How to stop overdrinking

Good morning ladies, welcome to the podcast, welcome to episode 31. If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a lovely Christmas celebration, and I hope you got to spend time with friends and family and got to really have some time for yourself during this time.

So a lot of my clients have struggled with over-drinking during the holiday season. And so, over-drinking often comes hand in hand with overeating. So between the Christmas and the new year period, I thought I'd do this podcast for you today so that it can help you on your journey if that is something that you struggle with. And if that's something that you don't struggle with, it will still be a really valuable episode for you because the same thing that we do with alcohol, we often use with food.

So if we end up over-drinking, it's the same neural pathway that will cause the overeating. So it will still be useful for you, but when I'm talking about the drinking, you can just change it in your mind to the eating or any other behaviour that you're doing, that you do not want to be doing.

Right. So. When we're thinking about overeating, over-drinking, overworking, overexercising, over-cleaning, over-Facebooking, over Netflixing. Any of these things are buffering behaviours. And what that means is it is a behaviour that gives us a big dopamine hit in the moment, which is that feel good hormone in our brain so we feel really good. When we've done that one thing, we feel like that is the best thing. And our brain is primed to think that when we get a big dopamine hit in our brain, that that is actually essential for our survival, so we should do more and more of it, which is why the majority of the population struggles with overeating, overdrinking, or doing one of these buffering behaviours.

Now, the reason for that is a lot of sugar and flour, a lot of alcohol, a lot of Netflix, all of these kinds of things are very concentrated pleasures. So instead of the natural pleasures that will give a small hit of dopamine in our brain, these concentrated pleasures give us a huge hit and make our brain think that, oh my gosh, this is really essential for our survival, because we got so much dopamine when we drank the alcohol or when we watched the Netflix or when we gambled or when we watched the porn or when we went on Facebook and scrolled. Right? So what I want you to think about is when we are doing this, we feel good in the moment, but then there's always a net negative.

So it may be that you've been using alcohol to enjoy yourself. And it may be that you've been over-drinking during this holiday season and it may feel amazing in the moment. You may feel absolutely amazing, but then there's always a net negative. And for you, the net negatives may be that you feel hungover the next day.

You feel very tired and sluggish. You end up waking up late and then waste the next day. You end up overeating the next day because the alcohol is still in your system and you may be feeling sorry for yourself. So you may end up having more naps or not doing the things that you had planned. All of these things are the net negatives that you may see.

So. If over-drinking is something that is a problem for you, what would be useful is if you start using that prefrontal cortex over the primitive brain. So remember the primitive brain wants you to seek pleasure, avoid pain and stay how you are. That is the role of the primitive brain. It wants you to survive and its only reason for being there is to ensure your survival. So that's why it's always going to provide urges. And it's always going to want you to do the things that are going to give it the biggest dopamine hit, because it thinks that that's essential for my survival.

And remember, the prefrontal cortex is that human part of our brain, it's the part of our brain that thinks of our greater good. It's the part of our brain that thinks about following through with our plans. We call it the human part of our brain because only humans have this ability to think about our thinking, to think about our goals and to have an opinion on it.

And so what you want to try and do is that primitive brain is like that habit brain - the one that will always go to what you've always done. So if you've always overdrank at a party, your primitive brain will want to do what you've always done. It will want to seek that pleasure from the alcohol. It will want to avoid the pain of saying no to the alcohol and it will want to stay as you are.

So if you've always over drank at a party, it will want to do the same. It may not also be at a party. It may be that you just want to drink when you get home from work, it may mean that you have always needed a glass of wine to relax. And so you're going back to that glass of wine every single time, when you feel like you need to relax.

So I want you to think about what is the emotion that you are trying to avoid when you're drinking alcohol? Is it that you are trying to avoid the discomfort of feeling emotionally tired after a long day? Is it that you are feeling stressed? Is it that you're feeling lonely?

So what is that emotion that you're trying to avoid when you're drinking the alcohol? It may not be an emotion that you're trying to avoid, but it may be an emotion that you're trying to seek. So is there an emotion that you would like to feel so it could be, I'd like to feel involved. I'd like to feel excited. I'd like to feel connected. I'd like to feel loved. And a lot of my clients, what they say is that they drink with their partners because that's something that they've always done and that when they don't do that, then they feel like they are not showing love and affection to their partners.

So that's where we really delve into is the alcohol the thing that provides that love and connection, or is it actually your thoughts about the other person? And it's always your thoughts about the other person. Alcohol goes in the circumstance line of the model then. So it is a fact that doesn't create that feeling of love.

The thing that creates that feeling of love towards your partner is the thoughts that you have about him or her, right?

