You are listening to the Take a Break podcast with Rachel Hart, episode 51.

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 is your host, Rachel Hart.

Hey everybody, how was your holiday? I'm back. I'm back in San Francisco and I have to tell you my holiday was so good.

I was in Connecticut with my family and we had a real white Christmas. Truly.

I woke up Christmas morning and I looked outside and it was snowing and everything was blanketed in white.

The world was so peaceful and still and it was like I immediately turned into a six year old and I shook my husband awake to tell him.

Like honey, we have a white Christmas. It's a white Christmas and he was like, okay, yeah, great. I'll look outside later.

But I was very happy. I loved it. I got to see my parents and my grandmother and then we went up to Boston and I saw my sister and her wife and their little girl Maeve

and they just had a little boy Calvin who I met for the first time. So it was a great holiday.

But I'll tell you before we were in New England, we actually spent a week in New York City, which I loved because you know it's my old hometown and I have so many people there that I love and I miss.

And so I tried to cram in seeing as many of my friends as possible.

Now one of these people, one of my friends, it's a woman named Susie and I will tell you she is the very first friend that I made when I moved to New York City after college.

We actually met at work and it was one of those things where something just clicked. We became friends right away and for a couple years in our mid-20s, Susie and I actually lived just a block away from each other in Brooklyn, which you know in your 20s in Brooklyn,

you know it was great to have your best friend right around the corner from you. So I'll tell you Susie is also one of those friends who has seen me at my best but also my worst.

She was there all throughout my 20s when I was getting drunk, I was being really reckless, I was making stupid decisions and you know what, I actually think it's really good to have people like that in your life.

Sometimes we go through a really big transformation like deciding we want to take a break from drinking and just really change the decisions that we're making and it's so easy to fall into the trap of wanting to wipe the slate clean and pretend that all that messy stuff before that didn't exist.

But you know, I think it's really important to have people who know the whole you right all the messes they know everything because all of us were all a mix of both we are a mix of the dark and the light and so having someone that fully knows that and sees the real authentic you, I just don't think that there's really anything better than that.

So I'm telling you about Susie because last year we made a New Year's resolution together we decided that we would start sending each other postcards in the mail.

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