You are listening to the Take a Break podcast with Rachel Hart episode 111.

Whether you want to drink less or stop drinking, this podcast will help you change the habit from the inside out.

We're challenging conventional wisdom about why people drink and why it can be hard to resist temptation.

No labels, no judgment, just practical tools to take control of your desire and stop worrying about your drinking.

Now here's your host, Rachel Hart.

Hello, hello everybody. Now listen, I am doing a new segment where I'm going to start answering listener questions.

So if you have any questions about anything related to your drinking, anything you've heard me talk about on the podcast, just send me an email at podcast at RachelHeart.com.

And I will make sure you get an answer. All right, so today we're going to be talking about worrying what people will think if you don't drink.

Oh my lord. This used to be such a big issue for me. It used to be a place where my brain would spin and spin and spin.

I had so much anxiety because I had all these thoughts. People are going to think I'm no fun or that I'm boring, that I'm a buzzkill, that I'm a killjoy, that something's wrong with me, or maybe they'll think I have the dreaded problem.

All of those things my brain was so paranoid about and it's really interesting because I talk about this a lot on the podcast when we look into the future and our brain is trying to envision what is going to happen.

Listen to what I was describing there, right? I was describing only worst case scenario. I was describing kind of everything that could go wrong or that would be negative because of course, you know, people could discover that you don't drink.

And think that's amazing. Isn't that crazy? I was like, I don't really think that that's possible. Obviously they would only think the negative things.

They would only think that I was no fun. They would only think that I was a problem. But I want you to just consider that, especially if this is something that comes up a lot for you, that someone could actually think the opposite.

They could think it's amazing. They could think that you are more fun because maybe they don't think drunk people are all that fun.

Who knows? Just open yourself up to that possibility.

You know, I work with women of all ages. People are always sure, the very first time they talk to me, they're always really sure that they are going to be my oldest client.

And you know, invariably they never are. I work with women in their 20s and women in their 70s.

But still that fear of what if? What will people think? That fear of rejection, it really can loom very large for people.

And a lot of women will say to me, and I remember thinking this myself, why am I still fixated on this? I'm not in high school anymore.

Why aren't I over wanting and needing to be liked? Why do I care so much?

And that's what I want to talk to you all about today and want to talk about how worrying what people will think is very often connected to rejection.

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