Cut Down

No, no, no, no, no! Have I repeated that enough? Cutting down is what alcohol addicts do every day of their lives. As I have just explained, drinkers have permanently to use willpower, discipline and control in order not to increase their intake.

Let me ask you a question: does dieting make food less precious or a thousand times more so? When I was drinking it was like being on an alcohol diet most of the time. When you are on a food diet you have to exercise control and when you are dependent on alcohol you have to do the same. So I was either on an alcohol diet or forgetting the diet and bingeing because I just couldn’t be bothered to take control any more.

You have been trying to cut down all your life and that is what this nonsense of going on the wagon is all about. When you made a conscious decision to cut down in the past, did you enjoy the process? Did you have fun being on the wagon or were all your thoughts focused on your next drink? What a way to wish a life away.

This brings me back to Drinkline and their amazing and effective strategies to help reduce your drinking which go something like this.

1. Change your routine. Perhaps start drinking later each time, or go out later than usual.
   
   I am writing this in disbelief. I have read the first strategy on offer to help people reduce their

drinking a few times now but just cannot credit the statement. Start drinking later? Go out later? Is this meant to be real or constructive advice? When I was drinking and arrived at the pub late, my goal was to order as many drinks as I could before the publican called ‘time.’ Several times I remember waiting to go to the pub but having to wait for others to get ready. I would be very frustrated and pace up and down looking at my watch every five minutes. It was simply because I knew we were missing valuable drinking time. If you have ever arrived in a pub late, do you drink less or do you simply line up more drinks for fear that the ‘time’ bell could strike at any moment?

2. Give yourself time between drinks and set a goal of one drink per hour.
   
   Do we really need this advice in writing? This is what cutting down is all about and what drinkers do most of the time anyway. As for this business of setting yourself a goal of one drink per hour, have they no idea how alcohol works? Have they ever drunk alcohol themselves? After your second drink, once you have acquired the taste, your conscious mind has been altered and you are in no position to stick to your one drink per hour regime. You simply say ‘sod this for a game of soldiers.’ The chances are there will be many times when you go out and have just one an hour but who times this? The very second you say that you can only have one drink an hour then you start

timing and the drink becomes forbidden fruit once again. This makes it not less precious but more so. The more you tell yourself you can’t have, the more you will want. In this situation you will be miserable trying to maintain control and feeling guilty and weak when you fail to achieve.

3. Do something while you drink such as play darts, bingo or dance.
   
   This is the same advice they give for stopping altogether . It really amazes me that people can offer advice like this and are seen as leading experts in their field. What rubbish. Go and play bingo … That’s right, go and have a game of bingo, that will help you cut down on your drinking won’t it? The last suggestion is the most pathetic by far. Dance? How the hell is dancing going to reduce your alcohol intake? When you dance you get hot and thirsty so you have a drink; drink which will not quench your thirst but cause you to feel dehydrated . So, when you dance again you will be even thirstier. They advise you to do this while you are drinking. Dance while drinking? And don’t forget the darts players’ bellies.

4. Try low alcohol and non-alcohol drinks. You may like them.
   
   Well, cover me in eggs and flour and bake me for thirty minutes, why didn’t I think of that? In fact why didn’t we all think of that? All we had to do

was drink non-alcoholic drinks. Like them? Why would you when there’s real alcohol to be had?

5. Have something to eat before you start drinking or at least drink some milk.
   
   Does this make any sense at all? How on earth is this pathetic piece of advice ever going to help you reduce your alcohol intake? After you eat something or line your stomach with milk, it doesn’t stop you drinking does it? No, quite the opposite in fact. The alcohol takes longer to reach the brain so you will feel as though you can drink as much as you like. The reality is that you drink more. I used to drink milk before going out sometimes so that I could drink more.

6. Have some days off from drinking.
   
   Isn’t this why we are asking for their advice? We want to know how to do it and still feel happy.

7. Keep a drink diary and record when you drank, how much you drank and what was the situation leading to your decision to drink.
   
   Do I even need to say a word on this one? Keep a drink diary? No chance. I would either have been too drunk to remember how many I’d had, why, what the situation was leading to the decision to drink or far too hungover to care anyway. I ask you, do you think these people were actually sober when they wrote this?

