WEBVTT
00:00:22.759 --> 00:00:25.160
Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode.
00:00:25.399 --> 00:00:29.079
My guest today didn't hit the kind of rock bottom that you'd expect.
00:00:29.239 --> 00:00:35.960
No lost job, no lost marriage, just 20 odd years of a pattern she couldn't quite explain to herself.
00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:41.159
Fine for months and then unable to stop at one drink once she started.
00:00:41.719 --> 00:00:44.679
This is why her story resonates so much with mine.
00:00:45.159 --> 00:00:46.679
I was just like this myself.
00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:50.200
Olivia is known online as the Grey Area Drinker.
00:00:50.519 --> 00:00:53.879
Her actual turning point came on a family holiday in Spain.
00:00:54.039 --> 00:00:57.159
A hangover so bad that it turned into a panic attack.
00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:03.079
Lying in the hotel bed convinced that she was going to die and leave her kids without a mum.
00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:09.640
That night she made a decision that is now nearly eight years and she's now eight years alcohol free.
00:01:09.960 --> 00:01:22.680
Olivia's got a master's in health psychology and she runs a podcast, No More Booze, and she helps people spot the exact pattern she lived for for with for over two decades.
00:01:23.159 --> 00:01:25.799
Olivia, welcome to the next chapter.
00:01:26.439 --> 00:01:27.319
Hello, Luke.
00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:28.040
How are you?
00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:38.679
And hello to all the wonderful listeners who are trying to grab on to a bit of alcohol-free living or sobriety or whatever term feels good to them.
00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:41.000
And what we always say is, do it.
00:01:41.480 --> 00:01:42.040
I love it.
00:01:42.120 --> 00:01:43.000
I absolutely love it.
00:01:43.159 --> 00:01:51.640
Okay, so so for some context for my listeners, please, what was your childhood like and how did that transition into the drinking?
00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:54.280
Yeah, I'm Irish, as you can tell.
00:01:54.439 --> 00:01:56.200
I'm rural Irish.
00:01:56.359 --> 00:02:01.239
I live in uh I was brought up in a little village in just an area outside Dublin.
00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:04.359
Kind of like a lot of our community were farmers.
00:02:04.519 --> 00:02:07.719
It was very what it felt like a very equal community.
00:02:07.879 --> 00:02:09.480
Everyone was kind of the same.
00:02:09.719 --> 00:02:16.120
I have a mom and a dad who are still together, and I've two brothers, an older one and a younger one.
00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:17.800
Very close-knit family.
00:02:17.959 --> 00:02:24.920
We are actually meeting up on Saturday, going to a theme park for my brother and my niece's birthday.
00:02:25.079 --> 00:02:27.000
Look, it it was fairly typical.
00:02:27.240 --> 00:02:29.480
No adverse childhood experiences.
00:02:29.639 --> 00:02:31.319
I score very low on those.
00:02:31.399 --> 00:02:33.399
I would have used those in the work that I do.
00:02:33.560 --> 00:02:37.319
So I wouldn't have experienced poverty addiction in the home.
00:02:37.480 --> 00:02:38.519
There was nothing like that.
00:02:38.600 --> 00:02:42.920
Like there wasn't an abundance of money, but it was the 1980s in rural Ireland.
00:02:43.079 --> 00:02:46.199
I don't think many people had an abundance of money, you know.
00:02:46.439 --> 00:02:48.519
So just very average.
00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:51.720
I had a best friend who lives next next door to me.
00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:53.639
She was my little soul sister.
00:02:53.959 --> 00:02:55.639
You never saw one without the other.
00:02:55.800 --> 00:03:02.519
And so I suppose, look at when I look back, what is my drinking a reflection of?
00:03:02.600 --> 00:03:05.240
It's not a reflection of the childhood that I grew up in.
00:03:05.399 --> 00:03:06.600
I wasn't drinking to cope.
00:03:06.680 --> 00:03:10.439
There wasn't any adverse experiences that led me to drink.
00:03:10.680 --> 00:03:16.920
But I probably am quite, you know, I developed a bit of anxiety in my teenage years.
00:03:17.079 --> 00:03:19.160
I'd have very active, busy mind.
00:03:19.319 --> 00:03:22.439
I love crack, as in, you know, fun.
00:03:22.680 --> 00:03:25.399
Like I love feeling connected to people.
00:03:25.560 --> 00:03:26.759
I love elation.
00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:32.920
And you know, when I look back, I was very impulsive around alcohol, kind of more or less from the get-go.
00:03:33.079 --> 00:03:34.600
So I would do mad shit.
00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:37.079
Like I would drink faster than everybody else.
00:03:37.319 --> 00:03:40.199
You know, I it was okay for the first couple of times.
00:03:40.279 --> 00:03:43.639
And like I actually, so I'm Catholic, right?
00:03:43.959 --> 00:03:46.040
And we made our confirmation.
00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:51.240
And when we made our confirmation, we made a pledge not to drink alcohol until we were 18.
00:03:51.399 --> 00:03:57.560
And I actually held out the longest of all of my friends and didn't drink until I was 14.
00:03:57.720 --> 00:04:00.199
They all drank in like 12.
00:04:00.279 --> 00:04:04.600
Like, I mean, sipped beer, and I was a bit of a nerd, and I was all, no, I'm not doing that.
00:04:04.759 --> 00:04:10.199
So I had three vodkas when I was 14, and that was my first array into alcohol.
00:04:10.279 --> 00:04:11.000
It was fine.
00:04:11.240 --> 00:04:23.720
And then I kind of was I not, I wasn't drinking regularly at 15, but then I moved to a town in Donegal when I was 16, and I waitressed for the summer, and I suppose that's when I started boozing.
00:04:23.879 --> 00:04:32.199
So it was I had my own money, we lived away from home, we lived in staff accommodation, we were friends with absolutely everybody.
00:04:32.279 --> 00:04:35.639
It was a real party town, and we loved being out.
00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:42.920
So we went like we would go from the hotel restaurant, like sometimes in our uniform into the nightclub.
00:04:43.080 --> 00:04:47.879
Like it was just it was vibrant, there was a lot going on, it was kind of the mid to late 90s.
00:04:48.120 --> 00:04:52.520
It was just, you know, and then I headed off to university and look it.
00:04:52.680 --> 00:04:57.000
I was I found a lot of friends who drank in the similar ways that I did.
00:04:57.160 --> 00:04:59.480
Did we was it contagious?
00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:04.040
Yes, but I loved it, you know, and I can absolutely say that I did.
00:05:04.199 --> 00:05:08.360
And I in first year in university I drank heavily, like very heavily.
00:05:08.439 --> 00:05:09.639
I was probably drinking every day.
00:05:09.800 --> 00:05:13.319
As in so Monday night we go to a nightclub called Tracks.
00:05:13.720 --> 00:05:15.879
No, the anchor, no tracks.
00:05:16.120 --> 00:05:19.639
Tuesday, the anchor, Wednesday Callie's, Thursday the anchor, Friday.
00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:23.800
I'd go down to Bundora to work, and I would go out Friday, Saturday.
00:05:24.040 --> 00:05:26.520
Actually, sorry, I would wouldn't go out on Sunday night.
00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:33.000
So like that was, and then I didn't really drink in second year to that extent, and then I barely drank in third year.
00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:37.960
So like there was always highs, lows, mediums, it was that kind of thing.
00:05:38.199 --> 00:05:40.120
20s, went, lived in America.
00:05:40.280 --> 00:05:41.720
I wasn't much of a boozer there.
00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:50.680
I was on meds now when I was over there and didn't drink a whole pile because we were kind of working and we were living, it wasn't very central where we were living, but like we did have a good time.
00:05:50.840 --> 00:05:55.160
We went to it was that that was the we were on the jerk Jersey, the Jersey shore.
00:05:55.400 --> 00:05:57.240
So there was a bit of wildness there.
00:05:57.400 --> 00:06:06.439
Came back, lived in Dublin for a year, went off to Australia and boozed my way around Australia and then came back and went to England and did a master's.
00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:10.759
So like there was periods of heavy drinking, light drinking, all that kind of stuff.
00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:19.319
So I suppose it caught up on me then when I was kind of maybe 25, 26, as in I was depressed from it.
00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:24.199
Like I came back into a country, all my friends had moved on.
00:06:24.360 --> 00:06:27.480
I kind of felt, you know, I didn't really fit in.
00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:31.960
I was going out to try and meet somebody, I got into the work that I'm in now.
00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:34.360
So like career-wise, it was going well.
00:06:34.439 --> 00:06:43.800
And then I suppose at that stage, kind of 26, 27, 28, it was maybe just Friday, Saturday nights, and then met my husband, and then it all came down.
00:06:43.960 --> 00:06:45.720
It all calmed down then.
00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:50.040
And like he's a very dissimilar drinker to me.
00:06:50.280 --> 00:07:00.680
So like I'm kind of all or nothing, and he's just very composed and take it or he's a take it or leave it drinker, yeah, which I am absolutely not.
00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:02.280
So yeah.
