Alcohol Was My Coping Strategy. Here’s What Replaced It

If you’ve been using alcohol to cope… you’re not broken. You’re human.

In this episode of The Alcohol Myth Podcast, coaches Jonathan Ball and Ellen Biggs talk about alcohol as a coping strategy: why it feels like a multi-purpose tool for stress, boredom, anxiety, celebration, and hard emotions, and why it eventually starts to create the very problems it promised to solve.

We unpack the “handyman” trap (alcohol as the always-available fix), why quitting can feel raw at first (because life is still lifey), and how real confidence is built: curiosity first, then competence, then confidence.

In this video, you’ll learn:
- Why alcohol works as a coping strategy at first (and why that matters)
- The “handyman” effect: one tool for everything, even when it fits nothing well
- Why alcohol crowds out other coping options and becomes “indispensable”
- What happens when you stop drinking and the problems are still there
- The biology behind the pull: seek pleasure, avoid pain, conserve energy
- The key skill: asking “What do I really need right now?” without judgment
- How clarity and presence return, and why that changes everything

Quick takeaway:
Alcohol can give temporary relief. Real coping gives you your life back.

Tiny FAQ:
Q: Why does it feel harder when I stop drinking?
A: Because you’re confronting the same life stressors without the quick numbing tool. That’s not failure. That’s the start of building real skills.

Q: What do I do instead of drinking?
A: Pause, get curious, and identify the real need: rest, food, water, connection, movement, solitude, or honest conversation.

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 Alcohol as your hobby and personality
1:12 Today’s topic: alcohol as a coping strategy
2:07 The “big stuff” and the “small stuff” alcohol covered over
3:06 Ellen’s “handyman” metaphor (and why it clicked)
4:20 Alcohol as the multi-tool that starts ruining your life
5:07 How alcohol crowds out other coping options
5:55 Why we used it: it worked… until it didn’t
8:39 When you stop drinking and life is still lifey
9:55 Confidence comes last (curiosity → competence → confidence)
11:00 The mindset shift: burden vs opportunity
12:22 The biology: pleasure, pain avoidance, energy conservation
13:16 “Why is this so hard?” It’s brain wiring
14:13 Neural pathways: “problem → drink”
15:39 Time slows down when you get present again
16:27 The 7–10 day physical shift and what changes after
17:14 The upward spiral: handling hard things builds belief
19:25 Giving alcohol credit for what was in you
21:32 Real example: anxiety, busyness, and the cortisol loop
24:05 The practice: ask what you really need (and don’t judge it)
27:22 Reintroducing yourself to yourself
28:12 Ellen’s example: finishing what alcohol kept stalling
30:55 High achiever energy: hustle vs ease and purpose
32:01 Practical advice: curiosity, compassion, and staying on the path
34:10 Closing and invitation to share

#AlcoholMythPodcast #QuitDrinking #SoberCurious #AlcoholFree #Anxiety #Stress #HabitChange #SelfCompassion #ThisNakedMind

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When you're when you're in the midst of drinking more than you want to drink, it's like alcohol is the thing that you do, right? It's like your hobby, it's like your personality, it's it's always kind of rocking around the back of your head. And that omnipresence is there when it comes to like coping with life's difficulties and things like that, too, right? It's like it's the it's the multi-purpose tool for life, or it presents itself as the multi-purpose tool for life, and then it starts to ruin your life. Why does the world act like alcohol is the answer, even while it is creating problems of its own?

