Sobriety Tip Alcoholic Relapse and Depleted Willpower
Hey guys! It’s Marcus here from TalkSober.com!
Today we got a special sobriety tip for you!
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Today’s sobriety tip is a good one.
While I was reading this book, The One Thing by Gary Keller, I came across something in page 67. He says that there was a study done in 2007 where they did a study between nutrition and willpower. Now this is very interesting for the alcoholic in the addict because naturally what alcohol does to your body is it depletes your vitamins and your nutrition which, in turn, affects the cognitive function of your prefrontal cortex.
That basically says the part of your brain that is able to make decisions rationally.
What’s happening is when you drink over a long period of time, your diet and your health isn’t always that great which means your cognitive thinking isn’t that great either, which means that this affects your willpower.
Now what do we do about this?
What’s the tip?
How is it going to help you?
What we need to do first and foremost is realize that this is happening. Realize that the prefrontal cortex is affected by what you’ve been doing to your body.
Realizing is the first step.
Once we realize that we can acknowledge it and say, “Well, this is what’s going on so while I might not feel the willpower and I want to give in based on how I feel, I know that my cognitive test has been interrupted by something other than thinking.”
So it’s not necessarily a thinking problem or a willpower problem. It’s a problem of what’s going on in your body and in your mind.
If you can know these things, you could be the first to combat them because instead of saying I’m weak, I’m terrible, I want to drink again, you could just simply sit back and say it’s pretty normal when I shut down my cognitive functioning that I’m going to have weak willpower.
So the takeaway is to understand that this is going on. Combat it by activating your prefrontal cortex and by saying, “I don’t need to give into this because I know it’s just something that’s a flaw in my mind and body that will get better over time.”
I hope you enjoyed today’s sobriety tip and I hope you use it to stay sober.
Thanks again for watching.
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