Starting to drink in high school leads to more drinking in college.46 Why? Because when the descent begins at an early age, kids enter the college years farther down the slope than those who waited until college to sample the “nectar.”
I didn’t realize how my drinking increased over time. I shut my mind to the fact that I was drinking more than I ever had anticipated. Are you drinking more or less than you did three, five, or even ten years ago? What about your friends? Are they drinking at the same level, or do they drink more as time goes on? When we realize we are drinking more than we want, we begin the battle to quit or cut back. But, like the bee in the pitcher plant, the more we struggle, the more stuck we become.
When does the bee lose control? When she begins her gradual slide downward? When she tries to fly away and is unable to? That’s certainly when panic sets in. But it’s clear she lost control well before she realized it, prior to the point she couldn’t physically escape. As Allen Carr theorizes, perhaps from the moment she landed on the pitcher plant, the bee was never in control.
When did you lose control? Was it the first time your spouse commented on your drinking? Or someone noticed the smell? When you drank so much you threw up, again, perhaps on your partner? When you got a DUI? Maybe you feel like you are still in control. I’m not asking when you realized you had a problem. That was most likely a definitive moment: another hangover, blackout, or even wrecking your car. Losing control is different from realizing you have lost control.
So when was it? Or are we always in control? No one insists we drink; no one holds a gun to our heads. But if we are in control, aren’t alcoholics also in control? No one forces them to drink. But that has to be different, right? Is it? Or are there just different levels of the same thing? From the outside no one would have guessed how much I was drinking. I was a “high-functioning alcoholic.” I didn’t lose my job or miss a single meeting because of alcohol. In fact, I excelled at my job and was frequently promoted. I didn’t drink and drive. There were few outward signs of how much I drank. Did that mean I didn’t struggle? Or that the alcohol wasn’t slowly killing me? On the contrary.
Perhaps it’s like the story of the boiling frog. A frog is placed in a pot of cold water, which is moved onto a hot stove. The water heats up, yet the frog does not jump out and save himself. Why not? It happens at such a gradual pace that the moment in which he should jump out passes. When he realizes he is boiling to death, it’s too late. Could it be that the 87% of adults who drink are like the frog? Are we all in the same pot of slowly boiling water?
So when did you lose control of your drinking? When you experienced a life-crisis related to alcohol? When you realized it was hurting your health, and you decided to cut back? No, it must have been before that because if you were truly in control, you would not have allowed any of those things to happen. When exactly was it? Can you pinpoint it? Chances are you don’t know when normal, habitual drinking became a problem. Can you entertain the possibility that you may never have been in control? That, like the bee, you are not in control of alcohol but alcohol is controlling you? And if you are certain you are still in control and can stop whenever you want to, are you certain you will still be able to next week? Next year? Are you willing to bet your life on it?
Finding Freedom: You Can Do This
You still have many questions. What about the addictive personality? What about the fact that some people have different backgrounds and reasons for drinking? What about our intellect—surely we are smarter than a bee? What about all the people who enjoy a single drink with dinner and never seem to slide farther down? What about all the people who actually seem to be able to take it or leave it?
We’ll cover these questions in future chapters. But for now, consider the possibility that since we are human, and since alcohol is addictive to humans, once we begin to drink we unconsciously begin the slow slide into addiction. Does this mean everyone descends at the same rate? Or that everyone reaches the bottom? No. Many will drink throughout their lives and never reach a point where they try to stop. Maybe this means they are sliding at a very slow pace, or maybe it means that the alcohol kills them before they realize they have become dependent. Many factors contribute to the speed of a person’s slide, and we will explore those factors in detail. Keep asking these questions. Critical thought is the key to understanding.
What is important now is that you can see that alcohol is an addictive substance whose nature does not change depending on who drinks it. This means that you are not weak. It is not your willpower or character that is lacking. You are as much at fault in the situation as the bumblebee that is instinctively enticed by the nectar of the pitcher plant.
Insects in the pitcher plant do not have hope. They don’t have the intellectual ability to understand, and therefore escape, their tragic fate. We do! We, as humans, have the intelligence and ability to understand what is happening in our minds and bodies. I know the pitcher plant is terrifying, but be hopeful. You can find freedom and it may be one of the most joyful experiences of your life.
When I found freedom from alcohol I felt euphoric. The realization dawned, and I cried tears of joy. You probably still believe alcohol benefits you in some way. So the idea of drinking less or quitting altogether is uncomfortable. I can relate. It is terrifying to think about giving up something you feel brings you pleasure or relief. It’s OK. When you understand the concepts in this book you will not feel any apprehension, only joy. Hope is stronger than fear. Try to maintain a hopeful outlook.
And remember, this is not your fault. You have been caught in a deadly trap that was designed to ensnare and slowly kill. It is subtle and insidious, and millions of people are deceived every day. The trap is designed to keep you a prisoner for life by making you believe you drink because you want to. We will expose the truth.
LIMINAL POINT: IS DRINKING A HABIT?
“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
—Samuel Johnson
I’ve organized the book in a unique way in order to use Liminal Thinking to shine the light of conscious thought on ingrained beliefs about alcohol. You will find the narrative chapters of the book interspersed with mini-chapters called “Liminal Points.” A Liminal Point will take you on a journey through certain, ingrained beliefs about alcohol. I want to deal with these beliefs throughout the book, instead of all at once, to allow you to test the logic in the midst of your daily life. This will allow you to examine what you believe to be true against external sources. What observations and assumptions have you made? What experiences have you had? What conclusions have you drawn?
To deconstruct why we might believe drinking is a habit, we must look at how this belief was unconsciously created.
We have already discussed how our experiences and observations affect our unconscious mind and our desire to drink. Since it is impossible to notice, experience, or observe everything, we unconsciously put our experiences and observations through a lens of relevance that is shaped by our personal needs. From these relevant experiences and observations we make assumptions, and from those assumptions we draw conclusions. From conclusions we form our beliefs. Once we’ve established a detailed framework of why you believe what you believe, I will reveal another perspective, one that may be closer to reality, in narrative form. In this manner we will submerge beneath the surface of your conscious and deconstruct your beliefs about alcohol.
Note: With each Liminal Point we will go through the above steps, so you may want to mark this page and refer back to it from time to time.
Your experience