IPA Podcast
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IPA Podcast
IPA On... Drinking Culture
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Alcohol Mindset Coach, author and host of 'The Big Drink Rethink' podcast, Anna Donaghey joins the IPA On podcast with Antonia Stearn to explore the advertising industry's relationship with alcohol. Together they explore addiction, mental health, agency culture and Anna's personal journey. Anna's book 'What Are You Thirsty For?: Rethinking alcohol and the life you want' is available now: https://www.waterstones.com/book/what-are-you-thirsty-for/anna-donaghey/9781915780607
Welcome to IPA on Talent Matters, the IPA podcast covering all things people, culture, and talent. Hello and welcome to IPA on Drinking Culture. Today I'm joined with Anna Donohy, an alcohol mindset coach, author and host of the Big Drink Rethink podcast. Before becoming a coach, she spent over 25 years as a strategic planner in advertising. Today she helps people rethink their relationship with alcohol, drawing on her own experience of addiction and her strategic background. Anna's coaching work goes beyond to quit or not to quit to help clients uncover the deeper needs beneath their habits. Her podcast, The Big Drink Rethink, was recently shortlisted for the ITV Be Creator Podcast of the Year. And her forthcoming book, What Are You Thirsty for, Rethinking Alcohol and the Life You Want, is available for pre-order now. So there we go.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Very nice. Plug the book as well. And thank you for having me. It's great to be here. It's great to have you.
SPEAKER_02But I thought we'd just start off by talking about your experience of working in advertising. And I think I read you were a strategic director at Bray Leno was the last time you were in advertising.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So yeah, I mean it's quite recent history. I only left advertising about 18 months ago. And yeah, for the last 12 years of that, I had been based down in Bristol and Devon, a strategy director for Bray Leno. And prior to that, I had sort of walked walked the advertising scene in London since the late 90s, which really ages me. So yeah, I I finished in the business last year after about 25 plus years. And yeah, it was a it was a it was a great career, it was a very interesting career, it was very varied. I had a great time, I had a very boozy time, which I know we're gonna segue into and talk about. Yeah. I think um, I mean it was it was good fun. There's no doubt about it. I moved down to London to work in advertising just before I was around 30, mid-20s maybe. And um it was very exciting. I'd worked in manufacturing for a few years before that, so it was a big change. I'd worked with agencies in my role in the car industry and thought I want a bit of that. That's the bit of my job that I enjoy the most. So then I came to London, single girl. Woo! Yeah, and uh yeah, newly single actually. So um hot off the back of a relationship breakup, I moved to London and I was very high and excited by the prospects of it, and and here I stayed, as I say, three or four agencies during the sort of years I spent in London. But yeah, boozy, boozy boozy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean it's funny you say, like, yeah, I was recently sick, as in not re at 25 I became single and moved to London, and it was just the best decision.
SPEAKER_00It was. Well, I I previously lived in Warwick, and it's too the town's too small for people who've broken up and you just keep bumping into the supermarket and um So advertising from in London, starting in London.
SPEAKER_02And I yeah, I what I wanted to ask next is what was the drinking culture like? You've said boozy, how boozy are we talking?
SPEAKER_00Very boozy. I was already a big drinker, so I had sort of established myself as a pretty seasoned drinker in the manufacturing industry that I'd worked in before, and pre previously to that in in university, so I think drinkers will always seek out drinkers. So my environment was boozy, my experience was very boozy. But having said that, I'm not even sure whether this is the case anymore. But back in the day we would have had bars in the agencies, and even if they weren't there to encourage you to to to drink and and and to be able to have a drink whenever you wanted, I was based in Soho, so you know, bars on every corner. I worked on I actually worked on big international accounts mainly for a lot of my time. So there was a lot of travel, a lot of airport lounges, effectively free drinks, yeah, uh, a lot of flights handing out drinks, lots of client dinners, lots of hospitality, lots of awards dinners. Those are the days as well when if we were pitching, you'd sort of stay late in the office and start expensing dinner and beers and drinks, and therefore, yeah, I mean I would I would say it was very, very baked into the culture. And the reason I mentioned the single girl thing is I don't think this has necessarily changed, but I think working in London and then sort of going out to Hammersmith or whatever in the evening, I would do all of my socialising after work and then head home literally to go to sleep. As opposed to going home and really enjoying my time in the flat on my own. I would sort of, you know, burn the candle at both ends most nights of the week actually. Oh wow. And that was that was very much part of my undoing because I didn't really ever see a day when a few drinks after work wouldn't be a good idea. Yeah. So yeah. I think is definitely the word we're looking for. Alcohol soaked.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think you say, like, so you were there in the 90s, but I feel like alcohol's still very embedded in work cultures now. Um I've been to a few agencies and there are like bars in the agencies, so and I'm pretty jealous. Um, wish there was one here. No, but I feel like it's still a thing, and alcohol's still very linked to socialising, whether that's with colleagues, family, friends. And I read this data in the like a UK survey recently that this study is of 2,000 working adults, and 43% thought there was too much pressure to drink when socialising with work colleagues. So I think it's a thing that still exists and is prevalent, and maybe people feel pressured, you know, people still feel pressured to drink.
