You Can’t Unlearn What You’ve Learned
Blog #3: September 1, 2023
I consider myself a life-long learner (Learner #1). Apart from my degrees in civil engineering (Achiever #2), I became curious about human behavior about 10 years after my college experience and have been informally studying positive psychology and happiness over the past 15 years. My quest for knowledge (Input #4) led me to training and certifications in CliftonStrengths, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and Positive Intelligence over the years — because I am deeply curious about why people do the things that they do — including me!
It’s no surprise that once I stumbled upon Annie Grace’s This Naked Mind programs, I went all-in. Laura McKowen’s We are the Luckiest and William Porter’s Alcohol Explained were other game-changers for me. Once things began to click for me in my own struggles with alcohol, my mindset shifted to start considering sharing my new-found knowledge and my gifts for coaching to help others in their challenges with alcohol.
This post shares a few of the top things I learned that were critical in helping me move from feeling fixated about drinking to feeling liberated, free, confident and thriving in sobriety.
Most gray area drinkers (like I used to be) are psychologically dependent – they use alcohol to destress from a long day at work, to deal with loneliness or other challenges, and it becomes habitual. It eventually becomes a tool and it has a “job” in our lives.
For me, drinking patterns were deeply ingrained. My typical after-work routine started with a glass of wine to ‘unwind’. A glass usually turned to a couple glasses, and usually more than that on weekends. Those neural pathways were like a well-worn trail in my brain.
Neural pathways are so cool! It is possible to de-stress and unwind from a long day without a glass of wine (or more) and retrain your brain to build different habits and beliefs.
Need alcohol to sleep? I thought this was true, but as it turns out, after a couple weeks of resetting my brain chemistry, it stopped relying on alcohol to slow down. The first couple weeks were rough but my brain needed time to heal.
I tried moderating and it was a nightmare! It meant having rules, counting days/glasses, and feeling miserable watching other people drink. My thoughts almost became obsessive about drinking / not drinking. The decision fatigue was absolutely exhausting. After a couple months of this, I decided to give Not Drinking a try.
My ‘Not Drinking’ experiment has now exceeded 500 days without alcohol. I have zero obsessive thoughts about when I can have a drink, what to drink, how much to drink, or how much other people are drinking. I simply don’t think about it anymore. And that has freed up so much more brain space to think about other things!
The desire to drink alcohol has also disappeared. Did I mention that the World Health Organization has declared that “No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health. Alcohol is a toxic, psychoactive, and dependence-producing substance and has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen. It causes at least 7 types of cancer, including breast cancer…Risk starts at the first drop.” You can’t unlearn that.
The benefits of Not Drinking far outweigh any benefit I thought I was getting from drinking. I sleep better; my skin looks great; the spark in my eyes has returned. I lost 12 pounds in the first 60 days without trying.
There’s no more brain fog or fuzziness; my thinking is so much more clear! I have new ideas and creativity! I never thought of myself as a “writer,” but look at me now! :-)
I don’t beat myself up over how much I drank last night and have zero hangovers! I look better and feel better about myself.
Most of all, I learned that Alcohol Freedom Coaching is my calling. As a certified coach and former gray-area drinker, this is a problem I have unique insight into. I want to share what I’ve learned and the joys of sobriety with others. I want YOU to feel this same way: liberated – not fixated. Peaceful, confident, brave and strong.
If you want to talk to someone who’s been there and is about 500 days ahead on the journey, please don’t hesitate to reach out. This is a judgment-free zone and 100% confidential.
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