Are They Your Friends… Or Your Drinking Buddies?

Have you ever realized you were using alcohol to make parts of your life more tolerable?

In this episode of The Alcohol Myth Podcast, coaches Jonathan Ball and Ellen Biggs unpack one of alcohol’s most insidious lies: “This will make it easier.” Not tolerance as in how much you can drink, but tolerance as in using alcohol to endure people, events, relationships, your own resentment, and even your own vulnerability.

If you have ever thought, “I need a drink to get through this,” this conversation will help you see what is really going on, and what becomes possible when alcohol is no longer your default tool.

In this video, you’ll learn:
- How alcohol quietly becomes a tool for tolerating people, events, and conflict
- Why “making it tolerable” often keeps you stuck in what is not working
- How shame, secrecy, and resentment build when alcohol is your coping strategy
- The difference between real connection and drinking-buddy connection
- Why the “fun party identity” can be a mask (and what is under it)
- Practical tools to navigate the transition without blowing your life up overnight

Quick takeaway:
Alcohol can make the moment feel easier, but it often makes the underlying problem last longer.

Tiny FAQ:
Q: What if quitting alcohol makes me realize I hate my job, relationship, or social life?
A: Treat those realizations like indicator lights. You do not have to fix everything at once. Take one small step at a time.

Q: What if my friends say they prefer me when I’m drinking?
A: That is painful, and it is data. The goal is to find people who want the real you, not the mask.

Connect with us:
Email: thealcoholmyth@gmail.com
Jonathan: https://livecreativeaf.com/
Ellen: https://ellenbiggscoaching.com/

Subscribe for more episodes on pulling back the curtain on the alcohol myth.

Chapters
0:00 A painful truth: “I didn’t feel like I had a right to complain”
0:43 Podcast intro: why alcohol is not the answer
1:21 Welcome: alcohol and “tolerating” your life
1:28 The tolerance lie: not drink quantity, but tolerating life
2:24 Using alcohol to tolerate people and events
2:48 The “mom happy hour” example
3:29 The realization: maybe you don’t want this life pattern
3:50 Marriage patterns and drinking through resentment
4:44 What changes when alcohol is gone?
5:16 Conflict avoidance and stuffing feelings
6:23 The conversation you can finally have
7:52 What this unlocks across relationships
8:15 Jonathan’s double shift: no coping tool and more clarity
9:38 Alcohol keeps you small and palatable
10:34 The resentment loop in relationships
11:47 Alcohol makes it tolerable, then makes you stuck
12:01 Shame, hiding, and the image you protect
13:44 Shame vs blame and the real culprit
14:35 Alcohol as the problem and the “solution”
15:30 The dinner party trap (and drinking through it)
16:32 Drinking buddies vs real friends
18:10 Expat culture and identity built around drinking
20:38 “Who do I belong with now?”
22:12 Better socializing through discernment
24:18 The awkward transition stage after quitting
26:08 Upskilling without the bottle
26:51 Losing the “fun party person” identity
28:42 The mask and the fear of rejection
30:47 Do it safely: support, trust, and community
31:40 Vulnerability and the role alcohol plays
33:58 Anything alcohol “gives” you is already in you
34:45 Practical tools and safety steps
35:11 Indicator lights, not “blow up your whole life”
38:17 The all or nothing trap (and titration)
40:55 A journaling prompt: the role you play socially
42:25 Is the mask heavy, and where is it safe to set down?
43:49 Closing and invitation to email us

#AlcoholMythPodcast #QuitDrinking #SoberCurious #AlcoholFree #Relationships #PeoplePleasing #SelfWorth #HabitChange

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I was in this like negative space of feeling so bad about myself, not feeling like I had a right to complain because things were, you know, aesthetically so good and positive and everything was fine and our kids were fine and you know he had a good job and you know, things were nobody thought it all the things, right? Like I just would justify it away. Like, what's wrong with you, Ellen? You have no right to complain. And but yet, you know, like, and then take away alcohol, take away all that shame, speak my peace. He's super receptive because he's a wonderful guy. Yeah, who knew, right? And we're able to work on it. And now things are so much more out in the open and clear.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

And why does the world act like alcohol is the answer, even while it is creating problems of its own?