SPEAKER_01 0:36

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 0:43

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_01 0:55

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 1:03

So let's dig in.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

And I'm here with my co-host, Ellen Biggs, also an alcohol freedom coach.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Excellent. So, and today on the show, we are talking about something that comes up a lot when it when it comes to uh reframing or renegotiating our relationship with alcohol, and that is alcohol as a coping strategy. Um a lot of us use or have used in the past alcohol in order to cope with life or particular events, and I I definitely have experience using alcohol to cope with um some like deep-seated identity level stuff, but I also was very adept at using alcohol to cope with the small things too, right? It's like it was there for the major stuff, like feeling like I was unworthy, or feeling like my uh I was only good if I was um burning myself out in service to others. So alcohol helped with that, but also alcohol was my go-to for coping with a stressful day or a difficult conversation with my partner, or because I felt bored, right? Like so, alcohol as a coping strategy, as a big band-aid to cover over things is the subject of the day. So, um, what comes up first for you when you think about alcohol as a coping strategy, Ellen?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah, this was really a big kind of aha for me when I had the awareness that I started to realize alcohol was like a handyman for me. It was like no matter what happened, no matter what was going wrong, I could call alcohol, and alcohol would solve my problem temporarily, would would would help, would come to the rescue, would take me out of whatever situation I was in. That could be anything from a leaky faucet to uh you know, needing to get a whole new water heater or what, you know, whatever the the the thing like like to your point, the deep things, but also the really mildish things, like just um yeah, wanting to to relax, wanting to celebrate, wanting to push through tiredness. I mean, it didn't matter the thing. I turned to alcohol for pretty much all of the things, and it's like a big old, it's a one size fits all, but it actually doesn't fit any of the parts well. Kind of you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Yeah, it's something we've been talking about a little bit on this podcast where it's alcohol when you're when you're in the midst of drinking more than you want to drink, it's like alcohol is the thing that you do, right? It's like your hobby, it's like your personality, it's it's always kind of rocking around the back of your head. And that omnipresence is there when it comes to like coping with life's difficulties and things like that too, right? It's like it's the it's the multi-purpose tool for life, or it presents itself as the multi-purpose tool for life, and then it starts to ruin your life.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yeah, and the and the more you turn to it, the more indispensable it becomes because in our brains, right? Our our brains no longer see uh uh other options as tenable, as like, you know, if I want to relax, there was a time when relaxing might involve going for a walk, reading a book, watching TV. But little by little all of those things got kind of eked out for having a drink. And you know, maybe I could do those things, but with the drink, you know, it just became really indispensable. And and it was really just it alcohol creating a need for itself, which is what it does. But I think that it's such a trap for us when we're drinking too much because it does give us some temporary relief from the thing that we are in the midst of trying to cope with.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

I think what you just said there is so important because it's really easy to get frustrated with ourselves for using alcohol as a coping strategy, but it bears repeating and it bears emphasizing that we find these coping strategies because they work. Like I gave alcohol a job in the moment, and it did that job, and my brain was like, aha, the solution to the problem. I figured it out, right? And so then the more that we like reinforce that neural pathway and reinforce that habit, um, the harder and harder it is to step away or to like rewrite that habit. Um, but at the end of the day, how how I don't know, I'm gonna go ahead and say like how amazing that I had this problem and I was able to figure out a solution for the problem to cover over the pain of what I was experiencing or to deal with or release this distress or whatever. Um, you know, alcohol worked for that until it became the problem that it always was going to, right? Like, um, I hope that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah, it makes so much sense. And I feel like it's that kind of thing with alcohol. It's like it's it's good and it's our friend and until it isn't. And, you know, I think when we start out drinking, we might be drinking for, you know, to get over some social anxiety or or to fit in or belong. And and but then we start to believe that we need alcohol to fit in or belong, or we we need it when we're socially anxious. And so it it quickly becomes a crutch instead of you know just something nice to use. And what and when we feel so dependent on it, then it's like we lose control over our ability to and and confidence in ourselves that we can actually do these things without it. I mean, I think that is what ultimately was so undermining for me is that I I relied so heavily on the handyman that I never learned how to do anything myself. I never learned how to fix the toilet, I never learned how to put, you know, stop the leaky faucet. Like that actually, you know, that would solve the problem, right? That is the thing that might actually resolve the thing that I'm having to cope with. But instead, I was calling in a somebody to fix it for me. And then as soon as it broke again, I had I was no further along.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah. Um, I think that's beautifully put, right? Like, and what happens when we decide to stop calling the handyman and stop relying on alcohol to fix the problems, all of a sudden, what can happen is that we're still living the same life. We're still encountering the same problems that we used to use alcohol to solve, but now we got to be the ones to figure it out. And that can be very disorienting. Like if somebody's like, I'm drinking more than I want to, and so I'm not gonna drink anymore, and then they have a really tough time, especially at the very beginning, with life, because life is still hard and you still have to deal with the things that you used to use alcohol. But if you're not letting yourself have alcohol, now you're just confronted with everything, and it's um I don't know, that's it can be it can be kind of raw. And so what you said with the confidence piece, like we have to be patient with ourselves until we grow the confidence that we need to navigate those like life situations that we used to call in for alcohol. And in my um, in my day job, there's this uh I do like professional development. There's this phrase called confidence comes last.

