Resist Drinking Alcohol with the S.H.O.W. Method

The S.H.O.W. method is a simple, easy-to remember acronym designed to help you when you feel any urge to drink alcohol. It stands for Sickness, Hangovers, Obesity and Waste, and it's to remind you that these are the four inevitable results of drinking alcohol.

• Sickness: Sometimes when you feel the urge to drink you're forgetting about the many times that alcohol made you sick. Remember and RE-LIVE the nausea, the vomiting, the pain ... they were all caused by drinking alcohol. Why bring something into your life when it has repeatedly shown it will make you sick?

• Hangovers: Focus on the BAD things that alcohol has done to you, not the good. Remember the hangovers, the headaches, that general "lousy" feeling ... they were all caused by drinking alcohol. Why drink something that will inevitably cause you to feel lousy?

• Obesity: Remember that sad feeling when you stepped on the scale, or tried on clothes that used to fit you, but no longer do ... your obesity is due in large measure to drinking alcohol, or the "lazy" attitude that it induces toward healthy exercise. Even if you are very thin, it's important to recognize that alcohol is destroying your body. Why allow something to destroy you from the inside out?

• Waste: Remember how much money and time you have wasted, and how that made you feel? Where could that money have gone instead of wasting it? What could you have done with your time instead of wasting it? Are you wasting away in Margaritaville?

Try to really REMEMBER and FEEL the pain you suffered before ... because the more real it is the easier it is to avoid repeating it. Remember, alcohol brings sickness into your life, along with hangovers and obesity ... and it is an absolute waste of your time, energy and money.

But, once you stop drinking alcohol, or reduce your drinking to a bare minimum, you will restore health and happiness to your life. And isn't that what we all wanted in the first place?