Blog – Bottled Up

HOPE – Promote Change

Promote Change In this part of the cycle you will start to promote change. The direct goal of the change is NOT to get him/her to stop drinking, or even to cut down their drinking. However, it is entirely possible that these may be the indirect effects of your actions.

learned helplessness

Today’s topic s learned helplessness. This is a quote from Medical News Today. Learned helplessness is a state that occurs after a person has experienced a stressful situation repeatedly. They come to believe that they are unable to control or change the Situation so they do not try, even when opportunities for change become available. …

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HOPE Survey the Options

Survey the Options For any problem there are a number of possible options that can be applied. The option chosen generally depends on a number of factors. It would obviously depend on the nature of the problem, the severity of the problem, the urgency for a resolution, what you are capable of doing and what …

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HOPE – Assess the Harm

Assess The Harm Possibly you don’t think that you need to do an assessment of the harm that alcohol is doing in your life. After all, you have lived with it and it has caused severe disruption, heartache and pain in your home. and you know the problems only too well. We would certainly not suggest …

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Surviving the Holidays

Its holiday time again. For all our american cousins Thanksgiving happens next week and for all of us Christmas is almost upon us. Although, it actually feels that preparations for Christmas started during the summer holidays. For some people the holidays are a time for family, for celebration, for happiness. Unfortunately for others it is …

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HOPE

HOPE HOPE is an acronym (a word made up from the initial letters of other words). However it was not an acronym that was chosen at random, quite the reverse. It was an acronym that was chosen to encapsulate the message that Bottled-up aims to spread. There is hope in drinking relationships, it does not …

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When You Feel that Hope is Slipping Away

Sometimes we feel that there is no hope that its not worth going on. If you are feeling that way, then this video is for you. In the video we discuss various aspects surrounding hope and some ways that we can build hope and sometimes that we need to view it in a different way. …

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LOVE – Healthy Boundaries

In this video Lou talks about LOVE and setting boundaries. In Bottled Up we encourage a positive approach to the drinking situation - this is probably most represented in our tools, especially LOVE. There is, however, more scope than we realised for misunderstanding, that we are promoting a "grin and bear it" attitude to the …

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Positivity and Pragmatism

In a previous video blog post when we discussed the components of LOVE, we talked about Valuing the drinker. Unfortunately that video seemed to provoke a bit of controversy. Some people liked what we said, some were a bit less sure and a couple were upset by it. We can honestly say that the last …

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E is for Encourage change

E is for Encourage change. Anyone changing any behaviour needs encouragement and affirmation. Drinkers are no different in that respect. Giving encouragement also helps you to feel part of that change, that it is a team thing, rather than something that s/he is struggling with alone.
OK, we can just hear that protests, but they are still drinking, so what’s to encourage!? Over the last few decades we have come to regard change as all or nothing, especially in drinking. The disease model of alcoholism tends to promote that attitude.

If we adopt that criteria for change – drinking vs not drinking – then many will be disappointed as it does not always happen like that. Sometimes changes can be small, like drinking less or less often or respecting a boundary that you have agreed, or agreeing to look for .help.
Recognising these small changes and affirming them can help to produce more and bigger changes. It can also help you by increasing your sense of hope.

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