Reply To: Strategy for a drinking problem

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July 5, 2018 at 4:22 pm#26183
Brian Tucker
PSTEC User

    Hi all!

    This forum has been really helpful and thank you very much to the main contributors for all the great posts and answers so far.

    I have tried to put together a starting plan for dealing with an alcohol problem.

    Please can you let me know what you think and where it could possibly be optimized?

    I have a problem with the strong impulse to drink on a daily basis.
    I had pretty bad PTSD anxiety about 7 years ago (which I am dealing with separately) and that created a habit of regularly self medicating with alcohol for quite a while back then.

    While I dont do that any more, these days the drinking problem is still there but manifests in a different way that's not directly anxiety related.

    Instead the powerful impulse hits me when im feeling good, being social or motivated and positive, as opposed to wanting to drink when feeling down or anxious.

    The effect of this is that as soon as im feeling good, ill drink too much that evening and then I'll feel bad for days afterwards, and the cycle repeats.

    The other issue that makes it extremely difficult to resist the impulse to drink is that if i give in and plan to drink later that day, that inner agreement strongly effects my mood in a positive way allowing me to feel positive, motivated and be more productive with work during that day.

    To be more specific, while i dont ever drink when working or during the day, if I know during that day that ill get to drink that evening, my mood lifts and i feel super motivated and productive, because I “have something to look forward to”.

    Its a really interesting effect that I wish i could produce in a more healthy way.

    If I resist the impulse, my mood, motivation and mental energy plummets and so does my productivity and generally all i feel is frustration have no interest in doing anything.

    Problem is I cant really drink in small quantities either (im compelled to drink until i go to bed) so this habit is not really sustainable and its effecting my health and my overall productivity from regularly being hungover.

    The logic so far has always been: “Stop drinking, feel miserable and be less productive or drink regularly, be less productive, but at least you experience some pleasure in your life”.

    So the plan:

    1. Use Click Tracks as instructed while focusing on the feeling or experience of drinking and also at those times when the feeling the strong impulse to drink (i am already comfortable and familiar with the specifics of this step).

    I have been quite resistant to click tracking the good “looking forward to it” feeling because its one of the rare good feelings I have and clearing good feelings, even if they create bad behaviors, still seems wrong somehow.

    2. Use Belief Blasters

    Do you recommend I start with this first as I understand it is more powerful and a good replacement for PSTEC negative?

    Some ideas for beliefs (already changed to past tense):

    I've been an alcoholic
    I was an alcoholic
    I enjoyed drinking alcohol
    Drinking alcohol made me happy
    I needed to drink alcohol
    Alcohol motivated me
    I never feel motivated without alcohol
    I only felt good when drinking alcohol
    I've had nothing to look forward to
    I haven't been motivated
    I didn't enjoy working

    3. Use PSTEC Positive with these suggestions

    I am now alcohol free
    I always enjoy being sober
    Being sober often motivates me
    I enjoy being productive everyday
    I feel more motivated everyday
    I often enjoy my work

    3. Finally, I still need to get Quantum Turbo (or should i go to using this directly right away and skip PSTEC Positive for now?)

    Could you assist with some ideas for QT phrases that might work well for my issues?

    So thats it so far… Any changes needed or other recommendations?

    Also has anybody had any experience working with a drinking problem with PSTEC. How long has it taken to see results?

    Would be good to have some idea so I can stop my mind from tricking me into stopping the process after some time “because its not working”.

    I also feel a ton of emotional resistance to doing this work (lack of motivation and strong desire to procrastinate) so I would like to make this process as powerful and efficient as possible to make sure I actually get through it and see some results which will hopefully motivate me to keep going :-).

    Thank you very much!

    1.) Can you briefly elaborate what caused the “PTSD”
    2.) Yes you can get Positive Turbo and a few suggestions with that alone can break the action. What is the desired behavior, outcome you want? Do you want to limit your drinking? Stop completely altogether?