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Sobriety and Simplicity - An Empowering Transformation · #BeMoreLobster

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes we have one of those conversations that just has a lasting impact.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, today I'm going to be sharing one of those with you.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: This interview was done a few years ago, actually, when I had my previous podcast and I bought it back out of the archives just because number one, it was so powerful, and number two, I think it just brings another dimension to seeking simplicity.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a friend of mine that I knew from school over 30 years ago, and I saw her post on social media about making the decision to quit drinking.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was less about that decision and more about how she wrote about her experience with alcohol that had me intrigued and reaching out to her to ask her more about her journey.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: So in this podcast, we talk about the power of making a definite decision and how, in making that decision, it eliminated the need for constant bargaining and planning, which frewed her mind up and allowed her to fully embrace a new identity.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about the self-discovery and awareness that came from removing herself from the influence of alcohol and embracing new coping strategies.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is not a big lean on sobriety, it's just a conversation.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: It may open up curiosity and seeking simplicity looks different for everybody.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to make sure that we cover as many faces as possible.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I took a great deal from this conversation first time round, and re-listening to it has really helped me hear it with different ears because, as you know, we never hear or read or experience the same thing twice because we are different people.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I ask you to relax and sit back and just listen to this absolutely incredible conversation.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy it.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was successful at drinking alcohol.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another bonus episode in this series where we're talking about what's possible when you make a decision.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all about when we make that definite decision in our brain, what becomes possible and available to us and for us.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm going to introduce you to Magda.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Magda is some Magda is somebody that I went to school with.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't spoken for 30 years, but I saw a post of hers on Facebook last November celebrating two years of being sober, not drinking alcohol.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And she talked about in this raw and honest post how she had found her life orbiting around alcohol.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I really wanted to find out what was what changed or what happened to make the decision.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: How did she navigate that that challenging journey?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And who has she become and what has happened because of that decision?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the reason I think this is so important is because you know, we can we look at alcohol and how it's being glamorised.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We look at alcohol as a way to celebrate, to commiserate, to manage stress, anxiety, and overwhelm, and all the things.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I also feel that conversely, we're in a place now where there is so much more drive towards alcohol-free living, more products on the market, more books and literature available.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted to put it out there to listen to somebody that was gone through it and to see the benefits and to pass that on to you.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to kick back and enjoy this episode where I catch up with an old friend and we chew the cud, and there's some magic in here.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So listen hard.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right, so Magda, you made the decision in November 2020 to quit alcohol, and I want to know what was it that that made that decision for you.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, it's interesting.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's been something that has been building for me over many years, probably over the last sort of 30 years.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: I was always a really good drinker.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't aggressive or sloppy, you know.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: I was very successful at drinking alcohol.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: It was fun, I was fun, and you know, alcohol just made that something that was better.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so it wasn't like I was constantly going, oh, I've got to stop, I've got to stop.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't like that, it just sort of gradually accumulated over the years.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I wasn't it wasn't I wasn't one of those drinkers who was, you know, waking up in the morning and having a drink, or you know, I didn't I didn't feel like I fit into a sort of stereotypical bucket of an alcoholic.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't feel like that.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: But I did know and I became increasingly aware that I was very much influenced by alcohol.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, I started to direct my activities about around whether there would be alcohol present.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, if I was going out and I knew that I was going to an event that there wasn't going to be boozer, I would make sure that I had a drink beforehand.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: Or if you know I was going on a hike, like even something like as nice as going out and going for, you know, a long hike, I might take a beer with me and be like, well, when I finish the hike, when I'm at the top of that hill, I'll sit and I'll have a beer and I'll look at, you know.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so, and to me, that didn't, that wasn't super strange, like that just was how it was.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like, that's you know, I sort of dictated everything I did around alcohol and making sure alcohol was there, and um, that was okay.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: And it really got to a point where little things kept on creeping in, and I was like, There's something not right here, there's something not right here.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, one of the things was that you know, my ex-girlfriend at the time said to me, you know, we both drank, and she was like, you know, you get you get disconnected when you're drinking.