‘OK, Just the One’

This is, without doubt, one of the most important chapters in the book. To ensure that you have lifelong success, you should clearly understand that there is no such thing as just one drink.

What got us all hooked in the first place? It was the thought of trying just one that got us started. This is where most people who stop drinking make a big mistake . They believe there is no such thing as just one drink which is what makes them feel deprived. The reality is that there is no such thing as just one drink for anybody. The reason for this has nothing whatsoever to do with your genetic make-up, character or personality; it is because alcohol is a drug and, as such, it plays with your mind. If you believe that you will benefit from one drink then you will also think that there must be benefit in a million. There is no such thing as the ‘just one’ fix of heroin for you either. Why is that? Is it because of your personality or due to your genetic make-up? Is it the nature of the drug? Again, you really don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work it out.

Sometimes drinkers say to me, ‘What’s wrong with you, you mean to say you can’t have just one?’ I reply honestly , ‘Yes of course I can, but I don’t want to.’ I could always turn the tables and say, ‘What’s wrong with you, you mean to say you can’t have just one?’ After all, there is no such thing as one drink for anyone, especially

drinkers. I would never do that as I know there is nothing wrong with them. It is the drug that is the problem.

This point must be made very clear. Drinking starts a chain reaction that will last for the rest of your life unless you break it. It is a disease which gets progressively worse, unless you cure it. Cured means making absolutely certain that, whatever happens, you never have ‘just the one.’ Make sure that you never, ever recreate the disease because the reason why you will be hooked immediately with just one drink is not because alcohol is physically addictive. If it were, you would be hooked simply after having a piece of chicken in white wine sauce. It is not because the physical withdrawal from that one drink is so awful; it is because, if you view just one drink with genuine pleasure, you will see genuine pleasure in thousands.

About seven or eight months after gaining my freedom I was in a bar while on holiday. I had a glass of sparkling mineral water and my friend had a glass of wine. We were playing pool and, as she was taking her shot, I picked up what I thought was my water but was in fact her wine. It tasted disgusting just like that very first drink. So why didn’t I get hooked again although I had taken a gulp of her wine? It is because there was not one part of me that actually wanted to. It was just a simple mistake and at no time did I ever want it. In fact, I couldn’t actually believe just how revolting it tasted after all that time. Even though it tasted awful, if I had thought for one second that I would get some kind of pleasure from it, I would have been hooked again. Taste

has nothing to do with it as your first drink is disgusting but did that stop you drinking? Of course it didn’t. We are dealing with a drug addiction here, so wake up and see it for what it is, not just for now but for the rest of your life. So whenever you think about alcohol, see it for what it actually is and don’t respond to the advertising and brainwashing funded by billions of pounds from the industry. It’s time to regain control and advertise the reality in your own mind.

Alcohol does nothing for you, so the only time you would even contemplate having just the one is if you thought you were missing out on a genuine pleasure. If I have to repeat this point a million times and scream it from the rooftops I will. When you stop drinking you are giving up absolutely …

NOTHING!

Oh sorry, apart from the headaches, the hangovers, the lethargy, the bad breath, the beer gut, the arguments, the violence, being overemotional, regretting things you have done but can’t remember doing, getting things out of proportion, putting things off all the time, the stress, the overdraft, the taxis, the guilt, the lies, the deceit, the brewer’s droop, the mood swings, the breakdown of the immune system, the lack of resistance to all kinds of diseases, the destruction of brain cells, not to mention the excess weight. Oh, I nearly forgot, what you will be giving up most of all is …

THE DAILY MENTAL AND PHYSICAL SLAVERY OF BEING A DRUG ADDICT.

What you would be giving up is one of the worst diseases you will ever suffer from, being controlled and dictated to by a drug, frequently not being yourself and, last but by no means least, giving up kebabs. After all, you would never eat them sober, would you?

So now you can see that there is nothing to give up and you will feel no sense of sacrifice whatsoever. If you believe that now, why would you ever get uptight or miserable without alcohol and what power on earth could ever get you to convince yourself that you need just that one more? The answer is the brainwashing that got you hooked in the first place. In order to have lifelong success and to ensure you are never fooled into having the one, you need to understand about …