The Therapy Edit - Ask Anna - I'm tired of being typecast 'the party girl'

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

In this Monday episode of the brand new Ask Anna series, Anna is joined by David Gibbs, Existential Therapist, Executive Coach and resident therapist on They Think It’s All Sober.Together Anna and David tackle the following question: "I'm feeling miserable about my drinking. I know I drink too much but all of my friendships are based around me being the girl that always has a good time and I don't know how to move away from that persona. Any advice?"Do you have an Ask Anna question you'd like to submit for future episodes? Or an anonymous confession? Visit the website to learn how Please note - the names and voices of some of the Ask Anna/Confessions contributors may have been changed at their request.

Welcome to The Therapy Edit. I'm your host, Psychotherapist and author Anna Martha. I will be bringing you bite-sized episodes twice a week full of tips, wise words from expert guests and insights to support your mental well-being. Hi everyone. Welcome to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. It's another Ask Anna today and I think this is a really powerful one and as we move towards Christmas, it's also going to be something that I think a lot of people will, yeah, or feel relevant. It's all to do with alcohol and it's just another relationship that we have in our culture. And I think something that is often being questioned publicly sometimes, you know, follow a lot of accounts that explore that relationship publicly and I've benefited so much, but also privately. And that's

the question that we're answering today. And with me to answer, this question is therapist David Gibbs. Now, I invited David on because many of you know I love the podcast. They Think It's All Sober. I have been a guest on the podcast when I had not drunk for a hundred days. So that was a really great chat. But David is the resident therapist for the They Think It's Or Sober podcast. And I have always just been drawn to the warm, wise, honest wisdom that he shares. So it was a very natural guest to help me answer this question. So you're here with me now. How are you doing? I'm very good. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, that's a pleasure. You've just moved house. There's a lot going on, a lot going on over there as

well. Yeah, I come across calm right now. And I've made my backdrop look slightly calm. But actually it's very calm. Isn't that life? It is. So the question is, we've got a voice note. We're going to play that voice note right now. Hey Anna, I'm feeling miserable about my drinking. I know I drink too much, but all of my friendships are based around me being the girl that always has a good time. And I don't know how to move away from that persona.

So, David, on hearing that voice note, what are some of the first thoughts that come to mind for you? I think I've had this question or a variation in kind of my work as a therapist or on the podcast or fans. family and friends. I think this is very relevant. I think it's very common and it's really frightening. So what comes to mind there is that drinking alcohol is so much more than just a substance, right? It's so tied up in our identity. It's tied up or it is often the bonding agent between friends. so in a way at least sometimes the way we perceive it is to say no to a drink is to say no

to parts of ourselves that we think people really value or to say no is to say no to the group which then risks isolation I guess it there's a lot of deeper themes around this I think around belonging identity so it's scary it almost feels like the question it's like I have two options here i drink and i'm miserable or i don't drink and i lose what it is people value in me yeah that kind of social connection that bonding that is often in our culture so focused around alcohol isn't it and it will be even more so as we move towards the christmas season so yeah you're right there's it's a it's a big question and there's also that question there you know she's saying I know I drink too much.

So of her own evaluation, she knows that she drinks what she feels is too much. Hmm. And again, just to echo the same point, what a scary place to be where it's like, if I'm honest with myself, I'm drinking too much, this isn't working for me. But to stop drinking is just such a risk.

And I think part of the answer comes from, challenging that perception, right? This kind of black or whiteness of if I stop drinking, if I change my relationship with alcohol, my whole identity and self-worth is going to be ruined. I don't think that's always the case, although we assume the worst. Yeah.

Some of those friendships maybe, actually, because I've been through a massive journey with this, hence consuming, like devouring the, they think it's all sober podcast. And as I was drinking less and now have stopped, I've learned so much about myself and actually some of the social settings I used to gravitate towards

and the social anxiety that I would kind of anesthetize through the use of alcohol. Actually, I don't want to be in those settings anymore. And actually some of those relationships I've realized they were so gelled by alcohol that I, yeah, that actually, I those relationships have shifted and I think sometimes there is a shifting of relationships and yeah it's it's it's hard and and you know some of the things that the reasons that we drink in the

first place especially when we know that we're drinking too much as you know for me it was social anxiety just I just wanted to shut that up and this kind of over awareness of even what I was doing with my body and the gaps between, you know, in conversations that I was taking too much responsibility for that. Actually, it just shut that down. So now, finding a new way to navigate some of these social situations coming as myself without that tool, it's like a re-learning, but as me in a way that I wasn't bringing before. So it's, yeah, it's different. And that's, and that's so relevant to the question right because the word is persona so there's already this kind of acknowledgement of whoever I'm being doesn't feel authentically me and I think we get trapped

