Latest / ShameOver - The Drink Less Podcast / Alcohol, Fun & Identity: Who Are You Without the Wine? Ft Marrilee Burke
Transcript
- Erica And ShameOver: Okay, welcome back to part two of this incredible conversation with licensed, licensed psychotherapist, Marilee Burke. Honestly, this might be one of the most important conversations we have when it comes to drinking less because underneath the wine and the cocktails, the mommy needs to drink culture, the girls' nights, brunches, vacations, there is often something so much deeper happening. We forget how to play. We forget how to rest. Ay, yi, yi. This conversation had so many important nuggets in there, but I think one of the biggest takeaways not only from today, but in general of doing this work is if alcohol is your only source of fun or relief or relaxation or play or escape, of course it's going to feel impossible to drink less. So just so you know, this is not a willpower problem. It is a nervous system problem and it has a lot to do with our identity. That's a... and we forget how to have fun without alcohol attached to it. So in this episode, we're diving into the emotional and identity side of drinking and why alcohol became tied to fun, creativity, connection, and even who we think we are socially. So this is going to be very deep and validating and honestly, probably make a lot of things click for you. So let's get into it. you've forgotten yourself a little bit problem, which we are all guilty of that, myself absolutely included. So the beautiful thing is that can be rebuilt. You do not need to become boring and lose your social life or become a completely different person. And you do not need to lose your spark, especially when it comes to just drinking less. In fact, most people actually reconnect with themselves more deeply once they stop using alcohol as the main event. So stay tuned because in part three, we are getting even deeper into identity, labels, addictive personalities, your story ⁓ why self-compassion matters so much in this process. Trust me, you do not want to miss the final part of the series. So if resonated with you, please send it to a friend, share it, tag me. I would love to hear what stood out most for you. And remember, the only way that I can... grow and continue to do this and we all grow and evolve together is if you share this, like it, and most of all, leave a review. Obviously, if it's a five star, please. That will help me to continue changing the stories for so many of us on this journey together. You are absolutely capable of creating a life that you don't need to escape from. And I can't wait to see you back in part three to do just that. Erica+ShameOver: So brought up what parts before. you talking like IFS parts work or what type of parts? Is there a specific thing that you're referring to there? Merrilee Burke, LMFT: Either one, IFS is super helpful and I do use that with a lot of my clients, but it can be, if IFS doesn't resonate with someone, reality that we all have different parts of our personality is it's very true. It's universal. It's not a disorder. It's not anything that needs to scare anybody. It's not that you are going to be in a movie of the week from the eighties. It's like, it's normal to have different parts of your personality. Everybody says, there's a part of me that wants to do this and a part of me that wants to do that. So yes, I do sometimes use IFS and some of the parameters around that, but sometimes clients can't really get into them, but they still can identify that they have different parts that often want different things. Erica+ShameOver: Yes. Do you find a lot that rebellion piece is coming up for a lot of your clients? Yeah. Merrilee Burke, LMFT: Rebellion comes up a lot. Fun comes up a lot. You wouldn't think that it's a child part of you that wants to drink, because probably, most likely, you weren't drinking alcohol as a child. But you wanted to have fun as a child. You wanted to play. sometimes for adults, it's really, really difficult for us to have fun without alcohol or drugs. fun, ⁓ I want to play. I want to have fun. I do grown up stuff all day, every day. I want to just get ⁓ play. That comes up a lot. And part that. that believes that the client can't handle certain emotions, that comes up a lot too. The idea of, had a bad day, therefore I need to drink. Because there might've been a time in your life when you really couldn't handle some of the emotions that you were experiencing. They really were too much. And so this part developed to teach you how to use something so that you don't have to feel the feelings, but it might not know that you don't always need that tool anymore, that sometimes you can feel really bad things. Erica+ShameOver: Yeah. Yes. I love that you brought up fun because so often it's, we don't want the fun to end and we've taught ourselves, which this is not true, but it's the reality going on in our brain ⁓ alcohol equals fun. in order for us to have fun, alcohol needs to be present. I do recognize much that as adults, ⁓ we not make time for play. We ⁓ very unless it's in our profession, which most of us are not in creative fields, but we don't get that creative expression out. Even me with young kids, I am not near as playful or creative as I expected to be because, you know, along the way that kind of got... beat out of me for lack of a better word, you know, but it's just like you're not