unknown 9:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

I think we talked about it at the institute too, but confidence comes last. So first it has to be curiosity, and then we grow in our competence, and then finally we get to the confidence part. And um, it's just another beautiful way to illustrate that, like in the early days when you're no longer calling the handyman and you don't have alcohol solving your problems anymore, you might not feel confident to navigate the same things that you were using alcohol to cure or to at least paper over. But maintaining a position of curiosity and seeing where can I learn from myself or why is this thing that's coming up for me so distressing, or why am I having this craving? That curiosity part is the first step on the road to confidence. Um, and then once you build those reps and you get to confidence, you have actual freedom.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, there's a couple things in there I want to unpack a little, like this idea of when when we stop drinking, there's this initial feeling like everything in my life is gonna get better because alcohol is the problem, right? And so remove alcohol, my life should get better. And and in so many ways it does. And the thing that always shows up is that life is still lifey, right? So the things that might have driven us to drink before, it's not like they magically disappear. We just have the responsibility now to um, you know, to figure out a solution that I I mean it's such a get it can feel like a weight, it's like a burden. Oh my god, I actually have to deal with this now. And it's like, well, oh my gosh, I get to deal with it once and for all, so it doesn't have to keep showing up. But it, you know, it so it depends on our mindset around that. It's like it is our responsibility to deal with those things, and we actually get to make progress on the actual thing that is making us want to drink in the beginning, um by you know, not just papering over it with alcohol. The other thing that you said that I um wanted like when we think about why we're drinking, like as human beings, we're we're we're wired. Our biology is to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy, which is why it makes reaching for alcohol so appealing, because it's a quick pleasure, we're avoiding the pain of whatever we don't want to be dealing with, and we're conserving energy by not having to learn the new skill, which takes energy to get us to be able to manage the situation, you know, more authentically, more in a way that's actually going to resolve it. And so I just like how human of us, right? How human of us. And yes, it's gonna take energy and it's gonna require discomfort and it's gonna require some delayed gratification, you know, to actually resolve the things that are making us drink.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

I love that you brought that up because if we are experiencing those things and we're like, why is this so difficult? And it just it can be very reassuring to know that it's just biology, it's just our brain working how it's evolved over the millennia to conserve energy, seek pleasure, avoid pain. And the really cool thing about being a human is that we're not just stuck with the programming, right? Like we can actually exert, it takes energy, but like we can exert our our will and our intention over that ancient system in order to to influence it. And uh, I I think just like knowing what's going on can be very empowering.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yeah, 100%. And and I like we've talked about before, we have these deeply rooted neural pathways that say, oh, problem, fix it with a drink. And it can take some real effort to to to jump to jump out of that deeply retted pathway and move over to another path that is like, oh, I'm actually going to figure out how I can resolve that problem in my relationship, in my career, in my marriage, in my with my kids, with whatever the thing is. And it can be scary and it can also feel uncomfortable because it's not a pathway that we've developed. But the thing, the beautiful thing is our brains are rewiring constantly. So we do it a couple of times, and suddenly it's not as hard to do anymore. So, like having that confidence to know that, yeah, it's gonna take some energy and some intention as we are changing our relationship with alcohol and finding other ways to cope, but it's not always gonna be like this massively effortful, challenging um uh thing that we have to tackle.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

