Over-drinking and over-eating is a common way to deal with anxiety and stress. But this doesn’t have to be so. Julia Rebaudo gets some advice from hypnotherapist Georgia Foster

As our trusty columnist Liz Frost finds out (Are We All Alcoholics?), it’s pretty damn hard to spend a night out not drinking when all your friends are. Despite your best intentions to be funny, witty and sparkly sans alcohol it is not easily done... and we haven’t even mentioned what happens when you’re feeling stressed or anxious. Drinking to relax has become such a big part of our culture that people feel it is an acceptable solution, never mind the hangover, or the embarrassing things you might have done or said. For some people it’s drink and for others it’s food. Either way, over indulging in either can lead to some complicated guilt feelings as well as to health problems.

Hypnotherapist Georgia Foster specialises in addressing the reasons why people feel the need to turn to drink or food when they feel anxious or stressed. “There are so many reasons why we over-drink and over- eat, and they’re all emotional. They’re all emotional responses to life,” says Georgia. “We don’t do things without reason. Unfortunately it is the saboteur within that’s at fault, a rebelliousness that says ‘I had a really bad day, so I’m going to go out and get really drunk tonight.’ And this becomes a learnt behaviour; so the next time you experience those thoughts your minds says ‘Go and have a drink.’ And even if you don’t want to, your mind says ‘This is how you coped last week, and it worked.’”

Planning to have just one glass and then finishing the whole bottle is often a sign that you’re drinking from stress. “You wake up the next day and bemoan the time you wasted, your hangover and how you could have used your time better. All those things that happen when you’re trying to run away from your head,” says Georgia.

Georgia is trained in a psychology called Radio Crazy, which is the idea that our Inner Critic just blares louder and louder. “The Inner Critic is constantly nagging us that we’re not good enough, wondering what other people are thinking,” Georgia explains. “For some people the only way to turn down the Radio Crazy is by drinking.”

Hypnosis can help retrain your behaviour patterns, so when you get stressed or anxious you don’t reach for a glass of wine or head straight to the fridge. “Hypnosis is so successful because it works with the emotional part of the mind where the habits are stored,” says Georgia.

As well as trying to drown out the Inner Critic another reason people over-drink or over-eat is to let their Inner Child come out and play. “The Inner Child is our raw vulnerable state, the trusting naïve part of us. If the Inner Child gets suppressed it will need to come out at times,” explains Georgia. “For people who take life very seriously the only way their Inner Child can come out and play is through alcohol. Or if a child has had to grow up too quickly, the Inner Child will be suppressed. They often compensate by wanting to eat sweet things and in secret. Bulimics often have Inner Child issues.”

Georgia believes we need to realise we can access the Inner Child, have fun and do silly things without drinking. “You can laugh without alcohol, but people don’t always realise this,” she says. Georgia also makes a useful distinction between alcoholism and people who drink from stress and anxiety. “I have a patient who was an emotional and stress drinker. She had tried going to AA meetings but realised they weren’t for her. She wasn’t an alcoholic, she was just really unhappy.”

Georgia believes that underpinning most people’s issues is low-esteem. Recognising that your Inner Critic is fuelled by low self-esteem is an important step forward. The problem is that a lot of people can be in denial about having low self-esteem. “This usually means they’ve been trained to suppress their emotions, maybe as a child,” explains Georgia. “These are usually the ones who binge drink and get quite depressed. It’s because they don’t know themselves. In order to change Radio Crazy to Classic FM, you need to be aware of your Inner Critic, which a lot of people aren’t.”

Author of
The Drink Less Mind and The Weight Less Mind, Georgia is also available for private consultations in Chiswick W4 and Monument EC3. Visit www.georgiafoster.com. Georgia will be holding the first ever virtual hypnotherapy session on Second Life. Visit www.radiocrazy.tv to find out more.