Episode 270: The science of drinking less: dopamine, cortisol and the real reason willpower fails - Emotional Sobriety Coaching

Episode 270: The science of drinking less: dopamine, cortisol and the real reason willpower fails

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Today, I’m back with Sunnyside podcast host, Mike Hardenbrook, for a conversation that pops the hood on why willpower isn’t enough to change your drinking habits. We talk about what’s really going on in your brain and your nervous system when you reach for a drink, and why your desire to drink has nothing to do with alcohol. Your body craves relief from stress and anxiety and the pressure of everyday life.

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You’re gonna walk away from this conversation with the exact science-backed shifts that I teach my clients that make drinking in moderation a natural side effect of feeling more grounded and at ease. If you’ve ever wondered why wanting to change doesn’t stop you from pouring another drink, this episode will show you how to break the cycle from the inside out.

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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.

01:32

Okay, so last time we dug into your story and some of those big mindset shifts. And today I want to get into something more on the body side of all this. You teach that it’s not just all in your mind. It’s also happening in your nervous system and your biology. Can you break that down for us? Well, so  what happens when you are  drinking on a regular basis  is that alcohol, because it’s a depressant drug,

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raises your cortisol levels.  And so that’s one thing. And then the other thing is that alcohol, it  spikes your dopamine levels.  And think of your baseline levels of dopamine. Dopamine is your motivation. It’s your get off your butt and go get something. You know, it’s go collect resources. So you have a baseline level of dopamines. And think about that as like  an amount of water in the bathtub.  And if you make waves,

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in that water, some of the water is going to spill out, lowering the level of water in your bathtub. So when you are drinking like I did every single day, I was spiking my dopamine, blowing through all the reserves, and then the next day my dopamine levels were lower. So very subtly,  over time, I was less motivated to engage in and enjoy normal everyday activities. I became motivated to just

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get to five o’clock so I could get my drink because my baseline levels were so low. And so what I didn’t realize about whether you call it addiction or dependency or a habit is that there’s a physiological component to that. The reason why I would wake up in the morning and I would say, I’m not going to drink tonight as God is my witness. And then I’d push through my day on low dopamine levels. And then I thought I had to suffer through the evening because I was suffering.

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it takes days for your cortisol levels to come back down, even with kind of moderate amounts of  alcohol.  And if you’re not an overly stressed person, like I enjoy drinking and I don’t feel it, you know, days later, but when you’re already stressed to the max, you know, and now you’re on this 24 hour hamster wheel where you’re spiking your cortisol, your dopamine levels are dropping, and there’s also a brain chemical called dinorphin  and it,

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Dynorphin is your apathy.  so it’s because your brain’s trying to offset the dopamine spike. And so it pulls in the dynorphin. so  slowly over time, life just loses its color a little bit. know, everybody’s kind of a pain in the ass. You just got to kind of get through this thing and it all kind of begins to focus. Your brain wants to solve the problem. Why do I feel bad? And it, it’s not.

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telling the truth because you may not be aware of alcohol’s physiological effects on the body. And so now you’re telling yourself a story, I just hate my job or my kids are being jerks or life is so stressful. And over time, your brain has learned to associate alcohol with stress relief. You know, that’s the number one driver of the addictive process of alcohol is when you start using alcohol because you think I need a drink to relax.

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I need a drink to take the edge off. That language driving that behavior then creates a habit that is then supported by the negative feedback loops of your dopamine and cortisol and dynorphin, not to mention the withdrawal effects of alcohol. You you just don’t feel as good. And your brain learns how to solve that problem.  Alcohol is the problem. Alcohol is the solution. Welcome to alcohol use disorder. It reminds me of a quote by Homer Simpson.

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the solution and cause of all problems. Everybody might have been the other way around, but it was like so well quoted by him.  And, know, I myself have been stuck in the exact same cycle  and there, I love your take because there is absolutely a connection between the mind and the body and our behaviors. And you really need to pay attention to every single one of them, even in moderation it’s going on. Uh, it comes up. People don’t realize that cravings is actually.

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uh, related to like a mini withdrawal. It’s not just in your behaviors. And if you go through your day, like you said, where your dopamine is dysregulated and it’s at a low and things aren’t giving you the same pleasure that they normally would be at operating at normal levels. You get to a point where I call it the likelihood to outcome, the likelihood if I have this drink that the outcome will feel better, I’ll get relief for at least for a temporary period is going to be a hundred percent.