We have used alcohol to solve a lot of different problems, and so it makes sense that those neural pathways are super well worn and it's like it can become very automatic. And I don't know about you, but I find like I look back on my life and I've got years where I'm just kind of like on autopilot, just doing the same things and reaching for alcohol to solve everything. And since I've stepped away from alcohol, um it's almost like because my day-to-day is so much more novel, it's almost like time is slowing down and I'm more present and um and that presence helps you, I think, be able to tackle some of the things that you know drinking used to solve.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah. I I I love that you pointed that out too, like the the kind of superpower we have when we remove alcohol from our system. Like the the clarity, the the the presence, the calm. I mean, it doesn't happen overnight, but once alcohol, you know, physically is out of our system in seven to ten days, like we we start to operate at a level that is it's just a higher level of operation, you know? And so the things that maybe seemed insurmountable, the things that maybe felt like we couldn't cope without alcohol, like suddenly they're still there, but they don't seem quite as daunting. You know, when we're not in a constant state of withdrawal and anxiety, it's like, oh, okay, maybe I can handle this.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Yeah, it like drinking Jonathan couldn't have dealt with the problems that sober Jonathan has been able to deal with, because drinking Jonathan was, like you said, super anxious and covering over everything and an autopilot and constantly thinking about where his next drink is gonna go. But clear-headed, fully present, authentic Jonathan, raw Jonathan, right? Like he that dude can really figure some stuff out. And um, it's really exciting, and it's really rewarding to um like when we're working with our clients to see them have that unlock, that aha moment of like, oh my goodness, like life is still lifey, but it doesn't carry with it the same kind of um oppressive, kind of insurmountable um weight or energy that that it did when when you're constantly kind of knocking yourself down with alcohol.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Yeah, I think that's so oh so important. And like it it also it's like a comp the same way that alcohol can take us down this like negative spiral of just feeling crappy and feeling anxious and then drinking more to cover up that feeling. And the same thing happens the other way, but up, you know, up and around, because it's like you you experience more energy, you take on, you tackle something you've been haven't tackled for a long time because you've been papering over with alcohol, and you're like, oh my god, look at that. I did that. And it wasn't even as hard as I feared. And look, I all of a sudden we can start to like tell ourselves that we can we can handle things, we we can do hard things, we can manage our life. When when I mean our our alcohol-laden brains likes to tell us that we we can't manage things without alcohol, but as soon as we remove it, it's like, oh my god, I I had it within me all the time. I just was believing this lie that alcohol was telling me, that I I needed it. And and of course I was believing it because you know, you look around and everybody else is believing it too. Like, you know, no shame there.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

