Journey to the Sunnyside

You wake up with regret.
You promise yourself tonight will be different.
And somehow, by 5 pm, you’re negotiating again.

In this episode, I sit down with Jennifer Kautsch, founder of Sober Sis, one of the largest communities in the country for women questioning their relationship with alcohol. We break down what she calls the detox to retox loop, the mental tug-of-war of gray area drinking, and why so many high-performing people feel stuck between fine and not fine. If you’ve ever felt like you’re managing alcohol more than enjoying it, this one will feel familiar.

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Creators and Guests

Host
Mike Hardenbrook
#1 best-selling author of "No Willpower Required," neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert.

What is Journey to the Sunnyside?

Journey to the Sunnyside is a top 1% podcast, reaching over 500,000 listeners every week. It’s your guide to exploring mindful living with alcohol—whether you're cutting back, moderating, or thinking about quitting.

While Sunnyside helps you reduce your drinking, this podcast goes further, diving into topics like mindful drinking, sober curiosity, moderation, and full sobriety. Through real stories, expert insights, and science-backed strategies, we help you find what actually works for your journey.

Hosted by Mike Hardenbrook, a #1 best-selling author and neuroscience enthusiast, the show is dedicated to helping people transform their relationship with alcohol—without shame, judgment, or rigid rules.

This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the leading platform for mindful drinking. Want to take the next step in your journey? Head over to sunnyside.co for a free 15-day trial.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in our episodes do not necessarily represent those of Sunnyside. We’re committed to sharing diverse perspectives on health and wellness. If you’re concerned about your drinking, please consult a medical professional. Sunnyside, this podcast, and its guests are not necessarily medical providers and the content is not medical advice. We do not endorse drinking in any amount.

Speaker 1:

You wake up with regret. You promise yourself tonight will be different. And somehow, by five p. M, you're negotiating again. In this episode, I sit down with Jen Couch, founder of Sober Cis, a community for women questioning their relationship with alcohol.

Speaker 1:

We break down what she calls the detox to retox loop, the mental tug of war of gray area drinking, and why so many high performing people feel stuck between fine and not fine. If you've ever felt like you're managing alcohol more than enjoying it, this one will feel familiar. Jen, thanks for coming on today.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Thanks, Mike.

Speaker 1:

Let's jump right in because you used the phrase sober minded instead of sober. So I'd love you to start with your personal story and relationship with alcohol and what was happening in your own life that led you to create that language.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Well, first off, thanks for having me. Looking forward to just a real candid conversation about just alcohol drinking and normalizing, what is just so prevalent in our society and giving maybe some new language to, express a little bit more nuance in the relationship one has with alcohol because it's not black or white, all or nothing. And I guess that's kinda where my story starts is for the longest time, I didn't know that. I thought it was black and white, all or nothing.

Speaker 2:

So when I found myself feeling in the middle, having a mental tug of war where I was drinking sometimes more than I wanted, it was becoming more of a habit in my life, something on routine. I just felt like, you know what? I'm not physically addicted in the clinical sense, but I know I don't have a healthy relationship with drinking. Where do I go? What do I do?

Speaker 2:

What do I even call that? And so that's where sober mindedness and just this whole concept of being present more than abstinence from alcohol became a goal for me and a focal point. And, so, yeah, I think you and I both have explored this whole alcohol use disorder spectrum and that there really is a spectrum of drinking, which I think opens up the conversation for a lot more people to be really curious about their relationship with alcohol.

Speaker 1:

I love that. And I I think one thing you said there is normalize this conversation because you probably relate to this. You probably debated with yourself as how do I convince myself that this is actually a normal conversation? Because there weren't so many external conversations happening.

Speaker 2:

Not at all. In fact, back in, really, I would say the the mid, kind of the mid twenty fifteen or so is when I was really most questioning my relationship with alcohol, and there was very little out there. I mean, this is over a decade over a decade ago that I was really starting to go, okay. I need to do something different. But where to go find the resources to meet me where I am?

Speaker 2:

I don't know where to go. Because AA and other groups and, again, a big fan of recovery groups and whatever works for people. I wanna make that real clear. I'm all about just finding the support you need that meets you where you are and what resonates with you. And I couldn't find that at that time, until I started hearing words like sober curious.

Speaker 2:

What? An alcohol free lifestyle as if it were a health decision versus a rock bottom crisis intervention. And for me, that that was even the language that perked up my ears to begin to, explore my relationship with alcohol without having to have labels, which for me created a shame storm that really kept me stuck in thinking, uh-oh, I don't think, quote, it's that bad. And for the longest time, Mike, I was asking myself the wrong question. Is it that bad?

