How to Change a Deep Rooted Belief

[SimonT]

Does anyone know of any good books or websites that can help with changing a deep rooted psychological belief?

Is this actually achievable? I wonder if a certain problem in my life is psychological or not. My doctor seems to think so, but I do not. This could be why it's happening though, because I'm so convinced. It's deep rooted in my psyche.

Thanks!

 

[TheRealCallie]

Have you thought about getting a second opinion to see if the consensus of the doctor is the same. It may help you believe it if you hear it from more than one professional.

I think, like with anything that is psychological, it's all about mind over matter. Keep yourself busy so you stop thinking about it, stop using it as an excuse. Force yourself to do whatever it is you can't do because of whatever it is.

Without going into more specifics, I don't think I can give you any advice other than that.

 

[SimonT]

I will actually divulge what it is. Drinking!! seems to cause headaches, but I'm trying to find out if it's psychological. I want to go out and enjoy myself like everybody else. It's killed my social life. Not saying I wanna get bladdered, I don't, but one beer can give me a right bad headache, then sometimes I can have a couple of pints and wake the next day fine, doesn't make sense. Sucks to be fair. Last time I had a beer, was one can of lager which was 4.5%, about 2 months ago, and my head felt a bit off that night (hard to explain, but wasn't a nice feeling, and wasn't a lot, but enough to think what's going on, so I took a paracetemol that eveining) woke the next day with a bad head and had it for 3 days. It wasn't severe, but just annoying and not too nice. Ok, since pretty much giving up due to this fact, I don't drink really now, so maybe it was due to my alcohol intolerance now perhaps. Maybe you're right though, I do have far too much time to think about things and I am anxious. By the way, psychologists have also said pretty much what the doctor has said, but not about this, about anxiety in general.
Tried all the usual tricks as well:- having a big evening meal, drinking a pint of milk before going out, drinking pint of lager - pint of water all night and 1 before bed and nothing makes a difference. Tried having a paracetemol before bed as well, nothing, and on 1 or 2 occasions, tried all of the above together, and nothing. Then sometimes, I can go out, do none of the above, have 2 or 3 pints and wake fine and dandy, I just don't get it.
All this points to psychological I think, but I just want it to stop, how do I fix this? I obviously don't want a headache, so I obviously try not to think about it if I do drink.

 

[TheRealCallie]

You don't need to drink to be able to have a good time. I have been to many bars with friends and I never once drank with them, even though they usually try to get me to drink, they all know I won't. We still had a good time.

As for what's causing the headaches, are you sure there is nothing else you are doing that triggers the headaches? Is it loud in the places you go to? Do you get drunk and hit your head? It could be any number of things, really.

Do you get headaches when you go out and don't drink? I would recommend trying that if you haven't tried it yet. Go out a few times and have a good time, but don't drink. See what happens. If you can go out (more than once) without drinking and you still get headaches, it's likely not the alcohol.

 

[Mr.YellowCat]

I dont drink a lot, and among my friends there are people who dont drink at all. So as the poster above me said, its not necessary to drink to have fun.
But if you still wish to drink...
There are people who cant drink one kind of alcohol. Someone has problem with vodka, someone with rum, some with beer (btw, beer is well known for causing headache). So it may be you havent found your type of alcohol yet. I personally drink gin most often, its said it does not contain hangovers.
So try this, try that, and you´ll see if any kind of alcohol (or mixture, drinks, cocktails etc.) suits you.

And one other thing, are you a smoker? If yes, when drinking, one has a tendency to smoke more, and smoking a lot is really helping the hangover and headache (both now and the day after).

 

[SimonT]

And one other thing, are you a smoker? If yes, when drinking, one has a tendency to smoke more, and smoking a lot is really helping the hangover and headache (both now and the day after).
[/quote]

No I am not a smoker. What, smoking can make your hangover better? As for other kinds of alcohol, I like lager the best be honest. I do get headaches when not drinking also, although I haven't had one in about 3 weeks.

 

[Limlim]

You may actually be allergic to alcohol, or certain types of grains / fermentation.

 

[Mr.YellowCat]

And one other thing, are you a smoker? If yes, when drinking, one has a tendency to smoke more, and smoking a lot is really helping the hangover and headache (both now and the day after).

No I am not a smoker. What, smoking can make your hangover better? As for other kinds of alcohol, I like lager the best be honest. I do get headaches when not drinking also, although I haven't had one in about 3 weeks.
[/quote]

Bad choice of words, what I meant is that the hangover would be worse if you smoked.