00:07:03.080 --> 00:07:10.520
In the beginning, then it was it was to fit in, would you say, um, and sort of belong, and it was only a social thing, but then in the end it obviously changed.
00:07:10.840 --> 00:07:13.560
Yeah, so like to fit in, yeah, absolutely.
00:07:13.720 --> 00:07:17.480
So I'm very introspective, so I observe myself quite a bit.
00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:19.480
Sorry, just cough here.
00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:38.840
So I yeah, so I'm very aware of who I am and how I interact with people, and I'm an overthinker and probably shy and like every human, and you know, going through teenage years, but I probably remember one of the first times that I felt very relaxed in somebody's company.
00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:43.240
You know, I you know when you go out when you're young, there's always cool people.
00:07:43.639 --> 00:07:46.280
I was not one of those cool people, right?
00:07:46.520 --> 00:07:51.800
But there was a girl I was talking to, she was like she was in my year in school and she was very cool.
00:07:52.040 --> 00:08:20.520
And I would have been kind of intimidated talking to her ordinarily, and I'd had we used to drink, they were called fuzzy navels, and like so they were vodka, peach snaps, and orange juice, and we used to you uh drink those in the bar that we went at, and I think I had maybe three or four of them, and I remember feeling very relaxed, and I remember feeling very much myself in a very like out of the ordinary situation, like in a pub when I was 17.
00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:21.480
So I remember that.
00:08:21.560 --> 00:08:48.840
I remember thinking, oh wow, I kind of feel like myself, and the booze helped me to do that, and I can look back now reflectively and think that like my brain cottoned on to the fact that booze plus Olivia equals comfort, you know, it eradicates the levels of anxiety that I would have had, you know, it makes me feel more comfortable, more at ease, more less socially awkward.
00:08:49.000 --> 00:09:17.960
So yeah, I think that's probably and then look at I've a great bunch of friends, they're all mad, they're like fab, you know, and they like it was wild, and it was and we all just kind of loved like you know, for me the best time was actually being hungover the next day when we they would all pile into each other's rooms or like when we lived in halls or you know, and or over to each other's house, and we talked about like all the mad things that happened the night before, you know?
00:09:18.039 --> 00:09:21.399
So it was definitely connection and it was a tool for connection.
00:09:21.560 --> 00:09:24.440
Um there's no point saying it wasn't because it was, you know.
00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:27.240
When did you start to question it then, Olivia?
00:09:27.399 --> 00:09:29.240
When did you think this is a problem?
00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:34.680
Did did anybody say anything, or or was it you reflecting on yourself?
00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:35.960
I was always saying it.
00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:38.759
I was always saying, ah, this can't be fucking natural.
00:09:38.840 --> 00:09:40.519
Like, go on, this is mental.
00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:43.000
Like, why do I feel like this and you don't?
00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:46.279
And I think the hangovers were so insane.
00:09:46.519 --> 00:09:51.080
Like the hangovers were like the drinking wasn't fine.
00:09:51.159 --> 00:09:53.480
Like I'd black out a lot of the times, right?
00:09:53.639 --> 00:09:57.480
So like physically I know that I couldn't tolerate a whole pile of alcohol.
00:09:57.639 --> 00:10:03.480
I'm s I'm short, like I'm five foot four, so I don't have a lot of body mass to be able to cope with alcohol.
00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:09.639
So it was the hangovers that did me in in the end, like, and nobody ever said anything.
00:10:09.800 --> 00:10:14.279
I was always reaching out to people to say, you know, am I abnormal?
00:10:14.519 --> 00:10:17.000
Am I, you know, am I an alcoholic?
00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:19.320
Is this what it looks like, you know?
00:10:19.560 --> 00:10:21.639
And they would always say, No, you're grand.
00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:31.159
But the one thing that was said to me was, like, if I like by my husband, if I'd hangovers like you, I wouldn't drink.
00:10:32.279 --> 00:10:46.600
So yeah, it was and I suppose then like when we got married, you know, I drank in a responsible way with him, if there's such a thing, but like he would I wasn't hedonistic with him, let's say.
00:10:46.759 --> 00:10:52.919
And you know, when we drank together, I it would never be wild or it was weird that I would black out, you know.
00:10:53.240 --> 00:11:15.080
But I suppose towards the end, then I'd had kids, and you know, like having kids is very tough for everybody, and we've moved out of where we always lived, out to the suburbs, and we were used to kind of being, you know, scooting around town to all the fancy places, and you know, you know yourself, Luke.
00:11:15.159 --> 00:11:20.279
Like before you have kids, like you have nobody's needs to meet but your own, right?
00:11:20.519 --> 00:11:22.680
So all of my money was spent on me.
00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:24.600
I did a huge amount of travelling.
00:11:24.680 --> 00:11:26.840
It was all me, me, me, and more me.
00:11:26.919 --> 00:11:31.560
And it was like, where can I, you know, where's the next fancy bar we can go to?
00:11:31.800 --> 00:11:34.120
Can we go to a lovely rooftop?
00:11:34.279 --> 00:11:37.720
You know, can we eat olives or when are we going for dinner?
00:11:37.800 --> 00:12:13.800
And you know, it was just and then when we had kids, it was like, okay, so we're out here, and young kids are very all-consuming, they're very demanding, and like not to say that I just assumed that you just drink the way you always do, but I couldn't, as in like I suppose drinking at that point might have been so obviously it had dwindled since I met Gary, and then I had been, you know, alcohol-free for considerable times when I was trying to get pregnant, and then when I I'd given up for a while with no plan, only the plan was to lose weight and get fit before my wedding.
00:12:13.960 --> 00:12:18.360
So I had taken a lot of breaks, but they weren't conscious breaks, you know.
00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:30.680
So anyway, had the kids, and it became very apparent very fast that I couldn't do a lot of things in the same way when I had kids, and drinking was definitely one of them.
00:12:30.840 --> 00:12:36.279
So it like it took a long time to dawn on me, a long, long, long, long, long time, you know.
00:12:36.519 --> 00:12:36.840
Yeah.
00:12:37.159 --> 00:12:40.039
How how how many years would you say you were questioning it then?
00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:42.840
I mean, was it literally like was it a decade?
00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:44.120
Was it a was it five years?
00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:44.919
Yeah.
00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:45.399
Really?
00:12:45.879 --> 00:12:46.120
Yeah.
00:12:46.440 --> 00:12:48.919
Did you ever try and moderate it in that decade?
00:12:49.159 --> 00:12:50.039
Oh god, yeah.
00:12:50.200 --> 00:12:50.600
Yeah.
00:12:50.759 --> 00:12:58.680
And actually, so I gave up in Jul actually, so I looked in my phone to remind myself of 2018 when I gave up.
00:12:58.759 --> 00:13:08.680
So the Easter of 2018, I had been on a moderation buzz because I had I had given up for the month of December in 2017, right?
00:13:08.840 --> 00:13:14.919
But I had just because I it was easy for me to give up then, and that that was a whole month of Christmas.
00:13:15.159 --> 00:13:16.039
It was easy.
00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:19.080
I was like, sure, I'm grand, there's not a bother on me.
00:13:19.240 --> 00:13:21.879
So I'll just continue to moderate.
00:13:22.039 --> 00:13:28.360
So I remember being in my brother's house for an Easter and I was moderating and it did not work out.
00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:34.039
So I think then there was the kind of like moderation, and I didn't even know that that was moderation, I think.
00:13:34.200 --> 00:13:34.680
I don't know.
00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:40.360
It was all I was all it was all trial and error, and I kept doing it and go back to it and going back to it.
00:13:40.519 --> 00:13:44.519
But yeah, I suppose it it finally stuck when I went to Spain.
00:13:44.759 --> 00:13:45.399
Hmm.
00:13:46.200 --> 00:13:52.840
So people like us who've got that busy brain, we spoke about it before we got on the call, and you've mentioned it already.
00:13:53.080 --> 00:14:01.240
Why why do you think some people like your husband can have one or two, and then people like us, I blame that on my ADHD.
00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:07.879
But why do you think it is that we cannot seem to have one and and leave it and moderate?
00:14:08.039 --> 00:14:09.240
What why is it?
00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:13.480
Well, reflectively, this is my own perspective of it.
00:14:13.639 --> 00:14:20.600
So I'm look at I am a suspected ADHD or I have done a lot of screeners on myself.
00:14:20.919 --> 00:14:23.639
I do not have the cash.
00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:35.000
As you know, I was telling you, I'm going on a year out of work, and just in terms of priority, like an ADHD diagnosis, I'm sure it's the same where you are, but it could be upwards of 1500 euros.
00:14:35.159 --> 00:14:39.159
And but look at is there you know value in self-diagnosis?
00:14:39.240 --> 00:14:45.560
There probably is, if there is barriers towards cost and stuff, but I I meet all the criteria, right?
00:14:45.800 --> 00:14:47.800
So I have an exceptionally busy brain.
00:14:47.960 --> 00:14:57.159
Okay, I'll tell you that when I have one drink, my dopamine, which I now know is my dopamine, goes sky fucking high.
