The Resilient Mind - Why I Stopped Drinking & What Happened Changed Everything - Anna Donaghey

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Watch the full video interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vZ50mPgwYJ4She looked like she had it all together — successful career, family, confidence. But behind closed doors, she was drinking a bottle of wine a day and quietly wondering if this was just “normal stress”... or something more. In this raw and revealing episode, we sit down with Anna, The Beliefs Coach, to unpack the truth about high-functioning drinking — the kind that hides in plain sight. She didn’t hit rock bottom. She didn’t lose her job, her family, or her home. What she lost was deeper: her clarity, her energy, her connection to herself.This isn’t a story about addiction — it’s a story about awakening.Connect with Anna:Anna’s group coaching community ‘Unstuck!’ helps identify your alcohol stories and beliefs, breaking the cycle of alcohol and all the shame that goes with it. For more information, and to find out how to join, please follow this link: Unstuck! Coaching communityTo explore your relationship with alcohol, check out Anna’s self-guided programme, The Big Drink Rethink Experiment: The Big Drink Rethink ExperimentIf you’re a Mom wanting to explore motherhood, without using alcohol as a coping mechanism, join Anna’s free Facebook Group ‘Mummy Doesn’t Need Wine’: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mummydoesntneedwineFor the free resources, head to https://www.thebeliefscoach.com/registrationAnd you can connect with Anna on Instagram: instagram.com/bigdrinkrethinkTake action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/Download_Journal Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind Podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to Why I Stop Drinking and What Happened Changed Everything with Anna Donagy. Watch the full video interview on YouTube by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. It was at least a bottle of wine and I, without fail, without doubts. I stopped drinking about four, four and a half years ago. I can't begin to explain how many people my story resonates with.

You know, it's not unique. It's frighteningly common. The UK Medical Council called Alcohol, the nation's favorite coping mechanism. Are you drinking in ways that make you happy, and only in ways that make you happy? Just explore it. We get those positive, quote-unquote,

positive feelings when we drink, but it's going to be matched with the kind of negative feelings. The biggest drawback of drinking is the impact it has on your, mental health sitting there and realizing that it was okay not to be happy. Big, big challenge for me and something I had to work a lot at was just accepting emotions and allowing them, not feeling all the time like I needed to avoid them or change them. Oh, my mind was just grown. So welcome, Anna. I am super excited to have you on the podcast and to get your perspective around building mental

resilient, dealing with addressing alcohol consumption, and to get a sense of your perspective so that those of us that might enjoy a drink or three or four or five, we'll be able to expand the way we perceive how we are drinking so that we can make more conscious decisions around alcohol. So I'm super excited to have you here. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much for having me. I've been looking forward to this conversation. So we're going to start with a little bit of background. I know when we spoke earlier, you were mentioning about your experience prior to starting the alcohol mindset, our coaching, in which you were drinking a bottle of wine a day after work.

And so tell us a little bit more about that experience, kind of why do you think you were drinking that amount of alcohol and how it served you? Well, it didn't serve me very well. I can start there. It was at least, it was at least a bottle of wine and I, without fail, without doubt. So I have probably, I stopped drinking about four, four and a half years ago. Prior to that, that was my kind of routine. That's what I would do every day. And I reckon I did that for about 25, 30 years.

So, you know, I have consumed a lot of alcohol in my time. I got myself into real problems with it. And, yeah, about four and a half years ago, I went through a process of quitting alcohol in a way that I now kind of coach. It's an approach that I now use to coach other people. Not only people who are really addicted to it like I was. Often people who, you know, find that they're an uncomfortable relationship with alcohol. They want to understand it better. I got myself into a pickle, quite literally, with alcohol,

because I had basically no other tools in my toolbox. And I think from quite a young age, typical really, probably like mid-teens. I discovered alcohol. I latched on quite easily to the fact that it was something I could use to change the way I felt. And I guess I didn't look back. I certainly didn't look forward. I didn't consider that I needed to find anything else. So there and I is the issue really.

I latched onto it at a relatively early age. And it became my kind of multi-tool for want of a better term. I now know that is why we drink. We tend to drink to sort of change the way we feel. And, you know, very, very often that's less of a negative. feeling and more of a positive feeling. So once I realized it could do that, or it gives you the illusion, let's say, of doing that, I kind of called off the search for better tools.

And as I kind of went through life sequentially, you know, my teenage years, my university years, my starting work years, my building the career years, young family, all the emotions of life come thick and fast. I kind of just responded to each and everyone with a drink. It had become my, as I say, my sort of, I call it now in hindsight, you know, my chief emotions officer. It was calling the shots from an emotional perspective. Clearly, alcohol is addictive. If you use it every day because you're managing everyday emotions, you can see how that happens, then clearly it's, can become a very troublesome thing.

And certainly in my situation, the dependency, and I definitely don't shy away from the term addiction, took hold until I just had to get to a point where I said no more. Now, I wasn't the image of someone sort of rolling around in the gutter, you know, destitute through alcohol misuse. I was a very senior member of a business organization. I was in the sort of corporate world. I was in the advertising industry.

And all this time that I was drinking throughout these decades, I was climbing through the ranks and fall intents and berths doing very, very well. Thank you very much. To the outside world, my drinking was very secretive. It was my dirty sort of secret. And it was something that I like to think I had quite well. although obviously not well enough because it started to sort of create fractures and ruptured and start in relationships. But I was functioning.

I was functioning. And I think that's possibly why for a lot of reasons, you know, my behaviour sort of flew under the radar, as it were. And do you think your story is something or a story that a lot of people resonate with, or a lot of people actually go through the same process in which they are using alcohol as their chief emotions, to learn some of those daily motions. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is the sort of the slight lunacy of it really, you know. I can't begin to explain how many people my story resonates with.

You know, it's not unique. It's frighteningly common. And, you know, it has this sort of this effect when you're locked into a sort of a struggle like that. It has an effect and ability to make you feel ever so alone and ever so singular. That's its power is to kind of isolate you and sort of build a dependency between you and it. But it's incredibly common. You know, I live in the UK. The UK Medical Council call alcohol the nation's favourite coping mechanism.

It's the same, you know. it's the same in many Western countries where alcohol is so permissive and so pervasive and so accessible and so cheap and so conditioned into being kind of like part of the fabric of society. And I mean, I sort of, I know we're going to talk about my podcast at some point, but a while back, about a year ago when I launched my podcast, I went on to a local radio station in the UK to talk about it. And I did. And I talked about my story. My one, two bottles and height kind of behavior. And the BBC in the UK picked this up and they stuck it on their website.