 

[WildernessWildChild]

I don't really think this is a deep rooted belief, it's more about desire. Semantics aside, if it's something you really want to change and you've come to believe it's some sort of thought process related block I've found that giving serious thought to why you feel the need to change a belief to be the place to start. Is it an external source (friends, g.f.....?), an internal source (feeling embarrassed, feeling left out....?). Is it some kind of epiphany that you might be wrong about your belief? Is maturity giving you cause to view things different? That's where I usually start but when I'm having second thoughts about something it's more of a philosophical or behavioral belief.

Not being able to drink much doesn't seem like something to be bothered about- there's already enough sloppy, boring, and crass people drinking too much in a bar setting, why join them?

 

[beautiful loser]

As someone who gets migraines, I can tell you that certain foods and odors can trigger one. I'm probably wrong, but there is a good chance the yeast or hops in the beer could be causing your headaches. With me, some foods can trigger one, but it doesn't happen all of the time.

 

[Batman55]

This is probably a physiological issue. I've mentioned this before.. it's a kind of "reverse tolerance." I remember that you had some rough addiction problems years ago.. you began to get terrible headaches from your drug of choice and had to quit. More recently you've noticed how drinking does the same thing.

I'm not sure if there's a way around this problem. For some people, presumably myself as well as you: When you overdo anything for a long enough time, your body cannot gain tolerance to the particular substance anymore, instead this goes the other way and you GAIN sensitivity. This is a known term called "reverse tolerance." The causes or particular mechanisms of this are unknown, but it does happen. It makes sense that it's a defense mechanism, a way for the body to protect itself from intoxicants.

Why the same thing would happen for you with two different drugs is not something I can explain. One possibility is, if your earlier addiction was also a depressant drug (like alcohol), maybe your body can recognize the effect of this kind of drug and the same side effects occur. Just an idea, though.

 

[SimonT]

Thanks Batman. Sounds good. Someone did say this happened to someone they knew once, someone who was an alcoholic, as it did with me with the drugs. They said, all of a sudden, out of the blue, they were sick and very ill after every drink all of a sudden, and subsequently had to give it up, after years of alcoholism. Don't think they suffered headaches out the blue though. Like people said to me in the past, probably did them a favour. So will I find loads of stuff on 'reverse tolerance'? online? only one way find out.

I was wondering if hypnotherapy would work. The main reason I want to combat this, after more or less (taking the very odd can of lager out the occasion) is I want to socialize and have a social life. I hate drinking soft drinks or water on a night out.

 

[SimonT]

As for not drinking on a night out. I know people say you don't have to drink, but for instance, would you want to go to a crack house if you didn't smoke crack? or go to a curry house if you hated curry or it disagreed with you? For the curry house, you'd just feel a bit out of place wouldn't you. You could probably have a naan bread and maybe some yoghurt, wow lol! you'd want to enjoy it like everybody else wouldn't you. Well that's how I feel if I go to a pub or club. Like everybody's enjoying themselves and having a good time and you just feel left out. I could have a drink, I'm not gonna die, but I start to feel unusual, and not in a good way, and can maybe get a headache then have to go home, night over.

I'm frankly just sick of it. That was the whole reason I started this thread. I just wanna know why I'm like this, what causes it, I NEED to cure it. I'm not saying I want to go out and get bladdered, I don't. I would just like to go out and have say 4-6 pints during a night and just get a bit pissed, nothing over the top. I've known people who have half a bottle of cider and maybe some red bull or a can of lager before they even leave home. Then have 5 or 6 pints and a few shots while they're out, then can have a couple of bottles of wine between say 3 of them when they get back as well.

 

[Case]

...would you want to go to a crack house if you didn't smoke crack? or go to a curry house if you hated curry or it disagreed with you? For the curry house, you'd just feel a bit out of place wouldn't you. You could probably have a naan bread and maybe some yoghurt, wow lol! you'd want to enjoy it like everybody else wouldn't you. Well that's how I feel if I go to a pub or club. Like everybody's enjoying themselves and having a good time and you just feel left out.

It's different where I live. We don't have pubs quite like in the UK where everyone drinks to staggering proportions, but we can order tonic water or tell the bartender we're the designated driver (because public transpo sucks around here,) and we'll drink cola all night and no one makes a fuss about it. I can't speak for any other country or region.

I'm not saying I want to go out and get bladdered, I don't. I would just like to go out and have say 4-6 pints during a night and just get a bit pissed, nothing over the top.

Holy honeysuckle! 4-6 pints will only get you "a bit pissed?" What do you weigh? If I drank 6 pints in an evening, you'd have to scrape my remains out of the gutter before night's end. lol

 

[SimonT]

I weight 10 and a half stone. Does that matter? my brother used to drink that on a night when he was 21, and he was 9 stone then. My sister said that to me once, but 4-6 pints is a light night for most people under 40 these days I reckon.

