Not an Alcoholic. Not Sober. Truly Free. Here’s How w/ Colleen Freeland
Welcome to Journey to the Sunny Side, 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 Sunny Side, 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. Today, we're talking with Colleen Freeland.
Speaker 1:She's a master life coach and addiction recovery specialist who helps high achieving women cut their drinking by 80% without labeling themselves or committing to a lifetime of sobriety. I aligned so much with her work because just like we teach here, it's not really about the alcohol. It's about how you think, how you regulate your emotions, and how you build a life you don't need to numb from. In this episode, we get into the mindset shifts that finally break the cycle, the most damaging beliefs to unlearn, and the powerful new truths that actually make change last. If you've ever felt stuck in that same old loop, this conversation will give you a whole new way to look at it.
Speaker 1:Okay, Colleen. Thanks for coming on today.
Speaker 2:It's good to see you, Mike. I'm excited to talk.
Speaker 1:Me too. Because, you know, not only do I feel like we're friends now, we've been in each other's world for over a year. We did a podcast together as both guests. I went on your podcast. Now you're here to share, and I deeply respect all the work you're doing.
Speaker 1:And so I know you're gonna just bring it today. So thanks again for coming on.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that we're gonna get into some mindset stuff today, but mindset really starts with a story. So why don't you share your story? Take us back with your relationship, what the drinking was really like, and what pushed you to make a change?
Speaker 2:Well, I was always a, quote, drinker, partier in college. You know, it's kinda how I identified. And I brought that with me into my life as a mom and a, you know, career professional. I never thought alcohol was a problem, but I was drinking most days. And it just slowly over time ticked up to where I kinda landed at about a bottle of wine a night.
Speaker 2:I wasn't proud of that, but I didn't see anything wrong with it. You know, my grandma said, always eat on the good plates. You are your most honored guest. And so I translated that to mean I deserve top shelf vodka on a Monday night. And I had four kids, and I ran marathons, and I taught hot power yoga, and I worked, and I did all the things for all the people.
Speaker 2:And alcohol was just how I shut my brain down at night. That was my knee time. That was where, you know, I got to just sit and let the pressure out of the pressure cooker. And it really wasn't a problem, although I can look back and see that I was addicted in the sense that when I would tell myself I'm not gonna drink, I would still end up drinking. And that's what began the disordered thinking.
Speaker 2:You know, in our culture, if you raise your hand and say, I think I drink too much, everybody's gonna say, well, then do not pass go directly to AA. Get yourself a sponsor. Start making the amends and go to meetings. And I didn't wanna do that. You know?
Speaker 2:I can fix every single problem. It didn't make any sense to me why this was the one area of my life that I couldn't seem to control myself or discipline myself. You know? I'd sign up for sober challenges and sober October, but most of the time, I didn't do them. And so over time, it I just developed this shame and this internal sense that I couldn't control it so I could just manage it.
Speaker 2:And how did I manage it? I just made myself even busier. I'd sign up to do a yoga class at night or really early morning runs or whatever. So I did everything I could to manage my drinking because I didn't really think that I could change it. You know, a bottle of wine a day was a warm up lap, and I just had a high tolerance, and I wasn't gonna give it up.
Speaker 2:You know, I was never gonna quit drinking. This was fun to me. Right? But then COVID hit, and, I tried to drink through it like a good old college try there. And, oh, by that time, I was drinking, like, almost half a fifth of vodka a day.
Speaker 2:And then just one day, the thought of, you know, quitting drinking, only thing worse was the idea of not quitting. I couldn't keep going. And so that began my sober journey. And so I did what most exhausted middle aged women do. We think, well, I guess I'm going AA, and I'm all in with things.
Speaker 2:So within a month, I've got all the sober t shirts and AA, and, you know, I'm I'm quickly assimilated into a new identity as a sober recovering alcoholic. And so I did that for a while, and, you know, I I cleaned my body and my brain out. I was sleeping again, but it didn't really change how anxious. And in fact, about two years into my sober journey was the first time my doctor was like, you are clinically depressed. Like, they were we were talking about, do I need to go into a hospital or something or go on medication?
