Episode 56: Can alcoholism be cured?

00:43

Hello, everybody. So before I begin, I want to state the obvious. My voice is a little raspy today. I’ve been fighting some sort of cold or virus. I don’t know. Hopefully, it won’t be too distracting for you. Some people might find that sexy, raspy voice appealing. I don’t know. But anyway, hopefully, it’s OK. So I’m going to do this anyway. And today’s topic is a bit of a doozy. I’m going to address whether or not alcoholism is curable.

01:13

And before I share my ideas on the subject, I wanna give you the perspective from which I am looking at this. I’m gonna frame the problem in a way that we’re not used to looking at it, at least in mainstream culture. I’m also pulling from scientific research, as well as my own observations and my own experience. I will also tell you why I feel qualified as much as anybody else to answer this topic.

01:42

Not only have I experienced alcohol use disorder, a raging case, if you will, I have also fully recovered from it. And I also have a master’s degree in coaching as well as certificates in certified professional recovery coaching, which means I’ve been trained in addiction and recovery. In addition, I’ve worked with hundreds of women over the last few years in my program that I’ve created.

02:11

Recover with Colleen or my 12 week the next chapter program. And so I’ve seen how looking at this from a different perspective has impacted my clients and How it’s playing out in the real world, so I don’t just rely on book research or my own experience, but I’m also seeing real life evidence that approaching Alcoholism from a different perspective

02:39

from the mainstream narrative can be very powerful and healing. And so I’ll start by prepping you with some mindset frameworks in how I define truth and how I think about truth. I think there’s two types of truth. I think there’s the big T truth which is more of an experience. Truth, big T truth, doesn’t need words to be explained. It can’t be argued with.

03:09

It is what it is. It’s not a belief or an opinion or a judgment. It just is what it is. And so using that definition, there can be no big T truth about something that requires perspective, something that changes from person to person or over time. So if you’re listening to this, hoping to hear some big T truth, you’re going to be disappointed.

03:39

And really what we’re all searching for is not big T truth in and of itself. We’re searching for certainty. But I’m sorry to say that certainty is a feeling, not a fact. You can’t think and know anything. The experience just is what it is. And so in your search for the truth, the first thing that you have to come to terms with

04:05

is that the only thing that’s real is whatever’s going on in this present moment. You can’t predict the future. And even the way you’re making sense of the past is only your story. Somebody else might have the exact same details or experience and frame it completely different and have a different story or a different interpretation or find different meaning in their experience. And I think that’s where I’ll jump in. So,

04:34

When we think about whether or not alcoholism can be cured, the first thing that you have to realize is that we’re only talking about people who have self-identified as alcoholics. So let’s take a moment to distinguish between an alcoholic and alcoholism. I prefer to use the term, and this is actually how it’s defined in the DSM-5, alcohol use disorder.

05:03

versus alcoholism. You can interchange the two words. Just be aware that culturally we link the idea of alcoholism with the identity of an alcoholic. The updated more medically accurate version is to say a person is dealing with alcohol use disorder. While we are nowhere near where we need to be,

05:31

The medical community is getting away from labeling people as addicts or alcoholics. Research has found no evidence to support the idea that there is a type of person who becomes an addict. I remember going to AA meetings and people talking about how they could look back on their lives and realize they were an alcoholic from birth, or they were an alcoholic at the age of three or five, far before they ever had their first drink.

06:00

But what’s happening is they’re cherry picking evidence that they have an addictive personality and using that to fuel a self-fulfilling prophecy. I am certainly not gonna argue that people are not born with certain genetic predispositions. You know, maybe they have lower levels of dopamine or something like that, you know, enzymes in their brain that convert alcohol differently, whatever. But science has shown that the environment

06:29

that a person grows up with, including the most important environment, which is the way they talk to themselves and the way they think about themselves, your internal environment. But our environment is far more predatory of our vulnerability to addiction, substance use disorders, and everything else. Think of it like food. You have certain families where diabetes runs in the family. Are they more genetically susceptible to that? Sure.

