E152: Women, alcohol and the decision to stop drinking with Casey Mcguire Davidson | Trauma Healing Coach

Michael: Hey! What's up, Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well, wherever you are in the world today. Super excited to be back with you with another episode with today's guest, Casey McGuire Davidson. Casey, my friend, how are you today? What is going on in your world?

Casey: I'm doing well. I'm here in Seattle and we're just hitting the sort of rainy fall season. So kind of adjusting to that.

Michael: Yeah, if you're a Civic Northwestern like I am as well, that adjustment only takes about six months.

Casey: Yes, exactly. And then we get sunny fabulous summers again.

Michael: Yeah, the moment I get adjusted, I'm like shit, it's sunny again. So, for a little bit of context, can you tell everybody a little bit about your background about your experience, and how you got to where you are today.

Casey: Yeah, absolutely. Well, so I am a Life and Sobriety Coach For Busy Women and I got this place because after 20 years, as of sort of climbing the corporate ladder and building a family and doing all the things that you're sort of, told you me to do. I got to the point where I was drinking a bottle of wine and night to cope or to relax or just as a general habit in terms of how I navigated life. So I would you know, wake up in the morning, generally sort of feeling like garbage, headache, bloodshot eyes, watery eyes, trying to pull it together, I would wake up at 3:00 in the morning with anxiety and my heart racing and trying to figure out how I was going to make it through the day and then I would overcompensate my entire day. So I get the kids up, I'd get them to daycare, I'd do all the things I'd go into work, I was a director at a Fortune 500 company and do all that, and then by 5 p.m. - 6 p.m., I would be dying to open wine again and then would drink a bottle plus again, the next day.

And for a decent amount of time that worked, when I was younger, I was sort of like, God, I drink a lot, I tried to make a lot of rules about it, I'm only going to have two glasses, I'm only going to drink on the weekends, I'm going to switch to beer because red wine, was my jam, and none of it worked. And for a long time, I thought that wine wasn't the issue that wine was actually helping me, it was holding me together, it was my one treat and reward and that is incredibly common for women.

Also, for working women, a lot of us drink daily, a lot of us drank decent amount, you know, three-quarters of a bottle of wine, a bottle of wine or more. And wake up at three in the morning and think it's, we're really stressed, or we have insomnia, we have anxiety, we feel depression, and we sort of blame ourselves but we don't blame the alcohol, we're consuming and go to the doctor and get antidepressants and all the things. And so I got to the point where just quitting drinking was my worst-case scenario. It turned out to be the best decision of my life, but it was incredibly hard to do in a society where everyone tells you that drinking is normal and good and relaxing and you need it. And so I ended up stopping drinking first, for hundred days, then six months, then a year, and it's been well over five years now and I left my corporate job, I went back to school to become a coach. I'm a life coach and I help women do the same thing I've done.

Michael: Yeah, that's really incredible. And it's so funny when I was in my early twenties working for a Fortune 10 company and I had very much a similar experience where it was like not only is it the social norm of I think high-stress workplace environments, but like, we were getting drunk on our lunch break sometimes, right? We were the cell squad, we're like making all this money like – it's chaotic and then I'd be like, well, how do you navigate the chaos of all that? It's easy, you just drink more, right? And like you, I found myself in this position, which I think many people do not necessarily only in the corporate structure and environments like we were in but also, just in general it's so common. I'm going to ask you a really interesting question, but I believe that one of the biggest reasons that alcohol has become the number one coping tool for high levels of stress and high performers under stressful situations is marketing. And so, what I'm really curious about from your perspective, as you know, why has wine become a kind of the go-to? Not only necessary for working mothers in the women that you work with but for people in Western society in general.