in it like my experience and I talked about on the podcast I got sober at 22 I was in the music industry I lived in a house full of heavy partiers and everything was wrapped up in me being that guy um and i knew it wasn't working i knew it was painful i knew that i couldn't keep going but the idea of kind of stopping and being left with whatever was underneath was terrifying and i think so often we see changing our relationship with alcohol was this grief process of um losing something and i think to a degree that's right we do lose something friendships sometimes do shift but I don't think I'm being overly positive here when I say that the experience of people is often it is a giant catalyst for change and positive change.

Like you said, I now have this experience or this opportunity to learn about what I want or what I like. And I would say, although I don't know this person, there is probably a lot more lovable and exciting and interesting about you than this kind of. of have a good time persona, but we get so caught up in it, we don't give people the opportunity to see those sides. Yeah, maybe ourselves as well. And actually, when I hear that question, you know, all of my friendships are based around

me being the girl that always has a good time. Oh, my gosh, that feels exhausting. That feels like pressure that no matter what you've been through, no matter what stresses you're carrying, what concerns, what life experiences you enter. these scenarios and you you are the girl that always has a good time what gets abandoned or unspoken about or invalidated or unseen in order to assume that persona to be that girl in that group having a good time because we're not always having a good time not all the parts of us always having a good time maybe sometimes she she arrives and actually the drink just covers up the

fact that she'd really just love to sit in a corner with someone and have a hug or have a chat. There's pressure there. Yeah, it makes me think of an image that comes to mind. It's like the actor, side of stage, a theatre show, right? And you've got their face and they're nervous and they're anxious and they're consumed by doubt. And then you watch them come into the lights and their face changes, right? They're on. They're on stage now.

They're performing. it's tiring to perform for an hour and a half let alone a lifetime and to be feeling like you're stuck in a role that always has to be the one that I don't know builds other people up makes them laugh goes for longer you abandon or rob yourself of a lot I think in that process yeah and the connections yeah and those connections that maybe you know we we feel it and we know that Actually, it's when we let that guard down, when we are vulnerable and honest and share the things going on beneath the surface that not everyone gets to see. We know that's where we feel connection.

So there's also maybe for her an element of loneliness, stepping into that room, stepping into that persona carrying the weight of being the good time girl, but actually probably yearning for more connection than you're able to have. So she's saying, I don't know I drink too much. and I don't know how. How do I begin to move away from being that person? So what would you say to her? What are the implementable things really?

How? How do I change this? I think this may not be the best beginning, but what comes to mind straight away is that sometimes we have all these ideas and beliefs in our head around how the world works and how our friendships operate. And we're so certain with that we never actually ask. We never actually speak the words out loud and let someone receive them. Now, it could be that her friends really do value her in that role and that role alone.

And if that's the case, that's a painful truth to learn, but also quite an important one. But it may actually be that they don't even want her in the role as much as she thinks they do. So one step, I think, would be if I, if she felt there was a friend that she could confide in or talk to, to say some of this stuff, hey, look, I love our friendship, I love what we do, but I'm also very aware that it doesn't feel good to drink this much. But I feel scared. Like, if I don't drink, do you think I'm going to be boring? Like, do you think we can still, my hope is that a good friend would say that that's ridiculous? like and then suddenly we're open up to hey why don't instead of going on Friday why don't we go have for coffee or why don't we do and then suddenly possibilities open up we don't have to be alone but if we hold this all in and we're anticipating what people are thinking and going along with it we're always going to feel stuck so yeah first step open up and see if there's someone we can confide in yeah maybe mix up those gatherings and the context of of those gatherings I think that's yeah really important and how having these conversations because I think sometimes we can get so stuck in the rut of this

is what a good time looks like. And maybe that's dragged on from university times or college times when actually it's just not fitting anymore. And I used to think I'd be boring if I didn't drink. And you know what, David, like younger me would have thought I was boring. I actually enjoy nothing more now in the evenings. Now I don't drink, just relaxing. And it's really relaxing. because my, you know, my nervous system isn't all frazzled from the alcohol and frazzled from the day. But actually, instead of boredom, I feel peace and contentment that I didn't feel before. And I think that word boring is sometimes a really good one to challenge. Like if I'm not the good time girl, what, where might I have my good, what might it look like for me to have a good time?