SPEAKER_02 0:45

On the alcohol myth podcast, we pull back the curtain so you can see what's really going on with alcohol and what life could be like without it.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

We are coaches trained in this naked mind and effective liminal psychology who fell for the alcohol myth for decades. Now we help people take back control of their lives by changing their relationship with alcohol from the inside out.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

You don't need to wait for a rock bottom. You don't need more willpower, you just need a new way to understand what you are feeling and why you are reaching for that next drink.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

So let's dig in. Welcome to the Alcohol Myth Podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan, and I'm joined today by Ellen.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Hey Jonathan, good to see you.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Good to see you. And today on the Alcohol Myth Podcast, we are confronting one of alcohol's very insidious lies that it tells us that alcohol is going to make the XYZ thing or person or event or experience more tolerable. So today we're kind of playing around with the idea of alcohol and tolerance, but not tolerance like we often think about it, whereas I can drink more than other people, or alcohol doesn't affect me as much kind of tolerance. We're talking about what alcohol makes tolerable in our lives and some of the downstream effects of things being made tolerable that maybe shouldn't be made tolerable. So when we talk about tolerable in this context, Ellen, what comes up for you?

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Oh man, this is a big one for me. I realized along the way how much I was using alcohol to tolerate so many things in my life. I was using it to tolerate certain people. I was using it to tolerate certain events, you know, like get invited to a Friday night happy hour with a group of moms from school that I, you know, didn't really love, but it was like, okay, I need to do this thing. Well, I get to drink anyway, right? So I'm gonna tolerate, it's gonna make it more tolerable. So I would, you know, use that as my way to tolerate the event. And then, you know, when I think about giving, when I thought about giving up alcohol, it's like, oh my God, what am I gonna do? Go to that event and not be able to drink? That felt really like too much. And and so it became this realization, and that's just one example, but of things in my life that maybe I don't actually want to do, need to do. I have a a story, a narrative that I have to do this thing. And so I'm using alcohol to tolerate the doing. But, you know, so that that was a big piece of it. But I mean, I I could go on and on the things that I tolerated, you know, like patterns in my relationships, like you know, I mean, things that were going on in my marriage, I mean, I've been married for 20 plus years. I tell me a relationship that you've been together for 20 plus years, that there aren't things about your partner that drive you crazy, right? And instead of me confronting that or talking about it or having the difficult conversation around it, I would just tolerate it and drink through it, right? And you know, it wasn't till later when I gave up alcohol that it was like, oh, okay, I have a choice here. Like I can, I mean, I actually have the opportunity to try and make this thing better so I don't have to tolerate it anymore. But it was only after I gave up alcohol that even became like in my ability to be able to do. Um, so that's a very long answer for uh your question. But um, yeah, what you look like you're about to say something.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Well, I've got a question for you. So how did changing your relationship with alcohol and getting that out of the picture impact your like interactions, associations with what you were tolerating before? Like what was possible for you when it comes to the things that you were tolerating um after your after you quit drinking?

