Hey everyone. It's Therapy Natters time again, another chance to listen to two psychotherapists answering your questions and nattering about all things therapy. As always, I'm Richard Nicholls and with me is my co-host Fiona Biddle. Good day Fiona, what have you been up to since we spoke last?
I just had this feeling that you were going to ask me that and,
I always do
yes, yes, and my mind's come completely blank. I've been playing a lot of bridge this week though, but I've made quite a few boo boos in my last few games.
Oh,
Uh, dear. I'm still very much a beginner.
that's all right. You could stay a beginner forever. That's fine.
I think most people in the Bridge world expect you to, you have to do at least five years before you're considered even beyond beginner.
Practice makes perfect. Practice makes permanent. That's a phrase that I heard about about habits once. Practice makes permanent. And I thought, Oh, I like that. That's a good phrase. Practice makes permanent. I dunno who the first person was to coin that phrase, but to whoever it was, I thank you.
Yes. Well done. Well done.
What have I been up to? Just work, really. I went to the theater last week. Oh, I'll tell you something, the train journey. Oh, no. Awful. Our expectations were not met,
Where? Where were you going?
Euston. And there was signal failure. We got there in the end. We did get to the hotel in time to dump our cases and run to the theater, so we did get to see the play, which was great, but we didn't get any food before hand.
What was it and was it worth it?
It was The Upstart Crow, the Ben Elton Shakespeare comedy, which was very funny. Hey, I briefly got to say hello to Ben Elton and Emma Thompson who were there as well, which was quite nice.
Nice for them to meet you.
They didn't know who I was. There's only one person in the cast who I really knew. Rob Rouse who's one of the actors in it. We befriended each other on Twitter a couple of years ago and we've been sort of monitoring each other's work. And he said, Well, if you gonna come and watch it, you know, grab me and, you know, we'll, we'll catch up, we'll go for a drink afterwards. And we did. We had a quick pint in the pub opposite, and it was, and it was really nice.
It was interesting that when he said, Let's go for a quick drink, was something along the lines of, you know, pointing at the pumps. So what you having, what do you fancy? It's all about alcohol. All the cast, everybody's like yeah. Pint of that. Pint of that. Pint of that. Gin and tonic please. Which was not a surprise when they wanted to decompress after just performing cuz you know the adrenaline of standing on the Apollo in front of the writer, because Ben Elton wrote the play.
So not only was there a couple of relatively famous people in the audience, there was also the writer of the play there. So they must have really been quite stressed. So to come out after the play and go Right, drink. And what they weren't saying is Right, I'm thirsty. Made me smile. When I first met Dawn, my wife. Before we started going out, we were in a group of friends sitting around a pub table and it was my turn to get a round in.
So I just stood up in, I think the pub was the Rose and Castle, just outside Coventry. I stood up and went My round, What you having? So I pointed at everybody and went, What? Your lager, lager, Bass, cider, What you having? She went, I'm not thirsty, thanks. I went, No, I'm gonna the bar to get a drink. She went, I'm not thirsty. I was about 20, she was 19. In my head I'm like, What's being thirsty gotta do with it? I'm going to the bar. What? But she was right.
Very adult head on her shoulders. Dawn has never been one to be told what to do by, by society and culture, whereas, Me. Yeah. I'll just go with the flow. I'm supposed to have a drink, an alcoholic drink am I? Is that what you do? Okay. Will do. Daft innit?
It is, but it's exceptionally normal. And yes, Dawn is the exception in our society that would link, uh, thirst with having a drink in the pub. I mean, you might if you've been for a bike ride and get there, and you really want a nice cold lager. Because it's sort of two things at the same time. So it does tie in, but very often, no, you don't think, Oh, I'm thirsty. I'll have a glass of red wine.
That wouldn't help And that brings me onto one of the questions that we had submitted last week. Is it my turn to read them out? I don't know. I can't remember. It doesn't really matter. Does it?
It doesn't matter at all, but let me have a go. I feel like, Yeah. Okay, so this is from Tina not real name, and Tina says, I've had problems with substance abuse for most of my life. I'm in my late thirties now and feel that I'm in a fairly good place, but can't help worrying that it won't last long. What have your successful clients done to stay sober? Looking for any tips, please. Thank you both. Loving the show. Yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, there's, there's several things in that, of course. There's the actual substance abuse is the fact that she's doing well now, but the fear she won't be, and then looking for tips and what other people have done.
Yeah.
