Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Addiction Unlimited podcast, where you get to learn everything you wanna know about addiction and recovery. I'm your host, Angela Pew, cofounder of Kansas City Recovery, life coach, and recovering alcoholic. To learn more about me, you can listen to episode 0 on your podcast app or find us on the web at addiction unlimited.com. Hello, my friend. I'm your coach, Angela Pew, life coach, recovering alcoholic, entrepreneur.
We talk about getting it together, leveling up, living better than you've ever lived before, and that is our goal. We have an awesome topic today. We're gonna talk about breaking habits, which of course, is super challenging for everybody, and we're all doing it all the time. Right? We are not only trying to break habits, change habits, but we are regularly adopting new habits.
So, this is gonna be a good topic, I found this fantastic article, and I'm gonna share with you a lot of what it said, it's right up my alley, being very scientific and brain oriented in its action approach. And, you know, I love that. Everything I talk about on this show is science based. It's proven stuff, because for me, in the beginning, learning about my brain and how it worked is what made me feel like I was
fixable. Like when I first got sober and I started to understand things on the brain level, like how my brain worked and how my brain was hijacked with alcohol, that's what allowed me to really understand that I could be fixed. Because my self esteem was so low, I felt like such a horrible human being, I didn't believe in my own ability to fix myself. But when I understood the science of it, I was like, oh, okay. So I can still be a crappy, horrible human, and I can be fixed.
Those two things can live together. I can still be crappy, and I can be fixed. So that's my approach to everything. Right? I approach it from a science based brain kind of level. This is how we change our lives, change ourselves, change our perspectives and thought processes. And all of that is what helps you change your behavior. Right? And all of that is what helps you create the life you actually want instead of that shit show I created when I was drunk. I mean,
that thing was a mess, you guys. That life I had before was a hot mess. So, of course, I wanna do it differently in my sober life. You know, I got this second chance to live, and I wanna live, and I wanna have the life I always dreamed of. So that's how we do it. Science based
factual stuff. If you follow a kind of process, and you stick to it, and you have some good tools, there really is nothing on the planet you can't do, and that's what I want you to know and believe about yourself and your situation. It's all fixable, I promise you. If you want to get sober and stay sober, you might be moving toward that and doing really well and putting some time together, whether that's days or months. And you're doing it. Right? And then all of a sudden, you drink.
Self sabotage, because you have some fear attached to sobriety. But what I know on the sober side is that it gets so much easier. It's not this concentrated level of attention that it takes in the beginning. Right? In the beginning, getting sober, I have to be so mindful. I have to be so aware of what I'm doing, where I'm going, who I'm hanging with, what kind of activities I'm partaking in, what am I doing for my recovery?
It takes a lot of energy in the beginning, and your thoughts are going crazy because you haven't learned how to deal with those yet. Your feelings are going crazy because you haven't learned how to deal with those yet, and it feels like this kind of crazy manic thing sometimes in the beginning. It doesn't stay that way. You know what I mean? That's the part I want everybody to understand.
Your whole rest of your sober life is not going to feel like it feels in the beginning, especially if you're doing good work on yourself, especially if you're working with a coach, or working a program, or doing things to be involved in consistent growth and self improvement. I always say one of my greatest keys to success in my life and my businesses is I have to have an understanding of what my shortcomings are. I have to know what I'm not good
at, right? Because I have to put things in place to work around my weak spots. So if I know I'm not good at a certain part of business, then I have to put the right people in place to handle that part of business. I'm not gonna try to force myself to do it. I probably do for a little while, right, to see if if I'm teachable in that way, or if I get better at it, do I enjoy it more? If I have a good system or process in place, will I be better at it? I'll try those things for a little while
because I always wanna challenge myself. But listen, if I just suck at something, I just suck at it. I gotta have somebody else do it. And that is one of the greatest understandings you can have about yourself is where you're not good because you have to provide reinforcements for yourself.
If you know that you make it, you know, weeks or even some months at a time in sobriety, and then you fall off, well, then you better be thinking about some things you can do in that spot where you usually fall off. Like figure something out to support yourself. Don't just sit back and do it exactly the same as you've always done it before and expect a different result. You gotta do something. You gotta make a
change. If I know I get to 2 weeks, and then I drink again, then at 2 weeks, I'm gonna have some things in place. I'm gonna plan a call with a coach, or I'm gonna plan a coffee with my sponsor, or I'm gonna plan a lunch or a weekend away with my sober friends. I'm gonna put something in that weak spot to make it stronger. I mean that's only if you really wanna be successful, if you don't really wanna be successful then you won't do anything and you'll have the same result.
So think about it like that, you have to know your weak spots so you can have reinforcement. One of the biggest things to under understand in habits too is a habit is its own process in your brain, and it is largely an autopilot situation. And this is where you'll hear people talk about, you know, I'm driving home from work, and all of a sudden I was in the liquor store. Because your brain really does go on autopilot. It has a system. Habit is a system.
