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The Alcohol-Free Wellness Revolution: How To Eat To Change How You Drink With Dr. Brooke Scheller

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

alcohol, drinking, people, sobriety, talk, body, feel, supplements, days, book, nutrition, protein, sober, drinker, brain, life, recipes, L glutamine, Casey McGuire Davidson, Hello Someday Sober, archetypes, Alcohol-Free, wellness, revolution, Eat, Change, drink, Dr. Brooke Scheller, moderate drinking, gray area drinking, Nutrition

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Dr. Brooke Scheller

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 are talking about

How to eat to change how you drink.

And my guest is Brooke Scheller. She’s a Doctor of Clinical Nutrition, an author and the founder of Functional Sobriety, a nutrition based program for alcohol reduction.

You may know her because Brooke’s been on my show once before. If you want to listen to it, it is Episode 166. You can go to hellosomedaycoaching.com/166. And we had a great conversation about How To Increase Your Energy And Improve Your Mood In Early Sobriety.

One of the reasons I love talking to Brooke is because Nutrition is an area that isn’t talked about as much in sobriety and getting sober and long term recovery. So, Brooke’s story is that, after finding freedom from alcohol in 2021, she took her experience in sobriety and applied her expertise in nutrition and functional medicine to help others change their relationship with alcohol. Her approach results in improved brain health, mood, energy, focus, gut health, and hormone balance.

Her launch of Functional Sobriety led to the development of her online community, the functional sobriety network, and other online programs with members across the board. And we can talk all about that.

But Brooke, welcome.

03:02

Thank you so much for having me. Casey, I’m so grateful to be back on the show.

Casey McGuire Davidson  03:07

Yeah, I loved our conversation last time. And I learned so much. And we are here to talk about your new book, which is available anywhere books are sold. It is,

How To Eat To Change How You Drink.

And can you tell us just why you wrote this book? And what’s it about?

03:28

Yeah, so thanks again, so much for having me back. Casey, I enjoyed our conversation.

I have so many clients who listen to your podcasts on a regular basis. And I always direct them to your episodes because you have such a great library of tools and tips across the board for people who are getting sober, sober, curious, just kind of starting on that journey or longer term sobriety or alcohol-free.

So grateful to be here today, and to talk about my new book, which is a labor of love as most books are. But my inspiration for this book really came from my own experience in sobriety and I have been a Doctor of Clinical Nutrition for many years and was also a heavy drinker during those times.

And it wasn’t until I went through my own experience in sobriety and eliminated alcohol that I realized exactly what you mentioned in the introduction, that we are not talking about nutrition as part of this journey, as much as we should be or could be.

And I say, could be because nutrition is really this tool that helps us unlock this whole other avenue of health and our experience as it relates to being alcohol-free.

So, everything from if you’re early in your journey and how using tools of food or nutrition to help the poor managing alcohol cravings or sugar cravings to help boosting energy and mood which is what we spoke about on our previous discussion together. All the way through if you’re someone who’s been maybe sober for little bit longer. And you’re still experiencing some of the effects of alcohol use things like the impacts to your gut, to your hormones to your metabolism, to your brain chemistry, like our dopamine levels are our serotonin levels. And so, using food nutrition and supplements is where we can really start to make a lot of progress.

Um, so after going through my own experience in sobriety, and having this background, really recognizing this opportunity for there to be more conversation on this, which is what resulted in the book. And the book is, as you know, Casey, because you have a copy already, talks a lot about the foundation of why alcohol was kind of, first discussed as a health quote, unquote, a “health” food, and what alcohol really does to our body, which is the exciting part for me, and then the third part of the book is a guide for you to start implementing these tools into your lifestyle. So, everything from my nutrition tips to supplements lifestyle changes. And there’s also 50 recipes as well that help us support your alcohol-free journey.

Casey McGuire Davidson  06:08

Yeah, and you mentioned it, but it always does blow my mind. Alcohol was and some people still believe, a health food or something that can actually be good for you in quote, unquote, moderation. And, obviously, that is something that benefits the alcohol industry and has been disproven many, many, many times. And yet, even some doctors will be like, well, it has, you know, some health benefits, etc. I talk about this a lot. But can you talk about why that’s not true?

