Sober Vibes Podcast

Why Sobriety Isn’t About Willpower

Courtney Andersen Season 6 Episode 208

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Episode 208: Why Sobriety Isn’t About Willpower (And What Works)

Welcome to Season 6!

In this episode of Sober Vibes, Courtney discusses the misconception that sobriety is all about willpower. Spoiler alert: it’s not! She breaks down why relying on willpower alone sets you up for failure, explores the real reasons people struggle to quit drinking, and shares tools and strategies that work for building a sustainable, sober life.

This episode is a must-listen if you’ve ever felt weak enough to quit drinking. Get ready to reframe your mindset, let go of shame, and take actionable steps toward lasting sobriety.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • Why willpower isn’t a sustainable solution for sobriety.
  • The real reasons quitting drinking feels so hard (hint: it’s not about weakness).
  • Three powerful tools to help you build a strong foundation for sobriety.
  • How to shift your mindset and focus on your “why” instead of your “what.”
  • The importance of self-compassion and progress over perfection.

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Speaker 2:

Hey, welcome back to the Sober Vibes podcast. I am your host, courtney Anderson. I'm a sober coach, author of the Sober Vibes book, a guide to thriving in your first three months without alcohol and your go-to guide to Navigating Life Without Booze. Welcome to season six. Yes, I'm very excited. Okay, today we're diving into a big topic of why sobriety isn't about willpower. But let me say first happy 2025. I started the season out a little bit later. I started the season out a little bit later. I had, I don't know, a super flu that was like going around and I still have a little bit of a cold left. But I mean that MF-er took me out for like two weeks Legit. I could not talk for a week. So if you're like bitch, where have you been? It's just I've been sick. The dictator was sick and then last week with the fires in LA, that was very heavy. My heart goes out to that whole city and everybody who was impacted by that. And I just want to say, if you're listening to this in real time and you were impacted by the fires and you want one or two things, I want to make sure that your sobriety is okay. If you need some extra help, I would like to gift you a membership into the sobriety circle and two, if you were impacted, I would love for you. If you have a GoFundMe or you know somebody that needs help and they have a GoFundMe, please send it my way and I will share it on my Instagram and I will even share it out into my email list, because people lost everything and it's just very, very heartbreaking. So also, too, with last week, I just I didn't have the mental, you know energy to talk, because I'd like for these to be good, this podcast to be good, and when you don't have it in you, you don't have it in you. And again, I can't. From just looking at it from Michigan and seeing the devastation and how traumatic it was, I can't imagine what people in that city are going through and the trauma that they are experiencing. So if you need help, again, share with me your GoFundMe. And also, if you need some help just staying sober, please reach out and I will get you into the sobriety circle. Okay, I'm excited to be here. Season six, we're really going to kick ass and take names, okay. So I got some new things coming up for this year I'm stoked about and those will drip in time.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so today's topic is about willpower, right, many, many, many. I've heard many of you and I've also heard this about myself when I was in those first couple years. You know where it's like, courtney, I just don't have enough willpower to quit drinking. And I have to tell you something that willpower is it's not the problem and it's definitely not the solution. And people used to say that to me where they're like man, you have a lot of discipline, you have a lot of willpower to keep living, you know to keep not drinking, and people would ask me how I would do it. Right, like, how do you have this willpower? And I'll get into that more with you in this episode. But if you've been feeling like your lack of willpower is why you can't stick to sobriety, this episode is definitely for you. Okay, all right, so why willpower fails? You?

Speaker 2:

Think about I just want you to think about in a day, how many decisions you make in a day. Think of how many thoughts go into your head just alone a day. There's like thousands upon thousands of thoughts, right, and some really inappropriate thoughts and some thoughts that are just like. You know, what am I going to eat for breakfast? And remember last year when I was going through my, when I started talking to a therapist again and this is, I learned a lot about the thought process as well, as I was going through it, when they were just like, oh yeah, you have postpartum OCD. I'm like what in the mother fuck? Right, like then she was telling me how many thoughts do you think about in a day? Okay, so this is I want you to really listen. If you're like I don't have this willpower, okay, so think about the decisions you have to make in a day what to wear, what to eat, right, responding to emails, responding to text messages, being on social media, responding to your kids' demands, responding to your husband or wife's demand, responding to your partner's demands right Like, there's a lot of decisions, deciding even what the fuck to wear.

