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, this is Annie Grace and welcome to this naked mind podcast. I'm here with Chris. Welcome. How are you?

I'm doing really well. Thank you very much, Annie. Thank you very much for having me, too. This is exciting.

It's so exciting. Thanks for being here. So yeah, I'd love to hear your story, obviously, know a little bit about it, but for everybody else, can you just take us sort of back to the beginning?

Where did it all start for you?

Sure. The way I became aware of this naked mind in the first place was actually through a former trainer of mine named Una Duncan.

I'm on a mailing list of hers and she sends out mass meals about fitness, etc.

And one of them was an email that I think she gave the title, my drinking problem. And I was like, oh, that's surprising. Didn't expect to see that.

And when I opened it up, turns out she has a glass of wine each, each night or had. And I was like, okay, very funny. That's, that sounds like a real problem.

But when I read the email, she linked out to one of your free webinars talking about this naked mind. And, and I, I had been thinking that I would like to drink a bit less.

So I checked it out. And in that webinar, one of the things that you said was actually after after reading this book, you'll drink as much as you want, which is nothing.

And I thought challenge accepted because drinking is fun. Everyone knows drinking is fun. I have a great time when I drink. It's very, like, that isn't going to happen.

So I actually ended up listening to the audio book within a weekend. And by the end of it, as, as I, I'm really excited to try not drinking. So I started with a dry month.

And I actually took it, you could call them experimental results.

Where after each event where I would normally have drinks and I did not drink, I asked myself afterward, how much fun was it in comparison to how much fun I remember having when I do drink.

And the next day, how do I feel physically and psychologically. And at the end of that month, and that was June 2019. So like a lot of really fun things in June that I would normally drink at friends birthdays.

It's pride here in Toronto, et cetera, et cetera.

And after that month, I thought, I want to try the whole year. And so I did. I went for a dry year. And I still, I still have not had a drink since that moment.

Awesome. And so what about you? Well, first of all, why don't you back us up and tell us about like how drinking started for you. Where are you?

Pretty young. Was it something everybody was doing or what was your journey from?

It was high school. So around the time. And I was not a popular kid. So I think I didn't start as early as I might have, but closer to the end of high school when I did have a group of friends and would get invited out to parties and there would be some alcohol there.

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