Why Do I Drink More Than I Want To? The Real Reasons

Why do I drink? The honest answer usually sits a few layers under the one you'd give.

You already have a reason for drinking, and it probably sounds reasonable. It takes the edge off. It makes you easier in a room. Those answers are true enough to say out loud and thin enough that they never lead anywhere, which is how you can hold one for years and still drink more than you meant to.

Alcohol is a symptom, and the reason you drink is almost never the reason you give. Affective Liminal Psychology, the method Jonathan Ball and Ellen Biggs trained in through This Naked Mind, sorts the beliefs holding a drinking habit in place into three layers: substance, society, and self. Substance is what you believe about the drink, society is what you believe it does for you around other people, and self is the layer that keeps you stuck, because that is where you decided you were not fun, confident, or open enough on your own and handed those jobs to a chemical.

Ellen Biggs was 50 when she first looked at this, with 35 years of patterning behind her, and the exercise that opened it up was two lists: everything you drink for, and everything you fear if you stop. That inventory gives you beliefs to test one at a time, and testing them is what ends the wanting rather than just the drinking.

The question you ask matters too. Most people ask what is wrong with me, and a brain handed that question will answer it: you are lazy, you have no willpower, your family was always like this. Jonathan Ball's reframe is to ask questions that have somewhere to go. Why does effort pay off everywhere else in my life but here? What if alcohol works this way in every human body and nothing about me is broken?

Start with the two lists. Take one belief and ask where you first learned it. Keep a destination in view while you work, because a picture of what opens up when the argument stops pulls harder than any rule you set on a Monday.

Work with Jonathan: https://livecreativeaf.com/   
Work with Ellen: https://ellenbiggscoaching.com/

CHAPTERS
00:00 The reasons you give for drinking
02:14 The two lists that start the work
04:28 Substance, society, self
06:42 What you outsourced to a drink
08:56 Tasting it without the story
11:10 What you can already do without it
13:24 Why you believed it in the first place
15:38 Ask why it's classy, then keep going
17:52 Most people stop at the question
20:06 A better question than what's wrong
22:20 Your road map and your destination

FROM THIS EPISODE
"If it were that simple, it would be simple to leave it."

QUESTIONS THIS EPISODE ANSWERS

Q: Why do I drink more than I want to?
A: You drink more than you want to because the reason you give yourself sits on the surface. Underneath it are beliefs about what alcohol does for you socially and about what you cannot do without it, and those beliefs keep running long after you decide to cut back.

Q: What are the three S's in Affective Liminal Psychology?
A: The three S's in Affective Liminal Psychology are substance, society, and self, the layers of belief holding a drinking habit in place. Substance is what you think alcohol does for you. Society is what you think it does among other people. Self is what you believe you cannot manage without it.

Q: How do I find out the real reason I drink?
A: To find the real reason you drink, write two lists: every reason you reach for alcohol, and every fear you have about stopping. Then take one item at a time and ask where you first learned it, what evidence sits on either side, and whether you still believe it.

Q: Is asking what is wrong with me a useful question about drinking?
A: Asking what is wrong with me is a poor question about drinking, because your brain answers it with shame: lazy, weak, no willpower. Better questions have somewhere to go. Why does effort pay off everywhere else in my life but here, and what does alcohol do in the body to explain it?

You do not need to wait for rock bottom.
You do not need more willpower.
You just need a new way to understand what you are feeling and why you are reaching for the next drink.

If this episode resonates, please like, share, subscribe, and leave a comment with what stood out to you. We would love to hear what you want more of.

Send your questions, stories, or ideas for future episodes to thealcoholmyth@gmail.com. We read every message. We really do.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What will open up and what would open up for you if you weren't preoccupied or fighting with alcohol or doing the alcohol math or trying to moderate or you know XYZ, wherever you are in your alcohol situation? Why does the world act like alcohol is the answer, even while it is creating problems of its own?

