Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Francisca Rudkin and I'm Louise Arii. Welcome to
Speaker 1: season five of our New Zealand Herald podcast The Little Things.
Speaker 2: Good to have you with us, Yes, and this podcast
Speaker 2: we're joined by experts in their field to talk about
Speaker 2: the little things you need to know to improve all areas.
Speaker 1: Of your life.
Speaker 2: There's lots of information and confusion out there. We're going
Speaker 2: to cut through that to bring you some clarities you
Speaker 2: can make your own well informed decisions on. Well begin Okay,
Speaker 2: So if you are a long time listener, you probably
Speaker 2: know we love to talk, run, go on a ventures,
Speaker 2: and spend time with our families. And we've enjoyed a
Speaker 2: glass of wine or two over the years, occasional bottle,
Speaker 2: like many people, depending on what's going on in our lives,
Speaker 2: what agent stage were at, we've fluctuated between a glass
Speaker 2: of wine a night. You remember the Toddly years, it
Speaker 2: was very much a glass of wine at night or
Speaker 2: not drinking at all. And if you are a long
Speaker 2: time listener you will you'll remember lose famous one hundred
Speaker 2: alcohol Free Days, which was seventy two.
Speaker 1: I edited them. Somebody said life's too short and I
Speaker 1: just oh yeah, okay, one little prompt, but anyway.
Speaker 2: You were doing so well. But I think we have
Speaker 2: had different we have drunk, and I'm sure that everyone's
Speaker 2: the same. Over the years, we've sort of had these passions.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're in your twenties, were was almost
Speaker 2: like a bit of a badge of honor, wasn't it
Speaker 2: to turn up to work and struggle through the day
Speaker 2: with a hangover after a great night. And then you
Speaker 2: sort of hit your thirties and you start, you know,
Speaker 2: getting pregnant and having babies and breastfeeding, and you don't
Speaker 2: drink for a little while there, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you find yourself with a bunch of toddlers,
Speaker 2: go what have I done? And you know, your mother's
Speaker 2: little helper kicks in at five o'clock each night, and
Speaker 2: you find yourself sort of back on the booze. And
Speaker 2: then I think I've just sort of fluctuated over the years,
Speaker 2: depending on whether I'm training for something, or what's happening,
Speaker 2: or how how well and happy the children are. Like,
Speaker 2: there's all sorts of things that impact you're drinking habits.
Speaker 1: And I think you probably just described the continuum that
Speaker 1: a lot of people will relate to that, like I'm
Speaker 1: a bit of a legend and my teens and twenties
Speaker 1: and out there meeting people and even corporate if you
Speaker 1: were in you know, I worked for a big corporation
Speaker 1: and alcohol was very much part of the lifestyle, you know,
Speaker 1: at conferences and things like that. Got to conferences now
Speaker 1: and you know, you have a glass of winy. I've
Speaker 1: talked it all bloody day. I just need to leave. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's all. It's all got very much more sensible.
Speaker 1: But but I would say there are times that I'm
Speaker 1: not sensible. I'm not doing the right thing by my body.
Speaker 2: Now, I think you and I have kind of mirrored
Speaker 2: each other, and we have been trying to get to
Speaker 2: a point where we've kind of got a nice balance.
Speaker 2: We're able to enjoy a glass of wine or two
Speaker 2: and things but not have it impact our lives. But
Speaker 2: the one thing that now now was sort of ensconced
Speaker 2: in the glory years also known as middle age, I'm
Speaker 2: finding that the consequences of alcohol hitting home a lot more.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm noticing that alcohol really isn't my friend
Speaker 2: in pyraimenopause.
Speaker 1: And this has been explained to us by more than
Speaker 1: one kids, But as you know, take some while to
Speaker 1: get through to me. And and I'm training for something
Speaker 1: at the moment, and it is and I don't have
Speaker 1: that much time to do it in the evenings and
Speaker 1: the d days well they're getting nice and longer now,
Speaker 1: but they were sitting a very dark through the winter,
Speaker 1: and the only time I could fit things and was
Speaker 1: in the morning. And if I drank the night before,
Speaker 1: it would actually just make me go I don't really
Speaker 1: want to get up. It's not that it defeatd my performance.
Speaker 1: I didn't have one. I literally just be like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not getting out of bed this morning. So not
Speaker 1: because it wasn't a hangover or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: those one or two glasses were making having an impact
Speaker 1: on how I've slept overnight.
Speaker 2: Have you ever worried about your drinking? Sorry, that's a
Speaker 2: bit of a heart this question. I definitely have had
Speaker 2: moments where I've gone, oh, okay, yeah, I'm getting tired
Speaker 2: and I'm probably not well the one hundred days as
Speaker 2: well as I Yeah, I didn't do that hundred days
Speaker 2: for nothing.
Speaker 1: I with seventy five days. What if it was just
Speaker 1: shits and giggles. Yeah, I did it because I was
Speaker 1: worried about my drinking, yes, and yes I do. I
Speaker 1: do worry that I can't boody just go to a
Speaker 1: social occasion like I don't go out that much. And
Speaker 1: then we still get excited. And I tell you, my
Speaker 1: family's all in christ and the first night down there,
Speaker 1: every single time, I will wake up the next day
Speaker 1: not feeling very well and I'm and we'll all go, oh,
Speaker 1: we all got a bit excited, didn't we to be
Speaker 1: back together again? So and as you know, I go
Speaker 1: down and to see the family quite frequently, so that's
Speaker 1: got to be knocked on the head. And it just
Speaker 1: makes me too bloody tired, especially drinking two or three
Speaker 1: nights in a row, absolutely wrecked. And we've got some
Speaker 1: lovely family occasions coming up at twenty first and a wedding,
Speaker 1: you know, and I want to be there for it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I want to get you to a bit
Speaker 1: more mindful about the drinking. That's the last way of
Speaker 1: putting it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I feel like I'm growing up a
Speaker 2: little bit as well when I'm getting there. But look,
Speaker 2: we are going to talk about the reality of alcohol day.
Speaker 2: But in the same way that we talk about everything.
Speaker 2: So this is inn a lecture. We're not going to
Speaker 2: take away a simple pleasure for you know, from.
Speaker 1: You and tell you how to live your life.
Speaker 2: We're just going to look at the impact alcohol has
Speaker 2: on us, and we're going to look at how we
Speaker 2: consider safety and corporate it into our lives, or how
Speaker 2: you might want to rethink your relationship with alcohol and
Speaker 2: how you'd go about that.
Speaker 1: So today we're joined by Reed George ree As, a
Speaker 1: Master Health coach who specializes a mental fitness at Alcohol
Speaker 1: moderation and addictions who work combines compassion with science, helping
Speaker 1: people understand the physiology behind how alcohol affects the brain,
Speaker 1: body and overall well being. Resupports people to rethink their
Speaker 1: relationship with alcohol in a way that's practical, evidence based,
Speaker 1: and free of judgment. She's here to help us today
Speaker 1: to unpack the tricky truths about alcohol and the role
Speaker 1: it plays in our lives.
Speaker 3: Re welcome, Thank you lovely to be here.
Speaker 1: Good to have you with us.
Speaker 2: I'm going to start off by saying, I'm going to
Speaker 2: be really honest. I didn't really want to have to
Speaker 2: have this conversation because I think there's going to be
Speaker 2: a few home truths that I know, but I just
Speaker 2: didn't want reiterated.
Speaker 1: But the more I.
Speaker 2: Kind of started thinking about it, and I love your
Speaker 2: very positive approach to this topic, I just got quite
Speaker 2: excited about today.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think we both said very early on in
Speaker 1: the Little Things, we're not going to do an alcohol
Speaker 1: if are.
Speaker 2: I think we both read we rarely should do an
Speaker 2: alcohol episode, but we'll leave it.
Speaker 1: Well, but we'll leave it for now. So here we are.
Speaker 1: So you know, do you think I guess the first
Speaker 1: thing is honesty around alcohol and our embibment of alcohol.
Speaker 1: Do you think that most people are honest about it?
Speaker 3: No, short answer.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: Interesting that you use the word should, Frantisca, because she'd know.
Speaker 3: As a health coach, I look out for language, and
Speaker 3: I think we often think we should do certain things,
Speaker 3: and especially in this area, I think there's too One
Speaker 3: is it's honestly with yourself, and the other one is
Speaker 3: honesty with society and you know, maybe your GP if
Speaker 3: you're talking about it. So no, I think people find
Speaker 3: it really hard to be honest with themselves about where
Speaker 3: alcohol sits. And that's what I call cognitive dissonance. Sometimes
Speaker 3: as people really know what's going on, but they have
Speaker 3: trouble being honest about what they want to do about.
