#42 Alcohol is NOT the problem... Discover the hidden reasons why you can't control yourself - with Colleen Kachman

In my latest podcast episode, I sit down with Colleen Kachmann, a mindful drinking coach, to unpack the deep-rooted beliefs that drive our drinking habits—and spoiler alert, it’s rarely about the alcohol itself.

Colleen shares her journey from high-functioning drinker to coach, revealing how she reframed her habits and took control without drastic restrictions. Together, we explore how addressing the root causes can transform any relationship with alcohol—or even with food, stress, and self-doubt.

You’ll learn:

• The surprising reasons behind our desire to drink (or overdrink)
• How to replace alcohol with healthier habits that actually satisfy
• Ways to shift from “all or nothing” thinking to balanced, lasting change

This episode is all about the power of choice. Whether navigating social situations, managing stress, or breaking out of autopilot habits, Colleen and I dive into what it takes to reclaim control without giving up what you enjoy.

If you’ve struggled with an all-or-nothing mindset—whether around alcohol, food, or anything else—this episode will feel like a game changer. Don’t miss it!

Come find me on TikTok @hangoverwhisperer and IG @thehangoverwhisperer

Colleens Website: https://www.colleenkachmann.com/

Watch my The Cravings & Fat-Burning Masterclass:  https://www.neverdietagain.uk/register-podcast

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/max.lowery/

Book a Food Freedom Breakthrough Call: https://www.neverdietagainmethod.uk/call-ig

Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:00.078)
In today's episode we're diving head first into a bold new perspective on alcohol, sobriety and behaviour change with Colleen Cashman, a mindful drinking coach who's turning the traditional recovery world on its head. Colleen challenges the deeply ingrained belief that if you want to improve your relationship alcohol that you have to go sober. Instead she focuses on the power of mindful moderation and emotional sobriety. This approach goes far beyond abstinence and addresses the root causes behind the drink.

Colin believes that real change happens when you break out of rigid labels and tackle the beliefs driving your behavior. So if you feel trapped in a cycle of drinking you can't seem to shake no matter how much you want to, and if you've tried to quit or cut back but keep finding yourself being pulled back in, then this episode is for you.

Speaker 2 (00:44.494)
How do you create a life that allows you to lose weight, eat the foods that you love and sustain the results? Over the last 10 years, I've helped thousands of people do exactly that. I'm Max Lowery. I'm an author, personal trainer and weight loss coach. In this podcast, I'm going to share my top tips and tricks from within my one-on-one coaching program. It's my goal to give you the tools and understanding so that you never diet again.

Hello, welcome to the podcast today. I'm joined by Colleen Cashman, who is a mindful drinking coach.

that right? Mindful drinking, yes. Alcohol reduction, yes.

Excellent. And the reason I've got Colleen on is because what I was recently on Colleen's great podcast, which I'll link below, but we both are interested in behavioral change, myself with weight loss and losing weight and food and Colleen with alcohol. And we both are obsessed with understanding what the root causes of someone's issues are instead of focusing on symptoms. So that's why you're here today. But before we get into it, why don't you, yeah, give a bit of background.

on who you are, who you help and how you got into this.

Speaker 1 (01:51.52)
Okay. Well, I am a mindful drinking coach. I'm 51 years old. I have raised four kids and three step kids. I was a busy mom, very high functioning, but I had a secret drinking problem. I drank basically every single day for 15 years and had no problems. Thought that was normal. Didn't pay attention to the negative side effects. I had a story in my head. I was living the good life. Alcohol is a reward.

My grandma said you should eat on the good plates every day. And I thought that would include top shelf vodka or a nice vintage Cabernet. And I didn't attribute for a long time any problems to drinking. Of course, occasionally I'd take the trophy home for stupid comment or overdoing it. But for the most part, alcohol was just part of the background of my life. And it was a habit. It was just a habit. And over time,

What happens is because alcohol is addictive, you don't realize that the need to drink, the desire to drink, the words in your head that say, I deserve this or I want this. Even though there's also a part of you that's like, could we just take it the night off? It's like a Monday. Like, can we just do that? Like it gets harder and harder to resist that because you're just not aware. Like nothing has gone wrong. There's nothing wrong.

There was nothing wrong with me. I was doing absolutely everything I could to cope with a very busy life. And I was killing it. I was running marathons and teaching hot power yoga. And I was doing all the things for all the kids and all the people and showing up and performing the role of myself with five-star reviews. It was fine. But over time, I felt a growing disconnect, loneliness, isolation.

the desire to go out and be with people was all to skip that part and I'll stay home and pour a drink because I don't have time for this. And I didn't see the mental health slowly, very imperceptibly declining until of course, when you drink every single day, sometimes I would overdo it. And I just got exhausted. I couldn't keep going. I could not keep doing what I was doing. I just hit a wall. I was exhausted.

