SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, people, sober, alcohol, life, aa, recovery, behavior, stop, good, moderation, alcoholic, programs, work, early, reasons, coach, podcast, feel, moderate

 

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Eric Zimmer

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.

01:21

I am so excited for this episode today because I’m talking with Eric Zimmer. You may know him because he’s the host of The One You Feed podcast. It has over 30 million downloads and has been one of my favorites from long before I stopped drinking. He’s a behavior coach, an author, and is endlessly inspired by the quest for greater understanding of how our minds work and how to intentionally create the lives we want to live. At the age of 24, Eric was homeless, addicted to heroin, and facing long jail sentences. And in the years since he not only found a way to overcome these obstacles, to create a life worth living, but he helps others do the same. Eric works as a behavior coach and has done so for the past 20 years. He’s coached hundreds of people from around the world on how to make significant life changes and create habits that serve them well in achieving the goals they set for themselves. In addition to his work as a behavior coach, he currently hosts The One You Feed podcast based on an old parable about tools at a battle within us. And Eric, welcome to the podcast.

 

02:42

Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here.

 

02:45

Yeah, I’m so excited to have you here. And I mentioned to you before we started recording how much that parable has been a part of my sobriety journey and how I think about it. So for those who don’t know it, can you share that with us?

 

03:03

Sure. It goes like, I mean, there’s different versions of it. But the version I tell goes like this: there’s a grandparent talking with a grandchild and they say, “In life, there are tools inside of us that are always a battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other’s a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.” The grandchild stops, thinks about it for a second. They look up at their grandparents, “Which one wins?” And the grandparent says, “The one you feed.” 

 

So that’s the parable and like you it was enormously influential to me in my sobriety journey. I’m sure I heard it in the first few months of being sober somewhere and just immediately landed on me like, oh, yeah, okay, I have a choice here. You know, like my actions, my thoughts, my behaviors, these things are going to influence, you know what direction I go. And I have a choice in that.

 

03:58

Yeah. And how, as you were sort of moving through that early sobriety journey, because I know it’s not easy from my own personal experience, did you at moments say okay, I get to choose whether I feed the bad wolf or the good wolf?

 

04:14

Well, choice is an interesting thing that I think about a lot because it’s really interesting to think about how much choice do we have at different points around different things. I don’t think choice is equal, we all have the same amount of choice in all situations, right? So I know that the amount of choice I have today about whether I put alcohol or another substance into my body, I feel like I have a huge degree of choice. Early on that degree of choice felt very little, it did not feel like I had a lot you know so I think that yes, I did know on some level, Well, no one else will get me drunk or high besides me. So it’s at some level, yes, I am making a choice but boy, it did not feel like an easy choice to at times, it did not feel almost like a possible choice. I mean, I feel like a lot of times, you know, I’ve stayed sober, you know, 51% of me wanted to and 49% didn’t, but that was enough. That was enough. And then there were other days where it changed. And now, you know, it’s like, you know, I mean, 100% is zero most of the time, you know. 

 

And so I think it speaks to the fact that, yeah, we do have a choice. And my experience and most people in recovery is that choice gets easier over time in the beginning. For me, it felt like being torn apart inside, you know, because one part of me is like, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t the other part of me screaming, you have to you have to you have to, and it’s an awful, awful feeling. And so, you know, I think that’s one like if, if that’s what recovery was, do you live like that? I don’t think anybody would stay sober, right? Like, it’s too, it’s too hard. And we often confuse what it’s like getting sober with what it’s like to be sober. And, you know, I think that’s a really important point is that your degree of choice will change. That was a long answer to a short question.

 

06:06

Oh, my God, I loved it. And I think that you described it really, really well, that now you feel like your ability to choose whether or not you drink, you put a substance in your body is very, very clear. But in the beginning that, you know, the fight of the wolves, the good and bad, is really difficult. And I always think of drinking, which was my experience, like a magnet, the closer you are to it, the stronger the pull is to go back to drinking. And the further away you get from it, it’s like that magnetic force, it becomes less and less then less. And that was one of the reasons I mentioned, and folks who listen to this podcast, a lot will know that, that I call it the addictive voice in my head that tells me drinking is a good idea, Wolfie, and my coach called it that, but it’s based on that parable. And the idea is that if you drink, you’re feeding the wolf, and the Wolf gets really strong. And the longer you go without feeding your addictive voice, without drinking, without feeding the bad wolf, you sort of starve him. And the weaker and weaker and weaker it gets to the point where I to this day, I quit drinking six and a half years ago, have a leather keychain on my car keys with the initials F-U-W standard for fuck you wolfie, used your rubbish when I was kind of having a hard time. So all that is to say is that terrible does actually mean a whole lot to me. And your analogy makes perfect sense.

 

07:54

It’s interesting, the analogy that I heard early in sobriety that always really helped me was and it’s similar. It’s, I hadn’t connected the two, I hadn’t connected to the parable. And so you just did for me is that we used to say like cravings are like stray cats. You know, if you feed them, they’re gonna keep coming around. But if you stop feeding them sooner or later, they’ll get the message. There’s no food here. And they’ll move on. And I had not connected that to the wolf parable all been about feeding. But that was really helpful for me. I’ll tell you sometimes I think I stay sober on simply never wanting to have to get sober again. Like, I think to myself, like I know, I have enough experience to know that were I to drink again, I would end up in the same place, which would mean I would have to get sober. And I don’t ever, ever want to go through that again. Like it just was, particularly for me, I got sober twice. The second time was way harder. There’s I think, there’s a variety of reasons for that. But you know, I just don’t want to do it again.

 

09:00

Well, you tell us about that, about your experience with addiction and your path.

 

09:05

Sure. I mean, you know, you read in the introduction, you know, I was a homeless heroin addict at age 24. You know, I was looking at going to jail for like 50 years. I had hepatitis C, I had an extraordinarily low bottom, I weighed 100 pounds. I mean, I was dying. It was very clear. I was going to jail for a long time. I was going to die. And so I got sober. But there was something that was a little bit easier about that, in that it was so clear that like, there were no remaining choices for me. So I stayed sober about eight years. And then after about eight years, I got the wise idea that I could probably drink. I was like, you know, heroin. I mean, I was doing heroin. That’s a terrible idea. Like we can all agree that’s not you know, no good. And, you know, I was so young and so much older and wiser now and I thought, I can do this. And so I started drinking. I was also smoking pot. I don’t know how long I did that, three years, maybe three and a half. But I don’t know, I’ve been sober again 15 years. 

 

But when I, the second time around when I got sober, it was such a different experience, right? I was not, I was not at a low bottom, I had just gotten the best job I’ve ever had, I was making more money than I ever made, I was driving home, the nicest car I’ve ever driven, I was living in a really nice house. I mean, so from the outside, everything was fine. There was no external reason to quit. But having had the experience of a really, having had a low bar, and then this, what I was able to see was that inside, what was happening to me was the exact same phenomenon, the craving, the thinking about it all the time. I knew then that it was the most important thing to me. Alcohol was the most important thing to me. And I wouldn’t have you know, I don’t know that if you ask somebody that question, if you’d asked me, I would have said that out loud. But if I looked at my behavior, when I looked at the choices I was making, I was putting it above everything else. 

 

And that’s what I did with heroin. The difference was, heroin was an illegal substance that you had to steal to get and, you know, it just was dangerous. But that’s, that’s just societal, right? That’s just the society’s laws. Alcohol, on the other hand, is an equally destructive substance that happens to be legal and socially sanctioned. And everywhere, I can drink without the external consequences in the same way. But again, the internal thing, the amount of space it took up in my life, in my head, in my heart, the centrality of its point in my life was exactly the same. 

