Alcohol Minimalist: Change Your Drinking Habits!

You're listening to breaking the bottle legacy with Molly watts, episode two. Hi, I'm Molly, after a lifetime living under the influence of family alcohol abuse, spending more than 30 years worrying about alcohol and my own drinking, believing I had an unbreakable daily drinking habit, I changed my relationship with alcohol forever. If you want to change your drinking habits than breaking the bottle legacy is for you. My goal is to help you create a peaceful relationship with alcohol, past, present, and future. Each week all focus on real science and using your own brain to change your relationship with alcohol. Nothing has gone wrong, you're not broken, you're not sick, it's not your genes. And creating peace is possible. I'm here to help you do it. Let's start now. Hello, and welcome, or welcome back to breaking the bottle legacy with Molly watts. I'm here and as always coming to you from a pretty decent Oregon right now. It's sunny today, and I'm going to take it because it's been pretty, it's been pretty rainy, to be honest and in December. So if you're new this week, I'll reminder this podcast is dedicated to helping people build a peaceful relationship with alcohol, past, present, and future. And it is especially for those of you who are adult children of alcoholics and who struggle with your own drinking, I want to welcome you most especially. So this is the first of a two part series that I'm calling alcohol awareness and challenges to your power. As you listen to this podcast, you're going to hear me say repeatedly that the responsibility for your relationship with alcohol is squarely on your shoulders. Actually, it's inside the round globe, sitting on top of your shoulders, namely your own brain and your own thoughts. It's not your genetics. It's not the alcohol industry. It's not your friends. And it's not alcohol itself. And trust me, this is really great news. Because your brain that beautifully brilliant human brain, which was responsible for creating the negative relationship with alcohol that you have right now, is also the answer to how you're going to fix it. Nothing is broken, nothing has gone wrong. And your brain is actually doing exactly what it has been what it is evolved to do, in terms of creating the habit of drinking that you have. Now it's okay if you don't necessarily buy into that idea yet. I know I didn't. When I first heard it. I was stuck in a perpetual state of being worried about my drinking, believing that I had the alcoholic gene quote unquote, and feeling like I just simply lacked strength or wasn't it it wasn't possible to change my drinking habit. I was so scared that I wouldn't be able to stop drinking, that I just quit trying to quit. I accepted my constant state of anxiety and self reproach. Like I was always so critical of myself as a justifiable consequence of not changing my drinking. So I just kept drinking and kept feeling crappy about it, but didn't think I had anywhere to turn didn't think I could change. If I simply kept all the worry hidden behind a successful career and my upper middle class lifestyle, I could pretend that I had it all figured out. There was nothing wrong. And from the outside, quite honestly, no one knew how much I struggled with alcohol or that my drinking was as unhealthy as it was. Inside of me the battle that I had started against my mother's drinking had become my own internal battle. And sadly, I was just resigned to the fact that this was how my life as an adult child of an alcoholic was going to be I'd grown up hiding my mother's addiction so hiding my own unhealthy and hopeless habits seemed like second nature. And along the way it I had also spent a lot of time in my life trying to understand my mother's addiction. So as a result, I had processed a lot of information on alcohol and alcoholism. Right so I think I'm pretty that's pretty common for adult children of alcoholics for you know, a lot of us we've we've tried to understand why. Right. And I held on to that information as a way to separate my own behavior from my mom's as much as to resolve why she had the dependence on her for in the first place. Ultimately, I saw my mom in two ways when I was feeling compassionate. And this is while she was alive and drinking obviously I believed that she was battling a disease, I bought into that. And that kept comfortably Of course, that kept her drinking very separate from mine. And there was a certain comfort for me as an adult child of an alcoholic in believing that alcoholism was a disease. If I didn't have it, if I didn't catch it, you know, I wasn't going to end up like her right? When I was feeling less empathetic, I believed that she had just a major character flaw. i She wasn't sick, she was stupid. She wasn't ill, she was selfish. And these two rationales either being sick or being broken, are really how alcohol, problematic Alcohol Drinking is framed by society, you you fall into one of these two categories, diseased or flawed and broken. And as I began to develop my own unhealthy drinking habit, both of these narratives on alcoholism fueled my own subconscious fears about being sick or broken myself. And it's only