You must develop and nurture an unprejudiced attitude towards what is really happening. You feel like buying a bottle of wine? That's OK, just observe this wish and how it gives rise to certain thoughts and plans. Do not judge yourself. After all, you have experienced this desire for so many years now, and you've always indulged it. Why should you suddenly judge yourself for having this desire now? It's your wish, isn't it? What's the point of judging yourself for your desires? Just observe what is going on. This may happen again and again, and you won't have had your last drink yet.
Pay attention to every detail - the way you choose your drink, how you peruse the shelves of bottles, how you feel as you scrutinise them, and why exactly you pick that particular bottle. A young woman once told me she drinks red wine before going to bed because otherwise she doesn't fall asleep. She spends a long time in the supermarket wine section, always choosing an expensive wine to drink that night. Once a shop assistant offered her help choosing a wine, and they started chatting. The lady told the assistant that she drinks a couple of glasses in quick succession before bed to knock herself out. In return, the assistant asked her, 'Why then are you looking at such expensive wines? Surely, a cheap wine will have the same effect in your case.'
Before drinking, take a little pause and try to look inwards at yourself. Assess your condition, thoughts, and emotions. What is the voice inside your head saying? What kind of plans is it formulating? Are there several voices in your head? Do they disagree with each other? Keep observing and remain as neutral as possible, as if you were watching a film. Memorise it all, write it down if you wish. Just to reiterate, do not criticise yourself or anyone else associated with your addiction. You're not drinking because your drinking buddy forced you or because you had a bad day at work due to a demanding colleague. No one, neither yourself nor the people around you, is to blame for your addiction. Your addiction is merely a fact of life. And let me tell you, it is not that difficult to get rid of. It's just that, so far, you don't know how. You'll only learn how to do it once you are fully conscious of what is actually going on. Your acceptance of reality is hidden; you are under the influence of filters that prevent you from perceiving it.
Therefore, you just need to consciously watch yourself be an alcoholic for a while.
Your first attempt may fail if you lack experience. Keep calm and carry on. You will gain experience if you hone your observation skills by practising them regularly. At first, you may only be able to concentrate and observe for a very short time, and then you will get distracted by thoughts, emotions, or something else. But remember the importance of this observation stage and keep trying. Believe me, it will soon be easier. You'll soon be able to observe yourself without too much effort or concentration.
Try to observe what happens when you are drunk. How do you feel? What kind of desires and thoughts do you have? How do you respond to external stimuli?
An alcoholic, while drunk, will often negatively respond to criticism, in particular if someone criticises their alcohol addiction. If you have followed Rule No. 1 and are now conscious of your bad habit, then it's time to follow Rule No. 2. You may be overcome by emotions; this is natural. You should pay attention to what your loved ones are telling you. That is to say, observe not only yourself but also the people around you. Refrain from making excuses or retaliating aggressively. Refrain from arguing, engaging in defensive behaviour or criticism. It's better to ask questions and show interest in what your loved ones are saying about you and your actions. This information is invaluable.
Observe the consequences of your alcohol consumption. How do you feel when you sober up? What kind of thoughts and desires do you have? When you23 have a hangover, it is tempting to slip into self-criticism. Instead of castigating myself with thoughts like: "I'm such an idiot for drinking so much yesterday", I used to say, "why did I need to get so drunk?"
This observation and attention should expand beyond your internal monologue. Take a step back and listen to your internal monologue objectively. The more attention you pay to your addicted self, the sooner you become aware of what's happening. In my case, it took me about a year; it may be much quicker for some of you.
Do not expect to be able to understand why you drink immediately; self-observation has a different purpose. Let me tell you a secret - there is no profound, deep-seated reason behind your addiction. All those stories so loved by psychologists about mental traumas suffered in childhood, the consequences of which, hidden deep in the subconscious, materialise themselves through addiction. These stories often have nothing to do with reality. Any pain you have experienced in the distant past, or more recently, or are experiencing right now, can be alleviated by alcohol or drugs in the short term. But soon enough, they'll just create more problems and cause addiction. Let's be honest here - any addiction is itself a problem and a source of pain and suffering. Therefore, if a person opts for addiction to subdue another pain, well, that's just some kind of masochism. It's like if one part of your body hurts, you go and inflict pain on another part so that first pain won't bother you so much.
