The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

– Oscar Wilde

A while back I read a book called Real-Time Relationships, by Stefan Molyneux. It’s a book about creating relationships that are healthy, enjoyable, loving, and virtuous. The author hosts a philosophy podcast called Freedomain Radio, which deals with everything from overcoming procrastination and how to be a good parent, to the ethics of taxation and philosophical analyses of current events.

This article is not a review of the book, so I’ll avoid any comments on its read-worthiness as a whole. But I would like to share with you an extract that forever changed the way I look at things. It’s a quote from the book that concisely summarizes what the whole thing is about:

The Real-Time Relationship (RTR) is based on two core principles, designed to liberate both you and others in your communication with each other:

1. Thoughts precede emotions.
2. Honesty requires that we communicate our thoughts and feelings, not our conclusions.

Molyneux’s point is that so much of the negative communication in relationships arises because we treat feelings as facts, and tend to skip over the thoughts that underly those feelings. This results in arguments that are, in essence, based on mythology.

So let’s say one day Alice says to her husband Bob:

You’re so lazy! You never help around the house!

This is an example of communicating a conclusion — that Bob is lazy — rather than communicating just her thoughts and feelings. It is not necessarily true that Bob is lazy. Perhaps he doesn’t help clean up after dinner because he assumes that, since he cooked dinner, the cleaning task should naturally fall to Alice. Or maybe he left washing the dishes to Alice because he did the vacuuming earlier in the day.

Alice calling Bob “lazy” bypasses these possibilities. It’s a conclusion derived from anger, rather than an honest deployment of what she’s experiencing on the inside. A more sincere approach would be for her to tell Bob that she feels frustrated because he left her to do the dishes, which makes her feel disrespected, makes her think that Bob doesn’t care, and so on.

Replacing the name-calling with an accurate testimony of what it made her feel opens the door for Bob to address those feelings. On the one hand, it might make Bob realize that he really is lazy, and if he cares about his partner he better work on that. On the other hand, he has a chance to clarify a misunderstanding. He could talk to Alice about how he assumed that since he cooked dinner, he thought it was okay if he left the clean up to her.

Whether that division of labour is something they can both accept is a separate issue. The point is that communicating with integrity requires describing your thoughts and feelings, not rushing to conclusions about what’s really going on.

RTR’ing Yourself

In my experience, the Real-Time Relationship is an excellent model not only for productive communication between two people, but also for communicating with yourself. In particular, it’s a powerful tool for dealing with negative emotions.

Let’s revisit those two core principles of the RTR, to see how they apply to dealing with one’s own negativity:

1. Thoughts precede emotions. Emotions, in and of themselves, tell you nothing about the facts of reality. Feeling hopeless about your chances of meeting an amazing girl does not actually mean that you have no hope of meeting an amazing girl. And just because losing that game damaged your confidence so much that you feel like you’ll never win again does not mean you actually will never win again.
2. Honesty requires that we communicate our thoughts and feelings, not our conclusions. The best way to deal with negative emotions — which are often negative conclusions we’ve come to about ourselves — is to examine the thoughts and feelings behind them.

For example, I have always had a fear of losing. As a chess player during my teenage years, this fear surfaced in the form of offering draws to higher rated players when I had a clearly better position. Other times it just kept me out of tournaments altogether: by not playing, I guaranteed not losing.

Recently that fear resurfaced when I started playing go (a board game invented in China 4,000 years ago.) One particular loss a few weeks ago was particularly hard to swallow. I was a solid 50 points ahead in the game, and my opponent was ready to resign. But my follow through was so terrible that he ended up beating me by about 50 points instead.

I don’t mind when I lose because my opponent just outplayed me, but I get really frustrated when I outplay myself. And after this particular loss, my confidence was deeply shaken: How the hell could I play so badly? Why did I try to get so fancy? It’s impossible to blow a lead that big. If anything I had to congratulate myself for being able to fail so spectacularly.

And on it went, to the point that I wondered whether I should just quit playing altogether. What was the point of all the studying I was doing if I was just going to blow games like that? How would I regain my confidence to actually win a won position? Would I ever even win another game again?

