When an individual is immersed in addiction, they don’t know how to stop their behavior. If you are an alcoholic and you can’t stop drinking, you may be ignoring your behavior. That’s understandable because you may be using alcohol to cover up a negative emotion, such as pain from past trauma. Self-medication is an everyday use for alcohol. When you’re self-medicating, you want to stop hurting so you’re using drinking as a means to mask your pain. It’s an unhealthy coping technique, and you can learn better ways to handle your trauma and past pain.
Why are you drinking?
You may not understand why you’re drinking, but you can figure out the reasons by exploring yourself in therapy. Psychology is the study of human behavior. In it, we learn about why we do the things that we do, whether those actions are productive or destructive. According to Coon and Mitterer, authors of Gateways to Psychology, there are four main goals to the field. Using the four goals of psychology, you can help yourself understand why you are drinking, what to do about it, and how to heal. These goals can help you get sober from any addiction. They are: describe, explain, predict, and control.
Describe
The first thing that you must do is describe the problem. What is the problem? The problem is that you can’t stop consuming alcohol. Name it. Once you name the problem, you’ll be able to move forward and form a solution. If you are not confronting the issue, you are ignoring it. So, you have a drinking problem. Now, what do you do? You explain it.
Explain
Ask yourself “why?” Why are you drinking? There could be a lot of reasons. Maybe you’re self-medicating to cover up pain from childhood abuse; you could be drinking because it feels good, you might be drinking because you don’t know when to stop and you have an addictive personality, and so on. There could be some reasons, but whatever it is, it’s important to understand the “why.” Check in with yourself and explain the real “why” of the situation. Psychologists use the “explain” step to help people understand their behavior, but you can do it to understand yourself, too.
Predict
If you keep drinking in excess, what is going to happen? Likely, you will cause your body a lot of damage; you might lose your relationship with a friend or partner, you could lose custody of your kids, or, you could even end up homeless. There are a lot of bad things that could happen if you keep doing what you’re doing. So, if you look at this behavior and predict when and why you will engage in it, you can stop yourself from doing it. You can change it!
Change/Control
Change and control are the most important of these four principals. You want to be able to change this action or behavior now that you can predict the way that it will damage your life. If you are an alcoholic, you’re addicted to drinking. You may have tried to talk about your addiction in therapy before, by yourself or with your partner. So, how are you going to change that behavior? It’s a tough thing to take on all by yourself so that you might look into an outpatient program or residential treatment, but one of the best places to start is in counseling.
Online Counseling
Whether you’re working with a local therapist or an online counselor, you can discuss why you are having trouble stopping your harmful and addictive behavior. An online counselor can work with you in the privacy of your own home to look into the “why,” and stop engaging in substance abuse.