How to stop drinking when your partner won’t

Do you find that you are drinking alcohol every night?  Does your home life revolve around the habitual cycle of drinking alcohol?

Do you find that you plan your day thinking about nothing else but when you can have your first glass of alcohol?  Do you and your partner plan your day around drinkies time?

Do you feel that even though you probably drink too much, you don’t have a problem with alcohol, and that you and your partner have an acceptable relationship with each other as well as sharing it with drinking alcohol?

Would you like to know how to stop drinking alcohol for one month, just to see how well the relationship goes without drinking?  Does that sound like an adventure?  Does that sound like a threat to one or both of you?  Would you help each other to stop drinking alcohol, even for just a short while?

Are you serious about quitting alcohol?

Do you think your relationship would be better or worse without alcohol?  Do you think you would support each other to stop drinking for that time, or do you think that it would be more difficult to find how to stop drinking when your partner won’t?

Would you avoid making a decision, because you just couldn’t face not drinking for a month?

Even if you only used these questions as a hypothetical test of your desire to stop drinking alcohol, there are probably some tricky issues around the subject of how to stop drinking when your partner won’t.

Humans are sociable creatures, and not only do we like to hang out with other humans, we tend to hang out with other humans that we have something in common with.  When we find something in common with another person, we tend to find that person more agreeable and we use that person’s behaviors as justification for our own behaviors.  In other words, if we like to drink alcohol, we will tend to gravitate towards other people who also like to drink, and this provides approval and reinforcement of our original habit to drink.  This is how drinking alcohol seems to create a vicious cycle of acceptance and reinforcement and creates a behavior pattern that soon becomes a habit.

Which relationship is more important – alcohol or your partner?

So if you are in a relationship with someone who accepts and reinforces your own pattern of drinking alcohol, then neither of you can recognise when that pattern of drinking alcohol has crossed the line from a social past time to becoming a bad habit.  Worse still, will either of you be able to recognise when a bad habit with alcohol becomes an addiction to alcohol?

Even worse, the ability or desire to change the bad habit of drinking alcohol becomes too hard to change, and even though neither partner is happy with drinking too much, the relationship can become strained.

 

So how to stop drinking alcohol when your partner won’t?

The most important message is that no matter how personally determined you are to quit alcohol, if your partner does not honestly want to stop, then you cannot force them to stop drinking alcohol.   The decision about when and how to stop drinking is yours to make, and no amount of coercion is likely to be effective. 

Don’t be offended if this happens to you, this is not a judgement on your relationship with your partner, nor is it meant to be a personal reflection on your character.  Unfortunately, it is simply a prediction about human nature, and what is a very common reaction when something of value is taken away.  If your partner senses that you are about to make the statement that they should “quit alcohol immediately, or else” – they will probably take the “or else” option!

I warn you not to do that, it is not what either partner really wants!  This is a very common reaction and is produced by our subconscious mind whenever it fears the lack or withdrawal of something of value, even if we know that deep down alcohol is actually bad for us, I don’t know why people love alcohol.  I would prefer to be in love with love!

But this is how it is if She or He won’t stop drinking.  This is how it is with alcohol – our subconscious brain values that pleasurable sensation we get from alcohol, and does not want to lose that feeling, so immediately tells our conscious brain to protect us from losing that feeling, or to avoid any ideas of how to stop drinking alcohol.  Pretty trivial really, but when our brain goes into this primitive defensive pattern, there is very little control that you can exert over your own brain, let alone try to influence the thought process inside someone else’s subconscious mind.

We can show YOU how to stop drinking first

Maybe you are interested in learning about his stuff, and if so, you might be interested to read our free book – “Why your Attempts to Cut Down on Alcohol Haven’t Worked and What to Do Instead”.

Have you ever heard the quote, “Be the Change you want to See”?

In other words, if you are desperate to change your drinking habits, then you will need to find the determination to find change within.  We are here to help you, and we can show you how to quit drinking on your own, first, because that is the best way to demonstrate the facts of the matter.

Because you can’t change other people, you can only change yourself.  Be patient with your partner, we can provide you with some excellent learning and life changing material that you might be able to gradually introduce into your home.

Look after your own health and habits first – become the change you want to achieve!

Prove by your own good example that there is a better way, prove that you do not need alcohol in your life, and prove that you can be happy and healthy after you quit alcohol completely.  Learn to love being alcohol free, when you find out how to stop drinking by yourself.

Once your partner observes your success, and sees the happiness generated by living and loving an alcohol free life, you just might be surprised to see how the subconscious mind starts to find new beliefs and reprograms to come around to a better way of thinking.

We love being alcohol free, and we would love to show you how to stop drinking when your partner won’t!