Challenging Negative Thoughts

When you start thinking negative thoughts like this, don’t try to ignore them. If you’ve ever tried to repress negative feelings you know that it just doesn’t work. If anything, it amplifies them. Further, trying to stamp out bad feelings gives you no actionable way out of that state. There are underlying premises, beliefs, and assumptions about you and the world around you that have led you to feeling that way, and those need to be addressed.

So the way out of negative emotional loops is not to ignore them, subdue them, or even “just let them be there”, but to challenge them. Confront the negative self-talk directly and identify exactly why you feel that way. Extract the thoughts that precede the emotions.

Returning to my go example, I knew I loved the game and I had no intention of actually giving it up, so I forced myself to figure out how to better handle major upsets like the one I’d just endured. I did that by taking a close look at the thoughts that were going through my head. Here are some examples:

• How could I play so badly? Easy: by making mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. When a doctor makes a mistake, he might kill someone and/or get sued. When a computer programmer makes a mistake, it might lead to a huge security flaw in his software. When an investor makes a mistake, she might lose a few million bucks. And when a go player makes a mistake, he loses a game of go.
• How could I lose such a won position? Because deserving to win is not the same as winning. And by the way, this probably won’t be the last time you blow such a big lead. This is more like “the first major screw up of the rest of your (go playing) life.” But the more it happens, the better you’ll learn to deal with it.
• Will I ever win again? Erm, seriously? Do you really think that if you play another five or ten thousand games you’re going to lose all of them? Do you really think that if you spend a couple hours a day studying and playing go, and constantly seek out opportunities to learn from stronger players, that you’re going to be the same strength in five years from now that you are today? Not. Likely.

The more I cranked up the resolution on my thoughts, the more I realized how silly they were. Sure, I still fear losing and I still hate blowing won positions, but challenging those feelings and forcing myself to reveal the thinking behind them has greatly diminished their control over my actions. And they no longer threaten my continued enjoyment of the game.

I’ve intentionally given a rather tame example here of course, but I use these same principles to confront all kinds of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I have the same kinds of worries about my writing, my consulting work, my health, my relationships, etc., and I’ve found this process to be extremely helpful for putting things in perspective.

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

– Erica Jong

Every so often, somebody writes me an email or a comment for which a simple reply would be inadequate, and which I feel is too important to ignore. It’s not just that they’ve got a serious problem and they’re trying everything they can think of to deal with it. It’s that, on some level, they’re speaking for all of us.

While I imagine that relatively few fans of my writing have had serious problems with alcohol, like the following reader does, many of you will have waded through a similar darkness at some point in your life.

Whether you’re gripped by liquid demons, can’t get laid to save your life, hate your job more than anything else on earth, or feel incredibly isolated from the world and just can’t seem to make friends, the underlying agony has a familiar weight and texture. The causes may be different but the symptoms are the same: depression, despair, hopelessness, and nothing can seem snap you out of it.

Welcome to Rock Bottom. Population: Far too many.

The Question

hi all im 39 and an alcoholic im not proud of it but alcohol has come part of my life i drink 8 cans every night even more on weekends, ive had councelling before but that never worked i lost my driving license through drink ive just completed a drink drive rehab course and i get my license back on my 40th birthday, ive been to my doctors and asked for help he said you need counselling i told him that doesnt work for me he refused to give me antabuse im just waiting for my liver test results to come back i know my liver will be damaged but even my own doctor wont help me,when i try to stop drinking i get so stressed and moody i take it out on everyone, all i want is someone to help me.. its my daughters 3rd birthday today ive been awake since 3 am and ive decided im gonna try again just for her and her sister.. any advice from anyone would be helpful

– kev, in reply to How to Quit Drinking Alcohol

My Thoughts

Again, I hope that even those who have a serious problem that has nothing to do with alcohol will see some relationships here. Misery comes in many flavours, and the same general ideas for digging yourself out of a rut can apply to a wide variety of pain.

@kev:

First, thanks for writing in. It takes balls to own up to your shortcomings. I’m glad you did. You’re obviously serious about looking for help, and even willing to go public with it by asking the 30 sleeps community for insight. And thanks for consenting (via private email) to having me respond to your question by writing it as an article.

