Kick the Drink Easily!

by Jason Vale

  Do something while you drink such as play darts, bingo or dance.

  This is the same advice they give for stopping altogether. It really amazes me that people can offer advice like this and are seen as leading experts in their field. What rubbish. Go and play bingo … That’s right, go and have a game of bingo, that will help you cut down on your drinking won’t it? The last suggestion is the most pathetic by far. Dance? How the hell is dancing going to reduce your alcohol intake? When you dance you get hot and thirsty so you have a drink; drink which will not quench your thirst but cause you to feel dehydrated. So, when you dance again you will be even thirstier. They advise you to do this while you are drinking. Dance while drinking? And don’t forget the darts players’ bellies.

  Try low alcohol and non-alcohol drinks. You may like them.

  Well, cover me in eggs and flour and bake me for thirty minutes, why didn’t I think of that? In fact why didn’t we all think of that? All we had to do was drink non-alcoholic drinks. Like them? Why would you when there’s real alcohol to be had?

  Have something to eat before you start drinking or at least drink some milk.

  Does this make any sense at all? How on earth is this pathetic piece of advice ever going to help you reduce your alcohol intake? After you eat something or line your stomach with milk, it doesn’t stop you drinking does it? No, quite the opposite in fact. The alcohol takes longer to reach the brain so you will feel as though you can drink as much as you like. The reality is that you drink more. I used to drink milk before going out sometimes so that I could drink more.

  Have some days off from drinking.

  Isn’t this why we are asking for their advice? We want to know how to do it and still feel happy.

  Keep a drink diary and record when you drank, how much you drank and what was the situation leading to your decision to drink.

  Do I even need to say a word on this one? Keep a drink diary? No chance. I would either have been too drunk to remember how many I’d had, why, what the situation was leading to the decision to drink or far too hungover to care anyway. I ask you, do you think these people were actually sober when they wrote this?

  Sip your drink rather than gulp it down and put your glass down between sips.

  So sipping your drink rather than gulping it will help reduce your drinking? No, really? But just how do you stop gulping it down? That is the real question. That is why people are asking for your advice, not so that you will state the obvious.

  If you are going to drink, stick to one session of drinking during the day.

  So if you drink in the morning don’t stop all day.

  Reward yourself.

  OK, let’s have a drink … (Oh shit, wrong reward!) It’s no good advising a drinker to reward themselves when they still believe that alcohol is reward in itself.

  The whole business of giving advice on reducing your intake is ridiculous anyway. This is because alcohol is a drug and you cannot control a drug because if you try, the need will be greater.

  Think about it. If you are one of those drinkers who perhaps has a couple in the evening and a skinful at weekends, then in the past you have probably gone for days or weeks without a drink and haven’t been bothered by it but, the very second you tell yourself you can’t, you have the ‘forbidden fruit’ syndrome. The reality is that, on the whole, drinkers are strong willed and hate being told what to do by anybody else, including themselves. So when you say they can’t drink, alcohol becomes a thousand times more desirable and immediately they feel miserable and deprived, even if they would normally find it easy enough to abstain for a few days. The reason you now find it difficult is because you have told yourself that you can’t.

  Get this very clear in your mind. When you stop drinking you can drink whenever you wish, just as I can whenever I wish. The difference is that I just don’t have any desire ever to drink again. You can, after all, take heroin whenever you wish. Nobody is stopping you, so why don’t you? It’s because you don’t want to, that’s why. You can do whatever you want. The choice is yours. You no longer have a choice if you do have a drink as alcohol removes your freedom of choice. All drugs do. You must understand that alcohol is not a hobby or a habit and it is certainly not a genuine pleasure. It is drug addiction; nothing more, nothing less.

  Remember that the addiction is only psychological so if you tell yourself that you can’t drink you will feel deprived and miserable. The real question should be, ‘I can have a drink but what on earth would be the point? What would it do for me?’ The answer will be crystal clear – nothing. There is just no point to drinking. Just saying the word ‘can’t’ or believing that you can’t would be the only thing that could make it remotely difficult for you to stop drinking or remain free. Remember CAN’T simply means Constant And Never-ending Torture so why put yourself through that?

  Trying to reduce your intake simply means not allowing yourself to drink when you want to and having consciously to exercise even more control than before. The longer you suffer any aggravation, the more attractive it will appear when you eventually drink again. If you are banging your head against a brick wall, the longer you do it, the more pleasure you will get when you stop. But it’s not pleasure; it’s simply the end of an aggravation. Why bang your head against the wall in the first place? Why drink? Why be miserable if you are not drinking? By cutting down you do not stop the drinking but consolidate the idea that alcohol is even more precious than you already thought. That makes you even more hooked than you were as the hook is mental, not physical.