 

And that was enough for me to go like, okay, you know, it made it a little bit harder, because I kept having these moments of like, it’s not that bad. You know? And then I think, do I really? Do I really have to keep writing this thing until something bad happens? Because I know it will. I know it will. You cannot, I knew well enough to know, you can’t drink at the level I’m drinking it over a long enough period of time without something bad happening from it. Health wise, emotion wise, consequence wise, family wise, like it was going to catch up to me. And I just kept having to say to myself, do you really have to just keep doing it until it gets that bad? You know, like, do you have to keep doing it till you’re in a car accident with your son? You know, because you’ve been drinking? And, you know, am I drinking a lot? And I have my son in the car? No, but do I drop them off at soccer practice and occasionally have a shot? Yes. You know, like, it was, again, just that I was making every decision based on my drinking. And so it was a very different experience for me. But again, like I said that the internal peace was what was the same and, and having been sober with a really low bottom allowed me to sort of see that I think a lot of people may not have that level of clarity, because I didn’t have that earlier experience that I’d had.

 

13:02

Yeah, I’m so glad you mentioned that because what you were describing about having a good job, having no sort of external consequences, everything looking really good on the outside, I feel like that’s where I was, and where a lot of women who are listening to this podcast are, meaning they know how worried they are about it. And like you mentioned, it’s not like heroin, it’s legal. It’s not only that, it’s encouraged. It’s pushed on you. It’s hard to say no to. So I mean, I was the same way. Did I go over to a girlfriend’s house and have two glasses of wine and then debate having a third and maybe do and then drive my kids home? Yes. And think that I was okay. I’m okay. But, you know, I know in retrospect, I probably wasn’t, or definitely wasn’t, you know.

 

13:58

Right. That’s not a decision that any of us would make. If alcohol wasn’t taking an oversized place in our life, like from my position today, we’d never have two shots of whiskey and drive my son around like there is just no, I’m not going to do that. Now, I’m not judging anybody that does do that, because I did it. So that’s not a judgment. It’s just to say that from a certain perspective, you look at that, and you go, that’s, that’s, that doesn’t make sense.

 

14:25

Yeah. And I also thought it was helpful that you contrasted just in your own experience, having such a low bottom and then having that debate internally as to whether you really needed to stop drinking, because it was not that bad, because I know in my experience, I actually did go to a 12 step program the first time I tried to stop drinking. Like most people, it took me a bunch of years of worrying about it and then a couple attempts and a couple different tools and maybe more than a couple of stop, but in that you know, you do look around sometimes to people who’ve lost their kids or gone to jail or had a DUI and you said, Well, I’m not that bad. And they will say yet, which is true, right? But I’m not that bad and therefore, maybe I don’t belong here. And maybe I don’t need to stop drinking, because that’s what, you know, in my mind, my wolfie voice wants to tell me. So it is that dichotomy between you don’t have a low bottom and yes, that helps you stop. And it also prevents you sometimes.

 

15:31

Totally. And, you know, the sober curious movement is, you know, I think there are people who know that movement much better than I do. But a question that emerges from there, that the first time I heard I was like, how obvious is that? Was simply do I think my life would be better without drinking? You know, that is it. I mean, that very quickly clarifies the whole thing. It’s not about how bad am I? It’s, would life be better without? Would I be better without the hangovers? Would I be better without waking up at 3am anxious? Would I be better without worrying about it? Would I be better without the shame? Would I be better? 

 

Like, if the answer to those things is yes, then you don’t, you don’t have to measure yourself against some scale of it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist because I mean, I know people who the idea of a bottom is like many things, that there’s a kernel of truth in it. But it’s also not. It’s not what, I don’t think it’s as important as people give it credit for, right. Because I know people who had bottoms that would make, you know, all of us be like, Are you kidding me? No, I will not, you know, and they just kept going. He just kept going, then we know people who, you know, you might look at me like, Well, did you even really have a problem? But they thought they did. And they you know, by that simple question of would my life be better? Now, I think what complicates that is that a lot of times, we’re like, yes, my life would be better. So I stopped for a day, a week, a month, and my life doesn’t get better, it actually gets worse, at least how I feel inside gets worse. So we thus conclude No, my life wouldn’t be better without it. But that’s mistaking what it’s like to get sober for what it’s like to be sober.

 

17:27

I love that you said that because a lot of women, you know, are like, Oh, I tried to stop drinking and I got to day four, I got to day seven, I got to two weeks. And actually, I’m a nicer person. I’m less irritated. And, you know, drinking gives me energy. I do fall asleep better without it. I’m like, It’s not that you don’t like sobriety. You don’t like withdrawal. You don’t like early sobriety, which is your body physically craving alcohol and your nerves being shot to hell and nobody sleeps well, in the first little bit. And so they kind of never get to the good part.

 

18:09

That’s exactly it. You’re right, they never do get to the good part. Because they get, they start creeping up on it and then give up. And it is you know, early early sobriety can be really tough. Some people take to it, some people take to it and they you know, they’re like, oh my god, I immediately feel better. I’m, but a lot of people don’t. And I was not one of them. I mean, the first time I got sober again, my bottom was so low and I went into treatment and it felt, I don’t know if I want to use the word easy, it didn’t feel easy, but the second time was really hard in comparison.

 

18:44

Will you tell us about that path? Like did you, you didn’t go to rehab the second time right? What tools did you use? Did you go back to 12 step or?

 

18:54

I did, I did. Yep. So 12 step has been my path and it has saved my life. It saved my life twice. There’s a lot of things about it that I actually don’t particularly love and I think if I were to be getting sober today, again remember the first time I got sober was 1994 in Columbus, Ohio, right? Like there was nothing on offer except a very conservative blend of AA, but I was desperate you know, and then the other was 15 years ago and even then there wasn’t much of anything else. Now there are so many different choices. I think I might make a different choice than 12 step today. Perhaps. 12 step has a lot to recommend it though. But it also, first for certain people and with certain beliefs, it can take some adjusting to but yeah, going back to 12 step meetings is what I did. I just was like alright, you know, I’m gonna go back and I’m gonna go to a meeting today and the second time around it took me a few tries you know, I didn’t get it. I didn’t like walk in and was, Alright, well, it’s done like I walked in. And, you know, I think I almost got to like three months sober and then drank again. You know?

 

20:08

So why was it so much harder? Was it the it being legal? The availability, the lack of having to do it? I mean, did your partner and you know, you wanted to stop drinking for your son or what was the push?

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 

20:24

Well, so the reason the push was, I knew it was a problem. I just had an internal gnawing at me that this is not good. Because like I said, I knew how out of control I was, you know, I had this sense, I had this hopelessness about me. And the hopelessness was, I knew that as long as I kept drinking, nothing was really going to change in my life. You know, I’m in a bad marriage. I mean, there’s all these things about my life. I might want to be different, I want to be healthy, I want to be in shape, I want to play more music, I mean, all these different things, but I knew none of those things change if I keep drinking. So there was this pervasive feeling of sort of hopelessness because I just, you know, I knew that I knew the game well enough, I was under no illusion, like, well, this is going to, you know, get better or so that was a big part of it. 

