Ask Us Anything: For Anyone Rewriting Their Relationship With Alcohol

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Kevin: Welcome everyone to another episode of the Reframeable podcast. The podcast that brings you people's stories and ideas about how we can work to reframe our relationship, not just with alcohol, but with stress, anxiety, relationships, enjoyment, and so much more. Because changing our relationship with alcohol is about so much more than changing the contents of our glass.

This podcast is brought to you by the Reframe app. Reframe is the number one iOS and Android app to help you cut back or quit drinking alcohol. It uses neuroscience to reframe your relationship with alcohol and unlock the healthiest, happiest youth.

My name is Kevin Bellack. I'm a certified professional recovery coach and the head of coaching at the Reframe app.

Emma: And I am Emma Simmons, a Reframer, a certified life coach and a Thrive coach with Reframe. Welcome friends. Today we're gonna do something a little bit different.

We thought we would do a little bit of a ask me anything kind of thing. So we've compiled some questions from reframes and we're gonna answer [00:01:00] some questions. We haven't necessarily proofread these or checked these out prior to recording, so this could be fun, but I think it could be a fun way, fun thing to do.

Semi my regularly, every Yeah. Few months maybe. So if you've got questions, if you're listening or watching and you've got questions feel free to email them into podcast@reframeapp.com and we can answer some questions. It doesn't necessarily have to be about drinking or alcohol. It can be about Kevin and I, ourselves, our opinions, our thoughts,

Kevin: every, everything you wanna know about us.

'cause yes, that's, that is what everybody is, I erased all of the thousands of questions that we got in the mailbag from

Emma: Deep, intimate questions about you personally. You deleted them

Kevin: about both of us. Yeah.

Emma: Oh yeah. That's

Kevin: what everybody wanted to know. But I'm like no.

We're gonna keep it focused on

Emma: everyone wants to know what my hair routine is. For those of you that are not watching it is what we [00:02:00] started recording. It's 7:30 AM I rolled out of bed, put on a headset, made coffee, put on a headset, jumped on the recording. And then

Kevin: were here. And then an hour later we actually started the podcast.

Emma: Kevin and I have been talking shit for an hour. Oh, A DHD at its finest actually, Kevin I took my meds whilst on video with Kevin. Yeah.

Kevin: I guess a little reminder, it was good to delay it a little bit just to, we needed to Yeah. Boot up. We needed to boot up Emma. Is that bad? Is that not a good way to say that?

Emma: I get it though. We needed the brain to kick in. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We needed to warm up the engine a little bit.

Kevin: Yeah. For myself in the morning. Yeah. There's that, there's a process involved. That process is not rolling out of bed and jumping on a podcast,

Emma: trying to talk straight away, trying to use the words, the brain, the mouth does not connect necessarily.

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: Yeah. Here we are. Feel free to ask us anything in the future. How are we gonna do this? Do you want me to just fire questions at you?

Kevin: Yeah, we [00:03:00] can do, we can just throw 'em out. We compiled the questions that we got and I would say summarized and pulled some specific ones out because there was a lot of themes from all the questions. So there's some definitely some questions that were definitely, more popular and more important than. Not more important than others. That sounds bad. All questions are important. What is it?

Emma: There are no dumb questions. No, there are no dumb questions.

Kevin: No, but there are definitely more popular themes. More repetitive.

Emma: Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: Questions that get asked by lots of different people. Lots of different types.

Kevin: Yeah. So we can go through that in lots different ways. So yeah. Do we wanna just jump into the hot questions? Hot topic, hot topics.

That's What should we call that? Is that what hot you should call this episode? Hot topics. Hot topics. Hot.

Emma: Hot topics. All right. Hot topic. The top hot topic. The number one hot topic. When will I stop thinking about alcohol or get over missing it?

Kevin: Yeah, and there's a lot around this too, around [00:04:00] cravings.

Is it normal that they're still here? There's not a lot, we don't want to pull too much specifics or context. Not context, but too many specifics in from specific questions, but it's over a long period of time. Is it normal to still have cravings? Is it, will it ever feel normal to go socialize or be around others who are drinking?

Will it feel normal? Is it okay? All those types of things. I don't know. It's, let's just get this out of the way first because the disclaimer out of the way because all, probably all of the things that we talk about today are going to be

Emma: prefaced with.

Kevin: It depends.

Everyone's journey

Emma: is unique to you. It's

Kevin: different. Yeah. It's unique to you. We're all, we comparison is not only a thief of joy, but it's also just not a, it's not ever a good thing to do because we're not comparing [00:05:00] apples to apples as my boss was throw in. But we're not comparing the same thing.

Even if I'm on the same, even if Emma and I were, I don't know, the same, same day count, day count, that doesn't mean that I didn't start like way before her or way after her, or, how many attempts we had or what, what led us to here and just what work we're doing behind the scenes.

Just all our factors. Yeah, all the factors. Could be one of us could be in

Emma: therapy. The other one couldn't. One of us could be having medical assistance. The other one not. It's, there are so many different Yeah. Factors. So full disclaimer for every answer. Sorry, I, everyone's journey is unique to them, but all welcome here.

As we say in our meeting script, yes. Before every meeting. I think the, will it ever feel normal? I think it's a new kind of normal. I don't think we ever go back to that feeling of socializing. I don't think when I go out and socialize now, I don't think I [00:06:00] feel the same as I used to before I was drinking.

'cause I think when I was drinking, when I would go out and socialize, I had a lot of anxiety. And so I was nervous about going out and socializing. And I was there was a lot of pre-thought going into getting ready. What am I gonna wear? Who's gonna be there? Who am I gonna talk to? What am I gonna do?

What's the event? So there's this whole anxiety spiral in my head before I even left the house. But now it's oh shit, I've got an event. Okay, I'd better get ready and off I go. Yeah. And so there's that anxiety spiral isn't, yeah, I'll be like, oh, I wonder who's gonna be there. And I'm like, oh, I wonder if jeans are appropriate for a black tie event.

They're not. For anyone asking. So there's a little bit of like curiosity, but it's not the same. Do you wear them anyway? I have a black tie event coming up for husband's annual awards. Thing that we go to. It's black tie every year. And I buy a new juice every year and I try and one up myself every year.

This year I was like, because I got cowboy boots, authentic cowboy boots when I was in Montana, like made in the seventies, actual suede. They're [00:07:00] gorgeous. Can I wear cowboy boots to a black tie event?

Kevin: How can I make this happen? How can

Emma: I make this work? The resounding answer was no. Emma Cowboy boots are not black tie.

Kevin: Probably not New Zealand. Maybe in Montana or Texas, or maybe in Montana. You can

Emma: call it off.

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: Anyways, tangent number one. Yay. Well done. We've got, what, five minutes in. Not even. I was gonna say, how do

Kevin: we go from, when will I stop thinking about alcohol to cowboy milk to,

Emma: yeah. B so yeah, so there's still, like I think about the event and I think about what I'm doing, where I'm going and, but there's not that anxiety spiral.

So straight off the bat, will it ever feel normal? My normal is different now my normal is not a huge amount of anxiety and stress and worry and feeling like I need to have a drink to calm that down, to calm my brain down. My normal is okay, let's go do this. Or my normal is preparing for the event going, yeah, I'll go to this [00:08:00] event.

I don't know who's gonna be there. It could be a bit lame, it could be boring. So I'll stay for an hour and then I'll come home. So I'm pre preparing those tools in my head that we talk about early on in the journey of go with a plan, go with a drink in your hand to know what your exit strategy is.

Know how long you're gonna stay, but I'm not. Consciously thinking about okay, I need to have my plan. Yeah. It's just yeah, it's a natural, my new normal is like to have a plan, be like, yeah, I'll go for an hour. I'll see what's happening. I'll drive there, I'll park here, I'll blah, blah, blah.

So yeah, it's a different, it's a different normal. It's a new normal. It's better normal.

Kevin: And that's, I think the key word there, I think is normal, right? And it's normal to, let's just assume that it's normal. That in most situations that we get into, we have alcohol present, there is alcohol present when we're thinking about this question.

And it's different in the beginning, and that's uncomfortable. It's not normal for us when we're cutting [00:09:00] back. When we're quitting and removing it, reducing it, stopping when other people aren't, that whatever it is, it's not normal. Until it is. And that's not to say, that it's, I do think that it will become more normal over time, is the answer.

For whatever, however it's showing up whether it's just I'm home and I'm thinking about it all the time, or I'm out with other people. But the problem is we have to make. It more normal, if we surround ourselves maybe in the same scenarios that we were drinking in before, over and over again, we don't change anything except remove the alcohol.

That could be, will it ever feel normal without alcohol or will I stop thinking about it? Then maybe not right, because you didn't change anything. So therefore, it's if you don't change the main [00:10:00] issue or the main activity that might revolve around alcohol in some way. And whether that's just going for a shorter period of time, doing it differently with different people like, going to different places.

But yeah, if it, something has to change but all of that goes into, I've heard of people talk about friends of theirs who who were like, alcohol free for two years and then they ended up going back to drinking because they were like, this is boring. And my question to them was like, interesting.

Are they boring? What were you doing? Yeah, because that's the thing. I'm like, if I hear that and I just think, okay, so either they were doing the same, and again, I have no context here, I just, this is second or third hand, second hand, and if you're doing the same thing, but without alcohol, yes.

That can be boring. If you're not doing anything fun and not drinking, then yeah. It's boring. It's a you problem. Not not that alcohol's [00:11:00] gonna make it fun again. It's that you just didn't find anything fun to do.

Emma: And

Kevin: I know we've gone off on a tangent, and it's not necessarily the case about boring and fun and normal and all that, but it all relates, I think, as far as, things change when we start to do things a little bit differently.

And show up in those different ways because Yeah. Now, like you said about thinking about going out in that, I don't think about it at all. Yeah, I think about the event. Do I really want to go to this? Or, Ugh what are you making me go to? Type of thing. But I don't sit there and do what I did in the beginning, which was go through the list of, okay, where are we going?

What are we doing? Who's gonna be there? What am I gonna say? Do to preload?

Emma: Yeah.

Kevin: Oh, you talking about drinking? I was like, yeah. I was like, whenever I was, stop stopping drinking oh.

Emma: Oh, okay.

Kevin: No, because whenever I was drinking I didn't. Oh, you didn't, don't necessarily worry. Interesting. Because I knew alcohol was there and I was just gonna drink.

