Podcast Episode Details

Anxiety and Drinking - Casey Joins up the Dots

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Episode 66

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Tribe Sober - inspiring an alcohol-free life!

My guest this week is Casey McGuire Davidson who is from Seattle in the US.

Like me Casey was caught in the corporate workhard/playhard culture as well as the mommyjuice trend…using alcohol to cope with stress and anxiety and becoming  more dependent over the years…

But somehow we both found our way out of that trap and now we are finding joy in helping people to do the same

In this Episode

• Casey realised in her 20’s that she had no “off” switch – I think that’s true of many of us yet we delude ourselves that we don’t have a problem because we can go for days without drinking – but if you do finding yourself drinking far too much after that first glass then you probably need to make some changes
• Casey’s first glimpse into the trouble that alcohol can cause came when she read “A love story” by Caroline Knapp – if you are worried about your drinking then reading some QuitLit is a great way to start – if you want a reading list then just email me janet@tribesober.com
• Casey went to doctors and therapists about her anxiety and insomnia – most of which was caused by alcohol but she was in denial about her drinking and just didn’t CONNECT THE DOTS
• Like many of us Casey started making rules – in fact Casey and I had a whole conversation about the rules we used to make that you can find on her podcast (Hello Someday – episode 77 ) 
• The reason we make these rules of course is that we are still trying to moderate as we can’t imagine our life without it – having to give up completely is our worst nightmare – whereas with hindsight both Casey and myself can say that giving up completely was the best thing we ever did!
• Casey managed a year of sobriety (partly due to her pregnancy) but then was soon back to her bottle a night habit.
• The second time she gave up she understood so much more – she had joined up the dots and realized that alcohol was the cause of her anxiety and insomnia.
• She hired a Sober Coach and checked in with her every single day – because she was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
• Many of us get to this stage eventually – at our workshops I often hear people say “I’m done – I just can’t do this anymore” – and those people usually succeed and go on to thrive in their sobriety
• We talked about the strong women we work with – and how many of us managed to hold it all together through the drinking years. Once we are liberated from the shackles of alcohol addiction there is no stopping us and we go on to achieve great things.  Sobriety is a Superpower I always say! 
• We talked about mindshift – Casey has gone from seeing alcohol as a “reward” to seeing it as a “maladaptive coping strategy” – alcohol is NOT self care – how on earth did the liquor industry convince us that a “glass of wine at the end of the day” was an act of self care when for many of us it’s the opposite!
• I loved Caseys description of her breakthrough moment – how on Day 16 she’s had a terrible day at work and wanted to buy a bottle of wine so much she was actually shaking – she managed to resist and then continued to get stronger.
• I loved her “magnet” analogy as well – how the pull of alcohol is SO strong in the early days of sobriety but the more AF days we stack up the weaker the pull 
• “Sober Firsts” are so important – Casey cleverly reconfigured her Italian holiday so she went to bed early, got up early to explore, went on gelato crawls instead of wine crawls and treated herself with Venetian jewellery with the money she'd saved from not drinking.
• Casey has some great analogies – we heard the magnet one and she also talked about how being dependent on alcohol was like carrying a backpack of rocks around – and how sobriety lets you put the burden down.
• Apart from reducing her anxiety and improv

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  Published on 4 years, 2 months ago