?

The theory of ‘negative suggestion’ warns that if you focus on NOT doing something, it’s more likely that you’ll end up doing it, than if you were focussing on something else entirely. So if you find yourself thinking, “I must not drink, I must not drink” it’s a warning sign that you need to start concentrating on something else instead - distract yourself with another task, something absorbing. Just telling yourself “I mustn’t think about not drinking” is clearly still in that loop.

Likewise if you need to quit for a while, but you’re thinking, “Oh no, I’ll never be able to drink again“, then that will undoubtedly keep you focussed on the negative. Maybe you can drink again in the future; you don’t need to decide that now, focus on the present moment, and how good you feel about not drinking today.

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.

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.

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.

The UK National Health Service has officially recognised the effectiveness of online therapy.

Cognitive Therapy is now being offered via private chatroom as part of the NHS services, in an attempt to provide for people who find it difficult to come to a clinic for conventional counselling.

An online chatroom can be used as a private space where a person can get support and therapeutic help from a professional. This is especially useful for people with alcohol or addiction problems, who may be too embarrassed to see a therapist or counsellor face to face. You don’t have to take time to get to someone’s clinic, they can come to you via your computer.

In all other respects, the nature of online therapy or counselling is the same - the same techniques are used, the same issues dealt with. If you’re not sure how this would actually help, read more about how online therapy works.

The cognitive therapy approach to addiction counselling is not concerned with analysing your childhood, or finding out if you have an ‘addictive personality‘, nor does it force you into a one-size-fits-all step by step solution, like Alcoholics Anonymous does.

An alcohol problem is not just a habitual behaviour, but also a habitual way of thinking. So the cognitive approach to counselling offers you a way of understanding how your thoughts influence your feelings, and how both of these might cause your problems. You can begin to see what the individual elements are which make up your addiction.

Once you’re more informed about yourself (rather than just acting on auto-pilot - the ‘habit’), then you can make changes in the way you think about your life, about yourself, about alcohol. But only the changes that you choose to make, you will not be instructed what to change, because at the end of the day you know yourself better than any counsellor or therapist does.

Of course there are some techniques and tricks which have been found to help - ways of changing your habits, and you may be given some suggestions if you ask for them. But counselling is about helping you to redevelop your strengths so you can solve your own problems. It’s not about being given a set of answers, it’s about discovering your own.

You will probably want to make changes to your behaviour too - modifications to your lifestyle so that you can deal with anxiety, ease your depression, or cope with stress a bit more easily. So that you can relax without a drink, so you can find healthier, more productive ways to spend your time.

As a combined approach, counselling and cognitive therapy cover the internal aspects of your addiction and will help you to change your behaviour too.

Get in touch with us now.

So you’ve stopped drinking, or maybe you’re just not doing it every day now, and you want to know how to prevent yourself from relapsing, or (if you want to keep it simple) how to make sure you don’t drink today.

Relapse prevention requires some planning, specifically -

• what situations might I encounter that are risky for me? (my triggers)
• how might I deal with my feelings differently?
• what behaviour can I do instead?

You need to identify your internal triggers (like boredom, frustration, loneliness, anxiety etc), and your external triggers (like arguments, bars, other people drinking etc.). Can any of these triggers be avoided? If so, plan how to do that. For those that can’t be avoided, you’ve got to learn to deal with them some other way.

So, what do these triggers mean to you? What beliefs do you hold about them that lead you to drink? A few common beliefs might be -

• “drinking helps me relax”,
• “drinking makes me more confident”,
• “everyone else drinks so that makes it all right for me to drink too”.

What thoughts go through your head when you’re exposed to these triggers? You may not even be aware of these thoughts, they’re so habitual, so you’ll have to listen carefully to your internal dialogue here.

Once you’ve got an idea what some of your automatic thoughts are, you need to learn to challenge them. So for example, the next time you’re feeling stressed and you think “a drink would relax me” you might then say to yourself “yes, it does, but it’ll make me even more nervous and stressed tomorrow”.

Relapse prevention is just knowing about your habits

Of course by the time you’ve got to this stage, you’re probably craving a drink, and you’re thinking about how to get some. You might be arguing with yourself - part of you doesn’t want to get wasted again. You’ve told yourself you’re not doing it any more (or today at least). So here’s when you might start looking for permission, to make it ok:

• “just this time won’t hurt”,
• “I’ll be able to hide it, so no-one will know”,
• “I’m not at work tomorrow, so it doesn’t matter if I’m hungover”
• “I can’t cope with this craving, so I might as well just get on with it”

As far as behaviour goes, we’ve already mentioned avoiding triggers, but another option is distracting yourself (look at our earlier article on ‘how to cope with alcohol cravings‘). Other things you might do are more general - make some new friends, find new things to do with your time, get into the habit of some exercise. Most importantly - find some support, people you can talk to about what’s troubling you.