I think it's important that at this point we have a little look about what substance abuse is and where we as therapists need to draw a line. Um, it's a fuzzy line because addiction is not very clear. If you think about a continuum, and let's take alcohol on that, there can be people who are very clearly alcoholics at one end of the continuum, and then people who definitely aren't at the other end. But it's where does that line stop?
And I suppose that for us as therapists without specialist training to work with addiction, we would say that we work with problem drinking. So where that, where the normal drinking has become a problem. Not full blown alcoholism.
I'd like to think that somebody who's maybe recently qualified and doesn't have a great deal of experience, they've just become a counselor. They've just become a psychotherapist If somebody approaches them and says, I've got a severe drinking problem, I need to stop because my doctors have told me this is gonna kill me, so I need to stop. So can you help me stop? That they recognize their scope of competence.
And put their hand in the air and say, I can help you, but I'm probably not the right person to offer you advice on how to stop. I can maybe help you with some of the underlying psychology stuff that encouraged the drinking in the first place, if there is anything. And you want to talk about your past and what have you. But as far as the alcohol is concerned, cuz it's a chemical. We very rarely will know enough about it to know what's safe, cuz you can't just stop.
You as somebody who's got a severe drinking problem. That could be really dangerous.
Absolutely. But it is possible that somebody who doesn't drink very much, but it's habitual but not a lot. Is still told they have to stop. There could be some, physical condition or medication that they need to take for something else. That means that they have to stop. So it's each on its own merits, but also, in this, Tina doesn't say what substance she's referring to.
that's true. She mentioned the word sober, but people use the word sober for lots of
yeah. But again Richard and I are not qualified to work with things like heroin. But again, it's a sort of fuzzy line. And then you got, I mean, this wouldn't come under its substance, but there are other addictions such as gambling or pornography. It's, it's a complicated field, but any therapist that you speak to about possibly having therapy, make sure that they have the specific qualification to work with your situation.
And so today we are going to be talking about, we'll use problem drinking as the easiest way to do it, I guess.
Yeah, and Tina asked an interesting question. What have our successful clients done? Which is a great question, and, and I think that is a place for all sorts of issues where people can get some, some help by asking others what helped you? What's your story? How, how did you manage to achieve what you wanted to achieve? Everybody's gonna be different.
Everybody's gonna have their own story to tell and what works for one might not necessarily work for another, but there will be some popular ideas or methods that that can help. In my mind, that's about a mental rehearsal about certain situations. That's about training your brain to create some expectations that when you're in the supermarket, there's an aisle there for alcohol and you don't go down it, that you, you see that the aisle is there and you go, Okay, well that's not on my radar.
And you deliberately, consciously, cognitively make the decision to go, I'm walking somewhere else. And if you can train your brain to expect that, it makes it a lot easier in the supermarket to avoid that aisle. And that's, that's just a, a simple thing of just getting your head around it and creating some expectations. That's a good place to start.
Yeah, and you can link that to the, for everybody, there'll be some aisles that they never go down in a supermarket unless you've got, a small baby. You are unlikely to walk down the baby aisle. So, you know, you can link those ideas. But how about we have a look, First of all, before deciding how to change what we do, how about we look at what we actually do? Because by knowing what we do, then we know what to change.
Yeah.
So this is using a theory from Gestalt Therapy called the Cycle of Awareness and Boundary Disturbances. And it can get a bit complicated, but let's start simply and let's use the example of suddenly you're sitting there working away, doing the housework, at your desk, even watching the TV whatever it is. And you have a sensation. A bodily sensation, or perhaps a thought. But in this case, getting a bodily sensation. And then the next step is that we become aware that we have a bodily sensation.
In this case, we are labeling it in our mind as thirst. Interestingly, going back to Dawn in the pub, in this case, I, if I'm talking about myself, I feel thirsty. So I'm aware of that feeling. The next step in this cycle is called mobilization, so preparation for action. So if I'm sitting in front of the tv, that mobilization will be getting up and moving towards the kitchen, getting a glass out and pouring some water from the tap. The action then is next, and that is drinking the water.
The next is the contact, the meeting the need, so that water is meeting the need of the thirst. The next step is a satisfaction. So a recognition of, Oh, that's better. Yes. And the final step in the cycle is withdrawal, letting go and moving on. One of the interesting things about this cycle of awareness is that we can consider pretty much everything, if not everything that we do in life, to be these cycles. So life itself is a cycle. A day is a cycle. A week is a cycle, a month, a year.
