Your struggle with alcohol and alcohol addiction is more than your lack of self-control.
Like all other addictions, your inability to quit drinking has to do with a mental battle you are unable to win because once exposed to alcohol, especially if you drink all the time, you are unable to stop yourself.
Most people drink alcohol, albeit in excess, because of triggers in the environment we live in. For example, a stressful day in the office, an argument with a friend or your partner, financial difficulties, or just about any other hardship you go through could be your trigger for you.
As a reaction to the stress, your brain immediately signals alcohol as the answer to your pain, frustration, or grief. When this happens, your conscious mind convinces you that alcohol will numb the pain and that everything will be better after a few tequila shots.
Of course, none of the justifications you use to change things. So, you end up feeling bad about things again, you trigger your stimulus, and without knowing, you find yourself in a never-ending drinking cycle.
So, how do you break the cycle?
The only way for you to break the alcohol addiction and the underlying mental battle. In other words, you have to find healthier and practical ways to deal with your triggers.
For instance, if you drink when you are stressed, you have to find something else, a different way of dealing with stress besides drinking.
For instance, if you’ve had a stressful day at the office or if yours is a high-stress job that leaves you wiped out every day, picking up a healthier activity like going for a run or hitting the gym could be a great way for you to protect your liver.
The best bit about exercising is that your mind and body become healthier and fitter, and your stressful days will seem less stressful. But how do you move from alcohol dependency to a fit person who doesn’t need to drink alcohol to cope with their daily stressors? How can you stop drinking once and for all?
Try hypnosis.
Hypnosis, especially self-hypnosis, might feel like an overly optimistic idea, but it is not, in fact. Hypnosis/ Hypnotherapy is a powerful process that could help you stop drinking by working on the cause of the problem, the mind.
Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy refers to a goal-oriented form of meditation. Hypnotherapy involves the use of different hypnosis techniques to bring you to a relaxed state where you get to refocus your subconscious to work towards what’s important to you.
In this case, hypnosis allows you to communicate with your subconscious in the process, changing your perceptions about alcohol and the need to drink to meet a specific emotional need.
In this case, hypnosis changes your conscious mind’s script allowing you to overcome the mental anguish and battle that takes you back to the bottle even after you swore (for the umpteenth time) that you were done with alcohol.
Self-Hypnosis
As the name suggests, self-hypnosis involves a hypnosis session that is done without the help or the guidance of a hypnotherapist. You do everything by yourself with the help of guided hypnosis videos or audio scripts.
The aim of hypnosis is for you to access your subconscious mind, the area of the brain that determines your perceptions about life and events, and stores your permanent memories (and emotions).
The subconscious mind, once accessed (after the critical factor that bridges the conscious and subconscious mind is bypassed), this area of the mind becomes very open to suggestions, meaning that you can rewrite the script and force your mind to think differently about alcohol and stress.
Basically, hypnosis breaks the link between your triggers and your reactions.
Hypnosis – The Hypnosis Process
For hypnosis, you need to close your eyes, and as you would when meditating, get free. Free yourself from whatever has been causing you pain and anguish. Done correctly, hypnosis frees your mind.
To be specific, the freedom you seek comes from your subconscious because this is where your beliefs, values, habits, emotions, imagination, protective reactions, and your intuition live.
With all these powers held within your subconscious, there is no saying what you could do when you access this side of your mind.
But looking at texts and articles by top research bodies around the world, it’s clear that hypnosis could be exactly what you need to overcome some of the things that are troubling you.
Hypnosis has been shown to help people quit smoking, overcome sugar addictions (and other addictions), and it’s also helpful in pain management.
Self-hypnosis to stop drinking
There are different hypnosis techniques you could use to access your subconscious and change your thoughts and relationship with alcohol.
However, before you begin hypnotherapy, you should be aware of the fact that people enter the hypnotic state (trance/ state of daydreaming) at different rates. You might be in the trance state after a few minutes, but someone else could take longer or even less time than you. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
You should also know that the process might not work as expected from one hypnotherapy session. Since the subconscious is always working in the background, the processes and thoughts are automatic.
But you can reframe these thoughts.
Reframing the subconscious thoughts
What you might not know is that programming your thoughts is based on repetition. You drink alcohol; you feel high and happy.
Over time, your subconscious learns that alcohol is something you need to get over the stress, the same way your morning cup of joe is associated with the much-needed coffee jolt, and sugar the perfect recipe for your low moments.
Through hypnosis, you get to update your subconscious and change how its association with alcohol.
Conclusion
Although hypnosis is effective in overcoming addictions and alcoholism, you need to keep in mind that the process takes longer. The road to quitting alcohol is long and very tough. You will need to be patient, committed, and dedicated to your recovery.
While stopping yourself from drinking alcohol is not easy, commitment to the process and replacing the subconscious thoughts about alcohol is one of the best things you will ever do.