Journey to the Sunnyside

Today I’m talking with Jenny Williamson, Executive Director of Options Save Lives, one of the leading organizations focused on medication-based approaches to reducing alcohol use. We dive into how naltrexone actually works, why people often misunderstand the medication, and the important difference between cravings and habits when it comes to alcohol. Jenny also explains what the medication can — and can’t — do on its own, and why behavior change still plays such an important role.

EDITOR'S NOTE:
In this episode, naltrexone is discussed primarily in the context of the Sinclair Method (targeted dosing before drinking), which is the focus of Jenny Williamson’s work with Options Save Lives. Naltrexone is also commonly prescribed using other evidence-based protocols.

At Sunnyside Med, clinicians prescribe daily oral naltrexone, which has been studied extensively and shown in multiple clinical trials to help reduce heavy drinking and alcohol cravings. The approach used can vary depending on clinical guidance, individual goals, and drinking patterns. Anyone considering medication to change their relationship with alcohol should consult a qualified medical professional to determine the most appropriate treatment plan.


CONNECT WITH SUNNYSIDE:

ABOUT SUNNYSIDE:
 
Sunnyside is the #1 alcohol health app that helps you drink less without any shame, guilt, or pressure to quit. Optimize your alcohol habits to achieve benefits like sleeping better, losing weight, feeling more energy, and saving money. We know that an all-or-nothing approach doesn’t work for everyone, so we focus on helping you set your own goals, celebrate small wins, and build a lasting system of accountability. As a result, 96.7% of our members see a big drop in their drinking after 90 days.

We now offer Sunnyside Med, a new program that provides access to compounded naltrexone, a medication that can reduce alcohol cravings at the brain level, offering a more clinical pathway for people who need it. Sunnyside Med is a complete, holistic approach to help you drink less or quit, including coaching, community, habit change, education, and more to help you create longterm change while the medication does its work.

Disclaimer: This podcast is not intended as medical advice, and the views of the guests may not represent the views of Sunnyside. If you’re concerned about your health or alcohol use, please consider seeking advice from a doctor.

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:

Today I'm talking with Jenny Williamson, Executive Director of Options Save Lives, one of the leading organizations focused on medication based approaches to reducing alcohol use. We dive into how Naltrexone actually works, why people often misunderstand the medication, and the important difference between cravings and habits when it comes to alcohol. Jenny also explains what the medication can and can't do on its own, and why behavior change still plays such an important role.

Speaker 2:

Me. I am I'm really excited about this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. It's gonna be a great conversation. But before we get into everything around medication itself, can you share how you came into this work and what your role is today?

Speaker 2:

Sure. Back in fact, before Claudia even founded the organization as c three foundation back in 2013, she had put out a book called Babylon Confidential. I had read it.

Speaker 1:

So to anybody that's listening that hasn't watched the interview with Claudia Christian, you go watch it. But if they haven't listened, can you give a little bit of backstory to how you work with Claudia and who Claudia is? And then let's go from there.

Speaker 2:

Okay. Well, actually, when we Claudia was a an actress that I had followed her career from the nineties. And she put out a book, and it was called Babylon Confidential, which was a play on the show that was she's probably best known for her role in Babylon five. And so her book was a memoir that detailed her own career and her struggles with alcohol addiction. And I was a I I I just I was a fan.

Speaker 2:

Had picked up the book. Read it on my way out to a convention that had a big Babylon five presence. Wrote, wrote a review because I was fresh out of, my undergrad. I had just gotten my journalism degree. I was preparing to go off to grad school and become an environmental writer.

Speaker 2:

And so I just I sent her a note and said, hey. You know, I know you've got your own team of people. I do social media contracting on the side. If you ever need help, let me know. About six weeks later, she sent me an email and said, you know, if you were in California, I would hire you because I just started a nonprofit.

Speaker 2:

And I'm like, Claudia, I work online. I can work for you anywhere I have Internet. What do you need? So

Speaker 1:

What did you think when you got that first email? How did that feel?

