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Do you really like alcohol? · Cheat Code Nutrition

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Foreign.
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Welcome to Find Myself Free, the Podcast. I'm Ellie
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Young, 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
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of transformation. Fascinated by my own capacity for change after decades
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of gray area drinking, I'm passionate about sharing what I've learned from neuroscience
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and positive psychology to help you break free from the drinking
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cycle and unlock your true potential. Hear my personal stories
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of triumph and struggle as I navigate raising two boys,
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finding myself after 40, building a business, and doing it all
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alcohol free. From women's health and cycle syncing to fasting
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and biohacking, this podcast is your roadmap to a healthier,
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purpose filled life that starts with changing your relationship to alcohol.
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It's time to embrace, change, find balance and create the life you were meant for.
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Welcome to Find Myself Free.
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Hey everybody, Wanted to pop in here really quick to make sure you heard about
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the Love your Brain and Body Workshop that I'm hosting
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live on February 14th, Valentine's Day. It's a one
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hour live event from 11 to 12 Pacific Standard Time.
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And this is where I talk to you about all of the things
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that you can level up once you get alcohol out of
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the way. And we start with balancing our hormones and
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we also work on optimizing your brain chemistry because alcohol
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has been wrecking those two things, your hormonal balance
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and your brain chemistry. So we dive into all of
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the ways you can be creating a life to optimize both of those two things.
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So I hope you can join me, go to my website and look
1:49
for the Love youe Brain and Body Workshop. And I hope to see
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All right. Hello, hello and welcome
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back to Find Myself free. This is January 31st,
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the last and final day of dry January.
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I am so happy to have
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been on this journey with you guys and to hear your stories
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and to hear just how much you have changed
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this month, the progress you have made. And even if you only
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reduced your drinking, that is progress that you should be
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proud of, the information that you have taken on this month. And we took on
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a lot. We did a lot of things. We uncovered all of the whys behind
3:16
your drinking. We tackled those subconscious beliefs, those things that are
3:20
driving your drinking drinking behavior and we dismantled them. Like,
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is it really true that alcohol helps with my stress and anxiety?
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Is it really true that alcohol helps me feel
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joy? And so we broke those down so that hopefully
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now when you go to reach for a glass, you question it a little bit
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more. Like, what do I really think Alcohol is going to provide in this moment.
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And is that really true now? This was a very, this was only
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31 days. Right? So there is a lot bigger
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road ahead of you to navigate if you are going to proceed
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with your alcohol free life. And so I wanted to
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tackle kind of the last and final belief
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that people have the hardest time overcoming. And it's that I
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enjoy drinking. Alcohol is
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fun. It makes me feel good. It is a pleasure of life that
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I don't want to give up. And it's still so serves its place in this
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world. And you know, I think it's really
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funny that dry January is labeled
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like that. I think it's a terrible branding like dry.
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Why do we call a month without alcohol dry?
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You know, I guess there's this connotation of it just being like this, like withered
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up, like joyless,
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pleasureless existence is you just dry. You know,
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it's like, I don't love this word. To me, that is not at all what
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living in alcohol free life feels like. I'm, I am going to be rebranding it
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as I go into February with my clients. Is this is your rich and
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vibrant, luscious February. This is a February
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where you are going to tap back into all of the pleasure living
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alcohol free. And that is where true
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health and wellness can be elevated once
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you have gotten enough time. The first 31 days, for a lot of
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people, Dry January is just kind of this like messy up and down.
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Like you're trying it out. You're like, you're still kind of caught in
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these old habits and you're taking on this new information and you're opening
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the door to change, but you're still kind of caught in these old habits
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and these old cycles. And so this next month is
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really where you kind of push come to shove. You're like, am I
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going to continue with this? And how can I continue to support myself in
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this direction if that's the way I want to go? Now,
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I had some conversations with my sister this past week
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because she did not do dry January. I don't think she ever had any intention
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of doing dry January, but she did listen to my podcast and she had some
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feedback. She was like, I still enjoy a glass
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of wine with my friends. I really like the taste of wine.
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And I have challenged this with her before, but I don't think
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I've fully gotten through to her. And I
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think it's a helpful conversation for you guys all to hear because I
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wanted to do a little more explanation of what is going on,
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why we believe we still like alcohol, that we
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still enjoy it, why we think we still like the taste. So this
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goes back to evolutionary times. I'm going to explain dopamine for
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you guys. So, sadly, we are at odds with our
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environment all the time. Basically, there's all sorts of things that,
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as we've evolved from the very beginning of time that are
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against us, and our brains evolved
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mechanisms and systems to help us survive.
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Dopamine, the reward system being one of them, right?
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So if we were able to track down
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this little berry bush and we were able to eat the berries, and we're like,
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oh, this is like, I can survive. Me and my family can survive if
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we remember where to find this berry bush and what it looks like. And it's
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not like that berry bush, those are poisonous. But this berry bush, it tastes
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good. And so our brains evolved to give us boosts of dopamine
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so that we would remember this is good for survival and this is
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necessary, right? Same thing happened with hunting,
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that there's a rush of shooting the animal
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and the brain learned this is a skill I need. This is why boys
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love video games. They love to shoot. They love to, like, have weapons and stuff,
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because it was necessary to survive back in the day to hunt,
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to feed your family. So the success of shooting and killing an animal to feed
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your family, the brain gave you a big boost of dopamine. So this is basic
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survival instincts. But nowadays, we are inundated
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with so many different things that flood our reward circuits
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with dopamine, and it is not necessary for survival.
