Curiosity vs. Craving

If you want not only to stop drinking but also to make sure you remain alcohol free, please make sure you are wide awake when you read this chapter. Knowing the difference between curiosity and craving is perhaps the most important aspect of staying free.

Before we started drinking alcohol we didn’t need it. Then the conditioning crept in slowly but surely until we felt as though something was lacking. Our friends were trying it, our parents did it and our role models were drinking, so we thought we were missing out. We weren’t sure what it was but we became curious and wanted to try some. This would not have been as a result of an overwhelming craving as, if we had been told at this point that there would be no alcohol at the next party, it wouldn’t have bothered us. We did not drink and hadn’t yet created a craving for it or a fear that life would not be enjoyable without alcohol. The craving only begins when you think you are missing out on a genuine pleasure.

I wanted a drink before I even started drinking, that is why I had one. It was not because I was a drinker as I had never had a drink in my life and it had nothing to do with any alcohol circulating in my body. My desire was simply due to the massive brainwashing that I had always experienced which made me curious about trying it.

The conditioning is still out there when you stop but the big difference will be that you will know it’s all rubbish. You are one of the few people who will see it for what it actually is, which will give you a sense of uniqueness, self-confidence and joy. After finishing this book, you will be better prepared than the few who have never been hooked. The trap is out there and anyone can fall into it at any time. Even people who have never drunk believe that alcohol relieves stress and makes people happy. They believe some of the brainwashing but take the attitude: ‘What I’ve never had I won’t miss and I don’t want the bad side, thank you.’ You should now realise that alcohol does nothing, not just for you but for anybody. The drug will never change, only your perception can change, which is why it is so important to understand what got you hooked in the first place. That way, you can easily avoid it in the future. The aim of this book is not just to help you stop drinking easily but to show you just how easy it is to remain free for the rest of your life.

I was curious enough to want to try the drug ecstasy in the eighties. Everyone was doing it, or so it seemed. The people taking the drug were always trying to sell it. I don’t mean sell it for financial gain but sell the effects of the drug. Now I am relieved that I never fell into that trap. I never took the drug but I did come close and this was out of curiosity not craving. There is a big difference . A craving is nothing more than an overriding desire for something. In other words, if you always see alcohol for what it is and not as other drinkers or the

alcohol industry want you to see it, then you will never crave it again. You can’t crave disease and slavery. As I have mentioned, I never took ecstasy but I had the choice, just as you have the choice of taking heroin if you wish. Had I tried it and the illusory effects of the drug had compounded the brainwashing, the curiosity would have turned into craving. I would have been hooked right then and my freedom of choice would also have evaporated. There are many people who feel they cannot go out without taking one, two, three or more ecstasy tablets. Can you imagine being so dependent on a drug that you feel you cannot enjoy yourself without it? As a drinker you do precisely that.

To ensure your total freedom for life, you must understand that you may be curious again. This curiosity is not there because you used to drink. It is not a craving , nor is it a genuine desire to drink; it is simply an ‘action signal.’ It is telling you to take action, to retune yourself. It is a signal to remind yourself of the nature of brainwashing and just how powerful it can be so you remember how wonderful it is to be free from the slavery of drug addiction and go on rejoicing in your freedom for the rest of your life. After you are totally free and have been for a while, you sometimes forget all about drinking so it is good to have these occasional moments to remind you of your freedom so you can retune and see alcohol addicts as they are.

All the time our bodies are being polluted by traffic, dust, dirt, chemicals in what we eat and many other external sources. The body, being the ultimate survival

machine, will do everything in its power to rid itself of these pollutants to improve the quality and length of your life. Our minds are also polluted and it is our job to rid ourselves of those toxins too. The alcohol industry is a drug industry that has no morals and does not give a hoot about the quality of our lives. Like all drug pushers they are out to make money and will use any method possible to make people dependent on their drug. They know that if you hit their button a few times, you will become dependent.

The industry loses over a million customers a year worldwide and those are just the ones who die so they have to recruit as many new ones as possible. The first fix of any drug is free which is why they will often sponsor student bashes. The people handing out free bottles of beer are young and in their prime. They deliberately choose people who look great to sell their drug, not someone who has just had their leg removed because of bad circulation because of their fix. They do not choose an overweight middle aged man with puffy, red cheeks and an inflated, veined nose, who has lost family, house and job because of alcohol. You can sell an illusion and image but not the reality. You will soon find that, just as your body automatically rids itself of pollutants, your mind will automatically filter any brainwashing that tries to creep back in.

When you stop drinking, the facts will never change but their relevance to you changes completely because you have stopped. You don’t worry about your health any longer because you feel a thousand times better. You

are not concerned about the money you were spending on the drug and you aren’t worried about being a slave to or being controlled by something. In other words you forget why you stopped in the first place, how bad you felt and you forget the truth that lies behind the drug. This is when you should remind yourself of the truth, feel glad because you know what is behind the confidence trick and realise that the drinkers are the ones missing out.

Will this pose any problem? Is this simply a way to fight a genuine desire to drink? Will this happen all the time? Is this just like ‘recovery’? No, far from it. In reality, these moments go as quickly as they come, if they come at all. This is not a genuine desire to drink at all. To be honest, I am only putting this in the book to make certain you understand the trap fully so, should anything like that arise, you don’t question it or worry about it. You will simply recognise it as a reality check or action signal and once again rejoice in your freedom from that drug.

There are people in really bad relationships, some of whom have been physically and mentally abused for years, and are locked in that relationship through fear. One day they reach the end of their tether and finally pluck up the courage to break free. Once free they might feel a slight emptiness or feel lonely one evening and make the big mistake of forgetting what life was really like by reminiscing about the good times. They then pick up the phone to their ex and, wham, they are back exactly where they started. They can see clearly they are

trapped again but now find it even harder to get out. With alcohol, you should remember that there were never any good times. You were happy because of the company, the dancing, the party, the holiday, Christmas or the fact that it was your birthday, not because you were drinking. It was one big illusion designed to keep you trapped.

If you are bored one day it doesn’t mean you are low on alcohol. If you do get stressed about something after you stop, the cause of this problem is not an alcohol deficiency. Life is not always a bed of roses whether or not you drink but, because you will be physically and mentally so much stronger, the highs will be much higher and the lows will be nowhere near as low as they were before you stopped.

By this stage in the book you should clearly see that there is absolutely nothing to give up and that you are making no sacrifice at all by quitting alcohol. You now know that the craving was purely psychological and never physical. You also realise that it is the poor drinker who will be deprived and missing out, not you. You know for certain that all traces of alcohol leave the body within three to ten days and, if you have really opened your mind, you will realise that there is no such thing as an alcoholic and that each drinker is hooked like everybody else. Now that you know all this, when exactly is the best time to finally call …