newme11

I read the book a few years ago and although it all made sense to me I didn't manage to quit drinking.
I have just finished re-reading it and am (as of tonight) quitting alcohol forever (wahoo!).
Just wondered if others have read/followed his book and your thoughts on his approach

Thank you x

Lizajane

I completely forgot about this book. I think the one take away I got from it was the "chasing the ghost" understanding of why we drink. Understanding that there is a certain euphoria that we get at the start of drinking alcohol and it feels great. We reach to the next drinks to get that feeling again and again. We get increasingly drunk and will never get to that euphoria again. I forget all else that goes with it. That concept has helped me stop when I was drinking. Recognize that I have already hit and gone past the HIGH of drinking and now I am just going to get drunk, messy, tired and depressed. Depending on your alcoholic stage or genetics, that knowledge will be of little help. It helped me analyze my drinking afterwards and view it as an activity that will never fulfill me. It just creates a need for more of the high which is essentially unattainable. It was written after his easy way to quit smoking. Not everything in the two addictions are similar, but there are some things common. The addictive behavior creating a need for more addictive behavior. An understanding of how we get addicted is helpful, particularly if you feel like you are weak or immoral for being addicted. It explains the WHY...but I don't remember it being a good guide on HOW you change. Understanding it rationally helps a few I think, but not many.

Dee74

One thing I took away from it was to think about what I wanted that drink to do for me.

I had to ask myself if that was a realistic expectation, and then ask myself if there were other healthier ways to get what I wanted.

I found that a powerful tool in the early days.

D

Hevyn

Hi newme. I always meant to read it, but haven't yet.
Congrats on your wise decision to quit forever. We know you can.

lessgravity

Great tool, another one I have revisited.

newme11

I have been 2 nights without alcohol and am not sure how it's going. The first day I was going out of my mind with the craving. Yesterday I was thinking about my usual drinking time all day and was nervous and on edge about it rolling around but when it arrived I was absolutely fine, barely any alcohol related thoughts. Today I have been depressed, 'meh, what's the point', not wanting anything, not not wanting anything, until an hour ago when I suddenly inexplicably perked up. Struggling majorly with the thought of a weekend without beer. So I guess the book didn't work as it was supposed to remove the craving.

Radix

It's hard to remove the craving. However, a craving is just a negative emotion, and negative emotions pass with time. They are not permanent. A craving will respond to the same kinds of things that other negative emotions respond to, like distraction, for example. My two cents! :-)

Porcetta

What are the one or two main take homes out of the book?

Dee74

I'm not sure the book is meant to help with cravings apart from the general sense that it presents alcohol as a poison and something not to be desired.

Remember the pitcher plant analogy?

D

Kdon853

It’s on my last st, do want to read it

Dee74

I read it after I got sober but I think its worth it

D

Calmerwaters

That is a very good point, Dee.

It's proven that alcohol actually tricks our brain into thinking it's going to give us so much more than it actually delivers (reference below). Once I realised I was chasing my tail drinking - and never going to achieve this amazing feeling that doesn't exist, it helped me to surrender to the fact that life has many more attainable joys to it than drinking.
(Research - Grant, BF and Dawson, DA. Journal of Substance Abuse 9:103-110, 1997)

tealily

NewMe,

How are you doing?
I recognize the feelings you are having. Remind yourself they are only feelings. And actually are not true feelings but "lies" the addiction is telling you. I think the Alan Carr book goes into that as well.

To your "meh, what's the point".. Is it really true that this precious, fragile, beautiful life we've been given really has "no point" without alcohol in it?

If you think about it logically, you KNOW that's ridiculous, makes no sense, can't be right. It's the addiction trying to get you to believe it, give in, say what the h#ll, have a drink, then a whole bottle, and start all over again down the drinking road.

Is it really true that a weekend without beer is a waste, a bore, nothing? Think of your life before alcohol: I'm sure you did many amazing things and adventures and had loving relationships without beer being your life's main purpose, meaning and entertainment. You deserve better and more.

I remember that breaking down the lies with Logic, suggested by the Carr book too I think, helped me. Think these random addictive voice thoughts through; challenge them. Be a devil's advocate. You are able to fight it. You have the power, not the alcohol.

Down to a nitty gritty tip: Time the cravings. You'll find they last shorter than you think. They do pass. And every time they do, you get stronger.

Gottalife

Logic is great stuff, but how well does it work for the alcoholic.

I found myself standing on the steps of the courthouse at 2 in the afternoon. I had just be remanded for reports, prior to sentencing. That morning I had been arrested at work for something I did when drunk about six months previously.

It was scary, standing in front of the judge. I knew I was in deep trouble, and like many occasions before, booze was at the bottom of it. Logic says never drink again. It says go back to work, you are going to need your job.

Alcoholic mind spots the bar across the street, and thinks "Ill just have a couple. It has been a bad day I could do with cheering up " Logical thoughts? Nowhere to be seen. Just minutes after a frightening and humiliating experience, all useful memory of it has completely gone.

Result, arrested again that night. Insanely drunk, fighting police. Total despair - "how the heck did this happen. This was the furthest thing from my mind when I took that first drink. I just wanted to have a good time."

Dee74

To be fair, altho I got a lot out of it, it's not written specifically for the alcoholic, more the general public.

As I said earlier, I read it about a month or 6 weeks after I quit, and by that stage I was open and amenable to Carr's logic

D

Tang

This book is in a similar vein as Jason Vale (quit drinking easily) though Carr was the original.. He vilifies alcohol and depicts it in almost a personified way. Both good books.

J50

It's definitely a good read, and should be read more than once. As has been said, it's the original and a lot of the books written after it have put their spin on his information.

For me it is more of a long term approach.

It appeals to your rational or conscious mind, to change the way you look at alcohol.

As you change those conscious thoughts they will eventually make their way to your subconscious mind, which forms our belief system.

As Wayne Dyer says, "when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

It's not a quick fix, or cure all.

DangerZone

Great book. Very interesting and unique way to looking at quitting alcohol. Definitely worth a read for anyone trying to quit.