00:14:57.399 --> 00:15:00.279
And I love that feeling.
00:15:00.519 --> 00:15:10.200
It's also the feeling when I do sprints and I start to sweat out the top of my lip, I know that I'm that I'm gonna generate that level of dopamine as well.
00:15:10.440 --> 00:15:13.480
I just love the feeling of that.
00:15:13.960 --> 00:15:19.159
I love anything that will get me elevated, an elevated emotion.
00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:23.720
So I just know that, you know, so this is how I view me.
00:15:23.800 --> 00:15:28.039
So I would have one drink, it would go sky high, and then it would go plummet.
00:15:28.440 --> 00:15:30.840
And then my so Olivia was gone.
00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:34.440
She had no control over anything, and the body was in charge then.
00:15:34.600 --> 00:15:44.600
So the body, maybe the brain, the neurochemistry, the neurotransmitters, they were in charge, they were in the driving seat, they were just looking for more dopamine, and I I had nothing got to do with it.
00:15:44.759 --> 00:15:53.080
So I was all or nothing, and you know, I coach it a lot of people now, and they're all all or nothing, middle of the road, can't just have one.
00:15:53.240 --> 00:15:56.200
This is what they kind of uh call themselves, you know.
00:15:56.279 --> 00:16:04.680
So it doesn't look problematic as we know, problematic drinking, you know, in terms of crashing the car and all those kind of things.
00:16:04.840 --> 00:16:09.879
Like that mine was never like that, ever, ever, you know, especially towards the end.
00:16:10.039 --> 00:16:11.800
Was there touch and go moments?
00:16:11.960 --> 00:16:15.560
Absolutely, but was there touch and go moments when there was only me?
00:16:15.639 --> 00:16:21.720
That that was probably in my single dumb, but definitely not, you know, when I was married with kids and stuff.
00:16:22.039 --> 00:16:34.120
But yeah, I just think that my brain is different, how I react to alcohol is different, and you know, I drank for different reasons as as I suppose as the lifespan went on.
00:16:34.279 --> 00:16:47.879
So, first of all, it for it was connection, first of all, it was maybe to dim down the social anxiety, and then maybe it was for connection, and oftentimes maybe it was to relieve stress or to stop a very, very busy mind.
00:16:48.039 --> 00:16:57.879
We moved into a haunt what what what I thought was a haunted house once, and I got myself into such a tizzy that I literally couldn't go to bed and I had to have a half a bottle of wine.
00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:05.960
Didn't have to, but I thought I had to have a half bottle of wine to calm down my brain to think that I was going to bed with a ghost, you know?
00:17:06.359 --> 00:17:07.799
Yeah, I used to do it as well.
00:17:07.960 --> 00:17:14.200
I used to work shifts back in the day, and I used to do um when I come home from a night shift, I couldn't sleep.
00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:18.919
So I used to have a uh a drink or a shot or whatever before I went to bed.
00:17:19.319 --> 00:17:24.759
So back then, back then I was getting those sorts of signs, but it's having that bit busy mind, isn't it, trying to sleep.
00:17:25.079 --> 00:17:25.399
Exactly.
00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:31.000
And I've I've worked with people who do shift work and who literally have to go to sleep at strange hours.
00:17:31.159 --> 00:17:44.679
And like I did night shifts for a while as well, and I would literally get into bed at eight o'clock in the morning, wake at six, and I would wake up going, Fuck this, even though I've had 10 hours sleep, but I just I have to have sleep.
00:17:44.759 --> 00:17:52.359
Like there's a lot in my body and my routine that I now know keeps me safe and well, and sleep is one of them.
00:17:52.679 --> 00:17:59.159
Yeah, it is so important, and we all know the uh effects of alcohol on the sleep, especially that rent sleep.
00:17:59.639 --> 00:18:02.919
So you mentioned Spain a minute ago.
00:18:03.319 --> 00:18:05.639
Talk us through what happened in Spain, please.
00:18:05.879 --> 00:18:16.439
Yeah, so I went to Nerca, and actually I'm going there next year's again for a 50th, so I shall re- require my steps, and although I can't even remember much anyway.
00:18:16.599 --> 00:18:19.240
So kids were small, one and three.
00:18:19.399 --> 00:18:24.759
So I was after coming, I was coming off the back of, so I'd done a 30-day stint in the December.
00:18:24.919 --> 00:18:31.879
I tried thought I was absolutely grand, there wasn't a bothering me, and then I tried to moderate, made a show of myself a couple of times, uh, etc.
00:18:32.119 --> 00:18:32.359
etc.
00:18:32.599 --> 00:18:32.839
Right.
00:18:32.919 --> 00:18:35.799
So it was kind of I was like, I can't do this anymore.
00:18:35.959 --> 00:18:38.279
These hangovers are from hell, blah blah blah.
00:18:38.359 --> 00:18:44.599
So anyway, I had brought a bottle of charcoal with me because I knew I'd have a hangover, right?
00:18:44.679 --> 00:18:46.759
Because I probably knew I couldn't be trusted.
00:18:46.839 --> 00:19:00.759
So anyway, we went in, we were in, uh we had kind of had a couple of drinks on the flight, and then I, you know, I'm not a great flyer or whatever, so uh a couple of glasses of rose, and then we went to a nightclub, and there's loads of funny stories from the nightclub as well.
00:19:00.919 --> 00:19:02.839
But like we didn't go to bed till six o'clock.
00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:05.959
Got up the next day, had to move hotels for some mad reason.
00:19:06.039 --> 00:19:14.119
I'd booked two hotels for two different days, but ended up like drinking pina caladas at lunchtime, like ridiculous behaviour.
00:19:14.279 --> 00:19:21.639
Uh, went to bed then in the middle of the day to try and sleep that off, and then went out that night again and had three glasses of wine.
00:19:21.799 --> 00:19:25.240
But in those three glasses of wine, can't remember leaving the place.
00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:32.119
It was like this stunning rooftop kind of place that we were, you know, before the wedding.
00:19:32.359 --> 00:19:34.599
Anyway, can't really remember going to bed, you know.
00:19:34.839 --> 00:19:39.959
Seemingly I was rude to the guy on reception, like Gary used the word obnoxious.
00:19:40.039 --> 00:19:42.759
I'm not really an obnoxious person, that was a bit of a shock.
00:19:42.919 --> 00:19:48.039
Then I remembered then, anyway, look at went to bed, but woke up the next morning.
00:19:48.279 --> 00:19:49.000
Oh my god.
00:19:49.159 --> 00:19:52.119
So I have a catalogue of my top 10 worst hangovers, right?
00:19:52.279 --> 00:19:57.079
And this was like this was number one, it went straight in at number one.
00:19:58.439 --> 00:20:00.919
And like this was over 23 years, right?
00:20:01.079 --> 00:20:05.240
And this was, oh my god, Luke, this was a humdinger.
00:20:05.639 --> 00:20:06.919
Like it was a humdinger.
00:20:07.079 --> 00:20:09.399
So woke up, Gary headed off to breakfast.
00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:12.759
I was like, I can't even speak, let alone go and eat.
00:20:13.319 --> 00:20:16.919
He headed off and then went, like looking around the town.
00:20:17.079 --> 00:20:30.759
I obviously was having a panic attack in the bed, kept it like my heart was beating like literally out of my chest, went to the toilet, and then I was like, oh my god, I remember like impaling my head against this toilet last night.
00:20:30.919 --> 00:20:33.319
I'd fallen, I had a bruise on my head.
00:20:33.479 --> 00:20:42.439
That sent me even more so like panic, sheer panic, and all I kept seeing was like a black body bag that I was literally going to die.
00:20:42.679 --> 00:20:45.799
My poor little kids wouldn't have a ma'am, blah blah blah.
00:20:45.879 --> 00:20:51.079
So that was grand, like I then Gary came back and he was like, Well, we need to get ready for the wedding.
00:20:51.159 --> 00:21:00.919
And I was like, I actually think I might be dead, like this might be, you know, death, but you know, and I know it sounds funny, but like I was in bits, bits.
00:21:01.079 --> 00:21:04.039
I didn't even have a shower before that wedding, Luke.
00:21:04.279 --> 00:21:07.399
I was so sick, I couldn't bring myself to have a shower.
00:21:07.559 --> 00:21:13.399
So anyway, it looked like absolute hell on earth, went down, and I was like, I can't even cope with this.
00:21:13.559 --> 00:21:18.919
So again, I was a pina colada, and that was at maybe before we went for to get the bus.
00:21:19.079 --> 00:21:29.719
But that and and that's problematic because if you're drinking to bring yourself back to baseline of normality, like you know, that's not good.
00:21:29.879 --> 00:21:35.719
So anyway, had the pina colada, went to the wedding, slept in the church, fell asleep in the church.
00:21:36.439 --> 00:21:41.559
Yeah, but actually it was great sleep, and it gave me it, it was like a a a party nap.
00:21:41.639 --> 00:21:47.719
Uh gave me a new lease of life, went to the reception, found photos of me drinking white wine at the reception.
