Kick the Drink Easily! Read online

  Even today I hate using the terms non-drinker or teetotaller because they have such negative connotations. That is why most of us pre-judge people who don’t drink. I don’t know about you but, when I was drinking and heard that someone was a non-drinker or had given up the booze, I immediately thought things along the lines of ‘boring bastard’! I apologise for the language but one of my main fears about stopping drinking was the thought that I would turn into one of them. I believed that if I stopped drinking, I would be missing out. I thought I would feel deprived of the wonderful pleasures of alcohol; the calming effect, the relaxation, the sociable aspect of having a few beers with the lads or a bottle of wine with dinner. The warm glow of a brandy, the crisp bite of a glass of chilled white wine, the hot toddy, the banter, the chatter, the laughter, the fun all added up to my idea of a good time. In short, if I stopped drinking altogether, I would no longer have a life. Until, that is, I realised it was all nonsense.

  I am pleased to say that stopping drinking certainly hasn’t turned me into a bore or a social hermit. On the contrary, it has enhanced my social life and given me back my courage, confidence and a quality of life that I had forgotten even existed. I am now in full control of my drinking for the first time in my adult life. I now drink as much as I want, as often as I want and whenever I want to. I no longer have to exercise willpower, self-discipline and control to avoid drinking too much. Every single day I have the quantity of drink I choose without worrying about work, what people will think of me or even how I am going to feel. That is true control.

  The reason why I have such control now is because I do not drink alcohol any more. Not because I cannot drink it but because I just don’t want to. Of course I could drink alcohol whenever I want and there is nothing stopping me. I simply have no desire to do so.

  A few years ago I would have thought that impossible. Me, a non-drinker? Never! I could not imagine what life would be like without alcohol. I didn’t even want to contemplate the idea of never drinking again. The mere thought of stopping altogether would be far too scary even to consider. Who would want to spend the rest of their life without drink? Not me! Whenever I started to realise that I was drinking a little too much, I would look for ways to exercise more control over my drinking without having to stop completely. I would think of ways to cut down and all the different methods of reducing my intake including going ‘on the wagon’ and abstaining for a while or making every other drink a soft one. I would drink water with alcohol to reduce the dehydration or even discipline myself not to go out on certain nights to help reduce my intake. But to stop altogether for the rest of my life? Never.

  I once managed to go on the wagon for three months. It was one of the worst periods of my life. I felt miserable and deprived and stayed in most of the time. I thought, what is the point of going out to a social gathering if I am not drinking? How can you possibly enjoy yourself at a get-together without alcohol?

  I have been a non-drinker for over ten years now and it has been without question the best ten years of my life. I have never once missed alcohol since I stopped and now socialise more than ever before. I do not feel miserable and depressed when I am not drinking because there is nothing to feel miserable about. In fact, I feel elated to be free from what was a constant struggle to gain control. I feel so relieved to be mentally and physically free.

  So just how badly addicted was I? When I was in my late teens I would get through sixteen pints of lager every day. At weekends I would drink even more. Sometimes I would even drink Special Brew and Thunderbird for breakfast! This went on for a couple of years and I was warned that I might be an alcoholic. Personally, I did not think I was. After all, I was only enjoying a drink just like everybody else, only I drank a little more than most. However, the more people told me I was drinking too much, the more conscious I became of it. At this stage you may agree that I was an alcoholic as such is the power of social conditioning. After all, if you drink in the morning, you must be.

  One day I decided that enough was enough and I had to reduce my intake. This should have been impossible were I an alcoholic. After all, that is the difference isn’t it? Drinkers are in control and alcoholics are out of control. I went from being what society would call an alcoholic to being a normal drinker. This obviously meant that I wasn’t an alcoholic after all and didn’t really have a problem as I was now back in control because if you are in control, there is no problem. I made a point of only drinking at weekends. Oh, and at birthday parties. Oh yes, and at weddings and restaurants, not to mention Easter, Christmas, New Year, christenings, as well as holidays, barbecues, parties and any social events. I would drink when watching the football, drink to relieve stress, to help me calm down and relax after a hard day. I would drink with meals, the odd glass of wine in the bath, not forgetting the ones for a little ‘Dutch courage.’ As you see, I only drank as ‘little’ as any other normal drinker who is in control.

  Was I ever really choosing to drink on these occasions or did I have to in order to have a good time? Had my freedom of choice already been taken from me? It was this thought that led me to question whether I even wanted to be in control. I started to realise that I was using some degree of willpower and discipline on a weekly, if not daily, basis to avoid drinking too much. Did this mean that I was in control of my alcohol intake because I could apparently control it at times or did it simply mean that I was in a constant battle to gain control? I started to ask myself ‘if you consciously have be in control to make sure you don’t drink too much, then surely you cannot really be in control?’ I now realise that I was never actually in full control of my alcohol intake and that very few people who drink alcohol are ever really in control.

  YOU CANNOT HAVE FREEDOM OF CHOICE WITHOUT THE FREEDOM TO REFUSE.

