Survived to Thrive Podcast
A podcast designed for survivors of suicide loss. This podcast explores the unique grief experiences that accompany a loved ones death due to suicide, shares insights on how your brain processes this kind of loss, and offers worthwhile and valuable tips you can start today to gain a more joyful and fulfilling life even though your loved one died.
Survived to Thrive Podcast
Episode 99: Overcoming Over Drinking and Reclaiming Your Power
This episode focuses on the challenges and implications of over-drinking as a coping mechanism for those grieving a suicide loss. Here we provide actionable steps to help reclaim personal power and shift from unhealthy patterns towards healing.
• Addressing the normalization of over-drinking in grief
• Emphasizing compassion instead of judgment towards oneself and others
• Understanding emotional drivers behind alcohol consumption
• Acknowledging that alcohol doesn’t solve grief but adds layers to it
• Introducing practical steps to regain control over drinking behavior
• Encouraging awareness of patterns and emotions associated with alcohol
• Allowing urges without succumbing to them
• Shifting negative thoughts towards empowering ones
• Importance of planning ahead regarding alcohol consumption
• Celebrating progress and seeking support
If this has been helpful for you, share it with someone else who is struggling who could use some insights.
As always, thanks for listening!
We are a community dedicated to empower survivors of suicide loss along their grief journey. We invite you to check out our website to sign up for our weekly newsletter, along with other free materials."
Website: https://www.survived-to-thrive.com/
Email: amy@survived-to-thrive.com
You are listening to the Survived to Thrive Podcast with Amy Miller, a podcast for survivors of suicide loss. In this weekly podcast, you will learn more about your unique experiences and gain insights on your brain and how it processes grief and loss due to a loved one's suicide. While suicide grief comes in all shapes and sizes, Amy shows you that you still can have a life full of joy and fulfillment even though your loved one died. You don't have to just survive anymore. You can thrive.
Speaker 2:You are listening to the Survive to Thrive podcast with Amy Miller, episode number 99, overcoming over drinking and reclaiming power after loss. Hi friends, welcome to the podcast number 99. Can't believe it. Next episode will be 100. You know, it's just amazing to me that I've made it this far, that we've been able to explore so many topics related to suicide loss. I'm hoping that this has been helpful for you. It's the whole reason why I want to do it. I just want to share what I know with you all and hopefully help support you as you try to navigate complex grief due to suicide loss. It is just something that is near and dear to me. I've experienced it personally. I relate with what comes as we're navigating such a tragic loss. So I hope you feel that from me and I hope that what we've been talking about on this podcast has been helpful for you, and I also wanna invite you to share it with others who may be needing some additional support. It's a free resource and I just wanna offer it to whoever could really take advantage and use some of the strategies, tools, tips, information, guidance that I offer in this episode between the coaching and the interviews, and hopefully some of it resonates with them and can also help them along their healing journey. So, with all that said, I just want to express gratitude to you all for listening. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:All right, so today I really want to discuss a topic that's often cloaked in shame, okay, but I think it deserves to be brought into the light, right? Over-drinking is a way that I think so many survivors cope with the pain of grief, and I really want to talk about this topic. I think it's important. I think we need to raise more awareness of over-drinking. I feel like so many of us have just accepted over-drinking as just normal drinking, okay, and here's the thing If we don't see it as a problem, then we'll never be able to change it. So I think it's kind of important to recognize when there is something that is happening within us that is causing us to lose our control.
Speaker 2:Okay, because when we are reliant on external sources to help us get through things, that is losing our power over things that we're going through, and I don't want that for you. I want you to have all the power you possibly can have in your lives. I want you to be able to live in such a way that you want to. I want you to have opportunities and successes, and I want you to have some failures, too, that you can learn from, grow from and thrive from, and I think it's important. But when we're used to using alcohol to numb things, to numb pain and discomfort, we are not allowing ourselves an opportunity to grow, okay, we're not allowing ourselves to take our lives back, right? So I think it's really important.
