How I Quit Drinking Alcohol

In 2013, every week when I would go to see my life coach Nat, I would see her as someone I could just dump all my problems onto. I would say things like “Nat, my boss is soooooo annoying! He interrupts my work and talks really close to me, the worst thing is that he’s got horrible teeth and the worst smelling breath! And now that I am talking to him more, he wants to come on deliveries with me, and THAT means I can’t listen to my audiobooks which is the ONLY thing that makes my job bearable! URGH!!” 

Whatever I would say, she would always answer with, “What me 5x awesome things about this situation?” 

Ugh! This was always SO annoying. I don’t want to think of the good things about it, I just want to vent and for her to solve my problem or give me some solutions or just have a bit of sympathy or something.

I would complain, and be like, “Nat, there’s NOTHING good about this situation!” She would then rely with “Ok, now you need to give me 10x good reasons why this situation is awesome!”

If I complained again, she’d make me think of more! URGH!

I started thinking...

1. At least my boss talks to me. That must mean he likes me.
2. My boss never used to trust me, but because I’m communicating with him more, he now trusts me and sees me as someone who actually cares about him.
3. Bad breath isn’t the worst thing in the world, it’s not going to kill me! I can practice listening without being distracted or put off by bad breath.
4. I can practice patience and compassion with him when he talks to me with his stinky breath.
5. I can get better at understanding broken English. (My boss was Chinese and was learning English very slowly)
6. He wanted to come with me on deliveries because he liked me, and when he did he would share with me stories about his life in China, he’s super smart and has some really great life lessons.
7. I can improve the business by communicating with him better and helping him to understand the workers and customers.
8. I can teach him English and he can teach me some Chinese! When he gets some words wrong, I can correct him or show him how he can phrase a sentence better.
9. He’s asked me to come to China to do business with him, he said he would pay me good money and i can learn to speak Chinese!
10. Him talking to me gives me a good reason to take a break from my work and give him my full attention. I can practice being grateful and seeing it more as an opportunity than an “annoying” thing that’s happening!

Wow! Ok. I actually DID come up with 10x things that are good about it!

Very quickly I realised that maybe my boss talking to me wasn’t such a bad thing after all!

The next time my boss came to my desk and started talking to me about something or other... I stopped what I was doing and listened. I smelt the bad breath and looked at his eyes instead of focusing on his teeth and focussed on what he was actually saying. I would translate what he was saying and rephrase it back to him. I could tell he was so pleased that someone cared enough to listen to him, he had a big smile on his face, he was nodding his head and feeling more confident to share with me what he was thinking. I wasn’t thinking about the work I had to do, I was just focusing on being present with my boss who was there wanting to connect with me. 

He soon told me I was doing a good job and left to go to his office. I went back to my work and felt really good about what I had just done. It wasn’t easy choosing to focus on his words instead of his bad breath, but it was MUCH more enjoyable than choosing to focus on his bad breath and bad teeth and wishing he would go away.

This new perspective improved the quality of my day at work! Who would have thought?!

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This is a great technique that I regularly use with my clients now.

Many of the reasons people drink alcohol is because they get stressed out, annoyed, frustrated and pissed off by people or situations that they perceive to be shitty. When in fact, it is THEM that is CHOOSING to focus on the shitty part instead of the great opportunities!

I, myself, use this technique regularly when things aren’t going my way.

For example, when I accidentally deleted 85% of my entire music library on my laptop (I know! How the fuck could I ACTUALLY do that?  But I was messing around with shit and I fucked up)... I panicked!

I thought, “OMG, no, how did this happen? Where the fuck did it go? Oh no, oh shit, shit, shit, where is my music? What do you mean it’s not in the trash? Come on, come on, come one! DAMNIT! FUCK FUCK FUCK! WHHHHHYYYYYYYYY??!??!?!?!! WHY ME?!??! I need to call Nat." 

[I call Nat] I think “Pick up, pick up, pick up, Nat I NEED YOU”

...she didn’t pick up.

I then proceeded to cry! I cried BIG sobs, BIG tears streamed down my face and soaked my bed. 

I LOVED my music library. I had spent years collecting all my favourite music, making sure all the albums were complete, making sure all the albums had the proper album covers. I even took two weeks off work JUST to work on my music library! I LOVED it, I knew I could choose whatever song I liked and just play it, it was a pleasure just looking through my music library. 

And now it was gone, well 85% gone.

After about 5 minutes of crying, I was all cried out. I felt a bit dizzy and light-headed, but also much lighter and not as stressed out!

I felt let down my Nat. How could she not pick up the phone?! But then I realised, she is my coach, she’s not some person who will be on my beck and call any moment for me to vent all my problems to her.

So I thought “If Nat picked up the phone and I told her about this shitty thing that just happened, what would she say?”

I knew it! She would say something like “Give me 5x good reasons why this situation is awesome” I’d then complain, and she would say, “Give me 10x awesome things about this situation!”

So I started writing in my journal...

"10x awesome things about deleting most of my entire music library...