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But the brain doesn't know the difference, right?
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So anytime you take something,
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it's the rate and the volume of the dopamine
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is how much pleasure you're going to get.
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So the more dopamine you get and the rate at which it boosts you up
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is how pleasurable something is. This is
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why cocaine is one of the, like, fastest, one of the most rapid and highest
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boosts that you can have, right? Oh, side note, cold plunging,
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they say cocaine two and a half times your
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dopamine double two and a half times your baseline dopamine in,
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I think it was like eight or nine minutes. Minutes, and then you crash super
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hard. So for every up, there is an equal and opposite low.
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But cold plunging raises your dopamine
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also two and a half times. But it does it over the course of two
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to three hours. So it's a gradual rise
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and then down. And you do not get the opposite
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low from that. And people ask me about this.
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Why? Why when we naturally boost our dopamine with things like
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that, do you not get the same dynorphin effect that pulls
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you lower and makes you feel like crap afterwards the way you would feel like
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after alcohol, drugs, too much sugar, too much processed,
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you know, carbohydrate food like chips, pizza, all that kind of stuff?
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It's because you got that boost of dopamine from
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pushing on the pain side of your fulcrum. So again,
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we have this, this like pain and pleasure fulcrum when
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you are constantly pushing on the pleasure
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side of your fulcrum. The brain then releases chemicals to
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counterbalance that, but it overcorrects and
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gives you an equal and opposite dose of pain in
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the other direction. But if you do it the other way around with like,
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let's say exercise or cold plunging, you pushing on that discomfort,
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you're pushing on the pain lever and your brain rewards you
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with a boosted dopamine and endorphins of feel
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good chemistries to actually make you feel better and to correct for
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that. So that's why cold plunge exercise can give you really
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good feelings afterwards. And so that is kind of part of the aftermath
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of cutting alcohol into your life is disease designing your life in ways that
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boost dopamine naturally. And they require more work. No,
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you cannot drink a drink and get a dopamine boost when you're alcohol
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free. You have to work for it. And then it delivers an incredible reward
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and everything starts to feel better, all the little things,
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because you're no longer blowing your dopamine circuits out with the
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artificial highs of alcohol. So. So another interesting
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thing that I learned the other day, again about the
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way our brain is so incredible at creating homeostasis
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is I learned about salt. So I am a big fan
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of element electrolyte salts. And if anybody wants to
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get some, I will put a link in the show notes
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and you basically can use my link and they'll send you a free sample box
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with a purchase. So you have to, you have to buy something. But they will
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send you this additional big pack of samples where you can try all the flavors
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and they're my favorite. But basically, salt is a very necessary element
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to survival. We have evolved to crave salty
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things when we are low in sodium. And so our body
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recognizes that our actual blood volume gets low and then it releases
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hormones to signal craving for salty food.
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And it does this by actually making salt
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be as rewarding as like something
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like sugar. So we crave it and it actually delivers a bigger dopamine
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boost when you finally get the salt that your body needs. And what
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it also does is it diminishes the amount of pleasure that you would get
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from other things. So in the brain, it is allowing you
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to prioritize seeking out salty things over
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sugar, over these other things. Right. It's a survival mechanism,
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and it tones down the enjoyment of these
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other things so that you prioritize getting the salty thing.
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So I find that really interesting. That is a survival mechanism
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for salt. But our brain has tricked
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us with the alcohol. The alcohol gives you
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such an artificial high with the dopamine boost that the brain goes,
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whoa, we need this for survival. And so it sends
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you low with dynorphin, creating a craving for
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more of it. And that is how the cycle of an addictive
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substance works. You get such a crazy high,
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and the brain thinks, oh, my God, we need this stuff.
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This stuff numbs our pain. It gives us an incredible boost,
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and it doesn't associate all
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of the aftermath with the alcohol. That is what the work of
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this month was designed to do, was to say, put those two
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things together, connect those ideas. Like, all of the shit you're
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feeling in your life is stemming from your drinking. Okay.
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And it takes connecting those thoughts
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and you, like, alcohol is helping with my stress and anxiety? Nope.
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Here's some science. It's actually making your anxiety and stress worse. Oh,
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alcohol helps me feel more joy? Actually, no. It's a depressant.
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It leaves you riddled with dynorphin, which is the opposite of endorphins.
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It keeps you low. It keeps you feeling uneasy, uncomfortable,
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and. And relatively joyless in your life. It also,
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as you become more tolerant to alcohol, it creates tolerance
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for all things that could bring you pleasure in life, so that now the
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little things don't feel as good. And nothing is fun unless you're
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drinking. Damn, that's a heavy load.
