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
834 Comments
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.
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.
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.
Yes but the more we listen to our bodies the more we can pick up what our bodies are actually communicating with us 24/7.
Interestingly enough the amount of people that I share I have stopped drinking for over 10 years now and they are shocked or surprised is very common. But what I find even more interesting is that a lot, not all actually want to know more and have had a part of them that wanted to try it to see how it feels in the body. This to me is priceless. I don’t hold back on the incredible shift that has occurred by not drinking alcohol. How once I got off the initial what do I do with myself, my hands, what do I talk about and feeling uncomfortable with it around people the more I stared to love letting go of an ingrained way of living that was actually hurting me very much. It is a poison after all!
Yes Natalie – why not start a quitter circle where your everyday drinker can get supoort in living a life free from in this case alcohol. I think there are many that might not even consider this to be an option since it’s so very common to drink.
Yes when the agony of having to cope with alcohol in our body becomes just too much we can easily drop it, and probably wonder why on earth we didn’t do it way earlier.
There is a point when we realise the extent of our harmful behaviours and how they impact on others – if we then choose to move differently we have the opportunity to re- imprint and heal instead of harm.
And that move can just be a decision to be loving with ourselves.
It is interesting that we have created a society where we think we have to explain why we do NOT drink alcohol rather than try and explain why we do.
Yes it’s a bit upside down isn’t it.
Yes, even though alcohol is recognised as a strong laboratory disinfectant.
Yes, so true. If you take a step back and observe the obsurdity of that it asks us to ponder what else have we got back to front?
I just have to say that it feels pretty amazing that my new normal is to not even flinch at the thought of having alcohol. It’s a great mile stone when you stand free from the many hooks that come with it.
Yes, it’s the king of normal.
Matts, I love your honesty in sharing why you started to drink and then now not drinking because you can feel in your body how harmful alcohol is. I started drinking when I was around 18 to also fit in but my body spoke to me very loudly I could not resist its messages. After a dozen attempts I decided my body was more precious than my need to fit in. So when I decided alcohol was not going to be a part of my social scene at the same time I realised I didn’t have to fit in because all I had to do was be myself. Pretty cool to realise this and thank God for my body telling me in such early stages that alcohol is poison to my body. Amazing to be able to feel how sensitive my body is.
Very true, thanks for sharing Chan.
In one of my early sessions with Serge Benhayon I brought up my addiction to alcohol. His answer supported me to give up alcohol very easily. He told me that many people were addicted to the sugar in the alcohol because it gave them energy rather then being addicted to drinking itself. This made perfect sense to me and with this realisation I began to deal with my exhaustion and lack of commitment to life and the drinking dropped away.
Yes in this case we’re talking about alcohol but it could be any other thing or drug we use to soothe something within us we do not want to deal with.
Having worked in hospitality and being around people that drink alcohol what a blessing it has been to actually be able to say no to it and not partake in something that clearly is harming and not supportive in any way shape or form. Still currently working in hospitality I am starting to notice a slight shift where it is not abnormal to not drink, some are just deciding that they two don’t like what it does or they are reacting to it in such an extreme way it has to be stopped.
And for that we must applaud the body. It’s very honest in saying what is best for it.
Alcohol used to be my norm. I did it because everyone else was doing it. How wrong was I once connected to my body and felt how it made me feel. As the feeling of joy entered back into my body and life, the abuse I once allowed with very depressive thoughts, is no longer running me, and the feeling of joy is my focus.
Sounds like there’s a song there Rik.
Awareness is the missing ingredient from all our discourses on drugs and addiction. It’s something we prefer to be unaware of. Funny that – what if this is the true root cause of our addictions and disease? Thanks Matts for getting me pondering.
Great question Joseph. I very much agree that being aware does support us to heal our addictions. I feel honesty is also a key ingredient in this because without honesty we can easily dismiss our awareness.
Yes Joseph and the more love we have for ourselves the less of what is not love will we then allow, so for me the alcohol dropped when I felt what was truly best for me.
Its a huge learning and upstanding as to why people drink a poison called alcohol. In Ireland we have a saying about drinking a poison called alcohol.
” Have a few pints and drown your sorrows ”
People use it as a numbing to prevent feeling how sorrowful their life is by the way they are living their lives.
