You are listening to the Take a Break Podcast with Rachel Hart episode 146.

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 everybody.

Today I'm going to talk to you about the connection between the habit of drinking and your emotions.

And I want to focus on this today because I will tell you this is the area where I get the most pushback from people.

So I'll hear you guys say everything that you teach us makes a lot of sense.

But this piece about drinking to change your emotions or change how you feel, I just can't connect with that.

That's just not my situation.

And I really want to help you understand this connection because if you don't understand this piece, you cannot successfully change the habit.

It really is everything because the reason that you pick up a glass and drink is because you're trying to solve how you feel.

This is always the case.

It's not sometimes the case, it's always the case.

If you are doubting me right now, if you're listening and shaking your head and want you to just stay on, hang with me and open your mind to what I'm going to share.

Because I know a lot of you struggle with this piece of what I teach.

I think that people get confused because when you hear me say that, when you hear me say picking up a glass is about trying to solve how you feel,

you immediately kind of conjure up this picture of someone who is super depressed and all alone and drinking by themselves in a darkened room and self-medicating.

And you're like, I don't want to be that person. That's not who I am. That doesn't look like what I'm doing. And so you immediately reject it.

Now, that's one part of what I'm talking about. Sure, you could be feeling depressed and you could be alone and drinking by yourself in a darkened room.

And you could be using alcohol to self-medicate.

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