06:47

Yeah, a lot of the early research on alcohol as a health food, quote, unquote, health food is around the research around the Mediterranean diet. So, a lot of that comes from the research done in the early 2000s. That came out to say that those living in the Mediterranean regions who have these diets that are very rich in foods, unprocessed foods, like vegetables, whole grains, fish, healthy fats, like olive oil, when they consume a glass of red wine, it’s not necessarily as problematic as maybe the American diet where we’re eating a lot of processed foods, a lot of fried foods, and then we’re drinking large amounts of alcohol on top of it, right? So, we took we take these studies, and this is where the marketing and the industry gets really involved, right? Because you could take a line from a study and say, up, look, here’s this positive thing. Let’s run with that, right. And what we did is the media picks that the news takes that and says, Hey, this new research study that came out and show that, you know, alcohol maybe has this reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, without really talking about the full picture, there’s more complexity and details and nuance to these types of studies. And what we’re finding now and 2022 is actually a pretty big year for research in alcohol. And it’s true effects on the body, we saw several studies come out to refute some of that earlier literature that showed that alcohol was beneficial. We’re seeing a lot of research showing that it has no good benefits for things like the brain, right.

So, while there was maybe controversy for some time over its benefits for the heart, what we are now learning is, well, that’s controversial. There’s a lot of nuance in terms of, again, what is the full complexity of somebody’s lifestyle, but what we do as consumers is we go, oh, this is healthy for me, right? So more must be even better for me. Right? And so, that is to show that even in those research studies, where there was, you know, minor improvements or suggested benefits from wine is, well, are you really eating this maybe more Mediterranean lifestyle where it’s not as problematic. And the challenge with those of us who are heavy drinkers is we’ll take that information, and we’ll go, okay, and use that as a tool to allow us to justify what we’re doing. And so, it is really dangerous when we have these studies, filling these things and the way that the media or the industry can pick that and run with it.

Casey McGuire Davidson  09:25

And I even see that now. I do a bunch of research on the health impacts of Alcon. I’ve done a bunch of different episodes with Doctors on alcohol, on breast cancer, and other topics alcohol on the body, and I will link to those in the show notes of this episode. But the idea that red wine is good for you, simply is not true. And one of the things you’ve write in your book is about the negative health effects on the brain and increased incidence have cancer. And I knew this, but I underlined it in reading your book, obviously, the more a person drinks, the higher their risk becomes for develop in cancer, even in moderation. I mean, the latest stats on breast cancer is three glasses of wine a week increases your risk of breast cancer by 15%. And any drink above that increases your risk of breast cancer for another 10%. But also, cancers of the head, neck, esophagus, liver, breast, colon, all those things, which is not to say that I didn’t drink a ton. And I know sometimes, you know, we all do things that aren’t good for us. We sit there and are like, that’s a future risk that I may or may not incur. But it is not that compelling to me at the moment. It’s more than a future.

10:59

That’s future Casey’s problem. Right?

Casey McGuire Davidson  11:01

Right, exactly. Although, I have to say that when I was finally ready to stop drinking, I felt like I was going to screw up, you know, my marriage and my kids in my life, but also my health and I was sitting there like, there is going to be no way to spin this. If I have an issue with my liver, I knew it was impacting my mental health and cancer as well. But the one thing that that you wrote that I wanted to call out is you talk about alcohol and the byproduct of alcohol metop metabolism on your body is a class one carcinogen, aka, they are known to cause cancer. And a class one carcinogen also includes substances like arsenic, asbestos, tobacco, and radiation. I mean, the fact that those asbestos, you know, is included arsenic in the same category of alcohol, the fact that we drink it is insane.

12:10

Yeah, and I like to make that comparison and show you the other things that are in that class one carcinogen less, because I think we can hear that and go, okay, yeah, that sounds all well and good. But when you compare it to things like tobacco even right, which how many people are still smoking? But would we ever look at someone who smokes moderately, quote, unquote, and say that that is healthy? You know, we would say that that’s still a risk factor. Similarly, with asbestos or arsenic, would you have little bits of arsenic and say, Well, maybe that’s potentially beneficial for our health, not necessarily right on.

So, I like to give the example of what else is in that category, because it makes it really tangible for people we know these things are problematic. We know that not only alcohol, if you look at that last one percentage endless, not only is alcohol on that list, but also be it acetyl aldehyde, which is the byproduct, the breakdown of alcohol in our system. And so that’s an important thing to point out too, is that there is such a conversation today, and people who are still drinking who, you know, are looking to make healthier options. And I’ll use again healthier in quotes there, because I call this the Baka club Dory, right? That if we can drink the better. For us alcohol like red wine, I’ve had the potential benefits or, you know, that may be the problem with alcohol is that there’s a lot of sugar, there’s a lot of carbs with it. So, if you have clear, something clear that that’s better for you. And it’s really not about that it’s not about what the flavor for your fair is. It’s what it’s the alcohol itself, which is the problematic component.