Your task, for now, is to localise the problem and to see it in its entirety. It is essential to be unbiased and refrain from condemnation or judgment. Some psychiatrists who successfully work with addicts suggest keeping a diary. It's worth a try. It may prove an effective method for some. However, not everyone is good at putting their thoughts down on paper. If you can, then great, it may considerably speed up the process. But if you can't, there's no need to force yourself. Nevertheless, I still recommend that you write down your most important thoughts and discoveries - in a few sentences or as little as one phrase. Sometimes it can be just one word. If this word has developed out of personal experience, it may be so powerful as to change your outlook or lifestyle radically. If you experience such a moment, then you must write this word down; otherwise, you'll forget it. By going back to the notes from time to time, you can productively develop your own thought process.
When you have mastered the art of impartially observing your alcoholism, the next step is actualisation. You will now want to act upon your observations in some way or another. At the very least, you'll feel like sharing your observations with someone - but be careful choosing your audience. Avoid external evaluations and poor advice. Even guided by the best of intentions, your loved ones can inflict considerable damage. The same goes for pseudo professionals. Psychologists, coaches, trainers, fortune tellers, or psychics - believe me, very few of them are capable of giving you the information you need right now. And some of them can even throw you completely off track.
I remember that at this point, I was eager to discuss my problem with someone and anxious to hear some sound advice. Via social media, I came across one astrologer whose posts and comments sparked my interest. I wrote to her about my problem and said I'd like to talk to her, for a fee, of course. She agreed, telling me a session would cost one hundred dollars. Whilst we were arranging a time for our consultation, I found out that she was currently living in Goa, India. Why am I telling you this? I don't know, but I think it's somehow important. I had to tell her the exact place, date, and time of my birth so that she could create my personal horoscope. Later we had a call to discuss it. She listened to my story and then, referring to some ancient astrological technique, informed me that my Moon was in some house or other. According to her, this meant I had an extreme propensity for altered states of consciousness. This is, in fact, true. But I've known this since I was at least sixteen years old, long before I became an alcoholic. She then started persuading me, with complete conviction, that I would most likely never be able to give up drinking entirely (just to emphasise, she said, 'never'). She thought the best thing I could do was keep alcohol consumption to a minimum and recommended I substitute drinking with meditation. And just like that, for months on end, my drinking was forgiven. It was my astrological nature - my destiny! My Moon sign was in the drinking house. Or was it not a moon but some kind of plant? It doesn't really matter; after all, who am I to reject the will of the cosmos?
Anyway, back to the point and fast-forwarding ahead - firstly, when your body is poisoned with alcohol, trying to use meditation as a substitute is like planning a serious shopping trip with no money and a blocked credit card. It's useless. Later, when we talk about the biology of the processes in question, you will understand why. Secondly, and again mainly due to the specifics of the biochemical and anatomical processes related to addiction, an alcoholic cannot keep alcohol consumption to a minimum. Doing this will just cause more suffering and trigger processes in your body and mind that will only result in deeper addiction and a high probability of relapse. Thirdly, you are not born an alcoholic; you become one. Yes, some people are more prone to addiction than others, but it's not some Moon in a house that decides this for you.
The astrologer's advice that cost me a hundred quid was (as I now understand) only a result of my desire to have someone hear my thoughts. And in reality, it just inflicted more damage on me.
