Choices.

I made the decision to stop drinking alcohol in December of 2020. I didn’t think I had a problem with drinking until a co-worker whom I’d admired brought it to my attention. 

I came into work one Monday after a weekend of drinking and we began talking. I told her about my weekend and how I physically and mentally felt like shit because of the alcohol I’d consumed. 

“Do you think you have a problem?” she asked.

“A problem with what?” I replied.

“A drinking problem,” she said. 

“No. Why do you ask that?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know… It just seems like you rely on alcohol every time you go out, then you come in and complain about the way it makes you feel.”

She was right but I didn’t want to admit it to her. I hadn’t thought about it until then but it was clear. I’d begun to rely on alcohol as a means to go out and have fun in college and I’d relied on it ever since.

“It’s just what everyone does. I don’t have a problem more than anyone else has a problem with it. It’s not like I let it control my life or anything,” I said. 

“Ok. But if you think you have to drink in order to go out and have fun, it might be a problem,” she said as she casually switched the subject. 

What she probably doesn’t know is that because of that conversation, I decided that I no longer wanted or needed alcohol in my life. 

So I decided to read a book called Allen Carr’s Quit Drinking Without Will Power: The Easyway Method.

I started reading the book shortly after that conversation and it allowed me to see the consumption of alcohol for what it really is: an illusion.

It’s just an illusion that keeps us trapped. 

The book helped me reframe that illusion into a conscious choice.

In the same way a bird who sits in a cage with bars wide enough to fly out of has a choice to stay trapped, all I had to do was see my reliance on drinking as a choice. Allen Carr’s book helped me do that.

We all have choices. 

Sometimes they’re just not so plain to see.