Latest / SET FREE SISTERHOOD-how to stop drinking, over drinking, binge drinking, christian sobriety podcast, quit drinking, sobriety, christian women / 212 \\ What if You are Asking the Wrong Question About Your Drinking and Your Relationship to Alcohol?

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212 \\ What if You are Asking the Wrong Question About Your Drinking and Your Relationship to Alcohol? · SET FREE SISTERHOOD-how to stop drinking, over drinking, binge drinking, christian sobriety podcast, quit drinking, sobriety, christian women

• 0:02
  Unknown: Awesome Hey ladies, I hope you're having an awesome
• 0:14
  day. In this episode, I'm going to tell you a little bit of how
• 0:18
  you can change the way you
• 0:20
  question your relationship with alcohol or about yourself or
• 0:24
  whatever's going on in your mind. A lot of times we tend to
• 0:26
  go to the why, versus the what or the how. And it's amazing how
• 0:32
  simply changing the questions that we ask ourselves, will help
• 0:36
  guide us into potentially what that new action step will be. So
• 0:40
  just wanted to thank you for all your encouragement. Thank you
• 0:45
  for your reviews. I'm going to continue to ask and encourage
• 0:48
  you to go to the iTunes app. If you're listening to this on your
• 0:53
  phone, just scroll down, click the stars and write a review.
• 0:57
  Because as a reminder, it helps get the message out and I've had
• 1:01
  some awesome emails lately. Women coming in saying hey, I
• 1:05
  found your podcast. This is awesome. Thank you so much.
• 1:07
  You're already helping me. And then what I want you to do too,
• 1:10
  is as I'm continuing to develop and grow the website. As I'm
• 1:14
  working on creating the program coming back in February, you'll
• 1:18
  begin to see more and more so go to set free sisterhood.com And
• 1:22
  let me know you're listening. Send in your email and we'll be
• 1:26
  able to get you on the mailing list and keep up with all the
• 1:28
  upcoming programs what's happening the podcast replays
• 1:32
  just in case you miss anything. And then join the set free
• 1:35
  sisterhood Facebook group and find the community I will be in
• 1:40
  there more frequently this year and going to work on more
• 1:44
  teaching and tools and things like that as you know most of
• 1:48
  you know that the last year I had a lot of shifts and personal
• 1:51
  changes in my life. So I was really focused on that and I was
• 1:55
  focusing on making the physical moves and the changes in my life
• 1:59
  but also taking care of myself really taking care of my
• 2:02
  children and I'm ready for 2023 I'm so excited. I'm settled in
• 2:08
  my new place. The kids are doing great. And I've just grown so
• 2:12
  much and I'm learning so much and I'm continuing to bring to
• 2:15
  you the support that you need to not only stop over drinking, but
• 2:18
  to really begin to transform your life and to get out of this
• 2:22
  place of the just the pain you're in and the place of
• 2:28
  feeling stuck so many of you are just so stuck in the same old,
• 2:33
  same old and we've got to make new choices. But what happens is
• 2:36
  sometimes our brain and I say brain because that's really
• 2:40
  what's going on in our mind the way we think it makes it seem so
• 2:45
  big and scary because you think you're starting at point A and
• 2:48
  you have to get to point Z. Well guess what? It doesn't work that
• 2:51
  way. You don't have to be stuck in this cycle. Miserable the
• 2:55
  thinking of the way you're thinking about yourself, the way
• 2:58
  you're feeling about your situation, your marriage, your
• 3:01
  job, your weight, the way you look, all of it to being
• 3:06
  completely happy and healthy. It just doesn't work that way.
• 3:09
  There's always a journey and I'm gonna tell you, there's your own
• 3:12
  roadmap. I'm here to guide you support you shine the light give
• 3:17
  you amazing tools that absolutely work and you are
• 3:21
  going to be the one that walk it through and I'm telling you if
• 3:23
  you'll partner with God on this, the process not only will go so
• 3:28
  much smoother, it will actually lead you into more frequently
• 3:31
  and the direction that he is calling you to be the woman he's
• 3:35
  calling you to be and the direction you need to go in and
• 3:37
  you have to trust him. So I'm so grateful that he has brought me
• 3:40
  to this place where I am in my life through all the growth and
• 3:45
  circumstances so that I can be here to serve you and help you
• 3:49
  so thanks again for being who you are being here and involved.