Casey: Yeah. Well, I think that it's been very, very deliberate on the part of the alcohol companies in figuring out what appeals to different demographic groups and sort of elevating that to expand their market share to get more people to consume more of the substance more often. And I actually used to work in brand marketing and digital marketing and so I spent 20 years doing focus groups, doing surveys, analyzing our customer’s behavior, looking at, what they buy when they buy, what their motivations were, and the exact same thing has happened with the alcohol companies. I mean, I remember when the commercials for beer were like, you know, the weekends belong to Michelob like, that was a campaign and then it was the night belonged to Michelob and then it was Michelob, some days are better than others and that was a very clear evolution of trying to get people to normalize drinking and feel like drinking is acceptable first on the weekends, then every night, then during the day, right? Some days are better than others and associating it with every activity.

Then the advertising turn to women and that happened really clearly first with smoking when it was really common and then with alcohol. So they wanted to expand their Market share, right? They were like – how do we get women to drink as much as men? And if you look at the statistics, women used to have real data between men with sort of alcohol, use disorder, drinking above the recommended guidelines. And now especially women between the ages of 35 and 55, they are the fastest-growing group of people with health problems related to alcohol and they are not necessarily your stereotypical, you know, the persona of someone who struggles with alcohol, it is women who are mothers, it is women with a high socioeconomic dollar value. And you know wineries, I was talking to a woman on my podcast, the Hello Someday Podcast, and she said she worked for a winery and advertising and they had 50-page decks on how to appeal to women and with young children, they were paying influencers on social media with young kids, ten thousand dollars to promote their alcohol, to women and it has worked, it's absolutely worked.

Michael: Yeah. So my background, like, yours, actually marketing advertising and branding and I'm fascinated by understanding the psychology of the psychographics involved in these decisions that brands make. I mean, think about it, we're both in branding and marketing, still even what we do as coaches, I mean, in full transparency, anyone who doesn't recognize that they're not paying attention and so thinking about that and understanding and looking at the fact that it's everywhere, it's so subtle now, and it's so subliminal because you go back to the 90s and I'll age myself a little bit here, cigarette commercials, I will never forget cool, cigarette commercials, on television, like – in between episodes of The Simpsons and then wine coolers, right? And Zima had commercials and all those things and so, now there's just a different life. (I have Goose Bumps talking about this) because here's what I want to dive into because I want to create a framework of reference for people to understand what's happening so that we can understand, you know, is it actually affecting them negatively to the point, where it makes sense to dive into tools in a deeper level. Because I think it's consciousness that helps people evaluate whether or not, they actually need to do something about something. So can we dive into this, a little bit more?

Where are the messages really coming from that are creating this framework, that makes it so socially acceptable right now that when you see it in passing, you just go, oh, yeah, that makes sense to me as opposed to direct marketing of, you know, 30 years ago.

Casey: Yeah. Well, it's really become a circular firing squad to some extent, like – drinking is so prevalent in our culture. And yes, you see it in advertising and marketing, but you also see it in every television show and every movie, like, if you remember Scandal; Olivia Pope would sit there with this giant, huge glass of red wine after a stressful day wearing all white, no idea how she didn't spill it all over the place, right? But it was a metaphor, right? It's shorthand in the way cigarettes used to be in movies, like it's a metaphor for relaxing, for stress, for taking your shoes off for bonding and then our friends are part of it too, right? So, you know, as a woman with young kids, mommy wine culture is very, very real where you have a playdate with the wine, it's sort of a signifier that you are more than your children, you are not boring. It's a form of rebellion, it's something that signifies that you're on a date night with your husband, you can connect with them and other women will tell you when you have a bad day when your kids having a tantrum, when your boss was a nightmare there like wine immediately, okay, you deserve a bottle of wine, wine was the gift on my desk after we scored a big win and what we did on business trips to bond and get ready for client meetings. And it is alcohol, is one of the things that if you actually stop consuming it people ask, what's wrong, people pressure you, people say, oh, don't be so hard on yourself just have one, you deserve it, it's fun. And the issue is, if you decided to stop smoking, cigarettes, nobody would pressure you to smoke nowadays, everybody would be like, oh my God, good for you because there's no question, that shit's bad for you, right? It's linked to cancer, it's bad for your health, it's a terrible habit, it's expensive.