Try going through our worksheet on Relapse Prevention Strategies.

Remember though, a lapse is not a relapse, just because you might make a mistake, try not to think “oh well, I’ve failed, so obviously I’ll never beat this, I might as well just keep drinking…”

Anxiety ruins many people’s lives, and lessens the enjoyment of it for most of us. It’s focus can be anything, from the seemingly trivial to the life threatening.

Of course the solution that many people find is through alcohol. This can provide temporary but undoubtedly effective relief - allowing us to relax again and get on with life without being so preoccupied. But alcohol does not actually allow us to deal with our anxiety or manage the situations provoking it, so we fail to develop our resources.

Anxiety arises as a result of our interpretations of a situation as being in some way threatening or unpleasant. This is then combined with our perception of our ability to cope with that threat.

For example, two people are experiencing the exact same event - the possibility that they will lose their job. The anxiety prone person might think -
“but I’ll never find another job, I’m not good enough. I won’t have enough money, I won’t be able to cope - I’ll lose my house”. Obviously thoughts like that will tend to create anxiety.

The other person facing the same situation might think -
“I can get another job easy enough, I’m adaptable. Money might be a bit tight for a while, but I can cope with that”.

So if the first person can learn to adjust their perception of their abilities, they might not get so anxious, and they might not feel the need to drink so much alcohol as a result. Those perceptions and beliefs happen so automatically, we often forget that we have a degree of choice over them.

Unfortunately alcohol, and drugs like Valium particularly, tend to exacerbate anxiety levels subsequently - firstly by causing disruption to the nervous system, secondly by creating disruptions likely to induce further worry. A spiral of increasing use causing increasing anxiety can develop.

Anxious people tend to have a central belief about themselves as being helpless - they underestimate their ability to cope. Although, they are often aware that their fears are exaggerated.

Five key questions can be used to challenge the initial perception of threat and the appraisal of your coping ability:

• What alternative interpretations could I make about this situation?
• What concrete, factual evidence do I have to back-up or deny these beliefs?
• What is the worst that could really happen, and how would that ultimately affect me?
• What positive action can I take to manage this?
• What are the pros and cons of me continuing with these negative thoughts I’m having?

Coupled with some simple relaxation techniques like keeping aware of your breathing, you can soon lessen your anxiety to a tolerable level. If you can adjust the way you interpret the world, and thus not feel so worried about it, then you may not need to drink so much alcohol to cope.

Is there an alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous? Do the 12 steps really work? These are questions that most alcoholics or addicts will ask when they decide that they want to change.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) originated in Akron, Ohio in the 1930’s from religious individuals grouping together to solve their alcoholism. The 12 steps soon emerged as a formula for all addicts to follow if they were to stay sober.

From the very beginning, complete abstinence was seen as the only answer. Of course this does work for some people, but clearly not for everyone.

Figures for how effective the 12 step recovery process is are impossible to find. Estimates suggest only about 5% of people who attend meetings regularly stay sober for more than a year. Not much more than the placebo effect really.

However, AA and NA (Narcotics Anonymous) do develop networks of community support, which is undoubtedly very positive. The support given is from other addicts or alcoholics of course, not trained professionals. And by their very nature the meetings are public access, anyone can attend, so they are clearly not anonymous (especially when you are required to state your name).

The main objection many people have to the philosophy is its rigidity and ‘cult’ overtones - there are many references to relinquishing personal responsibility. The reams of cheap slogans don’t help much either.

Ok, so anyone who hasn’t seen them before must be wondering, what are these 12 steps then? Here you are - (more…)

If you are trying to cut down your alcohol use, even if you are mostly successful, there will inevitably be times when you will relapse and have a binge. Don’t be put off by this, you haven’t failed. What is important here is to learn from your mistakes and work out how you could do things differently next time.

What was it about that situation that caused you to drink more than you intended? Was it a particular trigger that you couldn’t avoid (birthdays or a bereavement for instance)? Or was it a trigger that has caught you out before? If so, you need to work out some different ways to deal with it.

Many relapses occur as a result of the beliefs you may hold about alcohol. For instance if you believe that you “can’t cope with these feelings” and so you “need a drink otherwise you’ll lose the plot”, or if you believe that the only way you can be sociable is after a drink, then obviously these beliefs will tend to make you relapse.