 

But the actual final impetus was, I had gone on a multi day bender, drinking a lot, and went over to my friend Chris’s house and we went out and I embarrassed myself. I kept climbing on stage with other people singing karaoke, who did not want me singing karaoke with them. Then I would go over to the bar, temporarily pass out for about 10 minutes, get back up and rejoin somebody for karaoke. So not a great night. But I fell asleep while I passed out. And I came to the next morning at like, 10 o’clock. And, you know, I did, I wasn’t there to get my son up and take him to school. Now, my partner was, she got him up and took him to school, it’s fine, right? But I had not made that arrangement. I had not made the arrangement like hey, I’m not coming home, you get up, you know, you get into school. 

 

Yeah. 

 

And I had just this moment of, like, what if I’d had a babysitter? You know, what if I’d had a babysitter, you know, like, my, it’s obviously, my wife had been trying to call me I wasn’t answering the phone, like, you know, and it just was a, it was with the combination of being physically sick from drinking so much for, you know, being kind of on the tail end of a bender, of just this nagging feeling of hopelessness, and it was just enough. I was just sick enough and sad enough and scared enough that I just went, That’s it. Like, I’m gonna go to AA. I’m gonna go back to AA. And I believe that I tried everything I could do to not have to go back to abstinence. You know, I was like, I tried everything I could think of. So that’s kind of what the impetus was.

 

23:22

Well, was it, I just wonder if it was because it’s sleek on and curved? That made it harder?

 

23:28

Yeah. Why was it harder? I think it was a lot of different reasons. The first time I went to treatment and being in a treatment facility makes it easier, right? All you really have to do is not walk out the door and you’ll be sober, right? So it was easier in that way. I think the second was my partner wanted me to stop drinking, but she had no interest in stopping drinking herself. So there was still booze around the house all the time. That’s so hard. I had a job that entailed me occasionally taking people out to dinner for sales meetings and them drinking again, my bottom wasn’t as low. I had more responsibilities. I was busy, like, you know, I mean, when I got sober the first time and I just, my life, I mean, I burnt my life to the ground. There was no life that was calling me to do anything. So I could just devote my entire life to being sober. 

 

The second time around, I had a kid, you know, we had, I had my son, I had my stepson, I had a very demanding job. All that kept going, you know? And so I didn’t have the time to devote myself to it. No, like, early on, when I got out of treatment. I mean, I would go to like three meetings a day, because I could and because that’s what made me feel safe and protected. I couldn’t do that this time around, you know, one meeting a day was a strain. 

 

And so I think there were a bunch of different reasons that made it harder. I was having to come back to AA where I had been, you know, when I was in there those first eight years. I was incredibly involved. I had sponsored so many people, I had led so many meetings, I had been elected to positions. I was a very, yeah. You know, I was a, I was a prominent part of AA. And now I’m having to go back and be like, oh, yeah, I’ve got, I’ve got two days. Yeah, it’s humbling. And harsh. Oh, yeah. So I mean, I think that that contributed. And there was this joy that I had gotten the first time around in 12 steps, and all the people I had known and it was this really special time. And it wasn’t like that this time, it was just very different. So I think there were a lot of reasons why it was harder the second time.

 

25:38

That makes complete and total sense to me. 

 

I mean, alcohol is very, very different from heroin. Everybody thinks heroin is harder to get sober from, and I, I personally haven’t experienced it. But I have to believe that the availability of alcohol and sort of the attitudes around alcohol and being constantly encouraged to drink and surrounded by it makes quitting drinking much, you know, equally difficult. 

 

Oh, yeah, I did not have co-workers inviting me out to shoot heroin after work. 

 

Right. It wasn’t happening. But I certainly had coworkers invite me to happy hour and again, I certainly had work responsibilities. You know, I was in a sales role at the time and a software company. And my job was to, you know, take people out, entertain them. And, you know, booze was a big part of that. My wife kept drinking, you know, I mean, so it was just all around me all the time. Now, there is some benefit to that. I don’t recommend it. Still drinks too

 

26:38

So she’s quote unquote, a Normie. 

 

26:43

Right. But still. Yeah, but what it did do was I got used to it. Like, you know, I was around it all the time. So after a little while, I just was like, Well, I’m not going to be thrown off my game if I’m suddenly surrounded by alcohol. But, again, it’s not how I would, you know, I would not recommend getting sober that way. But for some people, that’s the reality. You know, for some people, that’s the reality. And I think it’s important to know that even in that situation, with a partner who drinks every day with a job that has to bring him with, you can still do it. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s possible. It’s just good to know that but if you can eliminate alcohol from as many places around you as possible, that’s a great strategy.

 

27:28

One, one thing that I love about the sober curious movement are the way so many people are talking now about choosing not to drink as a health choice and a lifestyle choice that it actually does make it a lot easier to say, I’m taking a break from drinking, or I’ve decided to no longer drink without the automatic, Oh, did you have a problem with it? Responsibly? And, you know, I mean, I know there’s just been an explosion of non alcoholic beverage options, to the point where pubs are having to adjust and, you know, a whole bunch of big, big alcohol companies are, are creating 0.0 or options or trying to I mean, Guinness and Corona and Heineken and all that stuff, because there’s market demand for it, and they’re worried about missing out.

 

28:22

Yeah, yeah, that was not the case 15 years ago, but there’s plenty of ways to decline a drink without saying like, I’m an alcoholic. No, thank you. Yeah, you know, there’s, there’s lots of ways to do it a lot more subtly. It’s funny, the second time I got sober. I’ve been sober a few years at this point. But I took a new job. And there was a very big happy hour culture in this new place. And so people kept inviting me to go to happy hour and I kept saying no, because I don’t, I mean, all things being equal. I don’t like to be around a bunch of people where the primary activity is drinking, it’s just not that fun for me. But after a little while, I finally went like some of these people I work with and I’m close enough with that I think I need to explain to them why I never go out with them. Right? And so you know, after declining for 1000 different reasons that they finally said look, here’s why I don’t go out with you guys to happy hour because I just didn’t want to think I didn’t like them. 

 

But I was able to make that choice after, you know, really making some real thought about, do I you know, how much do I want to share with these people? How much? And we all have different feelings about how much we want to share about that stuff, right? I mean, the first time around if you got within 10 feet of me I told you I was a heroin addict, right? I was so like fired up about being sober finally. And, and honestly, I had no other; everything else in my life was gone. I mean, so recovery was my life. 

 

The second time around, I was a whole lot. I played it a whole lot closer to the vest for a while, you know, it, you know, I don’t want to be a downer. If I’m taking a bunch of people out to dinner for a software thing, you know, it’s kind of a buzzkill, literally, for me to be like, Oh, no, no, I don’t drink because, you know, you know, so I would just be like, I gotta drive. I’ve got an early morning, my stomach doesn’t feel good, I’m allergic, I’m, you know, I’m taking a break. I mean, there’s just so many different ways these days and like you said, I think it’s a whole lot more socially acceptable today too, but not everywhere, right? 

 

I mean, there are plenty of places where the pressure to drink is still, they’re still there. And it’s still very early. But you can be endlessly creative in the ways of getting out of it. If you don’t want to share with somebody like an alcoholic, or, you know, every time I stop, I mean, I used to just after a certain while, my thing I used to say was, look, when I start, I don’t tend to stop. So it’s best if I just don’t start and it is just as simple as that, that would be the entire thing. And you know, I’m not talking about alcoholism, I’m not talking, I’m just simply stating a very simple fact. Like, I don’t have a very good off switch. So.

 

31:10

Yeah, no, I love that. Well, so one of the things I definitely wanted to talk about when you were on here is your work as a behavior coach. Because long term behavior change or even short term, it’s difficult, right? Changing an ingrained habit. So will you tell us a little bit about that in the work you do? 

