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Alcohol Minimalist: Mindful Drinking & Behavior Change — Education
Alcohol Minimalist: Mindful Drinking & Behavior Change

Join coach Molly Watts on the Alcohol Minimalist Podcast to explore mindful drinking, behavior change, and mental wellness. This show offers science-based strategies to help you break drinking habits and overcome anxiety linked to alcohol use. Whether you’re an adult child of alcoholics or seeking peace with your drinking, discover tools for lasting change without shame or guilt. New episodes every Monday and Thursday.

Becoming an alcohol minimalist means:
Choosing how to include alcohol in our lives following low-risk guidelines.
Freedom from anxiety around alcohol use.
Less alcohol without feeling deprived.
Using the power of our own brains to overcome our past patterns and choose peace.
The Alcohol Minimalist Podcast explores the science behind alcohol and analyzes physical and mental wellness to empower choice. You have the power to change your relationship with alcohol, you are not sick, broken and it’s not your genes!

This show is intended for educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice. If you are physically dependent on alcohol, please seek medical help to reduce your drinking.

Copyright: ©2023

Latest Episodes:

Alcohol Explained with William Porter Jan 27, 2021

Show notes

In this episode of the Breaking the Bottle Legacy, Molly talks with William Porter, author of Alcohol Explained and Alcohol Explained 2.

William's decision to stop drinking came after unsuccessful stints in AA, where he struggled with the lack of science and logical information. He says that even while he was drinking he sought to understand what effects alcohol was having on him and why people, including himself drank in the first place. In the introduction of Alcohol Explained, William says: The purpose of the book is to provide an understanding of alcohol consumption, alcoholism and addiction generally and to provide a practical solution for those wanting to quit.

The book has includes his own research and experience with alcohol. Our conversation covers how alcohol changes brain chemistry and that the brain has a reaction of anxiety when the sedating effect of alcohol wears off. He shares that the difference between someone who has an off switch when it comes to alcohol and someone who reaches the tipping point that when you have the unpleasant anxious feeling that you need/want another drink to get rid of that feeling.

We discuss whether or not moderation is possible and according to Will, you will always be dealing with the craving for the next one to get rid of the unpleasant anxious feeling. We also touch on alcoholism and genetics and how you become addicted to alcohol.

William has written:

Alcohol Explained

Alcohol Explained 2

Diet & Fitness Explained

You can learn more about William Porter at www.alcoholexplained.com

Alcohol Explained Facebook Group

To get help and support in changing your daily drinking habit, please get your free report: "Alcohol Truths: How much is SAFE?". Download it at www.mollywatts.com

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How to Change Your Drinking with Kenneth Anderson, Executive Director HAMS Jan 20, 2021

Show notes

In this episode of Breaking the Bottle Legacy you'll hear from Kenneth Anderson, CEO and founder of HAMS.

Kenneth shares his journey and the experience he had in AA that he says nearly killed him. The idea that he was powerless and alcohol was all-powerful was something that he categorically did not accept and he ended up in detox trying to imagine a different type of recovery program that empowered people to make their own decisions about alcohol. That was really the beginning of HAMS according to Anderson. After working as the online director of Moderation Management, and volunteering at Access Works in NYC, eventually Anderson left MM and started HAMS in 2007.

The HAMS Harm Reduction Network provides information and support for people who wish to reduce the harm in their lives caused by the use of alcohol or drugs. HAMS neither encourages nor condemns alcohol use or alcohol intoxication. HAMS recognizes recreational intoxication as a reality and seeks to reduce harms associated with it. HAMS believes in the autonomy of the individual and supports each individual's choice of a goal vis a vis alcohol - whether the goal is safer drinking, reduced drinking, or quitting. HAMS supports every positive change.

Anderson published his book "How to Change Your Drinking" in 2010 and has been Executive of HAMS since it's inception.

Learn about the 17 elements of HAMS, why "better is better" and constructive ideas on how to change your drinking with Kenneth Anderson. Anderson and April Smith co-edited "Better is Better" a book of success stories from HAMS which is also available for sale now on the website.

For a great community visit the HAMS facebook community here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/harmreduction/

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Alcohol Truths: How Much is Safe? Jan 13, 2021

Show notes

One of the questions people often ask about drinking alcohol is how much is safe?

In this episode of Breaking the Bottle Legacy, Molly Watts discusses the idea of safety in terms of physical health, social health and financial health. When evaluating your decision to drink or not, the advice offered here is to use the best data you can to create your own risk/rewards analysis.

There are considerations to make when choosing to drink and there may be valid reasons as to why you want to include alcohol as a lifestyle choice.

Research indicates that alcohol offers no health benefits that outweigh the health harms for our physical health. If you do not already drink, the recommendation is that you should not start drinking for any proposed health benefit.

If we accept the fact that alcohol is not offering health benefit, then the goal becomes harm reduction. The therapeutic effects of alcohol are very limited and are dose-dependent. To offer any positive effect, alcohol should be consumed in limited amounts.

