Episode 234: The Silent Collapse of a High Performer: Mike Hardenbrook’s story
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So what do you do when you’re the person that everybody’s counting on to be okay and you’re not really okay? In this episode, I sit down with tech founder, entrepreneur and coach Mike Hardenbrook for an honest conversation about what it looks like when high functioning people hit their limit. Mike and I talk about what happened when he was finally willing to admit that the way he drank was no longer working and how he went from being a daily over drinker
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to somebody who can take it or leave it. Mike’s story is proof that you don’t have to lose everything to change, but you do have to stop pretending that everything is fine. So if you’re tired of performing under pressure, this episode will show you exactly how to walk away from the bad habits that aren’t serving you anymore without losing the best and most fun parts of you or losing your edge.
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And bonus, we’re also talking about the brand of supplements that Mike Winton had developed that are specifically designed for drinkers who are just looking to cut back. They’ve been shown to reduce alcohol cravings up to 60 % and correct the nutritional deficiencies that are caused by regular drinking. You’re gonna walk away from this conversation feeling inspired and supported.
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My name is Colleen and I’m a mindful drinking coach helping high achieving professional women permanently reduce their alcohol consumption by 80%. Join me each week for evidence-based holistic strategies to regulate your nervous system, balance your dopamine, and activate the growth mindset that makes you so powerful in other areas of your life so you can stop worrying about losing control and trust yourself again.
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Get happy, not sober. It’s not about the alcohol.
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Welcome back to the show, everybody. I’m so excited to bring you today’s interview. But before we get started, I wanted to do a little bit of housekeeping. So on Saturday, July 11th, I am teaching my first ever master class on how to rewrite your neural pathways so you can escape your negative self-talk. Neural rewrites are something that we do inside the next chapter. And I’ve gotten so much feedback from my clients that this class is a great way to start.
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the program because it really puts all of the other content into context so that you understand that not only does this work, but you get an experience and an early win of like, oh, I get it. I mean, and I’m not going to lie, one masterclass is not going to change your drinking forever, but it will show you how it’s possible and where you need to do the work. This is a thinking problem, not a drinking problem. If you want to drink like a normal person,
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you would have to be thinking like a normal person, which means you gotta rewrite the code and practice new thoughts on purpose. And I show you how to do that in this masterclass by using language to align your mind and body. You gotta get yourself on the same damn page. What happens with alcohol use disorder is your body wants one thing, your mind wants another, and then your mind changes every time your mood changes, and you’re just stuck on this hamster wheel of indecision and back and forth.
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I’m going to teach you the specific step-by-step process for rewiring your self-sabotaging thought patterns and building in real mental resilience. You guys, this is not positive affirmation bullshit or another feel-good inspirational motivation hack. Not only are you gonna get my five-step rewrite process, which you will not only use in the masterclass, but every single day moving forward, it’s a tool.
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which is why I’m also gonna give you a downloadable PDF workbook that includes how to use ChatGPT to help you with your rewrites so you can do this on your own. And while I highly recommend that you come live, it’s Saturday, July 11th at noon, and it will last about two and a half hours. I will stay until everybody who wants coaching gets their coaching, but the replay will be yours to keep so you can listen again or listen if you miss it. And while I suspect,
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This is gonna be a slam dunk because my clients love the rewrite workshops. We do them every two weeks inside the next chapter. I’m not sure, I’m not committing to doing this again. So this might be your one and only chance. Trust me when I say this is the most valuable way that you could spend two and a half hours of your time. This is the most effective tool I’ve ever come across for changing your mind and rewiring your neural circuitry.
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And that’s why I want to do this for those of you who are not in my program, so that you can have an experience. The brain changes through felt experience. You can’t think your way out of a thinking problem. And you’re going to find out exactly what that means this weekend. So stop what you’re doing right now and get in the show notes and register for this Saturday’s masterclass. It’s $77. And trust me, it’s going to give you the biggest bang you’ve ever gotten for a buck.
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So I hope to see you this weekend and let’s go ahead and dive into the episode with my friend, Mike Hardenbrook. Mike, thank you so much for joining me on the show. It’s been a while since we’ve chatted and I’m looking forward to catching up. Can you do the honors and just explain to the audience who you are and what you do and a little bit more about why you do it? For sure. So I’ll start with like where I am now, which is basically right now I run the podcast for a software company called Sunnyside that helps people.