So the next thing is thinking about what would it be like if you didn't have the option of over-drinking? What would your night to be like, if you always over-drink at a party, what would the party be like if you didn't drink? And you're not doing that from a place of I'm going to deprive myself, but you're just exploring, you're just kind of thinking, what would it be like? How could I consider this? What would my experience be like?

And that is a really good exercise to think, if I really think that it will be so boring, am I drinking because I want to avoid the boredom? If I think it will be super exciting then am I drinking because I want to feel excited? So that's the kind of thing that will really help you notice what kind of emotions you are trying to go towards or trying to avoid.

And then you can ask yourself, how can I create those emotions without needing alcohol? So practically when you're actually in the moment, what you can do is you want to be able to create a drink plan from thinking about your compelling reasons. You want to think about why do I want to control the amount of alcohol that I'm drinking or not drink, depending on what you decide.

So think about what is the reason that I want to do this and then create the plan from that place and make it doable. So make it like, as if it's a very obvious plan. I'm going to drink this amount of alcohol on this date, and then you can write the reason why you'd want to do that.

And I want you to also think about they're all going to be obstacles that come up. What are these obstacles going to be? We need to list them, list down all the obstacles that are going to come up. And then I want you to think about how can I solve for them in advance? What will that actually do for me?

And it's going to be one of those things where you're going to be like, okay. Yeah, that's all well and good, but how do I actually stick to that? So that's when you want to develop that relationship with yourself, that I do what I say I'm going to do. I also want you to think about that you have a primitive brain, your primitive brain is primed for you to want to seek pleasure, avoid pain and stay how you are.

You may have done that by using alcohol in the past. It's not about getting it perfect. It's about trying, it's about giving a go, it's about evaluating every time you do it, you're not going to get it perfect first time round. But what you want to do is you want to try and look at the reasons that you're doing it.

Some of my clients want to fully give up alcohol and some of them want to decrease the amount that they're drinking and drink in a much more controlled and mindful way. So you get to decide what you want it to be like for you. I want you to then, when you follow through and when you've processed those urges in the moment, I want you to reward yourself and I want you to really celebrate the hell out of that.

That is such a big deal. You are doing something hard. You're challenging yourself and it deserves a lot of reward. So want you to reward yourself for this.

I'm going to give you some examples now, because I know that examples always help. So I've got this one client who always wants to drink after a long day at work.

She sometimes plans for it and sometimes doesn't plan for it. When she plans for it, she sometimes sticks to that plan and sometimes she doesn't. So we really worked through how can we make a plan that was actually really doable for her so that she could actually stick to it. And initially it was actually just planning how much she was currently drinking, but so that she didn't have that guilt and that disappointment when she didn't stick to it.

So when we were planning what she was actually drinking, it was giving her firstly awareness of how much she was drinking. And secondly, it was getting rid of the judgment and self criticism that was going on after she had made a very strict plan for herself and not stuck to it.

The next thing she worked on when we were in our coaching relationship was if she planned for one, what would come up? So we looked at, she would then get an urge for another. And what were the kinds of things that she was thinking that was causing that? And how can we redirect our thinking to something different that would actually be useful.

And that would help her stick to that plan. That was really useful for her, because then what she was able to do is she was able to plan for the one and stick to it, but it didn't happen just the first time. It took weeks and weeks of really getting to the bottom of what obstacles were coming up for her and how could we solve for those obstacles?

So the reason I tell you this story is because a lot of people think, oh, well, I've made the plan and I didn't stick to it. So I'm a failure. So I'm not going to try again, but you only fail when you give up and if you're giving up, then you're never going to learn from it. Right? Whereas if you say to yourself, I'm not going to think of it as a failure, I'm going to think of it as I'm either winning or I'm learning.

And I'm going to choose to always learn from it. Then that allows you to use that failure to actually create that success that you're so craving for. Another one of my clients, she would always drink with her friends and so she feared being antisocial. She thought that if I didn't drink with my friends, then I couldn't go out.

So we really worked on how could she go out with her friends and not drink if she chose not to. And what she had to deal with was a lot of the social anxiety that she had of going out with these people. She had to deal with being judged by these people. She had to deal with her discomfort of saying no to the alcohol.

So when we were able to deal with all of this, this not only helped her weight loss journey, but it also helped with the amount she was drinking. And she felt so much more in control. And she felt so much more confident and empowered that this spilled over into all areas of her life. She was able to do the work do's as well. And I know that for most of my clients, this is where they struggle, especially if they have banter with their work colleagues and things like that. This also allowed her to, if she did want to drink, be able to stick to that, if she said she's only going to have two glasses of wine, she was able to actually stick to that.