 

31:34

Sure. You know, I became a behavior coach, for a variety of reasons, but when I was in AA, we used to say all the time, sometimes you can’t think your way into the right action, you have to act your way in the right thinking. And that sentence was really, really powerful to me, you know, because there were times I couldn’t get, I couldn’t make wanting to use go away. Like, I couldn’t think that thought away. But I could act it away, I could behave it away by going to meetings, by calling my sponsor, by going for a run, by, I could take behaviors. And I sort of figured out like, oh, behavior is the easiest lever to pull. If we look at maybe just, you know, three prominent aspects, right, we’ve got our behavior, we’ve got our thoughts, we’ve got our emotions, emotions, we all know, you can’t just change an emotion, there’s no lever on an emotion to grab it and change it. Thoughts, there’s a little bit more, you know, you can be like, Well, I don’t know about that thought, let me question it, let me but there are times even then you just can’t move, you can’t change what you’re thinking, doesn’t work, you change it, it comes right back, back, back back, you know. What behavior I’ve discovered was the easiest lever to pull, it’s the one we can all grab. Yeah. And so as a starting point, you know, that seemed to me a good place to start and really carried me really well through sobriety was what’s the, you know, we used to say, what’s the next right thing to do? You know, that phrase was enormously helpful.

 

33:14

I use that all the time, just the next right thing, and not just related to not drinking, just like when things are hard or overwhelming.

 

33:23

Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, it was behavior became, you know, a, they taught us, for me a lot about what to do, you know, it was about actions. And that just resonated, and it really worked for me. So, that was one reason I just orient towards behavior naturally, right. And we know that behavior changes cause other changes. If I exercise for 30 days, I’m just going to feel better, my body and my mind, everywhere, right? The second is that behavior very often then, is a very direct path into what our emotional and mental states are. And what I mean by that is, let me back up. For most of the time, when we don’t take a behavior we want to take, let’s just say, I’m like, I’m gonna go to the gym every day after work, and we don’t do it. Right. There’s, there’s one of two broad categories of why we don’t do things. One is simply time management, right? We’ve not prioritized that, we’ve not cleared other things out of our schedule. We just don’t have a clear plan. We’re not specific about what we’re doing. There’s very tactical things and that’s part of what I do as a behavior change person. 

 

Beyond that, what it is is almost entirely what I call a failure of emotional regulation, which means I feel something that I don’t know how to deal with so I turn away. So in behavior coaching, what we can do is get the tag because stuff really sets up. And then if we’re not doing something, we actually can really examine what’s happening. So by get, for example, let’s take my going to the gym every day, right? If I’ve gotten really specific, I’m going to go to the gym, and I know what gym it is. And I’m going to go at 5:30pm. And I’m going to walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes, five days a week. So at 5:30pm, I am presented with the choice, I call them choice points, I’m now at a choice, if I choose not to do it, I can actually then examine that moment and say what was going on. 

 

So my behavior now has led me very clearly to emotions and thoughts, that I can then examine more closely, and see the ways they’re, you know, becoming problematic in our lives, you know. So emotional regulation is another thing. I’m kind of a pet, you know, obsession of mine, and I define it, as you know, working with our thoughts and emotions skillfully enough, that we can act according to our values. Yeah. And so that’s kind of why behavior coaching for me is, is the primary lens that I look at a lot of things through.

 

36:21

And do you work? I mean, I think you work with one on one clients in all areas, right? So it’s not just with trying to change their drinking or addiction, do you work with people on other habits and behavior change as well?

 

36:38

Almost entirely with others. I will, generally speaking, not work with the vast majority of people around drugs and alcohol, okay. There’s a lot of different reasons for that. And we can go into them if you wanted to. But most of my, the vast majority of my coaching is about other things. And I’m also a certified interface spiritual director. So I do a lot of work with people on, you know, what, what their spiritual life means to them. And I define spirituality very broadly. So, you know, but so much, you know, the, the work I’m doing as a coach is, I mean, I think it’s what a lot of coaches are doing, right? It is, at its essence, trying to figure out what’s really important to you, what matters to you? What levers can you pull that are going to allow you to, you know, live according to those values? And then what gets in the way? What are the problems? What are the challenges? How do we, how do we get through them? 

 

So, in that way, you know, I don’t know that I’m vastly different from other coaches, but I definitely have a very behavior oriented, you know, a very, like, let’s start with behavior. But that’s not everybody. I mean, I have, I work with coaching clients on, you know, a variety of different things. I’ve worked with a lot of creative people, you know, authors who can’t write, people who are stuck. I ended up getting a surprising number of people who have retired recently, yeah, and, like, all structure in my life left, and now I don’t know what to do with myself, I just feel lost, you know. So it’s, it spans a wide range. I mean, I do less of it. Now. I just don’t have the time to do as much one on one work, but I still do some and then I’ve created this spiritual habits program. And I’ve created another program called circle of connection. So I’ve created these programs where, you know, I can, it can impact more people at one time.

 

38:48

Yeah, I am curious, you, just since so many people listening to this are trying to stop drinking, well, what’s the reason that you, you don’t typically work with people with that type of behavior?

 

39:02

In the beginning, it was because in 12 steps we work with other alcoholics as part of our own recovery. Yeah. And we do it for free. And so in the beginning, I was deeply uncomfortable with is it okay to charge anybody money for this? And do I threaten my own recovery? I now actually think there are times where, you know, provided I would not be like hire me to help you work the 12 steps, like I would not do that. But I’m not really interested in programs anymore. I don’t really, that’s you know, that’s not really where I still orient a whole lot even though it’s what got me sober. I’ve since gone to see that there are ways that people can charge money for working with alcoholics and addicts and it’d be an ethical and fine thing to do so but that was what originally just got me out of that space. 

 

Then over time it became a lot of what it is now. You’re a great example of the counterpoint to what I’m about to say, which is that, I find that for a lot of people, just having a sober coach is not enough. They need more support and help. So when will I work with somebody? I mean, sometimes a lot of people will come to me and say, I believe that if I could just exercise every day and eat well, and meditate, then just drinking would kind of naturally fall away. And I go, Well, maybe, yeah, right. Like, but that person is not ready to stop. Right? Because they still believe there’s a way and they might be right. They might be right. So what I’ll say is, Hey, okay, let’s do that, let’s work on these behaviors that you want to take that you think if you did, then you naturally would want to drink less. 

 

One of two things is going to happen. Thing one is you’re going to be right, you’re going to do those things. And you’ll be right, you’ll feel healthier, you’ll feel happier, you’ll feel better, you’ll drink, you will stop drinking, you’ll drink way, way less. Or the second thing that’s going to happen is you’re going to find that you can’t do any of those other things while you’re drinking. Yeah, meaning we get three days in a row going at the gym, things are going good. And then you get hammered one night, and you don’t go the next day. And we’re gonna fall in that drinking is what stuck blocking all those, but that will be a good thing to learn. 

 

So for people who are not ready to stop drinking, I often will work with those people in a sense of like, we don’t know the answer, whether you need to stop drinking or not, you believe there are other things you could do in your life that would cause this to be a problem. I’ll help you try and do those things. And then we’re going to end up with an answer. And then you can choose to do what you want with that. So I will do that kind of work. Depending on how severe somebody’s addiction is, you know, there’s just lots of cases like, I don’t want it, I don’t want to be, I don’t want it to be on my watch if somebody overdoses of heroin, right? 