Beyond physical health, our social health is important and also offers some physical health benefits when we are socially healthy. To that end, alcohol has been show to increase social behaviors and has been a part of cultural and social growth for centuries. For this reason, it is reasonable to want to include alcohol as a part of social interactions.

Lastly, alcohol presents an opportunity cost when it comes to financial health. It's important to be aware of the money that you spend on alcohol and to make sure that it aligns with your long-term financial goals.

In the end, you need to evaluate your relationship with alcohol in all areas: physical health, social health and financial health to determine what is a safe level for you.

For a FREE report "Alcohol Truths: How much is SAFE?" please visit www.mollywatts.com

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Your Relationship with Alcohol/Awareness and Challenges: Society and Industry Jan 06, 2021

Show notes

In this two-part series of Breaking the Bottle Legacy, we'll explore challenges to creating your peaceful relationship with alcohol. The power to create a peaceful relationship with alcohol sits squarely on top of your shoulders--namely inside your head and in your own brain. The challenges to your power include science, society and industry.

This is part two of the series, and in this episode we'll be discussing the challenges from society and the alcohol industry to your peaceful relationship with alcohol.

Societal messages about alcohol are everywhere and they've been a part of the unconscious stories you've believed about alcohol since before you ever drank. Our culture glamorizes alcohol and makes it seem like something we need to have. The messages are simultaneous that drinking alcohol is fun, sophisticated and it's the socially accepted default, where as not-drinking is suspicious. Once you realize that the message isn't actually true, it's just part of our culture's story about alcohol you won't be able to ignore how many messages you are exposed to on a daily basis. The acceptance and prevelance of alcohol in our society, challenges your peaceful relationship with alcohol.

Our attitudes and opinion's as a society are impacted by the alcohol industry itself. The reason that the alcohol industry challenges your peaceful relationship with alcohol, is because they have a very vested interest in keeping you drinking. Messages that focus on the harmful effects of alcohol are overshadowed by the "Drink Responsibly" campaign pushed by "big alcohol". You will need to create a peaceful relationship with alcohol knowing that alcohol will most likely be readily available to you for the rest of your life. The alcohol industry will make sure of that.

For more information on how to create a peaceful relationship with alcohol visit www.mollywatts.com.

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Your Relationship with Alcohol/Awareness and Challenges: Science Jan 06, 2021

Show notes

In this two-part series of Breaking the Bottle Legacy, we'll explore challenges to creating your peaceful relationship with alcohol. The power to create a peaceful relationship with alcohol sits squarely on top of your shoulders--namely inside your head and in your own brain. The challenges to your power include science, society and industry.

The first is the science of alcohol and includes both chemistry and neuroscience.

The chemistry of alcohol challenges your peaceful relationship wth alcohol because of its biphasic effect on your brain's neurotransmitters and because it's positive effect is so limited. Molly Watts explains how alcohol has both a depressant and stimulant action in the brain. The positive therapeutic effect is very limited, and quickly turns negative above a blood alcohol content of .05%. For most people that means no more than one drink and even then individual conditions such as age, gender, weight, temperature make it impossible to predict.

The unpredictability of alcohol's chemical reaction in your body makes it a challenge creating a peaceful relationship with alcohol.

The second science that challenges your relationship with alcohol is neuroscience. Put simply, alcohol triggers your brain's reward center and when you drink repeatedly over time, the brain works to engrain the habit of drinking. Your brain is simply is doing what it has evolved to do by committing behaviors to habit to increase it's own efficiency. Because alcohol causes a release of dopamine it tricks the brain into believing that alcohol is good for us, and necessary for our survival.

In the next episode, we will discuss how society and industry challenge your power to create a peaceful relationship with alcohol.

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Episode #1-All About Breaking the Bottle Legacy Dec 28, 2020

Show notes

In the first episode of Breaking the Bottle Legacy, host Molly Watts shares her beliefs surrounding alcohol and how you can create a peaceful relationship with alcohol: past, present and future. This podcast is dedicated to adult children of alcoholics who are drinking more than they want to, and who struggle with anxiety and fear of becoming an alcoholic like his/her parent.

The show is based in science and explores the truths about alcohol and whether or not genetics is to blame for your strong desire to drink.

Molly talks about the history of her own mother who drank for more than 40 years. Despite the impact of her mother's alcohol abuse on her life, Molly developed her own daily drinking habit of more than 30 years. She believed that being perpetually anxious and worried about her drinking was the price she would have to pay as the adult child of an alcholic because being able to change her drinking habits seemed impossible.

Until she learned that she wasn't powerless and she could completely change her relationship with alcohol. Now she is sharing that knowledge and the tools she used with her listeners.

www.mollywatts.com

https://www.facebook.com/groups/breakingthebottlelegacy

https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sheets/understanding-alcohol-use-disorder

https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/factsheets/alcohol.htm

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