Speaker 2:

I once heard that President Barack Obama always just wore no. This was in. No. I really heard this. Was this in his book? That his decision he wore like the same thing every day. I mean not, you know, just like it was like a gray shirt and pants and he did that was because was this Obama or was this somebody else? Anyways, I swear I heard this from somebody who had to make a lot of decisions in life, and he did this with his quote-unquote uniform. His day-to-day was just to take the decision out of the day and make it easy, right. So it's exhausting Life. Now is life, and 2025 is a different tale than what 1980 used to be like.

Speaker 2:

So, by the time that happy hour rolls around, your mental energy is drained. You've heard me a lot say you got to protect your energy. I say this a lot with my one-on-one clients to get them to not drink and not so exhausted by Friday, where they want to binge on the weekends, and that's when your brain starts whispering to you you deserve a drink, you deserve a drink. What a hard day, right. So willpower is great for short-term challenges, but sobriety is a long-term game. This is a constant marathon. This is not a fucking sprint, and that is why, too, if you are like you haven't started off your quote unquote January yet, do not worry.

Speaker 2:

Okay, your timeline is your own, because it's very easy to look around and be like, oh my God. And I've been seeing this more and more. I saw this back, like the day after Halloween, people were throwing up their Christmas decorations. Now, listen, that's fine. Okay, do what makes you happy, but then I would see people be like I feel so behind, I haven't had my Christmas decorations up. It's like Jesus Christ, it's November 1st.

Speaker 2:

Why are we in now in this constant rush of feeling like we're behind because we don't have a fucking candy cane statue out yet? Like, come on, you know what I mean. And maybe something happened on November 1st that you weren't able to get your decorations out. Or maybe, just maybe, you're still like me and waits till I wait until the weekend before Thanksgiving to put it out. Okay, till I wait until the weekend before Thanksgiving to put it out. Okay. So like there's this now because we're so caught up in everything at such fast speed and that we need to get through this now, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that we are like behind If now we don't have decorations out by a certain day because you see influencers fucking doing it on the gram. It's just. It's like, come on, okay.

Speaker 2:

So this is a long, long term thing and that's what everybody too wants to know. Like, how do you do this long term? Like I can get 30 days in, but like the long term of it. You know I don't have that willpower, so relying on it to resist drinking day after day is like trying to run a marathon without training on it. To resist drinking day after day is like trying to run a marathon without training. It's just not sustainable. That's why there's shit you got to do every day to fucking keep trucking forward. Okay, bottom line I don't care if you identify as an alcoholic, I don't care if you identify as a gray area drinker. Okay, here's the truth.

Speaker 2:

Alcohol has rewired your brain and it's created habits and neural pathways that make you crave it right, especially in moments of stress or exhaustion. And that is two. Two key triggers for women Stress, exhaustion and not feeling good are like the top three with women of their triggers. And then family goes in there too, but top three are definitely for that, and especially in moments of stress or exhaustion. So when you can't, you can't quote, unquote, willpower your way out of drinking. It's not because you're weak, it's not because you're a piece of shit. You're not a piece of shit, you know, I say that with love, but like it's not because sometimes you're thinking of that like what the fuck is wrong with me, it's because your brain is working against you.

Speaker 2:

So real reasons why people struggle to quit. Okay, so if willpower isn't the answer, what's really going on then? So here are some common reasons why people struggle to quit, and this is just from my own personal experience of those you know. Again, I tried for four years, right, like I really tried to. I wouldn't call it quit, but it was that moderation game until I was just like, finally, like enough is enough, right. And so this is from my own experience and to as a sober coach of coaching women of what I hear.