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who want to drink less using technology. I also wrote a bestselling book called No Willpower Required, a Neuroscience Approach to Change Your Habits with Alcohol. And more recently, I’ve run a company called Cloud9 Health, which are natural supplements that help people that help drinkers with whatever their goals are, whether it’s to protect their health or to change their current drinking habits. so, but all of this was a complete
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180 degree turn from where I was about six years ago and that was I was a tech founder I was doing nothing when it came to alcohol or habit change or writing books or doing podcasts So that’s a fast forward version to where I am now But I can share anything you want before this point Maybe tell us a little bit about your personal journey of how you whatever you were doing six years ago to how you now have come in to
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supporting drinkers with habit change. And you and I have something very unique and special in common. At least I kind of feel like I’m the only person out there doing this where you are actually promoting, supporting mindful drinking, which is really kind of different from most people are, you know, it’s an all or nothing solution. You either quit drinking or you, you know, suck it up. So talk to me a little bit about your personal journey.
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Yeah, for sure. And I mean, the personal journey relates to that in the struggles. And so I went through college and high school, typical rebellious teenager, 20 something into a frat. Never learned how to drink. The only way I learned how to drink was either on TV or, you know, drink as much as you can, as fast as you can. I’ll laugh about it the next day. And, you know, but I still got everything done. I got through school. College was great. I did a master’s degree. And then as I moved into
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college or out of college, you know, the parties kind of stopped. But I, in the evening, when I come home, I felt like I still wanted to be that fun guy. So I’d be like, well, maybe if I got a bottle of wine and had a glass, at least I’m like chilling out, still kind of that fun guy. Well, you know, fast forward that became a ritual and that became a habit that became a real problem for me. And when I realized that it was, was really difficult to change.
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This might relate to some people and this might distance myself from some people’s story, but on the outside, everything looked great. Like I was very fit. I really well, I woke up every morning, even though I was hungover and went for a run. did sauna. I had successful businesses. I had a family. I traveled the world. And yet I couldn’t shake this one issue. There was so much cognitive dissonance going on with aligning with who my values and who I saw myself in one aspect.
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And then one aspect I just could not control. Everything else, I could. you know, that was a really tough time for me. And this went on for more than a decade. You know, the loop that I experienced was basically wake up with regret, wake up with punishing myself with thoughts, even though I’m a very positive person in every other way. Let me go work this out, sweat this out, get rid of it. By the time I kind of collect myself, I get to work.
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get everything done that I needed and start to feel better in the afternoon and really just work until the evening. And I’d say, that was a tough day. I deserve to reward myself here. And that pattern kept me stuck for so long and it was so difficult. you know, I wasn’t, I was drinking every night wine, but I wasn’t like going crazy. I was definitely getting intoxicated for sure, but not like.
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I wasn’t waking up and drinking in the morning. never drank during the day, but it was certainly problematic and I couldn’t get a hold of it. And I had done multiple, many 30 day breaks, which were really, really hard. Not many, I would say I did a couple. But one change, a couple changes that I made, one time I did a 30 day break and I went 30 days and I remember this moment. I was at the pump getting gas. We’re getting ready for go for a hike.
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was just sitting there in my own thoughts and I said, man, I’m at 30 days. I feel pretty good. I have never done 60 days. Why don’t I do 60 days? And I said to my wife, hey, I think I’m going to do 60 days. And so I did 60 days. The additional 30 days was not as hard as the first one. Then I was like, I have never done 90 days. So I went 90 days. And then I went just, I didn’t count days beyond that, but I went just about a year.
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Right. And I got to a point where I was just like, you know, what changed? And so I really started to evaluate what changed this time versus all the other times. And so I really like for my own interest got into like habit change, neuroscience. At the time, I also took some supplements that my doc, my naturopathic doctor recommended. And I wondered, was that the catalyst that made the difference? And so, yeah, so I was able to break this nightly drinking pattern.
