Addiction Medicine Made Easy | Fighting back against addiction

I Don't Have a Drinking Problem. I Drink, I Get Drunk. No Problem.

• Casey Grover, MD, FACEP, FASAM

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Binge drinking can look harmless right up until it doesn’t. If you only drink on weekends, vacations, or big nights out, it’s easy to tell yourself you’re fine because you’re not drinking every day. But the consequences of one high-risk night can be life-changing, and clinically, intermittent heavy drinking can still meet criteria for an alcohol use disorder.

I’m joined by Colleen Clifford, a former binge drinker who spent 36 years working at sea as a commercial fisherwoman and is now transitioning into health coaching to help clients manage binge drinking and binge eating. Colleen shares the personal grief that shaped her mission, the stories she used to justify “normal” partying, and the turning-point moment that made her drop alcohol for good. We also get practical about what actually counts as a binge, including how “one drink” is often smaller than the glass in your hand.

We discuss the DSM-5 criteria for alcohol use disorder, how many people who binge drink do not think they have a problem, and why cravings can still show up years later. Colleen explains how she handles urges by observing them, naming the discomfort, and playing the tape forward. I also share a harm-reduction option many people don’t know about: medications like naltrexone that, for some patients, can be taken before drinking to reduce binge episodes. We wrap with trends like alcohol-free wine and shifting drinking culture across generations, plus Colleen’s core message: it only takes one moment of drinking too much to change your life forever.

Subscribe, share this with someone who’s questioning their relationship with alcohol, and please leave a review so more people can find the show.

To learn more about Colleen and her work: https://purepotential.health/

To contact Dr. Grover: ammadeeasy@fastmail.com

Welcome And Why Binge Drinking

SPEAKER_01

Hi, I'm Dr. Casey Grew. I spent years practicing emergency medicine before shifting my focus to addiction medicine. I have to grew out of caring for patients, hearing their stories and wanting to do better. Here we talk about recovery, medicine, and compassion. This is Addiction Medicine Maybe. Today we are going to be talking about binge drinking with Colleen Clifford. Colleen is a former binge drinker who is transitioning from her career as a commercial fisherwoman to a health coach working with clients on managing their binge drinking. And I will put a link to her website in the show notes. We had a great conversation about binge drinking. And as you'll hear from Colleen, many people who binge drink do not feel that they have an alcohol addiction since they only consume it intermittently. But if you look up the 11 criteria for an alcohol use disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM 5, people who binge drink may actually meet criteria for an alcohol use disorder. And Colleen actually reflected back on her own relationship with alcohol as we discussed this. A few call-outs that I wanted to make. First, when we discussed alcohol cravings, Colleen discussed what she does when she gets them. And she told me that she can now, quote, live with the uncomfortableness, end quote. And she lives with this discomfort when she has a craving until it passes. And this is so incredibly important. The biggest predictor in my experience of success in getting and staying sober is the ability to be vulnerable and the ability to tolerate discomfort. And second, you've heard from me on this podcast, including in the recent episode that we did on this topic, that we at my medical practice really believe in the value of peer support and lived experience in helping people get sober. And Colleen's work as a health coach, since she has lived experience dealing with her own binge drinking, is really a form of peer support. One clarification before we start. We have 178,000 alcohol-associated deaths in the U.S. each year. Okay, let's get started talking about binge drinking.

Colleen’s Story And Loss

SPEAKER_01

All right, happy Friday. Why don't we just start with you telling us who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Yeah, I am a commercial fisherwoman that I've spent 36 years out at sea. Not completely, but that's my career. I'm phasing out of that, and I'm reinventing myself in my sixth decade of life. And part of that invention has stemmed from lived experience. My late husband passed from alcohol-related suicide. I just like to take a second to acknowledge that. And through that journey, I've really found the tragic blessing through that journey of healing and through my grief is I've found a reason to to share my message with the world. And it's alcohol related, and that's what you're all about, right? Helping people and listening to your podcast, I just love the motive, is to help. It's a serious problem, addiction, right? My motive, why I'm here, is to help. And if someone that can hear my message or my podcast interview with whoever I'm speaking with, if they can glean something from it, that's why I'm here now. I believe binge drinking is a serious problem in the world. And I'm a former binge drinker. And through my journey of being a no longer binge drinker, I don't like to say recovered because I don't know. I just don't really like that word, but I no longer drink. And I combined my experience with my late husband's death because it was alcohol-related suicide. And statistically, as we know, each year there's 178 deaths. The CDC did their study in 2020, 2021. 178 deaths a year, but the binge drinking is a third of those deaths, alcohol and binge drinking. And so I think binge drinking is a category of drinking we don't really talk about too much. And so that's why I'm that's why I'm here. I'm an expert in binge drinking.

