Early in my alcohol-free journey, I wrote a breakup letter to alcohol. It was an insightful process for me, and you may find it helpful too. My letter ended up being several pages. However, it can be any length that feels right. This is your exercise. 

To start, I googled: how to write a breakup letter to alcohol – but this search wasn’t very successful, so I thought I would put together this mini “how-to” guide. These were the questions I asked myself when writing my letter. 

As with any creative exercise, there are no rules – but this helped me. Your breakup letter to alcohol can look however you want!

The following guidelines might be helpful: 

· When did alcohol first enter your life? (How old were you, and what was happening in your life then?) 

· What did using alcohol achieve for you at first? (Was it serving you in some way – or several ways?) How did that evolve? (i.e., did the reasons you drank change for you over time?) 

· What problems started cropping up? (note: this does not need to account for every failure you’ve ever had or every regret or mistake you’ve ever made while drinking! It should not be a walk down shame lane (shame isn’t going to help right now.) Instead, focus on what barriers alcohol started to present for you. 

· In line with the above, for every perceived benefit of alcohol, write how it eventually evolved into a barrier. (For example: maybe you started drinking to connect with others, but then it became a barrier to true connection.) 

· Typically, drinking more than you would like is painful because it directly conflicts with some of our core values. What kind of values are important to you? Was drinking in line with your core values? How would being booze-free help you feel more congruent with your values? Core values might center around integrity, accountability, honesty, courage, happiness, respect, authenticity, etc. – list as many core values as you want! 

Good luck & happy writing!