You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode number 117.
Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it's all about real clients, real problems, and real coaching. And now, your host, master coach instructor, Brooke Castillo.
Hi, and welcome to part two of Stop Overdrinking. In part one, we talked about the reasons why we desire to drink, and how it's a learned desire, and how we actually trained ourselves and practiced ourselves into that desire. In part two, we're gonna talk about why it's so challenging for us to quit once that desire is programmed.
And I'm gonna talk about some of the reasons why I wanted to cut back on my drinking and quit my drinking, and why I found it so challenging. And then we're gonna talk about the brain science behind it, and how the brain science really reveals the reasons why it is so challenging. And I want to remind you that the reason why we are able to quit is because we have our human brain, and the reason why it's so difficult to quit is because of our animal brain.
So when we learn how to overcome our animal brain with our human brain, then we're gonna be all set. So I referred to in the beginning that what has evolved us this far will not continue to evolve us unless we change it. And we use the power of our brain to think about what we're thinking about and to become more conscious in order to evolve to the next level of, I think, human evolution.
So let's talk first about why most of us want to cut back and we can't. I'm gonna start with the reasons why I wanted to cut back. I wanted to cut back because I really felt like there was a part of me that felt like I was out of control.
And I'm kind of a control freak. And so the idea of being out of control kind of freaked me out. And I never liked the point where I got after like three glasses, where it was kind of like, I really genuinely didn't feel in control of myself.
The main reason for me, what happened was I started, I think because of my hormone changes, because I'm in my forties, I started just feeling terrible. I was waking up in the middle of the night, I wasn't able to go back to sleep. And the next morning, I was feeling terrible.
So what used to be a horrible hangover after lots of drinking in a party night out became how I would feel after maybe two drinks. And I felt foggy and I just couldn't quite get on my game as much as I wanted to. And yet in the evenings, I found myself like really looking forward to going home and having a drink, going out to the bar and having a drink.
And I had these like conflicting desires that didn't make any sense to me. And I really kind of wanted to get to the bottom of it. And the other reason for me is I feel like I had kind of handled this whole emotional compulsive eating issue, and this was starting to feel very similar to that.
And so I really wanted to reduce my drinking. I didn't like feeling drunk. I didn't like not being able to drive.
I didn't like the feeling of regret. I didn't like having anxiety over what had happened the night before, what I might have said that I wouldn't have said had I not been drinking, that sort of thing. And I also was noticing anxiety.
This is when it really kind of started to bother me. Like one time I remember I went to a restaurant, and the waiter was just taking forever to come around to ask us what we wanted to drink. And I felt myself getting kind of anxious, and I felt myself getting kind of like in a hurry about it.
And I remember thinking, I'm just going to go to the bar and just get a drink. Like I couldn't wait for the waiter. And that made me nervous.
Like, what's going on that I'm in such a hurry to have a cocktail? And I heard myself talking about it a lot more. Like, hey, let's go get a drink.
Let's go get a cocktail. Let's go get a drink. Let's go get a cocktail.
And I was like watching myself do that, and I was curious about it. And so that was one of the reasons why I really decided that I wanted to. Now, here's the other reason.
When I did try, I wasn't successful. And I'm pretty successful at most everything I do. And so that was challenging for me, is I would make a plan to drink less, or I'd make a plan not to drink.
And I wasn't successful. It was like I had an override going on in my brain. And that really is what I had going on, but I didn't realize it at the time.
I was having something override me. Now, all of that evolution and all of that learning and all of that programming was overriding my genuine desire in that moment. And I did not like that feeling.
It made me feel like I was out of control. And so I think for so many people who struggle with this, they start this spiral where they start feeling like they can't cut back and they can't quit. And then they make that mean something very negative about themselves, which of course perpetuates this idea of needing relief and feeling more anxiety and wanting more alcohol, right?