  A while ago, radio and TV presenter Chris Evans talked about alcohol on his old morning radio show which was not unusual as he seemed to be obsessed with the stuff. The reality is that he was so hooked that there was not one show I listened to when he didn’t mention the drug at least once. On one occasion he was talking about a new book called something like How to Drink Without Getting Drunk. According to the book, the way to avoid getting drunk at a dinner party was this: when you first want a sip of wine, don’t. Just bring the glass to your mouth and, instead of taking a sip, you should ‘nose it.’ The next time you want a drink, take a sip of water instead of the wine and only the third time should you actually take a sip. After that you repeat the whole process over again. By doing this you can apparently drink without getting drunk. Oh, what fun. This is cutting down on a supreme level, an intolerable level, a pathetic level as, not only are you thinking about not drinking, you have to be engaged with a routine that ensures you don’t forget about it for a moment. What worries me is that the people who give this sort of advice are taken seriously.

  Let’s get one thing clear. Cutting down is not in any way a stepping stone to quitting. Like everything else when it comes to alcohol, it does the complete opposite. We are dealing with a drug that cannot be controlled and that is why, in order to remain free for ever, we should never fall for …

  ‘OK, Just the One’

  This is, without doubt, one of the most important chapters in the book. To ensure that you have lifelong success, you should clearly understand that there is no such thing as just one drink.

  What got us all hooked in the first place? It was the thought of trying just one that got us started. This is where most people who stop drinking make a big mistake. They believe there is no such thing as just one drink which is what makes them feel deprived. The reality is that there is no such thing as just one drink for anybody. The reason for this has nothing whatsoever to do with your genetic make-up, character or personality; it is because alcohol is a drug and, as such, it plays with your mind. If you believe that you will benefit from one drink then you will also think that there must be benefit in a million. There is no such thing as the ‘just one’ fix of heroin for you either. Why is that? Is it because of your personality or due to your genetic make-up? Is it the nature of the drug? Again, you really don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work it out.

  Sometimes drinkers say to me, ‘What’s wrong with you, you mean to say y
ou can’t have just one?’ I reply honestly, ‘Yes of course I can, but I don’t want to.’ I could always turn the tables and say, ‘What’s wrong with you, you mean to say you can’t have just one?’ After all, there is no such thing as one drink for anyone, especially drinkers. I would never do that as I know there is nothing wrong with them. It is the drug that is the problem.

  This point must be made very clear. Drinking starts a chain reaction that will last for the rest of your life unless you break it. It is a disease which gets progressively worse, unless you cure it. Cured means making absolutely certain that, whatever happens, you never have ‘just the one.’ Make sure that you never, ever recreate the disease because the reason why you will be hooked immediately with just one drink is not because alcohol is physically addictive. If it were, you would be hooked simply after having a piece of chicken in white wine sauce. It is not because the physical withdrawal from that one drink is so awful; it is because, if you view just one drink with genuine pleasure, you will see genuine pleasure in thousands.

  About seven or eight months after gaining my freedom I was in a bar while on holiday. I had a glass of sparkling mineral water and my friend had a glass of wine. We were playing pool and, as she was taking her shot, I picked up what I thought was my water but was in fact her wine. It tasted disgusting just like that very first drink. So why didn’t I get hooked again although I had taken a gulp of her wine? It is because there was not one part of me that actually wanted to. It was just a simple mistake and at no time did I ever want it. In fact, I couldn’t actually believe just how revolting it tasted after all that time. Even though it tasted awful, if I had thought for one second that I would get some kind of pleasure from it, I would have been hooked again. Taste has nothing to do with it as your first drink is disgusting but did that stop you drinking? Of course it didn’t. We are dealing with a drug addiction here, so wake up and see it for what it is, not just for now but for the rest of your life. So whenever you think about alcohol, see it for what it actually is and don’t respond to the advertising and brainwashing funded by billions of pounds from the industry. It’s time to regain control and advertise the reality in your own mind.

  Alcohol does nothing for you, so the only time you would even contemplate having just the one is if you thought you were missing out on a genuine pleasure. If I have to repeat this point a million times and scream it from the rooftops I will. When you stop drinking you are giving up absolutely …

  NOTHING!

  Oh sorry, apart from the headaches, the hangovers, the lethargy, the bad breath, the beer gut, the arguments, the violence, being overemotional, regretting things you have done but can’t remember doing, getting things out of proportion, putting things off all the time, the stress, the overdraft, the taxis, the guilt, the lies, the deceit, the brewer’s droop, the mood swings, the breakdown of the immune system, the lack of resistance to all kinds of diseases, the destruction of brain cells, not to mention the excess weight. Oh, I nearly forgot, what you will be giving up most of all is …

  THE DAILY MENTAL AND PHYSICAL SLAVERY OF BEING A DRUG ADDICT.

  What you would be giving up is one of the worst diseases you will ever suffer from, being controlled and dictated to by a drug, frequently not being yourself and, last but by no means least, giving up kebabs. After all, you would never eat them sober, would you?

  So now you can see that there is nothing to give up and you will feel no sense of sacrifice whatsoever. If you believe that now, why would you ever get uptight or miserable without alcohol and what power on earth could ever get you to convince yourself that you need just that one more? The answer is the brainwashing that got you hooked in the first place. In order to have lifelong success and to ensure you are never fooled into having the one, you need to understand about …

  Curiosity vs. Craving

  If you want not only to stop drinking but also to make sure you remain alcohol free, please make sure you are wide awake when you read this chapter. Knowing the difference between curiosity and craving is perhaps the most important aspect of staying free.

