Stopping Clients Drinking



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Stopping Clients Drinking

From: "Andrew Cain"

Date: Fri Nov 23, 2001 12:42 pm

Subject: Stopping Clients Drinking

Hope that got your attention anyway.

OK brainboxes, I've got a very together guy coming round whose noticed that recently he has been unable to stop drinking after he's had a couple of beers on a Saturday night. He doesn't drink particularly during the week and doesn't set out to binge but ends up getting legless every Saturday. He would like to be able to have a couple and then be able to decide that he doesn't want any more.

I'm sure we all know some aspect of this. Why is it that after a couple of drinks it becomes very tempting to go over your natural limit?

Any cunning ideas for what to do with him?

Andy

From: "Steve Griffiths"

Date: Sat Nov 24, 2001 8:05 pm

Subject: Re: [Uncommon Knowledge] Stopping Clients Drinking

Hi Andy

Human needs stuff again, ask what he feels is being fulfilled by the drinking...or more appropriately, why he considers it a problem and what it is preventing him from achieving.

Steve

From: "Mark Tyrrell, Uncommon Knowledge"

Date: Sat Nov 24, 2001 2:12 pm

Subject: Re: [Uncommon Knowledge] Stopping Clients Drinking

I love it when people say: 'It was that last drink that did it!-no it wasn't it was all the ones that went in front of it!

Seriously though, I have tried hypnotically practising getting a person to feel as if they are having a few drinks and then very vividly rehearsing stopping at just the right time. One man said that after we had done this every time he got to four pints-if he even thought about having another he would suddenly start to visualise getting up in the morning for work and/or going home to bed without his head spinning. He had previously regularly been drinking up to 12 pints when going out 4 or 5 times a week.

From: "Andrew Cain"

Date: Wed Nov 28, 2001 9:16 am

Subject: Re: [Uncommon Knowledge] Stopping Clients Drinking

Thanks both. As Steve guessed, he was lacking any real creative input in his life -- his guitar lessons and MA had drifted by the wayside so we chatted about this and he said he would sort something out. Strangely, he claimed not to experience any ill effects from drinking -- no hangovers, vomiting, embarrassment, nothing, apart from memory loss after around 9pm and causing a small amount of irritation in his girlfriend. We talked about the point of going out drinking ("to have a good time") and when the best time was ("after around 4 pints," which was "euphoric") so amongst other things I got him practising trying to extend his stay in his euphoric zone for a long as possible instead of going straight through it into oblivion by stopping a little before he got there so he could pull into it slowly like when you're mooring a boat.

He is going out twice this weekend and his task is simply to have the most euphoric time possible!

We shall see what Monday brings.

Thanks for your advice.

Andy

From: "Dale & Marsha Stein"

Date: Sun Nov 25, 2001 7:38 am

Subject: RE: [Uncommon Knowledge] Stopping Clients Drinking

Andrew and Steve

I don't know if I am going about this in the right way so I will just give it my best shot here.

I believe I would ask the gentleman if he has ever considered the (God Forbid) idea that he may be an alcoholic and needs to get in touch with something like AA; Just because a guy doesn't drink every day does not mean he is not an alcoholic. The binge alcoholic is in the same sinking boat as all the rest of the people who can not say no to booze. Also he may be avoiding something on the weekends that he doesn't want to face up to.

Otherwise if nothing is basically troubling him, I would just suggest he go out and enjoy himself and remember to call a Taxi or designated driver to take him home when he is dun binging. .

Thanks for lending an ear.

Marsha Stein

From: "Steve Griffiths"

Date: Thu Nov 29, 2001 3:21 pm

Subject: Re: [Uncommon Knowledge] Stopping Clients Drinking

Yes Marsha whatever helps,

However just a comment on this before he does so. It is impotent to split the core identity of the client from the problem. As soon as someone starts to define themselves by their problem they may not be helping themselves in the quickest most effective way. This is not to say that AA is not a fine organisation. It no doubt offers a level of free support to people that we could not.

