ONE WEEK INTO SOBER OCTOBER? IT’S TIME TO LOOK AT YOUR HABIT LOOP

Alcohol Change UK Community Champion Nigel Jones makes another audiobook chapter from Walking Back to Happiness available free as Sober October enters its second week.

If you’ve made it through the first week of Sober October, well done.

Seven alcohol-free days can tell you quite a lot.

You may already have noticed that wanting a drink isn’t always random. Perhaps the urge arrives at a particular time. At the end of the working day. When you sit down to watch football. When you meet certain friends. When you feel stressed. Or even when something good happens and you want to celebrate.

Those moments matter, because behind many of them is something called a habit loop.

It’s the subject of Chapter 3 of my book, Walking Back to Happiness – The Secret to Alcohol-Free Living & Well-Being, and for the second week of Sober October I’m making the full audiobook chapter available to listen to free.

No sign-up. No catch. Put your headphones on, go for a walk and have a listen.

LISTEN FREE: CHAPTER 3 — THE HABIT LOOP

Free Audio Chapters
https://www.9kmby9am.com/books/free-audio-chapters/

WHAT IS A HABIT LOOP?

One of the biggest breakthroughs for me when I stopped drinking was understanding that drinking wasn’t simply something I decided to do every evening. It had become a pattern.

The habit loop can be broken down into three parts: cue or trigger, routine or habit, and reward.

In my case, a very simple example looked like this: 6pm at the end of the working day led to a glass of wine, followed by the perceived reward of relaxation.

Do that often enough and the sequence can become increasingly automatic. The trigger arrives and the brain already knows what is supposed to happen next.

The important part for me was realising that if I could understand the trigger, I could begin to change what happened next.

START WITH YOUR TRIGGERS

During my own journey, I began identifying the situations that prompted me to want that first drink.

Time was a big one. Six o’clock on a weekday was particularly powerful because it represented the end of work. But triggers can take many forms.

• A place — the pub, a restaurant, an airport or a train.
• A time — 6pm, Friday evening or lunchtime at the weekend.
• An emotion — stress, anxiety, happiness or celebration.
• Other people — friends, colleagues or clients.
• Something you’ve just done — finishing work, playing sport or completing a long journey.

Chapter 3 explores these different categories because the more clearly you can see the cue, the easier it becomes to understand why the old routine keeps appearing.

And once you know the trigger, you can prepare for it rather than being surprised by it.

CHANGING THE ROUTINE

For me, breaking the alcohol habit loop did not mean simply removing the drink and sitting there thinking about what I was missing. I started replacing the old routine with something else.

Sometimes that was an alcohol-free drink. Sometimes it was going for a walk. I joined an alcohol-free community, exercised, developed hobbies, kept a journal and began creating different ways of responding to the moments when I would previously have poured a drink.

That is an important distinction.

If your normal pattern is stress, then drinking, then the feeling of relaxation, you might begin experimenting with stress, then a walk, then relaxation.

Or if 6pm is the cue, you might replace the alcoholic drink with an alcohol-free drink while keeping the sense of an end-of-day reward.

You are not simply trying to leave a hole where the old behaviour used to be. You are beginning to build a different pattern.

THREE THINGS TO NOTICE THIS WEEK

If you’re taking part in Sober October, spend the next few days becoming curious about your own patterns.

• First, notice when you want a drink. What was happening immediately beforehand?
• Second, ask yourself what you believe the drink is going to give you. Relaxation? Confidence? Reward? Celebration? Escape?
• Third, decide in advance what you could do instead when that same trigger appears again.

You do not have to solve your whole relationship with alcohol today. For now, simply start noticing the loop.

LISTEN TO CHAPTER 3 FREE

I’ve now made the full audiobook chapter, The Habit Loop, available free as part of my Sober October resources.

You can also listen to the previously released chapter, Cravings & Willpower, on the same page.

FREE AUDIO CHAPTERS
https://www.9kmby9am.com/books/free-audio-chapters/

FREE SOBER OCTOBER RESOURCES

I’ve also created a dedicated Sober October Resources page with a free printable 31-Day Calendar, practical tips, free audiobook chapters and additional support to help you through the month.

SOBER OCTOBER RESOURCES
https://www.9kmby9am.com/coaching/soberoctober/

MY SIXTH SOBER OCTOBER

This is my sixth October alcohol-free, having stopped drinking in December 2020.

As a Community Champion for Alcohol Change UK, I’ve also created a Walking Back to Happiness Sober October team.

If you’re taking a 31-day break from alcohol, I’d love you to join us and, if you can, raise some money for Alcohol Change UK along the way.

JOIN THE WALKING BACK TO HAPPINESS SOBER OCTOBER TEAM OR DONATE

Walking Back to Happiness Sober October Team
https://www.soberoctober.org.uk/teams/walking-back-to-happiness

WALKING BACK TO HAPPINESS

Walking Back to Happiness – The Secret to Alcohol-Free Living & Well-Being is based on my own experience of changing a 35-year relationship with alcohol.

The book explores why we drink, the habits and beliefs that can keep alcohol in place, cravings and willpower, mindfulness, exercise, purpose and what can happen when alcohol stops being such an important part of life.

The complete unabridged audiobook is now available on Spotify, Audible and across major audiobook and library platforms.

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY
https://open.spotify.com/show/0ZexsLV4yWY6hMwhCiDN1E

AUDIOBOOKS
https://www.9kmby9am.com/books/audiobooks/

The book is also available in paperback, hardback and Kindle.

ALCOHOL-FREE COACHING

Alongside Walking Back to Happiness, I work one-to-one with people who want to change their relationship with alcohol and become alcohol-free.

My coaching combines life coaching, NLP, hypnotherapy and practical behaviour-change techniques, focusing on the habits, beliefs and patterns that can keep alcohol in place.

I also offer a structured 28-day Alcohol-Free Coaching Programme, with four one-to-one sessions designed to help people understand what is driving their drinking, manage cravings and triggers, change their thinking around alcohol and build a sustainable alcohol-free future. Coaching is available online and face-to-face.

Find out more about Alcohol-Free Coaching
https://www.9kmby9am.com/coaching/alcohol-free-coaching/

If you think you may be physically dependent on alcohol, suddenly stopping can be dangerous. Speak to your GP or an appropriate alcohol service for advice about reducing or stopping safely.