Molly Watts: Welcome to the Alcohol Minimalist podcast. I’m your host, Molly Watts. If you want to change your drinking habits and create a peaceful relationship with alcohol, you’re in the right place. This podcast explores the strategies I use to overcome a lifetime of family alcohol abuse, more than 30 years of anxiety and worry about my own drinking, and what felt like an unbreakable daily drinking habit. Becoming an alcohol minimalist means removing excess alcohol from your life so it doesn’t remove you from life.

It means being able to take alcohol or leave it without feeling deprived. It means to live peacefully, being able to enjoy a glass of wine without feeling guilty and without needing to finish the bottle. With science on our side, we’ll shatter your past patterns and eliminate your excuses. Changing your relationship with alcohol is possible. I’m here to help you do it.

Let’s start now. Well, hello and welcome or welcome back to the alcohol minimalist podcast with me. Your host Molly Watts coming to you from well, my friends, it’s still a very dark Oregon. It’s, early in the morning and it’s dark, dark, dark right now. I can’t see what the weather is gonna be like.

It’s pretty rainy. Saturday, it was kinda off and on yesterday. I know that when I looked ahead this week, there were at least 3 days, but I think they’re at the end of the week. But there’s 3 days that look like they have big bright sunshines in them day after day after day. That would be fantastic, in my opinion.

As we all know, I love a little sunshine, and it’s hit and miss around here in Oregon during February. But for the most part, as I mentioned last week, been a lot of warm days and I like it. How are you doing? How is your week going? I hope you are making some plans for however you’re including alcohol in your life.

If you’re doing it, I hope you’re making a doable drink plan. Before we get rolling, I have a couple of prize winners. Remember, if you would like to be entered into a prize drawing for some alcohol minimalist swag, all you gotta do is leave a review of this podcast or of my book, breaking the bottle legacy, wherever you listen to the podcast, wherever you might’ve picked up the book. And I will find you if you are entered into the random prize drawing, that means that you’re just I just pull a name from, Spotify review or from a YouTube review or from any place that I I put everybody into a big spreadsheet and I randomly click out 1. And today’s winner for the random prize drawing is piggy bulldog Star Wars.

Piggy Bulldog Star Wars, that is an awesome name you left a review on Apple podcasts, I believe. The chosen prize winner. So this one, I choose every week. This means that I I went in, I find a review that somebody left some some wrote out some actual really good words, and, I wanna share them with you. So this is from Zander Maverick.

Zander Maverick left a review on Audible. That is another place that you can leave reviews, and this is what it says. The title is life changing and down to earth. Well, thank you. And this is what Zander Maverick says.

I listened to this through Google Podcasts, and I bought the book directly. So it might show that I’m not an authentic buyer, whatever. It actually showed up in Audible audible reviews, and it says, this is life changing. I have always dreamed of becoming one with alcohol. I have known about my drinking problems since I was in high school.

I went to rehab once, but it didn’t stick. 9 months later, I was drinking. After rehab though, I started my drinking rules to keep me in check. That worked for a while, but just because I like rules and was rigid back then. I listened to Molly’s podcast about alcohol and ADHD, and I swear she followed me around and wrote down my story while reading my mind.

She nailed my personality and habits in so many ways. I’m not in a great place yet, but I have a path and a goal and a coach. I have a group, and I don’t have to listen to the religious rants from AA meetings, which if they work for you, great. But AA isn’t all bad, but it never felt right to me. That’s the exact review from Xander Maverick.

Thank you so much, and I am glad that if if I’m helping you change in any way, then I am very grateful for that. Piggy bulldog star wars and Xander Maverick. Both of you can email me molly@mollywatts.com. Let me know you were prize winners, and I will mail you out some alcohol minimalist swag. And, again, this is how you can help support the show.

It’s that or, you know, that’s a great way to do it. Another way, if you didn’t know this, you can buy me a cup of coffee. That’s, a really great in the in the bottom of the show notes, it says support the show, and it’s a link. And you click on that to it’ll take you to buy a cup of coffee. And that is just another great way to support the show if it’s been serving you.

Alright. Here we are on the last episode in the alcohol core belief series. There are 5 of these, which I started back on episode number 158 way back on January 10th. And if you’re in your podcast player, it was the episode right before the it’s still dry you weary miniseries. And then we have episodes 159, which was released on January 24th, 160, which was on January 31st, 161 on February 7th, and then we took a pause last week, and we heard from doctor Jill Bolte Taylor.