06:19

Right. Then there’s other things that you could do, but the  likelihood, the outcome isn’t going to be as high. And so you get stuck in that cycle. And I want to get into this because you have some thoughts on what do call that cycle in your program? I call it the detox to retox. ah So, you know, I would spend my entire day, I’d wake up and I’d slam more water than a normal person should drink. I would take handfuls and handfuls of supplements. Then I’d go run it out.

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you know, eight to 10 miles minimum. So I’d sweat and exercise. And then I was the perfect vegan plant-based diet. So only put good stuff into my body. Thank you very much. So I would make sure I’d get all the micronutrients and the enzymes and I did sauerkraut and fermented foods. So I’d spend  all day, you know, trying to clear out my body. And then I’d arrive at five o’clock and pop a bottle of wine and do the whole damn thing all over again.

07:17

I did the exact same thing. The exact same thing. mean, I’d sit there and supplement and drink tons of water, like liter and a half, two liters in the morning, go for a run, sauna, breath work. I’d take green smoothie, bring green smoothie, bring me back to life. I remember I’d think to myself, it’s like absurd. Yeah. I did juice plus and I remember the gal that sold them to me. She knew me and she goes, these are like hangover helpers. I’m like, gimme double.

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So I started taking double juice plus every day.  It’s so funny how, and this really lends to our last conversation around like the addictive personality in that you would have no control in your life um if that were the case.  in like our own personal history, we had total, not total control, but a lot of control over our behaviors and in almost every regard.

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oh But the mindset and the approach in our conditioning from young completely changes it for some reason around alcohol. Not just that because it’s an actual drug, but because culturally things have taught us to think differently about that.  And you know, when alcohol becomes a coping mechanism, it’s a sign that you’re running on a deficit. You know, that is where self-sabotage behaviors come from.

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It’s like you can only put so much pressure on the system.  And so you start using alcohol to, know as a mom, I’d work all day, be busy all day, detoxing and everything else I was doing. And then I’d  come into five o’clock and I still had an eight hour shift ahead of me. You know, I had kids and dance and soccer and homework and laundry and dinner and house cleaning and alcohol helped to make that okay.

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But what I wasn’t being honest about was that my own needs,  I didn’t have enough, I wasn’t making enough time for myself, which even as I say that out of my mouth, well, I made time to drink, didn’t I? But this is where it’s a thinking problem.  Even you said something a minute ago that triggered this idea that we even have alcohol cravings. Like that is not true. Your body doesn’t ever crave alcohol. Your body craves water and rest and movement.

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and sunlight and connection and social interaction, right? Your brain is, it’s the thinking habit. Thoughts are habits too. And so when you have a problem and something that you’re craving and then you’re like, well, I have a list of options here. I could go to the gym. I could have a drink. The more you select on drink, the more the thinking habit forms, the thought process collapse. And then that thought of, need to relax. I’m going to have a drink just becomes, I need to have a drink.

10:03

But part of the things I do with women is help build out the language. You know, it is not alcohol you crave. It is dopamine that you crave. It is relief and relaxation that you crave. And so just being honest about what it is that you really want  is very,  start telling yourself the truth. That’s such a good one to pull back that layer because it is true. Like not physically you’re wanting that drink with a craving, especially when we’re talking specifically around

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people that are like not in the heavy, heavy use category, right? Where there might be some physical withdrawals at a more serious level. And that’s why  I’ve thought about this, you know, like when you get to that craving point, it’s not really like, I’m not craving the taste of like whatever your, you know, favorite drink is. You’re really like need to stop and ask yourself, what do I need right now? Or what do I really want? What’s the outcome of this drink? it to  defuse? it to...

11:01

Mark the weekend, is it to stop these racing thoughts? You know, those are the things that you need to think about what you’re actually craving that relief in one way or another. Right. Yeah. I’m craving a relief from all the pressure and all the stress  and, or I’m tired. You know, lot of women I work with, that’s a big one. It’s like, well, yeah, you’re tired. Like, why are you drinking through that? Go to bed.  Oh man. Isn’t that sometimes the easiest answer? Yeah.

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Yeah, I have my gals, uh one of  the tools or the coping pattern interrupts that we use is like, when you come home from work, just go lay on your bed for five minutes. Just five minutes, because the version of you who gets five minutes of rest is gonna have a much different opinion about what you need to do for the rest of the evening. Like, and that’s what we think  it’s gonna be so hard to change.

