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"Most of us spend too much time thinking about how to get people to think like us and too little time thinking about how to get ourselves to think differently."
"When we change what we think, we change how we feel. When we change how we feel, we change how we act. And when we change how we act, we get different results in our lives."
Change your relationship with alcohol without shame, guilt, or going sober. Join science-based coach Molly Watts to break habits and find peace through mindful drinking.
Hosted by author and coach Molly Watts, this show is for daily habit drinkers, adult children of alcoholics, and anyone stuck in the “gray area” of alcohol use.
Each episode blends neuroscience, behavior change psychology, and real-world strategies to help you build peace with alcohol — past, present, and future.
You’re not broken. You’re not powerless. You just need new tools.
Less alcohol. More life. Let’s do it together.
New episodes every Monday & Thursday.
Becoming an alcohol minimalist means:
Choosing how to include alcohol in our lives following low-risk guidelines.
Freedom from anxiety around alcohol use.
Less alcohol without feeling deprived.
Using the power of our own brains to overcome our past patterns and choose peace.
The Alcohol Minimalist Podcast explores the science behind alcohol and analyzes physical and mental wellness to empower choice. You have the power to change your relationship with alcohol, you are not sick, broken and it's not your genes!
This show is intended for educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice. If you are physically dependent on alcohol, please seek medical help to reduce your drinking.
Welcome to the alcohol minimalist podcast. I'm your host, Molly Watts. If you want to change your drinking habits and create a peaceful relationship with alcohol, you're in the right place. This podcast explores the strategies I used to overcome a lifetime of family alcohol abuse, more than thirty years of anxiety and worry about my own drinking, and what felt like an unbreakable daily drinking habit. Becoming an alcohol minimalist means removing excess alcohol from your life so it doesn't remove you from life.
Speaker 1:It means being able to take alcohol or leave it without feeling deprived. It means to live peacefully, being able to enjoy a glass of wine without feeling guilty and without needing to finish the bottle. With science on our side, we'll shatter your past patterns and eliminate your excuses. Changing your relationship with alcohol is possible. I'm here to help you do it.
Speaker 1:Let's start now. Well, hello, and welcome or welcome back to the alcohol minimalist podcast. With me, your host, Molly Watts, coming to you from well, it's very foggy Oregon this morning. Foggy, cold, lots of fog. You know, I have to tell you, the weather gods have been listening to me because they heard me complaining about how and and using all of my, adjectives that I used last week to describe how wet it had been.
Speaker 1:And this week, we had so many dry days. And looking ahead this week, I see more dry days and sun. It's cold, but it's sunny, and I love that during the winter. So, hey, how are you doing? It is Monday, January 13 when this is dropping.
Speaker 1:That means we passed the International Quitters' Day for resolutions. Did any of you throw in the towel on or or have you thrown in the towel on dry January already? Dryuary, whatever version you are doing, let me just tell you this. You have the opportunity to decide to get right back in and not throw in the towel and not use an off plan drinking day as evidence that you can't make it. Just get back in and decide.
Speaker 1:Make today. What can you do today? What are you willing to do today that aligns with your long term goals? I am all about meeting yourself where you're at and those small steps that lead to big wins, and I wanna encourage you to push yourself when you feel yourself being a little bit resistant and really ask yourself to to change those self limiting beliefs that you might have. And actually, that's what this episode is going to be all about.
Speaker 1:It's going to be about how we change our beliefs, how we change our beliefs about alcohol, how we change our beliefs about ourself, and I I cannot wait. This episode should be super useful for you no matter whether you are doing something right now in January or if you are looking to make changes to your relationship with alcohol for the rest of your life, which is what I want for all of us. So, again, I want you to challenge yourself to look deeper and to not just think about dry January or dry ish January or dry uary as an opportunity to pause your drinking. It's also about rethinking your beliefs about alcohol and about yourself. And throughout this episode, I'm going to refer to a book that I really want you to pick up, listen to, and read or listen to.