Any event that we do, any job that we do, any project that we do, any TV program that we watch, any meal, we have. Every trip that we do, everything from big to small is a cycle. The interesting thing then is when it goes wrong, and this is what we're going to look at in terms of the person who has a drink, should we take a sort of not problematic sort of drink situation first, Richard? Yep. So talking an alcoholic drink, not problematic.
So somebody who drinks within the recommended limits and for whom it's not likely to be dangerous. So let's take your experience after the theater.
I am presuming here, so tell me if I'm wrong on any step of this, Richard, but first of all, you went into the pub, so the sensation would've been multifaceted, but the sensation would've been the sound of the door, the noise of the people, the smell of the pub, the feelings of excitement at having just viewed the play, being with your friend, seeing famous people, so lots of sensations all combined into one.
But with those links, the social links and so on that you had, and the fact that you were in a pub, this leads to an awareness of the need to have a drink.
Yes. Yeah.
So you became aware of that. The mobilization, I think you said that your pal said What would you like?
Mm. Yeah.
And so your mobilization was saying, I'll have a pint of that one. The bartender poured said drink. Might have gone and sat down at a table, although after, after theater London pubs, you probably didn't.
Yeah, we stood outside
So, so, so your action was to move outside. You probably didn't sip your beer until you got outside. Unless it was right to the rim, in which case you might have done to stop spilling it.
Yeah.
you got outside, you stood, you cheers, and then you drank the drink. It made that contact meeting your need. And then you continue to drink that pint, probably not down in one. Probably you sipped it gradually over a period of time and you felt satisfied. You may have gone back and have another one, I don't know. You may have done, but at some point within a reasonable amount of time, you were satisfied. You withdrew, you said goodbye In this context.
Finish the drinking and you literally let go of that situation. Your cycle was complete and you moved on to the next one, which would've been, we need a taxi or a walk back.
Well, we walked back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So that's, an example of that drink cycle when everything is okay. Shall we have a look at when it's not?
Yes,
lots of things that can go wrong on this. So a sensation comes upon one. You feel something. And then you become aware of it. Let's link those two together in this context,
Mm.
Because the issue here is feeling something that is not connected logically and rationally to having a drink, but the awareness links to having a drink. So in that example I just gave with Richard, going into the pub, that link of sensation and awareness. If that happened when somebody just walks through their own front door at 11 AM for example, that's a irrational, illogical connection. So the awareness is not of the right thing.
So people can be misinterpreting the sensations into an awareness of a need that's not exact. That's one thing that can go wrong so that the sensation is misinterpreted. Leading to a false awareness of I need a drink. Moving, then going through the cycle, leading to having a drink when that wasn't actually what the sensation was asking for. So where this could go wrong is that the sensation is valid and interpreted correctly. So somebody feels anxious, for example.
They become aware that they're anxious, but then they have a belief that the solution for anxiety is to have a drink. So that belief system will have come from somewhere from other people's beliefs, from their past experience and so on, But they mobilise towards having a drink. Based on that belief that it's alcohol that will resolve that fear. And then the cycle continues. And then the other key place where the cycle goes wrong is at the end with the satisfaction.
And this is crucial for a lot of people who would say that they had a drinking problem is that they don't just have one. They get to that point on the cycle of they've had the drink, it's met a need, but they don't stop. They don't withdraw, they don't finish the cycle. They get stuck in that Action Satisfaction place. They keep going. Keep having another one and another one, and another one. And not withdrawing until sometimes, you know, circumstances cause them to withdraw.
Such as falling asleep. Let's just make it simple. So those are the sort of typical places where there can be a problem with the cycle. So the key here is to recognize for yourself. So for Tina to look at her situation and what she used to do, she says she's in a good place now, so we're talking about what she used to do. Where was this cycle going wrong? And then when you know what your cycle is and why you're doing it. That gives you the opportunity to change
To put some blocks in between those cycles in between this, the stages of that cycle. Hm.
Yeah. Blocks or sort of forks in the road. So when you get to the mobilization you can actively say, Oh, this is what I'm doing. I'm mobilizing towards alcohol, and I'm now going to mobilize towards a cup of coffee. Or a walk or whatever it
A cup of minty tea.
Yes.
Yeah, I, I, I know cause I, although I don't have it anymore cause I've moved house. I used to have a bar in my house. It's one of the first things back when I was 25, I think, when me and Dawn first moved in together and we were both young and we had all this space cause we'd finally got this big house together. Let's build a bar, let's get a carpenter in to build this big bar. And, and I thought, Yes, that's a, that's a fantastic idea. Of course. And we built it.