So it actually compounds the problem. I think our options for help in this area are very stigmatizing. I think that like I spoke about before, I think that there's so few options where people are willing to admit that they're struggling with this because they're afraid of being labeled, they're afraid of being stigmatized, and so so many people hide this from each other, from their friends, from their family, or they glamorize it.
They call it mommy juice or the pretty addiction. You know, the mommy needs her vodka kind of thing. There's like lots of jokes about it, and we've made it kind of funny and laughable, so we feel like we have some camaraderie around it.
One of the other reasons why we attempt and then give up on trying to cut down or quit, is we don't understand the difference between the struggle against that desire and the actual like retraining that desire and managing that desire, right? So if you go to bat against that desire, if you try and fight against it, you're always going to lose that battle because it's your immediate brain over your long-term brain. The immediate brain is always gonna win in that moment if you don't know how to manage it.
And so I think that struggle, you know, that we feel against it creates so much anxiety and it gives us even more reason to want to drink. So what happens is we see alcohol, we resist it for a moment, right? We use our willpower, we struggle against it, and that creates anxiety.
And then most often, we then give in to that desire to drink and solve the anxiety that we've created with the alcohol. So we've actually created another neural pathway that's supporting us drinking. So we already have the neural pathway that we've learned that alcohol equals reward and the dopamine creates that desire and perpetuates that desire.
And in our attempt to quit, we actually create a second neural pathway. And the second neural pathway creates an additional desire to drink. It's so messed up, right?
So in our attempt to quit, we actually are training our brain to want it more, because we give in to that after that struggle and perpetuate the idea that alcohol provides relief. So if you are one of those people who's tried to quit and finds yourself just drinking more, that's one of the reasons why you've created an additional neural pathway of desire. And we do this inadvertently, and we intensify our own desire unknowingly.
And then most of us make that mean that something is escalating and that there's something wrong with us, right? When really we've just added desire to desire unknowingly. The other thing that happens is the more we drink, the more those dopamine receptors down regulate.
So we require even more substance to feel the same effect. So here's what's interesting. The desire intensifies.
When we resist, the deprivation intensifies, right? So we have this really increased desire. When we try to say no to it, the deprivation increases, right?
Which perpetuates the idea that we're unhappy and that we're uncomfortable and that we need alcohol. Now, what is so fascinating about this? And what I want you to really think about when it comes to this is that the thing that's creating the desire is the alcohol.
And the thing that's solving the desire is the alcohol. It's creating a desire for itself. So I think that's why people think that it's so powerful, but it's not.
It's not powerful at all unless you add it to your brain. Well, once you add it to your brain, it creates that reaction in your brain that basically makes your brain think that it's more important than it is. Alcohol is not important at all in the world.
It's really not. It's not important for our survival. It's not important for our well-being.
It's not important for our evolvement. But because of the reaction in the brain, the brain thinks that it is, and it puts a huge importance on it because of that association. And once you've made that association, you're off to the races.
A side note that I want to make here is that I find it utterly fascinating that the ability to drink alcohol without getting addicted in our society is classified as normal, as if alcohol is part of our life. And if you're unable to drink it without getting addicted, that you somehow have a disease, right? If you're unable to drink alcohol and not get addicted, there's something wrong with you.
You have a disease. I find that ludicrous. I think people that are able to drink alcohol and not get addicted or don't have a preference for it are amazing, but I don't think people that can't aren't.
I don't think alcohol is something we were ever meant to concentrate the way that we have and use in the way we have. And I certainly don't think people that can't tolerate it are diseased. I think people that can't tolerate it are very healthy and have a natural response to a substance that creates a perpetual desire.
I know I'm going to get a lot of hate mail for that, and I know there's a lot of people that disagree, but that's certainly my opinion in that situation. And I've had a lot of exposure to alcoholism with my dad and drug addiction with my brother and my best friend. And I've done a lot of research on the area, and that is my opinion.