Speaker 2:

So people use alcohol to cope with stress or their emotions is definitely number one, right. Drinking becomes a way for you to escape A good day, a bad day. You have a drink, you feel anxious because we are so scared to feel nowadays right, like especially anxiety. And two, with that, when you are quitting, it's going to take your body some time to go to like a baseline. So you don't want to feel anxious, you know. So if you are feeling anxious or not feeling good from the night before, what's the easiest thing to do? To pour a glass of wine. It's to have a vodka tonic. It's to escape with.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if you're a IPA drinker, but it's not solving any of the problems. It just continues to numb and numb and numb and then put you in this habit loop, right. And this is where alcohol has now become your daily habitual habit. And in that habit it then forms into a dependency, correct? So I don't care You're having physical dependencies, if you're having that hangover and then drinking to feel better, right? Or that emotional dependencies that I have so talked about.

Speaker 2:

And if you've been pouring a drink at, let's say four, five, six o'clock every night for years, your brain expects it. It's like no different than if you got into a habit of having ice cream every night for years upon years. Your brain expects that at six o'clock it's like bitch feed me that ice cream every night. For years upon years, your brain expects that. At six o'clock it's like bitch feed me that ice cream, feed me that glass of wine, like let's do this right. So bringing that cycle takes more than just willpower. It takes awareness and intentional action right.

Speaker 2:

And then I do firmly believe this is that people don't have the right tools or right support. Okay, and doing some things differently right. And this is very hard to do alone. I seen it firsthand myself and I have also seen it too with clients and with people you know. And that is where the 12 steps are great, because it's a community to be in, a community of people who get it and who are around you and to support you. And it's it's in person.

Speaker 2:

So I mean again, if you haven't tried AA, don't knock it until you try it, and try it a couple of times, because and I will always say this I have my opinions about it, which you've heard here on the podcast. But I went and I did it and it was helpful for me at that time, right, and I say this to everybody like well, did you try it? And if you tell me no, like well, go try it, because that could be what, if just hearing about it was like something that actually helped you, you know. And then, if it doesn't, then form your opinion after a couple times and then be like, okay, I tried that it didn't work, I got to find something else, anyways. So you need tools and the strategies and to a community, especially, that understands what you're going through.

Speaker 2:

Without those, it's really easy to fall back into old patterns it really truly is and especially to be part of community to engage in it. A lot of women I have coached one-on-one. They come to me, they're like makes me laugh, but they're like you're my last hope and I'm like I love it. Great, you know what I mean, because it's doing something different and it's that accountability and support that they need, but also by being able to talk to somebody, right, because a lot of people don't have anybody to talk to about this. So then it's a lot of internalizing it, stuffing it down, feeling ashamed, right, that you have this problem that you're closet drinking that you're, you know, playing mind games with your significant other of like adding some water into the wine or replacing that bottle so they don't know that you're drinking. I mean, the list is limitless here of what people do to cover up their tracks of not having anybody on their tail. So it's nice to have somebody to talk to and to get this out, and I truly do believe in if you're working with somebody whether it is a sober coach or it's a therapist, or it's 12 steps, or it's you and your girlfriend who quit drinking too you guys are one each other's rocks that you are helping, you're being helped and held accountable in working through this right. So help and support really change the game. It changes things because it also, too, there's a person there to call you out on your bullshit that you have not had somebody call you out on.

Speaker 2:

In this process, too, if you have been trying and trying and trying to continuously stop drinking alcohol and you hit bumps, there's no sense of shaming yourself because you have to remember how habitual this was in your life for 10, 20, 30 years Okay, cause that's like the average time that people have been usually drinking for, like you know, anywhere from 10 to 30 years. Let's just say so. It's going to take some time to unfuck that habit and unfuck your brain to be like all right, I slipped, I'm going to learn from that right. And it's more if you have a slip and you catch yourself before you go down a huge rabbit hole, it will teach you something your body will not be able to process that. Especially, too, if you had like 30, 60, 90, six months between a drink, you're going to feel like dog shit. Truly, you're not going to be able to process it, excuse me, like you once used to. And it's going to hurt you more and more and more as the time goes on and the longer the distance is between drinking. Okay, so what actually works? What actually works for building a sustainable, sober life? So I swear by these three. Focus on the why. Focus on the why, okay, instead of obsessing like I cannot drink. Focus on why you're choosing not to.

