Reclaim Your Life: Alcohol Freedom Coaching | E762

Welcome to this Naked Mind podcast, where we question the role of alcohol in our lives without rule, shame, or judgment. I'm Annie Grace, and I'm so thrilled to have you with us today. In this special series, I'm inviting you into something truly unique and deeply personal. You're going to be listening in on real one-on-one coaching sessions between some of our certified This Naked Mind coaches and members of our community who are on their own journey with alcohol.

These sessions are raw, unfiltered, and completely unscripted. But before we dive in, I want to prepare you for what you're about to hear. These conversations are real, real people, real struggles, real emotions. They're honest, and they're sometimes painful, and they may even be uncomfortable to listen to. But that's the point. So no matter where you are on your own personal journey, I encourage you to listen with an open heart and an open mind. Now let's step into the world of this naked mind coaching, because this is where change begins.

Mary, how are you today? I'm doing well. Thanks, how about you? I'm doing awesome. And so as you know, this is an opportunity for you to have a chance to talk one on one with a certified this naked mind coach, I being myself in this case, and ask them to talk about some thoughts or beliefs or some things that are coming up for you today that you might want some coaching around. So what's on your mind today?

Basically, I came to learn about this program just because I had seen certain things about how to reach out and try to get some help. If I take a step back, I basically came to kind of cross the snake and nine because I was looking for a way to try to better myself and invest in myself. And I've struggled with alcohol when overusing alcohol for a long time. And so

Basically, I wanted to find a way that I could get some help through online and maybe a community of folks. And so that's how I started my journey. I've been a heavy drinker for many, many years. And so this was what I felt like a good opportunity to invest in myself and try to make a change. Why now? Was there a critical something that happened to you or something or just why did you take the action to explore this now?

I'm just tired to be honest, there wasn't any sort of rock bottom or horrible event that made me decide to make this change. It's just something that I struggled with on and off for years. And I'm in my late 40s. And I just thought that if I don't fix this now, my health is only going to possibly deteriorate.

as I continued down this path and so for me it was just okay let's dive in and see what happens.

Awesome. We like to talk about emotion based goals with this naked mind because a lot of people when they start on a journey of making any habit change, whether it be around alcohol or something else, they'll do like a sober October or dry January and it's 30 days and they're just crossing an ex off the calendar. And that's their goal. Their goal is to just have 30 days alcohol free. And for a lot of us that can actually be counterintuitive. I know it certainly was with me because I did a few of those 30 day breaks and I came back and I drank almost with a vengeance afterwards because I convinced myself that I didn't have a problem.

at that point, right? And so it can actually be counterintuitive, but it's also the goal is just factual and it's just, you know, a logistics goal. There's no emotional base goal to it. So when you start to think about this journey for you and where you would like to go, and this is the dare to dream aspect of this, do you have sort of emotion based goals of how you want to feel what you hope to accomplish by altering or changing this relationship with alcohol?

Absolutely. And I'm 100% with you around that. So over October, 30 days, I've done that. I've been successful on that. And then once it's done, okay, parties back on. And so nothing really changed. And so I'm looking to make some sort of mental shift where I can really say, come in and look at myself and say, you know, this isn't something you really need. And how can I

have a life where this isn't something that I do daily. This doesn't overtake X amount of thought in my day. And so putting that restriction on, it needs to be more than that for me. It needs to be looking to myself in the future and saying,

Where do I want to be a year from now? Where do I want to be five years from now? If I continue down the road that I'm continuing now, I don't necessarily see positive outcomes. And when I stop and look instead of if I can control this or I can have this not be part of my life, I know that there'll just be so many benefits from that. And so that's how I keep trying to move forward is that

looking to remember what's more important and how better my future could be by having little to no relationship with alcohol.

And so what are some of those things if you don't mind sharing? What are your whys? One of the things that we do whenever I start working with somebody one on one and we start in a lot of our programs is we come up with lists, one of which is the reasons why I drank, why I picked up a drink in the first place. And the other one is sometimes I am afraid of stopping where my fears around that. And so can you maybe elaborate on some of those for us as well?

Yeah, sure. I definitely know for me, my drinking started to become heavy when I was in my 20s. I went through a very, very difficult breakup without even realizing it. I started drinking alone. And suddenly it was like, oh, I wonder why I don't get drunk when I go out to have a glass of wine, but I do when I'm at home. And it's like, oh, because you're having the equivalent of two to two and a half glasses in one glass versus a restaurant

You're not so things like that started to happen. That's where it all started for me. And that was my trigger. And so it's just expanded upon that over the years. Now it's just something that I do it every day. It's just, I don't want to say habit, but it's just what I do. But as far as

Looking into what I want to get out of this is there's just so many things I think can be positive. I've struggled with my weight and I know a lot of that has to do with the amount of alcohol I drink and then the careless eating that comes with it. I also from a mental health perspective.

I know it's so much better for me. Those days where I drink too much and just feel horrible and the sadness and the anger and eating myself up. I don't want those things in my life anymore. And I look at those as bi-wise, even silly things like

my complexion, seeing that a better glow, and just an overall happiness, getting up, going out, being physically active. You know, I live in Florida. It's a beautiful state. Go out on D-trips where I can drive out to X amount of hours away, and I don't have to worry about, well, I can't drive home because I'm drinking. So there's just so many things. So physically, mentally, and travel wise. I know that those are my wise.

why I think I could be better without alcohol. And how about on the other side, some of the fears that you have around that aspect of that?

