Can old dogs learn new tricks?
Everything went really well until…the weekend. Damn! I drank way more than I intended. Two glasses of wine on Friday night, 4 glasses of whisky on Saturday night (groan), and a beer tonight. And I didn’t feel particularly great at anytime, in fact I pretty much regretted every drop. When did this inability to say “no” crop up anyway? It used to be sugar and sweets, and now its hooch.
There’s this split second in time when you make a decision. The first time the thought “drink number two?” crops up, you think “I shouldn’t”. This replays a few times “no, I probably shouldn’t,” but if you consider it again after saying “no” the first time, you’re screwed. This goes with any similar addiction. If “no” doesn’t mean no, then that part of you is just going to keep crawling up and poking you in the side, saying “how about now?” Iit’s been scientifically proven that the more times you are tempted with something, the less resolve you have: the more times you have to say “no”, the more likely you are to say “yes.” So if no doesn’t really mean no, you’re going to keep asking yourself. How about that drink now? How about now? And pretty soon you find yourself sipping another, and you have no idea how that glass got in your hand. You have no memory of really ever saying “yes” to yourself, you just suddenly find yourself in the kitchen pouring another.
It’s unbelievably frustrating. I feel like I have the self-control of a six-year-old, but then most people are in that boat when it comes to addictive substances like alcohol, sugar, caffeine or tobacco. So the question is, how do you make no mean no? I generally find myself at a tipping point. One day it doesn’t, then the next day it does. I have no explanation for this, but it has happened to me again and again. It’s like something in me is just sick of this back and forth, gets its act together, and suddenly I have control over my choices again. I am at one of those tipping points right now. And I’m there because I really don’t want to drink right now. I’m saying no because I mean it. Not because I think I shouldn’t. Not because someone else told me I shouldn’t. But because I actually don’t want it.
I’m never really sure when I’ve reached that point. I just wake up one day, and suddenly I’ve arrived. I really do want to be healthy now. I don’t just say it. I don’t just want it (except that I want to go out all the time too, and have pie and do this and do that). One day I wake up and health comes first. I wish I knew the formula to this state, because once I’ve arrived at it, it becomes nearly effortless to stick to the plan.
So here I am. After a botched weekend, I arrive at Monday morning refreshed and ready to start a new week, as I am every week.