06:59

But it’s not just genes that run in the family. It’s also diet and lifestyle. And so to argue that somebody is born to be a diabetic or born to be an alcoholic is completely dismissive of the fact that your genes are responsible for less than 3% of your phenotype. You have your genotype, which are your genes, and then your phenotype, which is the expression of those genes. And the environment is what turns on and off genes.

07:29

BRCA, BRCA gene for breast cancer. You know, in 2013, women who carry that gene had an 85% increased risk of a breast cancer diagnosis. But in 1940, the BRCA mutation indicated only a 24% risk of increased risk of cancer. It’s not the genes that have changed, it’s our environment.

07:56

and it’s our environment that’s causing the expression of the cancer. Obviously there are genes that lead to 100% diagnosis. You know, if you have trisynomy 13, you will have Down syndrome from birth. But that really is more of the exception, not the rule. And when it comes to lifestyle diseases and chronic disorders, it’s a big mistake to think that you’re just destined to become ill.

08:25

your health and happiness is absolutely within your control. And labeling people as addicts or alcoholics and boxing in their addictions as the result of the type of person they are, making it part of their identity, absolutely hamstrings people and limits their ability to change. And in fact, labeling people with the identity of addicts or alcoholics

08:55

has been shown scientifically to lead to more negative outcomes, higher rates of relapse. Telling people that they don’t have the ability to control themselves becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So divorcing the identity from the disorder is a key critical first step towards healing and recovery. And so let’s define recovery.

09:22

Recovery is a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength, by definition, I looked it up. And one of the things that I noticed with AAA is that they define recovery as ongoing, you’re never actually recovered, and their bar, if you will, for being recovered is that you are staying sober, 100% sober. And if indeed that’s the goal,

09:52

You can’t know if you stuck the landing on that until you’re dead, because as long as you’re alive, there’s a risk of relapse. AA also defines relapse as having a drink. And if you look at that mindset from a bigger picture, if somebody sets the goal to have zero drinks for the rest of their life, and then for whatever reason has one drink, they are much more likely to say, fuck it.

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and keep drinking. One of my favorite podcasts is Armchair Expert with Dak Shepard. And he’s a big AA guy. And I just have so much respect for him. But he is of this mindset and talks openly about how if he were to have one drink, that he would then say, well, I’m going to go on a three or four day bender because I already failed and fucked up. And I guess I’ll just pick myself up on Monday.

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So it creates this all or nothing mindset that if you have a moment where you don’t fulfill your version of perfect, then that’s a reason or an excuse to completely trash your body and trash yourself because you believe you don’t have any control anyway. And that’s why I think defining relapse as having one drink is a really dangerous concept.

11:18

In reality, a relapse of a disease or disorder is a reoccurrence of symptoms. And the basic symptoms of alcohol use disorder is when you’re drinking more than you intend. And here’s the thing, alcohol use disorder is not really about alcohol. The symptoms you’re experiencing are cognitive. It’s a mental health condition. The moment you realize

11:47

that alcohol is harming you or you’re drinking more than you intend, and you don’t stop, alcohol is no longer the problem. It’s your thoughts and feelings about yourself that aren’t matching reality. Because of course, put your hands in your pockets. There, you just stopped drinking. It’s the belief that you can’t control your drinking that perpetuates the disorder, not alcohol itself. Now, I do wanna distinguish

12:16

between the brain chemistry of a person in active addiction and a person who is not addicted to alcohol. It is much more difficult to control your drinking if you are actively addicted to alcohol. And the reason for that is not because you’re weak or alcohol is so addictive, it is because your brain chemistry over time has adjusted for the alcohol.

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and alcohol spikes your dopamine up to 10 times more than normal everyday activities. And when you spike your dopamine, over time your baseline levels of dopamine fall. Think of dopamine as water in a bathtub and the spikes are when you make waves. When you spike your dopamine levels really high, some of the water jumps out of the bathtub or splashes out of the bathtub, leaving you with less water in the bathtub, less dopamine in your brain over time.