• 3:53
  In this community. And hope you enjoy the episode
• 4:06
  Okay, ladies, I know that you're asking yourself this because I
• 4:11
  did for a while and I've heard you ask it inside of our
• 4:15
  conversations or consults the emails and now just know it's
• 4:19
  happening what happens is we want to know why. And this is
• 4:23
  very normal for us to desire a lots of why's in our life in
• 4:27
  general when when bad things happen. Why? Did this happen?
• 4:30
  Why did she have to die? Why did he have to die? Why did why did
• 4:34
  he have to leave? Why did he do this? But then I want to just
• 4:38
  turn that into this reality of what that looks like when we
• 4:41
  turn it inward. Especially as we're trying to stop drinking or
• 4:45
  stop over drinking. Okay, it's super important that we realized
• 4:49
  that the y is not really what matters. I think we want it we
• 4:55
  really do. I remember a time when I was just like, Why do I
• 4:58
  keep doing this? Like that was one of my first notes on here.
• 5:02
  Why do I keep doing this? Why do I keep going through this day in
• 5:06
  day out loop? Where I tell myself in the morning I'm not
• 5:11
  going to drink because I have a hangover have a headache? I
• 5:14
  gotta get the kids up for school. I gotta go to work. And
• 5:18
  then I do it again. Like why do I keep doing this? Well, I never
• 5:22
  could answer it really. Now from a looking back wisdom
• 5:26
  perspective. I can say probably simply the answer was because I
• 5:32
  was drinking an addictive substance. I was drinking a
• 5:36
  toxin. I was in a habit loop. It was affecting my brain my body
• 5:41
  it affect the way nutritionally how my body process things like
• 5:46
  it simply looking back. I know why I was in the loop. But that
• 5:50
  doesn't help us to know why. What if I did just know what if
• 5:54
  I sat there that day and was able to answer that question
• 5:57
  Would that have encouraged or created an action step? If I
• 6:03
  knew the answer, no, it wouldn't. Because just knowing
• 6:09
  why doesn't actually help us make changes, does it? So we ask
• 6:15
  why do I keep doing this? Why do I drink till I pass out? Why do
• 6:19
  I hide my drinking for my spouse? Or for my friends? Why
• 6:24
  can't I stop? Why cannot just stop this? That's a huge one
• 6:29
  right? Why can't I just have one? Why can't I be like my
• 6:33
  friends that goes out and have dinner and just have one glass
• 6:36
  of wine like what's wrong with me? Like why? Why am I this way?
• 6:40
  Right? Why am I so broken? Why does it he understand like maybe
• 6:46
  you have a spouse that drinks too or maybe you have you have
• 6:48
  one that doesn't and this there's this this stuckness that
• 6:53
  you feel like if only they could understand why don't they
• 6:57
  understand? Well, I'm gonna go ahead and rip that band aid off
• 7:00
  and encourage you today you're gonna have to let that one go
• 7:03
  because they're never going to understand. Because what I have
• 7:06
  discovered through the years is no matter how much your person
• 7:11
  you could have an amazing relationship. They love you
• 7:14
  greatly. No one can understand your own journey. The only I can
• 7:19
  even only understand it to a degree because I experienced a
• 7:23
  lot of the same things that you have the feelings that you have
• 7:28
  the thoughts that you have. But our journey is our own. And
• 7:32
  especially those that are really close to us. They don't see and
• 7:35
  they cannot see this internal turmoil, the mind drama, The how
• 7:40
  much time you think about it, how much time you negotiate it.
• 7:43
  And this is huge because I've seen a lot of women stay stuck
• 7:47
  because in fear of or desire to try to get their partner to
• 7:53
  understand well, if he would just only understand and maybe
• 7:56
  he would help me more. And that's great. And I'm all for
• 7:59
  support. And I know I'm kind of derailing this topic a little
• 8:02
  but this is super important that you grasp this like I think a
• 8:05
  support from your people are amazing, but it is not what's
• 8:09
  going to get you to where you want to be. You got to own it
• 8:13
  and you have to do it with or without support. Now that's what
• 8:16
  I'm here for. That's what I want the community to grow into. And
• 8:21
  I've given you tons of options you can go to you can go to
• 8:24
  meetings, if you aren't, whether it Celebrate Recovery or
• 8:26
  something else. You can go to Bible studies, you can go to
• 8:29
  friend groups, there's lots of ways you can get accountability
• 8:32
  and I'm sure there's someone in your life that can even support
• 8:35
  you without knowing the details. And that a spouse could support
• 8:39
  you in some ways. Maybe they can't give you what you hope or
• 8:44
  really desire. And that's okay because we have to give it to
• 8:48
  ourselves. We have to know what we need Okay. So let's shift
• 8:52
  from this conversation of all the wise the wise we do these
• 8:56
  things. Why can't I just quit? Why can I just have one and I
• 8:59
  want to give you some questions to dive into today. I hope that
• 9:02
  this will encourage you to maybe even write these down and take
• 9:06
  some time to do a little journaling. Now I've heard from
• 9:09
  a lot of you like well I don't necessarily journal or don't
• 9:12
  like to journal or maybe I did for a little while and then I'm
• 9:14
  not really good at or I don't do it every day. It doesn't matter.