Yeah. So I knew what was gonna do. But

Emma: when you're in, [00:12:00] when you're, we're in the cutting back with a newbie sobriety phase where you're like, what am I gonna say? How am I gonna make small talk? Who's gonna be there? What am I gonna do? What's is there gonna be food there? And I, what am I gonna drink?

Kevin: Yeah. And now, but you do that I don't even think about that anymore because I'm com I realized a long time ago that once I got comfortable with what I was doing, which took time it was a lot of these questions like how to get over the nostalgia for fun times when we were drinking. And that's why I say I had fun when I was drinking. I can, I have nostalgia for different things with alcohol, but I try and just take that as Okay. I try and look at the whole picture as far as that, yeah, I can have that nostalgia. I can miss that and still realize that I don't want to, I, I don't have, see all the other stuff that was involved and see where I'm at now or where I was at.

Then when I was starting [00:13:00] that, it was better.

Emma: See, I can remember. So one time might have been my birthday, one of my birthdays, me and the neighbors, the ride or dies. We went on a triple date night, went and played mini golf in the city. There's this cool mini golf bar in Auckland that does really cool cocktails.

And then we went out for dumplings. I dunno, we were, we preloaded and it was and six drunk, well over 30 year olds running around Auckland, CBD, playing the floors lava great time. Hilarious resulted in me climbing a pole, like a street sign pole, and having fun on that pole. Great time.

Absolutely hilarious. So that's

Kevin: So many

Emma: questions. So many questions.

And you're not surprised that I did any of this?

Kevin: No. I can

Emma: assume no.

Kevin: No, I was just thinking of maybe how much better you would be at the floor. Is lava [00:14:00] sober though?

Emma: I know, right? Okay. So this is, that's where I'm going.

But so I, when I think about that, like we had a hilarious time. It was a great time. That one that isolate that moment. It was fun. It was hilarious. We had a great time out with our friends without the kids. Great time. Extrapolate that out to Emma was not functioning the next day. Emma had many bruises the next day on her body.

Yeah. My, my mental health, not just that week, but that year, those five years was in the gutter. Extrapolated out. Yes, that was fun, but there were consequences that were not worth that fun. Now, if I went out into the city this weekend with my neighbors and, triple date night, played mini golf, stayed sober, would I still play the Flo as lava?

Absolutely. Completely sober. Yeah. Would I climb a pole? Probably. Would I get injured? Maybe. But so I can still do all of those things [00:15:00] that I found fun or enjoyable with alcohol. I can still do them alcohol free and still have fun. So it wasn't the alcohol that was making it fun. It's my creative brain and what I find fun.

Yeah. So when people are like, oh, not drinking, it's no fun when you're not drinking. I'm like but what are you doing then? I'm having so much more fun living my sober life, getting creative, and I don't, yeah. I don't need alcohol to do weird shit and have fun. And make up games and

Kevin: Exactly. I love that.

Play

Emma: the floors lava.

Kevin: Yeah. I don't need alcohol to do weird shit and have fun and play the floors lava. Exactly. And yeah. 'cause you're gonna have, yeah. 'cause some people might need that, and that's the, that can be the potential issue. But No, that's great. And I was just thinking yeah the chances maybe now now or less that you would end up with a injury.

But yeah, I've heard of plenty of people with Yeah. Injury, broken bones and your teeth [00:16:00] and all kinds of stuff that if you're playing a flos lava in a city and hop up on something Yeah. That it wouldn't end well.

Emma: It was hilarious. But it was a, yeah, it was a good time. I still have all my teeth, so That's great.

Yeah, they're all mine. Go ahead. I was gonna say, I probably still would end up with bruises because I seriously miscalculate how strong I am or like how coordinated I am often. Yeah. Yeah. I fell off a box, jump at the gym, completely sober. Obviously this was only a few months ago. Broke my tailbone, didn't need alcohol to inju myself there.

Kevin: Yeah. The oh yeah. That's just, that's the, that's why you signed the waiver, the gym for the boxer. You've seen the videos, right? Uhhuh? Oh, I used to have one of those. I remember I basically scraped all. Yeah, it doesn't matter. I was thinking of my shins. Oh, you scraped down your shins 'cause you missed the jump.

Yeah. Oof.

Emma: I have mini, a mini a memory of [00:17:00] coming home and putting frozen peas on my, just like sitting by the freezer being like, I made a

Kevin: mistake. Yeah. And a question. Yeah. I made a terrible mistake. Usually that's the thought, like when you're in mid jump and you realize, you're like, oh, that you're missing, we're not gonna land it.

And you're like, that's where it pauses. And this is the part of the story where Emma realizes that she made a horrible mistake. Yep.

Emma: But do I get back up and try again? Hell yeah. I do. Do I make a mistake again?

Yeah.

Kevin: Him

Emma: as a slow learner,

Kevin: we all are slow learners. I think that plays in well with all of this.

We think we're, oh, I can just do the, do whatever. I can pick it up fast. I can just do it. For all slow learners. One of the questions too was on, will I ever get past, like the grief of never drinking again? So there's like the nostalgia of we've missed this, but then there's also the grief of the mourning of maybe a loss of this.

[00:18:00] I would have call, I called it in the past, like the loss of my, of friend the loss of an identity. It's, it can become part of who we are, not like who we are necessarily. It can be, but it can become definitely part of who we are. And I'll just point everybody to a previous episode of the re Frameable podcast, where I talked with Gina Moffa, who's a grief therapist, grief counselor.

And that's exactly what we talked about, is that mourning, that loss of identity or just of maybe who we are or what of that past self and how to work through that a little bit. I'll add that in our show notes, but the yeah, we'll ever get past the grief and. I think it's good to look at it like that and process it like that and understand that, there will be denial there, there will be bargaining, there will be what are the five stages?

Anger depression, and I think acceptance.

Emma: The last one. Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: Yeah, I think, and it's

Kevin: not linear. [00:19:00]

Emma: Yeah. I think you do, you get to a point of acceptance of yeah, I'm if you choose to be alcohol free forever and forever is a really big concept. I say I tell people a lot that my idea is forever for now.

I'm okay with forever for now because that's where I'm at and I'm really happy with who I am, alcohol free and how my life is going. But there was definitely, I've told the story loads a moment where I was like on the bathroom floor crying, sobbing, angry, crying, because I was never gonna drink again.

And I was really grieving that, like I had just sunk in and clicked that I was never gonna drink again. And that was a real moment for me, but it felt cathartic. Like I was getting out that grief of I'm never gonna drink again, because I knew that's what's best for me. And it was like this realization of I'm not just cutting back or trying to do a reset.

This is forever. This is who I want to be, even though that's scary and hurtful and yeah. Yeah, you [00:20:00] move through the motions of grief and you come to acceptance and you're like, yeah, it's, maybe it's sad that I can't drink normally, whatever that is. But it's, but I'm okay with that.

Yeah. Yeah. You do. Do you ever get past the grief? Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Kevin: It's like we prefaced everything you can, but that everybody's different, right? Because, you could say people mourning and grief with loss of a loved one or something like that, may never get over it, right?

So you may never get over it because maybe you're stuck in those loops and that's where, if it is something that's stronger like that's where talking with people

Emma: With

Kevin: whether it's in a, in a community like Reframe or another community, a meeting with a therapist, with a coach, with somebody who you could just at least bounce [00:21:00] some of these questions off of and think through it a little bit differently when you feel

Emma: stuck.

Kevin: Because yeah, it is, you can get stuck.

Emma: I think there will, there are definitely days or weeks or maybe months where you feel like you're fine and you're not grieving alcohol. Yeah. And then you'll go back and you'll be in this period of grief or of, nostalgia or whatever it is.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you can be fine for a long time and then you can be not so fine. And then, and you'll come back up eventually if you put in the work and you talk about it and you process it as if you, I guess if you get stuck and let it be stuck. That kind of festers, yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: I remember thinking in my head, being angry while I was around other people or just, at home being like, why the fuck am I the only one that has to do this here?

Everybody else is, everybody else can do this and be fine with it. And it's, but it's I tried to play that tape forward was one of the things that I did where I was like, okay, but who cares about everybody else? They don't wake up with your [00:22:00] hangover. They don't wake up, and yes, I could look at the negatives about it and say oh, they don't wake up with my hangover.

They don't wake up with this. Or they wouldn't go home and keep drinking. Maybe they wouldn't. But playing that day forward about how it showed up for me and then. How is it now? And that can be a tricky thing because maybe we are, maybe we're, maybe we aren't feeling it right now, maybe we're not like, oh, but look at all these positives that I can look at.

But I think it is important to call those out along the way the positives because that we are seeing and write them down and revisit them and talk about them, because otherwise it can be easy to forget about all that and just focus on grief, the anger, the depression,

Emma: and not move past it, but look for what good,

Kevin: Is coming out of whatever you're doing.

Emma: Yeah. Don't get stuck in the negative. [00:23:00] Focus on the changes and the positive things that are happening. Focus on the new normal,

Kevin: yeah. And this came up a lot this week too with that two things can live in the same place at once, right? I can be upset at one thing or about this and also see the positive and feel good about what I'm doing.

Remember that like it's not all,

when you're feeling

Emma: bad about that, remember that, there's

Kevin: other. Good things that are happening. I don't know. That's a practice that is, can be difficult. But I think it's important to call that out. That's where like doing different things each day. Looking for gratitude in your day.

And when you start looking for gratitude, things to be grateful for. What did I smile? What made me smile this week? That was one of the things I put in the journal prompt for our meeting yesterday. Just to re reword the whole grateful thing. What made me smile this week. And [00:24:00] when you look for those and you make that a part of your day, then part of your day becomes like to write that down or to think about that part of your day then becomes looking for that.

Ooh, I gotta write that down later. Oh, I'm gonna remember that. We start to look for the things that we focus on.

Emma: It's about making that neuro pathway a, a well trodden path. Tread path. Trodden path. That's correct. English, isn't it?

Kevin: Sure. Yeah. We'll let that try Emma.

Trodden.

Emma: Yeah. Trodden.

Kevin: Trod.

Emma: Tread

Kevin: I feel like I need to recite the road not taken by Robert Frost to figure this out, but

Emma: But yeah, it's about embedding that new neural pathway of looking for the positive or looking for the, yeah, looking for the gratitudes, looking for the things that are good.