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I don't want to feel like that
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anymore. And it takes repetition. It takes learning this information and
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hearing it in a variety of ways, and listening to quit lit books and listening
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to podcasts and continuing to hit yourself with this, because we are
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basically reverse conditioning all
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that we've been fed our entire lives about alcohol. No, it is not the
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elixir to life. So I want to get back to why
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we think we like the taste of alcohol and why we think we enjoy
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it so much. So we know already that it's giving us this
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high dopamine boost. Right? However, when you're a
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kid, when you first try alcohol for the first time
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you spit it out, right? My sister claims
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that she liked the taste of wine when she first tried it, which I
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think is bullshit. I still don't think that's true. I think if you had given
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her a Capri sun and a glass of wine and said, which one do
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you think tastes better? Or even a soda, a Sprite, or even like Kool
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Aid, whatever it is you drink as a kid. There's no kid that's going to
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choose the glass of wine over the Capri sun,
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right? Because it does not taste good.
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Humans are the only animal that drink alcohol
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voluntarily. You cannot give
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alcohol to an animal and like a bowl of it and
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have them choose to drink that. In fact, in all the
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studies they've done on rats and alcohol, they have to force feed it to them.
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They have to inject them with them until they become addicted to it for them
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to actually go and drink the alcohol laced water.
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So humans, the only reason we drink it is because we doctor
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it up with all this sugar and additives and whatnot so that it tastes tolerable
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to drink. And we think we like the taste.
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It is not the taste you like, it is the dopamine boost
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the buzz you get and your brain makes this association
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with it. And we call that acquiring the
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taste. Okay? There is an entire industry,
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the wine industry, around the taste of wine.
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Now don't get me wrong, I think the
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wine industry is beautiful. Going to wineries, you know,
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this idea of growing a fruit and fermenting
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it and the art of winemaking, it's a very, very beautiful process.
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And you know, but the actual
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purpose of wine tasting back in the day was because
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the wine could have gone bad. It could have turned into like a vinegar like
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substance. So the smelling and the tasting and the swirling around
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of the wine was to make sure the wine hadn't gone bad.
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Right? And your body would recognize it's bad.
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I don't want to drink that. The same way that if you go to smell
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the milk in your fridge and you're like, oh, that's terrible, let's toss the
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milk, I don't want to drink that. Your body and brain recognize this is bad
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for me. Right? So again, the only reason
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we drink it is because we doctor it up with a bunch of sugar,
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put it in these fancy bottles and then we tell ourselves this
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is an expensive, fine, fine bottle of wine
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and look at this beautiful vineyard. And now we're going to taste it and we're
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going to tell you that it's okie and we're going to tell you that it
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was made from these things and these ingredients and leather and earth and
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all the things, right? And we just eat it up.
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We're like, yes, this is a beautiful, beautiful bottle of
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poison. What it actually does to your body, it wrecks
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you. It doesn't matter how expensive it is. It doesn't matter how beautifully
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it was made. It is still a toxin, right?
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But we acquire the taste because of the effect on our
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brain. And then we associate it
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with all of this class, all of this sophistication,
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all of this culture in our life that has been marketed
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to us. All right, There is an actual study.
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Let me get it. So I get it right here. The American
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association of Wine Economists did a
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study of 6,000 wine drinkers, a blind taste
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test, and they found that they were unable to distinguish
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expensive wine from the cheap wine. And in fact,
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the majority claimed to prefer the cheap
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wine. Which is. That just blows my mind. And I think it's also very,
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very funny that this same company did a study a few
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years, few years later, taste testing pate
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versus dog food, and that people couldn't tell
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the difference between the two. Wow, that is incredible.
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So you have to understand how
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much this survival mechanism of the brain, this dopamine boost,
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is creating this idea that you actually love
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the taste of the wine. I'll even go so far as to say, like,
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you know, my husband loves to say, I love pairing the food with wine.
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Like, if I'm gonna have a nice steak dinner, I really want a beautiful bottle
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of red with it. I want to have a red wine, glass of wine with
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it. Okay, so again, another incredible
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thing that the wine industry has done is this idea of pairing your alcohol
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with food. So unfortunately,
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alcohol deadens the sensitivity of your taste
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buds. This is a fact. You taste less when you are
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drinking alcohol, and you actually numb your taste buds.
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So that is interesting. 2.
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Oh, I lost my train of thought here. What was I going to say about
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the pairing the food? Oh, there is no other thing we do
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this with. Think about this. Is there a milk pairing to
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our food ever? Maybe cookies and milk, right? But when you dip a cookie
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in milk, it changes the texture, it changes the flavor of the cookie.
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So I get it. There's a pairing there. Do you pair your soda with anything?
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Do you pair any juice? Do you pair any types of water,
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all the different fun waters out there with it? No, you don't.
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This is a marketing tactic, and it's completely false because
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alcohol is numbing your taste buds. You are tasting less
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of your food while you're drinking. That is interesting.
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So I think that these are
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worth examining. And. And I get it. There is so much culture, there is
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so much social pressure
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around the wine for it to be. It is. It is like permission to
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be grown up and classy
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when you're drinking wine. It is definitely this transition from,
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you know, the. The partying days of college into,
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like, well, I'm an adult now. I drink this bottle,
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and it's not a cheap bottle. I spent a lot of money on it,
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and now I go wine tasting. You know, we have created this whole industry
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of marrying this experience to this
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toxin. At the end of the day, it's a toxin, and you think
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you like the taste of it. However, this is a taste you spit
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out as a kid. A taste you would not choose
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to drink until you. Until you developed a
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buzz, until you witnessed all of the adults around you
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participating in this culture. And this means, like, oh, yeah, yeah, I need to learn
22:23
about wine in order to be sophisticated. I need to, like, join a wine club.
