By Dr Anne Malatt, Australia
Most of us can remember having a hangover and saying to ourselves that we will never drink alcohol again. Why do we? Why do we drink to begin with?
Alcohol is a poison. It kills nerve cells, and hence pain. It is a sugar hit which picks us up at the end of a hard day and leaves us feeling comfortably numb. It is a treat, a reward for a day’s work. The prospect of enjoying a drink can get us through a day, a week, a life. It can be a substitute for intimacy, a companion, a best friend. No wonder we arc up at the prospect of losing it.
Alcohol also opens us up to energies which are not us. It can allow us to behave in ways we would never behave without it. It can lead us to do things which are dangerous, hurtful to ourselves and others and leave us feeling ashamed. We cannot bear to remember and feel this, and so we drink again.
Medical and scientific research, which has supported the drinking of alcohol in small amounts, is finally coming out and saying what common sense, and our bodies, have been telling us all along – that there is no safe level of alcohol. One hangover should be enough to tell us this, if we listened to the truth of our bodies. Why do we ever have more than one?
Why do we need to drink alcohol?
Why is our life not enough for us?
Why are we tired? Why are we angry? Why are we sad?
When we drink, it is easy to deny that we feel this way. We go to work, we live our day, and at the end of the day we have our reward. We bind ourselves together with it socially; we use it to sweeten our relationships; it comforts us when we are on our own. It is easier to believe that life is good with a drink in our hand.
If we think about taking the drink away, we start to feel differently. This is almost unbearable for many, and we look outside ourselves, blaming others or our lives, to give us an excuse to keep drinking.
Let’s say, just for fun, that we have a glimmer of an understanding that we are drinking because we have to, not because we want to, and we would like to stop but don’t know how. Let’s say we have some health problems, or it is causing problems in our relationships, or we are just sick and tired of needing to drink.
Where do we start? How do we deal with the feelings that bubble to the surface? What helped me was to understand that I was drinking for a reason, and to take full responsibility for how I was feeling and for the choices I had made in my life. Blaming others for my problems is a very bad habit of mine, and this was a fact I had to face, before I could deal with anything else. I also had to look at the way I was living and make deep and lasting changes. This was incredibly difficult, and I fully understand why people choose to drink, even when they know it is hurting them. I was one of those people for a very long time.
We drink because we don’t feel good about ourselves or our lives. If we did, why would we poison ourselves? These feelings can be very subtle and deep, and we may have created a great life to cover them up, but they are there, underneath.
So, how do we deal with them? It helps to be very loving and tender with ourselves as they start to surface. It also helps to get help. There is a saying “A problem cannot be solved from the level at which it was created”, and this is very true of a drinking problem.
I found the work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine more helpful than the many other things I had tried in the past. Serge helped me to feel that I was so much more than I had previously believed, that there was a greatness, a grandness of love in me that I had not connected to for a long time. By connecting to that love, that living stillness within me, I was able to make more self-loving choices.
I continued to drink after meeting Serge, and would sometimes come to sessions with a hangover, and sometimes drink after I had seen him. This was because I still could not bear to feel how I had lived, and the choices I had made, which were still living in my body. It was a very painful and difficult time, but I received only loving support from Serge. He never judged me, never told me what to do, only offered me love.
We drink because we think that our life is not enough, that we are not enough. But we are. Try life without alcohol. Get help if you need it. Feel and deal with what lies beneath your need to drink. Feel what is truly within you. Give yourself a chance to feel how great you truly are.
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
Beautiful Anne! Such an honest offering of the reality of why we drink. We are all guilty of lacking appreciation for ourselves, and hence the need to be topped up with deceiving confirmation.
To have a hang over more than once, to over eat more than once and feel the bloating effects and to choose anxiousness more than once are all things that no one could honestly enjoy in their body. So why do we do it? What are we getting out of these choices, which totally disregard the body?
Why do we poison ourselves over and over again? This is a great question Anne. Alcohol gave me such a hard time I gave it up nearly 20 years ago. I would have the hangover from hell after 2 glasses of wine. It was so not worth drinking. As I recall I was in peri-menopause at the time and my body was demanding a stop. The thing is why did I wait for the body to scream at me when I knew from the first sip that alcohol was poison.
I agree with so much of what you say here Anne. i remember the first time I got drunk and how very sick I was afterwards. I could not go to work the day after. All my colleagues felt it was funny and treated me like I had somehow passed some initiation. I continued to drink for many years after that. When I decided to stop drinking, it took me a year before I finally had my last drink. My body was always telling me that alcohol was no good for me but I kept ignoring it.
We are not stupid – we are a highly intelligent race – so why are we drinking poison? The life style of drinking alcohol is a very thick and heavy consciousness that swallows people up into thinking they are having a great time, that they can be more themselves and connect to people more freely when intoxicated. Even the work ‘intoxicated’ really gives the severity of the substance away as TOXIC.
So true Ann what you’ve shared makes perfect sense… one hangover ought to be IT, and in fact for me it was, but that is most definitely not the norm. It begs the question what is really going on that we don’t seemingly have a grasp of our good sense over and above the need to numb ourselves in this way.
Yes Anne, one hangover should be enough, why wait for the research when our bodies were telling us the truth all along, ‘Medical and scientific research, which has supported the drinking of alcohol in small amounts, is finally coming out and saying what common sense, and our bodies, have been telling us all along – that there is no safe level of alcohol’.
“Give yourself a chance to feel how great you truly are.” When we reconnect to the beauty of who we are this is not a feeling that we want to poison or escape from.
I laughed when I read the title of this blog, as the first answer I thought of to, ‘why do we have more than one hangover’ is that we must be stupid or gluttons for self-punishment. But we are intelligent, very intelligent. We have just forgotten (or I should say avoided connecting to) the fact that our intelligence comes from our body. So instead of being stupid, we could say we stubbornly avoid hearing what our body has to say and use all means of poisons, like alcohol to shut it up.
Anne I agree it is crazy to experience more than one hangover, I suffered greatly from hangovers and then would get up and do it all over again, it was obvious the level of disconnection and misery I was choosing to live with allowed me to reach for a drink again. Letting go of alcohol was quite simple when I began to self care and listen to my body as the messages I was receiving I could no longer ignore. I now know there is no way I would ever say yes to alcohol again in my life and this is thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and the true love and deep wisdom these teachings bring us all.
When we begin to ask questions e.g.why we do things or why do we feel a certain way that we know is harming our body the self honesty opens doors to opportunities for a healing to occur. I recently have been pondering on why I get so tired after being in the company of others. It feels an old pattern where in the past I have blamed others for the tiredness but am beginning although reluctantly to see that it was My choice to self sabotage myself to be left feeling tired sometimes exhausted and it is also My choice to accept self love to get to the root of this behaviour and heal it.
Yes Anne, discussions about Alcohol can tend to dwell on declaring it ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But the truth is Alcohol does work – in that it deliberately decommissions our feelings and inner senses. We can’t say that it’s not effective, but what is awesome to explore is why and how it is that we want to wipe out our senses this way. After all, it’s not as though only a few people poison themselves – drinking is massively popular all over the world today. Could it be, as you steadily illustrate Anne, that it’s all because we are infinitely more aware than we think, divinely dear, sensitive, grander and geared to know Love? What if, far from being Alchoholics Anonymous we are marvellous and multi-dimensional markers of God’s light? That to me, would go some way to explain why we have such trouble accepting life today as it is, and sleeping at night.
Funnily enough I did only have one really bad hangover in my life… the very first time I drank. It was so bad I was in bed for 2 days, vomiting for 1 of those and vowed I would never do that to myself again. And I didn’t. I recall my parents treating me quite normally afterwards with one of them casually saying to me… ‘I hope you’re going to put that down to experience!” I definitely did, never forgetting it, and never willing to suffer through it again. I would happily have never touched alcohol again, but found it hard to be the only one sober at any party or night out. Eventually this didn’t matter to me either and for nearly 20 years I haven’t had a drop, and haven’t missed it even slightly. The way I feel without alcohol beats any short time high I could get.
This is a very loving approach to one of our biggest challenges in the world.
I found it easy to give up alcohol. What I found difficult was giving up the emotion of sadness that I had been masking for much of my life. I found that the sadness was how I defined and saw myself and couldn’t imagine myself as not being this way. The truth is though as shared by Anne in this blog, that we are all much grander than the emotions we feel. It is by far the greatest gift to allow for the possibility that what is shared here is true, as we may feel emotions, like sadness or anger, but we are not that. We are the grace that lies below the emotions.
With any harmful habits that I might have, I do find it very helpful to stop and ask myself how I am feeling in that moment and what am I trying to bury or not feel? Opening up this honest conversation with myself and re-connecting with myself usually puts a stop to any desire to bury my feelings and therefore any cravings for things that will do that job.
Alcohol was for me a necessity but with a history of alcoholism in my family I was always aware of how unhealthy my relationship with it was. I stopped after a few years of wanting to. Then one day I decided I was not going to travel any further down the road of alcohol dependancy and I stopped. This was my first truly self-loving choice. A few years later I met Serge Benhayon and began to understand and become understanding of why anyone chooses to drink alcohol and this is when the healing began.
What helped me stop alcohol for good was knowing I was opening up myself to more issues than I already had going on. I was doing it because so many others were. You only have to acknowledge the truth by being honest why you drink, instead of creating further issues that complex otherwise a simple truth.
Drinking for me was symptom, I was unhappy within myself and it provided the perfect distraction, the hangover would occupy me for days, the physical pain stopped me from noticing how depressed I was. It was the best thing I had on hand to escape all the pain I was in. The thing is that when I stopped drinking, I didn’t address the energy and so it was replaced with other things that are equally enabling me escape from feeling, might look better but is it?
Yes Ester even our hero’s in the movies turn to alcohol when times get tough. Having a binge for a while is considered ok for our movies, ok for their private lives, and ok for us as well. You never learn from life’s lessons by numbing yourself, it is better to humbly feel the consequences of your choices and be loving to yourself.
This is a great blog Anne, and I know many people who have exacerbated misery and mental health issues with alcohol but it is rarely discussed in a manner that gets to the root of the issue. Why do we drink alcohol knowing it is harmful? For myself in my twenties & thirties I was living a lie. I was living what I thought society was telling me about being a man was all about. I knew it was a lie and not my true nature but everybody else was living their own lies as well and they approved of me living my lie. Whenever I had moments of clarity where I could see my life clearly it put me in conflict with the life I was living, something had to give. I did not feel like I had the courage to change so I turned to alcohol because it was acceptable and it helped me live a lie, when reality was making things too clear for me alcohol would help me blur the lines and I could convince myself it was ok, I could justify anything which I could not sober. I have been clean now for 9 years and in that time I have been more honest and responsible in clearing the lies from my life. In my experience when you go for alcohol you turn away from honesty, and it makes everything worse.
Why we choose to drink alcohol has many reasons, my personal one was to fit in with friends and family. Alcohol itself never had a hold on me, it was easy to give up, what was difficult is how by choosing to do this it has ment a massive shift in how I feel about myself. It has revealed how little I thought of myself, hence the choice to drink to fit in. This is what hurt and there are still remnants of it today that I am steadily clearing from my life. To me it is absolutely insidious how drinking contributed to how I felt about myself. There is such an un explored aspect to alcohol and the connection to how it keeps one totally oblivious to the fact of the beauty and grace that resides within. This part of our selves, the whole world deserves to see and feel.
“Give yourself a chance to feel how great you truly are.” This is an invitation to address our problems/vices in a different way. Instead of standing stuck and dead-ended in front of our behaviours, knowing they are not doing us any good it allows us to walk along the road, it allows us to walk with us and to ponder of what is all there to appreciate about ourselves, it allows us to come from the fullness of ourselves which we then can work on to strengthen, to expand. And the more we do that the less we give room for the ‘checking out’ the ‘not wanting to see’ ourselves.
‘Alcohol is a poison. It kills nerve cells, and hence pain.’ This fact alone should be enough to change the way we look at alcohol and the seeming ‘pleasures’ it gives at the time of drinking. Imagine if alcohol didn’t actually have sugar in it! I bet we wouldn’t drink it then, no matter how satisfying the escape from reality was.
Once we start connecting to the light within, alcohol simply doesn’t make sense, and yet it is still tempting sometimes to seek a form of numbness when met with the immense cruelty and devious games and assault that the world indulges in – so learning to observe and truly understand how and why the world acts in such ways helps allow true compassion, and so instead of judgement and reaction (and seeking numbness and oblivion) it is possible hold steady and stay true, connected to that inner light we all hold within.
It is very exposing of where we are as a society when those who speak up about the harmful effects of alcohol get pilloried by their peers, professionals, even doctors yet each day we somehow manage to ignore the levels of liver and kidney disease, diabetes, not to mention the alcohol-fuelled domestic violence epidemic. What is going on within us that we turn a blind eye to such a massive crisis.
Will power is not enough to stop any form of habit that is medication based…. And connecting to the loving beings we are is also not enough if we have not addressed the emptiness or hurt that lay as the root cause of our behaviours. Once addresses however, the need for medication in any form just falls away, amazingly so.
“Alcohol can be a substitute for intimacy, a companion, a best friend. No wonder we arc up at the prospect of losing it.” The relationship I chose to have with alcohol was the best way to avoid a loving relationship with myself and look at the things I knew I was responsible for and with alcohol you keep everyone at a safe distance. Living without alcohol is freeing oneself from a dependency on something we all know we should not put in our body and it makes my life truly loving and joyful.
This formula for becoming more aware of how GRAND we really are, goes with any choice we make that moves against our divine and naturally loving ways. Why are we still eating foods that make us sick? Why are we choosing to indulge in emotions?
“What helped me was to understand that I was drinking for a reason, and to take full responsibility for how I was feeling and for the choices I had made in my life.” Oh yes very true, all our unloving behaviours have originated from the feeling of not being content with ourself in life and that it is our responsibility that we feel this way. I found and at times find it very uncomfortable to feel how everything that I feel and do not like (or like) is indeed because of, yes, my own choices and not because of anyone else. The oldest hurt is probably that we choose to please others over feeling the greatness and amazingness in ourselves. Knowing this there is also a way forward with taking this responsibility. Thank you for sharing Anne very inspiring.
Awesome and thank you Anne – a 101 sort of guidance if you feel like drinking is no longer your way.
“Alcohol can be a substitute for intimacy, a companion, a best friend. No wonder we arc up at the prospect of losing it.” – And so I understand why I was not just able, but happy to quit alcohol out of my life: I did start to go for intimacy in my relationships, I did open up to people, become more committed and embedded myself into a community and with that – into humanity. I feel connected to me and all. I work on it when I lose it. I can count on me, I will come back to connection when I find myself out of it. I take responsibility about my longing for deep connections. And so – Alcohol is not needed any more to numb my lack of intimacy or lack of taking responsibility. Because I go for it instead of numbing my giving-up.
Anne, what a great sign-off ‘Give yourself a chance to feel how great you truly are’, and that is what many of us avoid, and we can use alcohol and other substances to temper life and our reactions to it, but it really doesn’t work and we know it, but it’s only when we get the support and are willing to understand how we truly feel that we can learn to drop those props we have, and come back to feeling how great we can be.
Anne you wrote: “A problem cannot be solved from the level at which it was created” that is really true and therefore most of us need someone who gave us a true feedback and it is on us if we listen or choose to not listen – everything is always a choice.
“What helped me was to understand that I was drinking for a reason, and to take full responsibility for how I was feeling and for the choices I had made in my life.” That is really a profound realization Anne – this one can really change a whole life as you so wonderfully demonstrated and shared.
“Give yourself a chance to feel how great you truly are.” So very honouring of who we are.
“ – that there is no safe level of alcohol.” Thank you for stating this so clearly Anne Malatt. We need to hear this. We need to hear truth, so that we can start to stop fooling ourselves.
An awesome sharing here Anne about truth, choices and connecting to the deepest love within us all.
Great advice Anne, to feel and deal with whatever it is that would have us push it back down with alcohol – or food, drugs or any other manner of distraction – so we never get to feel the truth of what’s within and how great we truly are.
Hear hear Victoria – this echoes my own experience with alcohol. It’s interesting when I reflect on my growing up and into adulthood that my family (& I myself when I had my own family) pursued what was considered a lifestyle of healthy choices such as organic food, following alternative medicine etc and yet during none of the time was it ever considered that the alcohol I or others consumed might not fall into this category of healthy choices! I realised after giving up alcohol that it’s only by avoiding or denying what is underneath the desire to drink that allows the behaviour to continue unchecked and /or to avoid taking true responsibility for this.
What you’ve shared shows just how blinkered we’ve allowed ourselves to become on the truth of alcohol and what it does to our bodies and wellbeing Angela. It’s a poison. Fact. I was similar – lots of organic fruit, vegetables and meat, along with the odd glass of red…
It took some personal healing to lift the veil on the slow poison I was imbuing my body with, and have to say, having had not the slightest inkling of having a drink now for about 9 years, the difference in my health and vitality is marked. But most of all, I simply could no longer put such a drug into my system that would so deeply affect and alter my natural state. We wouldn’t give it to our children would we? And feel in any way ok about them being drunk or even tipsy… so how could we say it’s ‘ok’ for us just because we’re older? There’s no way I’d take the shine off how great I feel with this drug today – thanks massively to feeling so sustainably and consistently great through the deepest inspiration and teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
I agree Benkt, this article can relate and be applied to other addictions and abusive behaviours. It is ultimately our feelings of not being enough which then leads to unloving choices. So by learning to appreciate, accept and love who we are these unloving choices simply cannot creep in, there is no space for them.
Awesome comment Fumiyo, I found this too. By being honesty, gentle and loving with myself and willing to seek understanding helps me overcome times when I do make unloving choices and to learn from them.
Thank you Anne, this is an amazing blog to support so many people who may be feeling dependent and controlled by alcohol. What you shared will inspire so many people. The questions you’ve raise are truly evolving.
Drinking alcohol takes you out of yourself. That is quite a scary concept when you stop to feel what it means. When you are not you then who is making the choices? A hangover is clear evidence that it was a poor choice.
It clearly is Mary, I agree. I have never experienced a hangover but I have witness many people who have and I have often wondered why would we put ourselves through so much pain and discomfort? This blog explains it so clearly for me and it totally makes sense and that there is so much more to why we choose to use alcohol to mask our choices even though it poisons our body. Perhaps the pain of facing our hurts and choices seems much greater than the hangover, therefore giving us a short term comfort, escape and release.
In my experience when I was feeling empty and needy I wanted to use something (alcohol, smoking, food) to not feel this emptiness, to numb myself, not to feel. No reasoning in the world would stop me from it. Unless I become more self aware and willing to make different choices, be more loving and caring.
In my case alcohol wasn’t the most difficult to quit but smoking I couldn’t stop for awhile. It took some time and struggle between mind and body. Body eventually won and I must say that life without alcohol and cigarettes is so much clearer and pleasurable.
‘Alcohol also opens us up to energies which are not us. It can allow us to behave in ways we would never behave without it.’ That for me is enough to keep clear. Why would I want to artificially Jeckyl and Hyde myself to an unsuspecting public and risk the potential for some level of shame and humiliation the next morning for being something I’m usually not and wouldn’t want to be? It took me years to give up alcohol, primarily because of peer pressure and a fear of being classed as boring or stuffy – yes, simply just to fit in. But I never enjoyed that rush of poison coursing through my veins on the first sip – and there is where it all begins. What we become after that is no longer fully in our control – even on one unit.
So true Anne, I recall having really bad hangovers and deciding I would never drink again – it was very clear to me what my body was telling me, this was not for me. Somehow I overrode the truth I felt about drinking and went back and did it all over again. Thankfully I had a big stop in my life many years later where I could no longer ignore what my body was telling me about alcohol – I just wished I had listened sooner.
“We drink because we think that our life is not enough, that we are not enough. But we are.” So true Anne, if only we were wise enough to see that when we drink it actually holds us back from being all that we are.
Is it possible that we deliberately choose to hold ourselves back? This part you’ve highlighted Sally can apply to any addiction. I have seen it doesn’t work when someone tells another person to give up their addiction, because there is so much behind why these addictions started in the first place. By healing and looking at why we feel this way about ourselves (‘our life is not enough, that we are not enough’) is key to breaking away from these addiction and choosing to fill our lives with more of who we are, we are then more able to make loving choices.
Of course there are many people who probably don’t wish to give up alcohol but also a great many who do but don’t feel supported to stop. There is often such a pressure to drink alcohol to fit in, which seems crazy, why would we encourage one another to drink something that harms the body. I think what you write Anne about alcohol being a cover up for how we really feel is so true, I used to drink for escape life, into another world where my problems disappeared for as long as I was drunk, yet the next day everything was still there and the drinking was just adding layers to my negative feelings. Stopping drinking was the best health choice I ever made.
Anne this is a truly revealing sharing, that I know many will take inspiration from. .Alcohol was never my problem but I do know sugar has been, and sometimes still is hard to completely give up .Sweet things now and the can be my issue.
Anne thank you for your article, how many times do we do something, and then repeat it knowing what the effects are going to be. Thankfully when we take true responsibility for ourselves, we make better choices.
Anne this is such an exposing article and something that many people would relate too. Alcohol is one of those things that most people would relate to. It is so embedded within our culture and so many people that I know do not think twice before having a drink. It is so widely accepted and normalised. I have witness that it is easier to succumb to the feeling of ‘ease’ that alcohol brings than to stay with the uncomfortability of what they are feeling and deal with the issues. I know this personally with my food choices too where I am dealing with something emotional and I am not willing to go there and let myself feel what is going on. I then eat and numb myself, which is also a poison but it does not harm the body as much as actually putting a poison within my system.
Anne I totally relate to your story as I had slipped into the habit of a couple of glasses of wine most nights, and really looked forward to the numbing relief it afforded. I would always ensure that I had a supply of wine, so although I did not drink to the point of drunkenness, I was definitely dulling myself. As I started to look at the issues that I had been avoiding and feel much better about myself, with the assistance of Sacred Esoteric Healing and Universal Medicine, the desire to drink just dropped away quite easily and I stopped altogether.
This is a beautiful article Anne and an awesome expose on what really runs through us in order to say yes to alcohol when of course deep down we know it’s a poison. If we loved ourselves we would not want alcohol — how could we?
Saying no to alcohol is saying a massive yes to love and to us.
This is beautiful Anne and I love your honesty. There is a lot of truth packed in here. Looking at the reason behind the alcohol consumption is key, as you say.
I used to hear: You never learned to drink!’. I would get sick or have a severe headache from wine. I didn’t like beer. What I did like were the more sugary liquor drinks. So for me no alcohol, but sugar for the same reasons you described above Anne: as reward for my hard working, as comfort for my feeling alone (missing myself), and to numb the uncomfortable feelings, for example of not being good enough. Knowing why I use sugar and knowing the damaging effects combined with support from Universal Medicine practitioners has been supporting in my process of letting sugar go.
For me it was about joining in with the others, wanting to be seen as one of the crowd. I never liked the taste of alcohol but I persevered and found a couple of drinks I liked that I stuck with. But it was always about being seen to be approved of. Turning around and finally saying no and expressing this openly now in social situations is amazing, as I now no longer have this need to be part of the crowd. I’m so much more confident and joyful simply being me.
Alcohol, ‘a substitute for intimacy’, very well said Anne and absolutely spot on.
Gosh Anne, this is fantastic !! I really loved reading it – it had so many great points that I don’t even know where to begin. I haven’t heard of this saying before “A problem cannot be solved from the level at which it was created” but it literally made me go “wow” when reading it. Cause it’s true, if you can only see things one way, it makes it harder to see things from a different way. Sometimes you need a different perspective to see things differently and heal and issue. Great blog Anne.
Alcohol is a cheap poison in a fancy bottle. The 38% part, the pure alcohol in the bottle of spirits costs only cents to produce, the profit, tax, the suave and sophisticated bottle, the advertising and the flavouring amount to the $30 or $40 dollars we pay our favourite brand. This is why alcohol is available everywhere, because some wealthy, influential people can’t afford it not to be.
Your very spot on nick, there is much more at play than just the alcohol being sold in the shops. There is a whole network of affairs that are taking place to help support the sale and really the intoxication of people worldwide. Having Anne exposed the truth of the poison in her blog here above really makes you feel how toxic the system that we have is where society is allowing the supply of something that is so damaging and so harmful to the human frame. If alcohol was banned we would see mass levels of emotional problems bubble to the surface but we would be able to slowly deal with the intensity of it all and help find another way of living and being as a whole. At the moment, alcohol is a numbing tool used to keep emotions and lives feeling deflated, and aggression levels bursting out when emotionally people are so full they act out.
Thank you Anne for your very honest sharing, we do drink for a variety of reasons, mine was to not feel the emptiness inside. If I couldn’t feel it, it meant I didn’t have to deal with it. When I did make the decision to give alcohol up, I was surprised how easy I found it, once I realised what the emptiness was about. If I had dealt with the emptiness in the beginning, maybe one hangover would have been enough!
Alcohol does not do nice things to our body, it makes us crazy and do things we wouldn’t normally, it gives us an illusionary reality, because we are numbed out we can’t feel what is actually going on. I understand why people drink, because they lack natural happiness and joy, but how can we consider drinking again after feeling the damaging effects it has in our body? It’s a totally yucky feeling.
Thank you Anne, I loved the tenderness I felt in you reading your article. I too had a huge ferocity to numb myself from life, from feeling, simply because I didn’t want to feel the truth of what I had chosen for lifetimes, but choosing to stop drinking set me free, I began to truly live, something I had craved for so long. I highly recommend it!
Thank you Anne, I agree, the drug addiction was never the issue, so stopping the drug when we have not uncovered the truth behind the reason causing the addiction means that the root cause still exists. ‘Give yourself a chance to feel how great you truly are.’ I had stopped all drugs 22 years ago 10 years before I met Serge Benhayon, but in stopping drugs I never identified the root cause. It has taken many healing seasons plus many loving choices to get a true understanding of the root cause of my addictions and how to go about truly healing myself.
I loved the blog Anne, for over twenty years the drink was my best friend or so I thought it was. With the help of Universal Medicine practitioners I stopped drinking about six years ago and feel so much better for it. No more hangovers, saying or doing stupid things or aggression. Overall giving up drinking was a huge positive turning point in my life
Beautiful blog Anne, thank you so much; I love your call for us to give life without these state altering substances a chance – and to deal with the issues that might surface once we don’t burry them with our chosen behaviour, like alcohol or over eating, or drugs.
Yes Esther, living without; “state altering substances “, including alcohol, is the first step to begin to address the hurts and emotional pain that we carry. It’s about becoming responsible for our lives, and learning to understand that these substance simply hold us back from all that we are, while harming and dulling the body that we live with everyday.
Some great questions and insights here Anne. On a physical level it seems strange that after a hangover we would continue to drink again, yet as you have shown, the reasons for drinking are so much more than this. I know when I used to drink I didn’t want to have an honest look at my life and feel what was really going on for me, yet I know alcohol did not stop any of the issues, just distracted me from them for a short while.
I agree Nicholas, alcohol is a highly addictive and destructive drug that has been deemed socially acceptable, it seems with the social acceptance comes the denial that it is a harmful drug, addictive, costly to society and harmful to families. In the UK a high profile MP has just died from alcohol addiction despite the huge support from friends and family over come the addiction. We need to be honest about the harm of alcohol and treat it like the drug it is.
Anne what you share here is so beautifully expressed and absolute gold. The honesty that you share from is an inspiration to us all.
I drank alcohol as a way to distract myself from feeling that I was living a lie. I was not living who I really am, but instead a shadow of myself, in and out of various jobs, relationships, careers, study, friendship groups and even the way I dressed and presented myself to fit into different groups or ways of living. It was all a lie to try and fit in and feel loved in any way possible. But at the end of the day it was devastating, so I turned to alcohol to try and feel better, but really just to numb the pain of not being myself. I was only able to give up alcohol when I came to Universal Medicine and was inspired to feel that my life was a lie, and that I could live it another way, a way deeply connected with myself and what was true for me, calling out the lies and illusion that was around me. Once I began this journey it was easy to give up the alcohol. It has however taken me some time to clear these destructive behaviours from my life, that is, actions of abuse towards myself and my body, as punishment for not living my truth. This is always a work in progress.
Awesome questions you pose here Anne. What you offer is not only applicable for alcohol but any substance including food which we can use to not feel what is there to be felt. A truly powerful piece.
You’ve hit the nail on the head with why people drink Anne.
Why do I feel a need to drink alcohol? Why is my life not enough for me? Why am I tired? Why am I angry? Why am I sad?
It was when I started asking myself these questions and being very honest that I was able to stop drinking alcohol completely. That was nearly 6 years ago not for a moment have I regretted it because getting to know the real me is far better than any glass of champagne, and there is no hangover, only joy!
Michelle what an inspiring comment. Often I feel people fear the answers honesty will give but I know every time I allow myself to be honest, to know why I am doing something perhaps, if I don’t choose to shut down or freak out at the initial awareness, this awareness expands and I understand all is held love. The initial awareness is put in context that is,at the very least, bearable.
Choosing to stay with these moments of awareness and not freak out initially is a work in progress. But the choice is simple – numb out to becoming aware of how grand we all are or keep on the merry-go-round.
A great question Anne, thank you for bringing awareness through your personal and professional experience and opening this conversation.
To be free of not only alcohol but sugar, wheat and dairy is something I never imagined I could conquer! The thing is I didn’t have to battle at all they just slipped away as the awareness and self love increased the need decreased.
Great point Merrilee, as you were most likely working on your issues! Alcohol should never be the focal point as there as so many reasons why people drink. It is always a by-product of feeling challenges and facing difficulties within life.
There are statistics that state that one in ten people who drink alcohol will become an alcoholic, and one in three children of alcoholic parents will become an alcoholic. I didn’t give up alcohol, I gave up getting drunk and I found that if I no longer drank to get drunk it’s wasn’t worth drinking. A couple of beers occasionally was my limit and I slowly lost my tolerance to alcohol and two beers would give me a hangover, then one beer, then one light beer and finally I decided that I did not need to have a beer just to fit in with the drinkers around me and haven’t had a drop since.
Well said Nicholas. It was the same for me; I just reduced the amount I could handle, until it was only a third of a glass at night, and suddenly that wine (“good quality” wine, I might add) tasted like vinegar to me. I just did not enjoy it at all any more, so it was easy to give up. I feel now, that by not having a lot, I could then really taste what it tasted like. When I used to have more, I remember now just ignoring the bad taste of the first sips and then it kind of ‘grew’ on me. I had managed to override what the body was trying to tell me (Yuck!!), so I could drink, because my head wanted to drink; even though the body suffers the consequences of my drinking. I haven’t looked back; it’s now about 8 years ago, and life without alcohol is definitely worth a shot.
The pain we do not want to feel that makes us believe in the illusion that our life is not enough is at the center of so many complications. Once we allow ourselves to just look at this pain and see that the only ones who are truly responsible for it are ourselves, we might feel confronted, but that is just another trick. Realizing that you are responsible and you alone does imply that you are the one who can change it independent of anyone of anything – what an amazing empowerment is that?
Great question and one I have often pondered on myself. Why do we need something that is so damaging for us to ‘enjoy’, ‘sustain’, ‘take the edge off’ etc? Because we don’t take responsibility with what we truly feel underneath.
I agree Joshua, it is a fascinating thing to explore not just alcohol, but so many habits that we have that we know are supportive.
It is a great question Joel. Why is it that we continue to carry on with self-destructive pursuits and behaviours when we know they are harming us? It seems like the easy, quick way out but all it does is prolong not having to take responsibility and to feel why you are living in a way that you are not actually enjoying it, otherwise there would be no need to ‘take the edge off’ it!
A fascinating subject as you say Joel and not just in exploring commonly accepted vices such as smoking, drugs, gambling etc but we can also have habits such as creating drama, being controlling / manipulative, playing the victim etc which are also not supportive, for either ourselves or others.
Very True Angela, if you think about it, with the growing rates of ‘lifestyle’ diseases, we really need to ask why is humanity bent on a very slow suicide. There must be something going on, that we as a globally community don’t say it is enough.
Well said Emily. From experience, honesty is a great step towards Truth. It is great to get real about what is really going on
That’s a great point Tony — one drop of alcohol will change us to be something we are not. Because who we really are is so pure and tender, alcohol simply doesn’t belong.
Anne, you’ve encapsulated here so well why people drink alcohol, something that I remember as a child never made any sense. why drink something that is in fact a poison? But as I grew older and carried a few war wounds from life, a drink on offer became more enticing. It helped whim me away for a bit, away from my sorrows and hurts and away from myself. But the hangovers the next day and the taste of drink in my mouth felt awful. But I did it a few times again even though I knew I would feel terrible afterwards because I was addicted to that feeling of escape however short-lived it was. If it wasn’t alcohol, it was pot, or another recreational drug available to lure me away from the reality of life. It was only when I met Serge Benhayon and started attending Universal Medicine workshops and healing sessions by esoteric practitioners that I could really feel what it was I was trying to run away from — a long-held sadness about life, about me in life, a sadness in general. And in being super tender and loving with myself with the support of the Universal Medicine practitioners I started to feel what was underneath that sadness and that’s when I rediscovered me, exquisitely tender, delicate and joyful, no sadness in the real me 🙂 Going on that journey to let go of alcohol and all the other vices we use so as to not feel that misery that quietly pervades is so so worth it. Finding who we are underneath the pain is the greatest, shiniest gem that can be.
I too drank because ‘it was a great social thing to have’. I wasn’t a regular drinker, but when I did drink, I drank more than a few glasses, and accepted the hangovers as part of the process. On the day Serge Benhayon presented what happens in the body when you drink, I stopped, and listened as my body told me it didn’t want alcohol in it again. That was my first real awareness of how powerful self love can be.
It is amazing that once we have experienced a hangover that we would ever drink again, but the need to bury our issues seems to override our sensibility. I have to say as a previous drinker, once I stopped, my personal clouds cleared and yes I had to deal with my issues instead of burying them, but my life started to change in many many positive ways. Thoughts clearer, hangover free for life, healthier body, deeper relationships not based on getting together for drinks, ability to deal with stressful and anxious situations without stress or anxiety, the list goes on and on. I couldn’t recommend non-drinking highly enough!
This is a very inspiring blog Anne and one that needs to be shared from the rooftops. Indeed life is amazing without alcohol. “Alcohol also opens us up to energies which are not us” was something I’d also heard Serge Benhayon share and from that moment I no longer wanted something controlling me that wasn’t me and gave up alcohol immediately – not because he said to but because I could feel the truth of his words.
I shared that feeling Deborah: “no longer wanted something controlling me that wasn’t me”. In spite of being pushed to ‘let go and have fun’ by people at parties, I did not see how it could be desirable to be wobbly on my feet, unable to hear the loudness of my own speech, imposing on people and not remembering afterwards, and physiologically poisoned – in short, being controlled by something that was not me. I did it a few times (about 4 times in my twenties), but it felt so bad that for me it was easy to just say no thereafter. I agree that life without alcohol is definitely amazing!
“We bind ourselves together with it socially; we use it to sweeten our relationships; it comforts us when we are on our own. It is easier to believe that life is good with a drink in our hand.” Anne the word BIND really jumps out at me – all my life socialising & alcohol have been hand in hand and I genuinely believed I could not truly laugh without alcohol!
Today I see what a prison this belief is and how people who don’t drink are pigeon holed for being boring or unsociable just because they are saying no to this social bind.
“We cannot bear to remember and feel this, and so we drink again.” – this really stood out to me. Talk about vicious circle! Something else that stuck out was alcohol causing problems in relationships. Yes, big one, I grew up in that environment observing and feeling the effects of alcohol-fuelled domestic discord personally, so consider myself a living expert. But what about the opposite – alcohol being the glue for relationships that do not have what it takes on their own? I’ve seen the situation where withdrawing a drug from a couple’s routine allowed them to see that they were being held together by pretty illusions, not true love and connection with each other. Basically, their relationship was artificial. I have experienced this personally, so am a living expert there too. In whichever direction they work, drugs like alcohol are destructive of true human relating. And Anne, your loving choice to self-heal has enabled your true greatness and beauty to blossom to a degree that most people would barely believe possible. I can hardly take my eyes off you, you look and feel so amazing now!
I grew up with alcohol in my home, on the dinner table, and was encouraged to try my father’s wine on many occasions. I hated the burning taste as it went down my throat.
I hated the altering affect it had on my body- I felt weird, not myself. So I didn’t seek alcohol, and could see the damaging effects on others- in their behaviour and psyche.
So when I heard Serge Benhayon talk about the energetic effects of alcohol on your body, it confirmed what I knew. Alcohol is a poison.
Thank you Anne for explaining why so many people drink and why it is difficult to give it up.
Thank you for writing such an honest blog on drinking. I had no idea that alcohol kills nerve cells but it would make sense as it completely numbs all feeling.
Yes, I can recall saying there was no way I was drinking again and drinking the very next day on more than one occasion. I was even physically sick from alcohol which was a very clear message that it was not good for me but drank many times again.
That is the insidiousness of the addiction of alcohol. The only quick cure for a hangover is is to have another drink straight away and that is the short cut to total addiction,
Beautifully presented article Anne – a great blend of medical facts and personal experience that gives a comprehensive picture. I had come to a point where I wanted a drink every day and it was the ‘numbing’ agent that got me through social events which I otherwise found tortuous. However, after attending Universal Medicine events and personal healings for a while I found my desire for alcohol naturally diminished as I began dealing with the issues I was escaping from. It then became an unbearable hindrance in my body and a fog I couldn’t abide in social settings, and so without any will power it left my life forever.
I wish I had of read this as a young teenager. I wasn’t questioning the reason why I did tend to drink, rather I was indulging in the escape from those reasons until a few years ago. Well put Anne.
This is a very clear representation of how alcohol is a substance we don’t need the only thing it does is harming us, and of course the effects you mention. It shows how many people find the emotional effects more important than what it physically does in our bodies.
Thanks Anne for your blog – reading this today has given me the opportunity to celebrate, appreciate me and the fact that I don’t need alcohol in my life any more. By not drinking alcohol it has given me the chance to look at my choices in life and to have more awareness of those choices.
What an amazing sharing Anne, whilst reading it I was reminded of the awful feeling of having a hangover, I didn’t even like the taste of alcohol and then I would repeat the cycle all over again. Giving up alcohol was such an empowering and self-loving choice for me, many around me reacted and I was not invited out much socially – which none of that mattered as I was choosing to be me.
‘Serge helped me to feel that I was so much more than I had previously believed, that there was a greatness, a grandness of love in me that I had not connected to for a long time.’ When I met Serge Benhayon I felt this also and so giving up alcohol and partying came naturally. The first step to returning to me
Yes Zofia I agree. This blog should be posted everywhere…. The awareness that Anne has shared may just support others to remember that they have a choice. It’s never too late.
Such an awesome blog Anne, this needs to be published everywhere, such a truth written about alcohol. I used to drink alcohol all the time, it was so normal to drink on all kind of occasions that I didn’t even consider not drinking. I had a friend who could not drink as her body did not tolerated any alcohol and I always felt pity with her as she was not being able to enjoy the fun of alcohol…. how crazy is that!! Today I know how much I was missing out in life due to constant alcohol consumption. When I understood what alcohol truly does to us I quit it immediately and never ever touched it again. Today it is an absolute poison for me and it would never ever cross my mind to drink it.
Anne this is one of best pieces of writing on why we drink I have ever read. It’s very honest in its effects on our bodies yet deeply understanding of why choose to drink. Thank you some much for sharing this with us all.
So well said Anne. Your understanding and love oozes through this article. Even though we all know alcohol is not a good choice it doesn’t help to judge others or ourselves for choosing to drink it. There are very good reasons for choosing to drink after all. But making the choice to stop drinking and to look at everything underneath the choice and feel what is there to be felt can lead to great healing and much joy. I know which one I choose.
I gave up alcohol the second I admitted the harm it was doing to me, looked back at how I had been with it and considered how my life could be if I continued. I never had the slightest desire to drink again, but I can see how unless that choice is made 100% then life/ friends/ society will tempt you or offer you an excuse from every direction to have another drink…
This is such an awesome blog on alcohol, Anne – no holding back of the truth. When presented with this truth, along with the medical and science behind alcohol, we really do have to ask ourselves ‘why do we ever have more than one hangover?’, and are we prepared to be honest about why we drink, or why we need to drink?
An awesome blog and very honest account of your personal experience with alcohol Anne. I especially loved the honesty you expressed in this line: “This was because I still could not bear to feel how I had lived, and the choices I had made, which were still living in my body. It was a very painful and difficult time, but I received only loving support from Serge”. It is worth remembering that we all need a helping hand now and again especially when we start to get honest with ourselves and our choices…not always easy but well worth it in the end as honesty with ourselves is the vehicle that provides the awareness that we can make different choices and thus have a different life…a life that is self suporting and loving and a life that truly grows and evolves us, thus postively impacting all those around us.
Thank you Anne for your honest sharing. You expose the problems alcohol causes and how it’s so often used because people don’t feel enough in themselves. “Give yourself a chance to feel how great you truly are.” Wise words.
Thank you, Anne. Great questions I would find very uncomfortable to answer if I was still a drinker. Being honest with myself was the last think I could/wanted to do.
It is not the way forth for me to just stop immediately with whatever I understand is not good for me. As you say, Anne, I do ponder on: why do I need this, why am I attracted to this. Then I change my lifestyle and observe the need slowly ceasing. Inspired by Serge Benhayon.
That alcohol is a poison cannot come as a surprise to anyone. What I find fascinating is how intellegent the body is showing us this. That it kills nerve cells is nothing new but what I didn’t know until I took a course in anatomy & physiology is that the glial cells in the brain whose job is to protect the cells from outside harm cannot deal with alcohol. It gets right through to the cell. Quite revealing isn’t it how if we want to find the answers we only have to ask the body.
Thank you for such an awesome and honest expose on drinking and why we do it. I loved what you said about being very loving and tender with ourselves as things come to the surface – this is such a beautiful way to face and deal with what we usually want to run from.
Anne, this blog is fantastic! It just trashes out the glamour of drinking. Instead, by stating the truth: “Alcohol is a poison. It kills nerve cells, and hence pain. It is a sugar hit which picks us up at the end of a hard day and leaves us feeling comfortably numb”, it makes clear what it really is and what it really does for us. Never heard it like this before. It makes total sense though.
Thank you Anne, for so honestly sharing your experience with Alcohol and coming out of it through the teachings of Serge Benhayon, and finding the true greatness and grandness of love that resides in you.
I agree Anne, the first step for me to stop drinking alcohol, even in moderation, was admitting that I actually did not like it, I needed it. I can remember my first tastes of beer or wine when I was a kid and like the first puff of a cigarette feeling the natural rejection my body had for it and really not even liking the taste very much but desperately wanting to be a grown up! Then later it became a social lubricant, a badge of individuality, a status symbol, and many more things that I relied on to stop feeling the deeper issues that were troubling me about my life. It was a bit tough initially when I had to face those demons rather than cover them up with booze but in the end well worth it.
Thank you Anne. I don’t think we think or know we have a problem until we arc up when someone suggests taking it away and at that point it takes honesty to consider the ‘arc-up’ a reaction and a defense mechanism. I had not the slightest clue I was using alcohol to deal with my complete exhaustion, to deal with the fact that I didn’t have the energy to talk to people on a night out without it. To suppress the anger of doing all things for other people with nothing left for me to ‘enjoy myself’. Yet I can honestly say that nearly everything I am not proud of in my life was done under the influence of alcohol – so I cannot with any honesty say that it was my friend, support or answer. I had started to look at that before I met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine having spells lasting years of not drinking, but it was not until I took time to understand why I needed the alcohol and dealt with the exhaustion, anger and sadness that I have never felt impulsed to drink again. So I wholeheartedly concur – “Give yourself a chance to feel how great you truly are.”
Speaking, last week, with a lady in her late 70s about alcohol, she shared that she only ever had 2 glasses of cider in her whole life, when I enquired “why?” she said “as a 20yr old I had to be carried home, put to bed and I was soo sick the next day, I realised my body could not handle booze, and that was it” I smiled and thought of your blog Anne. Why have so many of us overridden our bodies reaction to the adverse effects that alcohol is having on it? it doesn’t make sense to me.
How honouring that lady was of her body. For myself and I know many others we have vowed never to drink again after succumbing to the deadly hangover yet the next weekend we are at it again. When I was younger after a big night on the drink my next day was a write off, I was often violently sick all day and would only start to feel ok and well enough to eat in the late afternoon. Talk about punishment with a capital P. As a man that could never handle alcohol alI that well I was glad when I started taking amphetamines as I could drink all night without feeling sick or getting too messy, but that is another story in itself.
Why do we, why do we drink to begin with? Great question…. and a great stop moment to ponder and reflect on this question before reading further.
Thanks Anne for a light hearted approach to a quite heavy topic. My ending to drinking came gradually. I have always been a lively and up and go kind of person and every time the day after having alcohol I was just tired and not up for it. My inside wanted to play around and have fun but my body had other plans, so much of the reason why I stopped had to do with me feeling that it was more worth having fun and feeling that aliveness than being tired and having to stay in bed.
Why would we ever want to drink if we were raised “to feel that I was so much more than I had previously believed, that there was a greatness, a grandness of love in me that I had not connected to for a long time”. If we knew we were greater than what we think we are, we would honour and cherish ourselves and our body in way that alcohol, drugs and even certain foods would not be on our radar let alone part of our lives. Being able to reconnect to the the real us makes life more simple and takes away the need to drink. What you share here is wonderful.
I remember when I stopped drinking quite clearly. I started waking in the morning and being reminded of this 10 year old boy I once knew who would wake up bright and fresh each morning, and funnily enough not need alcohol to get him through the day. Being reminded of myself all those years before was beautiful, innocent, tender and fun. Why would I ever want to go back (and why did I leave it in the first place?)
“A problem cannot be solved from the level at which it was created” – that is an awesome quote Anne, and Serge Benhayon offers the very highest level of care from which to get support not only with alcohol but many different problems.
‘By connecting to that love, that living stillness within me, I was able to make more self-loving choices.’ Thank you Anne for sharing so honestly about the damage we inflict on our bodies and the way we deny it and drink again. For me it was a relief to start making more self-loving choices and choose to not drink alcohol and I find it deeply sad how younger and younger children are using it to numb themselves – but it’s inspiring how some are sharing the Gentle Breath meditation with school children and the amazing impact that this has had.
Thank you Anne for your honest sharing. It is only when we stop and take a look at why we drink, and feel the hurt that alcohol inflicts on our body, can we truthfully mean it when we say ” I will never drink again”. Otherwise it is just a reaction to the miserable feeling of a hangover.
Thank you Ann I have had my ‘I’ll never touch alcohol again’ including the hair of the dog as a cure. Alcohol has been a good part of my life. Is this not an oxymoron, Alcohol and good? I had to stop drinking for a trial period of six months to eliminate it as a possible cause to a medical condition I developed. Alcoholism was one of 4 causes, but the most prevalent. After six months of abstention I returned to the doctor and was asked if I had noticed any change, I replied ‘yes, I have saved a lot of cash but the condition persisted’. Alcohol was just a legal drug that I used to numb myself from the world, it was not an addiction, it was a choice. After my 6 month abstention I just choose not to drink again and have loved the change in me.