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The environment around us is a swirling vortex of chaos, but you can navigate it when you have an anchor that can keep you steady. Each episode, Liz Herl dives into data driven strategies and real world tactics with Dr. Tim Caldwell to help you become more grounded and centered in a world that is constantly shifting and changing. Learn to effectively navigate family strife, career challenges and handle the anxiety of the unknown that the news is constantly bombarding us with. Liz is a Licensed Clinical Marriage and Family Therapist and Dr. Caldwell is a retired primary care physician and personal trainer. You can lean on their decades of experience to find stability and peace without having to control circumstances or people around you. You can be anchored in chaos.
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Liz Herl: [00:00:00] Welcome back, everyone. Welcome back, Liz. Thanks for having me. Yeah, well, thanks for being here. Thanks for hanging out with me, as always. Yeah, I love this. Partner in crime. I love this. This is yeah, it's pretty fun. Yeah. It's getting better, I hope.
Tim Caldwell: We're getting better, yeah. This, you know, to pull back the curtain, this is a learning.
Liz Herl: Yeah, we had lots of conversations over breakfast about that. Yeah, we do.
Tim Caldwell: A learning curve. We learn as we go, we couldn't do it without Brian and his services, but, which is the way we're structuring things. And hopefully the information we get to put out to people is viable information and usable.
And we're not talking over anybody's heads, but we're not we're not drawing with crayons here either. Not yet, but today we got a good topic. We're going to talk about some sciencey stuff too.
Liz Herl: We do. So we are going to cover basically an all encompassing idea of how alcohol, the chemical alcohol impacts our overall whole being, our body and our mind and our whole self, not just [00:01:00] so the mental.
And I know that a lot of individuals struggle with alcohol consumption as far as utilizing it as an antidepressant, right? When we talked about it is a depressant.
Tim Caldwell: Right. And full confession. We've all been there. Oh, absolutely. Anybody who's been around the block or around the world a few times.
Liz Herl: Maybe not the Pope.
I don't know. Oh no, definitely the Pope.
Tim Caldwell: Drinks wine. I didn't realize that. Definitely the Pope. Anyway We all have experienced that and some of us come through that storm fairly undamaged. Some of us make a great realization that this is a dead end street and yeah, that's what we're going to talk about.
Liz Herl: Very much so. And the risk factors of understanding genetic components of alcohol disease and kind of addressing some of that a little bit. Absolutely. Yeah. So, where to begin? I. Okay. Kind of went over this a little bit just in preparing for this episode. I wanted to talk about I learned some, well, obviously I learned some things.
[00:02:00] I understand the impacts of what drives people to utilize alcohol different traumatic events or even upbringing, things like that. Yeah, it's very normalized that we all drink. So
Tim Caldwell: you're going to speak really to how people are exposed to it and kind of why they keep going back to this really toxic practice.
Liz Herl: Right? And I think that kind of can go into unresolved traumatic events or, you know, like it just kind of beating myself, but like upbringing and things of that nature. But I I think that we lose um, or we just don't have an understanding of how much it really breaks internally that we see all the effects that alcohol gives us.
Right? Like we talked about that earlier. You feel people say you can be a really funny drunk or you can be not so kind drunk. All the things that we kind of looked into. Why does that happen chemically? Like what is going on in our body? What is being turned off or released or things of that nature?
Tim Caldwell: In [00:03:00] the conversations we had. I relate to you several instances of people who I saw, literally Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Yeah. Yeah. They were a totally different person. And then when they started to imbibe they became indescribable. Some became indescribably high functioning and talented beyond belief.
Right. But that's a rare thing. And again, this is this speaks to the idea that There's an exception to every rule, right? We're going to talk, I'm going to talk about some of the biochemistry and some of the areas of the brain and how they work and are affected in the biochemical reactions that bring on these effects of drunkenness and inebriation.
But the behavioral part of it, it is quite fascinating that it really is. The the black box of the mind and the personality that what emerges after the effect is kicked in, right? It's amazing.
Liz Herl: Right. And I said to you earlier, I think that it's more so about what gets [00:04:00] you know, what gets turned on or dampened, you know, either way you look at it.
Now, I, as you were sharing that, I had to say for self that any individual that has been around me after I have consumed alcohol, I'm already a. Yeah. Volume increased individual, and that only intensifies when you get louder.
Tim Caldwell: That's what you're saying. You get loud.
Liz Herl: I might get a little louder. Okay. And I don't recognize it.
Yeah, but I'm already loud and people are like, you're being loud and that. So there's just that.
Tim Caldwell: That is interesting. Much of the work that I'm going to rely on here, or Okay. I'm going to convey to you. It's built primarily from my understanding through all of my science degree work and knowledge.
But I also built a lot of this stuff just recently from a podcast from Dr. Andrew Huberman, who I admire and respect very much. And I watch his podcast all the time. But he he talks about the idea that the alcohol that enters our system is Indiscriminate. [00:05:00] But it really goes after those, it really goes after things that are wrapped around behavioral stuff.
And he brings to mind that you can go to a party and nobody's talking really loud. It's because inhibitions have begun to drop and we're not able to regulate. We just keep talking louder and louder. And you walk outside And your ears ring and your voice is hoarse and yeah it's amazing how that happens, but it's all the, it's all the effect of drunkenness,
Liz Herl: right?
And then what goes on in our body when that happens obviously we all, you know, we know the nervous system's impaired when that takes place and you are slower to respond to things or, you know, just not as, yeah, you're just not present. You're not tracking.
Tim Caldwell: Yeah. It's interesting. You use the term.
Nervous system it is it does directly affect the nervous system. However, what we're going to focus on, what we're going to focus on here really is the behavioral changes that come about through the [00:06:00] exposure to alcohol and that. There is no safe level of alcohol to
Liz Herl: take in, right? And I think that's really important to talk about.