And your brain is created to find shortcuts, to preserve energy. Right? So the less you have to think about something, remember how we've talked before about brain fatigue, decision fatigue, when your brain is making a 1000 decisions a day, it gets tired. So whatever shortcuts your brain can create to conserve energy, that's what it's gonna do,
and that's really what a habit is. So when your brain recognizes that you're doing the same thing, you're repeating the same pattern over and over again, it creates a little habit wheel. And the habit wheel is cue routine reward. That's the basics of it. Right? Something cues you, we call it trigger a lot of times. Right? That's a cue. Something cues the thought process, your brain goes into autopilot into the routine, and then you have the reward, right?
So take my little ice cream addiction for example. I can be sitting on the couch, just minding my own business, having a wonderful evening, and all of a sudden, literally, you guys, it could be anything. It could be the tiniest word. It could be a commercial on the television. It could be a smell. I mean, it could be anything can trigger me to want ice cream because there aren't very many moments that I don't want ice cream. So whatever the trigger is, the cue, then my brain immediately
starts going to the routine. What is my routine for ice cream? What do I have to do? I have a few places I like to go. As much as I'm obsessed with ice cream, I really only eat a few different kinds. I'm very picky. None of them are really easy to get, which is fantastic because otherwise this would be a much more challenging battle. But anyway, see the cue or have the trigger, and my brain immediately goes into the routine. Okay, what do I do? Where do I have to go? Do I need to
get ready? Obviously, I have to get in the car and go somewhere, so it's just my brain immediately goes into that process, the routine. Then the reward is, that process, the routine. Then the reward is whatever the ice cream brings me. Right? For me, it's not only that ice cream obviously tastes really good, but it's this whole comfort thing. Right? It's an internal thing. The reward is an internal thing that the habit satisfies.
So it's this comfort thing for me, and this ritual of and I'm the same way with food. It's this ritual of getting home, getting really comfortable, cozy on the couch, turning the television on, and it's just this warm fuzzy feeling. It's a ton of fulfillment I get from those moments, right? And it can be food or ice cream. That's the reward. So the first thing you wanna do when you break a habit or you wanna change a habit is figure out those pieces. What's your cue? What's the routine?
And what's the reward? And you guys have this in a 1,000 ways that you already do every day. If you really start thinking about it, like I worked with a client a long time ago who was trying to stop eating candy at work because there was all these candy and donuts in his office building. And he had created this habit of after lunch, he would go down the hall to his
buddy's office. He would sit at his buddy's office and chitchat for a few minutes, and he would eat candy out of his buddy's candy dish, and it just became this thing, or it just became a habit. Right? Now, the cue is lunch because he always goes to his buddy's office after lunch. So lunch is the cue. It's already putting that thought process in motion. The routine is going to his buddy's office after lunch and sitting down to chitchat. The reward is comfort, companionship, conversation.
Right? All those things are the reward. So when we were working on breaking that habit or changing that habit, I had him start going for a walk after lunch instead of and I was like, get your buddy so you can still get the reward. Right? But go walk around the perimeter of your building. Go outside, stay inside. I don't care. Just make this your new habit instead of going and sitting down and eating candy. And it worked really well.
But we had to identify the pieces, right, the cue, the routine, the reward. I know a big one for me with candy, and here we are back at sugar. A big one for me with candy is I had all of these routines in place in all the different places I would go. So if I'm stopping to get gas in my car at whatever place, I would have a certain candy that I would always get or a bag of chips or whatever the thing was. At every place, I started recognizing every single place I go.
I even have places that I shop. You know that you know department stores how they have, like, all the shelves and stuff by the registers that are just full junk food. Now they have little coolers full of drinks, but chips and candy and everything by the registers. Even my clothing stores, I created these rituals, right, where I'm getting my favorite 12 flavored gummies. I'm getting my gummy at the clothing store. Now my whole shopping experience gets tied to an unhealthy habit.
But I started noticing every place I went, I had these routines in place, And it was challenging, like, to really start breaking that was challenging. But you have to start with identifying. What's your cue? What's the routine? And what is the reward? When I recognized the reward for me, whatever the emotional thing was, when I could recognize that it wasn't anything that really was connected to the food or the candy, that made it a lot easier.
Right? It's like, if I want comfort and connection of some sort, I can get that a 1,000 different ways, and that's how you start problem solving it. Right? It's like how can I create the same thing with a different routine? The other thing that's really big, and I do this with my 6 week clients, you guys have probably heard me talk about it before, is change your environment.
This is huge. You need to create your environment to support what you're trying to do, your new lifestyle, rather than your environment supporting your old lifestyle. And there are a lot of different ways to do this. But one thing for me, like I just talked about the routine of, like, even stopping to get gas, I started going different places to get gas. And I know that sounds silly, but that's just what I did for a while because I didn't wanna already have it in my
mind. I'm pulling up at the gas tank or at the gas pump, and I'm thinking about going inside and getting the candy because I know what candy is there, I know exactly where it is, and this is my routine. Well, if I switch it up, and I'm not going to that place, then I don't have to worry about that trigger and that routine. I'm switching things up, and that's your environment.
