If you’re wondering if you should quit drinking…
you should
Your Science-Backed Guide to Understanding Why You Drink the Way You Do
…and Why Your Drinking Will Never be Different
As seen in
I Spent 5 Years Trying to Moderate My Drinking
I drank every night. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot
I jolted awake at 3am with anxiety
I woke up ashamed of myself either because I drank too much and couldn’t control myself yet again, or because I had a few drinks but didn’t feel satisfied
I spent each morning at work asking Google, “how do you know if you’re an alcoholic?” or “how do I moderate my drinking?”
I resolved to not drink that night
But by lunch time my hangover would fade and I’d convince myself why I should drink
Then I drank again that night and repeated the cycle
I wanted nothing more than to learn how to moderate my drinking
I tried everything
Until one day I realized I can’t change the way I drink
And then I was finally free
Quitting Drinking is the Beginning of the Journey
When we first quit drinking, there is a decrease in quality of life, happiness, self-esteem, and recovery capital (the internal and external resources we can use stay stay sober) and an increase in psychological distress.
If you look at this graph, this trend continues until ~9 months sober and then things begin to improve.
This is when we need to put in the work to understand why we were drinking and how to develop coping skills to stay sober. I know it may feel like you drank to socialize or have fun, or that you just spontaneously go back to drinking for no reason, but there’s more to it than that.
Learn more about “the work” in this episode
What is Sober Power?
In whatever capacity we work together, we will focus on 3 key areas. This is what I believe will allow you to not only stay sober, but to have a life you never imagined was possible for you.
Brain Capacity: based on my research, I deeply believe that the ability for your brain to recruit many neurons for a task and stay focused on that task is key. We all have a certain amount of brain capacity that we start out with, and then alcohol simplifies the brain and prevents it from working. Learn more about that in this episode. There are things that you can do to improve your brain power, and that is one thing I help people with.
Coping Skills: even if you think you weren’t drinking to cope, you likely were. We drink to avoid our problems and keep them out of our awareness. In sobriety, we have to learn how to accept our emotions, process them, and deal with them. Learn more about emotions in this episode.
Lifestyle: when we drink problematically, we build our lives around alcohol. This has to change if we want to be sober. Part of living a sober life is understanding how to set boundaries, have empathy for others, communicate assertively, and get your needs met. Learn more about habit formation in this episode.
Here’s How We Can Work Together
Private 1:1 Coaching
I specialize in stress and overwhelm reduction, emotion management, self-regulation skills, and coming off of autopilot mode
I work privately with men and women who know they are done with alcohol and want to develop the skills and mindset to stay done
Logistics: 4 or 9 month program for sobriety and/or anger management
Living a Sober Powered Life
This is a very special community where you will get support to stay sober and learn from the wisdom of the group in our meetings
This is a community for people who know they are done with alcohol. It is not for the sober-curious
Member data: men and women who have anywhere from 0 days sober to multiple years of sobriety. Ages range from late 20s to 70s, with most members being 40-65
“As a board certified emergency physician and more importantly, recovering alcohol myself, I must once again thank you for your podcast. You are the most right on consultant on this devastating problem that is way too accepted in society. Your advice and knowledge has impacted me more than anything. Please keep up the good work as there are many more lives for you to save.”
“Thank you. I am a 60+ psychologist who has struggled to beat the alcohol cycle even with all my professional knowledge. You have provided critical additional research info re the neurochemistry of addiction that has enabled me to do this. I am personally eternally grateful. The rehab industry really needs to pay attention to your work. They would be far more successful. You must have changed many lives, go girl!”
The only sober podcast that combines science and lived experience
When I accepted that I had to quit drinking I wanted to understand why me
On my day 2, when my hangover had faded, I started to look into the research on addiction. I was terrified that I was a weak-willed loser with no self-control and I had to know if that was true
I read daily and learned why I woke up with 3am anxiety, why I obsessed about my drinking, why I was always so overwhelmed, why my daily life seemed unfulfilling, and why no matter what I did I could not be satisfied with 1 drink
This helped me let go of the shame and self-blame
One morning when I was around 8 months sober I woke up and thought,
“everyone needs to know this”
and I launched the Sober Powered Podcast that day
I had no idea what I was doing, so I had to zoom call myself to record, but I had to get this information out in the world
My biochemistry background allows me to find and interpret the primary literature, while my lived experience serves as the connector between the research and what you might be experiencing with your own drinking. No one covers the science of alcohol this comprehensively.
Sober Powered is a top 100 mental health podcast, and in March 2024 appeared in the top 10!
