10-Minute Mondays: Overcoming the 'Excuse to Drink' Mentality
Welcome to Journey to the Sunnyside, the podcast where we have thoughtful conversations to explore the science of habits, uncover the secrets to mindful living, and of course, your own mindful drinking journey. This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform. And if you could benefit from drinking a bit less, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free fifteen day trial. I'm your host, Mike Hardinbrook, published author, neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, and welcome back to another one of these ten minute Mondays. I'm Mike Hardinbrook here on Journey to the Sunnyside. And today we're diving into something that we've all faced. And those are those little excuses that can sneak up on us to not only derail us, but question our commitment, especially on the days that we've committed to as being dry days. And so, you know, these excuses, it's the holidays.
Speaker 2:I deserve this. Everyone else is having a drink. It's Friday. One won't hurt. So we come up with all of these kinds of excuses for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they're just part of our daily lives. We want to unwind. It's a rough day. Other times they come up like it's the holidays and I'm going to have friends in town or I'm going on vacation. So the thing is about these excuses is while they feel small, if we keep giving into them, they can add up to a lot.
Speaker 2:Same with the wins. When we have small wins, they add up to a lot. But if we allow small losses to continue, they're going to get in the way of us reaching our goals. And today we're going to handle some of these moments on how we can approach them differently and actually make those excuses into opportunities to keep us on track, to keep us where we want to be, and also enjoying the moments that actually matter to us. It doesn't have to be all sacrifice.
Speaker 2:And so let's jump into this today. So the first one I want to talk about is getting curious about the excuse. So we have excuses that are in the moment and we have excuses that are more around a habit, something that we do regularly. But first let's talk about in the moment excuses. So picture this, it's the end of a long day and the thoughts cross your mind.
Speaker 2:You know what? I have earned this drink. It's been a long day and I deserve it. And most of us have been there. I know that that was a big one for me to get over, especially I worked at home and the only way I could delineate between work and stuffing work was by, at the time, opening a bottle of wine.
Speaker 2:But instead of you giving into this, and trying to resist and say no, or feel guilty even, let's take a different approach. So there's one way you can approach this and that is by getting curious. So instead of pushing back and resisting, instead ask yourself with curiosity, what am I really hoping to get from this drink? And you might answer to that. You might say, you know, I really want to relax.
Speaker 2:For me in like that example, I just said, I want to say, Hey, it's quitting time. I'm no longer thinking about work. Maybe you just want to reward yourself or kind of de stress from the day. So let's say your excuses. I just want to unwind.
Speaker 2:I want to find a way to de stress from the day. And, you know, like I said, that was my issue. So by recognizing that you're not actually craving the drink, you're craving relaxation. That's the ultimate goal. So maybe you can find other ways or get curious about other ways that you can find relaxation.
Speaker 2:You know, maybe it's taking a bath. Maybe it is calling friends that always make you feel good. Maybe a group call. Maybe it's a family member. Maybe it's somebody you haven't talked to for awhile.
Speaker 2:You can do mindfulness practices. And I don't like to always lean on these because some people might find them boring, but you can definitely find relaxation in things like breath of work and meditation. But it can be like as simple as listening to a song that makes you feel good, or even a dumb TV show that makes you laugh. I like impractical jokers as lowbrow as that sounds. It pretty much is in good fun and always, gets a laugh out of me.
Speaker 2:And it's not easy to make me laugh out loud. So you can find this as an opportunity to build a new routine that'll make you feel good. And each time that you find something that works as an alternative, instead of just reaching for whatever you choose to drink normally, you're building these responses that you can lean on to de stress, to relax. Over time, as I mentioned in the beginning, these small choices can make you feel rewarded in a way that a drink wouldn't, and they build up, they gain momentum and they put the wind at your back. So now that we talked about these in the moment responses, so let's get curious about the habit itself, seeing the bigger picture.
Speaker 2:So we'll zoom out. So I want you to get curious, not only on these one off excuses, but also the habit itself. So drinking habits become automatic. They become almost unconscious choices. So maybe every Friday, you know, after quitting, go straight over to a happy hour.
Speaker 2:Maybe you go for wine at a holiday party. That's the first thing you do is maybe get wine or eggnog or whatever. I'm not an eggnog person. Maybe you go to the bar whenever you hit the hotel and straight to the beach or whatever. And these are like patterns that become tied deeply to our routine.
Speaker 2:So this is what I do kind of thing. So when you can catch yourself in these moments, try asking yourself, what am I really looking for here in the same sense that you are. Is it a sense of celebration or relaxation? You might be craving a feeling that doesn't actually even require alcohol. What if you could feel the same way without actually having that drink?
Speaker 2:So for example, maybe when you get to the hotel for your vacation, you get that mocktail instead of the cocktail and walk out to the beach. Or maybe you can have your favorite snack or meal, maybe a big slice of pizza. I know that that always makes me feel good, maybe not in the long run, but I like to treat myself every now and then to things that I don't necessarily eat every single day. Or maybe you could plan something fun that's social, that brings the same joy that you're looking for connected to that habit. So this way you're not actually denying yourself anything.
Speaker 2:You're just replacing it. You're finding ways to enjoy yourself in a way that supports your goals. Okay. The next one is building a mindset of small wins, which I touched on before, but this approach it's actually really powerful because every single small choice that we make around our drinking adds up either in the positive or the negative. So any one excuse might feel like no big deal, but over time, these choices define our habits and where we actually want to go in regard to our goal.