And today, February 21st, because I’m as I mentioned last week, last week, I wasn’t quite ready, but here is episode 163 on alcohol core belief number 5. Now by way of reminder, a core belief about alcohol is just a thought that you’ve practiced over and over and over again. With time and repetition, a thought like alcohol helps me unwind becomes alcohol core belief number 1, alcohol helps me relieve stress that we described in-depth back in episode 158. Core beliefs are often reinforced by our experiences, by our family, by our friends, our culture, where we live, and this is true for alcohol core beliefs as well. Alright.

So regular core beliefs and alcohol core beliefs. Our families often reinforce our alcohol core beliefs. Our friends definitely do advertising does social media television movies. And these are messages that our brains have literally been absorbing since long before we ever picked up our first drink. And all of these messages create our alcohol core beliefs.

And why do I say that these are so important? I believe that you can take action and abstain from alcohol every day for a, for a day, for a week, for a month, even for years. And I’ve watched people do it without changing your core beliefs about alcohol. And what that means from my perspective is that you’re close, but you’re not all the way there to achieving a peaceful relationship with alcohol. When you change your core beliefs about alcohol, that is where peace lives.

So and and when I say abstaining, I I mean, it could be moderating too. Right? It’s the same thing. It’s like you can take action. You can moderate.

You can abstain. You can increase your alcohol free days. But if you do that all via willpower, white knuckling it all the way through, and some people can do that for years. Right? You have to change your alcohol core beliefs to have the peace that I’m talking about.

The alcohol core beliefs as I’ve defined them are, number 1 from episode 158, alcohol helps me relieve stress. Number 2, alcohol makes things more fun. That’s episode 1 59. Number 3, alcohol creates connection. That’s episode number 160.

Number 4, alcohol is my reward. That’s episode number 161. And today, number 5, alcohol keeps me going. It’s episode number 163. And that title is actually one of the things that has been giving me pause.

When I originally outlined the core beliefs, all the descriptions seemed pretty obvious to me, and writing them down, they were clear. At least I knew what I meant. And I felt like when I shared them with you, my awesome listeners, you would quickly understand what I meant too. And this last alcohol core belief, alcohol core belief number 5, alcohol keeps me going, feels the least clear or it needs more definition, I believe, than the other 4. Other ways that I I might have titled this alcohol core belief would be alcohol energizes me, which I thought about, but I feel like that may describe one facet or part a of the core belief, but not all of it.

And another option I considered, which I think is maybe more accurate, is alcohol stimulates me. But stimulate is a tricky word because it might sound like we’re traveling down the path of alcohol as an aphrodisiac, which isn’t really part of this core belief at all as I have it outlined. So stimulating does apply to the part of this core belief which has to do with boredom, because when we are trying to escape boredom with alcohol, it’s a source of stimulation, and when we drink alcohol and it seems to energize us that too is stimulating. So that’s where, you know, again, I was struggling with making sure that the title that I originally had, which was alcohol keeps me going, I believe that it captures the thought that both of part a and part b of this core belief come from. When we misplace our ability to feel energized, to escape boredom as the result of drinking alcohol, and over time with repetition of both the unconscious thinking and the action of drinking.

We develop a habit out of drinking to rev ourselves up when we’re out and about or to alleviate boredom or loneliness when we are alone. So that’s kind of where it came from. And before we dive into this last core belief, I do wanna mention something else that’s been coming up kind of frequently right now with my coaching clients in the Facebook groups, certainly in my Facebook group, others that I’m a part of. And I think maybe because we were coming out of dry January when many people who don’t necessarily prioritize alcohol free days every week, they take that extended break, and then they find themselves in February, quote, unquote, struggling with moderation. They have many thoughts like abstaining is easier than moderating.

And I I just wanna talk about that again for a minute, because I’ve certainly talked about it before on the podcast. One of the reasons I decided to create the alcohol core belief series is because this is so often the case, right? That people focus all of their attention when they are trying to change their drinking habits on changing the action of drinking. Makes sense. Right?

