Black and white thinking is a barrier to moderation - Stephanie Chivers

In this week's podcast, habit and addiction coach and long-time friend of Club Soda, Stephanie Chivers, addresses a long-burning issue within our community; why some people need to be abstinent and why some people are more suited to moderation.  This issue often bubbles up within our Club Soda Facebook group, causing some division.  But, as Stephanie explains in her conversation with Club Soda's Dru below, black and white thinking - one approach is good and the other is bad - is exactly what hinders success for both abstinent and moderate drinkers. 


Who is Stephanie Chivers?

Stephanie is is a qualified Coach and Master Practitioner of NLP. Stephanie specialises in behaviour change and addiction as a 1-1 practitioner and in group work and has facilitated change for many people in many different addictive scenarios. She addressed her own addictive behaviours in her 30s and, as a result of her personal and professional insight, now gets a buzz from guiding others to lead healthy and fulfilling lives beyond the restrictive behaviour and black and white thinking of addiction.


What is black and white thinking and what does it have to do with moderation?

As Stephanie discusses in the podcast, black and white thinking is another way of describing an all-or-nothing mindset towards substance abuse. In this conversation, Stephanie and Dru consider the effect of a restrictive mindset on moderation - can you really be moderate if you believe that abstinence is the only 'good' way to behave? Does the trendy idea that alcohol free is the only way forward hinder people who only need to cut down? And how do we know that what works for us is the 'best way'?


 'When you give advice or share, use your language carefully. I can share with you what worked for me take from that what you will.'

The other point is that we should not be too all-or-nothing with ourselves. Just because a period of moderation may not have worked out for us in the short term doesn't mean that it never will. Our lives are full of circumstances that mean that our plans need to change or become more flexible, and so we should also allow ourselves flexibility to see how we feel, amend our strategies so that we can reach our goal, and not allow black and white thinking to derail our intentions. Give it some time. See how you feel. Make another decision.


Other resources from Club Soda

If you want to hear more about moderate drinking, check out our other blogs about moderation.

In the end, the best way to know if moderation will work for you is to try it.  Club Soda’s courses about mindful drinking teach you the skills you need to moderate your drinking - sign up today!

Find Club Soda:

The Club Soda Tasting Room is at 39 Drury Lane, London, WC2B 5RR

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Transcript

Dru Jaeger  0:00  
Hey, how you doing? Welcome to the Club Soda podcast. I'm Dru Jaeger. Club Soda is all about helping you live well by being more mindful about drinking. So if you want to choose better alcohol free drinks, make connections or discover how to change. This podcast is for you. And if you want even more good stuff, come and find us at Jordan Club soda.com.

In this week's podcast, we're talking about moderation, cutting down reducing alcohol consumption, taking alcohol free days, and all of the ways in which we learned about alcohol in this place. And I'm joined by Stephanie shivers. Stephanie is a coach and a trainer, and a long standing friend of Club Soda has. And she's got 15 years of professional experience in supporting people to change their relationship with alcohol. So she's someone who knows what she's talking about. Welcome, Stephanie. Yeah, lovely to be here. Could you can we start off by just for those people in the in the Club Soda community who don't know you? Could you tell us a bit about you and your background and why you're here?

Stephanie  1:21  
Yeah, I'll do the short one. hour on that one. So yeah, my name is Stephanie. I teach people how to change their relationship with alcohol. And I've been in this world I've been in this well since teenager, but professionally, I've been in the world since Well, the last 15 years. So I've got a personal side and a professional side to the professional side is that I've done pretty much every job in treatment service services, which was amazing. So I've been a children's worker, a family worker and outreach worker, I've worked in psychiatric units, hospitals, homeless shelters. In your bog standard drug and alcohol worker, Team Leader, service manager, I've run three different treatment services, two of which were alcohol specific. So one is general alcohol. And then the other one I held up drink was agewell, which is the over 50. I've also done quite a little work around making every I don't matter with the complex client stuff as well. absolutely loved it until I didn't love it. And I do my own private work. So I keep it super simple. I'm a coke therapist and a trainer. And yeah, I just support people in groups and one to one do a little bit training a little bit supervision. Yeah, quality of life. For most of my clients are women, I do work with men, and I do work with drugs as well, or there are copies of drugs, but that's a whole nother conversation.

