Hypnosis and Alcoholism: Mastering Alcohol

February 12, 2016

One of the most annoying and dangerous addictions is addiction to alcohol. First, it is ridiculously easy to get alcohol, even if you are already addicted. In addition, alcoholics often endanger not only themselves but also others by still participating in traffic when they already have quite a sip. It is therefore not surprising that many alcoholics want to kick their addiction. A while back I was asked if you can use hypnosis to kick alcohol. In this article I try to answer that

Alcohol and Health

Alcohol is basically not harmful if you only drink 1 glass of it per day, maximum and never more even if you have not had anything to drink the rest of the week. At a maximum of 1 glass, for example, it has benefits for your cholesterol.

The downside is that once you cross that line, alcohol does become harmful. It raises your blood pressure and can damage your brain. In addition, alcohol often makes you crave fatty foods, which, if consumed frequently, can lead to obesity and diabetes.

Ultimately, alcohol addiction can even give you Korsakov's disease.

From too much alcohol, you can also get a fatty liver that prevents it from doing its job properly. In addition, you can suffer from pancreatitis, which is super painful and it is an indispensable organ. It can also give you various forms of cancer.

If you are pregnant and struggling with alcohol addiction, your baby may be born with fetal alcohol syndrome.

Alcohol harmful

It's clear that excessive alcohol drinking is physically harmful to you, but that's not the only thing alcohol addiction can lead to. Ultimately, it also affects your social relationships.

First of all, an alcohol addiction can prevent you from doing your job properly. This could lead to you being fired and losing your job. Financial problems may already have started by then, and there’s a good chance that, as an addict, you’ll spend a lot of—or all of—your money on your addiction, which could leave you homeless.

Second, you may experience a strained relationship with your family, such as by failing to repay loans taken out to buy alcohol. As an addict, you may regularly argue with your family about your addiction and feel misunderstood as a result, but that feeling is likely mutual, since concern for your well-being is often the cause of the conflict.

Third, you can become a danger to those around you. This can happen, for example, if you don’t get a pleasant buzz at all but instead become aggressive—especially if you combine alcohol with drugs. If you get behind the wheel while intoxicated, you can also cause serious accidents.

In addition, alcoholics are more likely to cause car accidents, commit manslaughter (murder without premeditation), commit domestic violence, and commit other violent or sexual crimes.

This behavior can make you a pariah in the social environment because no one wants to be associated with someone who causes accidents and fights.

Not every alcoholic fits into this picture. There are also people who are addicted to alcohol, but otherwise actually function just fine( 1). It is then easier to deny that you have a drinking problem because you still have your job, can pay your bills and your relationships do not suffer. But actually you are still deceiving yourself by doing so.

So then the question is when are you an alcoholic or at risk of being one?

The risk of physical addiction begins as early as daily drinking more than 3 glasses of alcoholic beverages per day or, for men, more than 14 glasses per week.
If you are already taking a drink in the morning, you can also assume you have a problem.
If you drink alone too.
Do you sometimes just want a drink to relax, only to wake up with a hangover and a hole in your memory? Oops! A sure sign you're out of control.
Do you deny drinking and get angry when someone confronts you about it?
If you find that your loved ones are making excuses for you as to why you drink.

Are you reading this article precisely because you are worried about someone else and not yourself? Then in addition to the above things, check to see if people are joking about alcohol consumption.

Preparing for rehab

If these scenes seem familiar to you or you want to prevent the need for money does strike in your life when you are already struggling to leave the bottle, it is wise to kick the habit of alcohol. Unfortunately, over time alcohol is also a physical addiction and therefore withdrawal is tough. For example, if you stop drinking all at once, you may experience the following withdrawal symptoms:

Beven
Sweat
Unrest
Nervousness
Anxiety
Insomnia
Nausea
Surrender
Overall feeling of malaise

These withdrawal symptoms can last up to 7 or 10 days, and after 3 days, the worst is behind you. However, feelings such as depression, restlessness, and insomnia can persist for several weeks. It’s precisely when you experience these withdrawal symptoms that it’s very tempting to reach for something containing alcohol. These symptoms aren’t dangerous, but you could also suffer an epileptic seizure or delirium tremens. You may start hallucinating or experiencing delusions. This can—but does not necessarily have to—occur 48 to 72 hours after your last alcoholic drink if you’re trying to quit.

It is therefore important to overcome your alcohol addiction under supervision. Then when you have a seizure, people around you can put you in a position that prevents you from choking, and the seizure is made as safe as possible. During delirium, people accompanying you can protect you from yourself. For example, you may start to see critters that are not there and want to do something against them where you can injure yourself.

Delirium and seizures are life-threatening!

So physical withdrawal should always be done with someone around and preferably with a professional who knows what they are doing.

Hypnosis Against Alcohol

As you can see, alcohol addiction isn’t just a mental health issue, as is the case with some drugs. That’s why hypnotherapy alone isn’t enough to quit drinking. Hypnosis can, however, play a role in preparing for detox, especially if you are still a functioning alcoholic, and it can also play a role in aftercare once you have physically detoxed from alcohol ( 2).

One silver lining is that alcohol actually improves your suggestibility ( 3). So if you’re still able to function while under the influence of alcohol, preparatory hypnosis sessions that reinforce your resolve to quit drinking are a good place to start. You can also learn new techniques that you can apply on your own during and after detox.

Mastering Alcohol

Because alcohol suppresses an addict’s brain activity—which can suddenly spike again when you stop drinking—you can learn techniques during hypnotherapy to relax and block out external stimuli. In this way, hypnosis helps you stay calm during milder withdrawal symptoms and keep you focused on your goal: getting clean and never touching another drop of alcohol.

Hypnosis also supports other therapies because being in a relaxed state allows you to better access your subconscious mind. The subconscious mind often contains patterns and beliefs related to alcohol addiction. For example, hypnosis helps reinforce the results of cognitive behavioral therapy.

One of the things you can do with hypnotherapy is to identify patterns related to your alcohol addiction. During hypnotherapy, those patterns can be changed to patterns that actually encourage healthy behaviors. For example, if you needed alcohol after work to relax, a cup of tea can replace it.

Sometimes an alcohol problem stems from habit, but there may also be an underlying reason why you or someone else has become addicted to alcohol. Through regression therapy, it’s possible to identify the underlying cause and provide you with tools to deal with it in ways other than reaching for the bottle. As a result, you’ll be less likely to fall back on that bad habit when you’re faced with a problem again.

In addition, you may still crave an alcoholic drink after going through physical withdrawal. Things can go well for weeks and suddenly you want a drink. In that case, self-hypnosis can be a godsend.

Self-Hypnosis After Alcohol Addiction

Unfortunately, your hypnotherapist is not with you 24/7. Therefore, you are also often given self-hypnosis exercises to do something about it when you crave alcohol. Self-hypnosis also helps to improve your sleep and against depressive symptoms that can still affect you weeks after your addiction.

So the answer to the question of whether hypnosis works to kick off alcohol is: Not by itself, but it does support kicking off and can prevent relapse.

Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis and self-hypnosis work? Then join the free online masterclass on Hypnosis.

Then check out the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' events and trainings.

Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:

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