How to Stay Alcohol Free
Fading Affect Bias
“… a psychological phenomenon in which memories associated with negative emotions tend to be forgotten more quickly than those associated with positive emotions.”
Once you’ve discovered the joy of a life free from alcohol and its hangovers, poor health impacts, restless nights, and damaged relationships, it might seem incomprehensible that you’d ever be pulled back into its snare. Afterall, you worked hard to get here and it’s so much nicer!
Fading Affect Bias and Booze
In a way, the very things that are nice about an alcohol free life can lead some back into the pitcher plant of addition. There’s a phenomena called Fading Affect Bias (FAB) where negative experiences fade from memory much faster than positive ones.
When life is good, those reasons that you chose to make a change begin to get fuzzier and fuzzier until one day you might wake up and wonder if alcohol was really such a big deal. Maybe it would be nice to give it another shot? Everyone else seems to enjoy it…
How to Avoid the FAB Trap!
The number one reason that sober folks fall prey to Fading Affect Bias as it relates to booze is because they haven’t done all the work to dismantle their deeply held beliefs about alcohol as a substance, its role in society, and how it relates to the Self (that’s right, capital S!).
If we are still holding on to the idea that alcohol is anything other than what it truly is, a poison that ruins lives, it makes sense that we could be lured back in. Our society is obsessed with it!
When you notice yourself thinking that a drink might be nice, ask yourself, WHY and then IS IT TRUE? Figure out where that thought is coming from and approach it with curiousity. What is the underlying belief there? Is that belief even mine?
Dismantling disempowering beliefs around alcohol is something I work with clients on all the time. If you’d benefit from uprooting and replacing beliefs around alcohol, Book a Free Discovery Call today to learn about working together.
Change the Outside to Remind the Inside
Another highly effective technique to help yourself stay alcohol free is to set up external elements of your life in such a way that you are constantly reminded about your change and why you made the choice you did.
Change up your hairstyle, rearrange the furniture, paint your office, freshen up your clothing style, get a tattoo, explore a new hobby… Introducing novelty into your everyday focuses the mind. It grabs our attention. And when that attention is paired intentionally with a big life shift, like getting free from booze, it serves as powerful reinforcement for that decision.
Personally, I started wearing contacts when I quit drinking. My eyes were no longer dried out all the time and it serves as a constant reminder that I see more clearly now than ever.