Speaker 1 (04:08.076)
I was sick of being hung over every morning and swallowing handfuls of supplements and running through my day. I'm fine. Are you fine? All good over here, know, and then promising I'm not going to do it again tonight. And then landing in happy hour, not even a minute late after arguing with myself all day long. And I just got to the point in early COVID.

where what changed for all of us is that those external guardrails that kept me functioning, I had to drive in the evening. So I might not start, have that glass of wine till seven, eight, nine o'clock at night. So it limited my consumption because I was so busy. Well, when all of the busyness and the obligations went away, happy hour started earlier. It was a fun first month of COVID lockdowns. I'm in, give me a mask, liquor stores are essential services here in America.

So I'm gonna go pick up all that. But then at some point, I just had to get real that the two mega handles of vodka that I bought, that I was told patty at the store, like, having another gathering. Yeah, I'm gonna drink all that. And I just, I could not keep going. And so thank God I stopped.

Well done. Thank you very much for sharing. What, when you say you stopped, like yeah, talk to me through that. What exactly happened there? Did you go down any of traditional routes? Yeah.

did. And just to big picture it before I go there, that the reason I do what I do now with mindful drinking and helping women ramp down their drinking is because when I hit that wall just four and a half years ago, there didn't seem to be any options. And there was two paths either keep struggling and keep pushing and keep trying all the things that I'd been trying for years and didn't work or drop your drink, admit you're an alcoholic.

Speaker 1 (05:53.48)
go directly to AA, get a sponsor and start living the life of a recovering alcoholic. And I did that because it was, I was so exhausted. I'll say whatever you want me to say. You want me to say I'm an alcoholic? Fine. Hi, I'm Colleen and I'm an alcoholic. What's next? What else do you want? I just gave up. And sometimes when you're in a hole and the somebody tells you, okay, this is the path out. You're just like, I'm just going to do it your way and not my way.

And so I went through AA and did the 12 steps and got into the sober lifestyle. I have always been an extreme person. So I was vegan for 12 years and I've always been very black or white about things. And so I really had no trouble. It felt so good for that to be over with that I just embraced the, I had the sober as fuck t-shirt.

and the key chain and the bumper sticker. And I started a coaching program for sobriety and I'm gonna save the world. Instead of, used to do vegetables and gut health. Now I'm gonna do give up alcohol and I'm gonna help the world that way. And so what happened was through my own experience, I believed that I could never have another drink because I bought into the narrative that I'm an alcoholic. And so that label, that box, I crawled into it, set up camp and I am here to stay.

But then over time, I realized that I was changing against the narrative of how you do one thing is how you do everything. once you can't unpickle your cucumber, which the brain isn't a cucumber, it's neuroplastic. That's for later. But I noticed I was changing. And then as I was helping women as a coach, we don't set the agenda for people. We help people find their own truths. And so I was holding space for women who

didn't want to get completely sober or stay completely sober. And so as I was guiding them and coaching them, I was seeing that, they didn't drink the AA Kool-Aid. They didn't have the same misconceptions that I had that once you quit, you can never go back or you need to quit forever. And so I began to see my own clients doing things that I didn't think were possible.

Speaker 1 (08:12.77)
And then one day I realized the only reason I'm not having a glass of wine is because I'm afraid. and everything you want's on the other side of that fear. And I realized that I could drop the story I had been telling myself and defining myself through past behaviors and the habit. I could just move on and realize that I do change, we change. And that now what I know the title of my podcast, it's not about the alcohol.

What I also noticed was that 18 months into perfect sobriety, doing all the things, was that I was more depressed and anxious than I'd ever been in my life. I had made it through that initial phase when you quit drinking after being a heavy drinker, you feel amazing. It's called the pink bubble. And I think it's nature's nod to knocking that shit off. But then the reasons you were drinking and the thought processes, like none of that had changed. And I was still living this perfectionistic.

all or nothing, black or white, high pressure, high anxiety life. And I hadn't fixed the problem. And so I realized, my problem, my ism is no longer alcoholism. I had solved that problem with abstinence. You can do that. My ism was perfectionism and the mindset that was driving me to not pay attention to myself, not practice self-care.

live by a bunch of values, make more money, do more things, get more shit and press all the people. I was living by these values and that was driving me crazy. And so those two things came together where I realized the problem was an alcohol and that my relationship with myself and my truth, which is always changing, was what I needed to address. And so then when I reintroduced alcohol, I got to see that that habit is in context. And so while

the shame and the anxiety around alcohol had been dormant because I hadn't been engaging the behavior. It all came back and waking up wondering what the hell is wrong with me and did I overdo it and how much am I gonna drink on Friday night? It's like alcohol use disorder is a thinking problem, not a drinking problem. And all of that came rushing back. So I got to go through all of that and learned so much with dopamine and neuroplasticity and nervous system regulation and mindset.