Not being strong enough is definitely a huge fear. And I'm trying to remember that if I look too far into the future, it's going to be overwhelming. So for me, I'm just trying my best to not even take it week by week, just day by day and trying to find those small wins and building upon those. If I look at it as I can never drink again, it's just too much.

And I love that. And I know a lot of people gets hung up on the forever question, right? It's like, I'm never going to be able to drink again. I have to stop forever. Personally, that kept me hung up probably for about a decade because every time I'd have early thoughts in my, on my journey around, um, maybe I'm drinking too much. Maybe I should cut back. Maybe I need to cut this right out of my life.

It just became, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. I taught my brain like we all do. That was something I really needed, something I wanted, something that was highly beneficial to me. And there was a fear of losing that relationship. And so I know that that forever question can keep people stuck. As you say, if you can chop it down into manageable parts and sort of look ahead to, you know, I'm never going to say forever. And I tell people, even as a coach who's on coaching for over five years now, I still tell people I'm not saying I'm never going to drink again.

Because there's always that one in a 100 million chance that something might happen. I'm not saying I'm looking for it. I'm not saying I'm expecting it. But I'm not closing a door to it. And even with that microscopic door open, it allows me to, well, maybe this is the time and I can weigh it against the pros and cons in the moment and make that decision. But not forcing myself to slam that door, lock it up and say, never again. That was a big part of my journey. It sounds like that's kind of where you're going with this too. Absolutely. I think

If you are looking at it in that realm of denial, you're only going to, in human nature, you're only going to want to probably crave it more and then fear takes over and it's like, well, forget it, it's too much. I think you need to replace that mindset of.

This is what I'm trying. I'm trying this on. I'm seeing if this is going to fit. Maybe it'll be a perfect fit. Maybe it'll be a little snug in some areas at first, but then it'll eventually loosen up and become a good fit. So that's how I try to go through day by day looking at this.

And I love that. I love analogies. I love visualizations. And I think about alcohol and drinking for a lot of us becomes like a comfortable pair of shoes or a comfortable sweater. Shoes are usually the one that people resonate with because when you first buy a pair of shoes, they pinch, they bite, they give you blisters, they're uncomfortable. And you're like, Oh, I don't like this. But

Then we have those comfortable shoes that we, you know, the ones that we've had for better have holes in them and are like, maybe worn through, but we've just, we slide into them and they're like, Oh, these are so comfortable. Those comfortable shoes were once really uncomfortable shoes. They were brand new ones, right? And over time, in the case of alcohol, we've just made it really, really, really comfortable. We've worn it right in.

And so when we make an alternative change, in this case, going to a place of not drinking and taking it off the table and changing that relationship, we have to go through that same transition point of, you know, now not drinking is trying on the new shoes. And sometimes people will try it on and they'll get a little bit down the road and they'll be like, nope, I got that blister, keep coming back. I don't like that. In this naked mind world, we call those data points times where people may drink when they're not expecting to, and they kind of put the shoes back in the closet, grab their old shoes again.

or whether it's a sweater or anything else. And also to your other side of that, like trying on different things is a big part of this too, because there's not one stop shop for everybody. Not everybody has the same journey, not everybody has the same beliefs environment they grew up in, et cetera. And so trying on different things, like taking a whole bunch of stuff into a fitting room and trying something on. It's like, nope, this isn't where this doesn't work for me. That doesn't work for me.

Exploring alternatives to what we're doing. There's not one-stop shopping. It's not a cookie cutter, right? That's important, too. So I love that you went there. I love me a good analogy, as I like to say, and that trying one on is good. So the other thing I want to talk to you today a little bit about is we've touched a little bit on the why and reminding yourself why we're doing this, why anybody who.

decides, you know, and we all have our own list of wise, and I challenge anybody who's listening to this to sort of ask yourself if you're contemplating making a change with your relationship with alcohol, what are your wise? And they might be people related, they might just be, as you said, physical related, health related, all of that, but find the ones that really resonate with you and explore those. But the other side of it is that that takes an investment.

We have to put time into that. We have to put potentially money into that. If you're joining a program, like we have, like for example, this naked mind has the path. There's lots of other programs out there that are monthly memberships or our six month programs, three month programs, et cetera. And a lot of them, or if you're doing a one on one coaching, right? That's an investment in yourself, much like anything else to sort of commit to showing up an hour a week and doing that work. And so can you maybe speak to any resistance that you have felt around investments, whether it be personal or financial or anything else?

If it's specific to this naked mind, I have not felt a resistance. And I think it's because as I've mentioned before, I've tried 30 days or I've tried doing X and I just wasn't ready. And at this point in my life, I am ready, but it also, to your point, takes time and investing in myself is the best thing I can do for myself right now.

putting myself first, going through and doing a daily session or education course, these types of things, journaling. I'm journaling now every single day, being aware of how much I'm drinking and how I feel about that, tapping into my feelings. Those all take time. And to me, it's worth it because

It is making me a better person and it's helping me better understand my relationship with alcohol. And so to me an hour a day, if that is definitely so beneficial and has helped me tremendously.

Awesome. We talk about this, you know, a lot of people have resistance because let's be really honest, the traditional way of doing this is free. Alcoholics anonymous, which I had been around for a long time and I'm actually a big advocate of it for some, for the people that it works for, for a lot of people it doesn't. But when you're comparing, there's two aspects to investment, right? We're talking about like putting our time and energy or money and all of that into it. The first aspect is,

We don't have skin in the game and we don't invest in something and we don't commit to something. We're far less likely to do it. And for example, if you have somebody gives you a free gym membership for a year, you get to join it for a year and it's a free trial membership. The likelihood of you showing up relative to, and I know that I see you smiling. I've probably had the similar experience here as opposed to, you know, if you're paying $100 a month, for example, for it.

