conditioned to believe alcohol is a vital part of life for relaxing, socializing, and everything in between. And you know there are competing desires inside your mind. Your conscious mind wants to drink less, or even stop drinking completely. And your subconscious mind believes you need to keep drinking for some very good reasons. Before we dive into those beliefs and stories and deciding if they’re true, we need to know what those beliefs actually are. After reading literally thousands of stories from people who’ve gone through this process, I’m pretty sure I know what your beliefs are. But that’s not important. What’s important is that YOU know what they are. So let’s start this experiment by writing a list.
Write down a list of every reason you drink. There’s no judgment here. We simply want a list.
To get you going, here’s a look at part of my list. You might have some of the same reasons.
• Work is stressful and drinking helps me relax after a long day.
• Drinking helps me be more creative on the job.
• Drinking helps me be more outgoing at networking events.
• Drinking is important to my social relationships.
• I love the taste of wine.
Don’t stop with a few reasons; keep going until you can’t think of any more. You might come up with 50 or 100 reasons, and that’s fine.
You’ve brought your subconscious beliefs up to the surface of your mind. Now we can shine a light on them, examine them, and you can decide for yourself whether those beliefs are true. And you can make that decision based on the facts, not social conditioning from the media and your peers. Don’t do anything with this list right now. Don’t try to change your mind. At the moment, these are your beliefs, and they’re currently true in your life. As I present you different ideas over the next 30 days, you may think about this list differently.
Okay, next I want you to pull out another piece of paper and make a second list. Write down all the reasons you want to take part in this experiment. WHY do you think you might want to drink less? Here’s a peek at my list:
• I’m tired of waking up slightly hungover.
• I no longer want to worry that I said something stupid the night before.
• I am sick of the internal dialogue about my drinking—I am tired of thinking about drinking.
• I saw a photo of myself out with friends and my teeth looked purplish from wine—it was disgusting.
• I look back on certain days and my memories are so fuzzy. I am afraid I am missing my life because I can’t clearly remember it all.
TODAY, read over both your lists and notice how they are in conflict with each other. This is the whole source of your cognitive dissonance. It’s the battle going in your mind all the time, written in your own words. Over the coming weeks, it might help you to picture these lists on either side of a seesaw or a balance. Right now, the first list might be longer than the second one. In a few weeks, check back in to see if the balance has shifted at all.
Day 1 Reflections from alcoholexperiment.com
“I am sick of alcohol damaging my life in so many ways, including making an idiot of myself, hangovers, feeling violently ill, wasted time and opportunity, horrendous fights with my husband, putting a strain on my marriage, weight gain, no exercise, loosened stomach, way too big an appetite, anxiety, smoking, money, no time.”
—JULIANNA
“Today is the first day of the rest of my life.”
—BRIAN
“Hey guys. Day 1 here. Interested to see if my list of reasons why I drink was smaller than my list of reasons why I am here. I am taking that as a sign that I have more reason to stop than to continue drinking. I have more to gain from being AF [Alcohol Free]. I feel quite motivated by that.”
—ROMERO
“I decided that my life is my own and I am ready to live it the way I want to, and that doesn’t include alcohol.”
—LIZA
NOTE: The idea of the ACT Technique—Awareness, Clarity, Turnaround—is to give you an alternate perspective. It is an exercise to help you resolve your or internal disagreement around alcohol. First, we’ll become aware by naming a belief you have about drinking. Then we’ll gain clarity around that belief, looking at where it came from and how you may have picked it up without even knowing it. We’ll also look at the internal and external evidence that supports that belief (or doesn’t). Finally, we’ll decide if the belief holds true through a turnaround. We will look at the opposite of the belief, and decide if the opposite is as true as or truer than the original belief. When this process is complete, you get to decide if you still believe this and, more important, if that belief is serving you or if your life would be better by simply letting it go. No matter what you decide, you will gain a new perspective. The whole idea is to play detective and look at the evidence and form an objective opinion.
What’s your all-time favorite drink? The one you can’t wait to get your hands on at the end of a long day or on Friday night? I bet if you think about it hard enough, you can even taste it right now. Taste is an innocent reason for drinking. After all, no one thinks twice about eating ice cream or nachos. They taste good! And our favorite alcoholic beverages are the same way. But for the sake of this experiment, let’s dig a little deeper.
Many people tell me they really like the taste of their favorite drink. I get it. I was a red wine girl all the way. Maybe you’re a margarita lover. Or maybe you enjoy the taste of a good scotch on the rocks. Let’s name this belief:
“I drink for the taste.”
I know a woman who drinks a shot of Baileys in her coffee every morning before she drives her child to school. She doesn’t think it’s a big deal. It’s just a shot, and nothing else makes her coffee taste as good. Her concerned husband tried to get her to try Baileys-flavored coffee creamer, but she insists it doesn’t taste the same. But if you think about it, she’s not actually tasting a lot of alcohol—it’s mostly the flavorings, cream and sugar. So what do you think? Is she truly enjoying Baileys for only the taste? Or is there something else going on?
In order to gain clarity around your beliefs, you need to look back at