During this self-observation stage, and as I started making my first steps towards freedom, I started reading a popular blog by one alcohol addict. His life intrigued me - he was rather successful socially, head of a big company, and had a high income. He had lots of houses and a lovely family, yet he labelled himself an alcoholic. He ran an interesting blog about his addiction, sharing observations on his alcoholism and futile attempts to go sober. His story was so like mine, in terms of how much and how long he was drinking, that I started to follow the blog with interest. As time went by, the similarity of our situations led me to think that everything he wrote was true, including the conclusions he made. However, after I finally managed to quit drinking and had been sober for many years, according to his blog, he was still surprised when he managed to stay sober for several consecutive days. He would doubt that it is possible to avoid drinking during the weekend or whilst on holiday. Now, after reaching sobriety and having learnt the lessons that I share in this book, I can see the errors in his posts and common damaging thought patterns that hinder him from gaining complete independence from alcohol. I have a burning desire to tell him - no, it's not like that! It's these conventional patterns that people take as gospel - this is what's stopping you from breaking free from alcohol!
Side note: before this book was published, the author of the aforementioned blog did manage to quit. After six months sober, he began posting about alcoholism less frequently, as the topic is not as relevant for him nowadays. He is still not totally free from alcohol but is confident (and I am too) that he will not return to the bottle as before.
In any case, please be careful about sharing your observations and conclusions at this stage.
Next, we will discuss some widespread thinking patterns whose intrinsic purpose, I think, is to bar people from truly recovering from addiction.
Now, if you switch on your logic and really think about this statement, then one quite simple question should arise - what's the difference between recovery and life-long remission? Health professionals would say that even after complete remission (in other words, absolute absence of symptoms), some trace of the disease may remain, for example, chromosomal alterations. However, somebody who has achieved complete remission will not present any outward signs of alcoholism. Yes, chronic intoxication can lead to some irreversible changes in your body.
Still, these are not the consequence of alcoholism itself but those of diseases triggered by it.
Surprising as it may be, compared to other drugs, today's medicine has not thoroughly studied the biochemistry of alcohol intoxication. There are ongoing debates and emerging theories about the impact of ethanol on the central nervous system and how alcohol addiction emerges. Isn't it curious that this extremely addictive substance that poisons hundreds of millions (if not billions) of people around the world is so poorly explored? I have a strong feeling that some common misconceptions about alcohol abuse and ethanol are intentionally popularised and supported in the public consciousness with one expressed aim to programme humankind towards more consumption and thereby to prevent it from quitting drinking completely.
No doubt, addicts, especially alcoholics, have made many such false statements in an attempt to justify their addictive behaviour. Most of the people who consume poisonous substances that affect their mental state fail to make the one central step towards sobriety - they never admit their addiction. Moreover, they will defend their bad habits and find all kinds of excuses, including claiming positive impacts of their poisoning. You might even think that it was alcoholics themselves who made up the notion that alcoholism is incurable, driven by their weakness or reluctance to quit.
Moreover, if a person is aware of their addiction and sincerely willing to quit, what's the point of saying alcoholism is incurable? This only leads them to believe that their addiction is, in fact, under the control of some third party. The alcoholic will be convinced that now they've been an alcoholic once, they will always be one. The only thing left to do between now and the day they die is to restrain the disease and avoid its aggravation. This kind of life will, of course, be a complete nightmare. Any internal processes, especially cognitive and emotional ones, only exacerbate themselves if you pay more attention to them. Like it or not, if you are convinced you have an incurable disease, you're only going to keep fixating on this fact. You'll succumb to extreme internal stress as the contradiction between reality and the ever-growing fictitious illness in your head boils over into psychological issues and breakdowns.
Some say that it's the medical community who labelled alcoholism as incurable since, in the vast majority of cases, doctors don't manage to cure alcoholics. And, thus at the end of the day, failure to treat an alcoholic can always be explained by the incurability of the condition. A doctor specialising in this area will thus be in a win-win situation - if their patient goes sober, otherwise called sustained remission, the doctor will be praised for their success. And if the addict does not recover, it's not the doctor's failure because the patient's disease is incurable and beyond medical assistance. I'm not saying that all health professionals who work with alcoholics use this subterfuge for personal gain. Indeed, I'm aware of many doctors' unselfish commitment to helping people by any means available.
