Is your client ' s chronic wine drinking a desperate unconscious attempt to ' drink water by drinking oil '? Are they lacking intimacy , meaning , security , rest , excitement , connection to something bigger ? If so we may need to help them meet their primal human needs in healthy ways so the wine becomes less of an instinctive pull for them .
Who needs to drink engine oil when there ' s real water ?
Of course , often helping someone cut down or stop nightly wine drinking may be the first step to helping them be clear , calm and healthy enough to be able to begin to meet their needs in healthy ways .
Chronic addictions seem to promise the completion of needs but , like a sweet-talking salesman , end up blocking the real completion of our needs – certainly the very real need to feel control and autonomy .
An offer to get you out of debt by giving you immediate cash is enticing , but not when you ' re locked in to 1000 % interest . It ' s a glimmering promise that obscures the depressing reality .
Caroline eventually told her husband she was stopping wine drinking because it was a real problem for her . The bottles came out of hiding , she stopped lying to her husband , and she finally recovered the life she had lost .
About Mark Tyrrell Psychology is my passion . I ' ve been a psychotherapist trainer since 1998 , specializing in brief , solution focused approaches . I now teach practitioners all over the world via our online courses . You can get my book FREE when you subscribe to my therapy techniques newsletter . Click here to subscribe free now .