The beliefs you have about your cravings or urges will also determine how easy it is to avoid relapse. So again, if you believe that once you get a craving, it won’t go away until you have a drink, then every craving you get becomes very risky. Similarly, if you believe that you don’t have the mental strength to cope with your cravings, then of course you probably won’t. Your beliefs are self-fulfilling.

What you need to do now is find out what your beliefs are, and more importantly how accurate they are. This means testing out your beliefs by looking at the evidence. Most of our problems in life arise from inaccurate beliefs about ourselves and how the world works. But this is where you might need a counsellor or a therapist, because it’s very difficult to be objective and impartial about your own thoughts.

» Try this test to see what your negative beliefs about alcohol or drug use might be.

» Then try this one to examine what your beliefs about cravings are.

Coping with cravings is the key to tackling alcoholism. If you can manage to not give in to your cravings, or you can adapt so that you don’t get so many cravings in the first place, then there is no more addiction is there?

How you view your own cravings will determine how much power they have over you. If you believe that a craving won’t naturally go away once it has started, or if you think that the only way to deal with a craving is to drink, then of course you will be fairly powerless over them. This is the cognitive component of your addiction.

Making yourself aware of what things in your life tend to give you cravings, and therefore how you might avoid those situations, becomes a vital skill. For those ‘triggers’ that you can’t avoid, you can learn how to deal with them differently.

Lets say there are four types of cravings:

• a reaction to withdrawal symptoms
• escaping from unpleasant feelings (boredom, depression, anxiety etc.)
• a response to a learnt association (people, places etc)
• enhancing a positive mood

Each type requires a different approach to deal with it. And each person’s approach will be unique to them.

There are six recognised methods for dealing with cravings when they occur:

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The process of changing your habits towards alcohol is not something that happens overnight. You are learning new skills to replace your old behaviours, and this will take some time. How long it takes of course varies from person to person.

Firstly you have to decide how you will know when you have changed? What will be the signs that you have been successful? These are questions that most people find difficult to answer. Ok, so you don’t drink so much any more, you feel a bit more clear-headed and happier - but have you made the changes in your life that you really wanted at the start?

So, to answer the main question another way - you might well see reductions in your level of consumption within a week or two, but that may not mean you have made enough changes to sustain that improvement.

Usually when people decide to seek help for their alcohol problems, it is not just the actual level of their drinking that bothers them, it’s their emotional problems, their ability to cope with the stress in their lives, the number of crises they create. So reducing consumption is only one part of the overall changes someone might be hoping for.

So perhaps the initial question is a little too vague to be answered accurately. Being more specific in your expectations will lead to more informative answers. So maybe ask some questions like these instead:

“How long will it take me to learn other ways to relax?”
“How soon can I expect to communicate better with my family?”
“When will I be able to get through a whole day without even thinking about a drink?”
“Will I feel that I’m a good person again soon?”

Beating addiction is not a process of being told what to do differently, or learning the tricks that you were possibly lacking, those secrets which people without an addiction surely must have. No, it doesn’t work like that.

Overcoming addiction is more to do with learning about yourself, learning how you tick, what beliefs you hold, some of which you might not even be aware of, which contribute to your problems.

Most of our behaviours are very automatic, we do things without thinking too deeply about the consequences, most of the time. We are animals, just like the rest of nature, and we respond in the same way they do. Like Pavlov’s famous dogs - if you show us something that we’ve seen before, we often respond to it in a pre-programmed or learnt way. If you smell some lovely fresh food being cooked, you’ll start to produce saliva. You will also probably think certain thoughts as a result, again often automatically (though they might not FEEL automatic). Some of these thoughts are so subtle and you have them so often, you might not even notice them.

With addiction the initial event can be anything - being bored, feeling lonely, angry, disappointed, frustrated, tired. From that thought you might think something like “I can’t stand feelings like this, I must change this feeling”. Again, this thought might not be a loud one in your head, its just a way of dealing with the world and your feelings that has become automatic.

So, in a situation like this, you’ll find something to get rid of this unpleasant feeling you’ve got - “I know what will change my mood, a drink…” or some cocaine, or whatever your problem is with (whereas someone without addiction problems might choose to accept that feeling for a while, or find a less destructive way to change the feeling).

So, to change your addictive habits, you firstly need to understand fully how they work, what you are doing to sustain them. Then you can slowly relearn some healthier ways to deal with life, with your unpleasant feelings.