And I think about that circling back to the first question was, when will I stop thinking about alcohol? It's, I think it's one of those things where, you do think about, you've gotta work the [00:25:00] tools so hard in the beginning, and you've gotta consciously work them and put them in place about thinking about how I'm not gonna drink alcohol or how I'm gonna cut back today.

And you need to actively do it. And then eventually you've done it so many times that it becomes the norm. It becomes this well trodden neural pathway in your brain. And you'll be standing there one day and go, huh, I haven't thought about alcohol today, or I haven't thought I can't remember the last time I thought about having a drink.

Because you've embedded that neural pathway for so long that this is how we, this is what we do now. We don't get home from work and immediately open a bottle of whatever we, get home from work. We do some yoga. We have a soda, water, whatever it is. We, we've got this new path now this new habit that we do.

Yeah. So I, it's not, you can't ever say at three months you will never think about alcohol again. It's not how I still Yeah. Really, but sometimes we'll be like, ugh. Could, yeah. Could miter a glass of wine right now, [00:26:00] but it's pretty go ahead. It's pretty rare these days. Yeah.

But it still pops up every now and then, and I go, wow, okay. Interesting. What's happening? Why is Emma stressed out?

Kevin: Yeah, exactly. It's a, yeah, it definitely is that alarm bell or whatever that like, why would I just think of that? Okay.

Emma: Warning sign. What was I just gonna mention there? You

Kevin: had it.

I lost it. Oh, I love that you brought up that I didn't think about alcohol for a while. I remember, I don't remember what day it was, or it was early on.

Emma: And

Kevin: I remember it was a Friday and it was eight o'clock, and I thought about alcohol and it hit me that I'm like, oh shit. I didn't think about alcohol since I got home at five,

and that was like one of those, we talk about people talk about the number of drinks, they've reduced, the [00:27:00] percentages, the number of days, alcohol free and things like that they track. But I always like looking for those first, like that whether it's like the first concert that I didn't drink at or whatever, but just even that like first hangover free Saturday.

But like stuff like where I like, I didn't think about alcohol until now, and now I'm just, it brought up, I'm not gonna drink now, that was a big win. You're like, oh, wow. It felt

Emma: yeah, I got home from work and I didn't immediately go have to work my tools, I got home from work and I didn't immediately think about where's the fridge, where's the beer?

Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: And that was probably in my first two months working on this. And not even like in my current streak of days, and then 14 months alcohol free. I know it was the summer COVID was going on and working from home and it was a Friday and came up from the basement. [00:28:00] I was like a troll coming up from the basement.

Where in my office. And. I was like, it's Friday, it's nice out. I'm gonna sit on the deck. I'm gonna get a nice coffee. And I just felt good, relaxed, all that. And I grabbed one of my glasses that was one I would use for drinks in the past, but that wasn't it. And then I went and got ice. I got my ice coffee out of the fridge.

It was a can. And then I got some ice and I put the ice in the glass and the sound of the ice hitting the glass, which happened so many times before this, in the last 14 months, I froze and in my mind immediately went to, do we have anything to drink in the house? And I was like, holy shit, what just happened?

'Cause I'm like, I'm 14 months, I'm never gonna feel like this again. Yeah. I'm never gonna have that craving again. And even my wife who's working upstairs in, [00:29:00] in this room right here actually, and she yelled down. She's what are you doing? I'm like, why do you ask me that?

She's because I heard the ice hit. And it reminded me of, not that she thought I was downstairs drinking, but she's, it even reminded her. So it must have hit just right because,

Emma: must have had that perfect little clink.

Kevin: Yeah. And what I realized was what what I deduced was that.

It was, yeah. I've had plenty of Fridays where I didn't think about it since then, before that. But it was the setting, it was summer, end of a work week. I was like done early from, on a Friday and gonna go outside and sit, and it was all of that kind of, that neural pathway, the storm, while it's well worn o over here in this other this other new well-trodden path, that old path is still there.

It's still co it's covered over in that, but it can still be there and still kind [00:30:00] show up every once in a while because that memory, whatever memory it is can pop up. It does, it, it can happen. Now I froze okay, I took a breath. My wife said that. I'm like, yeah. And I poured my iced coffee.

I went outside and I was fine. But there was that

Emma: moment. Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah. And I don't know, that's just something that stuck, always stuck with me and I remember vividly how much that, how intense that craving got in that moment.

Emma: Yeah. Yeah. You can be so far along in your journey and still, yeah.

There are those moments where you're like, what the hell? And it's a moment and I think it's, yeah. I dunno. We're so used to being, telling people to be curious about it, reflect on it, maybe don't dwell on it, but just be like, wow, that was, yeah. Interesting. You've obviously reflected on and gone like it was the perfect storm of summer, finished work early, yada, yada y there was these [00:31:00] key things that all added up to that spark of a craving.

Yeah. Yeah. So get curious about it if those things do hit, if you are quite far down the journey, even if you're not, like when you're in the beginning of the journey and you're getting this craving okay, so what's going on? What is it? Is it habit? Is it stress? Is it the time of day?

Is it apply your halt? Am I hungry, angry, lonely, tired? Yeah. Get curious about it. If you don't know why the, where the craving's coming from or where that trigger's coming from, it's hard to change it or never get away from it.

Kevin: Yeah. And that kind of goes along with one of the questions too about I'm fine all day, but cravings hit me at 5:00 PM help.

It's okay, that witching. Yeah. What happens if five, 5:00 PM Sorry, I think I said 5:00 AM but 5:00 PM So it's okay, what can you change there? How can you,

Emma: yeah.

Kevin: What is it? Shift the track to something else. How can you is it that I've

Emma: just finished work? Is it,

Kevin: yeah,

Emma: I've gotta be in the kitchen and cook dinner.

Is it the. [00:32:00] I deserve a treat. Is it the, for me it was all of the above. It was, I've just finished work. I just finished work. I need a treat. Ugh, I've gotta cook dinner. How am I gonna get through it? I'll have a drink to help me get through it. Yeah. So what did I change? My treat was a non-alcoholic treat.

Some kind of alcohol, free beer or alcohol free mocktail in a can. Sometimes, and I would get myself outta the kitchen. I would either have pre-prepared dinner or I would now we do food boxes. They were great as well. So it's like paint by numbers, cooking, so good, love them. Sometimes it was breakfast for dinner, so my kids can quite easily make themselves toast or cereal.

Or it was, leftovers, something I had in the freezer. Or it was, husband, you're on dinner, I'm gonna retreat to the bedroom with my mocktail and just getting out of the kitchen. So it was, yeah, being aware of what those triggers were for that witching hour and. [00:33:00] Removing them or mitigating them.

Limit.

Kevin: Yeah. Like this past week, navigating away from them, we, I cooked a bunch of stuff on the grill, like meat wise for the week, and then it was salad kits and steam fresh bags with pick your, food meat, pick your meat, pick your protein to put on it. But yeah, it's super simple.

And again, it doesn't, it's not like it's always with any of that stuff, it's I know some people can get stuck in. I know I did. What? I'm just gonna do this for the rest of my life. It's no.

Emma: Yeah. But for now, just for now. Yeah. Yeah. Until you feel strong enough or confident enough that you can get back into the kitchen or you can, I still hate cooking.

That hasn't changed. That'll never change. I'm a terrible cook. But I hate it. It's not something I wanna work on. It's not something I wanna improve. It's not a hobby, it's a necessity. Family gotta eat. But yeah, I'm back in the kitchen cooking each night. But although to be fair. We've got food boxes now because I hate cooking.

That was a huge stress for me every [00:34:00] week of what are we gonna eat? What I'm gonna buy at the supermarket? Yeah. So I took away that stress. We get a food box. Is it cheating? Maybe, but it works. I did think, like my eldest is 16, she's gonna be heading out to uni in a couple years, maybe moving away from home to go to university.

I dunno if she knows how to cook, if it's not cooked by numbers, like paint by numbers from a food box. It's this could be interesting. Yeah. Like when I grew up with mom and dad cooking, and so I learn to cook from watching mom and dad cook. So yeah,

Kevin: I'm getting some of avery's experiments now which are good so far.

So she likes, she made me avocado toast the one day. I am like, okay, good. Noted this week. Yeah. Yesterday I think she made me a she wanted to try making some eggs. She didn't spray the pan, so she was, when I went down the one point, she's doesn't come off. She's it was like, she's it said it's a non-stick pan.

I'm like, you still need to spray something on it. But but it, she made a easy over whatever, egg, over easy, whatever. With some other stuff. She put on a toasted sourdough bread with some cheese and [00:35:00] gave it to me. Delicious. I'm like, this is amazing. Yeah.

Emma: Nailed it.

Kevin: Yeah. I, although I did get the first one, that was the test one.

Emma: Yeah.

Kevin: And some of the other questions later on, which I'm was sure if we were gonna get to or not, but I'll just throw this in. Some of the questions are why do I crave sugar so much now I'm replacing booze with food and gaining weight. Those types of things and going along with the the halt and the cooking and those types of, that type of solution, it's, we will crave most people, I'll say again, I don't wanna be definitive, most people crave sugar more because you remove the alcohol, you remove that that carbohydrate, that thing that gets metabolized in your body as sugar and it it, it's gonna make you crave it more.

And that over time should subside. I'm going on six years and it hasn't. No I've always been a, had a sugar monster. Yeah. This week I killed all the fruit that we bought [00:36:00] at Costco this week. And yeah, so I've been so far, so good this week. But but they're, so solutions like that could come in but also.

Eat the ice cream. Like again, it's people if it's gonna get you

Emma: through.

Kevin: Yeah. Everybody has their own opinions perhaps on this. I'm the type of I'll focus on that later. And that's what I did. I'm like, I'm not focusing on anything I eat, any movement. I'm focusing on what, what, however I'm focusing on alcohol at the time was cutting back, maybe stopping for a little while and going back and forth with that and eventually, I did stop.

Go alcohol free. Indefinitely. At the time, I didn't know what I was doing as far as, how long that was gonna be. But then months later I was like, all I just got past some, a big project or whatever and feeling like I can tackle something else. I'm like, let's focus on my, on how I eat, and let's do that.

And then a month later I was like, all right, let's move a little bit more. But I felt [00:37:00] ready to do it then. Whereas before I just, I ate the Swedish fish.

Emma: Yeah. I remember in the beginning. Yeah. One of my, one of my reasons for being alcohol free, I wanted abs and I wanted to lose some weight.

