We’ve all heard of ‘dry January’ but did you know that it’s important to have three alcohol-free days a week, to allow your body the time it needs to repair itself? Would it be useful to know some effective techniques on how to cut back on alcohol?
It takes up to 21 days to form a new habit, so you really can achieve healthier habits in less than a month. If you need a little extra help and motivation, then here are some things to consider…
This article will show you how you can make life-enhancing choices to cut back on alcohol and feel proud of your new healthier lifestyle and all the benefits it brings.
Gain control and freedom from drinking
I have spent over thirty years helping clients achieve freedom from a range of sabotaging behaviours, including addictions and alcohol. It’s not just alcoholics that need to manage their drinking – anyone who relies on a drink to relax or have a good time could benefit from knowing how to cut back on alcohol.
Selective and Moderate Drinking and Stop Drinking are programmes I developed to help people gain control and freedom from their drinking. Simply listen to these relaxing audios every day for 21 days to motivate your mind on how to cut back on alcohol and create new empowering habits for the life you want.
You need more than just willpower for healthier habits
Willpower alone is not powerful enough to change behaviours long term, we need to get to the root cause and work with the subconscious mind, which is ten times more powerful, as this is the way to achieve lasting change.
Primary Motivators and Powerful Emotional Needs
It has been proven that one of the major factors causing alcoholism is the feeling of not belonging. One of the successes of AA is that it allows addicts to feel a shared sense of connection with each other.
Over the thirty years and thousands of clients I have worked with, I have observed that humans come onto the planet with two powerful emotional needs:
1. To seek connection.
2. To avoid rejection.
If you dig deep enough into the emotional problems of almost anyone, you can trace their issues back to a lack of fulfilment of those two needs. It really is that simple, because that truth is so powerful and part of its strength is its simplicity.
As I explain in my latest book I AM ENOUGH, this comes from the mindset of tribal times.
When we lived in tribes, it was imperative that we didn’t get rejected, as no human could survive in the wilderness out on their own. In that case, rejection really did mean death and connection meant survival. That is why this fear is so deeply rooted and the cause of so many of our modern day problems, it really was a matter of life or death.
I always come back to this fundamental truth: more than anything else we need connection and to avoid rejection.
“But I feel like I’m lacking something, like there’s an emptiness inside.”
Clients often talk to me about a feeling of emptiness inside, that they feel something is missing and have inner feelings of lack. I believe that the common denominator of nearly all issues is not believing I Am Enough. When we don’t feel good enough, we can try to fill the emptiness with self-sabotaging, destructive behaviors.
Drinking alcohol is one way people try to fill the inner void they feel. However, once we understand that the void only exists in our own mind, then we have the power to change it forever.
Many modern-day ailments are a function of humans trying to fill the feelings of lack and emptiness.
Feeling disconnected or rejected can lead to all sorts of issues that manifest in other ways. It can manifest as a fear of intimacy, an inflated ego, or an addiction to eating, alcohol or drugs.
It doesn’t matter where the rejection or lack of connection comes from, it almost always leads to a person who feels as though certain things in life will never be available to them.
“The solution I so desperately want is not available to me.”
So many clients consult with me longing to be free of their issues. However, alongside the issues, which include alcoholism, depression, obesity and lack of success, is a fixed belief that, “the solution I desperately want/need is not available to me.”
You may feel that you simply can’t or don’t know how to cut back on alcohol; that these solutions may work for others but not for you. You’re not alone, it’s very common to feel that way, but you do have a choice and you can access everything you need to make positive changes in your life right now.
As I teach with Rapid Transformational Therapy™ (RTT), the fixed beliefs clients hold about themselves are the biggest blocks to achieving their goals. However, the good news is that beliefs can be changed when you know how.
Change your beliefs and you can change your life.
Once you’ve identified your fixed beliefs, it’s very useful to ask yourself:
- Why do I believe that?
- Where did that belief come from?
- Who gave it to me?
- Who gave it to them?
- Why am I still believing it all these years later?”
The point of this exercise is that the minute you begin to question a belief – you begin to doubt it. Because as you question it, you chip away at it until it’s gone.
Many people who have dazzling success were not born into a position
where it was made available to them – quite the opposite.
Everything is available to you and the first step to achieving what you want is to fix new positive beliefs firmly in your mind in place of old negative ones.
Whatever changes you decide to make, ensure you link pleasure to them.
If you decide to cut back on alcohol to improve your health, but resent doing it, your mind will link pain and denial of pleasure to not drinking. You may feel deprived, which leads to you craving something even more as you are wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
When you constantly refer to what you ‘can’t’ or ‘must not’ or ‘should not’ do, you literally increase the desire you are trying to deny.
When I worked on Celebrity Fit Club USA some of the celebrities were unused to doing anything that was hard or painful. As they went on the treadmill or running
machine for the first time they would say ‘I hate this’ or ‘it hurts, it’s painful’ or ‘I don’t like it, when can I stop.’ The minute we begin to speak in this way our brain begins to look for a way to stop the activity.
By saying ‘I am choosing to do this, I choose to enjoy it’, you help stop any resistance. You don’t even need to lie. When I was a personal trainer in LA and teaching boot camp classes, I would always get my class to say, ‘my body loves this, my body is benefiting from it, my body likes it’, and that was true – they may not have liked the fiftieth sit up but their bodies did. It’s the same with drinking. Just like any other addiction, you have to give up the source of the addiction, to see it as a poison for your body and keep away from it. Choose to link pleasure to the benefits of choosing not to drink instead.
There are many benefits to enjoy when you know how to cut back on alcohol:
Make a point of linking massive pleasure to the changes you are implementing. Enjoy having a clear head with fresh energy and enthusiasm, instead of feeling foggy, sick and tired with a stinking hangover. Link pain to excessive drinking and pleasure to healthier choices on how to cut back on alcohol and all the benefits it brings to life.
When you make these changes, don’t say ‘I must,’ ‘I have to,’ or ‘I should.’ Instead, say, ‘I want to’ or ‘I have chosen to,’ ‘this is going to help me achieve…’
Know that you have a choice and you are able to choose how you feel, so choose to feel amazing about being in control of what you put into your body and mind. It is such a simple change yet makes an incredibly big difference.
Small changes make big differences.
As I teach in my highly effective Perfect Weight Forever program, when you change the feelings and associations you have with food and drink, you won’t have to ‘resist the urge’ ever again, as the urge will no longer be there. You won’t have to fight cravings as they’ll be gone. You’ll be more empowered to make conscious choices about how to cut back on alcohol for a healthier life.
You can choose to be in control, rather than being controlled by drink.
By choosing how to communicate with yourself, how to control your thoughts and how to say and think the right things, you realise that you have a choice about how to cut back on alcohol.
When you make healthier choices and create healthier habits you can enjoy a healthier life on your terms. Sometimes it’s the simple changes that have the most powerful results.
Actively choosing reminds your mind that you do indeed have a choice. Know that you are making life-enhancing choices and feel proud of your new healthier lifestyle.