SPEAKER_00That doesn't surprise me. Recent stats like that don't really surprise me. Drink drinking or alcohol, when you think about it, in society as a whole, is such an accepted behaviour. It's still the social norm. More people drink than don't drink. Agencies are little microcosms of society and possibly boozier than society as a whole, particularly if there's a culture within an agency that sort of makes it readily available. Or you've got drinks, you know, you've got drinks accounts as well. You know, you've got big drinks accounts, and there might even be fridges of said a brand of beer or said drink, etc. So, yeah, I mean it it's ingrained into our behaviours, it's ingrained into so many of our rituals. So, you know, we would have had a drink to celebrate a pitch win, we would have had a drink to celebrate a pitch loss, you know, we would have had um drinks to drown our sorrows or blow off steam, you know, onboarding clients, outboarding clients. I, you know, Antonio, I can quite honestly say that no one ever forced a drink into my hand. Of course they didn't. But the nature of peer pressure is is it's not really that. And it's not often just the idea of people encouraging, encouraging, and encouraging and engoding you. It's often about how you feel you will be perceived if you don't. If you don't. Yeah. And that's that's an internalised perception of peer pressure. It's this thought that to fit in or to connect or to be seen or to be heard, I need to morph into this or become that or drink this or attend that. And it becomes your perception of the normal behaviour and what's expected. So was anyone forced me to drink? No, they didn't have to. I was always very happy to drink. But I I've I've no doubt whatsoever, you know, that that that strength of feeling, that 43% or or the number that you mentioned, is is still so high because that culture hasn't really shifted. You know, it is shifting slightly, but it's not shifted wholesale such that people can feel that release of I don't have to do this anymore. And I speak to so many people who still feel in the grip of, you know, an expectation networking, or the boss is a big drinker, or we're going to a client event and that is a drinks brand, or whatever it might be. So yeah, I'm I've no doubt about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's interesting because I spoke to someone who's a managing director at an agency currently, and they were literally saying that they went to an event they really didn't want to drink, but because their boss was there give handing them a drink, they didn't feel that they could say no. And it's funny because I feel like I had it recently, or like a year ago, I didn't drink for basically like a year, or barely anything because for health reasons. And I was like, I haven't felt peer pressure like this since I was like 15. And it's kind of funny because you feel like you go out of peer pressure, but you don't, but like you feel like you know, you're not in the schoolyard, you're not having. You don't think you do. You like you like you do, but you suddenly you realise that's still there, you know, a little yeah. And I hadn't felt that because I hadn't not drunk. But as soon as I didn't, I had random people going, like, what aren't you drinking? Yeah, you're right. What's right? And I was like, this is actually quite intrusive questions that I don't need to tell anybody. Yeah. But I suddenly have felt the need to justify every time. So I'd make up stuff like, Oh, I'm going, I'm training for a half marathon. Yeah. I'm doing this, and then oh, that's an acceptable reason not to drink. But I'm excusing it, you have to excuse yourself.