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I was like, really?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: I get disconnected.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't, I didn't believe it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I was like, you know, when we have a drink, we sit down, you know, we'll have some nice food and we'll have a drink.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, how is that disconnected?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like we're being more it's part of becoming connected, if anything.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so that was I didn't believe it.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of things, you know, whilst you whilst I was drinking, I didn't really believe either.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I didn't I would daily like have headaches or not feel good.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I just thought that was me.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: I just thought that was like you know, part of growing older and everything.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: And it wasn't until I quit drinking and I was like, oh, I'm not taking motor every day, like I don't have a headache every day that I realized that it was that sort of toxicity that was sort of growing in my body, you know, it was like anyway.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it was sort of human.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Can I just ask a question?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, just to interrupt you.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, uh what when you were making those, like making those decisions where you said like you was influenced by it and was planning for it.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Was you aware of something you were trying to gain from it, or was you was there an awareness of what might happen without it?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like was that present?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's a great question.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: I think you know, in retrospect, a lot of these things are in retrospect, right?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: But I think in retrospect, there was a lot of things that I was trying to use alcohol to cope with, right?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: So in stressful situations, I would, you know, if we're going out for drinks with people from work, it's like, okay, that's gonna be a bit nerve-wracking.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'll be much more relaxed if I have a drink.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: So it was a coping mechanism in a lot of situations, but then there were also other situations where it was a sort of celebratory ritual, and that's something that I've really had to adapt.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: Now I don't drink, is like how I love celebrating, I love party, you know, and how do I do that?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: How do I still feel like I'm rewarding myself without alcohol?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's become a sort of really important part, and no, I've you know, and I'll do it now.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: There's we can talk about how I do it now, but you know, there's different ways, and you know, I'll spend a uh the same amount of money on a non-alcoholic bottle of wine as I would on an alcoholic wine, and you know, there's some real there's some really amazing non-alcoholic drinks and which maybe maybe in the States, not over here.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, is that right?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh certainly not on the wine front.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've tried them all.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, I want Oh yeah, good ones now, it's great.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I anyway, we'll we'll have another topic on that.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, so so was there was there like a defining moment for you when you was like, right, enough.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us about that?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, there was absolutely, and it was one of those moments where, like I was saying, I was using alcohol to cope with stressful situations, and it was in November of 2020, and you know, a few months into the pandemic, we're all isolating, at least over here, everything was outside, and actually my boss was coming over with his wife and his new baby to have dinner in my back garden.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: And um I was like, it's great, you know, it was moderate, moderately stressful, not super stressful, but you know, I was like, my girlfriend was coming too, and I was like, okay, so you know, I've got some beautiful food, I've got some um bottles of wine, and I you know, I was nervous, I could feel this underlying anxiety around having uh a potentially stressful situation.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_03: So I had a drink and I felt a bit better, and I was like, okay, this is good, you know, it's that that sort of immediate alleviation of anxiety with alcohol, but unfortunately it doesn't, it didn't last very long, right?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's like the last maybe, I don't know, for me like 10-15 minutes, and I'm like, okay, that did feel good, but now I'm starting to come out of that sort of anxiety alleviating state, and so I'll have another drink, and that just kept on happening, right?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so, like, you know, you know where this is going, like after two or three hours, I've drunk, you know, probably the best part of a couple of bottles of wine, not even so much.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: But I felt I felt fine, like I felt okay.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I you know, I was obviously very relaxed by that point.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, my boss uh left, and that's when I started to really feel the toxic effects.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like I really I was like started spinning, and I'm like, oh shit, I'm too much, you know, and I think I've done it many times over my life where I've had too much to drink.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but this time it felt really different, and I think part of it was, you know, the pandemic, I'd been drinking a lot more, and so there'd been this sort of like daily drinking, and now I just I think I tipped a threshold, you know.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: It was like flipping a light switch where my body was just like, oh no, no.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so um, my girlfriend stayed with me for a bit, and I was like, I'm spinning, I can't lie down.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: And you go through that.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's horrid, isn't it?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's horrible, isn't it?