I, before I got sober, I'd had COVID a couple of times and had long COVID. So I was struggling to even walk up a flight of stairs, I'd have to sit down and catch my breath. And it was horrible. It was like breathing through a straw, like breathing, like I had a rub of hand around my lungs.

So I hadn't been exercising. I'd still been drinking a lot and eating a lot. And so I'd gained quite a bit of weight. And not that weight. I just, I wasn't comfortable with my body. None of my clothes fit well. Yeah. And so I wanted to lose weight and get healthy healthy for me. When, and so I was like, I'll quit drinking.

That'll do it. It didn't because when I quit drinking, I got a sugar addiction. Yeah. Sugar and caffeine. And so for quite a long time, a lot of people will say, give up alcohol and you'll lose weight. Not immediately. Yeah. Not for some of us. Yeah. So unfortunately that, yeah, that wasn't, didn't happen for me, but I gained so much more than [00:38:00] I gained so much more than weight loss.

And now it's

Kevin: And it's, I always, no, I'm okay.

Emma: No, I'm good. I'm back to, I've got abs, I'm fitting my clothes and everything and I'm much healthier. But yeah, for the first good six months, there was not a heck of a lot of reduction in the weight.

Kevin: Yeah. And

Emma: yeah,

Kevin: and I don't think that's it.

It can happen. Just like sleep. Oh, I'm sleeping so much better. There's plenty of people out there who's my sleep is still horrible and worse. And that's again, that's something that you're challenged with and working through. But yeah, it's, I think focusing on the health part, you were throwing that in about that, right?

Because it's I wanna be healthy. Let's get specific

Emma: on what does healthy look like to you

Kevin: or feel like. Yeah. Are you asking me or are you

Emma: No. That's what I would say. If someone, yeah, you can. What does healthy look like to you? Go on. This isn't ask me anything.

What does healthy look like to you?

Kevin: I'm trying to think

Emma: of

Kevin: the [00:39:00] funniest answer. I was gonna be like all of this right here. No,

Emma: I don't think healthy

Kevin: looks like anything.

Emma: How's that? Nice. How does it feel

Kevin: exactly? I think healthy is more of like how we feel. And right now I would say personally, like I haven't been feeling healthy lately.

And that's based on various reasons that are food and movement related and not food and movement related, just like things that just been going on and all that. So I, that's vague. I don't, I just, I'm not getting any specifics. 'Cause I don't think it's important. I think it's, it is everybody's individual thought on how that feels for them. But it's, yeah, it's not a one-to-one relationship.

I'm gonna stop drinking and I'm gonna get better sleep, or I'm going to lose weight, or because, we have those calories that we ingested with [00:40:00] alcohol, so are you replacing them with something else? Or were those extra already and you're, you are losing weight because you just didn't replace 'em with anything.

Does that still feel healthy? You can be, it just goes back to, I think the, what does that mean for each individual person?

Emma: Yeah, I was thinking, I made you answer that question and then I was like, shit, I'd better think about that as well. I'd say I'm probably, at the moment I feel 80% healthy.

Like I'm not, definitely not at my prime. There's definitely some room for movement. I'm feeling really good. But lately my sleep routine's been a bit shy, been scrolling a little bit too much, haven't been reading my book. My sleep routine is, yeah, have turn off devices, brush my teeth get into my jammies, get into bed and read for half an hour and read till I fall asleep pretty much.

And then often put on a sleep meditation or a sleep, [00:41:00] something to help me drift off. And I haven't been doing that, so I think my sleep. And when you're not sleeping well, I wake up tired. I'm still gonna the gym, but I'm perhaps not working out as hard as I am or my body's not recovering as well as it could.

My food's been pretty good. My mental health's been good, but yeah, that sleep routines needs a little kick in the pants. Yeah. Needs a bit of a stiff upper cut and I'm aware of that. Sometimes I think you need someone else to give you that stiff up and cut and be like, why are you on your phone at 10 o'clock at night?

Oh yeah. Shit. Okay. I'll put it down. Yeah. But yeah, so I think for me, I feel 80% healthy, but there's room for improvement. But then I don't think you can ever be a hundred percent nailing every aspect of your life at all times. No. There's always gonna be something that

Kevin: Yeah. And that's slide.

Yeah, I was gonna bring that up too. 'cause just you going through that thought process there, it's, there is so much involved in our life, right? As far as our routines and [00:42:00] how what we get in a rut with what we get stuck in that habitual kind of routine of whether it's five o'clock, getting something to drink or me I'm not drinking, and I just couldn't, I couldn't put myself to bed.

And that's, that was, that's this year. I've gone through, ebbs and flows of being good at going to bed earlier, trying to get up earlier and all that. And those have those, there's all kinds of different levers or levers, whichever way you say it, aha. That you can pull to work on things.

That five o'clock craving. Isn't necessarily, we can focus on the five o'clock time, but it's also, what are we doing throughout our day that can help with that?

Am I eating lunch at 11 or 12 o'clock and then not eating anything until I get home and at five then, and

Emma: you're actually just angry by the time you get home.

Kevin: Yeah. And so my, [00:43:00] whereas if I on the way home or a little bit mid-afternoon if I ate something, would that kind of cut that craving a little bit?

I'm not saying that's the answer, but again it's just troubleshooting and thinking about it. Try it. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I need more sleep.

Something

Emma: discovered recently that I didn't realize I was doing that's actually pretty awesome is particularly people with a DHD that are like dopamine minus, like we, I'm pretty go in the morning when I've got a lot of dopamine. I exercise first thing in the morning, dopamine hit great. Love it.

Now the morning, conquer the morning. And then I always take always was

98% of the time I take my dog for a walk at lunchtime. So we get out, we get some sunshine. It's like a little 45 minute loopy look that we do. Huh? She, Jared watch. Yeah. That what you said, it's not lunchtime. She knows the same loop that we do every day. And so she could walk herself if she wanted to.

But, so I'm getting out and I'm getting exercise at [00:44:00] lunchtime. So halfway through my day when that kind of morning dopamine exercise is starting to wane, I'm giving myself another little boost of dopamine and exercise and all of those good and dolphins jumping around my brain to get me through to the evening till it's wind downtime.

And I didn't realize that I was doing that, but that's actually a great technique for people with a DHD or people, not just people with a adhd, but anyone, yeah. Get out in the middle of the day and get some exercise outside if you can, get that sunshine and that fresh air and that kind of stuff.

But, maybe a little bit of movement, maybe a little bit of yoga or a little bit of something to break up the day to give you another little hit of feel good chemicals in your brain. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize that was doing it, but that's like an actual thing that people recommend.

Oh yeah. Look at me, go figuring out shit by myself that someone else has already figured out.

Kevin: Yeah. Hey, have you, you are heard you guys

Emma: discovered? Yes. And we all learned that years ago.

Kevin: Okay, cool. And there's somebody listening to this [00:45:00] because I've listened to these things and have said this, and great.

Good for you, Emma. I can't do that. I don't have that luxury. I have this, I have that.

And. I can't go to bed early any earlier. I can't. I have to work. I have, whether it's kids or just I don't want to or, whatever.

But what can you do? And that's the thing. It's like we're, that's great, but we have to figure out what can we do?

And it could be, maybe I can't go to bed earlier, but maybe I can start, maybe I don't have to. If I'm, I don't know binge watching TV while I'm working, maybe I can just focus on work for a little bit and then it'll get done quicker. I won't do that, but maybe I could. But it is those trade offs that we have and it's we think oh, that's my time.

Or, this, that, or the other thing like that. And it's okay, but what can you do? It doesn't have to be this big thing. It could be like five minutes of movement. Like I started doing [00:46:00] that at night before bed here recently. This app that has like nighttime before bed. Like little moves just to stretchy things.

Yeah. Loosen, yeah. Your body up a little bit more. And that's been great. It's actually been helping me sleep more, better.

Emma: Yeah, for a long time, this is I have the luxury of I can set my own lunch breaks and stuff, and I can take lunch, I can take lunch breaks. But for a long time I didn't feel like I could take lunch breaks.

So I was so busy with work and whatever that I would just, I would sit in this chair in this spot from eight 30 till five 30, and I would maybe get up to go to the toilet. Sometimes I would forget to do that as well. So I totally get that. It's it's sometimes it's really hard. But I was screen sharing with a colleague one day, and she had on her like pinned toolbar on her Google, whatever, Uhhuh on her chrome on her browser.

Yeah. And it was like seated arm workout. And I was like, what's that? And so she showed me, it was a YouTube video of so she'll sit there. And so then I started doing, and you do a little [00:47:00] yes, I have to be sitting here in this meeting, but I'm gonna do like a little arm workout in my chair.

I can't remember what it all was. Like, stretching and stuff. Yeah. So you can get some movement into your day, whilst you're sitting at your desk on a Zoom call. If you have there's ideal. And then there's, what can I do?

Kevin: What's the bare minimum, what's the ideal? I built this standup desk out of a piece of, a piece of wood and four, four by fours for legs. Obviously I'm sitting right now at it, but yeah, just what's the little things?

Emma: What can you do Yeah.

Kevin: That you can do? And I'm not saying like you have to add a whole bunch of little things, but it starts with just the little things of addressing something with any of this.

Yeah. Because I've tried the, I've tried the overhaul, everything kind of scenario, and it's too much typically does not work.

Emma: Too much. Yeah. And I think that's where a lot of the times I'm looking at some of these questions, it's like, how do you handle [00:48:00] slips and shame spirals and I keep slipping or I keep failing.

Like what? And I think before I got alcohol free and I was trying to moderate, or trying to cut back or trying to be alcohol free, but I kept slipping. And it was because I'd be like, okay, this month I'm going to be alcohol free and I'm gonna exercise every single day and I'm gonna walk the dog every single day and I'm going to only eat raw food and I'm gonna get eight hours sleep every night.

And I'm gonna do I'm gonna do all of the things all at once. And it was too much. And I would. Fail on one of them, which inevitably meant to a spiral of just throw the baby out with the bath water and I'm done. Yeah. Big old case, the fucks. So yeah, I think if, let's just focus on one thing at a time.

Like what is most important right now. If it's most important to cut back drinking, then let's focus on that. Screw the exercise. Screw the Today. [00:49:00] Today, yeah.

Kevin: Just today. It's screw the on, screw the food.

