Mgr. and Bc. Radek Němec

February can be a truly special month. It can be short, raw, sometimes confusing, but also clear in some ways. For example, it is traditionally chosen as a space for a restart and a break from alcohol, when we hear sentences like "I'm not drinking for a month now." It looks clean, fair, it looks measurable. A communicable and understandable statement for those around you. Therefore, it often brings quick subjective and objective relief. Better sleep comes, more energy, lighter mornings, a clearer head. The body can breathe and a person feels like they are finally treating themselves fairly and as they deserve.

But the month of February without alcohol is not just about health through abstinence from alcohol. For many people, it is mainly about discipline, about performance. Proof of strong will, a stamp that we will do it by force. This strong "no" that we endure even when we would most like to escape to comfort and safety. There is something very reassuring about it, especially in times of loose boundaries and high pace, a clear rule appears for a moment. A framework created for control, reinforced by praise from those around us and those closest to us. Discipline can be beautiful, but it can also be blind. In therapy rooms, a sentence that sounds innocent but is often treacherous sometimes appears, the sentence is "I kept a dry February.. So I don't have a problem." There is reassurance in it and at the same time a great myopia hidden. As if a person looks at their relationship with alcohol only through the lens of performance, through the lens of 28 or 29 days, I lasted. Done. Stamp. In the context of xxx thousand days in our lives, this may be a very immature consideration.

But the decisive question is not "Will I last a month?" but "What will it show me about how I live? How am I doing in the world? What kind of person am I?", because alcohol is not just a substance, it is often a function, a tool. A silent regulator of life or a switch off after a day when there was too much pressure. An anxiety reliever when a person falls into silence in the evening. A reward when they "somehow managed it again". A social key to being relaxed or self-confident in society. A ritual that holds the week together. A month without alcohol, that is, February, with the help of willpower can be a good signal that shows that we have the capacity for change within us. But it can also be something else, something that will be close to unconscious and blind adherence to discipline without realizing what alcohol represents in one's life. Discipline then functions as an overlay of reality. Not because a person is lying, but because it is easy to confuse control over drinking with control over life.

And this is where February without alcohol can break. If during it a person creates new ways of being with stress, how to relax, how to establish contact, how to manage internal pressure, it can be the beginning of a deeper change. But if the whole of February becomes just a waiting room for the person to be free again, the exact opposite can happen.

In the treatment of addictive behavior, we are so careful about stories that rely solely on willpower. Not because willpower is not important, but also because willpower can be short and paradoxically weak when fatigue, stress, conflict, loneliness, work pressure, partner tension or an empty evening comes. And so alcohol was often not the "problem" there, but the solution. And so it can happen that a person maintains firm discipline in February, while living exactly the same life as before. The same pace and pressure or exhaustion. The same unresolved issues. All this in the same setting, but without alcohol. February then becomes a month of "gritted teeth" and, when it is finally over, there is no return to normal. There is relief that I can now and that I perhaps deserve it.

This is where an unpleasant paradox arises, namely that after a dry February, someone starts drinking more than before. Not because they are weak, but because February was not a change, it was just a restriction. And restriction without understanding often ends up as compensation. Just like when Prohibition jumps on alcohol, people do not take the legal addictive substance that has been retroactively accepted to their favor and just look for ways to get around it. Especially when alcohol served as a tool of regulation.

We may even see something humanly touching in this. February without alcohol provides a simple framework with a common, socially acceptable agreement that we are trying now. Everyone understands why we refuse alcohol. The environment makes it easier, sometimes they even praise us, because this is the month when drinking is not legitimate. But real life is mostly without a framework. In March, people are already looking forward to returning to their old roles, to work dinners, celebrations, Fridays off, one drink a day. And so it is then that it becomes clear whether February was a beginning or just an achievement. When someone drinks after February, disappointment, shame, anger and fear often come, the realization that the dark side still resides in us. But that too can be valuable, February revealed a truth that was long hidden. So perhaps it is not about whether February helps as a campaign, but what a specific individual will do with it, whether they will get closer to themselves, or just prove a strong and firm will with discipline and then continue to live without change.