Ep 180: Reader Question – How do you deal with family members who still drink?

This Naked Mind Podcast

Annie Grace

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

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2019

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We can choose our friends, but we can’t choose our family and so…..how do we deal with this issue if our close family members still drink? Should we just go off the grid and avoid them? Should we insist that they don’t drink when you’re around? Annie answers this question by sharing some of her tools to help avoid the neurological stress created in these situations. Find out her best advice for dealing with the drinkers in the family.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,
0:16.0	pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.
0:29.0	Hi, friends. This is Annie Grace with this naked mind and I am answering readers' questions.
0:34.0	And today I have a question from Anonymous. She says, Annie, first thank you for all your honesty and compassion in your book.
0:40.0	I've read it three times, skipped in chapters and reading what I thought would most benefit me.
0:44.0	I'm a government professional with a three-year-old daughter.
0:47.0	My alcohol addiction has been more of a problem since the death of some of my relatives.
0:52.0	My only problem is that I'm constantly surrounded by close family members who continue to drink.
0:57.0	Do I cut them off? I've had many failed attempts since the beginning of this year and I'm finding myself in situations where I'm surrounded with just everyone drinking.
1:05.0	Any advice for the first month and so on, I can't seem to get over that hump.
1:10.0	I think a lot of people report that after the first month, for six weeks, it does get harder because you start to all the reasons that you were drinking in the first place really start to fade.
1:23.0	I mean, think about what it feels like to be nauseous. It's really hard to imagine what that feels like or what it feels like to have a hangover.
1:30.0	Again, that's really difficult to imagine.
1:33.0	And so you can't easily recall these moments of regret. You can't easily recall the difficulties that you had, the guilt you felt,
1:41.0	because we tend to recall things just through sort of rose-colored glasses.
1:45.0	And so I think that can be really difficult.
1:47.0	And then having people around you who just insist on drinking can obviously make it even more difficult.
1:53.0	So I think what's really important is, you know, at the end of the book, and I think in general, I talk a lot about a decision.
2:03.0	And the decision has to be your decision for you.
2:07.0	It can't be your decision for your family members or for anybody else.
2:11.0	It has to come from a place in you where you realize that you want more and that you have the power to have more in your life.
2:18.0	And this decision, it has to be undivided.
	...

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