How to Become Enthusiastic About Quitting Alcohol

Because you are reading this. I am going to assume you already have enough reasons for quitting alcohol (or whatever substance is currently messing up your life). You might think that this would be enough to get you to quit, so why haven’t you?

It’s a no brainier isn’t it? Once you realize that the cons outweigh the pros, the obvious thing to do is to just walk away. I bet this is what you told yourself you would do if alcohol ever became a problem.

Yet, if you are anything like I was during the final years of my alcohol enthusiasm, walking away is a lot easier said than done.

You May Never Reach a Day When Enough is Enough

The sad reality is that a alcohol can completely destroy your life and reputation, and take away everything you love, yet you still may not develop sufficient motivation to stay away.

As my own situation deteriorated, I reached out to the experts who talked about a promised Nirvana called ‘rock bottom’. This would be the day when enough would be enough, and I would then be able to walk away from alcohol and live happily ever after. I started to even use this idea of a ‘rock bottom’ as an excuse to go on a bender – after all, wasn’t I just speeding the process along?

The problem was that my life kept on getting worse and worse, and I noticed how many of my fellow travelers died before reaching this promised day when quitting would be easy. I could see the same happening to me. Thankfully, I stopped believing those who told me that I would need to keep on drinking until I was ready.

The Reason You Can’t Stay Quit

It took me two decades to figure out that fear is a lousy long-term motivation when it comes to giving up the booze. Fear of dying from liver disease, losing a girlfriend, or being homeless might be enough to get me to enter some type of treatment program, but it wasn’t enough to get me to quit for good.

The problem with fear is it only works when your back is against the wall. Of course, this meant that once things improved for me, my fear would vanish and my motivation to quit would disappear along with it.

I work in a rehab, and I’ve seen this happen over and over again. A person’s life turns to shit, so they become willing to change. They put in the work and things get better for them, but their improved situation often means their initial reason for quitting is no longer valid, so back they go.

You Turn to Alcohol for a Reason

I used to wonder if my own mind was trying to destroy me. Why else would I keep returning to alcohol after it had taken so much away from me. I now see that what was happening was anything but self-destruction.

That which was driving my alcohol enthusiasm wasn’t much different from the force that regulated my internal organs or ran my immune system. I could judge it as misguided, but my drinking was just another attempt by my body to be OK.

I stopped drinking for long periods (I once managed two years), but while my life outwardly improved during these sober times, there was still an underlying yearning for something crucial that was missing. Alcohol was the only thing that I knew that could get anywhere close to satisfying this yearning, so of course, I kept going back to it.

If you keep returning to alcohol despite the negative consequences, might it be because you are in a similar situation to how I was? If you see giving up drinking as some kind of sacrifice, what is it that you think that you are sacrificing? You might have different words for it, but is alcohol the best way you know to be OK?

How to Become Enthusiastic About Quitting Alcohol

You will become sufficiently enthusiastic about quitting alcohol once you understand that rather than it being about giving up alcohol, it is really about getting what you most desire. Once you firmly grasp this, and start taking action, the motivation you need to succeed will be there. At the end of the post, I’ll link to an overview of what this might involve.

I discovered that my drinking was a desperate attempt to experience well-being. I developed a relationship with life that gave me everything I was looking for in a bottle. I know that I’ll never drink again because it no longer has anything to offer me. Just like I never needed to motivate myself to go drinking, there is no longer any need for motivation to stay away from it. The same can be true for you.

Life is so wonderful when we are able to relate to it the right way. Each moment is a precious gift, and we don’t need a drug to recognize this.

If you are struggling to find/maintain the motivation to quit an addiction, I may be able to help. Click here to visit my coaching page to find out more.

Click here for an overview of the path I took away from addiction.
You will also find plenty more information on my YouTube channel.