• 9:17
  There again, there's no rules here. There is no if you don't
• 9:21
  do this every day, then you're not doing it correctly. It's not
• 9:24
  that at all. You could do it once a week. I mean, I'm so at
• 9:28
  this point in my life. I'm so sporadic with my journaling that
• 9:31
  there'll be days where I'm like okay, I really want to write
• 9:33
  some stuff down. I have some thoughts coming up. I don't want
• 9:36
  to forget them. A lot of what I do though, is the audio
• 9:39
  recordings. If I need to do that on my computer or my phone
• 9:43
  because I am very auditory. I like to talk through things. I'm
• 9:46
  a very oral verbal processor. That's just what I do. So you
• 9:50
  find what works for you. But if you dive into these questions, I
• 9:54
  believe in my heart that it will make a huge difference for you
• 9:58
  to at least open up a window of awareness. So you can see in a
• 10:04
  little bit further past this top layer of stuckness that you're
• 10:09
  in, instead of asking the why so here we go. Whoo, I'm diving
• 10:13
  right in. What am I hiding from myself? What I mean by that is
• 10:20
  what is the truth underneath these feelings that I'm having
• 10:23
  that I haven't even been willing to communicate to me. You know,
• 10:28
  that's something that's like that it's there. And it may have
• 10:31
  been there for a long time and you like, you know, it's there.
• 10:35
  And you know, it's something that you're feeling you're
• 10:38
  seeing in your life, but you're just not willing to admit it.
• 10:42
  You're just not willing to say it out loud, even if it's just
• 10:46
  to yourself in a room. You're just not ready to acknowledge
• 10:49
  that like maybe that's it. Oh, what if? What if it's because
• 10:55
  I'm really miserable in this relationship? What if it's that
• 11:00
  I hate my job? What is this like? Oh, my kids are awful. You
• 11:06
  know. And the thing is, there's nothing that we have to do right
• 11:08
  now. This is not like if you discover that you really are
• 11:11
  like struggling with your kids right now, or that you're
• 11:14
  struggling inside your marriage. That didn't mean you have to do
• 11:18
  anything yet. Okay? And it doesn't mean that you're going
• 11:21
  to ever have to do anything with that. But it helps you
• 11:24
  acknowledge what you're feeling so that you can get real instead
• 11:28
  of trying to hide it because I'm gonna tell you the more you hide
• 11:30
  it, the more you press it down, the more it will fester and it's
• 11:33
  gonna get worse and you're not going to even be able to process
• 11:36
  and heal it because we can't do that in darkness. Right? We have
• 11:41
  to bring these these things to the surface in order to get set
• 11:46
  free from them, ladies. All right. Here's the next one. What
• 11:49
  am I needing? What do you need? What am I feeling right now?
• 11:54
  Like what am I feeling right now that is making me want to
• 11:56
  continue to drink? I'm stressed out okay. Well stressed out is
• 12:00
  not really a feeling right? It is in a way we can make it. We
• 12:04
  can make it a feeling but it's really a thought. Why am I
• 12:07
  stressed? What's below that? Well, I feel like I don't have
• 12:10
  enough time in the day to have time for me. I'm just working
• 12:15
  and I'm coming home and I'm taking care of kids. Okay, well,
• 12:18
  what does that really mean? And what's that feel like? I feel
• 12:22
  not seen. I feel not seen. I feel not heard. I don't feel
• 12:28
  loved. I don't feel respected, appreciated. Ah, now we're
• 12:34
  getting to it. Now we're getting down to it because that's very
• 12:38
  vulnerable. When we recognize that we don't feel seen and
• 12:42
  heard inside of our sometimes our most intimate supposed to be
• 12:45
  intimate relationships that we had because that feels very
• 12:49
  exposed and we're afraid to expose ourselves to ourselves or
• 12:54
  that person. Because in fear of what will happen because then
• 12:58
  the next step is fair. Well, what if I say this is how I'm
• 13:00
  feeling? What is he going to say? How is he going to respond?