1. There’s heaps of music on there that wasn’t my music and I didn’t really like it. It was my ex-girlfriend’s music and every time it would play, I would be reminded of her.
2. There was so much music it was making my computer run slow anyways.
3. I can practice letting go of something.
4. If this is my biggest problem right now, then I’m pretty lucky. It’s a pretty good problem to have. There are people around the world suffering and dying and here I am crying over lost music!
5. I will not have any depressing music on my laptop anymore, which would sometimes play in shuffle and bring me back to moments of depression and sadness.
6. I could delete the remaining 15% of the music and I could start all over again with a fresh slate!
7. It feels like I’m letting go of my old self, I’m letting go an old part of me that I no longer need. I have let go of so much of my old self and old identity, this deleting of my music library is just another way I can let go of the old and embrace the new me!
8. I can start building a new music library with music that ONLY I LOVE and with songs that truly spark joy in me. This new music I ca listen to every day and will make me feel amazing!
9. I’m going to pick ONE song that I LOVE every single day and I’m going to add it to my library.
10. My computer is going to run so much faster now and I’m going to need all the speed I can get to make my video editing speedier (for my Youtube Channel, I called SNOWrise)!"

After doing this exercise, I then deleted the remaining 15% of thematic that was left. I felt SO much better and was even GLAD I had deleted all my music. I felt free and light, like I had let go of this energy or heavy weight that was filling me and clogging up my computer space.

 

I believe we can always CHOOSE to focus on the good instead of the bad. We can choose to focus on the opportunities instead of the problems. 

I used this technique in many different situations as well and created a whole heap of opportunities for me to learn and grow and contribute in many ways at work and in my personal life.

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Another example is when I was working at my job up at the alpine snow resort in Victoria, Australia, called Falls Creek. I had a job as a housekeeper, it had been my 4th year working at this lodge. I had hated housekeeping and thought it was dirty, stinky, gross, boring and hard work.

Used this technique to reframe how I saw my job.

1. As a housekeeper I can listen to music on my headphones. But instead of listening to music, I can listen to audiobooks and podcasts and learn HEAPS of stuff WHILE I work! Learning and Growth were two of my top values so I could experience these values while I worked!
2. My job required me to work fast, walk a lot and go up and down lots of stairs. It was like a work out! And I cared about my health and fitness, so I saw housekeeping as a way for me to get fit and healthy. So instead of wearing track pants and sneakers, I wore my leggings and runners and I speed walked everywhere. It made work so much more enjoyable!
3. I start work at 10am (because that’s when guests generally finish breakfast, get changed and head out for a day of skiing/snowboarding) so I can do some stretching in the morning at 7:30am, catch the first chairlift at 8:30am, record my morning show called SNOWrise, come home and edit and upload the video BEFORE I even start work for the day! WINNING!
4. I could RUN a stretch session at 7:30am for all of the guests at the hotel and put a sign up on the wall letting them know about it. I could practice being responsible and building relationships with the guests. I valued communication so this was a great way for me to practice working with groups and small talk.
5. I could even ask the guests at the lodge if they wanted to be my guests on SNOWrise and catch the first chairlift with me! That would make their trip even more exciting and have something to remember their trip by! Maybe they could share with me their favourite snowboarding song that they want to be the song for the episode, and I could learn new music!

I started finding opportunities in EVERYTHING!

And you know what?! There ARE opportunities in every situation. There are opportunities in YOUR current situation where you can experience your values and what’s important to you. All you need to do is use your imagination and creativity and CHOOSE to see them instead of ONLY seeing the problem.

I understand that there may be some situations, like trauma or a loved one dying, where it may not be appropriate to ONLY look at the good. Sometimes it’s important to feel shitty, grieve and be sad for a period of time. In many situations we need to FEEL in order to HEAL! 

And I’m not saying that we can never feel annoyed, angry, upset or frustrated ever again, I’m saying that these feelings are a choice based on what we are thinking and focusing on. If it serves us and improves the quality of our life, then that’s great. There is a time and a place for everything. But if it doesn’t serve you or improve the quality of your life, then maybe it’s time to focus on something else.

In order to make this technique easier, it’s great to know what your values are first.

For example, my values are love/connection, gratitude, compassion, laughter, playfulness/fun, awareness/presence, honest communication, creativity etc.

I can experience my values often in ANY situation by asking myself these questions:

• What about this situation can I create love and connection
• What can I be grateful for in this situation?
• Who can I be compassionate towards?
• Could I potentially laugh about this later? If so, can I laugh about it now?
• How can I bring playfulness and fun into this situation?
• What or who else can I be aware of right now? *Take some deep breaths and be present in this moment.
• How can I communicate honestly in this situation? Myself? Who else?
• How can I bring creativity into this situation?

By answering these questions, we can see the AWESOME opportunities to improve our lives in ANY given situation. 

In the HIQDA Membership Program, we take these learnings to a much deeper level and practice these methods. I teach an entire Module on Values and an entire Module on FOCUS! If you’re wanting to quit drinking alcohol and improve the quality of your life, learn how to do it the easiest way without the struggle in the the How I Quit Drinking Alcohol Membership Program!

If you loved this article, please share it with your friends and family. 

If you’re currently in a “shitty” situation and wan find the opportunities, I’d love to hear about them!