Yes we miss the joy, get sad and then want to drown the sadness with alcohol. Not a great recipe for success.
But this doesn’t make sense John O Connell because we can only drown our sorrows for a short time when the alcohol wears off we are left not feeling great from the effects of drinking alcohol and the sorrow is still there. So drinking alcohol just gives us a temporary relief, surely dealing with what makes us sorrowful not only supports our bodies but also is not so expensive as drinking our sorrows away, which as we know we cannot actually achieve.
I was talking to a young man yesterday who told me he doesn’t drink as it seems a waste of money to just poison yourself, I completely agree.
Yes you can use that money to buy something you really want instead.
And it seems like a wise man you met.
Exactly, what I have come to realize is the lack of appreciation I had for myself in those moments like you described to actually not drink alcohol, as my body gave me many signals that it did not like alcohol at all, but my busy driven mind I held stronger and more valuable at that time. I had little appreciation for myself and my body and override signals from my body easily, all to be close to groups and belong to them. A powerful nomination this is, as I am building more appreciation within my life; for myself and my body and also for others, that now I listen to those signals of my body more and more… and life is becoming so much more smooth and loving!
Yes, letting the light within lead the way is a sure success.
We are going to an event tonight and I am already looking forward to not drink any alcohol. Knowing and feeling that alcohol is pure poison to the body, we love to reflect this with no hesitation and holding back.
It’s a poison for the body and also for us connecting as beautiful beings. We miss that a lot so keep on shining. When you read this the event has probably already been but I’m sure you did a great job shining Stefanie! Lots of love
Alcohol is just another way for humanity to not feel their actual exhaustion, because it gives you, besides many other facts, this energy boost through the sugar that is in it. I love not joining others to drink, I proof every time that you can have a lot of fun without alcohol 😉 Because I enjoy myself and share this with others- why putting in a substance that changes this great connection?!
So beautiful Stefanie, why would you take away the beautiful person we are by drinking alcohol, such a waste of beauty. Lot of beauty around here : )
Yes, sip some love and the taste for alcohol goes out the door.
I agree Stefanie, the perception that we have to drink alcohol to have fun is such a lie because I went out a lot in my teens and early twenties and I was able to have fun with my friends without alcohol. But as soon as they started drinking our connection then started to drop the fun also dropped with it. So, to me alcohol kills any form of fun.
I think in time we will start to realise how insane it is to drink alcohol. As of now we think it’s normal but it is completely idiotic (it is) to drink something that is harming our body as it does.
Like you, I never really liked the taste of alcohol- the way it loosened me up in certain situation let me consume it, as it felt like a letting go of control. But in the same time I wasn´t really connected with me anymore and slipped into a role.
My body also never really coped with alcohol well- quite the opposite. After choosing more selflove for my body and looking at the root causes, why I wanted to escape from ME time to time, quitting alcohol was super easy for me.
Hi Stefanie, yes the loosening up is an illusion. Like you say it’s checking out from our body just like the effect of any other drug. When we actually love our body there is no way we will put anything like that in it.
I love how your body spoke loudly and clearly to you Matts, even before you started to drink the alcohol your kidneys were hurting, our bodies are so wise and loving and can teach us so much.
For sure LorraineJ, I would say this is happening to all of us, the only difference is if we care to listen or not.
It has now been over ten years since I stopped drinking alcohol and I really must write my story one day as well because now it is so hard to believe that alcohol used to be such a big part of my life.
Go for it Kev, love to hear about it!
This is such a great sharing of how our bodies ‘talk’ to us. I too ‘played’ with alcohol in my younger years and quickly found I simply couldn’t bear the taste of beer and spirits, but chose to work my way around this by sweetening the deal adding sugar to the mix. I shake my head now as I am just realising this was also the way I worked around drinking milk, which my body also told me loud and clear that it loathed.
I have distinct memories of feeling the world spinning around me after drinking less than a glass of wine with a meal at home with friends; of choosing to skip going out after that as there was no way I felt capable of being out in the world feeling as I did. However, it wasn’t until I felt such a huge bodily reaction to just one mouthful of wine that I finally listened to what my body was unmistakably saying to me. Alcohol + a human body does not = a great way of being/feeling/living.
So true. Love what you share how you obviously enjoy being present and alive more than being foggy and disorientated which is the effects of alcohol.