when I began to understand how the brain works, and that even if I'm in my mom's case, she didn't have a disease or a character flaw, that I was able to change my drinking habits and to change my relationship with alcohol. So the assertion that you have control over your own your own drinking contradicts some of the most popular addiction recovery programs, most notably Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, the first step of a foundational 12 steps is to admit that you are powerless over alcohol. And in several of the other steps, AAA turns to a greater power quote, unquote, and asks him to restore sanity. So AAA followers are asked to turn to him to ask him to remove shortcomings, and to turn over their will and their lives to God as they understand him. So I'm, I'm speaking these facts out not with an eye to criticize or debate their validity. And so if you have a drinking problem, and AAA helps you manage it, and if AAA has brought peace to your life, then I am nothing but grateful and supportive. But for many people like my mom, they didn't find they don't find success with AAA. And in fact, Lance Dodes, who is a an author and an addiction specialist, he, uh, he wrote a book on this called the sober truth, which I will link to in my show notes. It's called the sober truth, debunking the bad science behind the 12 step programs and the rehab industry. He shares that, basically, over many peer reviewed articles, they put the success rate for AAA at somewhere between five and 10%. So that means that 90 to 95% of people that go to AAA, do not find success with their 12 Step Program. Of course, for me, and a lot of other adult children of alcoholics who are drinking more than they want to AAA was not some place, we would look for help. Because first of all, I wasn't an alcoholic, like my mother, right. So I had heard the stories, I knew the 12 steps from being a part of her journey, and none of it appealed, or applied to me. I could no more imagine standing up in an AAA meeting and saying that I was an alcoholic than I could imagine running for president. And it actually underscores another problem with alcohol and why people who are struggling with it, don't seek help, right? The stigma associated with treatment programs, and the necessity to admit you're powerless over alcohol repels many people who aren't physically addicted to alcohol, who, but who, but who desire to change unhealthy drinking habits, which is, of course, the vast majority of us. If you haven't seen it, there are there's a lot of statistics and data on this. But most people who are drinking more alcohol than they want to are not physically dependent on alcohol. And I said that in the first episode, I'll continue to say it. There's a study that was published by the Center for Disease Control and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration together in 2014. And it basically said that even among excessive drinkers, nine out of 10 were not physically dependent on alcohol. So what does that mean and why is it important? It's important because it means that alcohol isn't causing your drinking problem. Okay, did you hear that? Alcohol is not causing your drinking problem. Alcohol doesn't jump into your mouth. The bottles don't open themselves magically and the glass doesn't raise itself. The power to change your drinking habits lies within you and your thoughts. Nowhere else. But as I said, to fully embrace and harness your power over alcohol, I think it's important to acknowledge that there are challenges to that power. And that's what this episode and the next episode are going to be talking about. Once you educate yourself and become aware of these challenges, then they lose their strength. And awareness is really the human brain's fuel for change, right. So once you become aware of the challenges, they lose their strength, and you again, have the power. The challenge when it comes to your power over alcohol falls under three different categories in the way that I see it. The first, and the what this episode is going to be talking about is science, the next to our society, and industry. And that's what I'm gonna be talking about in the next episode. So but for this one, we're going to be talking about the science that challenges your power over your head over the habit of drinking. So I will just first off, say that you'll soon realize if you don't already and in the intro to this podcast, it talks about the fact that we're going to use real science because science is important to me, and I'm a huge science nerd, I love science, I believe in it, and I respect it. So while there is definitely some woowoo in terms of encouragement and positive affirmations here, there will always be real truths backed by science. And when the science is inconclusive or contradictory. I'll tell you that too. So I believe that there are two basic science elements that challenge your power to change your relationship with alcohol. The first is chemistry, and how alcohol changes the chemistry in your brain. And the second is neuroscience and how the brain works to build habits. Alright, so let's start. We'll start with chemistry. All right. Alcoholic drinks are made mostly of