And this actually aided her in her weight loss journey as well, which is so fun because when you learn the urge management in one area of your life, it can just be applied to all the other areas of your life, which is why your whole life improves when you get coached. So if you would like to practice it with regards to the food or with regards to the alcohol, it will help all other areas for you.

Another thing that came up for one of my clients was that she would always plan for one, but she would end up having more because the alcohol actually clouded her judgment. So then she'd end up beating herself up and then end up drinking more and more and more. So what we worked on with her was allowing herself to either plan for more or working on the not beating herself up when she drank.

Because what tended to happen is when she planned for one and then ended up having two, and what she did was then think that she'd failed and then she'd end up having four or five, six. So instead of having the two and making peace with that, she would end up having way more. And that would actually worsen things because she would then build up the neural pathway that I can't do this. And this is too hard for me. And the only way to get out of this is to drink more and more because she wanted to numb out those feelings. Right?

So we really worked on, okay, how can she learn how to have compassion for herself and love for herself in that moment so that she didn't have to go in that all or nothing thinking. She didn't have to think in that black and white terms, there were loads of shades of grey in between, and she could access those shades of grey when she decided to have compassion for herself.

So. My story. I have chosen not to drink for a long time. Now, actually I used to drink alcohol and I had some times where I drank too much. It, this is mainly in my university days and before I got married , but I used to drink because I actually enjoyed the effect it would have. And the main reason why I used to drink is because I wanted to enjoy myself.

And that really helped me enjoy myself and looking back on it now, I didn't know about this then, but it's because I wanted to numb out the social anxiety that I felt of being in some of the groups of friends that I was with. So. I would drink because that would allow me to be confident and I thought more of myself.

But what I'm realising now is that it actually was allowing me to numb out some of those negative emotions that I didn't want to feel. And so there was this one situation where I drank too much and my mum said to me, oh my gosh, you just cannot carry on drinking like this. What is this? Now I'm making myself sound like I did this often.

I didn't do it often. But I noticed that actually I didn't like that sensation that it gave me. I didn't like the way I showed up. So one day I just decided I don't actually like the taste of alcohol. I don't actually drink that much. What would it be like if I didn't drink? So I did that the first time and it was a bit uncomfortable because I had more fun when I drank.

So I thought, right. But then what I decided was I was I'm just going to try it again. And again, each time I made that decision, I'm just gonna not drink today. I didn't mind doing the driving and things like that. So I was always the driver. And each time I had to deal with that discomfort or friends and family saying, oh, why aren't you drinking? What? Well, you know, you're being the party pooper, you know, just drink today, it's just today.  You know, things like that. And the more and more I was able to say, well, actually, no, I'm fine. Thank you. It was allowing me to deal with the alcohol pushers.

So last week's episode was on food pushers. This is very similar with the alcohol pushers. So the more discomfort I was willing to go through with each moment, the better I was at following through with that. So. It was a journey where now I don't actually drink any alcohol at all and I don't miss it at all, but I was only able to do that because each and every time I made that decision and I remade that decision that I wanted to stick to that, but I don't drink any alcohol anymore.

And prior to even deciding that I used to think, what would it be like to not drink? And that was really phenomenal for me because I'd always drank a little bit because I wanted to get tipsy and I wanted to have that sensation. But then I was like, well, actually, this isn't helping me at all.

This isn't really me. I'm already quite a jolly person. I love dancing and things like that. So I would do that anyway. So what is the alcohol really adding? So when I was able to come to terms with that, actually I didn't really need the alcohol and yeah, it would be uncomfortable for a few times, but actually then it would get easier and easier.

That was my journey for giving up alcohol. And now I don't actually drink and I actually much prefer it when I don't drink. So this same thing can be applied to your weight loss journey as well. If you think of it as this is such a big journey, I've got so much weight to lose. This is going to be so hard. Then you're going to make it hard.

Whereas if you think I'm just going to do it one day at a time, every day, I'm going to recommit to my goal every day. I'm going to remind myself why I'm doing this and why it's important to me. And then it doesn't have to be a big deal. It can just be, I'm just going to get through this one day without. And that is how you can apply the same process to the overdrinking, to the overeating, to the over procrastinating, to the overporning, to the over-gambling, whichever thing that you are using and just recommit every day. It doesn't have to be, oh my gosh, I can't survive without a drink and things like that.

Right. And if you are addicted to alcohol, then this isn't the podcast for you. Then I would advise you to seek help from the addiction services in your area. But if you know that you are drinking more than you would like to then practice this process that I have taught you. And let me know how it goes.

I'd love to hear from you. This is the last episode of the year, so I wish you a very happy new year and I will see you in the new year. All right, ladies, take care. Bye-bye.