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But the truth is that when you give yourself what you really need and you’re not in that lack mindset that, that I need something when you feel complete and satisfied and in control and able to make good decisions for yourself, you drink like somebody who feels complete and satisfied  and in control and able to make good decisions. Like you don’t change your mind. You change your mood. You, you, you minister to your body. I think that.

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One of the  language things that really helps if you tease it apart is to say, you  I want it’s like no my body needs  my brain thinks I want like separating yourself from the body that is your job to take care of and When I changed my relationship with my body, you know used to think that self-care was pedicures and Prosecco’s  and you know getting my highlights done and

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going shopping and exercising so my butt is a size two.  But when I changed my definition of self to it being the body that I’m taking care of, that really changed because as a mom, you know, I know how to take care of a two-year-old. It’s not always fun. You got to make them eat the broccoli. They need to take the nap. But I wasn’t parenting myself that way. I wasn’t giving my body the same respect that I gave to everybody else, including my kids, you know? Oh man. What insights that you came to.

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You know, and you know, one of the things that you said there made me think that we always equate like these big changes, the bigger the effort, the bigger the result, but it doesn’t need to be that way. Just like you said, go and lay it down  and the bigger the change, the harder it’s got to be. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way either. So you have great tactics. So let me hit you on the spot with one. Like when you get those urges or your cravings in that moment, you gave us one about go lay down. What’s one of your other go-tos?

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Well, that would go into the category of one of my client’s favorite. We call it delay, don’t deny. And that is just like in general, if you always  have a drink when you get home or whenever you get to an event, skip the first round. Trust me, you need to hydrate anyway. And allow yourself five minutes,  15 minutes to just decompress. Let your body and your brain come back into sync.

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Because again, the person, the version of you who is in sync makes different decisions. And so just putting in a pause, you don’t have to say you’re not drinking. You just skip the first round. That’s the easiest one to skip because you can catch up later if you want, no judgment. But it also retrains your brain to associate that you are in control of your stress relief with an actual stress reliever, which is just the pause, just the pause.

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take a breath. So we use the delay, don’t deny strategy. Also, if you are looking at really uh big habit change, you know, this is embedded in your daily life,  using mental rehearsal. So you’re not going to see, you’re not going to do something that you don’t see yourself doing. And one of the biggest mistakes, the mistake that people make is I’m going to drink less. Oh, that’s not a thing.

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Your brain cannot visualize you drinking less. And the more you think you’re going to drink less,  as your last glass of wine goes down, your anxiety is going up because what am I going to do next? You have no idea who you would be or what you would do next. Whereas like I teach the side effect  of feeling confident and in control  is that you drink like somebody who feels that way. So what I teach women to do is set emotional goals.

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How do you wanna feel? Not how much do you wanna drink? Like that only a person with a drinking thinking problem would be asking that question. How do you wanna feel? I wanna feel calm,  connected, grounded. And then you mentally rehearse that. So two minutes in the morning, maybe once again at lunchtime, where you put yourself into the situation and you mentally rehearse yourself showing up  as you want.

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Imagine yourself saying when somebody offers you another glass of wine, imagine yourself saying, more alcohol will ruin my buzz. No, thank you. I feel complete. I’ll have a glass of water and maybe I’ll have another glass of wine in a little bit. But again, you’re not going to do what you can’t imagine yourself doing. So taking that time to fantasize about

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being and acting the way that’s how you, your brain doesn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality, right? It experiences whatever you’re thinking about in real time. So that’s a good way to practice,  you know, and prime the brain so that when that moment comes, you’ve rehearsed it. Like, and even if it feels hard, it’s not  as hard. It’s like, it’s a teeter totter. It could go either way, but good news, it could go either way.

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You know, so mental rehearsal is really important as a strategy. Another thing that works really well is  your tomorrow self. Like I say, go to the bathroom  when you know that you should stop. And,  everybody’s going on and everyone’s come on one more, stay for this one. You’re like, I got a potty. I’ll be right back. Go look yourself in the eyes because you are a human and eye contact.  It pierces your soul when you look in your eye, like you can feel that connection.

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And you just ask your tomorrow self, hey, I’m having a good time. Would you mind if I stayed and had another drink? Cause she can’t tell you the truth. No dummy, we have to get up at 5 a.m. have a huge presentation. No, you’re not doing that.  Or she might say, yeah, you know what? We can sleep an extra hour in the morning. Tomorrow’s a lazy day. Like, you know what? Knock yourself out. But checking in with your tomorrow self, showing respect for this body, this person, and that’s how you find your truth. So.

