This is my story of when I decided to stop drinking alcohol. I was never a heavy drinker at all, I actually hated the taste of wine and beer – and especially the taste of alcohol, it made me want to vomit, but I still drank because all of my friends did. So instead of listening to my body, I drank to fit in.
I know that is a sad excuse but that’s how it was for me, and it goes to show that my self-confidence wasn’t the greatest at the time. Drinking back then was the “social thing”, even though I now feel it’s the furtherest thing away from being social. We like to believe it’s social because we feel more confident speaking to people, but I’ve learnt it’s not a true confidence.
So back to my story…
In the beginning I must say I enjoyed the buzz – I thought I felt more confident but at the same time there was a stroke of arrogance about my behaviour. I was quite flirty and used my looks and charm to attract women, but it felt quite shallow and needy and I didn’t feel that I was being very respectful towards them, even though I was in no way rude. At least that is what I felt at the time.
It just felt like the whole situation around consuming alcohol seemed very superficial and fake and this is not what I truly wanted. I love being around people and I love the connection with them, but when alcohol was present that loving connection was out the door and that was also one of the reasons I quit drinking, side by side with the following incidents.
When I got to the point where I decided that enough was enough and I stopped drinking altogether, there had been a gradual process of realising how I felt after having alcohol.
I have been one of those guys that wanted to go out the door and play first thing in the morning but after a ‘night out’ my body just didn’t have the energy to do it and that bugged me quite a lot. So the okayness I felt about having alcohol slowly faded and ended entirely after what I can remember was a three-stage process.
The first time was at a party of one of my friends; I felt my lower back hurt when I started drinking and I couldn’t understand why. It just felt very uncomfortable, as if someone was holding and squeezing my kidney very hard. But at that point I still kept on drinking.
The second time, from what I remember, I started to feel something before I even opened the first bottle. Something in my lower back started to hurt the same way as the first time but I overrode this feeling yet again.
The third time however, something happened that made me realise what I was actually doing to my body. Same thing as before, I could feel something in my kidneys before I even started drinking but this time it felt as if someone literally put a knife straight into my physical kidney… and that was enough for me!
After that incident I never touched alcohol again and I haven’t regretted it for one second. It was actually great that my body told me that loud and clear what it truly preferred. Looking back I knew from the beginning that alcohol wasn’t my thing. When I was younger no one really questioned why you drank (except from my mum, bless her) but why you didn’t drink, as if drinking alcohol is normal.
For me it seems very strange to put something into our bodies that makes us ill, flat and tired the next day – it doesn’t make any sense, so giving up alcohol for me was a no brainer.
Now when I go out to restaurants or clubs, which is a bit more seldom than before, I have a glass of water and enjoy the food and the people.
By Matts Josefsson, Support Person in Psychiatry, Student, Dalarna, Sweden
Further Reading:
Getting Honest about Alcohol
Drinking Alcohol – The True Picture, The True Damage
From wine to water: How I finally quit drinking alcohol with the help of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon
888 Comments
A beautiful thing to step away from the mainstream and make choices for ourselves. Quitting alcohol, is like dropping an old sour damp overcoat that no longer serves and saying yes to feeling ourselves again.
‘It was actually great that my body told me that loud and clear what it truly preferred.’ Matts, this is great, my body also told me loud and clear and I ended up in hospital and unable to drink, at the time I saw this as a nuisance, but now I see that my body was clearly saying not to drink alcohol and how supportive this actually is.
Matts, I agree with this nowadays; ‘For me it seems very strange to put something into our bodies that makes us ill, flat and tired the next day’. Years ago though I was a heavy drinker and did not care what the consequences were and how awful I felt the next day. I care now and don’t drink anymore and enjoy my days and am committed to work and my family and do not want to feel ill, flat and tired. I now feel better than I ever have and I love the consistency of this, without the up and downs.
It is now widely known that alcohol is a poison, so is not good for our health and well-being, yet many people still override this fact thinking they can get away with abusing themselves, then we wonder why illness and disease statistics are rising.
It’s great that your body gave you such clear signals and that you heeded them. For me getting pregnant was my prompt to stop and although I drank occasionally after that it never had the same allure and I certainly did not want to deal with the consequences as life got busier and since finally saying never again I haven’t looked back and love that I wake clear-headed every morning ready to greet the day and deal with whatever happens without being clouded by the after effects of alcohol consumption.
No longer drinking alcohol has changed the quality of my life irrevocably such that the clearheaded and clear bodied quality I enjoy and appreciate is worth far more than a single drop of alcohol.
How many times do we override what our bodies are telling is, all because we do not want to stand out and appear different to the rest of the crowd. Too many times I suspect.
I very much enjoyed alcohol and it took a few more than three times for me to feel what was happening in detail but the process still didn’t take more than a few months.
I look forward to the day where you are not seen as weird for not choosing to drink alcohol.