 

42:08

Yeah, I definitely think that there are levels of support and you need to find the right level for you. So for some people, online groups, and Quizlet books and all those things is enough. For other people, online coaching programs in a group is enough for other people, one on one coaching is great for other people, just therapy and yoga, and then down, you know, some people definitely need medicine, rehab, 12 Step, you know, all the support in the world. And it’s just sort of like stage one, stage two, stage three breast cancer, you know, early detection depends on what, what treatment you need. What do you think when I say that?

 

42:52

No, I agree. 100% I agree. 100%. And that is what when I do work with somebody that is, you know, what I always say is maybe working with me will be enough. Yeah, it’s very possible it won’t. And if it’s not, you know, I just want you to realize that the conclusion we may come to after you’ve paid me a bunch of money, is that you need more help. You know, that is it. Yeah, I just, I’m very careful not to promise outcomes of things. And so, so it’s like, yeah, maybe a sober coach will be enough for you but maybe it won’t. You know, and, and our work together, we’ll figure that out. And I do think that’s a valid thing. You know, to the extent that none of us are going to give up drinking until we’re absolutely convinced there’s no choice but to give up drinking. 

 

Yeah, right. 

 

I mean, the second time I got sober before I did that. I enrolled in a program called moderation management. You can, it’s interesting, if there could be a valedictorian of moderation management as in like how hard someone applied themselves, I would have been the valedictorian, because I knew what was coming, which was abstinence. And I was like, I don’t want to, I don’t want to go back to AA, I don’t want to be sober, I don’t have to give it up. You know, which is the obsession, you know, the AA big books is the obsession of every abnormal drinker, is that someday, somehow, we will be able to control it. 

 

And so that was my obsession. And so I went to moderation management and I tried really, really hard. And I’m glad I did, right, because then now when I think about luck, well, maybe I could have I’m like, No, you know it. You’ve tried this really hard with the help of a program and you tried all the ways to do it on your own, then you actually went and got help to moderate and you still couldn’t, that was a valuable learning for me. So if somebody’s like, I think, you know, I think If I could just work with a sober coach, that will be enough for me. That may be in which case wonderful. On the other hand, if it’s not, then that is good that you learn. That’s good to know, too, because you’re like, Okay, I tried this, that didn’t work. 

 

Now, I’ve heard a couple people say something recently, which I think is an interesting thing. Or it was one person, actually. And she said that her worry with that is there’s so many apps and coaches and programs that people could get caught up forever in trying to sort of moderate or control their drinking, because there’s another like, if moderation if I had been like, presented with a list of 15 other things after moderation management to try, I might have kept trying those. Yeah. And been caught in this perpetual loop. When the answer very clearly for me was stop drinking.

 

45:53

Interesting. I’m very, very clear in that, like, I am not a moderation coach, because I don’t believe it works. And I feel like you’re constantly in that magnet, if you’re trying to moderate you always, you’re always in the drinking recovery withdrawal cycle. So in the work I do, most women have tried to moderate for a very long time. And what I work with them on is, let’s set a goal of continuous sobriety. And that’s our joint goal for 100 days, not with the idea that after 100 days, you are going to go back to drinking, the idea being that over those 100 days, because there’s no question that you’re going to want to drink, that you’ve gone through enough situations, you’ve made enough changes in your beliefs, you’ve got enough experience being around people drinking and using other tools to decompress or celebrate or get through difficult times or out to dinner with salespeople. And you feel so much better physically than you did when you were trying to moderate that you’re then going to go for six months or a year or beyond. Because I don’t think I mean, like you said, quitting drinking was literally my worst case scenario. And I would very, very clearly say, I’ve got to get a handle on this with the goal so that I never have to stop. Like that was what I wanted.

 

47:25

Totally. That’s again, I think that that line from the AA big book is so accurate, you know, that is all of us as drinkers, that’s our great obsession, I will find out a way to do this. If I just don’t drink whiskey, I only drink beer, I only drink on the weekends, I take a valium before I go to bed, I won’t be so hungover. I mean, there’s just the constant gyrations that we go through. And you know, whether some people can moderate, of course, some people could moderate right? What I thought moderation management’s premise was most people are not so far down the path yet that they need full abstinence. Nothing, right. I think that same is true. What I actually found in moderation management was that it was a bunch of alcoholics like myself, hoping desperately for something else, right. It wasn’t a bunch of people where like, well, you know, I’m, I’m doing pretty well, drinking two days a week seems pretty easy. You know, it was just failure report after failure report. Right? Of, you know, there’s another line from the AA book that, that I didn’t, I never really understood until I really tried moderation management. And the line is something like, the alcoholic cannot control and enjoy their drinking. And what I realized there was what they were saying was, in essence, and what I realized was, I can try and control my drink. And sometimes I’m successful. Sometimes I’m not. But I don’t enjoy it. It’s miserable.

 

48:59

When I control it, I don’t enjoy it. And when I enjoy it, I can’t control it.

 

49:03

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And that really made. So once I realized that I was like, Well, this is a no win game. Right? You know, I can’t just, the only way I really enjoy this is just take my hands off the wheel and let it go. But that’s just this catastrophic, you know. On the other hand, I mean, I remember so many nights when I was in moderation management, it’d be like, let’s say it’s 11 at night, and I’m getting ready to go to bed. You know, I’m doing nothing else except walking upstairs, climbing into bed and going to sleep. And I am at my drink limit for the day. Or maybe I’m at one over my drink limit or you know, I was cheating from the very beginning. And you know, they define a drink as three ounces. I define a drink as six ounces. I mean, from the very beginning I was gaming the system, but I just remember this, I have this clear memory of standing there at the kitchen counter, and the whiskey bottle was there. There is no reason on God’s green earth for me to take another drink. And yet, it’s just torture not to, you know? I know in my brain and like you said, you were going to moderate. You’re going to bed, you don’t drink. But there’s an equally strong voice like Greg, Greg, Greg Wolfie is yelling, right? He’s yelling. And I just remember that and how awful that felt. And so, you know, again, I think that, that, you know, we’re all going to have to, we’re all going to extend some attempts at moderation. But the sooner I think we can accept, like, this isn’t working.

 

50:48

You save yourself so much pain and heartache and time.

 

50:52

So much pain and time and heartache. And, you know, again, we have to be, we have to do what we have to do to become convinced, you know, but, you know, I’m sure all of us who are in this field in a way we could shorten that time window for people and help them become convinced far more quickly. But, you know, that thing we talked about earlier on, like, is it bad enough? Is, is such a treacherous question. I know people I got sober with the first time around, who went back out like I did, and they are still not sober. Oh, yeah. And every time I see them, they’re like, I wish I could do what you’re doing. And the thing that trips them up is it’s not bad enough yet. Yeah. Yeah. Because they’re comparing, you know, they’re comparing what it’s like now versus what it was like for them when they were bad enough. And they’re not connecting the internal dots that for whatever reason, I was able to connect. And I’m so grateful that I was. Those internal dots work. The outside, does it matter? Yes. Yeah. It’s what it’s doing to my self esteem, what it’s doing to my soul, to my spirit, to my belief in myself, that is the highest price, that is the price that we all pay, when we constantly again, against I’m going to stop. And then we don’t. I’m going to stop and then we don’t erodes who we are, you know, on some deeply fundamental level, and that is the highest price. You know, jail is a small price actually compared to that, but we don’t see it that way. But it actually is.