SPEAKER_01

So you mentioned 178 deaths a year. Do you mean 178,000?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's what I meant. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I didn't realize binge drinking was such a large part of that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's a third of it. And then the mental health on top of that is I can't remember the statistics, but it's very high. And that's where my husband comes in because he was completely drunk when he chose to die. And I firmly feel if he could have gotten through that evening without the alcohol, he might have survived. I think the alcohol put him over the edge. And statistics point to that when you've got depression and he quit his medicine, cold turkey, which we know is a bad thing to do, and then was drinking. And then I asked for a divorce that morning. So it was like a lot of I I don't know. I don't know what he was thinking, but I just know that if alcohol wasn't a part of that, we could have maybe had a conversation the next day.

SPEAKER_01

As they say, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It's just heartbreaking. I'm so sorry for your loss.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. It's it was 2011, but it's still on the surface.

SPEAKER_01

I can hear it in your voice. Absolutely. Yeah.

What Counts As A Binge

SPEAKER_01

So I have my medical definition of binge drinking. You're working, I can see from your website on binge behaviors, eating or drinking. How do you define binge drinking in your work?

SPEAKER_00

It comes from the CDC, four or more drinks for a female in one occasion and five or more. And that's very general. I just state it like that because most people can relate to that. But each body's different. For me, it could be two drinks because I'm smaller if I'm not eating. I can get buzzed really quick if I pour them down quickly. So I think there's a lot of leeway, but I'm not a doctor. I'm not a it's just lived experience from my own observations.

SPEAKER_01

The doctor definition, since you asked, I happen to be one. Good timing on the interview is yes, five or more for men and four or more for women in a single setting. That is correct.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, great. Yeah. So when you're partying, that's really not that hard to do because we also have to remember the definition of what is a drink from the real definition as opposed to the glass of wine we're drinking. It's one glass of wine could be two drinks.

SPEAKER_01

100%. I was at a elementary school this morning. I go to a lot of schools to teach about drug and alcohol addiction. And I have a slide that shows the five ounce, 12% glass of wine that actually is one glass of wine. And the 12-ounce, 5% beer, not 6%, 7%, or 8%, but 5% beer that is one drink. And yes, I the kids are spot on. They're like, hey, I thought a bottle of wine only had two glasses in it. And their fifth graders are great. They just love to share. So it's always funny to hear what happens in the homes of the students that I speak to. And yes, sometimes they learn things about their families, which is always interesting. Obviously, you've had lived experience. I know alcohol use is very common in the fishing industry. I'm in Monterey, California. We have loads of fishermen and women down here too. But was it your husband's passing that transitioned you into this new field of

From Fishing To Coaching

SPEAKER_01

work? Or what was your life story around transitioning from fishing to recovery?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, I'm still in the transition, but I only had three more years of fishing. But I'm a chef on the boat. I was trained in France, which was a great time in my life. But food's a big deal with health and wellness. And so I was living a hypocritical life because I'm a very healthy eater. Once I got over my binge eating, I became a very healthy eater, but I was still drinking on the weekend, trashing my system. And so in 2010, I went to the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, which is a health coaching certification program. And I wanted to, my husband and I were building a kitchen. Back then, nobody knew how to cook beans. The internet was just getting started. So there weren't all those cooking shows. And I was planning to teach people how to feed themselves at home, healthy in a healthy way. But I was afraid to get started there. It wasn't guaranteed income. So I stayed on the boat. Fast forward to 2023, my financial state is different. I'm about ready to retire. And now I can dip my toe in coaching and this type of thing that I want to do beyond my commercial fishing life, which is just to help people that want to be helped, to share the message. I quit drinking five years ago. The final binge drink episode, which made me realize I just needed to drop the booze. And that's when I really took my inward look at myself, and here I am today.

SPEAKER_01

What did you find when you looked in?

SPEAKER_00

I found that I had been telling myself a story my entire life around one particular incident that happened that I wasn't lovable, and I never gave anyone a chance to prove me otherwise. And I was drinking my way through my adult life as a band-aid. And the funny thing, really, it's not funny, but that's how we say it.

