In his book “The 7 habits of highly effective people”, Stephen Covey defines habits as intersection of knowledge, skills and desire.
 
Knowledge, according to the author, is the theoretical paradigm that tells us what to do, and why to do it. An example he gives is ineffective communication. I may be ineffective in the way I interact with my spouse or colleagues if I don’t master the skill of listening. But without knowing that, I may for example keep on asserting my self wondering why the desired effects aren’t there (and in response assert my self even stronger the next time). Until I start to really listen, however, I will suffer from misunderstandings, will not be able to resolve my conflicts, and my relationships will suffer.
 
How does this translate to drinking and eating habits? As a problem drinker, I might not know different things. For example, I may not know how alcohol affects my body and my mind. A big insight for me was the different effects of alcohol at different BAC (blood alcohol content) levels. Especially the threshold of 0.55% - above which the “lizard brain” takes over, our reasoning is affected, and we are at risk of loosing control. Or I may not know how speed of drinking affects me, or that delaying the first drink will help me drink more moderately. Similar reasoning can be made for eating habits. I need to know how food affects my body, how my body uses hunger to signal it needs nourishment, and that some cravings may just be my body’s way to let me know it needs a certain type of food (carbs, for example, to fuel the brain).
 
But of course, just knowing something is not enough to make us behave in a certain way. I still may not know how to do it. In other words, I may still lack the skill. This, in my opinion, is where practice comes to play. I believe that moderation in both food and alcohol can be learned through practice. I am thankful to the author that now I can explain it: it takes practice to acquire a skill (and now I also can explain why practice alone is not enough). We don’t question that when it comes to acquiring, for example, piano playing skills. In his book, the Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues it takes 10000 hours to acquire a skill of an expert. I read somewhere that a new habit takes up to 10 weeks to acquire. When I started practicing moderate drinking, it was around day 52 that it started to become easier. It seems to be similar with eating. I am now a bit over two weeks practicing intuitive eating. I feel that each week it gets easier. It’s sometimes about very simple things, like, remembering to perform the new behavior. In the beginning I had to have daily reminders even. It’s also about simply unlearning the old habit and learning the new one: it’s how we function. Habit forming is a very useful mechanism. Can you imagine having to drive, or walk by continuously having to be aware of every move? But it’s also about changing outlook, our attitudes. Which brings me to the next point.
 
Even when we know what we need to do and know how to do it, we still need a third component to effectively start forming a habit: desire. We need to want to do that. Now I guess for different people desire is born from different sources. We might have the desire to rid of problematic behavior, and its ill effects it has on us and people around us. Or we might have the desire to be healthy. Look beautiful. But in addition to this initial desire, this seed, what I also found is that desire needs to be nourished and is therefore also a subject of practice. The more instances of affirming the new behavior and its positive outcomes, the stronger the desire gets. With practice and reflection, the attitude starts changing too.
 
And this is how the author concludes: to acquire knowledge, skills and desire is what change is all about. It’s got to be motivated by a higher purpose, “by the willingness to subordinate what you think [or feel] you want now for what you want later”. And I love his closing words: this in fact is a road to happiness. He goes even as far as to define happiness, at least in part, as “the fruit of desire and the ability to sacrifice what we want now for what we want eventually”.