Quick guide to doing Sober October and not dying trying
Some intentions may be:
Discover more of who I am without distractions;
Observe my thoughts and feelings when I don't drink;
What are my relationships like when I don't consume alcohol;
or the one you feel closest to
One of the reasons why people find greater resistance to practicing a month of abstinence has to do with the prominent presence of alcohol in almost everyone's social life.
If giving up alcohol for a month isn't the easiest decision, choose activities that encourage other types of fun over those where you know there will be alcohol. Take advantage and do some of those things on your bucket list that you've said you'll do next!
Tip #3: Keep alcohol away
Maybe this tip sounds obvious, but if you are a person who usually has a beer when you get home from work or always has dinner with a glass of wine and in your house it is common to have alcohol within reach, the ideal is that you move it around.
This is a temporary decision so you don't need to disappear it completely, just move it out of sight to avoid temptations.
Tip #4: Find introspection practices
One reason to do Sober October is to analyze your relationship with alcohol, depending on your current habits, this may require a greater effort to be more present, find practices that can help you make this process more bearable.
Use a notebook for your notes, develop a mindfulness practice, include minutes of silence or meditation, move your body, and generally become aware of what you are like when you don't drink.
Tip #5: Be clear about your why
Although we know that alcohol affects many areas of our lives, consuming alcohol is one of the activities with the greatest social pressure. It is not necessary to feel that you have a problem, just ask yourself: What is alcohol contributing to my life today? If I gave up alcohol, what activities, processes, relationships in my life could benefit?
Being clear about the reason why you don't want to consume alcohol will help you not feel bad rejecting an invitation or a drink, having the answers that make you feel best about this decision (be careful, you don't have to give explanations, but we know that sometimes people ask), it will help you stay firm with your decision, it will help you better choose your activities and people you surround yourself with this month.
Tip #6: Take inventory of your relationship
Part of this process is to better understand ourselves in our relationship with alcohol. One tool you can use is to keep track of when and why you decide to drink. Many times we are not even clear about it, sometimes it is so much a part of our lives that we have not questioned it. In two columns write all the moments in which you decide to drink alcohol and in the column on one side write down how it makes you feel, dig deep, you can find things.
Don't stress about doing it in one day, this will happen little by little as those moments arise.
Tip #7: Choose your alternatives
We know that many people drink out of habit, others out of necessity or taste. Choose the alternatives that you can turn to when you are going through one of those moments where your first, second and perhaps third choice would always be an alcoholic drink.
There are many options that can help you in this step, you can choose similar alternatives but without alcohol, or you can also create your own, for example a recipe that you like that can be easily prepared in a place when you go out. Here we leave you the tasting kits so that you can get to know some brands of products that are alternatives for those moments of consumption that you may miss when drinking alcohol.
Tip #8: Enjoy the process
Many times we believe that drinking alcohol is fun, or helps us have fun, many of us even think that alcohol makes us more fun. We invite you to give yourself the opportunity to have fun in the process. Do things you normally wouldn't do if you weren't drinking alcohol. Enjoy the moment, and if you can't do it, write it down in your notebook to review later.
Don't take the process too seriously, but enough to achieve effective introspection.
Tip #9: Celebrate wins
Drinking alcohol has many repercussions, especially secondary ones, that we are not necessarily clear about when we are in a dynamic where alcohol is part of our life. Celebrate the small gains that you notice, they can be improvements in your quality of sleep, less anxiety, unexpected savings, improvement in the quality of your skin, improvement in your interpersonal relationships, productive mornings, weight loss, and many more.
While we know that there are millions of reasons why you want or enjoy drinking alcohol, we also know that there are endless reasons why taking a break is a great decision. We want to help you make informed decisions aligned with who you are and what you want to achieve in your life. We invite you to share with us your experience of your challenge on our networks using #soberoctober by #soberbarclub.