It's everything around you. Think about changes you can make in your office to support what you're trying to do and support your new habit. They did a study with students changing their habits, and they found that the students who transferred to a new school were more likely to change their habits than the students that stayed at the same school, because they weren't exposed to the same familiar cues and triggers. All of that changed. That's your environment.
The next one, reframe your goal as positive. This is a fantastic practice, and I learned it through law of attraction. I'm a big law of attraction person. Obviously, you guys hear me talk about the universe, that's my thing. Law of attraction is just an amazing lifestyle that really fits with my belief system. And in law of attraction, we always talk about, think about the thing you want to achieve, not the thing you want to get rid of.
So when it comes to weight loss, I don't think, oh, I really wanna lose £5, lose £5, lose £5. I think, oh, I can't wait to be able to fit in those jeans again. Like, you always think about what you wanna move toward instead of what you wanna get away from. Does that make sense? So instead of thinking I'm gonna stop eating junk food, think I will start eating
healthier food. Right? Always think in terms, reframe it, not the negative, what you wanna get away from, but the positive, what you're moving toward. I hope that makes sense. And this is a brain thing too, by the way. Your brain, the habit system in your brain doesn't understand negative goals. Your brain understands forward motion working toward a positive goal. And there's research behind this too that shows you're more likely to achieve a healthy eating goal than eliminating
that I'm gonna stop eating junk food. Right? Your brain doesn't understand it. So when you reframe it in that positive way, research shows you're more likely to achieve that goal. And there's a whole emotional component to this also. When I was researching this episode, I found this piece that said, I'm gonna read this to you really quickly.
Psychologists say pursuing negative goals is associated with feelings of incompetence, decreased self esteem, and less satisfaction with progress, and these emotions deter us from taking action. On the other hand, it's much easier to become excited by the thought of reaching a positive goal, which will increase our chances of achieving it. You see what I'm saying? Switch it to that positive, what you're moving toward, what you wanna achieve rather than what you wanna get away from.
And on that same note, another reason your brain doesn't grasp negative goals is it's hard for your mind and your body to stop a habit altogether because it becomes so instinctual. Right? That habit wheel that I was talking about, the cue, the routine, the reward, it becomes very instinctual for us to complete the routine when your brain recognizes the cue and is craving the reward. So telling yourself you're just gonna stop doing it is not gonna cut it. And this is the next
one. So rather than trying to cut out the habit, which almost never works, right, it kicks in this whole deprivation thing and all those psychological aspects I just talked about. The best way to do it is to to create a new routine to replace the old one. Again, this is another thing. I talk to I work with people in the 6 week program about how to do this. Right? It's always better when you remove one thing from
your life, replace it with something. You don't wanna just take it away, but replace it with something happier. So when you have the cue, you wanna still get the reward, but you insert a new routine. Right? Like, I was talking about with my candy. Once I realized what the reward was, and I realized the reward doesn't really have anything to do with the food or the candy, then I could figure out a different routine.
Instead of going in and getting the food or the candy, I could figure out something else to plug in there where I would still get the same reward. Next one, tell your friends about your progress. We always talk about this, the importance of a tribe in sharing your experience with people around you. This isn't only because it creates accountability for you. It also makes
it more exciting. And the beauty of being a part of a tribe and having some accountability is your experience is helping your other tribe members also. We get so self centered and only thinking about what's what's it gonna do for me. You forget that you sharing yourself and sharing your experiences helping other people. Even if it doesn't seem valuable to you, it's valuable to the people around you. So create that tribe in whatever you're doing. Create the accountability.
It makes it more fun. You get to share your experiences. You know you're not alone. You have to have a tribe, people. I know you're tired of hearing me say it, but I'm gonna keep saying it. And the last thing I'm gonna cover in this is be nice to yourself. Give yourself some grace. This is a long term journey. It's not going to be fast. Right? Changing habits doesn't happen overnight. This is not an instant gratification situation.
Sometimes it will be. Right? Sometimes you'll do it, and you'll nail it, and you'll be like, heck yes, dude. Check me out. But the mind frame has to be, this is a journey. This is a long term goal that we're working on. There are going to be mistakes. There are going to be missteps. The only thing I don't wanna make a mistake in is drinking because I don't want any alcohol in my body, period. I will go to any length to not drink.
But with my food stuff and just being a more health minded person, be more conscious of that, you guys I'm working on 5 decades of bad habits. It is not going to change quickly, you know, And I have to give myself some grace. And I have to find progress in small ways because it's all progress. I don't just make the decision to be better and I'm magically better. I'm working on some really deeply ingrained things that, again, 5 decades that I've been practicing bad habits. So
it's gonna take some time. Be nice to yourself. Give yourself a little bit of wiggle room, and recognize your progress even in the moments that you don't do things exactly right. Progress, not perfection. Be kind to yourself. I love you guys. I hope you're having a fantastic day and I will see you next week. You've reached the end of another great episode of the Addiction Unlimited podcast. Candid and honest conversation about addiction and recovery.
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