SPEAKER_02 0:20

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 0:26

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 0:38

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 0:47

So let's dig in. Welcome back to the Alcohol Myth Podcast. I'm Coach Jonathan Ball.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

And I'm Alan Beggs.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

And today we are tackling the myth that the reasons that we drink are super straightforward. So a lot of people will tell you to your face, and believe it too, and maybe you tell yourself this that the reason that you drink is just because you need to relax after a hard day. Or the reason that you drink is so that you'll be more fun at a social engagement, or the reason that you drink is to let loose and to be more uh gregarious with a romantic partner. But oftentimes the reasons that we drink are well more complicated than they at first appear. We can point to these kind of superficial reasons to drink, but oftentimes with a little bit of digging, there's a lot more to uncover, and we come to understand that alcohol is a symptom as opposed to the the the why, the reason, right? There's something at the root of it. So, Ellen, as we kind of introduce this topic, what's top of mind for you?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yeah, when I first started looking at my relationship with alcohol, I I mean, I knew I used it for a lot of things. And that was why it was so scary to give up, right? Because I was like, but what will I do when I'm celebrating? What will I do on a quiet night alone? What will I do on vacation? You know, it was so tied into I had all these reasons or times when I would drink that I was super unsure of what that would look like if I didn't. But I remember doing my first challenge I did with um Annie Grace and this naked mind work, which is the methodology that Jonathan and I are trained in. She has you do this exercise where you write the two big lists. And the two big lists are the first list is why do you drink? And this was kind of confronting for me in some ways because when I started to really write it out, it was like, well, I drink to socialize, I drink to ease my sadness, I drink uh to ease my anger, I eat, I drink to um feel better, I I drink to, you know, get in the mood romantically, I drink to have fun, I drink to, you know, it just like you, you you start writing all the reasons why you drink. And it was a long, long list for me. And then the second list is what are all the things you're afraid of if you change your, if you stop drinking, if you change your relationship with alcohol? Like what are your fears? And oof, I had a lot of those too. I had fears that I wouldn't be fun, that I wouldn't have as many friends, that my my friends wouldn't like me, that I would be uptight, that I would be boring. You know, I mean, we have a lot of these built-in fears around it that maybe we've never really looked at before. We just kind of stay at the surface of, come on, I just like to drink and I just want to not get drunk all the time and not be hung over. Like help me with that, you know, which of course we can help you with that. But there's usually so much more underneath that because if it were that simple, it would be simple to leave it. So, um in my case, you know, I was 50 when I started looking at this. I started drinking when I was 15. There was 35 years of patterning built in, you know, experiences I had drinking and fears around what my life would look like without alcohol since it was so intertwined in my identity. And so that was a very long answer to your question. But I think this why we drink is often way deeper, way more complex than, you know, the kind of superficial things we might be telling ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

It makes me think about the the three S's in uh effective liminal psychology, right? We talk about how any anything that we might become overly fixated on, or that's taking away our power, in this case, alcohol, right, has three S's. You've got the top layer, which is beliefs about the substance, and then the middle layer, which is beliefs about society. So how the substance is going to intersect with you and your social circle or like the culture. And then the bottom, the core, the heart, the deepest, darkest, hardest part to deal with is all those beliefs that are related to the third S, self, right? And the idea is that we really have to work through and sort through the beliefs about the substance and the society so that eventually we can get to the self. And in excavating with both myself, like you and I are products of all of this work, but also since then, like with our clients, right, getting down to the self thing, I am consistently shocked at how much of myself I was outsourcing to this dumb beverage that made me feel like crap, right? Like when I really dug into it, I had such a negative story about myself and how alcohol was kind of shoring up all of the negative qualities that I'd decided I had, um, which were so many, right? And no wonder at the end of the day, I found myself really stuck drinking more than I wanted to, right? Like I couldn't suddenly flip a switch and fix all of fix all of those problems that I thought I had, right? But you know what? Alcohol can help with this, and alcohol can help with that, and alcohol can help with this, right? Like I I would turn to alcohol because you know, I myself wasn't confident enough to, you know, XYZ, or I'd turn to alcohol because I myself um wasn't fun enough to XYZ or to uh to connect or to be vulnerable or to blah blah blah. All those stories that I was telling myself, all those reasons why I was telling myself that I was drinking really lived in the top layer, right? Oh, I drink because it's because I want to relax. I drink because it's fun.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