Speaker 2:

I was I'm I had already been, you know, contracting for people, doing social media consulting. So I was just like, hey. This is a nice little opportunity. You know, pretty cool to to work with somebody that, you know, you saw on TV twenty plus years prior.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But, you know, it for me, it was it hey. This is another job. I'm getting ready to go to grad school. You know, I'm it's it was the summer. I'm I'm just I've got a couple months, maybe, actually, at that point, probably less than six weeks before I was heading off to school.

Speaker 2:

So I'm like, hey, contract job. This is good. You know? You know? So it just started, you know, really simple.

Speaker 2:

She needed a website. And it was kind of a trial basis. So she told me what she needed. And I gave her what she needed, and then sent her a link to what I thought she needed. So what she asked for versus what she needed.

Speaker 2:

And she's like, oh my god. So she's like, you're hired. Right? Right then and there. You know, so I was I literally just started off, you know, she was trying to raise money to make this film called One Little Pill.

Speaker 2:

And she just she needed somebody to help her raise money. And, there was one there was one comment that came in. Honestly, that it it was why I decided to switch my grad school concentration and major went into a brand new program. It was a woman who contacted us and said, wow. I didn't know addiction wasn't a choice.

Speaker 2:

My brother, has been fighting with alcohol addiction for a for for as long as I can remember. And more than a decade ago, I cut him out of my life because I thought he was choosing alcohol over his kids, over his wife, over his job, over his family. And I bought into all of the, tough love and and cut them out mentality. And I'm seeing what you're doing, and I'm starting to read up on it. And I wanna let you know I sent your Indiegogo campaign and information to my brother with an apology that said, I didn't know, and I think this could help you.

Speaker 2:

And I'm sorry I cut you out of my life, and I want to be there to help. Thank you for doing this film so that I could learn that my brother wasn't making this choice, and I could try to get him back in my life. And I was on the verge of tears, and I immediately, like, forwarded it to Claudia. And I'm like, you've got to read this. I'm like, this is this is just mind blowing, the power that this film that isn't even made yet has.

Speaker 2:

And I you know, so we're talking about it. And then I just sent her just a quick one liner. I'm like, why do I get the feeling when all of this is said and done, I'm just gonna be working for you and not doing any of the stuff that I'm in grad school for? And one line reply to me was, god, I hope so. I was, you know, I was looking at being an environmental writer.

Speaker 2:

I was in a very liberal arts college up in New Hampshire. I was studying things like, you know, social justice and environmental change and leadership for change. And it just that that we received made me realize that what Claudia's vision for the Sinclair Method was was we were at the very beginning of a full scale social movement. This wasn't just a treatment. This was something transformative that could revolutionize lives and get people their lives.

Speaker 2:

And we were starting it from zero. There was there still is not a single nonprofit in the world that is doing what Options Save Lives is doing now, and that is focusing solely on the Sinclair method, advocating for it, and providing resources for it.

Speaker 1:

So it sounds like one single email made you realize that everything that you have done in your professional and leading up to your future professional career was outdone by this one single email.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Absolutely. This was somebody who was who who was repairing a decade plus long broken relationship just because we had let her realize and helped her to understand that addiction is not a choice. It's not a choice that people are getting up every day and saying, I want that substance over everything else in my life. Like, that's you know, and maybe maybe one out of every thousand people is out there doing that, but the most people are not in that situation.

Speaker 2:

They don't want to be in that situation.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I think that one of the biggest struggles for family members and also for those in addiction or struggling with substances is a lack of education and knowledge and not really sure what to do, piecing information together. And sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don't. And I think that's also exactly why we're sitting here talking is to continue the education. And in this specific instance, education around medication as in naltrexone, which is what we're talking about.