If there are cases, no matter how rare, of people reaching full sobriety after years of alcoholism, then you can't call the disease incurable - otherwise, you destroy hope for every suffering alcoholic. Difficult to cure - maybe; high likelihood of unfavourable progress - maybe; but incurable - definitely not! In reality, it is quite easy to overcome alcohol addiction if you know how. And it is still an open question whether alcoholism is a disease or just a gross destructive habit.
Based on my personal experience, I believe that alcoholism is a severe psychological disorder that damages both one's body and one's mind. The problem is that when a person drinks a lot, they lose their natural, inborn ability to live a non-alcoholic life. And if they manage, one way or another, to overcome their physical addiction to alcohol, they often no longer remember how to live a life without alcohol and find it hard to regain this skill. Therefore, it's highly likely they will return to their habitual lifestyle where alcohol acts as a kind of familiar scaffolding.
When I was five years old, I broke my leg so badly that I was confined to a hospital bed. They pinned my leg with rods, lifted it up, and suspended it. I had to lie in that position for a month or so; I don't remember exactly. My lower body was almost completely immobilised for this period, and I forgot how to walk. When I eventually left the hospital, I had fully recovered physically. My bones and tissue had healed and regenerated, yet I still could not walk without help - my body had forgotten how to do it. At first, I was wheeled around in a pushchair, which I enjoyed initially. I still have vivid memories from my life back then. It was a curious existence - nothing hurt, I was fit and well, but they still had to carry me around in a pushchair or in their arms. But soon, my naive joy was replaced. with deep anxiety - I had to learn how to walk again. This was especially unpleasant for a child like me - active and curious, eager to play and to discover the world. Of course, I despised the long hours I had to spend learning to do something that, relatively recently, I could do with ease. At the start, just like a baby, I struggled to crawl on all fours. Each independent movement I made demanded immense effort, both physically and emotionally. Eventually, and with great difficulty, I regained the ability to walk on two legs and soon I was back to walking and running just like any other healthy child.
Nowadays, I like to go skiing. Once a year, I head to the mountains for a day or two. Each time I always head for the nursery slope and ski several times down the piste made for beginners or small children. After not skiing for a while, the first run is always a bit hairy. The second one is always a little better, and after several runs down the easy slope, I re-find my feet, and I'm again the average skier I always was. It's the same every year - I arrive out of practice and have to reawaken my skills.
The same happens to a person who has lost their ability to live a sober life. It will be difficult to start with; but if you focus on reawakening your skills, if you make a conscious effort, you will gradually revive your ability to live in these 'new' circumstances. After some practice, sobriety will become normal again. It's just like skiing - there are skiers who can easily take on pistes that I would find far too difficult, but this is just because they have been practising for much longer than I have.
This statement is only partially true. It is no secret that alcohol significantly damages your health and has major ramifications for your body. It destroys your brain cells, organs and tissues, provokes metabolic disorders, etc. Moreover, regular spirit consumption not only poisons you temporarily but causes an accumulation of harmful substances in your body in a snowball like effect. Often these changes are so significant that traditional medicine brands them irreversible. That is to say, the probability of recovery is almost zero. But full recovery can happen. The sad truth is that such cases are so rare, they are considered outliers, not statistically significant, in other words - a miracle. My wife once told me about the case of her friend, a grown man whose severe alcoholism had provoked cirrhosis of the liver.
After all the necessary tests and medical examinations, doctors gave him a month to live. On hearing this, the man quit drinking, focused. on his health, and started. doing his best to recover. I do not know exactly what he did, but I can tell you he's still alive. It's been over a year now, and they say he's as fit as a fiddle; there is no sign he'll be easing of the gas anytime soon.
Previously, it was believed that brain cells are most susceptible to the destructive effect of alcohol and, therefore, never recover. However, research carried out by the American neuropsychologist Catherine Fortier using the principles of magnetic resonance imaging paints a different picture. Her findings published in the 2014 journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research show the brains of alcoholics who have been excessively consuming for an average of 25 years can recover if they totally abstain from alcohol for at least five years and are themselves below fifty. That's not to say that people above fifty are doomed; it's just that their brain regenerates at a slower pace. The earlier you give up drinking, the faster your body will recover.
