EP 64 How To Eat To Change How You Drink with Dr. Brooke Scheller Pt. 2
Apr 09, 2024Season 1Episode 64
Deb, Mocktail Mom
We’re back to discuss functional sobriety in Part 2 of this amazing conversation with Dr. Brooke Scheller, a doctor of clinical nutrition, the founder of Functional Sobriety, and the author of How to Eat to Change How You Drink. In this episode, we are exploring the three different drinking archetypes and discover how they can empower us on our paths to wellness. We also hear Dr. Brooke’s thoughts on moderating, learn about what functional sobriety looks like, and get magnesium tips for the popular and delicious sleepy-time mocktail.
If you haven’t already, go back and listen to Part 1 of our chat to hear more about Dr. Brooke’s story and also be sure to check out her book! She is changing the lives of so many (including mine) and I hope these episodes can help change yours as well. Cheers!
We’re back to discuss functional sobriety in Part 2 of this amazing conversation with Dr. Brooke Scheller, a doctor of clinical nutrition, the founder of Functional Sobriety, and the author of How to Eat to Change How You Drink. In this episode, we are exploring the three different drinking archetypes and discover how they can empower us on our paths to wellness. We also hear Dr. Brooke’s thoughts on moderating, learn about what functional sobriety looks like, and get magnesium tips for the popular and delicious sleepy-time mocktail.
If you haven’t already, go back and listen to Part 1 of our chat to hear more about Dr. Brooke’s story and also be sure to check out her book! She is changing the lives of so many (including mine) and I hope these episodes can help change yours as well. Cheers!
All right you guys. Hey, it's Deb. Welcome to part two of my conversation with Dr Brooke. Her book is how to Eat to Change how you Drink. I hope this encourages your heart. At the very end of our conversation we were way out of time. Only because it's my own time restrictions. It's not nobody saying like you have to stop at a certain time. I just like to keep my podcast to about a half hour or so. Anyway, we were way over. But I wanted to ask her about the Sleepy Time Mocktail and about the magnesium. What kind of magnesium is the right magnesium to use in your Sleepy Time Mocktail? Because the first time I made it I used the wrong kind. So I don't want that to happen to you and have it turn into a colon cleanse mocktail like it did for me. So enjoy part two of my episode with Dr Brooke how to eat to change how you drink. I hope you guys love this and I just um my.
Deb:
My goal, my whole reason for doing this podcast, is for you to be encouraged. The fun isn't over and there are still good things to drink. So lots and lots of love. We'll talk to you soon.
Deb:
Welcome up, friends and welcome to the thriving alcohol-free podcast. I'm your host, deb, otherwise known as Mocktail Mom, a retired wine drinker that finally got sick and tired of spinning on life's broken record called Detox to Retox. Let this podcast be an encouragement to you. If alcohol is maybe a form of self-care for you, where you find yourself dragging through the day waiting to pour another glass, I am excited to share with you the fun of discovering new things to drink when you aren't drinking, and the joy of waking up each day without a hangover. It is an honor to serve as your sober, fun guide. So sit back and relax or keep doing whatever it is you're doing.
Deb:
This show is produced for you with love from the great state of Kentucky. Thanks so much for being here and big time cheers. Okay, so if somebody is thinking, they're just thinking like because there's that quiet voice and you do talk about this in the book that quiet right, it got louder and louder. Like that little like hmm, am I drinking? Do I need to stop drinking? I forget exactly how you put it, but we've all had that right. That's how it starts is just am I drinking more than I should? I look at this, it's hard to do.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Yeah, and the book is actually like one of the first lines. In the introduction I say that it starts with a whisper. One day you just have this little thought and you're back in your head and you're like maybe I should stop drinking.
Deb:
And then you're like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Ignore that, ignore that, yeah, yeah, be quiet, be quiet.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
And then it starts getting a little louder and then it starts to kind of tap you on the shoulder and then it starts to knock you on the side of the head and it's like, okay, when am I going to get this? When am I going to get this? And this is oftentimes why people do have to hit that rock bottom moment before they make a change, because it's hard to do. It's really really hard to do, especially because most of us have come in from this place of everyone around us drinks our partner drinks, our family drinks, all of our friends drink, our coworkers drink how the heck am I supposed to be the person that makes this change? It can feel really, really overwhelming.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
But here's the other thing is that, exactly like you said, deb, is it's mindset right? So can we go into this of the mindset of there is nothing wrong with me. I do not like how this is affecting my life and I have control in my life a certain degree and I can choose to put this down and to seek other ways of supporting myself. Someone was just talking about moderation with me the other day and I am someone who you know, I think, when I first came into sobriety, probably was like pleading with the devil to be able to moderate.
