Mindfulness and drinking

If you have already stopped drinking, I am not encouraging you to start drinking again; far from it, and I’m sure you have enough experience to draw from to compare it with your present status. But I do encourage everyone to use mindfulness going forward because it is a helpful way to help navigate through triggersTriggers are situations and circumstances that lead to triggering thoughts around drinking. More and sticky situations that are likely to come your way.

However, if you are still drinking, I encourage you to be mindful of the times when you are drinking and not drinking alcohol.

Mindfulness is an approach that can benefit everyone no matter where they are on their journey with controlling their drinking. I’d go as far as to say it can help anyone who is looking to make life changes.

Paying attention

So, we’ve already established that being mindful is about noticing and paying attention. Being mindful about drinking is paying attention to how alcohol has affected and shaped the world around us. If you are mindful of alcohol, you’ll pay attention to where and when you do or don’t drink, who you drink and where you drink. You’ll also start to identify the other things that triggerTriggers are situations and circumstances that lead to triggering thoughts around drinking. More you to drink or, just as importantly, persuade you not to drink.

Living with intention

Remember the exercise at the top of this Pep where I asked you to redo a routine journey but change an aspect by doing something different? This was a metaphor for living with intention, i.e. consciously deciding what kind of life you want to live and making the necessary adjustments to achieve it. 

Living with intention means understanding and respecting your limits, especially if your limit is zero. From here, you can put solid plans in place that address where, when and who you socialise with and what you drink while you are there. It can also help you navigate potentially triggering situations as they crop up in the future.

Your intentions

If you have already visited, What are my motivations and intentions to change? Pep, you may have already given your intentions some thought. If you did and you recorded your intentions online, here’s a reminder of what you put.

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Well done if you have written your intentions somewhere else, like your journal.

If you are yet to record your intentions or would like to add to them, why not visit What are my motivations or intentions to change Pep for more information? Alternatively, use the button below to add an intentions.