SPEAKER_01

Ironic, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, exactly. Is that alcohol is we've just brainwashed to think we need alcohol to have fun in life. And once you realize it's such a lie, it life is so much better without it. It's easy to make the choice. I'm not an alcoholic. I feel like my body type I would binge drink and I wouldn't drink for a week solid. I wasn't that type of drinker that couldn't stop. I would binge the next day. I'd be so hungover. I would tell myself, oh, I can't drink a drink. I didn't do the hair of the dog. And thank God, because then I would have fallen into the alcoholic realm. Now, binge drinking, some people say is it alcoholism? I don't really know. That's something experts should maybe you note. Is binge drinking considered alcoholic tendencies, or is it on the verge, or there's a lot of different terms.

Binge Drinking And Alcohol Use Disorder

SPEAKER_01

So the term for alcohol addiction is an alcohol use disorder. And there are 11 criteria as defined by consensus of experts in a document called the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual 5th edition, or DSM5. So basically you get a bunch of doctors in a room and they hammer out the diagnostic criteria for all these conditions from depression, agoraphobia, alcohol addiction, whatever. There are 11 criteria. And it's basically you can control your use, you use despite consequences, you get cravings, and then you have tolerance and withdrawal. And there's various kind of nuances to each criteria. But a person with binge drinking behaviors can meet those 11 criteria even if they're not a daily drinker. So two or more of those criteria does count as an alcohol use disorder, but it fluctuates, right? I have people that might meet six after a particularly difficult time drinking, and then they get things better and they might only meet two. Or sometimes they'll only meet one and then come back in five. It's a little more fluid than you might guess. Now, granted, some people clearly have a profound problem with alcohol, and that is consistent. But binge drinking is a little bit more of a nuance, which is why I was so excited to have this conversation. Because, yes, most of the focus is on people who consume alcohol daily as problem drinkers. But other terms I hear problem drinker, at-risk drinking, high-risk drinking. There's various definitions. But intermittent, higher consumption of alcohol is consistent with binge drinking. And then it really depends on me as a doctor going through and asking those criteria and seeing what they meet.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. Okay. I think I was an alcoholic.

SPEAKER_01

The term is up to you. You mentioned not liking the term recovery. I can't remember what you said, but I allow my patients to define the term. I allow them to define what they feel is right. Some of my patients count down to the day how many days of sobriety they have. And others are like, I don't count. And I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. What's fascinating in my discovery of looking back at why I drank and and what have you. I think what kept me stuck for years was that I could talk myself out of having a problem because I didn't drink every day. And even when I did binge drink, I didn't always do something out of character. I would just wake up the next day with a hangover and think, oh gosh, I drank too much last night. And so I could continue that functionality or dysfunctionality for for years.

One Night That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_00

Until something major happens, right? And that's when your world can get turned upside down from being drunk. You make the wrong decision of getting in a car and driving home because you think you can. And you and that's w the night I quit. The next day I woke up and I went, What the heck? I made a promise to God that I would quit if I got home safely, and I lived up to that promise. And that's part of my message is that it only takes once to change your life forever in binge drinking. It one moment of binge drinking that can disrupt your life. And so I'm writing a book, and one of the questions I'm asking is, how is it working for you? I'm not preaching for anyone to quit, but the question is, and that was the question I had to ask myself at the end of the day was, why am I drinking? How is it working for me? Obviously not well. So what do I need to fix this? What do I need to do?

SPEAKER_01

The question I ask my patients all the time, right? So, Colleen, when you were drinking, you were investing time and money to get it, and you were taking a risk to drink it and getting in other situations, your brain was telling you it wanted something. That's usually what I tell people is like, what does alcohol do for you? Because addiction's a bait and switch. You think it's helping until you realize it's not. And some people make that realization very fairly quickly, others take quite a long time. Some never make the connection. So you mentioned having a specific night, a specific moment, and it was driving while intoxicated.

Cravings And Tolerating Discomfort

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And do you ever get cravings to drink?

