Sober Vibes Podcast

The Culture of Alcohol

• Courtney Andersen • Season 6 • Episode 222

Share episode

Text Me!

Episode 222: The Culture of Alcohol 

In episode 222 of the Sober Vibes podcast, Courtney Anderson explores how alcohol has become more than a substance; it's a full-blown culture, belief system, and lifestyle deeply embedded in our society and family ecosystems. 

What you will learn in this episode:

  • Alcohol culture appears everywhere—from celebrations to grief, rewards to "surviving" parenthood
  •  Big alcohol companies have historically destroyed families and health, yet face minimal criticism compared to other industries
  • The family dynamic with alcohol creates generational patterns that can be difficult but crucial to break
  • Children who grow up with alcohol-dependent family members often develop traits like people-pleasing, codependency, and becoming high achievers
  • Media glamorizes drinking while rarely showing realistic consequences, creating false narratives about what "problem drinking" looks like
  • The alcohol industry has successfully made drinking part of our identities through clever marketing and normalization

Thank you to our Sponsor:

As a show listener, you receive 20% off your order with EXACT NATURE. Make sure to check them out and support the show. Click here to shop and save 20% off with code "SV20. Free shipping on all orders! 

Listen to episode 127 with Thomas White to learn more about CBD.

Resources Mentioned:

Join the Soberity Circle today with a 4-day Free trial. 

Ready to thrive in your alcohol-free life? Sober Vibes: A Guide to Thriving in Your First Three Months Without Alcohol is your step-by-step guide to navigating early sobriety with confidence.

Grab your copy today!

Join Sober Vibes Patreon for exclusive content. (Just $6/month!)


Thank you for listening! Help the show by Rating, Reviewing, and/or Subscribing to the Sober Vibes Podcast.


Connect w/ Courtney:
Instagram
Join the Sobriety Circle

Apply for 1:1 Coaching
Order the Sober Vibes Book

Speaker 1:

Hey, welcome back to the Sober Vibes podcast. I am your host and sober coach, courtney Anderson, and your go-to guide to helping you live life without booze. So today we're talking about something that's a little bit bigger than just one person's drinking habits, right? I really just want to talk about this, to just shed a light if you haven't thought about it yet, okay, or this is something you start thinking about and you get sober and there's clarity. You have clarity and you start seeing things a different type of way. So today we're talking about how alcohol has become a culture. There's an alcohol culture. It's a belief system, and it's one that I used to subscribe to, right? It's not only a belief system, it's a lifestyle, right? And then it's a whole identity, not that you just take on or not that, what you just take on who you were with alcohol, but it's a whole identity in our world. So once you start to question this and once you start to see things in a different light, you can't unsee it. That is why I always, always, always, always, always refer to this one documentary called Prohibition, because you can just see the evolution of alcohol and big alcohol and even, too, that people have had problems with alcohol because it's such a highly addictive substance. They have had people, there's been people with problems with alcohol for years. So that prohibition one. It's a documentary by the wonderful Ken Burns and you can I don't know, I don't know what streaming app that's on. I watched it a couple of years into my sobriety and it just made me see some things in a different light and help really understand. I just I just got it. Just things clicked after I watched that.

Speaker 1:

So alcohol is a culture. Alcohol is everywhere. Right, it's how we celebrate, it's how we grieve, it's how we treat quote unquote, treat ourselves, because it then becomes a reward system. I'm going to do a podcast episode on the reward system in May, so in May I will drop that one. So it's we treat ourselves. It's how we quote unquote survive parenthood. It's how we survive anything. Really, it's how some people claim they had survived the pandemic.

Speaker 1:

Right, the marketing, how it's marketed, is classy. It can be sexy. Right, it can be powerful, rebellious, edgy, relaxing, you name it. Rebellious, edgy, relaxing, you name it. It's. The marketing on alcohol ads is. I'm just gonna say it, it's pretty incredible, but they do still to this day. I can can remember corona commercials since I was a kid.

Speaker 1:

But underneath all of this, it's still a drug. It is alcohol is a drug. It is Alcohol is a drug Again. If you showed up to a party with heroin or depends who you're partying with with a bunch of blow and start doing that, people are going to question you or crack, and they're going to be like clutching onto their pearls, being what the fuck are you doing? But if you were on, if you had a couple of months of sobriety and then started drinking at a party, no one would really question you of it, because of how alcohol is talked about and also, too, because it is legal. So somehow this drug, though, has has its own brand and has become its own brand Right, and it's, and it's really in every corner of our lives.

