A good friend of mine asked me if my quitting drinking was part of an overall decision to get healthy. I wish that I could say that it was. I wish that I could say that it has become that even today, but it hasn’t.
My quitting drinking was two things: survival instinct and avoidance of pain. And of the two, I think it was the latter that was my primary motivation, at least in the beginning. The pain of drinking had finally become so great that I was willing to endure the pain of not drinking, if you know what I mean. I became willing to do whatever it took to not suffer that way any more. After a while, the acute memory of the pain went away, and that’s when the survival instinct kicked in. I was no longer abstaining to avoid pain; I made the conscious choice to continue abstaining because I knew my life depended on it.
Drinking alcohol to excess was only one of several bad behaviors I practiced. I also smoked, ate a lot of fast food, and got zero exercise. I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to change my life and get healthy…. in fact I still smoke, eat fast food, and get very little exercise. (These behaviors are works in progress…) The point is that I made a decision to quit drinking, rather than a decision to get healthy. But all of these behaviors are tied to my self-esteem. When I don’t care about myself, it’s easy to treat myself badly. But when I stopped drinking, I gave myself a very powerful message: I am worth something. I have reinforced that message with hypnotherapy and meditation, and it feels really good. I’ve started feeling guilty for treating myself badly in those other ways. Why should I continue to breathe toxic fumes, eat terrible food and allow my body to go down the tubes with time? I’ve gone to this much trouble to quit drinking… why keep up these other self-destructive behaviors?
So for me, I originally made a “micro” decision to quit drinking… I didn’t give a damn about the rest of it, but it is morphing into a “macro” lifestyle makeover, in the end. I’m becoming more and more motivated, with time, to tackle these other behaviors one by one. In the end, they all add up to a healthy lifestyle and taking care of myself.
I know some of you must have done this the other way around. Did you make a “macro” decision to become healthy, and quitting drinking was a part of that decision? I’m just curious about this, because I see how sobriety fits into the holistic picture of good health (physical, mental, and spiritual). It has always amazed me, too, to see how many people give up one addiction and let others run rampant in their lives – but this doesn’t happen if you put sobriety into the whole scheme of good health.
I guess what I’m trying to figure out is this: is there a right or a wrong way to do this? I feel as if I’m going through my brain, flipping one switch at a time. (One for alcohol, another for bad diet, another for exercising, another for smoking, etc.) Is there some kind of “master switch” in there that I’m not aware of?
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
~ Mike
My quitting drinking was two things: survival instinct and avoidance of pain. And of the two, I think it was the latter that was my primary motivation, at least in the beginning. The pain of drinking had finally become so great that I was willing to endure the pain of not drinking, if you know what I mean. I became willing to do whatever it took to not suffer that way any more. After a while, the acute memory of the pain went away, and that’s when the survival instinct kicked in. I was no longer abstaining to avoid pain; I made the conscious choice to continue abstaining because I knew my life depended on it.
Drinking alcohol to excess was only one of several bad behaviors I practiced. I also smoked, ate a lot of fast food, and got zero exercise. I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to change my life and get healthy…. in fact I still smoke, eat fast food, and get very little exercise. (These behaviors are works in progress…) The point is that I made a decision to quit drinking, rather than a decision to get healthy. But all of these behaviors are tied to my self-esteem. When I don’t care about myself, it’s easy to treat myself badly. But when I stopped drinking, I gave myself a very powerful message: I am worth something. I have reinforced that message with hypnotherapy and meditation, and it feels really good. I’ve started feeling guilty for treating myself badly in those other ways. Why should I continue to breathe toxic fumes, eat terrible food and allow my body to go down the tubes with time? I’ve gone to this much trouble to quit drinking… why keep up these other self-destructive behaviors?
So for me, I originally made a “micro” decision to quit drinking… I didn’t give a damn about the rest of it, but it is morphing into a “macro” lifestyle makeover, in the end. I’m becoming more and more motivated, with time, to tackle these other behaviors one by one. In the end, they all add up to a healthy lifestyle and taking care of myself.
I know some of you must have done this the other way around. Did you make a “macro” decision to become healthy, and quitting drinking was a part of that decision? I’m just curious about this, because I see how sobriety fits into the holistic picture of good health (physical, mental, and spiritual). It has always amazed me, too, to see how many people give up one addiction and let others run rampant in their lives – but this doesn’t happen if you put sobriety into the whole scheme of good health.
I guess what I’m trying to figure out is this: is there a right or a wrong way to do this? I feel as if I’m going through my brain, flipping one switch at a time. (One for alcohol, another for bad diet, another for exercising, another for smoking, etc.) Is there some kind of “master switch” in there that I’m not aware of?
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
~ Mike
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