SPEAKER_00

I have, yeah. Even recently, that's another thing I love to talk about is cravings, because cravings are the saboteur of our progress. And so if we don't learn how to manage our cravings, we will always be sabotaged. So when I and when you quit, it's the cravings are stronger in the beginning. But sometimes I'm I get cravings circumstantial. Like I went back to Arizona where my late husband and I used to horseback ride and drink all the time. And I visited a friend, and I just had this huge physical craving to drink. And what I do now is I just observe it. I laugh at it because I'm not a drinker anymore, so I'm not gonna drink. But it's just so fascinating to me that it surfaces out of what seems like nowhere, but it's somewhere in my body waiting. And I don't know the scientificness of it, but I just think it's fascinating. I don't know if it's in my stored memory bank or what. But so I just laugh at it. I say to my partner and my cousin, Oh my god, I feel like drinking. This is so weird. And then I ask the waiter, Do you have a non-alcohol beverage? Because I do drink those, and he says no, and I said, No. But I just living through it, acknowledging it, knowing it's going to pass, they don't last forever. And then so think of what will happen. I play it forward. What if I do drink? I've been five years without it. How is it going to help me? Just live with the uncomfortableness, go for a walk, eat something. It'll pass, and it always does. And then I feel with each success, you build on that and you know you're stronger. And so cravings can pop up. I don't know how it is for other people, but on occasion I'll get them. Not very often anymore, but when they do come, it's very, it's fascinating that I still get it.

SPEAKER_01

The way it was described to me is it's like riding a bike. I haven't ridden a bike in six months. I can pick up a bike and go exactly where I left off today. Wow. Those neural pathways will always be there. Now, if I may ask, most of my patients come to me as an addiction doctor because they're drinking daily. When you were in the drinking time of your life, let's say you drank on a Friday night and a Saturday night, and then the next Friday night and Saturday night, would you get cravings to drink in between?

SPEAKER_00

You mean the week?

SPEAKER_01

Like on the non-drinking days.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah. I'm sure I thought about it, but I probably didn't because when I was home, when I did have a period of time in life before I went fishing where I had a normal land job, if I had to get up and go to work, I I wouldn't drink. I have some discipline around it. And so when I knew I had time to party, I would do it and time to recover.

SPEAKER_01

Makes sense. So it sounds like the desire to drink was fairly persistent. You only allowed yourself to indulge at a time that it wouldn't interrupt work and life otherwise.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. I would say that's true.

SPEAKER_01

How did your drinking change after your husband passed?

SPEAKER_00

I actually wasn't drinking when he passed. I had quit once before for three years. I'd I'd seen a video of myself and I didn't like what I saw, and I just stopped drinking. That was a willpower game though for those two years. The last time I quit, I've had a mind shift. It's a whole different been a whole different process. But so I had quit drinking, and the interesting thing was after I've never been a depressed person, but after about a year and a half af after his death, when all the pieces of dealing with a death are put to rest with the deceased, I had nothing but time to feel my feelings, and I became depressed. It set in later. And I I wasn't one to ask for help. And I was once again just white knuckling through it, and fortunately I did. But once on the other side, I really gained a compassion for mental health and depression, and I realized it can happen to anyone with the right circumstances. So I think drinking would have exacerbated that. So I'm grateful I wasn't. But I have to say that in that depressive period, I also reached a point where I started drinking again. So I broke my non-drinking cycle through that depression towards the tail end. I was had a moment of what the what the heck? Who cares about life? I'm just gonna start drinking and smoking again.

SPEAKER_01

My patients call it getting a case of the efforts.

SPEAKER_00

That is what I had. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Coaching Women In The Gray Zone

SPEAKER_01

So in my addiction medicine practice, people with lived experience with addiction are the foundation of what we do. I can't sit down with someone and tell them what it's like to go through opiate withdrawal. I can't sit down with someone and talk about coming off of cocaine in jail. But somebody with lived experience can, and that shared experience makes connections I can't make. And we use the term lived experience, and my my staff will take a course to be a peer support specialist or a peer report. Recovery specialist. It sounds like that's some of the work that you do as a health coach.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's lived experience and a passion for change. And a passion of hope showing hope to others that even if you think you can't change, there's hope to change. You just it's never too late. And with alcohol, what sort of clients do you work with? Typically women. Typically women who sometimes aren't ready to change. They're like in that gray zone of I don't know if I really have a problem, but I kind of think I do. And at one point it's they realize that that it's not serving them in their life. And they ask themselves the question, what kind of life do I want to continue to live from here on out? And is alcohol a part of that? And then just asking those questions of why are you drinking? What beliefs do you have around drinking? Are those beliefs true? Can you tell yourself another belief around drinking? That just rewiring our brain, our thought processes, why we think we need to do things and how we feel they they serve us. Is it true? Those stories we tell.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Do you work mostly with patients who drink daily or binge drink? Do you have a particular type of drinking pattern that you work most with?