Right? Even at that level, you're much more inclined to show up. And so that investment, right, translates into the emotional investment, translates into the benefits. But the flip side of that is investing in yourself. If you make it feel like a chore, it can be challenging. You know, you might resent it and resist going and that sort of thing. And so I think for a lot of people that recognizing that, you know, a willingness to invest in yourself and a willingness to put energy into a system that is maybe devoid of a lot of energy, because for a lot of us,

Our journey is when we get to the stage of, you know, when we get to the stage where we start to challenge our relationship with alcohol, it's a lot of autopilot. It's a lot of just walking through our days. People walk home, they walk in, they grab a drink, they drink it. It's like, I didn't, what just happened? It's all been automated. And so energy into that to de-automated or to make it more manual in our mind, like if it's an automatic cell, as opposed to manualizing it, that takes time and it takes emotion and it takes commitment. And as you say, you know, if you have something that stimulates that,

Whether it be a book, whether it be a podcast, whether it be coaching meetings or meetings in general, where you just get together with a lot of like minds and talk about it. I think that investment is going to be much more likely to have a return on that investment. If you have a lighter emotional energy around it, and we talked a little bit about emotional energy.

in this naked mind about the idea that when we're under pressure and we're like, we have gripping our fingers and we're waking up in the morning and just saying, I just have to survive today. It's so much harder to do any work, let alone deep rooted mental thought, belief work around, you know, the origins of a lot of the stories we tell ourselves. Then it is when we're, when we're just kind of, you know, loosely gripping our finger. And we're kind of getting up in the morning and going, let's see what today brings.

So for you, have you, have you, have you discovered that? And you mentioned kind of that's why this naked mind might have resonated with you a little bit more. But in general, can you see how you're much more willing to make an investment in something that feels good? I guess it's the way to look at it, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I did make this investment emotionally and financially. And to your point, yes, it is a motivator. And I have come to a point where I actually am sitting where I am now. I have a setup that I come to every day.

where I log on and I connect with folks via chat, via feed. I come on and do my session work every day. I rate my journal every day and it is an emotional investment, but it's also, yeah, if it's a financial investment, you're definitely going to be more willing to kind of stick that out. And for me, the investment itself is so minimal in comparison to what I'm getting at the end of the day out of this.

in the long run. So, but yes, I do feel that that can be an extra motivator for continuing on and sticking with a program. Right. And that, like I said, that return on investment, the long-term goals, the gains, I know, personally, for me, you know, I don't even have to think about the financial aspect I prefer because I, you know, that was a heavy being coming a coach was a financial commitment. I had to go through the training. I had to commit to that, you know, in addition to all of the other things that I've done along the way to like invest in this aspect of myself.

You know, a lot of us, I like to think of it in two ways. One is around what we think about sort of traditional investing in ourselves, like going to university, going to college, paying a tuition, and the ROI or return on investment of a university degree today relative to what it maybe was in the past, not as much as it used to be, right? It's generally a stepping stone to something else, like a graduate program or something else like that, or a apprenticeship program or some, whatever it might be college degree or whatever it might be. And so that aspect of it, it can be really,

You know, when we're looking at what we get out of a program like that, I call a program, you know, they say eight months times four, two semesters for four years, relative to what I have gotten out of, just this mindset shifting work. Like I always think about taking a belief, like a lot of the thoughts and the beliefs that I've been carrying with me for decades and decades and decades. I would never have thought that looking at my drinking would have opened up so many more other things for me.

And that's the other aspect of this. And so when you start to dream in a little bit bigger, right, you dare to dream a little bit. And one of the things I always ask people when I'm doing like introductory coaches calls with them is dare to dream. If everything here changes for you, if you not get alcohol, like completely, maybe you're not even absent completely, but if you have a better mindset around it, you're feeling more comfortable with your drinking. How does that change? And what does that change for you in the future? And maybe I'll ask that to you just while we're here now, you know, let's dare to dream a little bit. It looks six months out.

and say, six months from now, what opens up for you? What changes for you? Yeah, and I've actually journaled about this of where I'll be. And I need to get a little emotional. Sorry. No, not at all.

It was great to write it out. I went and I thought about all the wonderful things that could be happening. And so I broke down that I had to clear our head and I was focusing again on my physical health. And so I felt more confident in who I was as a person. My relationship with alcohol changed. And so my husband could

Trust me again to not sneak out to just get one more or to say, Oh, no, I only had this amount. You know, that's huge is, is having that and being able to not have him worry about me anymore. That is a huge goal for me and such a benefit. And as we talked about earlier, being able to go out next floor and try new things because

And not hung over and wasting a beautiful day. I'm out on the road and exploring the state that I live in. I think about all of those things and how wonderful my life could be and will be.

because of the changes that I am working to make and I know it's not going to be overnight. It's a process. But six months to a year from now, I can see a huge difference and that drives me and that helps me to keep going. And even if I stumble because I have, they no longer blame myself. I look at it as

This alcohol is something that's very strong and very potent, very powerful. And it takes a lot out on you and it changes you a lot. And so I no longer blame myself for that. Instead, I say, OK, learn from it, move on. But just know that this is an addictive substance. And so if you fall down, it's OK. We're going to get back up and keep trying.

And we coach around that. We talk about that a lot in our programs because it's so true. I mean, we think about all of the things that humans do when they're learning to walk, when we're learning to drive, when we're learning to run a bicycle.

