We humans have a wonderful ability to block out bad memories. That ability allows a mother who has endured a gruelling forty-hour labor to cheerfully return to the delivery room two years later, ready to go through the same harrowing experience again. It allows a person who has had a disastrous marriage to try again, and again. Unfortunately, our selective memory allows alcoholics to forget how awful things were when they were drinking and to jump-start the whole process for the umpteenth time. The advice to “remember your last drink” is valuable, but it’s difficult to do. So that your bad memories will remain forever an incentive to remain sober, capture them in words, pictures, or both. While the images are still vivid in your mind, write yourself a letter describing the degradation and misery of your life before you became sober. Don’t spare a single squalid detail. If you have any photographs to document your words, attached them to the letter. A photo of you looking like a park-bench wino asleep on the lounge room floor or sprawled out in a bed of vomit at 4.00 am in the morning is not a good sight.  Or a photo of the car you wrecked or the crockery you smashed the night before. If you feel you might shrink from looking at this incriminating evidence on your own, entrust it to your partner or a friend with orders to show it to you when, nostalgic about “the good old days.” You seem on the brink of a drink. If you ever forget your last drunk, you probably haven’t had it.  Everyone has a “rock bottom” and some are worse than others. Don’t substitute the “witch for the bitch!” as they say in AA. “I haven’t had a drink in two months. It doesn’t even seem to bother me much anymore. But I seem to be going for food with the same urgency that I went for alcohol.” Alcoholics are compulsive. Their addictions are obsessive attempts to help them feel good inside by changing the world around them. Where other people can resign themselves to occasional bad feelings (sorrow, anger, disappointment, insecurity, pain) alcoholics try to rinse them away with chemicals. When the chemical option is removed during recovery, they turn to other “highs.” A piece of cheesecake, a new dress, a new romance, cleaning the house that’s already spic and span from top to bottom. The problem is that the good feeling thus gained quickly fades and then they need to compulsively repeat their actions. Substitute compulsions often lead right back to the original one: drinking. Or ultimately they become self-destructive themselves. Potentially hazardous compulsions include overeating, smoking, gambling, excessive spending, promiscuous or inappropriate sex and overworking (the classic workaholic). It would be nice to eliminate all destructive obsessions, to change the alcoholic’s pattern of thinking, to help them acknowledge and accept bad feelings as normal. But this can be difficult. And often, once treatment is over and outside controls relax, recovered alcoholics lapse into their old obsessive ways. Substituting a positive compulsion can often have a more favourable impact on recovery than fruitless attempts at uprooting compulsive behaviour down to the last twitch. Exercise is another addiction but don’t let jogging, swimming or bike riding grow into an obsession that takes over your life and distracts you from the more vital work of recovery. If you find yourself hobbling along on the crutch of another substitute compulsion in early recovery, ask yourself if, in the long run, you wouldn’t be a lot better off learning to deal with your inner feelings rather than compulsively covering them up. Get some help from a counsellor in deciding which behaviors can stay and which must go. There are some supplements that could help. Amino Acid supplement Tyrosine Mood Food for the manufacture of dopamine and noradrenaline, which is required for concentration, alertness, memory and a happy, stable mood. L-Glutamine can reduce both cravings and the anxiety that accompanies alcohol withdrawal. A good liver tonic like LivaTone Plus is recommended and can be beneficial in those who have an inflamed liver or a sluggish liver. LivaTone Plus also contains all the B vitamins and the amino acid Taurine. It also contains the antioxidant vitamins C and E. Magnesium Ultra Potent can be taken before bed to assist with a deep and restful sleep. It also helps to reduce stress, very beneficial to a recovering alcoholic.  Magnesium Ultra Potent is also known as the “great relaxer”. My book, Help for Depression and Anxiety is an excellent read for recovering alcoholics.