Speaker 1:I listen. I like to do audiobooks, people that know I I am an audiobook person these days. And I think it's just as it's it's just as valuable, but I would say get the hard copy of this book too and underline things as you read or go back. Be able to reference it. I think doing that is how we we can gain from books most effectively.
Speaker 1:This book is Think Again by doctor Adam Grant. And I gotta tell you, this was one of those books that's really just so powerful for me. And this guy is so brilliant that I I really you know, I I respect his authority so much and his his expertise and his how much he studied this to understand how true it is. And in his book, Think Again, he says, most of us spend too much time thinking about how to get people to think like us and too little time thinking about how to get ourselves to think differently. And I want you to think about that for a second.
Speaker 1:Most of us spend too much time thinking about how to get people to think like us and too little time thinking about how to get ourselves to think differently. I gotta tell you, people who know me, who've known me for most of my life will tell you that I am a self professed know it all. I like to be right. I I have you know, think Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. That's kind of like the way that I was, and I really thought and still have a have a challenge with my own brain thinking that I'm right too much of the time and not being willing to think differently.
Speaker 1:And I gotta tell you, that is so crucial to everything that you do in terms of creating new habits around your life, creating and becoming the very best version of yourself. You gotta be willing to think differently. So this episode is really all about thinking differently. It's about thinking differently about alcohol, about habits, about the stories that we've been telling ourselves. We're going to go back and revisit the five alcohol core beliefs, and I will link all the episodes in the show notes.
Speaker 1:I I introduced these at the 2024 during dry January, the alcohol core beliefs, and I wanna talk about those. And we're gonna connect them to some self limiting beliefs that you might have about yourself. Most importantly, we're gonna learn how curiosity and resilience can help us change those beliefs. And that's what I want for us. I want us to start changing some of these beliefs because when we change what we think, we change how we feel.
Speaker 1:And when we change how we feel, we change how we act. And when we change how we act, we get different results in our lives. So if you've listened to these earlier episodes, then you know about the alcohol core beliefs. These are deeply ingrained ideas about what alcohol gives us or does for us. So let's revisit these briefly.
Speaker 1:Number one, alcohol helps me relieve stress. Now I know there are a ton of you that believe that alcohol helps you relieve stress. Thoughts like, need a drink to unwind. Alcohol helps me fall asleep. These are thoughts that you think that reinforce the belief that alcohol helps you relieve stress.
Speaker 1:But, of course, the science tells us that alcohol actually disrupts sleep, and it actually increases cortisol. And when you are spending time throughout your life worrying about your alcohol use, that is stressful. That is anxiety. I used to spend so much time worrying that I was turning into my mother who, for those of you who haven't been around for a long time, actually died as the result of an alcoholic binge right before her 80 birthday. This is what it means when you are telling yourself that alcohol helps me relieve stress, but in reality, you are thinking about it all the time.
Speaker 1:And if you look at that on a on a scale, right, it's not even true. Alcohol isn't helping. It's actually making your anxiety and your stress worse. When you just look at it on a thought on on how much time you're thinking about it and then on the neurochemical level. Number two, alcohol makes things more fun.
Speaker 1:Now I know that there's many of you that really have that core belief, and when you hold on to that core belief that alcohol is the thing that's making things more fun, it's really hard to change the habit of drinking. Beliefs like drinking makes celebrations better, like if you just cannot imagine going through New Year's Eve without alcohol. When you think that way, you create the desire to keep drinking. But you really wanna ask yourself, is it the alcohol, or is actually what makes things like a party and a celebration more fun, the people, the music, the atmosphere. Yes.
Speaker 1:Having a glass or some alcohol can make things it can be a part of the equation, but when you decide that it's what's most important, you will drive your desire to drink. So that's another core belief that we work on in terms of changing so that you can change your drinking habits. Number three, alcohol creates connections. I know people I know a lot of people. I used to think this all the time.