Speaker 1:

Okay, alcohol isn't just a beverage, it's become a full-on culture. We've been conditioned to believe that drinking is a default. I laugh, because it's so true that it's going to a wedding, you're going to drink champagne, right. Or, like, you have to drink to dance. Brunch with friends. Let's start the bottom list mimosas, because heaven forbid again clutching my pearls. I can't go to a brunch without drinking mimosas. Long day with the kids, wine time, right? The whole mommy wine culture. There's a daddy drinking culture, too. Big promotion you better celebrate that with shots or some more champagne, right? Bad breakup let's cry it out into a big bottle of wine with friends around right? So this is not just expected, it's truly, truly, truly embedded. And when you start to question it, people act like you're the weird one, right? Because it's just something about this.

Speaker 1:

And I even remember, too, when I got sober, it was like I was uncomfortable. But this goes back into people pleasing of what I did and trying to make others happy, and I've said this a couple of times too. So in that beginning, I didn't want to talk about it because I didn't want to be a. So in that beginning, I didn't want to talk about it because I didn't want to be a weirdo, right? I didn't want people to feel uncomfortable. And then, in my own healing journey and figuring out people pleasing, I'm like why the fuck cares?

Speaker 1:

And in sobriety, you do go through this thing where it's like you have to fucking be really uncomfortable to get comfortable in a world where booze is all around, like somebody on my Instagram tried to tell me. They're like trying to tell me I was blaming other people. I was like but this is not. We're taking actions for ourselves. This is fucking the truth. Okay, because I have taken a lot of accountability for all of my actions, but it is the truth. It is that thing it's.

Speaker 1:

I don't want to, I don't want to hear about it, don't bother me about my drinking. There is this thing where people don't want to hear it. Because, why? Because then they have to look at their own relationship with alcohol, and a lot of people who are saying this to you, in my case, had drinking problems themselves, right? So I just remember after a couple years, it's no, I really don't care anymore. If my sobriety makes somebody uncomfortable, that's a them problem. This is not a moi problem and it just it shouldn't be like that, but it is for some people.

Speaker 1:

So there is also the role of alcohol or the. There's also a role of alcohol and alcohol culture in a family dynamic too. Right, like this is. This is where I have nowadays that I've been seeing and I've been more vocal about it, okay, that I've been seeing and I've been more vocal about it. Okay of I get really pissed with.

Speaker 1:

Nowadays there's such a focus on big pharma as there should be okay. Big pharma, big food, right, fuck, whatever big you want to think of, big tech or all of that. And there is, yes, there's, some shit that these companies have done and whatnot that are terrible. And how, quote unquote we want to make America healthy again. Okay, this is not a political discussion, but I'm just saying of what's going on right now, especially in the United States. But where the fuck is the focus on big alcohol companies? There's no focus on these scumbag losers. All right, and here's what's been going on with big alcohol is big alcohol has been destroying families for fucking years.

Speaker 1:

So that's why I'm going to talk about the role of alcohol in your family, because a lot of people who end up having issues on the spectrum alcohol use disorder having issues of their own. It's like how did alcohol play out in your family? How did you see it play out? So that's why I get I really get it chaps my lady boner that big alcohol is not talked about enough. But I understand why it's not, because a lot of these fuckers are funding a lot of things. And then it goes back to not everybody has a drinking problem. But hello, let's go back to the first of. In what was it the start of in January where finally we get the attorney general saying that alcohol actually causes what was it like? Seven different cancers that can all be preventable if you didn't drink alcohol. Okay, so I know that scared a lot of people by actually finally hearing something like that, and which I think is great.

Speaker 1:

But there is this dynamic with alcohol and a family system. How, then, these children grow up with fucking issues? I am one of them. If you look at the characteristics, if you dealt with a family member who was I'm not even going to say alcoholic I'm just going to go on that spectrum of alcohol use disorder right, because everybody's relationship with it looks differently and what you experience. But if you are a child of that and the dysfunction of it, you understand that it goes to people pleasing codependency, high achievers, all of these things. I've just all of these traits, these things I just listed.