00:21:47.879 --> 00:21:53.719
So had maybe about three glasses of white wine, couple of gins, then something started.
00:21:53.879 --> 00:21:58.759
Uh it wasn't me, like it was it wasn't me, it was bigger, like it was, I don't know what you call it.
00:21:58.919 --> 00:22:01.719
Like if you're a believer in the Lord, it was the Lord, right?
00:22:01.799 --> 00:22:04.199
If you're a believer in the universe, it was the universe.
00:22:04.359 --> 00:22:06.759
It was something bigger than me.
00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:12.599
It came upon me, it enveloped me, it had just was like, you're done.
00:22:12.759 --> 00:22:14.039
So this was the language.
00:22:14.199 --> 00:22:17.639
I was like, excuse my French, fuck this.
00:22:17.879 --> 00:22:19.639
Like, Gary, take this gin.
00:22:19.719 --> 00:22:22.199
It's gonna be the last gin I will ever drink in my life.
00:22:22.839 --> 00:22:26.039
And I I this is it this feels big, right?
00:22:26.119 --> 00:22:28.519
I'm like something big is happening within me.
00:22:28.679 --> 00:22:31.079
And then he's ended up taking a load of pictures of me.
00:22:31.240 --> 00:22:36.279
So we scooted off then, and I was sober, completely sober at this stage.
00:22:36.519 --> 00:22:46.039
Like, because I suppose I'd been so hungover, those drinks, and like it was probably seven drinks, which would have been a lot for me, you know.
00:22:46.199 --> 00:22:55.159
Got on the bus, and I just remember we sat at the front of the bus, and I was like, I can't believe I remember going home from this wedding because it was rare for me to remember.
00:22:55.399 --> 00:23:01.079
And then it was just this unbelievable feeling within me that this was it, that I was done.
00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:04.599
And then the next morning, we I think we were going the next morning.
00:23:04.679 --> 00:23:09.879
We were actually, and I found I saw Russell Burns' recovery book.
00:23:09.959 --> 00:23:17.479
And I'm I'm like, I'm big into manifestation, I'm big into signs, and I took that as a sign that it was my first day the rest of my life.
00:23:17.559 --> 00:23:20.439
It was the 4th of July, uh, Independence Day.
00:23:20.599 --> 00:23:23.399
All this kind of there was lots of connotation around that.
00:23:23.559 --> 00:23:27.240
Went home, bought the unexpected joy of being sober, read that.
00:23:27.319 --> 00:23:30.359
A friend of mine, I bought it for them as well, gave it to them.
00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:33.479
They were thinking about giving up the booze at the same time.
00:23:33.799 --> 00:23:36.199
We kind of took notes on that.
00:23:36.359 --> 00:23:38.599
We were like, oh my god, what about this and what about that?
00:23:38.679 --> 00:23:40.119
So there was a bit of support in that.
00:23:40.279 --> 00:23:42.199
They're back in the booze now, but anyway.
00:23:42.519 --> 00:23:47.240
But yeah, that it just kind of took off from there, you know.
00:23:47.399 --> 00:23:49.479
But there was definitely intention.
00:23:49.639 --> 00:23:56.199
I read a lot of Joe Dispends, I'm going to him in September, and he talks a lot about, you know, energy behind intention.
00:23:56.359 --> 00:23:58.759
And like, I'm not sure I created that energy.
00:23:58.839 --> 00:24:07.799
I'm not sure if that energy was created by an outside source for me, but there was massive energy behind my intention, and I was done.
00:24:08.039 --> 00:24:08.759
Oh my god.
00:24:08.919 --> 00:24:24.279
So, like, I, you know, I could sit here for seven hours and tell you about every single time I've been hung over in 23 years, and they all accumulated to that point where I was like, this is no way to live, it's no way to live my life, it's no way to raise my children, it's no way to talk to myself.
00:24:24.439 --> 00:24:26.359
I'm done, and I was done.
00:24:26.679 --> 00:24:29.079
So it was like an outer body experience.
00:24:29.159 --> 00:24:37.639
You felt like you felt like you were sort of watching, watching yourself, and it was a bit of a reflection, a bit of like holding up the mirror, and then that was it.
00:24:37.959 --> 00:24:41.399
Why do you think this was different from all those other hangovers?
00:24:41.559 --> 00:24:46.759
I mean, obviously, you said about that accumulation of of bad hangovers, and then this was the tipping point.
00:24:46.919 --> 00:24:48.279
Why was that one different?
00:24:48.599 --> 00:24:51.799
So, you know, the way we have a view of ourselves, right?
00:24:51.959 --> 00:24:56.039
So, like I would, you know, our kids were really wanted.
00:24:56.199 --> 00:25:02.599
I'm very much in love with my husband, I'm very much in love with my children, you know, I have a beautiful life, right?
00:25:02.759 --> 00:25:09.559
And I always imagined that I would be a stunning mother, like able to cope with it all, right?
00:25:09.959 --> 00:25:18.199
And a couple of times in his little three years, I had behaved in put a pathetic way, and they're my words, right?
00:25:18.519 --> 00:25:32.359
And I suppose I'd say maybe four or five times, like being hung over, Gary taking in the you know, the the parenting load and him letting me be me, but me being me was like ridiculous.
00:25:32.519 --> 00:25:33.799
Like I didn't want to be that.
00:25:33.879 --> 00:25:46.279
I wanted to be a better version of that, like a ma'am who was hungover, or a wife who would apologise, or you know, and I think it was an accumulation of all of that, and I just didn't want and you know what?
00:25:46.359 --> 00:25:49.079
I was sick of being really cruel to myself as well.
00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:52.519
I was sick of all the things that I said to myself when I was hungover.
00:25:52.759 --> 00:26:23.079
I was sick of, you know, like being ashamed of who I was, and like I just there had to have been something bigger and better for me than this, and there was, you know, and I suppose I kind of surrendered to it, and the results have been stunning and amazing, and nothing that I have expected, and challenging at times, and misunderstood by a huge amount of people, but we we move on, and you know, it's just been incredible.
00:26:23.399 --> 00:26:36.199
Would I go back to boozing not for diamonds and big fat diamonds at that, like not even for them, and I love diamonds, but like not even for you know Elizabeth Taylor's, you know, ring.
00:26:36.919 --> 00:26:38.119
When you know you know.
00:26:38.599 --> 00:26:50.039
Oh my god, when you know you know, and now when I but I didn't have the because I'd done a few of them, I didn't have a lot of in you know, self-trust, but now looking back, it was very different.
00:26:50.199 --> 00:26:58.119
You know, I tried a couple of times to give it up, and then I'd be like, Long Island Iced tea, I'll have one of them, or oh, you know what I mean.
00:26:58.279 --> 00:27:02.199
I didn't, my resolve was very weak, but with this, it was just different.
00:27:02.359 --> 00:27:05.959
And like when I came back, I just went straight into being a mom again.
00:27:06.119 --> 00:27:09.719
So, like literally, they were tiny, they were gorgeous.
00:27:09.879 --> 00:27:23.399
She had this little blonde head, she looked like a little Swedish baby, she was stunning, he was cute out the door, like they were adorable, but like they were three and one, and my God, you cannot meet your own needs when you have small kids.
00:27:23.559 --> 00:27:26.919
All you do is meet their needs on a constant basis.
00:27:27.159 --> 00:27:29.479
So, like I just went straight back into that.
00:27:29.639 --> 00:27:47.000
You know, I've looked on pictures of it, like I I don't think it was actually we had a wedding uh soon enough after that, like uh in County Monaghan in a castle, actually the castle where Paul McCartney got married, and I remember being at that, and that was only a couple of weeks after that as well.
00:27:47.079 --> 00:28:18.119
So that was fine, like that was okay, but my resolve was strong, and I just kept pushing through it and you know, going to bed at night, especially that night with a wedding, that was kind of novel, and then waking up the next day, and I just kept I think the thing that kept me most motivated was Sunday mornings, you know, and and and you know, I have a lot of goals and I'm always trying to meet goals and having them be met as opposed to a bottle of wine on a Friday morning night, and you're not right till kind of Wednesday, you know.
00:28:18.199 --> 00:28:20.839
So it was yeah, I liked it.
00:28:21.559 --> 00:28:26.439
It holds you back so much, and so many, so many people have got so much potential.
00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:35.639
But I think we just yeah, we just use it, use it to cope, use it to escape, and yeah, I think it served a purpose for me back in the day.
00:28:35.719 --> 00:28:43.000
I mean, I I spoke about this on your podcast when I come on yours, but the version of me now, yeah, it's it's so different.
00:28:43.079 --> 00:28:45.799
You and you've really got to shift your identity, haven't you?
00:28:45.879 --> 00:28:49.559
You've got to like you were saying about the work of Dr.
00:28:49.639 --> 00:28:53.319
Joe Dispenser, and I know we both follow Matt Cook.
00:28:53.479 --> 00:28:59.639
Um, you've got to change your identity, you've got to really move into being that that better version of yourself.
00:29:00.039 --> 00:29:00.759
Absolutely.
