You're listening to the Recovery Happy Hour, where we talk about Life beyond the bottle and what happens after we get sober. I'm your

host Tricia. Thanks for joining me today. I want to dedicate the introduction of

this episode to anyone who's still considering quitting drinking and has yet to try it.

If you're sober curious, if you're still in the gray zone, if you still aren't sure if you have a problem,

or if you think you can try and moderate and learn how to

drink like a normal person. Here's some new vocabulary for you to think about.

There's a word we hear a lot and I want to try and change the way you approach it.

Surrender.

When I originally thought about drinking, the idea of surrender sounded super dramatic.

The word makes me think of one of those religious Baroque oil paintings with an image of

someone about to die.

You know, their face is so woeful, you know, it's such a big deal.

And I thought, hell no, that's not me. I don't need to surrender, not necessary.

Thank you very much. You know once I actually stopped drinking I was finally ready to do it because I had given up. I waved the white flag. Alcohol kicked my ass and I admitted that I couldn't fight it any longer.

That's surrender. If you look up the definition of surrender in the dictionary, it's

to give in to concede admit defeat. Imagine a

presidential election, okay? Imagine the losing political candidate at 3 a.m. after finding out they lost.

What do they do? They concede. No big deal. They admit that the other guy won and

they bow out and move on with life.

They surrender in order to start a process.

If they kept fighting the fact that they lost,

we'd never be able to move on with the winner starting their administration.

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