What is funny is what you describe- everyone knows drinking alcohol is harmful to the body, yet it is true, you get asked more why you don’t drink instead of why you do drink. As a teenager and in my twenties I drank quite a bit. I grew up in a house where my mother never drank alcohol and was upset the first few times I drank. However, then I stopped drinking alcohol in my early thirties and my Mum then questioned me more on this and said that maybe she would even start drinking as she thought people who drank were more relaxed. The reason she chose to not drink in the first place was because her parents were alcoholics and used to get very abusive when drunk- its interesting that it is not about drinking or not drinking but people are more confronted when you choose to do something out of love for yourself- this is what is more confronting and what gets the most reaction.
Interesting what you share MW, she didn’t drink and that in itself was quite a blessing for you growing up I would assume but then she considered drinking because the reflection you brought was perhaps a bit too much for her. Sometimes alcohol seems to be like an evil demon that possess you to say and think things that doesn’t seem like it’s you saying it.
We all know that alcohol does bring damage to our body. We just can chose to be dishonest about it as we enjoy the relaxed feeling we can get temporarily? The truth is to look at why we are not relaxed in the first place and share with our friends about it instead of drinking away.
Yes I think we are a bit reluctant to really feel how lovely it can feel if we let ourselves be with each other. The booze is the band-aid for the hurt little being inside of us that is a bit afraid to let the hurt be seen by others.
Alcohol was for a very long time part of my daily rhythm. Caffeine is what started every day and was topped up till about 6 pm and then a drink or two after 10 pm knocked the edge off to sleep. Then repeat every day. I was asked by a doctor to stop drinking for 6 months to see if a skin problem was caused by alcohol. I found it quite simple to just stop. After six months I returned to see the doctor and she asked if I noticed any changes, I said yes, I have saved lots of money but the skin problem still persisted. The skin thing is another story but I have not drunk alcohol since. I had just substituted food to numb myself! I have just about eliminated everything that has taken me away from me and it has been my choice. I have no regrets
Steve you bring an interesting point to the conversation, like you I feel if we added up the cost of drinking alcohol, we would be quite surprised just how much we do spend on something that actually damages our health. This now makes no sense to me.
Speaking to someone who was describing their office party at 5pm at work and how they had a bit of music and were really going for it with the dance moves I already knew the answer to my question as to whether there was alcohol involved- there was. I’ve heard so many people say it gives them the confidence to be themselves, to be sociable and have fun when otherwise they wouldn’t. I remember thinking this too to varying degrees and until I felt how alcohol actually took me away from feeling myself. Now I may feel a little awkward socially at times but i prefer this as I can come back to being with myself, whereas alcohol really freaks me out now as I feel so far removed from myself.
Dancing sober is the best : )
Having stopped drinking alcohol I can say that in the moment it might have made me feel like it made me more confident, however in fact I would say I’d often experience the opposite the next morning, and certainly recognise now the horrible need for a drink to blank out the full-on day of push drive and trying to be the best I could (I’m thinking specifically uni days here but actually it naturally rolled on into my career). Now I know confidence to come from an inner connection, and it’s not an age related thing either that we become more confident the more experience we have – as I know some very wise and confident young children and teenagers who blow me away with their assured knowing born of that connection.
Yes I think the confidence comes from how much we are connected to ourselves and listen to what is true to us. Confident young people are beautiful to watch.
Yes alcohol has us in its grip, the consciousness that says that it’s ok to drink alcohol. Maybe if and when we start loving connecting with people then we will very easily say no to alcohol.
Very interesting, especially to red about the pains you felt in your lower back and kidney area. As that is also my experience, not in the period of my life when I was drinking alcohol but, when I stopped drinking alcohol and was sitting in a restaurant behind some people who started to drink alcohol. I didn’t see that but suddenly I felt an attack as a knife in my back in the area of my kidneys. I knew and felt that it had to do with the alcohol being consumed.
And then to realize that our kidneys are holding our life force, our foundation in energy.
What are we doing to ourselves? At what cost do we have ‘pleasure’ moments?
Last week I was observing a biology lesson on alcohol and it was interesting to observe the class as they were very restless. Of course, they already knew alcohol was not good for the body but to have it so exposed in such black and white terms for them meant they couldn’t pretend that it was an ok thing to do even though it is ‘socially acceptable’. At one point their teacher even nominated that if alcohol were to be invented today it would not be allowed given the fact it is a poison. All that said I am not sure how much the kids really wanted to go there and to really feel the consequences of drinking alcohol.
