427: The Skill of Staying Present Through Discomfort

Take a Break from Drinking

Rachel Hart

Alcohol, Lifecoach, Alcoholicsanonymous, Self-improvement, Hungover, Society & Culture, Smartrecovery, Drinking, Cognitivebehavioraltherapy, Education, Cbt, 12steps, Sobriety, Drunk, Recovery, Personal Journals

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ever felt like you just need a drink to handle discomfort? In this episode, you’ll hear how a terrifying bus ride through Alaska’s Denali National Park helped me realize that discomfort isn’t the enemy – it’s the chaos we create around it that trips us up.

Through a narrow, winding road perched over sheer cliffs, fear consumed me. I reacted, resisted, and distracted myself, escalating the discomfort into a mental spiral. But when the journey turned back, I chose a different approach: staying present, feeling the discomfort, and observing it. That’s when everything changed.

Tune in to learn how you can apply the skill of staying present through discomfort to urges, whether it's alcohol or any challenging emotion. The key to breaking habits is focusing on the discomfort, not escalating it into chaos. Letting the discomfort be there without reacting is the first step to regaining control and shifting your relationship with alcohol – and life.

Find a personalized approach that helps you change your habit in my new book, The Ultimate Guide to Drinking Less, here: https://rachelhart.com/guide/

Discover alternative approaches to drinking less inside our membership program, Take a Break: https://rachelhart.com/tab/

Get the full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://rachelhart.com/427

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ever feel like you really need a drink? Like the discomfort that you're feeling in the moment is just
0:06.5	too much and you need something to make it go away. In this episode, I take you around hairpin
0:13.2	curves off a mountain in Alaska and show you how the tools I teach to help you drink less
0:18.5	and manage your desire also help whenever you're spiraling into
0:22.7	I Can't Do This Mode. This is episode 427 and you'll learn why these moments of discomfort
0:29.2	aren't the enemy and how the real problem is all the chaos you unknowingly create.
0:36.2	Whether you want to drink less or stop drinking, this podcast will help you change the habit
0:41.5	from the inside out.
0:43.3	We're challenging conventional wisdom about why people drink and why it can be hard to resist
0:48.6	temptation.
0:50.0	No labels, no judgment, just practical tools to take control of your desire and stop worrying about your drinking.
0:57.8	Now, here's your host, Rachel Hart.
1:04.6	Hey, everybody.
1:05.8	Today, we're diving into one of my favorite early episodes of the podcast.
1:10.0	It's one that combines grizzly bears and
1:12.3	glacier views and a six-hour bus ride that turned into my own personal masterclass into
1:17.9	managing discomfort. So if you've ever experienced that the need to drink can sometimes feel
1:23.4	really overwhelming, or if you found yourself spiraling into a thought pattern of, I can't take
1:29.7	this anymore, this is the episode for you. Because what I experienced that day many years ago
1:35.4	in Alaska and how I handled it gave me a real-time reminder of what the work of learning how
1:41.7	to manage not just your desire to drink and your desire for more,
1:46.1	but learning how to manage all of your emotions is really about. So let's jump back in and
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Rachel Hart, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Rachel Hart and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.