I’m not a psychologist and my advice on this is not professionally certified in any way. But I think that unless you happen to stumble upon a particularly passionate, world-class specialist in the kind of torture you’re inflicting on yourself and your family, you’re probably wasting your time. You’ve said yourself that counseling doesn’t work, so we’re fast approaching a dead end. Literally.

I’m also not a doctor, and I don’t know the first thing about the drug Antabuse. But as a general rule, if I seek help from a medical professional and am unsatisfied with their assessment, I shop around for a second opinion.

Darkness and Light

I’ve lived through darkness. Dark fucking darkness. In some cases, it was caused by how I reacted to things going on around me. In other cases, it was 100% self-created misery. It’s through the latter that I think we share common ground. My issue wasn’t alcoholism, but alcoholism is the same kind of problem.

Unpleasant external experiences tend to dissolve into the past and the pain eventually gets forgotten. A totally different algorithm is required for troubles that start on the inside and flow outward. There comes a point with internal conflict where you become the only person that can help yourself. You end up going as low as you can possibly go and have no choice but to sink or swim. At some point, you have to ask yourself:

• Do you want your daughters to grow up surrounded by love or surrounded by misery?
• Do you want to be a source of darkness in your family or a source of light?
• Do you want to be alive or not?

The verbal responses you give to these questions mean absolutely nothing. The real answers come from your actions.

Every swig you take is a very loud NO to love, light, and life.

*Gulp* The buzz I get from this lager is more important to me than my daughters growing up healthy and happy.

*Gulp* I can feel the shadow of evil expanding around me, but damn this beer has a nice finish!

*Gulp* Shit, are my eyes turning yellow? Whoa, cool.

The freedom to live your life exactly how you want includes the freedom to self-destruct. If you want to destroy your life and the world around you, no one can stop you, not even those closest to you. Likewise, if you’re unshakably committed to turning things around and getting healthy no matter what it takes, no one can stop you from being successful there either.

Ifs, Ands, and Buts

Don’t use stress and moodiness as an excuse to keep drinking. The only way you can help yourself is to start by assuming full responsibility for your entire reality. Until you can honestly admit to yourself that every dimension of this problem is something you’re creating, you’re unlikely to make lasting changes.

If you were to go to a psychiatrist and tell them that you get stressed and moody when you don’t drink, they’d give you some pills and usher you out the door. That’s messed up and inhuman.

The solution to stress, moodiness, depression, aggression, anxiety or almost any other negative psychological tendency does not involve trading in one drug for another. It starts by acknowledging that there are some serious flaws in the life you’ve created for yourself, and everyone in your orbit is taking the heat for that. You can change that by gradually installing habits that will have you sleeping better, eating as healthy as humanly possible, spending quality time with people that are important to you and being 100% open in your communication with them, and settling for nothing less, career-wise, than to work on projects that you’re absolutely obsessed with.

Forget pills, I’m writing you a prescription for self-respect.

An important part of breaking one negative pattern is to replace it with another, more positive and productive one. While you’re giving up alcohol, why not cook your family a decent meal tonight too? Go for a walk. Take your daughters out to a movie. Or even just take some time to step back and take stock of your life. Start with what you’re thankful for and gradually work your way towards being brutally sincere about what sucks. And focus most of your energy on the solutions, rather than the problems.

Is this easy? Fuck no. This is war. When it’s you and your family’s lives that could all be seriously affected, degree of difficulty isn’t even a consideration. Every time you hold a beer in your hand, you’ve got a choice to make: Your driver’s license or your beer? Your daughters or your beer? Your life or your beer? Your actions are your answers.

It’s a little new to me to be this honest with someone I don’t really know. But fuck it, I want to help you, and I live for the truth.

The greatest difficulty is that men do not think enough of themselves, do not consider what it is that they are sacrificing when they follow in a herd, or when they cater for their establishment.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your entire reality is a reflection of how much you value your own life.

The people around you–bosses, business partners, friends, lovers–will treat you only as well as you treat yourself. The city you live in says a lot about your thirst for vibrance and opportunity. The goals you’re actively pursuing are an expression of your commitment to being alive, living dangerously, rather than hanging on in a palliative state, surviving the same day over and over again until the Grim Reaper comes knocking.