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And when I say I almost went a year, that’s because at that point I thought to myself, you know, do I, the goal was never to be sober for the rest of my life. The goal was to no longer drink every single night. And I had achieved that. But what I had this lingering question was like, do I have to make it this forbidden thing for the rest of my life? Like, do I have to be like, kind of like what other traditional programs say that if you take that drink, you’re going to be right back where you are. And I just felt deep down that that
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probably wasn’t the case. And so I did just like the experiment that I did originally, I started experimenting like, can I have a drink or two here and there without ending back exactly into where I was? And what I found is that I didn’t end up back where I was. Am I going to say it was perfect every time? No, I’m not a perfect human being, but I never ever, and I have not for six years now gone back to nightly drinking. And that sort of led into like,
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There’s got to be other people that were like me that felt 12 step didn’t match up. I’m here on my own and I got to figure it out. And luckily these days there’s more conversation going on versus when I was dealing with that. And I’m so thankful for that because I think the more options that are out there, the better because it’s so nuanced. It’s so, um, there’s no one size fits all approach. And I really find mission behind giving my, uh, what I found and passing it along so that somebody can
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fast forward and not have to go through all those struggles and trial and errors that I did. So what would you identify as what you’re passing along? You know, what advice would you have for somebody who’s listening and doing the detox to retox cycle every day and just feeling like they are out of alignment with who they really are and what they know they’re capable of? What would you tell them? Well, first I like the detox to retox sort of thing. I think that
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The biggest stopping point, I believe, for most people is that they think that they have to go this all or nothing approach. They think that they build up the hurdle to get started so high that they never get started. So why don’t we just lower that hurdle? Why don’t you look at it like an experiment? Hey, you know what? Normally tonight I’m going to drink a bottle of wine or two bottles of wine. Tonight, why don’t I try drinking half that or maybe one glass less and see how I feel? Or I always drink every Friday.
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maybe don’t drink this Friday and just see how it goes. Like do these little experiments, just start where you are, see what seems manageable as long as your life is not absolutely like, you know, running off the rails and the end of that is like, you know, some of the deepest darkest places. But if you have room to run experiments in your life and see if you can do them, they can start to give you some wins and confidence to feel like you can start making bigger steps.
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Yeah. So let’s talk about somebody who just heard that and was like, all right, I’m not going to drink on Friday. I mean, we both, we’ve both been through that particular, I mean, I woke up every morning and said, I’m not going to drink tonight. So like what, talk to me about the mindset. I mean, I know we want to get into some biology as well support, but talk to me about the mindset that they may not see because I promised myself I wasn’t going to drink just one day, like maybe a thousand in a row.
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And of course that just perpetuated evidence of failure in my brain. That’s the hurdle. Your motivation is down-regulated when you perceive something to be a failure. And I know that what you and I are talking about with the all or nothing mindset, well, that’s also the success or failure mindset. Like you got to stop chasing the highs and going for perfect tens and gold medals.
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and just move the needles. Talk to me a little bit about what mindset shifts have to happen in order to be curious enough to experiment without then judging yourself for ultimately not being exactly what you said you were going to. Yeah, so I can definitely attest to I made all the every single rule in the rule book, no alcohol in the house, no drinking on the weekends, only when I’m out, all the things that I’m sure that you’ve done.
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The difference is though, is that I would make commitments without strategy. I would make commitments without tactics. So, and if my experiment failed, I had no strategy for how to learn and to move on and to not do it again. And I think it really comes down to, you you need to have strategies for when the cravings arrive. You need to have strategies for just simple pauses like
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If you come home on Friday and you say to yourself, you’re not going to drink on Friday and you’re coming home and you’re like, oh my God, I really want to drink. Like you really don’t actually want the alcohol. You want what the alcohol provides. So when you say I really want to drink, is it, I really want to relax. I really want to kick my feet up. I really want to like not think about this thing I’m thinking. And what are things that you can do? Like if you, if you have ruminating thoughts and you can’t stop them, is there somebody that you could call?
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If you have like this, you want to feel better. Well, we already know exercise makes you better. Can you just go for like a 20 minute walk and boost some of those levels of feel good chemicals in your body? Like you need to have some things ready and that pause ready. And then if you still take that pause and you promise yourself like, I also I’ve heard you say this, but I also prescribed to this, like you don’t have to tell yourself you’re not going to do it. Just tell yourself you’re not going to do it right now. Yeah.
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So have your strategy in place for the alternative of what you’re seeking. Don’t tell yourself it’s like nothing, because then you don’t rebel against it. But even if you do screw up, the next day, need to, instead of just beat yourself up, you need to use that as just as much of a strategy to learn as a data point on what you can learn, what you did wrong, or what you could do different moving forward for the next time that you make a commitment.
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What I hear you talking about is basically that you can’t keep sending yourself into the same situation and expecting different results. So like you can’t just say, I’m not going to drink Friday night and then send yourself into the same old damn Friday night and then hope, Oh Lord, I hope I can use my willpower. It’s like when I think about willpower, the willpower needs to be applied upstream.