Speaker 2:

And what I started discovering was a better question. Is it good? Is it working for me? Is it that good? And the answer to that was no.

Speaker 2:

And that's when I Yes. Okay. I get to I get to change. I don't have to change. I get to change before I have to.

Speaker 1:

You know, in that question so we're talking about normalizing the conversation. The other conversation that happens a lot internal internally is is this normal? And that's not what we're talking about. Because if you're trying to define normal on a spectrum that relates to everybody, everybody's normal to them, and what's working for them is gonna be totally different than what it is for somebody else. But normalizing the actual conversation that some people might need to be able to discuss this, need added support, to be able to, like, reassess their relationship with alcohol and what it looks like moving forward, that's what we really need to normalize.

Speaker 2:

I I agree. I think the comparison game is a trap because I know I was stuck in it for a long time. I was in that trap. For me, really, the ages of 40 to 45 for me were the ages where I was the most socially connected with with my drinking friends, book club, all the things. And so every time I questioned my own drinking for me, I looked around, and that's when I would justify or qualify my drinking as, you know, I probably just need to reel it in, you know, versus really taking a good look at why I was drinking in the first place.

Speaker 2:

And Yeah. Yeah, I think comparison is a real trap. I work with women every day who are just bothered by the fact that they drink a glass every night. And maybe it's just a glass, but they're bothered by that because it's misaligning for them and who they wanna be. And then I work with women who are plowing through a bottle and opening a second one.

Speaker 2:

That's not working for them either. It's less about amount. It's less about frequency. It's more about alignment.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, that one drink might be somebody's goal to get to, whereas somebody else, that's that's what they wanna escape from. You know? And so, like, doing these comparisons, and I've talked about this on some of my Monday episodes that you also might be comparing yourself to an actual fantasy because you're only seeing external what's going on.

Speaker 1:

They may have been struggling, and they're only drinking that amount because of all the work that they've done. Or they go home and they open that other bottle of wine. You do not know what's going on. So benchmarking externally from your internal feelings is just not a measure that we should use moving forward or to define where we're at or, quote, unquote, normal.

Speaker 2:

I so agree with that, Mike. I mean, it's so true. In life in general, we compare our insights to someone else's outsides often. And it's just it's just not a it's just not a good idea to compare. And you're exactly right.

Speaker 2:

We don't know the pregame and the postgame show. We just know what we see.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I think both of us agree, like, labels, unless they're serving you, aren't necessary, but you kinda have to put boundaries around some things that you're talking about. So we have this term gray area, and you work with people that are in this gray area. So first, I want you to anybody listening that maybe isn't familiar or you might have your own definition, what is the gray area, and, how does somebody know if they're in that space?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Such a good question. And there are a lot of great, I think, definitions of gray area drinking. I just happen happen to have one here to to read. Gray area drinkers are those who have a habit of drinking in social settings or when home alone.

Speaker 2:

Even so, they may not show the usual signs of alcohol abuse appearing to have a grip on their drinking. Gray area drinkers are not yet dependent on or addicted to alcohol in a clinical sense. I would say, gray area drinking or GAD. Right? Gray area alcohol dependency.

Speaker 2:

It's it's kind of like that murky space. It's in between. It's kind of in between the teetotaler and someone who doesn't drink, who's not on the drinking spectrum. If you don't drink alcohol, you're not on the drinking spectrum. If you drink alcohol periodically here and there, hey.

Speaker 2:

You're on the drinking spectrum. It's just maybe really low. It's just not that valuable to you. And then, obviously, you've got about ten percent of heavy drinkers, habitual heavy drinkers that do fit into that clinical. And we can talk about that because that's a different scope and that's a different lane.

Speaker 2:

Not that not that it's, not that that person is any better or worse than any other person no matter where anyone is on the spectrum. It just needs to be treated differently. It just needs to be resourced differently. But I would like to say that anyone in the gray area, murky middle, which I would say is the majority of drinkers. I mean, if you really stop and think about it, very few people really have a true take it or leave it relationship with alcohol that ever would use the word moderation or that's that's another real, I think, signal of a gray area drinker is someone who's putting a lot of rules around their drinking, someone who is always trying to moderate.