Dru Jaeger  2:49  
That's a whole other conversation. Yeah.

Stephanie  2:53  
And, and, yeah, I, what I say is, I support people to change their relationship now call because some people want to reduce some people don't know some people, some people want to take a break. And there's every bone within that. And I'm more than happy to support whatever goal they want.

Dru Jaeger  3:13  
Yeah, so so you're here, essentially, because you know what you're talking about. And I see I've been on your days training on alcohol assessment and brief intervention is incredibly helpful and insightful. And actually, the breadth of experience that you bring professionally to this is really incredibly helpful. You know, especially for those of us who have come into this, it largely driven by our own personal experiences. So one of the one of the things that often gets talked about in the Club Soda community, because we are a place that is open to people changing their relationship with alcohol in all sorts of ways. Other people want to cut down a bit or take break or stop drinking completely or just not sure or, you know, maybe like me, you know, I fall into this very grey category of somebody who's alcohol free by default. But, you know, last week, I had a beer and I had a bourbon. So you know, for the first drinks this year, very exciting for me. How am I alcohol free? No, I don't really moderate. You know, it doesn't I don't really kiss it anyway. So but we're all about helping people redefine their relationship. But one of the things that comes up quite often because of that, because we're a community that's open to different types of ways of changing is this business of moderation and what it means and how to do it. And I wonder, could we start there with your reflections on when people say, I'm interested in moderating my drinking, or I don't know whether moderation might work for me. What is it? What is this moderation thing that we're talking about? What does it mean?

Stephanie  4:47  
Great question. And moderation. Oh, my God. It's one of those times, isn't it? Like what is success? What is love? What is moderation? It's I don't think there's an agreed definition of what moderation is I'm going to guess a definition, I would say, you know, the government recommended guidelines or 14 units, I would be wanting somebody to have two alcohol free days. But really, somebody comes to me and wants to explore moderation. It's about what works for them in life, you know, in the same way as what success, what does that mean to you? What does moderation mean to you? What does that look like? And how does that work, and they might not actually know when they first come to me, they might change their mind every week. And that's absolutely fine. Because when somebody comes to me, they come to me, because there's, there's something wrong with their drinking the kingdom, something's not working for them, and they really know what they want to do with it. So then as we reduce and tweak it, and do all the lifestyle stuff, and things change. So really, it's about the impact of their drinking on their life. And it's, you know, somebody could be drinking two glasses of wine a day, and that could be having a serious impact. Or it could be drinking a bottle of wine a day, and not experiencing any impact, we know, at some point, there probably is going to be an impact of that level of drinking. But there's probably quite a lot of people that don't think there's much impact on their bottle of wine a day. So it is a very, very individual personal thing. I personally encouraged people to reduce, to have alcohol free days, and to look at the quality of their life and things up. That's what I think is important, because part of what we know about moderation, or reducing or occasional drinking, whatever language we use. Part of that is about looking at somebody's lifestyle, and looking at all the aspects of that, and making tweaks in those areas. Don't slip into more regular, heavier drinking.

Dru Jaeger  6:53  
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's one of the things which is people say is one of the attractions of going alcohol free is that it's effectively it's a once for all time decision. Right? I never have to engage with the subject again, that the picture you paint of moderation is one of an ongoing dialogue, I guess, between you and your life circumstances and what you want. Why would anyone willingly want to do that? I guess, is an obvious question.

Stephanie  7:20  
Gosh, I think there's lots of reasons. So my experience is, and this is from working in treatment services, not just my private work, my experience is that most people don't want to be abstinent. Most people don't want to be. So to be able to support people like you do, like I do, like most treatment services do. So most treatment services in the UK will be happy to support people to reduce, it'll be about harm reduction. So it's a cultural thing, actually, for the UK, which is quite interesting. Whereas the US is probably predominantly abstinence based treatment centres. So there's that there's the cultural stuff. It's also the cultural stuff, that there's this perception that a lot of people drink, and it's ingrained in our culture. And it's a very sociable thing. I think it's quite scary for people to think about making such a big change in terms of their drinking. So I only really advise or encourage accidents, where it's glaringly obvious that person needs to be abstinent for a period of time. So there's a serious health implication, or a mental health implication, or the behaviours so out? Well, you know, there's there's a serious risk. So be saying, you need to get your head around a period of absence. And I might be saying, you know, if they're really unsure, I might be saying that the stone month Zarifi and or let's do three months or whatever. But I always encourage people to think in terms of temporary, because people get scared. Yeah, I know, some people need to say, and it's experiencing, it's rare. Some people need to say, I want to be abstinent, I'm going to be absent. And that's it. And this is the reason why but that's such a small number of people. Got another small number of people that need to be abstinent, but I shit scared about that. Excuse my language. I've got terrible females.

