Why Values Are the Key to Drinking Less Alcohol.
When you're trying to change your relationship with alcohol, it’s natural to focus on setting goals. “I’ll only drink on weekends” or “no more wine on weeknights” but if you don’t know why you want to make those changes, it’s hard to stick to them. This is where values come in.
As a clinical psychologist, I often talk to clients about values and why they are the most important thing to consider when trying to drink less alcohol.
I'm going to begin with a story about Ian.
Meet Ian: A Common Story About Cutting Down
Now, Ian isn't a real person. He's someone that I made up based on the common experiences that people tell me that they go through when they're trying to cut down on their drinking.
Ian is 42 years old. He's a financial advisor. His job is really important to him. He's a hard worker and he needs his job to be able to support his family. Ian drinks maybe about three or four times a week, and he's noticed that his drinking is really pulling him away from things that are important to him.
He's noticing that due to his drinking, he is a lot less reliable at work. He's making lots of mistakes and this hasn't gone unnoticed by his manager. He's also noticed he’s less reliable at home.
There's a communication breakdown and he's becoming quite forgetful when it comes to things like being there for his children. So, he thinks to himself, “okay, I need to cut down on my drinking. Something needs to change.” He sets himself a goal that the only day he's going to drink during the week is Friday. He is going to cut out drinking on all the other days and only drink on a Friday.
When Cutting Back Feels Harder Than You Thought
Now he's a hard worker, so he gives this a really good go and really does want to cut down on his drinking, but he starts to struggle. What he's noticing is that on the days that he's decided he doesn't want to drink, all he can think about is Friday and what it would be like to have a drink.
He starts Imagine sitting in front of the TV and having a drink. He's really focused on what he's currently missing out on and how stressed he feels and anticipating how alcohol will be able to help him to relax. So, his thinking pattern becomes quite negative because it's really focused on what he's missing out on and what he can't do.
And this starts to impact his mood, and he starts to feel stressed and anxious.
Cravings, Associations, and Negative Thought Spirals
Another challenge that Ian notices is that he's still craving alcohol. So as much as he is really trying to resist having it, the cravings don't go away. His mind has made an association between certain activities and having a drink, and there's also a strong association for him between drinking and feeling relaxed.
So, he has this really difficult experience where he's trying to get rid of these cravings as much as he can, trying to distract himself and stop thinking about it, but the more he does that, the stronger they become. So, it's really difficult and really challenging.
What Really Matters?
So he sits down and he really has to think about what's important to him.
What is drinking really pulling him away from at the moment?
What is it that's really important to him that drinking is getting in the way of?
When he thinks about it, he realises that what's really important to him is stability. It's having stability in his job so that it's secure and he can support his family, and having that consistency at home as well, so he can show up for his children.
So, when he really thinks about why he wants to cut down on his drinking and drink less, that is one of the reasons. So, he reminds himself about that.
Every time he thinks about having a drink, he considers things like, “well, if I sit down and I have a drink on this day that's not a Friday, is that going to bring me closer to that stability that I want at home, or is it going to make me less reliable?”
From Craving to Clarity: Ian’s Turning Point
This helps him to make decisions like delaying his decision to drink and focusing on quality time with his family, at times when he thinks about having a drink in the evening. He also considers how drinking is going to affect his productivity the next day at work. This makes drinking less appealing to him, and he's able to delay having that drink.
Over time, he starts to make more and more decisions that are in line with his values about stability.
And sometimes he makes decisions that pull him away from his values because he's human, but he starts to make more and more choices that are in line with his values. The more that he does this, the less important alcohol becomes if it doesn't fit with the things that are important to him.
Why Just Setting Goals Isn’t Enough
Now, the reason I told you this story is because that's often what we do when we want to achieve something, we set ourselves a goal, and goals are really useful and important. It's good to have something to focus on. However, goals are a bit like a destination. They're where we want to get to, right?
Whereas values are the directions to help us get there. And if we only focus on our goals without any direction, then it's going to be a lot harder to achieve our goals.
When it comes to goals around drinking, they're often quite rigid. And they can make you feel deprived like you're missing out on something, and that can be really demotivating, and you can lose sight of why you were trying to cut down in the first place.
The Pressure and Guilt of Drinking Goals
Another problem with drinking goals is there can be a lot of pressure placed on this target that we've set ourselves and you can end up beating yourself up if. You don't achieve your goal, or if you achieve it for a little while and then go back to old habits.
If you start beating yourself up, and feeling guilty, that can be a trigger for drinking.
How Values Help You Make Difficult Choices about Drinking
So, values can be really powerful because they can guide us in the direction of the things that really matter to us the most. They can help us to decide to do something even if it feels really difficult because. It's worth, doing that thing that's really difficult. It's worth cutting down on the drinking and feeling a bit uncomfortable if it is going to bring us closer to the things that are really, really important to us.
So this isn't an easy, quick fix to help you to drink less. It can be difficult to make choices in line with values.
Often drinking is a way to cope with difficult feelings or to cope with feelings of discomfort. But when taking actions that are in line with your values, it's deciding to do something even though it feels uncomfortable.
Questions to Help You Discover Your Values
Okay, so you might be reading this and thinking, yeah, I already know what my values are.
Or you might be thinking, no, how do I work out what my values are? So, one way to do that is to ask yourself a few questions.
1. What is really important to me?
2. How do I want to interact with others?
3. How do I want to spend my time? What kind of person do I want to be?
And you want to really dig deep here. So, for example, if you thought to yourself, well, money is really important to me. What you really want to think about is what is it that money allows you to do?
What does it open up for you? So, it might be something like. It gives you independence, freedom, and security. So those would be the values, independence, freedom, and security because they're about how you interact with the world around you, how you are in the world, what you're doing, how you're living your life.
So before I wrap up, I'm going to invite you to do a task, and that is to write down three values. You might do this and end up with loads of values, if that happens, try to pick the top three!
There will be three that stand out to you the most. Or you might have the opposite problem and really struggle to come up with anything.
If this happens, just see if you can think of at least one thing that you think is really important to you. The idea is to have something to focus on, to guide your behaviour. So, one to three values is what we're aiming for.
If you're really struggling, it might be that you need to focus less on what you're trying to call it. So, less focus on what the word is.
If You’re Struggling to Name a Value, Try This
It doesn't need to necessarily be just one word, like independence or something like that. It could be more of like a description, like a sentence about how you want to be in the world.
You'll be able to come up with something. That's meaningful for you.
My mindful drinking audio guide walks you through how to make more intentional decisions about your drinking. Get your Free guide HERE:
That brings us to the end of this blog post. I hope you found it helpful.
Speak to you soon.
Dr Fiona Dowman, Clinical Psychologist. Helping you to change your relationship with alcohol one step at a time.
The information in this post is not a substitute for individualised professional advice. If you’re concerned about physical dependence on alcohol, it’s important to speak to your GP or local alcohol service.
