It’s so sneaky, the way it happens.
You start thinking about opening a bottle of wine (or perhaps you’re already staring into an empty glass, wondering whether to have another…)
You’re distracted… so you don’t notice that a robbery is taking place.
Alcohol is quietly stealing genuine joy from you… but you might not even realise you’ve been robbed until much later on, because initially everything seems fine.
But alcohol is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as I explain in this video.
Key points
How the robbery works
When you become convinced that alcohol brings with it genuine joy, you develop tunnel vision. You become less interested in other activities, because your primary focus is your next glass and whether you’ll be able to have as much as you want to. Without even realising it, you push aside other opportunities for happiness.
The next day, you feel hungover and remorseful. When you’re beating yourself up and feeling ill, the chances of experiencing spontaneous, organic joy are severely diminished. Plus, regular heavy drinking can disrupt the brain’s reward system, so the other things in life that should naturally bring you joy may not register in quite the same way. Suddenly, alcohol seems like the only bright light in the day.
You deserve genuine happiness
Can you see the trap here? When you turn to alcohol to feel good, you end up overlooking many of the other things in life that bring you genuine joy. Over time, repeated drinking can alter dopamine signalling and dull the brain’s response to everyday rewards, so those things won’t feel as satisfying as they once did.
Life needs to be about more than the liquid that is or isn’t in your glass. That cannot be the one thing you look forward to all day or the thing that your world revolves around. Because the more you do that, the smaller life gets.
When life is tough
I know there’ll be someone reading this who thinks: “But there genuinely is no joy in my life right now! If you had my life you’d want to drink through it too!” I understand that line of thinking, but the harsh reality is that drinking is keeping you stuck.
While you’re drinking, the thoughts you’re having about your challenging situation will be very hard to change. You probably won’t feel like taking any positive action or trying to figure out how to handle your life in another way… and so the cycle continues.
Fed up with alcohol stealing joy from your life? For help and support to break out of the alcohol trap, click here to find out more about Getting Unstuck, my online coaching programme.
The post Alcohol Is Stealing Genuine Joy From Your Life appeared first on The Sober School.
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