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Part 4 of 5: Mental Rewiring
We can be relieved to stop drinking and still feel sorry for ourselves by evening.
Other people seem to be allowed something we can’t have. Friday looks flatter. A holiday or dinner out can feel like it has been spoiled before it begins.
So even though alcohol was causing serious problems, stopping can feel like a punishment. That’s deprivation. And it normally tells us alcohol still looks valuable in that moment.
We feel deprived of what we think the drink gives us
The loss may not be alcohol itself. We think we’re losing the ability to relax, join in, celebrate or switch our head off.
If we believe the drink provided those things, of course saying no can feel unfair. We’re standing outside the bottle while every supposed benefit is still sitting inside it.
The craving makes a very selective comparison
We compare tonight without alcohol with the first part of drinking.
We picture the quick change, not the amount we normally finished. We remember feeling included, but not what we said later or how alone we felt the next morning.
That comparison will nearly always make sobriety look worse. When we use the Disparity Rule, we put the cost back into the same picture.
We may be missing a routine as well
Alcohol took up time. Planning it and recovering from it could take most of our spare time.
When that disappears, there can be a gap. A quiet evening may feel empty because we haven’t worked out what goes there yet, not because alcohol made the evening meaningful.
Wanting relief isn’t the same as wanting alcohol
Under the thought “I want a drink” there may be a much simpler need. We want the pressure to stop. We want company. We want to leave the event or finish thinking for the day.
Alcohol became our familiar way of reaching for that change, so the need and the drink started sounding like the same thing. Separating them gives us more options.
Don’t force a positive story
We don’t have to pretend every sober night is brilliant.
Some evenings are dull. Some events are awkward. Sometimes we miss the ritual even though we don’t miss what drinking did to us.
We can tell the truth about that without turning it into proof that alcohol was good. A quiet night that leaves tomorrow intact is different from an exciting first hour that takes the next day with it.
Look at what we’ve stopped giving up
When we drank heavily, we gave up clear mornings, reliable sleep, time, money and trust in ourselves. We may have missed plans, hidden things, worried about our health or spent every evening waiting for the first drink.
Stopping alcohol isn’t only removing something from life. It stops alcohol taking those things again.
And if the flatness lasts, the piece on sober life feeling dull explores it in more detail.
The feeling can change
Deprivation is strongest while alcohol still appears to offer something we can’t get any other way.
As we test that promise and build a life that isn’t waiting for the drink, the comparison changes. We stop asking why everyone else gets to drink and start remembering what drinking was taking from us.
We’re not being denied the life we want. We’re making room to live it without paying alcohol’s price.
Social situations can bring the feeling back
We may feel fine at home, then arrive somewhere full of people drinking and suddenly feel excluded. That moment can tell us the old social belief is still active, not that the event has truly been taken away from us. We can stay for a while, leave if we need to and notice which parts of the occasion came from people, food, music and conversation.
Alcohol doesn’t own the whole event just because it is sitting on the table.
— Brent
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