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Dry January Week 4: Asking for More · Cheat Code Nutrition

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Foreign.
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Welcome to Find Myself Free the Podcast I'm Ellie Young,
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alcohol Free life coach, mom and athlete. I'm dedicated
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to helping others change their relationship to alcohol by sharing my journey of
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transformation. Fascinated by my own capacity for change after
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decades of gray area drinking, I'm passionate about sharing what I've learned
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from neuroscience and positive psychology to help you break free
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from the drinking cycle and unlock your true potential.
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Hear my personal stories of triumph and struggle as
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I navigate raising two boys, finding myself after 40,
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building a business, and doing it all alcohol free.
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From women's health and cycle syncing to fasting and biohacking, this podcast
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is your roadmap to a healthier, purpose filled life that starts with changing
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your relationship to alcohol. It's time to embrace, change, find balance and
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create the life you were meant for. Welcome to Find Myself Free. Hello,
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hello and welcome back to Find Myself Free. It is the fourth
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week of Dry January. January 24th, and this episode
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is all about asking for more.
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Not just out of life, but of asking more
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from yourself. If you've been participating in my dry January,
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we have covered a lot of ground this month. If you've
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been engaging with the content, you know this isn't a normal dry
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January where I just ask you to stop drinking and we'll power your way through
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it, which is like what most people do. This is different. We are
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utilizing actual tactics to change our brains. We are relying
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on neuroplasticity. We've been investigating like
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little sleuths all the reasons we drink.
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And despite all of our lives being very different,
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it usually boils down to the same reasons we
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drink. To check out or relax. We drink to connect socially,
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to fit in. And we drink because we think it makes us happy.
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We think it makes things more joyful and more fun.
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So we've been waking up to all the whys behind our drinking
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and we've been challenging the beliefs that keep us seeing
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alcohol as the answer to so many of our needs. Like,
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does alcohol really help me relax?
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Well, shoot, now I know it fills me with stress hormones, adrenaline and
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cortisol. So no. Does alcohol make me happy?
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Well, shoot. I got a little sloppy last night. I don't really know
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what I said. The details are a little fuzzy, even though I only planned to
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have one. And then I showed up hungover to my kid's game.
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Damn. I am definitely not happy doing that.
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We now have this awareness that is chipping away at our subconscious
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thoughts and it's starting to make it hopefully a little easier
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to say no to the booze, it doesn't have as quite that alluring draw.
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After stringing some time together alcohol free this month,
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we got to focus on what we're gaining, right? The leveling up of
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our health. All of those health benefits now are starting
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to stack up and it allows us to visualize more
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easily this future self that is thriving alcohol
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free. We are getting, like a little taste of it and it's so good,
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but we're still completely terrified of the idea
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of continuing. Of course, nobody goes into this saying,
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I'm not going to drink forever. That's like, you've just been dating
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this alcohol free, let's call him a boyfriend for the month
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and you're not ready to marry him. I love this analogy.
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It's a pretty good one. Of course you're not ready to marry him, but are
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things going pretty well? You're like, yeah, right. But every now
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and then, the toxic ex alcohol keeps
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trying to sneak its way back in. So what's next
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for you? It's January 24th. This is the last
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week. It's going to be coming to a close,
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and you may be looking back and feeling really good about how
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much progress you made. Or maybe you realize, man, this was
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like, a lot harder than I expected. But I also want
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you to evaluate how much did you actually engage with
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this content? My content of dry January,
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these podcasts? How much did you engage with the science that I shared?
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How much did you engage with changing your thoughts and beliefs about alcohol?
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Or were you really just kind of relying on willpower, just kind of
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dipping your toe in? Maybe you were just, like, avoiding people and
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places and staying home and kind of hibernating. Hey, I totally did that too.
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But like I said, my first dry January, I drank a total of
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nine times. I basically just drank on the weekends,
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which was a huge reduction for me. So it was a massive improvement from
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almost daily drinking. But I was miserable and I was still feeling
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like shit every time I drank, even though I was only, like,
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limiting myself to two. But I hadn't actually learned
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anything that month other than giving myself perhaps,
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like, a little perspective of how good it felt to not drink.