And not to say, I'm sorry not to get you off, but not say you can't drink alcohol. It's just awareness around what alcohol does for you or does to you. Actually
Tim Caldwell: this isn't, yeah, this isn't a session of passing judgment and finger wagging. This is the simple fact that we need to know that.
Alcohol is a toxin. It is absolutely poisonous and it comes in three forms, but the methyl alcohol is typically what humans consume, but it's in its conversion into the acetate. It passes through a phase. It goes from ethyl alcohol to aldehyde, a type of aldehyde, which is completely toxic. And that toxicity is the drunkenness that literally your drunkenness is a reflect, a reflection of being poisoned.
The other conversion then via [00:07:00] NAD of a molecule, it's abundant in our bodies, allows it to be converted into acetate, which can then be converted into fuel. And it can be then converted into AD, from ADT, ADP to ATP, which is an energy source for the cell itself. But because it is both water and fat soluble, alcohol can go anywhere.
It can pass through any cell. It doesn't have to attach. It goes right in. And that makes it that makes it an incredibly dangerous substance. Because the brain is fortified very much by a perimeter called the BBB or the blood brain barrier. And its whole job is to filter, right? Even the blood supply to the brain is filtered through the blood brain barrier.
Alcohol can get right in there. And as a result, it goes after it's indiscriminate, right? Right. It's
Liz Herl: indiscriminate. So that kind of goes into the neurotransmitter imbalance that takes place. And I want you to kind of [00:08:00] speak to that. Cause we had a really good conversation about that too. Because I told you We'll talk about what the GABA component, but I also want to talk about that.
Yeah.
Tim Caldwell: Yeah. So what we see, what we know is that I'll start with some imaging. We know that alcohol, well, first let's define this. Let's define alcohol consumption. It's defined more or less on the metrics of about 14 drinks a week. Now, that could be seven, or that could be 14 drinks all in one day.
That could be seven and two days, but they're really looking at two drinks per day. That would be 14, right? Well, people go, well, that's not too much, but that is a standard of constant chronic consumption. Very good. Yes. And we know that anything that is in a sustained manner or format into your life slowly ingrains itself into habituation.
So your body now begins to habituate and acclimate to the [00:09:00] presence of alcohol in your system. And as a result, and it's a readily available to pass through the blood brain barrier, it can affect your brain in a physical manner to now. I've seen special imaging. This is where I was going to go to before.
I've seen special imaging between addictions, drug addiction, alcohol, pornography, they all are very similar how they literally, they literally erode a part of your brain. It's because it's nondiscriminate as to the fact that it attacks the outer layers of the brain itself, right? And those are glial cells. Now, to define a couple of terms here, there's gray matter and then there's white matter. Now, the gray matter are the actual, the astrocytes, the astro, the actual neural cells. The white matter is those things that connect.
So if I were to make a model. It would be I now have houses. These are little houses. They send out impulses, but they have to do this via communication [00:10:00] wire to each house. That is the white matter. That white matter is made up of a substance called myelin, which is known as a process of myelinization.
The interesting thing is that as the alcohol attacks the brain, it attacks that as well. So what we see then is in long term and chronic cases, we see that people lose that myelin sheath. So let me explain how it works. If I had, if it is very similar to skipping a stone across the water.
If I were to throw, let's say I was trying to meet. Make my throw my rock from here to the shore, and I tried to throw it with enough force that it would pass underwater. Well, it would be slowed down, but if I could skip it across the top, that's called the saltatory effect. That's what my organization does.
It wraps. It wraps the nerve itself, the conductor in a my organization. The neat thing is that acts like an insulator. Now, every [00:11:00] time there's an impulse, it gets to skip. Yeah, very rapidly down, down the nerve. Well, when the myelinization is now broken down or becomes weak or is completely missing now, it's slowed down significantly.
Now we're talking timeframes that are nearly indescribably small. However, they are slower. . And what we see in people with drunkenness is a slow response. , we see a lack of motor skill. , we see a lack of cognitive process. Cognitive process memory.
Sure. Which is big with alcoholism as if is its effect on memory. Oh, yes. Yeah. Well, we see the physical responses too. , if you've ever been in, if you've ever been in a bar. After 1 o'clock and everybody's face is just melted off their bodies, it's literally this relaxation process is just literally let go of everything and you become this stumbling, bumbling, mumbling.
It's really strange to see, but. The science behind all that is [00:12:00] it's po it's poison. . The more drunk you are, the more poisoned you are. Or excuse me. Yeah. That's correct. That's not right. The more drunk you are, the more poisoned you are. . And people know that when you die, you can literally dry of al die of alcohol poisoning.
Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. You have consumed so much alcohol that, that conversion. From the alcohol into the acetate, which would normally be used as a fuel source, it just can't keep up. And now the toxins build up, they build up on your tissues, primarily in the liver, which is its 1st source because it's so readily available, drawn into the blood cells.
Your liver is your 1st line. And giant filter for all of that. It just can't keep up long term. You keep doing that, it leads to conditions like cirrhosis and cirrhosis is literally hardening of the liver. You just can't keep up. And as a result, your body fills up with these toxins and it just can't dissipate.
It just can't keep up
Liz Herl: and it takes you. Yeah. So kind of going back to speak to how Gabba plays a role in this.
Tim Caldwell: Okay, [00:13:00] so GABA is present in the brain. So, let's look at how GABA is introduced into the brain exogenously, which means from the outside. People who have Parkinson's Or give the tsunami get this backwards.
They are given GABA to increase function, excuse me, to decrease GABA. I may be wrong on this. Essentially the process of GABA is an inhibitor or neurotransmitter and it, how it functions at the synaptic gap is it allows the body to.
Here's why it becomes just a little bit complicated in layman's terms. And even if you understand it, there is a, to understand how things work in your body, you have to understand that there's never just on and off. There's always a system that is promoting something and something that's inhibiting something and while it may do this to this, it may actually spin off [00:14:00] and be doing something else someplace else or having.
