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.

Hi friends, this is Annie Grace at this naked mind. I am the author of this naked mind and I

answer readers questions here on Facebook. And if you want to start reading the book, if you're

curious, you can download the first chapters free at www.thisnakedmind.com. And today's question comes

from Laura. She says, is it possible to go back in a couple of years to drinking normal like I

used to? A low key, not very important part of my life or have I actually crossed the line to where

drinking is now over forever? I certainly now drink every night to zone out, but I'd like to go

back to having the occasional glass of wine is that possible someday. I think that this is a really

good question. And I think to answer it, we have to start by thinking about what was it like when

you were an occasional drinker? And when you were just drinking on occasion, you know, that occasional

glass of wine, which to me maybe means twice a month or something like that, you weren't probably

thinking about it very much. It certainly wasn't an important part of your life and you absolutely

weren't using it on a daily basis to zone out, which is an effect self-medicating. And I think that

is when things get really tricky with alcohol is that there's tons of people who can drink socially,

but when you start using alcohol to relieve stress or to deal with things in your life,

then your life becomes more stressful because there's never a reason not to drink. And there's always

something stressful around the corner and you develop an addiction. And at that stage, I think, you know,

there's a lot of underlying things that probably need to be addressed. So, how I'm going to get

into this answer, but before I do, I just want to say that I'm never going to kind of ignore the

studies. And there's been studies done on this and there was a study done by the National Institute

of Alcoholism and Abuse, and it studied a bunch of people who quit sort of spontaneously. And they went

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