So, unfortunately, and I like to explain it in this way. And I brought this up to someone, probably about a year ago, and she was like you need to share about this, because this really changes the frame, my frame of view anyhow, which is that the reason why we get drunk the feeling that we get from alcohol, because we’re hastening our nervous system, that feeling that, you know, loopiness that we get with being drunk or that feeling that helps us fall asleep. That is us poisoning our nervous system. And so, when we think about it in that way, it changes the frame. Well, what am I doing when I’m consuming alcohol, poisoning myself, and that effect that I’m feeling is actually my body being affected by this poison. And the other thing that I want to point out to you as we’re talking about the health risks and everything is that this can all be really scary and overwhelming, especially if we have heavy alcohol use history. Well, maybe I’ve increased my cancer risk. Maybe I’ve increased my risk of these other health effects, but the most important thing to know is that when we discontinue alcohol, we can heal our bodies. But this is where nutrition and supplementation and lifestyle changes. That’s where all of this becomes key, right? Because we may have damage or effects of alcohol within our body. But we also have tools like through food and nutrition to heal the body from that. And that’s where the really important piece comes in for me, that we can do all these things and, you know, beat ourselves up for it. But really, we can take action and empower ourselves with this information so that we can start to heal.

Casey McGuire Davidson  15:34

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that so many of us and I, I see this with, you know, back a few years ago, when I was in corporate, so many women, I knew we’re doing these detoxes, or talking about cutting out sugar, or carbs, or gluten, and yet still drinking. And you know, I didn’t want to hear it at the time. But the absolute best thing you could possibly do for your health, is to remove alcohol before, you know, before a lot of other things we do like juice cleanses or whatever it is, you know.

16:12

Yeah. So, and especially if you’re drinking higher amounts, that I always tell people, because the question always comes up, well, how much is really bad for me, right, like after which point now you pointed out some really important things. You see, like anything over three glasses, now we’re seeing with increased risk, those things are really tangible for people. But it’s also something that I share with people is if you have a health goal, or health concern of any kind, regardless of what it is, whether that is, you know, you want to achieve a healthier weight, you want to balance your hormones, you want to improve digestion, you have familial risk of cancer, you have headaches, you have joint pain, you have acne, you have skin issues, whatever that might be. If you’re consuming alcohol, it is making that problem worse, right? And so, we could do all the juice cleanses in the world, we could do take all the supplements, we can try to incorporate all these other things, but the alcohol is setting us back really far. Right? Again, think about it this way, we’re putting this poison into our body by choice. Mind you, right? So, this is something that if we take that piece away, we can actually allow our bodies to heal, and we can start to have more progress in those health goals that we have.

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  17:31

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing to remember is, I mean, I didn’t realize this until I stopped drinking, and I realized it within 30 days, 40 days, 50 days. And I always encourage people to start with taking a longer break from alcohol, I recommend 100 days, but even 50 would be enough to realize it, I did not realize how shitty alcohol was making me feel until I removed it. And obviously, I knew that hangovers made me feel incredibly shitty. I mean, there’s nothing worse than feeling like your brain is just pounding and your stomach’s upset. But even beyond that, on the days I didn’t drink. When I got away from alcohol, I was like, Oh, my god is this how healthy feels like it was crazy. And I was working out and I was trying to, you know, eat better things, you know, like it was crazy.

So, I encourage anyone listening to remove alcohol and see how good you feel. But then let’s talk about what else you can do with nutrition to make yourself feel even better. And also, to make it easier to not drink.

18:55

Yeah, and that’s where the tools can really come into play. I believe that it takes anywhere between two to six months for the body to rebalance after alcohol use, which to your point, Casey. Oftentimes 30 days isn’t even really enough for you to experience more clarity. For me, it took probably three months for my brain to really clear and my body and my mind to start to rebalance. And that is a difficult time those early days, those first couple of months, those first couple of weeks. There’s so much shifting not only in our body, but also in our environment and triggers that are coming in from the outside. And you know, there’s a lot of things that we do from a mental health perspective. We’re doing a lot of things maybe to connect with community, or we are meeting with a therapist or we’re trying a program, an online program or AAA for example, but what’s really important for me and one of the things that I think gets really exciting, is utilizing nutrition in the early days can really help you overcome some of those challenges and triggers, there’s a couple of things that I recommend for that one of them is focusing on lots of protein at every single meal. And you know this, that is one of my big recommendations, Casey. But the reason why is because alcohol has a very significant effect on our body’s blood sugar levels. And what that means is our blood sugar is essentially our body’s fuel, our blood glucose is our body’s fuel. And when we are drinking on a regular basis, we have tendencies toward hypoglycemia, which is, which means that we drop into these states of low blood sugar. And anytime we hit these states of low blood sugar, that manifests as a craving for sugar, for carbs, or for alcohol.