  For the first time since just before I started drinking, I now have full control once more. The reason is because I no longer have to exercise willpower. It is the having to exercise control that proves the addict is not in control. I will repeat this point as I believe it to be a vital one. You cannot have freedom of choice without the freedom to also refuse.

  Confused? I apologise. I’m racing ahead of myself. There is a lot of brainwashing and conditioning to be removed before you can even start to understand, let alone accept what I am saying. In fact some of my statements may be quite bewildering but all I ask while you read this book is that you open your mind as much as possible and come with me as we explore the myths about the most used and accepted drug addiction in the world.

  Alcohol Addiction

  You may be asking yourself at this stage what makes me, Jason Vale, so qualified to write such a book? What reasons should you have for acting on my advice, following my instructions or even listening to what I have to say? What qualifications do I have? What is my medical background? After all, there are many books written by ex-drinkers offering advice on how to give up. What makes me so different? Why should you follow my advice when I am not as medically or perhaps even as academically qualified as many of them?

  The difference is that I am genuinely free! Yes, FREE. Let me be very clear on this point. I am not ‘in recovery,’ not missing out, not pining for drink or feeling deprived. I am not feeling miserable because I am not drinking, opting out of life, or attending sessions every week, and I haven’t found religion. I mean that I am free, really FREE.

  The freedom that I now enjoy and the mental tools that helped me achieve it are what make me so qualified to help all ‘alcohol addicts’ which I have now done for years. I read several books on how to stop drinking when I was a drinker but they contained diatribes and messages of doom and gloom. In fact, if non-drinkers were to read some of them it would probably have driven them to drink. Every single book was written either by an ex-alcoholic (their term, not mine) or by a doctor who was still a drinker. The ex-alcoholic would be complaining from the start, informing you from page one that you have an incurable disease and describing how you would have to spend the rest of y
our life in something called ‘recovery.’ It’s hardly inspiring. As for the doctor or anyone giving advice on how to do something they haven’t done themselves, it’s hard to swallow. How can anybody offer advice on how to stop drinking when they are still drinking? It would be equivalent to The Easy Way to Sparkling Wit and Repartee by Gordon Brown. It just wouldn’t wash. I realise you don’t have to be the best football player in order to be a good coach but I do feel it helps if you can at least kick a ball.

  We need to understand that, however well intentioned, many doctors belong to what I call the ‘state the obvious’ brigade when they pronounce: ‘You’re drinking too much. You really should cut down or perhaps stop altogether. Alcohol is killing you, destroying your life and causing you and your family all kinds of heartache.’

  Telling the drinker what they are already fully aware of insults their intelligence. Imagine sinking in quicksand while somebody walks past saying, ‘You should get out of there you know, you’re sinking. Unless you get out you will probably die.’ That sounds ridiculous I know, but it’s no more ridiculous than the doctor who tells somebody who already knows that they are drinking too much. One of the times when a drinker will reach for a drink is when they feel under pressure or stressed out, so pressurising people to stop drinking usually has precisely the opposite effect.

  I must emphasise that I am not condemning doctors who are in their profession to help people. Some may believe strongly that by listing the reasons might help someone quit or at least to cut down on their consumption. This approach may sound logical but, as you will discover in this book, everything about alcohol that appears logical is, in reality, the complete opposite. For example, Drinkline, at the time the first edition of this book was published, was considered to be one of the leading organisations offering expert help to those who want to stop drinking. They offer one recommendation which, on the surface sounds like good logical advice but is in fact the opposite: ‘Note down all the reasons you can think of for stopping drinking.’ If we question it for just a second, we soon discover that, because addiction is not logical, it is far from good advice. Listing all the reasons why you shouldn’t drink will not make it easier for you to stop, just as writing down all the reasons why you shouldn’t be in quicksand will not make it easier for you to stop sinking. Alcohol addicts already know all the reasons why they shouldn’t drink. Bringing these facts into focus will not make it easier to stop and usually will have the opposite effect. Let me explain why.

  ADDICTION ISN’T LOGICAL.

  First, people who are in the advanced stages of alcohol addiction are constantly being pressured by loved ones, their doctors or society in general into stopping drinking, or at least cutting down their alcohol intake. All this does is cause resentment. Nobody likes being told what to do. The prospect of giving up immediately gives the drinker a feeling of self-sacrifice and a strong sense of deprivation. The more deprived they feel, the more they will want a drink. The more they want the drink, the more deprived they feel. It’s a vicious circle.

  Second, a common mistake that people make when they try to stop drinking is to focus on all the reasons why they should not drink. They come up with list after list of reasons why they should not be doing it, like health, money, children, family, hangovers, slavery to drinking and violence. Add to that the other reasons such as arguments, lethargy, weight and employment problems and so on, there are plenty.

  Drinkers already know all the reasons why they should not drink. The truth is that people do not drink alcohol for these reasons but for what they feel are the positive benefits like the pleasure, as a crutch, to help them calm down, to relax, to give them confidence and courage, to make them happy and merry and so on.