And that weekend it became the third most red story in the UK, which is utterly bonkers because I was kind of up there behind a spice girl's reunion and, you know, war in the Middle East. And then there's Anna Donogh drink a bottle and half wine a night. And I was just like, what is going on? And then the number of people who got in touch with me off the back of that and just said, me too, me too, me too, me too. And I'm telling you something, it's just so, so common. I'm afraid I'm not unique in any way, shape or form.

So no, it is a really common plight, I would say. Yeah. And I'm just kind of even thinking, let's say, for those people that are listening to this right now, and it might have initial resistance like, oh, that's not me, or, I know how to manage my alcohol or whatever you might be sharing, like they kind of have that resistance or that denial that your story might be a reflection of them. Do you have anything to share with them in relation to that? Yeah, I mean, well, you know, everyone drinks in their own way.

And, you know, I, despite having had my own sort of drinking, issues and challenges with drinking. You know, I am a very, very big proponent of just saying, you know, I wish only for people to drink in ways that make them happy. So I'm not quite part of a big anti-boos brigade or anything like that. You know, that would be almost impossible. You know, it is just there. It is just a part of life. My urgency is for people to drink only in ways that made them happy to engage and reflect in their drinking, a certain amount of that has got to be self-awareness. And a big part of that comes with honesty. And, you know, the first question I would always say to people is, are you drinking in ways that make you happy and only

in ways that make you happy? Or are you uncomfortable in your relationship with alcohol in any shape or form because if you are, just explore it. Just, just explore it. If you've got your head firmly in the sand, then clearly that was where I was for years and years and years. I could look left and right and always see people who drank more than me. And I was able to use that comparison to my advantage and go, we're all doing it. We're all doing it. And he's actually doing it more than me or she's she can't handle it I can you know all that sort of stuff so I was in denial for very very long time you can't you can't start to do anything about it whilst you're in that place so my my message would be you know without judgment

which has got to be a massive part of this you know without judgment just consider you know are you drinking only in ways that make you happy or if you're brutally honest with yourself is the stuff about your relationship with alcohol that makes sure uneasy about your relationship with it. And if so, just explore it. Just explore it and engage. Just, you know, just begin to ask yourself some questions about it. I really like, like I really love that because, again, the idea is explore it, self-reflect, right? And just checking with yourself in terms of like, okay, maybe yes, it is socially acceptable,

but it doesn't hurt. trade the very least take a pause, reflect, and assess that relationship that you have with alcohol. Yeah, I mean, 100%. And I think, you know, we sleepwalk into drinking. It's the default. It's, you know, certainly things are changing, which is, which is wonderful. And this is, this is to a lesser extent now, that 30, 40 or 40 or years ago, and I started drinking, it was the default. It's the social norm. It still is. The majority of adults drink, it's kind of expected that you therefore will.

18 in this country, 21 in your neck of the words is that sort of aspirational point. Can't wait until we get there. So we're all sneaking it earlier. We're not asking ourselves whether this is a conscious. decision more than it's just what's expected. So when you sleepwalk into something like that and you're literally on autopilot, it's a sort of disengaged default. And I suppose my message, my urgency for people is to be, you know, I want it to be an active choice. Eyes wide open. It can still be a choice. You can have your eyes wide open and go, yeah, I'm fine with it. That's great.

Absolutely great. But I guess it's the. active choice, eyes wide open and engaged, because if you are, you know, one of those people who are beginning to question your relationship with alcohol and stick it under the microscope, it's probably for the very, very first time. And it's really interesting just to understand the roles you're giving it, really, and the role it plays in life. Because then you can, you know, that awareness and consciousness allows you to navigate it and influence it. It's when it stays in the subconscious and automatic, he can't really do anything about it.

It just is. Fascinating. And you're talking about, like, how it's normalized, we are conditioned in terms of it's so well accepted, right? And so you kind of almost blindly end up finding yourself drinking. It's the cool thing to do, right? It's the thing that I think even if you're not 18 or 21 yet, it's kind of that perspective that, okay,

once I'm able to drink, once I'm legal, then I'm an adult. And I also now attend these cool parties or hang out with these cool kids. So it seems like there is not only just conditioning, but there's a lot of reinforcement and rewards at an early age to participate as a behavior. Very, very much so. I mean, it's, it is conditioning. I mean, it's, when you think about that sort of conditioning as being, the sort of subconscious seeping in, you know, of information or things that you observe

that influence your own sort of perception and life view, you know, it can come from our parents. As I say, most adults in the UK drink, which means that, you know, most parents of our drinking population drank, and therefore we grew up in households where drink was normalised Dad would come home from a stressful day at work and plonked down his briefcase and pour himself a gin and tonic and go, oh, what a stressful day. So a 10-year-old would sit there and go,

oh, alcohol clearly helps relieve stress. You know, it's not an overt message. It's an observed message. It's an observed behavior, which you translate into meaning, don't your alcohol relieves stress? And you see it everywhere, where alcohol so closely associated with bonding and fun and grammar and sophistication

and success and condolences and celebration, you know, as a confidence builder as a sort of mood booster. It's, and I mean, I worked in the advertising industry for, for, for what, 25 plus years. part of an industry that perpetuates constantly the messages around alcohol. I mean, every big advertising agency has, seeks out and wants an advertising account. And the messages, the associations, the narrative spun through the marketing of alcohol, closely aligns it with success and popularity and sexiness and attractiveness. sophistication and confidence.

So again, we like to think we're impervious to these messages, but I can promise you we're not. A lot of money is invested in making sure that these messages are on point and emotionally aligned to target audience needs. So again, you know, there's a whole industry out there, spending billions of dollars saying call off the search, this is what you need. And that's, you know, it's just, it's just the way it is. But it's really interesting when you try and sort of unpick all of that because you

start looking back at that sort of 10-year-old stuff and go, I didn't need alcohol to have fun. I didn't need alcohol when I went to a party. I had jelly and ice cream. And I was like, you know, completely made up. Or I didn't need alcohol when I got together with my friends. holidays weren't all about alcohol so you're going to look at the logic of it it you know when you're younger

these things just don't hold true but yes as we've grown older and we've become part of a sort of an adult society then we've absolutely got those messages and drawn those tight associations and you're mentioning about and I think we all know for those of us that drink and white people drink

what are some of the drawbacks around alcohol? And I know he had mentioned even in your own stories talking about even panic attacks. But what are some of those drawbacks that alcohol has that aid, maybe people are aware of them, or maybe they are so subtle that the individual drinking might not be aware of them? Oh, goodness, there's so many drawbacks.

I also, I also sort of, was from a purely balanced perspective, though, I ought to suggest that, you know, much bonding in good times has also been sort of had over alcohol as well. So again, you know, I don't want to sort of vilify it. For some people, it really is, you know, the pubs, the bars, the cafes, etc. are important places to kind of bond and connect and socialize and forge friendships and stuff. But I think for me, I would say that possibly, you know, the biggest drawback of drinking is the impact it has on your mental health and your resilience. I mean, here we are talking about resilient minds today.