Yeah you could order coke here, but a) don't like it much, or lemonade, and can't drink more than 2 soft drinks, and can't make 2 drinks last all night anyway can you? and I just feel out of place.

 

[Batman55]

As for not drinking on a night out. I know people say you don't have to drink, but for instance, would you want to go to a crack house if you didn't smoke crack? or go to a curry house if you hated curry or it disagreed with you? For the curry house, you'd just feel a bit out of place wouldn't you. You could probably have a naan bread and maybe some yoghurt, wow lol! you'd want to enjoy it like everybody else wouldn't you. Well that's how I feel if I go to a pub or club. Like everybody's enjoying themselves and having a good time and you just feel left out. I could have a drink, I'm not gonna die, but I start to feel unusual, and not in a good way, and can maybe get a headache then have to go home, night over.

I'm frankly just sick of it. That was the whole reason I started this thread. I just wanna know why I'm like this, what causes it, I NEED to cure it. I'm not saying I want to go out and get bladdered, I don't. I would just like to go out and have say 4-6 pints during a night and just get a bit pissed, nothing over the top. I've known people who have half a bottle of cider and maybe some red bull or a can of lager before they even leave home. Then have 5 or 6 pints and a few shots while they're out, then can have a couple of bottles of wine between say 3 of them when they get back as well.

I can see you're quite frustrated by this.. believe it or not I have a similar issue with this... I used to be able drink quite a bit without any problem.. but one day, it turned on me, and now just ONE drink (a beer, a glass of wine) and I feel weird and depressed... two drinks and I just feel worse.. it's like an INSTANT hangover. The next day I still feel like crap from 2 drinks.. it's like WTF? That's not the effect I used to get at all.. it sucks.

I've certainly not figured any way around it. Find something else to do, find some other way to get your rocks off... Drink Red Bull instead. Or just try sipping whatever alcoholic beverage you have, in hopes that your body can process it easier that way. Tiny miniscule amounts.

 

[Case]

I weight 10 and a half stone. Does that matter? my brother used to drink that on a night when he was 21, and he was 9 stone then. My sister said that to me once, but 4-6 pints is a light night for most people under 40 these days I reckon.

Well, a higher weight means you can drink more and not have it affect you as much as a lighter person. Anyway, we don't use "stone" for our weight measuring in the States, so Google claims that 10 and a half stone is 147 lbs/67 kg, which is lighter than my little sister. I probably weighed that much when I was 16 years old. So, I'm going to assume that there's some problem in the conversion and toss the weight argument out the window.

I don't know how many hours of drinking we're talking about, but in my bar days, I'd only be out for 4 hours. Maybe five. So, if it's a little more than a drink an hour, I suppose that's fine, but definitely not okay to drive, which is a big thing out here. Getting caught driving drunk is just a tick less serious than murdering a child out here.

Yeah you could order coke here, but a) don't like it much, or lemonade, and can't drink more than 2 soft drinks, and can't make 2 drinks last all night anyway can you? and I just feel out of place.

I don't know what kind of social pressures you face, but it's nothing like that here. If I was designated driver, I could drink nothing but iced tea, cranberry juice, virgin margaritas, tonic water, bottled water, and any number of non-alcoholic drinks around, all so I'd be in a position to drive people home and not kill anyone. Maybe designated drivers are more of a thing where I live.

So, I don't know what to say. I can only say that if I drank alcohol and it gave me headaches, I'd stop drinking. If my body rebelled against a food or a drink, I'd stop eating that food or drinking that drink immediately. It seems like a simple solution to me, but I admit that I'm not in your shoes.

If you are determined to drink, I don't really have an answer for you. I hope you find one, though.

 

[SimonT]

The weight thing is rubbish. I've known people my size who were alcoholics when I was in my drug taking days. I used to know one guy about 5'5-5'6 & little/very slim (I'm 5'8), he probably was only somewhere around 115-125lbs at a guess, & he used to drink special brew for breakfast. How much alcohol you can drink is dependant on 4 factors. 1) Size of liver 2) how quickly/good your liver deals with alcohol 3) genetics, if you're genetically just good at handling alcohol & 4) (as in the little alcoholics case) the tolerance you have built up as in how much or how often you drink.

Ok, so if you have a good liver that handles alcohol well & you're 6'3, then you'd probably have a big liver as well, so you're gonna probably handle alcohol better than most.

Never heard of the smoking thing. All drinkers, normal & alcoholic always smoke. I know a guy who drinks loads & smokes like a chimney, and he always wakes the next day relatively fine. Just a little hung over, but has professed to me before, that he's never woke with a headache the next day. He will drink a couple of bottles of wine, about 5 pints of snakebite & black and a couple of shots in a night.

So if I put a stone on would I be able to handle alcohol better? I doubt it. Bu weight did you mean size?