It's such a joyous journey of like kind of rediscovering yourself when you step away from alcohol. It's like thinking about you know, being a young child and being carefree and just having fun in the moment and like expressing who you are. And you know, like I I hope that most people have had that experience where like before alcohol entered the scene, you're just kind of like there were times when you were just like you, and then we just it's so tempting to kind of like slowly abdicate those pieces of ourselves and kind of um relegate them to the past, or like, oh, I need this magical elixir alcohol in order to unlock these things that are within me. Like, I thought I needed alcohol to be social, and I thought I needed alcohol for to be funny so that people would like me, and I thought I needed alcohol to um meet new people and to I thought I needed alcohol to relax. Like, no, it turns out all that stuff was inside of me, and all alcohol did was um I don't slow down my brain, like if that was it. Um, and so many other not so nice things, but um yeah, it's kind of seeing alcohol for what it is and recognizing how much credit we're giving to the sauce over ourselves is is very illuminating.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yeah, I'm curious just to like to put this into practical, it's like a real life example, and I'm gonna put you on the spot and maybe you don't have something that comes to mind immediately. But is there something that you were using alcohol to cope with when you were drinking regularly that you, you know, didn't feel capable of handling? And then when you got rid of alcohol, it was like you were able to to come up with a different coping mechanism or tackle it in another way that kind of showed you like to exemplify this. Cause I feel like that it would be really helpful to have like a real life example of what we're talking about here.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah, totally. Um for me, I was using alcohol to paper over a lot of the anxiety that I was feeling on the day to day. Um, I just was racked with this prickling feeling at all times like something was not going right, or that I was forgetting something, or that somebody was mad at me, or you know like this just this overwhelming kind of general i anxiety and so i would drink to get some relief from that um i kept myself really like throughout all of my drinking days kept myself super super busy i'm always hustling i'm always you know doing for other people running around you know like just very very busy and part of that busyness too was um that anxiety about like trying to make sure that everybody could see how hard I was working and you know so I could be there for everybody and stuff like that. And so I was feeling very tired and very anxious. And I felt like the only thing that could calm me down was alcohol. And turns out newsflash alcohol is really good at spiking your anxiety right like it's gonna build as this thing that helps you relax and take the edge off. But after that first little tiny rush and the first little kind of numbing feeling the the backlash reaction to this flood of cortisol that like gushes through our bodies keeps you feeling anxious. And then so what do you do when you feel anxious especially if you've worn this pattern out right you reach for a drink. What does that drink cause a cascade of cortisol so you feel anxious so you have another drink and so yada yada yada so that was that was a big part of um of my experience but since dropping alcohol and after the initial like you said takes 10 days for that the physical for the chemical to kind of like work its way out of your body and for you to not have that physical um yin for drink then it's really about dealing with the kind of emotional and like behavioral side of things. And I early on let me think back how is that experience improved early on I think early on it was really about being nice to myself and um learning how to ask questions about the things that I was feeling so for instance if I was feeling a need for something slowing down enough to listen to my body and listen to my mind what is it that what what need do I have right now and how can I solve that without alcohol because before alcohol was the solution for everything right bored drink hungry drink tired drink excited drink right like everything. And then so it really took some time for me to grow the muscle of listening to myself enough to figure out how I could address my own needs. It's kind of funny like I live in this body I I live in my life and it actually took work and effort and attention to figure out how to give it what it wanted and um I I think like early days it was also very much about like not being judgmental about what it wanted. So like I was tired before I would have just like had a beer and kept working right um but now like oh I'm tired how about I actually take a rest and letting that be okay right like or oh I'm hungry well I've had my caloric quota for the day what if I'm just hungry and what if it's just okay if I eat a little something so I think that was I don't know that's a whole mouthful but that was kind of my early experience do you have something um similar that you could like share to to make it practical yeah yeah I do I just before I do that I just want like what you said I think is so important this idea of like when we are reaching for a drink asking ourselves what do I really need right now like it's such an unfamiliar question because all of the things that like we just reach for alcohol but it's like okay what and and to your like maybe you're tired maybe you need a rest maybe you're hungry maybe maybe you're thirsty maybe maybe you're sad maybe you're whatever the thing is so it's like recognizing what you really need maybe you need connection maybe you need a hug maybe you need whatever but like also I think the second thing you said that was so critical is like and not having judgment about that like not saying like well I I can't be tired.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

You can't you know tired isn't good we you know you have to keep producing you have to keep achieving it's like no actually I'm tired like and that's okay so like that self-compassion piece and that like really curiosity towards ourselves like what do we really need and accepting it and having compassion and giving it to ourselves like I think that's such a just an important part of this whole journey at least it has been for me that like it's almost like reintroducing myself to myself you know and not making what I had to say wrong.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yeah for me it was like I don't know that in my adult life I had been myself or gotten to know myself and so just kind of like with any relationship early days it was a little awkward there was some like weird quiet silences you know it was kind of like a little side eye in the room but it's me right like um but the more I've gotten to know me I don't know I'm I'm a good time yeah and you can know how to communicate your needs to yourself now right instead of just being like oh I don't want to go there I'm just gonna go directly to alcohol yeah I um I mean I think for me what just like a glaring example in terms of like my life something I wanted forever that I just never so I've been wanting to do something in the coaching space for I mean 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