doing that anymore. I've ⁓ plenty of people say like, I can't be creative unless I have alcohol. Merrilee Burke, LMFT: exactly. And I would say, you know, sometimes people, alcohol and fun get so linked that we don't really know if we enjoy the thing we're doing or if we just enjoy that we drink when we're doing that thing. So I would say definitely, you know, like if it's watching football, it's like, can you have fun watching football if you're not drinking? If not, then you don't really like football that much, or you don't really like going to brunch with your friends if you have to have a mimosas. If you take the mimosas away and it's not fun anymore, then it was never fun to begin with. Or maybe it was, but it's not anymore. Erica+ShameOver: That is very interesting. Yeah, and I think that's a really scary thing for most people because it's like, these are your people. if you guys are, know, a lot of us who we hang out with is maybe we got together when we were in college or in our early twenties, which was typically for most of us, myself included, heavily drinking times. So as we're getting older, we're trying to drink less. But all of a sudden we're like, wait, are, am I still going to be friends with them? Are they going to judge? Like all these things, the fear, the judgment, the shame, all of that is coming up. And it is scary, like, what if, not only what if they don't like me, you know, if I'm not drinking, but I think it's what we don't realize that's going on is what if I don't like them when I'm not drinking? And then it's like, who do I have? And that plays into also our identity and our ego and how tied up it is with alcohol as well. Merrilee Burke, LMFT: Right, exactly. Yeah, that can be really scary. Erica+ShameOver: Yeah. I think comes up almost every time I'm on a new call with someone, you know, seeing kind of what's going on is it's just like all of our friends. like how we know each other, even spouses. Like it's our date night. It's how, how always like enjoyed our evenings together or gone out on dates. And my biggest thing is start tracking no matter how big or small it is, but start tracking anytime that you're having fun that alcohol is not involved. And you can literally just make a list in your phone or whatever. It doesn't have to be like, you know, 10 out of 10 most fun time ever by any means, but it's proving to yourself you are constantly having fun all day long or doing things that like you, light you up, make you happy, that alcohol is not involved. And our brain will start rewiring as long as we're proving to it other things than what it already knows. Merrilee Burke, LMFT: Mm. Right, that's really great. I like that a lot. often, you know, it can be really challenging for people to find fun things when they've relied on alcohol for so long. But I like this idea that actually you're probably having some kind of fun throughout the day anyway, and you're just not as consciously aware, but you're not looking forward to it because it might happen spontaneously. Erica+ShameOver: Exactly. We recently for ⁓ community did a I like doing book clubs that, know, like little books that might be helpful. ⁓ we did it was one by Martha Beck. But she had talked about how basically you cannot. You can't be anxious if you're being creative. And I know a lot of drinking is kind of anxiety induced, whether it's like your social anxiety or it's just you've had a bad day and you don't want to sit with those feelings. So that makes you anxious, but you know, bringing up play, being creative, doing something with your hands. I know that it can be so hard, even for me, it was hard figuring out like what this looked like because I was never an artistic person or anything along those lines. So in my mind, like being creative means I have to go to that part of my brain, which is not necessarily the case. But. What ideas do you have for people there on ways just to get creative and kind of get out of their head and more into their body? Merrilee Burke, LMFT: recognizing that there's a value to it, even if you're not good at it, because that comes up a lot when we're adults. It doesn't when we're kids, we just do whatever we feel like doing. But then as an adult, it's like, can't paint, because I don't know how to paint. I can't draw, because I'm not good at it. I can't do. So it's like ⁓ doing it or feeling like it's not productive. It's not a good use of time. ⁓ it's like, if it's stopping you from drinking, ⁓ it's good for you. It's as good for you as brushing your teeth or doing anything else. It's healthy. And it also is healthy for our brains to have fun. We need fun. Erica+ShameOver: Exactly. That, yes. Yes. Merrilee Burke, LMFT: and we need it to be for our brains to function properly. So it doesn't matter if you're good at it, doesn't mean if it, even if it like, it seems like a waste, like you spend a bunch of time, you know, knitting a blanket and it's the world's ugliest blanket. It doesn't matter. It's about the activity and having fun while you're doing it. It's not about the finished product, but that's really hard for our modern adult minds to think like, what's the point of this? And it's like, it's just to have fun. Erica+ShameOver: Yes, and I'm so glad you said the productivity word because I work with so many females and I feel like my experience it's come up with ⁓ more than it has males. ⁓ I can't do this because I'm not