SPEAKER_00

Binge drinking, typically. And binge eating. Maybe it's just because that's what I've experienced. I think people like to hear that I've lived it. And a few clients have said, oh, I just the fact that you've you know where I'm coming from, especially as a binge eater.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I recorded a podcast earlier today that will have come out the week before this episode today, here is published on sugar addiction. And my vice was binge eating. I still to this day cannot eat donuts. So I know exactly how you feel with binge eating, that lived experience, that connection. I you're totally right.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah, I think for me, it's something I constantly monitor and live with. But I think having awareness around my behavior of why I was using that behavior to make me feel good, finding healthier alternatives keeps me on track.

SPEAKER_01

Do you have a sense of where your binge both drinking and eating behaviors came from? Childhood trauma, untreated mental health condition.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think my binge eating, that was something that I was bulimic, actually, to be frank. And at the time, this was back in the 80s, 70s, even really, nobody knew. There wasn't really talk. It was a coping mechanism people would never talk about, even though I find out now a lot of my high school girlfriends were doing the same thing, right? And I think it was a lack of ability to feel my feelings and to communicate them. For the longest time, I could not name my feelings when I did finally start to get help and therapy. And so I don't know if that was my family dynamics of being in a large family. My my family's very loving. It's not to blame my parents or anyone. I just think the there wasn't room for a lot of communication.

SPEAKER_01

How long did it take you to realize that you had to name and feel your feelings?

SPEAKER_00

Probably my early 30s. Yeah. So when I stopped binge eating, I did it on my own. I wasn't going through therapy until later in life. And once I started my therapy later in life, I looked back at my binge eating because I never even talked about it. I was so ashamed of it. I never told anyone I was bulimic, right? But I was able to stop that behavior. And then I looked back and thought, oh my gosh, why was I bulimic? And honestly, I didn't even talk to my therapist about it because I was ashamed to tell her. But I think I've through our other conversations, I was able to figure out why.

SPEAKER_01

Do you do that same work with your clients?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, with my clients, I like to ask questions that that they can pull out their own answer. We start with where they're at and then feel our way around where they're going. A lot of I think with with my own circumstance with the binging is it was a lack of self-love. And so often I'll start with self-love with the clients that I'm working with, accepting ourselves as we are, not as we wish we were, and learning to love who we are. Once we can do that, I feel like we don't have to stuff ourselves with food or other things to try to feel whole. And being heard and seen. And I think a lot of us have our own answers within. Sometimes we need validation from someone we we hold as maybe a mentor or someone who's already on the other side of where like where we want to be. And so we look towards them and go, oh, they already have the answer. So if they validate what I'm saying as a the right direction, then great. The thing that I really love to do is give people the sense that they don't need validation from outside. Once they can learn to trust and validate themselves, that's a healthy place to be coming from.

SPEAKER_01

When you're working with a client that's spinge drinking, what are some of the things that you work on to get started with them to assess the readiness for change?

SPEAKER_00

I love that. That's the first question, the readiness to change.

SPEAKER_01

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00

Because if someone's not ready to change, why bother? And I'm pretty that's where I come from as a coach, right? Because it's like my time, your time. If you're below five on a one to ten scale, think about it and come back when you're getting closer to a seven. Because if you don't have a strong why, or you're you're not going to be motivated to do any of the work or hold yourself accountable, it really is a waste of money, I feel.

SPEAKER_01

Does anyone come to you that's court-ordered? Like they have a DUI? No, no, no. Because that's a big chunk of who we see. There's one county in California where I work in where I'm the only addiction medicine doctor. And I usually ask two questions. What does the drug do for you and why do you want help? And you and I both know that when I ask, why do you want to get help? If it's I want my wife to stop nagging me, that's not great motivation. But some people are in this really weird place of I'm gonna get put in jail or prison if I don't stop. I don't want to stop, but I don't want that consequence. I just was curious if that's what you run into.

SPEAKER_00

No, I haven't. If those are the reasons they give me, it's just those are not the right answers for change.

SPEAKER_01

So your niche is seems like it's mostly women who binge drink or binge eat and identify having a problem and are trying to find a solution. They just haven't tried your program and are open to something new. Correct. Interesting.

Alcohol-Free Trends And Helpful Meds

SPEAKER_00

I actually went on an alcohol-free wine tour in Europe last year with a group of women that are non-drinkers, and that was fascinating. So I mentioned to my coworker I was going on an alcohol-free wine tour, and she says, Why bother? And so that was interesting. But once I came home and I told her about it, she said that her and her partner are taking a year off from drinking. So we'll see how it goes.

SPEAKER_01

What is an alcohol-free wine tour?