Speaker 2:And also at the same time, I had this this experience with my brother. We were both at my parents, and he says, hey, Carl. Do you or my dad asked my brother, do you want a drink? And my brother said, oh, I'm not drinking right now. And as a sober representative of the family, I was like, oh, what'd you do?
Speaker 2:Did you get a DUI? Molly tell you she's gonna divorce you? And he looked at me, and he goes, saying no to a glass of wine does not indicate a drinking problem. In fact, it may just indicate the lack thereof. And all of a sudden, like, my reality kind of split.
Speaker 2:Like, I was like, oh my god. I'm telling myself a story that I have a drinking problem. I haven't had a drink in almost three years. Like, what's that about? Meantime, given my all or nothing personality, I started coaching as a sober coach.
Speaker 2:And so I was working with women, walking them through the journey of getting sober. But what I found was most women weren't completely sober, and we didn't know how to talk about that because it was by definition bad to drink. Or they did their period of sobriety and then felt confident about going back in and then didn't have the skills or the tools to navigate moderate drinking and went right back into old habits, that slippery slope. And so I opened my eyes and opened my mind at that point and thought, well, what if the client knows best and I support them in what they really want? And then that's how my mindful drinking program was born.
Speaker 2:You know, now I say I'm a mindful drinking drinking coach, and I help women learn how to drink mindfully, you know, reducing your drinking by 80% or whatever it is you think it should be so that alcohol can be a pleasure instead of a problem.
Speaker 1:I love the story, and there's so much there's so much in a different way and different story overlap because you going through lied on all exterior, like, vision, it looked like everything was going great.
Speaker 2:You
Speaker 1:know? And then and until maybe it wasn't. And then you made this change. And one of the things that really changed that you've said is that you decided to get better at thinking, not just drinking. And so what would you go back to and say to yourself when you were going down the all or nothing route where you went all in as your identity?
Speaker 1:Like, what would you inform yourself? Because it seems like you actually had to go through that to learn what you know now. Mhmm. But what insights could you share about that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think at the foundation, identifying yourself in any capacity puts you in a box. You know? I went through the ADHD identity. I went through the vegan identity. I went through the Catholic identity.
Speaker 2:I mean, I have identified where I'm all in, but that limits who you think you are and what you think you're capable of. And it also it it's kind of fear based in the sense that you are trying to make decisions for your future self because you don't trust her. Underneath all of this is your relationship with yourself, not your relationship with alcohol, and the judgments you place whenever you change your mind. And then now you're being wishy washy, and you're not sticking with your commitments. What if you're actually responding to what you need in real time, and your needs and wants and desires are always changing, and that's okay?
Speaker 2:To me, this is about self identity. You know, I identify as a human who feels all the feelings and thinks all of the thoughts and who is perfectly capable of knowing what I need in any given moment and capable of self correcting when I get out of balance because balance is not a place you arrive at and they give you a girl scout badge. Like, balance is something you do all the time based on your internal and external life.
Speaker 1:I I wholeheartedly agree with that, and this is something I've thought about a lot because we wanna take our behaviors and put a box around it and then identify with it because we think that that's the route to get to a solution. But what I've really concluded to over time is that you are not your behaviors.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:That is not who you are.
Speaker 2:Right. Right.
Speaker 1:So you work with a lot of women, you know, smart, successful women. And why do you think so many end up stuck in this pattern even when everything else looks good on the outside?
Speaker 2:Well, it's because when we get into the weeds or we're trying to motivate ourselves, we've learned how to motivate ourselves with shame and fear and the end goal in mind. Women like me are high functioning performance based box checkers, people pleasers, perfectionists. Right? And the that mindset creates a lot of external success. And nobody ever taught us how to have a relationship with ourselves.
Speaker 2:We identify ourselves through our behaviors just like what you're saying. And so it makes logic sense based on that performance driven mindset that, well, you just need to change your behavior. But what happens is when you start failing to change your behavior,
Speaker 1:there
Speaker 2:is very physiological consequences in your body. It there's a part of the brain known as the habenula. The habenula is your inner scorekeeper. How you define success and failure, the more times you try to be successful and the more times you fail, the more your brain down regulates your dopamine and your optimism and your hope, and you just start to give up. And this happens energetically.