Gotta drink less to drink less. I say that all the time. And they can often be focused on changing that action by abstaining completely, like, in a 31 day challenge, like, dry January. They can be adding in alcohol free days, and it has nothing to do with those core beliefs, what they’re thinking around alcohol. All of their focuses on the action of drinking or not drinking.

It’s an either or right. It’s either I am or I am not. And of course, here on the show, and certainly with my coaching programs, I talk about low risk limits, right, Which have to do with a quantity of alcohol, which again is focused, focused on the actual action of drinking. I recommend doable drink plans. And, again, that has to do with quantity and the action of drinking.

I actually did a whole episode back in October of 2022 called over drinking numbers, neuroscience, and a note to self. And that was a little bit about what I’m talking about here. You might wanna go back and listen to that one. And especially this idea that changing your drinking specifically about moderating, involving counting drinks about the numbers of, and about the numbers of drinks you can have. Again, I wanted to share alcohol core beliefs because no matter how much you drink, if you drink alcohol at all, if you drink alcohol in a minimalist way, in a moderate way, if you’re over drinking, you have likely have a dominant alcohol core belief that is fueling your desire to drink.

And probably more than just one more than just that dominant. You may have a dominant alcohol core belief and then others that you also hold on to. We all have unconscious stories that are running in the background of our lives that we don’t question. And we often aren’t aware of without changing those core beliefs with whether it’s controlling the activity of drinking by abstaining or controlling the activity of drinking by practicing moderation and paying attention to the amounts of drink you’re having. That isn’t the whole story of being an alcohol minimalist.

I often tell people that I work with that to become an alcohol minimalist is really the same work as being abstinent. Truly, I could not be an alcohol minimalist if I still believed my old core beliefs. It isn’t about how much or how little I drink now. It’s about what I believe about alcohol now as opposed to the unconscious beliefs that used to fuel my desire to drink. I have different core beliefs now that fuel my desire to prioritize alcohol free days each week, to not drink beyond low risk limits when I do drink, including no binge episodes.

And I do not believe that alcohol helps me reduce my stress, that I need to drink to have more fun, that alcohol helps me feel connected, that is my reward, or that it keeps me going. Right? That’s the difference. And I just wanted to highlight that again because, again, I’ve heard so much about kind of this idea, like, should I just not drink at all because it’s easier? I guess it’s the main thought that people are having because they thought it was easy enough to get through January, and maybe they should just keep going.

And I don’t think it’s for me, it’s no harder. It’s no different to moderate than it is to be abstinent. In fact, for I guess, for me, it’s harder to be abstinent. It would be harder for me to be completely abstinent. I like where I am now, and I am completely at peace with it.

But it took me it took me time to get here. Right? Okay. Onto alcohol core belief number 5. So this last core belief is a little different than the others, I think, because it’s neurochemical and it’s behavioral.

Alcohol keeps me going or alcohol energizes me. Alcohol stimulates me or yeah. Right. Just alcohol keeps me going. How many of you have ever had the experience where alcohol seems to pick you up and give you a your mood a boost?

Some people find that it’s when they drink alcohol as opposed to when they don’t that they are more energetic, that they act out more than they do when they’ve not had any alcohol. So this is the subset of this core belief or part a of this core belief. And believe it or not, it is probably more neurochemical based than behavior based, and I’ll explain that in a minute. So it’s, again, this first subset or this part a part a of this corp leave. Part b is, as I mentioned, is when alcohol becomes the way to alleviate boredom, especially when you’re alone.

Being alone doesn’t automatically make a person bored, by the way, but if you enjoy alcohol and boredom suddenly strikes when I when you’re while you’re isolated, reaching for a drink can become an easy way to satisfy the need for stimulation. This core belief really got fueled during COVID. Isolation kept people who lived alone at home by by themselves. It kept the extroverts away from other people, and many people experienced a lot of boredom. And being able to alleviate boredom with a drink was the way people sometimes tried to solve for that.

And it also seemed to answer alcohol core belief number 1. Right? That it helped to ease stress back in 2020. It’s pretty pretty easy to see how drinking increased during the pandemic. But even before COVID, drinking to alleviate boredom and loneliness has been a part of the narrative around problematic drinking for forever.

In his book Drink the New Science of Alcohol in Your Health by Doctor. David Nutt, He highlights drinking alone as something to avoid. He says drinking alone is a habit you can do without. There’s nobody to monitor you or make you rethink. And especially don’t drink in front of the TV or a screen because when you do that, it becomes mindless.

