ABOUT THE HELLO SOMEDAY PODCAST FOR SOBER CURIOUS WOMEN

Are you looking for the best sobriety podcast for women? The Hello Someday Podcast was created specifically for sober curious women and gray area drinkers ready to stop drinking, drink less and change their relationship with alcohol.

Host Casey McGuire Davidson, a certified life and sobriety coach and creator of The 30-Day Guide to Quitting Drinking and The Sobriety Starter Kit Sober Coaching Course, brings together her experience of quitting drinking while navigating work and motherhood, along with the voices of experts in personal development, self-care, addiction and recovery and self-improvement. 

Whether you know you want to stop drinking and live an alcohol-free life, are sober curious, or are in recovery this is the best sobriety podcast for you.

A Top 100 Mental Health Podcast, ranked in the top 1% of podcasts globally, The Hello Someday Podcast is the best sobriety podcast for women.

In each episode Casey will share the tried and true secrets of how to drink less and live more.

Learn how to let go of alcohol as a coping mechanism, how to shift your mindset about sobriety and change your drinking habits, how to create healthy routines to cope with anxiety, people pleasing and perfectionism, the importance of self-care in early sobriety, and why you don’t need to be an alcoholic to live an alcohol-free life. 

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How To Quit Alcohol with Danni Carr

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, people, alcohol, listening, feel, nervous system, yoga Nidra, important, day, big, kids, podcast, wake, unpack, good, night, friends, life, quit, talking, self-compassion, self-help, self-soothing, self-regulate, self-conscious, self-help

Quit Alcohol

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Danni Carr

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a buzz, how to sit with your emotions when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

Hi there. Today we’re talking with Danni Carr, who is a Trauma-Informed Sobriety Coach and Breathwork and Meditation Teacher, who uses Dr. Gabor Maté’s, The Compassionate Inquiry® to healing and Coaching.

Danni is the host of the How I Quit Alcohol podcast and has successfully worked with hundreds of people to find healing and liberation from alcohol and negative patterns.  

So, Danni, thank you so much for joining me.

 

01:50

Hi, Casey. Thanks so much for having me.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  01:54

Yeah, I was saying that I reached out to you to have this conversation because I’m a big fan of your podcast. And every time I look in Apple podcasts about what people are listening to. They often listen to both by podcast in your podcast, so I thought it would be a great conversation.

 

02:14

Amazing. That’s so cool. I’m so glad to be in such great company.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  02:18

Yeah, yeah. Well, so just to get started. I know you’re from Australia. But will you tell us a little bit about your story? And you know, how you quit alcohol? Why you quit alcohol?

 

02:30

Well, yes. So, I’m in Australia, obviously. And we’ve been quit now for just over five years. And so, my husband and I have both sort of been together for about 20 years and been in, in the music industry. My husband’s a musician, I’m a musician, but just heavily involved in that, you know, the music industry here in Australia. And the drinking culture is huge. I mean, the drinking culture in Australia is huge. But within the music industry, it’s massive. And I guess it’s the same everywhere. But I grew up in a country town, very small country town in central Victoria, in Australia. And as kids, we had nothing to do on the weekends, there was literally nothing to do so we drank. And I think I had my first drink when I was 13 years old. And I just remember feeling, okay, this feels good. I felt confident. And I felt like I fit it in. And fitting in, I think was something that was really important to me, which I didn’t understand more until recent times, I guess, doing the compassionate inquiry work. But so, I guess that’s just what we did. Then every weekend, every single weekend, just getting absolutely trashed as kids, you know, Friday, Saturday drinking of, I don’t know if you’d call it in America, but it’s a cask of wine, you know, like the big, we would drink that get hammered. And that kind of pattern continued.

 

Then into my 20s. When I met Ash in my early 20s, we got together drinking. We met in a pub that we’re both playing music at, got drunk, hooked up, you know, and it just kept going like that until it was just getting, I guess more and more frequent as well. When you’re younger, and you’re having these big blackout drinking sessions. You kind of get up and you dust yourself off. But sort of actually leave it probably for another week. But as I was getting older, it was becoming more and more frequent. And then, Ash would be away on like, you’d be away touring. So, I would start drinking as well. I guess because I was lonely. And I wasn’t blackout drinking.

 

Then we had kids, we got two daughters. So, I was probably trying to control it a bit more but when he’d come home, it was just on, like, we just be drinking and just blacking out and it’s getting to the point where I couldn’t remember putting my kids to bed. I couldn’t remember if I’d even fed them the night before. You know. So, waking up in the morning with that panic. I have like, Oh my God, where are the kids? Oh my god, did I feed them? Have they got a nappy on? You know, all those things, and just that, oh my God, just the panic, you know, get up and look for evidence that I’ve fed them or look for evidence that their teeth are brushed. They’re in their beds, nappies on, you know, and the heart would be racing. And I’m not just that was also you know, the questionable behavior, like going through my phone, who did I call last night, I was just the worst blackout drunk. So, I’d wake up, honestly, having no idea of what had gone on the night before seeing messages on my phone, or looking at my call list to see who had called and how long had spoken to them for. And you know, like seeing a call that might have been 40 minutes long, just getting this sick feeling in my stomach going. I don’t remember that conversation. What the hell did I say? And so, I guess just that on repeat, every week and or a few times a week are just sick of it and are starting to really not like who I was, I was like, Who? Who are you? Why? Why are you like this? That’s it, you’ve got to stop.

 

You know, and then I’ll try and stop. And I would stop for a couple of weeks or even a month sometimes. And then okay, I’ve got this. I can moderate now. And then I would just be back where I started. You know, sometimes men managed to moderate that it never stuck. Yeah.

 

So yeah. But just this whole continual thing of waking up hating myself, not trusting myself when I would drink as well, like, who am I going to be this time? Or what am I going to do? And I just got absolutely sick to death of it. So, we decided, a friend of mine said she was taking a year off alcohol. And I thought, right, she’s one of my best friends and someone I drink a lot with. I thought Great, this is all this is what I need.

 

So, one of my besties saying they’re taking a year off, I can do it too, then I’ve got, I don’t have to explain, you know, just doing what she’s doing. It’s like, gave me permission to take the time off. I said to Ash, I mean, our relationship was suffering too, because of it like massive fights, you know, just drinking that much alcohol and being completely smashed. It’s not conducive to a great relationship. So, yeah, he said, Yeah, I’m going to do it as well. And then a couple of other mutual friends as well. And some, some other musicians here in Australia said, Yep, we’re in as well. We’ll do it to sort of group. Yeah, it was so cool to have this camaraderie with other people and friends who are all massive drinkers that were big, big drinkers. Although, we weren’t daily drinkers, we will definitely be binge drinkers. And it was really cool, because it’s sort of caught like this a group of cool people doing cool things. But we all just decided to do this together. And that’s how it started.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  07:53

That’s incredible. How old are your kids when you decided to take that year off of drinking?

