Who Doesn't Love A Glass of Wine?

Welcome to Thinking About Drinking Thursday! This is a new topic I will post on for those who are interested in learning the tools to help you drink less. This is not an area of discussion about addiction and/or alcoholism, but instead for those who have decided they have certain goals they want to accomplish in life, and in order to do so, they want to drink less.

Who doesn’t love a glass of wine - or two? What are your thoughts when leading up - they may be as simple as - it’s finally 5:00, or - I just want to take the edge off, I’m not comfortable in my body, or - I deserve this - it’s been a long day. But do you ever have those days when you wake up and wish you just didn’t have that last one? What are your thoughts at that point? Perhaps - did I really say that to that person, or how could I have had that much to eat? We drink as a culture - weddings, sporting events, happy hour, wine tastings - so the question to start with is - why do we enjoy is so much as individuals?

The first part in this program is becoming aware of our desire to drink. Desire is something we learn, which is fantastic news! If we have the ability to learn it, we have the ability to unlearn it. Now, many people will think desire is innate, and something we don’t have control over. But the truth is, desire is something we learn and repeat. It is one of those programmed unconscious things. When we learn and repeat, the brain recognizes the pattern, takes it out of our pre-frontal cortex (managing part of our brain), and sends it to the part of the brain where it becomes automatic. Think about brushing your teeth for example - it’s all very learned and in the beginning it took a lot of energy, but now it has become a habit. Much like the desire for drinking.

The first technique we will work on is our Thinking About Drinking. We want to look at the thoughts creating the emotion of desire for you. One of the most powerful thoughts many of us don’t even acknowledge is, “I want that”. This could be the clue as to how we are creating the desire. Seems so innocent, and yet we don’t even realize we are thinking this thought because we have programmed it so often in our brain.

This week I encourage you to start looking at the thoughts you have leading up to drinking. Start using your pre frontal cortex to just become more aware. Notice if a particular situation brings up consistent thoughts, which lead you to desire a drink… or two. Pay attention to how often you have the thought, create the desire, and reward it with a drink, have the thought, create the desire, reward it with a drink, have a thought, create the desire, reward with a drink. If you find this happening it means your brain if very normal. Once you begin to recognize this you can decide on purpose what you want your result to be, and work on more Mindful Weighs to accomplish it!

There are 3 free spots remaining in my new program - Thinking About Drinking. If you are interested in learning more please email me - mindfulweighs@gmail.com.