Speaker 1:

So I think this is gonna be a really good conversation because you have a lot of expertise to be able to talk about that. And I'm gonna throw the first question at you, which we're gonna get more into the science in this one. Claudia and I talked about a lot of the principles of it. But when it comes to al to naltrexone, what is actually going on in the brain? What is it doing to the brain?

Speaker 2:

Okay. Well, first of all and and we got this wrong for a number of years. It's not actually just the brain that is being affected. Sits on the opioid receptors. A lot of opioid receptors are actually in your digestive tract.

Speaker 2:

That's why one of the first and biggest, side effects can be nausea because it's your opioid receptors aren't just in your brain. They are throughout your body. And so what happens is and I do wanna, specify, first of all, that, while naltrexone just works the way it works, the Sinclair method in a very specific way, it's more than just taking naltrexone. It's it's a targeting process. So there's a time like, there there's a time frame for taking it versus when you're, when you're planning on drinking.

Speaker 2:

So some people will take naltrexone every single day. For many people, it can have some anti craving type of response. Not everyone gets that anti craving benefit right away. But what it does is when you take naltrexone, it goes in, it binds to those, opioid receptors. And it's like a little key.

Speaker 2:

If if the key is in the lock, when you do drink or when you go do something that is pleasurable because naltrexone is also being studied for other addictions, for other things, for eating, lots of different things. So when your body naturally produces endorphins, if naltrexone is sitting on those opioid receptors, they don't have anything to bind to. So when they can't bind to those receptors, then they don't know that there has been a reward for whatever that activity has been. With the Sinclair method, people take the naltrexone. They wait a one to two hour span, you know, and and peak plasma levels are usually at an hour, but everything's on a bell curve.

Speaker 2:

People metabolize things differently. So really, no less than an hour. But in that one to two hour time frame, naltrexone goes through, it metabolizes, it you know, some of it directly sits on your receptors. Some of the metabolites sit on the receptors. Both are active.

Speaker 2:

And then when a person drinks, those endorphins don't hit the reward centers. Those opioid receptors, they don't, you know, have to bind in order to then create dopamine. So you're not getting all of those signals that say alcohol equals reward. So for people on the Sinclair method, it's called an extinction session because this is a, this is a way of conditioning your reward system where addiction says alcohol equals reward. So you need more and more and more because it it it just hijacks that system.

Speaker 2:

Now you're saying, I'm drinking alcohol, and it's not equaling a reward. So that connection starts to break a little bit. It starts to wear down. Now the benefit of this is that the biggest indicator of whether or not somebody's going to relapse to heavy drinking is the level of their cravings. So as that reward is breaking down, cravings are also diminishing.

Speaker 2:

And when you have fewer cravings, that increases your capacity to then work on those things. Like, if you're going to a therapist for co occurring mental health disorders, now you have the clarity to do that because you are not putting all of your processing energy into fighting the craving. If you're working on changing your habits, you again, you're able to redirect that capacity to something that you can now control as opposed to something that is controlling you.

Speaker 1:

Totally makes sense. And, you know, you mentioned the Eclair method. There's also daily adherence, and that, I think, in itself is probably a full on episode conversation that we could get into. And to but today, we'll we'll zoom out a little bit and focus just on the medication. And I think you did a a wonderful job setting that up.

Speaker 1:

Now some questions do come to mind that I've had now and before, and that is you mentioned that it sort of blocks, I guess, the we'll just call it the pleasure center. Now does it completely, for everything, block the pleasure center in some way or form, or is it something more nuanced than that?

Speaker 2:

See, and I I hate the the concept that it is the pleasure center. It's the reward center, and there is a There is a very big difference, and that's one of the big misconceptions. And people early on, and and I only work with people who are using the Sinclair method. So I you know, as far as as I know, daily is supposed to be without drinking. So so when I'm talking, I'm really only talking about naltrexone in the context of the Sinclair method because that's that's that's my wheelhouse of information.