Speaker 2:

Hey, there are things that I eat and drink that I don't really value, I don't really like that much, I don't moderate those things. It's the things that I want more of than I really think is good for me or healthy for me that I try to moderate. And I try to moderate my drinking, But it being an addictive substance didn't really want me to moderate it because it really does create a thirst for itself. So

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I think that gray area I mean, think of it like when you were in school, you know, that bell curve where it's like, okay. There's there's a few that are just, you know, at one end and the other, but then the majority of people are somewhere in that middle zone, especially in our alcohol centric society.

Speaker 1:

I find the gray area you know, this was a a big theme and struggle for myself when I was going through change, and I just kinda maybe I didn't find the right resources or they didn't exist. I think it was more that I didn't know where they were. So I did a lot of internal thought in around this and, in fact, wrote in my book. And I didn't even do the research because I didn't want external influence as I wrote the book. So I called it in between drinkers.

Speaker 1:

But even within that, I started wondering, is this just an excuse that I'm giving myself for some of the people that maybe are in the other spectrum? And then I'm just gonna lay it all out there. And then I had other thoughts around, like, what you said is it it's not better. It's not worse. Sometimes it's, like, easier if it's just, like, clear night and day, crash and burn, and then pull out.

Speaker 1:

Of course, those people might say that was a much harder road. The other side would be it's, it reminds me of this book title. It's around relationships, but it's it's too good to leave and too bad to stay. And it's sort of like in that zone where it's just like, it's uncomfortable. There's good moments.

Speaker 1:

There's bad moments. And, you know, what do you do? Where do you go? And and you try to put these labels or you try to define it, and it's just so hard. And that's also, I think, why it makes it hard to get out of.

Speaker 1:

And then once you define it, like, what's the root out of that? I think that's part of the other part.

Speaker 2:

Gosh. You really nailed it. That's really true. And, you know, I've been on panels and and I had had some really, unique and cool experiences being and doing separatists for all this time. And I would say that from my from my vantage point of being a gray area drinker, there were a lot of of things that someone who maybe is a little bit further down the drinking spectrum wouldn't have understood.

Speaker 2:

It is very difficult to walk around with, misalignment like that and so much mental, emotional ping pong. I mean, that's it was like a ping pong match in my mind and that in and of itself was so exhausting. Yes. And I do think sometimes when you have to and it's like life or death super clear, I think it is harder when or hard or harder in a different way when you are going, you know what? This is something I here's the deal.

Speaker 2:

Kinda like you. I'm like, okay. I can talk about it, but then I can really talk about it. And that's what this podcast is all about.

Speaker 1:

Lay it out.

Speaker 2:

Let's really talk about it. Okay, dude. I wanted to not want it. That is a resounding, phrase that I've used in sober sis many times, and that seems to really resonate with women because I wanted to not want it. I did not wanna be a person that always wanted it and just couldn't have it.

Speaker 2:

To me, that would be so frustrating and so counterproductive with the bandwidth that managing alcohol is taking for me. It would be a nightmare to me to always want it, and I can't have it. So my goal on my sober minded journey was to reverse engineer that and go, you know what? I can have it. I can.

Speaker 2:

I can. I can drink what I want when I want. We've heard that said, and it's true. But I don't want it. I can, and I don't want to.

Speaker 2:

My desires have changed. My beliefs have changed. The value that I've assigned alcohol has changed. And so now I don't want it, which is freedom. That's what I was looking for in my sober, curious journey, that my meandering journey that has that has taken me this far was just freedom.

Speaker 2:

I was looking for freedom more than even sobriety or being sober. Even though I am a k a sober sis on Instagram, that's kind of my handle. It's really short for sober minded sisterhood, which is a mouthful and a little bit too big for, you know, a condensed version. But I think that's what I wanted was freedom, and that's that's what I found on this journey.

Speaker 1:

I can identify. You know? You you not only do you not want it the same way. You don't wanna think about it in the same way, in the same quantity of all that. And, you know, speaking of quantity in this gray area, everybody will likes to run towards, like, well, what amounts would qualify that?

Speaker 1:

Is it this many times a week or that? Do you think it's about quantity, or do you think it's more about the tension that we feel internally?

Speaker 2:

I agree. I think it's about the attention we feel internally. I do. I think it's about how how much again, going back to the word misalignment, is it is it like putting on something that you know doesn't really fit anymore, but you're squeezing into it or you need to expand, but you're shrinking down? That's how I felt in my relationship with alcohol.

Speaker 2:

I was so healthy by day and so mindful and so doing all the things, all the right things. And, and at night, in the evenings primarily, I would just like switch and I used alcohol to literally flip a switch to unwind and tell myself, okay, Jen, it's evening now. You can unwind. This is for you. This is your reward.