It might be relaxing. I've started playing squash and I love that and I never would have done that if I was a large glass of wine down on the sofa you know kind of melted into the sofa of an evening and it it opens up other ways to feel like what does having a good time look and feel to me in a way that actually really honours who I am in this stage of my life

and yeah just reassessing that a little bit. Yeah, what does having a good time look like without alcohol? and this may be a frightening question to begin with. I remember, again, like 22, it was a Saturday morning. I called my sponsor and I was like, it's Saturday morning. I don't know what to do. I've never had a Saturday morning. It's just, and there was all this space when I started to ask myself those questions.

Like, what do I like? Who do I want to be? But the great opportunities we then get to answer those questions. And like you, like sometimes I've found myself. in places I never would have expected, like random things that I've enjoyed. And so I think, especially in the culture that I grew up in, it's like having a good time was completely entangled with drink.

It's not anymore. There is so much more available. The culture is changing. When I got sober, everyone was stopping drinking because they were in a really bad place. Now we stop for many reasons. Now there's communities, I think it's the Sober Girls Club with Millie where they're dancing and like there's so much out there now that says, hey, we get it. You've grown up thinking that being fun and exciting equates to getting drunk,

but here's some opportunities to try something new. I think it's a, it doesn't mean it's easy, but it's the best time I think it's ever been to move away from that culture and not end up feeding alone. Yeah, and sometimes there's a relief that comes with that when you start voicing it because, as we were saying at the beginning, it is a relationship and a relationship that I think a lot of people are feeling that kind of disconnect between what feels right and what they're doing and they know that actually it doesn't feel right, but I don't really know what else to do and confidence, you know, I used to drink confidence basically and then I stopped drinking confidence

and realized that actually I wasn't as confident as I thought. So I've been slowly kind of rewriting the narrative and stepping into those spaces without that alcohol and nurturing a different kind of confidence that is more internal and gentler. And, you know, and yeah, just more content. So, yeah, it's a big thing to do to move away from that persona. but I feel like what she's asking here is like how do I honour myself?

So what are we saying? We're saying part is let's have an opportunity to speak to people to open up to actually check in with whether our worth and our value and our acceptance is entangled with alcohol because maybe it's not. and then maybe it's to explore and separate having a good time and being drunk and seeing what it may look like to have fun without drink and then from there it's maybe to actually get curious and say well what is there out there what do I like doing let me try something else I remember in the first few years

of a variety I just tried stuff I don't know if I'm gonna like you was squash I don't know if I'm gonna like it but it's and and then like you said it's like it's a a different feeling like when i would go out it would be fun but like fun charged up it still had anxiety it still had some kind of adrenaline and now there's a different type of enjoyment i can get where it's got like you said that contentment attached to it it's quieter it's gentler but it's more sustaining and i find now that actually you know those events where you go and you're it's kind of like you switch yourself on and you drink and and actually what you're turning off is that nervous system, you know, that sense of actually I'm tired. I want to go home. I need some quiet or I'm

actually craving some proper connection. And, you know, we turn all of that off. So what I would have the next day wouldn't necessarily, I never got, I wasn't like a massive drinker. I really don't really like being drunk. So, but I'd still have that kind of hungover, frazzled, a system feeling, but also the social hangover of, actually, if I was really listening to myself, I probably would have left earlier. Now, I had spent my social battery and because I didn't, I suppressed that in myself, I'd just plowed on. So now, you know, I feel when I'm done, and normally that's when the people that are drinking

are carrying on and saying the same things over and over again. So they don't mind so much when I slip away. But it's just, you know, it allows you to. to listen to yourself more and maybe not overdo it so that the, yeah, the next day isn't just about being hung over. It's maybe actually that you're just depleted in other ways as well because you weren't able to kind of tune in to you. I think that's such a good point.

It reminds me at the weekend I went out with some friends that were drinking. We started the night and we both said, I were really tired. Got to 11 o'clock, I was exhausted. I was ready to go home. They were buzzing and they were up for a night. We both had the same feeling, and what you said is exactly right. Alcohol numbed the ability to get in touch with what our body is telling us. So I was sober, so I knew when it was time to go.

They'd lost that connection. And that connection and that feeling is going to return tenfold the next day. Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it how alcohol blocks us from so much of what is being told in a very deep way. And we end up not being able to listen. Yeah. So maybe there's an encouragement there to this lovely listener who sent in this voice note just to maybe experiment and just have some conversations. If these are your friends and they've known you and you've always been like kind of held this identity,

what would it be like to? Yeah, talk about that and talk about how it's feeling for you. Because I tend to think if relationships are good and caring and people care about us and they, you know, we hope that they might be open to these conversations. And actually, it could very well as it often does prompt some vulnerability on their part and some, you know, maybe some honesty where they say, you know what, I've been thinking the same thing. Let's try this together.

