You are listening to the Take a Break podcast with Rachel Hart, episode 152.

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. We are talking about how to be a good host or hostess.

Today, I thought this was a good thing to be talking about since we're right around the holidays

and so many of you are throwing parties and opening up your home to friends and relatives.

And a lot of you are not necessarily enjoying that experience.

This is a big thing that can come up for a lot of people when they take a break from drinking.

So what happens is we become so focused on wanting to make sure that everyone has a good time

and inadvertently we have taught our brain to rely on alcohol to make that happen.

And this is where anxiety can creep in.

But here's the thing, you don't have to avoid having people over.

You don't have to resign yourself to being miserable or squirreling yourself away in the kitchen

to keep yourself busy. And most importantly, you don't have to feel anxiety over hosting parties

or inviting people into your house. This is true if you're taking a break.

It's true if you're just trying to cut back.

It's true if you never even drink alcohol, but you feel a lot of anxiety around hosting.

But in order to enjoy being a host, you have to redefine what it means to be a host or a hostess

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