 

08:00

Yeah, so our eldest Sonny, she would have been, I think eight and a half, nearly nine years old. And Arya would have been about six.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  08:08

So okay, yeah, I finally stopped drinking when my son was eight years old, and my daughter was two. But when you were talking about just blackouts, and not remembering things, and trying to put the pieces together, I was the exact same way that remembering shows that I watched or, you know, I would even go to San Francisco with a girlfriend and wake up the next morning and be like, Oh, God, I didn’t call my husband and my son and she was like, Yeah, you FaceTime with them for a really long time. And I had no recollection of it. So, I mean, I completely feel what that feels like and how it can seem like a good time in the moment and then looking back you’re just like what was going on?

 

08:55

You so right, it’s like it’s a good time in the moment but when you wake up the next day and you get that feeling in the pit of your stomach I think that’s a good indicator if it needs to be looked at to you how you feel about yourself the next day. Oh, God, even you saying that has just been my tummy flip over because just that feeling I’m just so glad to not feel that feeling.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  09:21

Yeah, well, I have to admit that like I yesterday, went out to brunch came home and was really sick. It was a really nice place, so I had no idea why but like, on my knees throwing up climbing into bed feeling ill still don’t feel good today. And I can’t believe I used to live like that, like on a regular basis. I you know, we’re always like, oh, in sobriety you need to take breaks and regroup. And people resist that. Right? They’re like, I can’t I have so much to do, but I did nothing yesterday and it was just because I was so They can that used to happen all the time.

 

10:02

Yeah, it’s so weird when you I’ve had something similar recently where I had a funny tummy. And saying to my husband, my God, this was like, it just took me out for the day. I just felt terrible, just and I just had to lay around in bed. And I was saying to him caught, this used to be really like a regular occurrence. I think you just don’t get a lot done either. You realize, like, I was so productive now. Like, yeah, she’s What the hell do I do? Like I was just laying around. feeling sorry for myself licking my wounds.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  10:33

I know, just like beating yourself up at least yesterday, when I was sick. I was. I wasn’t like, oh my god, this is my fault, because I’m a horrible person and a nightmare. And I was just like, this sucks. But so, it sounds like, and I know, this isn’t true that you were incredibly lucky in that. I mean, suddenly, you had a huge group of friends all decide including your spouse to stop drinking at once. Was it something that you guys had talked about in advance or worried about your drinking with the group or anything like that are totally spontaneous.

 

11:11

There was only there were six of us. I guess we’d all talked about it individually. to each other at times. We were pretty all very close friends. Yeah. So, there are obviously people there was one couple, we hung around with a lot. One of the guys played music with ash, with my husband. And like he in particular was a huge drinker. And so oftentimes, you know, you wake up the next day, and hahaha, laugh it off. But then sometimes we’d have this conversation like she’d really wasted last night or pointing out the other one’s behavior. And so, we’d have the chat, and sometimes saying, God, I got to stop. I really want to stop. For a while, I feel terrible. And then probably one of the others would say, you’re okay, don’t worry about it. Let’s, let’s have another, you know, we’ll have another session. Some of us had, you know, raised the issue, I guess that, yeah, they wanted to stop or want to have a break. I guess once one of the friends said, I’m taking time off. And then, once I said it, I said it to Ash, we mentioned it to this other couple who they were just like, wearing doing it too. And yet, just sort of happened like that.

 

So, we started a little WhatsApp group at the time Ash and I were living in Bali. So, we started the WhatsApp group tonight. So, we would just contact each other all the time. So, if we were going somewhere, or if we’re going to a show, or we were traveling with say, oh my god, I’m at the airport, and there’s free wine here in the lounge. And then someone else would jump in and go, just go, don’t look at it, go get a cup of tea, you know, go do something else. Or, you know, one of the boys had a big show on, it’s a you know, like, go backstage and there’s beer everywhere. And you know, and so someone else would see that and jump in and comment and help them through that. It was just incredible. I definitely got all of us through that will actually couple people fell off. But you got the core group of us, it got us through.

 

And I remember, one day, is probably about six months in. And we were asked was on to where we’re staying, somewhere in Western Australia. It’s the Wine Country, this sort of wine capital over there. It’s called Margaret River. And I was cooking. And I love to cook and I’m making this pasture. And I’d like to sneak some wine in it. So, I thought I’d go down to the bottle shop and get some wine. Because I buy like a $55 bottle of wine. I mean, obviously I wasn’t you know, normally to cook with you buy like a cheap shitty bottle. And then I just started contemplating having a glass and I was such a good bottle of wine. I don’t know, waste, it smells really good. And I was pretty close to drinking or really started to really take over. And that was the pack that was like if we’re ever going to drink, we have to message first in to the group. So, I just said hey, I think I’m going to drink. Fuck it. I’m just going to drink and then one of them just said, Put the fucking drink down, go make a cup of tea. Go sit outside and take a moment just to have the cup of tea first. And I did and I just came to my senses and went and took the wine out and oh god, I was so glad that was available, you know, that support it made all the difference. I would have drunk for sure.

 

It’s incredible that you sort of created that on your own because I know so many people rely on, and I did to like sort of Facebook communities of other people you know starting off or I always call it like your sober littermates the people who start right around you and kind of hit the milestones at the same time and you were able to create that with your drinking friends. I mean that’s like the dream, right?

 

14:57

It was so awesome. Really honest. It made all the difference. And it just happened organically. Like I didn’t understand back then about the importance of connection. And all those things. It just, it’s just how it happened. So yeah, it was great. It was really good.

Casey McGuire Davidson 

Hi there. If you’re listening to this episode, and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, The Sobriety Starter Kit.

 

The Sobriety Starter Kit is an online self study sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step by step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one on one coaching. And the sobriety starter kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it. And when it fits into your schedule. You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time.

This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step by step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking, from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better. You’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach, you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course 

Casey McGuire Davidson  15:12

Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. And so, you and your husband, you haven’t drank since is that right? No, that’s incredible.

 

15:20

Yeah, I know, I just honestly, I’m so grateful every day, and I just feel like, I never want to go back to that place. It got pretty dark for a while, you know, just that constant waking up. hating myself. judging myself criticizing myself. It took a long time to change that way of thinking as well. Like, pretty early on, I started to notice the way I was talking to myself, and noticing, I’d still wake up with a feeling of dread. Sometimes I’d wake up going, what did you do? And then realizing oh, no, no, you didn’t? You didn’t do anything last night. You didn’t even drink? Wow. And then, so I’d say to myself, Oh, God, Danni, well done, well done. And I’ll try and say something nice to myself.

