Chapter Three: Are you ready to act now?

Question Five: Are you absolutely 100% convinced that your overall quality of life will be improved by stopping drinking?

If you are not completely convinced at the time of reading this sentence that the gains of giving up drinking will outweigh the losses, then you are almost definitely going to relapse shortly after detoxification. Why? Because right now you are actively experiencing the negative effects of drinking; if you have doubts at the very time that you are actively experiencing these problems, then you will certainly have much stronger doubts when these problems start to recede and diminish. As the problems caused by drinking start to resolve, you will start to remember all the good things about drinking - how it helped you to relax, how it helped you to socialise etc. etc. In addition, for the period after detox, you will be experiencing the problems caused by NOT drinking such as sleeplessness, agitation, frustration, boredom and craving. The balance between gains and losses will seem to shift towards the overall advantage of a return to drinking.

If you do not believe that your overall quality of life will be improved by a cessation of drinking at this stage, when you are serious enough about giving up to be reading this book, then you will never believe it at times of craving after you have given up. At these times you will convince yourself that you'll be better off after all with a return to drinking. Now, in your present state this may seem unlikely to occur to you - you may not believe that it would be possible for you to start thinking in this way. But don't underestimate the power of your subconscious to overwhelm what may seem totally logical. It's an incredibly powerful force that you're fighting against - the force of the subconscious - the force of the more primeval parts of the brain that lead to craving.

Most people happily lead their lives imagining that they are personally in control of all their thoughts and actions, and that when they do something it's because they have thought about it and made a decision to do it. In fact, at many times in life nothing could be further from the truth. Think about this - you can control the rate of your breathing by saying to yourself "I'm going to take a few deep breaths in rapid succession", or "I'm going to hold my breath for one minute". Does that mean that you are totally in control of your breathing? Do you breathe by thinking about it? No - you don't - you probably haven't thought about your breathing all day until reading this. Moreover, if you did breathe by thinking about it what would happen when you go to sleep? - well, none of us would have made it past our first night on this earth. To give a harsher example, have you ever heard of anyone committing suicide by holding their breath? I doubt it, because it's impossible - if you tried it you would faint after several minutes and then start to breathe comfortably as the subconscious part of your brain took over. This is one simple demonstration of the power of the subconscious to overcome your conscious thoughts.

I was told about another example by a colleague of mine who works as a psychiatrist. His work at that time was on a general psychiatric ward looking after many seriously suicidal patients. His patients had all recently made very serious attempts on their lives, and some of them were being held in special padded rooms due their continuing attempts to kill themselves. One such patient managed to start a small fire in the corner of his room. As the fire caught hold and grew he started to panic and banged on the door of his room to be let out.

As the door was opened the rush of air into the room fanned the fire, and smoke started to fill the whole ward.

Now remember we are talking about a group of people who were very serious about wanting to kill themselves.

Not a single patient attempted to stay in the building as the smoke spread. Not a single patient attempted to harm themselves in any way as they left the ward. All patients gathered outside the building to wait for the fire brigade to arrive. Some of them rushed there in panic. No patient took the opportunity to 'escape' from the hospital grounds once outside even though many were held there against their will under the Mental Health Act.

What is the explanation for this? Simply that the rudimentary, ingrained fear of fire caused the subconscious to take over and all the patients to save themselves, including the one that started the fire in the first place. For this short period of time the intensely depressive thoughts that led these patients to try to take their lives were overcome by a more primal need to escape and survive. If any of them had been able to think through the situation and control their behaviour by their thoughts, then some of them would have died that day. None did.

Now my point here is that the subconscious can be very powerful, and is quite capable of overcoming rational, conscious thought. So how is this related to alcoholism?

It is these same subconscious, primeval parts of the brain that have become all powerful in people who are addicted to alcohol (and other drugs). In particular there is one area of the brain that acts as a 'reward centre'. When you are healthy, this part of the brain provides you with feelings of satisfaction and pleasure when you do things that are necessary for survival, such as eating, or having sex (necessary for survival of the human race). In the process of addiction, the brain's reward centre literally gets hijacked by the addictive drug (alcohol in this case). After years of heavy drinking, the reward centre no longer responds well to activities such as eating, and sex; it increasingly responds only to drinking alcohol.

The problem when you cease to drink is that your brain has by now become convinced that you need to continue to drink alcohol in order to survive. It sends messages to you telling you to find alcohol at all costs. Imagine yourself without water in the desert for several days - how strong would your desire for water be? Is there anything that you would not do in order to get just one glass of pure, cold water? You may be prepared to do things that you would never do in any other situation. You may even be prepared to kill to get that glass of water. This is the power of the survival instinct. And this instinct is controlled by subconscious parts of the brain. This is my final example and for a good reason. The craving that the dying person in the desert feels when thinking of water is the same sensation that you will experience when you crave for alcohol. It is caused by the same brain mechanisms; in your case these brain mechanisms have been hijacked by alcohol. If you were that person in the desert and I placed a glass of water in front of you, could you refuse it? Probably not - but what if you had been given advance notice that the water was poisoned?

To refuse it you will have to be in no doubt that to drink it will actually be more damaging for you than to turn it away. To refuse that drink, especially in the early days following detox, your conscious thought processes will have to overcome the powerful drive of your subconscious. You will not achieve this unless you are completely, 100% convinced that the advantages of turning down the drink outweigh the disadvantages.

Next page .. Chapter Three - Question Six

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