Sounds like they had an honest explanation of what alcohol really is. Good job by the teacher. And if the kids or students get the chance to be themselves and not get sucked into the whole having to learn things to be someone in life they will naturally not touch or go anywhere near alcohol because they will feel how damaging it really is.
When you haven’t drunk for a little while it can get to a point that there is nothing that you feel like your giving up when you feel so much better. When your in the full swing of it the thought of giving it up seems way to hard to do. Interesting really how they are polo opposite.
That shows how stong of a drug alcohol is. It makes people say things that are not even true, as in the ‘ok in moderation’ thing.
Matts I had a conversation with a doctor years ago and they said that drinking alcohol in moderation was acceptable. What does that actually mean? Even one glass of wine a day means that our Kidneys will have extra work to break down the poison, so that means they will be under a daily stress and studies clearly show there is no safe limits to drinking alcohol. We are fooling ourselves when we say drinking in moderation is okay.
“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.” I so agree Matts. I drank very little and a second glass of wine would make me feel strange. Alcohol is a poison – so why do we think it does us ‘good’?
I don’t know, maybe it takes away the tension we feel being humans but it’s sure as …. not the answer. Living life will include us feeling some sort of tension or perhaps some anxiety or angst but that’s inevitable. Saying yes to truly living life in my experience eases this tension because we are flowing with life instead of resisting it. I have a long way to go here but this is at least my experience.
When we truly listen to our body, we would be able to feel how toxic alcohol is, our body never lies. But if we listen to our thoughts it is easy to discard what our body is telling us.
Which makes it interesting as to where our thoughts come from and if they are actually ours… or do we think they are ours because it’s in us they pop up? But if our thoughts are not loving are they actually ours then?
Great question Matts, where do our thoughts come from, and are they really our thoughts?
Once you get over the taste of alcohol and not having it for a while and if you go back to it you really get to taste how hideous it really is and how harsh it is on the body. Each sip the body is having to work overtime to process it and we wonder why we are exhausted. Sometimes we don’t even want to admit this so we keep picking ourselves up with other drugs like coffee to see us through the day. Our bodies sure do get a seeing to don’t they when we are this dismissive with them.
Yes the body is never not honest, that’s the beauty if it.
We think that alcohol gives us confidence but if we honestly watched ourselves and our movements when under the influence of alcohol, we would know this confidence is from an external false source and not from the true confidence that emanates from within.
Yes true confidence is to just be yourself and enjoying it.
My life completely changed when I began to listen to and honour the messages from my body, realising that my body never lies, instead offering wisdom that far surpasses the chatter of the mind. I can’t help but wonder how our world would be if we all began to live guided by the truth we feel from our bodies.
Gosh you had heaps more awareness then I had, when I was drinking I never felt my body at all. only when I was about to pass out. And then it was all over and I would wake up and start again. Not very intelligent for an extremely intelligent young woman.
We can so easily not want to be honest about what something is doing to us because we like what it brings us on another level. I was like that with alcohol, it was my fix pretty much most days having that time with friends and not having to feel anything that was really going on. When I started my journey back to my Soul with the support of Universal Medicine it was a major confirmation that I knew alcohol was not great for me. How it altered my state of being and then end up wrapped around a toilet throwing up because my body didn’t want it in its system. So over a few years of testing it out I stopped drinking alcohol and to this day I know it is one of the best things I have ever done.
Drinking is often seen as harmless yet this is far from the truth, we need drink when we are not ourselves because in truth we are missing ourselves and want to avoid the emptiness that is there when we are not connected to that divine quality we do all hold inside.
And I feel that is also why we “have to” drink when we are in social settings such as dinner parties. We get to have a chance to actually connect with others but we find that too confronting so we use this drug, which is what it is, and we miss the opportunity.
That there is something so prevalent in society that erodes our fundamental connection to ourselves is an extraordinary reflection on where humanity is now.