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to cause different results. Like by the time you’re trying to not drink on a Friday night, you’re trying for the last domino not to fall. Like you gotta stop the triggers or put yourself into a different situation that might cause different results because habits are contextual. It’s Friday night, it’s five o’clock. And if you put yourself into the same situation you always do, your brain is going to bully you into giving in and it’s going to be horrible. And so what I’m hearing you say is,
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And what I want to double click on is that it’s not like you can’t go, let’s say to the bar with your friends ever, but when you are dealing with baby steps and new change, you have to build new habits before you can go up against the old habits. And so just sending yourself into the same situation and hoping your willpower kicks in this time when it ain’t never kicked in, it’s been not kicking in is really not good.
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I also want you to maybe go a little bit deeper into the strategy for the next morning. This is why I call myself the hangover whisperer, because it’s not the change you need to make is not how much or how often you drink. It’s how you think about any mistake that you make and how you respond. Like that’s the point of entry. So talk to me about the Saturday morning strategy when the Friday night didn’t go as planned. So I think
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You know, this comes from both my own experience, but also just listening to some wise people and coming up with a strategy. think that comes pretty helpful. So one thing I really like to do that I think helps is that first you need to wake up. And if you’re feeling bad before you catch yourself thinking, well, first of all, we make life decisions. never drinking again or like, you know, or, or whatever.
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but they’re always these really pretty serious things, life and death, like, oh, I can’t believe what I said, I can’t believe I did that, or I’m gonna, what am I doing to my body? All these things, right? The first thing I think you need to do is catch yourself and say, physically, chemically, biologically, excuse me, I’m off today. Like, I am not in a high place right now. So no life decisions, no.
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serious conclusions about anything in my life and I’m going to go through today without doing that to myself and I’ll make life decisions tomorrow because it’ll be better. So I think the first thing is just to give yourself permission to not get so damn serious and not to think that you have to figure it all out while you’re chemically imbalanced and deficient and you your cortisol is high and your GABA and your blood show everything right. You can just give yourself permission not to make these big
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mistake or big decisions. I think that’s the first thing. Number one is also, and number two is we tend to beat ourselves up. I think you need to catch yourself and say, is this serving me right now? And if it’s not serving you, then you need to either give yourself like five minutes to let yourself just give yourself that session you need. And you say after the timer’s over, that’s it. You know, I’m done. Now I’m going to work on things that are actually serving you. Yeah. And, and I think so the final one is that
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Now you can objectively look at what happened and what you can adjust and change for the next time. that is the other thing I hear you saying. You’re speaking to the iterative mindset that the reason you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over is you’re not learning from them. You’re stuck in a shame spiral. You’re letting anxiety run the show. You’re making big life decisions that are over-correcting. And so now you’re just going back and forth between the all or nothing.
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this iterative mindset where if you can clear all that anxiety and shame and then look and see like, okay, where did I not set myself up for success? Like taking responsibility, not for the outcome, but for the input. What did you put into that? You know, and then what can you learn from this so that you can apply that next time? It’s really, this is the foundation of coaching.
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is that it’s very forward facing. You are where you are. Doesn’t matter how you got here or whose fault it is. It matters where you are and then where do you want to be and how do you iterate, tinker, design strategies, test and see what works and what doesn’t, what you like and what you don’t like, and then just continue to move forward. And I think where most, especially over drinkers get caught up is they don’t know how to move on from their own mistakes. Yes.
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And I think, you know, one other thing to tack on there is like, if you said you’re not going to do it every Friday night, and then you keep repeating the tests and you’ve done these tests and iterations and still doesn’t work, change the goal. Like you got to change the goal. Change the goal to something smaller. Like I think one of my superpowers as a coach is if you tell me what you can’t do, I’m going to break it down into just micro movements so that you because you
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Improvements fuel more improvements. And so you have to set a goal that you can actually achieve, which is why I personally call what you spoke to earlier, the delay don’t deny strategy. know, just set the goal of having one hour between work and evening of relaxing without alcohol. That’s it. Maybe five minutes, if that’s a lot. Like, you know, just so that your brain wants to repeat the behavior.
