Alcohol-Free Life Is Better Than I Imagined | Helen's Naked Life | E826

This Naked Mind Podcast

Annie Grace

Mental Health, Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Can you truly quit drinking and never feel deprived? It's a question many of us ponder, and Helen's story offers a powerful, resounding "yes." Surprisingly, Helen grew up in an alcohol-free household, yet found herself, by her mid-twenties, fully immersed in a daily drinking culture that felt completely normal. This habit quietly escalated until, at 50, she was passing out almost every night. Despite her ambition and past ability to control her drinking, she grappled with a deep sense of powerlessness. Join Annie and Helen as they discuss how she navigated this profound shift, breaking free from the struggle and discovering an unexpected, joyful infatuation with her truly alcohol-free life. It's a testament to finding genuine happiness without compromise. In this episode, Annie and Helen discuss: Growing up without alcohol, then starting a daily wine habit in her mid-twenties. Helen's attempts to stop drinking, including the Anthony Robbins' Dickens process, and why fear-based motivation didn't stick. The pivotal moment when Helen realized she could quit drinking and never feel deprived The profound realization that alcohol offers no real value. The impact of alcohol marketing and her aversion to being "taken for a fool." Applying the principles of her alcohol-free journey to other areas of life. Why Helen no longer feels powerless or tempted by alcohol The surprising benefits of quitting drinking that Helen never expected And other topics…

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to This Naked Mind with Annie Grace.
0:12.8	Hi, this is Annie Grace and welcome to this Naked Mind podcast. I'm here with Helen. Hi, Helen. How are you?
0:20.1	Hi, I'm great. How are you?
0:21.7	I'm really good. It's good to have you here. So why don't you take us back to the beginning
0:26.8	in your journey with alcohol? Where did it all start for you? Yeah, so it's interesting that my,
0:33.2	I feel like my journey with alcohol was I never drank alcohol growing up.
0:38.3	I did not have alcohol in the house.
0:40.3	My parents never drank.
0:41.9	We were a very religious household.
0:44.3	And I had maybe like a couple of drinks in high school kind of thing.
0:47.6	And even what's so interesting about I feel like my journey with alcohol was like in my 20s,
0:52.3	I remember so distinctly I was married to my first
0:56.3	husband and he drank a lot and we drank a lot together and so in my early 20s I actually
1:03.1	I pulled back from alcohol and I felt like it was not something I really wanted in my life
1:08.7	and I used to have literal, like, arguments with
1:11.1	my first husband about not drinking enough. So this is my early 20s is like, I'm a person who's like,
1:17.9	I don't really like drinking. I don't want to waste my life drinking. So I ended up divorcing him.
1:24.1	And then as I got older, I really started drinking as like a daily habitual just
1:30.8	drinking wine and being part of kind of that wine culture of like you know going for a happy
1:36.0	hour after work and then extending that to always opening a bottle of wine in the evening after
1:41.2	after work kind of thing and I would say say then towards, so it was sort of,
1:47.2	drinking was sort of just a normal part of my life from my mid-20s to probably my early 30s.
	...

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