being productive. Is that something you found too? Merrilee Burke, LMFT: Yes, definitely. feel like there's some, you know, obviously everybody's different, but I think that our society kind of for men is kind of built in a lot around sports, you know, about watching sports or playing sports, you know, bowling leagues and these kinds of different things, but not as much so for women. And I feel like there's a, a little bit of a judgment. If you know, a woman spent, you know, three hours on a Sunday, you know, finger painting, people would think that was strange, but if you spend three hours just watching football, everybody just assumes that's normal. Erica+ShameOver: Yeah, true. Exactly. Yes. And it's so important to remember, like, it's about just the time and being present there and not about the end product. Because, like you said, I am cannot draw, I cannot paint, I cannot do any of that. But I have become obsessed with paint by numbers. ⁓ I thought I'd hate it because I'm so type A, you know, did not think that it would be ⁓ that would help calm me down. But I get like meditative while I'm doing it. Merrilee Burke, LMFT: Mm. Erica+ShameOver: And it'll be like two hours later. like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that, you know, I thought it was 10 minutes that went by, but trying something new. And that's why you really have to explore. And if anything, go back to things that you liked doing as a kid that you probably haven't done ever since then. Cause sometimes it's hard for us to even think like, how do I even start to like get creative and make time for play? Like, what does that even look like? look at what you did when you were a kid, what did you enjoy? Was it playing outside a lot? Was it being super active? Was it listening to music? Was it being artistic? And start there and just kind of explore. Merrilee Burke, LMFT: so glad you said I give that advice to my clients all the time of what did you like to do for fun when you were as a kid? Because it was fun then it's probably going to be fun now. ⁓ that was how I got back into video games a couple of years ago, because I used to really like video games as a kid. So I went and I bought a Nintendo and I bought a game that was like the sixth sequel to the game I used to play when I was a kid. And I thought, well, if don't like this, can just sell it. And then I loved it. And for like years, I was super into video games and I'm kind of getting a little burnt out on it now, but Erica+ShameOver: ⁓ amazing! Mm-hmm. Merrilee Burke, LMFT: Yeah, it was just as much fun to me now as it was when I was a kid. Erica+ShameOver: Yes, my husband and I started playing. This is before we had kids. We would play like the Legos games because he liked video games I did as a kid, but I was like Super Mario type thing. And now I feel like everything is so like guns kill them, beat them up, whatever. And I'm like, I don't like that. So he he had me try the Lego ones one time and you just like beat things up and then rebuild them. And it's actually really fun that like all get lost in it. So, yeah, I didn't even connect that until you said that. Merrilee Burke, LMFT: Yeah. And I, it's, it's kind of unfortunate. I have a lot of clients who are women and they think, well, either video games are for kids or they're for boys. Like they never maybe even played video games when they were girls, because they didn't think it was a girl thing. So I really, I'm like, just try it. Just download one on your phone. Just if your kids have a console, just like, you know, and maybe they moved out of the house, just dust it off and just give it a try because you never know. Like I never did jigsaw puzzles as a kid. And I just recently got into them and I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have a glass of wine and play, do a jigsaw puzzle? And it turns out, no, I don't want the wine. I get like really focused in it and I don't want the wine cause that's gonna make it harder for me to like match the colors and to concentrate on it. So it turns out that, and because it keeps my hands busy is actually a really good sober activity. Erica+ShameOver: Yeah! Exactly. We're really into puzzles over here. And for me, what I found is it's all about keeping your hands busy. And it doesn't need to be something like overly complicated that's going to stress you out in your brain, but more just like keeping your hands busy, whether it's coloring, drawing, whatever, or like you said, the puzzles. for Christmas, my mom got me this game called biscuits, which I had never heard of. Apparently a lot of people know it. It's most people refer to it, I guess, as bitches, but I've not played that mode. She got it for me and my kids. And we started playing that almost every night because it's just like you roll all these dice and, know, but it so quickly gets me out of my head. And it's been such like a fun little bonding thing that we do most nights. So. Merrilee Burke, LMFT: Yeah, and that's what fun is supposed to be. It's supposed to be giving your brain a break from all the not fun things that we're managing all the time. And that's why it's so important. And that's why if alcohol is the only fun you ever get to have, you're probably going to end up having too much alcohol. Erica+ShameOver: Exactly. And that's also why it's so important to focus on the experience and not the outcome. Merrilee Burke, LMFT: Exactly.