And so, when we are drinking on a frequent basis, we have these kind of more than normal drops into low blood sugar, those states of low blood sugar are going to make it really, really hard for us to say no to a drink or to something like sugar, because our body actually needs it for fuel, if we get into that state of being literally hangry, what we talked about hanger, and we need something in order to increase that blood sugar back up so that we feel better that we feel more balanced, we feel more energy, and we’re not feeling like we’re going to choose someone’s arm off. And it’s really important that you consume protein at every single meal and snack starting with breakfast. And if you’re someone who’s not eating breakfast, it’s time to start eating breakfast, something high in protein, soy eggs or protein shake something along those lines, this is actually going to set you up for success later in the day. So that when you hit maybe a triggering time, or you hit a point of high stress, if you are hitting that point of stress and you’re in a low blood sugar state, it’s going to make it really hard to say no to a drink.

Yeah, and this is important because it is not just about willpower. And I’m going to emphasize that again, it is not just about willpower, it is not that you don’t have the willpower to say no, it is not that you are not strong enough to do this, it is that your body goes into a physiological state where it needs sugar or something to increase that blood sugar level. So, produce lots of protein. Having something to eat every three to four hours is going to be key.

And I make the suggestion to every single one of my clients that every single day, you should be having an afternoon snack between the hours of three to 5pm is a big trigger time for most people. And if you go into that time of day without having something to eat prior to that is going to make it much, much harder for you to say no to 100%.

Casey McGuire Davidson  22:57

I mean, I suggest that clients obviously prep their snack in advance, especially if they’re going to the office, but set an alarm to eat do not drive home from the office or going to trying to, you know, cook dinner when you’re starving with your kids around. And you’re going to want to drink right. It’s also, you know, ended day is the time when, you know, decision fatigue sets in. And so, I used to always, when I was in early sobriety, I still do it now, but you know, bring to the office some kind of snack that had some protein in it.

23:43

Yeah, so it’s key. It really is. I’ve seen it work time and time again that I know it seems almost silly like Does that really work? If you’re listening, you might be thinking, well, how much does that really work? I’ve seen it work with hundreds of people. And I recommend that especially if the afternoon is a struggle for you that this is the number one thing that you should implement into your day and see how it work. I also am a big proponent of utilizing supplements to help support this to one of the things that I use often is an amino acid called, L glutamine. It’s included in my supplement packs which we have customized functional sobriety supplement packs that make it nice and easy for you to implement supplements into your sober and sober curious life. And in our craving Crusher pack we have an L glutamine supplement along with a couple of others. And l glutamine does a really good job of taking away not only alcohol cravings but also sugar cravings.

So, I oftentimes will put my clients on this craving question or supplement a combination of a few different supplements that they can take during that trigger time. So, if it’s the afternoon is the hardest time for you. You can take those supplements and it’s going to also help make it a little bit easier for you to say no I’m to move on beyond take didn’t drink at that time.

Casey McGuire Davidson  25:01

So how does l glutamine work?

25:06

So, l glutamine is a supplement that helps with stabilizing our body body’s blood sugar response. And so, this is going to based on what we were talking about. Similar way to what we were talking about it’s an amino acid amino acids are the foundation of our proteins, that is going to help in a couple of ways. One of them being that it’s a proponent of protein, it is also what helps our body produce serotonin. So that is also for excusing GABA, which is our body’s relaxing neurotransmitters that helps with lowering stress. It is a really critical tool that I use with so many of my clients and is really something simple to implement. Again, if you’re interested in supplementation or some of these nutrition tools.

Casey McGuire Davidson  25:50

That’s a great tip. And I know in your book, you have so much more in there. But do you recommend both the combination of L glutamine and a snack with protein? Or is it like one or the other?

26:02

Oh no, I recommend both, I recommend both. You can start with the protein snack because we’re already eating right. Ideally, we’re already eating a few times a day. So just by making slight tweaks making sure there’s about protein. At a snack, I generally recommend 15 to 20 grams of protein, if not more, a minimum of 15 grams, that’s really going to help get you to that point where you feel that satiety or that stabilization in your levels. So that could be a protein shake, that could be a couple of hard boiled eggs, maybe with some fruit. I oftentimes have people especially on a maybe a Friday, Friday, Happy Hour excited, it’s really triggering for you one of the things I like to recommend is a cheese plate with lots of accoutrements and, you know, make it something kind of fun and exciting and indulgent at the same time. But that is also going to help stabilize that blood sugar and give you that relief from a craving.