00:29:00.919 --> 00:29:11.399
And like I'm doing a bit of identity shifting currently, moving from one job into like a bit business, like, and I never thought I would be self-employed, even though both of my brothers are.
00:29:11.719 --> 00:29:30.839
But like that's like I have to become a person then, you know, you've to become an authority and like an e well an expert, but like maybe an expert through lived experience, or you know, like that's discombobulating to your nervous system as well.
00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:35.000
So I take things very slowly because I can't cope otherwise, you know.
00:29:35.159 --> 00:29:38.919
So you're just constantly shifting this version of yourself.
00:29:39.159 --> 00:29:44.919
And you know, I've recently gone back to exercise like in an intense way, you know.
00:29:45.159 --> 00:29:49.639
So even that part of my and I mean Gary went, we've been doing a lot of walking.
00:29:49.959 --> 00:29:52.439
He is off for a lot of the summer as well.
00:29:52.759 --> 00:30:01.319
And like we're talking about who we want to be now, like in the next 20 years, and like I want to be an animal.
00:30:01.479 --> 00:30:02.599
Do you know what I mean?
00:30:02.839 --> 00:30:13.559
I want to like I don't want to waste away in a nursing home, or I don't want to I want to be able to be fully independent and to have a really full life.
00:30:13.799 --> 00:30:20.519
And you know, we deserve better than that, and we deserve better than what we think we knew about alcohol.
00:30:20.679 --> 00:30:21.719
All of us do.
00:30:21.959 --> 00:30:30.039
Like, you know, it's associated with 200 diseases, like there's, you know, there's so many health harms associated with it.
00:30:30.199 --> 00:30:38.839
And I suppose it will I was a long time off the booze before I realized a lot of this, you know, it was for my own stuff, it was the hangovers, it was this, that, and the other.
00:30:38.919 --> 00:30:40.359
It was my own goals as a parent.
00:30:40.519 --> 00:30:45.159
But then when you begin to kind of really scratch the surface, it becomes murkier, you know.
00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:59.879
And I would absolutely encourage anybody to read, to listen, you know, to get as much information as you can for you and for your own empowerment to, you know, none of us want to live a stagnated life.
00:31:00.119 --> 00:31:13.719
Alcohol made us all small, you know, it absolutely made me small, like, you know, and a lot of people I know too, and the removal of it has allowed me to, you know, be a better version of myself.
00:31:13.799 --> 00:31:21.240
Like, am I peaceful, you know, no, not really all the time, but I'm a lot more peaceful than I was, you know.
00:31:21.639 --> 00:31:26.919
Content, content in your own skin, and yeah, happy, yeah, happy with who you are.
00:31:27.079 --> 00:31:31.799
You haven't got to take a drug to to deal with life, yeah, essentially.
00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:33.559
Yeah, absolutely.
00:31:33.719 --> 00:31:50.839
So I do, and you know, I teach a lot about the window of tolerance when I'm working with groups as well, and how we can expand our window of tolerance and how we do things that kind of bring us discomfort, and but like again, when it's intimidating to our nervous system, we take it a tiny bit at a time.
00:31:50.919 --> 00:31:52.759
Like, did I arrive at this overnight?
00:31:52.919 --> 00:31:55.000
No, it's been eight years, you know.
00:31:55.159 --> 00:31:58.599
So it's incremental, small incremental changes all the time.
00:31:58.759 --> 00:32:05.399
And you know, our habits really help us, our mind mindset, or you know, how we can reframe things.
00:32:05.559 --> 00:32:08.679
Like, I come at it from a lot of different angles as well.
00:32:08.759 --> 00:32:11.159
Like, so my degree is social psychology.
00:32:11.240 --> 00:32:31.240
So I I look at you know, how society, how we act in terms of, you know, as social beings, as social animals, health psychology, then, you know, behavior change, how we, you know, the you know, is it us who thinks that we affect our health or the world around us, you know, our I suppose our locus of control.
00:32:31.319 --> 00:32:36.919
And, you know, we I work a lot with change in behaviors and the stages of change model and all that kind of thing.
00:32:37.079 --> 00:33:01.079
Then, you know, when you look at your mindset, you know, how to reframe your own mindset, stuff like that, you know, you know, you talked about your child like childhood, and you know, there's a lot of people, a huge cohort of people who would have experienced adverse childhood experience and adversity in their childhood and trauma that do impact on their levels of drinking, you know.
00:33:01.240 --> 00:33:16.839
So, yeah, and then I suppose knowing about the science of alcohol, what it does to us, what it does to our body, how it affects every single system in our body, you know, so taking all those different bits of knowledge and maybe working on one every other week, you know.
00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:23.079
But we all have the ability to do that, whether by ourselves or in community or with a coach or whoever, you know.
00:33:23.719 --> 00:33:28.679
You focus a lot on the grey area drinking, Olivia.
00:33:28.839 --> 00:33:33.479
What what does that term mean to you and why did you come up with that?
00:33:33.879 --> 00:33:40.039
Well, i i yeah, it certainly wasn't me, but I I didn't feel that I was an alcoholic, right?
00:33:40.199 --> 00:33:42.039
That's not something that I felt, right?
00:33:42.119 --> 00:33:44.599
So I wasn't physically dependent on alcohol.
00:33:44.759 --> 00:33:47.719
I could give it up for months and years at a time, and I did.
00:33:47.879 --> 00:33:55.559
But I suppose when I had one, and I kind of explained that earlier, that physiologically it's it set something.
00:33:55.639 --> 00:33:57.479
It was like a domino effect, let's say.
00:33:57.639 --> 00:34:03.159
So I was I would have called myself Anaton if I meant that I would give up the booze.
00:34:03.240 --> 00:34:12.920
I used to say, I would have called myself Coco the Clown, I would have put any label on me, but just if it meant that I would never drink again, that's what I was that's the goal that I was looking to achieve.
00:34:13.079 --> 00:34:16.280
But I had heard a podcast with a lady called Jolene Park.
00:34:16.360 --> 00:34:24.199
She talked about grey area drinking, and she grew she talked, she witnessed it in both herself and a lot of the people that she had worked with as well.
00:34:24.440 --> 00:34:37.160
This kind of a space between maybe the you know, now and again drinkers and then uh the end stage, like it that it all occurs on a spectrum, and that somewhere in the middle, there's kind of the grey area.
00:34:37.240 --> 00:34:48.039
So the people who don't kind of fit the profile for alcoholism or severe alcohol use disorder, but who are high functioning, you know, but they drink more than they intend to.
00:34:48.280 --> 00:34:58.200
It doesn't look problematic to others, but they still have negative experiences when they do drink, so like hangovers, anxiety, all that kind of thing.
00:34:58.360 --> 00:35:05.480
You know, people who would drink to relieve stress or to manage emotions and all that kind of thing.
00:35:05.640 --> 00:35:11.640
And then they're able to stop, but I suppose the difficulty is in being kind of stay staying stopped or whatever.
00:35:11.800 --> 00:35:18.360
And like even though other people don't see that they're drinking as a problem, they kind of fret about it unknown to themselves.
00:35:18.519 --> 00:35:22.360
And I just hearing that explanation, I was like, that's exactly me, you know.
00:35:22.599 --> 00:35:30.680
So I yeah, I felt that that was an explanation for the way which manner patterns that I kind of drank.
00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:33.800
So I identified heavily with that one.
00:35:34.200 --> 00:35:35.320
Yeah, the same with me.
00:35:35.640 --> 00:35:42.360
So many people as well, since I've stopped drinking, they've said, you know, you you didn't really have a problem, did you?
00:35:42.519 --> 00:35:45.000
You know, surely you can come out and have one with us.
00:35:45.240 --> 00:35:47.400
But they don't see the aftermath, do they?
00:35:47.480 --> 00:35:52.200
They don't see those hangovers, they don't feel that anxiety that you're talking about.
00:35:52.360 --> 00:35:55.320
And we love to put labels on people, don't we?
00:35:55.400 --> 00:36:00.200
And so it we like to box people, we we like to section people off.
00:36:00.360 --> 00:36:06.280
So, yeah, when you say about because so many people, even now, they'll still say to me, Yeah, but Luke, you were not alcoholic.
00:36:06.680 --> 00:36:11.800
But I was exactly the same as you when I heard that term grey area drinker.
00:36:11.880 --> 00:36:25.000
I think the first time I heard it was from Andy Ramage, and I I heard it and I thought, wow, and he explained it so well, and I was like, That is me, and yeah, and and I felt I felt good to have a label almost.
00:36:25.079 --> 00:36:29.800
It was like, wow, that you know, they are my people, that is that is what I am.
00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:33.480
I'm not an alcoholic, I've got a drinking problem, probably.
00:36:33.720 --> 00:36:38.760
That's how I would define it, and yeah, it's a great term, gray area drinker, I think.
00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:43.160
Yeah, so I this is how I describe it, right?
00:36:43.720 --> 00:36:48.599
I was a problematic drinker because drinking caused a lot of problems in my life.
