What’s the difference between having fun and chasing it? As kids, most people have a good 15 years of life when they knew how to have fun without a drink in their hand. Back then, your brain had no idea that the perception of fun could be outsourced to something external. You just went out and created your own enjoyment. When you get in the habit of drinking to have fun, you start expecting things to be fun with little to no effort. You sit there passively waiting for fun to happen to you, turni...
Jul 01, 2025•25 min•Ep. 429
When contemplating taking a break from drinking or cutting back, most people focus on how hard it will be. They anticipate struggle, discomfort, and missing out on fun. Our brains are actually designed to avoid hard things. We’re wired to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and expend the least amount of energy possible. This motivational triad helped humans survive thousands of years ago when daily life required immense effort just to find food and shelter. But in today's world, where survival is relati...
Jun 24, 2025•34 min•Ep. 428
Ever felt like you just need a drink to handle discomfort? In this episode, you’ll hear how a terrifying bus ride through Alaska’s Denali National Park helped me realize that discomfort isn’t the enemy – it’s the chaos we create around it that trips us up. Through a narrow, winding road perched over sheer cliffs, fear consumed me. I reacted, resisted, and distracted myself, escalating the discomfort into a mental spiral. But when the journey turned back, I chose a different approach: staying pre...
Jun 17, 2025•26 min•Ep. 427
The hidden influence of "drinking the good stuff" is shaping your relationship with alcohol in surprising ways. As you upgrade your drink choices to fancy wines, craft beers, or top-shelf spirits, you might notice thought patterns around waste and value that are driving overconsumption. Our beliefs about what constitutes "good" alcohol trace back to ancient times, when Greeks first established wine as an elite drink compared to the beer consumed by common people. These age-old status distinction...
Jun 10, 2025•26 min•Ep. 426
When you’re out with friends and everyone orders drinks, you might have thoughts like, “Well, you only live once. I want to enjoy it!” Despite wanting to drink less (or not at all), you order yourself a drink too. You might think that having more discipline in moments like these would help you resist, but I'm here to tell you that discipline, willpower, and scare tactics aren’t the solution. In this episode, I break down two essential steps to help you navigate social situations without alcohol....
Jun 03, 2025•23 min•Ep. 425
When someone successfully moderates their drinking or says no to alcohol in situations where they previously would have reached for a drink, they tend to view it as a fluke and go back to worrying about when they'll slip up again. But was it a fluke? As humans, we often attribute our wins to external factors - the circumstances, other people, or pure luck - rather than acknowledging our own role in making better choices. However, this mindset of not taking credit for your achievements actually m...
May 27, 2025•27 min•Ep. 424
Have you ever woken up after drinking too much and immediately thought either, “ I f*cked up” or “ I must be f*cked up ?” These two seemingly similar thoughts actually reveal deep-rooted societal beliefs about drinking problems that might be keeping you stuck. It doesn't matter your age, gender, education level, or socioeconomic status – these thoughts show up consistently and create major roadblocks to changing your drinking habits. In this episode, you’ll learn where these thoughts come from, ...
May 20, 2025•25 min•Ep. 423
Have you ever set a firm intention not to drink, only to find your good intentions fall apart later in the day? It's a frustrating cycle that can leave you wondering what's wrong with you. But here's the truth: your good intentions aren't failing because of some personal flaw. They're failing because they're missing a crucial element. On last week’s show, you learned why good intentions are just visions without plans. Today, you’ll learn the exact practice you need when temptation strikes—and it...
May 13, 2025•35 min•Ep. 422
Do you start each morning with the best of intentions for your drinking only to watch them crumble by evening? That frustrating cycle isn't a sign of personal failure—it's evidence that you're missing a crucial element in your approach to change. The truth is, those morning intentions aren't the problem. They're genuine and meaningful, but when you tell yourself "I won't drink tonight" or "I'll stop after two glasses," you're creating a vision without a roadmap to get there. Listen in this week ...
Apr 29, 2025•14 min•Ep. 421
Do you set strict rules about when and how much you can drink, only to break them and feel worse than before? When most people try to change their drinking habits, they immediately look for external parameters—only drinking on weekends, limiting to two drinks, or never drinking before 6PM. But these arbitrary rules completely bypass the most important question: why do you want to drink in the first place? So, what would change if you dropped the rules and actually put yourself in charge? Sobriet...