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I need to do these wine tasting trips that are built around
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an old. An old method
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of tasting whether the wine had gone bad or not.
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And now we're like, oh, can you breathe in the smell and
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think this was an old method to taste if the wine had gone bad?
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Right? Now we've built this. All this pompous
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kind of sophistication around it,
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which, again, just question these things. Just challenge
22:56
them and pay attention to it. Okay? This kind of awareness,
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you know, it's just waking you
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up a bit so that you're not continuing to just
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kind of get duped over and over and over again by this industry. You know,
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I have a lot of clients who. The wine is
23:16
embedded in their lives, and they have
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learned everything I have to deliver about, you know,
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changing their thoughts and beliefs and all the science and all the things.
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But then, you know, and they've been doing great. They're super successful in their journeys.
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And then they'll say, oh, but you know what? Over the holidays, this person who,
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like, is a wine guy, he brought out this, like, really, really beautiful,
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very nice, very expensive bottle of wine. And it was
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like, oh, cue the cravings, right? Because they're
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like, I'm really gonna miss out now because this bottle,
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this is, like, the stuff, right? And just imagine,
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like, all of that association around the marketing
24:01
around this bottle of wine, right? We think we're not going to enjoy ourselves.
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We are missing out, because this particular
24:09
wine is the one Where I would have had, like, I would have enjoyed the
24:12
most, right? Because it was expensive, because it was a fine bottle
24:17
of wine. But again, go back to that study, blind taste test.
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People could not tell the difference. I told this fact to my husband
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right before this podcast and he was like, no, no,
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like, there's an art and there is really good wine.
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They're made better, they use better ingredients and they do all these things. But I'm
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like, but can you tell or are you just being fed all of that marketing,
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Even when we're aware of the marketing going on,
24:43
they say it still subconsciously affects us. And so here's
24:47
another study that I thought was really, really cool. They took two identical
24:52
cakes, like sheet cakes from like a grocery store, right?
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Then they put people in this two groups and they said, or they
25:00
said, okay, this cake on the right here, this comes from the finest
25:04
bakery in town. They use the best ingredients.
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You know, this is the high end cake, right?
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And then they said, this cake over here, this is just a grocery store
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cake. And then they had them do a taste test and an evaluation. Like,
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all the people ranked the fancy, you know, cake that they
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thought was more expensive and made from finer ingredients they said had better
25:26
flavor. They had, it was fluffier, better consistency overall,
25:30
just perfect, you know, beautiful cake. And then they ranked the other cake,
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of course, much lower, right? It was the same
25:37
cake. All they had been told. It was all based
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on what they had been told, their perception, their, their brains
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had been primed to expect that this cake was going to be the
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more delicious, better tasting cake just based on price
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and, you know, finer ingredients and stuff. They do the
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same thing in the wine industry, right? It's incredible.
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So just pay attention to that the next
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time you say, God, you know, like, I really, really want to enjoy myself
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out with my girlfriends tonight. Like, you can enjoy yourself.
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Don't give all the credit to a beverage that
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is actually going to make you sick, dehydrate you.
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And you're not. You're like, oh, but I missed the taste.
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It's not the taste you miss. You miss the dopamine boost.
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How else can you boost your dopamine? What else can you
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do? And don't get me wrong, when you are showing up in these environments where
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drinking was the thing that you do, your brain
26:39
is going to crave it, right? And it's really hard to show up in that
26:42
exact environment and then just remove the alcohol, just remove the
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reward, the reward your brain is used to getting in this moment. So you have
26:50
to find something else you can deliver for yourself. You have to
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start stacking your dopamine earlier in the day. You have to try and go seek
26:59
out things during this experience that you can do that'll
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help build that dopamine up. Right? And I,
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you know, I have a little side story that a group of
27:11
my friends just went to Austin, Texas this past
27:14
weekend on a girls trip. They had briefly
27:20
invited me. It was right before Christmas. It was kind of like a one
27:24
off. Like, usually I'm on this group text with all these women and
27:28
these are like my OG friends, drinking friends.
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And we all had children together, we all kind of raised our kids together.
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And I have, I wouldn't say intentionally distanced myself,
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but we've naturally become more distant as I've, you know, cut my
27:45
drinking over the last three years and. And they still drink,
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and that's all fine. We also love each other. It's great, right? But this
27:53
trip, it's normally I would have heard a lot about it and instead I
27:58
got a one off text from just one of the girls being like, oh,
28:00
by the way, we planned this trip, it's at this date and this time,
28:03
if you want to come. And I was like, okay, cool, send me the information.
28:06
They kind of sent it like, they sent it to me again as like a
28:09
little one off. But, like, I clearly had been removed from the group text
28:13
about this trip planning, which is fine because I
28:18
probably would have not gone. I had loads of soccer this
28:22
past weekend, so I know I would have looked at my calendar, been like,
28:24
yeah, I can't make it. But I still had
28:28
my feelings hurt because I just want to be included. I want
28:32
the bone to be thrown my way and for me to make a choice.