Speaker 1 (10:34.974)
And I got to do that myself and then of course continue to work with my clients. And that's then what has emerged four years later to be what I call emotional sobriety coaching where the side effect of getting emotionally sober with yourself is an 80 % reduction because happy people, relaxed people don't drink themselves into a stupor. The alcohol situation just takes care of itself.

So I've built a program for people that encompasses all of the things, because it's not just the drinking, it's not the behavior. In fact, that's just like, we don't even address the behavior directly for the most part. Of course we do a little bit, but for the most part, we're working on the skills and the mindset and the relationship with self. And then we watch, it's like, as one goes up, the other goes down. As your mindfulness goes up and your commitment to feeling good instead of doing good,

then if feeling good is the goal, you just naturally stop drinking. And so that's what I do.

So much to unpack there. There's so much crossover between how I help clients and how you help clients and how you help yourself. Because one of the things I was wondering when you were talking was you were sober for, I think, you say 80 months?

Actually almost three years, took me a while.

Speaker 2 (11:53.324)
Yeah. the issue with that and why here is you still probably had, well, you did, you've just admitted you had the same kind of triggers and stresses and mindsets, which you were ultimately using alcohol to relieve those triggers and mindsets. So there was an emotional need that you were fulfilling with alcohol. But then when you cut out the alcohol initially you felt better, but then actually you ended up more stressed and more, more anxious than ever before because you still had that emotional need, but you just got rid of the coping strategy.

Yeah, I was still defining myself by my behavior. Alcohol was still queen in my life. I had just switched teams. I'd gone from drinker to non-drinker, but I was still focused on defining myself through my own goodness, my own performance, my, what it had just changed strategies, but it still wasn't about me and what I needed in my truth. I was still living by external values.

Classic just treating the symptoms and not the cause, isn't it? And I think this is exactly what is wrong with diets as well. It's because people have the clients they work with, they have the stressors, they have things that happen in their life and they use food to fulfill the emotional need that they require. And obviously they go on a diet, they cut out the food and that goes well for a period of time when there's motivation and willpower, maybe some weight comes on because they fundamentally haven't addressed the root cause of the problem.

which is ultimately how they cope with their emotions and their stresses and what are the things that driving to them, that's turning to the food in the first place. It all goes to shit at some point and then they blame themselves. So you talked about also the fact that you don't really talk about the kind of the practical, sounds like like the, you don't spend a lot of time on the practical aspects of reducing alcohol in the moment. It's more kind of how do you create a mindset and not need alcohol for certain.

things. Can you tell me a bit more about what that looks like? And if you give any practical advice, what would it be?

Speaker 1 (13:51.63)
And it wouldn't, what I said is not actually true. We do address the alcohol directly because you, especially for somebody who's a daily drinker or a binge drinker, you can't really access the, you don't have the bandwidth to really do the mindset work. You can't work on mindset when you have a dysregulated nervous system and alcohol.

jacks up your cortisol levels and drops your dopamine. So yes, one of the first things I do, I have a whole mindful drinking course. Like we start with an experiment where you just drink by yourself and you feel the onset. have to learn from felt experience the difference between a buzz and being intoxicated. Like alcohol is actually a drug. It's a biphasic drug. The 0.055 blood alcohol level is the line.

where you can get some therapeutic benefits, but once you cross into intoxication, then it's a slippery slope and the negative effects just compound. That is when the brain has to start releasing cortisol. So you don't get so relaxed. You forget to breathe because alcohol is depresses the central nervous system. And obviously if you kept drinking, you would die. And so the brain releases cortisol and it also affects your dopamine.

So we do a lot with simple behavior changes. We do strategies like delay, don't deny. We do the mindful drinking experiment where you just slow your roll. Like one of the things I teach is more alcohol will ruin my buzz. Like most of us learned how to drink in a frat house in college. More, more, shot, shot. And nobody ever told us, no, this is a drug.

