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I spent a long time asking myself whether I had a problem with alcohol. Not out loud but in my head. It usually started in that window between waking up and getting out of bed, then in the shower, at my desk over coffee, on the drive home. I was good at thinking things through, solving problems. I’d built a career on it. So I thought this through, thoroughly and continuously. I solved precisely: nothing. That was the loop. I’ve since heard versions of it from almost every man

You started the day with a clear intention. Not drinking tonight and you meant it. By mid-morning it still felt on track. By lunch, manageable. Then five o’clock arrives and you’re cooked! You pack up, amble to the car and somewhere on the drive home you pass the friendly drive-through. The one you’ve pulled into more times than you remember. Oh yeah, today is a hard no. But this night, a small voice surfaces. "A drink would be good right now..." You push it down and keep dr

There's a recurrent theme I come back to in my coaching work. It describes something so precisely that most men stop for a moment and will recognise it instantly. Not because it's confronting but because it's accurate. You might know it too. The f*ck it switch. Most men I work with know this moment intimately. They may or may not have had the same name for it. In that tiny gap between logic and impulse, they blinked at the drink they weren't supposed to have and just shrugged

The Moderation Cycle, what is that? Well, the Moderation Cycle is closely related to the four stroke Otto Cycle. The Otto cycle describes the internal combustion engine processes of induction, compression, ignition, and exhaust. Otherwise known as suck, squeeze, bang, blow. (Yes its a little bit tongue in cheek but there is a message here) Like the Otto Cycle, the Moderation Cycle too, has four stages: It Sucks - Feeling or knowing your current drinking is a problem It Squeez

The never ending Alcohol Moderation Cycle! It starts with an awareness, an awareness that something about your drinking is not quite right, somehow not serving you and you feel its beginning to impact on your life. You start to question what you are doing, are you drinking too much, are you harming yourself or others? Everyone has hangovers but you seem to have them more than you ever did. Comments from family and friends start to add to your feelings of not liking where you

Normalisation of Deviance", ‘The gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable. As the deviant behaviour is repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social norm..' Over time, as our drinking increases and our problems slowly increase, we accept it as the new normal within ourselves. Until we become aware our drinking ISN'T normal, ISN'T serving us, we cannot even envisage change. Then, one day we think to ourselves, usually i