This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

It's about 3.33 in the morning and I literally wake up at the same time every single morning

and I lay there and I look around and I just know what's coming. I know that I'm just going to be pissed off at myself

for a long time until I can fall back asleep. But the kicker is that I feel a huge sense of very messed up

anxiety within energy. It's hard for me to fall back asleep because I just have this surge of a

adrenaline coursing through my body. I feel like maybe it's just all the carbs, all the alcohol I drink and all

of a sudden I'm wide awake. Why do I wake up at 3 in the morning? Really frustrating when I know I

have to wake up earlier when the kids are going to be getting me up at 6 o'clock. But there I am,

I'm awake and I just start in on myself because I'm so frustrated. Annie, what is your problem? Why can't

you get this under control? Why do you have to drink so much? What is it? I feel so calm and collected

in all these other areas of my life. I feel smart, I feel intelligent, I feel in control. I don't

feel like such a loser but when it comes to 3 in the morning and trying to count my drinks and

realizing that I can't even remember how many glasses of wine I had, I feel like such a loser.

I feel like so dumb and so out of control and I don't even have any idea what I'm supposed to do

about it because I'm so terrified that something really is wrong with me, that I am an alcoholic,

that I need to go to meetings for the rest of my life or just decide to just not have fun forever

that's literally what it looks like to me in those moments when I feel so much regret about my drinking

and so I push those thoughts aside because to me that is on par with just why even

live if you're just going to live in this complete misery and that's how I see the other side of

the bottle. I see it as misery, I mean I am convinced at this point in my life that alcohol is how

I relax, that it's how I connect with my husband, that it's how I become present for my kids,

...