28:35
And the thing is, I probably would have made myself feel guilty about
28:40
not going, but there's a part of me also that's like,
28:44
I know I can enjoy myself on these kind of trips, but I
28:48
feel like deep down they didn't want me there. So this kind of stuff still
28:52
comes up for me, you guys, almost three years out. Like, I thought
28:56
that, like, gosh, you know, this is a drinking trip for them. They did.
28:59
They went bar hopping. They wanted to go, like out dancing in these things.
29:03
And I think it's hard for them to
29:07
maybe be around me doing what I do. And it's not like I'm just a
29:11
sober person. It's like I am a coach and I have a
29:15
podcast and I am helping other women. So it's always very, very top of
29:19
mind with me. And I'm sure that creates a lot of subconscious
29:24
evaluation of themselves constantly, because no matter what,
29:28
even if I don't say a word about it,
29:31
it's like the standards I'm living by are
29:35
really, really up here now. And it forces them to
29:39
kind of look at their standards and evaluate themselves even when they're not meaning
29:43
to. Even when I'm not meaning to be that person for them.
29:46
So it still happened. And I didn't go on the
29:50
trip, and I didn't hear another word about the trip in this whole, like,
29:53
month and a half that led up to them going on it, which I thought
29:56
was interesting because I was like, oh, if. If they had really wanted me to
29:59
go, they would have been like, hey, are you coming? Like, hey, we haven't heard
30:03
from you. But I was. I was clearly not on these group texts that were
30:06
about the planning and the arranging of this trip. So that kind of hurt my
30:11
feelings. But I heard from one of the girls today,
30:15
we went on a long walk and I heard about kind of what
30:20
a not great time they had. You know, they were trying
30:24
to bar hop and I wasn't there. So I only heard this from one of
30:27
the girls, but that they were, you know, constantly seeking
30:32
that next good experience. It's like, hey,
30:36
we're gonna go have fun at this place. This place kind of didn't meet our
30:39
expectations. Like, what about this place? Let's go to this next place and let's go
30:42
to the next place. And they're constantly kind of seeking something outside themselves,
30:47
something outside their experience to try and make the experience better.
30:51
Right. And as they continue to drink, this is just me.
30:55
Honestly, I had very little information about this trip, but this is me, like in
30:58
their brain, like, thinking it through, going, oh, so as they continue to drink and
31:02
they wanted more happiness and more joy and more connection out
31:07
of this experience, but yet what's going on in their brain biochemically
31:11
is that they're never going to get that first.
31:16
You know, it goes up with that first drink, and then you never get as
31:20
much. It's just a slow decline. And the dynorphine is
31:24
now in your system, pulling you down, making you
31:28
feel crummy. And then I heard from this girl, she's like,
31:31
I didn't sleep at all the whole trip. Right? Yeah,
31:35
that's what alcohol does. So you're taking this girls trip, you're trying
31:39
to go to a new place and experiencing new things. But what you did in
31:42
that place was just drink, hoping to like,
31:46
have this fun, great experience with your girlfriends, but the
31:50
alcohol did not enhance it for them. The alcohol brought
31:53
them down. And I don't think they will ever make that connection
31:57
unless I go and, like, explain it to them. And I don't think any of
32:01
them listen to my podcast. So that is fine that I can talk about this
32:04
and make some judgments about it. So I'm sorry if you are listening, but this
32:08
is what I think about. Think about that.
32:12
So anyways, I just thought that was interesting that, like,
32:15
as adults, as. As 40s and women in our
32:19
40s, that we still take these girls trips, and it's about drinking.
32:23
It's about escaping our routine in our life. And then you go to these
32:27
places and you're like, let's drink. Let's bring the joy through the drinking.
32:31
And that isn't gonna do it.
32:34
And so this dry January is kind of like learning
32:39
that unfortunate truth. It is about hacking your brain so that
32:43
you stop believing that. It is about opening
32:47
up your awareness that there is this entire world out
32:52
there to be enjoyed. And you can reconstruct
32:56
your beliefs in a way that support this way
33:00
of living that feels good organically,
33:05
that starts to build a foundation of health that you can, like,
33:08
build upon. And it's not gonna wreck
33:13
your mental health, and it's not gonna sabotage any other efforts
33:17
that you have because you're. You're doing things that are good for you,
33:21
things that actually feel good, that start to stack up.
33:25
And the brain science, like, understanding what alcohol
33:29
really did to your brain, it's not your fault, right?
33:33
This is a survival mechanism. This pleasure reward
33:37
system in our brain was designed to keep us alive. And alcohol has
33:42
duped us. Alcohol is a big trick.
33:45
You know, I was making this correlation to my husband the other day. I was
33:48
like, what do you think of this analogy about alcohol? I always bounce everything off
33:52
him. And to be honest, he shoots down almost all of my stuff. He's like,
33:56
I don't like it because of this. And I'm like, well, guess what? You're not
33:59
my target audience. I'm gonna talk about it anyway. So that's our relationship anyway.
34:03
So here it goes. Alcohol, to me, it's like I talked
34:08
about earlier. Like, we are at odds with our environment. There's all sorts of things
34:11
in our environment that are trying to, like, mess with us. There's.
34:13
There's, you know, all the plastics in the things. There's all the toxins.