Speaker 1:

Is the majority of you listening to this podcast? And I just know that because I know this audience so well. Just look that up. And also, too, you haven't heard this episode yet, but I'm going to drop it in May as well. I have a guest on about being an adult child of an alcoholic. She had her own issues as well, and so she was telling me in that program, issues as well, and so she was telling me in that program it's now trailed off to alcohol, adult children of alcoholics in dysfunction, because it's the same, anyways. So the role of the family, the role of alcohol in the family, right.

Speaker 1:

Then the alcohol culture in your family, and this one seriously runs deep. Okay, maybe you grew up in a house where alcohol was at every holiday, right, every barbecue at every grown-up table. Maybe your parents drink daily, or maybe it was more subtle, right? Or maybe, too, you were on the more extreme end where it was like mom went down in the basement and drank wine in the basement and smoke cigs while doing laundry, or having a mom or dad who hid that. It could have been chaos for you, right? Unpredictable. Maybe you learned early on to read the room based on how much someone had to drink, correct, or where you felt like the shoe was going to drop. Even if you didn't consciously take that in, you were being taught what normal looked like. Right.

Speaker 1:

For me, very early on, it was all about a Miller Lite in the picture, right? No matter what, no matter fucking what, and my process of healing. I had to look back in that and with some stuff and really look on how that played out in my family dynamic and just only talking from my experience, but seeing signs too if someone had been drinking and trying to cover it up. So there's stuff like that you might look back on and you're like, oh okay, all right, my dad or my mom were just drunk at that time. Like this now makes sense where my dad or my mom were hungover, right. So when you grow up and you have to start questioning your own drinking right Now you're in this position and questioning it yourself it can feel really complicated. Where it's. Then you start comparing to to. I wasn't as bad.

Speaker 1:

I remember the reason why I didn't start drinking until I was 19. Like I mean, yeah, I probably drank in high school like a handful of times, but I always was like I'm not going to drink. I'm not going to drink because alcoholism runs on both sides of the family. I'm not going to do it. I pushed it away and then when I turned 19, it was like I fucking fell in love.

Speaker 1:

This isn't just about your habits, it's about also to your history and you need to look at that. You really need to, and you could be like, oh, my parents didn't drink and that's okay. Again, everybody, for the most part, everybody's story is very different, but with the family history it's very similar on how that showed up and looked at you. And then now, why are you here at this point? And understanding your history can get you a better understanding of why you're here, and that's where I still look at that. I mean, some people don't believe of like genetics and all that stuff, but I do. I truly do. 50% of when it comes to drinking is a genetic issue, and then the other 50% is learned. Right, this goes back to your memories and your relationships and your identity, and sometimes choosing to step away from alcohol means stepping away from the long-held family patterns. Okay, which takes some serious strength. Again, the role that alcohol plays in a person's family.

Speaker 1:

This one's not talked about enough and I want you to understand that that when you step away, when you come from a family of drinkers, when you step away, it is a very fucking lonely road and I just know this from experience. You then become like the black sheep, right, you're breaking away from something that you knew. How many years of right and nobody talks about that. That is a very lonely road. You go to families and I'm not saying I don't even want you to listen to this and be like you're telling me it's a lonely road. I'm not going to stop drinking. Please stop drinking to better yourself.

Speaker 1:

If you're listening to this podcast, and I'm just telling you what to expect when it comes time to when you start, because you're going to have to distance yourself from your core family because being around them right now, as you go through your healing process, to still be around your mom or dad or your siblings, and they're all getting fucked up and you're just just sitting there. God, you guys are assholes, you guys are pricks. It's hard because you're trying to better yourself and then you have people being like, oh, come on, come on, just have one, or we won't get too fucked up. And then people start getting really fucked up. So just proceed with boundaries and caution with that, and if you feel sad about it, you can feel sad about it, and that took me a couple of years to get through, but it really only having to detach from that and I detach with love, codependent, no more, please read Detaching with love only helped me be able to stand on my two feet even stronger.

Speaker 1:

But it takes some time breaking away from that family unit, especially when there's such a drinking culture involved. And to this day, like I'm fine if drinking is still in the mix at family functions, like it's okay, but I just don't stay. I don't stay very, very long Again. This is some generational cycle stuff that you are breaking away from and getting and then not allowing that with the role alcohol played in the family to allow in your family and whatever your dynamic is, even if that's yourself of just no, the shit stops with me. Again, you're not just changing your life, you are breaking generational cycles.