And there are therapeutic dosages and benefits. can drink it. I'm not going to use the word safely, but you can do so. Caffeine's a drug, so you can use it. when, we teach people to drink through experience, then we do all sorts of strategies because here's the problem. When we say alcohol use disorder is a thinking disorder, people think they really want to drink. But if you go all the way back to the origin of the habit,

Speaker 1 (16:05.112)
First of all, it's complicated. I'm going to boil it down simply, but there's more than this. But basically you wanted to feel relaxed in a social situation. You wanted to feel celebratory. You wanted to take the edge off. You wanted to turn your mind off. That's what you really wanted. And your brain learned how to solve that problem. And then a habit of thought. People don't realize thoughts are habits too. So at one point you thought I'd want to take the edge off.

And your brain said, well, we could go for a walk. We could have a drink. We could meet up with friends. We could listen to music and you selected for alcohol. It's like your social media feed. The more you click on the dog videos, the more you see the dog videos. And then the brain learns how to solve that problem. And it becomes an automated process. It's not conscious anymore. Now you hear the words, I want a drink, but that's a collapse of the thought process. It used to be, I want to relax. I want to drink.

and those two things merged together. So we do a lot with deconstructing the habit itself, languaging it properly, speaking the truth, what you really want. You always want to feel something.

There no content for you.

Right, yeah, so let's call a spade a spade. What is it that you really want? And then you begin to build out other habits. Like here's the thing, what most people, what we all did wrong, what I do wrong is we go into a period of sobriety, not realizing sobriety, first of all, it can be wonderful, it's a self-care practice, yay. But is a concept, is a lifestyle, it's just the nothing in the all or nothing cycle. And most of us think that if we change the way we drink, then we will feel

Speaker 1 (17:47.31)
better, not realizing that it's actually training our brain to white knuckle and to say no and use all of our willpower to not drink in a situation where the habit is there. It's contextual. It's five o'clock on a Friday night. Like this is hard to not drink. What you're actually doing is training your brain to think that sobriety is hard because you're setting the goal way too big, way too high. So I do things where, okay, just make a list of 10 things.

and do them for five to 10 minutes at a time, leave yourself wanting more. Like, that was amazing to come home from work and lay down on my bed for five minutes and breathe. But not for an hour and a half or all night, or I can't have a drink. It's this or, no, it's both. And then you retrain your brain slowly over time to find relaxation or connection with other people in other ways. And then you have to use a lot of awareness to notice, I did like that.

and then your brain logs it. then next time you have it, now you're up to two suggestions. Do you want to drink or do you want to lay down for five minutes first? I think I'll do that. And then you just begin to expand your felt experience of other things. Like the real goal, like in my program I teach is to wake up on the morning and realize it never occurred to you to pour a drink last night, but it takes time to get there.

So many similarities to what we do and what I think is really interesting, anyone listening to this now as well, like we've only come across each other in the last two weeks. I think it was, we recorded the podcast on Colleen's like two weeks ago. We've never spoken, never had any interaction at all, but we're coming from basically the same place when it comes to creating behavioral change. And because ultimately this is what works. This is actually what works. Any of this, Cineming Worlds, Diet Clubs, AA, Sobriety.

Look, they might work for a small percentage of people that might be the way to go, but actually for the vast majority of people addressing the root causes of the problem, asking yourself, what is the food or the alcohol doing for you? And then realizing actually there's loads of other alternatives you could get that emotional need met.

Speaker 2 (19:50.84)
Really quick one for me guys, I don't run ads on this podcast and I do aim to give you as many high value tips and tricks as I can for free. All I ask in return is that you help me spread the word. That way I can help as many people as I can to never die again. The way to do that is to rate, review and share this podcast. A review will only take 30 seconds but it would mean the world to me but more importantly it could help change the life of someone else.

You spoke about your kind of root causes. What are the root causes that you see for your clients when it comes to them drinking more than they would like?

would say that often it, the habit has developed and it's not even about the alcohol. The root cause is often anxiety. perfectionism, not knowing, not having the skills and the tools to process your emotions. Like one of the root causes of alcohol use sort of specifically shame because every single time you wake up and realize you have a hangover, you thought you failed instead of your strategy failed.

And so it is just this downward spiral of embarrassment and fear of failure. So I think the root cause of it is basically unmet emotional needs. You're agreeing to things in your life that you don't actually agree with. You're playing by rules that benefit other people. It's a lack of power problem. And your inner rebel is like, screw it, take this job and shove it. I'm going to go drink when the real problem is why are you working?

at that job or why are you putting up with this situation in a relationship? But it's easier to just get a drink and then we just believe our own thoughts and we think we want to drink because of, we just don't look higher level. Like you have to zoom way out. What else could be true here? And realize that the root cause is always unmet needs. You not paying attention.