Speaker 2:

We'll have people that will say, well, I I wanted to enjoy my alcohol, so I I I wanted to get drunk. It was stressful. I wanted to get drunk, so I didn't take my medication. And it's like, okay, wait a minute. Naltrexone, it doesn't actually stop you from getting drunk.

Speaker 2:

Being drunk is a factor of your tolerance, how much alcohol you physically consume, whether or not you had food before. Like, all so many different factors. And it's like, you know, okay, we can work on on your need to feel like you want to get drunk. But let's start with always take the medication first. Because if you don't, then it's inconsistent blockade of the reward center.

Speaker 2:

And it's a learning process. I mean, whether whether you believe that, this type of extinction runs through Pavlov's extinction theory or Skinner's. You know, doctor Sinclair believed that, the Sinclair method worked according to Pavlov's extinction theory, which is on the, on what you can cannot control, which is the cravings. Like, you can't control whether or not a craving is going to occur. You can control what you do with it.

Speaker 2:

You can try to distract it away, but you can't you you can't think yourself away from having a craving. So the medication works on the craving portion only. But you if if you don't have a consistent learning process, then it creates a resistance. Yeah. I tell people it's, you know, it's it's like having a a young child.

Speaker 2:

You go to the grocery store. If if you tell them they can't just run their arm down the the thing and knock everything off the counter, you know, they they might kinda put up a fuss. You might have to tell them consistently every single time, you can't do that. If one time you let them do it, oh, that's what they're gonna remember. They're gonna remember and they're gonna push and they're gonna push.

Speaker 2:

And that that lesson of that's not appropriate doesn't really take hold. And our brains are the same way. When it comes to extinction, a lot of it is reparenting yourself when it comes to following the medication protocol and making sure that you take.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a really good point. First, I wanna thank you for and welcome correcting me between pleasure center and reward center. And I think that's important to talk about when it comes to cravings. And, also, and when we're talking about medication because I think in my own experience, something that you said there about taking it, I think that that's where I didn't get full benefit from medication because I was just sort of like, I got the prescription. I was on my own.

Speaker 1:

I had no direction. I had no road map. And I think changing behavior is one thing is difficult. How do you address people taking the medication? How do you get them on that ritual?

Speaker 1:

Is there a process to that?

Speaker 2:

It's it's really interesting because one of the biggest criticisms of the Sinclair method in genera in specifically, but medication assisted treatment in general, is you have people that will just hardline say, people who are addicted just won't take medication because their addiction just won't let them. However, over the years, we've done three or four different surveys. And about seventy five percent of respondents say it's easy or very easy to remember to take their medication properly. And for those who don't, yeah, I mean, we've given out pill holder key chains. You know, take it with you so that you have your medication for spontaneous drinking situations that maybe you didn't expect.

Speaker 2:

You know, have it with you. But what what we do is we look you know, as a coach, I try to to just look at the individual and figure out, so what is it that is causing you to not take your medication? Is Is it it that that you're you're choosing choosing not not to? To? You know, because that, you you gotta approach that a lot differently than someone who says, yeah, I I thought I had my medication with me.

Speaker 2:

I forgot it. I went on vacation, and I didn't realize that I didn't have enough to cover the time I was going to be gone.

Speaker 1:

I I was the guy I was the guy in the example or gal that you said, oh, well, I have a social event tonight. I don't think I'm gonna take it. That was me. So how would you address that?

Speaker 2:

That that becomes a okay. So you you've got conflicting here. On one hand, you you want to gain control of this. What's stopping you from in the step? What is really in your way that is keeping you from doing that?

Speaker 2:

Because you can still get a buzz while on naltrexone. It's not going to stop you from getting intoxicated, which is why it's important that people use all of the same safeguards when using alcohol as they would if they weren't taking it. You know, don't drink and drive. Don't go doing don't put yourself in dangerous situations. The alcohol is still affecting It's not gonna stop you from getting drunk.

