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 and welcome to this naked mind podcast. I am so happy to be here with you today and today I have a really special guest,

Elena Kavan and she is actually known in the UK as the queen of holistic living. She's the owner and founder of Milestone Detox and not only does she have a unique sort of story in relationship with alcohol, which I'll ask her about, but she also just has so much expertise.

She's also very excited to be here and to be sharing with you. I'd so enjoy listening to all of your other podcasts.

Oh, that's so cool. That's so cool.

I'm just really practical information today. So welcome Elena. Thank you so much for being here.

I'm really excited to be here and to be sharing with you. I'd so enjoy listening to all of your other podcasts.

Oh, that's so cool. That's so cool. I just feel like I'm joining a bigger conversation.

Yes, absolutely. And it's so cool that it's sort of across the UK, which is where you live. And there's so many people just sort of globally starting to ask these questions and wonder how to live a happier, healthier life. So it's really exciting.

Yes, I think you're putting your finger on a pole here.

So I want to just dive right in, but first can we start a little bit with, you know, you sort of have a unique story around your own choices with alcohol.

And I'd love to just hear about it from your perspective.

Sure. I was a very small child, my mother, who's from Columbia South America, we talked to my brother and my sister and I about her family and about her experience with alcohol and my parents never drank.

And she would say to me, your, your grandfather with an alcoholic and many of my brothers drank a lot.

So alcoholism is in your blood.

You have a pre a genetic predisposition to it.

So don't even go there. Don't try to fight it because if you if you try it, you'll, you'll just get into it very quickly.

And it wasn't like she was painting a scary picture. She was just very mature and fact about it.

And, and my parents just said, no, you know, no alcoholism smoking a drug.

And in fact, I liked myself growing up, you know, and I liked my thoughts that I was a poet and I liked music and, you know, I liked kind of being present.

So when that time came in our teen years where everybody started trying alcohol and and stepping outside of themselves as what alcohol kind of tends to do to you, it just never, never appeal to me.

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