Judith blogs: don't punish yourself

When I decided not to drink for three weekends last year (because I only drank on Friday and Saturday), I thought it was smart to skip all parties, outings and drinks. That way it seemed less difficult to me. I associated all these occasions with a drink.
After three weekends it felt like my self-imposed sentence was over and I could start living again. Of course it feels that way if you leave all the fun things, because you can no longer drink wine with it.

Now I do it differently. I just go out, I eat as usual at my parents, we have drinks as we were used to at the kitchen table. The only thing I don't do is drink an alcoholic drink with it. In this way you not only break your patterns and associations, but you see drinking wine or beer as something smaller.

You can still eat anything, drink lots of different drinks, and go to all the parties.