Speaker 1:I used to think that it was easier for me to talk to people when I was drinking. I used to think that it was something that my husband and I just enjoyed doing together and that it was part of what created our connection. Right? And the thing of it is I've I am here to tell you that authentic connections come from actually being present, not from being buzzed. And as I have worked on my drinking habits, changed my relationship with alcohol, become an alcohol minimalist, I can tell you that my very best connections are never when I am drinking.
Speaker 1:And that doesn't even that means, like, one drink, two drinks. It's really truly never when I am drinking. Number four, alcohol is my reward. How many of you still look at getting through the day and thinking of it that way when I just I just need a glass of wine? I want I deserve it.
Speaker 1:I deserve to have this because I've gotten through this hard day. The very thought I deserve is a thought. Right? I mean, think about that. Is it a fact that you deserve a drink?
Speaker 1:No. It is not. It is a story. It is a narrative. And when you continue to think that narrative, you drive the desire to drink.
Speaker 1:And it is a common common core belief that often goes unchallenged. And what if the reward that you're actually looking for is feeling relaxed, feeling taken care of, feeling creative, feeling content? These are things that you create with your thoughts, not with alcohol. And alcohol doesn't actually do any of that. It doesn't help us in any of those areas.
Speaker 1:Hey there. It's Molly taking a quick break to talk with you about Sunnyside. You all know that Sunnyside is my app of choice and my recommendation for a tool to help you create sustainable change around your drinking. One of the things that I love about Sunnyside is their commitment to improving the user experience, and that has been a constant since I started working with them nearly three years ago now. Since June, they have added the Android version of their iOS app.
Speaker 1:So now it's available for Apple users and all Android users. It's the same Sunnyside experience across all of those devices, and it's just another example of their commitment to improving the user experience. Another example would be the fact that now you can set it up for push notifications. So you can take all of the daily texts, the reminders, and put them into a push preference so that you determine how you want to receive the support from Sunnyside. I would love for you to check it out.
Speaker 1:Go to www.sunnyside.co/molly to get started with a fifteen day free trial today. Number five, alcohol keeps me going. Some people get a real energy boost, when they when they drink. So they they're tired. They come home.
Speaker 1:They start drinking to get them through the night. And the thing is alcohol is actually a depressant, not an energy booster, and it eventually will start to drain you as you drink more alcohol. The thing of it is, though, we have that narrative and that story, and some people, the life of the party, the people that really think I gotta keep drinking so I can keep going out, that it's the thought that they have that actually creates the feeling that they want in terms of feeling more energetic, feeling more happy about, you know, staying out and being a part of the party. It is not the actual alcohol itself. So those are the five alcohol core beliefs that I have outlined that are persistent.
Speaker 1:And when I say a core belief, it means that it is a belief system that you have practiced the thoughts. When you practice a thought over and over and over again, it becomes a core belief. And core beliefs are things that we hold onto that we very rarely question. And that is something that doctor Adam Grant's book, Think Again, really made me do. It made me question some of my core beliefs, not just about alcohol, about lots of things.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about that a little bit more. Mental doctor Grant reminds us in the book, mental flexibility depends on how much curiosity we have. So let me ask you, are you curious enough to question your beliefs? Are you curious enough to question your beliefs? When we talk about alcohol core beliefs, right, that is a belief system, like I've said, that drives your desire to drink.
Speaker 1:And when we feel desire to drink, we often take the action of drinking. Over time, when we change our beliefs, when we stop thinking the thoughts that drive desire, we have less desire to drink, which makes it easier to take the action of not drinking alcohol when we are trying to change our relationship with alcohol and, you know, prioritize alcohol free days, have a thirty one day drayuary, whatever it looks like. If you change some of those alcohol core beliefs, if you question and completely you know, whatever ones resonate for you strongest, those are the thoughts that you're going to want to uncover and you're going to want to challenge. Beyond alcohol core beliefs, there are some there are our own self limiting beliefs that we may have been holding onto for a very long time, and they are stories that we tell ourselves about who we are. Things like, I'm just not the kind of person who can go to a party and have fun without alcohol, or I've tried to cut back before and I always fail.