Speaker 1:

So remember that, if you have kids, of looking down to it, your kids, and this too, if you have nieces and nephews because I didn't have a child for a very long time, because I didn't have a child for a very long time so even me breaking up with booze when I did and going sober, I mean to this day with my nieces and nephews except for one they didn't know drunk Aunt Courtney, and so they see now of having an aunt who doesn't drink and one of my nephews who I saw like a month ago it was so cute. He said he's hey, aunt Court, how's Sober Vibes doing? I was like it's really good, because I think he started following me on TikTok and he was like I really like that. I was like, thanks, buddy, it was sweet. But this is, this is a child who's 12, 13 years old. So it was nice to have that. But that's what I'm saying is, at least they have somebody in the family where they're like, who doesn't drink and shows up, has fun, sees my life, it's normal, it's a normal thing. So if you don't have children, just look at, if there's children in your family and two of what you're stepping, what that role is going to look like for these kids. I wanted to bring that family dynamic with alcohol into play. And again, don't let your family stop you from quitting drinking alcohol. You just have to put boundaries about being around them and expect it to feel lonely when you go through the healing process and the detachment from them.

Speaker 1:

Another one big one is how media has glamorized alcohol versus what the reality is of it. Okay, alcohol in movies and shows is really shown for what it is right A substance that can create extreme dependency, destroy relationships, wreak havoc on your physical and mental health. Instead, it's romanticized. The leading lady drinks wine in a bubble bath, drinks wine to unwind after a long day. The CEO has scotch in his hand. At the end of the day, the group of friends get wasted and laughs about it like it's no big deal. You don't see anybody blacking out and throwing chairs in these scenes, right, and when they do show someone struggling with alcohol, it's such an extreme and this has always been like this for a very long time. The character is usually homeless, maybe violent or just completely out of control. And that's the rock bottom narrative we have been fed for decades, decades.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So if you are at a point because when you quit drinking alcohol, you still will romanticize it. And it's okay if you romanticize it. That is what you've been programmed with for a very long time. And remember, this is a daily habit or a weekly habit you've had in your life for so long. So it's going to take some time to break free of that, of just the thoughts. And remember again, we have 30, 40,000 thoughts a day, if not more, and sometimes a thought is just a thought. But it's you romanticize because while you're reading either books or watching TV or television shows. This is how it's portrayed.

Speaker 1:

There's not really an accurate description in the media, except for if there's shows specifically about not drinking alcohol and that's what it's about. But there's not a lot of shows like that. There's not. There was a good one on Netflix, if you haven't watched it. It only ran for two seasons. I really wish it would have made it longer, but it was great.

Speaker 1:

With Sweet Will or Not and Blake. There is one, two. I'm going to totally, totally, totally forget the name of this, but it is with. Oh my God, what is the name of this? And there was I think there was about three seasons. It was on Netflix too, and it was the guy from Office Space and he was also, too, in Sex and the City. He was Berger, he was Carrie's, he was one of Carrie's boyfriends. Remember when that son of a bitch left a Post-it note for her? That's who I'm talking about. But there's that show and I will put it in the show notes because once I'm done with this I will remember. So I will put it in the show notes. I will mention these shows so you can look it up, because it really does help to watch. Has to do with this, but Flaked, was by far my favorite.

Speaker 1:

So there's not really a real life. There's not really a real life portray of what a gray area drinker would be right, trying to moderate a couple of years before they finally quit. There's really. It's just too extreme and that is really what we have been used to. But this is what it does, too, with how it glamorizes alcohol in the media. It makes so many women like you and me feel like we're not bad enough to quit or weren't bad enough, and again referencing that that's where it's okay. I'm not homeless, right? I haven't lost a job. My kids still may be like me, like I provide for my children, but every time I drink I feel like a bag of dicks.

Speaker 1:

The next day where I'm in a shame cycle I'm guilty when I have one glass of wine, I then think about having 20 more glasses of wine, like I can't wait to drink. I love the way just alcohol goes down my throat, like these thoughts, right? So seeing that it's like you say to yourself, I must be fine, right, and the answer is just wrong, okay, just because your life hasn't burned to the ground, it doesn't mean alcohol isn't slowly dimming your light or that there's an issue, like I said, that guilt, shame cycle and questioning yourself after the next day of drinking, quote unquote normal people don't think like that. That's where it's, because you know that there's an issue. That is your intuitiveness talking to you like bitch. Enough with this right, put this down, I have had enough. This does not work any longer. And every time you pick back up to drink, this then happens.