34:17
There is, you know, the sun is trying to burn our skin, like,
34:21
all sorts of Things, right? And our body has all these defense mechanisms, but alcohol
34:25
is a sneaky, sneaky little warrior,
34:30
sneaky enemy, right? Because it makes
34:34
you think you need it to survive.
34:37
You get a taste of it and you're like, oh,
34:40
this makes me feel good temporarily. It numbs
34:44
my pain, it numbs my insecurities, it numbs my stress and my anxiety temporarily,
34:50
right? But our brain is like, give me more. This is great.
34:54
And culturally, the entire world is doing it and celebrating it.
34:58
And moms, you need it to survive, right?
35:01
Everybody's doing it. Let's doctor it up and package it in all these beautiful
35:05
ways and make it sophisticated and make it glamorous.
35:08
And then it goes after your control center,
35:13
this sneaky little enemy. It dupes you. It's like a spy,
35:17
right? It gets in there, it infiltrates you, and then it goes after your control
35:22
center, which affects every health
35:25
system in your body. It takes out
35:29
your control center and it convinces you you need it.
35:33
What a monster alcohol is.
35:36
It's unbelievable that we are allowed to sell
35:40
this stuff on tv, that there aren't labels on bottles that
35:45
say it gives you cancer, it wrecks your mental health, it wrecks
35:48
your gut health, it wrecks your relationships,
35:52
it causes rape, car accidents,
35:56
abuse, you name it, and we celebrate the
36:00
shit out of it, right? We put it on the super bowl ads.
36:04
Millions and millions and millions of dollars are spent on marketing this
36:08
stuff to us, selling us this stuff. I mean, can you
36:12
imagine? I heard. I heard a statistic the other day that every
36:18
eight days, 500 people are killed in alcohol
36:22
related accidents. Accidents. This was
36:26
in the book, this Naked Mind, by the way, this statistic. And it was.
36:29
That would be like a plane with 500
36:34
people in it crashing every eight days. That's how many people
36:38
die from alcohol related deaths. Yet we advertise
36:42
it on TV constantly.
36:46
Our kids, Our kids literally can't go a day in their lives without seeing
36:51
alcohol being celebrated culturally,
36:54
like, in front of them. Whether it's in their own homes,
36:58
with the amount and volume that people around them drink, or Whether it's on
37:02
TV, that's on TikTok, YouTube, you name it, right? It is being celebrated.
37:06
Celebrated. And of course they're
37:10
gonna want to drink eventually. At some point, they're gonna think I'm
37:14
an adult, even though they told me not to drink, I have to wait for
37:18
21. But why is everybody else. Why do all the adults drink so much?
37:22
Of course I want to do that. Why would I want to
37:26
avoid something that it seems like the entire world is doing right. If it's so
37:30
bad, why are they all doing it? That's, that's the culture we are being
37:34
raised in. However, I have some really exciting news that I heard also the
37:38
other day. The, the statistics around dry January
37:42
came out and I think it was that 44% of
37:46
Americans attempt to dry January.
37:50
That's a lot of people. That's almost half the population. Not that they
37:54
were successful at it, not that they made it all the way through, but they,
37:57
it was on their mind, they attempted it, they wanted to do it.
38:00
That is really, really encouraging news. And then there were some statistics and I'm not
38:04
going to quote them because I don't remember them correctly, but that the younger generation
38:08
is just drinking less and less and that alcohol
38:13
companies are now putting their main like
38:17
product leader is an alcohol free beverage. So that industry
38:20
is just booming, right, because they're, I love that they are
38:25
not trying to convince people that don't want to drink or non drinkers
38:29
to drink more. Like, let's double down on our mercury to drink them more.
38:32
They're like, okay, if we can't beat them, join them. Let's create an alcohol free
38:36
product. Because the tides are turning. More and
38:40
more people are trying to go alcohol free,
38:43
which is so cool that hopefully when my kids are adults it'll
38:48
be completely normalized for someone to be a non drinker and so they
38:51
won't get like, oh, you don't drink. Why? You know, is it because you're pregnant?
38:55
Are you sick? Are you on antibiotics? Like, why don't you drink? Did you have
38:59
a problem? You know, people want to know why you don't drink and
39:03
that's going to hopefully go away and it's going to become more and more normalized.
39:07
Also what I love my Dry January crew is I
39:11
want you to own this fact with pride. The fact that you were able to
39:15
do this month, that you tried it, that you went for it, that should really
39:18
be a source of pride because right now you are ahead of the curve.
39:22
They do anticipate that alcohol is going to go the way of cigarettes,
39:26
right? And there's going to be this like bell curve of people. Like there were
39:28
the early adopters like me, hopefully like you. And then there's going to
39:32
be like the masses where they all kind of switch at some point and they
39:36
say, yep, we can no longer turn a blind eye to this data,
39:39
to the, to the way it's making us feel. We are going to
39:43
all stop drinking alcohol. And then of course there's always going to be the people
39:46
that alcohol is never going to go away completely. Right. There's going to be still
39:50
drinkers for a while, but they're going to be kind of like smokers where yeah,
39:53
there's some, still some people that smoke but they're a little bit like, kind of
39:56
like, I don't know, like shunned. I don't know if that's the right word.