I remember I used to have alcohol because it stopped me feeling awkward – I’d relax, do stupid things, and not realise quite how boring I was because essentially was a little bit numb to what was actually happening. A quick fix, rather than the gorgeous process of getting to know myself and bringing all of me to the conversation instead!
I thought I loved alcohol. I drank a lot and I looked forward to a wine to relax. But it was never just one wine – it was a bottle at least. And then I’d just have a memory blank and pass out, and wake up with the most awful taste in my mouth the next day. And I would do it all over again a couple of days later. It shows how abusive I was being – when the truth is I hate drinking and I hate what it does to people.
How quickly we forget when the emptiness is there to refill the next morning.
There are many things we do to fit in, and they impact us, our bodies, and the quality of who we are – I drank to fit in, to be with my friends, to not stand out but it didn’t really work for underneath it all was the niggling of feeling false and then of course the after effects were awful so eventually I got to a point where I didn’t want to be like this anymore and I stopped; and that’s when I realised how much pressure I’d put myself under to drink, how much effort it was and what a relief it was to stop, I’ve never looked back.
When I started to experiment with stopping alcohol and the phasing out stage, when I hadn’t had a drink for a while and then had one, there was a intense tightness and heaviness on my back, and then I could feel myself change.
The crutches we use can be wide and varied and alcohol is one for many of us – I know I drank to fit in and it gave me more confidence, but this was fake as I was presenting a front and even while drinking I knew this and could never get away from that feeling of being somehow a fraud or a fake, which in this instance I was, as what I was presenting was not me. When I stopped drinking I realised all of this, and slowly began to be more honest with myself and others and now I have more of connection with people based on me being myself and not some front I’m presenting.
It’s quite fabulous how the body can speak to us loud and clear and even more so when we actually take heed and listen and take action.
Yes, I love how our body shares its wisdom with us, and the more we listen the more it shares.
I also have not regretted the choice to stop drinking alcohol. I used to be a committed drinker with friends at the weekend and use to scoff at the idea of not doing it. But now I choose not to and I feel without a doubt so much better. There is something very powerful about freeing ourselves from habits that reduce us, emotionally and health wise.
Yes I was told that alcohol would make me feel more confident around people and as I felt shy quite often that was something that appealed to me but in truth it actually never changed with the alcohol. I might have been more ‘chatty’ but the underlying shyness never was healed by the drinking. And why would we need a substance that is actually a poison to deal with our shyness?? It is one of those un-logical things we all accept as a society hook line and sinker without questioning it.
What you describe with the underlying issue remaining seems to be very common – alcohol provides a superficial level of bravado but without substance.
I was a drinker on large scale and waking up with a hangover was just part of my daily routine and I was completely used to it. I have now not had a drink in over 10 years and wouldn’t contemplate doing that to my body again. The body can put up with a lot but it won’t keep doing it forever.
We sure have to miss something very deeply to engage in so many for us harmful things.
I agree, the body does keep on attempting to bring harmony, homeostasis and balance and although the signs may be seemingly small initially they mount up and we ignore them at our peril, at some point the body can not continue to replenish if we treat it rough.
When you get to a point in your life where you don’t ignore the facts of what your body is telling you, how the poison is simply too much then the thought of giving up or stopping something that is harming you seems a lot more possible. It’s not until you truly heal the hurts that we carry deep down within that then opens a door of not needing to numb ourselves anymore. Thanks to Universal Medicine I have been supported to feel, be honest and let go of what is not true in my body and alcohol that was slowly destroying me.
Matt, a great blog showing just how much the body dislikes alcohol. I actually liked alcohol and stopped when I remembered what would happen over the next 12 hours if I drank alcohol – I never had this immediate and strong protest of the body, only a memory of how unpleasant the aftermath felt.
I too have experienced a immediate change in my body after drinking one glass of wine. It was a strange tightness in my jaw and was the final sign that for me alcohol did not suit or agree with this wonderful body of mine who knows clearly what is harmony and balance.
Where can I find the love button : )
It is shocking how much we can override our bodies, because we think something is fun, that we want to fit in etc…I am coming to realise there are many ways that we do this and consuming alcohol is certainly something for us to look at in terms of how it actually affects our body.
Feels like its more than that. We use so many substances, especially alcohol, to numb out the fact that we are here on earth to actually grow and expand who we truly are, both individually and as a society. With the substances in our body we will be comfortably numb to that fact. Sooner or later though it will have to come back and bite us in the bum because the bum is not there just to sit on.
“giving up alcohol for me was a no brainer.” More a case of the body saying ‘No’ to what the brain had been over-riding.
Yes, but only after having a sip of love…
And definitely a case of listening to the body with the brain. That is very much worth doing.
It’s amazing what we can ‘get used to’ but if we let our bodies tell us it will give us the honest and truthful answer if we ‘like’ it or not.
Yes, it’s all a matter of listening to what our body is communicating.
I was at a wedding the other night and I’m pretty sure my wife and I were the only ones there that were not drinking alcohol. in so many situations people just presume alcohol and celebrations go hand in hand but I was quietly celebrating that I no longer needed to celebrate in that particular way, don’t get me wrong I used to love to drink but I realised how badly it was damaging me and now choose not to.