We got optics and it was, it was a feature of the house. I'm quite extroverted, so the idea of people coming around the house, which is what I wanted. What I wanted, was to have parties, have friends coming around that feeds me. I love that. I'm a people person. And every night, nine o'clock, if, if we were in. I'd think I'll have a quick glass of whiskey. I'll just have a glass of whiskey. And I wouldn't pour myself a single. It'd be a double, maybe more.
And this was happening nearly every night that we were in. And then when Billy was born I didn't wanna do that anymore. I didn't want to have a treble whiskey at nine o'clock at night when I've got a newborn baby. So instead of Ooh, I think I'll get a glass of whiskey. It just changed to, oh, think I'll have a cup of tea. Instantly overnight. And I, I found just as much, oh, this is nice and comfy and relaxing with a cup of tea than I did with a treble whiskey.
And, and it's been 18 years now, pretty much to the day since that cuz Billy was 18 last week and so now I don't have a habit of thinking about whiskey at nine o'clock at night, I think. Ooh, a cup of minty tea . And I make a mint tea like an old man, and I'm fine with it because I'm now comfortable enough with myself that I don't criticize myself for not being the character that I expected I was gonna be.
The sort of working class kid that when I was 15 went Well, of course that's the way my life is gonna go. Of course, I'll be going into the working man's club and having a few pints after work and then coming back home and shouting at the wife. I think that's probably what a part of me deep down expected because of the introjected stuff that I'd seen from around me all my childhood. and I'm quite glad it didn't turn out like that.
uh, I'm very glad. Yes. I'm very glad too. What , is the sensation that you get at nine o'clock? Is it just simply it's nine o'clock? Is that the sensation?
Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a preparation for, for, for bed I think. It's a sleep routine that says, Right, now we can start relaxing because it's getting to nighttime. Let's relax. And what it always used to be was, ah, let's relax with this glass of whiskey in my hand. And that's not what I do anymore
I think it's a really good example to show that the sensations are not just physical feelings. They can be. An awareness of, of something else. So it can be a link to somebody else. So most people have other people in their lives that they do particular things with, and some of those could be their drinking pals and they might not drink with everybody. There can be, you know, times of the day that make different links that can apply to food as well, of course. But then you've got other beliefs.
I've talked about the idea of the belief that alcohol eases anxiety. There can be many others. When I first met my husband and I was only 18, and when I went to meet his parents as soon as I walked through the doors, have a Sherry.
Hmm.
so I did. And that was then a pattern with them. and the feeling that I got from that was A, being included and B feeling grown up
Hmm.
So that sort of set up a nice feeling. So for me, I think that it's probably still there to an extent. If I'm feeling down or feeling not included, I don't feel, I don't really worry about not feeling grown up these days. I quite like that. But if I was to feel that, then there would be a temptation to mobilize towards filling that need with that belief system. Having a sherry makes me feel included.
I do have carafe of Sherry over there, but it's, it sat there, it sat there for months untouched. But I like having it, It's just having it has that nice links to those lovely people.
I was quite pleased with myself a couple of years ago when a little bar, a little real ale pub opened up just opposite the clinic where I work. And I like real ale, I like strong flavors. But it's literally, give or take a few doors down, opposite the clinic I work at. And so on a Thursday after work, one of the other therapists would say, Oh, Richard. So uh, quick pint? Do you wanna pint? We should, uh, pint. Well, um, yeah, I'll, yeah, I'll come join you for, for a quick drink Pete yeah.
Come on, let's have a quick drink. But he lived in the same street as the clinic. I've got a half an hour drive home. So he'd have a pint cause he could just walk back home. I'd have to have a ginger beer. And at first there was a sense of denial. I'm being denied of something that I actually want here. Cuz I'm sitting in this lovely place that serves great beers and I'm having a bottle of ginger beer and I did feel a bit left out.
But actually what I wanted was the environment and within a couple of minutes there was a Actually this is quite nice. We're still having a nice chat. We're still talking about therapy or work or humans or muscular skeletal systems cuz he's an osteopath. It was really nice to sit and chat with a glass of ginger beer. And as the years have gone on, that's the habit I have in there now. And it's really quite, quite nice when I'm not driving for some reason and I'm able to go in and go, hurray.