Emma: Screw the, yep. I mean they all help each other out. I shouldn't say screw it, but no exercising does help with your making you feel good and keeping your mood up.

Sleep is always good for mental health and wellness and recovery and balancing

Kevin: out your blood sugars and things like that. And more protein can help with sugar cravings and all of those things can. But you

Emma: know what, if you live on ice cream, chocolate chippies and coffee for a month, but you're nailing being alcohol free.

Cool.

Yes. Who did that?

Actually, I was, I chatting to my therapist last week and she was like, how's the sleep going? And I was like, oh, it hasn't been amazing. And she's oh yeah. How's the. How's the diet going? And I was like, yeah, I might be living off because husband was away. He was [00:50:00] working outta town with our youngest kid for the school holidays.

So it was just me and the big kid at home. So we were just feral, flatmates spending for ourselves for a week. And I was like, yeah, I have been living off ice cream and snacks for a week's. Okay, we might need to think like work on that a little. I was like, yeah, okay. Good point.

Yeah. So yeah, for a solid week I think I lived on mainly ice cream. Oh, one thing the teenager can cook is apple crumble. You know what Apple crumble is? Like stewed apples was like a crumbly oat topping.

Kevin: Yeah. I'm not a fan of it.

Emma: Oh, ed French cream on top.

Kevin: Ang definitely likes that. Avery. I dunno.

She does. So yeah,

Emma: we lived on ice cream and apple crumble for a week. It was great.

Kevin: Yeah, I'm not as much as a fan of that. I ended up getting a one of those glucose monitors last Friday and I put it on. Oh yeah. And then I went to, it was the fourth and I went to see um, F1 uh, movie. Mm-hmm. [00:51:00] And really good

Emma: by yourself?

Kevin: No. Angela and I went and I had I four inch. We got it. No, she loved it. Oh really? Okay. Oh yeah. Alright. Yeah. I guess

Emma: it's got bright put in it.

Kevin: Sorry. Yeah.

Emma: Stop interrupting.

Kevin: Yeah. No. Hey love me some. Brad Pitt. Fight club's my favorite movie still to this day. It's all, if I've seen

Emma: it, I need to figure out where I can watch Fight Club.

I know how Googling Now how do I watch Fight Club?

Kevin: Yeah. Daughter and I watch that at than around Thanksgiving. It was like every night wife was falling asleep on the couch every night. And we, I was like, all right, what are we watching? And it was just like the most, I dunno, about the most inappropriate movies, but

Emma: like me

Kevin: and my daughter watched were like, white Club Deadpool de two.

I'm like, yeah, let's just go through, let's just not tell mom that she's not waking up. So we're good.

Emma: Apparently it's on Disney Premium. Put that

Kevin: on. Oh, I had, yeah, we got a large bucket of [00:52:00] popcorn, which is fine, but I ate 75% of it versus her. And then just ate too much to pizza and all that on Friday night.

And I was like, all right, that's it. Saturday I'm like, I'm doing Costco. I'm ma I'm finally gonna do this super fridge idea that they talk about in the book, tiny Habits where, you know, you meal prep and do all that. And I was I've been doing well for three weeks, like just focusing on what I've been doing, movement and diet, eating wise and i'm like, let's go all in this week. I got this monitor. I tested it out on the first day and saw how high I can get all the stuff I ate that night. Which, whatever it's data is how I look at it, so I'm not beating myself up. I'm not doing any of that. It's data and and what else?

And now let's see how all I am curious now, like I'm trying different things. 'cause I'm like

how does this impact it? How do I feel when I see that it's going up? And but yeah, we did the whole Costco shop and I, meal prep on Sunday [00:53:00] and it's been an interesting week. I've been eating a ton of fruit and all kinds of stuff.

And it's almost like the super fridge thing is you just eat, you can eat whatever you want in the fridge. Like you just put stuff in. It's one of the things like designing that James Clear talks about designing your default.

Emma: And

Kevin: it's, my default at home could be, my Swedish fish or whatever in the cabinet, in the tea drinks for night energy.

Okay, those are still there, but the the default at home could be, I could have alcohol there. Or I can design the default where that's not there, and therefore my default is perhaps, what else do I have here besides a energy drink? A polar like sparkling water. Or, it, you can put the things in place or whether it's food or drink or just the way things are organized in your house, like to oh, if you wanna read more, let's put some books around where I'm gonna be sitting that I can read.

Or if you wanna journal, then put it by the coffee maker and pick it up in the morning, or [00:54:00] that kind of stuff. But that's been helpful to be like, I can open up the fridge this week and anything in there I can grab and that's it. 'cause it's like I can eat anything in there because it's, I can eat as much as I want.

And it almost takes away that some of that guesswork have the steam brush bags ready, have the easy stuff. Because that's what we were. Working for stink push

Emma: bags. I haven't got those in a long time. I should, yeah. Thanks. The reminder. Yeah. So easy. Yeah, absolutely. All yeah, off that dish, but Sunday, I dunno how we got Sunday, Emma, who goes to the grocery shop and is motivated for the week ahead is not the same.

Emma as Yeah, Monday afternoon, what is it? I'm not

Kevin: the, yeah,

Emma: I'm not the same person I was yesterday.

Kevin: Yeah. I pissed off at the person I was yesterday who decided that they didn't need snacks, in the cabinet or whatever. Yeah. Every freaking

Emma: week.

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. But how do we get on that?

Emma: I don't know,

Kevin: okay. So getting back into the questions like, in [00:55:00] this area of slips and how do I bounce back and, feeling that shame and that, one of the questions that I wanted to bring up too was like, why do I keep breaking promises to myself?

And there's a lot of talk about regret and the shame spiral even after a minor slip and things like that. But why do I keep breaking promises to myself? And I, I, I kind of hit chuckle because I, I think about myself and about how I would declare things or it was I always like, like it to Michael Scott in the office when he comes out and he's I declare bankruptcy thinking that's how you had to declare bankruptcy.

And that's all I had to do. When there's a lot of other stuff that goes into that. No, but the I would do that where I would set a goal or I would make a promise I am not going to do this anymore. And I just made that promise. I made that statement, and then I felt bad when I did the thing.

[00:56:00] But what I should have been doing was, who cares about promises? So you could correct me on this. Maybe I'm go I stopped making promises to myself, and that sounds bad, but when I stopped thinking about it I have this goal and I have to make this promise and I have to do this thing like this, set this expectation.

And just focused on, okay, what can I do today? What can I do today to work on this, whatever this is. How do I need to change something up from yesterday? Like I'm feeling regret from drinking the night before. How can I use that today? What did I do last night? Look at it and say, okay, what could I have done differently there?

Regret is I think a fairly useless feeling except for what it can tell you. Reflect, tell us.

Emma: Yeah.

Kevin: When I regret something, like I can't go back and do that. I can apologize for [00:57:00] things, I can do all that kind of stuff, but when I regret something and it's just like something I did and it just affects me and things like that okay, but what can I, how can I use that?

And I'm not gonna be perfect? And I think that's where we get into a lot with this, these shame spirals. And I, why do I keep breaking these promises to myself? Because I would set promises that weren't maybe in the realm of where I was at that point.

Emma: Yeah. In the realm of possibility.

Kevin: Yeah. And I didn't think through 'em either.

Emma: Yeah.

Kevin: I would say I, I'm not gonna drink today and by the nighttime I did. But. What did I do to change that? Sometimes I did some things and try and tried, new things to change that sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I just said, I'm not gonna drink as my promise to myself. But it wasn't until I started okay, what else can I do whenever I want to drink?

How do I change that? How do I, do I send a message to my therapist [00:58:00] and type that out? Do I, if I had reframe, do I hop on a meeting? Do I go to the forum?

Do I connect with a friend? Do I read something? Do I go outside with the dog for a walk? And it's, we're never gonna be perfect.

So I do think, I don't know, I have a problem with this thought of, I broke a promise to myself because I feel like, and this is a per, this is more of a, I have a problem with it because I feel like I did that. I'm not coming at this from the perspective of the person who might've said ask the question like this.

I don't feel it's helpful to promise myself something.

Emma: I think maybe it just needs a tweak. Sure I'm gonna promise that I'm not gonna drink this month. Okay, cool. But how are you gonna do that? I think it needs the promise needs or the goal needs backup. You can't just make this blanket statement.

I'm not gonna drink this week or this month, or I'm not gonna eat sugar this month. Okay, but what are you [00:59:00] gonna eat? How are you gonna do it? How are you gonna achieve that goal? How are you gonna keep that promise? Because just saying it and then not backing it up with support and any thought around it is, yeah you are likely to slip.

But also thinking about, is that goal actually attainable? Yes. Is that promise achievable for you right now? If I said in the beginning of my journey, if I said, I'm gonna be alcohol, I'm never gonna drink again on, on day zero of my journey, was that goal achievable? Probably not at that time. Was it realistic?

No, I don't think it was. But

Kevin: what was the goal that you just said,

Emma: I'm never gonna drink again.

Kevin: I'm never gonna drink again.

Emma: Yeah,

Kevin: so that was just saying that and saying you said was that achievable then attainable then. And that's the thing. It's no, because all I can do is what's here today?

I can't be alcohol free for the rest of my life right now.

Emma: I think I can set that goal now, [01:00:00] probably. Even yeah. Maybe. I don't want to set that goal now, but Yeah, I think it's about, yeah, being realistic with where you're at. So if your goal maybe your goal is, I'm not going to drink today, or I'm not gonna drink this week, or I'm not gonna drink this weekend.

And realizing where you're at what are you currently doing and what's a little bit of a challenge? Not like the world's, you don't say, I'm gonna run a marathon tomorrow and go and run a marathon. You could try yeah, no, you set yourself with a,

Kevin: I did that with a 10 miler. It did not end well.

Emma: It didn't end well. See yourself, I wanna run a marathon, but know that's in a year's time. So what am I, what is my goal this week then? Okay, so I need to run 5K and then I need to run seven K and then I need to, I dunno, stretch whatever, physio whatever it is. But you've gotta break that big goal down into little achievable goals and realize where you're at because Yeah.

I couldn't run a marathon like I'm fit, but I'm not running a marathon. My hips would die. [01:01:00] Yeah. So yeah, why do I keep breaking promises to myself? Let's reassess the promise. Let's figure out Yeah. Whether it's appropriate, possible. And how are you going to back it up? How are you gonna achieve it?