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And so over time, you are not drinking because you wanna feel good, you’re drinking because nothing else is providing you with relief. You’re not drinking to get high, you’re drinking to raise your low, if that makes sense. Regular use of alcohol depletes your baseline levels of dopamine, but that is reversible. Your brain chemistry will recalibrate in the absence of alcohol.

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remove the use, remove the disorder, which is why a period of abstinence is the most significant intervention you can do for yourself. Now, on average, it takes about 14 months for people in recovery from alcohol use disorder to recalibrate their dopamine so that it’s firing awesome on all levels. I know 14 months is a long time, and I don’t mean to scare you, that’s just the average.

14:15

The studies that produced that timeline were measuring brain chemistry in people suffering from very severe cases of alcohol use disorder. Alcohol use disorder is a spectrum though. It affects everybody differently. You can move up and down the spectrum. It is not fixed. And so for me, I was sober completely for almost three years and I needed every day that I took.

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to recalibrate my brain chemistry and change the way I was thinking about myself and all of that. I’ve worked with clients who were able to take a month off and then move on with their lives. Going back to my point about big T truth, there is no big T truth when it comes to recovery. There is no answer about which you can feel certain. Again, certainty is a feeling, not a fact. Your experience in the present moment

15:11

is the only truth that matters for you. And part of untangling the mental health issues with alcohol use disorder is you have to start trusting that your experience is the only thing that matters for your body. Your experience is your reality for your body. And you can’t change anything until you stop arguing with reality. I teach that the only rule

15:38

you need to follow is your own intuition. And if you’ve ever suffered with alcohol use disorder, you know how many times you’ve not wanted to pour the drink and you did anyway. And it’s that moment of knowing, or it’s that stop sign as I like to say, you’re blowing through your own stop signs that you have to stop and pause and change the way you’re relating to yourself and change.

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how you are responding to your needs and the feelings that are coming up in terms of the resistance that you have to taking care of yourself. Which is why I teach that sobriety is the bridge to recovery, not the destination. The sooner you can shift your perception of the problem as being one of relating to alcohol, and instead,

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look at the bigger picture and see that the problem here is the way you’re relating to yourself and begin to work on that. That is the real problem you need to solve. Once your top priority is your own well-being instead of the ability to drink or the ability to stay sober, alcohol stops being a problem. And I know that’s a big thing to say. So now I will walk you through my own progression.

17:00

of where I was when I first quit drinking and how I got to a place now where I’m able to have a glass of wine without any desire for more. Because it was a process. I didn’t just wake up one day as I am. When I first quit drinking, I went into the sober community. My drinking habit was bad enough that I had self-diagnosed myself as an alcoholic.

17:28

And so I believed that alcohol was the problem and that sobriety was the solution. And before I continue, I didn’t say this earlier. I started the episode by talking about how this question of whether or not alcoholism can be cured really only seems to apply to people who diagnose themselves as alcoholics. In fact, research shows that about 75% of people

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get in the weeds with alcohol, are able to self-correct on their own. Meaning they don’t define themselves as alcoholics and start going to meetings. They just stop. Many drinkers, alcohol is an addictive drug. Anybody that uses it on a regular basis can get in the weeds with it. And there are many people who, you know, for a period of a few days, a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years,

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use alcohol to cope and find themselves painted into a corner where they’re using alcohol to treat the symptoms of withdrawal from alcohol. They’re drinking to relieve their stress and it’s just exacerbating their stress so they need more alcohol. That’s a normal response to alcohol and so people who don’t decide they’re alcoholics and instead just figure out another way to get their shit together, changing what needs to be changed.

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addressing the reasons that they’re drinking, those people are able to self-correct. And the big question in the sober side of the community is, well, does that mean that they’re able to drink again? And the answer is different for everybody. Some people quit drinking and never look back, never talk about being an alcoholic. They just decided alcohol wasn’t serving them anymore, and they put it down. Some of them make a lifelong commitment to not pick it back up.

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because why would you? There’s no need. And some people are able to go back into moderate drinking at some level. And so people self-correct all the time. So this idea that alcoholism can’t be cured ignores the fact that anybody who has ever had a hair of the dog experienced alcohol use disorder. And many people clean their own shit up without ever going to rehab.