Speaker 2:

This is like a treat for doing all the right things all day. All that yoga, all that green juice, all all that, has culminated to now this is your let your hair down, shoulders drop moment. But but what I found was it was really just a tool that I was using to cope with a lot of the restlessness and boredom, loneliness, and minouche that I had in my life at that time, especially. I was in the mom zone big time. I had three teens during that time.

Speaker 2:

My the year I turned 40, my oldest turned 13. So it was game on at my house with just a lot of, you know, a lot of roller coaster in in alcohol was what I used to kinda outsource, my ability to hang on the ride. I was like, yeah. I can ride all day, and then somewhere I've gotta let go. And in that letting go, I was really letting go of myself.

Speaker 1:

I I can identify in so many ways because that's exactly literally how I used it. It was I've used the metaphor of, like, it was my switch. You know, I worked at home, entrepreneur. There's no quitting time. Literally, I could pick up the computer for every single idea that comes across my mind, and I needed something.

Speaker 1:

And that was the tool I was using to be able to unplug and say it's quitting time. I'm not doing any more work. All the things that you just said, I deserve this. I'm gonna treat myself. Or maybe, you know, it might be like, hey.

Speaker 1:

It's been a hard day probably because I was a little hungover from the day before. Push through it all. And you get to the end, and you're like, oh, it was a hard day. I deserve to treat myself a little bit

Speaker 2:

here. And the sneaky insidious part about alcohol is if you've got anxiety from the drinking before, which we know it causes anxiety or or exasperates anxiety, Then you have a drink, and then your brain is like, oh, see there. Now you feel better. It's such a trick because we, yeah, we think alcohol is actually the solution.

Speaker 1:

So you talk about something called the detox to retox loop.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

Can you walk us through what that cycle actually looks like both psychologically and behaviorally?

Speaker 2:

Sure can. Because I lived it, Mike, for so many years. It's easy for me to go back. And it's not it's not lost on me at all even though I'm coming up upon nine years living alcohol free. I really lived for years in this detox to retox loop.

Speaker 2:

And it goes a little something like this. You wake up. Probably a little foggy mind, little hungover, but par for the course. You know? It was worth it.

Speaker 2:

Right? Yeah. No. You tell yourself, no. I'm not gonna do that again.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I've had the hangover so bad that I've I've sworn I'm never drinking again, that was the 20%. The 80%, it was kind of the eighty twenty rule. You know? 20% of the time, it was a doozy. Wow.

Speaker 2:

Really tied one on. Really overdid it, and I knew it. 80% of the time, yeah, just not working for me, and I don't know how much I'm settling for this life that is just kind of dulled. Anyway, so I would wake up with great intentions and start my detox routine, which is all about eating healthy, the working out. I'm a woman of faith, so it's, you know, opening my bible, starting the day with just the right mindset, heart space open, everything good to go.

Speaker 2:

We're gonna, you know, bring into my kitchen where I'm gonna juice in my juicer and do all my organic, you know, buy an organic, get doing all of, like I mean, I'm really meticulous on the detox part. And then about 03:00, here's kind of like a regular day. About 03:00, I'm like, okay. Wow. Did a lot.

Speaker 2:

Did a lot today already. And now, you know, blood sugar's kinda getting low. The bonk's happening where it's kinda like midafternoon. The good intentions are waning. The willpower is finite, and it is it is lessening.

Speaker 2:

I started out with a really, really high, like, 10AM. I'm sharp, man. I'm on it. 03:00, I'm starting to negotiate a little bit. The willpower is waning.

Speaker 2:

The rules start cropping up. Like, keep a rule. Keep the rules. We're doing this. But my heart wasn't really in it.

Speaker 2:

My heart was like, how can I escape? How can I escape all this overthinking in the mental tug of war? So it was about three or 04:00 in the afternoon. Like like many moms out there, I was in the grocery store trying to figure out what in the world I was gonna feed my family that night, and there was, alcohol everywhere on the end caps of every turn I made. So I walked in the grocery store saying, no.

Speaker 2:

No. No. No. No. No.

Speaker 2:

Don't drink. Don't drink. And all my brain heard was drink. Drink. Because it doesn't understand the double negative.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I'm like, don't drink. Don't drink. And all I'm thinking about is drinking while I'm telling myself, don't drink tonight. So I'm in the grocery store, and I'm like, no.

