The Intoxicating Lies of Alcohol with Meg Geisewite

Episode 147

This weeks podcast guest is Meg Geisewite who has written an excellent book shining a light on some of the many Lies and False Promises that alcohol makes.

She’s called her book "Intoxicating Lies" and she shares her own highly relatable story while busting myths about alcohol that have shaped the limiting beliefs of many drinkers.

Her book uncovers surprising insights into the alcohol industry and our society’s obsession with the mommy wine culture.

In this Episode

After college Meg did some modelling and as she puts it she was "the poster girl for Alcohol" – she was Miss Budweiser and the Guiness Girl to name just two of her modelling gigs
Fully buying into the false messaging from Big Alcohol that we need alcohol to have fun
As she got married and had children she found herself sucked into the mommyjuice culture – seeing it as an essential parenting aid.
The turning point for Meg came when as she puts it “My alcohol use was no longer recreational, it was medicinal”
This is a red flag of dependence for so many of us
If you’d like our free PDF called “30 signs you need to take a break from alcohol” then just email me – janet@tribesober.com
For Meg the shift from pleasure to medicinal came as she went through a particularly stressful time in her life
She felt “dutiful yet dead”, people pleasing and taking care of everybody’s needs but her own.
At this time she was seeing wine as a reward when she could finally grab some “me” time
Of course she now knows that this perceived “reward” was just adding to her stress and anxiety and as the external stressors reduced she found herself with a nightly wine habit
She plucked up the courage to tell her therapist that she was worried about her drinking – only to be told that she was simply thinking about it too much
That ill judged advice resulted in Meg drinking for 2 more years
We agreed that whatever your therapist/doctor/friend says to you about your drinking if it’s on your mind then reach out for some help and advice
Go to tribesober.com and hit join our tribe to join a sobriety community who can enable you to change your relationship with alcohol
We agreed that the stigma needs to be lifted from women and their drinking and we need to talk about it more openly
Of course that’s what Meg is trying to achieve with her book and what I am trying to achieve with this podcast
Society likes to put people in boxes and pushes the false belief that if we are not homeless alcoholics then we are fine
In fact we are likely to be somewhere on the Alcohol Use Disorder spectrum which is vast
Rather than compare ourselves with down and out alcoholics we should be comparing ourselves with the best version of ourselves we could be
Meg’s moment of truth came when she found herself resenting her kids staying late at school to do sport as it was interfering with her wine drinking time
She realised that she was no longer in control and this scared her
That’s when she joined Sober Sis – thinking that the 21 day reset would enable her to drink moderately
She just wanted some tools to help her to drink ‘normally”
Of course “normal drinking” is yet another intoxicating lie – once we’ve crossed the line into dependence we need to quit drinking completely and stop hankering after moderation
Moderate drinkers just moderate, they don’t have to join a reset program!
We agreed that in fact Sober Sis 21 day reset program appeals to a lot of people who are dependent but believe that they can moderate
The important thing is to bring these people into the conversation and that’s what we do with our 5 day Bootcamps

Published on 2 years, 11 months ago

Podcast Episode Details

The Intoxicating Lies of Alcohol with Meg Geisewite