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or announcing themselves alcoholics and going to sobriety meetings. 75% of people out there who have used alcohol self-correct alcohol problems on their own. So I was not among that group. I had become so obsessed with alcohol for so long and was experiencing such negative impact on my life that I believed that I needed to go into the sober community.

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So one of the things I remember saying early days was not necessarily identifying with the belief that I’m an alcoholic. I never really swallowed that one, even though I just said that I thought it. That just shows that you can think a lot of things and you can have conflicting beliefs. So while a part of me disagreed with the fact that I was an alcoholic, what I could say for sure

20:47

is that the idea of having one glass of wine sounded pointless to me. That was my truth. I thought, why would anybody have one glass of wine? That’s a stupid waste of calories. That’s false start. You know, that’s a dick tease, whatever you want to call it. Like, that was the belief I had, that there was no point in having one glass of wine. So with that being my truth, I assumed that I would need to remain sober for the rest of my life.

21:16

And so I adopted the sober identity, alcohol-free lifestyle, I’m in recovery. And that was such a good call because it took alcohol off the table for me. I did not have to focus on when or how much or if I was ever drinking again. And that freed up a lot of bandwidth in my brain. And as a coach, I really shy away from telling people what to do.

21:45

And in truth, like I said, I’ve had a client who was, you know, abstinent for 30 days, and then was able to go back and have a beer here and there and experience no problems with that, moving on, doing other things. Now, he continued to do the work of mental healing and pursuing emotional sobriety. He had just been able to flip a switch in his head and no longer be under the impression that pouring alcohol on stress

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or anxiety or the problems in his life was serving him in any way. Now he already had a pretty strong mindset about his own ability to control himself. And so all he needed to learn was how alcohol was undermining that. And once he knew better, it was pretty simple for him to do better. But if somebody asked me personally for my recommendation,

22:40

If you’re struggling with alcohol use disorder and you’ve been a chronic drinker for many years, my first recommendation personally is to promise yourself at least a year, too, if you can. Because as I’ve shared, the 14-month average for dopamine recalibration is, you just make it so much easier on yourself to not screw with your brain chemistry.

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to not test the waters, like why? Why not learn how to live without alcohol, go through all the holidays, create new habits, just take it off the table? So there is my plug for an extended period of sobriety, but again, that was my truth. And that was based on my focus and my issues and my needs. Ultimately, I did almost three years of sobriety, and I have zero regrets.

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You know, as they say, I think it’s mostly true. You never wake up one morning and regret not having drank the night before. That is a pretty good rule of thumb. And so you might be wondering why I chose to reintroduce, and I’m gonna get into that, but I am gonna go through the progression of my thought patterns. So my first thought was, there’s no point in having one glass of wine. I’m not the type of person who would enjoy one glass of wine. I was identifying as an all or nothing person.

24:08

And I’d always seen myself as a more is more person. If one is good, two is better, I’m going to go ahead and order 20 just to make sure I don’t run out. And that attitude, which I identified as just part of my personality, was how I approached a lot of things in my life. And sometimes, indeed, that was a good thing. But sometimes, often, it bit me in the ass. But as I moved into sobriety, I really

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learn how to trust myself. And even though I had taken alcohol off the table with no intention to ever drink again, I had to confront that mindset in other areas of my life. And one of those areas was psychiatric meds. So I had been taking Adderall for years, and in my desire to be sober, I tried to go cold turkey off of everything. So I quit alcohol, Adderall. I was also a vapor.

25:07

and in the first year of sobriety tried to quit that. A few other factors that are relevant is I was a staunch vegan and a pretty strict intermittent faster. So I didn’t eat any meat or dairy and I limited food intake between the hours of one and eight p.m. And what I discovered in my thought process of feeling like there’s a perfection and I had a new bar,

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excuse the pun, I had a new bar for perfection, which was that I would be completely substance free. That didn’t go well and really exacerbated my symptoms of post-acute withdrawal syndrome, which really boils down to mostly a dopamine deficit. My brain chemistry went into complete shock. And I, gosh.