Yeah. Is my thoughts. Yeah. But also I have no self-control. Like you, I can make a promise to myself that I'm not gonna eat candy this week. And as soon as I sniff out some of the kids' Halloween candy. I am like sugar Monster.

Kevin: I'm sorry, can you repeat that?

Emma: You just wanted that one? Yeah.

Kevin: Can we hear what the sugar monster sounds like here?

Now what you're hearing folks is

Emma: the sugar monster Out Sugar monster

Kevin: native to the New Zealand region of the globe. Like

Emma: in, in July when Halloween was Yeah. 10 months ago. Yeah. You're already dreaming. And the candies so you know how candy goes like soggy after a while, but when you're really craving it or

Kevin: rock hard, depending on what kind of it is.

Yeah. [01:02:00] Yeah.

Emma: That's what kind of self-control and addict I am, my friends. Doesn't matter. It's sugar.

Kevin: Yeah. I think of the now I can't stop thinking of the sugar monster, but I think about the I like the line in Atomic Habits where he's we don't rise to the level of our goals.

We fall to the level of our systems, meaning like our goal. We can say whatever we want. And I've, I'm good. I've always been good at saying what I wanna do and bad about breaking it down into something that I can just achieve now and not be good at.

And when I say achieve, we ha I remember doing a, I should pull this out again for the men's meeting tomorrow, but I did a whole men's meeting topic on what do you need to suck at?

Because I think that's what we don't like, and we don't wanna suck at stuff. We don't wanna be bad at something. We don't want [01:03:00] to struggle with a new tool or or something that we, someone told us, oh, you should try this. Yeah, no I gotta, it's like me, like I used to be like, nah I can't, I wanna join the gym, but I gotta get in shape first and then I'll join the gym was my old way of thinking.

Now I just don't go to the gym. I just go out for a walk. But it's like that type of thinking that I have to I have to just know how to do this right away and I'm not giving myself any time at all to learn.

Versus looking at what are my systems? What are my habits? What are my routines right now?

And those are,

to use a term we already used. Those are well trodden, right? So to go off the beaten path and change something with those

Emma: takes time

Kevin: and work. You're gonna have to suck it. You're gonna have to slog through the high grass to make that. And. How do we give ourself time to do that? Is, maybe I should, and [01:04:00] that's could be part of it, is maybe I need to promise myself that it's okay if I don't get this right away.

It's okay. I promise it's okay. If I am not good at this right now, it's okay if it takes me a while to figure this out.

Emma: So that kinda leads into, for me, in my head, this leads into the next question or the next comment of, I go into a shame spiral laughter, even after a minor slip. And I think that's part of the, if you've promised yourself that you're not gonna drink, but you do slip, you have a drink, what, how do you stop that shame spiral?

And I think it's, part of it is giving yourself a bit of permission or realization that this is hard, this is a journey. It's okay to have slips, but we wanna be learning from them. We wanna be, looking at why did it [01:05:00] happen? What? Like, where's the clink in my armor? Where's the clink in my armor? Chin in my armor. Chink. What's that? Chin? Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, I think

Kevin: yeah, I actually, yeah, I remember I shared that in a meeting recently where I remember messaging my therapist early on and being like I was feeling good. And I just said something about I feel like my I got a hole in my armor fell off or whatever, and coming back and put your armor back on.

It's fine. You're, it's going to be, it's there for a reason to take a blow and to, get hit and you're okay. Keep going.

Emma: Yeah. Anyway,

Kevin: sorry.

Emma: Squirrel, but squirrel. But like, where's the, if you have a slip, it's okay. And it's okay to feel that kind of shame or regret or embarrassment or that oh, for fuck's sakes moment of Ugh, I've done it again.

Or it's okay to feel that. But what we wanna be doing is thinking okay where's the weak link? Where did that what was it about that slip? Why was it that. I've still got [01:06:00] alcohol in the house. Was it that I actually didn't prepare with food? Was it that it was the perfect storm of all of this shit going wrong all at once, and I just couldn't handle it?

Is it, think about it. It's okay to have a slip. What's amazing is when you catch yourself in that slip and you pull yourself up on it and go, no, we're not gonna do this again. A slip in my mind and everyone's terminology is a little bit different, but in my mind, a slip is like maybe a one drink or a day of drinking, like a bit of a small drinking slip.

Yeah. Whereas a relapse is like a decent chunk of time where you've just gone straight back into those old drinking habits. So let's pick up on a slip before we head into a full on relapse. That's how my brain works with that terminology. Everyone thinks of things a little bit differently. But yeah, giving yourself grace when you have a slip, but not a pass so that it turns into a relapse, is how I think about it.[01:07:00]

Kevin: Yeah,

Emma: and I think,

Kevin: again, everybody, this terminology is, I think it's very individual. You can define it all you want, but a. I relapse is I feel like I'm not making changes in advance and I know I feel like something's coming and I start to not do the things that are helping me. I start to go back into my old ways and then it happens versus a slip, I feel i'm good. I'm confident I'm doing things and something comes outta nowhere and just surprises me where I have examples of it in my own life too, but, for a sake of time, I won't go down those roads. But yeah, you, excuse me. The difference between giving yourself grace and giving yourself a pass was yeah.

Emma: One of the questions too. And that's a,

it's a

Kevin: fine line, right? It's because anytime I talk about in, in meeting slips I'm always, I always give the [01:08:00] caveats okay, just 'cause we're just, 'cause we are talking about this doesn't mean that I'm giving you a pass, you know, to slip. But it is acknowledging that this is difficult and we aren't going to be perfect ever.

I don't wanna say ever, but over the course of time, we aren't going to be perfect from, when we start or we say we start to whenever. And so I, I always think if it happened already, give yourself grace.

If it didn't, make sure you're not giving yourself grace in advance.

Like challenge it, I guess it's,

Emma: yeah.

Kevin: It's tough. It's hard, right? It's not, that's easy to say not to do.

Emma: Yeah. Maybe giving yourself a pass, if I'm thinking about the language, is more like, yeah. Giving yourself grace in advance is giving yourself a bit of a pass. Yeah. But maybe that's part of your journey, if that fits in with your goals.

Yeah. Of maybe you are mindfully moderating rather than cutting back completely or going completely alcohol free. Maybe [01:09:00] your pass is planned out in advance of, I will, I have this event. I will drink two drinks, three drinks at this event. Maybe that's your, maybe that's your pass. But then I guess reflecting on that pass after the event, did you stick to that goal?

Did you stick to that pass? Did you or did you completely blow through it? Which I would've done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just reflect, I'm a, I'm big about reflecting and being curious.

Kevin: I think that's important. I think we don't, we, I think that we too easily move on and don't reflect in general.

Like in anything with our life. Now everybody's different and people can have this in place and all that, but I think. I think we need more reflection in general. So therefore I think that's a good thing whenever we stop and take a look back at what happened or how did that go? Did it go poorly?

Why what could I have done different? Did it go well? [01:10:00] Why, what did I do? That was good.

I like that you talked about the, you were like looking for the weak link in the chain and it made me think of I, I bust out the Tiny Habits book and he talks about the ability chain and looking for the ability chain is only as strong as its weakest ability to factor link.

And the factors are like time, money, physical effort, mental effort, routine. And this is for creating behaviors and stopping behaviors. But like these, thinking about these, where's the weak link that I can fix whenever I'm trying to change something, but whenever I'm trying to stop something, there's some strong links that are, we're talking about neural pathways trodden path.

Now we're gonna go with strong links of the chain. And it's we sometimes try and attack the strongest, biggest link in the chain first. And I think that it's. That's great, but like, where are, where's the low [01:11:00] hanging fruit, as I always say, you can just grab and change.

And this is just a general question. I have not, we're not talking about something specific, so I can't even, I'm not gonna give examples, but, whenever we're looking at the biggest ugliest, not in this whole ball of knots or the biggest ugliest link in this chain, why don't we start with the, one of the weaker links of the chain that we can tackle first and focus on that versus, and that kind of could be like, you could look at it as just like, all right, let's tackle something simple here versus going to a black tie event that you're going to later this year.

Yeah. Maybe focusing on those types of, that kind of thing. Yeah. I

Emma: definitely had to tackle some smaller events before I could go to a black tie event, alcohol free for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Last year I had COVID at the annual award ceremony, so I didn't go, which was a bummer 'cause I had a great dress.

But then my daughter ended up wearing it to her high school ball, so dressed well bought. There we go. Nailed [01:12:00] it. But the year before the black tie event was at a vineyard, and I was about four, maybe five months alcohol free. Yeah. And that was a big challenge. I did it, but that was huge.

That was but it, I, but I didn't go from, it wasn't one week alcohol free trying to do that. I had a lot of experience. I'd had a lot of slips. I'd, I'd been cracking at that, trying this journey for probably a year. By that point. There had been a lot of events where I slipped.

There had been a lot of relapses and, but then there'd been a lot of events where I had white knuckled through it, reflected on it, figured out how I did it, what am I gonna do, make a plan. I'm very lucky that I have a very supportive husband, partner, family. All of them are very supportive. Which makes it easier when I'm going to an event and I have and they know that this could be a struggle for me.

Now, it's not now. But they also know, my husband particularly knows that he's my wing man and I'm gonna turn to him if I do need a little bit of support. And he knows that he's, he won't [01:13:00] offer me an alcoholic drink. He will say, do you wanna drink? Would you like a soda water? Or would you like a coke?

He'll offer me the non-alcoholic options rather than, what drink would you like? He's my wing man. Which is amazing. So yeah, getting through a social event with a wing person, some kind of support, some kind of plan is important. Yeah.

Kevin: And not everybody has that.

And that's tough. No, that's,

Emma: yeah. I'm very blessed to have a supportive partner. I get that. Because yeah, some people don't. Yeah. How do you, because Ang your wife drink drinks a little bit sometimes. No. No,

Kevin: not really.

Emma: Not really.

Kevin: She, I don't think she's had any alcoholic beverages this year, and maybe not last either, because I used to say oh, wow.

I can count on one hand how many drinks she has in a year, and

Emma: Yeah.

Kevin: I, I don't, maybe one this year, I, maybe, I, maybe on vacation I got her one of the fancy actually I was getting my, myself the fancy Jack thing. Thing they had there. Yes. Yeah. Without alcohol in it [01:14:00] and Hey, tasty. But no.