Dru Jaeger  9:14  
No, it's fine. It's fine. We don't want to tie we don't swear with it.

Stephanie  9:26  
And yeah, and then you've got a small number of people that need to be absent know that you need to be but sad about that. So you're still going to do it slowly. And you might still be talking about reduction. And you might also still be talking about medications that help them to drink less because in the forefront of all of that what you're looking for is harm reduction. That's the bottom line. So we know about our colours that are harmful substance. We know it's implicated in over 200 diseases, we know it's high risk, so What we want is we want people to drink less. So it improves their health and their quality of life. There's very few people that need to be abstinent. I think I think it's quite a scary thing for people, though, I've got to say something that I've really I've noticed in the last few years, which is quite interesting. So alcohol free is becoming become trendy, I think in the last few years, isn't it? It's a trendy thing. So I've had people contacting me and saying, oh, why can't I be alcohol free? What's wrong with me? Okay, how much are you drinking? And they tell me how much they're drinking? And I'm like, you're not drinking very much at all. Why is like a couple of glasses of wine here. And then they're like, well, oh, well, I, I thought I need to be alcohol free. I'm like, Well, no, you don't need to be a unless you tell me you've got living disease or you're psychotic and the impacts of your medication. Like, what's the problem with you drinking a bottle of wine, a couple of wines every couple of days. Tell me what the problem is. The only problem they can tell me is that they feel like they should be alcohol free for a year or whatever. And you think there's something wrong with them? Because they can't and I'm so literally, I'm doing one session where I'm like, there's nothing wrong with you. two glasses of wine a couple of times a week is brilliant. And good about yourself. Go and enjoy your life.

Dru Jaeger  11:23  
Yeah, yeah. It's funny you say that? Actually, I have that conversation sometimes with people on Club Soda courses. Yeah, I see somebody, somebody one of the courses reflected to me a while ago. And they were saying that there used to be a heavy everyday drinker, really identified that they needed to stop. And they haven't quite, but they but they took a step back. And they weren't actually I'm drinking 95% less than I used to, you know, I'm going weeks at a time without drinking. I'm occasionally drinking too much when I do drink, but I'm drinking 95. And in any area of life, if I would 95% successful at something I would be over the moon. So why am I beating myself up about this? 5% which I can't seem to fix it. It does. It does strike me that there's so much about self judgement and self criticism that creeps into this conversation around moderation because we end up setting ourselves and unrealistic and unachievable standard.

Stephanie  12:20  
Yeah. 100%. That's a really, really important point. And I think that's one of the biggest things I tackle on a weekly basis, is this concept of failure, black and white thinking and all or nothing thinking and just like, let's be realistic, and get this in perspective, like you say, the amount of people in my world that have reduced 80 90% really quickly, and then they're giving themselves a hard time. Like, one woman said to me the other day, I'm still having a low alcohol, gin and tonic every night. I'm like, What is coffee? Like, yeah, something like that. And okay, how much Were you drinking? And she told me and I was like, that's one hell of a reduction clean about yourself. That's amazing. They Yes, that is really weird, isn't it? It was not really been there, where it's come from. It's interesting, isn't it, I work, we go on a diet. And we have a Mars bar. It's not the same thing as it is a half a Mars bar. And then we just get back on our diet. And that's, it's really important that we share that message. And it's about being realistic. One of my favourite sayings is, so no one died and nobody got arrested. You know, when somebody identify things alcohol free, and then I had a bottle of wine. I'm like, Okay, okay, let's give it a couple of days. And we can learn from it and see what happened. Could you drink less next time? You know, what was the situation around that? Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. And then they're given themselves a hard time. I'm like, let me just check. No one died. No one got arrested. You're still married? It's all okay. With your partner, still alive? It's all good. Yeah.