 

Yeah. Because I was so used to for decades waking up going, you fucking idiot. Look, you’ve done it again. What have you done? Oh, my guess is hard with speaking to myself. I was so sick; I trained my brain to speak terribly to myself. So, I really started to make a conscious effort to change the way I spoke to myself. And every morning, I’d wake up and try and say something nice to myself. And well done. Well done. Now we’re okay. We’re still, Yeah, we’re still okay.

 

Oh, I never want to go back there. Honestly, Casey, I’ll just never go back there. And that’s that was what kept me going. was just like, well, you’ve had a month of not waking up hating, you know, not feeling that dread and not hating yourself. Keep going, keep going. And sometimes if the thought for a drink came, I think, not I know where this is going to lead. I know how I know how I’m going to feel if I wake up the next day, and I’ve drunk, and I can’t remember the whole night. No, keep going, keep going. And kept just thinking about that good feeling of how that felt not wake up feeling like that kept me going.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  17:09

Yeah, it’s so funny. Because I think you know, you know this to talking to so many people who stopped drinking, your lives can be completely different. And yet that voice the way you speak to yourself, either at 3am, or the next morning is no similar. I mean, I used to wake up, and the first thought that popped into my mind was like, What the fuck is wrong with you get your shit together. Like without fail. That was like the voice on repeat. And my favorite thing now is like rolling over in the morning. And just the thoughts that go through my head are like, Oh, is it raining today? Or like, got the coffee smells good? Or, Oh, I couldn’t fall asleep last night. But it’s not. You know, what the fuck is wrong with you? It’s just, it’s just without judgment or hate or any of that

 

18:04

crap? Yeah, it makes such a big difference, doesn’t it? Yes. To not have that. That horrible way of speaking to yourself. Yeah, don’t you realize?

 

I realized now, obviously, five years of speaking really well to myself and really working on that, my relationship with myself. I always.. I feel so sad thinking about that. And I feel like oh, gosh, you poor thing. You’re so precious. You’re so… you’re such a beautiful human. And look how you traded yourself for so long.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  18:37

Yeah. And you were using wind to like, take care of yourself or reward yourself or have fun. And so, I’m curious, I can hear it in the way you’re talking about sort of like the pieces. I mean, self-compassion, looking into why you’re doing stuff. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got into compassionate inquiry and what that’s reprocess? And training was like,

 

19:06

Yeah, that was just a lucky accident as well. I’ve just been, I guess, reading a lot. I read a lot of self-help style books. It all started with listening to Oprah Winfrey. And listening to her podcast, and I’d start, you know, listen to one of her guests. And then I’d go and buy their book and read it. And I got really heavily into Wayne Dyer started with him. And that was the other thing. Early on in the journey. Every day, I made sure I listened to or read something that was really helpful like that. So, lots of Wayne. I loved Wayne. And I guess one thing led to the other and I just got more and more interested in the psychology of addiction. And even though I wouldn’t classify myself as an addict, but I was still doing a repetitive behavior that was not helpful. And that was an addictive substance. And a friend mindset, an amazing psychotherapist here, trauma informed psychotherapist, and we were walking one day and we’re talking about my own childhood. And she was saying about trauma, and I was like, oh, no, no, I didn’t have trauma. I was really lucky. kind of had a great I know, I didn’t have a great childhood, but no, no, it was, it was okay. There wasn’t as bad as some people. And then she said all that.

 

Yeah, that’s just with minimizing your stuff, you know, and I had my mom’s a pretty heavy drug addict with prescription pills. And, you know, there’s a whole lot of stuff there. Anyway, she said, There’s trauma there, Danni, like, go and read this book by this guy, Pete Walker. And it’s called it’s, it’s called Pete Walker CPTSD surviving to thriving. So read that. And I got really interested in this in trauma and like the small traumas and how they’ve kind of built up and inform the way that we kind of form our personalities, and our coping mechanisms. So, I got into that.

 

So, this is a really long answer to question. And then she told me, she said, if you like that, check out this guy, Gabor Maté. He’s amazing. So, I watched some clips on Gabor, and I was like, Oh, wow, like everything. He said, I was like, Oh, gee, Oh, wow. So, I started doing a deep dive into him and listening to everything I could. And then I just noticed that he had some online self-paced courses. So, I thought, oh, yeah, so I did those. And I really liked what he did. Then I jumped in and did a, like a was like, over three weekends, The Compassionate Inquiry® Course. So, did that and actually got to have a one-on-one with him.

 

Wow. Which was really cool. And at the time, my dad had just been diagnosed with lung cancer. He’s, uh, he had lung cancer. That’s right. And he’d come back at that stage and my mom’s drug taking went berserk and went through the roof. And there was a lot going on, and I had this knot in my stomach. And it was a horrible, debilitating knot, which I’d always get. I always said ash, of course, these are than not My stomach’s back, and I’d be scared I was going to get stomach cancer, because it’s not.

Anyway, Gabor said to me, I said, I’ve got to get rid of this knot in my stomach. I can’t get rid of it. It’s driving me crazy. And I do. Yeah. And I’ve been sober for a while. I do all the stuff. I do the breath work on the beach, I walk every day I do yoga, and it just won’t go. It won’t go, how do I get rid of it? And he just paused and looked at me. And he said, Why are you trying to get rid of a part of yourself? That’s just trying to tell you something. And I was like, what? Well, what am I getting? I know, but it’s got to go. And he said, No. He said, if someone’s knocking at your door, and you keep pushing them out, what are they going to do it, they’re going to keep knocking louder than they’re going to want to get back in. And he said, of course, you’ve got tightness in your stomach. You’re upset. Your dad’s lung cancer has come back. Your mom’s drug takings go through the roof. It’s just trying to tell you that there’s upset there, and it needs attention. So rather than try and get rid of it, why don’t you welcome it in and give it the attention that it wants. Don’t try and get rid of it. And that changed everything. I just went. I was so mind blown. So, I did. I sat there with it. And I just welcomed it. I sat there and I experienced it. I didn’t try get rid of it. And it went, it actually just went. And now I realized, every time that shows up, I can be with it.