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I just pat myself on my back for courage and strength and stamina. I went nine months where I was in a deep depression. And no matter what I did, exercise, eating as healthy as I knew to eat, which to me at the time included no meat. And at the time, I didn’t understand that that lack of protein, consistent protein-rich meals was actually really holding me back.

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Nutritional requirements for healing your brain chemistry are pretty high. You need a steady supply of amino acids to the brain. And the lack of appropriate nutrition really prolongs suffering, which is why I was not bouncing back. And I had no idea why. You know, here I was doing everything right and not having the energy or the motivation or the focus.

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not really experiencing any joy, and thinking I could just white-knuckle my way through it. And after nine months, I was doing the work to heal my relationship with myself and practice self-care. After nine months of this, I realized that I could actually be kind to myself. I realized this was a brain chemistry issue, not a lack of strength, not a weakness.

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not a reflection of my character, just a reflection of my brain chemistry. And so I finally just surrendered to the reality of my needs. I stopped making decisions about what I thought was right or wrong or good or bad, and I just started listening to my body. I reintroduced partial doses of Adderall on an as needed basis. I started eating meat. I made myself eat a big healthy breakfast every morning.

27:56

I quit forcing myself to run when my body was exhausted, and I quit beating myself up for the fact that I actually needed to recover. I decided to just have compassion for myself, and to give myself however much space and time I needed. And the relief that I experienced, I immediately felt normal and good again.

28:23

And while I maintained the ultimate goal or ideal would be to be substance free, I gave myself permission to take time to get there. And in doing so, I shifted my beliefs that I was an all or nothing person. I started listening to my body. So instead of just taking the medication, the Adderall, every day like I had before and taking a full dose,

28:52

I started waiting, give it a few hours and see. And then I’d start with a half a dose. And I was able to cut my Adderall use by 75% of what it had been. And then slowly over time, take it down. And then I’d go a week and then a month and then two months without it. And then I’d hit a rough patch and I’d use it again. And I gave myself permission to just be human.

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and to not let my brain decide what was right for me, but just listen to my body. I ate meat when it sounded good instead of when I thought I should have it. I used my vape consciously, meaning I didn’t keep it with me. I kept it back in my closet. And if I felt like it, I’d go have a couple of puffs and sit there and enjoy them and feel them. But I didn’t carry it around and unconsciously hand to mouth, you know.

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2,000 puffs a day. And I tell you all this to show the evolution of the way I was identifying with myself. I started to become a person who treated myself with kindness and let my body dictate what I needed and what I didn’t, what would be OK for me today in this moment, versus what I thought I should do. And I was able to collect a lot of evidence.

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that I was actually able to moderate and control myself. And I began to experience joy and pleasure knowing that I’m able to say yes because I also have the ability to tell myself no. I developed the skill of distinguishing between soothing my anxious mind or numbing or stuffing or.

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avoiding my feelings versus evaluating my choices based on my experience of those choices. As my priority shifted to being that of my own health and well-being and happiness on any given day, I became a person who was living in balance and highly protective of my balance, the balance of my brain.

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balance of how my body is working. And with that priority, I no longer wanted to do things that threw me off balance. So if I was struggling and needed to take an Adderall, I would start with the absolute lowest dose possible just to perhaps bridge the gap of whatever brain chemistry issues I was dealing with that day. Instead of taking the full dose and putting my brain on,

31:44

roller coaster ride. I didn’t want to go on the roller coaster rides anymore. It became crystal clear to me through experience that if I wanted to avoid the lows, I had to stop chasing the highs. Both physically and emotionally, I had to learn how to exist in the present moment and keep my brain on a leash. I had to stop using shame and fear and the desire to be perfect and productive.

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as my primary sources of motivation. I had to learn how to stop running around like a chicken with my head cut off, setting unrealistic expectations for myself, and then either gloating on the high of the accomplishment or wallowing in the depression of the failure. I had to learn how to regulate my nervous system, exist within my own window of tolerance, whatever it was for that day, without denying my truth or arguing for a different version of reality.