We don't just decide one day. Yep. I'm going to watch a YouTube video on how to drive a car. I'm going to step behind my parents car and drive it out of the garage and how we move off into the sunset. It's not the way it works. Same thing with a baby learning to walk. We fall down. We scrape our knees. We bump our heads. We do all of these things. And yet in this environment for a lot of people, it's, I'm going to make this change. And then if I can't just make it on a dime and instantly change everything in my life around it, I'm a failure.

And that, again, that grace led view, and obviously, Annie in this Naked Mind, in her podcast, in her regular podcast, she talks about, you know, doing it without blame, shame, or rules, right? It's about removing a lot of the traditional hint obstacles to

to moving forward because we are going to fall down. We're humans in this naked mind. We use a hashtag because human like we're going to make mistakes. We're going to have errors. We're going to, you know, and we can do two things. We can either just throw away everything and just say, you know, forget it. And that's it. I'm done or we can dust ourselves off like you described and, and move on and say, yeah, you know, what can I learn from that?

That was a valuable lesson. I've used this exact mindset to reframe a lot of the things in my life, a lot of the regrets that I had around people, places, things, situations, things I said, things I did, decisions I made in the past that maybe weren't in my own best interests, all of this.

And when you look at it through that lens of, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be the person at who I am today. Even one of those decisions went a different way. It can be so freeing and it can remove a lot of the shame and the blame and the regret. And I wish I didn't do that because in a parallel universe, one changed 20 years ago. If you think about it sort of on an angle, like a 0.01 percentage angle 20 years ago could put you 45 degrees off where you are right now. And who knows what that would mean for you. And so looking forward into the future and saying,

Yeah, you know what, those little changes, without it becoming paralyzing, because that sometimes happens to people where it's just like they're afraid, they sit on their hands like, okay, now I'm afraid to move, Mike. Thanks so much. Don't, don't step on an aunt and change the world, you know, the rotation of the earth, all of a sudden.

So you can see the benefits, obviously, in looking at it with a lighter energy. And I use some humor there, which is a big part of the way I coach and the way I deal with this as well, is to find the levity and things and find a little bit of joy in this journey, because it is so intense for so many people. And it was intense for me. And I couldn't function in that pressure cooker. And so it sounds like that's just sort of where you're headed right now, sort of with that mindset of, you know, well, come, we'll come and I'm going to put myself into a position where I can hopefully deal with it a little bit better.

Yeah, I think there's two things that resonate for me when you say that one is that the drinker I am today took time. When I started on my alcohol journey, I wasn't drinking the way I am today, so I can't expect myself to

not fall down and beat myself up because it took me X amount of years to get to the point of where I am on my drinking journey. It's gonna take time to change that and that's okay. And that ties into what you were saying as I look at, I can't change the past. So I can't look back there and I can't predict the future. All I can do is today. That's just what I'm trying to do every day.

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There's the old adage that, you know, when you're driving a car, the windshield is this big and the rear of your mirror is this big. That's the way you should treat the past and the future while living in the present. And I kind of look at it the same way, you know, learn from the past, live in the present with an eye towards the future, right? But the focus is on where you are right now. We have still little control in the world we live in anyway.

We think we have a lot of control over people, places, things, events, situations. Most of us have limited control over the four walls that we live in, let alone anything else outside of that. And so realizing that and becoming comfortable with that and realizing and almost embracing the chaos that comes from every day.

When I came to this journey, I had a really low threshold for discomfort. On a scale of one to 10, it was a 012. Like it was really low. And by that, I mean, anything happened. I was like, through the roof right away. So my emotional intensity was really high. I had very little wiggle room there for anything to be added into my pile on a daily basis. And so what I learned as part of this process for me was to lower that emotional intensity. And I mentioned using humor, letting go of the death grip we have on a lot of things in our lives that we don't have any control over.

at the same time, becoming more comfortable with discomfort and stepping out of my comfort zone and raising that threshold for discomfort. So I'd say now, right, whereas before, you know, my intensity was way up here and my discomfort was way down here, they've inverted.

And by inverting, now I have a much higher threshold for discomfort. I have a much lower baseline emotional intensity. Guess what? Big things happen. They raise my intensity, but they're still below my threshold and I can deal with lots and lots of stuff every day. And I think that you're describing what everything we've talked about today, sort of about reminding ourselves why we take this journey, why we decide to go on this journey a little bit and why investment in it. And, you know, we're not just talking to financial investment, but emotional investment.

a willingness to do the hard things, a willingness to put through, challenge some of the really hard thoughts and the beliefs that are deep driven into us, that are sort of right in our core, can have such benefits because it's going to turn us into more capable individuals, people who can deal with more things. And guess what? When we can do that, that ripple effect ripples to all the people we care about too. So whenever I talk about people and they're wise, a lot of people will come with the first one as well, I'm doing this for my kids.

And then I'll say, and then I'm doing it for, I'm also doing it for myself. And if we can get that mindset shifted, so you focus on the inside, the other part will take care of itself.

Yeah, and I don't want to say it was selfish. For me, it wasn't anybody else but me. I mean, sure, it'll benefit others I have, but I came here because it was something I felt I had to do. And I will say, talking about your, the level of discomfort, just is that this program has actually made me much more confident because when I came in here, I looked at it as this is all my fault.

all of this is because of me and I took that blame and that has hurt for a long time and I'm now coming to see no it's okay and I'm giving myself more grace and I'm getting more confidence and and that is just amazing that itself just in the time that I've done this has been so beneficial.