 

So, then I started to realize, oh, wow, this, this guy is amazing, and said that. I just signed up straightaway for The Compassionate Inquiry® Course for a year. And that’s what I do. I’m so passionate about it, about realizing our triggers, cravings, all these things that show up for us taking them as an opportunity to learn from them. And so, to get into a relationship, also with your cravings that show up from jumping ahead here. But trying to understand and unpack and learn from that. It’s like it’s a protector. And it’s trying to say, hey, something’s wrong, something’s wrong here. I need attention. So, whatever that is big emotional response to the feeling in the body for massive craving for alcohol, or whatever it is, that we might be seeking pleasure from, or if we’re wanting to self soothe with something. So, the alcohol is just a symptom of something more underlying so it’s just saying, hey, there’s something here to work on. So that’s that, I just went so deep into that kind of work and learning from Gabor. And then, of course, other people that you learn from within that community as well. And it’s been life changing for myself, firstly, and then I’ve been able to work with a lot of people in that space using that card and it doesn’t work for everyone. Not everyone’s into it. Some people just like not just to it’s not for me, I just like I just want to talk about it, or I just want you to tell me how to get rid of the craving. It’s that’s not how work.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  25:00

I think that’s so interesting. You know, I remember the first book of his that I was introduced to was long before I stopped drinking. And probably before I really was even aware of how much of a problem it was. But it was when the body says no. And I think one of my, whether she was a massage therapist, but also sort of Reiki, gave it to me, and I just marked up and underlined. And I felt like everything I was reading was just blowing my mind. And yet, you learn all that, and then I kept drinking for another decade, probably, you know, to try to get rid of all those symptoms, that, you know, it just got so complicated. So, I love that your work is to sort of piece those apart and get underneath, you know, what’s going on?

 

26:01

Well, I guess if we don’t understand what’s driving us to the drink, or to the addictive behavior, how are we going to fix it? So, one thing I will say is, find out what’s right about it, what’s to do for you? What are you looking for in it? And then you can sort of unpack Okay, so let’s just say I’m drinking for stress relief. Okay, how am I going to what’s right about it’s okay, so the alcohol helps me switch off. It helps me wind down. Okay, so firstly, how can I give that to myself without the alcohol? But then also, what’s going on for me that I’m getting myself so stressed out? Or what’s the stress all about? What’s behind that, and then really unpacking that, as well. So, there’s kind of two things to look at there. But it’s if we don’t kind of understand what’s driving us to the drink. It’s really hard to change. Long term. If we don’t understand those things. It’s pretty hard to make. It’s I think we’re relying on willpower, perhaps more. Yeah, it’s become scared.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  27:03

Yeah. Well, so question for you. I know you work with people on this. Do you see typical buckets of what’s right about it? What does it do for you? So, stress relief? I completely understand that. You know, typically people are like, I just want to downshift, I want to turn off my mind. I want to forget about everything in my life. And I love that you said both? How can you give that to yourself without alcohol to start? And then also, what is underneath that? That’s getting me to the point where I just want to, you know, basically knock myself unconscious with his substance to get through my life.

 

27:46

Yeah, I guess also, I’m going to be answering your question here. But this is really important is realizing that there is discomfort, there is a discomfort there somewhere, whether it’s that I’m stressed, and I don’t like how that feels. Or I feel self-conscious in a social situation. And I don’t like how that feels. There’s always something that we don’t like how it feels. I’ve got to the end of the week and my nervous systems up here. I don’t like how that feels. So, we go through this self-soothing thing. We disconnect from ourselves more, rather than listening to the body to say, Hey, I’m feeling discomfort. What does that discomfort need? What do I need to alleviate that discomfort? We want alcohol, but it’s not what we need. What we need is perhaps a way of being with what’s showing up. Or more, perhaps, maybe it’s deep breathing or some time in nature, or just to tell yourself, you’re okay. You know, maybe it’s putting a hand on your heart to self-regulate. There’s all sorts of things you can do. But so that’s really important, too. Like, okay, I want something but what do I actually need? is a really important thing to recognize. What was your question? Going on? Well, first.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  28:56

No, I loved it. And I just wrote down, because I wanted to remember it where you said, I want alcohol, but what is it that I need? I think that’s really something important to remember. I was I think I was asking, what are the other common three years you see that? People to drink you meant stressed and then self-conscious discomfort?

 

29:24

Yes. So, a big one for me would have been and a lot of people a lot of big binge drinkers are actually introverts. And they feel like they’re the life of the party. I know. I certainly thought I was the life of the party, big loud person. Actually, I’m quite introverted and I’m quiet. I’m very self-conscious. And I’m, I guess I’ve got maybe two. Well, I’ve probably got some social anxiety. I feel really uncomfortable in a social situation. I feel so uncomfortable and self-conscious around people, I don’t know very well, or if we’re going to a music industry event, or we’re going to get Because of all the cool people, all the beautiful people, I feel so self-conscious. So, I would drink to alleviate that feeling of the discomfort, even though I didn’t realize back then it was there. So now, it shows up. And I can say to myself, are Danni, you’re just feeling uncomfortable. You’re okay, you’re uncomfortable right now. So that’s a big one for a lot of people that they’re self-conscious, or there’s some social anxiety. And they’re doing it for confidence. So, for confidence, for stress relief, for Oblivion, or my reward, or my, I guess, my permission to turn off at the end of the day, or perhaps enough, put the kids to bed, or it’s been a big week at work, here’s my permission to go and turn off that they drink wine or something. So, I’d say to people, that’s a big one, you can still give yourself permission to turn off, go make a cup of tea, and go sit down outside, go to where you’d go. Or say to everyone, I need five minutes, I’m just going to go and have my alcohol free, whatever. And sit and pause, give yourself the permission, you don’t need alcohol, to give you permission to turn off. A lot of people are looking for that, just that break that circuit breaker. So, you can still do that. You still have to deal with alcohol.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  31:17

You know, it’s interesting, I was working with a woman. And she said to me, she was completely overwhelmed with work and life. And she said at one point that she felt like she couldn’t stop working. But when she drank, she couldn’t work, because it was client facing and emails. And so, it was almost like putting forth this external boundary versus saying, this internal boundary where I’m going to stop, and I’m just going to not work that was uncomfortable. So, it’s almost like making yourself uncapable of continuing to do something.

 

31:57

Yeah, that’s really interesting, too. And I wonder if that person, if you if you unpack that with them, to ask you, okay, when was obviously there’s some there’s something there that where she has not been able to have boundaries before or speak up for what she needs. And once. And it’s probably a very old pattern that comes, I’d say from childhood. Yeah.