ethyl alcohol, also known as ethanol, it is the intoxicating agent that you find in beer, wine and spirits. So when you drink alcohol, when you drink your favorite drink, right, whether that's wine, beer, or spirits, the chemical impact of alcohol on your body is systemic and immediate. You drink alcohol, and it goes to both the stomach and the bloodstream. And from the very first sip, alcohol travels throughout your whole body, your body and the liver. Of course, we probably all know this specifically recognizes alcohol as a toxin, it can't store it, and it immediately goes to work trying to break it down and to get rid of it. So there are variables that affect your body's response to alcohol, that include things like your weight, your age, your gender, your stress level, the physical setting, all of these things go combined to impact how you respond to alcohol each and every time you drink. The type of alcoholic beverage that you consume and whether or not you combine alcohol with a meal can also impact the chemical reaction in your body. It's literally like the experiments in your high school chemistry class. When changing the elements the temperature or the time got different results. Your body's response to alcohol is dynamic and unique every time you drink. While this might seem like good news for some and bad news for others, one important thing to understand is that no matter what your variables are, once alcohol enters your system, your body goes into defense mode trying to protect you from it. Once in the body, alcohol moves quickly. And in just 30 seconds after your first step sip, it travels to the brain and affects the body's brain's chemistry by interfering with the activity of neurotransmitters. So neurotransmitters what are those they are chemical messengers that carry signals between neurons and other cells in the body. Billions of neurotransmitter molecules are at work in the brain continually and constantly to keep our brains functioning, and alcohol impairs them almost immediately. It's the depressant action of alcohol on the brain's chemistry that results in lowering inhibitions, calming social fears and making you feel more quote unquote free. What isn't, as commonly understood is that alcohol in the brain also acts as a stimulant, triggering the release of dopamine, the feel good chemical and your brain's reward center. So the reward center is the combination of brain areas that are all affected by pleasurable activities. like going on vacation having sex, eating your favorite food, talking to a good friend, and yes, drinking alcohol. By boosting dopamine alcohol motivates your brain to continue seeking that pleasure. The catch 22 with alcohol is that while the dopamine is winding you up, and working to focus your attention on getting more pleasure, like your next drink. You are simultaneous Sleep altering other brain chemicals that are causing you to think less clearly lose your sense of balance and increase sleepiness. So you've got both a depressant and a stimulant action happening at the same time. Alcohol is ability to cause those contrasting actions in the brain is known as its biphasic effect. Put simply, alcohol makes you feel both better and worse. And these effects occur at different levels of intoxication. According to the evidence, the euphoric effects of alcohol peak at around a blood alcohol content of point oh, five 2.06%. After that, the positive effects of alcohol quickly diminish, and the negative effects increase. So the trick would be to maintain a low level BAC, if that were possible, but is it so as we discussed, what happens in your body when you drink is your own personal science experiment. So figuring out how much you could safely consume to keep your own blood alcohol content in the low levels and avoid the negative impact impacted by higher blood alcohol content, would be a unique experience each and every time you drink alcohol. What worked for you yesterday might be completely irrelevant today. And what works today will likely be irrelevant tomorrow. But what should be easy to see is that most people can't drink a whole lot before they achieve a higher than point oh five BAC. And while the chemical reaction to so that's really the bottom line, you know, you have to drink a very minimal amount. And I'm going to link actually a chart that shows the different levels of drinking. But if you could see it, truly it's it's it's one drink, basically for, for a lot of people, and it's not it's based on your size. But again, it's also dependent upon all these all those other variables we discussed. So you can use the chart as a guideline, but it's not definitive. But the bottom line is you can't drink very much alcohol before you start experiencing negative consequences. And it is very much individualized and unique. And while that chemical, and so that's really what the bottom line is, it's a challenge because of what it does in your brain. And because it is unique and individualized. So the second part of the challenges so once you understand that, you really understand what you're up against with alcohol in terms of affecting your neuro chemistry, your your brains chemistry, when you drink and why you're