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Yeah, I love that. I like using that also in social situations like getting to a party everybody’s so anxious when they get there and they run for the drink and Then if you say to yourself, I’m not gonna have a drink for like the first 30 minutes an hour Whatever it is our best you’ll find that maybe you settle into that situation all the reasons that you wanted to drink to the sort of like relax Start to go away and you may drink less. You may not drink at all. Yeah
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Or you may realize you don’t even want to fucking be there. And that’s how you run into the bar and you’re like, Oh, I got better things to do. This is a stupid conversation. Peace out bitches. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like, um, we’re kind of on that same page. I know I just wanted to share personally, you know, occasionally I’ll get a little over-served, which usually looks like having three glasses of wine instead of two. But when I wake up the next morning, if I am thinking,
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I wish I hadn’t had that last glass of wine, then to me, that’s a hard stop. Where I got disconnected from myself, I was running on a deficit and my old habit took over. Like to me, over drinking is a sign that you’re running on a deficit. All of your needs are not being met because if you had good mental health and you were thriving, you would drink like somebody who has good mental health and who was thriving. And so if I did not...
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pay attention to my own internal guidance system, then to me, my plans just changed for the day. To me, days where I’m quote hung over are the most powerful resets where I’m like, I wouldn’t give myself a break. So my body took over and co-signed on a break and here I am. so I’m gonna, a lot of times it’s when I’m working way too much and I blow into Friday night and I’ve not had a good week.
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And so I’m planning to work all weekend, which is probably why I was like, fuck it, I’ll just drink tonight. And then I wake up the next morning, I’m like, oh no, no, no, we’re not working at all. Obviously you need something and I’m listening. Thank you for getting my attention. Thank you. Oh, that’s great. I love that. Yeah. All right. So talk to me a little bit about the biology of all this, because I know from my work and your work as well, there is physiological components that make it easier and harder.
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for you to deal with anxiety, overcome cravings, exercise a little bit of willpower to put yourself in a different situation. Obviously, even your neurochemistry can affect your quality of your thoughts, positive, optimistic, hopeful, relaxed versus stressed out, know, crazy, catastrophizing. So talk to me a little bit about what you’ve learned with the biology of willpower. Yeah, I mean, alcohol.
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basically throws off every single one of your systems. mean, it depletes key nutrients like B vitamins, which might just seem like a trivial thing, but I can assure you it’s not. It’s related to like so many key components and systems in our body. Things like magnesium, amino acids, glutathione. Obviously it affects the liver and other major organs. It messes with your dopamine, with your GABA, with your cortisol, which those things actually are directly related to cravings and stress, which make you go into these
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little mini withdraws. if you’re, everybody thinks he’s shaking and all this kind of stuff would be alcohol withdraws, but they don’t realize that cravings are actually symptoms of withdrawal in a sort of a small state. So your body is literally trying to rebalance. And so when your body’s trying to rebalance, but it’s off balance and you couple it into something like you already have locked in rituals and habit. And also maybe if your mindset’s off.
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All those things are working against you. And even if you have some of those, those mental things in check, your body’s working against you. It’s going to make it more difficult. So what you can do is replenish, regulate and rebuild your body. So things like supplementation, good food, proper rest, stress reduction and mood elevation techniques. And when you incorporate all those things, it gets much, much easier to actually hit your goals. Because I think a lot of people first, it’s hard to get them past like the willpower level.
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Like willpower is not the way to do it. So then you give them some techniques, but they’re still working against their body, especially when we’re talking about slip ups. That’s part of that loop because I would start to feel better, actually this mini withdrawal I’m talking about kicks in from 12 to 24 hours later, which even if you resist the alcohol, your sleep is garbage the next day, not the night you drink.
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but even worse the next day and sometimes weeks depending on the depth of your drinking. And so if you can actually get a hold of what’s going on in your body, it makes the actual changes that you’re trying to accomplish much easier. And there’s one other thing outside of that, which is besides restoring, there are some natural supplements and herbs that can actually have been studied to show decreased drinking. So do you know about kudzu? I’ve heard of it. Tell me more.
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So, kudzu has been used in Chinese medicine for like 2,000 years related to alcohol and addictions. And it actually grows wild here in the United States and they ran clinical studies, multiple of these. And it’s interesting. So, the other things that I talked about will set you up for control and maybe to be able to stick to your goals like not drink tonight. This one’s interesting because it actually helps you to drink.
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So it’s kind of like a, if you’ve ever heard of naltrexone, it’s kind of like a natural naltrexone, but you still get the euphoric effects of alcohol while taking it. And in the studies that showed there’s been about three pretty well documented ones, between 30 and 57 % reduction in drinking when somebody drinks. And these are without trying anything, without doing any behavior modifications. in a couple of the studies, it was men that were like heavy, heavy drinkers.