I'll have a pint of that please. But what I've noticed, I no longer feel any different about the beer. That I do about the ginger beer, the non-alcoholic drink. It feels just as nice, just as comfortable, just as normal, just as safe. I don't feel vulnerable ordering a soft drink. And maybe that comes with age, wisdom. Maybe our culture has changed a little bit over the last few years. We're not quite so critical of people who, who'd buy a soft drink in a bar.
I'm hoping that's the way things are gonna be now. And we don't, Although when I went out on Wednesday, somebody did say to me, cause I did have a half a beer actually. And somebody went, You're having a half? I went, Well, yeah, I'm driving. I've gotta get back home. He went Oh. Pulled a funny face and he just laughed about it. And I just laughed about it. But I, it didn't make me go, Oh, go on then I'll have a pint. Cause it's only one, it'll be okay.
It's like, no, I'll have half cuz it's 10 o'clock at night and I've gotta drive half an hour home in the dark. I'm not gonna push my luck. So there's still that culture there that says, But you know, you're in a pub, so you've gotta have a pint of beer. This was a Wetherspoons. So it's kind of expected, slightly different culture I guess. But the times they are are changing, I think, within our culture.
You can get coffee in a pub now you go to Wetherspoons and buy a coffee and nobody bats an eye lid. That's pretty good.
It's definitely changing, but it's not completely there as you, as you say. And there's also a thing I think that people aren't necessarily drinking to excess the same way that they used to do. But you know, just going back to the cycle, just have a look for yourself. And you can think about this for all sorts of things, but think about what the beliefs are that you are you are working to.
There was one there that I couldn't quite put my finger on the, the feeling of something about you were being, you were being deprived, Weren't you? That was, that was it. You, you felt you were being deprived. The other side of that is a feeling of I deserve it.
Mm.
which can be very, very strong, those two. Obviously two sides of the same coin. But getting an understanding of what your own cycle is leads to you being able to change it in the way that you were saying at the beginning with things like the supermarket.
Mm.
don't go down the aisle.
Hmm. And that's hard for people if they've had a habit of doing that every week, that that's just, that's just what I do. I go up and down the aisles and then I go down there and I have a look for the bottles of wine or whatever. If you want a new habit, it might be helpful to replace it with a new one. Maybe you go down an aisle that you wouldn't normally go down where the soft drinks are and you look for the ginger beer maybe.
Cause at least that's got a a bang on it, you know, it's a good flavor. Become a ginger beer snob. You know, you can get some really rubbish drinks. Get some nice ones if you're gonna have a soft drink. You're so used to having something that's got quite a strong flavor. Choose the nice ones. Don't go for the cheapest one. If you were spending, you know, six quid on, on wine, gosh, a lot of decent ginger beer, you're gonna get there. You know.
if you wanna treat yourself, treat yourself, don't damage yourself. And I know that's easier said than done, but being aware of what's going on, being aware of what's going on underneath. The issue, obviously is when people say, But it's not a drink I want. It's not quenching my thirst that I want, or a strong flavor that I want. It's the alcohol that I want. It's the effects of it. The, Ah, that's nice. Like we were saying last week, sometimes the placebo can do that. Just the association.
Cause we've seen, we didn't mention this actually last week, did we? There's been lots of studies with non-alcoholic drinks. If people don't know that they're non-alcoholic and you monitor their, drunkenness over the course of a few hours, all the people, whether they've been drinking alcoholic drinks or non-alcoholic drinks, still claim to be getting ever so slightly more inebriated as the night goes on cuz they didn't know that it was non-alcoholic. And that happens because of expectation.
If we can make that, Ah, this is nice, sort of response in ourselves by accident with a trick. Imagine what we can do deliberately when we go, No, I want to deliberately go, ah. If that's what you want, find a way of making that happen. Set up the surroundings to allow that, whether that's with lighting or cushions or the right sort of media or audio books or TV or whatever. And, and do get a, get something to wet your whistle if you're. maybe it's a minty tea. Maybe it's a red bush.
Maybe it's PG tips, you know, whatever. Could be a decaf coffee doesn't matter. But if you do need something to remind you that, well, I relax with something in my hand. I've always got a glass or a mug, or there's something in my hand and that helps me go sip. And then, Oh, that's nice. If there's an alternative, if there's a healthier alternative, find a way of making it happen. But recognize that you are able to get that, Ah, this is nice feeling.