Dru Jaeger  13:56  
Yeah, that perspective is really important. I guess it also touches on some of the tension in this community, between people who, for whatever reason, you know, sometimes motivated, as you say, but you know, those serious you know, if I've got a liver condition, or I experienced serious mental health problems, I need to be alcohol free, other people who go alcohol free by, like a positive lifestyle choice. There are all sorts of reasons why people choose, you know, actually, taking these ongoing decisions about drinking out my life altogether is just easier. I'm going to commit to being alcohol free indefinitely, but a real tension that can creep in between people who choose to be alcohol free, and people who choose to moderate and, and that kind of flares up in the Club Soda community every now and again. Particularly, I think, in the context of people who are moderating. For him, it doesn't work. He then come and say, I've been trying to moderate and then I had a blowout and I've got a hangover, and it feels like then at that point, sometimes People swoop in and go? Well, of course, you can't moderate because nobody can moderate because it doesn't work. So could you give us some? Could you put that into a bigger context for us about what we know about who can moderate and who can't moderate? And, you know, if I'm approaching this subject, how do I know whether this thing is actually going to work for me or not?

Stephanie  15:23  
Yeah, okay, massive question. I'll try and answer the difference. Sorry. So I'll start with the last bit. So you might have to remind me to come back a bit. So I'm do moderate perspex. So the majority of people can and do. So there's a number of things that we see and everything in between, I can't stress this enough, like, alcohol encompasses everything and everyone and every type of drinking in 15 years, the literally 1000s and 1000s of people I've sat in front of or you know, manage teams, that type of stuff. I still get surprised by some of the drinking patterns, I've seen the drinking behaviours, you wouldn't believe it, it's a you think I would seen it all. But I haven't, I still sometimes see something that's really unusual. It's so people that when you I said that would be my first thing is, please remember that alcohol niche, he does encompass all types of people and backgrounds. So please don't make assumptions. And I think what people do with the best in the world, is they make judgments based on their own experience in that little time. So the other key point about that is, just because you're alcohol free at the moment, it doesn't mean that you can't moderate in the future. Just because you've had a drink problem, it doesn't mean moderate in the future. Just because you haven't had a drink problem doesn't mean you won't have a drink problem in the future. So something that we know about humans is we're always changing and our lifestyle is changing. So to give you an example, it's something that's really common is people that what they return is drinking, normally, social drinking, and probably is actually who then experience a life event, death, divorce, illness, whatever, you know, children redundancy, retirement, and their drinking goes up, because of a life event. So that's quite common. And sometimes we see people that have had problems with binge drinking when they're younger. But then as they get older, they just naturally made really good decisions. Because Oh, that's not working for me. At flight, you know, you go out drinking a few times drink too much you throw up, you get into a fight, and then I've got a really good job. And you're like, actually, no, I can't behave like that. So we get a lot of back. And that the important thing to remember, particularly in the UK, is, alcohol is a huge part of our society, in our culture. And yes, people are drinking. And a lot of people are drinking moderately or occasionally or less, but they may fluctuate. So it's really important to remember that the components of how that happens is really interesting. And they've done little bits of research on this, but and if it is common sense. So sometimes, not all the time, sometimes when somebody is drinking a bit too much, and they come into my world, we're looking at what's happened to trigger the increase of the drinking. And I can usually find it to be honest, there's usually something or there's usually a component of their life that is missing. So when we're looking at teaching harm reduction stuff, and we do this with all drugs, and that's why it's useful when you sort of work with all the substances is we're looking at lifestyle by looking at, you know, you have a job for you have meaning and purpose, do you mean not have to have a job but you volunteering or as your training? Do you have something to get up? Or do you have a peer group? What does your peer group look like? What's the day? Do you know? Are your peer group drinkers? Or do you have a mixture of a peer group that do different things? Do you exercise? Do you eat healthy foods? I'm not saying these things are essential. But we have components of our life that we know that a useful to have these little bits and pieces in its variety. And usually when we're looking at somebody that is drinking a little bit too much, not always and I'm generalising there's something missing, whether that's about connection or relationships or meaning and purpose. You know, the classic one is when people get made redundant or they're retired, or divorced from

Dru Jaeger  19:50  
Sofia's or experienced a global pandemic.

