Can You Drink Again After Sobriety? The One Test That Tells You Everything

Hey everybody, welcome to the Addiction Unlimited podcast where you get to learn everything you want to know about addiction and recovery. I'm your host, Angela Pugh, co-founder of Kansas City Recovery, Life Coach, and Recovery and Alcoholic. To learn more about me, you can listen to Episode Zero on your podcast app or find us on the web at AddictionUnlimited.com. Hello my friend, welcome back to another episode of the Addiction Unlimited podcast. I'm your coach, Angela Pugh. I've been sober for 18 years. I'll be 19 pretty soon. I've worked in addiction recovery for 16 of those years. I started as a professional interventionist and traveled all over doing interventions and helping families get their loved ones into treatment. I went to addiction counseling school and practiced as a counselor for many years. I went to social work school. I got certified as a life coach, then reached master coach status, all working with addiction. I don't say that to tell you how cool I am, but so you know I'm not some schmuck off the street who doesn't know what the hell they're doing or talking about. And over all these years of my own sobriety and helping thousands of people navigate their sober journeys, one thing has always stood out that makes it clear to me our relationship with alcohol is different. And it will continue to be different for the rest of my life, no matter how long I go without a drink. So let's jump into this because I want you to understand why it's such a mess when you quit drinking for a while, then decide you can probably drink again. And I get it. I fell into the same trap. The first time I ever took a break from alcohol, which is also something "normal" drinkers don't do by the way, but I took a break for 30 days just to prove to myself that I could do it. I need to drink every day. The whole time I was counting down the days, I had a bottle of champagne in my refrigerator to celebrate my 30 days of no drinking. And I was convinced that I was only going to drink on special occasions from that point forward. I hit my 30 days, I opened that bottle of champagne and I was right back where I started pretty quickly drinking every day. So what is the thing? The thing that makes you and me different from those weirdos who sip on one glass of wine for an hour and leave half a glass sitting on the table and walk away. It's our mind space, right? It's your brain. It's how much of your mind space does drinking occupy? Or you hear me refer to it as your relationship with alcohol. I have an attachment to alcohol that is different and that doesn't change just because I don't drink anymore. It's how often you think about it. Your awareness of it when you're at a gathering or an event or a party, even after your sober for a while, how much are you still thinking about alcohol? And here's the truth, the fact that you're wondering if you can drink again and wanting to drink again is a problem. Non-alcoholic people never think about alcohol. They don't wonder if they have a problem or if they drink too much because they don't drink enough to wonder if they drink too much. They don't think about it or if there will be alcohol at whatever event or gathering they're going to because they don't care. They don't think about how many drinks they're going to have or not going to have. They don't put rules around their drinking. I'm only having two drinks. I'll only drink beer, no hard alcohol. I'll stop drinking at 10 pm. I'll only drink on the weekends or for special occasions. They don't do that. Non-alcoholic people are not planning parties with special cocktails or planning happy hours and finding the best drink specials or finding the right cup to hide their wine in at their kids' events. Quote-unquote "normal" drinkers don't do any of these things. They don't think about alcohol. They don't crave alcohol. They don't use alcohol to take the edge off their stress or to celebrate or to connect with friends. It's not their source of fun. They have lives outside of alcohol. So for those of us that have that preoccupation with alcohol, that is still going to exist regardless of how long I don't have a drink. And part of that, it is a brain thing. Your brain is physically changed by regular drinking. That doesn't mean you have to drink like me, right? I drink a lot every single day. You don't have to drink a lot every single day to change your brain, right? Unfortunately, alcohol is poison and it will change your brain even if you drink smaller amounts consistently. And there's a ton of research coming out right now talking about how there are zero benefits to even one drink. There's no amount of alcohol that is okay to drink or quote unquote "good for you." You know, there was a thing about red wine and a glass of red wine and I think it's the resveratrol in wine and they talked about this could be good for you or good for your heart or something. It's ridiculous. Now, they're debunking all of that and they're saying no. Like this is straight up poison and there is no amount that is really acceptable or good for your body or your brain. Alcohol is bad, my friends. And you know, in 12 steps we talk about higher power and I actually have a video coming out about higher power. I think it comes out Friday. Actually, it'll be in the Facebook group. I'll probably post it on my Instagram also, @addictionunlimited. If you don't follow me there, go there. It's lots of fun. We're joined the Facebook group. It's all linked in the show notes. But the higher power concept is kind of about what guides you, right? I think about it like your guiding light or your north star. It's kind of the thing that guides you, the thing