18:09

Yes.  Well, first of all, to your point on the projecting  or visualization, like it’s been proven and studied deeply, especially with like Olympic athletes and pro athletes. If they do visualization, it’s just as powerful as if they’re sitting at a free throw line, shooting a hundred practice free throws, or if they’re visualizing doing it, same result. so like building that in to your, your plan, because just saying, I want to drink less is not a plan.

18:38

Yeah. And, and  so I love that. Help me, um, go a little bit further with that. Is there a way to frame that? Because I think a lot of people will say like,  I visualize myself, I don’t want to drink this way. But I, I tend to lean towards like frame it in like the positive way. Is that, how do you frame it? Yeah. You have to know what you would be doing and thinking instead. Your brain.

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It’s just like a search engine.  know, if you type in, you know, what do you want tonight for dinner? Not pizza. It’s going to bring up images of pizza. It’s going to bring articles about when you shouldn’t eat pizza. And you’re going to be thinking, it’s like your reticular activating system. It’s your brain. There’s nothing wrong with your brain. It will help you get whatever you think you want. And if you think you don’t want to drink that much, then it’s going to help you get real focused on what you are not doing.

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The real goal, like one of my favorite shares in my program is for women when they show up and say, it never occurred to me to have a drink last night. It never entered my mind. I forgot about drinking. And that’s where the work has to be done with building out other neural pathways. Who would you be? What would you be thinking? What would you be doing and enjoying and loving so much that your focus is so on that it doesn’t occur to you to drink. And so.

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You know, if you want to drink less at a party,  it, that’s a bad goal. It’s I, I want to spend more time having better conversations. I want to get to know so and so better. I want to leave by 10 o’clock so that I can feel relaxed. You have to say what you want to be doing instead.  Not it.  It can’t be the absence of alcohol. Your brain doesn’t solve for the absence of things. That’s an inverted.

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negative goal. Yes. And, you know, I see the play between these things. like, for example, the visualization, you saying that somebody that didn’t even drink or didn’t even think about drinking, I think it could also play into is it, is it um pause? Don’t deny, right? Delay. Don’t deny delay. Don’t deny apologies there. So delay. Don’t deny you come in because maybe a lot of people run for the bar when they get to a social event, because that’s how they get loosened up and start talking. If you say,

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I’m just not going to have it right now. And you settle into these conversations and you’re enjoying yourself. You might forget and you might not even need to  delay.  just forget about it because you’ve already visualized yourself having a good time. You’ve already visualized yourself that aligns to the values and you use the tactic of coming in and  delaying. Yeah.  And you know, preparing yourself, you know, don’t show up at a party with

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a bottle of wine and everybody else is showing up with a bottle of wine. Like I always show up with uh my favorite non-alcoholic beverages. I may bring a bottle of wine too. I’m not a jerk, but  so one of the things I see myself doing is switching because one of the, one of the mantras that I have that I believe is  I prefer going to sleep sober. I don’t like to fall asleep because otherwise then I wake up, it disrupts my sleep. So that’s kind of how I judge my timing of things.

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So I see myself switching to a non-alcoholic beverage so that I can enjoy the buzz that I have  and kind of start winding down my evening. So  you can see yourself doing that. And you can imagine what thoughts you would be thinking like, oh, I’m so glad I stopped. I’m going to feel so much better tomorrow.  Oh my God. You know, I’m so glad I’m not like those jerks who are continuing to drink over and over. Like you can imagine those thoughts. You can’t imagine the absence. Yeah. In the more...

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you imagine the more that you prophesize them in your own behaviors, the more you can visualize them as being real because it’s starting to actually happen in your real life. Now you talk about,  we’ve talked about some of this, but I want to kind of like put an actual label on it. And that is emotional sobriety. ah You have this whole approach around that. What does that actually look like in somebody’s real life? Emotional sobriety is  basically when you are no longer intoxicated by bullshit.

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your own or anybody else’s. And so it is getting very,  um,  aware of the difference between the story you’re telling yourself  and the real facts that you can work with.  so, you know, emotional sobriety, this is why I call myself the hangover whisperer on social media, because your greatest learning is going to happen  after your mistakes.  And that is.

