One time a yoga teacher came for a healing session and told me that she used to drink alcohol a lot, actually each day. Only when she started the training to become a yoga teacher she reduced her drinking. She said: ‘I have left this old life behind but sometimes, when I am out with friends and just want to have fun, I drink again.’ And on these evenings she said she did not care anymore how much she drank. She gets drunk once or twice a month.
She told me: ‘I don’t care much about rules, if yoga allows me to drink or not, I just feel myself that it is not very good for me. But in that time I forget it, it seems right to drink. I just don’t like to be controlled by any rules.’ I asked her: ‘But why do you let the alcohol control you? I cannot help you and your Yoga teacher could not help you. The only person who can help you is you!’
I told her that I also don’t like to be controlled by rules and that I do not give any rule to anyone and don’t want to control anybody. I really wonder why anybody wants to control someone else and why some people feel good when they are controlled. But the woman who was there gives all control to the alcohol. She said that she was not addicted, she did not drink alone, only when she went out with others. So this urge for alcohol comes from outside, not from herself. Why is the outside controlling you and brings you into a situation that you don’t want?
A decision from you is missing. You don’t feel good with this but still you do it. It needs strong will power and a firm decision. When she thought about this saw this as a fully new point of view and said that if she sees it in this way she will be able not to get drunk, no, not to drink anything. And this is what I believe. If you have a strong will not to be addicted, not to drink or smoke, you can make the decision and keep it.
Today we came from Cologne to Wiesbaden. Thomas picked us up from Anne’s apartment. Now I am looking forward to the full moon distance healing meditation.
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Are all addictive things bad to partake in at any time? I wonder. Is it always an act of addiction to drink?
Tom,
Personally I would say no, but I couldn’t say that anything is always one way or the other. A person can know in themselves when they are addicted and when they are acting out in addiction. It is personal, but I would say many times that certain enjoyments do come from an addictive state. Everything from alcohol to french fries!
It is important to evaluate yourself.
My uncle died of alcoholism when I was a teenager, and my dad, who I think is a pretty unhappy man, also drinks all the time. I guess I am lucky because I’m just not that interested in it. But I do worry hat maybe when I am there age I’ll feel like I have a reason to drink too. Just not a good way to deal with pain. Makes life unstoppably painful.
I have been worried about my brother for years. He, and all his friends (who I also care about) smoke marijuana all the time. and they say it’s just a lifestyle and not a drug but I feel like he is so changed by it. I used to change his diapers and read him to sleep every night, now I see him controlled by this and it makes me sad. I don’t think anything I say gets through to him. Seems like I just have to wait for it to pass. I feel like he is giving his life away to this “lifestyle.”
I think that being in control of your decisions and habits is the most important thing. Addiction means that you are controlled by the substance– you don’t pick and choose when and how much, it chooses you all too frequently. Since people enjoy drinking wine with dinner, or having a drink with friends, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this as long as you have control over it and it’s in moderation.
Addiction is a form of mental illness that often remains unrecognized as such. The addict struggles to gain control of the illness even in supposed recovery and it wrecks families and breaks up relationships. I do believe it’s possible to drink alcohol in moderation and not become addicted but I am not sure about other drugs. All I know is that it takes a long time to recover from the damage an addict can do to the people who love him/her.