00:36:48.840 --> 00:37:01.640
Now, like there's a a whole school of thought that says that the problems turn up on the inside first and then they make their way to the outside, like the D well, you know, the drink driving or whatever.
00:37:01.800 --> 00:37:03.400
But like I can't answer that.
00:37:03.559 --> 00:37:19.880
I can't say I would have ever but I gone down that, but I do know that my drinking was reducing from probably age 30 onwards, and then I gave up with 37, you know, so I was removing it, going back, removing it, going back, removing it, going back.
00:37:20.280 --> 00:37:25.960
Because I needed more and more evidence to say that, like, Jesus, if you shut me drinking, you know.
00:37:26.360 --> 00:37:26.920
Yeah, yeah.
00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:32.360
You were building up that evidence, you were proving to yourself that you could do it, and you were giving you were dipping your toe in the water.
00:37:32.760 --> 00:37:36.200
This is what I say to people, Pete it it's not something you just stop overnight.
00:37:36.280 --> 00:37:46.120
If you've been doing it for decades, then you've got to break away from it slowly because it's gonna be so overwhelming and it's going cold turkey straight away, it's gonna be really, really tough.
00:37:46.840 --> 00:37:47.400
Yeah.
00:37:47.880 --> 00:37:49.240
Yeah, so so true.
00:37:49.480 --> 00:37:57.240
I mean, you you talk about the dopamine cycle as well, alcohol borrowing time from tomorrow's joy.
00:37:57.320 --> 00:38:00.120
Um I can definitely resonate with that as well.
00:38:00.360 --> 00:38:02.280
What what do you mean by that?
00:38:02.840 --> 00:38:14.360
Yeah, so I suppose like how I kind of explained it earlier, so like I would then, you know, so all the dopamine, all the dopamine, all the dopamine.
00:38:14.599 --> 00:38:21.559
So it was like high crash, high crash, and then towards the next day, then it would be crash city, you know.
00:38:21.800 --> 00:38:34.599
So what I experienced in those kind of three, four, five, six hours of like highs, you know, on a night out, or whatever it was, they would literally come crashing down the next day.
00:38:34.840 --> 00:38:39.800
And like, you know, I work with loads of people as well, and they experience the exact same thing.
00:38:39.960 --> 00:38:56.680
And I suppose now as we get older, as our kind of tolerance drops or sensitivity rises, this becomes more evident in people, and you know, they're beginning to kind of think, God, you know, maybe it's not it's not looking good so good for me.
00:38:56.840 --> 00:39:03.480
Plus, I think we're probably one of the first kind of generations of people to experience alcohol use on this level anyway.
00:39:03.640 --> 00:39:14.280
So we don't like a generation ago, there wasn't people kind of giving up alcohol in midlife, you know, there wasn't really talk about, you know, like I'm menopausal, right?
00:39:14.360 --> 00:39:15.079
Sorry, Luke.
00:39:15.240 --> 00:39:20.280
But like it is, you know, it's a very important factor in my life currently.
00:39:20.599 --> 00:39:37.880
So, like, there's a lot of people in midlife who are at that stage, women, obviously, because I work with women a lot, and who just can't, there's so much going on in their physiology and their hormone levels that they just they find that even one drink costs them a couple of days as well.
00:39:38.039 --> 00:39:40.840
So it interferes with too many systems, you know.
00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:42.840
Our brain chemistry, our sleep.
00:39:42.920 --> 00:39:51.320
You talked about OEM sleep there, you know, we're not processing stuff, we're waking up the next morning even groggier than we were the night before.
00:39:51.400 --> 00:39:58.519
The problems maybe multiplied, you know, you're not working them through the system where we process them either.
00:39:58.599 --> 00:40:03.160
So yeah, it's uh yeah, it's definitely a a borrow from tomorrow kind of.
00:40:03.800 --> 00:40:12.120
And I suppose the the sooner you kind of get on board with that, are you willing to, you know, is the juice worth the squeeze?
00:40:12.280 --> 00:40:15.240
You know, are the costs worth the benefits?
00:40:15.400 --> 00:40:18.280
And generally, if people are very honest, they're not.
00:40:18.760 --> 00:40:26.280
Yeah, and it definitely gets harder when you get older, and you definitely don't bounce back from a hangover when you're older, definitely not.
00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:29.800
This is why we help people around our sort of age, right?
00:40:29.960 --> 00:40:33.559
Because you you can bounce back like you were when you were a teenager.
00:40:33.880 --> 00:40:34.920
Absolutely not.
00:40:35.400 --> 00:40:44.200
So if someone's listening to this, Olivia, and they recognise you know that they can relate to what we're saying, but they but they still think that they haven't got a problem.
00:40:44.360 --> 00:40:50.039
Well, I mean, what would be the honest question that you'd tell them to ask themselves?
00:40:50.360 --> 00:40:55.640
Yeah, so like I I just said it there, like, is the cost worth the benefit?
00:40:55.800 --> 00:40:57.960
Like, so you know, what are you getting for it?
00:40:58.120 --> 00:41:13.640
Like, I'd I'd get a piece of paper, you know, put a cross in the middle, put the costs of alcohol and the benefits of alcohol, and then underneath it put the costs of of you know, alcohol-free living and then the benefits and weigh it up like that, you know.
00:41:13.800 --> 00:41:16.680
So, you know, and and make a decision, you know.
00:41:16.760 --> 00:41:20.440
If you can't do that by yourself, get somebody to help you.
00:41:20.680 --> 00:41:26.120
Ask our friend Chat GPT, they're always good at guiding us around certain stuff.
00:41:26.360 --> 00:41:29.160
But, you know, just even that, is it worth it?
00:41:29.320 --> 00:41:32.680
Like, you know, what and also what am I afraid of?
00:41:32.840 --> 00:41:34.840
You know, am I afraid of the wedding?
00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.079
I I don't know, like what what do people usually drink around with you?
00:41:39.160 --> 00:41:46.840
Is it weddings, like summer holidays, uh uh all inclusives, hens, stags, whatever.
00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:48.840
Yeah, so is it really worth it?
00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:51.160
And generally it's not, you know.
00:41:51.400 --> 00:42:00.760
Yeah, I was I was recent on a stack though, and uh the I was well, there was me and one other guy there who who wasn't drinking, um, thank God, so I had a sober body.
00:42:00.920 --> 00:42:11.079
But a couple of the guys, I've mentioned it on here before, a couple of the guys, it got to about 10 o'clock in the evening and they were drinking cups of tea, and I was I was like, what the he what are you guys doing?
00:42:11.160 --> 00:42:11.640
What's happening?
00:42:11.720 --> 00:42:19.000
And they said, Oh Luke, it's brilliant having you here because we haven't got to keep up with everyone else and carry on drinking and you know being pulled along with the group.
00:42:19.079 --> 00:42:22.760
He said, Because you don't drink, we can stop drinking whenever we like.
00:42:22.920 --> 00:42:24.280
And I thought that was fascinating.
00:42:24.360 --> 00:42:32.360
Is it the amount of people that drink because they feel like they need to, and you know, you get to that certain stage of life and you're like, I just don't need to be doing this anymore.
00:42:32.599 --> 00:42:38.680
It's not serving a purpose, it's not as it's not half as good as it used to be, and I just can't take it anymore.
00:42:38.840 --> 00:42:43.240
So I found that really fascinating when there's a couple of guys said that, there was like 15 of us.
00:42:43.880 --> 00:42:45.640
Yeah, so you gave them permission.
00:42:45.960 --> 00:42:47.320
Exactly, exactly.
00:42:47.480 --> 00:42:49.320
Yeah, I mean we're social creatures, aren't we?
00:42:49.400 --> 00:42:53.880
You know, we're tribal, we're we're tribal creatures, and we just get pulled along with the crowd, don't we?
00:42:53.960 --> 00:42:54.440
We really do.
00:42:54.519 --> 00:42:55.800
We don't want to be that odd one out.
00:42:55.960 --> 00:43:00.200
That's why I think it takes so much courage, take so much courage to stand up and do it.
00:43:00.680 --> 00:43:10.680
The bravest thing in the whole wide world, you know, and I'm really proud of myself because like it's not for everybody, but like it's tough going.
00:43:11.160 --> 00:43:18.920
And I had a community call before I came on to you, and I have a couple of clients from County Mayo, basically, which is the other side.
00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:23.240
And I don't know if you saw any of this online, but uh, maybe I'm just in a bubble here.
00:43:23.400 --> 00:43:33.160
But that team, County Mayo, basically hadn't won our like national sport final in 75 years, and they won it.
00:43:33.320 --> 00:43:37.240
So, like there was literally like they're mad people anyway, they're great.
00:43:37.480 --> 00:43:53.640
And but they literally, the whole county went drinking for like the last two weeks, and just kind of tweaking out and you know, talking to people around, you know, they might have felt on the periphery of celebrations because they weren't drinking and all that kind of stuff.
00:43:53.720 --> 00:43:56.760
So, yeah, like you said, we're absolutely social creatures.
