The Voice That Says You Don’t Have a Problem
By: Matthew Ward
Tags: Sobriety, Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Recovery, Alcohol

The Voice That Says You Don’t Have a Problem

And how do defeat it

Photo by Adam Jaime on Unsplash

Back when I wrote my story of alcohol dependence, I said I had changed my attitude toward alcohol. I didn’t have to go without; I am choosing to live a healthier and happier life.

Instead of constantly thinking about the number of days of sobriety I had or all I was missing out on, I never had to worry about it again. Once I had seen the improvements, I didn’t want to drink. Period.

While all that is true, there are occasional voices that try to tell me I don’t have a problem. It says I could probably have a sip of champagne at New Years without some downward spiral back into relapse.

It says I could have a quick taste of the new craft brew my friends are having when hanging out without noticeable effect.

Visiting Family

This most recently came up when I was visiting my mom for the holidays. We were out to dinner, and she ordered a drink.

That’s fine. I still didn’t feel the slightest anxiety or pull toward getting my own. She knows I don’t drink, but she doesn’t think I ever had a problem. She offered me a taste, just to try it.

That’s when the voice came into my head.

My husband probably would have disapproved if I tried it, but he also would have kept watch on me the rest of the night. He would have talked me down if it looked like I was trying to sneak off after the sip to get something of my own.

I had no fear of relapse. I don’t know if that was right or not. I’ll never know for sure. But that voice made a really convincing argument.

At its strongest, it said:

By not trying it, you’re giving alcohol power you don’t want it to have.

It said that I feared it, and fearing it was no way to live. It said I could prove that it no longer has power over me by trying a sip and then being done for the whole night. Once I proved that to myself and the world, I never had to fear the substance again.

Negativity Doesn’t Work

Let’s talk about how you don’t get out of that mindset. I know this well because that voice was my terrible downward spiral after I stopped for 30 days the first time.

I can’t silence that voice with negativity. I’ve tried to scare myself in the past by telling myself one sip is how relapse happens. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make myself believe that enough to deter the voice.

Some part of me will always believe I could have one sip and be fine, and so that line of reasoning cannot work for me. That voice is coming from the unreasonable, reptile part of my brain, so reasoning myself out of it won’t work.

I also can’t rely on my number of days of sobriety. I think this works for some people, so you do you if this works.

I have the number tracked somewhere, but I just don’t pay attention to it. I like that I go whole weeks without once thinking of alcohol. Checking that number every day would be giving alcohol power of my life I don’t want it to have.

Maybe the thought of starting over at day zero does work for you, but it’s again a fear tactic. It’s hard to overrule that voice with negatives. I can hear the voice saying: it’s just a number; you got to this number before — you could easily get to it again. No big deal.

I mean, would you even have to reset the number over just a tasting?

Defeating the Voice With (the lack of) Positives

This works like a charm every time. I just try to come up with a single reason why I should do it.

I go through the usual suspects and they all fail. Will I be proving anything to anyone? Will it relieve the awkwardness of being asked in public if I want to try something?

No. It will just confuse the people around me even more. I don’t drink, and so trying a sip of alcohol, even just to try it, makes the social situation more awkward for everyone.

Do I actually want to try it? Do I like the taste enough for the risk to be worth it?

No. Alcohol doesn’t taste good, and if the drink has enough sugary substances in it to mask the taste, I don’t want to be putting that into my body anyway. Plus, I’d only be tasting the part without the alcohol. If I wanted to try it, I could order the drink as a mocktail.

Will it make me healthier? No. Will it relax me? No. Will it give me better sleep? No. Will it improve my social life? No.

This exercise is extremely good at defeating the voice. It does require that you’ve convinced yourself of the truth of these statements ahead of time. Maybe you believe alcohol relaxes you. Well, you just need to read the science on it to see that’s not true.

As I knocked all these down, I came to realize that I had absolutely no good reason to try even a sip. That voice lost its power.

If I don’t have a reason to do it, why would I even contemplate it?

I never even have to engage the argument of whether I would or wouldn’t relapse from a single taste. It’s beside the point.

You could even change it around and start treating all these things as positives. I can ignore that voice because not drinking makes me happier and healthier.