I get chills when I hear things like that, Mary. I absolutely love it because it's so true. You know, a lot of us, you know, we don't trust ourselves. We wonder who we are and then rediscovering some of that and realizing that we're still that little innocent baby that was born into this world that was told that they were awesome and they're cute and they're adorable and it's okay if you, you know, you poop yourself every now and then into something that was decidedly not that.

I like to think of this as a journey back to that mindset where people can say things. You're not blank enough. And it's like, well, that's your opinion. Somebody else will say, I am blank enough. And a lot of that self discovery is really the long goal here. I always tell people whenever they come to this journey, whether it be in one of our path programs with the snake in mind or anywhere else, this is a journey of thinking, not a journey of drinking.

The drinking is just what brought people to it through the back door that Andy calls this naked mind. So did you have anything else you want to talk about today? This has been an awesome conversation.

Just that I'm grateful and I do feel a shift and I do feel a change and I love that quote about, it's not just about drinking, it's about thinking. And I feel that this has opened up a whole emotional floodgate for me in the best way possible because you start thinking, I just need to control my drinking and then you tap into something deeper. And that's been really beneficial and powerful for me.

I look forward to hopefully hearing in the future about, you know, maybe you'll be on the other end of one of these calls someday. Who knows? I always love to put that out there in the dare to dream side of things too. Because believe me, five, six years ago, I wouldn't have thought I would have been here either. So this is awesome, Mary. So thank you so much. Thank you very much, Mike. I really appreciate it. You're welcome.

That was a powerful session. Take a moment to breathe and just reflect on what you've heard. As we move into the next session, let's carry that same openness and compassion. Every story is different, but the courage to face these challenges head on is what brings us all together. Let's listen in.

I'm doing all right. So as you know, this is an opportunity to have some coaching around something that's coming up for you around your alcohol journey and some one on one coaching time, which is always really valuable. I know I have coaches. I have coach and it's a chance for you to talk to myself being a certified, this naked mind coach about something that's on your mind on this journey. So what would you like to talk about today?

Thank you, first of all, for taking the time. Something that I get really hung up on is a way to feel like I'm giving myself a reward at the end of the day and just sort of a break from my responsibilities. Like, if I don't have time to get out of the house and exercise because I've got small children, something that doesn't feel like more work, obviously, I know meditation is probably like a better stand-in, but it's those times when

Your day has been like 12 hours long and it's been someone neither asking you questions or needing something for me, whether it's work or children or the house. And it's just like, I just want something where I can't leave my house right now because I have parenting and house chores, but just turn my brain off and feel like I'm, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't want to turn my brain off, but anyway.

Right. A lot of people feel this, you know, they go through their day and they sort of look at maybe looking even ahead to that reward at the end of the day as payment or justification for all the things that they're going through that day. And, you know, I certainly was one of those. I remember rushing my kids through baths and bedtimes when I was little. So because I knew that I could have a couple of drinks after they went to bed and, you know, like take the energy down from my day. I can totally relate to that. I mean, my kids are in their twenties now. So that was a long time ago, but even then,

And I wasn't drinking super heavily back then, but it was part of the reward system, right? And so there's two tax that we can take on this. But the first thing I wanted to ask you about is, you know, what is a reward for you? How would you define reward? In this case, it's like just a little break from my responsibilities and a way to like tone down my brain of like to-do lists and all the brain waves at that time of day, I guess.

It's an escape, it sounds like in many ways. So it's also much a reward, like time off, you know, good behavior or for time served or something like that. It's more, I just want to get away from things for a few minutes. And this fits into that. And it does that. You know, it hits our pleasure centers. It hits our, you know, get the dopamine rush, an artificial one because alcohol obviously is a highly concentrated dopamine stimulator as opposed to anything we find naturally, but

It gives us that 20 minutes of high. It gives us that break, that shutdown, that numbing for 20 minutes. But as we know, and as we talk about the physiology of alcohol detoxification and just in the chemistry in our brain, after those first 20 minutes, dinorphin starts to kick in and we start to feel the two to three hours of downer that comes after that.

And so when I always like to ask, you know, is alcohol really a reward? Because that's a fundamental belief for a lot of us. You know, I work hard today. I had a hard day at work, you know, work hard play hard. I deserve a break. Right. I deserve a reward. And so justifying that is one thing and we'll come to that in a few minutes, maybe. But on the assumption that yes, I deserve a reward is alcohol really a reward.

At the time, it feels like it. It's a short-term reward. That's that stupid little buzz. For me, it seems like a short-term reward. Is it possible that it's not? With this naked mind, we talk about turning our thoughts around, right? We have a technique called the ACT technique. It's around coming aware of a thought or a statement, alcohol is a reward. And we have several layers of beliefs and thoughts and beliefs that we can work around. This is what we call sort of a substance-related one. It's just like alcohol helps me to relax. That's a belief I have.

Sounds like you still have that belief still exists for you, that it is relaxing. Let's take it to or to escape or to relax or whatever you want the terminology is. So if we're looking at relaxation, if we're looking at reward, if we're looking at getting away,

We're not physically getting away when we drink. We're shutting down. We're kind of numbing ourselves to all of the things that are around us, but we're not actually coping with it, dealing with it. We're just putting our head in the sand and ignoring it for as long as we possibly can in the hopes that 20 minutes later, we'll feel a little bit better about it. And so from the reward perspective,

Absolutely. If we come to a place that we need to have a reward, part of the problem with trying to find a replacement for alcohol is that, as I mentioned, alcohol is a highly concentrated, fermented product that's artificially cultivated and created by humans to overstimulate many, many times what we would find naturally. Alcohol naturally is found in less than 1%, most things, like fermented products and things like that, it's like a half a percent.