I think alcohol, I think to a very great degree at stunts growth, and I have that example again of a 14-year-old me who decided at that point in time or realized over the next few years that if I needed alcohol, I didn't need to look for other tools. So, you know, I use that term again, sort of call off the search. But, you know, I found the answer. So I think it's sort of, I think it's stunts growth, even if it just blinkers you to the fact that there are better ways of coping with things out there.

It stops you looking for them and developing them. And then I think more directly in terms of its impact on the mind, there's a very, very, very strong link between alcohol and anxiety, alcohol and mental health challenges, alcohol and depression. And then obviously, if you do fall into a place of dependency as far as alcohol is concerned, and by the way, millions do. Millions do. And so I'm talking about dependency with a small D, using it to do jobs, like boosting your

confidence before you go to a party, for example. But you just become dependent on that. You just have a couple of drinks before you go out. You know, there's a, there is a dependency of thoughts there. I think when that escalates, as it did with me, you really do get into, you know, a mental mess with alcohol. I won't go into it all. But, you know, the science and the physiological changes that occur when you're drinking actually create.

stress in the body. When you drink and you get that dopamine high, it is very soon thereafter matched with a chemical response from the body that brings, you know, depressants into your system and then stimulants like adrenaline and cortisol. And that's not just for some of us. When you drink, when any human being drinks, that pleasure response is then matched by the body bringing those other chemicals to the party. So, and they hang around, you know, that adrenaline and that cortisol and things like dynorphin. So by the time you've finished all the positives of drinking have worn off, you've got lingering

effects in your body of now very real stress and a chemical cocktail that's playing a bit of havoc with your mental state. So it's very ironic that we drink to relax because it does actually do the opposite in the long term. 20 to 30 minutes you might get that relaxation and you're a much longer tail of of stress and agitation and just a feeling that you can't shake, that all's not good with the world. And I think what happens then, well, I know what happens then is you decide it's good

to have another drink because you want that first feeling that you had. That's way more preferable to feeling a bit anxious and apprehensive. So alcohol creates a thirst for itself. And it does play havoc with the mental health side of things for sure. It also massively disrupts sleep. We could do a whole podcast on alcohol and sleep. Certainly when you get into patterns of addictive behavior like I did, it robs you of your self-respect, your self-trust, your self-esteem,

your sense of powerfulness. And, you know, clearly these are not good things, not good things at all. It weakens you. This thing which we're invariably using to fortify ourselves in some shape or form ends up leaving us a much weaker, less developed version of ourselves than will we not to use it, employ it as I say, you know, I always come back to me. We employ it, we hire it, we give it a role to do. it's a delegation.

It's a delegation that stops us looking for better ways to do the job. And as you're speaking and you're talking about, again, we get those positive, what we call positive feelings when we drink, but it's going to be matched with the kind of negative feelings. So it's almost, and it sounds like, so if we are drinking as we get the positive feelings,

then we get those negative feelings. And when we feel bad, then we feel like we need to do something. to feel good again. Yeah. It's a roller coaster. It is literally, you know,

whereas the body would like to go through and let's with its own devices being a fairly sort of constant state of self-regulation, when we drink, we get that, undoubtedly, by the way, I'm not going to,

I've been a moron to sit here and suggest that this isn't true. You know, we get that original lift. Roughly speaking, that last, for about 20 to 30 minutes given, you know, the average

strength of any drink. But then that wears off. Our blood alcohol content in the blood lowers. That feeling of positivity or euphoria wears off. And the drugs that the body has now created or released to counter that

spike hang around for so much longer. About three or four hours actually. So, you know, a short time into that downer, we decide we're going to have another drink. So alcohol in that sense, with those of peaks and troughs and peaks and troughs, can only actually give you back what it's taken in the first place. When you think about that, you know, it takes you up and it takes you down.

So you want another one to take you up. Well, you were down before you. Do you mean, it's a sort of, it's a roller coaster. It's very unnatural one for the body. really unnatural, really unhealthy. As I say, you know, left to our own devices, the body would work itself out. And left to our own devices, you know, on point for the subject to this podcast, you know, we are stronger than we think we are. We are very, very capable of all the things that we delegate to alcohol.

we don't believe it. And even if we do believe it, sometimes we're just not invested enough time-wise to put in the work and develop those skills. We just think, why would I remember, you know, just flick the switch, can just flip the switch, quick fix. And talking about kind of that idea about investing ourselves so you can find additional tools or start shifting.

in your experience, what are some of the either mental hurdles or mindset shifts that you needed to engage in to be able to start making that change? That's a really good question. The biggest hurdle I faced when I was, you know, in my drinking patterns and needing to, you know, do something quite drastic. The biggest hurdle I faced was the internal dialogue that tried to convince me that I wasn't capable of that change. You know, that internal dialogue would be saying, this is who you are. You know, you'll never be free from this. And it was like a sort of an ingrained narrative of self-doubt and fear that sort of felt like a very unshakable part of me. And of course, every failed attempt to moderate and control my drinking. would reinforce it.

Every time I said, you know, you've either got to cut back or stop, and then I wouldn't. And I would set myself an ultimatum and then I would fail. Or I would say, I'm not going to drink tonight, and then I would. Every failed attempt would obviously, you know,

reinforce that negative voice. And it was like I had this prosecuting little voice in my head that would be like, I arrest my case. There you are. there you are you can't change and I guess you know to overcome that you know because it it felt like a very insurmountable challenge um but to overcome that I had to get really curious about my own thoughts and where that voice was coming from and I kind of realized is that you know I didn't want to accept my lot as far as alcohol was concerned and if I didn't want to accept that then I needed to start questioning the beliefs and the thoughts

that were keeping me stuck. So as far as my thoughts were concerned, it was that kind of a conscious narrative that I was aware of. Instead of accepting them as facts, I just started questioning them, is this true? Or actually, is this fear speaking? So if the internal dialogue was saying, you know, I'm not strong enough to change,

I had to start questioning the validity of that. You know, ultimately it's a limiting belief at big time. And it feels very real and it feels very real. and it feels very absolute. But it's often driven by fear. And that fear of the unknown, I did not know how to navigate life without alcohol. To try and do so was clearly going to put me into the realms of the unknown.

It was going to create discomfort. And I was going to lose what was familiar, even when it was awful. You know, even though I hated the familiar. and it was very, very unhealthy. At least it was a known entity. So fear of the unknown. And I, you know, I had to sort of probably ask myself, you know, is this objectively true or is it my fear just keeping me in my comfort zone?