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And what I found is that stability and balanced brain chemistry is its own high. There is nothing better than not needing substances to control or fix or change the way you feel. Because with anything you’re using, even coffee, what goes up must come down. There is no free pass. Using substances to augment

33:11

your feelings or energy levels just exchanges one problem for another, and the bill eventually comes due. I have become a person who would much rather make the time and energy to deal with myself and my problems, even when it’s inconvenient according to my brain’s agenda, than to ignore or bypass the issue with some sort of crutch that leaves me more off balance in the future.

33:39

And as I flipped my mindset from the more is more mentality to the less is more, and I had a lot of evidence that I had become that sort of person, I did begin to wonder if at some point a glass of wine would be okay. Of course, I had some fear about that because of all the indoctrination and black and white sobriety culture that you can never have another drink.

34:07

and that you can’t unpickle your cucumber or whatever they say. And so I just kind of sat with that uncertainty, kind of being okay with not knowing and really looking at what it is that I would want, why would I wanna participate in drinking, especially because I was enjoying life so much without alcohol. But, and I no longer identified as a woman who used to have a drinking problem. And that

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that somehow affected my present moment. I didn’t identify as a woman who had trouble controlling myself with alcohol or anything else. I have come to see myself as balanced and happy and a mentally healthy woman who’s not only capable, but motivated to self-regulate. And so at that point, there was really nothing to continue thinking about. I realized I couldn’t think and know how my body would react to alcohol. And that’s when I realized

35:05

It didn’t really matter if I had a drink or not. It would either be okay or it wouldn’t. The real question was, did I trust myself enough to self-correct if there was a problem? And the answer was 100% yes, I do trust myself. And I don’t have to prove my own recovery to the world by going the rest of my life without having an occasional glass of wine.

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I didn’t have anything to prove anymore. One of the mindsets that I have coached people on that I was able to apply to myself is, there’s a difference between drinking and having a drink. And as I started sobriety saying, I have no desire to have a drink because I’m gonna wanna drink the whole bottle. Now I was a person who would be like, oh God, why would anybody drink a whole bottle of wine?

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and shoot themselves in the foot like that. I understand now, which I didn’t before as a drinker, that alcohol is a drug. And if you respect it as a drug and understand that the negative side effects increase, the more you drink, the worse you feel, and you understand also that regular use depletes your baseline levels of dopamine,

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then one could engage with alcohol in a safe manner if one desired to do so. And as I was able to engage with other addictive substances in safe and a less is more attitude, such as pharmaceutical drugs or nicotine or coffee or sugar, I decided that a good approach might be for me to treat alcohol like I do birthday cake. I don’t eat sugar on a regular basis,

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I’m not opposed to having a bite or even a piece of cake occasionally. And so I decided that reintroducing alcohol would be safe for me as long as my experience of alcohol was okay, pleasant without introducing new anxiety or causing problems, and also that I didn’t make a habit out of it. So I decided.

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that I didn’t see myself as 100% sober for the rest of my life, probably three or four months before I ever had the first drink. And the first drink arrived when my husband’s mother passed away and he brought over a bottle of wine that she had had in her home that was worth like $450 or something. And he was pouring it for, you know,

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we have adult children, he was pouring small glasses for everybody and he didn’t pour one for me, of course, because I’d been sober almost three years. And I said, you know what, I’m not that sober, pour me some too. And so my first drink was probably two ounces and I was very cautious and safe and stayed with myself and observed it. And it was fine. And I sat with that for a few weeks. And then we went out to dinner and

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I was, that was the first time I thought, you know what, I’m gonna order a glass of wine and see how that goes. And I discovered that one glass of wine is actually a lot. I got a little bit of a buzz, and as that buzz came on, just a little bit was pleasant without being overwhelming, and I had no desire to push beyond that. I had no desire.