Stephanie  19:53  
Yeah, that's a good that's a really good one. A really good example of where all our our Side stuff has been taken away. So then aliens and our tools are challenged on on or can we learn to dance on a shifting carpet, which is essentially what most of us have had to do, we've stripped away. Okay, so what do I need? How do I get my needs met in a different way? So when we look at people who are moderating successfully with any substance, what's different to somebody who is a more serious daily dependent user, is they have these components of a mixed lifestyle. And so if, but then there's also stuff around identity and beliefs. And this is where the coaching angle comes in. And the language comes in, you know, that all or nothing staff. You know, it's a so what's really interesting is, do you believe you're an alcoholic? Do you believe that you're always going to have a problem? Do you believe you have a disease? You believe that actually you're a human being using a substance and you're using it problematically, therefore, I could learn how to not use it problematically? Yeah. So there's, there's a lot of stuff around language identity and belief systems. Yeah,

Dru Jaeger  21:15  
yeah, absolutely. And that's certainly true. My experience, I feel like I have in conversation with people. Quite a lot of getting people to a starting point of being able to change is around. What's the language that you're using to describe yourself and this issue? Because you because you've almost certainly you've you've, you've eliminated options, which are in front of you, because you because you, you've decided that they don't apply to you.

Stephanie  21:45  
Yeah, yeah. And to give you, I'll give you a couple of examples that illustrate this really well. So my own personal experience in my using alcohol use was extremely problematic to the point where it was high risk in terms of behaviour. So I made the decision to stop all of it, because it was out of control. When I was a child. That was a good decision for me. I never said that I was an alcoholic, or an addict. I've never used those words to describe me because I'm not I'm a human being. Just a human being that you substances problematic. Also, a lot of stuff going on in my life. I needed to sort out. So I did a lot of work on myself. And I had a lot of support. And I did all that my years. I didn't say I was abstinent off and on for quite a long time. It was never I never said that. I couldn't be about five or six years in because I was actually teaching. I was teaching occasional drinking. I thought, Oh, see if I can do it myself. at point, I've done the work. I understood myself. And I had made the changes in my life. That meant that I'd had a complete mindset shift. Yeah, it wasn't an issue. Yeah, so alcohol has never been an issue for me. I haven't had a drink now for four years. That's the choice. And it's mostly based on the work I do that we we went talk about now. I will probably have a drink again, at some point. Yeah. So yeah, and then there's, there's a guy that I work with from time to time, who drinks about once every six months, and when he drinks, he drinks so heavily, it's life threatening, threatening, and that might go on for a few days or a week, but it's really, really dangerous. And yeah, we think he's going to die. That usually results in an emergency inpatient detox. Now, when he's come through that we have the conversation What happened? When I first started working with him, I insisted that he was abstinent and he got his head around being abstinent, because that was my assumption, based on his high risk behaviour, to know him, during those six months, whatever happens, he can have a couple of pints larvell once a week with a mate in a pub, and it's absolutely not a problem. Yeah, so this is like, when when you think you've seen it all and you've heard, you know, and also I've come across people, so some of my friendship, we've got hardcore, 12 stackers. Because that's all there was around when we were young. Some of those depending on their drug choice, so hardcore heroin crack users, who stopped using heroin and crack, but drink occasionally. Yeah, it's just yeah. So I think the really important thing So in terms of that tension that you were talking about, gosh, that I think we were talking before, that it's something it's been around since the beginning of time. So I, well, 15 years professionally, personally, much longer, but 15 years professionally, and it's been a tension. So even in treatment services in meetings and peer recovery groups, and in all that worlds where I've spoken and lived and worked in, there's been that tension and that judgement. So I used to get people to come into my services and have a go at me and telling me that I was evil, I was allowing people to drink because we were teaching people how to reduce, because that's what most people want to do. And that's harm reduction. And that's. So there has always been that tension. What I would say to people is to please remember that when you do that, it's based on your own experience. I think that's the biggest thing that I would want people to take from this podcast is, you believe in abstinence, that's great. But that's your belief based on your experience, doesn't mean that that's going to be the case for someone else. No. Why either. Maybe drinking less has worked for you. That doesn't mean that it will work for adults, either. So when you give advice or share, use our language. Kathy, I can share with you what worked for me take from that what you will.

