The Story So Far

Before we look at solutions, now is a good time to revisit our timeline. This time, though, we can look at it with a deeper understanding of how and why we arrived here. Of course, everyone’s circumstances will be different. The following may not describe yours exactly, but hopefully, you’ll recognise the broader underlying patterns. Forewarning: it’s not particularly nice reading, but to move on, we need to own our mess. The mess is the message and it must be understood.

Formation

The addiction stage arguably begins before you even encounter the substance. One of the most surprising realisations I had after stopping drinking was that while drinking was a major problem, it wasn’t the problem. Addictions often take hold because there’s fertile ground within the individual. Introducing the substance provides some kind of instant relief from latent issues. Relief feels like a solution.

Alcohol opens the doors of possibility previously restrained by inhibition. Dopamine gets involved and propels the dynamic forward. Combine this with subconscious programming, and we’re on our way.

Without the foresight of how this plays out over the years, it just seems normal. Your peers approve. Your family culture probably approves, too. In fact, it would be bizarre not to be doing what you’re doing. You’d be alienating yourself from the group if you didn’t.

What starts out new becomes normalised. You regularly participate and subconsciously develop patterns: weekends, quiz nights, football games, and so on. There’s always a thing you want to or have to go to. And at that thing you go to, there’s always alcohol.

Somewhere along the line, the habit becomes the thing, and the thing becomes the accompaniment. At one time, you couldn’t wait for the weekend because you were free to do as you like; you might just so happen to use that freedom to drink. Now, you can’t wait for the weekend because that’s when you drink—big difference. The ‘freedom’ part gets lost in the process.

For most, there are few noticeable consequences, so why not? The consequences that do arise become a badge of honour: ‘I have the worst hangover today,’ ‘I don’t remember a thing,’ ‘I spent all my money.’ Unbeknownst to you, what’s actually happening is that you are becoming dependent. The subconscious has taken notes, learned the routine, and taken over. You’re now running on autopilot.

Meanwhile, the opportunity cost of your time and energy is underway, running in a parallel dimension invisible to the unaware. The effects begin to compound and take you further away from your potential. You gravitate toward friends who do what you do and isolate from those who don’t. You’re not even awake when others are out in nature on a Sunday morning or whatever disgustingly wholesome activities they’re up to. No, you’re busy reinforcing the track you’re on.

What started out as fun and novel has insidiously taken over your life. On the surface, it’s still nominally about socialising or special occasions. But the gears of reality are grinding away in the background, and you’re about to find that out.

Awareness

Eventually, the law of cause and effect makes its presence felt. What began as subtle and unseen steps into the room. Effects may be mild at first: you’re overly tired, especially on Mondays; your life is a bit of a disorganised mess; you’re overly emotional and impulsive; your health and diet suffer. You may or may not associate these with drinking. If so, only vaguely.

Time marches on, and the mild becomes the moderate: your work performance declines and is noticed; you have money issues but still wake up with drink receipts in your pockets; others may start to notice and comment. Rather than self-reflect and take action, you remove people and circumstances that interfere with or draw attention to your behaviour. Validation of your behaviour shifts from general social settings to those that include others like you and eventually to cheap entertainment in which the same behaviours are celebrated.

What began as pleasurable morphs into outright self-medication for a mixture of compounding problems: low self-esteem, anxiety, frustration, depression. The soothing effect you get from alcohol diminishes, and diminishing returns lead to an escalation of consumption.

From here, the situation bursts into the obvious, seen, and undeniable. Your outer world is a physical projection of your inner world. It’s a mess: your living space is disgusting; you’re involved in arguments or altercations; you have blackouts; you wake up with feelings of dread; you hide what you’re doing or have done because you’re embarrassed.

The links between your circumstances and alcohol are clear. You can’t reasonably deny that you need to stop. So you try—consciously.

Realisation

Where you’ve ended up is so far from where you started that it’s hard to believe it’s even possible. If the version of you who took that first drink was dropped at the final destination, you would freak out and never do it again. But the process probably took years—inch by inch, you became conditioned into this way of living and being. It’s like looking in the mirror every day: there’s no noticeable change from day to day, but when you look at a picture of yourself from a few years ago, you’re shocked at how different you look.

The effects are now fully manifest, the problem is more than real, and you realise that you have to stop. The nasty surprise is… you can’t. You try to cut down or take a break for a while. But you don’t. You wake up after a blackout and think, ‘I’m never drinking ever again.’ But you do.

And so begins the cycle of trying. You begin to look for answers and have varying degrees of success. But inevitably, you return to the same place despite your best intentions. Whenever you get to a place where you’ve restored some of the lost vitality, you entertain the idea that you can drink in moderation. You start with ‘just the one,’ but in reality find yourself back at square one.

Realising you’re not the one directing your life is a scary moment: it’s not hard to project forward and imagine where this ends up. But as terrible as this feels, it’s where the road to recovery really begins.

Commitment

When you’re as low as you can get and still don’t give up, then the only option left is whole-hearted commitment—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—to overcome the seemingly impossible. Whatever it takes will be done because there is no alternative. It’s going to involve sacrifices. It’s going to involve pain and boredom. It’s going to involve accepting missing out and upsetting people. It’s going to be sleepless nights. And you’re never going to drink again. What you are going to have, though, is faith—faith that on the other side, there is a better life waiting for you. Because there is.