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How to "Change Your Mind"
Well, what are we really talking about when we talk about changing your thinking? It's changing your thinking in response to things that happen around you. We respond to everything that happens around us, even when we don't consciously realize we are doing so. That's a critical concept to accept if you are going to make The One Step Program work for you. Those instances that you believe to be reactions are really unconscious responses to outside influences.
We can all agree we are responding and not reacting to some of the things that happen around us. For example, when you want to cross the street you look both ways to see if cars are coming. You analyze the number of cars, the direction from which they are coming, their distance, and their speed, and you assess your own ability to convey yourself at an acceptable speed, and then you wait until you feel it will be safe for you to begin crossing the street. When you decide that the time is right you begin to cross the street, continuing to monitor the situation until you are safely across the street and out of harm's way. You consciously think about the outside influences and you consciously respond to them in order to achieve a beneficial result, in this case your goal of safely crossing the street.
But sometimes it is not so obvious that we are responding to things that are happening around us. These are the kinds of things that we do not spend much time consciously thinking about. When we are responding to these kinds of things we are doing so in the same way that we have responded to them many times before. This cause and effect happens without us thinking much about it, so it doesn't appear to us that we are responding so much as reacting. But we are really responding; we're just doing it without consciously thinking about it.
Whether we respond consciously or not consciously to something depends on a number of factors. One of the factors is how many times we have been exposed to the thing we must respond to. One would certainly agree that the first time something happens to us we are responding and not reacting to it. But then that thing might happen again, and the next time we remember how we responded to it the last time it happened. Then the next time it happens we remember how we responded the last two times. That same thing could happen so many times that we no longer really need to consciously think about how we respond to it. That's when it begins to seem as if we are reacting and not responding.
Another factor that determines if we feel that we are responding rather than reacting is our level of fear when we are being put in a position to make a life or death decision. If we are in peril our thinking can become confused, or there may be no time to consider alternatives. On the face of it, this would certainly seem to constitute reacting. However, this is still responding rather than reacting - it is just taking place faster. We are still drawing on our knowledge and experiences to make a conscious, albeit very fast, decision.
There's another factor that can cause us to feel as if we are reacting rather than responding. That's when we are engaging in self-destructive behavior. Many of us would not want to admit that we are behaving self-destructively in a conscious way. After all, what sane, self-respecting person would do that? When it comes to drinking, we would rather believe that we have no control over our behavior. We've done that bit of mental gymnastics so often for so many years that we have convinced ourselves that we are reacting to outside influences, rather than responding to those influences and making a conscious decision to drink. We can have hundreds of outside influences - triggers - that we have responded to the same way - drinking - so often that we no longer consciously think about how we respond to them.
This thinking becomes so ingrained that many of us have a hard time accepting that there was a cause and effect relationship between what was going on just before drinking that inexorably led to a decision to begin drinking. This gets even easier to do as the years go by. The more often we respond in a certain way to a particular outside influence, the more likely it will be that we will respond the same way the next time, and the harder it becomes to respond in a different way than the way we usually do. That's one big reason why it's so hard to quit drinking.
The other big reason is that most of us begin to believe that we have no responsibility or control over our behavior, so it becomes that much more difficult to respond in a different way that will produce different results. We become locked in to our behaviors with our escape routes - our intellect and will to take control of our own lives - effectively cut off. It becomes next to impossible to change our thinking, so it becomes next to impossible to change our responses, and the drinking continues ad nauseum, or we spend the rest of our lives "white knuckling" it a day at a time.
But the good news is that the opposite can work in your favor. The more often that you intercede in the process, thinking in a different way that produces beneficial results, the easier it is the next time that same or a similar situation presents itself. That's how the drinking stops. But first you have to allow yourself to think differently. Once you have done that, it becomes easier the next time. The more often we respond in a certain way to a particular outside influence, the more likely it will be that we will respond the same way the next time, and the harder it becomes to respond in a different way than the way we usually do. The first time you decide to respond differently it will be very hard. The next time it will still be very hard, but slightly less so. Sometimes you will find the strength within yourself to respond in a way that will provide you with more beneficial results, and sometimes you won't.
During this period you will be squarely in the midst of the "Change Your Mind" process. Sometimes you will be successful in the change of thinking, and other times you won't, but there is one important change of thinking that you must allow yourself - you must be kind to yourself and not punish yourself for the times when you realize the next day that you relapsed in your thinking and behaved in a self-defeating way. It's very important to be forgiving to yourself. A relapse in your change of thinking is not proof that you are not able to stop drinking, or that you are no good, or any number of things you could tell yourself to make yourself miserable. Giving yourself grief over your mistakes is the opposite of what you need at that moment. It's more self-defeating behavior at a time when you least need it. That's the time to be good to yourself and try to analyze what the trigger was. You stand to gain tremendously by adding a new response to your list of new responses.
Then, after several months of sometimes responding differently and sometimes not, all the while treating yourself with the respect of not punishing yourself with self-deprecation, you will have a catharsis. It will wash over you like a revelation - you suddenly will reach the inescapable conclusion that you actually have some control over your behavior, you like the results of it, and you are ready to give up drinking for good. Once that happens, the old way of responding will fall like a house of cards. It will be so easy for you to respond without drinking that even you will be amazed.