• 13:04
  What if he gets mad at me? And so I drink. Okay, what do I hate
• 13:09
  right now? This is a good one. Because this can pull up some
• 13:12
  very much high energy and you like what do you hate? Is there
• 13:17
  something in your life that just triggers you and you just get
• 13:20
  angry, whether it's an injustice that you keep going into it
• 13:24
  could be big picture. It could be something that's not even
• 13:26
  happening inside of your home, your job your town, it could be
• 13:30
  world stuff. You could be so consumed with what's going on
• 13:33
  around the world right now because you have this big heart
• 13:36
  for people. And you have this heart for girls and women and
• 13:40
  maybe there's some things going on. It's just this huge
• 13:43
  injustice and you're angry and you hate it, but you feel
• 13:46
  vulnerable inside of your hate and your anger because you feel
• 13:51
  like there's nowhere you can put it and if you tell somebody
• 13:54
  they'll think you're crazy for talking about it. And like you
• 13:57
  can't do anything about that. So why are you so upset so
• 14:00
  you drink okay, what is making me so angry? That's the follow
• 14:05
  up. Because typically that's what happens if you feel like
• 14:08
  there's something that you hate. And you really just have this
• 14:11
  like, like I said this high energy ask ask yourself about
• 14:15
  it. What is it and write all this down, get it out process
• 14:19
  it? What else could I do in this moment? If especially if this is
• 14:23
  a question that we could say like if I'm in this place where
• 14:25
  I'm highly triggered and I'm about to like Go Go's awesome
• 14:28
  alcohol like what else can I do right now? Like that's one of
• 14:32
  those quick turnaround questions. So we're not really
• 14:34
  diving deep in that one is just telling Okay, what else can I
• 14:37
  do? Okay, well, I can go outside and, you know, do some jumping
• 14:41
  jacks. I can do a dance. I can call my best friend. I can just
• 14:45
  remove this from this being in front of it right now remove
• 14:49
  myself from the conversation, whatever it looks like. It gives
• 14:53
  yourself and your brain options because our brain is like a
• 14:56
  computer right with some emotional layers. mixed in. It
• 15:00
  wants to help you so if you ask it, you ask your mind ah, what
• 15:05
  else can I do? You're gonna have some options. Now you're gonna
• 15:07
  have some dominant pushback. But we don't want to because this is
• 15:12
  what we do. We drink we just check out but you can change it
• 15:15
  up if you want. This is your this is on you. This is your
• 15:17
  choices. Next question. What do I want? Like really? What do I
• 15:22
  want? I want I want what? This could be big. Like what do I
• 15:29
  really want big picture or this could be what I really want
• 15:32
  right now in this moment standing in this room with my
• 15:35
  husband, or with my boyfriend or with my children or at my job
• 15:41
  like what do you want? I want to be seen I want people to listen
• 15:46
  to me. I feel like nobody's listening. I have all these
• 15:48
  great ideas. Well, no wonder you drink if you're not willing to
• 15:52
  be vulnerable. I'm telling you so much of this and this is so
• 15:55
  much of my journey that I hid for so long and I avoided for so
• 16:03
  long out of fear of being exposed and vulnerable and then
• 16:08
  being hurt when guess what all I was doing was hurting myself all
• 16:13
  of this time. By avoiding and when you put up armor like I did
• 16:18
  and like some of you are doing, we can't let love in. And we
• 16:22
  can't let love out because we're blocking hurt, pain, fear
• 16:27
  embarrassment, regret, but yet we're doing it inside the armor
• 16:32
  to ourselves, all the stuffs happening in there. And so I'm
• 16:36
  just wanting to I'm not saying that you should just go out and
• 16:39
  just expose it all. But there should be a place in your life
• 16:44
  where you look around and someone in your life should be
• 16:47
  safe enough where you can say hey, this is how I'm feeling
• 16:49
  right now. And if you don't feel like you have that right now, in
• 16:53
  this moment inside your relationships, you got God and
• 16:56
  you got you. So sit down with him and write this out in your
• 17:00
  journal and say listen, this is what I won't. And I don't really
• 17:05
  know how to get there right now. And I don't know that this is
• 17:08
  necessarily possible. But I desire this God helped me helped
• 17:13
  me start to take action steps because what I do know is that
• 17:16