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like that circle of like, okay, I'm too drunk to lie down, can't walk around, I don't want to, you know, and um like I had had I had routines that I put in place for myself to sort of get through these moments where like I'd get a cold flannel, put it on my head, make me feel better for a few minutes.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, it was awful.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: That night was really and I remember it really vividly, and then the next morning, what happened for me, which which didn't used to have happen very much, was I woke up and I was like, okay, okay, I'm I'm hungover, I'm really hungover, I feel toxic, my head hurts, and I just started throwing up like throwing up like every 30 minutes for pretty much the entire day.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: And that was the switch for me.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: That was like, oh, this is it.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: I've you know, I've actually properly poisoned myself.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, you know, and I sat there and I was like, oh, this is really bad.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: Why am I putting myself in a state where I've poisoned my body?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's like uh not a good place to be.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I made that decision that day.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, that this is it, I can't do this anymore.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: I can't I can't go on like this.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um and you know, I'd had these sort of discussions with myself before, but this time I knew it was different, you know, and it felt very final, and I was scared to be honest, you know.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: I was scared that I'd really screwed myself up.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I made that decision.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: And it's really interesting in retrospect, I think, just to recap a little bit.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: I've done periods of moderation management.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what they call this in the UK, but here they call it moderation management, where you where you look at how much you're drinking and you sort of you set yourself limits.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: So let's say I think it's seven drinks a week, right?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: Is what they maximally recommend for women.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if that's the same in the UK.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: And so you set up your seven drinks for the week, you know, like okay, I'm I'm just gonna drink Thursdays and Saturdays, and I won't drink more than two drinks, and I make sure I space out each drink by an hour.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you put all these rules in place around your drinking, and that's what they call moderate.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I've tried that multiple times, and I always made up an excuse to break those rules, right?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's always like, well, but it's the Christmas party, so I'll let myself have five drinks that night, and you know, or somebody's coming in from out of town, so I have to break that rule then.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I would constantly break those rules, and then one sorry, sorry, no, I just I think what's interesting about that um is that you know, when you were talking about all of that right there, it's it it it doesn't help the fact that there is an awareness that the fact that you're having to moderate it means that there is a bit of a problem behind it, right?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that putting those rules in place isn't dealing with the reason why you're doing it in the first place.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's just like a very bad plaster on something, you know, it's like really but I was too scared to let go, you know.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Did you sorry, did you did you find yourself like thinking about it even more because of that management plan?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: It was worse, it was way worse, and that was part of the you know, me orbiting around this son of alcohol, then got even bigger, right?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: Because then I'm like, okay, I've got these rules in place, I can only drink here, and it just became such everything was a focus, everything was focused around it at that point.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: And so probably the easiest, you know, the the easiest part of not drinking was making that decision, right?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_03: Because once I'd made that decision and I said to myself, that's it, no more, I don't drink.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I said to myself was I don't drink, I don't drink alcohol.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: Then that there was no more questioning then, right?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: That was it.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't have to make up rules, I didn't have to, you know, make up a plan for the week or think about it.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: It just eliminated me even having to think about alcohol and drinking.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: I don't drink.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's so terrible.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's interesting because I I think I shared this on a podcast earlier on.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was listening to a TEDx talk, um, and it was labelled something like the 100% rule that will change your life, or the yeah, something like that.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the guy was talking about, I think it was a statement from I know he's a basketball player, and I know he's very tall because they all are Michael Jordan.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Michael Jordan.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I believe Michael Jordan said 100% commitment is easier than 98%.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the way that I I because like I see a lot of stuff in pictures, and the way that I saw that in my brain was exactly how you just described it.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: In that 100% decision, you've closed all the doors on the other options, you've closed the questioning, you've closed the the um, what's the word I'm looking for?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like the bargaining, you've closed it all down because you said I don't drink.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Boom, that was it.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I I'd love for you to share, like for other people that go, oh, well, it's you must have just found it easy.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you think about people that spend their life yo-yo dieting and they rely on willpower, and maybe like their nemesis is, I don't know, like chocolate bars, and they feel like there's never going to be a time when they're not gonna be, you know, a slave to the chocolate bar.