If we're going to go with the idea that it is a reward, and I'm believing that, and I need a substitute for that reward if I'm going to change my relationship with alcohol, it's not going to be easy because we're not going to find that. We have to go to something else that's artificial, other drugs, other stimulants, or whatever it might be. And so there's two parts to that. First of all, we're realizing that and realizing that, you know what, I'm not going to find another plug and play reward that's going to equal it.

And then the other side of it is the other aspect of this I really want to dive into at this. Why do you need a reward? And that's the question I want to put back to. So I felt the same way. I felt like I deserved something at the end of the day for doing my chores, for doing my job, for being in my case, being a dad, your case being a mom and getting my kids ready for bed and getting them off. And I deserve something for that. Do you have a sense of that as well? Oh, for sure. Yeah. It doesn't make you feel uncomfortable when you sort of say that I need a reward for like being a mom.

I feel like I need something. I don't know if it's a reward or if it's just like just a reprieve, maybe. Those are very different. Yeah. We have choices. We all make choices in life. Some people make choices to have kids. Some excuses not to have kids. Some people have pets. Some people don't have pets. Some people live in houses or they have to do upkeep. Some people live in condos where it's all taken care of. We all make life choices and they take us to a place. And then in the moment,

You know, for me, it was definitely moments of intensity where, you know, I was raising my kids and I was rushing home from my job and I was getting in the car and I was getting them off to scouts or to a sports event or something like that. And it was really, really intense in the moment. But in that moment, when I started to think about, you know, I need a reward for this and I didn't get the reward, I started to resent things a little bit.

And resentment came into it. That's a negative emotion that we don't really want to be carrying around when we were doing something that we have chosen to do. And that we, you know, deep down, I think we all, anybody who wants to, you know, has kids, wants to be a parent, wants to experience the amazing things that come with being a parent. But now we're talking about this mindset at the end of the day where I deserve a reward for doing this job. Does that connect with you at all that you think of parenting as a job? Yeah. Yeah, it definitely feels like that sometimes, you know,

And so something you have to do as opposed to something you get to do. And how would you feel if you reframe that a little bit around?

Again, this isn't to sort of flip a switch and make everything change, but just to lighten the energy of the desire that you need at the end of the day to escape, right? Because if you're going into your day and, you know, you've got all these responsibilities and then at the end of the day, and whether you're looking ahead to some sort of bonus, checking the box, clocking your time, getting out, escaping at the end of the day, how are you going to show up during the course of the day as opposed to living? It's kind of surviving a day versus living a day.

Yeah. How does that sound for you? It definitely like translates. Like I remember from one of the videos, Annie talks about getting to go to the gym versus having to go to the gym or kind of makes a similar parallel. And I definitely like, I have no problem viewing that as, oh yeah, anytime I get to go to the gym, it's like a privilege, you know? So yeah, that's interesting to frame it that way too.

And a lot of this is around, just this kind of respite ball in here. We're coming up with some ideas, some maybe some alternative ways, some of them may resonate, some of them may not. And so if anything really comes to you and you want to elaborate on it or really want to definitely bring that to the conversation, but this concept of reward at the end of a day and how does it make you feel? Like the statement of the question that we were talking about at the beginning of what you said was, you know, what reward can I give myself? If I can't leave the house and if I have these chores and if I have the kids around,

What's the alternative? Is that kind of the idea? Because alcohol is the reward that you're giving yourself now, right? Yeah, definitely.

or traditionally what you would do in that scenario. Can you see how the two sides you can work on that? First of all, is it really a reward and why do I need a reward for something that I've chosen to do, that I love doing, that I enjoy doing? Sometimes when it becomes more of a chore, when it becomes something that we feel a little more of a job as opposed to a gift of journey, you can turn it over wherever you want to for your own language.

This was really important for me, because anytime I feel like I'm doing a job or I have to do a chore, it sort of unlocks a little part of my childhood brain that was a punishment. And it comes from boredom, right? Boredom was attached to that. I say, mom, dad, I'm bored. They give me a chore to do. They tell me to go cut the grass or clean my room or clean out the garage or do something, right? And so you can see how when you start to make something like a chore and you start to become something that you have to do.

It can start to build up some, you know, like it makes like I need payment for that job. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it really does. How does that resonate with you about the job you're doing as a mom, as a parent, as, you know, working and doing all the things you're doing, requiring a bonus beyond what you're already getting?

I'm hearing it and it's a nice, I'm writing it down. Actually, it was a nice reframe, but I like how you talked about boredom too, because sometimes that's definitely a factor. I'm excited to go experience things or it's just sometimes you just feel trapped a little bit and it's like, well, I need to do something to fill a time and how else could I look at that as your kids are only a little once and, you know, it's a special time.

Those words, like we said, doing chores, I feel trapped. Those are not words that are going to give you inspiration and motivation. It's not a very light energy.

This kind of heaviness to those words, nobody wants to be trapped. We want to have freedom. That's the word that we always use here. We talk about alcohol freedom, AF, being AF. Freedom is something that humans really, we crave that. And so anything that feels like we're stuck or we're trapped or we don't have an option, it triggers almost a primal urge to just want to bust out and be free.

In many ways, it makes us very uncomfortable. And what does discomfort bring? Discomfort brings us a thought that we need to escape. We need to get away. And I talk about drinking versus using alcohol. And a lot of people start drinking when they're younger and they get to a point somewhere along the way for me anyway. And I know for a lot of people I talk to, it becomes sort of something that they use, like it becomes drug usage or alcohol usage as opposed to just alcohol drinking.

