You are listening to the Take a Break podcast with Rachel Hart episode 259.

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.

All right everybody, welcome to another new year. I cannot believe it. I start this podcast in 2017.

Here we are in 2022. This is crazy. I wanted to kick off though this year's topic. I was thinking

about what do I want to start this year with. I wanted to start with a topic that came up recently

inside Take a Break. Someone inside Take a Break was talking about how to use the decision to

take a break from drinking to use it for a year of really powerful living versus a year of

gritting teeth and willpower. As soon as I heard that, I really just loved that distinction

because I think so often our mind doesn't let us imagine beyond the experience of willpower

and resisting and gritting our teeth when it comes to changing any habit, but especially when

it comes to changing a habit like drinking. Maybe you're in this place. A lot of people start

the new year. A lot of people are doing dry January. A lot of people are like, you know what? I

want to take a break. Maybe it's for 30 days. Maybe it's longer. Maybe it's shorter. Maybe it's

for a year. But a lot of people I think have this kind of deep inside of them. This kind of like

sense or knowing. I think that this could be a good thing for me. I think taking a break from

drinking. I think it could be good. I think I kind of need this. I think that doing this could

really shift something in my life. So many people have this intuition. But then we think of the

practicalities of taking a break and saying no and not drinking and hanging out with people and

having a soda water. And then it's like, oh god. Right. I mean, I remember what my brain would do

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