Speaker 1:Again, something like, I have to drink. I need alcohol because I can't handle stress. There's a difference there. Not just I need alcohol to help me relax and unwind, but because I can't handle stress. Those types of self limiting beliefs keep us stuck in our habits that do not serve us, whether it's alcohol or anything else.
Speaker 1:And I really want you to start questioning whether who you are is who you've always been or is it who you are becoming? Are you willing to be wrong about what you've always believed so that you can become a better version of yourself? Doctor Grant says a hallmark of wisdom is knowing when it's time to abandon some of your most treasured tools and some of the most cherished parts of your identity. If you've always thought of yourself as the party girl, as the person that's the life of the party, that is a a an identity that is keeping you stuck in your drinking habit, but you probably really like who you were. You might have some really wonderful memories of times when you were younger and and when things were really light and fun and that you drank and that you were like the life of the party, and you hold on to those identity pieces, and they keep you stuck even when you want to become a new and better version of yourself.
Speaker 1:And it makes you believe like you can't be the life of the party without alcohol when in fact alcohol is not the answer. It is not the tool, and you can become the life of the party by how you think when you go into a party regardless of whether you have alcohol in your hand or not. Do you believe that these stories about yourself, do you understand that they could possibly be not true, but they could be just something that you've practiced for so long that they feel like facts? I wanna offer you something, a rethinking exercise, and you can use this whether it's an exercise with an alcohol core belief or a self limiting belief. But I want you to identify something that is self limiting.
Speaker 1:So, again, an alcohol core belief can be self limiting or perhaps it's a self limiting belief about yourself. So determine what that is. Write it down. And then I want you to question it. I want you to ask yourself, is this always true?
Speaker 1:If you tell yourself it's always true and then you can find an example of a time when it wasn't true, then guess what? It's not always true. And that is the case for everything, by the way. There is very little in life that's a narrative that you have about yourself that is subjective that is always true. No.
Speaker 1:I said very little. There is nothing in your life that is subjective that is always true. Now is it always true that I have blue eyes? Well, yes. To this day, that is not a subjective, you know?
Speaker 1:But I guess if I put in contact lenses with different coloring, then I could make them not always blue. Right? But let's think about narratives and stories that we've held onto and ask yourself, is it always true? And if it's not always true, then that means that there is the opportunity for it to be something else and for you to work on it and to change it. And you can replace that self limiting belief with a more empowering thought.
Speaker 1:Here is an example. I can't manage stress without drinking. The new belief might simply be, I can manage stress with healthier tools like exercise, mindfulness, or journaling. You don't need to and I I talk about this in breaking the bottle legacy. We're not gonna go from I could not go from how I felt about drinking, which was that I needed to drink every night to I don't I don't want to drink.
Speaker 1:That felt totally untrue to me. Like, I could not tell myself I don't wanna drink. No. I actually did want to. So I had to learn how to move my thoughts in small steps.
Speaker 1:So I was willing, and I've said this many times on the podcast, the thought that helped me was I'm learning to become someone who desires alcohol less. I'm learning because I'm a I I very much identify with being a lifelong learner. And for me, when I say that, it feels true. It feels not like I'm needing to, you know, rebel against it and that I am working towards becoming someone who desires alcohol less, which is how I started. Right?
Speaker 1:And now I can tell you that I actually do desire alcohol less, and I don't want to drink. I don't wanna drink right now. I don't wanna drink during dry uary, and I'm not. And I don't I'm not battling desire all the time. Here's something else that doctor Grant emphasizes.