Dru Jaeger  26:28  
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's I think that's really wise. And I think as well, I think one of the other issues that comes up. Particularly it is, is about that, you know, that moment or something, somebody's saying, I've been trying to moderate and it's gone wrong this weekend. And when you take that as a sign that moderation doesn't work for you, or whether you take it as a sign as this is a learning process. You know, I think sometimes we judge if somebody is abstinent if somebody is if somebody is aiming to be alcohol free, and they have a weekend blowout, we somehow treat them differently than somebody who's been attempting to moderate who has a weekend blowout, as if the person who moderate brought it on themselves. And it kind of sort of accidentally happened to the person who was was attempting to be alcohol free. I'm sorry, that I thought he was like, but you know, we take a different, we take a different attitude towards it. And that is something about the judgement that we place on other people is about the way that we think change works. And the presumptions that we make about their life. And yeah, rather than taking it as your right, this didn't work for you this weekend was a disaster. What are you going to learn from it, not actually questioning the whole basis of your life entirely, I think it's a really helpful thing to to step back from.

Stephanie  27:54  
Absolutely. And that comes back to our point about black and white thinking all or nothing language, and that's the same thing. You know, when you're on a diet and you meet half a Mars bar, it doesn't mean you failed on your diet, you just half the miles. Okay. You know, it's the same scenario, whether you're alcohol free, or whether you're moderating, like you say, it's like, Okay, look, give yourself a hard time no one died, no one got arrested. Let's just check. Everything's all right. What can we learn from it and on? Yeah, it's so important, that mindset of sort of open mindedness and growth and learning because the bottom line is, human beings are incredible. Were learning machines, we can, most of us can learn things, there might be a million different ways to go about it and do it, but we absolutely can.

Dru Jaeger  28:48  
And it's a really important thing to remember is that if you could already do this perfectly, you would already be doing it perfectly. The fact that you are the fact that you make mistakes is a sign that you're learning. You know, this is it's a good thing, it's a thing to actively embrace those weekends that go disastrously wrong, because there, you can take them as an opportunity to learn something and to reflect on yourself. And as you say, to think about, you know, the, the triggers for your drinking aware, where does this come from? What was going on here? What was this about? How can I avoid tripping up in the same way next time? If that's something that I want to do?

Stephanie  29:28  
Yeah, absolutely. It's really important to understand that and even you know, when I when I first stopped, and I was adamant, you know, that's it. I relapsed massively 10 days later, to the point where I nearly killed myself, but I was that all that did was reinforce. I don't want to do this and relapsed again. 18 months I'm using the word relapse because it wasn't relapse, you know, normally slip. You know, it's not a big deal, but they were they were epic. 18 months later, same thing is that okay, what happens? What can Learn, it's not the end of the world and learnt so much from that in the same way that I learnt when I, you know, had the occasional drink, whether people want to call that moderation or not, and that I learned loads when I did that.

Dru Jaeger  30:14  
Yeah, absolutely. I again, I had a conversation I had with somebody recently who, somebody who'd been, they've been alcohol free for a couple of months, had really settled into being alcohol free and decided, I just wonder whether I can I have a glass of wine? You know, how would that be, you know, and actually, they thought about it an awful lot, we have the conversation for a good couple of weeks before they went about it. They had they had, over the course of the weekend, I had a bottle of wine, they came to the end of it. And when Well, it was an interesting experience, it wasn't quite what I was expecting. I'm not sure I do it. Again, I'm not sure that I really got the benefit out of it that I was expecting, and is it really worthwhile. And I really like that kind of attitude of, you know, taking drinking, or not drinking as something kind of experimental that you can engage with and see what works and see what doesn't work and really fine tune. And this person, you know, most likely, they're going to become somebody who has a very, very occasional drink, you know, they might go for long periods being abstinent, who knows how life turns out. But you know, they're certainly not going to go down the track, I think now of being somebody who's going to have a bottle of wine every weekend. So like, I can't see the point anymore. And I think that's quite an exciting place to be no way it can genuinely be a take it or leave it relationship where you can see it for what it is, this is the thing that does give me some benefits, but the benefits aren't are outweighed by the disadvantages that I feel. And so I'm going to make a decision not to act in the same way that I would before. And I'm just giving myself a bit of space about how I how I do that.

