Fear and Hope

I have a list of things I come across that interest me. Little acorns that might grow into something, or might not.

I looked at the list this morning, and one of the things I'd written down was fear and hope.

I have no idea why. I can't remember what I'd read, heard or seen that prompted me to write those three words down, but they seemed, for some reason, important.

It got me thinking. There are two key reasons for change, for being able to pluck up the courage to do something hard, to take a leap into the unknown - fear, and hope.

If you're trying to persuade someone to scale a twenty foot wall, you can tell them that a rabid dog is racing towards them, and scare them up it, or you could tell them that a pile of cash waits on the other side, and encourage them up it.

But we are really, really good at ignoring fear.

Every time I picked up a packet of cigarettes in my smoking days I was faced with the words SMOKING KILLS, written in bigger and bolder type every year.

It didn't make me stop. Nor did all the pictures of diseased lungs and people in hospitals gasping into oxygen masks.

We are so good at thinking that's not going to happen to me.

The same was true of drinking. I read all the statistics about cirrhosis. I was very aware of the government guidelines. I walked past homeless, hopeless drunks every day of the week.

I was so good at thinking that's not going to happen to me.

The fear has to get really, really bad. The rabid dog has to be close enough to bite you on the arse before you start thinking oh God, it has happened to me.

(And even then you get huddles of people sharing cigarettes outside the Marsden Cancer Hospital, and sneaking hip flasks into liver units).

It struck me that fear doesn't work. Not until you've totally reached rock bottom, and even then it might not. Because, by then, what have you got to live for? What's the point?

Then I remembered a quote from somewhere. Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear.

I thought it must have been from a Shakespeare play. Richard III? Henry V?

I googled it. Turns out it was President Snow in The Hunger Games. I'm not as erudite as I'd hoped.

But he's right. Because what, finally, got me to quit wasn't fear of all the dreadful things that might happen, but hope that life could be better.

I read Jason Vale's book: Kick the Drink, thinking that it might help me cut down (ha ha). And Jason painted a picture of an alcohol free life that was not only possible, but happy!

Until then, I'd honestly thought that life without booze could only be lived as a boring pariah, venturing out from time to time to stand in church halls, reliving gory details of my past to a bunch of strangers.

Jason Vale made a sober, teetotal (such dreadful words!) future look exciting.

And then I found the soberverse, and lots of real women like me who'd actually managed to quit, who'd come out the other side and weren't just surviving, but were thriving.

And that's what worked for me. Not fear. Hope.

(They should replace all those useless warnings on cigarette packets with the words YOU CAN QUIT!)

So, if you're still trying to frighten yourself into quitting the booze, then stop. Don't think about all the awful things that might happen if you don't quit, think about all the wonderful things that will happen when you do.

And if you you've made it over the obstacle course and into the sunny, sober field of fluffy bunnies, then go spread HOPE.

Love SM x