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything you can share with them to help them understand the power of like taking on that identity of I don't drink?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's such a funny concept, isn't it, when you think about it?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't understand it until I did it.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I didn't think it was a possibility.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: There was not a part of my mind that thought that not drinking would be easier than drinking something.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: But just eliminating all of that, like you said, bargaining, you know, that sort of planning around oh, I'm gonna drink here and here.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: Just having a simple decision that you can stick to and telling yourself, this is it, this is me.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: Now it's it's interesting you talk about food because sometimes I think about food and other addictions, and they're a bit more complicated in a way, right?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: Because you've got to eat.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, then you can't say I'm not gonna eat, right?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: We can't survive on that, can we?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: No, like sex addiction, you can't.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you could say I'm not gonna have sex, but you know what I mean?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's like it's much more complicated in a way, yeah, yeah.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um with those ones.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I do think about that, and I I wonder about you know different methods for decision making around things which are not so binary, yeah.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: Cigarette smoking, binary, alcohol drinking, binary.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, those other ones are more complicated for sure.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: They they are, and I think and that's where we come into that that whole other conversation around the mental and emotional drivers that make us feel like we have an issue with something in the first place.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because, like, there will be somebody out there that eats like 20 chocolate bars a week that doesn't believe that they have a problem, that it's not in their identity, and they're happily eating their chocolate bars.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's somebody over here who's doing the same who is living their life like you did, with this awareness and the judgment and the and the planning and the moderation that's starting again tomorrow, and their life is driven by it, and that's the curiosity of being human, right?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like what makes one person think it's an issue versus somebody that that that doesn't.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think once we, you know, without going down the whole line of like everything comes down to self-love, in my opinion, like if we loved ourselves, we'd make better choices.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're not making good choices, I think there is some kind of thing that we need to look at inside.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's that's like for another episode.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you've made this decision, you said you felt this instant shift.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Was there and so 2020?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we're like what like we're two, we're over two years, two and a half years down the line now, which is which is humongous.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Were there times when your identity was challenged?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um and it's always it comes back to, you know, I spent a lot of time thinking about the reasons, you know, why I drank and you know, like I mentioned, some of it was to do with you know coping in stressful situations, some of it's to do with celebrating, and those things still happen, right?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: Those things still come up, challenging situations still come up.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: I still go to work things and you know, everybody's drinking.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: We I went to a I went to a uh wine tasting with work.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I but I I prepped in in you know in advance and I said I sent an email saying, you know, look, I don't drink, and actually, you know, within the group of us that were going, there were four out of the 12 that were not drinking, which is wow, pretty pretty big actually.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it just you know that speaks to how many people are moving away from alcohol completely.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um and but when I got there, there was like a welcome, they were like, yes, yes, yes, we've got that covered, we've got it covered, there'll be non-alcoholic options for everybody.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, okay, great.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: I get there and there's an opening reception where everybody's given a glass of champagne to show them the beautiful property, but there was no options for the four of us who didn't drink.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_03: We were just we weren't even given a glass of water, right?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: It was ridiculous.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: And things like that, I mean, now they just make me mad, right?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when I was drinking, I'd be like, oh well, that's your fault, you don't drink, so sorry.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but now I'm like, oh my god, it's ridiculous.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how can people be so narrow-minded around um, you know, just not meeting everybody's needs?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's like this assumption that everybody drinks alcohol um is bizarre.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway, so things like that come up.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and also, you know, when it when on my two-year anniversary, I woke up feeling so sad.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I just was like, what is going on?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why do I feel so down about this?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I went over to uh I went over to my uh girlfriend's house and I turned up and I was crying.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: And she's she's sober, she's amazing, she hasn't drunk in eight years.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: And she's like, she goes to me, oh Magda, you missed your best friend alcohol.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_03: I just I just cracked up because it was so true.