You are listening to the Take a Break podcast with Rachel Hart episode 327.

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.

Hey everybody, welcome back. I wanted to do this episode about why you are drinking too much because I just see people over and over again inside the membership.

But I see them come in very stuck on this issue. We have so much shame, internalized shame about why did I drink that much?

Why can't I learn my lesson? Why am I always overdoing it? Why can't I be like this other person who knows when to call it quits?

We have so much shame and so much internalized blame and thinking that something must be wrong with us or something must be wrong with our brain.

That we have some sort of flaw that leads to our drinking. And if I have one mission in my life, it is to eradicate that belief, to eradicate this idea that there is something wrong with you, that you are broken, that your brain is somehow different if you find yourself drinking more than you want to.

It's so important to get rid of that belief, not just because, hey, you should really be kind to yourself and compassionate and no, it has nothing to do with that.

It's important to get rid of that belief because as long as that shame is there, it is going to block you.

It is going to get in the way of understanding how the habit works. And if you can't really see that habit clearly, if you can't understand how it's working for you,

and it will work differently for everyone. But if you don't have a window into that, how on earth are you going to change it?

This is why you get stuck trying to use willpower or trying to use avoidance.

This is why it can feel like groundhog day and just keep repeating the same scenario over and over again, promising that you're going to be good, promising that this time will be different, and then breaking that promise.

Not because something is wrong with you, but because you can't see the habit.

Shame, embarrassment, disappointment, believing that something is wrong with you, believing that somehow your brain is broken, I told myself for a long time, I think my brain is just missing an off switch.

Other people have this kind of magical off switch and they know when to call it quits and my brain is missing that.

That is not what is going on.

So what I am going to share with you today, it's actually an episode that I recorded way back in 2019.

It's three reasons why you drink too much, but it's so important. And it's one of the most downloaded episodes.

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