Speaker 1 (21:49.48)
your own feelings and your own self. is a lack of relationship, a disconnect between the mind and body.

That's a big thing that we see with our clients as well. It's the fear, it's the belief that you shouldn't have negative emotions, then the fear of facing them. And so what they do is so to not face the feelings and to not lean into those feelings and learn from them, food, our clients suffer with alcohol as well, shopping, procrastination, excessive screen time to distract themselves from how they're feeling. But ultimately I've learned for myself as an individual, but also with the clients is that

actually the negative feelings are telling you something exactly like the example you just used telling you that you're in the job that you shouldn't be in but you're hiding from that truth you're hiding from that feeling because you don't want to face it and alcohol can be a great way to hide from it but of course in the short term it does actually make you feel better there's a reason why people turn to alcohol or food because you do get a benefit from it you feel better in that moment in the short term but of course in the long term it causes a lot of problems

So one thing that I teach goes even deeper than that, that I'd like to share with you where what we are afraid of is that feeling that we should leave our job. Let's just use that example. What you're feeling is actually telling you is just about the quality of your thoughts. It's not telling you that you should or shouldn't leave the job. That's a neutral thing. Leave the job, keep the job. What it's telling you is that the way you're thinking about it,

I can't leap this job because what any thought, like we do a lot of thought experiments, like try the thought on the, could be a question. Am I an alcoholic? How does that feel in your body? I don't like that. okay. Then that's the wrong question. Like you have to understand that you can ask your brain anything. Your brain is a tool. And this is where it's so hopeful that like, if you can learn how to think differently,

Speaker 1 (23:49.738)
If you can learn to ask different questions, like instead of what is wrong with me, how do I improve by 5 % this week? How do I set, what do I need to learn? Like learning opens your heart and opens your mind. Like there's something I need to know. This is where asking yourself different questions as a coach, like that's top of the funnel skill. but what I teach is that it's a litmus test. If you have a shitty feeling in your body that you're trying to avoid,

It's not telling you that you have to leave your husband or quit your job or that you're living the wrong life. It's telling you that the way you're thinking about things needs improvement because your body is suffering under limiting beliefs, bullying or harassment or oppression or hate speech. You're fat and ugly and stupid and you're worthless. You're never gonna be anything. What's wrong with you? Like if you said those words out loud to another person,

you would realize how abusive our internal dialogue can get. And so your feelings in your body are just rating the quality of your internal narrative. It tells you nothing. And once you realize that feeling is your invitation to heal your relationship with your body and mind and think high level, powerful people ask powerful questions and you are stuck in something that's not working you and your body. It's just like the needs gas light coming on in your car.

Your body's just saying needs attention. This is a shitty belief. Doesn't feel good down here.

Yeah. And think the issue is most people are completely unaware of what's going on. And you've used the word mindfulness quite a few times. We have a mindfulness expert within the program. I've changed my life as a consequence of mindfulness. I believe ultimately mindfulness is awareness. And that is the first step to changing your behavior. Yeah. How exactly you mentioned a few little examples, because you go into a into a bit more detail about what mindfulness is and how you help your clients with it.

Speaker 1 (25:49.058)
Mindfulness is the portal, but I think mindfulness alone can be very scary because we say, you just need to feel your feelings. Most people don't even know what that means. Most people are doing it wrong. That's why we get the bad rap for feeling your feelings. I don't want to feel my feelings. They don't feel good because you're not feeling them. You are thinking about them. I teach seven core skills of emotional sobriety. Mindfulness is top of the funnel. You have to become aware.

that there are words in your brain and that you are listening. You are not thinking on purpose. You are just listening to the stream of consciousness that reflects your programming from all of the emotional traumas and the social constructs and societal expectations. You're just listening to all that. Like it's not, you are not your thoughts. So mindfulness, you can't do any of the other work until you get the mindfulness, but mindfulness alone leaves you trapped in a

I'm aware of the fact that I'm not then what? And so I teach nervous system regulation. Your body doesn't even speak English. Your body speaks energy. And so one of the first things I do is teach people how to turn off that alarm in their nervous system, where it get out of your head, which your brain's going backwards and forwards in time. Your body is just this human being that lives in the present moment. It's real simple. Do you feel scared right now? Do you feel anxious? Okay, we'll look around.