8. Sip your drink rather than gulp it down and put your glass down between sips.
   
   So sipping your drink rather than gulping it will help reduce your drinking? No, really? But just how do you stop gulping it down? That is the real question. That is why people are asking for your advice, not so that you will state the obvious.

9. If you are going to drink, stick to one session of drinking during the day.
   
   So if you drink in the morning don’t stop all day.

10. Reward yourself.
    
    OK, let’s have a drink … (Oh shit, wrong reward!) It’s no good advising a drinker to reward themselves when they still believe that alcohol is reward in itself.

The whole business of giving advice on reducing your intake is ridiculous anyway. This is because alcohol is a drug and you cannot control a drug because if you try, the need will be greater.

Think about it. If you are one of those drinkers who perhaps has a couple in the evening and a skinful at weekends, then in the past you have probably gone for days or weeks without a drink and haven’t been bothered by it but, the very second you tell yourself you can’t, you have the ‘forbidden fruit’ syndrome. The reality is that, on the whole, drinkers are strong willed and hate being told what to do by anybody else, including

themselves. So when you say they can’t drink, alcohol becomes a thousand times more desirable and immediately they feel miserable and deprived, even if they would normally find it easy enough to abstain for a few days. The reason you now find it difficult is because you have told yourself that you can’t.

Get this very clear in your mind. When you stop drinking you can drink whenever you wish, just as I can whenever I wish. The difference is that I just don’t have any desire ever to drink again. You can, after all, take heroin whenever you wish. Nobody is stopping you, so why don’t you? It’s because you don’t want to, that’s why. You can do whatever you want. The choice is yours. You no longer have a choice if you do have a drink as alcohol removes your freedom of choice. All drugs do. You must understand that alcohol is not a hobby or a habit and it is certainly not a genuine pleasure. It is drug addiction; nothing more, nothing less.

Remember that the addiction is only psychological so if you tell yourself that you can’t drink you will feel deprived and miserable. The real question should be, ‘I can have a drink but what on earth would be the point? What would it do for me?’ The answer will be crystal clear – nothing. There is just no point to drinking. Just saying the word ‘can’t’ or believing that you can’t would be the only thing that could make it remotely difficult for you to stop drinking or remain free. Remember CAN’T simply means Constant And Never-ending Torture so why put yourself through that?

Trying to reduce your intake simply means not allowing yourself to drink when you want to and having consciously to exercise even more control than before. The longer you suffer any aggravation, the more attractive it will appear when you eventually drink again. If you are banging your head against a brick wall, the longer you do it, the more pleasure you will get when you stop. But it’s not pleasure; it’s simply the end of an aggravation . Why bang your head against the wall in the first place? Why drink? Why be miserable if you are not drinking? By cutting down you do not stop the drinking but consolidate the idea that alcohol is even more precious than you already thought. That makes you even more hooked than you were as the hook is mental, not physical.

A while ago, radio and TV presenter Chris Evans talked about alcohol on his old morning radio show which was not unusual as he seemed to be obsessed with the stuff. The reality is that he was so hooked that there was not one show I listened to when he didn’t mention the drug at least once. On one occasion he was talking about a new book called something like How to Drink Without Getting Drunk. According to the book, the way to avoid getting drunk at a dinner party was this: when you first want a sip of wine, don’t. Just bring the glass to your mouth and, instead of taking a sip, you should ‘nose it.’ The next time you want a drink, take a sip of water instead of the wine and only the third time should you actually take a sip. After that you repeat the whole process over again. By doing this you can apparently drink

without getting drunk. Oh, what fun. This is cutting down on a supreme level, an intolerable level, a pathetic level as, not only are you thinking about not drinking, you have to be engaged with a routine that ensures you don’t forget about it for a moment. What worries me is that the people who give this sort of advice are taken seriously.

Let’s get one thing clear. Cutting down is not in any way a stepping stone to quitting. Like everything else when it comes to alcohol, it does the complete opposite. We are dealing with a drug that cannot be controlled and that is why, in order to remain free for ever, we should never fall for …