Speaker 2:I mean, you feel defeated. You feel overwhelmed. You feel like nothing you do is ever going to work. And so it's it's really about understanding how the brain works and the story you're telling yourself and how you're defining success and failure. And when you attach success to an external metric of behavior, then that's you're setting conditions on when it's okay for you to be okay and when you need to freak the hell out, and when you need to be upset with yourself and beat yourself up and tell yourself that you're not good enough.
Speaker 2:But all of these are internal processes. And so that is the thinking, how you are thinking about changing your behavior. Like, way I teach it, drinking in moderation is a natural side effect of you feeling confident and grounded, feeling like you have enough time, that you set boundaries, that you take care of yourself, feeling good about yourself, feeling like you're in control. When I work with women who are like me, the underlying thing has nothing to do with alcohol. They feel like they're upside down.
Speaker 2:They're they they don't have control of their time. They don't have control of their energy. They they're running on a deficit. They're giving more than they're taking for themselves. And so that's where self sabotage comes in.
Speaker 2:It's because underneath it all, you start to believe I can't do all of this, so I might as well have a drink. Like, if you don't have time to get everything you need to done, if you don't feel in control of your schedule, well, then, of course, you have time for a drink because you might as well make the best of today. Like, there there's a difference between being and doing. And when you're a doer and you pour alcohol on the doing, then your brain is three drinks ahead of your body. You don't even notice that you feel the buzz.
Speaker 2:Like, you have to understand there's different mindsets that are appropriate in different contexts of your life. And if you see yourself as somebody who's defining your worth by your productivity, then you're never gonna catch up with yourself, and you don't know how to be and relax and give yourself space and a break.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and you lack complete confidence in yourself and trust in yourself. Yeah. Let's go back for a moment to your story. So you went through this period where you took three years off, and you basically changed that entire belief.
Speaker 1:And then that and it wasn't even just a belief. It was your identity at that point. What what was that process like? Where did where were you, and what led to where you are now?
Speaker 2:So there was it it was kind of a little language thing that I did one day. Right? First of all, I realized it was a story when I when I had that conversation at my dad's house about my brother. And then I realized I had been telling myself a story that I have an addictive personality, that I'm an all or nothing, go big or stay home person. And one day, I realized that I was actually really more of a less is more person.
Speaker 2:You know? I had been able to interact with coffee, my psychiatric meds, even vaping. I was vaping for a while, and then I stopped, but then I could have a little hit here or there. I'm not recommending vaping. I'm just saying this is part of my process.
Speaker 2:Sure. Right? And I started noticing that I didn't have to run marathons anymore to prove anything. Like, I could just go for a walk and call it exercise. I realized that I liked being a less is more person.
Speaker 2:I don't wanna binge the whole season. I just wanna watch an episode and then keep it moving. And so that little tiny bit of language in my identity code started to make me think because at one point, I said, the reason I'll never drink again is because one glass of wine sounds like a a addicteeze, a a a waste of calories. Like, who has one glass of wine and stops? And so as long as I wanna drink a whole bottle of wine, I'm not gonna have any wine.
Speaker 2:Fair enough. But all of a sudden, I started to notice, well, maybe one glass of wine with this beautiful meal that I made. You know? And the day that it happened, my ex husband now had come home, and he had gotten a bottle of wine from his mom. His mom had passed away, and it was like a $500 bottle of wine.
Speaker 2:And he was pouring glasses for everybody. And I said, I'm not that sober.
Speaker 1:And it
Speaker 2:would so I had my first glass of wine after three years.
Speaker 1:Got it. I mean, I that sparks a thought that because I've said before a long time ago, I'd be like, I don't want one beer. I want six beers.
Speaker 2:Right. That's a story, though, that you're telling yourself based on the past that's not making room for the fact that you've learned that six beers, you know, kinda leaves you hungover one or two beers might actually be okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And same with the addictive personality, and I've talked about this before. I mean, if you had a first of all, there's no conclusive evidence that there is such a thing as an addictive personality. No. And if you had it, you would be addicted to everything, like gambling and smoking and, like, sugar and, I mean, cake, everything.
Speaker 1:You it just doesn't make sense, but it is a self limiting Yeah. Belief, and it actually went the more you say it, the worse it gets, and it's so self fulfilling in a way.