It tastes good, right? We think it tastes good. It makes food taste better.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

It's classy, it pairs with food, it's you know, like blah, blah, blah. But what was really happening was this like really interesting kind of thing where it was really pointing down through the layers at deficits that I thought I had.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

So I'm so glad you brought up that whole thing of the three layers, the substance, society, and self. Because I do think kind of methodically going through starting with substance, you know, we can start to get a little bit of traction of understanding that our beliefs around that might be a story, right? Might not actually be true. Because that's what so much of this work is, is it's not just that we're giving up, we're not, it's not that we're we continue to love alcohol and we want it and but we can't have it anymore, and we're just gonna live that way. No, like for I wouldn't have never signed up for that. Like what I wanted was to literally not want it anymore. And I literally don't want it anymore because I went through all the beliefs I had around, you know, the way I I like the way it tastes. Like, I mean, that that alone was mind-blowing to me because I I loved it. I mean, I I would, you know, left, right, and center tell you how I would go to wineries, wine tastings, I I, you know, I had my favorite prosecco, I had my favorite white, I had my favorite red, I I had the ones I paired with this, the ones I paired with that, I thought I was the classiest, coolest, you know. So to come to find out that after taking, you know, two-week, four-week break from it and drinking it without any people around, without any food, just like a mindful drink of how does this actually taste in my mouth, I it was like okay, this is really like I I remember doing it once with uh Sauvignon Blanc, which is something I loved. And it was so sour and so acidic, and so like I could just taste the alcohol in it. And if you had asked me to do that when I was in my drinking days, I would have been like, this is the most refreshing, delicious, you know, like, but it it was because it was all wrapped up in all the things that I believed about it. I believed it was fun and I believed it was connecting, and I usually had it with good food and I had it chilled and I had it, I made it, you know, all this beautiful package, but the substance itself, I actually I didn't, you know, of course, after the first couple of sips, then I was like, oh yeah, it's not so bad because numbs the taste buds, right? And then we start start to get that high. So, I mean, who hasn't had a first drink of alcohol, beer, or whatever, and been like, oh, but then you just keep drinking and then it starts to taste better. Well, what if we don't keep drinking and we just actually acknowledge that the thing doesn't taste very good? So that's like that first level of substance, you know, or we can start to question these beliefs that we just took for granted as true. And then, yeah, getting into society. And then to your point, the self is like so it is that deep, dark heart of things, but it's also like the most beautiful, magical thing to like reconnect with self and and build trust again and and know that. I mean, when you were saying, like, I used to think I needed it to have confidence, I needed it to be fun, I needed it to be like I've never known you as a drinker. So I have that, you know, only see you this way. But it's like, oh my God, that just makes me sad that you would have thought that you needed it because you have it in spades innately, right? Like, but that's what we do. We outsource it, like you said, and we start to rely on it and we believe that we're not that we need it to be who we actually already are.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