Speaker 1: So when you go to your GP and they ask
Speaker 1: you your weekly and even getting honest about what a
Speaker 1: poor is, right, Ah, yes, because you know I always
Speaker 1: say to my husband, that is just by the way,
Speaker 1: that's your two glasses in that one poor. And you
Speaker 1: know then I proceed to pour my own wife. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you didn't know. I definitely had made my Paul smaller.
Speaker 1: But yeah, how how dishonest are we being at the GP?
Speaker 1: If they ask us, do you know.
Speaker 3: Across the board, I'd have to say we are being
Speaker 3: quite dishonest at the GP. But the GPS know that
Speaker 3: I'll always add more mentally to whatever it's telling. Usually yeah,
Speaker 3: and they know what they're looking out for because metabolically,
Speaker 3: your body won't lie. So you may say you're having
Speaker 3: a set a mount, but if you have any tests
Speaker 3: or car asol or go gos or like tests, it's
Speaker 3: going to tell the truth gut tests, so you can't lie.
Speaker 1: You can't lie.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I think you're hopes that you're right, And
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure my doctor just goes mm hmm.
Speaker 3: What they're waiting for, though, is for someone to say,
Speaker 3: I've got a problem, can you help me?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: They're actually waiting for someone to ask, unless it's at
Speaker 3: the stage where it needs to be said.
Speaker 1: But most of us don't think we've got a problem
Speaker 1: right until we really have a problem.
Speaker 3: Yes, And that's where we said, as health coaches, very
Speaker 3: much mild to moderate and proactive preventative in the space
Speaker 3: is why not address things when they're just in the
Speaker 3: mild to moderate space rather than waiting and waiting and waiting.
Speaker 3: But it's hard.
Speaker 2: In season one, I think it was the little things
Speaker 2: Nicky Pizant.
Speaker 1: Said to us.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: She told us that alcohol is not a perimenopause or
Speaker 2: menopause or woman's friend. And it's taken me a while
Speaker 2: to grasp this, but I do feel the impact of
Speaker 2: alcohol more.
Speaker 3: Why is that our whole physiology changes around menopause, Hormones change,
Speaker 3: metabolism slows down. So many things are affected anyway in
Speaker 3: perimenopause and menopause, and alcohol just doesn't serve us. It's
Speaker 3: not saying to not have any, but sometimes the amount
Speaker 3: that we were possibly having beforehand we can't tolerate as well.
Speaker 1: So explain that So in terms of is it our liver,
Speaker 1: what part of our body is rejecting or not helping
Speaker 1: us metabolize alcohol like we could when we were younger.
Speaker 3: Physiologically, it's actually everything. But the liver can only detox
Speaker 3: at a certain rate, so one standard drink per hour,
Speaker 3: which is where we get ours standard drinks from, and
Speaker 3: you can't speed that rate up. So there's lots of
Speaker 3: other things going on. The liver is trying to do
Speaker 3: when it comes to digestion and food and all sorts
Speaker 3: of things, and if we overload it with alcohol, it
Speaker 3: just can't cope, and then the gut backs up, the
Speaker 3: gut biomes affected, hormones are all over the show. Alcohol
Speaker 3: can increase estrogen, which we know is linked to other things.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's just a cascade.
Speaker 2: Because for me, it's more it's the way my brain
Speaker 2: feels the next day. It's the way I think, It's
Speaker 2: the way I feel. It's the grumpiness, it's the sleep.
Speaker 2: It's you know, slightly different to like I can still
Speaker 2: get up and do my exercise, Like physically I feel
Speaker 2: like I can kind of. It doesn't hold me back,
Speaker 2: but there's just it's just leaves.
Speaker 1: It's a little cloud, yeah, a little, a little fuzziness,
Speaker 1: and the sleep like I know that a lot of menopause,
Speaker 1: a woman will wake up through the night anyway, But
Speaker 1: it's the it's the sort of overthinking I think absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean sure, I'm sure they are a woman who
Speaker 1: are overthinking a lot of us are overthinking all the
Speaker 1: time anyway, but alcohol just makes that. It's what do
Speaker 1: they call it the two am dreads or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, anyone that's had the two or three am
Speaker 3: dreads knows exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: What was I so weird about that?
Speaker 2: For?
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3: So alcohol will reduce our really good quality deep sleep.
Speaker 3: So even though we might go to sleep faster after
Speaker 3: a couple of drinks, we actually don't recover well and
Speaker 3: that can affect our mood and clarity, concentration, emotional regulation,
Speaker 3: all the things the next day. So it's just and
Speaker 3: it's a compound effect as well. If you're doing it
Speaker 3: night after night and you're not getting great sleep, then mood,
Speaker 3: mental health, oh so many things are affected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good point you bring up there
Speaker 1: about the compound effect. So you might say, but I'm
Speaker 1: only having one or two glasses a night. But if
Speaker 1: you're having them every night, yeah, then it is compounding.
Speaker 1: And then if you don't give yourself a decent break
Speaker 1: kind of, that's when it all falls in a bit,
Speaker 1: doesn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And often there's lots of things going on. We
Speaker 3: think about our careers at the stage in our lives,
Speaker 3: and maybe teenage children, elderly parents. We've got a lot
Speaker 3: going on, and it just reduces our ability to cope
Speaker 3: with all of that.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I know when I have alcohol free days, and
Speaker 1: I do have more than I used to, there's a
Speaker 1: little part of me that feels like I'm on holiday.
Speaker 1: Is that a strange analogy? I don't know. It's like
Speaker 1: I'm free from something, and then I can quite often
Speaker 1: go back into my old patterns.
Speaker 2: See, I feel like I'm on holiday when I drink. Oh,
Speaker 2: because most of the time I'm trying.
Speaker 1: Not to drink. That's interesting. There's a lightness about me
Speaker 1: that I know is present when i'm But then again,
Speaker 1: then something will happen, is either good or bad, And
Speaker 1: a wine or is my go to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's a really good point. Love. It's often
Speaker 3: why we drink or what we're using it for. And
Speaker 3: that's one of the first places I'll start with clients
Speaker 3: is if they're curious about the role alcohol is playing
Speaker 3: in their lives. When does it tend to show up?
Speaker 3: You know? Is it when things are great and you're celebrating.
Speaker 3: Is it when things are challenging and you feel like
Speaker 3: a wine at five o'clock is a treat? If so,
Speaker 3: what other things could you use in that space? So
Speaker 3: it's one thing to say, let's be curious about our
Speaker 3: drinking and maybe reduce the alcohol. The next stage is actually,
Speaker 3: what are we going to do instead? You know, what
Speaker 3: are we going to put in there? I know you
Speaker 3: guys are runners, so exercise or other things that people
Speaker 3: might find that actually gives them that same feeling of
Speaker 3: treat at the end of the day. So you're not
Speaker 3: feeling any depriving yourself, you're actually doing what your body needs.
Speaker 2: Can I ask without you obviously giving away any you know,
Speaker 2: patients or any any client information things, but what are
Speaker 2: kind of the common reasons that people will say to
Speaker 2: you when when they really when they work out their
Speaker 2: why why they drink?
Speaker 3: Stress, unhappiness, worry, anxiety.
Speaker 1: So they're not the happy ones, They're not the happy
Speaker 1: triggers are.
Speaker 3: They generally know, but the irony is that alcohol will
Speaker 3: make all of that worse. I know, we know this irony.
Speaker 3: This is the cognitive dissonance that we see and do.
Speaker 3: A lot of the.
Speaker 2: People who come to you do kind of know that,
Speaker 2: but they just can't get from A to B. They
Speaker 2: just can't put it all together.
Speaker 3: Yes, so we talk about the gap between the knowing
Speaker 3: and the doing. Most of us know the no the
Speaker 3: knowledge these days, and knowledge is that our fingertips these days.
Speaker 3: But what we see is the gap between knowing and
Speaker 3: doing is the hard part. That's where behavior change really sits.
Speaker 3: And that's where we sit as health coaches to help
Speaker 3: people bridge that gap. So they know the no, but actually,
Speaker 3: let's help you put it into practice. You know, do
Speaker 3: they do?
Speaker 1: And I think that's really an interesting analogy if I
Speaker 1: might say that the sometimes the alcohol bridges the gap
Speaker 1: between the hum drum of life and bedtime and the
Speaker 1: next day. Do you know what I mean? It's like, Ah,
Speaker 1: I have to cook the dinner again for the fourth time.