SPEAKER_00And we always joke about this and sort of you know the world of alcohol coaching and stuff, is it's the only drug that you have to excuse yourself from wanting to take.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, if someone was forcing cocaine or any other sort of drug under your nose, you would be able to say, it's not my bag, I'm not here for that. I'm not here for that. But with alcohol, you absolutely feel like you have to have an excuse and it has to be watertight, you have to rehearse it, you have to think about the comeback. What the hell? Oh my god, I've said I'm running a marathon, they're gonna ask me, they're gonna ask me my PP, they're gonna ask me to temper. It's it's it's a thing. It's a thing. You almost have to have a narrative around why you don't want to. And it's you know, it's a thing for sure.
SPEAKER_02And I think you know, you you touched on like the different reasons why we drink in the roles we give to alcohol, like in work, but what other roles and things do we give it? So it's not just obviously socializing lubricant kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's one of the main ones. Yeah. The fitting in, the connecting, the belonging that we've just talked about, you know, whichever word you want to attach to that. We give alcohol so many different jobs is unbelievable. And when I talk about jobs, at its very, very core, alcohol changes the way we feel. And it's very often that we want to feel less of a negative, like anxiety, and more of a positive, like calm. So alcohol, please help relax me. Alcohol, please help me feel more socially confident. Alcohol, please help me sleep, help me unwind, uh, help me fit in, help me belong, give me courage, less social anxiety, you know, less overwhelm. Please, alcohol, do this for me. You know, and it's what we this is why I talk about it in terms of the jobs, because you know, it's a psychoactive drug at the end of the day, it does change the way we feel. It does it undeniably, it does it quickly, not for great long periods of time, and always with a payback. Always, but it does change the way we feel. So those those are the kind of jobs, you know, and and particularly in an industry where there is a lot of teamwork, you've got the connection and you know, the sort of the belonging piece going on there, you've got job stress, job pressure, job anxiety, all those things going on. Those are really the kind of the jobs I'm talking about. If you notice, they're all emotions. They're all emotions at the end of the day. So at its very core, you know, I've been heard to talk about emotions as being the thing that we most commonly manage with alcohol, it becomes our sort of chief emotions officer. And it's the thing that we sort of outsource management management of our emotions to. And I think that's kind of really critical, really, because emotions come thick and fast and they come every day. And if if if like I did, you fall into a trap of managing your emotions wholeheartedly with alcohol, then you can easily find yourself drinking on a day-to-day basis. Easily. And then at peak points in life as well, when things go really wrong or really right or whatever it might be, you know, you you end up dialing it up. So yeah, lots of jobs.
SPEAKER_02Lots of jobs, yeah. And I wanted to ask, because I know you've spoken about limiting beliefs and like how they relate to drinking, but if you could just explain what exactly you mean by that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I suppose by inference, if we're sort of saying alcohol, please make me feel more confident, there's a sense in ourselves that we need it, that we need it for that confidence, that we're not confident enough without it, or we're not sociable enough without it, or we're not articulate enough, or interesting enough, or funny enough, or attractive enough, or sexy enough, or free enough, or whatever it might be that we need it to fulfill that we need it to fulfill one of those jobs is kind of a limiting belief in itself, because it means that you're looking outside of yourself for the answer to something that you feel you need. There are many more uh personal, deeper uh limiting beliefs as well, which we can talk about. And these are the things which drive behaviours that put you almost on a collision course with alcohol. So personal limiting beliefs often sit in this realm of I am not something enough, so I'm not smart enough, or I'm not interesting enough, or I'm not good enough, just just generally. Yeah. And that in itself doesn't necessarily have you reaching for the glass of rose, but what it what these beliefs can do is put you into behaviours or fuel behaviours that can result in drinking. Shall I give you an example? Yeah. So just take it out of the conceptual. For reasons that I won't go into here because we haven't really got loads of time. I spent a good part of my adult life walking around thinking I wasn't smart enough. It started when I was about 16, 17 years of age. I can pinpoint, you know, the moments in my in my academic life when this happened. Now I didn't for one moment just walk, you know, walk the earth thinking I'm not smart enough and therefore I'll drink. Yeah. But that belief of I'm not smart enough fueled in me my whole career as sort of an overstriving, perfectionist trait, overachieving, over-polishing, overworking, over-engineering, literally, you know, stripping the joy out of most tasks because I was doing everything over and over fastidiously, because I never wanted to be seen to not be smart enough.