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And just by taking this supplement, they reduce the amount in one sitting by 30 to almost 60%. So it’s called, can you spell it? Yeah. K U. K just like it sounds. Yeah. And so is this a supplement? Cause I, I have never walked past a good supplement. It’s all I can do to finish this interview and not get on my phone and be like Amazon send that to me. Just because I like to try stuff. So
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Is it, are there any problems with it that you’re aware of? Is it something that’s readily available? It is readily available and they’re like very, the side effects are like very minimal and you’d have to read up on all that, but it’s not side effects generally sometimes come with a disclaimer with a lot of supplements. This is not one of those. Okay. So it’s a natural plant extract. Yes. Or it’s a plant. so, and I know I’ve had people criticize me before.
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with supplements. like, well, this needs triple blind studies and it needs to have FDA efficacy. And I’m like, we’re talking about reducing alcohol. So if you’re willing to pour alcohol down your throat, do you really need to make sure that this supplement is exactly 200 milligrams of kudzu? And it’s like, come on, guys. Yeah, the alternative is much worse. I mean, it’s kind of funny that a lot of...
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A lot of people will be like in their 20s, drink whatever and take whatever pills some stranger gave them at a rave. But then all of a sudden it’s got to have this double blind or whatever. no, this has been around for a very long time. It really comes down to like where you’re going to source it, I think is probably the better question. Not the validity of the ingredient, but are you getting what you’re paying? And all of that’s nice and good. But it’s like, you source your vodka? Did you source Oh yeah, yeah.
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margarita mix like you know what the net like a known cause cancer causing agent so i mean the alternative is worse the dyes and the high fructose corn syrup i’m like okay let’s remember to like put all of this into context and perspective all right so the kudzu kudzu i guess it depends on how you pronounce it kudzu kudzu that’s a supplement that can actually be used to reduce drinking by 30 to 60 percent
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So, and it’s safe. What other things like talk to me about your cloud nine, because you guys have developed some supplements that actually are designed to support drinkers, which I really like as much as I don’t want to identify as a drinker or non drinker. You know, I really like that. We’re talking about harm reduction, we’re talking about supporting moving the needle, and not again, the black or white, you know, all or nothing thing. Talk to me more about that.
31:48
Yeah, and I get what you’re saying about the drinker thing. It’s hard to model the language around who we help because honestly, there are a lot of people that are have no interest in reducing their drinking. However, they’ve read all the headlines and they’re they’re all worried about what the physical impacts could be from just having a couple drinks a couple times a week. But then there are also people that one might be listening here that want to reduce the amount they’re drinking. And so we support both those people. And this really came down to the story like
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You know, alcohol was a big conversation now and this is not like a company that came up to capitalize it. actually, this was part of my journey. And when, when I did that first 30 days that turned into almost a year, this was very much part of that because my mountain bike partner, it was a naturopathic doctor who was also my friend. He worked in a substance abuse facility. And while they did use pharmaceutical to help people with substance abuse, he also supplemented with
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almost this exact same protocol. And so it worked very well. so I thought it worked for me as well. And I thought, boy, you know, this needs to be out in the world. But at the time I was running tech companies that’s doing other things, and it’s been very much something I’ve been passionate about and did a little did it did some fundraising and we were able to get this company off the ground. But yeah, so we help basically do a lot of things. I said, like we B vitamins is like one of the core things.
33:16
And what’s on the market right now is generally when you find B vitamins, like in the pharmacy, on Amazon, there are forms that aren’t really bioavailable as in they’re not absorbed. Most of them go down the toilet. So we concentrate with a really high bioavailable form called Benfotiamine and we do things to address GABA and cortisol and
33:42
We have one that protects drinkers with many of that. It’s a once a day and take in the morning. It really, I know I don’t drink often. I just take it on a daily and I seldom reach for my coffee in the afternoon. days. The other one is called rise in unwind AMPM. So it’s a 24 hour protocol that has kudzu in it. And that’s to help with cravings and also restore the body. Because as I mentioned, I think that if you support the body and it’s in sync with the mind and your drive and your habits and your mindset, you’re like your success rates are going to go up.
34:11
Yeah. Okay. So you’ve got a couple of different options. And as my shopper brain is paying attention, as opposed to going and ordering kudzu, you actually have an AM PM and the PM I’m assuming has the kudzu in it. Yes, both, both of those versions do the AM is going to be higher on the B vitamins because B vitamins give you more energy. We have like five HTP, which helps with mood regulation. We have
34:39
I don’t want to go through all the ingredients, but it’s really specifically designed for somebody who drinks and wants to cut back. That is the entire specific outcome for that supplement. Then the evening, we have some more things that are going to help address issues around sleep and also help you chill out without that drink. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m in, so I’ll need a link and I’ll have to put a link in the show notes.
