Some people find it challenging to make these necessary sacrifices.
“There is no success without sacrifice.”- Tonic Motihala
Having one foot in heaven and the other foot in hell only makes the Devil happy.
For me, I wanted to have a life in which I was experiencing all the positive things associated with my new life, but I didn’t want to give up a lot of the fun things that I was used to doing all the time.
It’s not that I couldn’t continue to live a life of fun and excitement; it just was it was challenging for me to do so and still stay true to the new person that I was becoming through having more focus and direction in life.
Eventually, I had to recognize that while it was fun to do a lot of the things that I did in the past, it had to stay there if I was going to ever step into the new me and build the new version of myself that I was pursuing.
Therefore, I identified three specific things that I had to say au revoir to in order to move into my new life and see what the future had in store for me.
Thinking that life is better with alcohol
This is one of the things that you have to immediately let go of once you’ve made the decision that you no longer want to live a life in which drinking is something that you no longer desire for your life.
One of the things that makes individuals has a tendency to relapse relates to this belief that life before alcohol was better or more fun.
This constant feeling of having to sacrifice to live a life of sobriety will make you consistently have a feeling of FOMO that can make you regret this decision if you allow it take hold of your psyche.
To be able to move forward and not allow your mind to be bombarded with memories of what your life was like before, you have to feel confident that your life will be better as you get further and further from your previous life.
At first, this may not seem like the case because the memories of your previous life will be so fresh and the thought of trying to create a new life different from what you used to live in the past will seem like a momentous task.
There will be a bit of a difficult period in which you will be in a bit of purgatory, as the desire to drink will very much still be there, and you’ll have to get through a number of difficult situations in which you used to use to alcohol, but now you’ll have to figure it out without that.
During this time, you’ll have to figure out different coping mechanisms and grit your teeth to get through the situation without it. It’ll be difficult at first, but the more you experience these situations without alcohol, the easier they’ll become.
Regardless of the challenge during this time, you’ll have to tell yourself that life will be better in the future even though it might not quite feel like it at the moment.
If you refuse to allow your psyche convince you that your previous life was better and work to get through the difficult part of this initial period, you’ll begin to realize all the positive benefits that a life of sobriety has to offer.
Toxic people who want you to keep you drinking
When you first make the decision to stop drinking, there are going to be people who are going to support you completely and think that what you are doing is a great.
However, there will unfortunately be those people who are not super excited about this decision, as they feel it will hurt their life in some way.
Usually, these people were people that either you used to drink with consistently and they feel they are losing their drinking partner or someone who has had people question their drinking before and you quitting puts more of a light on if this is something they should consider as well.
You should definitely give these people a chance to change their tune by letting them know how important not drinking is for your future. Many times, others will think that this is a phase you are going through and just something that they have to convince is not something you should do. They will think it’s “funny” to encourage you to drink because you’ll eventually go back to drinking anyway.
By being clear with them that you are serious in this decision and that them doing this is making an already difficult decision harder for you, you will give them the chance to change their behavior toward you, so you don’t cut them off without a warning.
However, if they continue to go down this path and persist in playing by encouraging you to drink, then you’ll have no choice to remove these people from your lives or reducing your interaction with them greatly.
The problem with keeping these individuals in your life is internally you are already going to be battling with yourself to not succumb to your physiological desires to drink and to have someone from the outside being another force to pile on top of this, that could be too much for you to overcome.
This is especially true in the first six months of your sobriety when it is so fragile. After that time frame, there is a chance you can have these people back in your lives if you desire once your internal will is strong enough.
However, before then, you shouldn’t risk it if you’re serious about protecting your sobriety at all cost.
Excuses of why you can’t do it
This last reason is just for you to understand that doubting yourself is the surefire way to not succeed in this endeavor.
When you first make the decision to live a life of sobriety, it might seem like it will be a piece of cake, as you don’t consider an alcoholic, so why shouldn’t you be able to stop drinking for some time.
However, as time progresses and you find yourself in more and more situations in which you would usually drink, you’ll find yourself coming up with reasons as to why you can’t give up alcohol forever.
Besides, your drinking wasn’t that bad, so why should you make the decision to give up alcohol completely?
You don’t want to lose all of your friends, and they all drink.
You’re in sales and all of your clients drink also, so are you willing to lose them?
What about all the trips and weddings you have on the horizon? How are you going to get through all of them without some alcohol in your life?
You’ll find reason after reason begin to present itself, and you’ll have to make the decision are you going to listen to them or are you going to stay steadfast in your commitment and focused on the future version of yourself that you are working on creating.
As with anything, the more you refuse to listen to them and the further you get in your sobriety, the less effect these excuses will have on you as time progresses.
However, for a time, all three of theses things will have a great effect on you if you allow them. The only way to lessen the effect is to give them up completely to be able to give yourself the best chance of maintaining your sobriety in the future.
And while there’s no guarantee that there still won’t be weak moments even without these things working against you, at least you’ll know that you did everything you could to give the new version of yourself the best chance of overcoming them.