You might, might need a little bit of bodily awareness. Be aware of how you're holding your body, your shoulders, any tension in your jaw. Just notice that and see if you can soften the muscles around the eyes. Soften the muscles in the jaw. I mean, as I, as I say this, just saying the words. I, I feel the muscles are in, in my head, go, Oh, you're thinking about relaxing the muscles in your face. Are you? Oh, here you go. Here's how the muscles in your jaw relax.
Here's how the muscles in your back relax. And that was just me suggesting it. And that's what happens to me as I sit here beginning to, And I, I notice my, my speech has slowed down just from, just from talking about it because my brain says, Well, this is what you do. You do talk a little slower and you are more relaxed when you think about it. I wasn't trying to, and I'll probably bounce back any second now. Here I am. Wahey.
it had the same effect on me as well when you're talking about it. Just one other thing I just wanted to, having said, do something else. There is also the factor of that bit at the end of the cycle of keeping going. I think it is for most people is true that when they take that first sip of an alcoholic drink, they do get that, ah, that's nice. That's, that's the case for most people.
But the thing is that you don't get that one when you have the second one or the third one or the fourth one, but people chase that. They chase getting that feeling again, which is part of the reason for keeping going cuz they're chasing that initial feeling, a recognition that, oh no, that's what you get at the beginning so you can't get it part way through. Cause that's just not how the body works. That can enable people to stop.
Maybe we should be drinking halves then
Well, yeah. What's.
because what's the point of drinking a full pint If you only wanted that sip.
Uh, well, I would, I would completely agree unless you've been on a long bike ride, that would be the only time I've ever had a pint in my life. cuz Well, yeah, I, Well, I'm only little, I couldn't do it.
It was quite interesting a couple of weeks ago in a pub, somebody wanted an apple juice and so me and my mate we walked to the bar and said, Yeah, we'll get you an apple juice. And the lady behind the bar said, um, half or a pint? And I sort of blinked at her and went, What a pint of apple juice? And I looked at my mate and he looked at me and we went, Oh no, it could be just half. No one wants a pint of apple juice, do they? She went, No, it's fine.
Okay. She wandered off and got this carton out and poured half pint of apple juice. And I said to him, That's weird, isn't it? How it's quite easy to drink a pint of beer, but the idea of drinking a pint of apple juice, well that's just weird, isn't it? Well, no more weird than drinking a pint of beer. But it just seemed really odd, the idea that somebody would go, Oh, I'll have a pint of apple juice, a whole pint of it. So odd. And yet, well, you do, if you like apple juice. Why not?
Well, I mean, there might be a a financial thing I suppose. Two halves might be more than a pint but otherwise, well, it doesn't go flat, but if you were having Coke, then I'd always want a half and then another half if I wanted more because it would've gone flat, then that happens with beer as well. But as I say, I mean culturally. When I was well, young, I guess, women didn't have pints,
Ah,
it just wasn't something that we did. But it's not something I've ever been terribly worried about in terms of the war of the sexes. That doesn't bother me in the slightest. But yeah, why do, why do we have pints? I mean, in a lot of places, Well, now used to be in France you only had little beers, wasn't it? But now you can get bigger ones. But still the default would be a small beer in France, wouldn't it? I think most places,
Different culture and I remember a comedian saying, God, 30 years ago on a radio program, I think it was. That the Europeans will drink to be social and the Brits will drink in order to projectile vomit onto a statue. And I was about 15 at the time. I thought that's quite funny. But now I look back and go, That's not funny, it's, It was true at the time and I really hope that things are changing because it needs to, it really does.
That will definitely help people who want to cut down and cut out alcohol. If our culture is more accepting of those people, it really, it really is gonna help them. Hey, I'll tell you something. Fiona, we've hardly scratched the surface on such a complicated topic, but we've been rattling on for ages.
We have, haven't we? I hope that's helped. I hope people can go online and Google Gestalt cycle of awareness and you'll find diagrams that explain what I've just been rattling on about. So for some people, seeing it in pictorial form will help them understand and see their own patterns. I think it's something we could talk about again with other problems.
Oh, we'll, we'll come back to it and give you a reminder of it cuz it does fit in with so many different things. It really does. Well, we'd better disappear off. I tell you what, have a super week everybody. If you need anything, you know where to find us. Do send us some questions. There is a link in the show notes to a form on my website where you can send us a question anonymously if you like, and we will squeeze it into an episode.
And if it needs to be anonymous and you call yourself Tina if you wanted to, you're more than welcome to. You can call yourself what you like. No one really minds. This is a safe place. Okay, have a great week everybody. See you soon.
Bye bye.