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. I got asked a great question yesterday. And again, the author of this naked mind,

so I'm answering questions in regard to alcohol and alcohol free life. Lisa asked me a question and it is such a personal question

because her experience just mirrors my own so much that I wanted to get on early this morning before we hit the slopes and answer it.

So this is Lisa's question. She says, the one thing that weighs heavily upon me is the guilt, having not given up drinking yet,

but certainly turning the curve into hyper-awareness about alcohol. I find the guilt to be crippling at times.

The undeniable voice at 2 3 a.m. after the booze wears off. You find yourself wide awake with thoughts and the darkness. That level of guilt for giving in again seems almost more crippling than ending craving.

How do you pull yourself out of that and stop punishing yourself? And that's such an important question. And I guess first thing Lisa is, no, that you're not alone.

I mean, when this was happening to me and it happened to me for the course of probably six years that I felt this on a really regular basis. Apologies, it's windy.

In fact, in the practice of my book, this is my description. This is my story, feeling this guilt. This is what really propelled me to where I am now.

And despite it being so common in so many drinking stories, we all feel like we're completely alone in this. That we must be the only ones laying awake at this time of night when the alcohols worn off in the carbohydrates and energy are surging, unable to get back to sleep and just feeling miserable.

But these experiences when someone starts to really question our drinking, I mean, they're almost universal.

So just know that you're not alone and let's talk specifically about guilt and where guilt comes from. So in psychology, cognitive dissonance is something that's talked about.

And it's the mental stress, guilt or discomfort of that's experienced by a person with two conflicting beliefs. So around alcohol, you Lisa now have two conflicting beliefs because you're becoming hyper aware.

You have the belief that it's doing favors that is relaxing you that it's helping you socially and some of these beliefs are deeply unconscious. And then you have this belief that you don't want to be drinking as much as you are.

And so these two conflicting beliefs are basically your mind being at work with yourself and this creates this level of cognitive dissonance. And so you believe something's both good and bad at the same time.

Or you believe something's bad, but you're doing it anyway, all sorts of different ways this can manifest. And we as humans, you know, we seek harmony, internal harmony, especially.

And you know, it's this very cliche thing that peace starts in the home. Well, your true home is inside yourself. And so true peace really does start inside yourself. And so when you feel cognitive dissonance, when you're not at peace with what your actions are and what you're doing, that is an extremely uncomfortable place to be.

And so this guilt is part of what's called dissonance reduction. And that's where your mind is trying to actually remove the conflict that's happening and bring your beliefs in line with each other.

So psychology says there's really four ways to overcome cognitive dissonance or to reduce your dissonance. And let's let's look at this with two different examples.

One, let's look at it with a donut. You know, you don't want to be eating this donut because you're on a diet. And I think that can help cement this because it's a little different with alcohol, but with a donut.

...