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That is what really needs to change  when you are dealing with breaking this habit is stop expecting yourself on Monday, you’re gonna show up and you’re gonna be perfect from here on out. Like that’s not gonna happen. Habits live in your body, your thinking habits, how you think in different situations. That’s your  default mode network. Like you’re not gonna reprogram that overnight,  which means no matter how much you mentally rehearse,

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No matter how well you delay and deny, no matter how deep the conversation is with your tomorrow self, there will still be times when you don’t  override the old habit of whatever, screw it, that’s not enough wine to save. Ah, it’s fine. I’ll start over tomorrow. Like all of those thoughts that come in, you’re going to still have those. And so being emotionally sober is then what allows you to get out of the shame.

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and anxiety the next day where you’re beating yourself up and making false promises to yourself. I’m never going to drink again. I’m such a jerk. I’m so embarrassed and just being like, okay, how do I learn? Where did I blow through my stop sign? Where was I not paying attention? The reason you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again is because you’re not learning from them.

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You’re letting shame and anxiety drive your thinking processes. So emotional sobriety is understanding that you think how you feel.  so dealing with the feelings of shame, know, processing that it’s okay. I forgive you. I’m proud of you for trying. I love you. I believe, you know, we’ve moved the needle. That’s one of the biggest things is finding the wind wrapped in a turd,  you know, uh where it could have been worse.

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That’s another strategy that I use as a hangover whisperer is like, how could it have been worse? Because your brain will create evidence even if it can’t find to support what you believe. So if you ask it a question like, well, how could that have been worse? And cause you’re like, I didn’t do anything right. I completely messed that up. It’s a hundred percent loss. Ask yourself, well, how could it have been worse? And your brain will like, oh, let me tell you. And then all of sudden now there’s some space between what happened and how bad it could have been  where you can see, oh, I have moved the needle.

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Oh, you know, I  finished the bottle, but I didn’t open another one.  Oh, you know, I drink it slower. You know, I did the delay, don’t deny. Like these things have to be practiced and repeated. How many times have you practiced and repeated your old drinking habits? Like you’re not ready to go head to head overnight, because you just listened to a good podcast  and now you’re like, okay, I got it. Like you have to learn these behaviors. Learning is felt experience, not just good ideas in your brain. You have to go through it.

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And then you have to be willing to learn so that you can improve. And that’s the biggest mistake people make is they beat themselves up and they miss where they did move the needle, where they did get a little bit better. And habit change is built on one small improvement at a time, not beating yourself up for one failure at a time. You have to start learning how to find  the wisdom.  I could remember one time I woke up and felt like I’d been over-served because I had.

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And what had happened was I had felt really good and complete. And then I noticed there was like this much wine, like an inch wine  left in the bottle. And my brain was like, that’s not enough to save. So I went and poured it. I didn’t catch it. Like that was a habit thought, right? And so now ever since I  loved myself and I was like, oh, that was just a thought that popped into my head. It wasn’t true that you can’t save wine. Hell, my body’s on a trash can. I could have dumped it out. Didn’t occur to me. And so, but then now every time that,

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thought pops into my brain, I just laughed. I’m like, oh, for sure I can save that, you know, or I can just dump it out. Like I don’t have to drink it, but you have to go through it to learn. You know what I mean? I do know what you mean. And I, you know, and I think so many people go through that, the self punishment without, without leaving space to learn, to grow and to keep moving forward and to actually do better the next time. And that’s where the, the real cycle, um, in,

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by and large will keep you stuck and  more importantly, it’ll keep you miserable.  I want to give you this stage for a moment to talk about how you’re working with women these days in the program that you’re doing because you’ve come here and shared such amazing uh strategy and also tactics.  And I want to hear a little bit more about what you’re doing now these days and what  has you so excited.

28:06

What has me excited is that while my program is marketed to women who drink too much and need to change, what we’re really doing is getting emotionally sober. We’re taking our power back, learning how to reprogram your brain.  Once you realize that the only thing you ever really fear in life is your own feelings. You know, and just to give an example, like I went through a bankruptcy in my twenties, my first husband and I started a business and for three years we fought.

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gallantly and then got to the point where we couldn’t keep going. And then it was such a relief when we just let go. And I learned in my twenties then that, okay, it wasn’t the bankruptcy that I feared. It was how I would feel about it, beating myself up and being ashamed. And my first husband and I did a really great job of,  we’re not going to do that to ourselves. We fought hard  and it was a fair loss. And so

29:02

I take women into my program to teach them how to repair their relationships with themselves,  to reprogram how they think.  This  internal narrator that is a bully  and  judging and criticizing you all the time,  like when you say you’re stressed out, it’s because of your brain. It is not actually because  there’s too much to do. Maybe you done signed yourself up for too much, that’s fair.

