I feel like a failure because I drank alcohol — again

How many times did I use to tell myself that I was going to stop drinking completely or not drink this weekend or not drink at the party or go a month alcohol-free, only to end up reaching for alcohol and feeling like a failure?

How many years did I spend thinking about stopping drinking and not actually doing it?

And then, on the many occasions I did stop drinking, how many times did I go back to alcohol again and beat myself up about it?

If you have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol and have stopped drinking only to reach for alcohol again, if you have ended up feeling like a failure because you haven’t stayed sober like you wanted to, I want to reassure you this is completely normal.

Many of us struggle when we first stop drinking. It’s because there’s a battle going on between our conscious desire to stop drinking (the logical part of our brain that understands all the benefits this will bring us) and the unconscious part of us that has created a pattern out of our drinking behaviours and made them into an ingrained and habitual response to a range of triggers.

Sometimes I would go a few days sober and then cave (usually at the weekends). Other times I’d go a few weeks and then cave again. I even managed to go a whole year once and then “allowed myself” a white wine spritzer at a family gathering. Well, that one white wine spritzer was all the permission my mind needed to take me back down the same old track and it then took me another couple of years before I was ready to stop completely.

This doesn’t make me a failure — quite the opposite — it makes me a success. All these struggles and hiccups and blips were part of my journey — they helped me to learn what worked and what didn’t and they helped me to eventually get it right. And, it will be the same for you. When you can see that learning to live life sober is like learning a new skill which takes a lot of practice to get right, it really helps you to approach things with a positive mindset and keep you motivated. You can learn from when it goes wrong and get it right the next time.

It can be demotivating to compare ourselves with others who are further down the track than us. I used to hang around on forums where…