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, what is my best friend?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: I miss you.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and just having that acknowledgement around what was going on was huge, right?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: And just taking a look at myself and the situation and being and acknowledging those things.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: And that, you know, that's one of the things I think that you know, you touched on self-care and um, you know, looking after yourself and being kinder to yourself.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's like having that sort of ability to look back at yourself and be like, it's okay, it's okay to feel sad, it's okay to feel happy.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: You know, all it's have all of these emotions, have them all, and they're just it's just a moment in time, and then things will move on, things will change, and there'll be another situation in a minute, you know.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I remember when I did my EFT training years ago, I remember the the instructor talking about like um, I think she called it like a uh a guiding star, no, a north star.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we talked about alcohol because, like you've explained, like, you know, going back to when we were at school just like five years ago, I wish.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, just a week.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Five years plus 20.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, and you think about like, you know, the the things we'd have at the rugby club, or you know, when and you think about Christmases and birthdays, not you say it's celebrations.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: There are many North Star moments for so many of us where alcohol was included, and we had a laugh, and we felt like at that time we were our truest self, and we're like exactly like you say, we don't feel so intensely, if at all, that angst and so on.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's we have this it whether it's a numbness or a softness or a relaxed or a or a loosening, there that I can totally see how you would feel like wow, or like I've lost that.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there is an element of grief there, right?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think absolutely absolutely grief is you know, I did a podcast on this years ago about how we totally underestimate how many ways we ex like we experience grief, but we don't grieve, like we just put it in a box and we move on.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I really love how you've brought that to light.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: That even though, and we'll talk about this briefly in a minute, like there was so many, so much good happened and so much change occurred because of your decision, you still had to allow yourself these moments of like that there was other stuff attached to this that I now don't have.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's so important.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so tell us a little bit like I I just remember seeing a picture of you on Facebook like a couple of years ago.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think probably around about the time that you put that amazing post up about how you'd been orbiting around alcohol, and I was like, what an amazingly profound way of describing it.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was so visual for me.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember seeing a picture of you going, Holy crap, she looks completely different to when I recognize her at school.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like you look like Yeah, you look good.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, we all look grown up now, don't we?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: We all think we look the same as we do when we were at school, but we don't.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, I've seen you post about playing pickleball, which just the name makes me feel like I need to start a pickleball club somewhere over here.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what it is.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh please, I'm I really want it to sweep the UK.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's on my it's on my list, so I'll keep you updated.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: But like tell us some of the what are some of the the benefits?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: How has your life changed because you made that decision?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, oh my goodness.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's one of those, that's one of those questions where where do you even start, right?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I touched on a few of these things already.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: One, like just general health.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's it's you know, part of saying these things out loud is it sounds a bit cliche, it sounds like the front of cover of a you know, vanity magazine or whatever, but general health is so much better.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have headaches daily.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't realize, I had no idea that alcohol, like even if I wasn't, even if I hadn't drunk the night before, I would have a headache.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, that was just how I felt.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like, and I you know, I was like, oh, you know, that's just that's just me.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: I very rarely need to take, you know, mo um ibuprofen or whatever for headaches anymore, which is great.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um my skin is so much better, so much clearer.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: My sleep is much, much improved.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: Like that sort of, you know, that dysregulated sleep that you you get after you even after like half a beer, even after a beer, you know, I would wake up and be like, go to the loo or get a glass of water or something, but that doesn't happen anymore.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot uh the other big sort of change in terms of like physical beings, I feel much more aware of my own body, like I feel much more tuned, tuned in.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, I slip into a little Americanism soon.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'll let you off.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: Tuned in.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: I feel a lot more tuned into sort of understanding what's going in my body on in my body.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, I'm aware of my limbs, I'm aware of how I feel, I'm aware if I feel tired, that it's not necessarily, you know, I had a couple of drinks, you know, it's it there's something else going on.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: Am I stressed?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: Am I, you know, and that is I love that.