in your life that you make decisions around. And this is also why in 12 steps we talk about your higher power can be anything you want. It's just what motivates you. For me, in the beginning for sure, my meeting, my noon meeting every day was my higher power. Because throughout my day, that's what I would think about. And be like, I can't wait to get back there tomorrow noon and tell them I'm still sober. And then I would go to work as bartender and I would tell everybody what I learned in my AA meeting that day. You know, it was my guiding light. It's what I made my decisions around was my noon meeting and getting back there every day to let them know I was still sober. And it was so fun to me. That was my higher power. Now listen, we can get real unhealthy with higher powers too. I've had relationships become my higher power, right? Where now all my decisions were around the relationship and where am I going to go and what time and how am I doing this and when am I going there and when am I not going there? And with all those life decisions started to revolve around the relationship. That's not super healthy either. It can be healthy, but it can be very unhealthy. But you see what I'm saying? It becomes your guiding light. Your north starts, the thing you make your decisions around. And this is where alcohol, for those of us that have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, alcohol becomes your higher power. Because it's what you think about. It's how you make your choices. What you're going to do, where you're going to go, where you're not going to go, who you're going to hang out with, who you're not going to hang out with. Where do I park when I go to this particular place because the drinks are over here? How long am I going to be in there before I get drinks? Do I need to bring my own drinks? Do I need to leave early to go get drinks? Right? It becomes your higher power. Non-alcoholic people do not have that. They do not have any of that. And I'll tell you a great story, too. This is really funny. This was just earlier this year. Me and my girlfriend went to Scottsdale to visit my best friend. My best friend lives in Phoenix and we went to visit him. And we're sitting in the lobby, the hotel waiting for my best friend to show up. And she and I are sitting there. And you know how they have these little areas in the hotels with coolers, drinks, the snacks. They just have these small areas where you can get some things. And she and I were sitting right in front of the cooler. And this is a cooler full of drinks. It waters, milks, anything and everything. And there's one row of alcoholic drinks. Maybe five different alcoholic drinks. If there were even that many, I don't know. But she and I sat there and literally had a 10 minute conversation about those alcoholic drinks. And I started laughing and I was like, do you hear us right now? We just spent 10 minutes talking about alcohol. Like, there were a million other things we couldn't do. have been talking about. We're in this beautiful hotel. My best friend is on his way. I'm super excited. I'm with my girlfriend who's one of my favorite people on the planet. And we're sitting there talking about the alcohol, right? That's how I know after 18 years sober, I still don't have a normal relationship with alcohol because I have this awareness of it that non-alcoholic people don't have. And what I want you to hear is this is who your brain is. It has nothing to do with you. You can have the best of intentions and think that you have all the control in the world. But if that were true, you wouldn't have stopped drinking in the first place. So you have to have an awareness of who you are and who your brain is. You know, I still walk into restaurants and automatically look at the bar. It's just who my brain is. Part of that's probably because I was a bartender for 20 years too. But I still glance over there, right? If you catch yourself having an awareness of who's drinking or who's not drinking, I just went through this recently also when I was with my mom. And we were at a thing and I was like, gosh, did you say, there was hardly anybody here drinking? Like, do you think my mom was standing around at this event, talking and laughing and enjoying herself, noticing how few people were drinking? No, because she's not an alcoholic. She doesn't care who's drinking and not drinking. She has zero awareness of alcohol. And this is another little barometer that I use, right? I will think of and for me, it's always my mom think of a non-alcoholic person and compare how you're thinking with how they're thinking, right? So again, standing at that event with my mom, I recognize like, my mom is not thinking about it. My mom is not wondering why there are so few people drinking here. Or what we usually do is we hyperfocus on how many people are drinking because we aren't drinking and we're different and we hyperfocus on those differences and make ourselves uncomfortable and make our anxiety skyrocket. But again, it's the awareness. So think about your thought processes and think about a non-alcoholic person and are they having the same thought processes. Is my mom wondering what kind of tequila the restaurant has when she hasn't had a tequila in 18 years? No, she's not. She doesn't care. I promise you, she probably has never thought about tequila except when it concerned me. No, zero awareness, zero preoccupation. But that's the thing, right? Those are the signs for me after 18 years sober that I still can't drink alcohol. Me and my girlfriend sitting in that hotel lobby spending 10 minutes talking about alcohol, two people with years of sobriety talking about alcohol. That's how I know my relationship with alcohol is still