Speaker 1: If I'm cooking dinner again for the fourth time this week,
Speaker 1: the least I can do is give myself a we
Speaker 1: treat whilst I'm doing it. And what little trick that
Speaker 1: I've used was if no one is around, because no
Speaker 1: one is tended around when the dinner's ready, but they're
Speaker 1: not talking to me while I'm making it. I started
Speaker 1: filling the gap instead of having the wine with putting
Speaker 1: watching something on Netflix whilst I'm cooking, or you know,
Speaker 1: something like that. But it's sometimes it's like, well, why
Speaker 1: am I not okay? Just alone with my thoughts?
Speaker 3: Absolutely there we go.
Speaker 1: We're all interested to what do people do before they
Speaker 1: had my bile devices to fill your time up?
Speaker 2: But I do exactly the same. If I can get
Speaker 2: to a suit now, if I can get two dinner time,
Speaker 2: then I won't pull myself a glass of wine. Interestingly,
Speaker 2: so I try not to drink during the week. I
Speaker 2: try and drink maybe one or two once or twice
Speaker 2: a week, or look at this thing's happening. I don't,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't if there's a celebration or a
Speaker 2: booth day or something like that, I treat myself.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: It's not a strict rule, but just in the back
Speaker 2: of my mind that's what I try and do. And
Speaker 2: I know that I'm the same as Lou. I'm often
Speaker 2: at home on my own preparing the meal. I to
Speaker 2: do that, I'll put something on the iPad to watch
Speaker 2: to entertain me while I'm doing it. But if I
Speaker 2: can get through to actually sitting down at the table
Speaker 2: without pouring that glass of wine, then I'm fine.
Speaker 1: I don't need anything. Is that typical?
Speaker 3: There's so common all the time. If you can get
Speaker 3: through to that sort of time, generally you can do it,
Speaker 3: and then.
Speaker 1: You wonder why you ever felt like that in the
Speaker 1: first place.
Speaker 3: These are all very normal and common thoughts, right, this
Speaker 3: is what many people think.
Speaker 2: But what I sometimes do is I will have an
Speaker 2: alcohol free drink. So I'll have one of those mocktails
Speaker 2: in a can that you can get from the supermarket
Speaker 2: and things now. And I kind of am aware that
Speaker 2: I'm probably just replacing, you know, one bad calori with
Speaker 2: another bad calorie.
Speaker 1: But it gets me through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we would call that harm reduction, right in a way?
Speaker 3: Is that? Yes, it will get you through, and it's
Speaker 3: just a matter of saying, well, actually, if you don't
Speaker 3: want the alcohol, there's so many good alcohol free alternatives
Speaker 3: out there now that doing something like that is a
Speaker 3: step in the right direction.
Speaker 1: You're still going to have a drink.
Speaker 3: You still feel like it's a treat, but it just
Speaker 3: doesn't have the alcohol in it. In fact, at the
Speaker 3: beginning of twenty and twenty, I set myself in EXPI
Speaker 3: I meant to have an alcohol for a year as
Speaker 3: I was getting into health coaching and behavior change, to
Speaker 3: see what it was like. We had no idea that
Speaker 3: COVID was going to hit, but that was the year
Speaker 3: that I had said I'd like to go alcohol free
Speaker 3: for three hundred and sixty five days. You couldn't face
Speaker 3: a better challenge, right, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm constantly with the kids.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one whole year, and then I went for another
Speaker 3: six months. So now I've completely receipt my relationship with alcohol,
Speaker 3: and it was through the toughest time I could possibly imagine.
Speaker 3: But I wanted to know what it was like for
Speaker 3: someone who really wanted to make a change to a habit.
Speaker 3: That made a difference.
Speaker 2: If somebody does want to reset their relationship with alcohol,
Speaker 2: how long does it take? Does it take a year
Speaker 2: and a half.
Speaker 3: I don't think you can put a number on it
Speaker 3: for everyone. It's quite different depending on circumstance. But when
Speaker 3: you look at a dopamine detox we see a lot
Speaker 3: about dopamine detoxes these days. Thirty days is generally a
Speaker 3: good start, and we talk about it being an experiment,
Speaker 3: so it's not lifelong necessarily. When you start, it's just
Speaker 3: let's be curious about what alcohol, what life is like
Speaker 3: for thirty days without alcohol in it, and then at
Speaker 3: the end of that time you can have a really
Speaker 3: deep think about what you want to do moving forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean a lot of people do drive July
Speaker 1: every single year, and I remember doing it once and going,
Speaker 1: oh god, I cannot wait for the first of August.
Speaker 1: Cannot And actually, when I got to the first of
Speaker 1: August unless there was something on, there was absolutely no reason.
Speaker 1: Because the it's about the reason for me anyway, is
Speaker 1: there a reason for this? And I do think that
Speaker 1: it's probably partly cultural. We do tend to well, let's
Speaker 1: not pretend alcohol's involved in every celebration, even little kid's
Speaker 1: birthday parties. I used to think, well, I better get
Speaker 1: a few bottles of wine, and because when people come
Speaker 1: to pick up their cat, I need to offer them
Speaker 1: a glass of wine. What whin did they at the start?
Speaker 1: Like we shouldn't eve that was silly.
Speaker 2: Really, that's just having small children and the need to
Speaker 2: reading class of social Please stay, I've just been here
Speaker 2: with you know, ten five year olds for three hours.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I need a drink.
Speaker 1: Stay and talk to me. The one thing about that
Speaker 1: happening in COVID which would have been good, because this
Speaker 1: is something I've found when I've stopped drinking at times,
Speaker 1: is that you don't have to worry about having to
Speaker 1: go out and socialize and pretend to be all, you know,
Speaker 1: bright and ugly. Yeah, because I find if I'm the
Speaker 1: non drinker, sometimes I'll have a great time and you're
Speaker 1: driving home from the event and you go, I've got
Speaker 1: a buzz. I shouldn't have a buzz. I haven't been drinking,
Speaker 1: you know, But it's the buzz of actually just being
Speaker 1: able to drive yourself you an't home. But I did
Speaker 1: find myself over that you know, one hundred days, which
Speaker 1: turned out to only be seventy five. But I did
Speaker 1: find myself less sociable because I found eventually I just
Speaker 1: found it a bit boring being around people who were drinking.
Speaker 3: It's a really good point, and I'm still quite social,
Speaker 3: but I will now eject from a social situation at
Speaker 3: nine o'clock quite happily. I'll go for an hour, maybe
Speaker 3: have a drink, maybe not. But I don't have that
Speaker 3: same foma I used to have. If I'm not drinking,
Speaker 3: or if I go home early, I when to miss out.
Speaker 3: I actually know for me that I would stay later.
Speaker 3: Then i'd normally stay if I was drinking, and then
Speaker 3: I wouldn't feel great the next day. So I just
Speaker 3: reset that and said, well, actually maybe I might go
Speaker 3: out for an hour and a half kind of girl yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, like and that's my max and that's what's
Speaker 3: good for me.
Speaker 1: Let's normalize that, shall we?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Or we're fun.
Speaker 1: We've been experimenting, but this year, haven't we? And we've
Speaker 1: sort of found the Sunday Sunday meet up at four
Speaker 1: thirty or five. Now, no one well I don't know,
Speaker 1: some people might, but no one's going to get absolutely
Speaker 1: hammered on it on a Sunday at four thirty or
Speaker 1: five o'clock. And you can have a nice social hour
Speaker 1: and a half with someone over one glass of wine
Speaker 1: and have a proper catch up. And I'd rather spend
Speaker 1: those calories on the fries.
Speaker 3: There's a really great book called Lost Connections by Johann Hari,
Speaker 3: and in it he states, you know, puts forward that
Speaker 3: maybe the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's connection
Speaker 3: and that's what we're all looking for.
Speaker 1: I saw that on your website, and I've read parts
Speaker 1: of that book from your heart, and I've follow on Instagram,
Speaker 1: and that is gosh, that's that's an incredible You have
Speaker 1: to think about it a bit because you're like, is
Speaker 1: that true? But it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what we're missing. And that's often when we're
Speaker 3: standing at the kitchen bench with young kids cooking dinners,
Speaker 3: we're craving connection. So whether it's connection to ourselves, connection
Speaker 3: to friends or others, or passion and purpose. You know,
Speaker 3: often addiction can creep up on people. And I'm not
Speaker 3: saying everyone's addictive, but you know, I can creep up
Speaker 3: because we're lacking connection. So when you find the connection again,
Speaker 3: So if you're sitting around on a Sunday with one
Speaker 3: bottle of wine, three friends having a great time, you
Speaker 3: might not need the same amount of alcohol because you
Speaker 3: actually getting the connection that you're looking for.