 

And so, recognizing that that’s what the compassionate inquiry does that you recognize, where did this start? Where did that come from? And when did I disconnect from myself that I wasn’t able to show up? And say, Hey, I’ve got to put this boundary in place. Or, you know, I need to please everyone so that everything’s okay around me. And that pattern just stays with us? Until we’re older. And then the only way we can do that is with alcohol. And people pleasing is a huge one for people we know I’m not good enough. I need to please everyone around me. So that can be a big driver for people as well. What will people think if I don’t drink? Will people still love me if I don’t drink? When? I love Dinge Inge? Yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  33:03

Yeah. What’s your favorite part of when you work with people through this process? Are there different pieces that you really enjoy?

 

33:15

I really love when we unpack. So, we’re doing the compassionate inquiry framework, for example. And when we do that, this sort of unpacking of, okay, so let’s say it’s a someone, then they’re people pleasing, and they’re really realizing that they’re drinking to please everyone else, it’s really common. So, it’s particularly with the social drinkers. And there’s this tendency for people pleasing. And when we start to unpack that, we realize that when they were younger, they had to kind of, to keep to feel safe, you know, so that there was violence in the home or there was, you know, Mom and Dad were working and busy all the time. And they had to be, you know, they had to be the perfect child to kind of keep everyone happy, or that protect the siblings, or they had to behave in a certain way so that everything was okay, at home. And there’s this sort of tendency, then that set up early on, for the people pleasing. And they’ve never put that together, or they see where their past is showing up in the present. And they actually link that together. And there’s this moment of just like, oh, whoa, oh, wow. Okay. And it’s hard to explain. But when you see that happen, and then people put two and two together, it’s not becoming a victim of your past either. It’s, it’s really that’s how you liberate yourself from understanding the cool stuff. Yeah, that’s my favorite moment where people are just like,

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  34:38

Yeah, that’s interesting. I remember going to my therapist, sort of similar to what you said, and was like, I don’t know why this was after I stopped drinking, but was still kind of suffering from anxiety and, and everything else. And was like, I don’t know why I can’t cope. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I had a great life, you know, like, there’s something inherently wrong with me because there’s no reason for this sort of self-sabotaging behavior. And we went back. And she was like, sort of identifying just like, that’s trauma. That’s real. And I was like, no, no, no, it was fine. You know, my parents were diplomats, they traveled a lot. They were very absent. They were you know what I mean? Like, it was very people pleasing, like, they would go play tennis, and at 7am, I would clean the entire house, and then hide, so that when they came home, they would be delighted that the house was clean. I was like, looking back, I was like, wow, that’s messed up. Having kids, my daughter does not do that.

 

35:48

My kids want to make their beds, right.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  35:51

I mean, you know, maybe if you ignored them worked out, Kitty. Let’s screw them up for life. But it was really interesting. Just, you know, she had me look back at some of the things I went through when I was very young, through, you know, my daughter was 2/3/4 years old when I was going through therapy. And she was like, can you imagine putting your daughter in that situation? And that was the first time I had compassion for myself, you know?

 

36:23

Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly right. When we say, you know, someone might be like, Oh, no, no, it was fine. And yeah, there was, you know, Mum, Dad would fight all the time around me, but I would just get my siblings were hiding in a cupboard. And, you know, like, it was scary. But you know, people have this people are much worse off than me. Then I’d say that same kind of thing. Okay, what would it be? What would that what’s it like for a child to have to hide in the cupboard with their siblings? Or would you want that for your own child? And they’re like, No way. Why is it okay for you and not your own child? And then they, then they’re like, ah, and they can see that? Yeah.

 

Like, yeah, even someone recently they were saying, yeah, no, no, my childhood was perfect. My parents were perfect. They’re amazing. And yet this person, everything that was shocking, you know, the huge binge drinker, and they couldn’t cope with any stress. And they were just binge, these massive binges. And they couldn’t stop. But they have this perfect childhood, and then actually unpacking it a bit this, this person had no boundaries, they’re allowed to drink, they’re allowed to do whatever they wanted. And there was literally no discipline, no boundaries in the home. And they were like, best friends with the parents. So, they were thinking, yeah, that was great. But actually, once we unpack that, what’s it like for a child to not have any boundaries? Or they make that mean about themselves? And actually, once you start to unpack, it was a bit like, oh, yeah, maybe, maybe, I’m not important enough to have boundaries. So, you know, there’s that sense of stability. And the sense that I’m loved if there’s boundaries there, too, that this parent cares about me. And so that that can be really eye opening for people too.

 

So, it’s not about also understanding where we weren’t connected, or we didn’t have that relational holding, or we didn’t have that kind of sense of stability from Mum or Dad. And not, it’s not about becoming a victim to that. But seeing that, that was the I mean, mum and dad, obviously, they do the best that they can with what they’ve got, you know, like my parents, my children will probably have issues with my parenting too. Even though I feel like I’m doing my best, but there’s definitely holes there. Yeah, we’re not perfect. And same as my parents weren’t perfect. Like my mom with her drug addiction. She had her own childhood trauma, she just did what she, she soothed herself, the only way she knew how that for me as a child, even though I was loved, and all the rest of it was still coming home to a parent that was passed out on the floor, or never there, because they were offering some kind of opioid pays that I just, I wanted connection, but I couldn’t get it. So, I would have to just go and distract and distract myself or go and play on my own and felt really lonely. And, you know, not important, because if I was important, why wouldn’t you stop this behavior. So even though I was loved, and all the rest of it was pretty hard on a kid.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  39:15

And what’s amazing is you’re breaking that pattern for your own kids, right? Because you could have continued, I’m speaking for myself to going down. You know, I was drinking a bottle of wine every night, and you’re there, but you’re not there. And even when you’re hungover you’re not there. And you’re so consumed with worrying about your drinking and drinking and feeling like garbage. You know, just taking that off the table really allows you to be more present and pick up on more cues for your kids.

 

39:49

Are you so much more in tune because we like to say yeah, when you’re drinking even like the bedtime routine, you kind of rush it or pass it off to someone else. Can you go do that? Can you put kids to bed for me? Well, I’m glad blog. So, all those little moments that you miss out on a mind you, I still try and do rush the bedtime thing because it can go on and on. And can you talk me? And can you do your second talk? Mom, I got out of bed, can you retag me, you know, but it’s really gorgeous. But you know, but those moments, even if it’s just that little moment of just not having to rush off to your drink, but just to sit there and give them eye contact and tell them you love them and kiss a little faces off. And I love that. I love that. And I just so didn’t want to be doing that when I was drinking.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  40:35

Yeah, me neither. Well, so I love this deeper work that you do through compassionate inquiry. And you kind of pair that with just practical tips, right for how to deal with cravings and triggers. And I always call it like just the blocking and tackling of navigating life without alcohol. In reality, real world situations, what are the what are some of the big ones that you think people listening to this, if they’re in the early days, that really sort of help?