Speaker 2:

No. No. Said no by the blueberries to the Prosecco. Said no to the Cabernet by the meat. Dang it.

Speaker 2:

They got me at the BOGO cash wrap. You know? I wanna get one. And before I know it, I'm like, okay. The detox to detox loop ignites.

Speaker 2:

So I'm detoxed all day, and the detox is slipping in sideways. It's coming in subtly because I wasn't gonna drink tonight. I didn't I didn't even have any at home because I was trying to, like, follow one of my rules and not have it unless I'm going out or whatever.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well, there I am. Yeah. It's it's midafternoon. It's like I'm negotiating. I'm negotiating with alcohol, and it's winning because I'm like, you know what?

Speaker 2:

I'm just gonna have a glass. I'm gonna just have a glass at 05:00, wine o'clock while I'm cooking. I'm still in the mom zone. I'm still on the clock. But that's an adult thing to do.

Speaker 2:

It's very socially acceptable. It's encouraged by all of my friends because while they're doing it too. And so, I mean, when in Rome, man, there's nothing wrong with having a glass of wine while you're cooking. I mean, still, there's really not in and of itself. But for me, that was like, I'm seeing it on TV.

Speaker 2:

I'm seeing it in the movies. That's what everyone's doing. You come home. You pop one. You you pour it, and then you've got your music playing and your stirry, your spaghetti sauce.

Speaker 2:

You know? Just the whole thing, the whole ritual of it. And that's when the bottle breakdown started. Uh-oh. Now that's where that's where I got to work up to.

Speaker 2:

I I just had to build up a little more tolerance before my dependency on alcohol was such that I really could plow through a bottle. And I know, you know, one point, if I would have said that out loud, maybe in my thirties, I would have been like, oh, wow. This this woman's in denial. She's an alcoholic for sure if she can plow through a bottle. Now I've come to learn and understand how actually common that is to open a bottle or start a run, kind of a session, if you will.

Speaker 2:

And, you know, you've just built up tolerance. And before you know it, that one glass really it's a joke. I mean, it's kind of like an Yeah. To a meal. It's like getting the party started.

Speaker 2:

And so I would open the bottle at five, you know, wait till five. That's following my rules. And I would open that bottle. A lot of times, it was a white wine, so it wouldn't be so detectable. I would put it in the door of my refrigerator so it wouldn't be so obvious.

Speaker 2:

I mean, there's some red flags right there, guys. There's some behavior there that is definitely an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. I'm protecting it. I'm kinda hiding it a little bit. I'm minimizing it, but I'm also maximizing it to me as far as the value that it's gonna have.

Speaker 2:

So I'll put a bottle at five. Okay. Cool. I pour my glass. Great.

Speaker 2:

It's 05:30 now. Uh-oh. I've had a glass. Now it's only 05:30. And you know how this goes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. It's only 05:30. I've got till 09:30 or ten here. And then the second glass is, you know, people are running late or maybe I have the second glass while I'm eating because, you know, that's a mature thing to do at the dinner table is, you know, dad has a beer and mom has a glass of wine with her meal. And so I just bought into that.

Speaker 2:

I bought into that status quo. And so then I would have a second class. Remember, I wasn't gonna have any at all. Then I succumbed to the pressure of my own the marketing and messaging. Now I'm on my second class.

Speaker 2:

Oh, no. Now I'm now I'm cleaning up the meal. So now I'm in in the kitchen. Everyone's scattered. Funny how that is.

Speaker 2:

You know? And the parents Yeah. Then it's like, time to clean. Everyone all of a sudden has homework, and they've gotta go. So now it's kinda boring.

Speaker 2:

I the bottle's already open. Just gonna have a little bit more, just kinda, you know, finish it off. Before I know it, Mike, I'm looking at the bottle, and I'm like, oh, crap. There's one glass left. I mean, I'm in Texas.

Speaker 2:

We pour big. And I'm like, you know, four glasses in a bottle for sure. And I look at it, and I'm like, it seems so big at the store, like, you know, like a good size. Now it's like, oh, man. I'm just gonna have to sip on that.

Speaker 2:

You know? It's kinda my nightcap, kinda my sleep aid. I mean, really, I was kinda looking at it, like, at 05:00, it's gonna perk me up and make this more fun. By 09:00, I'm like, okay. We drug this out.

Speaker 2:

Now I'm just tired. Maybe this will help me go to sleep. Maybe it'll turn off my overthinking mind. Maybe I won't hear all the little noises and sounds. Maybe I'll just turn off.