29:29

But it’s like you have the power to change anything and everything in your life. And when you realize that giving yourself what you need allows you to do anything, like the first thing we do is get the drinking under control, but then  it’s relationships, it’s parenting, it’s career. My program is a one-year program because you don’t rewire your brain  in  six weeks, eight weeks, three months, or even six months. It’s an ongoing process.

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process. Your neural pathways don’t get myelinated.  Your nerve doesn’t get myelinated for six months to 12 months.  what happens, like I used to do a sober program  and my program was 12 weeks and you can start a new habit and you’re super motivated and it’s good. But then at some point your focus shifts  and now you got to do this on autopilot and you’re not ready for that yet. You’re not ready to perform these skills.

30:28

under stressful situations. You have to expand your capacity to perform the role of your powerful in control self under stress. you have to learn, you know, this is a complicated process. It’s not just about alcohol. And so I teach women uh how to reprogram their brains, how to regulate their nervous system, how to speak truth to themselves so that their mind and body is on the same page.

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and your body isn’t telling you one thing and your mind’s telling you something else, like you can align your truth. And it can be the truth  of where you’re at, that you don’t want to be there. But there’s just positive ways to think about it so that you’re not stuck in the shame, spirals, and anxiety. So the  change process really requires three things, content, community, and coaching. Content, gotta... uh

31:22

I don’t brainwash you, but I’m gonna hand you the soap. You gotta listen to all of these ideas and strategies and processes and truths. And then you need coaching because you can’t think your way out of your own thinking problem. Like you need a mirror. You need somebody with a non-judgmental uh attitude. Like I believe in you. I don’t know what’s right for you. Let me help you figure that out. Coaching is essential. And then community is so important because our group

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dynamic, were social beings and you have to be able to process what you’re going through in order to see yourself from the outside in. And then of course, science shows the fastest way to change your mind is to do so in a group of like-minded people. And so you want to make sure that the people you’re  with have the same goals. And that’s a problem with sobriety programs because not everybody wants to stay sober forever. And if you join a program like that,

32:18

where there isn’t room for mindful drinking and  self-discovery, and it’s all about just the habit of the behavior of staying sober, you’re not energetically aligned. And there’s nothing wrong with staying sober. I’m just saying, if that’s not your goal to never drink again, then it’s gonna be tough. So you need a community, like in my group, we’re getting happy, not sober. And that’s our goal. And you shouldn’t join if that’s not your goal. Getting happy, not sober, I love...

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the tagline there and you know, it is such a nuance thing to have to make a change with. And I think you’ve done a beautiful job of breaking it down in some simple steps with  the support that people need. So thanks for coming here. have high regard, high, very much respect what you do and anybody listening, Colleen is the real deal. And if anybody wants to reach out or learn more, where can they go, Colleen? Emotional sobriety coaching.com is my website.

33:16

And then I’m Hangover Whisperer  on social media. All right, I’m going to interrupt myself there because you all already know how to find me. You’re listening. And I really appreciate that.  And if you found this conversation helpful, please pay it forward. Share the episode with somebody you know who needs to hear it. And if it sparked something in you, if you’re ready to feel confident and in control of your drinking instead of feeling like you’re being controlled by it, then let’s talk.

33:46

Book a free discovery call and I will give you a roadmap for how to reduce your drinking without shame, without rules, or committing to lifelong abstinence. You don’t have to figure this out by yourself. In fact, you really can’t. If you wanna change your perspective, you’ve gotta talk to somebody who’s been there  and who understands what you’re going through and who isn’t gonna judge you for it. There is nothing more healing than feeling safe and seen and supported.

34:16

My discovery calls are free and private and there is no pressure to join my program.  And before you come to the call, you’ll get a link for my private podcast called How to Reduce Your Drinking by 80%, where you will hear the exact strategies I teach my clients  and also stories from women in the program  so you can hear real life examples of what it looks like and how long it takes  to become the version of you who actually prefers drinking in moderation.

34:46

So if you want a link to the podcast, you gotta book a call. So get in the show notes and click the link. Otherwise, thank you so much for listening and being a part  of this community. We are rapidly and organically becoming the go-to voice of reason for people who want a more moderate approach that actually works. So that’s all I got for today. I love you and I appreciate you.

35:13

Have a kick ass week and I will see you on the next episode.