Speaker 2:

It's not gonna stop you from getting buzzed. What make you know? And then you start asking, you know, what what makes you think that you can't have fun if

Speaker 1:

Totally. That I mean, I I know that I know that if I if I could do a time machine back and go to where I was, I know that if I had just said, take it and see. Because it's not like I'm having fun if I overdid it the next day and then regret it. But if I take it, go have a good time, wake up the next day, and feel good about myself, then I reinforce that behavior. And the next time, I might not debate with myself.

Speaker 1:

But I never got past that point because I just didn't have the support and education at the time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And here's the thing is over the years, there have been more than a handful of people who actually say that drinking became much more pleasurable once they used the Sinclair method. Because where they were out of control, every drink, there it all came with with the added flavor of fear. Where's this going? What am I gonna do?

Speaker 2:

What am I gonna regret? Who am I gonna disappoint? Which promises am I not going to keep? And then the cravings subside. They regain control of their drinking, and the knowledge that they can go and literally have one glass of their favorite wine makes them enjoy it so much more because now they're tasting it.

Speaker 2:

They're enjoying it. They're present in the situation with the people that they're with, and they're remembering it. When you drink without regret, and when you drink without overdoing it, it's not the alcohol. It's the dangerous use of alcohol. It's the excessive.

Speaker 2:

It's the losing control. And so it it's not actually the alcohol itself. And when people are able to it's it's a redefining of the entire relationship with alcohol. You know, and that includes, you know, the medication helps get rid of the cravings. And then with that extra energy, you are able to over time work on habits, change those behaviors.

Speaker 2:

The hardest ones are the thought patterns and the associations, that that can be incredibly time consuming and difficult for a lot of people because your pace of results and success at that point is very dependent on your capacity to deal with the discomfort of changing. And not everyone is at a great level for that. And so the the very, first thing comes down to never drink alcohol without the medication. If you want to get to any of those advanced things, any of those other things that are going to really make a difference in your drinking, you must have the foundation of never putting alcohol in your body without having that medication first.

Speaker 1:

It's a very simple rule. It sounds like once you get that acceptance and and adoption to that and adherence to the met to that rule, it sounds like that's when the real growth, whether it be uncomfortable, like you said, or welcomed and exciting or maybe a little bit of both. But, certainly, we already know that it's changing lives. If you take the medicine, it changes your it can change your life. Now let's let's go in the other direction.

Speaker 1:

What problem is Naltrexone not designed to solve?

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's never gonna change your habits. It's it it just won't do it. It's it's not designed to. It works on breaking that alcohol equals reward that drives the craving. It's not impossible.

Speaker 2:

But, yeah, naltrexone is never never gonna do that.

Speaker 1:

So I have a question to kinda had been running in my head as you've been as you're talking, it's giving me ideas. And how does the medication work in regard to habit and craving

Speaker 2:

hypothetical

Speaker 1:

let's just say and these actually were a little bit phasic in my my journey, so let's just use me as a guinea pig. So evening, only way to unwind, open a bottle of wine, usually stick to the set amount every time, Usually, wasn't happy about that amount. Wasn't crazy. Wasn't healthy. So that's one scenario where I could start taking naltrexone.

Speaker 1:

The other one is no longer daily drinker. However, has difficulty stopping once I start. Again, not crazy off the rails, but overdoes it. Right? Where in those two instances is there a distinction between what the medication is doing for people that you know, in those two instances?

Speaker 2:

Now the medication, if if you're taking it, you're waiting that one to two hour time frame, and you're drinking, the medication itself is working exactly the same way. You know, kinda like if you have a Tylenol, your arm hurts because you've lifted too much today. It's it it just it it just takes care of it. You don't have to take a different medication if you twist your ankle and you need Tylenol. You don't need a different form of it or take it a different way.

Speaker 2:

It just like, the the medication goes into your body. It does the things that it's supposed to do. With extinction, it is a learning process. It takes repetition. Doctor Sinclair, his rats that had no choice over whether or not to be, to follow the medication protocol, who got the medication religiously and everything was in a very controlled environment.