Alcohol sure is one big killer of loveliness in our lives. But we seem to invent things all of the time to distract ourselves away from…what? If we would take away all the things we have such as technical gadgets and whatever we use then we would be left with… Us I guess and that freaks us out, being with ourselves. I know because I sometimes feel the same when things get more quiet and I have the chance to feel more of myself. I can get restless and want to do things. But it is worth stopping and feel for sure because when we do we get a taste of what we have been looking and searching for for millennia, which is the real us.
It’s very sad that something so harmful to the body as alcohol is, don’t be socially questioned, specially when its consume is increasing dramatically in the young ages. What are we allowing and offering to our children with this? We need as a society take responsibility to reflect about alcohol consumption effects and why do we generally choose this way to relate and ‘celebrate’.
The first time I drank alcohol it became obvious that I didn’t like the taste and I didn’t like how my body felt the next day. For the next 18 years or so this became my normal and then it got to a point where I decided that actually is it really worth it. Inspired by the courses I had attended with Universal Medicine and connecting to a stillness within these actions started to become even louder. I started to realise I was not giving up anything but stopping a habit that was very unloving to my body and being.
I love your point at the end that you just wanted to enjoy being with people, I remember when I stopped drinking explaining to my friends that they wouldn’t have the best of me anymore if I drank and that I just wanted to enjoy being with them. I think it’s a great question, if we truly valued the time we spent with the people around us, would we chemically change and intoxicate ourselves during that time?
That is the crazy thing in our society: nobody questions the fact that you start drinking alcohol. It is the normal thing you do, a part of becoming a grown man or women. Very much like taking the fact that world is flat as granted, only the belief that alcohol is a normal part of life is actually very harming to our bodies.
I agree – it’s crazy that no one questions it when you start drinking essentially a poison, but when you stop you get questioned. It makes absolutely no sense, it’s like if someone started drinking washing up liquid which has chemicals that would poison the body – you would say something, but because the poison of alcohol has become socially accepted and it comes tasting nice…. it’s ok?
I wonder what would happen if all of a sudden the drink started tasting like washing up liquid… I guess for the body that is already old news so there seems to be a part in us that is willing to convert that message into it tasting not too bad. I guess also that when we start to truly listen to our bodies and look after ourselves that our tastebuds will be more aligned with our love for ourselves and the alcohol will be slowly phased out of our lives.
There are many things we would not eat, drink or partake in if we listened to the body’s communications before listening to the need to join in, be part of the crowd, keep the peace, make an impression, numb a feelings etc. etc.
Alcohol is a big one to say no to these days as it is such a socially accepted part of our social-lives. Well done Matts, it takes far more courage to say no than it does to fit in with the crowd.
When I first gave up alcohol people would try and temp me now hardly anyone ever does -why? – because I am very solid in claiming what I know to be true. Now when someone hears that I don’t drink they usually are inspired and admit they wish they also did not drink.
I’ve had that as well. Many of those that drink I know would prefer not to but the pressure from everyone else that does not want to quit becomes very strong then and they question why you don’t drink.
The picture accompanying this article says it all – a person drinking and their body posture; one hand firmly on the lower back and trying to squeeze and soothe that kidney which is sending a very clear message of depletion and emptiness.
Whilst reading your blog this morning Matts I was reminded of the myriad of things we do to fit in, to be liked, to be nice. The wisdom you have expressed in this blog supports us to be aware of when we adopt these harmful behaviours; harmful for us and everybody else.
Alcohol, makes you feel different…this for me is where lies the issue with it…if it makes us feel different, then what is happening to our mind, our body, who is steering the ship if we do not feel ourselves? This is why I do not drink, I have no wish to be owned, steered by anything else other than what I feel is true…we do not consider what we allow in when we consume mind and body altering substances. Everything is energy…so much to consider here.
Drinking makes us puffy! When I used to drink I looked swollen, I have noticed this trait on others too, when I gave up I remember feeling like I had been deflated and in a way I had as I had let go of the poison my body just did not know what to do with.
It is a very important point that I came to when I realised that the reason I no longer wanted to drink alcohol, besides how terrible it made my body feel afterwards, was because I do not want to impose on other people as this would seem so unloving and disrespectful.
Giving up alcohol was one of the best decisions I ever made. At 16 I went away to work in a bar in Greece where I must say I got drunk every single night. Most nights became a very unhealthy ritual where as we would drink and smoke cigerets all night then around 2am when we finished work would walk to other bars to drink some more, this used to end up with greasy chips around 4am and my friend puking roughly in the same spot each night, I was always proud that ‘I could take my drink’ when I look back now I see it as dire attempt to hide my dissatisfaction with life, I knew life was not how it should and this wayward expression was my way of coping.