Casey McGuire Davidson  27:01

Yeah, that’s a great idea. I love cheese and crackers, and pepperoni pizza. You know, of course, I used to have a cheese plate with wine. And so, one of the same things that I suggest to people is just try it without the alcohol, it may be or for me was like equally pleasurable. And you know, if I’m being honest, I used to be like, but it’s so much better with wine I drink every single day I you know, paired wine with everything I’m like, try it without it and see if it’s equally good. And by the way, then you are not poisoning your body. And it was hard for me to accept that I was actually poisoning my body even with smaller amounts of alcohol. Obviously, if I went crazy overboard, I realized as I was physically very ill that I had poisoned my body the night before. But you know, to some extent, I mean, I think about you know how devastating it is people who have like LED exposure or toxic mold exposure, and you know you’re doing or at least I was doing the same thing for years, you know? 100%

Casey McGuire Davidson  28:24

So, you talk about in your book, how alcohol impacts your nutritional pathways. Have we covered most of that already? Are there other things you want to point out?

28:36

To point out that one of the really well researched things that alcohol does to the body is it depletes our nutrient status, most of our nutrients including our B vitamins, or vitamin D, or vitamin C, our magnesium, our iron, or zinc, basically, virtually all of our nutrients are affected by alcohol use. There’s a few reasons why one is that alcohol will affect our body’s ability to absorb these nutrients. But also because of alcohols, very toxic nature, it requires more nutrients to kind of quilt the damage, if you will, from what’s going on when we’re breaking down are metabolizing alcohol in the system. So, this is really important because you know things like our B vitamins which are critical for mood and energy and nervous system and delete, for example, a we are drinking what we’re doing is we’re depleting out those nutrients. We’re feeling low energy, we’re feeling low mood, we’re feeling anxiety, partially due to deficiencies in these nutrients, and then we drink again and what is it doing well further lowers those nutrients. And so, it’s so important for us to replete or replenish our bodies scores of these nutrients when we are recovering so that we can start to feel the benefits and that’s a lot of what we spoke about in our last discussion PC. You know when it comes to something like NLG for X ample? Well, if you’ve quit drinking alcohol and you feel super low energy, that’s telling me that your body is deficient in something and that there’s more that can be done from a nutrition or supplemental perspective in order to get your body back to its regular state back to equilibrium.

30:17

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. One of the things that you talk about in your book is your personal drinking archetype. And I hadn’t heard that before. Can you tell us about that?

30:31

Yes, so I developed the drinking archetypes based on working with clients. And just seeing a little bit more of a need to talk about the biochemistry and these different types of people who have a history of drinking, and the three drinking archetypes which you can learn much more about in the book. But there are three drinking, there’s technically four. But we talk about these kind of three drinking archetypes, which are the social, stress drinker, and the habitual drinker.

And the social drinker is kind of what inspired me to create these archetypes partially because of you. And I noticed the people who were maybe heavier drinkers, maybe more in the habitual drinker category, where we were drinking most days, it’s not every day, there is still this category of people that fall into what we call this gray area drinking, that don’t necessarily identify as having an alcohol problem. But they are still unhappy with their relationship with alcohol as it stands today.

So, the social drinker is someone who comes to me and says, Well, I don’t know if I need to get sober because I don’t, I’m not addicted, I don’t need it every single day. In fact, I could go a month without it, I can go two months without it. But as soon as I have that first stray, I can’t stop, right. And maybe in the social settings, they’re really struggling with saying no to a drink, or they end up going into the social settings wanting to have one drink, and they end up with a massive hangover the next day, and they feel like that. And so, this kind of more dynamic look, drinking patterns and drinking behaviors was important to me, so that when I created my recommendations, through nutrition or supplements, for example, that there would be actionable pizzas for people depending on where they’re at, in their archetype, or what type of archetype they are.

And the stress drinker, kind of again, came about because there’s really this I think, in between peace between someone who’s drinking maybe most or every day, but more often than someone who’s just drinking socially, and these people are often drinking, because it’s stress triggers. And so, with these different categories, there’s these different kind of nutrition recommendations, if you will, that can be made to support these people based on where they’re at in their drinking behaviors.