SPEAKER_02 5:07

Yeah, I gosh, I'm trying to, there's many different avenues I could go down this. If I think about um, I'm I'm just gonna go there. I'm gonna go there about my my relationship with yeah, with um with my husband, right? Like there were things in our relationship that because I'm I was, I've been working on this a lot, therapy and coaching, I was very conflict avoidant. That was a pattern of mine that I used alcohol to help me with, right? I like I didn't want to have the conflict, so I would just squash the feelings down and drink over that negative feeling. And that was my my pattern. And um, and so if there was a pattern in my relationship that I didn't like, that I was uncomfortable with that kept coming up over and over again. I rather than like address it and have an adult conversation with the person that I'm committed to for my you know life, I was just like not. I, you know, I was just not. I was just stuffing the feelings, building resentment and drinking over it. And when I got rid of the alcohol, it was like I didn't have that tool anymore. So it became even more evident that there was something here that was not working, right? It wasn't workable for me. And I suddenly had the tools and the ability and the wherewithal and the resourcefulness, because I wasn't hung over and tired and feeling ashamed to have the conversation of like, I we have this pattern, I'm not happy with this pattern. I want to work on it with you. I love you, I care about you. How can we address this together? And suddenly those things were able to improve, you know, and it was like like felt like a miracle. Like all this time I had been, you know, conflict avoidant because that was my pattern, drinking over it. And then I was in this like negative space of feeling so bad about myself, not feeling like I had a right to complain because things were, you know, aesthetically so good and positive, and everything was fine, and our kids were fine, and you know, he had a good job, and you know, things were nobody thought it all the things, right? Like I just would justify it away. Like, what's wrong with you, Ellen? You have no right to complain. And but yet, you know, like, and then take away alcohol, take away all that shame, speak my peace. He's super receptive because he's a wonderful guy. Yeah, who knew, right? And we're able to work on it, and now things are so much more out in the open and clear, and it's just like that. And that that's just like one one example of like like put that into my relationship with my sister, relationship with my kids, relationship with friends. Like it just it unlocked this whole um yeah, piece that I, you know, instead of tolerating, I'm actually like living, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

I love that super clear picture of like what's possible in your life once you don't have alcohol to kind of fall back on. And it it mirrors so much of my experience with it too, where like it felt like without the alcohol there, I A didn't have that coping mechanism of that I'd turned to for so long of shutting down and I'm gonna go drink at the problem. And simultaneously, I also had the clarity that came with not having alcohol constantly clouding my mind and making me feel super tired and anxious. And so I couldn't go use my normal tool because that's what that wasn't what I was doing anymore. And I had the like forward-looking clarity to imagine different pathways and imagine a new way forward. It was kind of a double whammy of it was kind of a double whammy of being able to, it was like I had to move forward and I couldn't go back, if that makes sense, kind of at the same time. And I love what you were saying about the kind of the blanket effect of drinking as a way to cover over resentment in a relationship, especially. And I think that it's such a common way to keep ourselves small and to make ourselves palatable or contained or something on behalf of somebody else, even when, and maybe especially when that person never asked us to do that. And we are self-selecting ourselves out of the equation and really out of the relationship. In all likelihood, your relationship started with you and the other person being like, I like you, I like you, let's both show up here, and then something happened over time. I'll speak for for my own marriage, where I started to put myself second, make myself smaller in the relationship, and start collecting all these resentments because I was living in anticipation of what I thought my partner wanted from me. And all of that was covered over and fueled by my relationship with alcohol. And she never asked me to do that, right? Like that wasn't that wasn't in the agreement, but it was something that I felt trapped in um largely because of my own messed up concept of my own worth and what I could bring to the relationship and uh the value that I could offer her. And most importantly, my own self-worthiness wasn't where it needed to be. And feeling so small and shut down and resentful, especially this is this our experiences mirror each other in the like outwardly aesthetically pleasing, like everything's perfect kind of way, it made that more tolerable to be in this crap o spot that I put myself in. And at the same time as alcohol makes a theme more tolerable, it makes you more stuck in that sucky situation anyway.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Yeah, 100%. And I, as you were talking, it was just it was reinforced you feel it's like a negative loop that like we because alcohol, because we're so we're drinking more than we want to, we feel bad about the amount that we're drinking, we're hiding it, we're you know, there's shame around that, there's guilt around that, there's like uh feelings of unworthiness, what's wrong with me? And so we are using that projected image, like we we think we we think of ourselves that way. I'm bad, I'm wrong, I'm you know, and we then assume that our partner sees us that way, you know, or we're really trying to be ensure that they don't see that. Like, what can what can I do so that they won't see how terrible I am, how how you know useless I am, how what a bad person I am, how how you know, I have no willpower, how I can't do it, you know, like so we we it's like we want to put on this face that it's all good here. I'm good, this is perfect, we're so happy that that, you know, yeah, because I don't want anybody to see how much I'm hurting because that would expose my drinking, which was like the thing I didn't want exposed. And um, so it's like we don't even ever give our partners a chance to tell us what you know what they want, what they're thinking, how they view us. It's uh we just we make this assumption based on how we feel about ourselves, and then we behave based on that assumption, and then that behavior feels crappy. So then we blame them for I gotta do this beh, you know, like it's just this spiral. I heard this weekend actually, there's like we tend to do, we tend to either when we're feeling bad, we either shame or we blame, right? So we shame ourselves, we feel bad about ourselves, and that feels terrible. So sometimes we don't want to do that. So what do we do? We take all that negative feeling and we put it on someone else. We blame. So it's like either it's my fault and I feel terrible about that, or it's his fault, right? Like instead of just being like, okay, maybe it's alcohol's fault for one part of it. And then that, you know, that's maybe it's nobody's fault, maybe it's a miscommunication, maybe it's like I'm making assumptions.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah. I really stuck with this idea of alcohol simultaneously being the thing that whispers to you that I can help you at the same time that it's trapping you.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Yes, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