Apr 15, 2025•32 min•Ep. 420
Have you ever found yourself envious of people who seem to drink with ease? If you’re changing your relationship with alcohol, envy toward “normal drinkers” might feel familiar—but it also holds surprising insight into how your habit formed, and how you can begin to change it. In this episode, you’ll learn how understanding envy helps you uncover limiting beliefs, sheds light on your drink archetype, and offers a deeper understanding of what you’re really craving when you reach for a drink. Rath...
Apr 08, 2025•22 min•Ep. 419
Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by your emotions that you'd do anything to forget what's bothering you? In those moments, reaching for a drink—and then another, and another—can feel like the only way to escape. But this pattern of using alcohol to numb difficult emotions creates a problematic cycle that actually decreases your emotional resilience over time. Tune in this week to learn about one of the most common patterns that makes it difficult to change your drinking habits: the Escape arche...
Apr 01, 2025•32 min•Ep. 418
Have you ever set rules for yourself around drinking, only to find that they don't work? You have the best of intentions, but somehow you always end up right back where you started. What's going on here? As it turns out, there's a very good reason why your drinking rules aren't effective - and it has nothing to do with a lack of willpower or discipline on your part. In this episode, you’ll learn how your relationship with alcohol started forming long before you ever took your first drink, and ho...
Mar 25, 2025•16 min•Ep. 417
If you're constantly rushing through your days, checking off endless to-do lists, and using alcohol as a reward, you might be living in a "pleasure desert.” When you're constantly focused on getting things done and denying yourself small pleasures, it's no wonder you feel the need to fill your evenings with alcohol. But what if there was another way? Listen in this week to learn why the Reward and Upgrade drinking archetypes often go hand-in-hand, and how, by simply paying attention to the littl...
Mar 18, 2025•15 min•Ep. 416
Have you ever taken a long break from drinking, only to find yourself eventually going back to it? So many people find themselves stuck in this frustrating cycle of stopping and starting again, wondering why they can't seem to make the change stick. Listen in to hear one of our Take a Break coaches, Adriana Cloud, explore this common struggle. We discuss how the health benefits of not drinking, while important, are often not enough to overcome the deeper desires that alcohol fulfills and how to ...
Mar 04, 2025•30 min•Ep. 415
How often do you declare to yourself, “I’m just someone who…” fill in the blank? Can’t moderate your drinking? Has an addictive personality? Is broken and has no willpower? It's easy to turn your frustrations with drinking into sweeping declarations about who you are. But what if these thoughts aren’t as true as they feel, and there was an alternative explanation that had nothing to do with you as a person? Listen in this week to learn how zooming in on one specific moment can reveal the real re...
Feb 25, 2025•14 min•Ep. 414
Do you ever feel like you're stuck in a cycle of cravings and excuses when it comes to drinking? It's easy to believe that the only way out is through sheer willpower and discipline, but sometimes, all you need is a new thought to prevent yourself from pouring a drink. In this episode, you’ll learn four powerful "breakthrough thoughts" that can help you quickly change your perspective on drinking. These thoughts are designed to interrupt your usual patterns of thinking and give you a new way to ...
Feb 18, 2025•18 min•Ep. 413
Do you ever find yourself inconveniencing yourself without even giving others a chance to say no to your requests? This habit of not asking for what you want can have a bigger impact on your life than you might think. In fact, it could be contributing to your drinking more than you'd like. In this episode, I share a personal story about how I caught myself falling into this pattern and the realization I had about its connection to the reward archetype. Discover how the small, seemingly inconsequ...
Feb 11, 2025•12 min•Ep. 412
Do you find yourself reaching for a drink when you're around certain people who get on your nerves? It may seem like alcohol is making the situation more tolerable, but is it really? Sobriety coach Adriana Cloud joins me this week to discuss the common struggle of feeling like you can only stand someone if you're drinking. We explore the underlying boundary and mindset issues at play, and offer a new perspective on dislike. Find a personalized approach that helps you change your habit in my new ...
Feb 04, 2025•25 min•Ep. 411
Did your Dry January not go as planned? Don't worry, you're not alone. Research shows that more people fail at Dry January than succeed. But have you ever considered how every seeming failure might just be the next step on your journey to changing your relationship with alcohol? In this episode, I share a powerful mindset shift that can transform how you approach any goal related to your drinking, and show you how to mine the gold from your "failures" and use that data to better understand your ...