When a client presents to us for help they are often stuck in a pattern of repeating and damaging behaviour and they will often say 'I am a depressive and always will be' It is our job to communicate the message that 'You are a person who is experiencing feelings of depression, you can shift those feelings.'

It is the same will alcohol. He is a normal person who feels that he has become dependent on the feelings that alcohol give him because he is missing a skill or he is not having his needs met elsewhere in his life. E.g if he is lacking the skill of social confidence, but finds that after several drinks he is socially confident it may then be our job to help to feel socially confident without the alcohol.

Interestingly, if it is his need for attention that is not being met and he then finds that by defining himself as an alcoholic and going to AA these needs are suddenly met. He may have found the solution to his problem and AA will have helped him.

Alternatively he may, as you suggest, just like getting pissed and just want to justify it to himself.

Its a funny old world.

From: Alex Lincoln

Date: Fri Nov 30, 2001 12:31 am

Subject: Re: Re: [Uncommon Knowledge] Stopping Clients Drinking

I agree with Steve, how much better will he feel changing beliefs and

feelings himself, rather than having to submit to some 'higher power' in

some 12 step program. I would only mention AA in passing if you thought

the person would benefit from a quick shock in reappraising themselves.

Is it not common knowledge that rehab is for quitters?.

Alex Lincoln

From: "Dale & Marsha Stein"

Date: Fri Nov 30, 2001 8:02 am

Subject: RE: [Uncommon Knowledge] Stopping Clients Drinking

Hello Steve

Thank you for writing to me about my input. I didn't mean to be disrespectful. I am sorry if he might think that I think less of him because I used the term alcoholic. I hate labels too and you are absolutely right about not identifying with something that some people think of as a degenerate or an other wise low life being. I don't imagine that is the case at all or you wouldn't be taking any interest in trying to help the gentleman.

But after "around 4 pints?" That sounds incredibly close to alcohol poisoning. I would be thinking he may be much closer to another type of problem from which there is no return. I have had some of my friends die of drug related over doses and others that were just in an awful car accident while intoxicated. Both of them were flown by helicopters by the flight for life to two different major hospitals, one in Madison WI and the other in Milwaukee WI USA.They are about 50 miles, (sorry I don't know kilometres) in either direction from where the accident took place.

Some how by the Grace of God, they both lived. Their injuries kept one of them in a nursing home for 6 months until she could regain enough strength to learn how to walk again. The man had a broken neck but was so drunk when he was taken to the hospital that they could not get him to cooperate with the staff and had to let him check himself out after three days and he went around for almost a month with a broken neck. They still don't know how he walked into the Veterans Hospital after all that time and was still able to stand on his feet. I think he must have muscles like a horse in his neck.

Anyhow, we are still all friends and he calls himself an alcoholic very freely and I guess she does too. I don't know here all that well but I did have enough sense or whatever it is you were talking about in your message to stop myself from drinking to excess several years ago and it was as you say, without the aid of AA.

I guess I am not a firm believer in the all or nothing philosophy the AA insists on . It may be right for some people to never touch the stuff again but someone else may be fine with just backing off and taking a good look at himself before determining that never drinking again is the answer. I still have a drink now and then but nothing like what I was involved with several years ago. I was starting to scare myself and the unnatural dryness of mouth and thirst I was starting to acquire told me that I better back off NOW or there would have been hell to pay.

So I wrestled with it for about six months to a year and won.:-) Changes, I went through lots of changes. I still have liquor in the house and sometimes have a drink or two as I said but now it is more like an adult pleasure I am giving myself than a demand that was put on me to be in with some of the counterparts that are still boozing it up.

By the way, my husband and I were in the car with the two that were in the car crash the night before it happened. We had all went out to a fish fry and they had already started to drink heavily to start off the weekend. I was not feeling safe about riding home with them I should have known they would find some alcohol to drink someplace in between, I just didn't know it was going to accelerate to that degree and almost get them killed the next day.

