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 friends, it's Annie Grace and I am answering a question today that I got.

I'm not going to say who I got this from because it's a pretty personal question,

but I'm going to answer it to the best of my ability.

And I'm going to answer it based on my own experience and then based on a bunch of research

that I've done into this exact topic.

So the question is, okay, so my husband saw me watching your video and asked if it was on your behalf.

So that's my question.

How do you aid a friend or a loved one when you see them drinking too much?

How do you encourage them to drink less without offending, which is easy to do because it's a really slippery slope.

So how do you talk to a loved one about them drinking too much?

And first of all, I'll say, yeah, this is a really touchy subject and I can speak from experience on the side of the person who was

talking to about my drinking.

And since one in three households suffer from addiction, this is pretty much relevant to a huge amount of the population and it's enormously important.

So for me, when my husband would say something, it made me feel instantly judged and instantly apart.

And in some ways, being defensive gave me a buffer.

It was something else to think about besides my own behavior.

I could be mad at him instead of mad at myself.

And when I felt judged and separate apart, I already knew that this was an issue.

I mean, when somebody's talking to you about something, even if you're pretending it's not, even if you're telling yourself it's not an issue, deep down, you know it's an issue.

And I think that we tend to deny it even to ourselves.

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