not normal. And first of all, you guys understand too. There's nothing normal about those people. We always say that I want to drink like a normal person. Okay, they're just as fucked up and weird as we are. They're fucked up and weird as just in different areas. Are fucked up and weird as with alcohol. There's just in different areas. But they're not normal. Nobody is normal. Whatever that is. Maybe our dogs. But listen, even my dogs weren't normal. I got to be honest. But that's how you know it doesn't matter how long you go without a drink. You have to have the awareness of how much mind space it's taking up. How much are you still thinking about it? Like I said earlier, the fact that you're sitting with some time sober and thinking about drinking again is an abnormal relationship without alcohol. It's taking too much of your mind space. That's not a normal thought process. A non-alcoholic person never thinks about alcohol in any way, shape, or form. Because it's just not on their radar. It's not their higher power. It's not their guiding light. It's not what they make their decisions around and how they plan things and what they're going to do and not going to do. Right? It's just not on their radar. So it doesn't matter if you have a weak sober or like me 18 years sober, I understand that my brain, I have an alcoholic brain. It functions a certain way and I have to understand that so I can work with it and work around it. You know, you hear me say a lot. One of my greatest keys to success is really understanding my shortcomings. Because I have to understand and know the things that I'm not good at so I can put things in place to protect myself or like in business. There's certain things I'm just not good at. There's certain things I just don't like to do. But that doesn't mean they don't get done. They still have to get done. But if that's one of my shortcomings, I have to understand that so I can put processes and or people in place to make sure the things still get done, but that I don't have to do them. Right? Because I'm not good at it. And this is one of those things. You have to understand who your brain is. You have to understand how your brain functions and you have to understand it doesn't matter how long you've been sober. If you have that preoccupation with alcohol, if it is your guiding light or North Star, higher power, you're not going to be able to drink again because it still takes up too much in your mind space. Drinking after a period of sobriety can have serious consequences. And I know I don't have to tell you that because most people go through this process many times before they finally quit for real. But it's essential to be aware of who you are and who your brain is. Otherwise, you're going to find yourself trapped in the same cycle of drinking that you've worked so hard to break. When you have a period of sobriety, you have fought through some really difficult challenges to get over the hump, especially if you're 30 days plus. Right? You've done some really hard work. And you don't want to undo that and be back at square one, right? And this is your mental and emotional well-being as well as your physical health. Not to mention the guilt and shame that come with the relapse, right? It's overwhelming. And that can make it even more challenging to get back on track. It strains your relationships with your friends and your family and yourself and it breaks down yourself as steam. It's really challenging. So again, have that level of honesty with yourself to understand who you are and who your brain is and how your brain thinks about alcohol. And that you quit for a reason. And the fact that you needed to quit is proof enough that you can't start again. And if you want some help, if you're struggling with the starts and stops and being back at day one again, reach out to me and see if we're a good fit to work together. Don't just assume that you can't do it or you can't afford it. Like, book a call with me. It's free. We can talk about some different options, what's going on for you, how I might be able to help you. And if I'm not the right fit for you, I can definitely steer you the right direction. And you can do addiction unlimited.com forward slash call. And that is linked in the show notes as well. It's not a free coaching session. So please don't think we're going to get on the phone and solve all of your problems because we definitely can't do that. I would spend my whole life in those calls if that's how we were doing it. But I would love to hear your situation and help you find some solutions for wherever you are in the journey. And if that's working with me, fantastic, we can rock this thing. Addictiononlimited.com forward slash call. It's linked in the show notes with the Facebook group and all that other stuff. But please understand you have to have that level of honesty with yourself. Just know who you are. And start watching your behaviors and your thought processes and really see like how much am I thinking about this thing? How attached am I to it? How aware of it and I in different situations. And that is really the only information you need to understand you can't drink again. I hope you're having a fantastic day. I love you and I will see you next week. You've reached the end of another great episode of the Addictiononlimited podcast, Candid and Honest Conversation about Addiction and Recovery. Be sure to visit us at Addictiononlimited.com to join the conversation and access show notes and links to everything we talked about. Love this episode? Please take 30 seconds to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes to help us improve and give you the information you want. Thanks for listening. See you next week.