More research, led by Timothy Durazzo, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, shows that the brain recovers quickest in the first months of abstinence, and a significant regeneration of grey and white matter is visible within seven and a half months.
The potential of the human body is incredibly high. Millions of cells are born and die in the course of our lives, and we all start from just one cell. The fact is, the only real irreversible change the body faces is death. But don't kid yourself, there is no doubt that alcohol can bring you to this irreversible change too.
The astute reader may now try to predict the contents of the next few paragraphs, expecting long-winded explanations about how alcohol and drugs bring no benefit whatsoever - they do not relieve, alleviate, or facilitate anything. If that were the case, why would anyone be drinking at all?
The fact is, alcohol and drugs do, to a certain extent, induce the effects listed above. But you pay a price for them. And usually, that price is too high.
Some popular drugs are used in medicine as painkillers for particularly ailed patients. How they work is actually quite simple. The drugs temporarily disrupt your nervous system so that the impulses signalling problems in your body in the form of physical pain fail to reach the relevant part of your brain. Or they disrupt the brain's operation such that the perception of these signals is diminished. What they don't do, however, is eliminate the source of the pain.
An illustrative case of this dynamic is found in the film The People vs. Larry Flynt. After a severe injury, the main character, Larry Flynt, needs morphine to alleviate his pain. When he recovers, he stops taking the drug as he doesn't need it anymore. At the same time, his partner, who had been taking the drug 'as company', can't stop. Interestingly, despite what people say, every patient using morphine as a painkiller does not subsequently become a morphine addict.
A similar thing happens with stress. Stress provokes changes in your internal biochemical processes. Unless you are self-aware enough to know how to use stress to your own advantage, these internal changes are characterised by significant discomfort. However, some people are addicted to these hormonal releases. Take extreme sports fanatics, for example. They deliberately put themselves in stressful situations to launch a rush of adrenaline and other hormones from which they take pleasure.
Consuming alcohol and drugs effectively distracts you from the external stresses of life. But they do this by creating another stress - internal stress. This is why people usually fall into addiction at a young age. As they face the challenges of adult life, including having to take tough decisions and navigate unfamiliar situations without experience, young people are put under colossal stress. This is aggravated by a changing hormone profile and the evolution of new needs.
When you are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, your attention is focused inwards on your changing state of mind. You are distracted from life's challenges, particularly those that require focus, mental stability, and experience to overcome. Therefore, under the influence, these problems are either resolved haphazardly or are not resolved at all.
Unfortunately, the potential of many teenagers is squandered through their low social status and bleak life chances. A troubled family, poverty, poor education, criminal environment, derogation, and violence all detrimentally impact one's mental health. Yet, when a teenager's internal needs are out of step with their surrounding environment, the most destructive mental tension arises. As mass media and technology develop, the lifestyles of others become ever more apparent, including those of the rich and famous. Such opulent lifestyles are paraded everywhere, forcing many to believe material wealth is an indispensable attribute of success. A consequence is the further proliferation of alcohol, drug and other addictions, especially among teenagers from low-income families.
One paradox is that many people, despite their early alcoholism or drug addiction, manage to break out of the quagmire of social destitution and achieve a certain status in life. However, they remain alcoholics and drug addicts, even after the initial reason behind the addiction has been eliminated. They just don't know how to live a different life, a situation that I can personally attest to. Another driver is that the changes in your body's biochemistry triggered by alcohol give rise to a physiological need to take substances to stabilise the system - this is physical addiction. Alcohol and drugs may distract a person from the hardships of life, but over time they start distracting you from life as a whole, demanding more and more attention.
Of particular note are hallucinogenic drugs, which drastically alter your subjective perception of reality - both in terms of the outside world and the world inside you. Some claim they expand your consciousness, but given these drugs have just a temporary effect, such an assessment is misplaced. The scarce studies into hallucinogens, such as LSD and psilocybin, carried out by psychiatrists in the second half of the twentieth century, when such studies were still legal, note a positive therapeutic effect of these substances in several cases, including in addiction treatment. The studies also highlight the alleviation of anxiety, fear, despondence, and the like. It is still not clear if these long term results are a consequence of one's altered state of mind or just atrophy.
