Far too many people think that stopping drinking is like pushing a boulder up a hill. Hard work.
Now, I don’t want to come across as pretentious, even though I am, so I’m not sure I should mention Sisyphus at this point. He was the ancient dude that was sentenced to roll a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down again. And he had to do that forevermore.
I have met some people whose experience of stopping drinking is like that. They expend so much effort trying not to drink. They have to push that boulder up the hill every hour of every day.
The thing is they’ve gone about it in the wrong way. You don’t push the boulder up the hill. You get it rolling down the hill. And that’s much easier. All you need to do is give it a shove at the start.
You get the boulder rolling by changing your beliefs.
Take your belief about stress and alcohol, you probably believe alcohol helps you deal with stress. You’ve probably heard that alcohol soothes your pain thousands of times during your life.
But, just for a second, look at the flip side. Ask yourself if alcohol causes stress? Examine the stress you have in your life and try to relate as much of it back to alcohol as you can.
It’s easier than you’d think, you can even make it a game. Spend five minutes thinking of ways that alcohol causes you stress. I bet the list will be longer than you’d think.
Now, if you could establish that alcohol caused you stress then it would be a little easier to let it go. Now, imagine you did the same thing with all your false, limiting beliefs about alcohol. Can you see how the boulder has started to roll? Can you see it picking up momentum?
You no longer need to push that boulder up the hill because it has rolled right out of sight.