SPEAKER_02You're like almost running away from that. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00And I know, you know, I never wanted those feelings of shame or stupidity or you know, vulnerability again. So the belief drove behaviours. You know, the dr the belief drove behaviours, and the behaviours are what can so often therefore end up in drinking. Because if you are a perfectionist and an overachiever, an overstriver and a people pleaser without any boundaries, blah blah blah blah blah, you can end up in an unhappy place.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then you get into alcohol, please help me under you know, unwind alcohol, please help me relax. And do you see what I'm saying? No, definitely. So we we believe that alcohol can do these things for us, which is a limiting belief in the first place. We we we we believe we need it because we have these things absent from us, and then we can have our own limiting beliefs about ourselves that can put us on a bit of a collision course with it if we're not careful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. No, that definitely makes sense. And I feel like so you found yourself in this place where you know that was happening in this cycle of wanting to feel better and whatnot, wanting to feel you know, which I can totally see happening because that everyone has limiting beliefs about themselves. How did you come to that realisation with drinking and manage to get it under control? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Recognize it even. I think what you just said before I before I explain that, I think what you just said is so true. I should have said that everybody has limiting beliefs, and sometimes it's the most successful people who can be really highly functioning but still have drinking challenges or be drinking a lot in parallel. Because even they who you you know, the people who you look at and think, Oh, you're so successful, you can't possibly have anything. Exactly, but you know, who's not to say that they're still thinking my dad doesn't think I'm successful enough. Yeah. Or my wife doesn't think I earn enough, you know, and you're still you're still putting these limits and these sort of these expectations on yourself. So I had um I got to a point about six years ago and I couldn't go on with my own drinking because it was literally wrecking my life. It had gone on for years and years and years, it had ramped up hugely when I had children and all that additional stress and emotion and stuff came in. Um and I just got to a point where I couldn't carry on anymore. No, no dramatic rock bottom, no, no big stories there, I'm afraid. Thank God. Yeah, well, yeah, I'm really grateful for that, but you know, bouncing along the bottom with a series of real wake-up calls where I just thought I can't do this anymore. And I was exhausted because all of this takes so much energy and so much time and so much just you know, wrecks your sleep and all that sort of stuff. I didn't want to go to AA, and I have nothing bad to say about AA other than that it wasn't for me. I didn't want to think of myself as an uncurable sort of alcoholic. I wanted to understand, maybe this is the strategist in me, the human behaviour part. I wanted to understand why I drank the way I did. So I started delving into all this stuff that we're talking about now. You know, what were my triggers and what unmet needs really, you know, what beliefs did I have about myself that actually had me reaching for alcohol at certain moments and you know, drinking drinking the way I did. But there's a lot about how alcohol affects our system physiologically that can explain why we can't stop once we've started, you know, and it can, you know, one can lead to four to a bottle and then two. But that's that's all very valuable to understand as well. But the personal side of why I had this sort of relatively good grip, I would say, um, on other parts of my life, but this one was a bit of a shit show. Yeah. You know, why why that was the case for me needed to be delved into. So that's that's the kind of the work that I started doing. It's it's the work that I do now with other people, to be honest, in my coaching. I help people get to the bottom of all of that. Because it's not easy to sort of see, you know, many, many blind spots with your setting. So, but yeah, that's that's the kind of the process that I went through. And you, you know, unfortunately, you have to surface these beliefs. You have to really examine them. And it can be really painful because you're like, oh my god, like I hadn't thought about that one and since I was 17.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but it's funny how these things can sit with us and we don't even realize we subconsciously are acting on them, you know. And we think, oh, it wasn't I'm not still thinking about that, but actually it's driving something in you.