Unlike respect given to you by other people, self-respect is not something you earn, but something you choose. Choosing to respect yourself is more than just a personal promise or affirmation though: It’s a contract signed by your actions.

Spoiling Yourself

How many of us can honestly say something like, “I want to find a girl/guy who treats me as well I treat myself“, and actually mean it? For many people, that would result in a pretty messed up relationship. Their partner would be feeding them fast food and sugar all the time, telling them how ugly they are, convincing them that they don’t even deserve a great relationship, and be constantly manufacturing excuses for why now is not the right time to chase their dreams.

If your relationship with yourself is damaged, your relationship with everyone else is damaged too. Improving your relationship with yourself starts with raising your standards. Not by saying that you’re raising your standards, but by acting on that commitment.

30 Days to Self-Respect

To do that, you could try what I call the 30-Day Self-Respect Challenge. You can do it all at once, or piece-by-piece. I usually only run about two or three 30-day trials at a time myself, but feel free to bite off as much as you can chew. This 30-day challenge provides an action plan that will, from day one, raise your standards for how you expect to be treated by others and, as a result, change how you treat them.

Without further ado, here’s the challenge:

• Eat healthy. Buy a good cookbook. For 30 days, commit to cooking yourself at least three recipes from it every week. Try to focus on using “organic” (aka, “real”) ingredients to create meals that strike a balance between tasting good and being nutritious. I’m using Wholefood: Heal, Nourish, Delight. I’m also planning on picking up some of Jamie Oliver’s stuff. Everyone will have their eating preferences, so of course feel free to cook from whatever source interests you.
• Get some rest. For 30 days, commit to waking up at the same time every day, whether that’s 5:30 AM or 11:00 AM. I think being an early riser is vastly overrated, even though I am an early riser. What’s most important, IMHO, is to commit to a sleep schedule that fits your lifestyle and stick with it.
• Talk to strangers. For 30 days, talk to at least one stranger every day. Just say “Hi” and don’t worry about anything that happens after that. The last time I did this as a 30-day challenge, I got laid on day one. This isn’t even about just meeting women though. It’s about learning that rejection equals progress, and that building up a tolerance to getting blown out will completely change your life.
• Don’t work overtime. Take the five o’clock challenge. For 30 days, leave the office every single day at 5:00 PM, or whatever time you’re supposed to be off at. What’s the worst that can happen? Will you get fired? I spent two years working for a demanding billionaire, as the lead developer on one of his pet projects, and rarely worked a second over seven hours a day, and I didn’t.
• Take the smallest next step every day. I think every person reading this has, at the very least, a few goals loosely percolating in their minds. Take any one of those ideas (flip a coin, if you have to) and commit to it for 30 days. Then, every day, take the smallest next step to making that dream come true. Day one, register the domain name. Day two, sign up for web hosting. Day three, install some blogging software. Day four, write an article that introduces your site. Lather, rinse, repeat. If you end up realizing that this goal isn’t what you wanted, who cares? It’s only 30 days, and finding your passions requires trial and error.
• Don’t argue. Arguing is one of the more common forms of self-disrespect. It lowers the consciousness of both people involved. Nobody ever wins an argument, because neither side is even listening to the other. So for 30 days, don’t argue. Observe the ego wanting to lash out and react, without following through on it.

Warning: The side effects of following this plan may include leaving a job that is draining you of your will to live, ending a relationship with someone who treats you like a piece of shit, making more money while working fewer hours, having way more energy than you do right now, and getting laid like a rock star. Your mileage may vary.

There are better things in life than alcohol, but alcohol makes up for not having them.

– Terry Pratchett

My maternal grandparents were both alcoholics. It’s for this reason that I can’t remember my grandpa’s funeral: I was only four. This is also why my grandma has meticulously avoided alcohol for over 20 years. If there’s anything to the rumours about alcoholism being influenced by heredity, I’m probably tagged.

My own consumption patterns change. Sometimes I’ll go through periods of several months having three or four drinks, three to five times a week. Sometimes I’ll restrict my consumption to social occasions. For about five months starting last December, in my quest to master the art of talking to strangers, my social life became two full-time jobs. I was constantly going out to social events, clubs, bars, museum parties, and everything in between. Despite temptation, I rarely drank.