Speaker 2:So, before I get into this topic, I first just wanna say, before we even discuss all of this, if I'm speaking to you today and you are using alcohol to numb the heartbreak and confusion that comes with losing someone to suicide, I just want you to understand and know for sure that you are not alone. Okay, you're not the only one that is going through this or experiencing this, and I think it's important to know that because this journey sometimes feels a bit lonely. But the truth is you are not alone, and I wouldn't know the exact statistics to tell you on this podcast, but I know of personally dozens and dozens and dozens of people who are experiencing using alcohol to help them cope and to get through grief. Okay, so, even in my own personal experience and knowing that and knowing how many individuals in this world who have lost a loved one to suicide. All of them are finding their ways to cope, and many of them are coping in this exact same way. So just know that you are not alone. And I really want to talk about this more so that we can better understand over drinking and why we do it, and how we can start to take back control over our lives.
Speaker 2:Okay, the second thing I want to talk about and touch on is this is not about judgment. This is not about judging others. This is not about judging ourselves, because I think that that approach is simply not useful at all. Okay, it doesn't change anything. It only makes us feel worse about what we're doing, what we're experiencing, how we're processing, how we're numbing. Okay, if we're judging ourselves constantly through this, it really diminishes our power to take control back. So I want you to really refrain from judging yourself. Or, if you are thinking about someone in your life that is also coping through alcohol, I really want you to refrain from judging them because, again, it's not useful. Okay, I really want you to um approach it with compassion compassion for yourself, compassion for the person that you know that may be using alcohol to cope. I just want you to really think about it from a place of compassion. I really you to really think about it from a place of compassion. I really want you to think of it from a place of empowerment and creating a path forward.
Speaker 2:Okay, so, with all of that said, let's dive in. Okay, now we need to talk about over drinking. Okay, and I think this truth is huge, because I think so many of us don't really understand it, and so I want to make this very clear alcohol, okay. Over drinking isn't about the alcohol. Okay, it's not about it. It's not about the glass of wine, it's not the. It's not about the bottle of scotch. It's not about any of that. Okayotch, it's not about any of that. Okay, it's about our thoughts and emotions around it.
Speaker 2:Drinking is often a response to anxiety, discomfort Okay. It's often a response of feeling uncomfortable feelings. It's often associated with grief and loneliness and guilt and anxiety, because our brains want immediate relief. We've become so impatient with negative things. Right? I think I've touched on this before, where, you know, back before air conditioning was even a thing we were able to adapt to the fluctuations of temperature. Right, and as society has progressed and we've been able to put air conditioners in our homes and air conditioners in our cars, or heaters in our homes and heaters in our cars, that, if things are even slightly off, we correct it. Right, we adjust the temperature, we adjust the temperature in our cars so that our cars are constantly in a state of the perfect temperature, because we have lost our tolerance and patience for when things are uncomfortable. Right, and this also applies to us in an emotional way. Right, it is one of those things that we just want. We want immediate relief, and alcohol provides a quick hit of dopamine which numbs the pain temporarily. But here's the problem with it While it works in the short term, it doesn't solve the root problem. Okay, it doesn't get to the nitty gritty. Instead, it just adds layers to the issue. Okay, I want you to think of it this way If you're trying to numb, say, a sad day, so you start to drink, okay, but the sad day carries on to tomorrow because you didn't take care of yourself during the sad day.
Speaker 2:The only thing you did was drink alcohol to help numb the pain. The next day, the sadness is still there, so you drink some more, again, postponing dealing with the sadness, which allows the sadness to grow even deeper. So by the third day, the sadness feels worse, which means you want to drink more alcohol. Now the problem is is the alcohol is starting to impact your function. It's impacting the way you're showing up for your family. It's impacting the way you're showing up for your family. It's impacting the way you're showing up for your work, okay. And as it carries on and continues on, day after day, week after week, we're going to find what we call a net negative, which means it's adding additional layers to the sadness that we were feeling. It's causing additional problems. Maybe it's impacting your health, maybe it's impacting your liver, maybe it's impacting your risk for other diseases, or maybe it's impacting your immune system, right? So what happens is you become not only more sad in the process. Even though you're temporarily delaying the sadness as you are numbing it with the alcohol, it still is festering. But now you're adding all these additional issues and problems, which creates a net negative, right?