And by the way, all of that is true for alcohol, to, I mean, alcohol is linked to seven different kinds of cancer. The American Cancer Society just said this year, which is so overdue that no amount of alcohol is safe. And in the same way that cigarettes used to be advertised for doctors every day that he promotes this one study that was completely funded by the alcohol industry that red wines good for your heart, people believe in, it is not true. And so it's just become part of the society and it's like you can drink for drinks out at night with your girlfriends and get fuzzy and not remember and go into the office and talk about being hangover and yet, if you go out to dinner with your girlfriends and say, oh, I'm not drinking, they're like, why? What's wrong? Are you pregnant? Do you have a problem or why are you being lame? Basically.

Michael: Yeah, it's the words that you didn't use that I will apply if you don't mind is indoctrination. And that's so much of what it is and I think that because I do have such a marketing and branding forward mindset when I think about things I look at and I go, this is simply a not indoctrination to get your money, these companies do not give a fuck about you and look, I'm very biassed in a way because like, I watched alcohol destroy my family.

Now, I do have wine on the occasion, I'll have a drink on occasion but the idea of being hungover is the worst-case scenario for me. And I think for many high performers and I've experienced that in these, I don't recall bouts of sobriety but in these time periods in which I'll go 6 months, a year; year and a half two years and not touch a drop and people will be like, why are you not drinking? I will never forget the first time at, like, 27 years old, I'm deep into this healing journey and all my friends are going out and I made a decision, which is very important in this context of not drinking. We went out to the bar, we did the things and I was like – I'm not drinking, not drinking it, and the pressure, the pressure, come on in one shot, one drink one whatever I left that night. And at that moment, here's what's really fascinating Casey that you probably see happen with your clients that I want to dive into is people started to remove themselves from me and I started removing myself from people.

One of the things that I'm curious about is and specifically diving into this subject around women, and drinking is this gray area and this idea about this curiosity around, a movement of sobriety because I think one of the things that happen is, fear, for lack of a better term here, stops people from stepping away from the thing that they know is destroying their life, whether it's social pressures or the indoctrination that we feel maybe if it's even that some points addiction. So what's happening, how are people and women specifically stepping into sobriety right now?

Casey: Yeah. Well, I think it's amazing and if they're sort of many factors that are leading to that. Number one, so many women are drinking more and more and when you drink more and more, there is no question that you are going to notice that it is negatively affecting your life, right? You don't sleep well, you wake up with a hangover, you have a headache, you know that it's a problem if you drink too much. And the first step that many women go through is trying to moderate, right? Often for like 10 years. So they try to limit it, they try to limit how much they drink, they try to limit the number of days, they try to do an alcohol reset, all of which is great, right? It's part of realizing that the amount of alcohol you are consuming is not working for you in your life. The challenge is that alcohol is addictive when you don't drink it, you go into withdrawal, emotionally, habitually physically, even if you are absent, not physically addicted to it, you still have withdrawal symptoms, that make you want to drink again, right? You are not crazy when you think when I don't drink on miserable and irritable and white-knuckling it, you actually are and the first two weeks are the absolute hardest together, once you do that, suddenly, you start sleeping better, you start feeling better, you start feeling more optimistic, but it is challenging in the beginning.

The amazing thing is that there is a whole universe of people men and women who are increasingly out about the fact that they decided to remove alcohol from their life and that they feel better. And I really feel like the conversation is shifting from you are the problem alcohol is, okay, some people can handle it, you cannot, therefore, you sort of uniquely damaged too. This is a healthy choice in the same way it is that you were to decide to be a vegetarian or run a marathon, right? It's something to be proud of, if you stop drinking, you're going to be healthier, weight loss is easier, you have more energy to work out, your recovery from workouts is faster.