35:05
I mean, this has been fascinating. Can you just speak to, I don’t know, the timeline and expectations? Somebody’s listening to this. They’re struggling. They’re sick of struggling. They’re ready to take some actions. Maybe they’re gonna order some supplements. Maybe they’re gonna change their strategies for their Friday night and their Saturday morning reflection on what went well. But talk to me about the timeline for change, because I know that you said you went almost a year.
35:35
And I also, you I had almost three years of sobriety. And so I, you know, I eased back into drinking versus like easing down. You know, it’s kind of like I went all the way there and then I eased back in and there’s been some learning curve, which I’m always so grateful because it makes me produce great content. You know, it’s like, sometimes my inner voice is like, I’m going to go ahead and have that third glass of wine because I need a podcast next week. Let’s do this. Well, it makes you, I mean,
36:05
You see so much stuff online right now and they skip over all the things in between. you have the success story at a year, but what about like all the other moments in there? And what about the it’s like you’re human and you’re being honest about it. And that’s what I really try to do. Also, like I always just say, like, I am not perfect. Like I’m just not. And I’m not going to pretend like I am. Yeah. Yeah. And I really try to hold that space for women in my program. Like.
36:33
Getting better does not mean you never over drink. Getting better means you don’t worry about it. You know how to handle it if it does. You know how to practice self-compassion. You know how to learn. You know how to reflect. You’re safe with yourself. That’s where I think people expect, like when I say, you can reduce your drinking by 80%. That’s what people think they want. And that’s about the average of our exit surveys with clients.
37:00
But the bottom line is to become a person who doesn’t count or measure or worry. You you just live in your life, trusting yourself. And when you get out of balance, you self-correct and it just is what it is. But still talk to me about a timeline of what somebody might expect because we got to rewire all the neural pathways, not just correcting for physical, maybe vitamin deficiencies or nervous system out of balance with cortisol and all of that, but
37:30
But rewiring your brains takes time. What do you see in general when someone’s like to the point where like, I’m going to take this seriously. I’m ready to try. I’m ready to do this right. I’m willing to be patient. What’s a timeline? Well, that’s a hard question because everybody’s timeline is going to be different. so I don’t think that I could put an answer on that as far as the timeline goes. I think that the timeline needs to be when are you willing to start? And that will dictate.
38:00
how fast you go and how much you think you can do because you might start and say like, boy, this is hard. Or you might start and say, why didn’t I start earlier? That was not as hard as I thought it would be. I can probably do more. And in that case, you could move faster. Somebody else, it might seem a little bit more difficult as far as like so wiring. However, I really, truly believe in the power of 90 days, no matter what your goal is, whether that be completely remove alcohol for 90 days.
38:30
for my personality and my history, I needed that. I needed to have a full removal of alcohol for 90 days to really step outside and look through the world in a different lens. Some other people like that’s just unrealistic. The depth of their problem isn’t necessary for that. So in my view, I think in that case, they need to sustain the change of the goal, at least some version of the goal of where they want to go.
38:57
And if they’re making that change and sustaining it for 90 days, then they’ll start to see long-term results coming out of that. And also, by the way, if anybody’s thinking about 90 days, most of the studies say that, let’s say you’re on day 45 and you slip up. Most studies show that a temporary lapse within a habit, moving to a new habit has no effect on the long-term outcome. So that doesn’t mean you get to 45 days and you start at day one.
39:26
You just pick back up and you keep moving. Thank you for saying that. So true. In fact, it could propel your motivation if you, if you respond to it, not see it as a mistake, but a learning opportunity, which don’t we all love those that, so I know for myself for years, there was so much mental math on when I was going to take a break, which I never did until I did. But it was like, well, there’s a wedding or it’s my birthday. It’s like, all right, well, mark yourself in a cheat date. You know, it’s not a big deal. Yeah. I love that. I love that.
39:56
If that lowers your barrier to entry to get you started, I can promise almost anybody that does one of these things and makes a drastic change, you’re going to say to yourself, I wish I would have done this sooner. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lower the barrier to entry. I call them low bar goals. Pun intended. Like let’s say some low bar goals. Like the goal has to be small enough that for sure you can do it. Then you can always, like you ended up going almost a year. You started with 30 days.