SPEAKER_00There's a really simple way of looking at it. Our beliefs drive our thoughts, and our thoughts drive our behaviours. Uh you know, our beliefs are subconscious. We're not conscious of our beliefs, they're just part of our operating system. What we can be conscious of is our thoughts, and what we can be very conscious of is our behaviours. So you can start looking at the behaviors and then almost reverse engineer. Oh my god, I did that, or I reacted in that way. What was going on there? What was I thinking? What was I, you know, what what what was I thinking in that moment? And then you kind of go back and go, my why? Yeah. Why? Oh my god, you know. And then you start digging and you suddenly think, goodness me, well, I obviously have a belief around that. Yeah. You know, and there's there's ways that you can sort of dig into that, but it's that sort of process of of reverse engineering, because unfortunately, unless you surface them, you can't really start that process of awareness. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I guess like it's a lot of self-reflection and time. And do you find it helpful as well to when you're coaching other people to kind of go through that process with them?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very much so. Very much so, because as a coach, I would be saying, you know, here here are some processes and here's some worksheets and here are some approaches that I would highly recommend, and this to listen to, or that to read. But but nine times out of ten, people still come back and go, I don't I don't get it. Or there's something, there's something like that just I don't understand why I am like this or why this affects me as it does. And there's nothing there's nothing like having someone else to talk to about that to help, you know, in a sort of safe space um to to help unearth that. They are our blind spots and they are subconscious. So the fact that they're not staring us in the face is not is not surprising at all. Um but yeah, if you start start off perhaps by looking at the behaviours that aren't serving you, you know, you might I'm thinking about in the context of work, because um, you know, there'll be people listening to this who like going, I'm not going to go for this promotion because I'm not ready. Oh, interesting. So that's that's your behavior. I'm not going to go for this promotion. Where's that thought of I'm not ready coming from? What's the belief behind that? What's ready? Yeah. You know, when when in when in your past have you ever experienced a sort of a sense of failure that you might be wanting to avoid, or da da da da or rejection or rejection or whatever it might be, or and and and therefore it's just it is, it's that reverse, it's that reverse engineering that's so important. Because then you can rewrite it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. Or otherwise you just end up going through with these constantly like almost not putting yourself but yeah, putting yourself down in a way of I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do that. And not really uh reflecting on why as you think that you can't do something.
SPEAKER_00So I had I had had this thought since I was about 17, embedded in my head, never really conscious, I'm not smart enough. You know, fast forward 30 years when I was trying to give up drinking, I I had every right to redefine what smart meant from my 16 or 17 year old self in a school classroom in Bristol through to the 47-year-old who had done this, this, this, and had a family and achieved X, Y, and Z and striving for A, B, and C. Who s you you you have an you have an opportunity to sit back and go, who says? Tell me what smart means anyway. Yeah. What is smart? You know, what is being ready? What is this? What is that? And then you get a chance to sort of really interrogate that and almost you know, for want of a better term, you get to write your Own rules, but you certainly get to challenge beliefs that sometimes aren't even yours. In this process of reverse engineering, it is incredibly hard to do if you're drinking a lot. And the reason for that is drinking manages emotions, and for you to have a great level of self-awareness, you have to be aware of what you're feeling at any one point in time. So you've almost got to take this blocker out. Totally. The numbing or something. Because if you're using it to anaesthetise or numb feelings, then you've got to allow yourself this sense of this may well be uncomfortable, but I have to understand myself. And in order to understand myself, I have to listen to my signals. And in order to listen to my signals, I have to take that mute button off. That in itself can feel scary, but it is the most amazing experience when you do it. And you start to literally feel more attuned to your emotions. And only then can you really start to make sense of your behaviours off the back of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I was just gonna say what you said with the you know the limiting belief you had, there is no amount that you could have done, become head of this, head of that, but if that belief is still there, so I mean there's no no unproving it, you have to sit back and just look at it.
SPEAKER_00Because two things would happen either my perfectionism or my overstriving would have said, Well, that's great, but now I want to be X, Y, and Z. So not just strategy director, but group strategy director or you know enough prime minister or whatever. But the other side of it would be you can begin to think almost a sense of imposter syndrome. How has someone who's not smart enough managed to get this? Yeah, you're constantly then in a position where you're sort of must work hard, must work hard, must work hard. I'm going to believe I'm gonna lose. I'm going to get found out. Someone's gonna cut on, you know, there's been some big mistake. So yeah, it's very insidious. When these beliefs take root, they're very, very insidious and they are well worth identifying so you can, you know, begin the process of excavation and ripping them out.
SPEAKER_02Re-rise re-flooring. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, all of the B-words. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, did you feel like you were able to tell people, or did you even want to tell people because obviously it's a personal thing, but like when you realised you had an issue with alcohol, to be able to say it.