And if you go on Instagram and you search any hashtags around sober, curious, alcohol-free, there are a million of them, right? Quit hashtag quit drinking, you will find hundreds and hundreds of cool people who are out and proud and helpful about quitting drinking. So, whereas, it used to be the only option to stop drinking was sort of a 12-step program, often Alcoholics Anonymous, it was the only thing out there which is by definition anonymous by definition, their philosophy, which helps thousands and thousands and thousands of people is you have a disease, you're powerless over alcohol, I mean, I attended for four months it didn't happen to be my path. There’s a lot around that meaning you know, meeting makers make it keep coming back. The issue for a lot of women is and the man I think they don't want to be in that category because there is a stigma and walking into a 12-step meeting is very very intimidating and the idea is I will only do it if I am that bad and I'm not an alcoholic, therefore, I am not going to stop drinking because I do not quote-unquote that bad and the shift now is hey, I can stop drinking before it becomes a huge problem. I can stop drinking just because I feel better and there are these amazing movements like dry January and sober October where lots of people decide to give up alcohol for a month and there's lots of community and support around it. And that is really shifting the conversation too – I’m choosing to remove alcohol from my life and see how I feel. It's an experiment and it's accepted, right? It's like talking to your friends, be like, hey, want to do dry January and it's more and more common. And so, that's wonderful in, letting people take a break from alcohol without having to declare anything and just see how they feel and that's the whole sober, curious movement, right?

I am curious about, sobriety, I'm curious what my life will be like without alcohol and gray area drinking is, hey, there are a lot of people on a spectrum of having a problematic relationship with alcohol and it isn't black and white. I feel like historically, we've always said it's black and white either you're an alcoholic or have a drinking problem, or you don't and the fact is, it's a spectrum.

Michael: Yeah, I'm actually really glad that you just said that because I'm in agreement with you. I would have to go to AA meetings with my mother, as a child was, my mother was for sure, an alcoholic, and then in my late twenties after working, this corporate job, dealing with the stress, recognizing I was drinking too much, I started going to AA meetings and I was just not only so incredibly uncomfortable, but I realized like – oh, I don't think I'm an alcoholic, I just need a better coping mechanism. And that was really profound to me and it was unsettling for some of the people that I had connections within the AA Community because they said to me, things along with the nature of, well, you have to surrender control to the addiction.

I was like – I don't feel addicted to this, I just don't know how to handle stress the right way and that's really interesting that you said that because the support when I got into these bouncer time frames of sobriety were very much not there in that community and I don't want to rain on AA and that's not what I'm doing by saying this, I'm just simply saying that, yes, there are other ways to approach this. One of the things I'm curious about and I definitely want to talk about the ways that we can kind of navigate the beginning of this but before I get to that, if you are a person who is in this place of contemplation, recognize whether or not something that alcohol is actually hindering your life?

Casey: Yeah, I mean there are a couple of things but I would say if you are worried about your drinking, then it's something to look at right? You know, I think that most people who are worried about their drinking are trying to limit, are waking up at 3 a.m., huge sign, actually just in withdrawal from alcohol and your body sort of jolts awake. If you are feeling anxious feeling depressed and yet drinking removing alcohol will help so much with that.

So if you're listening to this and you're like, God, I kind of drink too much, I'm worried about it, that's enough of a sign to take a break, see how you feel without alcohol in your life. Don't do it with labels, do it as a health kick, but if you are trying to drink less often or less smaller quantities. What you're doing is you're staying in the constant drinking in withdrawal cycle and you physically and emotionally do feel worse when you're not drinking. The only way to feel better and to get out of that cycle, is to take a longer period of time without alcohol, usually, it takes 30 days, two weeks, or the absolute hardest but two weeks later, you sort of are like, oh wow, my dopamine levels are up because they were completely skewed by getting those huge hits dopamine from alcohol on there for my body naturally, lowered mine.

So I would say if you're thinking about it, that is your sign, it is a great idea to take a break for a while. And the other thing is like, there is so much support and guidance out there, right? There's a whole category of books that are called quickly, right? For people who are thinking about quitting drinking, there are books that appeal to the scientific mindset to the personal narrative mindset for women with young children, for men, who are thinking, it's not working for them that you can dive into that. There are a ton of podcasts and mine is one the hello someday podcast, that's specifically designed for busy women who want to drink less and live more and we don't just talk about removing alcohol, which is part of it. We talk about perfectionism, we talk about anxiety, we talk about burnout, we talked about Mom wine culture and how to sort of shift your thinking around it, because everybody is gone to drinking if it's a problem or if you're worried about it or you drink more than you want to, all it is a maladaptive coping strategy. You do need to relax, you do need to disconnect, you do need to have self-soothing, it's just you're reaching for the wrong tool.