Speaker 2:

So for me, at that point, it was like I was done. I lost my rescue cap for the second time. I had my boyfriend at the time, who's now my husband, if you're new here. I had Matthew where he. You know I was in this loving relationship and he was like you can keep doing this or like you can keep doing this, but I'm not sticking around for it. You know he was pissed too. I lost that cat and I said, if I found Fiona, I am going to give up alcohol for good. Because I was in that four years of trying to moderate something that was no longer of moderation. And it didn't matter how much time I had a couple of weeks of not drinking or a couple of times of like great, I didn't get fucking blacked out drunk tonight. I always went back to where I first was, where I was like I need to quit drinking. So that time it was like, okay, I found Fiona. My why was little fur pants? She's still around me on a day to day. She's still alive. I still look at her and when I'm just sitting there sometimes I giggle. When I'm petting her at night I'm like man, you really did save my life.

Speaker 2:

And two I knew that I kept going that what I wanted for my life was not going to happen and I wanted to get married. I wanted to be in a relationship, I wanted to have a family and Matt was very different than the douche canoes that I used to date. I used to date really mean guys who were just bricks, and so he was different. He was nice, always go with the nice ones, and I wanted that life with him. So I had to really look at my why and I focused on that for a very, very, very long time and even to this day after I had the dictator. It was like my why changed because I really do believe in your life, believe in your life as you get older and you want the long-term sobriety you need to readjust to what your why is that present day. So for me, my why now was oh, I don't want to be a drunk mom. I don't want that because it was really easy those first couple months of having him.

Speaker 2:

If you've had a child before, you know that with your first one your world is flipped upside down. You're just like what the fuck? And not only is like your world flipped upside down, but your whole. Motherhood changes a person, fatherhood changes a person. But like I have never been so cracked open before of really starting again when I entered in motherhood, it was like I was at a rock bottom again, not so much in a bad way. But just in the sense of I now was experiencing all these emotions, I was wearing my heart on my sleeve still to this day, you guys in my sickness because I watched a lot of shows and movies.

Speaker 2:

I watched this movie that was a book, I guess, called Night Bitch. If you haven't watched it or read it, it's on Hulu, watch it. It's with Amy Adams, but it talks about motherhood and she was a working mom and then decided to stay home and there's some stuff that she says in there where I was like oh my God, this is so true, like whoever wrote this book had this down to a T. I kind of took a turn, but I understood where the turn was of more, how like just animalistic to motherhood is and how we're animalistic anyways. Movie where she was like you know, there's some days and I could cry thinking about it. Where she was like there's some days that I don't know where I end and he begins because she had a little boy and it's like so true, right. So I had to readjust my why. So, because in those first couple months being so sleep deprived, I'm like sitting there at 2, 3, I'm being like fuck, I know why these bitches do it. I know why they drank Like your eyes are twitching the responsibility of taking care of a human being for the first time.

Speaker 2:

You know if you were a working mom and then all of a sudden being a stay at home mom, or if you're trying to juggle it with being a working mom and just wanting to be at home with your baby, but you can't do that because you have to work. It's a lot. Motherhood, whether you're a working mom or you're not, motherhood is a job and it fucking breaks you open, wide open. It cracks you. And then you got to build yourself back up like a goddamn puzzle. So I switched my wives. So I really do believe that as you continue to go along, you know you have to connect back with why you are staying sober and that quote unquote season of life, because you've got to meet yourself with where you are right now today.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

Right now today, you know. So write down your why, with where you are right now today and keep that close with you, look at it every day, write it in the notes section, write it in your calendar and have an alarm come up. Where it fucking pops up and you see it. You have to train your brain. You need to condition your brain where you're seeing it and saying it out loud and being like, fuck yeah, look at your daughter's or your son's face and be like I dude, I don't want to keep going at this rate, like and I miss this because even now it's like you know, a little dictator here, I'll be three and a half in March. It's like, fuck man, you guys know I don't for the good people of the world who've been with me for a very long time, you guys know I don't like to be like well, this really goes by fast. But fuck man, this really goes by fast. And like you just don't want to keep missing these moments I had over the unintentional break I took, I had a woman reach out to me and tell me that she was a year sober and I've known her for a long time and she was like in this she was like I don't. She's like. I didn't plan it that way. I honestly just stopped. I was going to go 30 days and then I just kept going and going. She's like. But it keeps coming back with what you say about being a present mother she's like, and all of this. This is what's changed for me of just being that present mom. So you know, that's awesome.