Lots of journaling, lots of mindfulness, lots of getting my thoughts out on the page and, you know, applying all those techniques of kind of looking at it and trying to separate myself from the thoughts and really try and understand where they were coming from to kind of try and unhook from those real sort of fear-based narratives. And then, of course, you know, undoubtedly another set of major hurdles is navigating emotional triggers.

So I may have realized that my response to alcohol, also in my response in terms of my drinking with alcohol was response to things like stress and social confidence and things like that. So those were my emotional triggers that I'd always paired with alcohol. But I now had to sit and learn how to just accept that, you know, before I built up a better set of tools. There's a sort of a discomfort there, I suppose, in sitting there and being able to process those emotions without trying to numb them.

Because that's what alcohol does effectively. We're just trying to ignore the. emotions. So it gives us a fear, gives us a real fear of emotions, which I think is the exact opposite of resilience. If there was a definition for being unresilient, I think it would be somewhere along the fear of emotion. And, you know, for me, there was a real challenge in sitting there and realizing that it was okay not to be happy. It was okay to be upset, angry, sad, lonely, bored, all of those things. Somehow I've fallen foul of thinking we had to be happy all the time.

And therefore, as soon as anything felt like it wasn't a happy thought, you know, any emotion that threatened that feeling of happiness, I would use alcohol. So yeah, big, big challenge for me and something I had to work a lot at was just accepting emotions and allowing them. not feeling all the time like I needed to avoid them or change them. And I think that is very powerful because a lot of us, again, we want to avoid those negative or disempowering emotions. And we think if we feel them, then, A, we want to stop feeling that way,

feeling those negative emotions. And as you mentioned, like, replacing that and using alcohol to numb those emotions. And I know like, I can't remember which resource it was, but negative emotions were being framed, like the checklights on your car dashboard. Yeah. Right. And so we love those engine checklights or that the oil is low or the tear pressure is low because you tell you that, hey, there's something going on here that you need to be able to address. Yeah. So if you take those like engine checklights or the tire pressure light,

then you're like, I don't want to feel this and then just a sticky note over it, then the problem is not going to get any better. It's actually going to get even worse. So in a way, I love what you're saying in terms of recognizing that and being aware and being comfortable in those discomfortable, because they're telling you something. 100%. I mean, I use the analogy of the dashboard in the car all the time.

you know a light comes on it signals something it's definitely signalling something you know whether the engine needs oil or whether it needs a service or whether the you know the radiator needs water but you know I don't understand what half those lights mean I have to get into a bit of a diagnostic situation whereby I need to kind of investigate and when when I I realize, you know, and I say this for clients, you know, when, when you have an urge to drink, that is a warning light. Your body is telling you or your mind is telling you that it needs something. It is not an instruction.

It's a warning light. It's a sign. You do not have to respond with alcohol, but it's saying, you know, the key question to ask in that moment is what do I need right now? What do I need right now? I'm telling you for nothing, your body will not be asking you for a substance that it finds toxic and poisonous. It just won't be doing that, funny enough. It might be asking you to have something sustaining to eat. It could be asking you to rest.

It could be asking you to reward yourself. It could be asking you to, you know, reach out and connect with somebody else. and, you know, it could be asking you to vent your frustrations in a different way, but it's not going to be asking you for a drink. But we, you know, we respond in an instant when that light comes on our sort of automatic and reflective responses, drink. Turn the light off. Turn the light off.

But it's a really quick fix because of our. 20 minutes of up and then the long tail of down. So it's not the answer. You know, that light's going to come back on. And it's going to come back on and come back on and come back on every single day. And that is obviously how you get into the sort of the repeat response of alcohol becoming a problem. Daily drinking is likely to form a dependency. So, you know, it's a really good.

analogy. I love it because as I say, you know, that light is a signal. It's not an instruction. Just got to work out in that moment what it is you need and find a better tool to respond to it with. And are there like common needs that a lot of people kind of reach alcohol for? So when they get that urge to drink, are this like common needs or are these like very unique and individual? usualize to each person? Well, I mean, there are, there are common needs. I mean, across, you know, across the population, the drinking population is very, very common that people are drinking to relax.

That's probably the number one, the number one thing. You know, I'm stressed, when everyone feels less stressed and more relaxed or less overwhelmed and more calm. so you know the stressed to relaxed you know the sort of what you're asking alcohol to do there is you know that sort of you know that sort of like euphoric lift the overwhelmed to calm is sometimes just stop these voices stop the stop the noise just silence

you know in that instance I just not that I want to feel so I just don't want to feel at all I just want to feel less So, you know, alcohol is an anesthetic. Increasingly, and I think this is a sign of our times, and it's something that unfortunately I see in a lot of sort of younger clients would be using alcohol for social confidence, you know, and, you know, you want to feel less self-conscious. So you want to feel more confident, like more kind of powerful

and buoyed up before you walk into a room or before you do your public speaking or do that big presentation at work, you might feel more confident, but also in social situations, you want to feel less self-conscious. Again, it sort of starts to sort of tie in a little bit with the anxiety side of thing, social anxieties. Oh, my goodness, other people drink a lot just to avoid boredom. It's bizarre, really, because alcohol, ha, ha, homogenizes any experience, you know, sort of alcohol is not a particularly exciting thing to do on your own, but people at home will often say, I feel the spaces with alcohol. I've got a night on

my own. I just feel a bit like, a bit bored, bit there, I open a bottle of wine. And then, you know, across the, you know, the full gamut of sort of society, of course, to have fun, to elevate a moment into something which is a bit more wacky and a bit more fun and a bit more crazy and, you know, that sort of create fun memories with friends, etc. I mean, that's another big role that we use the whole for, that sort of social lubricant, social glue, belonging, connection, shared experience. Yeah, definitely. Those for me would probably be the big ones.

But then individually, I mean, goodness knows, you know, there's when we when we start talking about using alcohol to keep a lid on emotions, that that's exactly how some people use it. If there's trauma or unprocessed emotions in people's lives, and that doesn't have to be big sort of capital T trauma. That can just be, you know, a series of, you know, unprocessed emotions. We just want to keep a lid on it. that's another way of, yes, another reason why people drink, just to sort of forget, to numb out and ignore. And I actually had a guest on my own podcast a few weeks ago who, it's so simple when you think about it, but it was one of the best explanations of why we drink, which I thought, and he said, his name is Christopher Richards, and he said, alcohol is the avoidance of reality,

which I thought was pretty smart. In fact, I claim that for myself. That's what I think. Alcohol is the avoidance of reality. And I totally get that because it changes our brain chemistry. We talk about alcohol and drugs. But it's a very convenient separation, that one, because alcohol is a drug.

