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What you drink
The type of drink we choose at a particular time is important to notice because different drinks offer different perceived benefits and different times. For example, beer is perfect for a BBQ or watching football. We may choose wine at home or to accompany a meal. Or bubbles or a cocktail is our go-to at parties. Whatever it is, noticing what you d
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When you drink
How does time affect your drinking? Are you triggered by a particular time of day, a day of the week or both? Beginning to pay attention to when we drink can help us put strategies in place to help us manage change.
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Where you drink
Our environment has a significant impact on mood, thoughts and behaviour and paying attention to where we drink can help us manage how we drink.
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Who you drink with
As social beings, how we behave, think or feel is affected by the people with which we share our time and impacts how we drink. Understanding who we do and, just as importantly, don’t drink with is essential in taking back control.
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Building confidence
If you’re a seasoned user of Peps or are following one of the curated courses, you may have already come across the Reliance Bag. In short, I give the moniker to the place we record or store our accumulated alcohol reliances. This Pep invites us to address what’s inside our bag to build confidence and maintain our recovery.
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Feeling change
In The pros and cons of drinking Pep, we encouraged you to consider the benefits and costs of drinking and mark them as either short-term or long-term. It was a helpful exercise, but it only tells half the story. This Pep looks beyond the pros and cons and explores the deeper motivation for changing relationships with alcohol.
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Unexpected bonus
In the Evolving motivation section of the Feeling change Pep, I talk about using the feeling of early AF wins to help drive us forward. This Pep is also about wins, but this time focuses on the unexpected bonuses of changing our drinking.
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Handling emotions
Alcohol gets tangled up in our emotions, amplifying both positive and negative feelings, and it unbalances our mental equilibrium so much that separating natural from alcohol-influenced feelings becomes difficult.
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Mind garden
The mind garden is a well-used metaphor within the recovery community. When I first heard it, I rolled my eyes and thought, ‘here we go’. But over time, I’ve riffed with it, and it has become a valuable tool I return to. Try it and see what you think. Hopefully, it can do the same for you.
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Being you
Peps are not here to change you; they’re here to change your drinking. They simply encourage you to scratch through the veneer alcohol creates to enable you to reconnect with your genuine self.