 

41:08

Yeah, I think early on, it’s really important to replace the alcohol with something that’s really big, as well. So, you know, I said at the start, I was listening to Wayne, like, obviously seem to so much Wayne Dyer is going out doing really big walks, listening to stuff in my headphones. And I made sure I just had something going all the time reading, you know, really good input that was helpful for me can’t say if that’s going to work for everyone, but replacing it with something equally as big, if that makes sense. So, there’s no point in saying so the friends of mine, I said, a couple of them dropped off at the start, they didn’t change anything, if you don’t change the way life is, nothing’s going to change, if that makes sense. So, if you just sort of were drinking on the weekend, and sitting there watching TV all night, and not really doing much, then if you go on, you take alcohol out, and you’re just doing that same stuff, but you’ve just taken alcohol out what’s different. So, I really think that you need to replace it with something else. So, it might be okay, we change up our nighttime routine, we might all go for a walk together after dinner, or we play a board game, or we do online yoga class or we go for a swim, there’s so many different things that you can do, or I read a book now have an evening or I have a bath and read a book, doing things slightly differently, or really differently.

 

And I guess, really leaning into that new thing. You know, I think that’s really important, and distracting yourself with the new thing or with something that makes you feel good. So, let’s say having a big craving. And you say you go and distract yourself. I mean, that’s good to a degree, I’m not so into distraction, because I think distraction is a bit like the alcohol. So, I do still like to say what’s the craving all about? What do I need? Can I ask myself, What do I need that if it’s really strong, and it’s really got you cold showers, you don’t have a cold shower, it’s very hard to stay in this kind of strong out state. When you like, oh, and your cold shower, you’ve got to breathe through it. You can stand there and it’s a great state changes. So that’s a good descriptive distraction. But even getting into cold showers, okay, that’s going to be my thing for a while you’re going to have a cold shower every night. Like just do something different. Yeah, and differently. Or yeah, do something that you love, something that you haven’t done for a while, if you’ve I don’t know, if you’re like music, when you’re a kid, start leaning into playing music or put some music on, like just do things differently. That’s really important if you keep just showing up and doing things the same, or just removing the alcohol. I don’t think that changes. Yeah. So, you’re not kind of getting on your

life without your favorite reward. You need to find new rewards and interests and habits.

 

43:55

Yeah, yeah. need to get to you need to get your dopamine from somewhere else inside just by doing things that you enjoy or doing something differently or perhaps moving the body, you’re getting a little bit of a dopamine dump, rather than just sitting there. Oh, this, you know, forgot a really missing alcohol. Giving yourself something that you enjoy. It’s going to give you a bit of dopamine. That feels good. Yeah. And it’s a bit rewarding.

 

And yeah, I think that’s really important early on, and then just good input. Like, I can’t stress that enough good input. So, you know, what am I listening to? What am I putting? What? Yeah, what am I hearing? I think that’s really important. Get the noose off all the negative stuff that gets your nervous system on. And pretty early on. I talk to people about doing say yoga Nidra practice, that’s a guided meditation. Really good for settling the nervous system. If you’re a bit of a wired type of person, maybe deep breaths or getting into a bit of breath work. You know, just really working on slowing the nervous system and calming self-regulating.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  45:00

Yeah, that’s interesting. How when do you recommend that they do it? Is that a particular time of day or any time for the yoga?

 

45:09

Okay, so yoga Nidra, I would say do any time of day, I find it really beneficial around two o’clock in the afternoon, okay? Especially if like, if I’ve had a whole day of coaching people, or whole day of work or dealing with the kids, I can feel my nervous system start to go up here, you know, it’s sort of it builds up, it builds up. So, if I go into a yoga Nidra, I just, it’s like, I might just do a 20 minute one. And then I just sort of reset. I feel good. And I’m good to do this sort of next shift of the day, which is the kids coming home, getting ready for dinner, that kind of thing. Yeah. Say perhaps you’ve woken up early, like if your sleep is quite disturbed early on in sobriety, hoping it was great, because it’s like having a bit of asleep. So, you might want to do it first thing in the morning, like, as soon as you wake up, if you haven’t adequate sleep, I can just sort of pick you up to get yourself going for the day. Yeah, yoga Nidra is amazing. I can’t I’m very relieved of this whole kind of, I love yoga Nidra. And I get everyone I work to work with to get into yoga Nidra yoga, Nidra practice.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  46:12

And do you just Google that or search YouTube? Or what’s the easiest way I know this plant is plenty on YouTube, or the free App Insight Timer has a lot. I’ve actually got yoga Nidra that I guide people through on Insight Timer. I’ve got one. It’s 23 minutes. It’s a deeply relaxing yoga Nidra. And it’s great. It’s free. You can listen to that. But I’ve also I’ve also got someone YouTube. I think under the how I quit alcohol page, those links. I would love to.

 

Okay, so not to be weird. Yeah, what the hell, I’m a little weird. I actually, I didn’t realize this. But I listened to Insight Timer, almost every night like I listened to the sleep medications. A different one, because my mind is really busy. And I need sort of did something to focus me to kind of get to sleep and like guide me through. So, I am going to link to your how I quit alcohol on Insight Timer, but I’m also going to listen to it sometime. So, I think it’s good missing. Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m adding new things there all the time. But like you said, there’s heaps. And before I, you know, previous I’ve had in sight time for quite some time now. And the same thing, I would just listen to things to fall asleep, because my nervous system can tend to be a bit wired. So just listening to things rather than watching things at night. When I was drinking, I was always like, put on a movie or put an episode of Friends on or Modern Family, you know, to get to sleep at night. And I’m realizing Wow, that’s just so stimulating. So, listening to something that’s really soothing and calming for the nervous system is really awesome. Yeah, it’s so there’s my but there’s loads if you look up, yoga Nidra or non-sleep deep rest, and as Dr. Andrew Huberman has re renamed, you’re going to try to in SDR nonslip, deep rest.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  48:05

Interesting is everywhere. Rest. That’s I have not heard of that. But I love that. So, this is awesome. And of course, I see the Huberman episode about it. I loved his episode on Alcon the body and the brain. I send that to everyone.