Speaker 1:We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we cling to opinions that we formed in 1995. Isn't it time that we update our mental software? Do not be so strong minded that you aren't willing to look at opinions that you've held onto for a really long time and and think again. I have had so many opportunities to rethink things that I believed about myself, about my life, about other people, about my job, about my health, about you name it, the world. And I've got to tell you that becoming a more flexible thinker, becoming a better mind manager, just simply a better thinker in general, has been life changing for me.
Speaker 1:To change beliefs, we need two things. We need curiosity, and we need resilience. Doctor Grant writes, when you become curious about your blind spots, you're more likely to discover new possibilities. And he says, he gives a three step framework to help you rethink your beliefs. Number one, get curious.
Speaker 1:Ask yourself, what if I'm wrong about this? Challenge your assumptions like a scientist testing a hypothesis. Be willing to be wrong. That's how scientists actually do experimentation. They don't look to be right.
Speaker 1:They don't look to prove. They look for opportunities to be wrong so that they can tweak and make adjustments. You have to embrace. Number two, embrace being wrong. This is the framework.
Speaker 1:So number one, get curious. Number two, embrace being wrong. Being wrong isn't a failure. It's a step towards growth. Doctor Grant says the purpose of learning isn't to affirm our beliefs.
Speaker 1:It's to evolve our beliefs. I want you to hear that again. The purpose of learning isn't to affirm our beliefs. It's to evolve our beliefs. Number three is practice resilience.
Speaker 1:Change won't happen overnight. You are going to be faced with missteps, with off plan drinking, with off plan eating, with lots of things that don't go exactly as you have planned. You've gotta keep moving forward. Doctor Grant reminds us, confident humility is knowing that you don't know and being willing to keep learning. It's okay to be wrong.
Speaker 1:It's okay to slip up. It's okay to make mistakes. What's important is to keep going, to get right back to your long term goals and to take actions that align with those goals. Being consistent. I did this episode not too long ago on Think Thursday about consistency and how showing up doesn't mean taking perfect action.
Speaker 1:It means showing up consistently, taking imperfect action, and keep iterating, keep going. Jay, in this episode, I have talked about our alcohol core beliefs. We've talked about self limiting beliefs. We've talked about using curiosity and resilience to change both. I really want you to use this month.
Speaker 1:If you're doing dry January and you are just holding on, white knuckling it through the whole month, you are missing the opportunity to work on changing some of your core beliefs, on changing some of your self limiting beliefs. You absolutely are capable of creating the relationship with alcohol, the relationship with food, the relationship with the world, with people that you want, and you do that by changing how you think. Use the tools that I talked about. Practice using that three step framework to rethink your beliefs. Look for one belief and ask yourself, what if I'm wrong about this?
Speaker 1:What if I just need to practice a new thought and keep practicing that new thought every single day until it becomes my default? If you want to explore these ideas more, please check out my book, Breaking the Bottle Legacy. Come join us over in the Alcohol Minimalist Facebook group, or you can always check me out on my website, www.mollywatts.com, and go to work with me to see how I work with people. I hope you are having a phenomenal January. I would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1:You can always also just email me molly@mollywatts.com. I love to hear from people that are listening. If you've got suggestions on what episodes or, you know, what you'd like to hear me talk about on the podcast, send those along too. I have some great things coming up for us here as we finish out January and as we head into the new year 2025. Wow.
Speaker 1:That just sounds like such a quarter of the way through the February. Amazing. Have a great week ahead. I will see you on Thursday for Think Thursday. And until next time, choose peace.
Speaker 1:Hey. Thanks for listening to the Alcohol Minimalist Podcast. Take something you learned from this week's episode and put it into action. Changing your drinking habits and creating a peaceful relationship with alcohol is 100% possible. You can stop worrying, stop feeling guilty about overdrinking, and become someone who desires alcohol less.
Speaker 1:I work with people in three ways. You can learn about them over at www.mollywatts.com/ work with me, or better yet, reach out to me directly. It's molly@mollywatts.com. We'll jump on a call and discuss what's best for you. This podcast is really just the beginning of our conversation.
Speaker 1:Let's keep it going.