5 Bullshit Ideas That Prevented Me from Breaking Free of Alcohol

There were certain ideas that I picked up during my years of trying to break free of my alcohol addiction that I’ve since concluded are bullshit. These beliefs were more than just wrong, they actually kept me from making progress – that’s why I’m referring to them as bullshit.

One man’s (or woman’s) bullshit is another man’s caviar, and I do accept that just because an idea didn’t work for me, it doesn’t mean it won’t work for other people. In fact, I’ve seen these same beliefs work wonders in the lives of other people – maybe I’m just allergic.

I don’t mean to offend anyone by calling these ideas bullshit (I don’t need other people to be wrong for me to be right), but I’m just sharing my experience for others out there who may be also suffering due to these questionable beliefs.

So here are the 5 bullshit ideas that prevented me from giving up alcohol for good:

1. Getting Sober Needs to be Complicated

Giving up alcohol was a struggle for as long as I made it one. I filled my head with theories of addiction, the latest scientific research, and the philosophies of recovery. I read hundreds of books on the topic, and I spent countless hours online looking for answers. Even when I was doing my nursing training, I spent far more time researching my alcoholism than I did the stuff I was supposed to be studying.

None of the information I picked up in my search for answers played any real part in my eventual escape from alcohol, it just made everything more complicated than it needed to be. In the end, a Thai monk suggested that I used alcohol as a tool to help me cope with life, and if I found a better tool, I wouldn’t need to drink. He made no mention of an incurable disease, neurological changes to my brain, or about my addictive personality. His theory sounded way too simple to be true, but in my case at least, it turned out to be exactly right.

2. You are an Alcoholic

I learned to refer to myself as an alcoholic at my first rehab, and I embraced this label like a drowning man would a lifebuoy. It became my identity, and I began to use it as an excuse for all my bad behavior (of course I’m drinking, I’m an alcoholic). The alcoholic label turned out to be incredibly disempowering, and it meant that I always felt like a bit of a victim.

I recently came across a quote by Scott Kiloby in his book Natural Rest from Addiction (I plan to review this soon), and I think he gives an excellent description of what can happen when we become attached to the alcoholic identity:

“Identifying heavily with mental labels can create the “mentality of sickness” where we feel trapped in a conceptual box as a “sick person.” These labels set us apart from society. When we insist on these labels, we’re asking society to treat us as damaged goods or second-class citizens…Identifying with labels such as “addict” and “recovering addict” can set us apart from our families and friends, making us feel special and different. This only strengthens self-centered thinking.”

In order for me to end my addiction, I not only had to give up alcohol but also the alcoholic identity.

3. Alcoholism is an Incurable Disease

If treating alcoholism like a disease helps some people that’s reasonable enough, but it did help me at all. I fear that the medicalization of addiction is just making things worse for at least some of us. I needed to start thinking less as a patient with a disease and more as a person who had been making bad choices.

4. You Can Only Give up Alcohol One Day at a Time

Taking life one day at a time makes a ton of sense, but when it came to alcohol, I had to kick that shit out of my life for good. I didn’t want to be still fighting my addiction decades after I’d stopped drinking, I stayed sober like this for two years, and I just never felt free during that time. The ‘one day at a time’ approach meant I remain trapped in a type of ‘will I/won’t I’ thinking. I had to remove the relapse option completely from my life in order to enjoy real freedom.

5. There is a New Cure for Alcoholism

The dream of being able to drink like a gentleman prevented me from committing to this new way of living. I kept on hearing about new scientific discoveries, and possible cures, and more than once I used such news as an excuse to relapse. It wasn’t until I realized that there is no such a thing as alcoholism (at least as far as I’m concerned) that I lost interest in a cure.

I drank because it seemed to offer peace of mind, and I stopped by finding a much more effective way of enjoying inner well-being. I’ve no longer any interest in alcohol and that is the only cure I care about. If there was a 100 per cent guaranteed way for me to drink like a normal person discovered tomorrow, I’d have no interest in it.

Here is a video from a few years ago where I discuss some other bullshit that gets in the way of quitting alcohol: