The Road to Moderation

This is one of the reasons I’ve started this blog. I see my current crisis, a mid-life one perhaps, as a chance to transform my life into one that better fits my desires. The Road to Moderation is a crucial part as drinking (alcohol) has been a big distraction in my life. I started on the 3rd of September, an unusual date to start something but it wasn’t triggered by an important milestone in my life. Rather, it was triggered by watching 'How to improve your brain.' This is part 1 of 7 - I'm not sure which one alcohol is a focus but it was a focus in one of them.

I'm really interested in the brain and the comment on alcohol making your brain smaller really struck a cord with me. I love my brain, so I decided to change. The guy on the video has his critics but I don't really care about that. Changing my drinking habit is long over due.

The Road to Moderation

What is it?

It’s to change a 25 year old habit of heavy drinking into a healthier 'moderate drinking habit'. By moderation, I mean a habit that is characterized by having no more than one drink for the vast majorities of days. On occasional days, perhaps special ones where I’m meeting friends I haven’t seen for a long time, perhaps I’ll have more and on those days I’ll know exactly how much I’ll drink before I start.

Why?

• Drinking has been a big distraction for me. In my twenties the night seemed more important than the day, which meant that I didn’t really face the issues that were important. Somehow I bundled my way through them.
• After having a heavy drinking habit for so long, I think it must be doing damage. That damage is going to stop now.
• Drinking takes time. The part where you social is ok and I want to drink much less in this part. The part where you recover is a waste of time. I’m in my forties now and I don’t want to waste this time anymore. Time is much more important now.

How long?

• Four months and the start date was September the 3rd. Four month is a long time but 25 years is over half my life. Four months to focus and experiment, should give me a fighting chance to develop a strong new habit.

Why moderation?

• • I’m British and drinking is part of my culture. My dad goes to the pub twice a week, he drinks moderately and it’s much better for him than staying at home alone. He gets to socialise and he also has some exercise walking down to the pub.
• I believe that a lot of people don’t cut down because they don’t want to cut out drinking all together.
• There’s ambiguous news that moderate drinking has some health benefits.
• You’ll learn more things by moderating than by giving up. There’s more skills to learn with being moderate than there is by giving up the sauce altogether. If you give up, you’ll probably want to avoid all situations with alcohol but with moderation, you’ll have to face up to those situation and make the choice to be moderate.
• I’ve given up for a month before but it didn’t help me change my heavy drinking habits. When I started drinking again, I went straight back to how I used to drink. I don’t like the sound of ‘I’m a non-drinking alcoholic’ as it sounds that alcohol still rules their life. My drinking can be curtailed and control and enjoyed!

How?

Two habit changers have influenced my approach.

Leo Babauta from Zen Habits
.
BJ Fogg who specialises in the use of technology to change behaviour of people.

I’ll go into more details about the process in later posts.

How’s it going?

I’m excited. The first three weeks have gone pretty well.

In the house

Besides Sept 3rd when I drank two glasses of red wine, I have either only drunk one or I haven’t drunk at all.

Outside

• Visited a street party on the 10th and they had a beer tap and I guess (the Dutch have small glasses) I had 5-6 pints.
• Went to a big dinner party, a Chinese buffet with all you can drink. I’m made progress as I only had one small glass of red wine and then moved on to soft drinks for the next few hours. I had another three and half small glasses of red wine later (about 500-600 mls, I guess).
• On two other occasions, I’ve turned down free booze – very happy about this.

Crisis Station!

I’m 41 going on 42.

Life isn’t quite where I want it.


• I haven’t worked much for 18 months and my savings are vanishing rapidly! There’s no immediate cure for this, though I think I’ve worked up some long term skills and have some involvement in things that could take off.
• I have a very limited network and am living in a small village in the Netherlands. This has made jobs and building up a network difficult. Why live in a small village in the Netherlands? Good question – my girlfriend got relocated here and I thought it was a great idea.
• Dutch is taking longer to learn than I originally anticipated.
• Girlfriend wants to get married and complains that I’m not open enough emotionally.

There’s a positive side too.

• I’m healthy
• I have a girlfriend who loves me.
• And I’m getting to grips with one of my long term bad habits – heavy drinking. I’ve had small successes in the past but I feel confident that my current approach ‘Road to Moderation’ is working well.
• In general I’m happy.
• I’m involved in a couple of things that could be big.

What to expect in the next few months.

• There’ll be some soul searching and the development of a plan for a ‘Middle Age Renaissance. I like ‘Advanced Riskology' 1% club – goals that make you excited about life.
• Health for mid-lifers
• Road to Moderation – battle against the booze to be the man who can say no and sometimes to say yes to one or two. This will be a major theme for the first four months.
• Being 40 is a start rather than an end.
• Perhaps some stuff on emotional development – have to see how that goes!