And it makes me think about the situations that I've been in where I was stuck doing something I didn't want to do because alcohol was involved. And so for instance, like going to hang out with certain people, or going like you mentioned the like the mom group that you didn't really want to be a part of, and then you get there and then you're drinking at the situation because it makes these people more tolerable to be around, but then simultaneously you are maybe you get stuck there because you have had more than enough to to drink, or like now you have a situation in getting home, and it's just like it's it present alcohol is so good at being the problem and convincing us that it's the solution.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Yeah, like it makes me think about how many times did I have a few drinks, either with somebody or even home alone, and just get the idea that, oh, it would be so fun to host a dinner party on the weekend, you know. So I'm out and I'm like, yeah, you guys should come over. Three couples on Saturday. I'm cooking, let's do it. And then Saturday comes along, it's like the last thing in hell I want to do, right? I like, I don't even like these people that much. I was just tipsy and drunk and having fun, you know. And so then it's like, oh God, how am I gonna get through this night? I'm gonna start drinking. Yep, I'm gonna drink because I'm cooking, I'm gonna drink because I'm preparing, it's gonna get me right through it, right? Like, did that a lot.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

So when we think about alcohol and how it promises to make things more tolerable, one of the things that comes to mind is the fear that came with if I stop drinking, then these situations that I feel like I have to put myself in are going to be unmanageable and unnavigable. I I was thinking about for me, when it comes to alcohol and making things tolerable, I had a lot of friends that I thought were very good friends that were actually just drinking buddies and an excuse to tie one on. And I knew that even if I didn't particularly care for that person, if I was with this person, they weren't going to look at me sideways when I was drinking as much as I wanted to, because they also were drinking as much as I wanted to. And so there are certain friendships in my life that since I have stopped drinking, I've fallen out of touch with these people. We don't talk to each other and we rarely hang out anymore. Well, we never hang out anymore because the only thing that we had in common really was liking to drink more than our other friends. And so at the same time, where I've the number of people who I would have called friend has probably decreased somewhat since I stopped drinking. I do have the pleasure to report that the number of friends that I have that are actually like quality friends and that we have more in common with has actually gone up because that's where I'm investing my time and energy now. And so those relationships have gotten better, and they were the more promising relationships anyway, because they weren't built just on, hey, can we get together and get trashed?