That's my favorite part about doing all this work, is how extraordinarily empowering it is to find out. Oh, I actually can do XYZ without outsourcing it to alcohol. Oh, I can make that connection, I can close that sale, I can be creative, I can be intimate, I can, you know, like whatever it is that you think that you can't do when you find out that alcohol, if anything, was making it worse, because it that's all it can do, right? Like, we we tell ourselves all these like complicated stories about alcohol. We have this like mythology, it's why we have this podcast name, right? We have this mythology about what alcohol is and what it does, and it can't do any of that, it's just ethanol and juice, basically, right? Like, whether it's wine, you get the idea, right? It's ethanol at the end of the day. It's just a chemical substance that interacts with our biology in these myriad crappy ways that it makes us confused and makes us feel terrible and breaks our homeostasis and our balance and our peace and our sleep. That's all it is. But we're so enculturated to like overlay all these complicated and incredible stories about it and how wonderful it is to break out of the matrix and to realize that all of it was just a bunch of stories, and the reality is so much more exciting and so much more empowering, and you can just go and do without needing the crutch of alcohol. Is it's it's like training, it's like taking the training wheels off of your life, right? Like it's it's so incredible because you you you have this, it's just very empowering, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And I'm so excited to be in a field where I get to help people experience that.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Yeah, I mean, I you can feel your excitement because it's like you you've experienced it and you've witnessed clients experience it. And it's so because we're, I mean, let's face it, it these stories that we tell ourselves about alcohol, they come from multi-million dollar ad campaigns that sell us alcohol as being the elixir of life, as being the thing. And then not just that, but then all of the placement in television and movies and books, and and then just you know what we see all around us in our in our own environment. And so no wonder we believe it. Like, let's just stop for a second and like compassion, right? Like, of course we believe that. I mean, I believe that. I I you know, there was a time where I'm like, oh my God, how could I have been so stupid? It's like, well, you weren't stupid. You were yeah, you were everything indicated that, right? Like everyone you knew, everything you saw. And there was, I mean, they're starting to come out now with more and more studies about how alcohol is actually harmful and there are no positive benefits to it. But at the time when I was starting to question this, you know, I the French paradox, you know, you can eat the wine, eat the cheese, drink the wine, and you have live the healthiest life. Like I clung to that story. Like I was, you know, gonna drown off the boat if I didn't believe it, right? Because I it it it's what I wanted to believe.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Yeah. It makes me think about the um, we were talking about the the reasons that we drink and how we can just point to a bunch of these like surface reasons for drinking, and how if we just stop there, then we stay stuck for a really long time, right? Like, oh, you know, like your example, like the the French paradox, right? This is classy. This is I engage in this kind of lifestyle. This is who I am, this is part of the identity that I've built. It doesn't invite any further questions if we just point to that and stop there. What gets really interesting is when you start to dig into those different layers and like what's beneath the belief that this classy lifestyle is one that I associate with, right? Okay, so what I'm saying is that it's classy to drink these fermented grapes, okay. Why is that classy? Hmm, right? And then you start to dig in and unpack all that stuff, and you end up in some really interesting places. Um, but it pointing to the easy or the surface reasons for why we drink prevents us asking deeper, more interesting questions. And if we're not asking deeper, more interesting questions, we can't get to more interesting places and have these realizations about what we're associating with alcohol and how it relates to ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yeah, it's so true. And as you're saying that, I was thinking about, I mean, some of the like kind of first step work that you would do with a coach, but that you can do on your own too, is so let's take a bullet, say you have a belief that alcohol makes me more fun, right? And and just to simply start to question like, where did that belief come from? Like, when did I first start believing that? Because you didn't, you know, you didn't always drink alcohol. So all of us, you know, as babies, as small children, I mean, some of us started drinking younger than others, but there's probably a time that you can remember that you didn't drink alcohol and you might have some memories of being fun or having fun. You know, so you start to think, okay, where when and where did I start believing that? What were the messages that I was getting? What were the experiences I was having? And you will find, of course, you will find evidence that says, yeah, I mean, I remember that experience. That was really fun. And we were drinking. But I also want you to notice that there are, have there been times when you have not been drinking and you've also had fun? Because we tend to discount those. We're like, no, no, no, alcohol makes everything more fun. Well, okay, that that's a belief. But like, let's start to look at the whole picture of fun. And is it possible that you have as much fun, maybe even more fun, or let's just say equal amount of fun without alcohol, without the negative consequences of alcohol, right? So we can just start to poke a little bit of holes in these beliefs that we have that alcohol makes me more fun, or alcohol makes things more fun. Like that, just that initial question of is that real, is that really true?

SPEAKER_00 17:56

I just want to commend and celebrate anybody that is even asking these questions, right? Like most people go through life on autopilot and they never even consider the question of, I mean, they might think like, why do I drink more than I want to, or why do I keep drinking when I don't want to? And you might have those questions floating around. Most people stop there. They stop with the question and they don't keep pushing it until they find an answer. So if you can take the question and go one step further, if if you can't find an easy answer to that question, change the question and ask that question, right? But it's the questioning, it's the awareness, it's the intentionality, it's the mindfulness, it's the self-reflection that buys you a beach head into getting into all this other work. It allows you the space to reflect and analyze your own interior life and to start making some real decisions for yourself about what is the role of alcohol in your life moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

