EP 250: Reader Question - Do non drinkers experience the same optimism as someone who goes alcohol free?

This Naked Mind Podcast

Annie Grace

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

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2020

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

People who’ve removed alcohol from their lives rave about the joy and happiness they feel, even those who’ve been alcohol-free for years and years. “Do non-drinkers experience this same optimism or do they just recognize it as normal?" What is it that makes life so different for people who’ve stopped drinking? Is it possible for those who’ve never consumed alcohol to feel the same way?

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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
0:15.2	judgment, pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.
0:20.2	Hi, this is Annie Grace and I am answering redis questions and today I have a question from
0:32.4	Tear. She says, my question is about the joy and happiness of being alcohol-free. Even
0:37.9	those folks who have been alcohol-free for a handful of years describe a level of health
0:41.2	and optimism that is nothing short of amazing. I was fortunate enough to grow up in an extended
0:46.1	family that did not drink and I don't recall any of these T12 alerts ever expressing such
0:50.9	all of life as those who have gone alcohol-free. Do these non-drinkers experience the same
0:57.0	optimism or do they just recognize it as normal? I think that's exactly it. I think that when
1:04.6	you can imagine it at least for me in my experience, it was sort of like breaking out of some sort
1:10.2	of prison. I remember being for years and years and years stuck in this feeling of, oh, I just
1:15.8	want to be drinking last weekend the next morning, wishing I drank last night before. Then I have
1:20.9	those probably three to four hours of, you know, from whatever I decided to start drinking
1:26.2	5 p.m., 4 p.m., whatever until I fell asleep, passed out at night that I wasn't thinking those thoughts
1:32.9	that I wasn't beating myself up for drinking, that I wasn't questioning my drinking, that I wasn't
1:36.3	wondering about my drinking because guess what? I was just drinking and getting drunk actively.
1:40.6	So I had those three to four hours, which half of which, by the way, didn't even remember.
1:45.9	And then I'd wake up in the middle of the night and I'd have this hour of like kind of
1:49.7	middle of the night self-loathing, beating myself up, hating myself for what was happening,
1:54.1	completely, you know, just losing faith in any ability or any trust that I had to make any choice
2:00.6	or decision about this because everything I tried, all of these rules I'd suffer myself, just
2:04.6	wasn't working, nothing was happening, nothing was working. And then I'd finally fall back and
	...

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