inspired to drink more, what's actually going on. Once you really begin to understand that and understand how it is working in your brain. I believe it really helped me at least, to change the number of drinks that I was drinking at any one given time. That was the first step. And really focusing on not wanting those negative consequences helped me first in being able to change my relationship. So while that immediate chemical reaction to alcohol is unique and individualized, the triggering of the brain's reward center, which we talked about earlier, the neuroscience is universal for everyone who drinks and it's the linchpin of habit formation. So your brain is actually acting by designed to keep you drinking, nothing has gone wrong, nothing's broken. You aren't genetically predetermined to become an alcoholic, your brain is simply doing what all human brains do. And that's basically developing a habit or making it more efficient to get something that it sees as a pleasure activity. The human brain is beautiful and complex. And it has only really been in the last century that neuroscientists have developed technology that has allowed them to image the brain and trace its activity. So we still really have so much more to learn about the human brain. But appreciating what we already know. And using our brains unique ability to observe itself, which is an ability known as metacognition is key to overcoming your drinking habit, and really any habits that don't serve you. So metacognition, by the way, is something that's unique to humans, meaning that you can observe your thinking, right? So in 1960s, American neuroscientists Paul Maclean introduced the triune brain. And he had a book he published actually, it was published in 1990, called the triune brain. And in it, he described the brain as having three distinct structures that evolved over the course of human evolution. He described the three areas of the brain in terms of an organizational hierarchy, beginning with the most basic of functions like breathing, and then through higher order conscious activities, like metacognition that I just mentioned, right? And even though more recent stuff is, as we've we've come a little further, and many people believe that the the triune brain model is a little over simplified. It does provide a very good foundation for understanding how the brain functions and for me In my own journey to unwind my drinking habit, I found this model explained a lot of the why and the how I created my drinking habit, and also the power to change my habits directly in my control. So that's why I really liked it. And that's why I'm sharing it with you. So the three areas of the triune brain are first the primitive brain, second, the limbic system, and third, the neocortex. Now, the primitive brain or the reptilian brain is where our basic survival brain exists. It's basically what runs on autopilot and controls all the functions of our body that we would call unconscious. So our heart rate our breathing, our body temperature, or balance, it's it's very essential, right? But everything runs in the background of more evolved areas. Like I said, you can't live without your primitive brain, right? That without breathing without your heart rate, you cannot survive, but you can't do anything to influence it, you can't change it, it just exists. It either exists or doesn't. Right. So for our purposes, specifically, to understand the formation of habits, we're going to focus on the limbic system, and the new cortex. So the limbic system developed around 150 million years ago, a long time with the evolution of the first mammals, and it's where emotions and memories are processed in the brain. So according to MacLean, the limbic system evolved before the neocortex and after the reptilian brain, and it developed to help manage the fight or flight response, the limbic system evolved to record pleasure and pain and to associate memories and learning with these responses. The limbic system is also the core of the reward center for mammals, including humans, and therefore it exerts a strong influence on our behaviors. So the newest area of the brain to evolve is the neocortex or the new cortex. Of course, new is relative, because we're still talking about two and half million years ago. So two and a half million versus 150 million right? big gap, but still a long time ago. There are several theories as to why the human brain continued to grow and evolve. But what is important for us as people is that our brains did evolve. And within the neocortex is our prefrontal cortex, which enables us to plan and consider the future as well as anticipated. And this feature known this cognitive feature, known as future orientation is considered to be one of the most advanced and unique cognitive feats, and it is exclusively human. Right. So human beings, we can anticipate and plan for the future. And that is not something that other mammals can do. For the purposes of understanding and changing my own habit of drinking, I found it useful to embrace the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. Some psychologists have termed them the toddler brain and the adult brain respectively. And so sometimes I