SPEAKER_00

They actually make alcohol-free wine and beer. Have you are you familiar with those? There's Athletic and other brands. So in Germany specifically, they make alcohol-free wine. They're producing alcohol-free wine. And their sales are growing 20% more than the alcohol versions. And so it's an industry that's really growing. You probably notice the big names like Coors, they're getting on board only because it's profitable, if you ask me. So, yeah. So it was a tour of some of these vineyards and winehouses that are making alcohol-free wine in the wine desk, and it was fun. We had a great time. And there's some very good varieties out there. I'm not a wine drinker, so I just went for the experience and to see what was going on in the world with alcohol-free.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, Gen Z is drinking less compared to its previous generations. They are on the flip side using more cannabis, but yeah, Gen Z is asking for alcohol-free bars. It's a trend.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of cannabis, I listened to your episode. Wait, weed does what? And I'm going to send that one to some of my family members. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, that is one of the interesting things about what I do as an addiction doctor is we take care of all sorts of addictions from nitrous oxide from whipped cream canisters to meth to fentanyl to alcohol to various forms of alcohol addiction, to what we've talked about daily drinkers, binge drinkers, people with bad withdrawal. It's a really varied experience in terms of who I see. The pattern that usually ends up having enough consequences to come to see one of our doctors is regular daily drinking. There are also some folks who their pattern is more binging than daily drinking, but it's oftentimes the withdrawal that really gets people into treatment. And someone drinking once a week is just not going to have that. That being said, somebody who binges and gets a DEY and has to take a DEY course might engage with a counselor or a group, but they don't always know that they might benefit from medication. And just so you know, there are some effective medications that can be taken before drinking to reduce binge drinking. So an altrexone is a medication that we use quite a bit for alcohol use. And they've actually done some studies that you don't have to take it every day to make it work. You can take an altrexome before you drink, and it might take you from eight drinks down to three, which would definitely be a positive change. I would imagine that's a doctor prescribed. That is, but they are making it more available as people get more aware that alcohol does come with harms. My parents' generation, baby boomers, heavy drinking was fairly normal. It just culturally has changed over time, which I think is overall a good thing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I guess the statistics are showing my age group, 65, and I'm not 65 yet, but my generation of folks that are retiring, their alcohol consumption is increasing.

SPEAKER_01

Life changes can be a reason why alcohol consumption changes. So yes, the I worked for many years. Now I'm retired. My drinking day no longer starts at 6 after work. It starts at noon. I have some retired professionals that I see. Retirement sounds great. Here on the Monterey Peninsula, there's loads of great wineries. And now I'm drinking at noon. So yes, that does happen as well. Yeah.

Book Message And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_01

What's the next thing you're working on? What's the next on your to-do list?

SPEAKER_00

I am I'm really getting into speaking. And I didn't know that I like to talk as much as I do. And so with these podcast interviews, I'm having a really great time. And hopefully my message is resonating out there. But I have a book being published in July. And with the publication of that, it's like my platform, my speaking platform base. And so that'll be fun. I'll be home when it launches. And I plan to have a big party and everything I do is for fun, but also with the goal of helping.

SPEAKER_01

So from talking to you, I feel like I have a sense of your message. If you had to distill your message down to a sound bite, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00

It would be it only takes one moment of drinking too much to change your life forever. Will it be yours?

SPEAKER_01

Will it be yours, meaning your decision?

SPEAKER_00

Will it be your life?

SPEAKER_01

Oh. As in, are you saying that people could die from their addiction? Or even a double meaning of, will you get to take your life back?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I didn't think of it that way. That's great. But the way I'm envisioning it, or the way I've written my book around it, is the fact that we don't think of binge drinking and partying as a problem until it becomes one. And so the message is it only takes one moment of binge drinking to change your life forever. Will it be yours?

SPEAKER_01

Very nice. That says it all. That's why you and I have jobs. As we wrap up our time together, did we miss anything?

SPEAKER_00

I don't think so. Not in this window of time we have.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. I have to say I appreciate your honesty and openness and sharing the struggles that you've been through. Again, so sorry to hear about your husband's passing. And again, my condolences. But thank you for your bravery in speaking out about your struggle with alcohol in a world that uses it as a moral failing. You and I both know it's not. And I'm glad you found so much strength in recovery.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much, Dr. Casey.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much for listening to Addiction Medicine Made Easy. If you found this helpful, please leave a review. It really helps others find the show. And a huge thank you to Central Coast Overdose Prevention for supporting this podcast. And always remember treating addiction stays live.