Speaker 2:

If you don't have, if you, you know you're in that sober, curious journey and you're just like. You just got to look at that like of again, how do you want to show up in this life? But you need to keep rewriting, re-dedicating your why and and with where you are today. Okay, number two you need to change your environment. You've got to change your environment. That stale ass energy you've been sitting in in your drinking days, because that becomes very stale and I write about that too in my book and I say those words too. I believe I say stale ass energy in that book, which a plug you can get on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, or look in the show notes below, because it's a great book that will help you in your sober journey today.

Speaker 2:

But habits thrive in very familiar environments, right? So if you always drink on the couch while watching TV. Try sitting in a different spot, right, doing something new. There is a reason. I modged podge picture frames for fucking 90 days, for three months. I think I probably did it more than three months, but those three months I was like hyper-focused on creating something, doing something at nighttime where it would help me through that witching hour.

Speaker 2:

You cannot keep white knuckling it through your witching hour. Everybody has a different witching hour. You will periodically through the days get like little spouts of like a craving right, but there's usually one main witching hour a person has where it's like okay, you got to start doing something different. You need to keep yourself busy. Again, if you were drinking Chardonnay on that couch, go out and burn that couch. I'm kidding, but let's just get a couple new throw pillows. Okay, if you have the means to go and burn that couch, burn it and get yourself a new one. Okay. Feng shui that room where you switch up the energy. Get a fucking sage stick and sage the energy in your house.

Speaker 2:

Light a couple of incense and let's get this moving, because it's 2025 and I want you to have the year where it is your sober year and continues to be your sober year, right, because, listen, it's different each year. That goes on and I honestly can say this from a person who hasn't had a drink in 12 years that especially those first five years, it's going to be different. Your one's going to be different, your two, three, four, five. Five is a little bit of an odd year, but I have to say that after five years it's like, okay, all right, this is cool. Like the stuff you think about and experience those first five years is not the stuff you're going to be thinking about and experiencing after year five. Okay, so change up your environment, right, take a walk after dinner to help you through that. Like, if you've got to be out there doing two days, two walks a day, do it.

Speaker 2:

But small changes can break the cycle and the habit. And then you're creating a new habit. You're creating this new habit for yourself, where you're not going to be sitting there wanting alcohol. Okay, build a support system. Build a support system. It's so much easier when you're not doing this alone. All right, so accountability and encouragement will make a huge difference for you and be involved.

Speaker 2:

That's what implements, whether you're in AA, whether you're in therapy, whether you're in my surprise circle. Whether you're in another online community, no prob. But if you haven't been engaging much, start engaging. Start implementing what your therapist has suggested to you, right? Or if you're seeing a life coach, start implementing that and doing the things, because what I have seen as a sober coach the people who do it and implement and this stands for anything are usually the people who have the continuous sobriety, because there is this thing called our ego, where we think we got this shit like that, right and for some things we do. But for this, because how easily you could just walk down, walk to a local liquor store, right, a wine shop, whatever. You can get wine in a movie theater. How accessible alcohol is it just makes it that much easier and how celebrated this is. So get support, okay, on that note, you have to. On, my last thing that I want to leave you with. This is you need to be kind to yourself, okay.

Speaker 2:

Sobriety isn't about being perfect. This is where self-compassion is great. It's about progress, and that is what I'm saying. That's why I never come to a place of fucking pointing a finger or telling you you need to start at day zero again. I will never do that, because I don't believe in that. You know, I'm very much a person who has always been like maybe because I had you know like, was shamed or how my parents disciplined it was bogus, but like, I never liked that and I just don't think it works for this because of how easily accessible alcohol is and how habitual this has become and that some days are really hard.

Speaker 2:

Let's just look at what has happened in the United States in an area last week that we're not living. So if a person was to slip during that because they just fucking lost everything and they're living in what looks like a apocalyptic times, then that is how they process that and I would never be there to be like, point pointing a finger at somebody's face. I mean I well, let's get you back to day zero, right, like? I just don't believe in that type of. I just don't believe in that. I believe in learning from your slips and that brings more intention and more awareness of I don't want this in my life anymore, right, so you know it doesn't mean you failed if you've had a slip or if you didn't quote unquote, start, quote dry January on January 1st, right, like, again, you might be starting your new year right now and that is great.