I found it easy to give up alcohol, because I hadn’t drunk that much and didn’t like the taste or how it made me feel – but music that was a different addiction. The energy of music that enters our ears is also affecting us and if we were more discerning about what we heard we would see a difference. Music doesn’t stand out as a potential harm because it doesn’t have have the so called physical symptoms, but the effects on our emotions, thoughts and state of being is definitely enough evidence.
It is a great question to ask, why do we choose to drink alcohol? I think if we did a survey it would be interesting to see how many people choose to drink to fit in, because this is what everyone does and to numb our body.
Even though we know something is not good for us we still put our bodies through it. Why do we do this when in truth we know before we do it what the outcome will be? What if we said ‘No’ or ‘Yes’ to that very first impulse that is there waiting patiently within us?… it requires the absolute love for oneself.
it makes no sense whats so ever to put something in our bodies that is going to harm us and make us feel rank the next day. But then to date common sense of a human being has never been a strong point.
it really is confounding isn’t it… How the human race keeps on pouring poisons into its collective body, and wonders why the healthcare budgets of all the nations is careering out of control and off the rails.
I think that when the doctors of the world start to put the responsibility back to the people why they need medical attention in all its forms then things might start to a change.
We do use alcohol for a myriad of reasons in life, supposedly to socialise, to celebrate, but also to numb ourselves, to distract and really abuse ourselves and others. It is a drug and a poison, that we socially accept, this will take some time before hopefully one day it becomes socially unacceptable to drink, just like smoking has now become.
Drinking alcohol to feel better, more confident or to forget about an issue seems to be something a great many of us do and it’s considered to be normal, but how many can say that they feel better or more confident in the morning and that the issue has gone away?; in fact the chances are they will feel worse and the issue bigger than ever before. But no matter how horrible they feel the next drink is not usually too far away. Giving up alcohol was the best thing I have ever done as nothing is more amazing than being me.
Giving up alcohol has to be something that is felt, the moment you make it a rule or about discipline, you are gone. There isn’t any amount of will power that will make it sustainable. There is only an internal battle that can ensue. It has to be about wanting to build a loving relationship with yourself, very simple.
Giving up alchol really is no different to giving up anything. Until we know for ourselves that something is harming or hurting us we will continue. It doesn’t matter what anyone says, expert or otherwise. When we finally surrender to our body and how much it has been there counselling, advising and acting in our best interests, we will accept that the greatest teacher we will ever have is our very own body.
It is a great teacher isn’t it and a wonderful counsellor. AND it doesn’t even ask for a pay check. Talk about the ultimate friend we have right there beside us every day.
Experiences like this confirm the incredible wisdom of the body and what we can learn when we choose to listen to it.
The whole alcohol thing is so fake, I was a very heavy drinker and all the friends I made through drinking fell away as soon as I stopped drinking but I still have friends that I made before that who are still my friends and always will be and they don’t care if I drink or not.
Isn’t it funny that we have this discussion around alcohol. It’s just a liquid but it has something else attached to it, otherwise there wouldn’t be this upheaval when we start to question it’s place in our lives. Maybe the relevant question would be what is it about alcohol that makes us want it so much and why do we defend drinking when we know that it’s not good for us. I’m sure we know the answer to that but it’s good at times bringing it up again.
What is considered normal is so far from what supports the body it gives a clue to something else being at play, why would we treat ourselves with such poison if it were not to avoid something amazing, why else would we do it?
The thing is… We can be so numb that our bodies signals and messages about the consequences of ingesting such a poison are totally ignored,… For me even though I was in this state, all that talk was to have one extraordinary person say to me that there was a fast track to connecting with our soul, and that drinking was definitely not it. He didn’t say to stop, he just laid open the options for me, and there was such a feeling that it was actually easy to just then say okay.
I can remember drinking in my younger days, I drank because that was the thing to do, but I never liked alcohol and the effects on my body, it was easy to stop when I joined a church group where alcohol was not part of their way. I never liked my head being rearranged by the effects of alcohol.
Yes it is like being rewired in a way that is very toxic, perhaps Frankenstein-like.