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to feel disconnected or out of my head or to isolate myself so that I could drink this substance. I like being present. I like the way I feel in my body. And so having, you know, four ounces of wine, four to six ounces, whatever restaurant pours are, that has been pleasant. And of course, this re-entry, this establishing a new relationship with alcohol based on

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my priority being my relationship with myself, I had some navigation to do. One time I did order a second glass of wine, but by the time it was delivered, I didn’t want it anymore. I didn’t need to deepen or chase that wee bit of a buzz that I already had. And so for the first time in my adult life, I happily left an untouched glass of wine on the table, realizing I had to pay for the wine, but I didn’t have to drink it because

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I didn’t want to. And so over the last six months, I have been able to drink, and I have lots of evidence that I don’t want any more than one glass of wine. And the few times where I’ve had probably, and I say probably because when somebody pours you a glass of wine, you don’t know exactly how much is in it. When I’ve had heavier pours, I end up with a hangover the next day. Like I can tell, I wake up with that little

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parched feeling in my tongue, maybe a pinch of a headache, my body is now really sensitive to alcohol. And I have no desire to train my tolerance to be able to tolerate more. I’m very much appreciative that I can occasionally imbibe in a glass of wine with dinner or socially without the desire to have more. And also the negative feedback loop

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if there’s too much in my glass or I have more than I really can tolerate, then I’m gonna pay for it. And so I’m now very cautious to not overdo it because if I’m having wine, it’s because I’m enjoying the moment and I’m not trading tomorrow’s moments for more of today. In fact, I don’t like the feeling that that line where any more than one glass of wine, you would be intoxicated.

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I have no idea how I used to drink a whole bottle and keep going. It makes me sick to remember that I used to do that to myself every damn day, secretly wishing I could be like the women I met who were those one drink wonders, explaining that they’re just not able to handle more. As a drinker, I was jealous of the women who were so in touch and respectful of the needs of their own body.

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I remember thinking, well, I don’t like to have hangovers either, but I feel like you could suck it up a little bit. Now, it’s just so ridiculous now. And I’m just so grateful for the version of myself that woke up one morning and made the decision to choose myself, to do whatever it took to learn a new way of being, to adopt a mindset that prioritized my body’s needs and paid respects to the reality that alcohol is a drug.

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And while I can’t be certain, because none of us can be, because certainty is a feeling, not a fact, so I can’t be certain that I’ll never end up with a relapse of alcohol use disorder, if I was a betting gal, I would definitely not put money that if something’s gonna take me down, it’s gonna be that. Because the times where I have had, probably closer to two glasses of wine due to a heavy pour, I pay for it.

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And I know that. And I don’t ever want to do that again. I’m not going to be fooled by alcohol again. It’s a drug. The more you drink, there’s negative side effects. If I’m going to get into trouble in the future, it’s going to be with something where ignorance leads me in, as it did the first time with alcohol. We’re not taught to think of alcohol as a drug. We’re not taught that anybody can get addicted to it. We’re not taught.

43:11

that everybody experiences withdrawal. And I experience withdrawal. I watch the buzz come on and I watch it recede. And it used to be very painful. I used to call that re-entry, which is why if I had a drink at lunch, which I often didn’t because I knew that then I would drink the rest of the day because I would have to titrate my blood alcohol level so that I didn’t go back into re-entry.

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you know, I didn’t go back into sober, like that actually was painful due to my imbalanced brain chemistry. My brain chemistry isn’t imbalanced anymore. I am able to experience and enjoy a glass of wine, get that little bit of headiness, and then watch it dissipate without experiencing high levels of anxiety or anything else. And I’m very conscious of it. I know I’m experiencing alcohol withdrawals. And so that if there is any anxiousness, which

44:09

There usually isn’t, it’s very, very mild. I just feel the alcohol going away. And that is evidently what many people experience who are occasional drinkers. So your brain chemistry does change when you’re drinking every day, and you can change it back. And if you’re aware of the fact that what goes up must come down, and you don’t mistake that withdrawal as external reasons why you should keep drinking,

44:39

you know, just the cost of paying, you gotta pay to play here, then you’re able to engage with alcohol in a healthy, controlled manner. And so big picture where I’m at today, which is just this present moment, can’t speak for myself in a year or three years, but where I’m at today is that I’m fine to have a glass of wine, but I’m very careful to not make it a habit. And this is how I’m dealing with that. So,

45:09

A few weeks went by where my husband and I were going out to dinner every Saturday night and I was ordering a glass of wine with dinner. And it wasn’t a question, it was just kind of, okay, we’re ordering wine. And for me, I value being able to say no more than I say yes. And so my little intuition light came on and said, is this how we want it to be? Do I want my default to be yes?

