You are listening to the Take a Break podcast with Rachel Hart, episode 238.

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.

Welcome back my friends. I want you to consider this question. Why did you say yes to the drink?

Why did you have more than you intended to? I ask these questions of people all the time and

it's not a question of judgment, it's a question of curiosity. And so often what I hear people kind

of fall into is the response, I don't know, it's just a habit. And you know what I talk about habits

a lot here. We're talking about habits all the time on the podcast. So the idea that your desire

to drink it doesn't just appear out of nowhere. The decision to drink doesn't just happen. You weren't

born craving that glass of wine. You taught yourself to want it. You created a habit. And so when you

crave a drink at five o'clock or when you're at a party or you're at a fancy restaurant or you're

watching a baseball game, the idea is that that habit was created. Those things were not triggers

for your desire. You taught your brain to expect the reward in certain times, places with specific

people while you're doing certain things when you feel certain emotions. This is how habits work,

habits are how the brain learns. But sometimes when we fall into this, I don't know, it's just a

habit. What we end up doing is we use this idea of the brain learning to crave a drink. We use it

against ourselves and we actually block our ability to change. Now I just want to say kind of upfront

because I know some of you will be thinking about this. It's like, well, what's the difference

between a habit and a disease and a learned behavior? And I will tell you this, there is a lot of

controversy in the medical community and in the harm reduction community about whether or not

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