39:59
But just you're kind of like, ew, that's a gross habit. Like I don't,
40:01
I want nothing to do with that. I will say I don't think
40:06
that smoke self medicating is going away.
40:11
I do think although there's so much more cultural
40:15
acceptance around mental health and strategies to
40:19
manage your mental health and things like that, I do think that even though alcohol's
40:23
diminishing as a self coping mechanism,
40:26
it's probably because of the access of weed, marijuana,
40:30
mushrooms, microdosing and whatnot. So people are still seeking
40:34
a way to numb out, seeking a way to dull their
40:38
pain, to, you know, quiet their discomfort.
40:42
So we still have a lot of work to do, you know, as far as
40:46
developing healthy coping mechanisms and healthy strategies
40:50
to manage the things in our life that are hard. Right.
40:55
So I'm really excited about
40:58
the progress you guys have made this month. It has just been really,
41:02
really cool to see. I'm excited about where alcohol free
41:07
living is going in this society. So you should hold that as like a source
41:10
of pride that you are one of the early adopters and that the
41:14
more you can get this information in your belt and the more you can really
41:17
let it be a juicy carrot, this like life
41:21
that you want to live, focus on it and start, start believing
41:26
in like how possible it is and how good it is for you. Sometimes I
41:29
think people fall into this category where there's like my drinking wasn't
41:33
that bad. Right. And so I call that the stick wasn't big enough.
41:37
So your history of drinking, it hasn't punished
41:41
you enough like it did me. Right. I talked to my sister about this too
41:45
because she doesn't have any kids. And I say the main difference between probably your
41:49
drinking and my drinking was that you didn't have kids. You didn't get into this
41:52
place where you were self medicating and self and coping with like the
41:56
hard facts of life. Like I was through motherhood, through marriage,
42:00
through, you know, her, most of her drinking was still like this social place,
42:05
you know, where it's like all fun and all good and like hanging out with
42:07
my Girlfriends and going on trips and doing all these things. And I'm like,
42:10
yeah, so you don't have the big heavy stick of like the darkness,
42:14
perhaps that of like this, this thing that punished you for a long
42:18
time and this like cognitive dissonance of being
42:22
like, I want to not do this thing, but I can't stop doing this thing.
42:26
And why is that? And that did that place, place of living in that shame
42:30
cycle was really, really painful. So for me, that kind of stick of
42:34
going back to a life like that, it's pretty big. It's a heavy stick.
42:37
So I'm like looking at my new life and I'm like, I will never go
42:40
back there. The stick is big enough, right? And the carrot
42:44
in front of me, it just keeps getting juicier and juicier. I've already gotten
42:48
to experience the benefits of almost three years alcohol free. By the way,
42:51
February 20th is my third year anniversary. I'm going to
42:56
throw myself a party and I'm going to be offering some cool stuff out to
42:59
my community on that date. We will celebrate it and I will have some cool
43:03
things to offer up to you guys as well. But that
43:06
juicy life in front of you. If you are like, hey, I don't have a
43:10
big enough carrot. I haven't been punished enough by alcohol, where I'm like, it hasn't
43:14
been so bad. My drinking hasn't been that bad, you know, then I really want
43:18
you to focus on the carrot in front of you. Just how
43:21
much better life can be alcohol free. And that is
43:25
actually something I'm doing in my next program that I'm
43:29
going to do. It's a short and sweet one hour live event.
43:33
February 14th. So it's Valentine's Day and I'm calling it the Love youe Brain
43:37
and Body event. And it's basically we're going to kind of go over the
43:41
quick and dirty with cutting alcohol. But then we're going to
43:45
get into my. The favorite part
43:49
for me of getting alcohol free was getting back in touch with my body,
43:54
learning how to cycle sync. So live according to my
43:58
cycle, live in harmony with my hormones and what they're doing
44:01
and optimizing my hormonal balance as well
44:06
as optimizing my brain chemistry. So I've
44:10
learned so much in the last three years about hormones
44:15
and how much they are sitting at the top of our
44:18
like hierarchy of functions in the body,
44:23
right. And as well as our brain chemistry.
44:26
All of these are intricately tied to your alcohol
44:30
use. So you really can't start Working on hormonal balancing and brain
44:35
chemistry balancing. If alcohol is still in the picture, right?
44:39
Because alcohol starts by wrecking those systems up in the
44:43
brain. It also wrecks your gut. So literally, you can't make
44:48
progress if you are still drinking. So I don't even take clients. A lot of
44:51
people come to me and they say, hey, I'd love to work on my hormones
44:54
with you. And I say, okay, what is your relationship with alcohol if they're still
44:57
drinking? I'm sorry, we can't work together on your hormones until we
45:01
get alcohol free first and then we can do the other work.
45:04
And that's where incredible growth
45:08
and elevating comes in.
45:12
Your health and wellness. And you have no idea how much better you can
45:16
feel because you are so used to living the way you are living and letting
45:20
wine be the highlight of your day, letting alcohol be the highlight of your week,
45:23
your vacations, you going out with your friends and connecting.
45:27
All right? When you can shift that mindset
45:31
and you start rewarding yourself with actual
45:35
incredible health, I mean,
45:39
I have to tell you, my alcohol free life, it wakes me
45:43
up in the morning and says, go get that sunrise.