Casey McGuire Davidson  33:03

Yeah, and as I was reading the different archetypes, I mean, I, absolutely was, the habitual drinker. And you wrote about how the habitual drinker may have begun their drinking as a social drinker transition to a stress drinker, and then noticed it’s harder and harder for them to go through their days without the support of alcohol. I definitely drank daily or almost daily, as you write about, and you said it’s finds it difficult to go more than a few days in a row without alcohol and typically drink in all situations, social stress, boredom, habit, and that is definitely where I was. And obviously, I think I was always kind of a daily drinker. It’s sort of what I thought adults did, you know, but I certainly wasn’t always a bottle of wine, a night drinker that definitely built up over time. The one thing I liked that you wrote, and it I feel like in mass media, in popular culture, it is not discussed enough. You said, I’ll say it many times to remind you, alcohol is an addictive substance. If we continue consuming it, we will become addicted to it. The more we fuel our body with alcohol, the more our body adapts to needing alcohol to sustain normal function. And I just feel like you can’t say it enough times. It is the substance anyone who drinks often enough whether it because they happen to be in a big drinking family or you know, no, no blame, but for me, I played rugby in college. Drinking was a huge part of the culture. And then, I was in my early 20s. And we all went out and drank. And, you know, anyone who consumes it enough will go down the road of becoming addicted to it. And like you say, it’s your body adapting to need alcohol to sustain normal function.

35:19

Yeah, it’s important for us to continue reiterating that to those who listen, because for so many, especially early on in this process, we feel like it’s a moral failing, we feel like we’ve done something wrong, that we are bad that, you know, there’s whether or not you have addiction in your family is completely aside, you know, and that side, and something I talk about in the book, too, I get into the genealogy a little bit, if you will, or touch on the surface of that very dense conversation. But, you know, when we think about alcoholism, “in the family”, there’s still a big question mark around how much of that is genetic and how much of that is environmental. And I say that and feel very strongly about that. Because from a scientific standpoint, there are tons of genes that are associated with developing an alcohol use disorder, it is not that there is one gene that gets passed down. And if you have this gene or don’t have this theme, then either you will have an alcohol use disorder, or you won’t have an alcohol use disorder. It is that there are tons – 10s, hundreds, probably, of genes that can be associated with the development of an alcohol use disorder, everything from how your liver processes alcohol, from a genetic standpoint, to how your body produces dopamine, even genes associated with our hunger and satiety hormones, leptin, and ghrelin, which is something that we don’t think about at all, right?

We don’t think about how our hunger and satiety hormones influence our alcohol use behaviors, but there’s actually research on that. And so, it’s really important to know that it isn’t just necessarily a genetic component, or a genetic background that sets you up for having an alcohol use disorder. Anybody and develop an addiction to alcohol, if we put it into our body enough.

Casey McGuire Davidson  37:20

Yeah, absolutely. So, I love that in your book, you talk about that, and call it out specifically, because I know when I was drinking, I would sit there and say, What is wrong with me? Why don’t I have willpower, I can do everything else in my life. But for some reason, do this. And since we’re in January, I mean, literally, every year, for many, many years, I’d be like, my New Year’s resolution is to drink less. And then I did it. And it’s not a personal failing or a lack of willpower, you need to add more tools.

38:04

100%, you can’t do this alone. And if you’ve tried and you have struggled, what that tells me is that there’s something missing for you there’s a piece of the puzzle missing. And if you’re not part of the community, get become part of a community because that is going to be one of the number one things that is going to help support you listening to these podcasts and reading the books, like how to eat to change, how you drink, and all of the other amazing Quizlet books, these are all going to provide you with tools that can help you navigate because it is for so many of us and Casey I’m sure you feel the same way I do. When that I didn’t know any other way of living. I had to completely relearn how to live my life without alcohol. And so that required a lot of help not only you know from community but also from family members and friends that required changing my environment that in required changing my habits that requires a lot of change across the board. And it can feel really overwhelming. But at the same time, it is so important and so impactful on our lives. In the long run. I can honestly say that so much of my life expanded and exploded if you will, after my getting sober including writing this book that I had wanted to write a book for years, I had no idea when I was going to write a book about I got sober and within a couple of months the fog lifted from my brain and I could start to really connect to myself and what I wanted and my purpose and my passions and you know what I wanted in my life and I wasn’t able to do that with alcohol hanging over my head.

Casey McGuire Davidson  39:43

No and it’s celebrating. I have hearing that from so many people. I mean, including obviously myself, but it really expands the world of opportunity that is in front of you and If you’re like me, feeling oh my god, my life is so hard, my to-do list is endless, I have so much anxiety and stress, removing alcohol will make you feel more confident, more able to handle your life, you’ll have more energy and less stress. That’s just what happened.