Speaker 2: Just going back to what Lou was talking about, and
Speaker 2: going out and socializing, and you mentioned that you've just
Speaker 2: sort of come to the conclusion that you socialize a
Speaker 2: little bit differently now and things, but there is still pressure.
Speaker 2: And over the years I've had, you know, I used
Speaker 2: to have sort of two months off during the year
Speaker 2: where I'd stop drinking and going out and people trying
Speaker 2: to force alcohol on you.
Speaker 1: It did get quite tiring.
Speaker 2: You should be able to go no, no, I'm fine, thanks,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to grab this or I've brought this,
Speaker 2: or I've got that. I think it's getting better. I
Speaker 2: think we are better at going Oh great, what can
Speaker 2: I get you? And I always make sure now that
Speaker 2: I've got some lovely other option, non alcoholic options that
Speaker 2: I can offer people. But what sort of tips do
Speaker 2: you give people who want to make a change and
Speaker 2: who feel that pressure and just want to know a
Speaker 2: good way of getting around that when it comes to
Speaker 2: drinking and socializing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do talk about this a lot with people
Speaker 3: if they are looking at how they could approach social
Speaker 3: situations and not drink. And it's what you mentioned before, Low,
Speaker 3: it's how would you have an exit plan or an
Speaker 3: exit strategy? So it's often if you drive there and
Speaker 3: you've got your own keys, then you've got a way
Speaker 3: of leaving when you'd like to leave, it's enlisting the
Speaker 3: help of a good friend or a buddy or a
Speaker 3: colleague that's going to be there too, And that's your accountability. Buddy.
Speaker 3: Is you know, I'd really like to have a great
Speaker 3: night tonight, but possibly not drink. Can I come to
Speaker 3: you if I'm feeling like a I would like to
Speaker 3: get a drink or be a need to leave so
Speaker 3: that somebody else is there that you can just say, hey,
Speaker 3: let's go having a couple of sentences in your back pocket,
Speaker 3: like I used to say, Oh, you know, like alcohol night,
Speaker 3: we're just having a we break, or you know, just
Speaker 3: something that you've got prepared so that if someone does
Speaker 3: start to push a little bit, you can bring humor
Speaker 3: into it or lightness so it's not really heavy, but
Speaker 3: you've got something you've prepared to say so that you
Speaker 3: know you can speak up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good point, because I think people
Speaker 1: do immediately well not I think you were right that
Speaker 1: it was getting better, but there was a certain age
Speaker 1: when we're in a much more fertile era that people
Speaker 1: would just assume you were pregnant, which is a terrible
Speaker 1: assumption to make because of course you might just you know,
Speaker 1: be not drinking. And that's the funny thing when the
Speaker 1: motivation's there, Like I've had three children, didn't even cross
Speaker 1: my mind to have a drink, you know, I never
Speaker 1: craved it. You're pregnant, you can't, and then your breastfeeding,
Speaker 1: so you don't really either. And so there have been
Speaker 1: large ways of time and maybe like you say, that's that. Well,
Speaker 1: you've got a really important job to do, and you've
Speaker 1: got a connection with this fetus, you know, and you
Speaker 1: just can quite easily say no. And then when they
Speaker 1: come out and they're driving you crazy, you're craving.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, the idea of willpower comes into
Speaker 3: it a lot that white knuckling it through. It's really
Speaker 3: hard sometimes to white knuckle it through and just not drink.
Speaker 3: So that's where all the other strategies and skills can
Speaker 3: come in, you know, maybe talking to other people that
Speaker 3: have successfully navigated it, having some ideas we just talked
Speaker 3: about in your back pocket for social situations so that
Speaker 3: you have other strategies to ride the wave. We talk
Speaker 3: about urge surfing, just to surf the urge for a
Speaker 3: little while, because, like you say, it will pass, you know,
Speaker 3: you get to certain point in the evening and maybe
Speaker 3: it's passed.
Speaker 1: Yes, And that's that mindful thing, isn't it. I just
Speaker 1: mindfulness is not just to make you is not designed
Speaker 1: just to make you feel this ethereal being. It's actually
Speaker 1: to accept feelings exist and live with them, yea, and
Speaker 1: that they will pass and that they will pass. Yeah, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 3: I Actually there's a gin bar in Auckland at the
Speaker 3: top of Queen Street, the Chamberlain, I think it's called,
Speaker 3: And before COVID hit in twenty twenty, it was my
Speaker 3: ex husband and is anniversary, so he wanted to try
Speaker 3: the gin bar. We wanted to try it, and I
Speaker 3: rang ahead and I explained that I wasn't drinking, but
Speaker 3: that I didn't want to sit there in February twenty
Speaker 3: twenty and have like a lemonade or you know something,
Speaker 3: And so did they have any alcohol free gin alternatives?
Speaker 3: And they did, and the manager said, when you guys arrived,
Speaker 3: just tell us and we'll make you an alcohol free
Speaker 3: cocktail that looks exactly the same and everyone else, you know,
Speaker 3: so you can feel like no one really knows so little.
Speaker 3: Strategies like that can help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, planning your head preparing.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the little things. And our guest on
Speaker 2: the podcast today is master health coach read George. We're
Speaker 2: talking about how alcohol affects our well being and how
Speaker 2: we can rethink our relationship with alcohol. We'll be back
Speaker 2: shortly after this break red. We spoke a little bit
Speaker 2: at the beginning of the podcast about the impact that
Speaker 2: alcohol has on perimenopause and menopause or women, but it
Speaker 2: actually has an impact on all of us and all
Speaker 2: times in our life. Maybe we could just you know,
Speaker 2: we know so much more about alcohol. There's been so
Speaker 2: much more research done. Could we just touch on what
Speaker 2: it does impact what drinking, the impact it has on
Speaker 2: our bodies, our brains, It impacts everything, doesn't.
Speaker 3: It absolutely does. As a mental health coach, which was
Speaker 3: my niche for a long time, I see the impact
Speaker 3: of alcohol on our mood is huge. So anxiety is
Speaker 3: a very real thing. That feeling of anxiety the next
Speaker 3: day and the compound effect of alcohol on our mood.
Speaker 3: Then also with the brain, our ability to concentrate, clarity, focus,
Speaker 3: all of those things are really related physiologically, is it
Speaker 3: upping risks of.
Speaker 1: Other diseases?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm moving more into the metabolic health space now,
Speaker 3: and it does increase the chances of a lot of
Speaker 3: metabolic diseases, chronic diseases, of which neurodegeneration is a massive one.
Speaker 3: So looking after the health of our brains. Alcohol's not
Speaker 3: serving us when it comes to mental mental health and brains.
Speaker 1: Why do we get a headache? I've heard various things.
Speaker 1: So I've heard that it was that the excess that
Speaker 1: the liver can't process turns into something and gives you
Speaker 1: the headache? Is it or is it simplest dehydration?
Speaker 3: Probably a combination of both, right, Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I think if I wake up with a headache, I
Speaker 1: used will care take a couple on your frind If
Speaker 1: I wake up with a headache, Now I feel a
Speaker 1: little bit embarrassed about myself because I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: you bloody knew that and you did it anyway, and now,
Speaker 1: poor head. I think I don't know where the menopause
Speaker 1: and having to think about it all the funny symptoms
Speaker 1: of menopause makes you be more in your body and
Speaker 1: more sympathetic to your own body. Maybe it does I
Speaker 1: don't know. For me, maybe it has because I feel
Speaker 1: more like a whole person and so I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. But I didn't used to feel like that.
Speaker 1: So that's I guess that's a good thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's you, you know, your whole self compassion piece too.
Speaker 3: I think we get better at that as we get
Speaker 3: older as well.
Speaker 1: Also, no one's going to make my day worse. Yep,
Speaker 1: and read.
Speaker 2: There's you know, we've made some pretty substantial connections between
Speaker 2: alcohol and cancer and various cancers, haven't we.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. I think there's seven cancers that alcohol has
Speaker 3: been shown to increase the risk. Of the main ones
Speaker 3: for women is breast cancer because alcohol can increase the
Speaker 3: production of estrogen, which we know is linked to breast cancer.
