All or nothing

Moderation is something which I have been thinking about a lot recently, particularly now that I have stopped drinking completely.

For years I have sought to be the type of person who could 'moderate' - able to have a few glasses of wine with friends over a meal and not been the one who always suggested getting another bottle. The idea of moderation would allow me to have just one drink with work colleagues, it would mean that I didn't need to finish the entire bottle of wine when at home by myself. It would mean that I would able to go days, weeks even without a drink and crucially this would be easy for me.

Unfortunately, that sort of moderation always eluded me because for moderation to be sustainable it has to be effortless. If your moderation takes effort then you are essentially relying on willpower which invariably, at some point, breaks.So this is why, for me, giving up alcohol completely has been the only way to be able to be effortlessly in control. I enjoyed drinking, ergo I drank. It was quite a sensible approach really, if it wasn't for the many negative consequences.

When I stopped drinking, I did just that, I stopped. I recognised that drinking didn't provide any of the perceived benefits that I thought it did - it didn't make me happy, it didn't help me unwind nor did it cheer me up. It wasn't necessary to good evenings out, nor did it keep me company on quiet evenings in. These were all illusions that I had bought into, and in fact my life without alcohol has been happier and calmer since I stopped drinking.

So giving up was easy, because I wasn't missing anything anyway. But, if I carried on drinking, that would be an acknowledgment that wine was in fact a rather lovely pastime which I gained some sort of benefit from. Now if that was the case I can guarantee that there would be no moderation!

Now, if only the same could be said about food. And this is one of the reasons why my behaviour with food is so incredibly difficult to manage - I struggle, really struggle to moderate. But food is integral to life so I can't just cut it out completely. I have to acknowledge that food is A GOOD THING. My relationship with food however is not good, not good at all.

Until I understand why I behave in certain ways around food and why I can't moderate; until I have identified what it is that I am gaining emotionally from food then I will never have a healthy relationship with it. Sometimes I think it would be so much easier if I could just cut out all food entirely.

If you want to read some more thoughts about moderation, SoberMummy has written some really good posts about it.



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