Speaker 2:

That took three to four months. People in wildly crazy world situations with multiple stressors and other issues. You know, to think that you're going to have that same three to four month, like, that's that's just not that's realistic. So the difference in the two scenarios is how long it takes. Because if you're only drinking once or twice a week, you're only getting the repetition once or twice a week.

Speaker 2:

But also, if you've been if you've been overdrinking once or twice a week for thirty years, you're gonna need more repetition than if you've been overdrinking once or twice a week for the last three years. Because you haven't gotten as many repetitions in to form the behaviors, so it doesn't take as much to undo those. Yeah. Classical conditioning.

Speaker 1:

Makes that makes sense. You know, old habits die hard. Makes it harder to break them for sure.

Speaker 2:

But but that's that's the difference. But what I would say for because I've I've had clients and people in social media, like, they're just these are very common scenarios. You know? If you're drinking every single night at the same time, and you're drinking the same amount, and you don't like the amount that you're drinking, then, you know, there I call it the stupidly simple change. It's like, what's one thing you can do that is so ridiculously easy that you you literally cannot help but to do it?

Speaker 2:

You know? And maybe, like, for some people, like, a lot of people, you know, will have games around, so you have a six sided die. If every single night, you are taking your medication at 06:00 and drinking at seven, just say, okay, o'clock is not 06:00 is the only thing I can't do. Take a die. Roll it.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you got a one? Add five minutes. Okay. So 605. The next night, roll the die.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's a three? Fifteen minutes. Yeah. Just add five minutes for every dot on the dot, but make it random. Optimization is the key to breaking habits because you disrupts them.

Speaker 2:

Disrupting it is and then, you know, when it comes to somebody who's going out and binge drinking, it's what what's that magic number? But what which drink is it that you still feel control and you lose control? Yeah. It's usually not really number one. Most people, they'll have the first one and they're like, I choose to have have a second.

Speaker 2:

I'm having fun. Whatever. At some point in the in the night, there is no longer a choice. You're you are so on autopilot that it's just happening. Somebody hands you a beer.

Speaker 2:

You're gonna drink a beer. Your beer is empty. You're gonna replace it. And there's no thought at some point. But is that is that number one?

Speaker 2:

Is that number three? You know, figure out it's like, pay attention. What you know, where where is that? Like, where and and you figure and every person is gonna have a different number. And it's like, okay.

Speaker 2:

So you know your number is 6. Okay. So what can we do to keep you from hitting 6? Because if we can keep you from hitting 6, if that's where you're losing control, if that's where you're clicking into such autopilot that you're not there's no thought anymore, What what are the guardrails? And then let's talk moderation techniques.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Everything that you're saying here just reinforces the fact that while a pill can bring a lot of magic, there is no just one magic pill that takes it all away. It opens the possibilities to magical results, but you still have to do the real you still have to do the real work. You have to do what's needed to and define where you wanna go to even get there.

Speaker 2:

And that's a big thing, well because a lot of people, their initial goal is, I just wanna be a normal drinker. And while that's that's great, the problem is, what is a normal drinker? What what actually is a normal drinker? A normal drinker is someone who is not addicted to alcohol. I was a normal drinker.

Speaker 2:

I was born with with a liver issue that I didn't discover till my mid forties. That just kept getting in the way. And that's that's literally the only difference between me sitting here as someone who wasn't addicted to alcohol but terribly misused it, and someone who become addicted to alcohol. That's that's literally the only difference is I did my body kept stepping in before I could get the repetitions to learn that addiction because it runs in my family. I got lucky.

Speaker 2:

I got super lucky. But I am like, there morally, ethically, there's literally zero difference between an addicted drinker and a non addicted drinker. It's all about once the Sinclair method people to regain that choice again. You know, one of the things I tell my clients and I and I tell people in social media is at the end of every drink, ask yourself, do do I actually want another drink? You know, sometimes that the answer to that's gonna be yes.