That is such a good point because I think the question that most of us ask in these moments when we're questioning our relationship with alcohol is what is wrong with me? And when we're asking that question, it's not a useful or helpful question. It brings shame, blame, guilt. And you know what? Your your brain is gonna look for a solution to that question. It's gonna want to answer that question. So it's gonna come up with, well, you're a piece of shit. Well, you're lazy. Well, you have no willpower. Well, you you you this is just the way you always are. Well, your parents drink a lot, you're always gonna drink. It will come up with all of the reasons why it's so hard. But that's not a useful question. So if we can start to ask the question, like, why is this different for me than all the other areas of my life? What is it about alcohol specifically that has me stuck? What if it's not my fault? Where do I look then for answers? What if it's not because there's anything wrong with me? And what if it's because alcohol works this way in the human body and let me learn about that? You know, we could it starts to open up a new avenue for figuring this thing out. Because I mean, the question I asked myself that I wrote in journal year after year after year after year was what is wrong with you, Ellen?

SPEAKER_00 20:27

It's not a good question. It's not a good question. We need better questions. We need better questions, we need better questions. Ellen, we like to make this super practical on the Alcohol Myth podcast. So, in closing, when we're thinking about how uh kind of surface answers for the reasons why we drink can keep us stuck. If somebody's made it this far in the episode, they're looking for a next action or a next step to take. Um, what do you have for them?

SPEAKER_01 20:52

I think I'd suggest to to do those two lists. Do the list of why do I drink and and like write them all out. I mean, I had 20 or 30. I mean, you know, don't go deeper than just those surface level answers. And then what am I afraid of if I stop drinking? And because what that will allow you to do is like methodically go through all it's it's like an indication, it's like a map of these are all the beliefs I have that I need to untangle, that I need to work through. And it's that work that allows you to be alcohol free with like a true free, like not wanting it ever again. You know, it's still so I mean I I go back to that list sometimes and I'm like, I just make sure, do I believe that? Do I believe? I mean, I've gone through all of the things on my list now and I no longer believe them. I'm no longer worried about them. And so it's it really is like a roadmap for, you know, a way forward. And, you know, you don't have to do this alone. Reach out if you're wanting to talk to somebody, join a group, read a book. Like, there's lots of free resources. There's, of course, fabulous coaches. Jonathan and I would love to be your coach, but there's lots of other ones as well. We just want you to be able to take this roadmap and like move through it so that you can achieve the freedom that you so deserve.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

I love the analogy about the roadmap and how those lists can serve as a roadmap. I guess my practical advice for somebody would be to be mindful of the destination. Like allow yourself to imagine what could be possible in your life if this wasn't hanging over you. What would open up and what would open up for you if you weren't preoccupied or fighting with alcohol or doing the alcohol math or trying to moderate or you know, X, Y, Z, wherever you are in your alcohol situation? If you're listening to this podcast, I guess that either now or at some point in your life, you've struggled with how much you've been drinking and you're unhappy with it. Well, imagine that struggle disappearing. How would your life be different? And sit in that, feel into what would be different for you and use that as your North Star, right? Like Ellen talked about the roadmap. Well, you also need the destination. And you can bring, even if the destination isn't your live reality right now, 100% of the time, with a little bit of imagination, you can get a sense for what that could be like and allow yourself to feel that, and it will help motivate you as you're navigating with the roadmap that Alan suggested. So that will be my tip. Bring your future into your present by uh the sheer force of your imagination. It's a it's a wonderful exercise and so motivating.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

So good, so good. Highly recommend that.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

All right, folks. Thank you for listening to the Alcohol Myth Podcast. Um, we love that you're here. We would love for you to drop a little comment or you know, hit a hit a like button, share this podcast with somebody. We're trying to get the word out uh and to let people know that there is a better, easier, more joyful way to be than to be stuck under alcohol's thumbs. So help us get the word out and we appreciate you being here.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Thanks, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Thanks for listening to the Alcohol Myth Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

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

SPEAKER_00 24:26

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

SPEAKER_02 24:32

We read every message, we really do.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

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