 

52:29

You know, what really resonated with me and it was interesting, because your original, getting sober was so different from mine. But I mentioned that, you know, I’m six and a half years sober. The first time I tried to stop drinking was nine and a half years ago. And I had gotten to that point where I felt like I couldn’t cope with my life. I used to walk into work in the morning, you know, debating, on my way to get Starbucks, like, Am I an alcoholic? Or do I just abuse alcohol? Because if I just abuse it, if I can get a handle on this, and, you know, I don’t actually have to stop and then by 6pm, I’m driving to pick up my kid from daycare and debating if I have enough time to stop at the grocery store before it closes, because I may not have, you know, enough. Why not? 

 

So I stopped drinking when this therapist that dealt with anxiety and addiction, he was in 12 Step, he recommended I go to 12 step. I joined one of these online secret Facebook groups, which helped me honestly so much. And I did go to AA for about four months, pretty consistently to women’s meetings, big book study, didn’t resonate with me that well, I’m not religious at all, and just, you know, the meeting structure or whatever wasn’t necessarily for me. So I got pregnant, I was like, oh, problem solved. You know, I’m not going to drink. I ended up not drinking for a year, and my life was better, go figure. You know, I was happier, I was healthier, I didn’t feel like I was about to have a nervous breakdown. I decided, of course, that it was situational. That it was my job, my boss, my husband wasn’t helping me. Now I was all better so I could moderate. I just said, you know, I just want a couple glasses of wine on a date night, you know, the mood everybody wants. 

 

And very, very quickly, I was back to a bottle plus of wine a night, seven nights a week and it took 22 months for me to stop again, even though many, many times during that period, you know, they say recovery ruins you for drinking. The second time, every hangover, every 3am wake up like I knew it was the alcohol. And by the second time I finally stopped when I heard my sober coach say that I no longer hold on to the illusion that the reason I felt as bad as I did, you know, dooms depressed, fearful. It was the alcohol, it wasn’t my boss, my husband, whatever it was, like I knew what the issue was. And I think, at least for me, that’s why when I worked with a coach, it really helped me because I knew I wanted to stop, I’d given up on the idea of moderating by that. And, you know, not only that, we talked about layers of support, my sober coach got me to 60 days, and I worked with her for two years, hugely helpful. Then I added an online program that had like a community and education, then I added therapy and some medication for anxiety and underlying mental health stuff. And I added exercise. So it wasn’t like the one thing it was all of the things.

 

55:55

Yeah, yeah, that’s really an interesting perspective. Because I’ve heard a lot of people, it’s really interesting to hear a lot of people who stopped on their own or stopped with, you know, not a ton of what we might think of as traditional support. Almost always those people go on to start adding in support. You know, they go on to start going well, okay, yeah, this is good. But I need this. And I could use this and I could, you know, but, but I agree, you know, what you said earlier, I think is 100% true. The level of support that we need is different for everybody. And the types of support that help and work are different for everybody. 

 

What I do think is a fairly common, or what I do think is a rule that holds up pretty well is if you’re trying to stop drinking, and it’s not working, you don’t have enough support. In fact, doesn’t matter where you are, if you’re trying to stop drinking, and you’ve got a sober coach, and it’s not working, then that says, Okay, I need more than that, you know? And so, but yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s just really different for everybody. Yeah, I mean, it’s so hard to know what somebody will need. And I think that’s why it’s great that there’s a lot of options and put just a rule of thumb in taking your own life is, if it’s not working, then I need to go to the next level of support, how do I increase? Because I do think that there are some people who are able to just do this completely on their own. I don’t know, I don’t know how, I don’t know. But you didn’t know, I don’t, I don’t fully understand it. And again, a lot of those people that I know end up like going like after three months, like I’m gonna go crazy. And so they end up getting help, you know, but I do deeply believe that recovery is something that we do with help from other people. 

 

Oh, I agree. 

 

The vast, vast majority of us cannot do it on our own. And the vast, vast majority of us are not doing it on our own, which is why we’re still doing it. Right. Is because we keep thinking that just by ourselves. If we just try hard enough, we’ll stop. If we just wanted to enough, or but that’s not how it works.

 

58:11

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have a huge sober community. It just didn’t come around in the most traditional way. But yeah, so many of my friends, both in person and online have also decided to remove alcohol from their lives.

 

58:26

Yep, yep. Though, the community that we build in recovery is one of the best benefits of recovery. We can’t see it at the beginning, we totally can’t imagine it, understand it, it doesn’t make any sense, but it turns out for many, many people to be the hidden gem that they get from recovery that is like, makes it all worthwhile. You know, so many people would look back and like, you know what, I’m grateful I’m an alcoholic. That sounds insane. Until you look at the community that has emerged and the relationships that have emerged in those people’s lives that would not have otherwise. And that’s where that feeling generally comes from.

 

59:06

And also like the honesty and the vulnerability and the work you do instead of just numbing out and pushing it down that improves every aspect of your life. Totally.

 

59:17

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there are so many benefits, so many great benefits to being sober. You know, you said earlier about that, you know, that thought like maybe I can moderate, you know? It is the thing that’s what almost everybody goes back to drink. That’s the lie that ropes them in. Yeah, yeah, very few of us are like, You know what, I’m gonna I’m just gonna go back to drink again as badly as I used to drink and forget shows I watch and wake up with a hangover every day. That sounds awesome.

 

59:53

Yeah, we’re like, Oh, I think I can do it. And you know, a lot of times we, you know, reflect on, like a risk to reward ratio, like, Okay, if I could drink again, moderately, and let’s say that means I get to have two drinks twice a week, what have I gained? I’ve gained two drinks twice a week, you know, I’ve gained a couple hours where I might relax a little bit more easily. Like, okay, now again, if you’re an alcoholic, you’re thinking, Well, hang on, that sounds pretty damn great, right? But as a sober person, like now, okay? But if I look at the risks to me, you know, I’m like, this is a crazy, outsized, risk reward ratio, right? Like, if you gave me, if you came to me with an investment opportunity that was similar, it’s like, Eric, you could make $10. But if you don’t, you could lose 2 million, I’d be like, Are you an idiot? Like, of course I’m not going to do that. Right? Like that is now again, I’m exaggerating a little bit for effect. But that is what you know, at least for me that looks like now I’m like, very little benefit, a huge, huge potential cost.

 

1:01:11

When I learned that through experience, right, that I had, you know, now, I know that I burned my hand on that hot stove enough to know that if I tried to moderate, I may feel like total garbage for 22 months and not be able to pull myself out of it. Like, it is so hard to get away from that magnet, you know, and there’s no guarantee that I gave, like he said, I can’t go through early sobriety again.

 

1:01:37

Yeah, that I agree 100% It is. I, you know, if I got to meet God, who I don’t exactly believe in, but if I did, and I could ask any question, at near the top of my, my personal questions would be, why do some people, Why are some people able to get sober and others not? Because I don’t understand it? It is, you know, we can point to a lot of different factors. We know a lot about it, but to me, it remains a great mystery. And to that end, I don’t know that I could do it again. You know, I just don’t know that I could. I’ve seen too many people who couldn’t, you know, like, when I came back to sobriety the second time, I just remember, you know, because anybody who said, like, I went, I had five years and I went back out, I immediately like, I’m locked in on that person, right? Because that’s where I’m going. That’s where I am. You know, so I got to know a lot of the people in the recovery community that’ve done that. And like I said, I know so many of them that are, some of them are dead. And the others are still drinking, they can’t get it back. Yeah, they keep drying and they can’t get it back. And so I just yeah, I don’t, yeah, I don’t want to roll those dice.