So what we see is that alcohol increases the amount of GABA, which in. Which in itself at the synaptic junction begins to make you relax, right? And it brings forward all of the, it brings forward it turns on your inhibitions. It turns on your inhibitions. Essentially, it's depressing your inhibitory process, meaning.
Those things that are in you they begin to come out. Your filter begins to go away. It has been problematic for some people. It's said, yeah, it's said many times, if you want to hear the truth, talk to a drunk. That's exactly true. Right. It's, I don't know if that's true. I
Liz Herl: don't know if that's true, that you're going to hear the truth, but you're going to hear
Tim Caldwell: something.
Yeah. Well, that is the case is you'll hear something. The point being is that while Gabba plays. Plays an important role in it's in your body when alcohol is [00:15:00] then introduced that system of inhibition then becomes altered and now we can't do thing. We begin to dysregulate. So we begin to speak louder.
We begin to make more motions. We begin to move more or more animated. We're usually far more vocal. And once again, opinionated. But what happens is, yeah, and it does matter. But what happens most primarily to the body is you're entering into. An altered state and this is drunkenness, drugs, alcohol, all of these, all of those things.
Same thing. Same thing.
Liz Herl: Same kind. No. You are, were you going to speak about glutamate?
Tim Caldwell: That's a bit outside my realm. And I think. I think if we go into glutamate and GHB and we might lose some, we might lose some things. It, it begins to be, I think I'm [00:16:00] speaking out outside my expertise there.
Although I've been exposed to it enough I don't know that I can relate simply in this type of.
Liz Herl: Well, I think all of this comes down to That it does actually cause brain damage. That was one of the things that, you know, you literally start breaking down your brains. You're there. You're not able to for sure.
For sure. For sure. Neurologically for the function that you're the structural function, your brain
Tim Caldwell: is for sure. That's exactly right.
Liz Herl: And then it's the chronic use of that. You then gain disorders from and diseases from Yeah. That's right there on out. That's right. I thought it was funny, I, when I said this to you around dehydration that I'm like, no wonder it's like, and this is like when people are like that don't break the, when you have to go to the restroom. 'cause once you break, you have to go to the restroom. You have to go the restroom over and over again. Oh yeah. And I'm like, what kind more or less.
Tim Caldwell: More or less a myth, but yeah, but we do know, and I think this is where you're heading is that alcohol is a diuretic.
Right. Yeah. It makes [00:17:00] you want to go to the bathroom and it will lead right to dehydration. Right. So the old Westerns where they're out in the desert and the guy takes a slug of whiskey. Bye bye. That's probably not the best time ideas. Right. Right. I always marveled when people walked into a hot dusty Salon and asked for whiskey or tequila or whatever.
Yeah. Is that what you want? When was the last time you peed?
Liz Herl: So this goes right into a little bit where you've already talked about liver damage. Yeah. And how that's going to, you know, you kind of spoke to that a little bit.
Tim Caldwell: It's essentially just. overuses your liver. It just can't keep up. So how this works is if I were to give something exogenous, let's say intermuscularly that would dissipate through the tissues, find its way into the set back into the vessels, either the arteries or most likely into the venules, which go into the veins, return it to the heart that would then proportionately pump it back through your filtration system.
Now, if you take in something orally that passes through your gut, it's going to find its way right to the liver full dose. [00:18:00] That's why Some oral medications are so toxic for your body is that you get 100 percent of slammed by the toxicity at your liver versus something that's taking into intermuscularly, right?
Nice. Yeah.
Liz Herl: So, in speaking for a moment around the mental health arena, I know a lot of individuals utilize alcohol. As a sleeping agent and that like, Hey, you know, it helps me relax and get to sleep a little bit easier, but actually there's so many problematic issues with how it disrupts your sleep.
So that's the next part is sleep patterns is how much. That it's utilized to say, Hey, I'll just, you know, relax me and gets me right to where I need you.
Tim Caldwell: So, couple of things. First of all, alcohol is a depressant to the respiratory centers of your brain. Yes. Now we all know or have seen, at least in our adult years that there are people who drink and they get more and more animated.
They have energy all night. They're the exception, but what we, what you can usually [00:19:00] see is when people drink alcohol, especially in excess. Now excess, that doesn't mean that you're on the verge of death, but you've had too much to drink. You're drunk. It depresses the respiratory centers. As a result if you have.
If you don't have sleep apnea, you're going to sound like you have sleep. Yeah, because you are struggling to breathe.
Liz Herl: Yeah,
Tim Caldwell: those Those centers close to the brainstem that help regulate autonomic function. And because they depress the, that's those centers, they, are dangerous, very dangerous, and this is part of the alcohol poisoning, right?
Is it not just the brain, but it can directly long term affect those respiratory centers and you could literally fall asleep and never wake up.
Liz Herl: Right. Yeah. That has actually unfortunately happened to individuals. Yeah.
Tim Caldwell: I've seen drunks you could beat them with a stick and they're not, they're not waking up.
They're, they are. They are completely out.
Liz Herl: Okay. So I'm really glad you said that [00:20:00] because I was actually going there next is that when someone's like, man, I passed out all night, but I wake up and I feel like I haven't slept for like two weeks. Oh, yeah. So that's the disruption you're talking about in your nervous system and respiratory and your brain function.
You are not getting appropriate. You're not resting. Is what I want to say.
Tim Caldwell: Yeah. The thought that you're going to take a couple of drinks, a couple of bracers, then go to bed. You are sacrificing quality sleep. Yeah, absolutely. Because your body is now differentiating between this sense of drunkenness and the absolute work that it takes for your respiratory centers to keep up.
And as a result, it's going to keep you in this flux between Hey, wake up and. I can't stay awake. Hey, wake up. I can't stay awake. It will battle you until I guess the levels of toxicity drop. I say toxicity, whatever the level of alcohol consumption is drops below what your body can handle in vitro.
Yeah. And as a result those things need [00:21:00] to need to balance out before you become regular, but for with age, yeah. With size body mass, I should say, obviously smaller people consume less and can feel the effects more. The larger the body mass, the more they can intake. Once those ratios are met, where they become then in a toxic realm, drunkenness to your brain.