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And I definitely learned that, man, it was really
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tough to moderate. I was able to
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only drink the two glasses of wine, but it wasn't enjoyable and it
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wasn't fun for me. I spent so much brain energy just thinking about
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the drinks and being done and being like, okay, now I'm not
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going to have any more fun, right? Like, I can't have any more ugh it
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was miserable. It was just consumed me. So that was a big learning
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experience. Every single time I did drink in this
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month was me attempting to cut back. It was a massive learning experience
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and I needed those moments to kind of continue to provide
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data points for me on what I really wanted and
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where I was going with all of this.
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But February was when I actually started reading
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some books. I read Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whitaker.
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I've shared this book a hundred times and also this Naked Mind by
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Annie Grace. And this is the book that really cemented the deal for me.
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This is the program that I am now certified in. I did
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a six month certification course and that's
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why these tactics are now like a second language
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to me. This methodology is ingrained
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in me in such a way and I believe in it so wholeheartedly
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that that is what you're gonna get in my coaching programs.
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And it's so interesting that had I not attempted the
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dry January and kind of failed at it, I don't know if I would have
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been in the place where I was all of a sudden ready to learn
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this new information. I think I needed to be frustrated by
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the failure, frustrated with the trial and error. I think
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sometimes it takes this effort to get you to that next place.
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And hopefully you've been following along with me and engaging with my content and
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videos and all the stuff I've shared. Because that
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way you were getting this learning in real time sooner than I actually did.
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I really didn't learn a lot of this stuff until after
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I had stopped drinking. A lot of what I learned was later on,
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but it did help reinforce me
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not drinking. So if you are trying not to drink and
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you're listening to this information and hopefully some things are clicking into place, some stuff
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in your subconscious is starting to shift your mindset around
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alcohol. And that's really what happened for me is once that information
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was in there and I couldn't unlearn it and I couldn't
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look at alcohol the same way, but I still had to go about my life
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and try and navigate it. And it was awkward. It was endlessly
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awkward because I literally couldn't picture myself as a non drinker
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and trying to navigate my world, which was a drinking
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world world. So that is when I hired
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a coach. I actually used a coach in Holly Whitaker's
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old company. I don't think it exists anymore or it's been transformed into something else.
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It was called Tempest. It was Tempest Academy.
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And I worked with a coach there for four months. She was awesome.
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She was. I don't even know the word for it. I think
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it's like an herbologist or somebody who studies plants and
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plant medicine. And so she would always recommend, like, oh, you know, you should,
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you should work with rosemary. Rosemary helps create, like a layer of protection.
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And she would always just kind of say these things,
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and I didn't quite grasp it sometimes, but all
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I remember is being like, there was a roseberry rosemary bush,
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like, on my street, and I just grabbed like a stick of
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it and just like kept it in my pocket and would like rub it on
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my hands and smell it. And I was like, oh, creating a layer of protection.
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This was in those. Those weeks and months when I felt a little raw,
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you know, anxiety. I was a little bit raw is
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the word for it, because I was feeling all the things that I hadn't felt
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in a really long time. And, you know, some of this was very woo woo.
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But I liked it because there was science to it and I really, I really
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enjoyed it. And opening yourself up in
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that way is transformative. And having somebody to
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talk to was a game changer for me. I had
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never really done therapy before, so the
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whole idea of kind of sitting down and facing someone and opening up
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to someone was very new to me. So the first time I sat down with
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her and it was over, zoom. And I had to face her and I had
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to. Okay, I didn't have to. I just did.
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I told her about my drinking and how
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it felt, the struggle that I felt, the shame.
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And I cried. I cried a lot that first call because
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it was the first time I was not
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only being honest with someone else about my drinking,
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but also being honest with myself.
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I think that's really what coaching does, is that it
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takes this thing inside you that's very, very private,
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and it puts it out into the world to
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be worked on. It turns something that you were kind
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of privately secretly hoping and wishing for, and it creates real
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intention around it. It's like it's no
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longer hiding in this place where, well, if I don't
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fix it, no one will really know. And no one will even really know that
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I was trying to. I don't have to fail at it publicly. I can just
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kind of keep it to myself and I can just kind of hope that it
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gets better. And instead, this enrollment
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of a coach, it puts this possibility out into the world
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like, hey, now there's this other person who knows what I'm going through
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and is here to guide me. And what I realized is
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that it Changes you psychologically when you hire
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somebody, because you're now taking yourself seriously.