When it gets to that stage and we start to realize that we're filling a need with it, and in this case, people will say, I drink because I'm bored. I don't like to be bored. Well, let's look at reframing that boredom.

What is boredom? I have a little schematic that I use in my coaching when I talk to people, but I always recommend to people who do a quick search in an Oxford dictionary or the Cambridge dictionary or Miriam Webster, whatever you need to look up the word boredom and look up synonyms and antonyms for boredom, opposites and, and sayings. And you'll see the two lists there of those words. Which of those describes you after you've had a few drinks? It's words like dull and slow and dim, that's boredom.

And that's what happens to us when we drink. We're actually making ourselves more bored, but we're too numb to see it. And so the other side of that is, you know, what's the opposite of that is, you know, excitement and vibrancy and living and life and all of these things. And ironically, that's what we find when we take a break from drinking and we actually live life and we experience the highs, experience the lows.

And so, again, reframing boredom, reframing rewards. Like, when do I need a reward? And do I really need a reward? Or is it something that I'm sort of justifying this work? Can you see how there's a whole lot of levels and little different things that you can look at, different ways that you can approach this? Yeah, definitely. What's connecting with you right now?

Just thinking about looking up Anton M's, Anton M's and board him. Like, you know, I feel like I'm just dumbing myself down. And yeah, making myself more boring. And which of those is more in line with what your, your goals are around this journey or an alcohol, the dimming, the quieting, or the becoming more awake, alive, active. Yeah, definitely just becoming more alive and

One of the things I wrote down in one of my recent journaling steps was it was like about your body image and what are some of the things you're looking forward to the difference in your body. And the last thing I wrote down was the spark in your eye that returns and you see a glimmer as I've taken a couple days off here and there, but that definitely resonates.

People have used that term glimmers versus triggers, right? Because we have kind of things that we see that give us that moment of, oh, wow, kind of that eureka moment or that little spark, that little firework that goes off in our mind that just gives us a glimpse of something that we don't have yet that we can see the possibilities. And so, as I said, there's a fear of boredom for a lot of people. That's why they become workaholics.

Because of what I said before, as I know, I was certainly like that. I felt like idle hands were going to, you know, my mom used to have a saying, you don't want to sit around. You had to be busy, busy, busy, go, go, go. And what that did for me was that created a mindset that I felt there was something wrong about not having being active and not being busy. And I've since learned that it does work. You know, it gets you promoted in jobs and it gets you, you know, you do all the, but it comes at an incredible cost in the long run.

And so this situation, and I always love talking about this topic, rewards and rushing through the end of your day to get to a bottle of wine or whatever it might be with people who have young kids because there's such an opportunity for a reframe and for a change in the moment here that before the kids, like my kids said, my kids are 24 and 26.

And so it's not the same for me, right? I can't go back and kind of imagine what those bath times and those story times would have been like if I had this mindset, right? Recognizing that it's a snapshot in time and recognizing that it's an opportunity and it's such a gift to get to play this role. And it's not a job or something I want to present or something I need to escape from. And again, there are times obviously every parent goes through. We don't have to go into the list of all the things that we deal with, right? As a parent, but

Can you see how easing all for me that a lot of this is around easing the energy, like loosening up the energy, the intensity of the energy that you're feeling around the need to escape? Because when we don't feel the need to escape, guess what? We're much less inclined to reach for something like alcohol that's going to take us there.

Yeah, definitely. And I've been thinking about ways to like, what goes into building a life that you don't want to escape from. But yeah, I hadn't thought about some of the maybe the negative terminology that's going around in my brain.

Words matter, especially when we use them over and over and over again. And like for me, a lot of the words are things like right and wrong. If I ever catch myself saying that's wrong or something you did was wrong, I put the brakes on and challenge it and say, okay, why was it wrong? Because that's a judgmental statement, right? We're judging ourselves. And sometimes those mindsets can come into, you know, your parenting, like at the end of the day, you're exhausted. It's like, oh, I should be more present. I should be. I should be. I should be this judgment again.

We're doing it wrong. I should be able to handle this without needing alcohol. I should be able to handle this without needing a reward because the reward itself is the time spent with these little individuals that you brought into the world that are reliant on you and dependent on you and you get to spend that time with them.

And again, this is a mindset that I discovered more recently than I've established it with other, every relationship I have now. But part of me, I always love talking to people who once again, who are at that stage where that need to escape. And I know it's not easy being a parent, especially today. I mean, my kids are 20 years, you know, if they're 15, whatever year is 10 or 10, 15 years ahead of where yours are probably. So the world's a different place. We know that, right? Technologically and everything else, but there's different stresses, different strains.

But it still comes down to the fundamental human desire to be a parent and to have kids and to raise them. And those are choices that we make along the way. And so if we take ownership for those, and then we realize that with those with that ownership, with power, and by taking ownership, I mean, that takes back the power in a lot of the process.

This hasn't been, like, voiced, like, thrusted upon me, and I have no control over it. It's something that I get to do. And again, I get to versus I have to. Just sometimes just substituting that word in a statement in your head, oh, but I have to get the kids to bed. No, no, no, I just, I get to. I get to put the kids to bed.

Sometimes it's just a lighter energy. It just lowers the intensity, lowers the heat in the kitchen a little bit. And where I'm going with all this and everywhere you can probably imagine is that the more places you can lower that intensity, the less discomfort you're going to have. I mentioned earlier, work hard, play hard. If I'm really feeling intense and everything I'm doing is so hard and it's so difficult and I'm struggling and I'm getting through it, but I'm surviving, then I'm going to want to reward that balances that.

