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Budweiser beer - evidence that emotions cause addictions
Hi Everyone,
This article by Tam Llewellyn of the UK provides clear evidence of the link between addictions and unresolved emotional issues. His client "Emma" could drink alcohol socially and with no signs whatsoever of alcoholism. However, when she drank a specific brand of beer ... Budweiser ... her drinking for THAT beer became uncontrollable.
Part way through her EFT session, Emma came up with the underlying core issue. She said, "It's not the Budweiser beer, but the happy times I have associated with it."
From then on Tam used EFT to sever this unnecessary link and, when completed, Emma had less interest in Budweiser beer than for other brands. She said, "...it was nowhere near as nice as other beers and really tasted a bit funny!"
Hugs to all, Gary
EFT deals very effectively with addictions, and you can see Gary Craig dealing with a wide variety of them on his videos (The EFT Course, Part II, Video 6). However, this case study relates to a very specific addiction - an addiction to Budweiser beer - where the client did not want her liking for other beers or alcohol in general to be lessened!
In our EFT Practitioner Training Workshops at Tickhill (UK) one of the parts of the teaching involves my demonstration of the use of EFT on addictions with some of the workshop participants as clients. This is based on Gary's presentation on the above video.
At the start of each workshop I ask the participants to bring any addictive substances on the second day if they wish to see EFT remove the addiction. Usually I deal with the usual clutch of addictions - sugar, chocolate, cigarettes, coffee etc. However, on a recent workshop one of the participants came up with an unusual request. We shall call her, Emma (not her real name).
Emma was not an alcoholic, in that she could do without alcohol, and did for long periods and she could take a social drink or two and not want more. Her problem was with Budweiser beer. Once she had a bottle she could not stop drinking it. She would drink and drink and drink until no more was available. To complicate matters, Emma wanted to lose her addiction to Budweiser beer, but wanted to retain her liking of an occasional beer when it suited her.
It is usual to completely remove an addiction but I had never been asked to remove only part of one. However, being willing to try anything once and with Gary's words "Try it on everything" ringing in my ears, I started the demonstration.
Those who have read my previous case studies will know that I usually avoid giving the specific phrases I use (as I do not think it helpful - each case is different and the words used must be those of the client). Nevertheless, in this case I am going to give a full account of the words used as I want to show how the case developed, but I would warn that these words suited this client and may not be successful with another.
At the start of the session I was using the standard EFT routine and as the session went on I expanded my set up and reminder phrases in line with Gary's latest practice and included 'Choices' as introduced by Pat Carrington.
A bottle of Budweiser was placed in front of the client who immediately reported a 0-10 craving of 10. The session started and went like this (with the client repeating my words) :-
"Even though I have a craving for this Budweiser beer - I fully and completely accept and love myself" (three times while rubbing the sore spot)
"Craving for Budweiser beer" while doing a full round of tapping
The craving had reduced to 5 so we did another full round of tapping including the gamut part and using the reminder phrase "Remaining craving"
This reduced the craving to 2. I cracked the bottle open and the hiss immediately took the craving back to 10. More rounds reduced it again to 4/5 and even sipping the beer did not increase the craving, but they did not show any signs of falling either.
It was Emma, herself who made the break through. She said, "It's not the Budweiser beer, but the happy times I have associated with it". That changed the line of the therapy and while I continued the tapping as intuition led me around and around the points she repeated my words...
"Even though I loved those times, and want them back, and Budweiser beer reminds me of them - I fully and completely accept and love myself as I am now".
"Those times were great and so was the Budweiser beer but I do not need it now". "I can still remember and enjoy those times, without the Budweiser beer."
"I have a film running in my head called 'Those Budweiser beer Days' and I can remember them well - they were great"
"Even though I think I need Budweiser beer to help me recover those times I fully and completely accept and love myself"
This work brought the craving level down to 2 and even sipping it did not bring it up. Emma said she could do without it and anyway it tasted 'strange', but she still had a little wish for it and those happy times.
We continued to tap, but this time I introduced a choice into the statement.
"Even though I may need this Budweiser beer to recall those happy times, I choose to recall and enjoy them without Budweiser beer and I will be amazed and intrigued at how easy it is for me to rerun the film of those times (now re-titled simply "Happy Days) any time I wish. It is amazing that I do not need those days to come again - I am happy as I am now and can still have lovely memories."
The craving level was down to zero, and Emma was having uncontrolled fits of laughter.
Emma, and the group, were with us for a full week learning various therapies and during that week I saw her drinking the odd can of beer, but even when it was offered and even pressed on her she never drank more than a sip of Budweiser beer, saying it was nowhere near as nice as other beers and really tasted a bit funny!
Dr Tam Llewellyn-Edwards
EFT Practitioner & Trainer
Tickhill (UK)