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You now have skin in the game. And yes, that means you
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paid for this, right? You paid money to this other person. But that
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motion, it activates you. What it
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does, it kind of makes it all real, because now you're invested,
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and now you are going after this thing, and you have a witness,
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you have a coach, someone in your corner whose job it is
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to guide you because you are willing to invest. You mean
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business. You want the answer. You want the delivery
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of the change. And so you do start to change.
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You change your willingness to do the work, your willingness to show
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up, your willingness to think about things, to open up and
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consider new possibilities, and to put energy and effort
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and time into it. And it is now all real. You're like,
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I'm doing this. I've committed. It makes the commitment more
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tangible. And that changes you. That changes you as a person,
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and it provides a type of momentum that you just can't get
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on your own. Now, I'm a highly motivated person,
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and I'm a total lone ranger. I really like to work alone.
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But my life was forever changed from the four months
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of coaching that I did. And now, like, literally just
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last month, I actually hired a coach again myself, because I am so eager for
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more growth, and I want to enroll someone else in
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my possibilities and say, hey, these are the big things I'm
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going after now, and I need help. I need guidance on how to get there.
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Help me get there, hold me accountable, be the person that I
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can bounce my ideas off of and share things with and tell you my deepest
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feelings, fears, my insecurities. And this person has the
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experience to guide me, and that's what I want.
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You know, before I hired a coach, just when I was doing dry
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January, I was doing it kind of in isolation. I was doing it more
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superficially. It was like, I'm doing this thing. A lot of people do this thing,
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and I'm going to try, you know, just one foot in, one foot out.
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But, you know, I didn't take it very seriously. And that's why it
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quickly shifted into not even a full dry month. I just
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stepped down to drinking only on the weekends, but trying to cut back and only
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allowing myself two drinks. I was basically, like, living in the land of torturous
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moderation. And, you know, by me not taking
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it so seriously, it was like I was not holding myself
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up to any standard. I was just like, oh, I'm going to try this thing.
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I'm going to try, but I didn't do it with anybody else. There was no
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carrot dangling in front of me, and there was no stick other
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than my shame and pain of yet another hangover,
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which there were, even with me only drinking two
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drinks. You know, I didn't even ask my husband to do it with me.
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I didn't really let anybody know how much it actually mattered
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to me because I didn't want to be somebody who was trying to do
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dry January and failing at it. Right. I guess I was giving myself
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an out. So I ended up drinking nine times that month. And I
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was disappointed, but also so conflicted.
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Still, I knew I felt better not drinking.
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I liked who I was a lot better when I
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wasn't drinking, but it still felt like such a sacrifice. And I
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also had reservations of hiring a coach. This moment of like,
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whoa, am I somebody who needs to hire someone to get help with their drinking?
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Just those even words, I need help with my drinking. It creates
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so much shame. But yet I had no problem hiring,
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like, a private trainer or paying some dietitian to give me a
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special diet. Right. But this, it creates
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the stigma that there's something wrong with you that you've somehow, you know,
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screwed up and that now you're in this camp of people who have to.
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You have to handle this now. And that's really quite
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the opposite of what ended up happening in my coaching
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experience and how I really feel about it now, because the help
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I got and the way I changed was revolutionary.
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I want to take the stigma and the shame about confronting your
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relationship with alcohol and throw it out the door. It is
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something you should be proud of. It is something you should be eager to share,
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because, hands down, it is hard. It is hard.
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It is the hardest thing you're going to do. It is harder than
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any diet. It is harder than any fitness plan because alcohol
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is everywhere, and it is removing an emotional crutch
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that we have used our entire lives. So getting
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help with this, tackling this, yeah, that means you
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are different. It means you are asking more of yourself. It means you want a
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better life and you know how to get there. Getting alcohol out of the way.
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So having somebody to talk to who had been
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through what I had been through and who knew what I was after and where
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I was headed. And, you know, a coach isn't just for people that
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are struggling. Of course not. A coach is someone to celebrate your wins
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with. I was so excited to meet with my coach every week and just share
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how much progress I was making and how much I was changing.
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And she would give me all sorts of different tactics to help, you know,
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get through these things that were coming up in my life. Like, the biggest
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one, my 40th birthday. So I was only about
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six weeks sober when my 40th birthday
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came up, and I was. I had canceled a big
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40th birthday trip to Cabo and instead replaced it with a
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trip with my family and parents to Palm
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Springs. Like, we rented an Airbnb with a pool,
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and I was supposed to go to this birthday party with a bunch of other
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women that were turning 40. And I knew I just couldn't do it.