Whereas if I'm doing the best I can with the tools I have, and I'm just doing the job that I signed up for by becoming a parent, I'm valuing the time I spend and doing it, like, once again, all those different lenses we've talked about.

I'm not going to require a reward because the reward is already there. And I'm not going to feel as intense about that reward. So even if I do feel like I could use a night off and put my feet up and relax, I can do that. And as you say, you know, whether it's a meditating, whether it's just kicking back, you know, we have a hot tub in our backyard. My wife sometimes after a long day's work, she would come home and go out there and just spend 15 minutes by herself, just kind of.

bringing everything down. So that's where the boredom will kick in because your brain will go, well, yeah, but you're not doing anything. That's not productive, but sometimes doing nothing is actually doing a lot. Yeah, absolutely. So can you see how you can look at it from both sides? You can look at it from reframing reward and also looking at, do I really need a reward? Yeah, definitely. What else is coming up for you right now?

Just even like the word I used earlier was maybe it's not a reward, but it's a reprieve. And then that's some of the negative, you know, language again. Yeah. And then just considering the intensity at which maybe I'm putting a little more intensity around things that aren't as intense as I perceive them to be.

Awesome. And I love that reprieve versus reward, a break. And also removing the requirement for it, if that makes sense, because when we feel we need it, whenever we need something external of ourselves, we're giving up power, we're giving somebody else something else, the power over us. But when we say, I could always use a break.

Then when we get one or a reprieve or a reward, where if you get something that is on top, when it's not expected and we don't need it to validate something we're doing, it feels so much better when it comes. And it actually serves as an energy boost. It serves as a, it doesn't just fill the void. It actually gives us a boost on top of wherever we already are. If we already have it within us to do work through that.

This is the sort of work that as you go further down, as we start to dive into some of the thoughts and beliefs that are more deep rooted in ourselves around, you know, starts with alcohol. And I always tell people, you know, people who come to a program like the path, which is a snake and minds program, if they come in as it's a thinking program disguised as a drinking program, because the drinking brings people in. That's the common thread, the common behavior that we all coaches included brought us all to this way of looking at things.

But this concept of thoughts of beliefs lead to emotions lead to actions and we can there have a lot more control than we think we have can be applied to almost anything else too. And when we show up that way and we come with a higher energy, we have a better, you know, a cleaner energy. We're not like burning out every day. We're not like burning coal or kind of, you know, we have a more renewable energy source.

our thoughts, we can change them and move them around, we're much less likely to burn out. And by burning out, we're not going to need those escape mechanisms as we need before. We're going to be much more capable of dealing with the stresses and the overwhelm that can come in life, especially when you have a busy life and you've got all day, you've got the kids, you've got rutures and everything else. You can start to roll through them. And at the end of the day, the reward is getting to the end of the day.

Right? The quiet that comes when the kids go to bed. That's the reward.

as opposed to your brain being so intense and working at such a high level, that it's almost like you crash when the kids go to bed and you just, all this stuff comes flooding in and you need to resolve it. And that's, you know, for me, that was what alcohol did, right? A busy day. And as I said, I got home, had, you know, I ate dinner, had to have the kids off to soccer practice or whatever it was, got them home, got them back, got them, you know, they'd have a bath or a shower, get them into bed, make sure they have lunches tomorrow. And it was like nine o'clock and my wife and I, and two of us basically just kind of collapsed.

Yeah. Right. But my mind, unlike my wife, who was able to do a lot of this work, just because she wasn't a drinker, she sort of managed this and had the... I think she was doing a lot of this work already. But in my case, I was like, I can't sleep. My mind's going 100 miles an hour. And so what did I do? I used alcohol to put me to bed every night. It was my bottle.

Give the baby their bottle and give the baby his bottle. That's what it was. But now, even the most intense days, at the end of it, I can find a way to just reframe some of those thoughts, put some of them off, carry some forward, but focus on the now and focus on the opportunities that I have in the places where I can really put my energies now. And so hopefully that'll help as you look at the reward and the reframe. I talked about rewiring your brain a little bit around, do I need a reward?

Because you're getting a reward with your kids every day. If you look at that as the reward, right, as opposed to the chore that you know what I mean? Like we're kind of, we're kind of bumping the reward into the zone of the thing that where it was a chore or something you had to do before. Yeah. Does that help? Yeah, definitely. Awesome.

And I like how you talked about taking that because I know that alcohol steals my energy, you know, like I know that I lose it through drinking and that just makes me more tired. So trying to take that energy that you need and channeling it into the actual thing.

Yeah, and especially when we are working at a, you know, in an energy deficit because we're maybe overtired from the night before and, you know, we don't get in a good night's sleep. We wake up the next morning. We're starting at 70% and then we're trying to get through 120% of energy with 70% and battling it all day. And again, it's going to continue to cycle and that's where that overwhelm can become cumulative.

And believe me, I remember those days. I absolutely do. I hope that this has helped you to sort of come up with some, maybe some strategies, some places you can look at different reframe, a different focus on some of the ways that you were thinking before and maybe explore some of them and maybe down the road somewhere we can cross pass again and you can let me know how it went. Okay. Yeah, definitely. Awesome. All right. Thanks so much, Lola. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you're ready to see how this naked mind can help you on your personal health and wellness journey, and want to learn more, go to thisnakedmindpodcast.com to learn what your next best step is. Again, that's thisnakedmindpodcast.com. We have all of our free resources, programs, social links, and more available for you there. Plus, if you have your own naked life story to share, you can submit it there as well. Until next week, stay curious.