There are two key points of reference that a young person draws from their sense of identity from when it comes to drinking behaviour – advertising and role modelling. This post is about that beautifully inspiring yet disgustingly manipulative social metronome – advertising.
The first research component to Hello Sunday Morning is now complete! Wooop! Thank you to all those who volunteered their time in this process, the feedback has been incredible.
We have now presented the results of our findings in Canberra last week and in Bundaberg yesterday to very receptive crowds. A big thank you to McDonalds for letting us use your playground area in both cities 😉
As a quick recap, the 12 month Hello Sunday Morning project has got two specific objectives:
1) Identify why young people choose to drink to excess
2) Identify strategies and solutions that will change young people’s perceptions around those choices
I have now become completely confident being in pretty much any social environment while sober. And how long did it take? Around about three months and 15 days. Which really isn’t that long when you think about how I have had to undo about seven years of self and social conditioning that told me I couldn’t.
Fighting this conditioning has been hard work. I have systematically pulled day and night at the rotten roots of all these belief systems I have had around drinking and I now can finally say I have pulled it out. My head feels like it’s this fresh new veggie patch sitting under a Sunday morning sunrise. I sit looking to my future and rub my hands with this deep sense of excitement and think of all the amazing things that I can now plant in my new fertile mind.
I thought I would post a wee ‘update’ article about where my head is at and how things are going with the HSM research project.
By 8am this Sunday morning I have planed my day put on my phone already. Gym, work, visit grandpa, help grandma, even watching the tennis is written in my calendar. Who the f does that?! haha