NoBones

Hi, I visit this forum a lot but rarely post.

I’ve been reading a lot and thinking about will power and free will, and why people like us find it so damn hard to quit.

I put this idea to you.

Individuals (all people) have very little free will and very little will power…if any.

There is a lot to this subject, but I want to keep it relevant to our situation as drinkers.

Everybody knows about nurture and nature shaping an individual. Your genetics and the environment you live in create who you are.

I was born in Australia to my parents and became what I am today. If I were born in China to the same parents, I would be a very different person in many ways, due to the environment.

By environment, I don’t just mean the physical space around you, I mean the people you see and interact with, your family, your job, the books you read, the videos and movies you watch etc.

And even now, If I were to move to another country or join the Army or something, with a drastically different environment to the one that I’m used to, I would change…I may not feel different, but others from my old world would definitely notice the change.

The environment changes us.

To change yourself you MUST change your environment.

You hear all the success stories in this forum, every successful person has changed their environment to succeed. They read the books and watched the videos (not just about quitting the drink but about changing their lives, learning about who they are etc), they ditched their old drinking friends, they stopped visiting pubs and going to parties, they took alternative routes to avoid passing the bottle shops, they joined support groups, they limited their access to money and credit for essentials only and much more.

Now, I’m not saying that it’s as easy as that, you definitely have to do a lot of internal work too, you have to change the way you see yourself and your life. But I can promise you that if you do not change your environment you will never be able to quit.