When you are trying to remove something from your life that you are addicted to, you have to reflect on when and why you do it. Often there are several reasons. I currently think for alcohol I have several:

• To celebrate
• When life’s too stressful
• If I’m already physically feeling crappy

To Celebrate

Society and all advertising has imprinted this so deeply into our programming that there is practically no way around it.

I can’t imagine having a birthday or a big work accomplishment where we don’t open a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

When Life’s Stressful / As a Pain Reliever

When everything feels stressful, my mind has programmed the connection that having that drink makes it all feel better (for a half hour? no, more honestly, for the time it takes me to drink that drink).

We feel better at that first sip… Well, interestingly, alcohol doesn’t take effect when you swallow that first sip. Thus, the *effect* we are already *experiencing* is created within our own mind. Based on projected of when semi-oblivion *will* kick in, sure, but regardless, at that first moment it is ALL YOU. Which means, by definition, it can be cultivated through practice. The ability to relax and let things go. I think that a lot of my progress towards lower moderation can be credited to guided mediations. Of actively practicing that mental relaxation, because neurons that fire together, wire together.

Or sometimes I drink for a physical pain reliever too. If I’m outside doing hard yard work and I want to keep going longer than it feels like my body wants too, drinking alcohol somehow makes that easier.

When I’m Already Physically Feeling Poor

Particularly when it’s for no discernable reason…

This one is admittedly strange. And maybe it is just me. Or maybe others with autoimmune or chronic illnesses will get it…or maybe all of those people are a lot smarter and more sensible than me and wouldn’t kick a body when it’s already down…

It took me a while to make this connection, but it’s true. I often find myself wanting a drink if I’m already feeling crappy in the way that alcohol makes me feel. As I’ve said, I do a lot to support my body. And I always dream that it will just be “enough”, and that my health with be “fixed”, and that I won’t have to try so hard anymore. I want to find that magic thing that will just “fix” everything and allow me to feel the way I want to feel all the time. To have a body that sleeps well, wakes up feeling refreshed, and is just light and energized throughout the day….every day.

But I have a lot of days where I just feel kinda ‘sick’, even though I’m not, or my stomach feels off, or my head hurts. None of which can be explained by any cause-and-effect behavior that I can control. Thus, I’ve noticed there is an undercurrent of a conversation TOWARDS MY BODY along the lines of “You have a headache? I’ll GIVE you something to have a headache about!”. If I have a drink, then I can “excuse” the headache because of the drink I chose to have.

This sounds totally messed up, and is the opposite of “self love”. Self love and body love have never come naturally to me. I have to ‘practice’ them through koga, affirmations, etc. It’s something I actively work on and “maintain” in order to *counter* my engrained tendencies. But this actually sounds like a control issue. I have seen and benefited, truly, from so many changes I’ve made in my life for my health. We really do have a range and our choices can put us at the top of that range. I believe that. But what it also means is that the top of that range might not be “perfection”, and that maybe there is nothing WE can do it make it perfection. At some point, genetics is genetics and not epigenetics. Some people are given challenges to endure, not to remove.

Maybe I have to admit that I have an unrealistic expectation of what “health” feels like. We see online these experts that have solved all their problems and feel great “all the time”. But do they? *All* the time? I have perfectionist tendencies, and I think this is one more area where that is probably a delusion causing me more harm than good.

I kid you not, a week ago I woke up just kinda “off” and crappy, my head was a little light-headed, etc. It was day 21 of not drinking, and in truth had been feeling pretty consistently pretty good, but I kinda *felt* like I drank. But I didn’t. Then that feels not FAIR. And then some part of me wants to *retaliate* by having a drink. Retaliate against my body. It’s not logical. Just because I KNOW that alcohol makes me feel crappy more frequently than I otherwise would, doesn’t mean that I should expect to feel good always just because I stop.

So maybe it is not that I have an adversarial relationship with my body, or that I’m really trying to “retaliate” against it. Maybe it is about control. It is about needing to explain and find a cause for feeling crappy, and not being able to BE *in* that experience of feeling crappy for no reason. Maybe I need to increase my “comfort zone” to include times when I don’t feel perfect and accept that this is a natural state in a course of life. At least for me, genetically. But most likely for the vast majority of people.