Deb:
Same same. I just wanted to be able to moderate. That was why I was taking a little break.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Right, everyone. I mean the day that I quit drinking. That morning I said to my partner. At the time I said I think I'm gonna take a little break, I'm gonna cut back right and sure enough, ended up getting sober and I'm so grateful for that. But I think now, if you ask me now if I could be granted one wish and the wish was to be able to moderate I wouldn't even want to moderate because the life that I have in sobriety today has given me so much more joy than any kind of alcohol would provide for me. And it takes, of course, some time to get to that place, to be able to look back and say I'm okay without it.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
But the amount of energy and mental, mind, mental gymnastics yeah, the tennis match of should I drink, should I not drink, should I have one, can I have one, should I have a second Like this is exhausting, right. And when you cut that out, when you don't try this or you walk away from this moderation thing, there is a huge open space in your mind, a huge open space where you can fill with whatever joy you want, and I am a huge believer. There's a conclusion at the back of the book, actually behind the recipes which some people miss. It's hidden back there.
Deb:
I know I love the recipes yes, and there's even some mocktail recipes yes, and tonics.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Yeah, you know, one of the things that I stand firmly behind today is in my first year of sobriety. I achieved three of the huge goals that I had been carrying around with me for years, like writing down on my yearly goals list every year, really.
Deb:
Really.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
I got a book deal, I wrote a book, I started a business which had been on my to-do list forever and I ran a half marathon Amazing. And these were all things that I was like, yeah, one day I'll do this, one day I'll do this. And alcohol was always more important than training for a half marathon. God, I couldn't sacrifice a Saturday night to do race training on a Sunday. Forget it. Actually, on my second day sober, I signed up for my half marathon and I said well, I'm going to start training, I guess, because we do it big Right.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
But I say that I share it because these are all the possibilities. The possibilities are truly endless when you open up all this space in your mind that it's so hard to put this one thing down, but that one thing opens up about 75 doors in front of you.
Deb:
You're so right. You're so right. Everything opens up Everything. There's space for everything. There's time for everything. You're not thinking about doing all those mental tennis matches, right? When am I drinking All of it? Were you nervous the first time you went out? I know you talk about a little bit in the book like I thought the fun was going to be over. I thought the fun was going to be over. I think many of us come into this like I'm not going to have fun anymore. So can you share a little bit about the first time you went out sober with your friends? What?
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
that was like Well, that story in the book. I was 20 something days sober and I remember going into this like let me like buckle up, let me strap in. You know, I could have said no. And my partner at the time was with me and he was super supportive about me not drinking and he was like we don't have to go if you don't want to. And I was like we don't have to go if you don't want to. And I was like no, I want to.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
I got to challenge myself on this and it was a Friday night and I was with a couple of my friends from growing up and decided we were going to go to this bar that had this basement with a DJ and all this kind of stuff. So my whole thing was I'm just going to go for a little while. I got to test myself I have to see how I do and I was adamant that I wasn't going to drink, so I wasn't concerned necessarily about that situation. I also told everyone that I wasn't drinking. They all knew that I was trying sobriety, so no one was going to come up to me with a drink and say, here, have this ordered it for you, anything like that. And that night I danced with my friends. I had more fun that night than I probably had had in years and I had this moment of awareness when I was there dancing and watching my friends, I ordered a club soda with lemon and I realized that I hadn't had fun out in years, that I would be so worried about saving my spot at the bar, getting the bartender's attention for my next drink, and I would have drank so quickly that I wouldn't even be remembering things after the first hour, basically, and I went home that night.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
I slept well. I woke up the next morning really proud of myself, and my friends the next day said to me you were so fun, like we were worried that you weren't going to be as fun because you weren't drinking and like you actually danced and you were like at a good time and that that confirmed for me that like I could be accepted without alcohol, that like I didn't have to be drinking to have fun. I didn't have to be drinking to get attention from my friends. I didn't have to be drinking to have a Friday night and have a good time, and it was one of those like monumental moments. That's why I write about it in the book, because we all have those experiences early on that that leave those marks for us where we say like, wow, that was like a turning point where I had this moment of awareness that I could do this differently and that I could succeed in this.
Deb:
Yeah, yeah. And it gives you the momentum to keep going, like, okay, the next time you go out with friends, like well, I did it that time I went out dancing, I was dancing, then definitely I can go to a wedding and not drink. It just kind of gives you that confidence to keep going.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Then definitely I can go to a wedding and not drink. You know, it just kind of gives you that confidence right To keep going and every next little step gives you that next level of confidence right. And I always say to clients too, like recently I had a woman who was 120 days sober and she was going to her first concert and I said, okay, let's think of it this way how many concerts have you been to where you drank 10, 20, 50? I don't know what? If just this one time, at this one concert, you didn't drink, Like what, if? What? If you just said I'm going to try it once.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Sure enough, she went, she had fun, she said, wow, I, I did it. And now going into next concert being able to say, okay, I've already gone to a concert and not drank, I could do this Right. So every single time we have that experience and we just keep building more and more and more off of that. But I always like that trick of how many times have I drank at a wedding? What if this one wedding I just didn't drink, just this one time.