45:38

I’m having wine or do I want my default to be no? And I decided I prefer the default to be no, because not because it’s right or wrong, but because I never wake up and regret not having had a drink. And if I have a heavy pour, sometimes I wake up and regret having the drink. So I decided I didn’t wanna make a habit out of that. And I heard this suggestion on Andrew Huberman’s podcast in terms of engaging with

46:07

So any substance he wasn’t talking about alcohol specifically, but any substance that kind of, you know, Jacks up your dopamine that one of the best ways to self-regulate is to use intermittent He calls it intermittent reward and basically just to flip a coin And so that’s what I do now when I go out to dinner I don’t know is flip a coin I do something else, you know, it’s usually very subtle that says

46:35

that gives me a 50% chance of am I going to order wine or not? And I just go with that. And I’m practiced at dealing with if there’s a little bit of disappointment, oh, I really wanted a glass of wine. It’s like, nope, I’m going to make the decision here to honor my big picture needs, my big picture integrity, to not make this a habit. And that is a tool that I am currently using, the flipping of the coin or the fork or whatever it is that I do. And so.

47:04

to land this plane and answer the question, can alcoholism be cured? If you interchange the word alcoholism with alcohol use disorder, then I would say absolutely. Alcohol use disorder can be cured. Remove the use, remove the disorder. This is not a personality defect. And also disconnect the word cure from some external standard.

47:31

that you’re either able to drink a certain amount without over drinking or whether you decide to maintain abstinence for any period of time. Again, the word cure is defined as a return to a normal state of health and mind and strength. And as there are people all over the world who get into the weeds with alcohol and are able to come out the other side, whether they’re going to AAA meetings,

47:59

whether they’re maintaining 100% abstinence for the rest of their life, or whether they’re returning to some level of moderation, it doesn’t matter. Truth is an experience, and the path to recovery is to stop judging your experience as right or wrong or good or bad, and learn how to listen to your body. Every day, recognizing that nothing is permanent, you change, your needs change, life

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all the time. And the idea that there’s a one size fits all answer, or even a singular answer for you, is just an idea in your head. It’s not reality. And you’ll be much better off learning how to deal with the uncertainty of the future, instead of looking for stories and cookie cutter solutions that give you a false sense of security and certainty. Because

48:57

Those things don’t exist. There is only right now and what’s working and what’s not. As I often say, sobriety is a bridge, not the destination. The real goal is to become a person who can get up when you get knocked down, to be resilient and to be connected with your own intuition. The real cure for alcoholism is to realize it’s not about alcohol. It’s about your relationship with yourself. And like I said,

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When you learn how to prioritize your own physical, mental and emotional health, alcohol’s no longer a problem because the moment you realize that having a drink isn’t going to align with your best interests, sobriety just becomes another form of self-care. It’s not complicated. But that mindset does have to be cultivated. You have to choose that mindset and practice it. And so if you are in a place

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where you would like to switch your focus away from alcohol, good or bad or right or wrong, and move into where you’re learning how to listen to your own intuition and take better care of yourself, and you’re interested in working with me, get in the show notes and sign up for the masterclass that I do on emotional sobriety, or check out the link to the next chapter, which is my 12-week program, that will give you a step-by-step process

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for changing your mind about alcohol and your relationship with yourself. Thanks for listening. If you liked what you heard, please take the time to rate and review the show so that other people can find it. I really appreciate it. And check out the show notes for any resources I’ve mentioned, including links to follow me on Instagram and join my private Facebook group where I connect with my tribe every day.

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I love it in there and we have so much fun. And finally, if you’re ready to redefine sobriety so that you can feel excited about quitting drinking, follow the link to my 10 Days to Spontaneous Sobriety course where I will help you eliminate, eradicate, obliterate, cancel your desire to drink because looking and feeling your best is addictive too. I’ll see you soon.