Speaker 2:And I know we're doing tactics and strategies on on the next episode we're gonna do together, but the one the single thing that you can do today is is to start telling yourself you're a less is more person because as you just said, ain't nobody got time to be addicted to everything. And your brain will get you evidence for whatever you believe is true. And so if you just send your brain on a scavenger hunt, show me brain where I am a less is more person, and you start to collect evidence. Then now it's like think of two neural pathways. You've got your all or nothing mindset.
Speaker 2:That's a neural pathway. And you start building out your less is more pathway. And you start to believe, oh, I really do let like less is more. Like, I like being in balance. I don't want to do something that's gonna knock me off my game.
Speaker 2:I like less is more. And so everybody can find evidence that they're a less is more person. Go find it. Like, your brain will be like, oh, I got this. You know, hold my beer.
Speaker 2:I can go find evidence.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:so that's a really great way to just start changing your internal narrative and your identity to become the to believe that you are a less is more person because both things can be true. They're both true.
Speaker 1:So would you say, like, let me give you an example. So I used to be really, really independent. I'd run-in sauna and workout. But to these days, what really keeps me happy and consistent is just going to the gym for, like, thirty minutes, but I do it, like, often. And I don't go heavy.
Speaker 1:I just like being there. I like exercising. But it's consistent, and I, like, my whole adult life now, I think if I would have stuck stuck with my previous routines, something would have fallen off. Right? Is is that a good example outside of what we're talking about here?
Speaker 2:Totally and completely. Where we shoot ourselves in the foot is that we have a perfectionistic mindset with things. But guess what? You're the only one defining what perfection is. Like, perfection to you now may feel like a moderate approach.
Speaker 2:You're just going to feel good. You know, the old version of you thought perfect was getting bigger and bulkier and, you know, having all of the supplements and and spending the most time in the gym. Like, you get to change what you think you want, and you just have to realize that what you think you want is a story, and sometimes you need to update your stories. Like, you know, plug yourself in and check-in with your body. You know, we get so attached to ideas.
Speaker 2:I when I talk to women now, I say, it's like, don't have a high tolerance for alcohol, my friend. You have a high tolerance for ignoring yourself. You know, you're running a script from when you were in your late teens or early twenties about what you want and what works for you and how to get what works for you. And you haven't stopped and slowed down to say, is that still true? The truth is always changing.
Speaker 2:Yesterday's truth, tomorrow's bullshit, and you gotta learn to go with the flow on that.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's so good. I couldn't even I could never say that as good as you just did. And, I mean, it's just like it's looking at something and saying, well, that's who I am. That's what I do. We'll update that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It changes every single day. You know?
Speaker 2:Your experience is the only truth you ever have. And when you're not paying attention to your experience, then you are disconnecting the brain from the body. You're living in your head, and you're dragging your body along for a ride. And that's, you know, that's what happens with alcohol use disorder. But to your question earlier, why do people do this?
Speaker 2:It will if you're not doing alcohol, you're doing something. Maybe you're a workaholic. Maybe you're, you know, eating too much or spending too much or jumping from relationship to relationship or not leaving relationships. Like, you're doing you're using some sort of external mechanism to cope with all the truths that you are suppressing because they don't fit with the story you're telling yourself.
Speaker 1:So good. Okay. So I wanna jump into two things. Two beliefs people need to unlearn and two beliefs that people need to learn. So what are two of the most damaging beliefs or assumptions people need to unlearn before they can truly change?
Speaker 2:That I love to drink. You're again, you're not paying attention because you wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you just truly love to drink. You'd be out drinking, having a wonderful time, dealing with your hangovers as a cost of doing business, and moving on. So it's like you you're not challenging that belief, I love to drink. So that would be one.
Speaker 2:And then another one is that I need to drink more to get the buzz. Like, you know, I teach you know, alcohol is a biphasic drug. I learned to drink in college like a frat person. You know? It's it's like out Yes.
Speaker 2:The the less you drink, the better you feel. And once like, your buzz is like a bucket. Once it's full, it's full. There's a biphasic line at point zero five five blood alcohol level. The first phase can be therapeutic.