Deb:
One time, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's very. It doesn't feel overwhelming, right, like I can't ever drink again at a concert, you know, it doesn't feel as overwhelming to say like, just this one, just right now, just focus on right now.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
It's kind of like one day at a time I gone to a concert and drank. Like maybe I should just see what would happen if I didn't drink at this one.
Deb:
Yeah, you know, yeah. Give yourself an opportunity to just this one time. Yes, yes, okay. As you guys know, I love Giesen 0% wines. Their Sauvignon Blanc is my go-to on a regular basis, but they recently launched a delicious sparkling brute 0%, which is quickly becoming a fan favorite. I am so proud to have Giesen as the exclusive non-alcoholic wine sponsor of the Thriving Alcohol-Free Podcast.
Deb:
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Deb:
There's a de-alcoholized wine for everyone and every occasion. Give Giesen a try and let me know how much you love it. And if you want to meet their winemaker, go back to episode 33 of the podcast, where Duncan Shuler joined me to share about the Giesem story. Your book is amazing, so everybody just needs to buy your book. Okay, how to eat to change how you drink. Everybody needs to buy this, dr Brooke. It's on Amazon. Leave a wonderful review. Do you want to chat quickly about the three different types of drinkers?
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
about the three different types of drinkers? Yeah, I would love to. So I created these three drinking archetypes because when I got sober and as you're hearing my story and I know so many of us, so many of you listening, probably have a similar story where you were maybe a heavy drinker by the end, I was maybe like a four, five, six day a week drinker for many years. By the time I quit drinking, I was a daily drinker. So, just like you, deb, that over time snowballed and at the end, really needed to stop because my life was starting to spiral.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
But when I started working with others probably about six months after I got sober and I started running some online groups nutrition-focused sobriety I had people that came in who drank like I did. But I also had people come in who didn't drink like I did, that maybe only drank on the weekends or a couple times a month, but they still wanted help stopping. And so I'm going okay, well, this is a different situation than someone who's drinking every single day, but they still are struggling. So my head again this is my scientist brain goes well, why Like?
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Why is it that this person struggling in this situation, that person struggling in this situation, and so I created these three drinking archetypes, because I wanted to create a way for people to identify that wasn't reliant on. You want to be an everyday drinker in order to like for these things to apply to you, right? So the three drinking archetypes are the social drinker, the stress drinker and the habitual drinker. There's also this fourth archetype that I don't talk about too much, called the nonchalant drinker, and the nonchalant drinker is the person that blows all of our minds, that goes to dinner, drinks like half a glass of wine, leaves the rest.
Deb:
Leaves the rest and you're going how, what are you doing? I'll finish it for you. Yeah, it's the mind blowing.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
The nonchalant drinker is someone who could truly take it or leave. It is not necessarily reading this book because they're not looking for support in stopping, but they do exist. They do somehow. They're unicorns.
Deb:
I'm married to one, my husband's like accidentally sober. I mean he could take it or leave it. Yeah, amazing.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
I love that. So the social drinker is that person who's mostly drinking on the weekends, maybe a few times per month. Oftentimes, though, they feel like once they start they can't stop that. Maybe they want to just have one drink, but they get into that social environment and they kind of get carried away. So this is someone who is, again, unlikely to pursue full sobriety because they don't identify with this AA lifestyle of having to go sober and be strict and all of that.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
The stress drinker is someone who, just like it sounds, is drinking mostly for stress situations. So they are more triggered, less by social, maybe a little bit by social, but they're someone who's picking it up more because they're hyper stressed, the end of a long work day, they are, you know, maybe stressful situations at home, and they're picking it up because of this. This is also like kind of that mommy wine culture too, like high stress mom working, taking care of kids, taking care of husband maybe, and so using it for that. And then the third is the habitual drinker, and this is someone who is more in alignment with that. Maybe daily drinking or almost daily drinking really have more of that chemical dependency on it, and what oftentimes happens is people are maybe starting as social drinkers, starting to pick up a little bit more. It's becoming that stress drinker and then eventually turning into that snowball, that habitual drinker. So it is. You could be moving through these at any given time.
Deb:
Yep, and it happens so slowly to go from one to the next you don't even realize it. Next thing you know you're don't even don't realize it. You don't realize it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so interesting. And you developed the term functional sobriety. Is that right?
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Yeah, yeah so interesting and you developed the term functional sobriety. Is that right? Yeah, so functional sobriety is the approach that I developed in the research of this work. That is, it's really a nutrition and functional medicine kind of root cause approach to how we cut back or quit drinking and we look at these different areas, like the gut, like our hormones, like blood sugar, and it's really how do we support the body in a way that can make it easier for us to quit but also support us in staying stopped and then, lastly, healing right, because alcohol is really disruptive to all these areas of the body. So how do we heal these systems so that we feel good and we don't want to then drink and we don't kind of we aren't looking for that escape hatch.