You're flirting with danger, right? Flirting with danger. Sure. Absolutely. And it, and sleep is a great way to dissipate all that. But I would say another way would be to. Rehydrate and stay as active as you could to try to metabolically burn that stuff up, right? Exactly. Exactly. That's not very conducive to somebody who's drunk.
He's not going to want to hit the treadmill. But I would say that's probably the fastest way to hit the treadmill. They might be that
Liz Herl: trip over a few things. And then to further that that goes into, of course, I mean, these, I don't want to sound like they're obvious, but the weakening of your immune system and your cardiovascular health and all the things [00:22:00] that, that go into, I mean, We're really kind of Poo pooing alcohol right now because it is, but it's a chemical that you're introducing into your body.
And we don't, I think there's just not a lot of awareness around a little doesn't really hurt. Right. A little, it's just, we kind of make exceptions, especially when it comes to our mental health. It's like, if it relaxes me, then it's not really doing that much to me. And I've got it. Controlled and I have it monitored out and I'm, you know, I'm not drinking to where I'm drunk in, which is a really whole other conversation around what your body, you know, then your tolerance level and how your body is now tolerating it because now it's taking that chemical and making it a part of its system.
So where it's like, yeah, your tolerance level is higher. Because now that alcohol is just a part of your system and it wouldn't, it doesn't which
Tim Caldwell: is how we know it affects your body. Right. If you're, I'll stay with the term chronic, if you're a chronic drinker and you have 1, 2, 3 drinks every day that then becomes a bit, [00:23:00] your body becomes habituated to having that substance in your body.
And it has, because of its direct cellular influences, something else is now being inhibited. Excuse me, I need a drink. No, I'm kidding. But the idea behind, but the idea behind that becomes dangerous to you, the longer you do it. The worst it is and nobody, I say this about cigarettes, nobody lives longer smoking and drinking.
It just happens to be something that we do. Ours is a cautionary tale. If you're going to do it for heaven's sakes, look, I know lots of people and we'll talk about this. I know lots of people who are, they're good athletes, but they're party animals. But at some point you're going to some, at some point you're going to have to make a decision because you cannot do both.
And those people that are. Let's say they're image centric, right? So you're a bikini model or you're a fashion model or whatever. I [00:24:00] guarantee you, you're not going to have alcohol a month before you have a photo shoot or even want to have those effects afterwards. Cause it's going to slam you like a pickup truck.
It will, because of its diuretic effect. The interesting thing is that because there's always an inhibitory an
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Tim Caldwell: excitatory response in the loop, this feedback loop that we have is that although it may cause you to be diuretic at a certain point, it then becomes, it then converts itself over to, well, I'm passing so much water now I'm going to hold water.
And people who really work hard at the physique, they look puffy. They hold water and it's quite significant. I think most of us have seen people who are usually hard drinkers and they stop drinking and how their features that their skin gets a flush to a game, right? They get their pink back.
They're that roundness goes away. You can just [00:25:00] see that even their skin is happier because this, they're not having to deal with these toxins,
Liz Herl: right? And that are constantly being, you know, in their body that they're trying to balance now that now there's a decrease in that. This. Clearly. I mean, goes into a mental health concern.
And how much an individuals that are, and not even just with alcohol consumption, if you have an underlining mental health disorder, this is going to really just regulate a person to a whole other level of concern for self and for others. But I know that I mean, I'm not sharing any breaking news with that information.
Don't get me wrong. It's about the compassion around. Like I said people utilize alcohol. It's so readily available and easy to get. And we make the exceptions in our mind around why we're doing it and how we're utilizing it. And well, it's not to this level, like, which is really interesting how we kind of think that what level it's going to be.
And we're [00:26:00] putting on these parameters around like, well, at least I'm not, you know, this person, or at least I'm not doing that. Right. Which is again, those checks and balances within selves of trying to make it right.
Tim Caldwell: Self justification. Right.
Liz Herl: Yeah. And Well, then you add into that. There is a huge concern that I want to talk about in utilizing alcohol with first off, any different types of medications specifically with antidepressants and things of that nature and anti anxiety medication.
When you are putting these in combination, while your body and your mind is just really working completely against itself at this point. And what amount of help that you think that your Oh, Subdue you're giving yourself and you're subduing you know, even a cognitive process. You're going to subdue it.
All right. You're going to not have the ability. And you might go into a much darker spiral within that and thinking, well, I'm doing all the things and I'm not really doing that much of this. Like, I have a drink. But [00:27:00] there's this idea of, well, I take my medication in the morning, but I drink at night.
Yeah, no, sorry. And it's like, so they're not close together. And I'm like, well, no, that isn't how that works. That's
Tim Caldwell: right. That's right. There's always some residual even though it's burning through your body, through your liver again, through it. Do oral intake. There's some residual. I, that's an exacerbatory process, meaning one plus one equals five.
Right. And I've seen and heard some just outlandish stories about people who don't normally drink, but they're taking SSRIs and then they have a couple of drinks and they are bombed out of their skull. They are, you know, they can become ill where they have to be hospitalized or just having a couple of drinks.
My, yeah. Brother in law, a former cop would tell stories about being called the bars about elderly people who are taking some type of blood medication, have a bad interaction with their medications that they have to come literally rescued them out of the bar. They lose all their cognitive ability.
They don't know where they [00:28:00] are. They don't know what they're doing. It's very dangerous. And I would venture to say that's a snapshot of what they're facing later in life. If they were to ever try to continue on that medication and try to drink, I have some funny stories to tell about stuff like that too, but in the general, it's not good, right?
And ours is a cautionary tale.
Liz Herl: Absolutely. I, that cautionary, but more about awareness and infusing again, awareness and compassion, because I want to speak to, you know, traumatic experiences or. Events that cause people to utilize alcohol or have medication they're taking or whatever the, you know, what's going on there that we look at why that's happening.