You can finish a bottle of wine before you’ve even realized it. In our conversation, Doctor. Nuts in mind, that was way back in episode number 8, right at the very beginning of this podcast, he talked about how based on his clinical experience with over drinkers and people with substance abuse disorder, if not drinking alone was a rule that everyone adopted, he thinks that, he was saying how much good it would be for the public as a whole. And I think in terms of alleviating boredom, this is the number one thing is being drinking when you’re alone. Now drinking alone isn’t inherently bad.

Right? Enjoying a glass of wine alongside with your favorite TV series can make for a lovely evening for people, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So I don’t wanna, you know, just for everybody that drinks at home alone, I don’t want you to think I’m calling you out. Essentially, solo drinking is in a minimal amount is not dangerous at all, but this practice can snowball into excessive drinking. And if you find yourself unable to stick to your plans, when you are alone, then choosing to drink alcohol only in the company of others is a strategy that you might want to consider.

Just a quick break to talk with you more about Sunny side. Did you know that Sunnyside uses science to help you reach your goals? By focusing on 3 scientifically proven superpowers that you have. Number 1, the power of pre commitment. Each week you set an intention for the week ahead that includes a tracking goal, a drink goal, and possibly a dry day goal.

Number 2, the power of conscious interference. You’ll learn the habit of tracking each day as soon as you finish it, which creates a mindful pause before you start the next day. And number 3, positivity. We know that this is a big step that can be tough at times. Right?

And that’s why Sunnyside offers coaching through SMS and email to give you support, advice, and motivation. You can check out a free 15 day trial at www.sunnyside.co /molly. That’s www.sunnyside.co/molly. And we have to really address the belief that alcohol is keeping you going or that it’s helping alleviate boredom or loneliness. Very interestingly, one of my coaching clients told me that she’s really working on the on the thought or the story that she’s been telling herself that alcohol is her friend in these moments of loneliness.

Right? That she’s that she she finds comfort in a, in as if it is a friend, but we were really challenging that thought. Is it really right? When you have a lot of anxiety, when you’re, when you’re not sticking to low risk limits, is it really a friend? Is it really something that’s helping?

So back to part a of this core belief, the energizing revs me up crowd. Alright? Have you noticed that some people act out and are more energetic when they don’t drink or that when they do drink? Even though alcohol is by traditional definition a depressant and it slows down CNS responses, there is a subset of people or there’s people that actually get more energized, and this is a neurochemical part of this core belief. These types of reaction in pharmacology in general are called paradoxical effects.

The main effect of of alcohol on the central nervous system is the potentiation of GABA receptors. GABA receptors are most inhibitory receptors in the central nervous system. So potentiation of GABA receptors mostly decreases brain activity by increasing inhibition. However, you can distinguish between neural inhibition and behavioral inhibition. Some brain regions like the prefrontal cortex seem to primarily have inhibitory effects on behavior.

What that means is that usually the prefrontal cortex is active when suppressing actions. If you were to suppress the prefrontal cortex, you would get the opposite effect on behavior. When there is inhibition of inhibition, the term often used is disinhibition. Right? So it isn’t really clear why exactly alcohol leads to behavioral disinhibition at lower doses, but that’s one possible, reason or basically why what’s behind this idea that you feel energized.

Right? It isn’t that you actually feel energized. It’s actually that you are inhibiting inhibition. So you get disinhibition, which means behavioral disinhibition too. Most people experience some stimulating effects from alcohol in small doses.

Drinking alcohol, often a person finds increased talk activity, feelings of energy, and desire for action. In small to moderate doses of alcohol, the initial effects of alcohol act like a stimulant. However, alcohol is actually in the depressant class of drugs. Alcohol, like sedatives and tranquilizers, actually slows down just what we were saying, activity in the central nervous system. To be more specific, it slows down the activity in the GABA receptors of our brains.

And the slowing of these systems is responsible for the relaxing quality produced by alcohol. The slowing of the cell central nervous system is also responsible for lowered reaction time and disassociation. The really important part of what I just said here is that it is the initial effects of alcohol because much like other therapeutic effects of alcohol, the maximum benefit happens from 0.00% blood alcohol content to 0.055% blood alcohol content. It’s the first drink. Those initial doses of alcohol signal your brain to release dopamine, which can cause you to feel stimulated and energized.

