Originally Posted by
StevenSlate 
But it says you can change your preference for substance use, and end up preferring abstinence, and carry that out easily once you've realized it offers you more happiness than substance use. It offers a benefits to benefits analysis as means to figure out if abstinence is for you. It also has 4 chapters questioning our culture's view of drugs as all-purpose magical elixirs. The purpose of that is to de-romanticize substances. Part of why we have exaggerated desires for substances is because we've exaggerated their powers/benefits. When you know the truth, that there's little or nothing to lose by giving them up, then giving them up begins to look less like a loss, and more like a gain.
This has been really useful. We hear so much that there is no pleasure that really matches substance use - I've just been reading an article that says that the "runners high" is just a pale imitation of the buzz you get from drugs or drink.
I realise that I've still been unquestioning believing this and so still romanticising drink . And I guess while I still believe that only drink can make me
really happy, even though this belief is largely unconscious or hidden, I'm not going to be able to convincingly change my beliefs and see that I'd be happier changing my drinking habit.