“I deserve a glass” – and four other lies you should not tell yourself about drinking Health and well-being

ANearly half of the British drank more during the blockade than they normally would. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol, a good start is to identify (and challenge) the lies we tell ourselves about drinking.

The lie: a craft beer subscription is better than completing a four-pack of Foster
It’s great to support small businesses, especially after the year they’ve had, but this halo effect can cancel out ABV in our minds. “A double IPA from a craft brewery could have double the alcohol of a major lager,” says Andrew Misell, director for Wales at Alcohol Change UK. “All that matters in terms of alcohol and health is how strong the drink is and how much you drink.”

ITthat is: I need a drink to calm social anxiety
Social trust is a muscle you need to exercise; however, there have been few valuable opportunities to do so in the last year. If you get into social situations again, it’s tempting to take an edge with a sharpener or three. But, as Chloe Brotheridge, author of The Trusted Solution, puts it, “If we are numb to social clumsiness, we have no chance of developing real trust.” The answer is to push the discomfort. “When you get into a situation where you feel nervous, but you survive, your nervous system learns that the scenario is safe. And next time you will feel braver ”.

ITie: I deserve that glass of wine after the day I had
Ever since working from home became life at work, a drink has become a welcome stop, especially after a hard day. “Alcohol consumption has increased along with blocked stress levels,” says Dr. Antonis Kousoulis, director of the Mental Health Foundation. “Drinking to mask a depressed mood or general disorder has the opposite effect once the drink is gone. Therefore, a hangover is often accompanied by anxiety. “But this is easy to forget right now, so find other ways to relax that feel like a treatment. And don’t keep wine in the fridge.

ITthat is: the only non-alcoholic beverages are sweet pop
An obstacle for social drinkers who want to cut has always been the fact that no one wants to be the guy who keeps a J20 warm. But the juices packed with sugar are over, thanks to elegantly designed beverage brands, distilled with the bite you would expect from a negro. “All drinkers deserve something sophisticated and complex, not just those who drink alcohol,” says Claire Warner, co-founder of the alcohol-free aperitif orn corn.

Lie: A The hangover means I have has failed he drank it moderately
The road to drinking rarely involves a few nights of excess. If you wake up with a dry mouth and a throbbing headache, the worst thing you can do is tell yourself that alcohol has “won”, so you might as well have a bloody headache. Instead, accept that there will be bumps along the way and use them as an opportunity to learn about you. What was the series of events that led you to drink excessively and what could you do in the future to prepare for the same situation? Once you manage to give up defeatism, you can embrace slips as part of the process.

• Conscious Drink: How Your Cut Can Change Your Life, by Rosamund Dean, is published by Orion Publishing Co. To order a copy, go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.