Stephanie  31:52  
Yeah, that's brilliant. That's exactly what we want for people, isn't it? And that's the basis of all harm reduction education, when we're when we're teaching people about drug use is, think about the drug, know your drug, make an informed choice, you know, make a choice about when you do it, who you do with how you do it, the impact on that, Think it through consequences, you know, and how will it add value to your experience, you know, alcohol, the bottom line is, alcohol is a harmful substance taken in significant quantities taken regularly. So I'm a massive fan of education and people making an informed choice about all substances. And once you know about alcohol, and you understand about what are college you, and less is more, but it's also though alcohol is a social lubricant, that's one of the things we can say about it, you know, it, it works quite well, you can go to a pub and have a drink, and it relaxes you. And you know, there's nothing wrong with that if you can, if you can do that, and you enjoy it. But I always say to people, when they're thinking about using a substance, and they've had a period where they happen, it's just like, well, even if they're just testing out once a week, wherever you are, how does having my glass of wine or smoking my spliff? Or, you know, taking a bit of E, how does that add value? To my experience? Like? This is stuff that you guys talk about that I love, like it's being mindful, isn't it? Your choices and your content and how it's going to be for you? How's it gonna feel?

Dru Jaeger  33:22  
Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the things I David, I don't know, if you've read David Knotts book drink? It's one of the things that sticks with me from his book. Is that Above all, drinking should be a conscious choice. Yeah. You know, and that there is there's, there's a, you know, I think we should kind of acknowledge the inherent tension in that, you know, because because alcohol is a substance, which erodes your self control, and, you know, pushes you towards less conscious choices, you know, so there is a, there's a bit of a dance around, perhaps your decision about whether to drink or not make it a conscious choice, not something that just kind of happens automatically or driven by a trigger or because you're looking for a way to cope or whatever it is that that's causing. You make it something that you you actively engage with, if you're going to do it.

Stephanie  34:15  
And that's the bit that comes back to education, making an informed choice, having respect for the drug. So like most people listening to this will understand that heroin is an addictive substance, and we'll be making probably a fair based, educated choice. So all of the discussion, but that's interesting about how we've been informed about our college like one end, and then we've been informed about heroin at that end. By the way, I'm not saying it's okay to take heroin before anybody's to give me a hard

Dru Jaeger  34:46  
time I'd say that. That's right. Well, we'll turn into a quote panel and put on Instagram.

Stephanie  34:50  
Yeah, that's what people do is brilliant. Yeah, we all have respect. We know what everyone is, like we say, maybe a little bit on the databasing but we know what it is. So we make an educated informed choice. He informed choice, but we have respect for it. So I just want to see that shift a little bit with alcohol, which is, you know, your book, Professor David nuts book. That's the education part of it, isn't it? Then it's that, what's your frame of mind? It's the informed choice stuff, isn't it? So you're, like you say, using it, for enjoyment, not for escape. And that was the bit that came back to you with the research about moderation, about how people use substances, and how their life is set up in a certain way. So it adds value to the moment as opposed to being escapism or a crutch or something they need to cope.

Dru Jaeger  35:47  
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for this conversation. It's been really, really insightful. Can we boil this down to? Can I ask you an impossible question? Like I've got? And you've answered quite a few today. Okay, my brain cells. Okay, here we go. Here's the final impossible question. So we'll there will be people listening to this podcast who are right at the beginning of their journey, who've identified that there's an issue with alcohol that they need to solve. They've been reading quickly. They've been they've become a member of the Club Soda community. And they are at this point, completely confused about what it is that they should do, whether they should be aiming to be alcohol free, or whether they should moderate. What are your top tips for somebody in that situation?

