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 readers questions and today I have a question from Emma.

Emma says, hi Annie, I wanted to give you an update on my progress. I'm doing extremely well.

I haven't had a drink in 31 days and feel fantastic. That is excellent Emma.

Now the thing is I've had some quote friends question me about not drinking saying, wow, I'm not saying you're an alcoholic,

but you must have been drinking quite a lot to have quit and other comments like this that were just someone insulting and really pissed me off.

I've had different feelings about this but I was wondering what, you know, if you experience anything like this and what exactly you can do about it.

I think that first of all, congratulations, that's great. 31 days and feeling great. I mean, that's the important thing, right?

It's about feeling really good and relieved and empowered and certain of your decision, which is excellent.

So well done on that. That's amazing.

And I think yes, I can relate to all of those comments. I had somebody on both sides. I had somebody tell me like, why would you have quit drinking?

I've never ever even seen you drunk. And, you know, kind of this almost undermining thing of like, you don't have to be visibly drunk all the time to not be happy with how much you're drinking and not feel like it's healthy for you and not feel good about it.

You know, I had other people who were just like, there must have been something I didn't know about, you know, like, wow, you must have really been suffering.

And again, like, maybe, maybe not. But the truth is that those comments interestingly and the further I got away from it and the longer it was, they always came from people who were struggling most internally themselves.

And mostly unconsciously, it's not like people realize that they're struggling. I certainly didn't realize that I had all this cognitive dissonance around my drinking. I didn't realize that I had, you know, kind of this internal battle about both wanting to be healthier and happier.

But then also craving and wanting a drink all the time. So a lot of that just comes up. And so when someone around them stops drinking, it kind of comes out that way.

And somehow your decision can tip the scales for them and put it more in their own mind to question their own drinking. I remember the first time I had a friend seven years ago who stopped drinking.

And we had drank together. And I remember it really put me into a little bit of a turmoil like, okay, well, I need to justify why she's different than me. I need to understand why she's different than me.

And so the first thing, you know, out of my mouth wasn't necessarily, oh, congratulations. Good job. You know, well done. I'm so supportive. It was like, well, wait, wait, what about me? I mean, we drink together. Does this mean I have a problem? Like, what about me?

And it was a good friend's, I felt comfortable saying those things, but this is just kind of their way to say, what about me? I mean, it's really wearing their concerns on their sleeves to some extent.

And so I thought that was really interesting. And it took me a while to realize that some of that, the people who were the most aggressive in demanding my reasons, the least supportive, you know, the most rude saying things that they'd never say if I would have declared that I had quit eating sugar or

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