  Just so you know what is in store, this book is not going to be a long drawn out lecture on why people should not drink as you already know the reasons. This book will be very different from the usual ‘doom and gloom’ approach to giving up drinking. By this, I mean the approach where the horrors of drink are explained so the addict will hopefully stop out of fear. Once they have stopped they are then told that they are never really cured but will have to spend the rest of their lives in something called ‘recovery.’ No wonder they feel all doom and gloomy when they stop. So would I if I thought I would have to suffer forever and that freedom was unachievable.

  Not only is freedom possible but it is also easy and extremely enjoyable to achieve. Once you understand fully how the confidence trick works, not only will you not envy people who drink but you will look at them as you might a heroin addict and genuinely pity them. I am fully aware that there will be many people reading this book who have lost a great deal, suffered greatly at the hands of alcohol and desperately need to stop. However, if that is you, you are not unique or alone. I have had best friends die because of alcohol. I have seen mental and physical abuse in my own family because of alcohol. I have had two family members literally drink their lives away, one in their prime at forty-nine. I have spent nights in prison because of alcohol. I have lost relationships because of alcohol. I have also lost jobs because of alcohol. I have watched friends and family suffer physically and mentally because of alcohol. I have seen people lose their eyes, literally, because of alcohol. I have seen people disfigured for life by broken bottles as a direct result of drinking. We all know the horror stories and, as you will discover, there is hardly anyone on this planet (in communities where drink is allowed) who hasn’t been either directly or indirectly affected by the drug called alcohol.

  FEAR KEEPS YOU DRINKING.

  Despite my previous experience, I now hold the view that the past is the past and that, no matter what alcohol has done, it is now time to move on. I am also aware that there are many people reading this book who are not that desperate, have never really thought about stopping drinking forever and believe they are in control.

  For years I never thought about stopping drinking for one reason and one reason alone – FEAR. As I have mentioned, the thought of never drinking again didn’t just make me nervous, it petrified me. I now know that the majority of alcohol addicts are just as scared as I was and it is fear that actually keeps them hooked. Whether it’s a drinker who is desperate to stop, or someone who just wants to stop because they are fed up with drinking, the fears are the same for everyone. It is only fear that prevents them from doing the very simple task of stopping drinking. It was not the physical withdrawal that scared me but the fear that I would never be able to enjoy or cope with my life in the same way again without alcohol. All kinds of ideas went through my mind when I thought ‘I should give up drinking.’ I would get butterflies in my stomach and my mind would race. I would think of every possible future scenario involving me and no alcohol. It was not a pretty picture. Every image was of me standing with a soft drink, feeling miserable and deprived. I feared that social occasions would never be the same again. I feared becoming an outcast. I felt that I wouldn’t even want to go out if I couldn’t drink. What would I do on my birthday? What about Christmas, New Year, holidays? The biggest fear I had was that the craving for alcohol would never go. I thought that I would forever have to use willpower and discipline not to drink. The truth was that I thought I wanted to stop drinking but I wanted to drink as well. That is why I was never sure if I really wanted to stop altogether. I was as confused as hell.

  Since I stopped drinking I see very clearly that it is fear that prevents people from breaking free. Don’t you have some of these fears too? Doesn’t the thought of never having a drink again fill you with fear or maybe even complete and utter terror? Maybe you picked up this book just to ‘cut down’ and that sentence alone makes you want to shut the book and run! These fears keep people drinking and make them block their minds to the health, money, hangovers, slavery and the effects on their families and friends caused by drink.

  However, what alcohol addicts fail to realise (and what I failed to realise a few years ago) is that all those fears are only caused by one thing and one thing alon
e: the alcohol itself. People who do not drink do not have these fears. Before you started drinking you did not have these fears and I no longer have these fears. I now want to scream from the rooftops and tell the world that they really do not need to drink alcohol; they just think they do. The need for alcohol is caused by alcohol and it’s easy to stop once you realise that there are no genuine benefits to drinking the stuff and that life is infinitely better without it.

  Come with me on an exciting journey to remove the brainwashing, conditioning and all the illusions surrounding the alcohol trap so that once you understand them fully, all your fears will be removed forever.

  … remove the brainwashing, conditioning and all the illusions surrounding the alcohol trap …

  At this stage you may firmly believe that you do not want to become a non-drinker. I fully understand this. All I ask is that you read this book with an open mind and you just may start to think differently. You have nothing to lose. When I say an open mind, I mean really open, as wide as possible. A few years ago I would probably have dismissed most of this book. The only way your perception of the drug called alcohol can possibly change is if, just while you read this book, you put aside all your preconceptions. Forget everything you have ever been taught about alcohol. Forget everything your parents taught you, everything that your doctor told you and everything you have told yourself about alcohol. Most people believed that the world was flat at one stage; it took somebody with an open mind to see through that misconception and discover the truth. Once the illusions and brainwashing have been eliminated you will enjoy your life so much more without alcohol. I do not mean that you will be richer and healthier, simply that you will not miss drinking. You will have more courage and confidence and, far from having a void in your life when you stop, you will feel more fulfilled than you have felt in years. As impossible or daunting as that may sound at the moment, once you understand the nature of the trap, it would be hard to convince you otherwise. In fact it would be hard to persuade you to drink again.