Speaker 2:So you know I really want you to think about this in a way that alcohol is just this false pleasure. Okay, it's when we rely on something external to feel better and we rob ourselves of the opportunity to truly process the emotion that we're feeling, okay? So, just as a reminder, our brains are wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain, and this is why we do it. Okay, especially after losing someone to suicide, your brain is likely in overdrive and you're trying to escape unbearable emotions, but it's important to recognize that it isn't a moral failing. It's a biological and emotional coping mechanism. Okay, and so that is why we get stuck in this pleasure cycle. Okay, because we're really relying on the external to help fix what we are dealing with, but it's creating a net negative.
Speaker 2:Okay, are you with me? I hope you're understanding or following. If not, I remind you or want to ask you to go ahead and repeat this little segment, because I think it's really important. So, with all the said, you can rewire your brain and take back control. Okay, so the only way to do this, though, is to first understand the emotional driver behind the drinking.
Speaker 2:Okay, and the way that you're going to do this is you're going to ask yourself some questions. The first one is you need to really dissect and understand the emotion that you're trying to avoid when you reach for a drink. So, next time you're reaching for a drink, I want you to ask yourself what is it that I'm trying to avoid. What emotion or feeling do I not want to feel in this moment? Okay, maybe it's in a social setting and you're not wanting to really socialize very well or talk much about what you're going through. I know a lot of survivors who really struggle with this when they're going into a social situation after their loss and they don't really want to deal with all the pestering or the questions right About the death and so they turn to alcohol so that they can calm themselves down. Okay, so I really want you to dissect it and just find out what it is exactly that you're trying to avoid. Okay, maybe it's sadness you're trying to avoid. Maybe you're just feeling a lot of sadness and you don't want to feel the sadness. Maybe you want to break from the sadness. Who can blame you? We all want to break from the sadness.
Speaker 2:Grieving a suicide loss is traumatic and very overwhelming. So if you're feeling the sadness and you want to avoid that, I want you to be very specific. Maybe it's the guilt of wondering if you could have done more, or the regrets that you might have. Or maybe it's the anger that you have over the situation, the manner in which they died, the choice that your loved one made. Or maybe it's the anger of, maybe you feel angry towards another person, maybe someone in their life that you feel like might have contributed towards it, right. Or maybe it's the confusion, okay, of going through this, like understanding, like I know, for me that was something that was huge. I felt so confused. I just did not understand why my sister would even do something like this. It just made no sense to me, so my brain was going crazy in confusion.
Speaker 2:So alcohol is pretty good at dulling some of these emotions temporarily, right, but the problem is that underlying grief is still there waiting for you, right, and you know, I think it's really important for us to allow ourselves to feel these emotions instead of resisting or numbing them. And so, in order for us to do that, you have to isolate and figure it out exactly what it is you're feeling and understand what that emotion is, right. So here's what's fascinating An emotion is just a vibration in your body. It feels intense, right, it feels sometimes a bit overwhelming, but it's not dangerous and I think that's so important. Okay, it might feel like it's gonna overtake you, that you're going to die from feeling this emotion, but the truth is it's not dangerous when you're willing to sit with your grief, your sadness or your anger, or you know the guilt or the shame or the confusion or whatever it is what you'll find as you sit with the emotion, that it doesn't last forever. Okay, you'll see that the wave comes and goes and each time you write it out, you build emotional resilience. So ask yourself what am I feeling when I drink? And then ask yourself can I let myself experience that feeling instead of escaping it? Okay, and then allow it. Now, this is a practice and it's not going to be perfect and it's going to take time. This is a practice and it's not going to be perfect and it's going to take time. It's going to be difficult in the beginning, but as you practice at it, you're going to see how capable you are of feeling those intense emotions. Okay, and this is so powerful because it shows you you have the capacity to reclaim your power. Okay, so now that you understand how important it is to isolate the emotion and how important it is to question if you can allow this emotion and then practice allowing it right, you're going to start to build a little bit of confidence and you'll understand you truly have the ability to reclaim your power. So I want to give you steps. I think this is a great guide here, so if you can take some notes, if not, download the transcript and really highlight these steps, because I think they're really big Okay, and this will help you to regain your power.
