Cecillia, you’re breaking my heart…

Are you singing along

No? Just me?

Ok, let’s move on then!

Today I wanted to tell you about a different Cecilia. And this Cecilia definitely didn’t break my heart. Quite the opposite in fact…

Cecilia grew up in Stockholm, Sweden and made a brave decision to move alone to Luxembourg after university.?

Having developed a fondness for alcohol during her studies, Cecilia continued to drink in Luxembourg, where it’s perfectly normal to drink every day.?

For a time, life was going well, but following a divorce and with no family support, Cecillia found herself raising three young kids solo while managing a stressful career.?

Aware of her increasing reliance on alcohol, she managed to cut back on her own.?

However, after the 2020 lockdown, her kids were older, her career was still stressful, and being single was lonely. Unhealthy drinking habits crept back in, and Cecillia realised she needed to make a change to her relationship with alcohol. But despite her best efforts, she was struggling to completely quit.

She believed that complete abstinence was the key, and it seemed as good as impossible.

Because that’s the only option…

… You just have to cut it out completely; there’s no other way, right?

(Wrong, but I’ll get to that.)

Then, call it fate, or coincidence or whatever you like, she received an email from us, and she knew it was the answer.

That email led her to a call, which led her to sign up for our Complete Control programme. And during those 8 weeks, we gave Cecilia everything she needed to fully regain control of her relationship with alcohol.

I won’t go into details here of exactly what that looks like, but here’s what Cecilia had to say:

“It’s completely life-changing for me. It’s not about completely quitting drinking alcohol, maybe you can have a drink every now and then, but I have decided for the moment that I won’t drink. Because I don’t feel like it.”

And that for me is what it’s all about.

Abstinence isn’t the solution in the long term.

Because abstinence is about avoidance, and you don’t solve a problem by sticking your head in the sand. That just leaves you worrying about whether it’s going to come back and bite you on the a**.?

A much healthier approach is to figure out the root causes of your unhealthy drinking patterns, and deal with them. That’s when you stop needing alcohol at all, when you get to a place where you can take it or leave it, because it just doesn’t matter any more. And that’s precisely what we can help you do.

So what about you?

Are you telling yourself a story about your relationship with alcohol that makes you believe you’ll never beat it?

In my experience, when it comes to people struggling with alcohol consumption issues, they fall into one of two camps:

1. Those who seize the day. They may not know exactly how to make it happen, but they start learning or they figure it out. “I'm not ready,” or “It isn’t the right time,” are not phrases in their vocabulary. They’re ready for change and believe in investing to shorten the learning curve.
2. Let’s call these people the ‘still’ people. Still struggling with alcohol, still in denial, still blaming their situation on other things. “I need alcohol to relax and have fun,” or “My friends will think I’m boring if I don’t drink.” Any evidence of people who have successfully rewritten unhelpful drinking habits is seen as a fluke or something that doesn’t apply to them. They resist getting help or learning from those who have had success, so they remain stuck in a situation they don’t want to be in.

So be honest with yourself. Which of those do you find yourself in right now?

If you’re with the ‘still’ people, just take a second to think about what would happen if you let go of those thoughts and allowed yourself to be open to new ideas, just like Cecilia did. If you became someone who seized the day.

Because if you can do that, it will open up a whole new world.