Michael: Yeah, and I love that kind of just reinforced what my thought around it is and that this idea that I just needed a different mechanism. So let's say that you recognize that you're in this moment, you’re in contemplation maybe you're in precontemplation. You're just kind of like maybe not or you're in this place where, yes, okay, I recognize it's impacting my life negatively. I'm getting hangover three times a week, I'm spending hundreds of dollars that I don't have in the bar, I'm putting myself in precarious situations, I'm doing things I wouldn't do if I were sober, okay, there's something here. Maybe I'm not an alcoholic because not drink in the shower when I wake up in the morning, but I am drinking a bottle of wine, four nights a week, okay, this is a problem. Where do you start like, with the understanding I think looking at history and looking at people of gone through that before you, I always think that somebody does it before me, okay, good, then it means it's possible, okay, if somebody did it before me and I know it's possible. How do I avoid the pitfalls that they've made in that journey as are starting to navigate this in the beginning? So what I'm curious about is what are some of the mistakes that people can avoid, as they're starting this step into navigating sobriety, maybe for the first time in their life.

Casey: Yeah. I mean, I love that you asked that question because there are a lot of mistakes that women make typically and men when they are thinking about quitting drinking. I would say the first one is spending a lot of time debating whether they actually have a problem or whether they're really that bad or whether they're an alcoholic and that is just going to trip you up. It's also not necessary to think I'm going to stop forever or I'm never going to drink again that's black-and-white thinking that will stop you from ever seeing if you're actually happier without alcohol in your life. So I would instead forget about am bad enough, right? Alcohol is without argument bad for your health, it just is right? The hangovers, the puffy face, the bloating, the headaches, the bat poor sleep, all of those things are bad for your health. So think about it like a health kick don't put all this meaning associated with it. Everybody loves to talk about their new Peloton or that they're going, you know, gluten-free or that they're doing whole 30 or whatever the thing it Quito, whatever the thing is of the month, the trend.

So think about removing alcohol in that same category and telling people about it, right? Thinking that you're only going to not drink tonight or drink less, or whatever it is, that's using willpower and motivation alone, and that will always run out, especially when you're surrounded by a stressful life, by pressure from family and friends, by alcohol being available everywhere around you. So if you tell people hey, I'm doing a health kick and I'm going to eliminate alcohol from my life for 30 days or 100 days. When I work with my clients I always recommend 100 days because sometimes in 30 days, the first two weeks, you're white-knuckling it, the last two weeks, you're just counting down to the reward, which is drinking, but tell people you're taking a break from alcohol. Don't put all this meaning on it and then treat it as a time of true self-care because you're going to be tired in the beginning, you're going to be irritable. And so lots of naps, comfort food is okay, you're breaking a really addictive habit. Alcohol is a ton of sugar in it, you're going to crave sugar. So a lot of women finally stopped drinking because they want to lose weight. They don't like the way they look and they try to go on a diet as the same time. And that is just setting you up for failure because two weeks and you're going to be like this is too hard, I'm miserable, I had a hard day, I deserve it, and is it because you're consuming way too few calories and no sugar or is it because of the alcohol. So you kind of throw out the baby with the bathwater and go get a burger and a beer and you know, that was the moment when you could have ditched alcohol, and then you have all the time and energy in the world to get a healthy promise.

Michael: Yeah, and here's what's so interesting too, is when you understand the correlation between the fact that sugar is also addictive, and that alcohol is addictive and the biological movement of doing it is addictive, right? I remember when I quit smoking it was because I started chewing on toothpicks, right? And I think that there's also something to that, what can you replace that anomic response that you have built into your really your biology to an extent, right? And replace that with something healthier. One of the things that I'm curious about, and I want to dive in a little bit deeper, maybe to challenge your narrative of just a touch, I want to see where we go with. I am a firm believer in binary thought processing and what I mean by that is yes or no and removing space for the gray area around certain things in your life and I think about this idea and what you just said is the opposite of what I'm now saying, I'm asking a practical way. When you are in this process and you've made a decision, how do you stick to that decision while understanding that gray area is there and not actually falling back into old behavior patterns because you made a choice?