You know, we understand we give ourselves I think we just move. So we make it so acceptable to, to engage in all of these things. And if we have situations where This is what we did in our family. I, that, that's a really common, this is just what we did in our family that,
Tim Caldwell: [00:29:00] and that. And socially we just came out of the holidays.
Liz Herl: Oh, yes. And that's what we do during the holidays.
Tim Caldwell: There's more festivities. Now it happens year round. It's a super bowl or whatever. Everybody's coming up next, right? So what we see is people who are, they're doing the self medicating trying to get more rest, or they're trying to take. Try to relieve some stress or whatever that is, but that slowly creeps into Oh, I had an extra drink that night or I had, or I I'm tying, I'm going out and tying one on twice a month and not once a month or the volume that you take may speak to the alarm, but it's probably the frequency that.
And that, that habituation to, it's just, it's right there, right? I just have to make you know what? In fact, I'm not even going to pour two shots. I'll just pour one big one. Right. So, yeah, it's still one and here we are justifying it. So one fingers becomes two fingers becomes three fingers and [00:30:00] pretty soon we're drinking straight out of the bottle.
And the cautionary tale that we want to make here is that there really is no safe level of alcohol. But if. If we're going to address that, we need to know that self medicating with alcohol, especially if we have stresses or conditions, especially mental or psychologic, that are plaguing us, they are going to have that exacerbatory response, right?
That those things are really going to, they're really going to blow up into something bigger and maybe worse than what we had before.
Liz Herl: Right, and in understanding that when people reflect on their behavior after drinking and the self the way we beat ourselves up. And I can't believe I did that.
And all the things that kind of play a role there. You can, I mean, you can minimize that. I think that it's more so why if you're. You know, over utilizing alcohol. I think there's that in itself is something to investigate. Yeah. I'm speaking more to when we [00:31:00] have such a a draw to something that seems very normalized and then we don't know how it is it's really affecting us. Like how do we stand back and like, what's the gauge? Like, where's the measuring tool? Right. Yeah. We're speaking a lot of, you know, science related chemical reactions in our bodies and things of that nature that I think are really important that we know what's happening.
But within that, the other, I mean, everyday person such as myself and yourself. Of, I don't really think about all those things. , I don't think about how this is really affecting my body. Obviously we have a you and I have a different view of physical health because we try to actually pay a lot of attention to that.
Yeah. Not everyone has that line of sight. Yeah. Yeah. And. So I want to speak to individuals that are like, Hey, I'm not into that. I, but why do I think that in
not to, I mean, not in my mind, my thought process here is that to not to obsess or that maybe explore the process. Do I think that I engage a little too much in [00:32:00] alcohol at times. And why do I do that? Oh, I see. And. So this is where I'm talking about that utilization, like an internal review.
And I, some people just know why, hey, I know why I do it. You know, there's all the jokes. You are the reason I drink, you know what I mean? And there's, there is that and there's truth in it. I'm not saying that it's not true, but for individuals to understand all of this. Physical component in chemical response, but I'm speaking more to the mental health part of yourself of giving yourself a little bit of a break there and because either we're completely avoid it and denying it completely like, well, that's not really a big deal.
Yeah. And inside the internal shame and guilty and just denial that we have within. So we're really quite cruel to ourselves.
Tim Caldwell: Yeah. So What I hear you saying is in the alcohol consumption, if we could step back and ask why Am I a closet drinker? I'm a social drinker. Am I just go to the bar and spend all my money drinker?
But that's that self [00:33:00] examination is it's usually the hardest to put ourselves under the microscope. Absolutely. But this is where you're pointing and this is where you'd be able to say. My father who used to attend bar quite a bit to make extra money. I, one time asked him, why do they put a mirror behind every bar?
And he says, because you won't recognize that guy tomorrow morning. That's what my dad told me. It is. And I never really thought about, I always thought it had to do with space and stuff like that, but it's really to make the bar look bigger and busier and stuff like that. But he always used to tell me, it's because you won't recognize that guy in the morning.
And that's a sad statement. Even in the industry, we're going, Hey, drink up, bro. Yeah. Drink up. But at some point you'd think, and I'll, I'm going to make myself as an example, cause a military, getting out of the military, my, my closest friend. We just knew that we were spending too much time with wine, women in song, right?
And we literally, and we were, we [00:34:00] drank a lot, and we just literally took stock in what was going on in our lives. We had no money. We had nothing. Even though we made great money, we had no bills. We broke all the time. What's going on with that? At some point you'd think You know, if we didn't have each other to bounce things off of, we probably would have continued on that road forever because, hey, it's fun getting drunk with your friends, but at some point in time, you need to take stock in the fact that something's not right.
What do we do? Why are you doing this? And to this day. I've told you, I've told her I don't drink, but it's not for the fact that I wouldn't love to have a couple of drinks sitting around with my friends and just laughing till I cried. I just, I love those times telling stories until four in the morning.
Those are great stories. But man, I hate the price I have to pay. For the days to recover, it takes a week to get my head clear and, you know, we spend so much time money and effort to make ourselves strong and fit and all that. Why [00:35:00] would I want to take 20 steps backwards and ruin it? But that's us, right?
That we're in the we're either in the fitness or in the mental health realm. We deal with this all the time. Now we try to help others with that too. But now we're asking people to take a look at yourself and ask yourself why do you drink? What is it? What's the underlying process there?
And is it, isn't there a better way to spend your time, money and effort?
Liz Herl: Yeah, I, you know, when having the opportunity to work with. Individuals around alcohol use. I always encourage this isn't about coming in saying you should absolutely stop doing all of this. It's like, there's a self awareness piece of like why do I do the things that I do in a healthy way?
That reflection, not a guilty belittling, you know? And I think that's where we go to first. It was always like just self, you know, crucify ourselves over and over again versus saying, Hey, you know, maybe why I do this for a different reason, and I don't really want to unfold [00:36:00] that part of me. Yeah. And there's a place to do that and look at this other part that I've just, I fuel it with alcohol instead of really examine it for self.
