Episode #131: Identity & Essence

I got out of bed and fell asleep in the back of the car with a plastic puke bag in my back pocket. It was 4 pm. Duran Duran were on at 7 or 8. The world wouldn’t stay still. Canadian Club something or other. We reached the restaurant. I ordered nothing. I drank water. I puked in the toilet. Red. Yellow. Not much left. I got back in the car and fell asleep on the back seat. “Selfish bastard.” “I don’t no way you bother.” By the time Girls on Film kicked in I was feeling good enough for another beer. The thing with wanting to be someone that doesn’t puke in plastic carrier bags is you focus on the wrong thing. You slap “alcohol” in the bullseye and empty your quiver, but in truth, you’re shooting at the wrong thing. I became someone that doesn’t drink alcohol in 2009. Back then people used to ask me how I had managed it. My response surprised a few people. “I quit my job.” It remains by far the most difficult decision of my life, far more complicated and nuanced than the cessation of alcohol. Here’s the thing. If you want to be someone that doesn’t drink alcohol, you have to aim all of your firepower at your identity. Unload hell. What is life if it isn’t a myriad of internal struggles. These struggles have been ongoing since your teenage years, and what you choose to struggle with (and you do choose) constitutes your identity. If you want to become someone that doesn’t drink alcohol then kill your identity. Can you see why this thing we do is so hard? We can’t kill our identity. If we do that who do we become? We will look into the mirror and see nothing. But this is what we have to do. Status. Stuff. Identity. Love. Once you stop holding onto these attachments, you are left with your true essence. When you find your true essence, there is no desire to drink alcohol, because it no longer provides you with value. I tell people that I lost everything, but maybe I need to change that battlecry to the more apt I gained everything. I gained a new love. I gained new relationships. I gained meaning and purpose. I gained insight. I gained confidence. I gained truth. When you say, “I don’t know who I am anymore,” you’ve nailed it. And what stops us finding our true essence. Resistance. Join me at 1 am (BST) on Friday 22 June, and every four hours thereafter until Monday morning as I deliver a special webinar on Resistance, including what it is, how it manifests, and how to beat it. https://www.thetruthaboutalcohol.co.uk/