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I knew that's not how I wanted to start the next decade.
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Waking up hungover in Cabo, you know, feeling ashamed,
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feeling fat, feeling bloated and tired, and just not liking myself,
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not living in alignment with who I knew I was supposed to
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be. And my coach helped me navigate all of that.
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So not only did I have to, like, figure out what I was going to
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say to these friends who really didn't know what I was going through
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and what I was dealing with, I also had to go and
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navigate my family, who are very
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much a gregarious bunch of drinkers themselves,
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and face all of that.
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And it wasn't just the hard stuff that she helped me get through. It was
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also having somebody to just high five me and be like,
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yeah, you're doing it, and this is what it feels like, and this is what
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you have, and this is what you can look forward to.
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And, you know, because again, what you're doing is often a very.
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It's a private journey. And your friends,
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they won't really understand unless they're doing it themselves.
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It's really, really hard for them to understand. Most people,
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when they see what you're doing in your relationship to alcohol,
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they can only think of themselves and their relationship to
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alcohol. And usually they get really defensive and they just want
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to justify their drinking and be like, well, I'm not like you. I'm like,
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this. This is my drinking. It's safe and benign and
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not problematic. And that's fine. That's totally fine. But that's not
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the kind of support you're going to need right now. In fact,
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friends can often be some of the hardest people to be around in
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the beginning, especially if they aren't kind of in alignment with your
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new goals. I definitely went through that. But honestly,
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for every kind of door that closed,
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another one opened. And one of my other friends kind of explained
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it like this. It's like seasons, people Come in and out of your life
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in different seasons. And that is okay. None of it
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is permanent. It's just you need to pay attention to what you need
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right now. But these next steps are really
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about you asking for more to
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get really, really bold about what you want for yourself. Do you want to just
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dip your toe in or are you ready to
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dive in? Are you ready to go deeper and
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experience true freedom in your relationship to alcohol and
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see where that takes you? True freedom exists
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when your world is no longer confined
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by the parameters of alcohol. Like,
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this is the only way to socialize and this is the only way to have
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fun and this is the only way to relax. All of a sudden you're just
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like, oh, wait, I don't have to be limited by this
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beverage anymore. And once you kind of crack that
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open and you're just like, oh my God, I have all this other
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life to live that has nothing to do with alcohol. That is just a
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revolutionary moment. It is true freedom.
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So some people get there sooner than others. You know,
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they learn this information, they learn the science of what alcohol is doing and they're
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just like, holy shit, I can't. I don't want to drink anymore.
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I was a relatively early adopter of this information.
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Once I read these books, I was kind of like, yep, don't want to drink.
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But it was still really, really tough.
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You're still going to have cravings, you're still going to
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be in triggering environments for really the whole first year.
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Once you've gone through every season and kind of done all the events,
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all the holidays, all the birthdays, all the weddings, parties, you name it,
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alcohol free, then you have this
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perspective and you can see the contrast
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of how you used to be living and going through these events while drinking
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and how amazing it feels to be a
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non drinker through this part now.
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So you usually go into these things this
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first year with a beginner's mind and instead of
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being like, ah, this isn't going to be any fun, I can't believe I'm doing
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this. I'm deprived. You are instead, like, I am a newborn
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baby. I don't know what this event's going to be like. I don't. I've never
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done it like this because I've never shown up in this way. But I'm going
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to meet new people, I'm going to feel completely different because
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I'm not under the influence of a neurotoxin.
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And that is awesome. And it changes your entire experience.
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You are going to be re Experiencing these things
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kind of like for the first time. And you will be blown away by just
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how much more you take in, how much more vibrant
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these experiences can be. Wait till you go on vacation
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alcohol free. That will completely blow your mind. The myth
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of the vacation and requiring alcohol to enjoy yourself
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is kind of one of the last ones to go. And once it does,
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you're just like, oh my gosh, where else in
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the world do I want to go alcohol free now? Because it is like the
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world becomes your oyster. And you
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know, that is why my coaching is, is very different than the coaching I
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got. Because it is filled with tactics
23:09
that are going to help you change your thoughts and beliefs.