I I went I went back to get a master's in counseling like more you know 10 years ago and I got five sixths of the way through and then I ended up moving and not being able to do it. So there was that that happened but even at the end of that I was having a lot of anxiety about oh my God am I really going to do this thing a lot of self-doubt a lot of you know and and then we moved and that was a very convenient thing for me to be like oh yeah see I can't really finish anyway and then I signed up for a life coaching course which I I it was a one year course I was it was at like the 20 month mark I had not finished it and then I I stopped drinking and that year that first year that I stopped drinking I finished that course I got certified and I started working uh at a very reduced rate with some people to get practice so I I and then in my second year of being alcohol free I signed up for the the certification where you and I met and within it within a year of doing that I'm recording a podcast I have a Substack I have one-on-one clients I have a group I have this beautiful thing that we're developing here like this is something I wanted for 10 years and I just couldn't ever get traction on it because I was in that cycle of self-doubt and anxiety and stress and drinking and wasted time and energy and thought and you remove all of that and it's like suddenly all the things that you wanted to do don't seem so daunting anymore. You know? And um that it just and and and I heard you know I heard stories on podcasts about people that would talk about that and it was like really intriguing to me. It was like really like is that they're just you know but I I mean I and I would be curious you know I know we're coming up on the time here but I would love to like kind of understand from your perspective as a high achiever as someone who works hard and has been very successful like the contrast of what it was like for you when you were drinking every day versus what it's like for you now and like what you're able to achieve and also the energy that you bring to it.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

It's like joyful abundance energy versus like scratching clawing for for self-worth and for validation and for you know it's like a whole different kind of feeling you hit the nail on the absolute head like I even when drinking right like I was always go go go I was always like very very productive I was always you know five plates spinning at the same time but it was it was like it was like running a car on the most nasty crude oil possible right like it the plumes of smoke coming out the back and everything's rattling and there's fire happening over here like we were still going places and we're going places fast but it was like how we got there wasn't a very pleasant experience and now there's like a a sense of ease and a sense of purpose and it's just so much lighter to be carrying the things that I'm carrying I'm still carrying a lot but it's like the similar similar weight but everything's got little helium balloons attached to it. It's it's very much like the energy with what's with what's just happening.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

But as we move to be closing out our time talking about coping strategies if somebody is very early early days in their relationship with uh reframing their relationship with alcohol or um thinking about dropping alcohol um when it comes to alcohol as a coping strategy what's some practical actionable advice that you could give them Ellen I think the number one thing for me would be that question of what do I really need right now and and trying to listen to yourself and it might not become clear immediately but like stay curious stay curious and stay compassionate and um when we're when we're using alcohol to to to deal with life things it makes perfect sense why we're doing it and it's never gonna get us the result that we want and so like what do you really want and just really try and get in touch with that and know that it's there for the taking when when you're ready and and you know it takes time sometimes to get ready and sometimes people are like flip switches and and and they're ready. But um what about you?

SPEAKER_00 33:17

I'll just kind of echo I mean everything you said and I would also say like like you said everybody's journey is different. Some people it's like a oh I'm not doing this anymore and they can just kind of toss it aside and some people it takes years of kind of fits and starts before they get to a point where they don't feel like they need alcohol to be that you know elixir that fixes all the problems well fixes air quotes right all the problems. Um and so like you were saying just being kind with yourself and like you're still in it and you're still making progress and you're still a total winner as long as you're on the journey right like as long as you haven't given up then you're winning.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

So um and if you're here listening to this podcast you're you're in it.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

You're on you're in it you're on the you're in exactly but like if you're coping with something you're still going to be coping with something if you're not confronting it. And so just um I guess the idea of uh being open to learning about your own experience when you notice yourself reaching for a coping strategy be it alcohol or anything else um but kind of a big idea to land on we're gonna bring this episode home thank you so much for joining us today and if you uh found any of this helpful um we'd love for you to like and follow the podcast if this episode made you think of anybody um we would love for you to share that with your with your circle and we look forward to seeing you again here thanks for listening to the Alcohol Myth podcast if this episode sparks something for you we'd love to hear about it. Send your questions stories or ideas for future episodes to thealcoholmyth at gmail.com we read every message we really do take good care of yourself we'll see you next time