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: I love knowing, you know, I mean, this is my my being.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: I love being having a better understanding of what's going on with me physically and emotionally.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say, like sorry, I I was just thinking I was talking about all sorts of like the physical things, and obviously, because you you touched on the fact that part of the reason the the drink was there was because of you know it's situations where there might be anxiety or discomfort or some kind of emotion that you don't want to deal with.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do you experience that whole thing differently now?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you have them less or do you just you just manage them in different ways?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_03: That's a really good question.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: I think a little bit of both, to be honest.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think I was all I had this preconception that I couldn't handle social situations without alcohol, that it would be really hard.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um and maybe that's because you know, we started drinking when we were, you know, 17, 18, and that's just how it's been in social situations.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: But it's not like I was I remember like the first few times I did it, I was like, oh like that it's actually actually not any different.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's so it's really hard to explain until you've tried it, right?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's like you think it's gonna be awful, you think it's gonna be hard.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: That's it's very, very similar to how it is with alcohol.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so getting through that sort of preconceived like stigma within myself is what has has helped me deal with those sort of type of situations.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I would say with other type of where I would normally turn to a drink, like you know, after a hot day, I'm tired.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: The kids have been going on and on and on.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_03: I might have turned to a drink before.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: I do have a lot of other sort of self-care things.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: You mentioned pickleball.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: I love it, I love it.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: I can't don't get me off.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: Don't get me off.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: I'll go out and I'll play, you know, there's a lot of open plays for pickleball around here.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's okay, a little brief summary.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's like ping pong slash bamboo on half a tennis court.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: I saw you okay.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna YouTube that.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, on it.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: But I I'll go out and I'll meet, you know, there's groups of us that will go to the courts and you'll play with strangers or you'll play with friends and it's social or it can be totally you don't have to talk to anybody if you don't want to.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, it's just a great way of getting outside and doing something meditative, right?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: Focusing on something that isn't in your own head for me is really important.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like that could be taking the dog for a walk, that could be, you know, sitting down and actually chatting with the kids and asking them what's going on with them.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: It could be going out and playing pickleball.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it doesn't have to be things that used to annoy me with sort of self-care things that people when they you know it seems very healthy, has to be healthy, it doesn't have to be healthy, yeah, you know, that that doesn't have to be the focus of it, but it is something that you know just breaks the cycle of what you're thinking about and allows you to sort of just take a breath, come back inside yourself and recognize what's going on and look at what you're thinking and what's going on around you and why you're feeling anxious and stressed.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that that brings us back to what we said at the beginning, like the the emotional and mental like drivers where we've already created like this um this habit cycle, right?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: That we're with that we're unaware of.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: So your body gives you all these cues.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm feeling stressed, my heart rate's gone up, I've got palpitations, da-da-da-da.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And your brain then like will give you the taste of alcohol or whatever it is, whether it's food or or drugs or cigarettes, like whatever it is.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the thing that's hardest, isn't it?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Is because we see it as a physical action, but there is so much more going on unconsciously.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and what you've just said there about I love I loved like how you just described about having so much more awareness of yourself.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about this like before we got on, and that how you know, no matter how difficult and how shitty life has been over the years for for lots of you know, for uh for us and for lots of other people, when you get to a stage where you can be really grateful for the journey and who you became and what you were willing to to experience to get here, like I think that is such a gift that we can celebrate ourselves for.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, like if you think about, I remember there's a guy called, I don't know if you've heard of him, Bruce Lipton.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: That oh yes, yes, yes.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, right.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: I thought you might.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I love how Bruce Lipton talks about how we are basically like these gigantic cells that go out into the world and like we're we're just like the cells in our body pick up hormones and and acidity and temperature change and uh, we're like going around and we're using our senses to read our environment and to react.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we've we've become so overstimulated that we we sort of we we think we need these things so that we can disconnect for a while when actually you've already just explained.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_03: Completely, and that's like and the whole thing about juicy, yeah.