I quit alcohol last year.

Wow, as I write that I realize that that is one of my biggest successes of 2018.

Now, I wasn’t an alcoholic (!), not even a very heavy drinker, but I did have a drink (G&T is a legacy from my granny) pretty much every day. I tried to quit Monday through Thursday but failed miserably – it required far too much will-power and I just couldn’t do it.

But my reasons for stopping completely were adding up.

The party line was ‘I’m now an EFT life coach as well as a musician’ and being an ‘energy’ person just didn’t jibe with drinking.

Plus, I have 3 teenage daughters. Warning them of the dangers of alcohol (and the rest) felt horribly hypocritical when I was pouring myself a beer or a glass of red each evening.

And it bothered me that I was hovering around the drinks’ table at parties – like being back at boarding school and falling on the refreshments at tennis tournaments. Not cool!

So, in March I decided to stop. And that’s when the challenges – and the eye-openers – really started.

I realized that every afternoon my mind went automatically to ‘Ooh, I wonder what I’ll drink this evening.’

Previously that would have led (a couple of hours later!) to my drink of choice – even if a part of me didn’t really want it that day.

Hmm. Who’s really in control here?

So, was it hard to stop? Well, yes and no.

I can tell you, Madrid, Spain, (where I live) is FULL of bars. And happy, relaxed people, sitting in the evening sunshine at ‘terrazas’, nibbling tapas and sipping glasses of sparkling, golden beer. I walked past them ALL!

Saying to myself, ‘Jenny, this is SO stupid. Just have a drink already. It’ll take the edge off feeling pissed off, fed up, stressed out etc.’ OMG, the temptation was enormous.

I used EFT tapping, my technique of choice, to deal with the cravings and any feelings of being hard done by. (Check out my 21 Days of Tapping to Quit a Bad Habit program - there are a few sample videos there for you to try out.)

Did I ever crack? Well, that’s a story for another time (It involves Oracle Cards, LOL!)

Suffice it to say, yesterday I was feeling super-stressed and my mind went instantly to ‘Have a beer’.

And then I thought, ‘That would be great, but I don’t drink.’