SPEAKER_00I'll be very honest with you. I had enormous amount of shame around my drinking, which is the most painful motion of all, because it keeps you really small and hidden. And any sort of internal tug of war that was going on in my head on a day-to-day basis, this voice saying you need to stop, and another one saying, No, you're okay. You're not as bad as that. So it's not a problem. And then another day, and then another day, and another day, and I couldn't get a grip, and I would try and exert willpower, and that wouldn't work. And if you're coming at something with what you consider to be strength and it's not enough, you feel weak. So I felt weak, I felt flawed, which is a massive problem because you then believe that you're incapable of change. Yeah. And that's the situation where shame really thrives. And around alcohol and drugs, you know, it really, really does thrive. Now I used to say to myself, you know, I knew I had a problem, and when I knew the house was empty, I would rehearse standing in front of the mirror and just trying to say the words. You know, like I'm drinking too much, or I've got a drinking problem. I even went to the doctor's one day and I'd been practicing and practicing and practicing. So I walked in through the door and came out with some complete BS instead, you know, because I just couldn't get the words out. But in the end, you know, my relationship with myself was awful. Mental health wasn't great, and my relationship with my husband was struggling a little bit. And I I just had to find the words, and I just had to sort of find the the the means of expressing the fact that I needed to do some work. I still felt really weak asking for help, but what I did say is I need to do some work. And if I need your help with it, will you help me? And that felt better for me. It meant that I was doing something about it. Yeah. Rather than I need some help and putting it on and putting it onto someone else to suggest what that would be. That worked for me. But it's uh it's you know, the the shame one feels around drinking is a real problem. It's a real barrier to reaching out and getting help, but it shouldn't be. You know, I I long for a world where it isn't and where drinking problems are as openly talked about now as mental health issues, you know, that it's part of balance and conversation.
SPEAKER_02And empathy and compassion. And empathy and compassion. The way it's spoken about. Because again, uh well, I read an interesting stat from Alcohol Change UK that over a third um of workers either feel more comfortable talking about mental health in the workplace than alcohol, which I think obviously just summarises what you've just said. But I feel like it is such a thing that we have progressed a lot. Like obviously, we're not as far as we could be in terms of mental health conversations, but the idea of saying I'm struggling is a lot more accepted, or people feel more likely that they can say that with mental health issues. 100%. So I wonder how we can get the conversation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I this this would be ideal, wouldn't it, if we could literally talk about it as openly, even though lots of people still struggle to talk about things as persons' mental health. We've come so far, I don't think we're there with alcohol. We we really aren't. I mean, I talk about it still as one of the biggest taboos within businesses. We all have great wellness agendas these days, or at least we sort of report to. We're teaching people how to breathe better and get outside and do a certain number of steps and talk and empathize and we're talking about perimenopause and menopause and male mental health and all sorts. But we're not talking about alcohol.
SPEAKER_02Because that it's lots into mental health as a huge, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's huge. Antonio, I can't even I mean, we we could do a series of podcasts on the effect that alcohol has on mental health. So for me, for my sort of slightly, I suppose, informed position where I kind of look at the world of alcohol in much more detail that now than many people do, I can see how it undermines so many things. So many things. So in many ways it should simply be an extension of the mental health conversation. And when I go into businesses and I because I do talk to businesses about I, you know, alcohol, it's not a question of thou shalt or thou shan't. It's more a case of if you're gonna drink, just be aware of the impact it can have on you. If you're gonna drink, just be aware of the jobs you might be giving it to do. It's not whether you should or shouldn't drink, it's just about making informed decisions and making sure that it's a sort of an intentional choice, a healthy-based intentional choice rather than just a default, the kind of you know, default or sort of social norm that we were talking about earlier. It's not a judgment call. It's it's not a sense of we have we must call time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think what the point is is let's just be aware of it. Yeah. Because I can absolutely guarantee that if any business is spending a lot of money on their mental health and their wellness agenda, that it is consistently being undermined by alcohol. But the problem is, and I I do deeply believe this, is because society as a whole is still very permissive around alcohol, when someone gets in a bit of a pickle with it, literally, it's seen to be their flaw as opposed to a flawed societal position. You know, so it could be seen as a flaw of society that we permit and we are so actively pushing and you know, selling and marketing alcohol, blah blah blah blah. But instead of seeing it as a flaw or a flawed societal response, we look at the individual and go, What a shame, you can't handle it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You know, and that the judgment, the blame, the judgment and the blame, exactly. And it's interesting because I feel like, like, say with like depression or anxiety, in the past, I feel like that was again like people felt shame, it was their fault, they weren't strong enough, they weren't this enough, they weren't happy enough, whatever it was. Yeah. And that conversation's moved on. And I feel like the conversation is starting to move on, but I think there is still this inherent thing with certain people that it's someone's fault and they just didn't try hard enough. Or didn't you and it's just obviously not the case, and that's a very like old-fashioned way of looking at things.