Speaker 2:You can relax, get a little euphoria, get more connected and and and grounded in your moment. Once you cross from buzz into intoxicated, the negative side effects are compounding. You're you're no longer you're slurring. You are, you know, not paying attention. You're repeating yourself.
Speaker 2:You're not actually enjoying yourself. And so this idea that I need to drink more to to feel it or to have more fun, total bullshit. Not true.
Speaker 1:And it spills over to the next day. Those extra couple drinks are the ones that keep you in that feeling of guilt and remorse and all the other things that go on with your body to recover.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I used to think, like, how much can I drink and get away with? I mean, I had a full time job getting away with how much I drink. And now I'm like, how little can I drink to get the buzz? Because once you feel that buzz, you can coast on that for, like, an hour.
Speaker 2:But the old me would have never noticed that because I would have never stopped drinking long enough to actually realize that, oh, like, I can actually feel that. We do mindful drinking meetups in my program, and women are shocked. The the women who start, they're like, I won't be able to feel just one drink. Oh, yes. You can.
Speaker 2:You're just not paying attention to yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, less is more in a lot of regards, and and one thing that you said that stuck to me that really drives this home, if somebody's thinking about this in the moment, you said something like, if I have this these this extra drink or those extra couple drinks, it's gonna ruin my buzz.
Speaker 2:More alcohol will ruin my buzz. Those are the six words that if you really believe them, you know, you gotta do the work to integrate with the thought emotionally. But that's what comes into my mind. You know, if somebody's like, hey. Can I top off your drink?
Speaker 2:I'm like, more alcohol will ruin my buzz, so back it up.
Speaker 1:It's so powerful, though. Be and it's so useful. Like you said, if you believe that and you catch yourself in the moment and you're like, no. That's gonna ruin my buzz. Boy, you know, or or exactly how you said it.
Speaker 1:But, you know, I literally think that that can change the game for some people.
Speaker 2:It can start changing the game. Yeah. Nobody ever taught you that alcohol is a drug. They didn't teach you how to use it properly. They said, don't drink till you're 21, and then don't be an asshole.
Speaker 2:And if you're drinking too much, go to AA. That's the end of our alcohol education. I thought it was a food group. I didn't even know it was a drug. Like, we even don't even say.
Speaker 2:We say alcohol and drugs. Like, alcohol's not a drug. You know? It's it's a depressant. It it it suppresses your central nervous system.
Speaker 2:That's why, you know, your brain has to release all this cortisol to so you don't get so relaxed, you forget to breathe. People don't realize the reason you wake up in the middle of the night with so much anxiety is because the buzz war is worn off, but your cortisol levels are jacked through the roof. You know? They don't realize this is a drug, and you can learn to use it for pleasure. But you you gotta under you gotta read the label, and the label doesn't tell you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I always think about how ignorant I was to the realities of alcohol back back then even when I was like a health person. You know? But I I just vividly remember these these two older guys talking, and he was Yeah. They were talking about health on I was hiking on a trail, and the one guy said, well, you don't smoke, and you don't drink much.
Speaker 1:And I thought, okay. The smoking I get, what what's the big deal about the alcohol? Like, literally just clueless.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I used to think it I used to think red wine was good for you. I figured a bottle wasn't good for you, but I I didn't think that it was bad. And I still don't think it's bad.
Speaker 2:I think it's neutral. I think you should check-in with your body every single day to see how much or how little you should be drinking.
Speaker 1:No. That's great. Okay. Now two beliefs to learn. What are two of the most powerful new truths or mindsets that people need to learn instead?
Speaker 1:There might be some overlap here that we talked about.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think that I'm the a less is more person is really helpful. And then another truth that you need to learn is, that I am always changing, and I pay attention to that. Like, I am always changing is the truth. You know?
Speaker 2:Especially as a woman, our hormones and our metabolism, our adrenal glands, you know, every our lives, our stress levels, everything is always changing. So I am always changing, and I respond to those changes appropriately. And I am conscious and aware, You know? Just being aware. Wake up.
Speaker 2:Take your brain off autopilot, and identify yourself as somebody who pays attention to yourself.
Speaker 1:Yes. So this has been such an incredible episode on your story, on mindsets. And in the next episode, we're gonna jump into more strategies and tactics in the real world. But thank you so much for coming on today, Colleen.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Mike.
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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