I do not think that drinking alcohol is a normal part or should be considered something that we should be able to do and that there's something terribly wrong with us if we can't do it. That's just my opinion. Now remember, when we get into this cycle, which is we try to quit drinking, we create in that process, we create deprivation, we create anxiety, we create the idea that there's something wrong with us, we create the idea that we're completely out of control, which of course leads us to drink more and more and more, which perpetuates the idea that there's something wrong with this or something wrong with this, which leads us to seek more relief in alcohol, which perpetuates the problem, right?
You can see how this problem is perpetuated, and that's even just on the small scale that we're talking about, which is going from two glasses of wine to three to maybe four, okay? You can see how quickly that can increase. And by the way, it's the same with food.
When we start depriving ourselves of sugar, and then we go through sugar withdrawal, then we want it even more, and then we eat it even more, and then we want it even more, it's the same kind of thing. It's the same with many of the drugs that we have taken and concentrated and created that intense pleasure experience from before. Now, what we do when we start this over drinking process is the smarter we are, the better we are at justifying it.
Now, let me tell you the problem, what happens when we start justifying it is that we get into this process where we are creating thoughts that make drinking and over drinking okay. So we're providing even more learning for the desire to drink. So we'll say, oh, it was just one, it doesn't matter, you're totally fine, everybody drinks, everyone gets hung over.
Sometimes it's funny when you're hung over, right? So we start making all this justification, which we don't even realize at the time is perpetuating this process, is giving so many more beliefs, so many more thoughts to the same concept that's creating additional and additional desire, which makes you feel more and more out of control, which makes you want to resist it more, which of course creates the deprivation, which the cycle then continues. Now, the problem with trying to use willpower is that willpower will deplete itself.
We have a limited amount of willpower, and it's what we call white-knuckling it, right? So basically, we're going to fight against this desire. We've put that urge up, the urge to drink has come up, and we've put a hand against it.
We're trying to resist it. We're pushing against it. We're feeling deprived.
We're feeling terrible. All we want is relief. Now we feel worse than we did before.
And once it depletes, then we give in and drink, and then we've perpetuated it again, okay? So if you have tried to use willpower, if you've tried to use resistance, if you've tried to talk yourself out of it, if you've justified yourself, that has all made the desire to drink more. I know this is terrible news.
I've found this to be terrible news as well. We don't even realize that we're perpetuating this desire that's creating the problem in the first place. And we're doing it unknowingly.
We're doing it well-intended, right? We're trying to take care of ourselves, and we're creating the exact opposite results. So training yourself to desire alcohol is something that you've done unknowingly.
But knowing that you've trained yourself to do it will also help you recognize that you can train yourself to undo it. The other thing I wanna offer to you that is really important is that the desire to drink, the desire to overdrink is completely harmless, okay? The fact that you have trained your lower brain to produce desire is completely harmless.
There is nothing wrong with that happening. When it becomes harmful is when you obey that desire. When you don't recognize that that's a desire that you've trained yourself, and you obey it, and then you drink, that's when it becomes harmful.
But the desire in and of itself isn't harmful. So the fact that you have so much desire to drink is not a problem. It's not a problem at all.
And that's why you can turn this around so quickly, because you can coexist with that desire as long as you're not trying to resist it. When you try and resist the desire, that's when you create the anxiety, which makes the desire go up for the alcohol. But you can coexist with that harmless desire with no problem.
So let's talk about this concept, seditional concept that also perpetuates the desire to drink. You have what we call cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is when you disagree with yourself.
Okay, so you have this desire to stop drinking, and then you have this desire to drink. And it's really important to make room for both of those desires and to understand where they're coming from, and to give them both their due. We want to so quickly get rid of that desire to drink, that we just try and smoosh it.
But you can't program, it's kind of like, I don't know how many of you guys have studied psychology. My undergrad is in psychology. And we studied Pavlov's dogs, right?
And so they basically did this experiment where every time they were about to feed the dogs, they rang a bell. And what they noticed is that, and they didn't even do this on purpose. What they noticed was when they rang a bell, initially, it wasn't even a bell.