00:43:57.079 --> 00:44:08.120
We are born to connect, we are born to be, you know, in harmony and in unison and in bonds with each other, you know, and alcohol has kind of taken over.
00:44:08.519 --> 00:44:22.120
And you know, uh there is a book about the history of alcohol, and you know, it's caused a lot of things, but I suppose it has it has gone absolutely book mad in the last kind of 50 years in terms of the level at which we're drinking, you know.
00:44:23.320 --> 00:44:27.160
You've spoken quite a lot about being a parent, Olivia.
00:44:27.480 --> 00:44:33.480
I specifically help dads and their relationship with alcohol and being a better role model for their children.
00:44:33.800 --> 00:44:42.599
What do you f uh you've mentioned a couple of things, but what do you think's changed for you being being a parent compared to what you were like eight years ago?
00:44:43.240 --> 00:44:47.880
Well, I'm look at I I work with kids and young people, right?
00:44:47.960 --> 00:44:50.200
So I've 25 years of experience, right?
00:44:50.280 --> 00:44:52.920
So I kind of know how to handle kids.
00:44:53.079 --> 00:44:54.519
My husband does as well.
00:44:54.760 --> 00:45:02.680
So, like, you know, we we were well equipped at going into parenthood, but not well enough because it's so hard.
00:45:02.920 --> 00:45:07.720
But I'm okay, so I don't have the courses and levels running through my body, right?
00:45:07.880 --> 00:45:12.680
So I'm not as reactive, okay?
00:45:12.920 --> 00:45:21.720
So I'm not as shamefilled, I'm much more even, I'm a lot more at peace, I have better levels of regulation myself.
00:45:21.960 --> 00:45:33.160
I can let things kind of slide, you know, it's just I'm calmer, I'm nicer, you know, there's just it's I'm more able to regulate myself and kind of regulate.
00:45:33.320 --> 00:45:37.480
I talk an awful lot about regulation and co-regulating with the kids and stuff like that.
00:45:37.640 --> 00:45:42.680
And you know, let's say now I don't I'm I'm just talking in roundabouts here.
00:45:42.760 --> 00:45:47.400
I don't remember any specific times where I was very hungover and I was short-tempered.
00:45:47.559 --> 00:45:50.280
Like there's not specifically anything like that, right?
00:45:50.440 --> 00:45:58.920
But I'm sure there had been maybe times where I was you see, alcohol brought in me a lot of shame.
00:45:59.079 --> 00:46:04.280
So I would have always been guilty, guilty of everything and shame ashamed of myself, right?
00:46:04.440 --> 00:46:08.840
So, but I'm sure there was times where I was short tempered as a result, right?
00:46:09.320 --> 00:46:14.680
But now that that's and you really you realize very quickly that you can't be short-tempered with a kid.
00:46:14.760 --> 00:46:18.200
Like if you shout at them, uh then you have to calm them down for a full hour.
00:46:18.360 --> 00:46:21.000
So like there was no shouting going on here, right?
00:46:21.320 --> 00:46:34.440
But I'm just, you know, I'm a nicer person, I'm calmer, I'm better able to equipped with the better equipped to deal with the ups and downs of being a mum, a very involved mum, like the same as everybody else.
00:46:34.599 --> 00:46:41.720
We all love and adore our kids, we all want the best for them, we all want them to have, you know, a good experience of life.
00:46:41.960 --> 00:46:52.519
And, you know, whatever hardships they'll go through, they'll go through, but I don't want to for them to go through any hardships because of me and the way I behaved.
00:46:52.920 --> 00:46:53.240
Yeah.
00:46:53.400 --> 00:46:55.640
It's about regulating that nervous system, isn't it?
00:46:55.720 --> 00:46:57.880
I mean, when you're drinking, you can you cannot do it.
00:46:57.960 --> 00:47:00.039
You're on that roller coaster all the time.
00:47:00.200 --> 00:47:09.480
You're high, you're low, and when you're drinking as well, I I remember you've mentioned this a couple of times about your life revolving around a bar or drinking.
00:47:09.640 --> 00:47:15.960
I would go to social events and I would always make sure that there was a bar or we were close to a pub or whatever that might be.
00:47:16.120 --> 00:47:33.640
And I remember like the kids would be playing and we'd be drinking and they'd be coming backwards and forwards, and yeah, so many of the clients I work with when they quit the booze, whether that's whether they're a month down the line, whether they're two months down the line, all that guilt and shame comes up, doesn't it?
00:47:33.800 --> 00:47:40.440
And they start and and they feel really, really bad and resentful by all the things that they've done it in the past and they blame themselves.
00:47:40.599 --> 00:47:49.559
But it's all part of going sober and going alcohol free, is it's accepting what's happened but moving forward.
00:47:49.720 --> 00:47:51.160
But it's really, really tough.
00:47:52.280 --> 00:47:56.519
And like as you know, like it's a central nervous system depressant, right?
00:47:56.680 --> 00:48:00.599
So it depresses all of our emotions, even the kind of joyful ones as well.
00:48:00.760 --> 00:48:02.680
So everything comes up to the top.
00:48:02.840 --> 00:48:05.400
So like I did a lot of healing, right?
00:48:05.559 --> 00:48:14.440
And I'm very spiritual, I go to specific healers, so they have helped me heal, and that's how I healed out of a lot of the shame.
00:48:14.599 --> 00:48:32.760
Like I wouldn't be able to speak to you now and you know, tell the you know fruity stories that I, you know, eventful life events, and you know I keep a lot of them under wraps, Luke, because I'm not telling that shit to the uh to the the general public.
00:48:33.160 --> 00:48:37.720
As we all do, brackets, we all know what went on, you know.
00:48:37.960 --> 00:48:40.200
So yeah, so they've helped me heal.
00:48:40.280 --> 00:48:41.480
And like there's no shame.
00:48:41.640 --> 00:48:42.440
It is what it is.
00:48:42.599 --> 00:48:44.120
I'll never go back to that person.
00:48:44.280 --> 00:48:46.599
I'm very confident in who I am now.
00:48:46.760 --> 00:48:49.880
You know, it's a nice place to be at.
00:48:51.480 --> 00:49:02.120
So if you could go back and give your younger self some advice, Olivia, eight years ago, ten years ago, whatever that might be, what would you say to her?
00:49:02.840 --> 00:49:05.880
Yeah, I I've often said this in a jokey way.
00:49:05.960 --> 00:49:12.519
Like I had three vodkas when I was 14 on a Saturday night in a in an over 18s nightclub, but I would have given up drink on the Sunday.
00:49:12.599 --> 00:49:13.880
No, I'm only joking.
00:49:14.680 --> 00:49:18.039
Like it happened the way it happened because it happened the way it happened.
00:49:18.200 --> 00:49:20.360
Okay, what advice would I give to myself?
00:49:20.519 --> 00:49:27.480
Look at I would be I would have said make more conscious decisions to do it earlier.
00:49:27.720 --> 00:49:31.559
Like be more have more of a plan in place, right?
00:49:31.800 --> 00:49:40.039
So, you know, I said like I gave up for 30 days in December 2017 and I got derailed by a Singapore sling, right?
00:49:40.200 --> 00:49:43.160
I wouldn't get derailed by a Singapore sling again.
00:49:43.320 --> 00:49:45.320
You know, I'd have a plan in place.
00:49:45.480 --> 00:49:55.640
You know, I would have maybe, you know, but look at you can't, I don't know what it's I I'm happy I'm I'm I I've no regrets.
00:49:55.800 --> 00:49:56.920
I really don't have no regret.
00:49:57.160 --> 00:49:58.360
I don't have any regrets.
00:49:58.519 --> 00:50:04.440
But look at what what I would hate my daughter to go through the level of self-flagellation that I did.
00:50:04.599 --> 00:50:06.760
So like give yourself a break, you're actually grand.
00:50:07.079 --> 00:50:08.280
You know, that kind of thing.
00:50:08.440 --> 00:50:09.880
Stop being so hard on yourself.
00:50:09.960 --> 00:50:11.800
I'm incredibly hard on myself.
00:50:12.120 --> 00:50:17.880
So yeah, it's something I'm trying to phase out in my life, but I would probably that stop being so hard on yourself.
00:50:17.960 --> 00:50:20.599
You're actually an I stop being hard on yourself.
00:50:20.680 --> 00:50:22.519
Yeah, it's it's like we were just saying, isn't it?
00:50:22.680 --> 00:50:25.720
It's it's it's being you're being so hard on yourself.
00:50:25.800 --> 00:50:30.200
But then it I guess if you weren't so hard on yourself, maybe you wouldn't have pulled yourself out of that hole.
00:50:30.280 --> 00:50:40.039
So it goes back to the whole what you've been through shapes you and having no regrets because you are the person you are today because of your past events, right?
00:50:40.120 --> 00:50:44.120
It's it's all part of the journey, as corny and as cliche as it sounds.
00:50:44.360 --> 00:50:47.559
And it's a linear timeline, according to my husband.
00:50:47.880 --> 00:50:54.840
So like it's all like and I do and I'm I read a lot of near-death experiences, right?