You are safe, establish that come out of the stress response, breathe. It is safe for me to take five minutes and breathe. And you got to calm yourself down. Like I don't think on anxiety. I don't think on fear. I call my nervous system. So I've changed who I believe first. I don't believe my brain. I believe my body holds the truth. And that's what gets my attention. And then that's another thing that I teach is how to pay attention.

to your body, you need about 25 % of your awareness at all time to being, to reading your own body language. There's a blip on my radar. there's an awareness there. there's a sinking feeling. Like this all happens so fast. And in our culture where we are overstimulated and overbooked, we're not paying attention. Well, once you learn how to read the SOS signals coming from your body, then you can get faster at it. But you have to learn.

Speaker 1 (28:12.078)
to respond to the energy of what your body is telling you. And then like, I only think and problem solve when I feel calm, confident, clear, uncertainty, anxiousness. These are feelings, not facts. And so you can't think your way out of these stupid thinking problems. You go into your body and establish so that you feel grounded and calm and safe. And then you use your tools.

So like another tool I teach is dopamine regulation. And I teach mindset, like the iterative mindset where all I'm doing is tinkering around with my strategy to see if I can improve by one to 5%. There's no failure. There's no success. There's just, how does this feel? And do I want more or less of this? And so all of these tools come after mindfulness.

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I think is that first step before you can make any real change. You mentioned dopamine there, how to regulate your dopamine. Would you like to go into a bit more detail about that?

Sure. So dopamine is your motivation to get something, to get you off the couch. Let's move, let's go. There's a difference between wanting something and actually enjoying something. Dopamine is very in the future. I got to go, I got to collect the resources, I got to get something. And so most of us in this culture have been trained our dopamine is regulated by our internal narrative.

Our brain is helping us get what we think we want. If we think the words in our brain that we want a drink because we're almost out of wine and I got to go to the store, then our brain was like, okay, well, we're going to need to get the car keys. We're going to need to get the wallet. We're going to need to get 15 minutes. Let's go. Your brain will get you what you think you want, which is why it's so important to think the truth. And then the other thing is that dopamine is

Speaker 1 (30:07.494)
in the way we do it now with perfectionism and goals and performance is that our dopamine is attached to an end result. I will feel better when I finish, I get, I do, I prove, somebody says the thing, whatever. And so our dopamine is tied to the future. You can train your brain. I want to feel powerful. I want to feel connected. So for example,

When I'm working with drinkers, I teach them to set positive emotional goals. Most people are like, well, my goal is to only drink two drinks tonight at the party. All right, well, that doesn't work. That takes a lot of willpower and it sometimes, but then you can't repeat it. What I train them to do, I want to feel connected at this party tonight, or I want to feel confident.

Now, when you attach your dopamine to a feeling, now your brain solving problems, your brain will get you whatever you think you want. So if I want to feel confident at this party, now my whole strategy just changed. It has nothing to do with alcohol. Then when you start to get that third glass of wine and you're like, I'm feeling disoriented or I'm feeling a little checked out or I'm feeling a little spacey or I'm feeling a little numb, that's not my goal.

Like you've got to have that emotional bullseye on the tree of I want to feel confident. I'm not feeling that way. Let me self-correct. And so your brain is a problem solving genius. You just got to program it with the right goals.

That's very interesting. Yeah. I have, I've used that on a much kind of more surface level of how do you want to feel at the end of the evening instead of how many drinks you want to drink. And I think that's really powerful to how do you want to drink, how do want to feel the whole way through? And I want to feel empowered. I want to feel in control. I want to feel confident. And that's very interesting. You mentioned that there's a problem with labeling yourself and having an identity of someone who is an alcoholic. For us, identity is a key part of behavioral change.

Speaker 2 (32:17.25)
Firstly, what's the problem with being labelled as an alcoholic? How do you shift people's identity out of that?

As with eating, 95 % of people who go on a diet because they identify as somebody who needs to lose weight and who struggles with their weight and who needs to watch it and control themselves. 95 % of people who go on a diet and lose weight gain it back and are heavier a year later. Well, when you identify as an alcoholic, especially when you are not drinking, but either way, there's a nine times higher rate of binge drinking at some point in the future.

because you have adopted the belief that once you stop, start, you can't stop and you're gonna lose control. It's just a matter of time. So even if you're living a sober lifestyle, people can be in AA for 20 years and then have a relapse, go out and have one drink and go on a bender. Well, that's not even a thing. Like you would, you have to really be programmed because if you're out of habit, if you're not training for drinking every day,

Like you're gonna get drunk really fast. It's not gonna feel like it used to feel, but you're so disconnected from the truth in your body and your brain's like, well, I'm an alcoholic and I had one. So I guess we're going all the way. Like there's, it's just, it's not accurate. Yeah. And so what I teach the first step, like here's a practical step that I teach is to start identifying as a less is more person because anywhere in your life, there's equal evidence that you're an all or nothing, go big or stay home, black or white person.