Speaker 2:Okay, the first step is awareness. Start by becoming aware of your patterns. Okay, you really just can't change what you're not aware of, right? So pay attention to when you drink, why you drink and how it makes you feel before, during and after, okay. Step two allow urges without acting on them. Okay, this is probably the hardest. It's very challenging, but I want you to understand what an urge is. Okay, an urge is simply a strong desire. All right, that's all. It is A strong desire. It's not dangerous. It's not an emergency, right? I think sometimes we think it's an emergency, okay, or that you know, like I said earlier, like we're going to die. So the next time you feel the urge to drink, I want you to try to sit with it. Notice where you feel it in your body. Is it in your chest or your stomach? Describe it to yourself, okay, and when you learn to allow an urge without acting on it, you weaken its power over you.
Speaker 2:The third step is shifting your thoughts. Okay, now I talk a lot about on my podcast how our feelings come from our thoughts and not our circumstances. But if you're feeling overwhelmed, ask yourself what am I thinking right now that's causing this feeling? Okay, it might be I can't handle this pain, or I should have done more to save them, or something like that. Right, and these thoughts are all understandable, but I want you to understand and recognize that they're optional and I want you to really think about practiced thinking. Okay, I really want you to choose thoughts that are a little bit more empowering, like, for example, I am strong enough to handle this emotion, or I'm learning to process my grief in a healthy way. These shifts take practice, but they can create powerful change.
Speaker 2:The fourth step is planning ahead. Okay, I really want you to make decisions about alcohol with your prefrontal cortex. Okay, this is the logical, forward thinking part of your brain, rather than your emotional, impulsive brain, so you need to decide in advance when and how much you will drink, if at all, and you need to write it down. Sticking to your plan will really build trust in yourself and creates a sense of empowerment. Okay, the fifth step is celebrating your progress. Okay, breaking the cycle of over-drinking just doesn't happen overnight, as much as I would like it to, and I think as much as we all would like to. But know that that is not something that happens and that's okay, and I think it's really important and empowering when we celebrate the small wins. So maybe, for example, you allowed one urge without giving in, maybe you journaled instead of pouring a drink or something.
Speaker 2:Each step is a step towards healing. Okay, now, those are the five important steps to gaining your power back. Regaining your power back, I guess I should say, and I think it's really important. So I just want to leave you with this Make sure that you're kind to yourself. Okay, if you're really struggling and you need additional support and you need additional help, don't be afraid to ask for it, okay, whether that be through some professional help, maybe it's through a trusted friend, maybe it's through some trusted family members, you know, don't be afraid to ask and reach out for help. I think that's important.
Speaker 2:Losing someone to suicide is one of the hardest things a person can endure. All right, and you're navigating a storm of emotions, and it's okay if you don't have it all figured out or all together, and just remember over-drinking isn't who you are. I think we kind of label ourselves. We tend to do that we're such a critic of ourselves right. But just know that it's not who you are. It's a behavior you've learned to help you cope with the pain, and behaviors can be unlearned. So by bringing awareness, compassion and attention to this process, you can begin to heal, not only from the drinking but also from the grief that led you there. Okay, you're not broken and you're not alone. There is hope on the other side of this journey and I believe in your strength to get there. You have it in you, I know it. I love you so much. Thanks again for listening. If this has been helpful for you, share it with someone else who is struggling who could use some insights. I appreciate you all. Have a great day Until next time. Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Survived to Thrive podcast. If you like this podcast, please share with your friends and write a review on iTunes. Also check out survived-to-thrivecom for more information and to subscribe to get the podcast's latest episode, along with useful tips you can begin to use immediately to feel better, directly sent to your inbox.