 

48:25

Yeah, it’s pretty, pretty. eye opening. That was pretty sobering. Pardon the pun.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  48:31

I know. And I love that he did it focused on what are quote unquote, called moderate drinkers, like within the recommended guidelines, and what that does to your body in your mind, because I think that it’s really interesting for people to know everybody thinks like, well, of course, if you’re a big drinker, you know what I mean, then if you binge drink, of course, that’s bad for your liver. And it’s bad for your brain function. But, you know, they don’t. I feel like Andrew Huberman broke it down really, really well, for people who consume, you know, just a drink or two a day, 714 a week and what the impacts

 

49:13

of that are. So that’s what I think he’s great, because he’s so huge at the moment, and people really trust him. One of his things that he says, you know, to, to be really productive and to look after yourself is yoga Nidra every day, so nonslip deep breaths every day, even if it’s 10 minutes, so you can even Google NSDI nonslip deep rest or yoga Nidra 10 minutes. There’s quite a few there on YouTube. Just listen to those. I’ve got people that I’ll say to them in your lunch break, go into 10 minutes yoga Nidra. Yeah, and it’s a great rate. That’s such a great reset. So good for the nervous system, the blood pressure. Like everything is just so good for everything for insomnia, like I’m typically not a big sleeper but soon So you know, I have a regular yoga Nidra practice, I sleep so much better, and makes such a difference.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  50:06

I was thinking about it a different way. But one of the things I found when I was quitting drinking was that it was really important for me to take more breaks to decompress during the day. So put something on my calendar, go for a 10 minute walk to the water, listen to like you were saying I was listening to sobriety podcasts or self-help. courses. And, you know, take time to eat not at my desk, not while working, get a snack before I went home, because what my typical pattern was, was put my head down, work all day, take no breaks. And by the time I got out of the office and was driving to pick up my kids, I was so spent, that I just wanted to drink I hadn’t, you know, kept myself in a good emotional, physical place. So, you know, there was no resilience there to resist a craving.

 

51:02

Exactly. And oftentimes, it’s most people, it’s the nervous system. So, the nervous system is like on. And, you know, we’ve not like, perfect what you said, you know, we’re not taking breaks to decompress throughout the day. So, it’s just one thing on top of another, and another and more input, boom, boom, boom, finds Ding, ding, ding emails, even saying that I can feel my nervous system rising. And so, it’s so important to stop and just take a few breaths or go outside, like you say, and make sure we have a snack before you get home, have a big drink of water on your way home. And just doing things to kind of slowly decompress, bring the nervous system down. And you’re probably less likely to want to reach for the drink. Because that’s usually what we’re after we wanting to self-regulate. But we’re doing it in a way with the alcohol, we think is working. But it’s really, it’s becomes maladaptive because we wake up with anxiety and all those things. So, what we’re looking for in the alcohol, we’re actually not getting at all. Yeah, we’re getting it maybe momentarily. But then the next day, you know, the three o’clock wake up and you’re like bam, and nervous systems back on again. So, we never getting ourselves regulated. So, it’s really important to work on self-regulation. That’s why yoga Nidra or breath work or just getting out in nature, which is stopping and taking a few deep breaths.

 

How am I doing now? Asking yourself? How, how do I feel right now? So, with people I work with, I’ll say just check in with yourself throughout the day and ask yourself that question. How do I feel right now? What’s going on inside my body? What do I need right now to bring it down even before say before you start the next task, and get in the car, stop, take a moment, and breathe. You’re getting out of the car, stop and take a moment, the more you can get used to that practice, you start to become more aware of what’s actually going on because most of us are not aware that our nervous system is on, we just feel that yuck.

 

Yeah, just feel the bit eat. And but we’re not actually identifying Oh, my nervous system was really on. So, I needed what do I need? I need to calm the nervous system. Yeah, you can do that just with a few rounds of breaths. So just say inhaling for exhaling for eight, you know, extending your exhale pretty much automatically turns on the parasympathetic nervous system. So, it gets you out of fight or flight into that rest and digest state. So, it’s so just like breathing in through the nose into the belly. And then a long, slow even that. Just yeah, that’s beautiful. I feel that and

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  53:43

yeah, I hope our colleges are going to be so much better than we were the other day I was super stressed out or nervous about something. And I actually speak in a bed time. During the week, I put my daughter to bed, and I actually crawl into bed with her. She’s eight she read stories we like do the whole cuddle talk, scratch back, whatever. And I was just saying, I’m really just, I’m feeling antsy I’m feeling on edge. And she picked up her iPad and went to YouTube and Google box breathing and she pulled it up and we did box for elite. I was like, Yeah, I never learned this. It’s a kid.

 

54:23

I know. Imagine if we had been taught that. And how amazing are our kids? Like, my daughter also things like Mom, is your mind smiling right now? No. Okay, it’s just a while it should be. Maybe it Okay, right? These amazing little Yoda’s

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  54:43

these kids. It’s amazing. It’s wonderful.

 

54:46

That Casey mentioned if we have been taught how to regulate ourselves properly, you know?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  54:52

It would have been incredibly incredible. Yeah, she’s like, I think we’ve taught them right I quit drinking when She was too. So, she seen me instead of, oh my god, it’s been a tough day mom needs a drink. She seen me be like, I just need some quiet time. I’m going to go for a walk. I, you know, I need to talk to my best friend, you know, whatever it is. And so, you know, for Christmas, she asked for like, essential oils and a diffuser, this little eight year old, she liked. I’ve just like,

 

55:31

love that, and getting the kids into the practice, too, as well. So, my kids are really used to me even before dinner was just say, Hey, I’m going to go do some yoga Nidra. Do you guys want to come? Usually, the answer is no. But sometimes I’ll say oh, yeah, no, I’m trying to get my teenage daughter into doing yoga Nidra as well with me just do a quick one. If it’s with them, I’ll just do like a 10 minute or a 15 minute one. But yet, like you say, our kids, our kids are saying that, yeah, I’m feeling dysregulated or I’m feeling a bit funny. I’m going to go off and do yoga Nidra for a bit, or, like you say, I’m going to go and talk to my friend or take a bit of time out, but they’re not seeing us being stressed. And then drinking. You know, it’s huge. And you just think thank God, I’m not imprinting that on them. I mean, printing this other way of being.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  56:17

Yeah. I mean, I just when I when I was an adult, finally, when I graduated college, I just thought that alcohol was what adults had with dinner every night of the week. That’s what I believed what I saw what I knew. And you know, my husband still drinks, but I just like that. My kids know now that it’s not required that it is not part of having dinner every night. You can choose to or not, but it’s not like you’re not having an adult dinner if there’s not alcohol involved.