But there's also evidence you're just missing that time you eat half a cookie or you order the small coffee or you watch one episode of something instead of binging the whole sits. You don't have time to be all or nothing about everything. And so if you begin to shift your focus and notice, I'm a less is more person. This is how I actually reintroduced alcohol or I felt like I had permission to do to at least try it.

Speaker 1 (34:12.297)
was that I noticed that with so many substances, coffee, my Adderall with my ADHD, had nicotine, like I liked to chew the gum and I vaped for a long time. And I noticed that I was able to engage with those substance on a much more soft, sporadic, take it or leave it sort of way when I was focused on staying regulated and calm and confident in my body, because I don't want to get myself out of balance.

I don't like getting all jacked up, not because I don't like the calm down, but I don't like either feeling on the spectrum. I like to move through life at my pace and feel like I'm in control. So I began to notice, wait a minute, I think I've become a less as more person. So I stumbled upon that strategy myself, but I find that it really works with clients. If you start paying attention and reinforcing, your brain will look for evidence of whatever you think is true.

That's the confirmation bias, the self-confirming identity. And so if you say, want to feel like a less is more person, then you start noticing where that's true. And then the noticing is the mindfulness that reinforces the dopamine that calms the nervous system. that's true. It feels good in my body. The brain learns to ching. I want to repeat that behavior. Like all of this happens in the mind and the body. And so just becoming a less is more person.

is that those are three little words or a mantra where identifying as somebody who likes to stay in the middle and seeing yourself as that person can help you correct behaviors because it is true. There is equal evidence for every single person listening to this right now. You are a less as more person in a lot of areas. You just need to start paying attention. And then the more it feels true, the more you'll start to apply it to other areas.

So it's like a little plant. You just have to nurture and grow it, water it. Less is more, less is more.

Speaker 2 (36:15.726)
It's like in some ways it's like a spotlight, isn't it? Whatever the spotlight is on, you're going to notice. And if you've telling yourself the story that I'm all or nothing and that I can't have one drink, then all you're going to be looking for in your life is evidence of that happening and all the times that has happened. And as you say, there would have been plenty of times where actually you have had only had one drink and it hasn't been a problem because you have this identity and these beliefs that the spotlight's on the wrong thing.

which I think is really important and powerful. I'm interested to get your opinion on this. Do you believe that a percentage of people should be sober for the rest of their lives? Or do you believe that actually if they went down this route that essentially your teaching, anyone can regulate themselves?

Addiction has been scientifically shown to be a belief. Addiction is the belief that you can't control yourself. There is no genetic marker for alcoholism. It is the belief that you can't control yourself coupled with a lap of coping skills. Here's what I will say about the idea that should someone stop drinking for the rest of their life. That's a story. There is all time is now.

You can decide that you're never going to drink again and you can live by that. And then somebody after your death says, yes, you did that. No, you didn't. I was never going to drink again. I decided I was never going to drink again. What I also teach one of the skills is the whole truth and the truth is always changing. What you need right now is not what you needed a year ago. And it, you can't

predict what you're going to need in the future. Stop making decisions for your future self. What you need to do is learn to trust that you're gonna make mistakes and you can self correct. What you do is you develop the resiliency to respond differently to your mistakes, to know what you need. And it's just this belief that I can't trust myself. Only a person who believes they can't trust themselves would decide I'm never going to drink again for the rest of my life. That's a story.

Speaker 1 (38:16.962)
Like it may be true, but a lot of people decide that and then change their mind. that just the quality of that question needs to be asked again. I trust myself to always be learning. Like it's not about the alcohol. I can drink as much as I want right now. I don't want to drink and I have no desire to do so. And I do not see that changing much more healthy and true statement than I'm never going to drink again.

because I used to think that every single goddamn morning and change my mind by 5 p.m.

Yeah, it's interesting. Cause I've got, I've been to AA myself long, long time ago. I still drink now. I definitely had problems with it in the past, but I've basically gone through the exact same process that you go through with your clients. I addressed the root causes. I addressed why I was drinking and over drinking and now I have a healthy relationship with it. It's not a problem, but I do have a few friends, obviously not going to name any names. They're probably not listed to this anyway, but the one springs to mind and he's been to NA, he's been to AA and he's just like, I am an addict.