Speaker 3: And then all the cancers are the mouth and throat
Speaker 3: and bowel cancer.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. I did read about the mouth and throat
Speaker 1: and that's obviously the same for what ever gender you are.
Speaker 1: It's crazy that such a carcinogen is so so acceptable
Speaker 1: and free. Yeah, like we I mean, when we didn't
Speaker 1: know about cigarettes. Obviously, cigarettes were touted as a way
Speaker 1: to relax, and then we knew and then for a
Speaker 1: large proportion of the population. We were able to go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's just not something I've ever going to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if we ever have a conversation on news talks
Speaker 2: would be our lovely listeners. If you ever have a
Speaker 2: talk about conversation and talking about cannabis, people just run
Speaker 2: and just go alcohol. You know that to them is
Speaker 2: the beginning and the end of their argument. We have
Speaker 2: legalized this this product, and you know, people take it
Speaker 2: freely and willingly, and we sort of tell people what
Speaker 2: the consequences are, but maybe not clearly enough. You know,
Speaker 2: it's interesting, Hey, does alcohol affect men and women differently?
Speaker 3: It can, Like anything with metabolism, it's quite different from
Speaker 3: men and women. And also size of the body when
Speaker 3: you think about it. Just you know, bigger people have
Speaker 3: more water. They can often drink more than smaller.
Speaker 2: Because there's this thing about lu saying, oh, when I
Speaker 2: wait with a headache, water is that I was wondering.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you have two drinks and you go, gosh, I
Speaker 2: feel relatedly, and then other times you get through a
Speaker 2: bottle and you go, well, it hasn't touched the Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I'm kind of like I have two nice little
Speaker 2: glasses and I'm sitting here going okay, yeah, that's I think.
Speaker 1: I'm on I follow a few this soberish mum and
Speaker 1: something else on Instagram with some other woman. And she's
Speaker 1: really curious because she said, she said exactly that. She said,
Speaker 1: here's a tip for people who want to cut down
Speaker 1: their alcohol. Have two standard drinks over a you know,
Speaker 1: a reasonable amount of time, and stop there and think
Speaker 1: about if you've got a little bit of a buzz on.
Speaker 1: If you've got a little bit of a buzz on,
Speaker 1: more alcohol is going to ruin it. So stop right there.
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, that is so bloody sensible.
Speaker 3: Easier said than done, though right.
Speaker 1: The circumstances, there's got lots of great advice.
Speaker 3: When I hear that, what I hear is the idea
Speaker 3: of data points. So there's a really amazing woman, any
Speaker 3: Grace over in the States, and she's written a book
Speaker 3: called This Naked. If anyone's come across it, and if
Speaker 3: someone's doing a thirty day alcohol experiment trying to reduce
Speaker 3: alcohol or remove it, then if they do happen to drink,
Speaker 3: we call it a data point. It's just data. There's
Speaker 3: no judgment. Let's be curious about that. Rather than you know,
Speaker 3: all the other things, and so those data points. If
Speaker 3: you have two drinks one night, we look at the
Speaker 3: data what was leading up to that, you know, what
Speaker 3: happened earlier in the day, what did you eat, what's
Speaker 3: your emotional regulation like, what's your stress sybils like? And
Speaker 3: then if someone has a bottle, we do the same thing.
Speaker 3: And so you can often look back and say, on
Speaker 3: certain days when I've been pushed to the nth degree,
Speaker 3: really stressed, worried, whatever, the two drinks are not even
Speaker 3: going to touch the site, you know, Like, it can
Speaker 3: be quite insightful if you look back and say, what
Speaker 3: was leading.
Speaker 2: Up too, okay, because I really, oh, I haven't I
Speaker 2: haven't eaten enough today.
Speaker 1: But then sometimes go yeah I have, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: It can just effect us in different ways, depending on
Speaker 3: so many things.
Speaker 1: I think that's what's complex.
Speaker 2: You mentioned any Grace there, and I had to immediately
Speaker 2: quickly google her because The Alco Whole Experiment is a
Speaker 2: book that she wrote, and that was the first book.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is quite a while ago, twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: it came out and it was given to me, and
Speaker 2: it was the first time someone truly explained to me
Speaker 2: addiction and why we want to drink, the psychology behind it.
Speaker 2: I suppose of why you reach for that glass of
Speaker 2: wine each night.
Speaker 1: It made you.
Speaker 2: Sort of understand, It made me understand sort of it
Speaker 2: in a big context. I suppose that was a really Yeah.
Speaker 3: We use it a lot with clients. And her other one,
Speaker 3: This Naked Mind, is really good too, because I think
Speaker 3: when people want to make a change to their relationship
Speaker 3: to alcohol, you do need to upscale about the knowledge
Speaker 3: to really be informed about why you're making the change
Speaker 3: that you're making. I think if people don't know, it's
Speaker 3: really hard to sustain that behavior change. So her books
Speaker 3: are great for anyone who wants to start learning about
Speaker 3: the knowledge behind it.
Speaker 1: So the person who can, who has always been able
Speaker 1: to take or leave a drink right and a tray
Speaker 1: of champagne is coming past you or winning and they go, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I'm good things. I would you know is that luck?
Speaker 3: Or is that is that it's a combination of things,
Speaker 3: partly genetics. We know there is definitely a genetic component
Speaker 3: to it. I have lived experience with that, which is
Speaker 3: part of my passion for this space, and it's like
Speaker 3: a switch. So the genetic component can be there, but epigenetics,
Speaker 3: thatid idea of how we can change our lifestyle around it,
Speaker 3: can determine whether or not that that switches flicked.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean you've got to flick that switch yourself.
Speaker 3: It can be flicked.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I guess if you know that there is a
Speaker 3: tendency maybe family history, I would on the side of
Speaker 3: caution and ask people to be a little bit more
Speaker 3: aware of where it sits with them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's that's fascinating because I come from a family where
Speaker 1: my parents weren't large drinkers, but as a large broader family,
Speaker 1: alcohol was at most family events, certainly funerals yea and
Speaker 1: Irish family, and then of course there was rugby and
Speaker 1: clubrooms and all of that stuff. And a bit like
Speaker 1: what we were talking about with another guest that they
Speaker 1: thought that that day in the future where where you'll
Speaker 1: moderate or you'll stop, or you'll change, then you get
Speaker 1: to I think menopause for me anyway of actually physiologically
Speaker 1: feeling different, going, Oh, actually that day is fast approaching.
Speaker 1: I need to actually address this. And I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this in relation to my children who are teenagers.
Speaker 1: Now I know they probably don't want us to talk
Speaker 1: about this, but you know, can you be a bit
Speaker 1: and shrinker when you're young? Can you afford to be
Speaker 1: a bin drink ever?
Speaker 3: Short answer, no, bin drinking will have an effect on
Speaker 3: your body and your mind right. But I have worked
Speaker 3: with people who would put themselves in that category and
Speaker 3: then they got to a point where that was affecting things.
Speaker 3: And that's the definition of addiction is when you're doing
Speaker 3: something that has a new give effect on relationships or
Speaker 3: education or finances, but you continue to do it, and
Speaker 3: some people will get to the point where it l
Speaker 3: like this is not serving me. I need to get
Speaker 3: some help. Young people these days, though, I'm finding, are
Speaker 3: very aware of this, and if anything, they are coming
Speaker 3: through a little bit more self aware about where alcohol sits.
Speaker 3: I also have teenagers. I'm not sure if they're quite
Speaker 3: there yet, but you know, definitely twenties and early thirties,
Speaker 3: whatever generation that is. The options of alcohol free alternatives
Speaker 3: are being taken up a lot more by them, and.
Speaker 1: I think they're a bit more in bolding just to
Speaker 1: say too, no, I'm not doing it tonight or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, they can't afford it, They.
Speaker 3: Can't afford it, and they can see the negative impacts
Speaker 3: of it, possibly when they're looking at, you know, other
Speaker 3: people in their lives and maybe choosing not to that.
Speaker 2: I said to one of my kids the other day, Ree,
Speaker 2: who is in Canterbury and christ Church at University of
Speaker 2: Canterbury and loves to ski, to me the other day, I said,
Speaker 2: don't need alcohol ruin an amazing What something amazing you
Speaker 2: want to do the next day?
Speaker 1: I think that.
Speaker 2: And that's something that somebody told me, who was a runner,
Speaker 2: who said to me, I don't I'm going on this
Speaker 2: great adventure tomorrow morning, and I'm going on this great run.
Speaker 1: I don't want alcohol to ruin that. And it made
Speaker 1: me sort.