Initially, it was just when the dogs heard the women who wore clogs walking down the hall to feed them, they would start drooling, right? So they would have this association with the reward that was coming, right? And so it was just an automatic response that was happening.
And so I think that it's so important to understand that that is what's happening in your brain. It's this automatic Pavlovian response that you're having. And so when you try and just extinguish it, right?
You're not gonna be able to do it. It's like kinda like trying to put the drool back in the dog's mouth. It's not gonna work, right?
And the more they're gonna wanna eat. So the way that you teach a dog that's having the drool is you have them walk down and you have the clogs, and then you don't feed them. And you do that enough times that then they stop having that response.
They stop having the experience of thinking that they're gonna be fed every time the clogs come down. And that's how I'm gonna teach you how to do that with your own brain when it comes to alcohol. But that's why resisting it doesn't work.
It's already programmed in there. So resisting it just intensifies that desire. And it's important to understand that when you have cognitive dissonance, you're creating your own anxiety within yourself because you're trying to let one of those thoughts win.
I wanna drink, I don't wanna drink. I wanna drink, I don't wanna drink. And so they're at battle within you.
Now remember, with increased anxiety, it increases the desire to drink and get relief from that anxiety. So that cognitive dissonance, when played against each other, is a problem. When you allow them to coexist with understanding, they are no longer a problem.
So you can unlearn the desire to drink just as easily as you have learned the desire to drink. I promise you that. Now, here's the other thing.
When you stop drinking, you create withdrawal. Now, this is even for us that have just drank a couple glasses of wine a night. We create an emotional withdrawal because we're not feeding that programming that we have.
We're not closing the loop on that neural pathway. And there's also the withdrawal from the dopamine that we would normally get when we honor that, right? And so what happens to many people is the alcohol that is causing that withdrawal is now satisfying that withdrawal as well.
I can't even tell you how important it is. What is causing the desire, what is causing the withdrawal, is also solving the withdrawal. What's causing the withdrawal is solving the withdrawal, causing the withdrawal and solving it.
So there's no way out of that loop, okay? So what happens is in order for you to feel normal, in order for you not to feel withdrawal, you have to consume the exact substance that is causing it. Can you see the perpetuation there?
You can see how that would cause itself to want itself, right? And that's why it feels so powerful to so many people, is because the very thing that causes the withdrawal solves it. Okay, let's talk about this too.
I think a lot of people don't want to quit alcohol because they think alcohol makes an experience better. And I want to talk about that for a minute because one of the things that I've recognized since I cut back and stopped drinking is that alcohol doesn't make experiences better. It makes them tolerable and it makes them appear better.
So what alcohol does is it doles your senses, and so it makes the experience seem better than it is. Okay, so I want you to think about that. It doesn't actually make the experience better, it makes it seem better.
So, and I'm sure you guys have heard this, when people are joking around a lot, if you drink a lot, then a potential mate gets more attractive. They're not actually more attractive, they just seem more attractive. And that's also true with experiences that we have, right?
When we go to the bars and we drink, the experience seems better than it would be, right? The experience isn't actually better, it seems better. That distinction is everything, and I want you guys to really think about that.
So when you think about, I don't wanna go to this wedding because it won't be any fun without alcohol, what you're really saying is the wedding isn't fun. I need to buffer myself, I need to dull my senses to get through it, right? And if I drink alcohol, it will feel like it's fun.
I will experience it as fun, even though it's not fun. Okay, so be really careful because here's what happens, and this is what I noticed happened in my life, that many things in my life that I needed to change to make my life better were not changed because I was buffering them with alcohol. So there were certain relationships I was in, certain people I was hanging out with, certain experiences I was having that I was making tolerable by drinking wine that would otherwise have not been tolerable and I wouldn't have had them in my life.
So the question becomes, do I want to have a life that is only sustainable if I'm drinking, or do I want to change my life so I actually don't need to drink to make it sustainable? And the key there, and this is important to remember, is you don't have to change your life first in order to stop drinking. If you stop drinking, then you'll really see what's true, right?