Speaker 2:

And, I would have that fourth glass, you know, usually in the bathtub, recycle the bottle, call it a day, and just get so down on myself. Like, Jen. Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Speaker 2:

Wow. And then I would wake up at 3AM, the dreaded 3AM wake up call, little pitter patter of the heart, little dry mouth, little little headache starting to set in, and quite honestly, a real feeling of dread because that's when I knew I'm gonna start this all over again tomorrow. I'm gonna wake up. I'm gonna shake it off. I'm gonna try to look my perky self.

Speaker 2:

I'm gonna make the morning workout. I'm gonna hydrate, hydrate, hydrate, and sweat, sweat, sweat. I'm gonna detox, detox. Gonna do all these things that I'm gonna pray to God I don't do it again the next night. And maybe I wouldn't.

Speaker 2:

That was the thing. Maybe I wouldn't the next night. Maybe I would wait three or four days. Maybe I would even take a month off. I could do that.

Speaker 2:

I could I could do that, miserably at the time, but I could do that. And, yeah. So that detox to retox loop is, it's mental. It's emotional. It's behavioral.

Speaker 2:

It's societal. All all the things.

Speaker 1:

I've lived that a version of that, so I know exactly what you're talking about. And, you know, and then it always starts with good intention, and then your decision making goes down the tube.

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 1:

And, also, like you said, the tolerance, you can drink that amount, and you literally don't feel drunk or anything. Like, you're not sloppy. And and what even got me worse sometimes was that I would get to a point where I probably could have stopped, and I was like, if I stop now, I'll definitely have trouble sleeping and definitely wake up at two. But if I have another glass, it'll probably knock me out for most of the night. Yep.

Speaker 1:

And so then I'd feel even worse in the day. And it wasn't even that I wanted it. It was almost like, what what misery am I choosing here? You know? And it's just like such a crappy place to be.

Speaker 1:

And so I totally understand that, and I think a lot of people listening some part of your story is probably relatable in their story. And and that's the thing is that we all there's so much that we can learn from each other here. So

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

That is like I don't know. Like, the I think it's the shame part that doesn't align when we're ourselves even though it's not our best selves the next day, and we're, like, not doing that again, and then we betray everything that we said to ourselves.

Speaker 2:

You do.

Speaker 1:

And that's where

Speaker 2:

the That's the painful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. The dissonance comes from is it just it's stuck in that loop.

Speaker 2:

You you described it well. It it is that it is a self betrayal. And, I mean, again, these are big words, but internally, it really does feel that big. It feels like a self abandonment moment where it's like, I left you. I left you to your own vices, and my best self exited the building.

Speaker 2:

And and that's a really lonely place. It it is really lonely. I think especially when you're in a crowd of gray area drinkers and social drinkers that aren't talking about this, everyone loves the night out. Everyone loves the party. Everyone loves the brunch with the mimosas fly.

Speaker 2:

Everyone loves it. And nobody really talks about the morning after the next day at the same we don't normalize that part as much as we should. Or like me and my friends, it was a little bit like the blind leading the blind. You would kind of commiserate to be like, I we we we tried. You know?

Speaker 2:

We tried not to. We didn't know. Like you said, you know, the resources weren't as available or apparent, and the conversation wasn't as as loud as it is now. It's getting louder. I think it's Yeah.

Speaker 2:

In the conversation space. Louder in a good way. Just more more prominent for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. You only see the little snippets of what you jokes and the memes. Always like to joke on I always like to joke on the beer commercials never show the hangover, the one night stands, the car wrecks, or just feeling crappy about yourself the next day. They just give you the little the little parts of

Speaker 2:

it. Yeah. Yeah. So so sneaky that way. And it really messes with our subconscious mind even even if we're consciously, like, up.

Speaker 2:

I know you don't get the guy or get the girl and the car and the travel and the, like, wait. What? But our subconscious is is kinda tracking that as, like, an image that seems normal. And that I think that's why it's important that we're out there. I mean, this is what I'm trying to do is be out there showing alcohol free lifestyle is fun.

Speaker 2:

This is what it looks like to go out, to dance, to have a, you know, Valentine's with I wanna show the other side because I don't think we see it enough.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I want to pause here for today. We talked about the detox to retox loop. We talked about the misalignment. We talked about that exhausting mental negotiation so many people quietly live in. But recognizing the loop is only half the battle.

Speaker 1:

In part two, Jen and I go deeper into identity, language, and what actually creates change. So if this episode hit home, don't miss the next one.