Presenting problem: drinking too much
One session only
She's not an alcoholic, she assured me, but drinks every night, and has done so for 20 years. It's a struggle not to drink. The problem is that, after a glass or two, she loses her will to resist and will go on to drink the whole bottle, and perhaps a brandy afterwards. While doing this, she feels pleasure, but the next day suffers a hangover and severe regrets. She's concerned that drinking will ruin her health, and she doesn't want to be seen drunk in public, make a fool of herself, or be thought a drinker. Was there any particular way in which she made a fool of herself? No. She doesn't want the drink to be in control of her.
Her first drink, which would be after she put her daughter to bed in the evening, demarcates the end of her daytime responsibilities and the beginning of the time for herself for pleasure and relaxation. Alcohol, she said, made the time 'special'. She had other interests, and friends, and is happy with her life (though she does take antidepressants).
I wondered how she was really feeling before she had a drink; whether the desire to drink masked another desire or need. But nothing came up. This drinking had started 20 years ago. Had anything in particular happened 20 years ago? No. It was a gradual thing. Could she drink something non-alcoholic, or do something different to demarcate her relaxation-pleasure time? She tried other drinks, and it helped. But the need and struggle remained. She had, two or three years ago, given up eating biscuits, having made a calorie versus pleasure calculation. She no longer desired biscuits.
She had a belief that alcohol, particularly, she emphasized, wine, relaxed her and gave her pleasure. I still didn't feel I had a real handle on the problem.
But I thought I'd take a look at the structure of the belief, thinking I would help her to change the belief, or make it less important.
We would compare her representation of wine (which was irresistible) with biscuits (which she now resisted) (this is a technique from NLP, involving submodalities). The glass of wine she saw at eye level, three yards away, at a 45-degree angle to her right. It was clean, clear, sharply defined, in colour, slightly larger than life, still, and elegant, on a beautiful table. The biscuits she couldn't see clearly. They were blurred and undefined, slightly nearer (in reach), suspended (not on a plate) and at waist level, 30 degrees to her right.
I asked her first to move the glass of wine to where the biscuits were. She found this difficult. So I asked her to get up and physically move it – which she did. But it still leapt back to its original position. Clearly the wine had some important purpose in her life that we hadn't yet discovered. (Simply changing submodalities won't work if there are important issues to address.)
I asked the part of her that made her drink what the wine glass wanted to achieve for her. I needed to remind her not to think, because this would only give her a rational explanation which may have nothing to do with her real motive, but to allow herself to receive the answer.
It was to do with sophistication, she told me. When she thought of the wine a sophisticated world opened up to her, which she didn't really feel a part of, but which she then had some access to. What did this give her? A world less cluttered, neater, closer to perfection. And how was that important to her? It made her feel grown up. Now I sensed we had the key – finally.
What was important to her about feeling grown up? It was that generally she didn't feel grown up. In her previous work (she is currently setting up as a consultant), she couldn't understand how her colleagues could take her seriously. She felt like a child in grown-up clothes. (Suits, she said, were important to her.) I checked whether this was her opinion of herself or others' of her. It was her opinion of herself. She is taken seriously, in fact.
I asked her how old this part of her is. Thirteen. What happened at thirteen? She was told by her mother that she shouldn't do A levels. That people of their background should do a vocational training. She shouldn't try doing anything that involved the intellect. This thirteen year old was taught that she isn't intelligent and shouldn't aim above her station. She consequently changed her friends, effectively making a class choice. Her behaviour changed and she began to hang out with a 'bad crowd'. At sixteen she went to catering college.
I asked what this thirteen year old needed, so this could be given to her. But the thirteen-year-old Jane rejected this. What was it she had given her younger self? That she should pursue intellectual matters, etc. But the young Jane didn't understand this. So what did the young Jane really need? To know she was just as good as the others (her middle-class friends). We did an exercise to help her to experience this. A shift was taking place. Jane's expression was actually changing. Her expression seemed more mature.
I asked her to keep paying attention to that thirteen year old and her needs, and check if there's anything else that would help her. She told me the fifteen year old needed something: to know she didn't have to go to catering college but could pursue A levels instead. I pointed out that the actual course of her life was to go to catering college, but we could give her an imaginary future, if she liked. She imagined doing A levels and going to university. She was feeling very happy now!
She told me she would have liked to have gone this route, although now she is pretty much where she would have been had she done so. I asked whether her actual route had given her experiences and lessons of value. They had. She still felt resentful, however – that she had not been allowed to take up a scholarship, for example – but understood her mother had done what she thought was right.
Would she like some wine? It had already lost its appeal. She looked at the glass of wine she pictured earlier. It had already become blurry and it was very easy for it to be moved to where the biscuits were. The wine was no longer appealing. She could take it or leave it. She said that also the idea of the suit no longer seemed so important; that she felt more a part of the 'sophisticated world', but that at the same time it had become less important. Was she sure about this? Yes. she imagined having two glasses of wine in a restaurant. That was enough, she assured me; she wouldn't have any more.
Postscript: Jane later sent me a note saying, 'So far the effect is excellent.'