Speaker 2:

And if moderation is your goal, that's okay. You kinda have to uncouple that instinctive guilt that saying yes to alcohol me is is bad and terrible. Otherwise, you're just gonna guilt trip yourself for the rest of your life. If if your goal is sobriety, then, yeah, you know, you you don't wanna be saying yes because it's not gonna align with your goals. But, you know, sometimes it's gonna be, yeah, this is a this is a good situation, and it's only my second one.

Speaker 2:

And I know I can stop after two. So, yeah, I want a second one. And sometimes it's gonna be I I kinda have stuff to do tomorrow. I'd like to get a good night's sleep. I don't really want it.

Speaker 2:

Before habit change and behavior change comes in, some times people find themselves still drinking the next one anyway. And that's part of the learning process. The first thing that's really important though is recognizing that choice. Because the more you stop and pause and recognize when you actually do have that choice back, then that's reinforcing that helps to align your decision with what your actual goals and needs are in that that night.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. I think optionality is certainly the optionality to be able to choose how you want to drink and have the option to be able to start putting things in place that support that and the two working together, which is also, like, optionality, like, medication and having education around medication gives you optionality on the path that you choose to get to where you want. I think back all the time that if I would have known better then, would I have had more of a shortcut using medication? Like, I got to where I wanted to be. But was it the easiest path?

Speaker 1:

I could tell you it was definitely not easy. Would it have been easier? I mean, I would think that it probably would have been. But I had but having that option back then certainly would have been even though it existed, I just didn't it it wasn't an option in my world, right, and in my body of knowledge. Right.

Speaker 1:

But now that it's coming out, now that we're having these con conversations, I think it gives people more optionality. It's not for everyone, but it's an option, and it's not only isolated for people that have those the picture of what addiction looks like traditionally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I try to tell people if you're not comfortable with how much you drink and you don't feel like you have the capability of cutting back or stopping on your own. Like, if if you're having cravings that are just, you know, like, this can help. You don't have to declare yourself an alcoholic and take on some recovery identity. You want to make a change in your life.

Speaker 2:

And let's face it, no one stigmatizes self improvement. You want to improve your quality of life. The way you're choosing to improve your quality of life just happens to be by drinking less or no alcohol. You either wanna reduce it or eliminate it. So if that's your path to a better quality of life, think of it in those terms.

Speaker 2:

Like, you don't have to be, oh, I'm entering the recovery world, and I'm in recovery, and I'm I'm I'm like, it's it's not about just drinking less alcohol. And and if that's all it is, that makes it a very difficult path because you're missing out on what the true goal is you're not happy with where your life is and you wanna improve it. And you think and and alcohol happens to be the obstacle between who you are right now and who you wanna be. And so so if you look at it that way, it becomes a lot more empowering. And when we feel empowered to make choices and to better our quality of life and our surroundings and to bring ourselves in alignment with the person we most wanna be, Like, that's that's where people get really enthused.

Speaker 2:

And when when people get into that mindset, that's that's when it stops being the work because it now it's not work. Now it's it's more aligned with who you wanna be in your life.

Speaker 1:

Isn't that what it's all about? That's when the discomfort comes because you're not aligned. And when you start feeling aligned, everything starts reinforcing what you're doing to get there, and it just feels better, and you go further, and you sustain it longer. And so I think that sounds like that conversation you've had many times with people when they're considering it. And when they get started this is my final question Sure.

Speaker 1:

Is when somebody gets started with naltrexone, let's say, today, where do you put their focus in that first thirty days? Where should they be, you know, focused on?

Speaker 2:

In the first thirty days, it's about making sure that they're following the medication protocol and paying attention to what you know, this is this is where you start to you have to start identifying the habits. You attack and change habits if you can't figure out what they are. So you start looking at, oh, how am I feeling when I'm drinking? Am I searching for relaxation? Is it giving me relaxation?