What was I say there? But yeah, so no I, she is supportive from that perspective, but she also doesn't, she don't understand too, I might have shared this on. Podcast before, but I remember the one time I was going over, we were going over to my brother's pool for it was summer get together, a bunch of people gonna be there.

I dunno if it was a holiday or anything, but I was sitting there okay, who's gonna be there? Who's gonna be there? I was asking her and I'm like alright. I've seen them before. They know what I'm doing. This person doesn't, all right, I'm gonna bring my Yeti can holder so that nobody bothers me.

And she made a comment like, see now you know how I felt all these years, whenever I didn't want to drink and everybody kept asking me if I wanted to drink. And I'm like, I was like, I appreciate the sentiment, but there's one key difference it is I [01:15:00] want to drink. Yeah. Not not that day, not then, but it's like I've, I want that drink, that feeling.

And so just to say it like that, it helped her understand too, a little bit of the difference. It, I didn't say it in a way that was like, shutter down or yeah, but I wanted to drink and, it's, it was that it hit me like, yes, I, I appreciate, you making that connection.

But it was easy for her to say no. 'cause she didn't want it. She's I'm fine with my diet Coke. Stop bothering me.

Emma: For her, it was more perhaps annoying that people were pestering her. Yeah. Whereas

Kevin: for me, it's for us it's, I really want that stop bothering me.

Emma: Yeah. Yeah.

It's not so much annoying. It's you are making this harder, you are making this hard work for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Another so great segue, em. Well done. I, we get asked [01:16:00] natural segue. We get asked a lot things like how to be alcohol free around a partner who drinks a lot. My partner's drinking heavily.

What do I do? How do I navigate, how do I navigate relationships where one person is still drinking or perhaps one person's not supportive of our, your partner's not supportive or your friends aren't supportive of your alcohol free journey. That was a lot of questions all in one and I think shouldn't have lumped them all into relationships.

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: But I think in the beginning I was very much, I'm doing this on my own. I do not expect my partner to do this with me, my husband to do this with me. He doesn't have. Complicated relationship with alcohol. He can take it or leave it. And that's amazing for him. So I have never told him that he has to be alcohol free.

It's, this is, in the beginning it was very much, this is my journey and I'm doing this by myself. I'm doing this for me. This is my [01:17:00] journey. And I was in the beginning, I said, it's okay. Like the wine bottles are there. That's fine. You still drink. You do you, the beer is in the fridge.

That's okay. You do you. And then eventually it was like, you know what? It's really fricking hard when you crack open a bottle of our favorite wine and drink it. This is too hard. I need, can you please not do that? And so I had to open up to him and include him in this journey a little bit. And he, thankfully was supportive.

But yeah, I had to bring him intimate this journey a little bit for me so that he could be supportive. 'cause he had no idea what I was going through. He had no idea that it was really hard when he opened that bottle of wine. And so I, yeah, my, my tip there is talk about it as hard as it is, talk about it, bring them into.

Talk to them about reframing the meetings, not the content of the meeting, not what people are saying, but just how important they are to you Talk about the daily [01:18:00] tasks that we're doing. Talk about the forum, talk about, the things that you're learning about yourself. Bring them into this experience with you as much as you can, or as much as feels comfortable.

At one point I, my husband, wondered if I was having an affair because I was on my phone so much.

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: And I was gonna say

Kevin: that watching, 'cause we've heard that a lot, right? Yeah. And you've seen that firsthand that,

Emma: yeah. I was constantly on my phone. I was constantly messaging reframes.

I've got an amazing support group, and we still constantly message. And he, at one point I think he said, reframes ruining our marriage. And I was like, I don't know how to, I don't know how to reframe saving my life. So how do I reconcile that? And it was like, okay, I need to bring him in so that he can see.

Yeah. So it's not this secret little thing that I'm doing on my phone secretly. It's

Kevin: Did he know the extent of how you were feeling when you were drinking?

Emma: So he knew, like he, he knew, he saw my drinking was ramping up. He saw that I was drinking hit belly. He would be like, I'm pretty sure we bought that bottle of gin [01:19:00] on the weekend and it's already gone and it's a Wednesday. Yeah.

He saw my mental health deteriorate to the point where I was suicidal and I would drink a bottle of spirits by myself. And so he knew it was that he knew there needed to be change. Yeah. But I don't think he knew that the change that was actually needed was, I don't think he realized that I couldn't moderate, I don't think he knew that the change that needed to happen was I needed to be alcohol free.

Yeah. So he, when I was doing, when I started reframe, I think he thought it was like a month reset. I'll be alcohol free for a month. Just reset. Bit of a detox. Yeah. Good to go. I don't think he realized that this is where my journey was headed. And I don't know that he realized how hard it was for me because we've done challenges with the gym, like a six week challenge where trying to lose the most weight, gain the most muscle, and we'd give up alcohol for a month together and we would do it together and that [01:20:00] was okay.

Yeah. And I think he found it a lot easier than I did, and I don't know that he knew how hard I was finding it. Yeah. I, but,

Kevin: and I just ask 'cause I, I wonder if, that could be part of people's problem is okay, your partner, whoever doesn't know how you know much it was impacting you or is impacting you. Yourself, like your own drinking and as well as theirs. If that's the case, if you're working on cutting back, cutting out

Emma: and Yeah.

Because,

Kevin: As I have my boys get said t-shirt on I, I have to wear this now to to, to remind myself or to let other people know because I'm the type of person who would be like, I'm fine, I'm good.

Emma: And so

Kevin: people didn't know like how bad. They might know like maybe my drinking was, I was drinking a lot, but I don't know that.

No I'm [01:21:00] comfortable saying that nobody in my wife knew how bad it was.

Up here in my head.

Emma: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like the internal anguish that you're going through is No, I don't, and I don't think anyone can ever fully know what it's like. But I think yeah, talk, talking about it. Try and bring that spouse in as best you can on, let them know what you're doing, why you're doing it.

Let them know, the things that you're learning, the daily tasks that you're going through, if you can communicate your boundaries. Like in the beginning, my boundary was, it's okay to have the wine and the house and the beer in the fridge, and it's totally fine. And then I was like, you know what, can you put those beers in the neighbor's fridge?

We've got a, the neighbors have a garage with games and stuff that he goes in place in the neighbor's garage. And he's yep, I can put it in my neighbor's fridge. Not a problem. Yep. And then he went on holidays for a couple of weeks. He went overseas for a couple weeks to visit family, and there was a lot of alcohol in the house, a lot of duty free bottles of all sorts.

[01:22:00] And I begged it all up and I took it over to the neighbors and I was like, can you just look after this for a couple weeks? And he was like, yep, not a problem. Bless my neighbors who support me, bless my husband, who supports me. Yeah. But yeah, setting those boundaries. And then after I took. All of that alcohol from over to the neighbors, it didn't come back into the house.

And so that's yeah, I guess setting that boundary of, can I think there is some alcohol in the house somewhere. I don't know where, I don't look for it and I could be okay with it now, but it's probably, it's just easier to not have it in the house. And Yeah. But communicating that to your partner, and I know communicating is so hard sometimes, and sometimes you don't even know what words to use, but Yeah.

In whatever way you can and yeah, bringing them into the loop on this journey is so important. Yeah. So that it's not Why you on your phone all the time? Who are you talking to?

Kevin: Yeah, I was, I didn't have reframe, but I was on Instagram all the time. DMing all my friends and around the world who I connected with and [01:23:00] yeah, my screen time shot up with that.

And I had to, yeah, I let my wife know you want you on Instagram again? And I'm like, yeah,

Emma: yes, because this is how I'm getting support. Yeah. This is what I need right now. This is who I'm

Kevin: talking to. And here, follow them like they know more about you than you probably wanna of they, they already love you.

Like just go talk to 'em. But, and that question too of whether they're drinking heavily or they're not supportive, should I break up with them?

That's unfortunately could be a result of some of these things. We've seen it, and I'm not saying that's what it should be or that we should go to, if someone isn't supportive of it

obviously , we haven't gone through this ourselves. Whether somebody is just like totally against the other person stopping or cutting back or feels resentment towards them because they themselves maybe feel like they should do it and they can't or they don't want to or whatever, there's all kinds of reasons [01:24:00] there.

And that's where, talking about it, it's where kind of setting those boundaries, couples counseling, other bringing other people in could be helpful. And sometimes, yeah. Maybe this I dunno it's, you can't answer that question. Obviously I, I would never tell anybody.

Yeah, you should.

Emma: No, and it's, every relationship is different, right? Yeah. And it depends on, how I'm.

Kevin: You think about a friend who you're best friends with and you're always hanging out with and you can drift apart from them because I'm not doing this thing that we always did before and they haven't an adjusted or we haven't found a common ground to connect with anymore.

From a, maybe a less what's the word I'm looking for? Spousal?

Emma: Yeah. A less it's all in or intimate standpoint, I dunno

Kevin: like heavy and I'm cutting this out, but heavy, deep or?

Emma: Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah. Like maybe from a less deep perspective, more shallow perspective. No, from a deeper perspective with these, with a deeper [01:25:00] connection. That you can have with obviously a partner or spouse, whatever.

Actually

Emma: that's something that I worked through with my therapist when I first quit drinking alcohol because husband and I did feel so disconnected for quite a while because we would every night share a bowl of wine. Why husband and watch TV or whatever was husband just knows that I would resent every time he poured more Yeah.

From the bottle, because that meant it was less for me. But that's a side tangent. But my therapist worked on, worked with me on, okay, so how do, how are you guys gonna connect now? Yeah. Without alcohol. Like what are some other things that you can do? Can you still watch TV but with a cup of tea?

Can you still like what were was, were you sitting down enjoying the wine? Was it about the wine? No, it wasn't about the wine. It was, I dunno, the wine was just there. So we ended up deciding that husband and I decided that we would watch a series together and have a cup of tea and sit down and we ended up binge watching Ted Lasso [01:26:00] and it was so good to have this.

Yeah, we would have Ted Las we'd almost be like trying to rush the kids to bed so we could put Ted lasso on so we could watch and spend some time together. And that had nothing to do with the wine. We still connected. We got to Yeah. Spend time together. Have a laugh, feel good. But it was, yeah, finding how do we navigate this? How do we navigate this new phase of our relationship together? Yeah.

Kevin: And yeah. And yeah, that made me think of one of my favorite lines that I hear oh, we're never gonna, we're never gonna get drinks together anymore. It's what?