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We are working on your neuroplasticity. So I'm not
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just teaching you how to abstain, I'm teaching you how to change
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your brain so that you can cultivate a completely
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new life that you love. And it's also filled with a ton of positive
23:31
psychology and, and future self thinking that is really designed
23:35
to not only give you tangible tactics that you can use in the
23:39
moment on the actual habit, on the actual behavior changing,
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but also so you can start designing
23:47
the life you want to live. And you get to be really ambitious.
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And you know, I want to say greedy or selfish, but it's
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like, why can't you have those things? Why can't you have this
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life, this life that you've only ever dreamt for? Why can't you start living that
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way now? You know what's holding you back?
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Because alcohol, once it's out of the way,
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you are going to be blown away by what you're capable of.
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Your thoughts alone, the way you see yourself,
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your self esteem, your self confidence, your self trust,
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your integrity, it's just gonna skyrocket because
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alcohol was a depressant. Alcohol was keeping you stuck,
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keeping you small. And so that's what one on one
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coaching does. It's going deeper, having someone
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to personally tailor tactics and an approach that is specific
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to you and your life, hearing what you're going through, what your
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unique challenges are, and then saying, yep, here's how we do that
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and here are some of the things that worked for me. And then going for
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it, having an implementation plan that you can
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say, okay, for this next week, these are my three priorities and
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this is how I'm going to get there, this is how I'm going to do
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it. That's what coaching is about. And then it's
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all about the growth. What comes next,
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what will you do? What will you see? Who will you become?
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And those possibilities are the most exciting,
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transformative part. You just can't see it yet. I didn't
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know I was going to end up here, but now that I know what's possible
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now, I'm getting even more ambitious and more aggressive and
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more intentional about the steps I'm taking for what's next. Because I'm
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saying, oh my gosh, I was able to change this much in the last three
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years. Okay, here's what I want now. Here's what I want in the next
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five years and I'm going after it now. I hired a coach and
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I'm also signed up for an alcohol free women's retreat in Costa
25:53
Rica in April. I know that's the kind of growth I'm after. Now I
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want to expand even further and see where that takes me.
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So this is not about me.
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This is about your journey. And although there
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are a lot of similarities, I'm sure in our stories no two journeys
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are the same. There is no wrong or right way to go about
26:17
this. I know one thing for sure. It has to start with you.
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The next step of where you want this to go. It's in your
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court. 1 month alcohol free can feel like an eternity.
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I know, but you blink and it's over.
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What do you want for the next 11 months?
26:36
Ultimately, I honestly don't care if you decide
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to go back to drinking all the time or only on occasion or special events.
26:44
Everybody's different. I care that you are okay with
26:48
how you feel in your relationship to alcohol. You're here for
26:52
a reason because something wasn't lining up with alcohol and your intuition
26:56
was telling you I deserve better. So give yourself
27:00
something better, whatever that is for you. But be intentional
27:04
about it. Take charge and take care of yourself.
27:08
It has been an absolute pleasure being with you for Dry
27:12
January. If you are interested in my coaching programs, please check me out@findmyselffree.com
27:17
and of course if you are interested in one on one coaching,
27:21
you can always set up a call to see if we are a good fit.
27:24
Thank you for being here and as always,
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I am with you. You got this.
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Hey team, you've just listened to an episode of Find Myself Free
27:42
and if some part of this left you wanting more, if your curiosity
27:46
has been piqued and your intuition is telling you I'm ready for more,
27:49
I'm ready to look at my relationship to alcohol and find out just
27:53
how much it's holding me back. Then check out my coaching offers@findmyselffree.com
27:58
for those ready to kickstart a change privately on their own time,
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I offer the BRAVE course, a seven day program to shift your
28:06
mindset around alcohol and connect with your future self. This is
28:10
chock full of all the information that was key to my transformation.
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If you are looking for additional support, I also offer one on one coaching.
28:19
I worked with a coach for four months at the start of my alcohol free
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journey and it made all the difference. Being able to talk to someone who knew
28:27
what I was going through and could help me navigate my new world gave me
28:31
a foundation of support I could build on and it is a big reason why
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I am a coach today. I want to help others find their freedom and level
28:38
up their health. If this sounds good to you, then connect with me@findmyselffree.com
28:44
Listen to that intuition that was telling you you are meant for more.
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I'm with you. You got this.