How to Relax and Destress Without Drinking Alcohol

I used to be your typical Irish drinker. As an alcohol user for over 30 years, I always believed that alcohol was a part of my identity, my culture, and my life. Like so many others, I regarded my own lack of control to be at the root of my alcohol problems. After several unsuccessful attempts at moderation, I came to the conclusion that the trouble lay within myself, not the alcohol, and that I was an alcoholic. Life was not looking too good. My health was suffering, the hangovers were increasing in duration and intensity, I was unfit, overweight, and wasting away in general.

But the most of my pain came from realizing that my drinking was making me a terrible role model for my teenage son. Everything else I could handle, leading my son down the same destructive path that I had taken was very difficult to live with. With that devastating realization, my decision to stop was immediate and permanent.

My message, and that of my website - alcoholmastery.com, is straightforward: quitting alcohol is simple, you just don't put any more alcohol into your mouth. For most people, the difficulty in quitting is not in the withdrawal, the recovery, or the addiction. The difficulty is in how to live an alcohol free life. How do you fill the behavioral vacuum that drinking alcohol used to fill? How do you celebrate without raising the toast or getting drunk? How do you find enjoyment without using alcohol? How do you refrain from drinking while everyone else is devouring the stuff? How can you ever be happy as a non-alcohol-user?

It's not as difficult as you might imagine. You weren't born with the alcohol thirst, you’ve learned it. The secret to successfully quitting alcohol is as simple as learning a few new skills, learning more desirable ways of thinking and dealing with your life. Step by step, and day by day, you re-engineer the changes for a happy, healthy, and fulfilled life.

My style of teaching is to break down complex ideas into a no-nonsense, straight talking, and down to earth approach. My up-front coaching style is developed around breaking down your alcohol perceptions, rethinking your relationship with alcohol and its use within our society. I can’t promise you an easy ride, but I will deliver genuine step by step strategies that you can implement in your life right now.

You can find my weekly self-help videos, shot while hiking through the hills of Alicante, Spain, at the website Alcohol Mastery. I also host the weekly Alcohol Mastery Podcast.