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.

This is Annie Grace and I'm answering today's readers question which is basically, why do I feel so incredibly confident now that I'm no longer drinking?

Is that something in the brain or what's going on?

So what a cool question. I love these super positive questions. It's usually so many questions rightfully so are full of what's going wrong or what do I do about this?

Or how do I navigate this? And this is just such a positive one. So I love this.

So first of all, here's a question. I'm noticed that since I stopped drinking, I'm so much more confident. In fact, I'm not the deftest person that I previously thought I was.

Not drinking gives me that feeling of relaxation and confidence that I thought alcohol was giving to me.

And it is indeed the most surprising of revelations that I'm so grateful that I've discovered this.

So why do we become so much more confident when we stop drinking? What's the science behind it?

In your book, you say that alcohol chips away at our confidence. This is alcohol chip away at the very part of our brain responsible for confidence.

Whereas this is simply the sense of achievement that sends our confidence skyrocketing when we finally quit because we've done something we previously previously thought was insurmountable.

Thank you so much for everything. So this is such a great question again.

And I actually think that this is much more of a, I think it's a few fold.

First of all, physically, you just start to feel better over time. And one of the main things that happens in the body is that over time, I'd say three, maybe four weeks, sometimes as little as one or two weeks, you start sleeping really deeply again.

Alcohol blocks your ability for REM sleep. And so when you're sleeping better, everything looks better.

I've got a three year old. All you have to do is look at a three year old. You didn't get an app or didn't get enough sleep overnight.

And the whole world is falling apart all day long and everything is a trigger. And then you look at a three year old who got a lot of sleep. And you know, she's making music videos with her brothers and singing and dancing her heart out and just loving life and not even worrying about anything. And I think that like really I know it sounds oversimplified, but I do think that sleep itself and our ability to get really restful sleep plays a huge part in our self esteem and our confidence and how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about the world on a regular basis.

So that's that's one just very simple, but I think very true explanation. I think that another very true thing and I experience this as well. And many people do is for me, I've been trying to do things for a long time.

Like I've been wanting to come up with, you know, an exercise routine and I've been wanting to start a mindfulness practice. And I've been wanting to eat better and wanting to do all these things. And when I stopped drinking, it was I like to say that drinking was that one big domino.

I started the chain reaction of all these other things that I've been wanting to do and I've done them in fits and starts.

But I hadn't really been able to commit because you know, I could go for a run or I could pour a bottle of wine.

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