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I God, I relate to that so much. So I I mean, a little bit of my backstory is I I was uh an expat for a long time. So that basically means I was living in a foreign country, raising my family there. My I we went there for my husband's work. So I like the the most recent place was China. I was in Shanghai. And um there were it's a being an expat, I feel like I've it's like a whole separate conversation, but it's like it's a very boozy experience. It can be, at least it was for me. Not everybody, that's not everybody's experience, but a lot of expats you talk to will say this. Like it's it's like the booziest experience of their life because suddenly for the women, you have all these smart, capable women that aren't allowed to work because they don't have work visas. They went there because of their partner's job. So maybe they left behind a job. So they're got all this like angst around not working. They've got we've got more child care than we can than we've ever had because it's cheaper in foreign countries. So you can hire babysitters more easily. You've got household health, you've got, you've got extra time, a lot of time, and not a lot of ways to put it. So what ends up happening is that we do a lot of socializing, and a lot of the socializing revolves around drinking. And so there were definitely were situations, occasions, people that because I love to drink, I would seek out, you know, go to these events. I mean, they're they have these balls that you get dressed up and you go and it's like unlimited booze, you pay a price, and and you know, there's drinking and dancing. And I mean, I used to love these things, right? It's like they definitely did not, you know, they did not make money on me, right? I was I was drinking it up. But it's like what I loved about it was like what you were describing, the like there was nobody was gonna judge how much I was drinking because A, everybody was drinking that way, B, it was like a free flow, so nobody was counting my drinks, you know, it was just this like free-for-all experience. Um and I think the relationships that are born for that, some of them can be very close and you know, I have friends from there that are I truly consider friends, but there are a lot of people from that life that were really just like an excuse to drink with, you know. And I I think a fear that, you know, I think I had, and I think it's not uncommon to have, is that when we drop the booze, what does that look like? With you know, like who where do I belong? Because that's kind of where I've belonged my whole life. Not only did I go to those things, but I was known as fun and those things, you know, like that was kind of like part of my identity, part of my everything. And so if I'm not gonna be doing that, what am I gonna be doing and who am I gonna be doing it with? And will I just be alone? Will I lose friends? Will I, and to your point, like I think what I've experienced is the friends that were true friends through that drinking, which there were several, have remained friends without me drinking, you know, and the ones that were really only about the drinking have fallen away. And what that that has made room for is more time and energy for the real friends, you know, and the new friends that I have made through this alcohol-free journey, you know, of and just like the discernment that I now go into new relationships with, because it's not about how much are you going to drink with me? It's about what do we have in common? Do you make me laugh? Do I enjoy you? Do you fill my cup? You know, these are the things that I'm looking for versus like, will you order a second bottle of wine with me at dinner? I mean, you know, those were the ladies that I would love, the ones that I wouldn't be the first one to say we should get another bottle, right? It was if they said it, I was like, oh my God, I love it. This woman, you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

That's so true and so relatable. I'm just thinking about how it used to be, I was worried that in not drinking anymore, I was going to become less social, but I don't know that like the quality of my socializing was particularly good while I was drinking because I was looking for one thing, and that is, are you drinking as much or more than me? Awesome. Let's hang out, right? There's no discernment there, there's no like quality there. I would I would sit with these people who would have the same conversation with me every single time I saw them. And I'm somebody who likes to have interesting conversations. I have a, you know, I'm very curious about the world and I like to read and I like to talk about the news and I want to talk about all kinds of stuff. But I would still find myself sitting in the same place, having the same drinks, and listening to the same story from this person over and over and over again. And you talk about like alcohol being needed to make something tolerable, having the same conversation every single week with the same people. It was really about the alcohol. It wasn't about the connection at all. And just the quality that you're talking about of my socializing now is more about are you are you a compelling, interesting person? Do we have XYZ in common? Or if we don't, is that an exciting, sparking kind of fun interaction for me to have? It's just gotten so much better.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Yeah. You know, as you were saying that, it was making me think like when it sounds like we had a similar pattern. Like when I was drinking and I was looking for friends based on their drinking. I mean, this is nobody's fault, right? It's not, it's not their fault. It's not that there's anything wrong with these people. It's that I was choosing them because of their one quality that they could drink the same as me, right? So it's nothing about them. Like they might be lovely people, they may just not be my people, you know? But I I I chose, but then when we go through this, it's like this stage of when we pull back from the alcohol, and we there's a lot of fear because we don't yet know that we will be able to have these really meaningful relationships without alcohol. Like I used to think that, you know, the really the conversations that I would have while drinking were like the most connective, yeah, you know, like, oh, this was that was where it was at. You know, half the time I couldn't remember it all in the morning. But that I really had that belief. And so there was a lot of fear around, well, if I'm not drinking, and then and then we realize, oh God, I don't actually really like that person that much. I just like drinking with them. And that is a very uncomfortable thing to realize. And then it's like, how do we extricate ourselves then from that relationship? If we realize that we're if we don't, it was about the alcohol and not about them, that's uncomfortable. So it's not always just like, you know, you quit drinking and sunshine and rainbows. Like there's some complicated stages to get the to the product to you know, to where I think we both are now, where we have like these what I would consider real meaningful friendships that are based on things that have nothing to do with what we're drinking, you know.

