I read comments all the time about people who are “worried” about giving in to the urges of alcohol over time. Personally, I think this is because of the fear-based mentality that is a huge part of AA. There has been this notion (totally inaccurate BTW) throughout the last century that alcohol is something to be feared and that we are powerless to addiction if we have the tendencies within us to become addicted – ie. family history.
Let me just be clear here, there is NO GENE that makes a person more susceptible to addiction. This is not something handed down to us from our parents.
Understand that EVERY HUMAN MADE OF FLESH, BLOOD AND BONE HAS THE PROPENCITY TO BECOME ADDICTED TO A HIGHLY ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCE SUCH AS ALCOHOL.
It’s time we forgot the fear-based drama of AA and call it what it is. Alcohol is an addictive poison that is being marketed through every aspect of society and is extremely harmful to our mental and physical health, as well as the wellbeing of the collective in general.
See, the powers of the matrix don’t want people to know the truth about alcohol because if people claim their power over a mind-numbing substance they might actually wake up and live in their purpose!
Could you imagine the state of the world if we were all living from our heart’s center and creating the life we WANT? Living based on feeling good? Treating each other with kindness and generosity over doing the bidding of the divisive and dare I say EVIL ones that keep the capitalist world turning??
WHOA. That might be a little out there for some people, but more and more humanity is waking up and wants to live in the true freedom of choice.
If we have seen anything over the last couple years, it’s that the powers that “control” us are not acting in our best interest. It’s also clear that there is such BEAUTY in the collective of humanity and when we tune in, we notice just how much we ache to return to the wisdom and simplicity of connection to self, spirit and Mother Earth.
That is why I fell in love with the teachings of This Naked Mind.
That is why I resonate so deeply with our coach manifesto and keep it top of mind in the work I create and put out into the world.
No joke, I have the manifesto on my fridge, printed in my office and I always run my thoughts and ideas through it before I commit to creating anything. Am I living in my values, and am I creating a business that I feel good about and truly believe in?
So here, let me share with you the manifesto:
We live to extend GRACE,
first to ourselves and then to others
WE WALK A NEW PATH
knowing there is another way to change
WE think CONSCIOUSLY
living AWAKE and allowing for all of our experiences
WE ARE POWERFUL
through radical self-awareness and responsibility
We BELEIVE in the impossible
seeing people find freedom every day
WE ARE THIS NAKED MIND
I always ask myself if I am thinking outside of the box societal conditioning would have us believe is real.
One of the reasons that I was drawn to Annie Grace and her work in the first place is that I NEVER FELT POWERLESS OR ADDICTED. I felt out of control for sure, but it never dawned on me the real power that addiction has or how it manifests in our thoughts and behaviours. I had no idea alcohol was hijacking my limbic system and forcing me to drink more and more through a cocktail of hormones, neural transmitters and engrained neural pathways built over 2 decades.
The truth is, I would never have been able to get my drinking under control with the fear-based mentality of AA because I never believed alcohol was my problem.
I thought addicted people were the ones at absolute rock bottom with nothing left to lose.
I never considered the reality of an addicted “grey area drinker”.
I was functioning just fine, building the career I wanted and running 2 high-end restaurants in a beautiful destination hotel. I was happy, living in the mountains with an amazing man and my furry best friends. I was hiking and enjoying river walks on my days off. I thought I had it pretty figured out. And worst of all I thought that screwing up and drinking too much was just “normal” behaviour, because that’s what I grew up with, that’s what my friends were doing, and that’s what I witnessed working in hospitality for almost 20 years.
Unfortunately for me, alcohol had a lot more control over my life than I knew or understood. And eventually my choices around alcohol started to catch up with me. I was choosing alcohol over everything I loved in life. I let it steal my time, I gave it my money, and worst of all I let it erode my trust within myself by making rules and never being able to stick to them.
If you ever feel like your relationship with alcohol is taking too much, it is.
If you feel like you are drinking more than you would like, it’s because alcohol is addictive and has hijacked your brain.
If you don’t consider yourself an alcoholic, you aren’t. (Alcoholic is not even a scientific or medically recognized term anyways!) …but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to have more control over your drinking.
Do you ever wonder what it would feel like to drink less? Would you feel better or worse? What would you GAIN by drinking less? More time, more money, less stress, less guilt?
I opened this conversation around the idea of fear, and how much people come to me worried about not being able to trust themselves to never drink again.
The real way to never have to have that worry, is to make alcohol small and irrelevant.
How would you feel if you could truly go back to a take it, or leave it, drinker?
If you want to have more control over your drinking but you don’t want to be afraid of alcohol doing “pushups in the parking lot” (another annoying way AA instills fear in their followers) then skip rock bottom, skip “alcoholic,” and skip AA….. IMO, their outdated, fear-based mentality needs an upgrade.
Once you follow the proven framework to make alcohol small and irrelevant you will never fear drinking again. Because alcohol will have no power over you. You can literally have ZERO DESIRE TO DRINK!
Imagine the brain space you would have if you eliminated the desire to drink? The time you would get back from never being hungover. The money you would save from never wasting it on toxic poison ever again.
I encourage people every single day to break up with booze.
And by the time we are done working together they are not afraid of the what ifs. They don’t worry about alcohol sneaking up on them. They KNOW IN THEIR HEART that life is better without it. They love themselves again (some for the very first time).
I believed alcohol was necessary like I believe the sky is blue. If I can find freedom and never worry about alcohol having control over me ever again, I know you can too.
Can you have compassion –
Can you learn something new –
Can you allow for what is –
Can you be powerful –
Can you believe –
I think you can. And I KNOW I can show you how.
Never discount your convictions again, live in freedom and CHOOSE your path.
This won’t just help you to never fear alcohol again. It will be a huge step towards never doubting your decisions, knowing what is right for you, being strong enough to stand in your truth, and creating the life you have always wanted, but let fear keep you away from.
Onward to an embodied POWERFUL version of you,
Danielle xx
ps. This is in no way saying that AA doesn’t work for some people. But in my experience, there is so much more to life when we become truly FREE from the substance psychologically. That is the difference between traditional addictions programs that stop at the level of behavior and TNM methodology. I think we owe it to ourselves to upgrade the thinking to move beyond the behaviour change and strive for true psychological freedom.