Speaker 2:So each time that you choose curiosity instead of impulse that I mentioned, you're strengthening habit of control and confidence, and you're building this foundation for longer term success. And remember, it's not about being perfect every single time. It's about adding up these small wins that keep us moving in the right direction. These choices stack up and before you know it, small choices become a big, huge part of the entire experience. And if you're doing it in ways of not resisting, but approaching curiosity and finding alternatives, then you're going to end up enjoying life without feeling like you're constantly missing out, which is actually one of the big struggles when it comes to removing something that we're so used to incorporating into our social atmosphere, into our habits, and basically everything that we want to have an excuse to do it.
Speaker 2:But we'll replace that with things that make us feel good and get us that reward that we're looking for. And then the last one, since we're in October moving into November and we have the whole holidays ahead of us, this is always the time, at least in my experience for myself to make excuses. Why not to either stick to my commitments or make new commitments? And I'll tell you what, when you set yourself up for wins moving into the new year, you feel so much further along than you do if you just start on the new year. It's really difficult and the momentum is amazing, but let's just talk about the holidays.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that we can't do these things that we want, but we have to be strategic. It's about planning. So during this time, of course we have holiday parties. We have family parties. There's a lot of travel going on.
Speaker 2:You might take vacations to get out of the cold if you're in a cold climate. And basically all of these things give us excuses to pull us automatically to have a drink or not even want to make the commitment. So one of the things that I do, that's a strategy instead of making a hard and fast decision right away is to start with something I call a pause. So I'm going to elaborate on this. Imagine that you're at like a holiday party instead of like going straight to the bar to have a drink right away, wait an hour, spend that time connecting with people, get comfortable, taking the energy of the event.
Speaker 2:And you might find actually that you're in the flow, that the urge to drink fades, that you're actually craving the interaction, fun, the social atmosphere. It had nothing to do with the drink. And so you're already feeling great and you're going to stick to your plan. And that plan could either be, I'm only going have one or two drinks. Well, you have some momentum moving into that drink.
Speaker 2:And if you actually get an hour in and you just decide not to have a drink at all, then you might feel even better about yourself and say, Hey, my commitment was to only have one or two, but I actually had none. And so if you do it this way and you give yourself that pause and you decide later that you actually want to have a drink, it's more of a choice. It's not this automatic impulsive reaction that you have to have it. It's just an added bonus that you made a conscious choice that you decided and not the other way around. And this approach, this pause approach works especially well for travel.
Speaker 2:This is something that I started to incorporate when I travel. So even if I have drinks planned for a vacation, I decide that the first day is never going to be the day that I drink. And there's a couple different reasons. First of all, you can take some time to just enjoy it as it is. You can explore, you can relax.
Speaker 2:There's no pressure either. You just kind of enjoy the surroundings and you get into vacation mode without drinking. So you're going to start this trip off with a positive tone that makes it easier to stay on track because if you actually get right into drinking mode on first day, you might actually break your commitment on the other days. Whereas the other way around, kind of set the precedence. You might even wake up early, have coffee, feel really good.
Speaker 2:Or on the opposite, you might sleep in, get tons of really good quality sleep, wake up, rested. You're in vacation mode. So this is a one little thing that I like to do and that I actually have shared with others. They've started doing it and it's helped them not only feel great, feel more confident going on their trips because it's not all restriction. It's just got a couple of little rules and you end up really enjoying the trip better with lower pressure.
Speaker 2:So by choosing this pause, you're not just saying no forever. You're just simply when you get to your vacation or your party or whatever, you're just saying not right now, which was an awesome tip that I got from Near AL is that you're not saying forever when it comes to urges to cravings. You're just saying not right now. So that pause is going to give you a chance to make this decision that truly aligns with your goals and experience it all in the moment. Okay.
Speaker 2:And so I'm going to close it here and here's my challenge to you. Whenever you have those little excuses to drink come up, whether it's after a tough day, it's at a party, or you're getting ready for a trip, take a pause, get curious and consider what you're really looking for. And it doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to stick to strict rules, but you really want to be intentional with your choices that brings you closer to where you want to be. And these moments really add up.
Speaker 2:They build your confidence. They build your sense of freedom over time. And when you give into them, it has the opposite effect. So let's keep with our momentum, add up the wins, get to our goals. And thanks for joining me today on this ten minute Monday.
Speaker 2:All of you, curiosity over impulse and intention over automatic choices. So until next time, I hope you take care and cheers to your mindful drinking journey.
Speaker 1:This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform, having helped hundreds of thousands of people cut out more than 13,000,000 drinks since 2020. And in fact, an independent study showed that Sunnyside reduced alcohol consumption by an average of 30% in ninety days. And as one of our members shared, Sunnyside helps me stay mindful of my drinking habits. It's not super restrictive. So if I'm craving a glass of wine with dinner, I just track it and I move on with my week.
Speaker 1:If you could benefit from drinking a bit less and being more mindful of when and how much you drink, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free fifteen day trial. You'll get access to everything that we offer, including tracking and planning tools, coaching from our experts, a vibrant community of people just like you, and the motivation and advice to stay on track with your health goals, all with no pressure to quit. That's sunnyside.co.
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