Stephanie  36:33  
Oh, my gosh, right. Okay, I'm going to try not to put myself in circles. So I would say the first question is about how problematic your drinking is at the moment, where you're at the moment with your drinking. So if you're drinking is really problematic. So it's causing you quite a serious impact on your life, whether that's about behaviour, blackouts, last days at work arguments, your partner serious financial stuff, you've got a, you know, mental health problems, physical health problems, if it's a serious problem, I would encourage you to reduce and consider building up your alcohol free days, or you think about what you're doing. Keep it here is we want to reduce the harm, we want to reduce the harm really quickly if it's causing a serious impact. But also, I want people to not get caught up in all or nothing thinking, whatever decision you make, now you don't have to stick to you don't have to make a decision. In fact, I would encourage you to keep it really simple. So if it is causing your problem, let's get you reduced really quickly, let's reduce the harm that see where you're at it, see how you feel, we can revisit it super common. And you will notice as boundary working in groups, or one to one, that we revisit this stuff about once a month with our clients, if not more, and actually quite a lot of people don't know, it's not uncommon, you know, something I can remember lady I've had in my group, he's like telling me, she's ambivalent for about a year. Okay. You're drinking less than less, you're working on your house is looking good. So moving in the right direction, you might be saying you're ambivalent, but the actions are that you're moving in. So that's all good for me, you know, worried about that. That's okay. So it's super common not to know, don't worry about that. Now, if you're not, it's not causing you a serious impact. And again, I'm probably gonna say exactly the same thing, you can play around with it, you probably got a little bit more leeway. If it's not causing you a serious impact. I won't be encouraging you definitely to reduce to have alcohol, alcohol free days, and see how that goes and see how you feel. And see how that benefits you. Because usually what happens if there isn't? Well, even if there is a series and you get a month in and you've reduced and you've had some alcohol free days, you feel better. When you feel better, you feel different. And then you're ready to make different decisions. So as I'm sure most of you are aware, alcohol really impacts on our brain chemistry impacts on our energy impact on our sleep impact impacts on our abilities, processes, nutrients, you know, there's so many different ways alcohol impacts us, and that'll be a very individual thing. It's hard to think clearly when you're drinking, even if you're drinking, you know, probably wine a day, it's still going to be having an impact on that. Whereas if you reduce and build up your alcohol free days in a month's time, you're going to feel different, I guarantee you, and then you can make another decision about it based on the quality of your life and the impact of your drinking at that point.

Dru Jaeger  39:43  
Yeah, I think that's I think that's very sound advice. Yeah, so So yeah, you don't have to make a decision forever. reduce the amount of drinking have some alcohol free days. Give it some time. See how you feel. Make another decision.

Stephanie  40:00  
Yeah, also I would encourage you to mix it up. So socialise without alcohol date without alcohol or sex without alcohol. You know, like do things without alcohol like really have a good honest look at do I ever socialise now alcohol, if you don't then bloody go do it all the time, but sometimes like, alcohol is a drug, we don't want anybody using a drug daily. And you know, we don't want you relying on it. So it's like, just have a good, honest look about that and mix it up. And if you want to be alcohol free for a period of time, that's fine as well. But also, if you struggle with that, and you have the occasional drink, that's okay, too, doesn't don't give yourself a hard time, focus on the overall reduction and check that thinking, and really honestly, getting I know, I would say, even with my own, she would say this, but it's true support with me or do or someone like me, ology is going to support you with your goals will help because we will give you feedback based on our training, knowledge and experience and our amazing clinical supervision. We will give you feedback on that, and say that's normal. That's okay. Nothing wrong with you. Because that's one of the most common things I get is, oh my god, what's wrong with me? Why can't IBL help me? And I'm like, nothing wrong with you. It's not the Oh, everybody just chill out.

Dru Jaeger  41:24  
As you say, nobody's died? No, because I am going to adopt that as a new as a new benchmark of success. I think. I think I think that's a very helpful benchmark of success for Where We Are the World is generally talking very specifically about support you do offer support, could you could you talk a bit about the services that you offer to people and how and where they can find you if they're interested in talking to you more? Yeah, so

Stephanie  41:50  
I've got a five week video coaching programme, which is self learning, which you can find on the Club Soda website, I believe. Then I also run a little accountability group, which is weekly live zoom calls a specific Facebook group, which I've just finished taking intake on this 29 pounds a month budget five day alcohol free challenge doesn't mean you have to be alcohol free for the five days you can reduce or just come in and learn. I think the next one is in September. I've got a free ebook as well. And I do want one. So my website bizarrely don't ask is I change 20 one.com 21 the number but if you will Stephanie tubers, then I'll be all over the internet. Brilliant.

Dru Jaeger  42:41  
Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you.

Unknown Speaker  43:06  
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