  if I can continue to drink like I'm drinking, I'm not gonna get
• 17:19
  there. I'm not gonna get what I want because I continue to had
• 17:24
  next what makes me happy? What makes you happy? What makes me
• 17:29
  sad? What makes me angry. In the last two are what do I want more
• 17:36
  of in my life and what do I want less of in my life and I want
• 17:40
  you to take some time on this because sometimes where you are
• 17:44
  inside of the stuckness the potential depression, anxiety,
• 17:49
  the feelings that you're feeling right now inside of your
• 17:51
  drinking loop. You might say well, I just don't know. You do
• 17:56
  know it's under there because you're gonna realize that I want
• 17:59
  more of what makes me happy, right? What brings you joy? I
• 18:04
  want more time with my kids or my grandkids or I want more me
• 18:07
  time. I want to be able to have some quiet time in my home or I
• 18:11
  want to go I want to get away with my girlfriend or I just I
• 18:14
  want more friends I want more relationships. I want last
• 18:18
  responsibilities, somewhat less stress and anger. Go deeper. Ask
• 18:23
  yourself dig a little deeper. Okay. And I just want you to ask
• 18:28
  yourself what I want more than anything else and how is this
• 18:33
  choice going to improve my life? So if you think about this, like
• 18:36
  if you really think about as your relationship with drinking,
• 18:39
  I just kind of want you to sit right now and process okay.
• 18:42
  What's my relationship look like with drinking? And it is a
• 18:47
  relationship and that's part of the process we do inside of the
• 18:50
  stop over drinking sisterhood. Group this coming towards the
• 18:54
  end of February. It is this relationship that we think about
• 19:02
  we spend time with it has control over us. We have been in
• 19:09
  it potentially a really long time it could be a long term
• 19:11
  relationship. We have to really ask ourselves like do I really
• 19:18
  want this in my life anymore? What am what it what is this
• 19:22
  relationship costing me? I mean simply it's costing you some
• 19:27
  could be potentially health serious health issues. And now
• 19:31
  you're not sleeping well. And now your brain is foggy most of
• 19:36
  the time. So you kind of it's kind of affecting your self
• 19:39
  esteem. It's costing you joy, fulfillment, happiness so how
• 19:47
  will this choice improve your life? And it doesn't have to be
• 19:51
  all or nothing. Because there again we always think like oh my
• 19:54
  gosh, I just need to cold turkey and quit and I know a lot of you
• 19:57
  are doing dry January right now. And I would love to hear from
• 20:00
  you. How's it going? Because we're already on the second week
• 20:04
  of January. How's it going? How you feeling? What's your
• 20:06
  thoughts doing? Are you are you doing anything to help you with
• 20:10
  it? Are you just abstaining? Because if you're just what is
• 20:13
  it called white knuckling it and trying to get through? And then
• 20:17
  you just see February 1 Come How are you going to change what's
• 20:22
  good? What's gonna happen you just gonna go right back into
• 20:24
  it. Because usually there's a major rebound effect. When you
• 20:28
  just hold it out like that without using any other coping
• 20:32
  tools. Your stress management is not it's not there, and it could
• 20:35
  get worse. So I'm just warning you in that area that if that's
• 20:39
  all you're doing, you're maybe doing a challenge. Good for you
• 20:42
  every day you don't drink is great. But what I don't want you
• 20:46
  to think is like that that's like oh, okay, I made it I'm
• 20:48
  okay and then you go right back into it and you're back right
• 20:51
  back to the cycle because you will be back in the shame cycle
• 20:55
  to in the guilt like oh what is wrong with me? Why cannot stick
• 20:59
  with this and you're back to the why questions and they are not
• 21:02
  helpful. Because there's nothing wrong with you. You're truly not
• 21:06
  broken. Yes, there's parts of us that feel very broken, but that
• 21:10
  doesn't mean it's not healable all of us can heal and we have
• 21:16
  to desire to want to heal and be willing to get a little bit
• 21:22
  uncomfortable to get really honest and surrender. So I love
• 21:26
  you. I hope this encourages you and helps you dive a little
• 21:29
  deeper. I would love to hear from you email me at coach
• 21:33
  Michelle porterfield@gmail.com or go straight to the website at
• 21:37
  set free sisterhood.com and shoot me a message until next
• 21:41
  week. I love you have a great one.
• 21:50
  You