Let's Talk About Alcohol - Video Transcript

Hey everyone, I'm Kristen, the anxiety therapist, and today I want to talk about alcohol. This video was actually prompted by a session I had with a client yesterday. In addition to a couple articles I read in the news this morning about alcohol consumption before, during and after the pandemic, which was pretty interesting.

So when they studied the people in the age group of 20-49, they actually found that alcohol was responsible for one in five deaths. And that drink king was a pandemic habit that most people wanted to kick. Like if there was one habit they could choose that they acquired during the pandemic it was drinking.

And this really disproportionately affected women because they were sort of balancing responsibilities between home work and caregiving and for all people, men and women alike, you know, when when we had those blurred lines between home and work, when we were all working from home, we didn't have that transitional time.

So maybe prior to the pandemic, you had to commute to work. And so maybe you had 30 minutes, 45 minutes in the car or on the train where you could kind of decompress or maybe you walked or rode your bike to work and got a little bit of exercise to release some of that tension and stress.

Well, when we didn't have that, when we were, when those lines were blurred, a lot of people would turn to alcohol to kind of alleviate that stress. And I mean, myself included, I found myself drinking significantly more um towards the end of the pandemic, and then even after life got, you know, somewhat back to this, this new normal, um I found that I was just drinking more and have really recently made a concerted effort to cut back on that and really just save it for the weekends.

There's also been a lot of marketing of new alcohol products that really target women and especially moms, and so we can kind of get caught up in that that wine culture and that that marketing, and I don't want to throw a bunch of statistics at you and make this video, you know, all about the stats and why you shouldn't drink, but I just want to kind of bring awareness to the fact that you don't need to be getting wasted every night and be binge drinking all the time to want to change these habits because even drinking one drink a day or two drinks a day can still impact us whether it's sleep or mood or what have you.

So, I think it's just, this video is intended for you to just kind of be reflective on the role that alcohol plays in your life, and using terminology like alcoholic or alcoholism is a little bit outdated now, there's a diagnosis referred to as alcohol use disorder, and so this is what therapists and psychologists used to to make a formal diagnosis, but I think that can also be kind of stigmatizing and it can deter people from wanting to change their ways because they can sort of convince themselves like, oh, well, I'm not that bad, I don't have a diagnosis and it really doesn't matter, you know, it's more about quality of life and the relationship that you personally have with alcohol, that's what's important.

So you don't need to go to 12 step program or anything drastic like that. It's just try to look at the role that alcohol plays and and there's been sort of this recent movement to get what we call sober curious. And so that's just asking yourself, like, would my life be better if I drank less, you know, and you could do this as an experiment.

You know, we try to create new healthy habits all the time and so you can consider this may be a new healthy habit that you're trying out. So maybe try to abstain from drinking for a week or a month and just see how you feel, see if it even makes a difference. Some people might notice a significant difference other people might notice, okay, you know, it was fine, I'm still going to drink here and there, but um it's just for you to sort of gather information about how alcohol impacts you personally, and, you know, if you have found yourself drinking more, I think you're in the same boat with a lot of people and it's not a moral failing, it's not like you're doing anything wrong, you know, we all sort of went through this collective trauma with the pandemic, and so I think most importantly, um you just you need to give yourself some grace and self compassion and self care and kind of use those things to um to counteract the habit of drinking as opposed to getting down on yourself or berating yourself for having a hard time stopping, because that's just going to make it worse, right, if you feel that guilt, some other things to note are that um drinking over time actually decreases the dopamine in our brain and over time, that can lead to symptoms of anxiety and depression.

So, the neurotransmitters in our brains are really important for mood regulation for sleep for a lot of important bodily functions. So, um that's just another thing to keep in mind that we want to make sure those neurotransmitters are as balanced as possible. And just to know that genetics plays a big role.

So not only in terms of um you know, having a problematic relationship with alcohol, like if you have a parent or or somebody else in your family who also has been a problem drinker, you know, there's a big genetic component there, but also some people just have a much stronger positive sensation in their brains when they drink.

And so so drinking might feel different from person to person and if you have that genetic factor in there, just to be aware of that too, that drinking actually might feel better to you than it does the next person. And obviously something that feels good is something that we want to continue doing so again.

I just encourage you to ask yourself, would my life be better if I drank less and maybe experiment with that? Take some time off? Just look at the role that it plays and if you have any questions, um, you know, drop, drop them in the comments and if you feel like you do need some outside accountability or some help in working with these habits, please reach out to a mental health professional because it can be really helpful to have somebody guide you along that path.

So I hope you all enjoyed this video. I put out new content weekly. So be sure to follow me on social media @catharticspacecounseling or subscribe to my youtube channel, “The Anxiety Therapist”, or check out my website www.catharticspacecounseling.com. I hope you all have a great weekend and I'll see you next week.