You can also in addition, alcohol can increase your heart rate, which may lead to increased aggression in some individuals, which are also typical of some types of stimulants. And stimulant effects occur when your blood alcohol content approaches 0.055%, but that is completely replaced by depressant effects once your blood alcohol content reaches 0.08%. Okay? So you go from 0.055% to 0.08% and in between. Right?

So it’s that first drink, but then after that, you’re you’re basically getting all the depressant effects like we’ve talked about many times before. And always note that the effects of alcohol vary greatly by individual. They are influenced by a number of factors. We’ve talked about them many times before, what you’ve eaten, your body chemistry, yours your sex, your weight, how much alcohol tolerance you’ve built up, how much, how much alcohol you’ve consumed. Are you tired?

Are you stressed? How hot is it outside? All of these impact your abilities your body’s ability to metabolize alcohol. It’s also believed, at least some researchers believe, that some people experience more stimulating effects from alcohol and others experience more depressant effects, and researchers have theorized that the people that experience more stimulating effects are at a higher risk for developing alcohol use disorder. Again, while it’s true that it may have stimulant effects in very low doses, it is mainly a depressant substance, and the majority of us experience those strong depressant effects.

But regardless of the physical effect our thoughts about alcohol, what we believe when we believe that alcohol keeps us going, or we believe I need a drink to help me not be so bored. These unconscious thoughts with repetition are what become these alcohol core beliefs that continue to fuel our desire to drink. Alright? Even if you get if you’re somebody who gets more stimulant effect, you have to become aware of that and you have to be you also have to realize that it’s very limited. According to medical news today, this is we’re gonna talk a little bit about boredom now.

The average adult in the United States experiences around 131 days of boredom per year. How does that sound? A 131. That’s well over a third of our lives spent in boredom. And how you react to the state of boredom is actually critical to our ongoing mental health, experts say.

While boredom is expected is to be expected and is nothing unusual, some people equate boredom with a lack of productivity and negative connotations. And in response, people seek outlets that can be detrimental to their well-being, like drinking. Bored drinking takes place when people reach for alcohol to kill time simply because they have nothing else to occupy their minds. As a and my friends over at Sunnyside did a survey back in 2022. And as a drinking trigger, boredom affects more people than you might think is what their survey results said.

Sunnyside members said that 5% were triggered by boredom to drink, and the only trigger that ranked higher was unwinding after a long day, habit relieving stress, and celebrating something important. As far as people’s what people’s triggers, they say, you know, that they that trigger them to drink. So boredom was was right up there at the top. Now, like I said, board drinking isn’t a new phenomena phenomenon, but it definitely became a bigger issue during COVID when people were forced to stay home. The line between work time and home time began to blur.

And with few other ways to manage boredom, reaching for a drink became more common. Again, in the survey from Sunnyside when even when COVID lockdowns ended, they found that 17% of respondents who worked from home were more likely to be excessive drinkers. And for those who didn’t work from home only 12% were prone to excessive drinking, and boredom no doubt played a role in this scenario. Now here are some signs that you might be struggling with board drinking, and I wanna see if you’ve if you if these apply to any of you. A sure sign of board drinking is failing to achieve, hobby related goals.

You might plan to start learning a new language during downtime, but put it off in favor of having a drink, or you lose interest in an existing hobby because it’s easier to drink. Hobbies actually occupy the mind, give you a sense of accomplishment. They improve your overall sense of well-being and bored drinking, while it might alleviate your mood, briefly, obviously, will never match the satisfaction of mastering a hobby. Another way to decide if if bored drinking is impacting your life, your social life might suffer. When you add bored drinking to social drinking, alcohol has the opposite effect of enlivening social situations.

If you mainly drink to socialize with friends, a drink or 2 while bored may make you too tired or too wary of driving to go meet them. And if you do manage to meet your friends, the added drinks from socializing might affect your ability to get home if you’ve drank before. Right? Another thing that happens with board drinking is that it’s more likely, especially if you’re doing it home and alone, right, to become a habit because it increases because we because we just talked about the fact that a 113 days on average, we are going to be bored often. So when you become a daily drinker, you are far more likely to screw up your sleep.