Tim Caldwell: So I'm going to push back on you just a little bit. So when I use the term psychotherapy, you tell me it's more behavioral therapy.
Liz Herl: Well, no, I think it's psychotherapy and behavioral therapy. I mean, it's a combination of our mind and how we respond. Our brain is giving us a response system. So we've had an encounter of something that's given us information of this is how you respond to this.
Well, what happens in, in depending on the timeline that took place is that this occurrence happened. Tend to always internalize that experience for self as this. I was either accepted or rejected, or this was acceptable or not. And then we get a decipher within self. Like, do we want to utilize this again?
Well, we do that in different dynamics and communications and we kind of, if we repeatedly do something and we're kind of hitting a brick wall with it over and [00:37:00] over again, sometimes the feedback to self is like, you're just really crappy at life. Yeah. So you just aren't doing this very well. So you need to either.
Shut up and be quiet and put this part of you away because that's not acceptable for the rest of the world and then bring out maybe a false, you know, sense of persona of saying, well, this is acceptable and shiny and nice and new, but that unkept or unseen part of yourself that you just put away is still very much so a part of you and playing an essential role in your life that you're just not bringing to the forefront, which is exactly which I appreciate you saying that.
Yes. Correlates right back to alcohol uses. What are we suppressing with alcohol or anything else? We're just specifically talking about alcohol today. When we are doing that, I'm not saying and I'm in a case, you know, I occasionally drink. I'm not saying that's something people have to stop doing.
It's awareness around what you're doing to your body when you drink and why are you drinking? Yeah. I'm the first to, Hey, I, you know, I love [00:38:00] margaritas and so you,
Tim Caldwell: you underdone that road. So I'm going to, we're going to pull back the curtain a little bit. When you and I started training, you asked me, is it okay if I have a couple of drinks?
Right. I said, Well, sure. Occasionally.
Liz Herl: Yeah. Occasionally. Yeah. You're like, yeah, I'm not, well, I almost, I honestly, cause I remember this very clearly think that it was like, well, every now and then occasionally it's not an issue. And what I was thinking was, well, I have a few margaritas quite a bit, but in my mind I was like, well, so,
Tim Caldwell: but in that the trade off was, I really am starting to spend a great deal of time, money and effort to make myself feel good.
And that desire to have alcohol. Yeah. Slowly dissipated, right? It slowly went away. Sure. And right away, things changed physical change for you. Right, right, right away. And it wasn't even that much alcohol in your life,
Liz Herl: right? Well, it was more so that this speaks
Tim Caldwell: to the empty calories in alcohol, right?
This is a roundabout way to make my point, but [00:39:00] those empty calories when you take in, when you take in those alcoholic drinks, they're of no use. There's no protein nutrition, no, right? Vitamin or mineral value to it. I don't think they're just empty calories. They literally just find their way into a fat cell and turn into fat or subcutaneous fluid or whatever like that.
But when you didn't, when that goes away, your physique changes, right? You get sharper.
Liz Herl: Right. Right. It's amazing what happens with your cognitive ability. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and one of the things, and I don't want to bounce around too much because I did want to kind of button up what I was talking about with mental health really quickly.
And that is that's the whole idea of really working on yourself. Yes, understand the chemical impact, but also I get a gauge and not be too harshly on myself of the alcohol that I am consuming. And how do I identify if. Not only me, but when I see someone else that's overindulging, and I think that's a really delicate thing to, to reach out to someone and say, Hey, you know, [00:40:00] I noticed I'm just worried.
And everyone's like, well, there's judgment and ridicule and all the things that it's like, actually. If we can just learn to be able to openly give that compassionate awareness of I'm worried about you. I'm not. And even then people still finally will probably internalize that as judgment because they feel so terrible for self in any ways.
And then someone else is bringing it to light. It's like, yeah. So like, is my mask slipping kind of thing? Right. And, but I still encourage actually people to say you know, no judgment. I'm just here for you. Even I watched a real the other day and it really made me emotional because first off she was being emotional and it was, it just really hit me.
And I thought there is nothing more impactful than the presence of someone else being present. And When, and they're not saying anything like, and I think that is so true, you know, transitional for male or female, just being in another human space and [00:41:00] being aware of them in their presence and how much they matter.
And it's not about me saying, oh, you're doing okay. And you're going to, whatever it's, I'm just going to sit here, I'm going to sit here and I'm going to be with you in this moment. Like, Presently in this moment, not 2 people. I want to be very clear in a moment. And both people are on their phones or distractions of some sort.
It's just saying, I'm just going to sit here and stare off into the oblivion with you. And it was just it's very powerful when you have that opportunity to do that with people.
Tim Caldwell: This is a very roundabout way of when I called you on the behavioral. Changes in what we call psychotherapy or behavioral changes, those, this is, we are all broken and I say, I cannot convey, I cannot convey that message enough to people that we all need something to do now, if you're masking, if you're masking those things in your life with drugs or alcohol or depression, or you're, you need to find out, you need to find how, and you bring up this point about how do I reach out to people?
Well, this is. Yeah. [00:42:00] These are the tools we want to give people is a great deal of that is just show a little compassion. If you know that person, even a little engage them in some way where you can develop some type of friendship where you have a chance to talk about things like this. It doesn't take anything to do that.
And they will either respond or maybe they're tough for a cookie to crack. I don't know, but keep trying because everybody's broken. And if you know for a fact that they're all alone, they could use a good talking. They would love to talk. To you or about their problems. And if it can't be, you suggest somebody else,
Liz Herl: right?
Absolutely. And that's. That's the other side of this is that we should all really be there for one another in some capacity and just be able to meet, just be able to be present is, and it's a lot, actually it's a lot harder than you think, because we're not driven societal to be quiet and present with someone else.