unknown 25:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

But to go from where almost all of my relationships were centered around that to where none of them are, is like there is a there's a period of transition there.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

There's transition and it's a little bit complicated and it can be a little uncomfortable, but I think that's why it's so important to talk about, right? Where the sometimes the messaging in alcohol-free spaces can be like, this is so easy and great, and life is completely transformed. And every day I wake up and sunshine shoots out of my eyeballs. Like, real life still happens, relationships are still complicated. There are things that come up that must be tolerated. And if you're no longer reaching for the bottle to make those things tolerable, then you have to upskill in other ways to navigate those difficulties. And this conversation is really not to make anybody feel worried or fearful of facing those things because you're going to be so much more equipped to confront those things if you're not completely dulled and disconnected by alcohol, but more so to normalize the experience of people who are going through that. One of the things that you said earlier, Ellen, that uh sparked for me that I want to circle back to a little bit is you mentioned the role that you played in your friend group of like fun party, Ellen. And that's something I relate to very much as well. I was the you know, big jolly, funny, big drinking Jonathan, right? Like that was that was the role that I played in our in our social dynamic. And it felt really strange to think about giving up that role and taking on some kind of new role that I didn't have any practice in playing, and that my peer group didn't have any practice in watching me play. And I'm actually working with a client right now who is going through exactly that. Like he feels like it is a betrayal of the relationships that he currently has because he was in that relationship dynamic as the hard-drinking, you know, party fun guy. And now he's starting to renegotiate his relationship with alcohol. He's really concerned about what that's going to mean for those relationships. It feels like him saying no to the alcohol is it's it's feeling equated to him saying no to the relationship. And we're working on debunking that because that's another alcohol myth that maybe we can do a whole thing on. But it is it is tricky and it takes some courage and some bravery, but again, something that you have so much more of and so much more access to when you have the clarity of not being soused all the time.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Oh gosh, I remember getting coached around this on a call, and uh I I didn't even realize what it came down to, but we have we have this identity of fun drinker person in the relationship, which is a mask, you know. I mean, that that's a that's a mask we wear. That's an i that's that's not necessarily who we are. That's the mask we're we put on to be presentable to our and be accepted, right? And so you take off that mask, and what's underneath is more authentically me. Like I'm showing you a part of me that I was kind of covering up before with the drinking and the you know, party girl. It feels really vulnerable because you know, I think what I realized is my biggest fear was if I if I show up as me, as Ellen, without the mask and without the alcohol, will you still like me? Will I still be accepted? Will will I still have a place in this relationship? Who will who will want me as a friend? How you know will I be alone? It's it's a especially when you've been carrying, wearing those masks and leaning into that identity for so long, it's it it can feel it felt really like really vulnerable, really scary to show up as me. And um, you know, thank God I did it safely. Like I didn't just, you know, I think it I think it's wise to do it safely. Like pick people that you trust, you know, that you're willing to show up authentically with because you're not you you might get rejected, you know. I mean, that's just the truth. There are some people that might prefer Pardiellan. I hear that all the time from clients. People will say, My friends actually tell me they prefer when I'm drinking. Like, how brutal is that? That's like that's really painful, right? Like that, that's basically saying you don't you don't love me, you love boozy me, you know, you know, so the it there is a risk here, but to me, that says something about the friend. It doesn't say anything about you. Like there's a mismatch there. And it just means that you know, we need to find the people that do love and accept us for who we are. But that's a it's a scary, vulnerable process to go through. And I mean, I I think this whole thing that we're talking about, it's really helpful to do with the support of a coach or or like-minded people, people that are doing the same thing, you know. I mean, this this is it's vulnerable, uh, it's vulnerable work. And there's there's a lot of uh, you know, resourcefulness and skills that you know that can be practiced and safety, you know, that can be talked about.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Um, you know, and I'm not necessarily saying everything, everybody needs to have a coach, but like to to approach it mindfully and know that you're not alone and know that we all experience this and um and that you will find your people because you know I'm I'm I'm willing to like bet money on the fact that authentic you is more special than drunk you that connecting this whole conversation around what alcohol makes tolerable, and I think it's very insightful to pinpoint that vulnerability piece because for so many people alcohol as either a defense against vulnerability or as the only way that you'll allow yourself to show any vulnerability is very poignant. I I can't tolerate being vulnerable, so I'm going to drown all of my feelings and my authenticity with alcohol, or I can't tolerate how it feels to show up authentically vulnerable, so I'm going to step outside of myself in order to be able to do that. It's really incredible to me how much of a Swiss army knife our brains are able to make alcohol, where it can simultaneously do all these different things, and maybe it says more about our brains than it does about alcohol, right? Like we can rationalize this story of this substance, which is just ethanol. At the end of the day, it's not this some magical elixir. We shouldn't give it that power. The power really does come from how our brains relate to it, and so that really says something magical about our brains. But I think that's really, really well put to tie the conversation of what does alcohol make tolerable with vulnerability? Because it's I see it kind of on both sides.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Yeah, I think that's a really good insight because yeah, a lot of people will say that they can only be vulnerable when they've had a few drinks, or they really believe that or think that, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:34