Last month, I quit drinking alcohol again. I’d like to tell you that it was a struggle. I’d like to pretend that it’s almost impossible to stay sober at a social occasion where everyone else is burping bubbles. I’d like to imagine myself as more determined and disciplined than all the rest, and that’s what pulled me through.

But the truth is that I’m ruthlessly normal. And if you want to end your relationship with alcohol, right here, right now, It’s Not That Hard.

I’m guessing that most people who choose to quit drinking are not alcoholics. My intent is to offer here an action plan that anyone can apply, whether you’re nursing an addiction or just want to enjoy the benefits of uninterrupted sobriety.

Why Stop Drinking?

The long-term effects of bad habits are rarely sufficient to motivate people to change their lives. The near-term benefits of giving up alcohol are much more useful and interesting anyway. Here are the changes I experienced:

• Productive socializing. Talking to strangers is a great way to build character, but its benefits are greatly reduced when you’re drunk. The alcohol represses much of the social anxiety, which inhibits lasting change. But the only thing more terrifyingly fun than getting drunk and meeting a bunch of new people is staying sober and meeting a bunch of new people.
• Avoid the McPilgrimage. Clearly, there’s a conspiracy between the fast food industry and the liquor industry. Free will collapses under the weight of insobriety and convenience. With enough alcohol in your system, even the most wretched burger joint becomes an irresistible sanctuary.
• Reclaim lost time. Let’s say you have a few drinks around the house, three times a week, and that light touch of drunkenness costs you three hours of productive thinking each time. Within one year, you’ll have shaved about one full month off your life. That’s a lot of lost CPU time that could have been put towards reading a book, writing a speech, playing a sport, or even starting a business. And this doesn’t even count the time lost waiting for your brain to resolidify the morning after a night on the town.
• Get rich quickly. You don’t have to party that hard to spend $100-$150/week or more on alcohol and related expenses. If you quit drinking today, you could reasonably expect to convert that choice into a bankroll for backpacking around the world in about six months.
• Become an early riser. I’m currently readjusting my sleep schedule to wake up at 5:30 AM, seven days a week. Alcohol, and the lifestyle that often accompanies it, work against this process. Alcohol makes me feel tired when I want to feel energetic and awake. Ironically, it also increases wakefulness during sleep.

You can probably think of other instantly gratifying benefits to life beyond the bottle. The important thing is to actually have a reason that is important enough to you.

Make It Priority Number One

Giving up alcohol is one of the easiest and hardest changes you can make in your life.

It’s easy once you’ve established the right rules, configured your environment to support you, and set up useful boundaries of pain and pleasure to help direct you towards your goal. The hard parts are the social implications and fighting off the One Man Army that is your ego, with its barrage of self-limiting beliefs and drink requests.

Giving up alcohol must be made priority number one in your life. A partial commitment is a commitment to failure. Even if you already don’t drink that often, it will be tempting to break your own rules when your friends call you up and invite you out. You’ve got to be willing to prioritize this decision in every situation where it’s relevant, even when that means Just Saying No to pub night.

It’s Not a Big Deal

Ever notice how some people act as though the end of their relationship is the end of the world? It’s as if there’s no point in living if they can’t be with that person any longer. Yet other people come along and date that person who left them, eventually break up with them, and see it as hardly more than a blip on the radar.

You may feel that it’s pretty easy to give up drinking. Or you may feel that it’s an addiction with a stranglehold on your life. Either way, there is no inherent magnitude to this task. It’s as big or as small as you make it.

No matter how much you want to tell yourself how hard it is, nobody’s ever going to claim that learned helplessness was the secret to their success. The most effective way forward is to not only make quitting drinking a top priority, but to think, talk, and act like it can be done.

Become the Impartial Spectator

Whether you view it as a spiritual separation, or merely conceptual, we all have more than one self. There’s the “Mmmmm…beeeer…” self, and the impartial spectator that can detach from and observe this desire.

Let the latter voice be your authority. You’re allowed to want a drink as much as you’re allowed to choose not to have one. There’s tremendous power in observing your thoughts as a third party. The impartial spectator can feel the heat without getting burned.