 

56:51

Absolutely. And it’s never too late to like if you’re listening to this, and you’re thinking, Oh, no, I’ve, you know, I’ve been doing that all my life. And my kids have been seeing that it doesn’t matter. You can still change and they it’s better for them to see that change is possible as well. So even if they’ve grown up seeing that, you can say, I’m going to try and do I’m going to do things differently now. And they get to see that too. Yeah. And that’s also just as powerful because I know some people might think, oh, no, you know, and they get the guilt or shame around that, to know that.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  57:24

I think that’s important too. Because yeah, I’ve worked with clients who are grandparents and they sit have said that their kids who are 40 years old, are actually really impressed to see them shift their habits, even at that age. And, you know, they’re 70 years old, but they’re like, you know, I’m really proud. I’m showing them that even I can change habits and get healthier and do something for myself.

 

57:51

Absolutely. It’s I mean, I think it’s sometimes even more powerful. You know, to see it from someone who’s much older to be able to change like, Wow, incredible. It just is really important to have compassion for yourself. Also, if you’ve had a history of drinking, or binge drinking, or daily drinking, just understanding that perhaps I was never shown how to regulate myself. Like, for me, it was about self-confidence and not being confident or wanting to fit in. But I was never told, Hey, if you’re at a social event, it’s really normal to feel uncomfortable. That’s okay. If you were to just remember whether or not I would have listened when I was a teenager. I don’t know if it was pretty headstrong and still am. But I wonder what that would have been like, it’s I’m telling my kids, especially my 14 year old now, it’s so normal to feel uncomfortable when you’re out with friends or you’re going to a party and there’s other kids there or even just around your really close friends who sometimes judge ourselves and feel uncomfortable and it’s so normal and just notice if you do feel like that. And that’s okay. Yeah, okay.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  58:54

Will you tell us a little bit about your podcast How I Quit Alcohol.

What you cover what why you started it what you love to dig into in different episodes.

 

59:06

Yeah, thank you, over the podcast. It started because a lot of people were messaging saying How did you two quick trick? Yeah. And I was seeking to do that. And I was sort of sick of telling everyone I guess.

 

My husband Ash, at the time, had a podcast as well called Soulful Conversations, where he would have big conversations with people in the alcohol thing came up a bit. I was like, I really liked, and I knew myself when I was quitting. I couldn’t find many podcasts. I was actually listening to AAA meetings, like recorded ones in the podcast channel because I couldn’t. And I found that really interesting to hear other people’s stories and just what they went through and how bad it was for them and have a quit even though I didn’t really identify with that. The whole AI thing. So, I thought I just said to ash. Let’s just record a podcast and we’ll just talk about what we did. And then So we did that and put that out there and heaps of people just automatically got back. I was like, oh my god, that was amazing, like, thank you so much and love to hear about how the other guys within your group are going.

 

So, then I asked them on and then I had a couple of other friends that was sober. I got them on the podcast, and it just kind of grew really, really quickly. And people were just contacting. Oh, that’s awesome. I’m going to give it a go too and, you know, thanks for sharing that. And their story was really interesting and blah, blah, blah. So that’s how it started. And then I want, too.

 

I was interested in other people’s stories, too. So not just ours, and how we quit, but then how other people. So, one of my friends, she was doing AAA, and it was Lindell. And she was a massive daily drinker, like massive in the morning drinking vodka had to go to hospital because of the withdrawals. And people just resonated so much with her story. And we’re like, Oh, my God, like, that’s so intense. So, I started to think, yeah, everyone has a different story, and everyone has something to offer. So, I just started putting it out there. And I think what people love about podcasts is just, there’s a little bit of them in every person’s story.

 

And what might resonate with one person one week, may not resonate the next week, but there’ll be something else that they hear in someone else’s podcast episode. And it’s really important for me that it’s not just celebrities, or it’s not just musicians, but it’s all sorts of people. Like, I’m not getting people on based on how many Instagram followers they’ve got, like, they might even have an Instagram, but you know, that I’ll get them on and share their story, because it’s really important to hear every day people’s stories. It’s great to hear from celebrities as well. So, we get a nice mixture. It’s just good to hear everyone’s story. And so yeah, it’s, it’s yeah, got really popular, I guess, if we want to.

 

Yeah. And it’s been great. It’s, it’s really great. It’s really humbling to get messages from people saying they’ve quit just listening to the podcast. Because what we do is we offer up, I guess, just tips, you know, what people use? Probably much like what you do you know, just how someone did it, or how they did it, or what they did to get through the cravings. And, you know, people will piece together what they want to take out of that. Or they might contact some of that they heard on the podcast.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:02:23

And yeah, it was looking and listening to some of your podcast episodes. And I love the stories in the variety. But also, you had, I think it was episode 140, with tips and tools from a group of How I Quit Alcohol Grads talking about like new specific stuff like Christmas parties and family functions and missing kids. And I think that’s wonderful, too.

 

1:02:47

Yeah, so that’s within. So, I run these challenge groups. And when the people finish this sort of six weeks course with me, they then go on and join this graduates groups so that they can keep the connection going. So that Episode was talking from some of the people in the credit group. They meet together every Sunday night, and we have a Zoom call on a chat. But it’s just, it’s really cool. I just love the podcast. And it’s sort of then kind of become a, you know, it’s been great because it’s been able to just spread the wider message and also spread this message of this notion that there’s nothing shameful in this, that it can happen to all of us. That alcohol thing looks different for everybody. And there’s no shame. And we’ve all been through it. And a lot of times, it’s just hearing this message of, if that person can do it, or maybe I can do it. So, it’s just been great. And I just, I love, I just love sharing people’s stories. And I think that’s how we learn. And how we grow is by listening to other people’s stories, and then being able to share their stories makes.

 

I mean, that’s how, you know, years and years ago, hundreds of years ago, that’s how wisdom was passed down. You know, it’s through storytelling. So, share your stories and hear people’s stories. Beautiful. The podcast is about to hit a million downloads. That’s amazing. I just can’t I’m just I’m just amazed. I just think wow, this is great. It just shows me that the message needs to be heard and people want to hear it.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:04:14

Yeah. I love that. Well, so if people want to follow up, listen to the podcast get in touch with you. What’s the best way for them to do that?

 

1:04:23

The best way is probably Instagram it’s @howIquitalcohol. Or my website is iquitalcohol.com.au Today, you know, I do my best to get back to everyone. I can’t always get back to everyone. But I do try. Yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:04:40

So, and you can find the podcast How I Quit Alcohol wherever you listen.

 

1:04:45

Yeah, yeah. On all the podcast channels. Yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:04:49

That’s great. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I have to say I feel calmer just talking to you. You’ve got great energy.

 

1:04:56

Oh, it’s great. Thank you. Well, it was really great to meet you and hopefully, I’d love to get you on my podcast as well and share your story.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:05:03

Oh, that would be great. I would love that. I would love that.

 

1:05:07

Amazing. Thanks, Casey, thank you so much.