And um intimate or you know, like showing up and like I need to have a real conversation with you. So I'm going to have a couple of glasses of wine before.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

Yeah, liquid courage, right? I mean, that's what we call it. It's like it's gonna be the courage that's gonna allow me to say my truth. And um yeah, and I you said it in a previous podcast that it's just stayed with me, this idea that anything that we believe alcohol can give us is within us already. Like it can't, it can't, yeah, it's already there. Like it's just we've given alcohol the the the credit that it's doing it, but it it can't do anything. It's a freaking substance. It's not, you know, whatever it's it's within us already. We just we need to unlock it, get in touch with it, believe in it, you know, like befriend it, love it, come have compassion, you know, like recognize it out wearing all the things, like it's there. We just we gotta unlock it.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

100%. Ellen, I'm gonna do that thing that I do where I put you on the spot and we make this super practical for anybody that's made it this far in the podcast. You mentioned earlier that there are tools and safety practices and things to help you navigate the the seemingly intolerable as you begin to distance yourself from alcohol. So, what uh tools or practices or safety concerns would you put forth for somebody to put into practical use for themselves?

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Yeah, good question. Okay, so I the what I was thinking about when I was saying that is kind of um we're gonna go through this period of recognizing that maybe uh significant parts of our lives we were tolerating with al using alcohol to tolerate. And then you pull back the curtain, alcohol is removed, and you're like, oh my god, I maybe I'm in a marriage I don't like, maybe I'm in a job I don't really like, maybe I'll I don't like my friend, or maybe this pattern with my mom. I'm like, I don't can't stand to be around her, whatever the thing is. And recognizing that these are A, they don't all have to be addressed at once, right? Like it's a normal, natural part of the process, and that we can treat them as like indicator lights, right? Like it doesn't mean that it all has to go to heck. I have these friends that um got divorced. This is about 12 to 15 years ago, and it was the first time anybody in our friend group got divorced. And I remember that and and this couple didn't really drink at all, like neither one of them. And I remember having this conversation with the the guy and the couple, and he made the comment. We were talking about the drinking thing, like, oh, you guys, I don't know, like Chris and I were having wine that night or something, and he was he made the comment, like, yeah, maybe wine is like just like the lubrication that like keeps a relationship going or something like that, you know? And and uh because of confirmation bias, maybe because I wanted to hear it, maybe because it made sense to me, I don't know. For whatever reason, I latched on to that, like, yeah, wine is the lubrication that keeps my marriage humming along, you know? Like I need it, I need it to keep in. And so when I decided to remove it, there was a lot of fear around, oh my gosh, like what's gonna happen? And I think that the the what I wanted to say about the guard, the the the safety or the practical steps is to recognize that it's okay to have a realization that something's not working and not just jump to the conclusion that it's all wrong, that it's gonna have to end. If I'm not gonna be drinking, I can't do this with a relationship, with a whatever job, you know. But to be like, okay, there's this is it's trying to tell me something that I maybe need to address and addressing little things one by one rather than like blowing the whole world up, right? Because I think you see that sometimes that people are like, I'm not drinking and not I'm I hate my job, I hate my partner, I, you know, and and that can keep people drinking too, because they're like, I can't, if I stop drinking, I'm gonna quit my job, I can't do all that stuff. Um, so I think that's kind of like the idea of just like taking one little baby step at a time and not feeling like you have to change your whole life around.