Speaker 2: Of think a little bit differently about my drinking. And
Speaker 2: I passed this song to my child, who then announced
Speaker 2: that they were perfectly capable of hitting the bush in
Speaker 2: and going skiing the next day because they're young. And
Speaker 2: the okay, that didn't hurt, but you know they were
Speaker 2: one day.
Speaker 1: But those Francis because loves an early morning run, right,
Speaker 1: and if I if I want company, then I've learned
Speaker 1: to just go on an early run. And those Saturday
Speaker 1: mornings we head up to the y chakarees are great
Speaker 1: because that Friday night, I'm like, well, I do not
Speaker 1: want to get up there and feel CD when this
Speaker 1: beautiful environment and it's always Saturday night to have a drink.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also a franchis grow and I socialize. It's quite often
Speaker 1: on a Sunday because you work on a Sunday morning,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of like it's a Friday, it's your Friday.
Speaker 1: So she's feeling peppy, you ready to have a glass
Speaker 1: of rose it but it's nice and again we shorter,
Speaker 1: sort of more quality. I think catch ups.
Speaker 3: And what you've both alluded to is what we work
Speaker 3: with in this space with health coaching is what really
Speaker 3: matters to you and how is this getting in the way.
Speaker 3: So if it's the early morning runs or if it's
Speaker 3: something else, it's really important. But you're finding alcohols getting
Speaker 3: in the way of that. That's where you can really
Speaker 3: start to focus and say, hey, if you really want
Speaker 3: this thing tomorrow or this thing down the track, let's
Speaker 3: have a look at work. Alcohol is maybe holding it
Speaker 3: back a little bit.
Speaker 1: I know there's been times where I could drink nearly
Speaker 1: a bottle of wine and still get up and do
Speaker 1: that and not and it really and go and pretend
Speaker 1: to myself it wasn't. Again, it's about this being honest
Speaker 1: with yourself. It wasn't really affecting me. But of course
Speaker 1: I would have done better and gone faster and enjoyed
Speaker 1: it more without it. But just because you can doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you should.
Speaker 3: And metabolically, if we're looking at physiology of our bodies,
Speaker 3: it just it's it's not serving us. So, yes, you
Speaker 3: could still do the run, but think about how your
Speaker 3: muscles are getting oxygen. And my backgrounds physiotherapy, so I
Speaker 3: always think that the body is like, actually, you could
Speaker 3: do it, but are you getting the best out of
Speaker 3: that run? Are you more prone to injury? Are your
Speaker 3: muscles really going to be doing what they are designed
Speaker 3: to do?
Speaker 1: And when you're on a trail you do have to
Speaker 1: be somewhat sharp. You don't want to something you know,
Speaker 1: it's I'm a bit of a fall around.
Speaker 2: I was just about to say, we're hard pushed to
Speaker 2: find an event that.
Speaker 3: Well, it's clarity and focus to isn't it. It wasn't
Speaker 3: because I want a BUIKRL whatever.
Speaker 2: So you might be thinking about rethinking your relationship with
Speaker 2: alcohol might not be a problem just yet, but you
Speaker 2: might be thinking about it if you if you definitely
Speaker 2: do have a problem. Is there do we have a
Speaker 2: definition for an addict or is it just when alcohol
Speaker 2: impacting your life or the amount you drink?
Speaker 3: How do you know if you there are working definitions
Speaker 3: of where addiction sits if it's affecting the things we
Speaker 3: mentioned before, But most people will know most people will
Speaker 3: have that gut feeling they wake up the next morning,
Speaker 3: and that's that cognitive dissonance.
Speaker 1: So you don't have to get to like rock bottom, right,
Speaker 1: That's the thing, and that's.
Speaker 3: Where we sit. That's where I am so passionate. Is
Speaker 3: I've seen people get to rock bottom. I have lived
Speaker 3: through people very close at rock bottom. And if we
Speaker 3: can help in that mild to moderate even mild, you know,
Speaker 3: that's where conversations can take place.
Speaker 1: And I think it's probably where the majority of people
Speaker 1: absolute and we might in the back of our mind
Speaker 1: be going, oh, I really should address this again, you know,
Speaker 1: kicking the can down the road a bit. Is there
Speaker 1: a I mean, I guess there's not a timeframe when
Speaker 1: it's more just waking up that morning going eat year.
Speaker 1: I don't want this for myself.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And it could be as easy as having a
Speaker 3: chat with a friend, you know, just checking with a
Speaker 3: friend about it. And it doesn't need to be anything
Speaker 3: huge to start with. It's just maybe saying the words
Speaker 3: out loud to a trusted, confident or someone that loves
Speaker 3: you to say, hey, this is what I'm thinking. And
Speaker 3: then if you do decide that you need some help,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of different ways you can find support
Speaker 3: out there to take the next step.
Speaker 1: I think I have been guilty of I've definitely said
Speaker 1: it to you. I said to you, if I can't
Speaker 1: moderate my drinking, I'm just going to stop. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I've said that more than once. And then yeah, I can't.
Speaker 1: I think that's the where the reset that's got me
Speaker 1: thinking today, Actually, lou what you need as a reset?
Speaker 1: I had it when I was ill and I was
Speaker 1: recovering and I didn't drink for ages and ages and ages.
Speaker 1: And then I went on this fabulous holiday and you know,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to be here after a beautiful day
Speaker 1: out and the you know, yeah, and so I started again.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying I'm you know, absolutely piss heead, but.
Speaker 3: Gray area drinking is a thing and gray area drinking
Speaker 3: where you're just not sure. Sometimes you try and moderate,
Speaker 3: sometimes you try not to. Like that actually takes more energy,
Speaker 3: And I'm not going to drink for a certain amount
Speaker 3: of time because once you've decided that, you've taken the
Speaker 3: decision making out of it each day. I'm now at
Speaker 3: this stage where I can drink if i'd like to,
Speaker 3: I cannot drink if I don't want to. You know,
Speaker 3: I've reset it that way. But gray area drinking, if
Speaker 3: anyone's sitting in that space trying to moderate, that's actually harder.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it takes more energy.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned maybe just say it out loud, mention
Speaker 2: it to a friend, have a start a conversation about it.
Speaker 2: You might feel you do need some help. What are
Speaker 2: the other sort of practical steps that somebody could do
Speaker 2: who was just thinking of resetting?
Speaker 3: Having a chat with your GP is a great place
Speaker 3: to start if you've got a good relationship with a GP,
Speaker 3: because they have a whole heap of referral partners at
Speaker 3: their fingertips that they could help guide you to. There
Speaker 3: are quite a few health coaches working in the space
Speaker 3: private practices. You could google health coaching alcohol coaches are
Speaker 3: trained to listen and to ask powerful questions to get
Speaker 3: you thinking and to increase your own insight. So they're
Speaker 3: not experts out there that's going to tell you more
Speaker 3: of the same kind of knowledge. They're designed to help
Speaker 3: you move forward with your own decision making.
Speaker 1: I certainly know lots of friends who have said to me,
Speaker 1: just wish there was somewhere I could go for six weeks,
Speaker 1: you know, like you see on American TV shows. Maybe
Speaker 1: not twenty eight days, but you know one of those places.
Speaker 1: It's in the woods somewhere, and there's y gogur every
Speaker 1: morning in a beautiful you know, perfectly adjusted food for
Speaker 1: you every day, and you have a counseling session every day.
Speaker 1: Those don't really exist here, do they.
Speaker 3: We do have some, oh we do. We do have
Speaker 3: some here in New Zealand. Absolutely. But the thing is
Speaker 3: that it's about being able to regulate all this in
Speaker 3: the real world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but hopefully Yeah.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite quotes is finding peace in the
Speaker 3: midst of chaos. It's not going and meditating on a
Speaker 3: mountain for ten days. It's actually bringing this into our
Speaker 3: real lives.
Speaker 1: Won't be a bad start, though.
Speaker 2: How do we if there is if we've got a partner,
Speaker 2: or a family member or a dear friend and we
Speaker 2: are concerned about their drinking and the impact that's having
Speaker 2: on them. It's a conversation, which I've learned over the years,
Speaker 2: doesn't really generally go down, well, how do you? How
Speaker 2: can you start that conversation with someone that you might
Speaker 2: be worried about?
Speaker 3: I agree it's a tough one, opening the conversation up
Speaker 3: with love and compassion and understanding without judgment. Often it's
Speaker 3: when they're sober and remorseful.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's when you want to get them.
