Hypnosis and The Bottle

From the Archives

An actress called me. She was a 20 year AA veteran. She didn’t want to stop drinking. She wanted to be able to enjoy the first glass or two and then stop.

I told her that was not possible. I told her she had to quit for good and stay quit because if she had a glass or two she’d lose her inhibition brake and wake up the next day not knowing what she’d done the night before.

She agreed to quit altogether and made an appointment.

As I was taking her case history it became utterly clear that she had no desire to stop drinking. She wanted to have the first glass or two and then stop. I told her it wouldn’t work and then, against my better judgement, tried to make it.

I couldn’t hypnotise her. I tried too hard and worked too long, all through her session, through my admin time, and through my lunch break at the end of which I knew nothing had worked. I felt like cr@p.

Instead of my usual “I need to see you in a week … how’s your diary?” I wimped out completely and said, lamely, “Give me a call in a couple of weeks and we’ll see how we go from there,” convinced I’d never hear from her again.

Two weeks later, she called. “Barry. I can’t thank you enough. Since I saw you I haven’t had more than two drinks on any day. I went to the BAFTAs and there were trays of champagne but after two it was like a switch went and I wanted water. It’s like it’s some kind of miracle.”

“OK,” I said, somewhat bemused. “We’d better make an appointment for a consolidation session. And we did.

Just before the second session she left a message on my answer machine saying she had to cancel as she had an audition, but would call back and reappoint.

She never did.

Six months later I was archiving files, saw her name, and wondered. I sent her an e-mail. “Hi. You slipped off the radar. I just wondered how you are getting on.”

“Dear Barry, I owe you an apology. I lied to you. When I cancelled my last session, there was no audition. But the first session had been so powerful I was afraid to come back. I’m sorry. Since then I sometimes go a whole week without a drink and haven’t had more than two in a single day since I saw you, so I hope you’ll forgive me.”