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I can talk from personal experience that when I was, you know, within the agency that I was working in at a time at the time when I was at my lowest with alcohol challenges, I would not have dreamed of saying, Oh, by the way, I think I'm an alcoholic. I've got a big drinking problem. I'm actually going home and drinking two bottles of wine in an evening. Have anyone got a bit issue with it? I would never and it and it's because I would have thought that the weight of judgment would have been on me. Oh, she can't cope. Best not give her more to do. You know, let's delegate out her responsibilities for a bit. People try and start trying to fix it. People think that the fixing is all related to you being overwhelmed and in a bit of a bad place, as opposed to it being, you know, alcohol itself. And it's it's you know, I always say to people, it's not your fault if you become addicted to alcohol because it's addictive. I just wish people would be more open to having a kind of a collective conversation that says, if somebody falls foul of alcohol, it's not their fault. Yeah. You know, it's not a flaw in their character. Far from it, you know, it's not. They're looking to cope, they're looking to push through, they're looking for mechanisms. But here's what we can do to help. And here's some really useful ways to look at your drinking and to get a sense of whether you're drinking for reasons that only make you happy or whether you're using them to manage your emotions or cover up all sorts of stuff, you know. So I think we're a long way from having open conversations around alcohol. I think things are shifting, but it is at the end of the day still the nation's favourite coping mechanism. So it's pretty, pretty widespread. But the correlations between alcohol and depression, alcohol and anxiety, alcohol and burnout, alcohol and overwhelm is so intrinsically linked. Yeah, and and and there's this sort of codependency that if you're depressed, you're more likely to drink too much, and if you drink too much, you're more likely to get depressed. So it's this terrible cycle. The worst part of which is you don't ask for help for the actual anxiety or the depression because you think the drinking is going to come into that conversation and therefore you don't want to go there. So you just you remain undiagnosed and stuck.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, I completely see that. And I wanted to ask a like companies, employers, what they can do to help their employees in like I guess a psychological state, or like to be more open or well, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I'm I'm I'm bound to say from my perspective, I think there's you know, the educational piece. I mean it's not just me, there's lots of people who are very, very happy to go into businesses these days and tell their own stories. And I think it really helps when leadership internally as well can put their hand up and go me too. You know, and you know, that the l le leadership and that sort of vulnerability is is so powerful. So, so powerful. But you know, I do um I do sort of well-being talks, which are all based around the things I wish I knew, you know, 20, 30 years ago. And you know, I think again, you know, when when you think about what what can we do, what look at that mental health conversation. It's the the wonderful thing about being uh you know, about a taboo is it ceases to be one as soon as you start talking about it, as soon as you utter and what and talk it, it it it's not anymore. So in a very non-judgmental, in a very sort of open-minded, sort of factual way, I think it's enormously helpful to people just to say, let's talk about alcohol, let's just talk about it. And you can you can even make that into more of a kind of an inclusion conversation these days as well, because in businesses where you've got, you know, a lot of Gen Z or, you know, a more youthful sort of cohort of staff, it's wonderful to be able to have those conversations and understand their perspective on it as well, you know, versus the more ingrained sort of perspectives of maybe a different age group. So nothing bad is ever going to come from having open conversations about the things that can help us. It isn't, you know, it's gonna forge friendships, forge relationships, forge understanding, forge empathy, and people can take a little bit away from it that's either gonna help them or a friend or a parent or whatever. It's just about just about opening the conversation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and sharing and being open to it. Well, I think that's a great way to end this conversation. Let's talk about alcohol. Thank you so much for us to talk about drinking culture and your own personal story. So thank you so much. Thank you very much indeed for having me.