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: You're just you're just you're taking those cells, right?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: And you're just dumping them in uh in in ethanol, yeah, right?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_03: I mean it it's thank you.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: I've read I've read so much good what they call quit lit, you know.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, chick flicks, quit lit.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: I love that and the the one that I re that really resonated with me was a book which I don't really like the title of, but it's called it's called Quit Like a Woman.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and it's very you know, it it resonated with me because she doesn't like the term alcoholic, the lady who writes it, you know.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: She's like and I struggled with that as well.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, you know, there's this alcohol is an addictive substance, it's a chemical, it's ethanol, you know, that's it.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_03: Doesn't you can dress it up and uh give it and put it in an expensive bottle, but at the end of the day, it's ethanol.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: And if you give ethanol to anybody in sufficient quantities, they'll become addicted to it.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's just it, that's the nature of it.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's a chemical reaction.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_03: Now, different people have different thresholds for reaching that addiction, right?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: And different people, depending on why they're drinking alcohol, will drink it at a frequency that you know will accelerate them into that point of addiction quicker than others.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, and there's a lot of talk about you know, using alcohol, what's the underlying trauma that's going on that causes you to use alcohol, that causes you to rely on alcohol?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_03: And you can't and it's not until you remove alcohol from the system that you can really start looking at what is going on inside yourself.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: Why are you feeling triggered in situations?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: Why are you feeling anxious?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: What's you know, what's really disturbing in this situation?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: What you know, I I think about this, you know, in terms of like social situations.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: Why do I feel nervous in social situations?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know, apart from the sort of inherent part of I think everybody feels a certain level of you know anxiety, many people embarrassing themselves or you know, not being cool enough.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, oh well, I look back on that and I look back on my childhood, and you know, there's some elements of okay, I used to feel like that as a kid.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: Is this still coming through?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, not getting picked for sports first, right?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's that embarrassment of where you're standing in front of other people, you haven't got picked for the team, you know, oh shit, everybody's looking at me.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's it's so it's really weird.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you sustainable.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many layers.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I just had to giggle to myself things when you sort of said about like wanting to fit in and not wanting to stand out, and I think I remember some horrific experiences at the rugby club where I most definitely, after too many drinks, did stand out, and and absolutely didn't fit in because I was making a complete like jockey of myself.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's so interesting in how you know it's we look at it from from one side and and uh and everything's multidimensional, and I think being able to be inquisitive and to and to not to like one of the things I say literally in every one of my podcasts is no blame, no shame, no judgment, it's just neutral observation.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when we can apply that to ourselves over and over and over again, just to just to uh challenge the decisions that we make or the feelings that we have and just be willing to kind of like journey there, there is so much freedom in that, and and it goes back to what you said just a bit before be be willing to be in all of those emotions.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was talking to a a friend today, and she's a youth worker, and she said, you know, we provide the space to help children find the vocabulary and the permission to feel every emotion without judging it.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's so true for us, even as adults, there are emotions that we've been trained that are good and bad, things that we don't want to feel, things that trigger us back to childhood, this this inherent desire for us to be seen, heard, and validated.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're walking around in these adult bodies, but you know, in a child can sometimes be at the helm, yeah, and you know, and they want to feel that sense of that peace and all of that.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I just find it so fascinating.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know we've got to wrap up time, so I'd just be if I can ask you this one question how who who are you now without the alcohol compared to who you were before?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good question.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean, and it sort of comes back to what you were just saying about judgment and looking at myself and other people, I think.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: I am definitely or I feel way more open-minded.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: I had a lot of judgment around other people drinking or not drinking.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_03: Like if I saw somebody not drinking, I'd be like, why are you not drinking?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_03: What's wrong with you?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: Seriously, and that was you know, in retrospect, because I had a problem with alcohol, right?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_03: If I didn't have a problem with alcohol, I wouldn't that wouldn't even occur to me whether they were drinking or not.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I definitely think I've become way more open-minded, less judgmental against other people and against myself, you know, like like what we were talking about, you know, it's okay to have all the feelings, it's okay to be happy and sad, to be anxious and relaxed.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can have all of these things.