Because we love it so much. We don't like to think of it as such. So we stick the amber sand in the middle and goes, alcohol and drugs. But alcohol is a drug. And it's a psychoactive drug. It's the same family of drugs as, you know, cocaine and LSD. And it changes our brain chemistry. So I thought, you know, I thought this description of it as the avoidance of reality,

I think it was very, it chimed with me. It really did chime with me. Oh, my mind was just blown because I think also in my head it was alcohol drugs separate. So now realizing that alcohol falls under that drug category definitely also has me and I think a lot of our listeners thinking about like, oh, this is the case and I'm drinking it every day? Is this something that I would like to reflect on? It's a big thing, isn't it? It's one of those, it's so, it's because it's so permissive. And it's because it's so available and marketed.

And, you know, we also joke about the fact that it's the only drug that you have to apologize for not taking. You know, it's the sort of... But it is a drug. It's a psychoactive drug, as I say, it changes the brain chemistry. And it actually, over time, it tilts the brain chemistry towards actively seeking it. that's the addictive nature of it. And I, you know, reflecting the other day in something that I was writing,

you know, for publication here in the UK, that it's, you know, if, but let's use your, let's use, you know, America, for example, and the States as an example, you would not advertise cocaine in the middle of the soap, in the middle of the Super Bowl. We would not, you would go, the world's gone, I mean, mad if there was a, you know, if the, if the Super Bowl was

punctuated with high expenditure, high class, glossy advertising for cocaine. But it does the same thing to our minds as alcohol does. You know, and if alcohol was invented today, it would never be classified. by any food standards organization in the world as being fit for human consumption based on what it does to us from a health perspective and a mental health perspective, it just wouldn't pass muster.

It literally wouldn't. But it's because it's so ingrained and it's because it's been around for hundreds, hundreds of years. You can't extract it, but you would certainly never release it on society. these days, it would be madness. It just wouldn't happen.

No, and no one disagrees with that. I mean, every producer of alcohol in the world knows that is the truth. And, you know, it's sort of flying under the radar to a very great degree. But it's, you know, that is it. And so, yeah, when you start thinking about it in terms of it being a drug,

albeit a very permissive one, it does, it does somewhat focus, focus the mind. Yeah, for sure. And for those of us listening and myself included, so if we decide that we want to change our relationship with alcohol, whether it is to completely eliminate it or at the very least reduce it to a place where we can use it,

only for those in those positive context, and that we are not relying on it for it to be our chief emotional. emotional officer, what are some of the steps or strategies that you have found to be helpful, whether with your clients that you work with or with yourself? Oh, goodness. Well, I think mindset is everything. I mean, that's, you know, when I work with clients, the very, very first thing I do and actually for, you know, a good two to three weeks or so would be just to make sure that the mindset

that shifts as far as alcohol is concerned. And, you know, it takes a while to sort of challenge deep-seated beliefs. You've got to surface them in the first place. Go there, you know, that's a belief, that's a job you give it to do right there. And only then can you start to sort of really, really work on it. But because alcohol is so ingrained, we almost need to get into a, the right mindset to explore it. It's like, let's get into the right mindset to even look at this thing.

And the first thing is, you know, we'll always, well, I'll speak for myself when I was drinking, drinking, drinking. And I thought that alcohol was contributing, you know, greatly to my life in many instances. I thought that literally, you know, quitting was going to be a loss. so it was going to be something I was giving up and therefore you know in setting an important mindset shift to focus on what I was going to gain instead was a game changer so I began to reframe it not as a drinking journey but as a health journey I was like I don't want I'm not giving up drinking I'm reclaiming my energy my mental clarity my emotional stability my health

my long term future my ambition my drive my goals. So getting into a mindset of gain was was really critical. And then this is the thing that I actually find can be quite fun. You know, what would be fun, quitting our whole fun. I literally, I really encourage people to get into an experimental mindset. If you can start to sort of think, what if everything that I think I know is BS? What if? What if? So, something has happened along the way where I've just been conditioned to believe that it helps me in all these ways. What if everything I know is actually wrong? And all these hypotheses that I have about how it helps me do X, Y and Z, just need to be looked at.

Because then we can, you know, we can sort of challenge it. So curiosity is a really key part of it. really key part. And what was the other thing that really helped me? Oh, well, you know, the mindset of failure needed to shift for me as well. Because I thought, you know, what I kept doing, Symbol was I kept kind of going, I'm not going to drink anymore, I'm not going to drink anymore, not going to drink anymore, I'm not going to drink anymore.

And then I do things like dry January or sober October and go, I'm not drinking, I'm not drinking. And I was kind of coming at this thing with willpower. And in fact, you know, what really, really helped me was to say, Anna, you drink every day and you drink a lot. So let's just start trying not to drink every day. Let's start trying to, you know, put in non-drinking days and just see how you feel those days. So it wasn't an all or nothing.

So I had to kind of, this is a hard one for me because I'm quite tough on myself. I had to get out of this kind of perfectionist mindset and say, my goal in this exercise is learning. My goal is learning because if my goal is learning, I can't fail. But what I can do is I can learn out of all of my slip ups too. So I'm not going to count days. I'm not going to count sober days. I'm going to count percentages and improvement. So I used to drink 100% of the time.

If there's four days and just one month that I don't drink, then I've decreased my drinking, I've decreased my drinking rate to say 90% of the time. That's a 10% improvement. That is good. That's a 10%. I'd take a 10% improvement if you had a business goal. you take a 10% improvement.

So it was beginning to be, so just, just be realistic and don't fall into this kind of all or nothing thinking because we can do this, we can kind of go, I've had a drink,

I've screwed it up now. I might as well have a second or a third one. I might as well finish the bottle now. Oh God, it's all over. I've just screwed it up. He's no, just dig in. What would,

was happening in that moment? What happened that day that made you feel? Like, what job were you giving it to do? Fine. Now, understand that, journal about that. Understand why you feel that way. Work out whether it's true, whether it, you know, get curious about that thought. And then without judgment, just put it down to learning and carry on, carry on trying to understand more about why you drink. So is that, sorry, I'm off on a kind of bit of a, is that sort of the kind of thing you're asking me in terms of the steps to go through? Absolutely.

And I love when you're talking about kind of that all or nothing mindset. Because I think a lot of us, even beyond the idea of changing how we're drinking in our life, tend to have this very black and white thinking, that if I end up engaging in the behavior that I'm trying to change, I'm a failure. 100%. So we start the process, but the way you framed it in terms of like, okay, if I'm drinking 100% of the time, which is established in your baseline, and even if you make changes that might seem small, they might actually be bigger than you might be perceiving them with that reframe of your mind.