  Before we started drinking alcohol we didn’t need it. Then the conditioning crept in slowly but surely until we felt as though something was lacking. Our friends were trying it, our parents did it and our role models were drinking, so we thought we were missing out. We weren’t sure what it was but we became curious and wanted to try some. This would not have been as a result of an overwhelming craving as, if we had been told at this point that there would be no alcohol at the next party, it wouldn’t have bothered us. We did not drink and hadn’t yet created a craving for it or a fear that life would not be enjoyable without alcohol. The craving only begins when you think you are missing out on a genuine pleasure.

  I wanted a drink before I even started drinking, that is why I had one. It was not because I was a drinker as I had never had a drink in my life and it had nothing to do with any alcohol circulating in my body. My desire was simply due to the massive brainwashing that I had always experienced which made me curious about trying it.

  The conditioning is still out there when you stop but the big difference will be that you will know it’s all rubbish. You are one of the few people who will see it for what it actually is, which will give you a sense of uniqueness, self-confidence and joy. After finishing this book, you will be better prepared than the few who have never been hooked. The trap is out there and anyone can fall into it at any time. Even people who have never drunk believe that alcohol relieves stress and makes people happy. They believe some of the brainwashing but take the attitude: ‘What I’ve never had I won’t miss and I don’t want the bad side, thank you.’ You should now realise that alcohol does nothing, not just for you but for anybody. The drug will never change, only your perception can change, which is why it is so important to understand what got you hooked in the first place. That way, you can easily avoid it in the future. The aim of this book is not just to help you stop drinking easily but to show you just how easy it is to remain free for the rest of your life.

  I was curious enough to want to try the drug ecstasy in the eighties. Everyone was doing it, or so it seemed. The people taking the drug were always trying to sell it. I don’t mean sell it for financial gain but sell the effects of the drug. Now I am relieved that I never fell into that trap. I never took the drug but I did come close and this was out of curiosity not craving. There is a big difference. A craving is nothing more than an overriding desire for something. In other words, if you always see alcohol for what it is and not as other drinkers or the alcohol industry want you to see it, then you will never crave it again. You can’t crave disease and slavery. As I have mentioned, I never took ecstasy but I had the choice, just as you have the choice of taking heroin if you wish. Had I tried it and the illusory effects of the drug had compounded the brainwashing, the curiosity would have turned into craving. I would have been hooked right then and my freedom of choice would also have evaporated. There are many people who feel they cannot go out without taking one, two, three or more ecstasy tablets. Can you imagine being so dependent on a drug that you feel you cannot enjoy yourself without it? As a drinker you do precisely that.

  To ensure your total freedom for life, you must understand that you may be curious again. This curiosity is not there because you used to drink. It is not a craving, nor is it a genuine desire to drink; it is simply an ‘action signal.’ It is telling you to take action, to retune yourself. It is a signal to remind yourself of the nature of brainwashing and just how powerful it can be so you remember how wonderful it is to be free from the slavery of drug addiction and go on rejoicing in your freedom for the rest of your life. After you are totally free and have been for a while, you sometimes forget all about drinking so it is good to have these occasional moments to remind you of your freedom so you can retune and see alcohol addicts as they are.

  All the time our bodies are being polluted by traffic, dust, dirt, chemicals in what we eat and many other external sources. The
body, being the ultimate survival machine, will do everything in its power to rid itself of these pollutants to improve the quality and length of your life. Our minds are also polluted and it is our job to rid ourselves of those toxins too. The alcohol industry is a drug industry that has no morals and does not give a hoot about the quality of our lives. Like all drug pushers they are out to make money and will use any method possible to make people dependent on their drug. They know that if you hit their button a few times, you will become dependent.

  The industry loses over a million customers a year worldwide and those are just the ones who die so they have to recruit as many new ones as possible. The first fix of any drug is free which is why they will often sponsor student bashes. The people handing out free bottles of beer are young and in their prime. They deliberately choose people who look great to sell their drug, not someone who has just had their leg removed because of bad circulation because of their fix. They do not choose an overweight middle aged man with puffy, red cheeks and an inflated, veined nose, who has lost family, house and job because of alcohol. You can sell an illusion and image but not the reality. You will soon find that, just as your body automatically rids itself of pollutants, your mind will automatically filter any brainwashing that tries to creep back in.

  When you stop drinking, the facts will never change but their relevance to you changes completely because you have stopped. You don’t worry about your health any longer because you feel a thousand times better. You are not concerned about the money you were spending on the drug and you aren’t worried about being a slave to or being controlled by something. In other words you forget why you stopped in the first place, how bad you felt and you forget the truth that lies behind the drug. This is when you should remind yourself of the truth, feel glad because you know what is behind the confidence trick and realise that the drinkers are the ones missing out.