Let's mix it up and giving each other permission, giving yourself permission to step away a little bit from the drink and the part that that plays. yeah absolutely yeah amazing thank you so much for your warm and gentle wisdom where can people find you david where tell us a little bit about what what they can find and where yeah i guess the main place is just instagram david at david sam gibbs and then from there there's like the company I run is called 1504 and there's links kind of onwards but instagram is the main place tell us a bit about 1504 1504 is a performance well as a music management company because that's kind of the world I come from but we built a department within it which works mainly with

high performers artists managers executives kind of in an existential coaching capacity at just looking at exploring in a very deep way, what blocks us and how we move forward. Interestingly, although alcohol has never been the focus, it's a lot around alcohol, you know, because a lot of these high performers drink is a perfect kind of way to reduce stress. So that's the company.

And then, of course, like you mentioned at the beginning, they think it's all sober podcast, which I'm biased, but I think it's great. I think it's great too. It's brilliant. Yeah, it's just people. having these conversations, isn't it, and exploring and asking these questions and, yeah, shining a bit of a light on this relationship that has gone unquestioned, I think, for so long

in our culture. And now we're asking the questions. And it's really brilliant. Another point with it is the podcast, right? The podcast shares loads of people's experiences. I think the most important part for me when changing the relationship with alcohol was hearing people talk, say the words that I felt. Because there's a lot of aloness, especially in a social group when we're the only one that feels like we've got a problem. So on the podcast, you've got four seasons of episode after episode of people speaking the same language of you, offering advice.

And you realize, and this is the beautiful thing, oh, I'm not alone. Oh, wow, there's actually so many people from all different walks of life that feel this way. I think that, you know, is the real kind of healing. That shared story. And I've also found it really useful to learn and understand more about what alcohol actually does, what it actually is, what it's doing to, because I used to think it was my kind of off switch. It was my deserved treat at the end of the day that helped me kind of fast track the winding down. and I did not realize that actually what it was doing to my body was revving up.

Like my heart rate was elevated. My stress rate was elevated. So I had no idea. You know, I thought it was calming my social anxiety, whereas actually it was increasing the physiological anxiety within my body. So I think, you know, that's also really helpful alongside this questioning that this listener is doing, is to really start to understand what it is. is that we take, you know, what it is, this, this substance, what, what it does in our bodies

and how it works. And I found that, yeah, so you're making more of an informed decision when you do choose to drink. Yeah. I found that really, really pertinent for me, actually. Yeah. And just to add to that, the different perspective that I think is also really useful is to understand the why, to understand that if we're drinking in this way, often it's to outrun or to escape or to cover up some sort of pain. That misery, that feeling of being stuck in a persona,

they are all really important signs. That is us being told there is something here to be addressed. And this is where we lead into therapy or other kind of forms of, of self-care and self-help because alcohol is in itself is problematic at times in terms of what it does to the body but it's also a symptom of something underlying a pain spot a trauma a trigger that if we look and are brave enough to take some time to uncover okay it's so funny I had a client today and we're three months into to working together and we're

working on alcohol and he was like I don't drink anymore and it's changed but we've not talked about alcohol once and I was like yeah right because we heal the pain and the desire to escape lessons so what we do like you said from from that perspective instead of making it better it just adds more bricks to the pile that we're carrying around of pain so there's a lot of freedom with this kind of exploration and curiosity there really is there really is i think our culture and the message that we've often been given is that drink is the freedom you know and i've definitely found that actually in stopping drinking that's where i've really found the freedom and yeah i just yeah send a lot of love to this lovely listener and hope that these words have felt really supportive

and hopeful and just given some gentle food for thoughts. So thank you so much, David, for coming on and for sharing with us today. No, thank you so much. Thank you for listening to The Therapy Edit today. If you enjoyed it, please do take a sec to like and subscribe so we can share the words further and wider. If you have an ask Anna question or an anonymous confession for the Confessions from the Therapy Room episodes,

head to annamartha.com and click on the podcast tab to submit. Want more? Grab a copy of my most recent book, The Uncomfortable Truth. Change your life by taming ten of your mind's greatest fears or enjoy some of the video and downloadable resources on my website, tackling everything from burnout to driving anxiety. So until the next episode, goodbye.