It will reveal the truth about an experience for you. So an event that you don't enjoy, I promise you the reason why you're not enjoying it is not because of alcohol. The reason you're not enjoying it is because it was an enjoyable event, or you're not enjoyable.
Which it might be one or the other, but what makes an experience good is what you really want to think about. And if your answer to that, and I talk about this with my clients too, what makes an experience good? Is it food, or is it alcohol, or is it the experience itself, and how you show up and interpret that experience?
That's a really important distinction. Drinking really made me think that friends, activities, parties, jobs, and relationships were much better than they were. And noticing that they needed a little bit of help prevented me from changing what I needed to change in my life.
And so I'm so happy now to really have the truth of my life so I can really make conscious decisions about it. And the other thing is, I wrote this down when I was preparing. It's kind of interesting.
I said, maybe you aren't feeling deprived because you aren't drinking. Maybe you're feeling deprived because the experience is not what you desire. And I think that's really an interesting way of looking at it.
So a lot of people will think about not drinking, and they'll think their life will be very dull, and they won't enjoy it, and it won't be great, and they won't like it. And I think that if you believe that, your enjoyment of life is what you make of it, and how you create it, then you won't rely on alcohol to provide you with that. You know what I'm saying?
It's like, well, it doesn't matter that my life sucks because I have alcohol. I mean, wouldn't it be better if your life just didn't suck, right? And I think that's really important for people to be honest with themselves about.
I used to watch my kids thoroughly enjoy events, and they weren't drinking. They didn't have alcohol, right? And they had such a great time.
And I remember feeling like, oh, I want that to be my life. I don't need to have a cocktail in order to enjoy it. I want it to be able to be something that I just show up and enjoy it because I'm me.
And I think a lot of times we convince ourselves that we need it in order to make our life better. And I think that that's a really important thing for you to think about. Like, why do you need to drink at certain events?
And would you not have those events in your life anymore if you weren't able to drink? Really important questions to ask. So, one of the things I'd like to recommend that you do is make a list of all the reasons why you think you over drink.
What are the things in your life that you're trying to solve with alcohol? Do you like these reasons? Are they worth it?
Question everything, okay? So, I wanna remind you that I'm not suggesting that you have to give up alcohol completely. What I'm suggesting is that you look at the reasons why you're drinking.
Are you drinking because alcohol has perpetuated the desire for itself? Are you drinking because of unconscious programming? Are you drinking because you're trying to buffer your life that's unacceptable to you?
Knowing the truth about why you're drinking will make it much easier for you to cut back or quit drinking. You need to decide consciously what you believe. You need to decide consciously what you want to train your brain to do, what you wanna train your brain to desire.
You have done it unconsciously, right? So how do you want to feel about drinking less? Do you wanna feel excited about it or do you wanna feel bummed about it, right?
If you wanna feel excited about it, you have to release that desire. Here's what I want you to think about. If you really want something and I tell you you can't have it, you're going to be very bummed.
But if you don't really want it and I tell you you can't have it, you're not gonna really care. So our goal is to work on that piece of that desire so it's not overriding your other desire, which is to drink less. And so we're gonna talk a lot about that in part three on how to reprogram your brain and how to unlearn the Pavlovian response of wanting to drink alcohol.
And I'm gonna introduce you to all of the tools that I used personally to completely reverse and unlearn my desire to want alcohol. I absolutely have no desire for it. I genuinely prefer not to drink it anymore.
So if that's something that you want, or if you want just to prefer it less, make sure you join me for part three. I'll see you then. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode on Stop Overdrinking.
If you are interested in getting some more help with your skill set and the mental management that you need to stop over drinking, please come to stopoverdrinking.com. We have all these podcasts in video forms with transcripts. You'll be able to opt in to get them all.
And I'd also like to invite you to our membership site, where you will get an in-depth training in how to apply everything that I've covered in these podcasts in your life immediately. So come on over, stopoverdrinking.com. See you there.
Bye-bye.