It's really, it's really vital. It's really vital because, I mean, I know, I know having done lots of work on this myself now that I know that perfectionism and my, you know, lifelong perfectionist trait got me into a lot of trouble, you know. And in a very, in an indirect way, it really fueled my drinking because for years and years and years, I set my bar too high for my myself and everything. I wanted to be brilliant to everything in my life, in control of everything, you know, behind the steering wheel and achieving, achieving, achieving. And I set my bar very, very high and now I beat myself up when I couldn't reach it. And beating yourself up tends to come along with loads of negative feelings, which can trigger drinking. It can also make you

feel like a failure. You know, perfectionism isn't a very healthy trait. it can make you feel like you're not good enough. And as soon as we feel that we are not enough in some regard, smart enough, clever enough, you know, successful enough, that's when we start looking for sort of solace or, you know, the answer in a drink. The other thing is perfectionism is exhausting. It's absolutely exhausting.

And I was getting to the end of every single day, depleted to the point where I didn't have any energy. You know, I wasn't going to be going out for a run to boost my spirits or anything like that. I was just depleted. And that whole perfectionist thing has you feeling that you're just flawed because you're not getting to where you want to get to. So, you know, sometimes within hours just saying to clients, it's about progress. It's not the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. it's the gain from where you've been to where you are now.

And, you know, take sober, well, take dry January. If you have two drinking days in dry January, you drank on the 18th, you could go, oh, that's it then, and start drinking. Or you could say on the 19th, no. What happened then? Why did I do that? But I'm carrying on today.

I'm not drinking. You can have two days in the whole of dry January and you drink and you've still got a 93% pass rate at the end of it. 93% pass rate is pretty damn good in any subject I've ever studied or anything I've ever tried to achieve. But if you're a perfectionist, you're going to go, it's not 100%. But it's, you know, but no, no, no, no, no, 93% pass rate. So I would always, I always, always say to clients, you know, progress is what we're looking for, but progress fueled by learning. It's got this phrase, which is, you know, every slip-up or every accidental drink, every moment that you have a drink when you weren't in 10-inch, it's a data point. It's a data. It's data.

What's it telling you? something's happened. What's the data? And it could be, well, I've realized I skipped lunch and I skipped dinner. And that warning light wasn't a drink. That warning light that came on was actually for some food. I should have had a meal. Damn it, I should have brought my meal forward.

Damn it, I had a drink instead. Okay, well, I'll know better next time. You see, it's really interesting that when you start looking, I mean, we say it all the time in business, don't we? There's no learning if you don't have failure. People who fail a lot, achieve a lot. Ultimately, they grow, they grow, they grow. And this is the same with alcohol.

You know, if you look at every little thing that you might consider a cockap or a big, big mistake is not. It's just data. Tells you something. So what's it telling you? And do you find, because I love the strategies that you're talking about, shifting in mindset, the examples that provided.

So is this a journey that people get to? And then you're like, OK, once you get to that goal, then you don't have to do anything? Or are some of these mindset perspective, something that is ongoing? And you're still kind of utilizing the tools on an ongoing basis. Well, that is such a good question. Well, let me answer it as best I can

without going into a big sort of convoluted way. When you are learning those of stuff about yourself and picking up those of tools to do something differently, you're trying to break habits and behave in a different way from an automated habitual pattern, then it takes effort. Right. So the best example I could give is when I was learning to drive, I used to have to get into the car and go, right? seat position, mirrors, steering wheel height. And then order of events to sort of start the cow and then mirror signal manoeuvre, blah, blah, blah. And I had to work.

It was conscious effort was required to do things in the right order or to not, you know, not not to screw up. And I think there is definitely, if you've got, you know, I've got 30 or 40 year history of drinking. I certainly had to put in a lot of conscious effort when I was first challenging my beliefs, digging into my thoughts, unearthing all the triggers, finding out of my beliefs around alcohol serving me in that moment were in fact true or considering whether I could have responded in a different way. And if so, how do I go and find that skill? That was quite sort of labor intensive, but not for

ages, not for long, long, long, long time because that soon becomes the new behavior. And, you know, pretty soon after passing your driving test, you get in the car,

you turn the key, and off you go. It becomes a sort of an automatic, it becomes your new automatic sort of process, doesn't that? So it, there is an element of work, obviously when you're trying to pull yourself out

problems of alcohol that's going to feel like a relatively intense period of work. But actually after that, the new normal kicks in and the new normal is wonderful and you begin to feel all sorts of different benefits from not drinking. So it gives you a tailwind. It gives you real motivation and wind in yourselves to continue. And it doesn't continue to feel like hard work. Because now, you know, you're, you're kind of flying. you've got better energy, you've got better sleep, you've got, you feel better about yourself,

you've maybe shed a few pounds, your respect is off the scale high, because where you once felt you're, you know, abject failure, you're not thinking I can do anything. I beat alcohol. It brought me to my knees and here I am, jumping up and down going, I'll show you. to make me feel like you can do anything. So actually becomes a superpower and it doesn't feel like hard work on going. I would always say to clients, don't stop the brilliant things that you've started, which amounts to much greater like emotional literacy.

So journaling, carry on with the journaling, carry on with self-compassion, and carry on with the fighting your automatic negative thoughts and your, you know, traits of perfectionism, carry on keeping yourself in check and making sure that you're looking after yourself and your self-care is there, such that alcohol can't weed let its way back in. You know, it just, it's about stepping into a set of, I suppose, healthier beliefs. and a greater sense of kindness to yourself. And those are great habits to maintain anyway. So, yeah, did I answer your question?

It can feel hard to begin with, and there is ongoing work, but it's good work, it's life-enhancing work, yeah. And it's, you know, you've got so much more energy and sort of elevated levels of clarity and consciousness for that work as well. It's just joy, really. my new addiction, by the way, is all this work. I love. I love, you know, where I once felt I had sort of shriveled into sort of a sense of not discovering anything new about myself

because there was nothing new to discover and I'd stop growing. I'm now like, oh my goodness, you know, it's like literally, my growth mindset's gone a bit bonkers, I have to say. I really love that you said, yes, the starting point can be different. It can be challenging, but it does get easier. Oh, it does. It does get easy. Yesterday I was talking to some of someone when they said that they'd seen a meme or something, and I haven't seen it, but it basically alluded just to that, you know, don't think that,

it was basically saying, you know, don't think that how it feels when you first start trying to give a power of alcohol is how it's always going to feel. You know, it's not. It's a tricky bit. It's a bit of a turbulent. Well, for me, it was turbulent because I was in a place of addiction. So for me, it was definitely, you know, I've added, it was a journey. I know he used that phrase a lot, but it was, it was a journey.