 

1:02:53

I don’t either. And, you know, something someone said to me in the beginning that really helped, it was actually Holly Whitaker, who wrote, like a woman I was in our online program early. But she just said, and I swear on my program, I hope I don’t offend you. But she’s like, I don’t fuck with alcohol anymore. I can fuck with a lot of things but alcohol is not one of them. And that’s what I think, you know, I’m just like, that’s off the table. I’m not. I’ve done it enough to know that it’s not something I want to mess with, because it doesn’t end up. 

 

1:03:25

Well. You know, totally, then that’s a really good way of thinking about it. It’s so funny. When I went back out after having been sober. The conversation in my head was very much I explained what part of it was, but the other part of it was like, Look, I make really good decisions in my life. Like, I make good decisions about my job. I’m making good decisions about my health, I make good decisions about how to parent my son, I make good decisions. So I’m just going to make good decisions when it comes to alcohol. Well, for whatever reason, with me, that doesn’t work.

 

1:03:57

Yeah, you’re like, I’m smart. I can think my way out of it. Yeah. Yeah.

 

1:04:02

And I am generally pretty good at making decisions. But for whatever reason, and you know, we could speculate on the reasons why alcohol is not like other decisions. Yeah. For me, it is just or any substance, right. It’s not like the others, is it? I don’t have the same level of ability to make good decisions around that, that I do other things. And I don’t know why, but I know it to be true now. Yeah.

 

1:04:30

You know, it’s fascinating to me, and I absolutely had no idea we were going to talk about this, but I, you know, 130 episodes, and I know you’ve got like 600. I’ve never talked to anyone who had been through moderation management. And I do think that’s the Holy Grail, not the program itself, but the idea of being able to moderate that’s out there. And I’ve always had a lot of hesitations about that for a number of reasons. Like I said, I’ve just, in my experience, I don’t think moderation works. I just think it’s, it’s delaying sort of the torture cycle that you’re in. But thank you for talking about your experience there, at least what you personally saw and how it worked for you, because I think that’s something that so many people wonder about.

 

1:05:20

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that it’s not that moderation doesn’t work. Because most people moderate Yes, the vast majority of drinkers moderate, but they just do it. They don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking. Do it. Yeah, they don’t, you know, I never heard this before. But I was listening. I had Jill Teats on her show recently, who I know you’re, you’re who connected us. And I was listening to her on someone else’s podcast as I was preparing to talk with her. And this person said something I was like, I cannot believe after having been around recovery for 26 years or something that I’ve never heard this phrase, but she basically said she was talking about moderation. And she said, like, nobody ever asked to ask, like, am I a frog? You know, like people asking like, am I alcoholic? You know, like, nobody ever asked me, am I a frog? Because we know clearly that the very fact that you’re having to ask that question that often is probably a pretty good sign that you’re drinking is problematic. You know, again, we don’t need to use the word alcoholic label if you don’t want to use it. I mean, we even, I don’t, I’m not even sure if it’s a clinically relevant label anymore. I think it might be alcohol use disorder. I don’t know what, but it is. Right. But that language is completely unimportant. But if you’re spending that much time, asking am I, am I, am I, that is probably a pretty good chance you are, right? You know, because you’re not doing that, like, am I a frog? Am I a frog? You know you’re not, you know, and most people who are not who do not have a problem with alcohol are not asking themselves whether they have a problem with alcohol. 

 

And so, you know, that I think is, is a very good indicator, you know, that the answer is often embedded in the question. Yeah. And that’s not everybody. And I do think that harm reduction is an interesting area, you know, and in Chilean I talked about that. I think there’s a lot, a lot to say there. But, like you I tend to share a belief that most people who are asking the question of can I moderate? The answer is probably no. By the time you’re having to answer that question, you probably are at the point where you’re not going to be able to, not consistently, not long enough, not successfully, and not without a great deal of mental torment. I’ve never heard that magnet analogy either. But I think that’s a really good one. Right? You know, moderation does keep you so close to alcohol that you never stop wanting it.

 

1:08:06

Yeah. And I mean, I think that I personally had to go through some of that trial and error and mental anguish, to be convinced. I mean, I very clearly remember when I was four months, alcohol free this last time, I had sort of a huge anxiety, thing happen at work, where normally I would dive into drinking, and I went to my doctor and said, I cannot go back to drinking, but I also cannot feel this way anymore. See, you have to help me, you know, in that I’ve given up on the idea that alcohol was the solution. But that was through a lot of trial and error by that point.

 

1:08:48

Totally. Well, that’s what’s kind of so hard about this whole thing, right? Is that alcohol is absolutely the solution for a long time. 

 

Yes. Right. 

 

It is absolutely the answer for a long time, and then it suddenly, it will not suddenly, it gradually becomes not the answer anymore. You know, one of the theories about addiction, and I’ve heard recently, a woman by the name of Maya Savile who wrote a book about this and was saying that a lot of addiction researchers have started to think of addiction as a learning disorder. Yes, I heard you know, you know, meaning that our brain has the idea that alcohol is good. It is positive for us, because again, it was at one point, right? I mean, it’s just absolutely, I mean, for me, it absolutely was, if I could have stayed in those days of drinking. I mean, we would not be having this conversation, right. So it did do something really good for me for a while, but over time, that ratio changed. It went from like 100% good, 0% bad to like 2% good, 98% bad but my brain somehow was not getting the message. Yeah, my brain was not updating, it was not learning that lesson that we tend to learn by bad experience, but for whatever reason in the brain of an alcoholic or an addict, that that we’re, it’s not we’re not learning, you know? 

 

I mean, I look back sometimes at how hard I clung to such a shitty life. Oh, yeah. And like, what was I doing? I don’t, I don’t understand. But that’s from this perspective. But it really is amazing. Like, what I was getting in the end, in both with alcohol and with pairing what I was getting at the end was a shadow of what it gave me in the beginning, and I was getting as a consequence was huge. And yet somehow, I kept being willing to make that deal. And it’s, you know, it’s, you know, a lot of people don’t like the phrase in AA of the second step, which is came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. So let’s leave the power greater than ourselves. thing aside, I think there’s lots of ways you can define that besides God. But a lot of people also don’t like that phrase insanity. But when I look back at what I was willing to trade for what I was getting, there is no conclusion I can come to accept that was insane.

 

1:11:24

Yeah, think like, for me, alcohol, you know, in theory made my life better for like, say, two hours, three hours, maybe a day, and the other 22, 21 hours, it was significantly worse because of alcohol meaning, yeah, I drank and I got rid of the craving, right. alcohol causes the issue that it then said, false, and lit up my brain with dopamine and brought, you know, it’s a depressant, it brings down you know, you downshift really quickly. And then I slept horribly, and I woke up at 3am with anxiety, and I woke up in the morning with bloodshot eyes and said, What the hell is wrong with me, get your shit together. And I was at the bus stop and didn’t want any parents to talk to me too closely, or, you know, and went to work and felt like I was, you know, a fraud and then created and rationalized in and drank again. And I lived that way. And one of the things I think is so funny about saying that, like we’re in recovery, is because in my mind, when I was drinking, I was in recovery every day, I was recovering from drinking physically. And now I’m just living, like, I literally go about my day without thinking about drinking or not drinking, when I’m at the bus stop at 4pm or anything else, it just isn’t.