I was just glad to get home safe and sound that night. My husband said he noticed that their driving skills had deteriorated since we had last time we went out with them.

Well, I guess I have rattled on enough about this. You can send this to the gentleman with my apologies if you like. I didn't mean to sound so brogue.

Thank you

Marsha Stein

From: Anthony Asquith

Date: Tue Dec 11, 2001 11:29 am

Subject: RE: [Uncommon Knowledge] Stopping Clients Drinking

Hi there fella, hope your doing fine.

I was contacted by a client who I had seen for dieting a little while back, this appears to be going just fine. She indicated to me that she had special psychic gifts and felt that she had had a past life existence.

Telephoning me last week, she wanted to know if I could help her with a session to allow her an opportunity to regress back. I have not had any real experience in this field, apart from revivification on the course and use of this technique with my own clients. I was wondering if you or maybe anyone else out there had any suggestions.

It was explained to me that past life memory could be the factor that memory of our forefathers are locked into DNA strands and we have therefore inherited this from previous generations. What’s your take on this?

Write soon

Anthony

From: "Andrew Cain"

Date: Tue Dec 11, 2001 11:47 am

Subject: Re: [Uncommon Knowledge] Stopping Clients Drinking

Don't believe in it myself but a guy I saw claimed to have been a wise monk in a previous life, which immediately provided all sorts of opportunities for him to consult with this 'former incarnation' to find the answers he needed.

This is my understanding: The structure of DNA gets a bit frayed over the years, which leads various kinds of aging illnesses and is what often causes cloned animals to die early. The DNA encoding, however, is exactly the same as the day you were born, which means that life experiences and memory cannot be passed down the generations in DNA.

I would pursue the line of asking what she wanted to gain from looking into her 'past life' and focus on helping her answering that need as best you can, using the clear resource she has already given you. That way you are doing the best for your patient while side-stepping questions of whether she really has or hasn't had a past life and whether you have or haven't sent her back there.

Andy

From: dave shannon

Date: Thu Dec 13, 2001 3:56 pm

Subject: re: Stopping Clients Drinking

Hi. I’m just an unqualified lurker on this list, but one of you mentioned a guy who considered a "monks" opinion on things before he would make a decision.

I am thinking that maybe, all the different therapies, religion included, can be a way for a person who is suffering, to be freed in a way. let me explain.

I think that people who are more introverted can get themselves messed up over all sorts of things, and they think that they "need help" to get themselves out of their situation (addictive behaviour eg drugs/alcohol/food) and then, there are all these options for resolution of a problem. For example, inner child therapy, religion, therapy per se, group therapy, self-help, and all the other "treatments".

These treatments may well have merit on their own, but does nobody else think that the thing that makes all of these "treatments" work is the fact that people are able to disassociate themselves from their problem, and therefore look at it objectively, and therefore begin working towards a resolution. I believe that disassociation is the key to a lot of therapies and solutions to life’s problems.

**** just airing my thoughts**** let me know what your opinions are on such things. I am contemplating writing an article on this phenomenon in the near

future.

Dave

From: "Andrew Cain"

Date: Thu Dec 13, 2001 5:27 pm

Subject: Re: [Uncommon Knowledge] re: Stopping Clients Drinking

the thing that makes all of these "treatments" work is the fact that people are able to disassociate themselves from their problem, and therefore look at it objectively, and therefore begin working towards a resolution.

Absolutely. It's one key tool at any rate.

One difference, however, would be that some of these treatments use this resource of dissociation by accident while others deliberately seek it out. There are better ways of utilizing it than saying "why don't you look at this objectively?" though. In this particular case, my client would not have found it at all meaningful if I had put it straight but because I phrased it in terms he himself used, he did. It had the added benefit of being more of a dialogue so he wouldn't just use this technique once but could call upon his dissociated understanding at any moment.

I would dispute your quotation marks around "treatments". I say if someone

feels better then that is a good treatment; if they don't, it's not.

Andy

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