It was hard. I was, but oh my goodness, me, so rewarding ultimately, it's that sort of short-term pain, so long-term gain. But it's also some of those powerful work I've ever done. done and I'm not going to sort of I've never quite got to the point where I'm saying I'm glad I got addicted to alcohol. I'm not quite there but I'm I am certainly very glad for the work that I've done since then to you know enhance my life because if you if you really sort of dig into the reasons why you drink and you realize that you're delegating lots of jobs

to drink, to alcohol, and you're trying to fill gaps in you because you have deep-seated, limiting beliefs and you think that you're not enough, and that alcohol in some shape or form can come in and sort of make you whole and fill these gaps and present a better version of you to the world. Once you've worked that out and you realize that you are enough and, you know, beautifully flawed and that all these imperfections are absolutely fine. That strength and that sense of self is something you take out into the world forever. It's not just about you and alcohol.

It's about you and your relationship with yourself that will ripple out into every positively, into every relationship you have, every challenge you ever take on. And it's such powerful work. It really is. It's life-changing. I reuse this term too often. It's always transformative. But it is.

It's life-changing. Life-enhancing, definitely. And I think of a, I'm reminded of a code that says, our true strength comes from realizing we're able to overcome the things we thought we couldn't overcome. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And I'll add to that as well. I mean, that's good.

This isn't going to be as good, but I would add to it anyway and say, I honestly think, you know, and this is probably coming from a personal experience of turnaround, from someone who used to drink to, you know, change their emotions, every emotion to completely, I'm a chief emotions officer. alcohol, you know, I used it in that way. I think my true strength comes now from knowing that there's no emotion that can hurt you. You know, I was scared of feeling emotions. I was scared of, you know, things like sadness or I didn't like myself when I was angry.

I didn't like the feeling of angry. I didn't like the feeling of boredom. I didn't like restless. I know there was just so much that I didn't like feeling. And I think, you know, I'd put a lid on all of that. Or I'd try and switch those feelings through alcohol. Whereas now, my real power, I think, comes from knowing that whatever thoughts I feel and however emotions affect me, they can't hurt me.

They just thought some feelings. But they can't come at me. And I think knowing that that's the case, makes me not afraid. It makes me not afraid. And conversely, actually, one of my big triggers of panic when I was giving up alcohol, I remember thinking to myself,

you know, when I was a big drink, I remember thinking you're a mess. You know, you're an absolute mess, and you respond to everything with a drink. You know, I'm lucky enough to have a full set of parents in my life still. And I remember thinking to myself, how the hell, you know, when you can't even get through a day without wanting to change your emotional stage, if you can't just deal with normal, how are you going to feel and cope when your mum passes away or you lose your dad or the really big stuff starts to happen? And I just remember thinking, I've got nothing.

I've got nothing to come at those kind of feelings except in my case wine. And I was just thinking that's not going to work. And I just literally remember thinking to myself, you know, when things like grief and huge loss come my way, it will be the end of me. It was basically what I was thinking. versus

realizing actually it would be painful and it would be uncomfortable but I am strong enough and I can deal with anything and that's you know that's that's quite that's that's quite a lot of growth there I think

and you know that's I think that would be my key message really you know whatever you think whatever anyone listening to this thinks they need alcohol for, they don't. They don't, you know, not least of all because it has this sort of duplicitous effect and, you know, ends up making you feel weak than you are. I had a guest onto my podcast, write early doors, and he said the most profoundly interesting thing to me. A guy called William Porter and he's written a couple of books about alcohol and how it works.

Alcohol Explained is his books. And he said to me, when he was a drinker, because he'd been very, very heavily addicted to alcohol, he said, I used alcohol like a life raft. He said, and I was like clinging to it, you know, absolutely terrified and clinging onto it for dear life. And then when I stopped drinking, I realized the water was only a foot deep. Wow. And I remember thinking that, my friend, is so true. You know, we think we need it. And yet, you know, whether either the water is not as deep as we think it is or we're taller than we think we are.

And, you know, we don't need that life raft. We just need to learn to stand on the bottom and not be afraid or swim. Either one. Yes. Either way, you don't need life rough. And for the people that, let's say, our parents or guardians of young ones and of kids, what are your thoughts in terms of how alcohol and alcohol consumption

and kids being able to see that I know we talked about the conditioning component might influence seeing like a playgiver. Yeah. alcohol. Well, I mean, it does. It does influence. I mean, if it's, you know, and this isn't something for parents to necessarily fear. It's just something to be aware of, you know. There's that saying, isn't it, which is, you know, we're teaching our children all the time and sometimes we use words, you know, our actions are so powerful. So of course, of course, if you're drinking around children in front of children. First of all, that doesn't make you unusual. That makes you

really, it makes it really common. But if you are drinking around children, then they are observing drinking as being an adult behavior. So that's just that almost sort of very passive conditioning that we talked about early doors on this, on this conversation that it just happens. It filters in. I would certainly say just maybe be aware of the nature of that message. I mean, if you're sort of slamming around the house,

really, really stressed and, you know, then sort of face plant into a couple of bottles of wine. That's not a great message, sure. But I think, you know,

children pick up on so many things that it's just, I think it's, again, it's just that self-revement. awareness. It's not about saying, well, I'm like, oh my goodness, me, I can't drink in front of my kids. It's not bad. I mean, you can do that. But I mean, it's, you know, it's more just about being aware of the messages that we're, that we're giving. But, you know, it's a mind-filled. I mean, being a parent is so hard. I mean, it's so incredibly hard that we all

just have to do it our way. But certainly, yeah, just, yeah, just just being aware of, or, of what might be telling them, I guess, is a good start point. Very difficult, though, talking to kids about alcohol. I have a very, very open conversation with my 17-year-old daughter. She's on the cusp now of being legally able to drink. And I know she's speaking it with her friends every now and again. I don't want to make my story, her story. You know, I've got to trust and believe.

in her and also, you know, let her explore, you know, life and everything that is part of it. But I'd certainly, I can't control what she does, but I certainly try and influence it. There's no doubt about it. I mean, I had a conversation with her literally about three weeks ago. She'd had a sort of bit of an ups and downs of her boyfriend. And she told me that she'd had, she works in the local pub. And she told me that she had a drink after work. I said, okay, how did that make you feel?

I don't know. And I said, well, tell me. I said, because it will have made you feel something I know because that's what alcohol does. And she said, yeah, and she said, I felt a bit less sad. I said, okay. I said, but be careful there, darling. I said, because that's kind of what it does. But it's not a good thing to rely on.

And she said, no, I know that. I know that, mum. And I thought, well, I'm seeing. I said, no, I said, because that's, that's, that's, I'm just saying, you know, I want you to sort of, could you think of three other things that you could do that you enjoy doing that don't, you know, make you feel happy and she listed them off so quickly. And I'm like, cool, well, they're healthier. I'm not preaching.