Speaker 3: It's hard hurting a but yeah, if it's at the
Speaker 3: nth degree. If someone is currently sober so not drinking
Speaker 3: at that time, but they're remorseful about something that's happened,
Speaker 3: that is often a time where a loving, compassionate, curing conversation.
Speaker 1: I guess you're right. It's when the door is just
Speaker 1: slightly open, isn't it to saying if you really feel
Speaker 1: that way or you.
Speaker 3: Know, yeah, and asking them, you know, like a powerful question,
Speaker 3: are you okay? I've noticed this? You could talk about
Speaker 3: the impact it's having on you. If it's someone you
Speaker 3: know that I've noticed that the of your drinking, this
Speaker 3: is what it's having on me, and then leave space
Speaker 3: for them to talk.
Speaker 1: It's very easy if it's a person you're living with,
Speaker 1: to enable each other a bit, isn't it Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we don't normally drink through the week, but but there's
Speaker 1: that butt of wine and we've both had a rough day,
Speaker 1: and let's open that sort of thing, and the we
Speaker 1: can fall into that trap a little bit and well,
Speaker 1: well it's red wine, so it's okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that can also work in your favor, is
Speaker 3: to enlist the support of that person if you're both
Speaker 3: able to help. Yeah, So it can work in both ways.
Speaker 3: It can.
Speaker 1: So it just takes one person to say, well, no,
Speaker 1: because we don't drink through the week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and can we do this together?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Difficult though.
Speaker 2: And then if you want to support that person, what's
Speaker 2: what's the most important thing you can do?
Speaker 1: Is it not drinking with them.
Speaker 2: Or not necessarily yeah, because because that might not be
Speaker 2: sustainable going forward.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really about that person figuring out what they
Speaker 3: need to successfully not to drink. And it's not always
Speaker 3: that there's no alcohol in the house or that the
Speaker 3: people that live with them don't drink. But that's a
Speaker 3: really tough one, really tough.
Speaker 1: It makes you think because differently, we don't keep a
Speaker 1: cellar that's for settin, but there would you know, there's
Speaker 1: always a couple of bottles bought in the supermarket shop
Speaker 1: and leaving them in the shelves.
Speaker 3: You know, it's temptations. Yeah, what can work to is
Speaker 3: increasing friction between us and the habit that we don't
Speaker 3: want to be doing right. So if the alcohol is
Speaker 3: not there, it's much harder to then get it. So
Speaker 3: it could be that you remove it for a little while,
Speaker 3: or I've worked with people who just put it somewhere else,
Speaker 3: or lock it away, or have it away from the
Speaker 3: person who needs to increase the friction between them.
Speaker 1: We're not a family that ever have. My daughter rang
Speaker 1: me from the bottle store last night, in fact, and said,
Speaker 1: but if we got these straight, so I might just
Speaker 1: get some mixes. I'm like, you know what, we don't
Speaker 1: have any straight booze in the house. I think maybe
Speaker 1: when we got straight, I didn't know what it was anything.
Speaker 1: I know the kids said completely different teams. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: just don't have it tally alcohol free beer. I do
Speaker 1: find quite useful to have in the house if I'm not.
Speaker 2: I had an alcohol free beer the other day at
Speaker 2: a function, and I could not believe how far it
Speaker 2: has come. It tasted like a normal beer. I know,
Speaker 2: hard to drink beer, so but I just went.
Speaker 3: And the last five things have come so far, I
Speaker 3: still haven't found a good alcohol free red wine or rose.
Speaker 1: No, They're a bit harder to come by. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean part of me is like, if I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do it, I just you know. And also
Speaker 1: I actually found I did use alcohol free wines when
Speaker 1: I was doing my one hundred slash seventy five days
Speaker 1: and and and there was something about the process to
Speaker 1: remove the alcohol that increased something else and it gave
Speaker 1: me a headache.
Speaker 3: It's actually not great they make. My understanding is they
Speaker 3: make the alcohol wine and then remove the alcohol from it.
Speaker 1: So and the extraction process might include I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not begging it. I'm sure it has
Speaker 1: a place, and I'm sure they're working on getting it
Speaker 1: really really beautiful, but I'd rather just wait and have that,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there are a few other people who
Speaker 2: are not using like non alcohol manufacturers who are doing it.
Speaker 1: Differently, and I think it would be good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks that if rosees packed and rose is quite,
Speaker 2: it's pretty good, I must say, for a special.
Speaker 1: So I was just gonna ask about we tell ourselves
Speaker 1: things like red wine is not as bad as blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. Is that nonsense?
Speaker 3: Red wine still has alcoholis supposed to you.
Speaker 1: The dan but or whatever the guy zones. He phrases
Speaker 1: he's at one hundred years. No he's not, but he's hundred.
Speaker 2: Oh no.
Speaker 1: They who talks.
Speaker 3: About talks about antivity.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he talks about the red wine and the
Speaker 1: Europeans and the Mediterraneans, you know, just having but they
Speaker 1: have tiny, tiny glasses and they sit around and.
Speaker 3: They eat real food and during the day up and done.
Speaker 3: How is it they do all the thing?
Speaker 1: But what he's what he's really pushing there always is
Speaker 1: it's the socialization. It's the connection and moderation. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they're not sitting around getting wasted every night together.
Speaker 3: It's the intention behind it. Yeah, big time.
Speaker 2: I'd love to just quickly before we wrap this up, Breeze,
Speaker 2: talk about our drinking guidelines, because that is what a
Speaker 2: lot of people do refer to, or that is where
Speaker 2: a lot about education comes from. Our drinking guidelines say
Speaker 2: that to stay low risk, men should have no more
Speaker 2: than fifteen drinks per week, women ten. I know that
Speaker 2: quite a few countries are changing their guidelines. Are we
Speaker 2: up to speed? Do you think these the guidelines are sensible?
Speaker 3: They're very high guidelines. A lot of countries are reducing
Speaker 3: their guidelines. What I've found is that they're not a target,
Speaker 3: you know, they're like a guideline.
Speaker 1: Actually it's a good point.
Speaker 3: And with the guidelines at standard drinks, but you've got
Speaker 3: to remember that standard drinks are much smaller than we
Speaker 3: would naturally pour ourselves a hot so one bottle of
Speaker 3: wine seven hundred and fifty mils, it's something like seven
Speaker 3: or standard drinks, which if we've only got ten standard
Speaker 3: drinks in a week, that you know, it doesn't take
Speaker 3: much to realize that the guidelines.
Speaker 1: Are Yeah, because Canadas think God done to two.
Speaker 2: No, they've recommended it to me, it hasn't been taken
Speaker 2: on board. But my GPS said that to me. You know,
Speaker 2: she was trying to make it really clear to me
Speaker 2: that other countries. Here in New Zealand, we're not really
Speaker 2: stepping up to the plate and I know that they're
Speaker 2: being looked at the moment, but but you know, her
Speaker 2: point to me was, you know they're saying two a week.
Speaker 2: That was a recommendation from from a from a health
Speaker 2: organization in Canada. They haven't taken that on board yet,
Speaker 2: but I mean, that's how extreme they want it to
Speaker 2: go in order to get the message across, you know,
Speaker 2: about what low risk really is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we haven't even talked about that. And this is
Speaker 1: not the forum necessarily about all the social harm that
Speaker 1: alcohol does as well. So you know, leaving these things
Speaker 1: relatively high seems a bit, you know, a little bit naughty.
Speaker 1: But is it? Is it politics? Is it the what
Speaker 1: do they call them, the lobbyists, or is that impacting it?
Speaker 1: Or is it is it evidence based?
Speaker 3: Think it's probably a bit of all of the above.
Speaker 3: But from my where I come from, with health, even
Speaker 3: less than the guidelines are still going to have an
Speaker 3: impact on your body and your the lower lowered guidelines
Speaker 3: I would definitely support when it comes to health and
Speaker 3: well being in.
Speaker 2: And look at as politics. So in July this year,
Speaker 2: and OIA Request uncovered a few issues in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: One the question as to where the alcohol guidelines would
Speaker 2: come under the Ministry of Health or Health New Zealand.
Speaker 2: Initially it was with Health New Zealand, but it was
Speaker 2: also discovered that Health New Zealand found New Zealand's official
Speaker 2: Low Risk Drinking guidelines were outdated and understated the health
Speaker 2: risks of alcohol. However, the efforts to upgrade update the
Speaker 2: guidelines were halted after alcohol lobbyists complained with the Ministry
Speaker 2: of Health General Manager. Then the Ministry of Health was
Speaker 2: given the job of mannington the guidelines, which are now
Speaker 2: on hold. So you don't Yes, there's absolutely an awful
Speaker 2: lot of politics involved and a lot of people are
Speaker 2: having their saying what the guidelines should be. And I
Speaker 2: think you just probably summed it up really nicely there.