Speaker 2:

Like, whatever it is, any day of the week in the year of the month is a great day to quit drinking alcohol. It comes down to when you are ready and have had that. You have had that experience of being like. I know in my soul I don't ever want to drink alcohol again and that was the whole thing of going with my journey of I knew, making that pact to the universe. I made this pact when I was laying in my guest bedroom in the condo as I was dry, heaving on the fucking floor like a pig person. Or I made this pact where Fiona was missing and I'm like, oh my God, like if I find this cat, I will not drink again, because the guilt and the shame for so many years just rose up into my whole being that I'm like I can't take this anymore. And then it was a constant of why.

Speaker 2:

So it really doesn't have anything about fucking willpower. It has everything to do with how you want to show up in this life and getting the support in doing these little things that I've suggested to you, and that alcohol is no longer the answer for you, because anytime you have a bad day and this is where you have to start retraining your brain. It's like, okay, what am I going to do besides drink if I have a bad day, to then make myself feel better? This is why it's very important to start your day with a nice little morning routine where you start the day and the day doesn't start for you right. Or having a nice little nighttime routine where this is something you in the day, where it makes you feel good and sets you up for success the next day. In the show notes I have, I made a free, a free guide for morning and night routines to help you, because building that structure will help you continue to stay sober. All right, I hope this helped.

Speaker 2:

Another news I just want to say this I'm not going to go off on a terrible rant about this, but I just want to give a couple snaps out there, because in the beginning of January, finally, the Surgeon General got their heads out of their asses in that committee. Whoever taught, you know the Surgeon General and his whole team. We are making some moves that they finally announced let's, let's cue, cue the sirens. That we need warning labels on alcohol bottles, slow clap, like, and this is. I'm not gonna be such a sarcastic asshole, but it's a win, and it is a win specifically to the alcohol for us, because that alcohol industry, you know, and a lot of people I did a TikTok and I did an Instagram and people are like I don't understand how people didn't know this. It's like you guys, please, let's stop, okay? Because then that's just insinuating that somebody I is dumb and I don't. I don't ever want, you know, I don't ever want there to be a time where, like, people are shamed about that Because, listen, that food system that we have is fucking garbage. Pharmaceutical industry, right, garbage. The farming industry, what they have used oh, what's the name of that company? Montesanto, is that the name of it? The chemicals, so all of this, we cannot sit here and just because of this has come out. I mean cigarettes people still smoke. So, like, whether you knew or you didn't know, this is a huge win. And again, it's a win because people do need that awareness. You guys, I shit you not.

Speaker 2:

When I worked in the medical field. This is why it doesn't surprise me with human beings. I worked in the medical field and I worked with a nurse. God bless her soul. I really liked this nurse. She was a sweet thing, really good person, but she didn't wash her hands that you heard me right. So the nurse manager had to put a sign up there and be like okay, we need to wash our hands after using the bathroom. She didn't wash her hands after using the bathroom and was like caught a couple times anyways. And this sign went up and this person, flat out, was like, oh, I didn't know that. So I'm never gonna say to somebody like I didn't know that. So I'm never going to say to somebody like, oh, you didn't know this. It's like nope, uh-uh, I'm not going there Because I just and this was back in 2010. I started working at that pink line. Maybe it was like 2009.

Speaker 2:

Anyways, regardless of the date and time frame, some people just don't know. So I'm not going to sit there and shame them. I just let's take this as a win, because if there has been one fucking son of a bitch out of all of these big quote, unquote, insert whatever industry you want to put in there, oh, big tech, at the end of the day, this industry has known what its product has done to people around the world. You cannot sit there and tell me that this industry does not know how highly addictive this substance is and how it has changed people's brain chemistries. Oh I could cry and I like this gets me heated. And they have been doing this for decades. They have been doing this for decades. Go back, please watch.