40:25
And it just felt good and you just wanted to see more of it and it felt easier than the alternative. So I love that. And I’m curious on your feedback on this is that also enter into it knowing that whatever your goal is now can move at any time. But like you may want to go 90 days and it can go longer. You may want to only like take Fridays off, but then you get like further along and all of sudden you want to do more or less. Like for me,
40:51
This is part of reason that once I got to year, I was like, you know what? Like I don’t want to carry this around all the time. I want to trust myself. So I think for me, it’s really hard for me when people ask me like, do you drink or do you not drink or like, honestly, I don’t have a goal that is like set in stone. Like I will go five months, six months without drinking. We went to Spain for six months and I just say, you know what? On the weekends, I want to have wine. Now I come back to the US. I’m not drinking again. I just don’t have like
41:21
in my absence, in my mindful drink, I don’t know. I don’t know, but it works for me. Yeah. Well, I love that. And I really appreciate your time, your transparency, also the work that you’re doing. I do love a good supplement. And I think it’s so important. I think that’s one of the invisible puzzle pieces that people don’t realize is that you’re making it so much harder because you are literally suffering from nutritional deficiencies. It’s not about macros.
41:50
It’s about the micronutrients and the enzymes and the amino acids and the proteins. And when your brain has what it needs, it can actually function. And if you don’t have the building blocks for the neurotransmitters and for hormones and all of that, if you don’t have the building blocks for that, then you’re beating yourself up for a lack of willpower or overthinking and anxiety.
42:15
when in fact that’s more of a physiological state. I mean, the mind and body are connected. You can’t leave out the body part. Absolutely. And also even people that might be happy with where they’re at right now. Like, let’s say, for example, you have two glasses of wine on Sunday, on Tuesday, and on Friday, or maybe let’s just say three glasses, two or three glasses. Your body’s rebound effect in that state, even though that that seems very moderate, and it is.
42:41
never really fully recovers. And that’s why we do some of the supplementation for people that are drinkers, because that will support them as well, even when you get to your goal. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Mike. I so appreciate you being here. And I will put the links to the Cloud9 and your podcast and everything in the show notes. Thanks for being here. Thanks, Colleen. I love it. It was a great time.
43:05
All right. Thank you for listening. I’ve got Mike’s information in the show notes and he sent me the cloud nine supplements. So those are in route and I cannot wait to try them. I’ll keep you posted on my thoughts about them. But if you’re interested in following Mike or getting a copy of his book, you can check the show notes for that. And then otherwise I would appreciate if you are still listening. You’re one of my people taking some action right now to share the show or to leave me a review, do something to help me.
43:34
promote the organic spread of this content because people are waiting hungrily and maybe a little drunk for information on how to change their drinking without going completely sober, without committing to a lifetime of abstinence or secretly worrying that if they have one drink, they’re going to slide right back down the slippery slope. People need to understand that the brain can change neuroplasticity as a real thing and that
44:03
It is possible to get what you want when you know what you want and you have the tools to support the change process. So if you appreciate this content, pay it forward in some way because every time you engage with me, somebody who’s out looking and not even knowing what they’re looking for will come across my page, this show, my website, my social media and realize that there is a door number three.
44:28
Door number one is not changing and struggling in silence. Door number two is completely stopping to drink forever and ever and ever. And door number three is getting happy, not sober. And then if you didn’t take the time to register for my master class this weekend, rewrite your neural pathways to escape negative self-talk.
44:47
The link for that is in the show notes. This may be a one-time offering, so grab it if you want it. Replay will be yours forever. And then, of course, there’s also a link in the show notes if you are ready to take the next step, because you’re ready to do the work, you just need somebody to guide you through the process. That is what we do in the next chapter. I have an amazing community of kick-ass, high-achieving, strong-willed women who are addressing the root causes of alcohol use disorder.
45:17
by giving themselves coaching and community and content that helps them complete the change process so they can stop starting over. know, science shows the fastest way to change your mind, which again is what you have to do. If you want to drink like a normal drinker, you got to think like a normal drinker. And the fastest way to change your mind is to join a tribe of like-minded people. And that’s why sober communities can be such
45:46
Powerful forms of support, but they’re temporary because everybody there is committed to not drinking alcohol And again in my community, we’re committed to getting happy not sober. We’re going all the way for complete Transformation because it’s just not about the alcohol So if you’re interested in learning more you want to talk to me or one of my certified coaches? Then get in the show notes click the link apply for a discovery call and no matter what
46:14
Thank you for listening. so appreciate you being here and I hope you have a kick ass rest of your week.