That's why I said the thing I, what I mentioned about the phones or distractions or [00:43:00] what, like someone to sit with you and I am, I've shared before, I am. Per I'm perfectly content and sitting in silence. Like I find that actually a little relaxing. Sometimes I can drive home at the end. Especially my late evenings from my practices.
When I drive home, I don't put anything on. It's just quiet. Just nothing. Just me in the road for, you know, 20, 25 minutes. And it's really like alleviating for me. Like, because obviously I've been in process all day of different things, but I don't listen to music. I don't do anything. I just try and be mindful to be present of self that has to be self taught sometimes because we're not really taught to, can you sit with yourself?
And I mean, that's, I'm not trying to go down different angles, but I'm just saying, if you can't, that's kind of one of those things that you should look at.
Tim Caldwell: I can tell you I come from blue collar. Redneck background. Right. My whole family, I can, there's nothing more rewarding. So I have a 68 Chevy pickup and it doesn't even have a radio in it.
I can tell you there's plenty [00:44:00] of times after a really hard day's work, driving home in a Kansas sunset, just have your arm out the window and it's almost out like, but if only people could have. You know, could find a time to just look around and take in what's Jordan safe. You don't ever pass up the opportunity to pet a cat.
But it's one of those, it's one of those opportunities we ask everybody to take is take a little stock in yourself, right? Things are going on in your lives and all the lives around you. But if if you can't grab hold of somebody to sit down with you, sometimes you need to do it yourself. Another really great way is just to find an objective ear.
Maybe you don't even know these people, but. Reach out to a professional, say, Hey, I'd like to talk to somebody about something
Liz Herl: and I getting, of course, I'm a very strong believer in the therapeutic alliance and find the right clinician and therapist for you that you can connect with and feel like there is an ability, a relatability, you have to be able to relate to this individual, because [00:45:00] you really have to get to a moment that you can open up and reveal parts of yourself, your.
That you're keeping from yourself and having a safe and trusted, you know, professional or individual in your life is unbiased, if you will, and do that with, that's going to be really impactful on your life and make overall incredible, positive changes with that, I guess.
Tim Caldwell: Yeah, I, well, I enjoy that on my side of the business as a professional trainer, I've had the opportunity to meet.
Great people and but I will tell you, everybody has something in common and that's usually got something going on in their lives. They could use a, they could use a good talking to. And you know what? That combination of stress put under, put onto your body with good exercise, raising your threshold for challenge.
And then just some fellowship and banter afterwards. I think you form great friendships in the gym. That's why I think really good [00:46:00] trainers are there are more like bartenders and psychologists and stuff like that. They're just good people. Really good trainers are men there.
They're in your life at every level, wherever you want them to be. But they want you to do well. That's their whole job. I've said this to you. I've said this to everyone I've known. You're my calling card. I want you to do the very best so that you can represent me, you know, this is the person who helped me.
And it's not that it's not really to push me higher up the ladder. It's just that I want to be proud of my work. I want people to be successful. If there's something I can pour into you. Good. That's what I want to happen.
Liz Herl: Yeah. Yeah. I always think it's interesting. People in the service industry, such as bartenders and training professionals and hairstylist.
Yeah. They, you know, are, they get a bird's eye view, right. Inside of people's lives. And there's like this. Area of like, I think I can reveal myself here a little bit more. Like, I think that's kind of interesting.
Tim Caldwell: Yeah. Yeah. I suppose. [00:47:00] Yeah. You know, the neat thing is touch is a very healing thing.
So my chiropractic massage and the PT that I do on people like I lay hands on people who know that. When I trained my clients, I lay hands on, I want, this is where I want you to feel it and I will poke you and prod you and squeeze you. And until you make that connection, but that's part of the healing process too, is that you get to overcome some of these things where I just don't, I'm not quite sure where I'm going or what you want from me.
And then as the direction takes on now you have a bit more self confidence. I understand what he's trying to do, but I still think that. So I'm a hugger. I hug all my brothers and I do the very best I can. I think it's just good medicine, right? Yeah. Just so we've wandered off track a little bit,
Liz Herl: but I just really wanted to explore the mental health area around the alcohol and how it really affects individuals lives.
Yeah. And for a brief moment, I wanted to talk about Awareness [00:48:00] again, this isn't scare tactics, and I don't think we're bringing any again, breaking news to any individual, but I do think that understanding the longevity and the chronic use of alcohol to individuals that have. They're at risk for early onset dementia and how there is just not an understanding or well, I shouldn't say not an understanding.
You're not, you don't look at it. I guess.
Tim Caldwell: Well, you know, there's there's research around all of that. Essentially what I would say is that because the, Okay. Because you're altering cellular metabolism and the abundance of just free form poison at a cellular level, I just think it, it just, it's raises your distribution disposition towards having some type of ailment now, coupled with the fact that the you.
Alcohol is both fat and water soluble and it's free access to the brain. That's a huge risk. [00:49:00] I don't know what percentages are that have dementia or cognitive problems that are heavy drinkers, but I do know that it affects behavior and memory quite abundantly. And if we know that.
If we, you know, they call Alzheimer's diabetes type three now because of its, your body's inefficiency or inability to handle insulin and you're having irregularities and blood sugar regulation. Well, this is not helping. This is not helping. No, not at all. And we don't need to get too deep into the weeds and the science with that, but it's certainly something you need to take into.
Effect. If you begin to see these things, you need to take, you need to weigh yourself, take stock in where you are and make a decision. Things could get really worse.
Liz Herl: Well, and I think what you're saying there is you need to weigh these things, but the problem is that we don't see them necessarily coming at the time.
And that's kind of the point or the idea I had in, in sharing this [00:50:00] piece because I'd actually was over Listening to the podcast you were listening to with and when he stated this, it was, of course, the same information I had found, but the nutritional deficiencies that happened in our body when we're consuming alcohol and things that were our body isn't able to produce even what it's you know, regularly supposed to produce around Vitamin, our vitamin take in the real common one that he talked about vitamin B12 and thiamine.