Jan 28, 2025•15 min•Ep. 410
Do you ever feel like your cravings get out of control? What if you could transform your relationship with cravings from something you dread to something you actually look forward to? In this episode, sobriety coach and hypnotist Adriana Cloud shares a genius analogy that will change how you view your cravings. Listen in to discover how making one simple mental shift can help you more easily say no to a drink - and actually start to love your cravings. Find a personalized approach that helps you...
Jan 21, 2025•22 min•Ep. 409
Are you mystified by your own drinking behaviors? Do you struggle to understand why you can occasionally easily moderate, while other times you spiral out of control? Sobriety coach and hypnotist Adriana Cloud is here to share her decade-long journey with daily drinking. Although Adriana never identified as an alcoholic, she knew something about her relationship with alcohol felt off. And in this episode, she shares how this realization led her on a path of not only changing her drinking habits,...
Jan 14, 2025•43 min•Ep. 408
So you’ve got your compelling reason—your rationale to go after change in the face of discomfort. The only problem is, it doesn’t seem to be helping you drink less or stop altogether. Is it not compelling enough? Maybe that’s part of it, sure (and that is easily fixed, as I’ll share). But perhaps you’re putting too much stock in that compelling reason. You could be expecting too much from it. Instead, it’s time to change your mindset. Tune in to this episode for a quick refresher on what a good ...
Jan 07, 2025•31 min•Ep. 407
It’s almost here: Dry January. You know you want to take a break, but you’re not sure how. Even worse, maybe you’ve tried this before and either couldn’t stick with it or didn’t see any changes. You might not realize it, but your plans to focus on not drinking may be setting you up for failure. Instead, you need to shift your thinking about the substance and focus on becoming a person of substance. Tune in to learn how to purposefully direct your brain away from what’s easy and toward a differen...
Dec 31, 2024•31 min•Ep. 406
It’s easy to see why you might pour yourself a glass of wine when things aren’t going your way, but what happens if your life seems to be working out fine? Why are you still reaching for a drink? You’ve been tricked into thinking happiness must be obtained, which is why, in order to change your actions—using alcohol for quick relief—you must first change how you think. The truth is, negative emotions are just a part of the human experience. Listen in to learn how to avoid the trap of thinking yo...
Dec 24, 2024•27 min•Ep. 405
It’s around this time of year that you start thinking about making changes, but what happens when you decide to stop drinking and you’re not happy? Is the answer to go back to alcohol or simply settle for a lackluster life? That’s what alcohol does to your brain—it applies a thin veneer to a harsh reality. But it may interest you to know that there’s a third choice. You can upgrade your life. Listen to find out why alcohol tricks your brain and how to break that cycle. Even more, you will learn ...
Dec 17, 2024•22 min•Ep. 404
If you’re taking a break from drinking this holiday season, you might feel like you’re stuck at the kids’ table at every gathering. The reality is, we have been socialized to view alcohol as a sophisticated, adult activity. Those thoughts—implanted by TV, movies, and marketing—create desire and fuel a vicious habit cycle. Tune in to explore how your brain learned to outsource certain beliefs about adulthood to the contents of your glass. You’ll also discover how to retrain your brain, because it...
Dec 10, 2024•29 min•Ep. 403
Picture this: You and a few friends have decided to split a bottle of wine. Everyone fills their glass, but there’s still a little left in the bottle. You can probably guess what happens next. But did you know that the decision to finish the bottle might not actually be your own? It may be a pair of mental blocks preventing you from tuning in to the sensation of having had enough to drink. Listen to this episode to explore those mental blocks and how they can easily lead to overdrinking. You’ll ...
Dec 03, 2024•29 min•Ep. 402
“Alcohol is poison.” “It’s toxic—why would I put it in my body?” These are common refrains from people who quit drinking. But are they helpful in reshaping your relationship with alcohol? Humans have used alcohol for centuries to alter how they feel. Demonizing it or treating it as entirely good or entirely bad can block you from deciding its role in your life. In today’s episode, I explore why this black-and-white mindset lacks nuance, prevents curiosity, and how shame and guilt, while effectiv...
Nov 26, 2024•21 min•Ep. 401
You’ve been there: You’re with friends, and you’re doing your best not to drink (or stop after one), and suddenly you’re met with resistance. A lot of feelings bubble up. What do you do next? It can be challenging to say no in certain situations, and setting rules or restrictions isn’t going to help. Instead, you must learn to manage those feelings that arise to change your relationship with alcohol. Listen in to learn how to weather someone’s disappointment so you can be your authentic self, an...
Nov 19, 2024•28 min•Ep. 400