Speaker 2:

When I watched this documentary a couple years into my sobriety, I got it, I understood, I'm like, okay, I get this and I think this was like year three, but it's Prohibition by Sweet Ken Burns. Watch that documentary. How alcohol came over to the United States, how it all. You know how. Then these big alcohol companies came about like and they've been doing this for years. Like I said, big tech has known what its product has done. Yeah, I think it was Steve Jobs who didn't even let his kids have iPhones. Who didn't even let his kids have iPhones. Huh, do you get what I'm saying here? So, like these alcohol companies, it's just like big middle fingers for you.

Speaker 2:

And I hope, on that warning if they ever do put a warning on this bottle, that it also says how, what a highly addictive substance this was, and that the term drink responsible can go fuck itself, because it's the most gaslighting term I have ever heard phrased. It's almost like a housewife's catchphrase. Right, their tagline. It's just like again, tell that to the little boy who watched his mom get her ass beat for 10 years because the father was beating her ass. Tell that. Tell that motto to the mom who lost a child because they were drinking and driving. Tell that to the parents who've been sending their child to numerous rehabs. Do you get what I mean? That industry, again, you choose to drink. That is your responsibility. I'm never gonna. That's your choice. I don't. It's your choice. Right, like I'm not gonna sit there because people think I sit there with like beady eyes, judging, judging behind. What I will judge is that industry and that industry needs to be kicked in the testicles numerous amounts of times and there needs to be some responsibility from that industry of what it's created.

Speaker 2:

Because, guess what? It's the only drug we can buy anywhere at any time. There's no limit on how much alcohol you can buy in a day. Matthew had to go get me medicine the other day and he had to show his ID. What was it? He had to show his ID for Mucinex. Because it's like, well what? Because I guess you can make some type of drug from Mucinex. So he had to show his ID to get a cold medicine this was crazy. But alcohol, I could go to 25 different liquor stores and there would be no red flag. There wouldn't. So, anyways, that's my rant.

Speaker 2:

I'm excited, though, if this is the way we're going in this direction of warning labels on alcohol bottles, which is long, long, long overdue, and if you listen to that, or if you because I know a lot of people who heard that it freaked them out okay, I don't wanna say, use that fear to keep inspiring you to move forward in your path, but do it. This is now just an added awareness that these sons of bitches finally came out and said what was right and that alcohol does cause these different types of cancers, and this is something that, if you don't drink like you know, it can be prevented. Okay, anyways, I had a lot to say. Thank you for listening to the first episode in season six. Also two I have started, and by the time this comes out, it will be up and running, but I, going forward, did start a Patreon account, so it's eight bucks a month, and because in this and this is something I've thought about for quite some time this is not a coaching, this is not a coaching community. Okay, so I still have my sobriety circle. That is coaching. There's two meetings in there a week. Check it out. The links are in the show notes below.

Speaker 2:

But with my Patreon I want to get into specific, more series and extra collections, right. So I will have a sober tip Tuesday. For each Tuesday of the month I'm going to do a series of a more, you know, personal update of my life Once a once a month I'm going to do a surprise series in there about emotional sobrieties. There's going to be some living on the L edge added episodes, so, and that is all ad free content, okay. And also too, in that I am doing a monthly kind of happy hours. So happy sober hour, right, zoom, where we can connect and have some fun. And I might even do a little series about my opinion about Bravo television. Like, let me talk about it, right, like if you want to listen to it, cool. But cause I do love some Bravo gossip, so. So check that out. The link is in the show notes below too.

Speaker 2:

Come and join the Patreon. There's ways too. You can DM me in there. I believe I can do a community chat in there. Like I said, that is not a coaching community, that is just added bonus episodes and more collections coming in too with the podcast, so it's strictly just extra content from the podcast and with Living on the Elledge. So I would love to see you in the Patreon. It's a great way to support the show too and, like I said, I'm going to do different series and collections in there.

Speaker 2:

I'm excited and, like I said, I'm excited for season six, so check out all the information in the show notes below. If you love this episode, please share it with somebody or share it on Instagram and tag me wherever. I need you to do me a favor for season six where, if you have not done it yet, whatever app you listen to the podcast. Please, please, please leave a review, and I would really enjoy a five-star rating. You know, if not, a four-star is cool, but let's not go under four. Okay, but if you can leave a review and a rating, I would really appreciate it because that will help other people find this show. All right, as always, keep on trucking and stay healthy out there. I'll see you on the next one.

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