You are listening to the Take a Break podcast with Rachel Hart episode 126.

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.

Well, hello my friends. We are doing a follow up episode.

I'm one of my very favorite episodes. It's episode 78, The Rolladex of Excuses.

And this is the 2.0 version.

Now if you haven't listened to that episode, I really want to encourage you to go back.

I really teach all about the Rolladex of excuses, what it is and how to work with it, how to not just be at its mercy.

But just as a brief primer for some of you, the Rolladex of excuses are all the justifications your brain flips through to try to prevent you from changing.

So you can think of it like one of those old fashioned Rolladex is sitting on a desk, you flip through all the cards.

Your brain is just flipping through excuses until it lands on one that you will believe so that you'll have a drink.

Because remember once you have a habit, your brain actually wants to, that lower brain of yours, wants to prevent you from changing it, wants to keep the habit.

Even if it's not serving you, and those excuses, those justifications can sound like anything.

I want it, I need it, I need a break, I need to take the edge off, I just want to relax, I feel so uncomfortable, I can't take it anymore.

It's been a hard day, a stressful day, a long week, it's always a long week, right?

I deserve it, I've been so good, just this once, one won't hurt, it's healthy, it's Friday, it's a party, it's free.

Everyone else's, it doesn't matter who cares, screw it.

You know what it sounds like, you have heard this Rolladex in your head before you've heard it around drinking, but you've probably heard it around many other things in your life as well.

Now here's the thing, a lot of my clients will say, well I understand that it's just an excuse or it's just a justification.

It just feels so believable, it just sounds so compelling in the moment, and I always tell them the same thing.

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