Casey: Yeah. No, I hear you on that and I totally get it. I think that setting a time period, does help you make that black and white decision, right? Especially I told my husband and my friends and my workout group and my colleagues like I am not going to drink for 100 days which was in my mind crazy, right? Because I couldn't make it four days without drinking at that time and I'd go four days and then I drink a bottle of wine, you know, say screw it whatever and then I'd go four days again, I'd be like well two bottles of wine and week is way better than 7 so, you know winning but taking it off the table for a period of time, does help you make that black and white decision. It does hold you accountable when you want to go back which you well and telling other people to give you accountability for it but it also you know, I know that if in the beginning, you said that you would never drink again or that you were eliminating it completely from your life, then you would sit there if you went out to dinner and see someone else with a giant glass of wine or a cocktail and be like, oh my God, I'm never going to have that again. You know, you want it, you long for it, it's socially pushed on you, you said indoctrinated, I say brainwashed our entire lives to believe that, I mean, even the fact you call it an adult, the beverage is a signifier that it is a privilege of adulthood and that it is important and it's required for connection and family. So as you go on you're going to see the physical and habitual and mental effects, you're going to see that your stress is down, your anxiety is down, your energy is up, you look better, you feel better, work is easier, you have so much more time. And then, during that process I absolutely encourage tapping into the community, tapping into books and podcasts that help you change your beliefs about alcohol. So that, by the time you get further away from it, you don't want to go back, you don't want to go back to waking up feeling like garbage, you don't want to go back to beating yourself up every morning for not having your life together and I think that helps so that's my take on the decision.

Michael: In that and I totally understand that makes perfect sense to me, right? I think there are also levels to it and you have to be able to assess everything around it. When you're in this place down you said a word that I think is really, really, really important, and that's accountability, and I think this is just my own personal thought, I loved the idea of accountability externally, but intrinsically, it's the only way I've ever been able to accomplish anything. Talk to us a little bit more about tapping into and leveraging accountability on both sides of this equation.

Casey: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think with accountability the hardest part of this process is actually drawing a line in the sand saying that today is the day I'm going to start because so many of us sit there and say well, it's Wednesday, but I've got a work dinner Thursday or you know, Fridays, a terrible day to start, I'll start on Monday. So accountability in terms of internally literally saying I'm going to go 100 days, I'm starting now, writing down on your calendar, what day you're going to hit 100 days, envisioning how you're going to look and feel, and when you are at 100 days, writing down on a piece of paper or why you want to stop? Right? What do you want to stop feeling and how do you want to live your life and feel about yourself instead and keeping that front and center? And then, you know, I love day counters, I had and still have an app called I'm Done Drinking. The reason I like it is you plug in the day you start, you plug in how much you drink and how much it costs. And then a lot of people are like, okay, I went five days, I went days, I went 30 days, that's great but it's hard to see all the other benefits. So in this app, you can see the money you've saved, the calories you've saved, the bottles not consumed. So, in my first 30 days, I saved $550 not poisoning myself. I didn't consume 40 bottles of wine and I'm 5 foot 3, so that is insane the idea if you line them up on a wall ingesting and processing through your body and your organs that much alcohol and you feel proud of it. The calories, not consumed, so now I've been five and a half, plus sober, I've saved over 35,000 dollars, not drinking, and trust me, I've said that money, but I've spent it on yoga retreats and trips to Amsterdam and Greece, and a personal trainer, and, all the amazing things in life to enjoy that aren't in a bottle.