40:25

It’s really amazing because the kind of like we talked about before, right, you could do all these other things, you can include all these health practices, right? Like maybe you drink, but you also want to add in juicing, and you want to add in supplements, you want to try all these other things to negate that one thing that is creating a lot of the problem. And it’s a similar way, I believe in our in our growth as human beings that it’s this one thing that’s kind of holding up holding back all of these other areas of potential, they are holding back our career, it’s holding back our personal development, it’s holding back our emotional growth, it’s holding back our relationships, our health, virtually every area of our lives, right. And so, instead of trying to negate each one of those areas, let’s take a look at that alcohol piece and say, What would happen if I took that away? And what I see in my clients, and I know you’ve seen yours, Casey, is, that happens for just about everyone who cut that alcohol, I’m not going to lie, it is a hard thing to do. It is not the easiest thing. It takes a lot of patience and practice. And again, tools like we’re talking about, but at the same time, there’s so, so much growth on the universe.

Casey McGuire Davidson  41:41

Yeah, and you mentioned community. And I am a huge fan of, in terms of how I approach removing alcohol of the behavior and habit change approach. One of the things that is a best practice in behavior and habit change is putting yourself in a social environment where the behavior that you want to adapt, adopt is the celebrated behavior, there is so much social pressure to drink, and likely your partner and a lot of your friends drink your family might drink. And it may be a sort of big drinking social environment. But even supplementing that with a community of people who are all on the alcohol-free path who cheer you on, when you hit seven days, and 14 days and 21 and 100. And understand what a huge deal that is and celebrate you, for example, going through New Year’s and not drinking or your birthday, and tell you you’re a badass, and give you ideas, and tips and support. I mean, that’s HUGE.

42:57

Every one of those events are milestones. I really believe Casey, like every time we survive, an event where we previously would have drank is a huge success. And what it is, is it’s rewiring your brain, it’s rewiring your brain to go I don’t need alcohol to be in this environment, or I don’t need alcohol to celebrate my birthday or to be present on New Year’s or at Christmas time or whatever that event might be that every single one boosts competence. So, Duff chomping it down for the little things. I know for me, when I first quit drinking in my first couple of weeks, I was worried about my birthday, which was eight months away, I was worried about my wedding, which was not even, I didn’t even have a boyfriend at the time, right? And I’m thinking about all these things that are so far away. And the reality is that by the time I got to my birthday, I was eight months sober, I was dealing with it completely differently. Right? So, we just have to take a look at those things that are right in front of us, Ethan in the day, even in the week. And like you said, surrounding ourselves. I love that where this behavior is celebrated. Right? Finding those people who are going to cheer you on along the way are critical, critical, critical to your success. For sure.

Casey McGuire Davidson  44:14

Yeah, absolutely. And I you know, when you mentioned to your birthday in your wedding, one of the things that very first thing I said to my sober coach, on our first call, I was 16 days sober. I hadn’t made it past four days for a long time, two weeks and forever hadn’t hit 30 days in two years since I was pregnant and get on the phone with my coach and I was like, Okay, here’s what I’m worried about. I’m going to Italy and Croatia, and I’m a red wine girl with my family. I don’t know how to do that. And she was like, okay, when is that? I was like, four months from now. She was like alright, let’s talk about that in three and a half months in, like, and I did it and it was great parts were hard for sure. And I needed support. But I always look back on that trip and every picture of it. And I’m so proud of myself and remembering all the things that I did. And the things that I did not do that are amazing. So, yeah, those milestones’ HUGE.

45:26

I’m so glad you were able to survive Europe without alcohol, because that gives a lot of people hope that those things are possible that we don’t have to go to Italy and drink. There are many, many other things to do in Italy, that don’t include having wine. And all of that changes, right? It evolves over time, it has to do with this idea called neuroplasticity, which is that our brain can actually rewire itself.

So, we’re talking about habits and patterns. And things that we are used to doing, our brain creates an association, right? So go to this party equals friend, go to this restaurant equals drink, what we do is every time we go to a restaurant and don’t drink, we are strengthening that neural pathway that says I don’t need to have alcohol out there. Right. So, it really is true scientifically, we are rewiring the brain in that way. And it is something that I think gives a lot of people hope to know that it changes over time, and it’s not as hard is in those first couple of weeks or days or a month.

Casey McGuire Davidson  46:32

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, in my, in my community right now, that’s attached to my course someone posted, and you know, who was 60 days alcohol free and was just talking about, she couldn’t believe how differently, she felt like, you know, depression has lifted, and her energy is back and she’s proud of herself and her cravings are less. And just seeing stuff like that makes me so incredibly happy. Because it doesn’t take that long to feel better.

47:15

Amazing. Beautiful. I love hearing that. I love hearing your success story.