Right? Your sleep quality your sleep quality declines. We talked about many times about why alcohol sleep quality declines, but definitely if you have a daily drinking habit and something where you’re drinking out of boredom becomes is more likely to become a daily drinking habit, that is definitely going to impact your sleep. Now here’s what I want you to hear about alcohol keeps me going about this alcohol core belief. Just like our other core beliefs, it’s fueled by thoughts like drinking helps me be less bored.

But these thoughts aren’t true. They are just thinking that needs to be challenged. Boredom is a feeling that can be changed by changing our thinking, not by trying to drink over it. And there’s other ways to navigate boredom. Right?

Much healthier ways to navigate boredom. Number 1, you gotta balance activities with rest, right? It’s good to have a variety of activities that you enjoy, including socializing with others, something, things that are mentally stimulating, and you also need rest time. That is that it’s very important to recharge your brain. So I want you to seek a balance between structured activities and intermittent rest time to increase your creative thinking and to help you navigate boredom.

Another way to navigate boredom is to try something new. Join a club, try a new hobby, play a game, read a book, cook a new recipe to ignite your creativity and provide a distraction from boredom. You love this one. Get outdoors. Spending time with nature is one of the best therapeutic ways to ward off boredom, and it also promotes creative thinking.

So try going outside. Number 4, another way to help you navigate boredom, embrace curiosity and kindness. This will help you get more involved with the people and the world around you. You know, when we are curious about other people, when we spend our time thinking about how we can help out other folks, it really does help us avoid boredom. And lastly, embrace reminiscing.

Reminiscing is a big part of of time that people spend, especially as they age it’s normal and expected. You don’t want to excessively reminisce, but try to channel your energy and focus on current goals. Right? If it becomes too much and think about what your future goals are and what your wishes are for the future. These are just a couple of strategies that you can employ to help you navigate boredom.

What do you think about alcohol core belief number 5, alcohol keeps me going. If you are somebody that struggles with or, you know, has this idea that I, when I go out and if I keep drinking alcohol revs me up When you continue to think that right, it is going to fuel your, this core belief that alcohol keeps me going, and it’s going to fuel your desire to drink. If you’re somebody that thinks that you need to drink to stave off boredom during the day, it is going to fuel alcohol keeps me going, this core belief. We have to challenge these core beliefs. That is the last alcohol core belief.

Alcohol core belief number 5, alcohol keeps me going. How are you feeling about all of these alcohol core beliefs? I’ve gotten great comments on alcohol is my reward on alcohol helps makes things more fun. Which one is resonating with you? What is your dominant alcohol core belief?

Do you find that they are working unconsciously in the background of your life driving your decisions to drink? I would love to hear from you. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Email me molly@mollywatts.com and let me know. And don’t forget, folks, you can find a copy of the mind map, which talks about all 5 alcohol core beliefs.

It actually talks about how to challenge some of the thoughts that you have with outlining the 4 s new belief system, and you can pick up the mind map over at mollywatts.com/ mind map. That is all I have for you today. I did it. I got through this episode. I hope it was helpful.

I know that for many of you, this, this core belief, alcohol keeps me going, especially as it relates to wanting to get out and be social and thinking that you need alcohol to rev you up or that you are trying to stave off boredom and loneliness. I know that you’re out there and I hope that you will challenge this core belief by challenging some of the thoughts that fuel it. Right? And I hope that you’ll ask yourself what else is really true? What do you really need, and what are you hoping for in your life?

Right? Because achieving peace means that we have to be willing to to challenge our alcohol core beliefs. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that you have a great week ahead, and I hope you will come back next week and learn more about becoming an alcohol minimalist. Choose peace, my friends.

Hey. Thanks for listening to the Alcohol Minimalist Podcast. Pick something you learned from this week’s episode and put it into action. Changing your drinking habits and creating a peaceful relationship with alcohol is 100% possible. You can stop worrying, stop feeling guilty about over drinking, and become someone who desires alcohol less.

I work with people in 3 ways. You can learn about them over at www.volleywatts.com/workwithme, Or better yet, reach out to me directly. It’s molly@mollywatts.com. We’ll jump on a call and discuss what’s best for you. This podcast is really just the beginning of our conversation.

Let’s keep it going.