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Yeah, there's absolutely I was connecting so much with something that we talk about a lot that keeps a lot of people stuck, of the the all or nothing mentality that keeps people drinking also keeps people, also encourages people to sometimes make these crazy life choices where they have their life and they throw a match at it and the whole thing, right? Like totally something different and uncertain, and that it doesn't have to be that way. Even with the even with the alcohol journey, every time you decide to not drink when you would have drunk is a victory and counts on the scoreboard and should be celebrated as a win. And I I don't know, there's just like this connection with that that all or nothing, that mentality that just is very, I think it must be something in the water. Like I think maybe maybe I can blame social media, maybe it's the like our our American culture of like achievement and advancement at all costs, and maybe it's something like that. But I'm seeing over and over again that the things that are worth having oftentimes happen slowly, piece by piece, with consistency over time, as opposed to a sudden windfall or a sudden catastrophe, which is great news because one is extraordinarily jarring, and one is something you can usually have some semblance of control over. I I think about the word titration, where we are taking something piece by piece and integrating it. And as you said, identifying something that could be changed or improved or different in your life, and taking baby steps towards effecting the change that you're looking for can be much more sustainable and much more healing and much more transformative than setting the whole thing ablaze and walking away.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna turn the question back on you, Jonathan. What would you tell our listeners something practical that um they can take away from this conversation?

SPEAKER_00 40:55

I think that one thing that I wish I had known was I wish that I'd had language around the role that I thought I was playing in the various social dynamics that I was so afraid of being able to tolerate without alcohol. And perhaps a useful prompt or a useful uh idea, journaling idea or something would be to in XYZ social dynamic, I show up like this and insert whatever you think it is. And then ask yourself, get curious about that. Is that something that is in alignment with my authenticity? Is that something that's within my integrity? Is that something that expresses my values? And if yes, then great. Like you're probably okay in that relationship and in that relationship dynamic. And if no, then that's something to be thinking about. And even questioning is that something that is going to feel like a loss if it changed because you weren't drinking? Or is it something that is going to kind of fall away, um, slough off as you are in the midst of transforming?

SPEAKER_01 42:20

Yeah, I think that's right.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

And when we start to really look at it and then question, yeah, is this really who do I want to keep wearing? Like, is this mask heavy? Is it tiring to carry it? Like, would it feel better to put it down? And, you know, and then going through the will it be safe to put it down? And who might I be safe to put it down with? Like, let's have a trial here with somebody I feel safe with and and build that confidence and that self-trust to know that yeah, I'm actually am okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

I love that. And it points back to that titrating your experiences and making small changes, right? You don't have to go to Facebook on the first day and be like, guess what, suckas? I'm totally doing whatever, X, Y, Z. Maybe you bring it to a very close, trusted friend and you don't even have to show them all of it. Maybe you show them one little peek of it, just so that you can be signaling to your system that this is something that's okay and that it's safe. And the more we show and not just tell our system that what we're doing is right and for us and safe and good, the more successful that we're going to be. But it does take it does take self-compassion, it does take self curiosity, and sometimes it takes a little patience.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Yeah, and time and trust.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

Yeah. Well, with that, folks, this is the Alcohol Myth Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the episode. If it made you think of anything that you've been tolerating, why not shoot us an email? About it. We're thealcoholmyth at gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you, and we will catch you next time.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Goodbye, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Thanks for listening to the Alcohol Myth Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

If this episode sparked something for you, we'd love to hear about it.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Send your questions, stories, or ideas for future episodes to thealcoholmyth at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_02 44:21

We read every message. We really do.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

Take good care of yourself. We'll see you next time.