Michael: Yeah. I love that. It's so true and I think that there's so much space for celebrating the micro winds along the way and it starts with one choice, one decision, one action, one thing that puts you in a different direction from where you are right now in this moment. And I love what you talked about in terms of saving money and I think that's so true. You look at, this is one of the really interesting things about drinking as you go, man, I spent $300 last night, and you can do that easily, right? You can do that so easily go to the bar, go to the end, and then you have that money. Imagine you take that and you put that into personal development, you put that into your dreams, you put that into all the things that you said you were going to do if you had money. And that to me is a huge win because the reality and I don't know that people ever, really truly sit with this at depth, the only way that you're going to create massive change in your life is you're going to have to invest, you're going to have to invest time, energy or money, most often you have to invest all four. And so, if you're spending all of your investing in going into the bar and not remembering, you know, you might have to ask yourself some really, really difficult questions and in that, you're going to find some really interesting answers, but I think you're going to have to be honest with yourself.

So I'm curious as we start to tell into this, if somebody is in this place and they're like, yeah, I want to be honest with myself, but I'm having a really hard time because I'm struggling with the shame and the guilt of the choices that I've made up till this moment and I feel like I'm too far gone. Why bother? How do you navigate that?

Casey: I mean, I think that you can start feeling better really, really quickly. It of course it depends on where you are in the spectrum in terms of is your addiction psychological, it's visual, is it mental, it is physical. I love that, you said, massive change and massive change often start with the first step. Like you said, with the decision that you believe, that tomorrow can be better than today and that you have the power to do it. So if you are physically addicted and need to go to detox, yes, do not do it on your own, go under medical supervision, they can be really dangerous. But when you talk about sober curious and the gray area there are millions and millions of people in that space where they just know or suspect that alcohol is making their life worse, and they don't know how to get out of it, right?

In my mind, hiring a sober coach, or joining a group, or investing in personal development, it's like hiring a personal trainer or a nutritionist, right? You know what to do, but you needed external accountability, you need reinforcements, you need cheerleading, you need someone to say, okay, I'm going to carve out an hour out of a week, actually talk about where I am with my goals, where I am now, where I want to be, pushed me along that way, encouraged me to not have it get lost in the shuffle of what my boss wants, what my colleagues need, my business trip, my spouse. So I think that regardless of where you are on the spectrum of like I'm too far gone or there's no point, you deserve to have your life be better than it is now, and you can make that happen.

Michael: Yeah, I love that. But again, it's a decision and that's what I want people to take from this is, you know, you're going to have to make hard choices in your life around the things that you want and I think that it's really easy to get caught up in and especially around alcohol and all the things that we've talked about today and go, well, I'll just do it tomorrow, but you know what? You're going to run out of tomorrow's and when you do, you're going to be in trouble because you're going to look at your life and you're going to wonder what could have been. And I think that holds true of everything not just alcohol, but all the choices and decisions that we have to make in our life. This has been absolutely phenomenal conversation Casey, so, before I ask you my last question, can you tell everyone where they can find you?

Casey: Yeah, absolutely. So I have a podcast. It is called the Hello Someday Podcast. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts and Michael's going to be on it and I cannot wait for that conversation. So that is a great place to find me. And also, my website is hellosomedaycoaching and I've got a ton of free resources there. So if this is resonating with you, I have a completely free guide that's 30 tips for your first 30 days that will really help you take this conversation further and apply it in really practical ways.

Michael: Beautiful and will put all the information in the show notes. Of course, Casey my friend, my last question for you is, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Casey: I think it means not to be a victim anymore, not to blame external circumstances for the things you're doing in your life that aren't serving you. So I used to always think that I drank because my job was stressful because my life was stressful because I had two young kids who I absolutely adored, but my life was work and chores and kids repeat. And the fact is that none of that was true and that I could take power over my life, not blame external circumstances, not be a victim to my boss's demands or my requirements at home and actually take that power back to myself, like you said, with a decision; with the decision that I could change my life and I could start by making a choice and taking the first step.

Michael: Beautiful very well said Casey, my friend, thank you so much for being here.

Unbroken Nation, thank you for listening.

Please, like, subscribe, comment, share.

Leave a review, tell a friend.

And Until Next Time.

My friends, Be Unbroken.

-I'll see you.