Mindful Drinking

Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and our surrounding environment.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, known as the father of mindfulness, says : 

"It's not about sitting in the full lotus, like pretending you're a statue in a British museum. It's about living your life as if it really mattered, moment, by moment, by moment, by moment."

In fact, mindfulness is largely misunderstood as many people think that mindfulness and meditation are the same thing, when they are not. 

That said, meditation can be one form of mindfulness, and mindfulness can be one form of meditation, but they are not exclusive to each other. There is mindfulness without meditation, and there is meditation without mindfulness. 

Mindfulness is the awareness of what is happening as it is happening, inside and out. 

The awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment. 

The three pillars of any kind of mindfulness are : 

• Paying attention, to the

• Present moment,

• Without judgement.

Mindfulness is actually the opposite of drinking alcohol. 

Alcohol numbs your senses, both physically and mentally,  and that means you are numbing your feelings and emotions in the present moment too.

In contrast to that, mindfulness brings your awareness to the present moment, allowing you to pay attention to the 'right now' instead of alcohol numbing the 'right now'.

Apart from the overall, general benefits of mindfulness listed on the previous page, you can also expect it to have significant positive. long-term affects on your drinking..

These significant benefits are : 

• Better impulse control. Remember when your mother used to remind you to 'make good choices"?  Mindfulness does that!  Allowing to make clearer, less impulsive decision are invaluable when staying on track with your goals of drinking less. 

• Decreased stress and anxiety, which has huge benefits for any person who drinks 'because they've had a stressful day".

• Improved ability to manage emotional pain (without having to pick up a drink!) 

• Increases dopamine production.  Dopamine is the 'happy hormone'. Alcohol gives you a short-term dopamine boost, that over time reduces your body's ability to produce dopamine itself. This leads to dopamine deficiency which can lead to short term alcohol cravings, and to longer term feelings of depression.