Speaker 1:

But it is dimming your light and I do have to say that and it's just a little joy and spark and what I love, specifically when I work with my, when I work with one-on-one clients and to the ladies, the gals, the gal pals in the sobriety circle, like seeing them in their big, the beginning and being able to see their transformation. That is the one thing I always say. I'm like you got life back into your eyes because you are not sitting there. Alcohol keeps you small and and that's what it's doing and, like I said, it just is dimming your light. So you don't need that dramatic crash to make a change. And for some people, that dramatic crash, they keep drinking, and everyone's. I mean how many more and how many more times. What else do you need for you to stop drinking alcohol? And for some people it's nothing, will ever change Nothing. It doesn't matter how big or small, they still want to continue to do that. And then for others, it's just they might have had a couple rock bottoms, but then it just takes one where it's just. That one is. I am good and tired. And again, I truly do believe that rock bottom is more for just when you have had enough. It doesn't matter what has happened to you or what hasn't happened to you along the way, it is just when have you had enough to get the fuck off of this ride, because you are tired living this way. And the more you keep putting alcohol into your gullet, the more it just shows you who. It is right.

Speaker 1:

There's a thing with alcohol and identity. This culture convinces us that drinking is part of our identity. You've seen the mugs like mama needs some wine. It's five o'clock somewhere, rosé all day. The means that, say, I'm only a morning person if mimosas are involved, or dry January is canceled. It's all a joke until it's not right, because underneath the humor there's often exhaustion, burnout, anxiety, guilt and a deep, deep, deep wanting to not drink alcohol and thinking about not drinking alcohol. And when are you going to feel better.

Speaker 1:

This type of alcohol culture, too, teaches us that it's totally normal to drink to escape. Isn't that fucked up? That we're just all looking like in this type of culture, specifically because that's what alcohol does make us do is just like numb out and escape. But now it's like you're asking yourself why right? Or if you are sober right now in an alcohol-free life, it's like you're trying to figure out, and in the work that you do, you will figure out why you drink in the first place. Okay, this is what I want you to take away from this episode If alcohol has stopped feeling like fun, if it's becoming more of a crutch than a treat, if you're feeling misaligned with the drinking culture around you, you're not fucking crazy, you're just waking up and questioning this culture. That's one of the most powerful things that you can do.

Speaker 1:

Again, you don't need to hit some extreme rock bottom.

Speaker 1:

The rock bottom will be I just can't do this anymore.

Speaker 1:

I'm fucking good and tired. So just listen to that little voice inside you that knows that this just isn't working anymore. Trust your gut instinct and if your gut instinct has told you this and it's taken you four years to go from moderation to try to control, control, control. And in those four years your little voice was like you're done, like we can't do this anymore. Until you finally wake up one day and you're like I'm done because I am tired. And for me I was tired at 29. I felt like I was 80 to 90 years old, like an old 80 year old, because there's a lot of vibrant 80 year olds but I was just fucking tired that I felt like I it's, I just couldn't go through it anymore and like I had extreme. I had extreme things that happened to me in those days of my drinking. But it just took that little Fiona, that last time of this is how.

Speaker 1:

What happens when you drink 90% of the time right, and then again. Then there's the process of sobriety and what you have to do to surrender and really embrace a life without alcohol. That's for another day. But just know that alcohol in itself is a culture. It's a culture that's never going away.

Speaker 1:

So that is why I am happy that there's podcasts out there, that there's mocktails out there, that people have been sharing their stories with social media and helping others by sharing a story, and that there's other ways to get help besides just going to rehab or AA because not everybody vibes with that now and everybody can financially afford to go to rehab and that there's other ways for people to get help in their journey. So I'm glad that there's a sobriety culture that is more loud and that option is there for people and having a balance within a world where there's such a heavily alcohol culture and now there's a sobriety culture. I love it. I love it. All right, if you enjoyed this podcast, please feel free to reach out in my DMs and let me know on Instagram or email me back. And also, too, if you haven't, please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. So thank you.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Courtney Andersen

Host
Head Shot

Kimberly Elledge

Co-host