I can't do what you do because I am an addict, that it's in my genes, that I have no control over it. He's doing really well so, but he's completely turned his life around so I'm not knocking him. But it's always interesting hearing that because I'm just thinking, is that really true? Is that just a story that you're telling yourself that ultimately becomes self-fulfilling? And what does that mean if you do quote unquote, relapse? Like what's going to happen then? Because really it is abstinence based recovery is classic all-enough in thinking and it leads to

all or nothing behaviors, which is, I've fucked it. I might as well just binge and get it all on my system. And it's the same with my clients and food, that all or nothing thinking of making a single mistake. I failed the diet again, I'll forget it, I'll start again on Monday, I'll start again at the end of the month, I'll start again in January. And it's that which really actually is the real issue and causes an excess in calories and consumption and lack of activity, which leads to the weight gain.

Speaker 1 (40:12.672)
apply the litmus test to that. I am an addict. If that thought makes him feel safe in his body, it calms him. I'm an addict and I can never drink again. If that is his, then that is his truth. That is the truth. He should follow the one that feels good in his body. That can change with new information where he's going to be in five years. He doesn't know. You don't know. I don't know. But if for some people,

Like I needed and it felt good to say I'm never doing that again. So I'm not knocking the fact that that's a story. I'm telling myself stories now. Like nothing you think is true, but whatever you believe is true is going to be your truth. So I would say, especially for somebody that has gone through so much, would, he may feel very safe in that story. And for five to 10 % of people who adopt that story, they do remain abstinent for the rest of their life.

and they're living their best life and they're killing it. And who would either one of us be to say you should change that? It would be more of if he starts to feel like he's outgrowing that box and he fears going back at that point, what else could I learn? Like how else could I see this? Would I like to evolve? It's not about going back to drinking. It's about focusing on the story you're telling yourself. the truth is always changing. Yesterday's truth.

is tomorrow's bullshit. Don't get too attached to it. My truth is always changing. You have to allow that your needs in any given moment are the experience in your body. Your body speaks English or energy, not English. Your brain's just trying to make sense of stuff and it's a tool, but if you're not managing the tool, you're the tool. Like the body, it speaks the truth and that's where you need to look. So I don't have a problem with that. I can see.

The treatment industry is $142 billion that relies on repeat clients. And then you could couple the insurance that goes with all that. Yeah, it sucks people in and people have to decide for themselves the path that they're on. And you get to change your mind whenever you want.

Speaker 2 (42:18.359)
industry.

Speaker 2 (42:29.838)
One last question, which a lot of the clients that I've worked with, and myself included back when I was trying to drink alcohol, they want to drink alcohol less. They've started to work on the root cause of the problems and they've addressed some of the stuff we've spoken about on the phone on this call. And the biggest challenge that they have is peer pressure, their family, the people they used to drink with. What advice do you give to your clients on how to navigate those situations?

Okay. So setting the goal to not drink or to drink less, those are negative goals. That's the absence of a behavior. So the first thing you would need to do, again, use your brain to ask the right questions. What you would want, if you were drinking less or not at all in a social situation, what's causing that? What is that a side effect of? And so that's where most people get in their head. It was like this peer pressure.

with alcohol, zoom up, pull out. Like letting your brain think that the problem that you're gonna waste your precious energy and time on this earth solving is what if somebody says what's in my glass and what if I feel nervous and what if I feel left out? Like wrong questions. Again, how do I wanna feel? I wanna feel like a boss in control of myself and I'm looking forward to not drinking. So it's like you reverse engineer.

How do I want to feel? Then what would I need to be thinking about? Not how much everybody's drinking. Like when you think about everybody's reality is different. Everybody walks into the same party. The lawyer is noticing where somebody could fall and hurt themselves and sue. The artist is noticing the paint and the colors and the light and the shadows. The cook is noticing the smells and is there garlic in that? The musician is noticing the background music. The person who was obsessed with alcohol

is noticing what everybody's drinking and not drinking and what everybody thinks and how much is in the bar. And is there an open bar? Did I bring money? So like, you got to shift your focus and start asking different questions. So this idea of worrying about peer pressure, what else would you want to worry about at that party? Because that's not a fun one.

Speaker 2 (44:45.27)
Love that. Colleen, thank you very much. What is the best way to get hold of you to find out more information about you? What are your biggest platforms? Have you got a website?

Yes. My biggest thing for podcast listeners is I have a podcast. It's not about the alcohol is the name of the podcast. Then if you're looking for me on social media, I am the hangover whisperer on Tik TOK and Instagram. And we post on Facebook too. And then my website is emotional sobriety coaching.com.

Excellent. We'll link all of those beneath this episode. Thank you very much for joining. This has been a really interesting conversation. It's taken my understanding to a deeper level. So thanks for that. And yeah, make sure you check out the podcast that we recorded on Colleen's podcast as well. Thanks a lot.