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: You can feel all these things simultaneously.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I I also think I'm I feel like I'm a lot kinder with myself, you know.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: If I this one of the things, you know, when I was reading the the quitlet stuff is like, if if you feel tired, go to bed, yeah.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why do we sort of punish ourselves to push through situations where we don't feel good?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: If you don't feel good, you know, it's okay to lean into that.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, and that was something for me which was sort of huge in that in in in becoming somebody who doesn't drink alcohol anymore.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like I feel a lot more free about the things that were holding me in.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: And do you think that just the last question, do you think there'll be a time, you know, I I'm not one for labels, right?
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like sometimes it can cause so much more space uh between us than it does join us when we start putting labels on people and on things.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but at the moment, like you know, we've talked about how there is definitely this divide between like, oh, I don't drink, oh why not?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like is it a medical thing?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, I just choose not to drink.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, you know, and I've I know I can totally relate to that conversation, but do you like it?
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that'll be a time when like that's not even a thing?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like it really, you know, I do, and I think you know, alcohol is treated in a very similar way to cigarette smoking was treated in the sort of 50s and 60s, is sort of glamorized appeal of alcohol, every TV show, every social media, you know, it's everywhere, yeah.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_03: And cigarette smoking was the same, right?
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_03: But you don't now find you know people apologizing for not smoking.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it doesn't happen like that.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I I do think there's a I mean, at least here in the US, is a big shift away from drinking, and uh even in the young, you know, in the younger generations, which is when we were just like getting excited about yeah, we can go drink now.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't seem to be as interesting, yeah.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and and I think there'll be that shift.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_03: I think it will get to a point where it'll be much more acceptable, and people won't question it, you know.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_03: It won't be alcohol, you know, not drinking alcohol is one of the few things that you have to explain why you're not doing it.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's weird, it is it's really weird.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and I've and I've read posts about that before, and it had never occurred to me that I, you know, that people say, you know, well, no one asks you why you don't do drugs.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like you're not starting coke today, no, I'm not.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, then what's the like we don't have that?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: But because I think bec and I think just to kind of wrap up as well, you know, you you you said it like when you said like you would judge other people for not doing it, like if you were going out for a drink and somebody else wasn't drinking.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I wonder like how much of that is because what you know, so if you go out and I've had it before, if I've decided not to drink and someone goes, Why are you not drinking?
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I wonder whether it's because that person wishes that they were able to not drink, you know, and so it's easier for them to project that on.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: Totally, it's it absolutely is because you know, when you meet people who don't care about drinking, and the people who don't care about alcohol, it doesn't even occur to them.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, it doesn't even occur to them that to ask that question, but it's oh it's it really does seem to be the people who have who are questioning their own relationship with alcohol, yeah, whether consciously or subconsciously, they're the ones who are the ones who are making the judgments.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: What an amazing I mean, I feel like I could talk about this for ages because there's so many, there's so many layers behind these decisions.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll have to do like a part two, but I just want to thank you so much for like sharing really honestly and just providing a very you know honest and and simple approach, really, to like what you did.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like for something that can feel so massive, you know, when you said I just made that decision, it made total sense to me, having been doing some mob podcasts on that recently.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: So huge thanks, and I shall keep watching you play pickleball and um and and get the pickle pull revolution going over in the UK.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh just thank you so much for being here.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_03: I know you can do it.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_03: I know you can do it.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, but thank you so much for being here, Magda.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, thank you.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: I really it's really great to talk with you.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'll speak you soon.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: And as part of that free group, I run a free book club and we meet for conversations and connection and community every single Wednesday evening at 7 pm UK time.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's live, it doesn't always revolve around the book.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be reading the book, you don't have to be up to date with the book.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is all about creating community.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: community and conversation, a community where you are seen and heard and accepted for exactly where you are.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: And also there's an invitation to grow and to develop if you desire.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: So check the link out below and come join us.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll speak to you again in the next episode.