I'm like, I can get drinks. I got

Emma: know I got another drinks. I got all the

Kevin: drinks. I, it doesn't have to be like, what are we doing when we get drinks? If we just go and have a couple beers. Yeah. What's the activity? I can still have a couple na beers with you and we can connect and talk, chat, hang out.

We don't have to be on the same. But if it could be, [01:27:00] they don't want to do that because then I'm not on the same level as them or whatever, however you wanna say that. And so the other person could have issue with it that you can't even control, right? So it's no, like we can still get together and do stuff.

It might be a little different. We might not go to that bar we always went to. Maybe we go to the coffee shop. Maybe I go to your house or you go to mine. Or whatever. But or if it's. Partners living in the same space. Okay, we can still, right now I'm fine with you having you drinking that glass.

Maybe put it in a Tumblr or so that I can't see it or pour it out of my view. So for now and I'll have my whatever.

I know,

Emma: yeah. I think it also, that brought up for me like that, sometimes we lose or we feel like we're losing friendships because our friends don't wanna invite us out.

'cause they're like, oh no, we can't invite Emma out because she doesn't drink anymore. So we won't invite her to this bar club [01:28:00] event, whatever. It's 'cause she's not drinking. And they think it'd be rude to invite you because it might be triggering for you. Yeah. And that may be the case.

Kevin: Best intentions.

Emma: Yeah. But I think it's important and I think the onus is on us to communicate with our friends. I still want to be invited to these things. Yeah. And if I feel strong enough that I can come to it, or if I want to come to it, then I will come to it. But Yeah. Yeah. If that feels good for you. So for me, it would be keep inviting me and I'll come if I want to come.

Don't feel like the invitation is the trigger. That's not the trigger. And I still want to be included in these events. Don't feel like you have to exclude me because this is my journey. Yeah. But that's how I feel. That may not be how you feel. Yeah. But communicate to that, to your friends. Maybe it's, please do not invite me to any events for the next month.

Kevin: Yeah, I was gonna say, because don't want that trigger was like, please invite me. 'cause I found that once, like somebody did invite me to something, I was like, no. I'm like, guys, please invite me. I will let you know if it's something [01:29:00] that I'm not comfortable with at the time. But I would appreciate if you did that.

I could have said but if you go here, do not invite me. Don't know you by me. Yeah. Because I will want to come and I will. I'm not, that's not what I'm ready for right now. So you can be specific too. Give them a list. Send them a. A menu of the places that they can invite you to and not invite you to, but No, but seriously, like in a,

Emma: it's in a spreadsheet of what your life is like.

Kevin: So just letting people know, takes away the guesswork. So don't feel bad that they left me out because some people just have the best, your best intentions at heart because they're like, oh, I don't know if you'll be okay with that or not.

So it's up to us to tell them, yes, I'm okay with that, but as long as you're okay with maybe I won't come. But keep inviting me and don't feel bad about it. It's nothing against you. It's just I where I'm at the time.

Emma: Yeah. And it's about communicating that to your friends and I don't know, there's some friends you don't wanna hang out with because it's too triggering.

Maybe [01:30:00] there's some friends that you do wanna hang out with, I don't know. But yeah, I've had the same experience where a friend was like, oh, we should catch up for a drink, or, like something else. And I was like, we can go for a drink. I'll be drinking alcohol free something, but, we can go for a drink.

I still drink liquids. Just they don't have alcohol in them.

All.

Alrighty. Friends, I think we have, I don't think, I don't know if we answered many questions at all, but I think we've talked for a decent amount of time.

Kevin: Be months not lumped it, lump em together, but we lumped together. We talked

Emma: around them. We, yeah, maybe we didn't do any quick fight. Maybe next time we do quick fight question. I dunno. I dunno. Send us an email and tell us what you wanna hear. Yeah.

Anyhow,

so finishing with the negative of the week, like what did we learn this week? Something completely off topic, not necessarily sobriety related. That we always struggle to, it's like it's a surprise every week for [01:31:00] us about what did I learn this week? It's as if we dunno that this is coming, but I do have a negative this week because I learned something.

To be fair, it's something that I already knew. You can still, you had to relearn. I had to relearn and I'm relearning it the hard way. You can still get sore muscles from working out, even if you've been working out for years. If you push it too hard, you can still get sore muscles. So Monday at the gym was lower body or league day.

Then it was a cardio day, but there was lots of I don't know, lots of leg stuff in the cardio workout. And then it was arm day, so my legs got a little wrist. And then there was another cardio day and it was a lot of, it was like box jumps and netball slams and squat jumps. And now Emma struggles to walk.

I'm doing the John Wayne walk where you're like, just got off a horse. My legs was so I remembered, I was reminded this week that if you push yourself too hard [01:32:00] repeatedly, you can still get sore, but it's a good sore. As much as it's Yeah, uncomfortable. And I get somewhat terrified walking downstairs or going to the toilet.

It's still a good sore because I'm like, yeah,

Kevin: get

Emma: strong muscles, strong

Kevin: legs. Get thrive. Get thrive,

Emma: get strong, get carry Underwood legs.

Kevin: There you go. That's what I'm that's a goal of mine always. Yeah, you

Emma: want Carrie Underwood? I there's this rugby player, south African rugby player.

He doesn't play me. I think he's retired. Oh my gosh, his name's completely gone outta my head. This is South African rugby player. I dunno if he's retired, but he's the number eight. No, he's not the number eight, number 10. Nobody

Kevin: knows. So just go with it.

Emma: He's the halfback. And he's got amazing legs. He's also got amazing here, but yeah, I think it's South African name.

Anyway, so for a long time it was legs like f.[01:33:00]

Kevin: I, I'm just gonna use that. That's my nugget for the week. I learned strong.

Emma: What did I learn? Far is a regular player. I

Kevin: want, without even knowing it, without even seeing sight unseen. I want legs like Cle F

Emma: Yeah, he's like great strong muscular legs. Great flexibility. He can do like a sek squat, like asto grass, cosec squat, flexibility, strength, legs, like Fus legs like Carrie Underhood.

Kevin: Thanks for the asto grass. Oh. What kind of squat is that? Oh, okay. Got it. No demonstration IX

Emma: squat. You when you've got one leg out and you Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna have to Google, make sure I got that that's a, isn't that

Kevin: pistol spot?

Emma: F dek. F-A-F-D-E. Oh K-L-E-R-K-F Dek. Yep.

Kevin: FI just, my nugget for this week is I'm gonna go look that up and I'm just gonna walk around tonight with my A DHD [01:34:00] saying

Emma: vocal stemming.

Kevin: Yeah. Poor wife. And is gonna be like, what the hell are you saying?

Emma: Sorry,

Kevin: Ash. Yeah. I had to send her something the other day of that that it was some meme about that A DHD need that, when you've been quiet or when you for too long and noise, you just need to shout something out.

Because that's her life with my daughter and I we are

Emma: the

Kevin: worst. She's I

Emma: just can't with you two. Yeah. Yeah. I just outta the blue, completely random. Oh, yeah. Can't help myself.

Kevin: I of course, like you said I don't have a nugget. I will give a how about a book recommendation for the week? Okay. This is my nugget for the week. 'cause I finished it earlier this week or weekend. I can't remember when. I've been reading it for a while, but I've been reading it like, not every [01:35:00] day, almost every day, but I've been, it's a meditations for mortals by Oliver Burkeman.

Four weeks to embrace your limitations and make time for what counts. I loved his book 4,000 Weeks. And got this, and this is it's four weeks. So it's like the chapters are day one, day two. Day three. And the weeks are grouped in a way that makes sense.

I can't remember like the different weeks a theme, what they are. Yeah. Thank you. A way that makes sense. Also known as a theme, which is the word I'm searching for. But no I liked I'm already going to start to reread through it tomorrow and take more notes on it because Yeah, it's a lot of, I've used a lot of the days for meeting topics and things like that check it out. Meditations for mortals. I have no affiliation with

Emma: him or

Kevin: just a good book. Yeah. It's just a one of those books that is on my short stack over here with an arm's [01:36:00] reach always.

Emma: Okay. Googling now. Okay. Yeah. Cool.

Kevin: Do we wanna know what's on the short stack?

Do you want that to be the nugget? What's, what the,

Emma: what's the short stack of books you're reading at

Kevin: the moment? What made the list versus all the other books down below me are in my house

Emma: piled around you?

Kevin: Let's see. We got tiny Habits, which I took out earlier. Atomic Habits, the one thing the power of now, the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Mindset.

Chop Wood Carry water, 4,000 weeks, the Power of Habit. Bullet journal method and man's search for meaning. That's my,

Emma: it's like an insight into your brain.

Kevin: Oh yeah. Like I go on chat BT and I made up a project area and I said, I listed those books out and I'm like, as a way to if you're going to, if I ask you a question about what can I use for a topic for today, or something like that.

These are the things that, I usually [01:37:00] think about, give me ideas based on stuff like this

Emma: Facebook. Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: And, oh I should say the Daily Stoic too. But that's downstairs in worn. I probably read through that. So already read,

Emma: actually read.

Kevin: Oh yeah, that's yeah, these have already been read.

The Daily Stoic is constantly being read for the last seven years, six years.

Emma: Trodden Path.

Kevin: It is. I know, and I dropped it the one day and the front cover almost, it ripped a little and it almost ripped completely off. And I'm so sad. Like it was what

Emma: that together.

Kevin: Nice. And that was gonna be like, when I die, make sure Avery gets my daily stoic book family.

Im, I don't think it's gonna be that. Yeah, hold up that much. It's not made, it's not like a leather bound or anything, i'll count that as my nugget.

Emma: Good nugget. I'll accept.

Kevin: Yeah, I like books like that, that it is just okay, no pressure. I'm just gonna, in the page, the chapters are like three or four pages. So nothing too, [01:38:00] it's not, nothing unmanageable. Not onerous

Emma: to read.

Kevin: Yeah.

All right. Thank you all for listening to this week's episode of the re Frameable podcast. Brought to you by the Reframe app. Reframe is the number one iOS and Android app to help you cut back or quit drinking alcohol. It uses neuroscience to reframe your relationship with alcohol and unlock the healthiest, happiest you.

If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe and share with those that you feel may benefit from it. And I wanna thank you again for listening and be sure to come back for another episode. Have a great day.

Emma: Bye.