45:47
I could sleep in. There are some days on the weekends when I could
45:51
sleep in. I don't have to get up, but my internal alarm clock goes
45:56
off. And I am so excited to go see the beautiful
46:00
sunrise. I literally get out, out of my house and I turn the corner,
46:04
and sometimes there is just the most incredible glow going on that I don't
46:08
walk. I run to the end of the street to see it because I am
46:12
so excited. I am literally, like, tickled by the sunrise.
46:16
That's why you guys, if you follow me on Instagram, you get my sunrise photos
46:20
every single morning. And I want to see it from all over town. I go,
46:24
I go, I go into the park, I take some really cool shots,
46:27
I go down to the beach. I want to see the glow coming up over
46:30
the ocean. I want to see the moon setting. That is
46:34
the reward for me. Now imagine that you're like, oh, that's so lame.
46:38
Instead of drinking wine with your friend, you want to get up and see the
46:41
sunrise. Yes. And guess what? It is ten times better than any
46:45
night out I ever had. Drinking sunrises are where
46:49
it's at. Sunsets I love, too, but I'm usually driving my kids around,
46:53
so I only get them from the car half the time when I. But I
46:56
want to tell you that is how I reward myself now.
46:59
And it hits on all five of my senses.
47:02
Senses in the most magical way. Because I am living
47:06
now from a place where my brain is no longer numbed with
47:11
a neurotoxin. I get to experience it with all five of
47:15
my senses. And that is a reward you should be after. That is
47:20
a juicy carrot you should be dangling in front of you. This alcohol free life
47:23
that everything can start to maximize and feel good
47:27
again. Okay? So I hope you can join me for
47:31
my Love youe Brain and Body event where I'm going to introduce a lot of
47:35
these concepts that can come after you are alcohol
47:38
free. It is something you can aspire to. You can learn a little
47:42
bit about it and go be like, I want that. I'm in my
47:46
40s. I am 10 times healthier than I was in my
47:50
30s. My skin looks 10 times better.
47:53
My eyes look 10 times more clear. I have a relationship
47:57
with my body now that is so much healthier than I
48:01
did when I was in my 30s. The way I exercise now is no
48:05
longer coming from this place of like, I want to be skinny. And I'm punishing
48:08
myself for what I ate and I'm punishing myself for what I drank. And I'm
48:12
going to deprive myself of this food because I'm trying to
48:15
course correct from all my bad behavior. It was so unhealthy,
48:19
right? And it was so normalized too.
48:23
Now I literally approach my diet
48:26
and my food as I'm nourishing myself. I am
48:30
feeding my body what it needs. I am giving my brain what it needs.
48:33
I am feeding my hormones so that I can achieve optimal balance all month
48:38
long. And it has nothing to do with being skinny.
48:42
It has everything to do with about taking the best care of
48:46
myself. It has completely changed my relationship with my, with my brain
48:50
and body, my self esteem, my confidence again. And it all started with
48:54
getting alcohol free. So I hope you can join
48:58
me for this next event. It has been an absolute honor and pleasure to have
49:03
been with you for Dry January. And if you haven't
49:07
taken me up on my free coaching call, this is
49:11
the last day to schedule it. Okay,
49:15
you can schedule it into next week, but this is the last day
49:18
that I will be taking scheduling
49:22
for that free call that was included during Dry January.
49:27
And I
49:31
am just so proud of you guys. 31 days of growth.
49:35
31 days of reconnecting to yourself.
49:38
31 days of challenging, of going against the grain,
49:42
of swimming upstream and being brave enough to do this. In a world obsessed
49:47
with alcohol, you are a trailblazer. You are
49:51
a pioneer. So never underestimate what you've done this month.
49:55
Even if you just reduced your drinking, even if you just cut it
49:58
down by a few days, the wheels are in motion.
50:03
So keep looking ahead. Keep visualizing just
50:07
how good it can be. Surround yourself with supportive information.
50:12
Reach out if you want to set up some one on one coaching because
50:16
that is where next level growth can happen.
50:20
As always, I am with you.
50:24
You got this.
50:34
Hey team, you've just listened to an episode of Find Myself Free and
50:39
if some part of this left you wanting more, if your curiosity has been piqued
50:43
and your intuition is telling you I'm ready for more, I'm ready to look
50:47
at my relationship to alcohol and find out just how much it's holding me back.
50:51
Then check out my coaching offers@findmyselffree.com for those ready
50:56
to kickstart a change privately on their own time, I offered the BRAVE course,
51:00
a seven day program to shift your mindset around alcohol and
51:04
connect with your future self. This is chock full of all the
51:08
information that was key to my transformation. If you are looking
51:13
for additional support, I also offer one on one coaching. I worked
51:17
with a coach for four months at the start of my alcohol free journey and
51:20
it made all the difference. Being able to talk to someone who knew what I
51:24
was going through and could help me navigate my new world gave me a foundation
51:28
of support I could build on and it's a big reason why I'm a coach
51:31
today. I want to help others find their freedom and level up
51:35
their health. If this sounds good to you, then connect with
51:38
me@findmyselffree.com Listen to that intuition that was telling
51:43
you you are meant for more. I'm with you. You got this.