 

1:12:49

I love that. I think that’s a great way to look at it. Like, you know, I’m not in recovery, I’m just living. You know, I think that’s really a really eloquent thing to say, it’s part of what drove me away from 12 Step programs. To be honest, I was in 12 Step programs, and this is not ubiquitous. Anytime anybody, me or anyone else talks about 12 Step programs as if they are all this way, or that way, just ignore them. Because 12 Step, every 12 Step group is different. Like literally every AA meeting in Columbus, there’s 1000s of them, they are different from each other, there are some core commonalities, but the flavor, the individuals, there’s so much different. 

 

So to group it all, but broadly speaking, there was this thing in AA that people kept saying, which was, they kept differentiating us as alcoholics from other people. You used the word earlier, normies, right. 

 

Yes. 

 

And tongue in cheek, we get that that means people who’ve been drinking normally, but in AA that went deeper. And after a while, I had the feeling like you know, people have seen AOL Time when I’m still sick. And after a while, and I don’t think I am. Yes. I don’t think I’m different than Bob, you know, who I work with. And Steve, who I go to, you know, who I am, is my son’s, you know, softball coach or whatever. I don’t think I’m different than them. I can’t drink alcohol safely, and maybe they can, but on every other dimension of being human. Yeah, I’m not that different from them. And that eventually drove me crazy. I finally got tired of defining myself as in recovery. Yeah, so I love what you just said about you know, it’s, it’s just living. Yeah, you know?

 

1:14:43

Yeah, I mean, I just didn’t love the character defect aspect of it. And, you know, I mean, I think it’s the substance and it works for you for a reason, but it gets a really deep hold on you. That’s really hard to break. But, you know, I remember being at work, and I had quit drinking like three plus years earlier, somehow it came up in conversation with a girlfriend of mine from, you know, coworker, girlfriend. And she was like talking to me about something and said, do you, present tense, oh, do you have a problem with alcohol? And in my mind, you know, I just, I was looking at her and I was like, Well, I don’t drink but I don’t have a problem with alcohol. I haven’t had a drink in three and a half years like, and in my mind, I’m thinking you came hungover on Monday, you know, like, so, you know, I do not screw with alcohol, I have no intention of ever drinking again, but like the present tense, you having, you know, an issue and being there for different and to some extent less than, than others. I truly believe that quitting drinking is an amazing thing I did for my life. And it’s something that I’m incredibly proud of.

 

1:16:01

Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, a, I think 12 Step programs have a lot to recommend. Yeah, obviously, they saved my life twice. But, given your philosophical or religious outlook on the world, you might have to do a lot of translation because the language is very 1950s, or actually 1939 is when the book was written. 1939 Christian, yeah, white male, 1939 Christian. Alright, so you’re, that doesn’t mean that’s what the groups are. But the texts that you will read, the steps that you will work, that is their language. Now, I have found very effective ways to translate all those things I didn’t like into what works. 

 

One thing I love about that, I think, you know, AA has, you know, their famous triangle, right, and they call it unity service in recovery, right. And unity, in essence means the people, unity the service means helping other people. And the recovery means working the 12 steps. Now, I have found that if we look at most people’s sobriety journeys, that work, we will find those three things, we will find people who support them, we will find that helping and caring for others becomes a more important part of their life. And we will find that they have found some method of personal transformation. It may be therapy, it may be, you know, meditation, it might be journaling, but they found some means of transforming, because while what you say is true that, like our fundamental problem was drinking. Most of us don’t get that reliant on drinking. If it’s not, if there’s not something that we don’t know how to deal with, in the first place. And when we stopped drinking, that not knowing how to deal with that stuff, then becomes apparent. And we need some means of working with it. So when I work with people, you know, sometimes when I do the sobriety coaching with people, I’ll say, like, let’s look at those three elements. Yeah. And how are you going to get them? You can get them any way you want. Yeah, but I think you need all three.

 

1:18:17

And I love the way you stated that air that makes complete and total sense to me, and I 100% agree with you. So thank you for that.

 

1:18:25

Yeah, and there may be a couple others. But the last, the other thing that you said a few minutes ago when you were talking about like distance from alcohol, you know, is I’ve told this story several times recently, because it’s been on my mind, but my mom a couple years ago, fell and broke her hip, and I was a primary caregiver. And part of that caregiving meant I had to go to the pharmacy and bring her medicine. And she was on Oxycontin. And she actually is again now for pain. And what is amazing to me is not only that I was able to go take a drug like that and carry it to her without taking it. It was months before it even occurred to me that I could or would want to take it. What’s insane about that is I would have, I literally would have robbed at gunpoint for that in the past. And so I say that only to say like, truly the problem of wanting to drink or do drugs can disappear. It can disappear. Now I think it can also come back if we’re not careful. Oh yeah. But I tell that story just to say like if you’re sitting there thinking like God, yeah, I might build a quip with God, I’m always going to want it you know, back to your magnet analogy like I’m far enough away that that magnet has no pull right now. 

 

1:19:52

Yeah, I’d love, I’ve seen and you probably have seen it too, Craig Pierson did a great sort of a stick spiel on addiction. He was like, I don’t have an alcohol problem. I can get one really quickly. I just thought it was so funny. Well, yeah. So I mentioned in the beginning, I am just a huge fan of your podcast like, total fan girling. Can you tell people listening, if they haven’t heard it, what it’s about and the type of people you bring on?

 

1:20:21

Sure. Well, it’s called The One You Feed. And it’s based on that parable that we talked about earlier. And I start each episode by asking every guest what that parable means to them. You know, the podcast is an interview style format, much like this. And I have people on, you know, kind of from I have, I have a lot of authors, psychologists, spiritual teachers, researchers, thought leaders, artists, musicians, but, you know, the subtitle for the show these days is Practical Wisdom for a Better Life. Right? So what I’m trying to sort of do is just sort of distill, like, you know, what, what are ways that we can just live better? You know, what are ways that we can live better with more peace, more calm, with more connection, more according to our values, and I just have conversations with people whose work I find interesting and shines a light on these questions. And, you know, some of the people are, like, you mentioned being a Sophia Bush fan, you know, an actress like Sophia Bush to, you know, happiness researchers and alcoholism researchers, and Dan Harris and Martha Beck and a bunch of great.

 

1:21:38

We are fortunate enough at this juncture that we’ve been around long enough, and we are big enough that we get some really big name guests. But we also have a lot of people on who are not big name guests. Because what I do is I just follow my curiosity, like, do I feel like this person has something I want to, I want to learn about, that I could learn from, that I can get something from and I feel like if I am interested and curious, then my audience will be and so that’s kind of my, you know, it’s not only, like get the big guests, it’s also just get people that I think, you know, have have a message that would be helpful for everybody. So it is, yeah, I’m proud of it. You know, I love it. And it’s kind of become my life work. And, you know, we have lots of other things. We have programs that do the coaching, but the podcast is the thing I’m most proud of.

 

1:22:31

Where can people find out more? What’s the best place if they’re interested in your programs that you’re coaching in addition to the podcast?

 

1:22:38

Yeah, well, the podcast you can get anywhere you get your podcasts, so you know, Apple podcasts, Spotify, but if you want to know, if you want to see the podcast and also learn about our programs and coaching, you can go to oneyoufeed.net and that’s just all spelled out. O-n-e-y-o-u-f-e-d.net.

 

1:22:55

Okay. Very cool. Well, I have learned so much today, and I really appreciate your time.

 

1:23:04

Yeah, thank you so much. This has been really fun. You’re great. You’re a great conversationalist. So thank you.

Casey McGuire Davidson  56:01