I'm just trying in my own little way to kind of make sure that she doesn't fall into that I've found my tool, you know, crawl off the search kind of mentality. But yeah, influence, I think, is all we can aim for. We're not really in control of them by the time at that age. And I just, you know, keep communications open. Really, you know, if you, you know, I really believe this. If you, if you're prepared to drink in front of your children, then you should be prepared to talk about alcohol in front of your children.

and just try and ever so, well, ever so hard, you know, try and make sure that you're their first port of call if they have any problems with it. That's, you know, that's what we need to try and establish. Perfect. And I'd ask that question because I know a lot of parents listening to this are not only want to build their own resilience, but also wants to be able to transfer that resilient mind to their kids as well.

Yeah. And so with even the things that she talked about in terms of influencing them, keeping open communication, is there anything else in terms of things that parents can do to kind of help their kids become more aware of the effects of alcohol and build that toolbox? That's a little bit more adaptive. Yeah, sure. So, I mean, the good thing is these, well, aware of alcohol, yes, because there's so much. much more available now than ever there was before around, you know, books. My podcast. You know, a world of podcasts, loads of podcasts. I mean, goodness me, there's all sorts of wonderful sort of stuff available now, which can sort of open our eyes much, much more as a sort of a young impressionable age to alcohol.

I think the conversations need to be balanced. And I think that's the important thing. You know, young kids, I'm saying teenagers, really, they make up their own minds about stuff. You know, they need information. They need truth. They need fact. And, you know, all the sort of just general awareness around alcohol, I think. But definitely, I mean, I think as parents, we can be trying to promote really good practices of, you know,

good nutrition and good sleep practices and exercise, mindfulness. I mean, all of these things are fantastic practices to stave off, you know, the signals coming on on the dashboard in the first place. So if we know, if, you know, if teenagers know that they can go out for a run and they feel great afterwards, or, you know, the difference between what a good night's sleep makes and feel in a bad night's sleep or eating crap food versus eating really, really good food, then they can begin to see how they can manage mood and feelings and emotions through much healthier ways. So, yeah, I would just, you know, all those kind of practices that we know are good.

You know, we kind of know they're good for us. So I would just say yes, you know, definitely point them in the direction of all of those. And for the people that would like to learn more and listen to you and hear you speak in terms around alcohol so that they can expand their awareness and gain more tools, you mentioned your podcast, The Big Drink Rethink. Yes. Could you tell the audience about it and where to find this? Yeah, sure. So I launched the Big Drink Rethink about a year ago. It is actually a year ago in February of last year.

I launched it because I just wanted, everyone's on a mission these days, aren't they? I am on a bit of a mission to preempt drinking problems. And by that, I just want people to have a sort of eyes wide open, you know, relationship with alcohol. And I think that's really, really important. So I guess there's a number of things going on with the podcast. Society is changing slowly. Alcohol culture is changing. And I kind of wanted to say, let's have a look at why.

What do people know these days that they didn't know 20, 30 years ago? What tools can we have these days that we weren't particularly literate in 20 to 30 years ago? And what do these changes mean to you? They might mean nothing. But if you're curious, if you're curious about why this sort of ship is beginning to turn and you're interested in what it might mean in your world, then here's loads of different perspectives.

And I literally mean ways of looking, ways of looking at alcohol that we might have not looked at before. So it's not just a series of stories from people in recovery. I mean, there have been people on my podcast. obviously who've had their own personal journeys. But I will also be digging in and talking about, you know, alcohol's effects for menopause, alcohol and personal identity, alcohol and mental health, alcohol. So I'm trying to bring real insights around alcohol.

And there are tools and there are tactics and strategies for people who want to maybe challenge their relationship and sort of course correct. but mainly it is really about saying if you choose to drink and it's an active choice then fine but I just don't want you to be unaware I don't want you to sleepwalk into it never question it and I come back to it and I know it sounds a bit sort of nebulous because it means different things to different people but I just want them to drink in ways that make them happy. That's, you know, because alcohol in a social situation can be a lubricant and it can be a

pleasurable thing. But it's when it, it's when we, there's a tip. It's when it tips. So the podcast is, is literally, the way I'd like to sometimes think about it is, imagine that alcohol is like a sort of an exhibit in an art gallery. And we're just going to go and look at it from lots of different angles. And we're going to reflect upon it and put a, under a spot by, look at it and walk around it and just consider, you know, what we think of

if we have a bit more information. And that's it really. So it's the big drink rethink. And I have guests on probably every two weeks. And then I interspers it with kind of listeners questions and tools. And then I put all those tools, tips and strategies on to my website as well. they're all free. So it really is supposed to be a, you know, I don't want money to be a barrier to people who want to sort of course correct or reflect on their, on their relationship with alcohol. So yeah, that's the premise. That was a very long answer, wasn't it? So that's the premise of the podcast. And you mentioned a website as well? Yes. So in my coaching practice, I go under the title of the beliefs coach.

I literally help challenge all sorts of drinking beliefs. So it's thebeliefscoach.com. And that's my website and it's got all those tools and tactics and freebies and stuff from the show. And it's also where you can get in touch with me or people can get in touch with me if they want to sort of find out what I do from a coaching perspective as well. It's all there on the beliefscoach.com. Super amazing. and we're going to have all those links in the show notes

so you'll be able to just scroll down link and be able to get more information on Anna. Do you have any closing? Marks, any last thoughts you'd like to share with the audience? I didn't know, you know, four and a half years ago how good life could be again. I really didn't. I had got myself into a really,

kind of dark place and I sort of describe it as feeling like I was kind of stuck in a dark room and I didn't know where the door was and even had I known I was very scared of what sort of sat behind it but I just you know I just feel very lucky to have sort of found the door and it opened up a world of kind of personal work and reflection but my God it's worth doing it's really worth doing. So, you know, if talking today, you know, what I've been talking about and, you know, talking to you about, if it's resonated with people,

if there's anyone sitting out there thinking, oh, I'm a bit stuck, but like, but I'm also a bit frightened. Then I would say, open that door and step through it. You know, if you're in a,

if you're in a problematic way, relationship with alcohol, it's not your fault. It really isn't. It's a drug and it's addictive and we all use it, you know, obscenely frequently. It's not your fault, but it's kind of your responsibility to do something about it because only you can make your life better. So I would definitely say, you know, open that door, loads of different flavours of help these days. Loads, I mean, it used to be sort of Alcoholics Anonymous was the way and the only way. There's loads now. Loads.

So start Googling, start looking, but start doing something. Because it doesn't tend to get any better on its own. That's my experience. Perfect. That was an amazing conclusion. I don't think I have anything else to say. Thank you very much, Anna. I think myself, for one, and our audience, we have enjoyed this interview.

and we have lots to ponder as we go about our day-to-day life. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I've really loved our conversation, so thank you. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.