Casey McGuire Davidson  47:21

Me, too. Me too, because I know it and I believe it. But I know when I was drinking. I was like Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys all say this, but I don’t believe it. And of course, I hadn’t made it past 2 weeks. So, you know what I found sucked about sobriety was actually withdrawal. Suck.

Yeah, I know the last time we were on our call, you know, when you talk about eating 15 grams of protein and all that stuff. I was like, Yeah, but give me examples. give me examples. Because, you know, I didn’t even know what that meant. And I love that in your book, you have recipes? Because it does, you know, it’s easy to be like, Okay, I need protein. But what does that look like? And all the different stuff?

Can you tell me how you chose to include the recipes in your book? And what are the key sort of pieces in those recipes that you’re trying to incorporate?

48:20

Yeah, so the recipes actually focus on a lot of the functional foods that I speak about throughout the book that are supporting healing the liver, healing the gut, healing the brain. The foods that I talked about as really being key to your recovery journey.

So, in there, yes, you’re going to see a lot of high protein recipes, a lot of protein snacks. I actually just yesterday cooked up the magic protein bread, which is on in the snack section is delicious. It’s three rest three ingredients. And it is super simple and super high in protein. And, shockingly, bread has string gradients.

49:00

Well, it’s not really a bread, you’ll have to buy the book. Okay, I can collapse the recipe. But you have the bug pasty, so you could. I do. I’m going to try and yeah, it’s just a handful of ingredients. It’s super simple and really tasty. But a lot of the other ingredients, the mains, the side dishes, the breakfast etc. They’re incorporating a lot of my favorite functional foods. So, things like B which are really beneficial for the liver. They are rich and B vitamins are going to help replenish those B vitamins stores like we talked about. And they’re also really good for helping oxygenation, especially to the brain so they help with blood flow to the brain. That gives us focus that gives us mental clarity that gives us lots of energy.

We also focus on a lot of the cruciferous vegetables, so things in the category of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, very, very healthy and beneficial for the liver and healing the liver and the body’s natural detox pathways. And so, the recipes are really intended To help you incorporate these nutrition practices easier by having some tools of the what exactly like you said, Casey. And in the section where we talk about protein, I provide a full list of protein sources and the amounts and in the quantity so that you can really start to kick those things and be really actionable with them. We talk about things like, the importance of animal-based proteins, and how to incorporate those if you are plant based what that means and how you can start to think about ensuring that you’re hitting your plant, or excuse me, your protein recommendations.

So, it really is a comprehensive guide, which I know that you’ve explored in reading it, in helping you take these tools and be really actionable with it. And not only that, but I also really love to explain the science because I think that it’s really helpful to implement these things, or to stay connected to maybe incorporating Wii, which are not a fan favorite for a lot of people. But once people understand how important and how beneficial they tend to be, it changes their desirability to incorporate them.

So, we incorporate feeds in a lot of recipes that are really approachable. So, something like my borscht, which is a beet soup, which is basically like a chicken soup with beets in it. It’s really tasty. And it gives you a lot of those benefits.

So, my goal is to also be as approachable with these recipes as possible so that people cannot have to worry about spending hours in the kitchen. Reread three ingredients for a bread and you know, call it a day.

Casey McGuire Davidson  51:36

Yeah, that sounds great. And I do love like a beet salad with feta or whatever. I mean, I always think that’s really good. Of course, I never make it at home. But I can work on that.

51:48

Yeah, I highly recommend beats at least a few times a week in recovery. Okay,

Casey McGuire Davidson  51:53

very cool. Well, I know we’re coming to the end of our time. So do you want to share where people can find you follow you work with you all that good stuff.

52:03

Absolutely. So, you can pick up

How To Eat To Change How You Drink

my new book, anywhere that books are sold. There’s an audio book, which I recorded the audio on with such a fun project. So, if you’re an audio book person, definitely check that out.

And you can learn more about me and my online program, my online network, which is all focus on a nutrition and health forward approach to your alcohol free journey at functionalsobriety.com. An online program and online network, tons of tools, supplements, etc.

And you can follow me. Mostly, I’m active on Instagram @drbrookescheller. And yeah, so follow me for lots of tips and nutrition tools and tips that you can implement easy things that you can start thinking about today.

And definitely check out the book. And if you do, please leave it a review because I would love to know what you think.

Casey McGuire Davidson  52:59

Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, congratulations on the book. I know, from everyone I’ve talked to its written one. It’s a huge project and so much work, but also makes your ideas accessible to so many more people then are able to learn from you in different ways.

53:24

Thank you so much, Casey. Thanks for having me back again. And I hope to be back again soon.

Casey McGuire Davidson  53:29

Yeah, that would be great. I love talking to you.

Thanks, Casey.