Deb:
It's fantastic, I'm so happy to meet you. I can't even tell you just personally how I know your book is just going to be life-changing for me, truly, because I feel like, okay, I've got that one piece down, you know it's like okay. And then, like you were saying, like you know you had those goals and I have sorry I'm getting emotional, but you know I have these goals in my head of like you know, not that I have to be back in my cheerleading outfit from high school, I don't have to be that but like I just don't feel good and I want to feel good and, like you said, like't have control that I got breast cancer, you know, but I have control. I do have control over getting to the gym and, you know, walking and taking care of myself. We have control over certain things in our lives. So thank you for empowering you know me personally and just so many thousands of people, women especially with your book.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
So thank you so much, deb, and you know this is one of those things that really provides a positive light for us to focus on.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
You know, a lot of times when we're going through this process and it's really does not, it's not all or nothing, like I do get this feedback sometimes like well, if I'm, I should just be focused on quitting, I shouldn't be bringing in like diets and you know, all these things to just like substitute.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
It's not about that, right, it's about taking this approach of this is how we can refocus our energy to actually healing our body from what we've experienced and what we've done, maybe to our systems, from this alcohol use, and it's really a positive place to focus our energy. You know, we again, we open up all this space in our mind. We open up maybe this new time in our evenings or our afternoons that maybe we can spend trying a recipe, trying some mocktails, but maybe cooking a healthy dinner, maybe going for a walk or taking an exercise class instead, and so it's really just an opportunity for us to look at this in a new way. And all of our journeys are unique, with health and wellness, just like with sobriety, and so it's okay if you're not where you want to be quite yet, but just knowing that this is like a path here that's available for you to help you feel good and to help you kind of achieve those goals of how you want to feel, to feel.
Deb:
Yeah, so encouraging, so encouraging. I'm like hesitant to ask you. I just want to ask you one to feel, to feel. Yeah, so encouraging, so encouraging. I'm like hesitant to ask you. I just want to ask you one last question. Yes, super quick. Okay, cause this is the crazy thing. I made a sleepy time mocktail drink and accidentally, I didn't know the difference between magnesium. The bottle said calm and I was like, well, this will work, and I put it with my tart cherry juice and I made it, and then I didn't sleep at all because I was running to the toilet all evening.
Deb:
It was awful. So there's the colon cleanse, sleepy girl mocktail. And there's the, you know, go to sleep, sleepy girl. Can you tell us the difference of magnesium? This is the last thing, and then we'll go. Okay, I just love you.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Yeah, so magnesium is a very important mineral for and actually it's deficient in about 70% of the US population. It is depleted when we drink alcohol, so there's a good chance you're probably deficient Many of us are deficient but magnesium is actually the body's relaxing mineral. So let's think about this way If we're looking to relax or de-stress, what do we need? We need something like magnesium. If we're deficient, though, we're going to be seeking other forms of relaxation, like maybe alcohol. So this is why magnesium, in particular, is really important to replenish in our sobriety journey. But there are different forms of magnesium, and magnesium can be a tricky one to navigate.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
So magnesium citrate, which is probably what's in that one that you took. Magnesium citrate is what they use in high doses to prep for a colonoscopy, so when we take too much of it, it's going to cause evacuation. This can be good in small amounts in people who are constipated, so for anyone who's constipated, a little bit of magnesium citrate is actually good for moving things along, but if you're looking for magnesium to help support with relaxation muscle relaxation, sleep we want to look at magnesium glycinate. So that is the difference there Important difference because, as you mentioned, could send you to a different path for that evening.
Deb:
I just want to encourage all the listeners to read the labels. Read which kind of magnesium you are purchasing.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Yes, I'm not such a good label reader, that's okay, that's why this stuff is so tricky, though, right, yeah, it's true. Support of someone, maybe, who knows a little bit more about it too.
Deb:
Yes, this is why we need Dr Brooke. Okay, everybody, go grab your book how to Eat, to Change how you Drink. Make sure you are following Dr Brooke on Instagram, all the places. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for your time, thank you for being here. I am such a fan and just so thrilled to have met you just screen to screen here today. So thank you for your time.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Yeah, so nice to meet you, deb.
Deb:
Thanks for having me, and I hope everyone takes a little tip away from today that they can implement A hundred percent. Big time cheers to you for tuning into the Thriving Alcohol-Free Podcast. I hope you will take something from today's episode and make one small change that will help you to thrive and have fun in life without alcohol. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social, send up a flare or leave a rating and a review. I am cheering for you as you discover the world of non-alcoholic drinks and as you journey towards authentic freedom. See you in the next episode.