Using hypnotherapy to change drinking patterns is not usually one of the first options a person considers. But there is no one-size-fits all when it comes to changing alcohol abuse patterns or treating | recovering from alcoholism. So how can hypnotherapy help with a drinking problem? To answer this question, please find this guest post by Debbie Waller, a teacher with Yorkshire Hynotherapy Training, a source of accredited hynotherapy courses in York and Wakefield, UK. To learn more about Debbie and her work, please visit her website, www.DebbieWaller.com.

Using Hypnotherapy to Change Drinking Patterns by Debbie Waller

Hypnotherapy can sometimes bring about strange reactions in people. I’ve lost count of the jokes, comments about Elvis, and chickens (‘will you make me cluck like one?’) and misconceptions so thought I would take this opportunity to set the record straight.

Although hypnotherapy is counted as a ‘complementary’ therapy it has more in common with the talking therapies – coaching, counseling and psychotherapy. It is based on the idea that there are two levels of thinking; first there is your conscious mind which does logical and rational thought. Second is your unconscious mind which does everything else – memory, emotions, beliefs, impulses, habits, dreaming etc. For simplicity, you can think of them as what you know and what you feel.

The two have to find a way to get along, and generally this works well. What you know and what you feel about most situations are similar enough not to cause you a problem. However, if there is a disagreement, what you feel tends to win out. If this isn’t clear, think of a phobia. You may know a spider a quarter of an inch across is pretty safe, but if you feel afraid of it you won’t be able to bring yourself to stay in the room.

Now let’s say that you want to cut down your alcohol intake. Your conscious mind knows lots of logical and sensible reasons you should do this and on the face of it they are quite convincing. Unfortunately, your unconscious only knows the memories and habits you have around over indulging and these are not about stopping. If you attach emotional gain to drinking (such as associating it with relaxing, having fun or blotting out uncomfortable feelings) this might make your unconscious even more reluctant to quit or cut down.

What you feel will over-ride what you know, just as it does with the spider; you’ll struggle to stop, or stop for a while and then go back to it.

Hypnotherapy can help because while you are in hypnosis you can deal directly with your unconscious mind.

Hypnotherapy is not mind control (if it was, my kids might have tidy bedrooms!). You are not under the spell of the hypnotist and they cannot do all the work for you or compel you to change. You have to want to stop and you have to be prepared to work at it. However, if these conditions are met, a hypnotherapist can often help you to change the feelings, expectations and beliefs you have about drinking to bring them into line with your conscious desire to stop.

Many hypnotherapists who work confidently and competently with habits such as smoking, nail biting and over eating are not qualified to help with serious alcohol or drug abuse. However, they should be able to help if you are not alcohol dependent but want to cut back for health reasons, or if you want to deal with stress or anxiety which comes from living with someone else’s abuse problem.

And there are some hypnotherapists who have taken additional training to be able to help with the more complex and specialist issues around drugs and alcohol, so if you are interested you should make a point of seeking them out. Hypnotherapy as a profession is only covered by voluntary regulation so you need to choose your therapist carefully. To do this, go via the reputable professional bodies such as the General Hypnotherapy Register or the British Institute of Hypnotherapy & NLP.