We all have our own experience of giving up something for good. We just need to touch on that reason, that trigger in the body that goes, ‘this is no longer something I’m willing to do’. For me alcohol was an instant give up when I became pregnant, for my partner it was an instant give up some 15 years later after attending a Universal Medicine Retreat – our bodies register ‘that’s it, never again’ and we are open to listen.
Drinking alcohol doesn’t even cross my mind these days, I couldn’t imagine having a hangover and wasting a morning feeling exhausted and drained.
That is the beautifull thing when the love in our bodies is more appreciated by us than the numbing of any form of substance, in this case alcohol.
I will never forget the revolting bitter taste of beer from when I was about 8 years old. I was at a motorboat show and helping myself to the free beer and taking the bubbles from the top of half pints of larger. It was disappointing in taste after apple juice and looked far more appealing than it was, but with perseverance over the years I managed to force myself to not only like the taste but think that I loved the taste and so kept on drinking for years.
Initially, alcohol is very unpleasant. Then we get used to it and it is now initially quite pleasant but not as the evening wears on.
Giving up alcohol was actually very easy for me as I gave it up for my health. I didn’t used to drink a lot and most of the time I didn’t enjoy it but that didn’t stop me from drinking, but my health in general was not great and giving up alcohol was one of the several things that were removed from my diet. And it was one of the most wise and self-loving decisions I have ever made. I don’t miss it and nor does my body, and now I wonder why I actually starting drinking in the first place, after all it is a poison, and poison of any sort has no place in my body.
I gave up alcohol nearly 20 years ago and I have never missed it not for a moment.
When we realise that we are here on earth to reflect the light of our soul then drinking alcohol becomes quite a bizarre thing to do.
After my stormy teenage years of drinking way too much and feeling the consequences – stopping drinking completely was one of the best decisions I ever made.
Drinking alcohol has not supported us as a society. We all know what alcohol does to our health, to our road death statistics, and to our domestic violence situation. And yet as a society we still turn to it. Perhaps time to consider another way.
As long as we chose to indulge in things like alcohol we will never ever evolve as a society. When the hangover gets too much to take and the ridiculousness of it is seen and felt then we might start to consider what in the h..l we are doing to ourselves and to us as a species.
Alcohol is considered so normal these days but it is anything but normal. Sooner or later we have to wake up to this fact.
There are so many things we humans do that is so bizarrely strangely weird that it’s hard to know where to begin. Alcohol is but one such example.
In the future we will scratch our heads wondering how on earth we once thought drinking alcohol was normal.
Agreed Matts and yet at this point, drinking alcohol is still seen by many as normal. You are seen as ‘healthy’ or strange if you don’t – it’s like the normal is the poison and the unhealthy.
Hi David, yes it has to be considered normal otherwise we would have to say what we are doing is not true and that is something we loathe admitting. It’s the psyche of us humans to manipulate ourselves in such a way.
The thing about it being a ‘social thing’, which is what I also believed and subscribed to, is that this is a massive lie. How can we honestly truly be with each other, get to know one another or connect in true intimacy when we have obliterated ourselves with poison and are no longer with ourselves or sharing our real selves. This a such a fallacy that imposes on us all in society, inciting that to fit in and be sociable or a part of society we need to drink alcohol. I have not consumed alcohol for many years now and I attend many functions, events and parties and with each one I never feel I am missing out, rather the opposite I feel confident and fulfilled that I am sharing the gorgeous quality of who I am with all that I meet.
That is exactly what we need because there are many out there feeling the exact same thing but feel they haven’t got the courage to speak up about it, so having someone standing up for what they feel is true can help many others eventually making the choice they feel is right and true for them.
Alcohol is a poison to the body, that most consider drinking it to be a normal part of everyday life, we know the effects of it as your have described, and it was great for you to be self loving enough to heed the bodies signals and completely stop, I am sure your body is loving you back for your decision.
It takes the honesty and awareness of our body to be able to say no to alcohol which is yes to the deepening respect for ourselves to care deeply about our body, which is the answer to why we drink or not drink.
It sure does Adele and with this honesty and awareness we feel greater freedom to enjoy living who we truly are.
It’s football season now again… Let’s just observe the combination of sport and alcohol in action all around the world
And also as a result of that mentioned cocktail the rise in domestic violence during events like these. Toxic through and through.
Interesting enough i also felt someone thinking behind me using alcohol as getting a knife in my kidney’s.
The forces through drinking alcohol are using the kidney energy for themselves.
The kidney energy should just be your physical power centre not to be used by others.
Yes our energy should not be used by others but that is also a case of us having to be responsible in not giving our power away. Others drinking doens’t have to affect us if we are aware of what is going on. If we are occasionally in the pub or with friends thinking that it won’t affect us will most likely affect us very much. Some people even say that even if they don’t drink they feel hung over the next day if they’ve spent the night out.