Speaker 2: Rate alcohol is alcohol.
Speaker 1: So our body doesn't know what the guidelines are. You know,
Speaker 1: our liver doesn't know what the guidelines are. So let's
Speaker 1: just reduce our own use and really analyze why we're
Speaker 1: doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a very personal thing, you know, the effect
Speaker 3: it has on you and where it sits in your life.
Speaker 3: So that's probably my takeaway from today is just taking
Speaker 3: a pause. You know a lot of people are auto pilot,
Speaker 3: just pause and reflect on where it sits in your life.
Speaker 1: Do you know anything about these things that you can take.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to get away with this, by the way,
Speaker 1: but the z biotics and stuff that the hyundi and
Speaker 1: that did they work? Are they real?
Speaker 3: That's what you take resept They don't change your body's
Speaker 3: detox pathways of alcohol, right.
Speaker 1: You know, they're not for me.
Speaker 3: They are like a band aid on a cut. It'll
Speaker 3: be trying to reduce the feeling you get of the
Speaker 3: hangover the next day. Metabolically, it's going to be just
Speaker 3: as bad for you if not, you know, it's Yeah, No,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't recommend them. They just they're not going to
Speaker 3: stop what we know is going to happen anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, it's just gonna so they're not They're not
Speaker 1: offering any protective metabolic factor at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: No, I don't believe so. And if anything, it might
Speaker 3: lead people to drink more thinking that they can get
Speaker 3: away with it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's kind of weird, isn't it. I'll take this so
Speaker 1: I can drink more when I could just strictly and
Speaker 1: slow down.
Speaker 3: There's the thing. It's like two different things that cancel
Speaker 3: each other out. But you know that's.
Speaker 1: Humans for you.
Speaker 3: But we are we're complex.
Speaker 2: Ray. I can't thank you enough for your time today
Speaker 2: and for this conversation. I found seeing quite positive about
Speaker 2: the stories.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, as I said to you, a little
Speaker 2: bit hesitant. I think it's this conversation. But actually I
Speaker 2: think we're I think we've been quite I think we're
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, totally. I think that there is always
Speaker 1: that little thing that goes if I do start to
Speaker 1: analyze really why I'm doing this, what of it? There's
Speaker 1: just that can of worms feeling a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: But I'm not. I'm not worried. The worms need to
Speaker 1: come out and be binned.
Speaker 2: So George, thank you so much. Where do people find you?
Speaker 3: Think you'll find me anywhere. I'm sure if you google
Speaker 3: red George will come up health coaching. I have a
Speaker 3: website dub dub dub dot Regeorge dot com.
Speaker 1: Oh there's a lot of information on there. It's really
Speaker 1: really useful. Thanks so much.
Speaker 3: Fore, thanklcha, Thank you both.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna go home and tiple your wine down
Speaker 1: the Saint Francisco.
Speaker 2: No because we're like, yeah, we don't have a huge
Speaker 2: amount in the in the house at all times anyway,
Speaker 2: which is probably.
Speaker 1: What's it called hum reduction. I didn't play. We had
Speaker 1: before children, we had a seller and we had yeah,
Speaker 1: because I had dabbled in wine making at one point.
Speaker 1: That's and I had a lot of wine making friends.
Speaker 1: And though I was intended ever to just open that
Speaker 1: really special bottle of wine, it was I was quite
Speaker 1: a bit. I can't remember when we must have just
Speaker 1: busted in there and rigged it, do you know?
Speaker 2: I thought. I just love Ree's approach, which is completely
Speaker 2: lacking in judgment, you know, just wants to encourry people
Speaker 2: to have a little think about their alcohol consumption. You know,
Speaker 2: I've been doing a bit of a metabolism reset this year,
Speaker 2: and part of that has been the alcohol. And you know,
Speaker 2: I've had to sort of have a think about a
Speaker 2: few things about why you drink and how it makes
Speaker 2: you feel and being honest with myself about that. And
Speaker 2: I'm definitely benefiting from drinking less. I get that. But
Speaker 2: if she says it's personal too, so yeah, you know
Speaker 2: you don't. You don't need to do what your friend
Speaker 2: does or your partner does or something like that. This
Speaker 2: is just something for you to have a think about
Speaker 2: about how it impacts your life, the role it plays
Speaker 2: in your life, the place you want to have it
Speaker 2: to play in your life, and even if you're just
Speaker 2: at some point this week go for a walk and
Speaker 2: quietly think about it to yourself.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a box ticked. And I hope,
Speaker 1: you know, I hope that if when we open this today,
Speaker 1: that this topic today and you went, oh, well, I
Speaker 1: don't really drink very much, I can take it, leave it,
Speaker 1: that you keep listening because there will be someone in
Speaker 1: your life who could be struggling with it. And you know,
Speaker 1: bloody good on you if you're a person who can
Speaker 1: take it or leave it, and particularly at a special occasion.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think what we said also about
Speaker 1: it being so personal and just meeting yourself where you are,
Speaker 1: and it's not easy.
Speaker 2: It's not easy for the people who want to make
Speaker 2: a decision, want to make a change, and I think
Speaker 2: whatever way you can support people is really important.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, absolutely, I love that. Did you get some
Speaker 2: joy this week?
Speaker 1: I got bundles?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we did the interview with Nadine and
Speaker 1: I left and my tie was completely flattened on the
Speaker 1: rim of my moped. By the way, if you've seen
Speaker 1: me around that, I'm the nutter on the moped. But
Speaker 1: I went round to this is it beat trod down
Speaker 1: here the BP and it's sevastation or proper sevistation with
Speaker 1: people in it, you know, like a guy behind the
Speaker 1: counter came out and helped me. And I haven't really
Speaker 1: needed to use that first of all free year. How
Speaker 1: good is that? I mean, it's pretty cool. Nothing's free.
Speaker 1: There are still.
Speaker 2: People working the way, but they're just not on the court.
Speaker 1: That's right. They're not doing your picture for you. And
Speaker 1: therefore I'd stopped thinking about them. I just think about
Speaker 1: the people who you pay.
Speaker 2: You've got some customer suits. I got a customer service
Speaker 2: and it was a joy.
Speaker 1: And yes, and then this is the crazy crazy thing.
Speaker 1: I'm at my local supermarket, which is quite some distance
Speaker 1: from that petrol station, picking up where it was all
Speaker 1: of wine anyway, and I hear this voice behind me going, oh,
Speaker 1: you got your tire fix then? And what? And I
Speaker 1: turned around it was him and I said, I have really,
Speaker 1: do you get the chance to thank the person who
Speaker 1: gave you a favor you think you're never going to
Speaker 1: see them again. I said, I want to tell you,
Speaker 1: I've told so many people about your kindness and you
Speaker 1: know how how love you. He just looked at me
Speaker 1: like I was crazy. That's okay, And I didn't also
Speaker 1: want to tell him, No, I haven't got my tire fix.
Speaker 1: It just hasn't got down again. So that was my joy?
Speaker 1: What about you? My joy is really simple.
Speaker 2: This week I got back to pottery and I made
Speaker 2: something with my hands, and I forgot about the real
Speaker 2: world and everything in it for a couple of hours.
Speaker 2: And I created something, and I played, and I just
Speaker 2: took time out and I was creative and I don't know,
Speaker 2: just repairs my brain.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can get a wheel at home when you
Speaker 1: feel like a drink. You can just see your hands
Speaker 1: and some clay. No, I love it.
Speaker 2: I think I just think we forget to play, and
Speaker 2: I think I think we forget to take a moment
Speaker 2: and be creative. And yeah, it's nice to make something tangible.
Speaker 1: As absolutely there. I can't wait to start seeing some
Speaker 1: of the stuff. Yes, well, yeah, I'm not saying it's
Speaker 1: any good. No, not quite all right then.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us on our new Zealand Hill
Speaker 2: podcast series, The Little Things. We hope you share this
Speaker 2: podcast with the woman in your life. We can all
Speaker 2: have a guilt free rose ocasionally.
Speaker 1: And you can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. And for more episodes from us
Speaker 1: on other topics, head to zid Herald dot co dot
Speaker 1: nz
Speaker 2: And we'll catch you next time on the Little Things.