That is it goes after a memory like I was on repeat there. But it literally shrinks that part of your brain. Like it's deteriorating your brain. Yeah. In a way that Once it's gone.
Tim Caldwell: Yeah. So, because of its lo because of its location, it's located right above your roof of your mouth, it's pretty susceptible to those things.
Remember how I told you alcohol, if your brain was an onion, it attacks the outer layers? Well, this thing hangs out almost independently on almost like a stem, and it's subject from [00:51:00] almost 360 degrees of vascular and tissue that sits around it. It's just not a. It's certainly not a good condition and you'd hope that there would be people in your lives who could help turn around.
We know that's not always true,
Liz Herl: right? Well, and someone with maybe this this is just more awareness for individuals that are maybe seeing it within themselves or someone else that. Just having the education now to pro prevent this in the future of saying, well, this isn't an issue.
Now, all of these things that I'm talking about are happening now. Now, I understand when I say chronic use again, the measuring tool of that. Right. If we went back to the measurement that you said earlier, if you did two drinks a day and consistently is becoming a part of your body,
Tim Caldwell: well, that's the lowest end of the
Liz Herl: spectrum.
I would much, I should have got the statistics for that. Like what it. What is being utilized currently?
Tim Caldwell: I don't, I would be guessing, but I would venture to say most people have four drinks a day. [00:52:00] On average. There are people at zero. Huh. And there are people that have Drinks a day, that seems There are people, I've known people with no names, they drink a 20 pack every night.
Yeah. It was every night, 20 pack.
Liz Herl: And then, as I would tell you as a therapist, there's probably a reason for that.
Tim Caldwell: Yeah, there is. There absolutely
Liz Herl: is. There's probably a reason. Yeah. So, I mean, I, I know this kind of, we went from mental health to talk. I just really wanted to briefly, you know, No, this is excellent.
This is an excellent topic. I definitely also want to say that if you know someone that's been or yourself. That is utilized alcohol for as an extended period of time, high levels and making sure that they get appropriate treatment for withdrawals are obviously known as DTS, but because that can also cause death if you, a lot of people hear about the cold Turkey effect, like, I'm just going to go into cold Turkey.
It actually, you can really impair your system in doing so.
Tim Caldwell: Yes. [00:53:00] That is a. Okay. No. When it comes to alcohol, too much alcohol consumed at one period can kill you. If you are a hard drinker and you think you're going to cold turkey this, it could kill you. Yeah, absolutely. You could literally die from it.
If you are, if you need to have professional help through that process, and that's that is a hard and fast rule. Do not try to just cut things off. You need to have it. You need to have a structured withdrawal. It has to be tapered. The interesting thing is about really long term, chronic alcoholics is as the.
Is as time has allowed you to build your tolerance where it would take more and more drinks. There is a point where your body reaches a critical stage where 1 drink is intoxicating. It's you're completely out of your skull. It's because. You've lost your ability to metabolize these poisons, and now they go almost directly to a saturation level.
[00:54:00] And you're, you are blasted out of your skull with one drink, slurred speech, can't walk the whole bit, and you're on the cusp of Bad times. Yep. Bad times. Seen it before, but do not try to do this. I want everybody to try to find help, but do not try to do this thing called Turkey. Yeah. Bad news.
Thanks.
Liz Herl: Well, it's ending that I would just say, I would like everyone to always give compassion to yourself. Don't, you know, take this and start, you know, beating yourself over the head with all the things that. And the reasons why you do what you do, there's a reason we do what we do. I always encourage everyone to find a mental health care professional that can help you in this walk in this journey and whatever phase of life you're at, whether if it's alcohol, you have any religion, alcohol or not.
I also want to do a really quick plug of, we are getting ready to start here soon some beta testing with our mind melters. Yeah. And is for our discussion forums. Yes. Our discussion forums. And there's a [00:55:00] little you'll hear more about this, but you can go to our website and sign up for this and we're going to have a small group of this.
And the reason why we decided to do this is because I wanted more. Feedback as to what are individuals looking at when they join these forums? Like I thought about like someone wants to come in. It's like, I don't even know what you're offering. Well, let's create a format and a delivery that people want to engage in and who better to do that with than the people.
Topics. Yes. Well, and organization and how we're going to have everything go and flow and all that good stuff. So I So there's an incentive to take part in that there will be. If you sign up, you'll learn about the incentive that there is an incentive. If you we will be able to recognize the individuals that dedicate their time because it is a dedication of your time and there is feedback.
We ask that you give feedback, there'll be surveys that you'll be doing, but it will be an experience. And hopefully one that you, you walk away with some more knowledge for self too. So, some overall all the good stuff. So yeah
Tim Caldwell: That's a great approach. We always ask people [00:56:00] that when they watch this thing to like, share, promote as much as you can for us that's kind of the idea.
We want to try to spread a good message. We're getting better at this, I think. And we're, you know, we're we're doing the best we can, but we want to. We want to offer something unique, and that is, there's not a lot of people who just are talking, just sit down talking about these are some things we, you know, these are some issues that need to be talked about.
And this was a tough one. Alcohol is a tough one, you know, and everybody is subject to that. And we'll talk about. Some tough things sometimes, and we want to know that this is adult level conversation, but it's not too much that young people can't tune into and hear what has to be said, because we're going to talk about some touchy situationships and relationship.
Matters and we're going to touch about, talk about family and those dynamics and work and maybe the physical, maybe some of the physical demands of people who are challenged by different things, especially age and dementia and it all ties together. [00:57:00] We're headed to Virginia. Virginia beach in two weeks, right?
So we're headed to a Kaizen training, athletics training. Yeah. It's again, kind of my side of the house, but we're going to learn how to work with people who have, who are paraplegics and wheelchair bound and prosthetics. Yeah. The idea is more than just training or is that we want to reach everybody has a story and we all need somebody to talk to.
That's the idea. Yeah. Cool. Take care of yourself, folks. Thanks guys. Yep. Thanks, Liz.