When in doubt, let it be there. No matter how bad the storm seems, it will pass.

Commit to 30 Days

If you’ve never done it before, it can be hard to think of giving up drinking forever. It’s discouraging to commit to permanent change, only to back out a few days or weeks into it. Some people will face social friction and lifestyle changes for which they’re unprepared.

But life is a laboratory. It’s an adventure that takes shape through hypothesis and experimentation, and most decisions can be reverted. When it comes to making big changes like this, live before you leap. Promise yourself that you will commit to this 100%, but only for 30 days, and see how it goes.

This is exactly what I did last month. I promised myself that November would be alcohol-free, and it was. Truth be told, I had a few drinks on day 31. But I broke the negative pattern that was creeping up on me and gained back the energy to spend on more important activities. And I’ve repeatedly proven to myself that I can give up alcohol whenever I feel like, whenever it seems like the right thing to do.

Dump Your Existing Stash

Any goal that’s important to you is important enough to start on right now. My 30-day challenge to give up alcohol started at about 3:00 AM on a Saturday morning. I had just gotten back from a post-nightclub McPilgrimage with some friends. I had a great time. I met lots of people. I even ended up dating a girl I met that night.

But I was really annoyed by how much I’d poured into me that night, at succumbing to the resulting Big Mac temptation, and at how much I was going to regret the hangover. As soon as I got home, the challenge was on. I had one last beer in my fridge, which I ceremoniously poured down the kitchen sink.

If you’re serious about doing this, get rid of your alcohol. If you’ve got $300 worth of spirits in your cabinet and you’re not yet sure if you want to empty it all down the drain, only to change your mind in 30 days, then store it at a friend’s place during your probation period. Preferably a friend that doesn’t drink.

Advertise Your Decision

I told most of my friends about what I was doing. Not only only does this add accountability to your goal, it also drops the hint that if your friends are planning on going out and getting wasted, you’re probably not interested.

Of course, you don’t have to avoid social situations where you’ll be the only one not drinking. I’ve gone out stone sober many times–even on my own–and met loads of people. Once you get used to social skydiving, you no longer need alcohol’s permission to talk to strangers and have a good time. You can get to that place by either getting hammered out of your face, or by learning to just not care what other people think. Frankly, the latter is way more fun.

Fire Your Drinking Buddies

Alcohol may be so tightly integrated into your social life that it seems almost impossible to go an entire weekend without drinking. If the only thing you have in common with your friends is that you like the same lagers, you might want to consider finding new friends.

I’ve let go of people in my social circle before and I know it’s not easy–but that doesn’t make it unnecessary. This might be the hardest thing you do in choosing a life without alcohol. The key is to remember that friends are an abundant resource. Having a strong social circle is purely a function of the effort you invest into it. That includes choosing to associate only with people who are aligned with your purpose, while avoiding the energy vampires.

This is another benefit of a 30-day commitment. Instead of permanently downsizing your social life, you can choose to be busy only for the next few weeks. Observe how it affects you when you stop spending time with your beer buddies. Join a local user group for something you’re interested in to bring yourself into contact with people with whom you share more than just a bar tab.

Bribe Yourself

I haven’t used this specific technique for giving up alcohol, but I have used it with much success in bulldozing my way through a wall of social anxiety.

Associate massive pain to backing out. To create that pain, visit your nearest bank machine. Withdraw an amount of money that you’d feel uncomfortable losing. Give it to a friend you trust. Tell them that you get your money back if, and only if, you don’t have a drop of alcohol until your 30 days are up. You’ll be surprised at how even the most difficult tasks become doable when you associate massive pain to breaking your own rules. Money can be a great way to make it hurt. If you can think of an even better form of self-bribery, go for it.

The stronger you feel that alcohol is a part of your life, the more of these techniques you may want to apply. My most recent alcohol-free challenge didn’t require bribery or letting go of any friends. But I did find it extremely useful to limit the challenge to 30 days, to give myself permission to live the lifestyle before leaping to a permanent decision.

I also think that making this a top priority is key, no matter what your current consumption habits. It’s so easy to let yourself slip for just one night, and then feel guilty about breaching your own contract later on.