like to think of the limbic system, I envision a reactive impulsive toddler who is ruled by her emotions and only focused on the immediate moment. And the limbic system evolved to give humans emotional connection to activities that would ensure survival, right. Its main goals are to seek pleasure, avoid pain and to conserve energy, much like a toddler. In contrast, the prefrontal cortex or the adult brain, which doesn't reach full maturity until the age of 28, is the most highly developed and evolved part of the human brain. The neocortex is the center of logic, conscious thinking, and language. So no matter whether we are talking about the habit of drinking, or the habit of brushing our teeth, the reason that habits are difficult to break is because the brain, and specifically the limbic system, or lower brain likes to commit repetitive behaviors to automation in an attempt to conserve energy. Essentially, our heart our habits get hardwired into us, so we don't have to expend mental energy on them. With the habit of drinking or any other habit that triggers the release of dopamine. The habit is strengthened because the dopamine motivates us to continue seeking out this pleasurable reward. But habits can be changed when we engage our prefrontal cortex to override the automatic process using logic. We have to remind ourselves with our future planning, and our long term goals, and it's really just as simple as that. And as hard you might say, to change your relationship with alcohol. For now, I just want you to understand that simply repeating the action of drinking alcohol by repeating the action you created a habit system for alcohol. And I know that's probably not news to many of you, you've probably got that idea down that you have up, but it really isn't. Because alcohol is done anything specific, there are other. It's the same pattern that you have for other habits. And the one thing that you know one thing that's different and this is not exclusive to alcohol, because like I said, there are other dopamine releasing triggers, it does, it has created a pleasure habit for you. And you need to be able to see it as such, and override it with your prefrontal cortex. So for me, whether it was daily drinking, or going out on the weekends, getting off work or relaxing on vacation, you know, my brain learned to expect alcohol as the habit, and it was ingrained in me. And so for me, and many others of you who quote unquote, over drank, the amount of alcohol increases over time, and the number of cues and triggers for the habit cycle increased too. And so beyond that daily after work habit, I began to associate drinking with whenever I was feeling a negative emotion, stress, sadness, anger, I can literally remember choosing to drink to excess, whenever I felt overwhelmed by emotions. So with time and repetition, again, it simply became my default. It felt like I had no choice but to drink when a nerve negative circumstance appeared. So maybe that's not you, maybe you simply drink at the end of the workday, or you want to increase your fun on the weekends or just celebrate holidays. I did all that to the important piece of the chemical science is that in all of these scenarios, I was seeking the chemical feel good dopamine factor that alcohol, the drug temporarily gave my brain. And because I did it repetitively, my brain committed drinking alcohol to habit, the science of alcohol is the first challenge we have to overcome in creating our peaceful relationship with drinking, we have to recognize that we are seeking the immediate chemical reaction in our brains. And when we do this repetitively, neuroscience explains how and why our brains commit the drinking to habit. The first tool for overcoming this challenge is knowledge. And we've just created that knowledge and awareness right now. And later, you know, later in this podcast, we'll talk about how we're going to use that knowledge, this knowledge to retrain our brains and undo the habit of drinking and to completely change our relationship with alcohol. All right, that's a lot of information packed into this episode. I'm gonna put links to pertinent articles and studies and books in the show notes. And if you would like to pick up your free copy of alcohol true this how much is safe, please head over to www dot Molly watts.com. That's Molly with a why w a t t s.com. And you can get that free report as well as get advanced notice of when breaking the bottle legacy will be available on Amazon. If you have questions and would like to have them answered here, please send an email to podcast at Molly watts.com. Next week, I will be diving into the other challenges to your relationship with alcohol and those our society and industry. Until then, choose peace my friends, I will see you next week. Thank you for listening to breaking the bottle legacy. This podcast is dedicated to helping you change your drinking habits and to create a peaceful relationship with alcohol. Take something that you learned in today's episode and apply it to your life this week. Transformation is possible you have the power to change your relationship with alcohol. Now, for more information, please visit me at www dot Molly watts.com