Speaker 2:

Am I chasing a buzz hoping that a relaxing feeling I used to get is going to be there, knowing that when I've had seven or eight or nine, I'm not actually relaxed. I'm just too tired to care anymore because I'm drunk and I'm gonna go to bed. You know, it's are are you even getting what are you looking for when you're drinking? What are you getting? Are they even aligned?

Speaker 2:

Are there habits that are making it easier for you to continue drinking? Are there, you know, are there things you can change? Are you noticing anything? It's just those first thirty days, pay attention. Don't, you know, don't try to overcomplicate things.

Speaker 2:

Just just kind of really check-in to what you're feeling because the biggest obstacle is making sure that you're following the medication protocol. Because if if you can't get that, nothing else is going to help long term. I mean, you and you might reduce. You might all do all of the same things you could do in any talk based recovery program, but you're not gonna get the medication benefits if you're not consistent with the medication. And then the one thing that I caution people on is a lot of people, they just want to make this work.

Speaker 2:

And they want it to work so badly. And so they say, okay, in order to make sure I am always following this protocol, I'm gonna set an alarm and I'm gonna take it at 05:00 every night. That way I won't forget. And it's like, if that's not your drinking pattern, all you're doing is creating a brand new habit that you're going to have to want to break later. Work with your actual drinking patterns that already exist.

Speaker 2:

If you only drink on Friday and Saturday night, drinking Sunday through Thursday out of a false belief that more will make it happen fast, all you're going to do is drink more. It doesn't work that way. You work with the patterns. Let your cravings guide you. And don't don't create additional drinking patterns that don't exist.

Speaker 2:

The false belief that this is going to speed the process up. And the Sinclair method is already the recovery hack. You cannot hack the hack without screwing it up.

Speaker 1:

Alright. So thirty days, we've got take the medication, don't overcomplicate it, work with your current drinking habits.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Well, Jenny, I loved getting into the science. I love getting into this subject that it's obvious that you're so dedicated and passionate about. So first, I just wanna say thank you so much for coming on today.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you for having me. This has been a pleasure. I don't I don't generally do a lot of of podcast interviews because I'm usually busy doing our own. But so it's it's very different to be on on this side.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. It's fun to go to flip back and forth. Well, before we go, though, I wanna give you a chance to talk about anything that you have coming up and anything that excites you or just where somebody could reach out if they wanted to get in contact with you.

Speaker 2:

Well, our website is tsmoptions.org. And I have been working on a TSM a professional TSM coach training program. And the first two learn self paced learning sessions are actually already out, and there's some very, very really great for it so far. But, basically, I'm spending a lot of time teaching people how to better support people on the Sinclair Method, teaching future coaches how to really look at the context of a person's individual situation to help make sure that the advice that is, that they need is tailored for them and to help them learn how to really empower their clients. Clients.

Speaker 2:

I I I feel like a lot of my job is helping people make amends with themselves and to actually realize that they are capable of making good decisions where alcohol is concerned and beyond. But that it takes practice and that there are a lot of different ways to build that self confidence again and to restore that power that they inherently had that was stripped from them that they were told just wasn't there to say, hey. You actually can do this. You do have the power to make good decisions and to be the person that you wanna be. So, you know, people can reach our coaching site through our our website at tsmoptions.org.

Speaker 2:

I'm available through social media and, on the coaching website, and, anybody can reach me through email at Jenny@TSMOptions.org.

Speaker 1:

I love all that. Amazing work. And you're totally right. Most of us know the right answers, but we many times need somebody to help us find that within ourselves.

Speaker 2:

And a little bit of validation goes a long way because a lot of the things you're told that, you know, you shouldn't be feeling or that it's it's the it's like, no. No. That's that's a legitimate human response to what you're to what you're going through. And they this is it's okay that you feel this way. And and that's it it's it's a departure, a lot of the treatment modalities.

Speaker 1:

Well, Jenny, thank you so much for coming on today. I really enjoyed our talk, and thanks again.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Mike.