One of the strongest, or even the strongest, hallucinogenic drugs is DMT. It's a component of ayahuasca and is used as a ceremonial drink by the shamans of indigenous Amazonian tribes. According to the numerous accounts of people who have tried it, DMT has a somewhat miraculous effect. Supposedly, it transfers you into another dimension, where you have a spiritual experience and can communicate with extraterrestrial sentient creatures. I have never taken DMT but whilst researching various drugs, I was surprised. to find that, according to a number of studies, the human brain naturally generates a certain amount of this powerful hallucinogen. The research suggests that the brain uses this endogenous DMT to generate the visual images you see when dreaming, as well as in other natural processes. One hypotheses suggests that those who claim to have 'mystical experiences', in fact, just have a heightened. concentration of DMT. It has also been claimed that DMT reaches its highest concentration at the point of death or in near death experiences. In other words, our brain produces and utilises this potent hallucinogen every day. However, naturally, DMT-induced dreams are not enough for some people, so they abuse the drug, risking their physical and mental health.
The trap of alcohol and drug addiction is that it deprives us of the one naturally inborn stress alleviator - sleep. Addiсts never have adequate sleep, and thus the brain loses the rest period that sleeping provides. One of the first effects of sobriety is that your sleep routine normalises, even after just several weeks.
Marijuana is an interesting drug. It's hard to categorise because its effect is so multi-faceted. On the one hand, marijuana is a psychedelic; on the other, it can be a stimulant or sedative. It depends on a range of factors, including the kind of weed, dose, and personality of the user. Marijuana's popularity can be explained by its relatively mild psychedelic effect coupled with the absence of obvious risks of occasional consumption, such as withdrawal syndrome.
Lately, the media has been writing more and more about the positive therapeutic effect of tetrahydrocannabinol - the primary active agent in marijuana. They note its relative harmlessness for your physical and mental health compared to other drugs. This is debated, however, it is widely understood that marijuana is the mildest of all popular drugs. The problem is that the seemingly positive properties of marijuana led people to abuse it heavily and become strongly addicted. This renders marijuana an extremely dangerous substance.
Marijuana is often credited for its relaxing effect. However, in reality, marijuana is only a relaxant for those already addicted to it. After smoking weed, the addicts temporarily relieved of their fixation on getting their hit. Many people say that marijuana unlocks your creative potential and helps you formulate unique ideas. It's true, fervent weed smokers are always full of all kinds of fantasies that they think will change the world. However, this is only the case for experienced smokers. When trying weed for the first time, a person is usually just overwhelmed by an unaccustomed altered state of mind. The experienced smoker, however, feels that the concepts they are fantasising about are absolutely original and indisputably realistic.
Since childhood, I have enjoyed making music. I got to grips with the laws of harmony, musical theory, and composition at an early age. As a teenager, I was already composing my own music. I was completely self-taught. I still remember that the odd puff of weed would always stimulate my musical senses. But even back then, I realised that composing when stoned was in fact far less fruitful. While the music I composed when smoking seemed ground-breaking and unique at the time, listening back to it sober, everything always sounded primitive and mediocre. Marijuana is a classic psychedelic drug in that it effectively alters your state of mind. As such, it fulfils its key function - relieving you temporarily of mental stress through distracting the mind by the fact it has been altered. This induces addiction because the cause of the stress is never eliminated. The addiction just becomes an additional stress, thus closing the loop.
As for alcohol, it's very toxic, but its major effect is not narcotic. The causes of alcohol's narcotic effect will be discussed later in the book. All the merits ascribed to alcohol, such as relaxation, heightened self-confidence, openness, sociability, fear alleviation, and more, are all achieved through a rather primitive method of disrupting your brain's functions. The higher the dose, the more functions are disrupted. And narcotisation does play a role. However, alcohol is fundamentally different to all other known drugs. You can find out how and why if you bear with me and read on.