00:50:55.079 --> 00:51:11.640
And like I they say, the people who have them say that we choose this exact body, this exact experience, this exact timeline, this exact space and time reality, whatever, to get exactly the experience that our soul needs.
00:51:11.800 --> 00:51:18.120
You know, we're just veiled and we don't realize that we are of divine essence.
00:51:18.519 --> 00:51:21.320
Divine timing, like we spoke about before.
00:51:21.800 --> 00:51:25.000
What does the next chapter look like for you then, Olivia?
00:51:25.079 --> 00:51:26.840
And where can people find you?
00:51:27.320 --> 00:51:28.920
So the next chapter is me.
00:51:29.000 --> 00:51:31.079
I have taken a career break from my job.
00:51:31.240 --> 00:51:36.680
I am going to, we were talking earlier about my fridge magnet today's take the risk or lose the chance.
00:51:36.840 --> 00:51:39.400
So I'm taking the risk as opposed to losing the chance.
00:51:39.559 --> 00:51:42.920
I'm gonna work it out for a year, see how I get on.
00:51:43.079 --> 00:51:45.160
So the next chapter looks like that.
00:51:45.400 --> 00:52:00.280
I'm going to become, as I'm always on a forward journey of getting better and personal development, become more evolved, become nicer, kinder, more loving of those around me, but specifically myself as well.
00:52:00.519 --> 00:52:03.480
And yeah, just I want, you know what?
00:52:03.640 --> 00:52:07.720
Me and Gary went for a walk today, and I was like, I want to laugh more.
00:52:07.880 --> 00:52:11.640
You know, I like a simple life, I don't need much to keep me going.
00:52:11.800 --> 00:52:12.760
I like to laugh.
00:52:12.920 --> 00:52:16.840
I love people, I love connecting with people, and just more of that.
00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:23.000
If people can find me, I have a website, it's called www.grayarea drinker.ie.
00:52:23.400 --> 00:52:28.840
I'm on Instagram at greyarea drinker, and I have a podcast called No More Booze.
00:52:29.079 --> 00:52:41.400
So if they want to listen to you and 133 other people talking about alcohol free living, check it out on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your pods.
00:52:42.120 --> 00:52:43.400
It's a brilliant podcast.
00:52:43.559 --> 00:52:46.120
It actually helped me a lot in early sobriety.
00:52:46.360 --> 00:52:46.920
Oh I love it.
00:52:47.480 --> 00:52:48.039
Olivia, yeah.
00:52:48.200 --> 00:52:49.880
Really appreciate I really appreciated it.
00:52:49.960 --> 00:52:54.039
It was it was one that I always wanted to get on, and I remember I kept on hassling you.
00:52:54.200 --> 00:53:03.880
And eventually you uh Yeah, you come to and yeah, you yeah, I think that was that was well over a year ago now, because I think I think we recorded it over TT.
00:53:04.200 --> 00:53:06.120
So yes, it was, yeah.
00:53:06.360 --> 00:53:07.400
Because I remember, yeah, yeah.
00:53:07.480 --> 00:53:09.240
I remember Look at you now, Luke.
00:53:09.480 --> 00:53:10.440
Yeah, I know, I know.
00:53:10.519 --> 00:53:11.559
Wow, what a difference.
00:53:11.800 --> 00:53:14.599
Yeah, look at your pod with your own pod as well.
00:53:14.760 --> 00:53:16.039
Podcasting's amazing.
00:53:16.280 --> 00:53:24.039
It is, it's brilliant, and you know, getting to meet inspiring people every week and asking all these deep and meaningful questions.
00:53:24.200 --> 00:53:25.480
I absolutely love it.
00:53:25.640 --> 00:53:26.280
It's brilliant.
00:53:26.440 --> 00:53:27.240
Yeah, it's fun.
00:53:27.640 --> 00:53:28.440
It is, it is.
00:53:28.519 --> 00:53:30.760
So thank you so much for coming on today, Olivia.
00:53:30.840 --> 00:53:31.960
I really appreciate your time.
00:53:32.120 --> 00:53:34.280
I know you're so busy with everything.
00:53:34.360 --> 00:53:38.920
Um you had a call tonight, but yeah, you you managed to squeeze me in, so thank you so much.
00:53:39.160 --> 00:53:41.960
I love your energy and I love your honesty.
00:53:42.200 --> 00:53:50.680
And uh yeah, I I've you know I've got no doubt that you're gonna absolutely smash in this next year, and I can't wait to see what the next chapter is gonna be for you.
00:53:50.760 --> 00:53:53.160
Um and I yeah, I look forward to following your journey.
00:53:53.240 --> 00:53:53.960
Thank you so much.
00:53:54.440 --> 00:53:55.320
Thank you, Luke.
00:53:55.800 --> 00:53:57.240
I've loved it, really loved it.
00:53:57.480 --> 00:53:59.079
I'm a truth teller, is right.
00:53:59.160 --> 00:53:59.480
Yes.
00:54:00.360 --> 00:54:00.840
Yeah, you are.
00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:01.720
No, brilliant.
00:54:01.880 --> 00:54:02.760
Thank you, Olivia.
00:54:03.320 --> 00:54:04.120
Thanks, Luke.
00:00:22.759 --> 00:00:25.160
Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode.
00:00:25.399 --> 00:00:29.079
My guest today didn't hit the kind of rock bottom that you'd expect.
00:00:29.239 --> 00:00:35.960
No lost job, no lost marriage, just 20 odd years of a pattern she couldn't quite explain to herself.
00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:41.159
Fine for months and then unable to stop at one drink once she started.
00:00:41.719 --> 00:00:44.679
This is why her story resonates so much with mine.
00:00:45.159 --> 00:00:46.679
I was just like this myself.
00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:50.200
Olivia is known online as the Grey Area Drinker.
00:00:50.519 --> 00:00:53.879
Her actual turning point came on a family holiday in Spain.
00:00:54.039 --> 00:00:57.159
A hangover so bad that it turned into a panic attack.
00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:03.079
Lying in the hotel bed convinced that she was going to die and leave her kids without a mum.
00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:09.640
That night she made a decision that is now nearly eight years and she's now eight years alcohol free.
00:01:09.960 --> 00:01:22.680
Olivia's got a master's in health psychology and she runs a podcast, No More Booze, and she helps people spot the exact pattern she lived for for with for over two decades.
00:01:23.159 --> 00:01:25.799
Olivia, welcome to the next chapter.
00:01:26.439 --> 00:01:27.319
Hello, Luke.
00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:28.040
How are you?
00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:38.679
And hello to all the wonderful listeners who are trying to grab on to a bit of alcohol-free living or sobriety or whatever term feels good to them.
00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:41.000
And what we always say is, do it.
00:01:41.480 --> 00:01:42.040
I love it.
00:01:42.120 --> 00:01:43.000
I absolutely love it.
00:01:43.159 --> 00:01:51.640
Okay, so so for some context for my listeners, please, what was your childhood like and how did that transition into the drinking?
00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:54.280
Yeah, I'm Irish, as you can tell.
00:01:54.439 --> 00:01:56.200
I'm rural Irish.
00:01:56.359 --> 00:02:01.239
I live in uh I was brought up in a little village in just an area outside Dublin.
00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:04.359
Kind of like a lot of our community were farmers.
00:02:04.519 --> 00:02:07.719
It was very what it felt like a very equal community.
00:02:07.879 --> 00:02:09.480
Everyone was kind of the same.
00:02:09.719 --> 00:02:16.120
I have a mom and a dad who are still together, and I've two brothers, an older one and a younger one.
00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:17.800
Very close-knit family.
00:02:17.959 --> 00:02:24.920
We are actually meeting up on Saturday, going to a theme park for my brother and my niece's birthday.
00:02:25.079 --> 00:02:27.000
Look, it it was fairly typical.
00:02:27.240 --> 00:02:29.480
No adverse childhood experiences.
00:02:29.639 --> 00:02:31.319
I score very low on those.
00:02:31.399 --> 00:02:33.399
I would have used those in the work that I do.
00:02:33.560 --> 00:02:37.319
So I wouldn't have experienced poverty addiction in the home.
00:02:37.480 --> 00:02:38.519
There was nothing like that.
00:02:38.600 --> 00:02:42.920
Like there wasn't an abundance of money, but it was the 1980s in rural Ireland.
00:02:43.079 --> 00:02:46.199
I don't think many people had an abundance of money, you know.
00:02:46.439 --> 00:02:48.519
So just very average.
00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:51.720
I had a best friend who lives next next door to me.
00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:53.639
She was my little soul sister.
00:02:53.959 --> 00:02:55.639
You never saw one without the other.
00:02:55.800 --> 00:03:02.519
And so I suppose, look at when I look back, what is my drinking a reflection of?
00:03:02.600 --> 00:03:05.240
It's not a reflection of the childhood that I grew up in.
00:03:05.399 --> 00:03:06.600
I wasn't drinking to cope.
00:03:06.680 --> 00:03:10.439
There wasn't any adverse experiences that led me to drink.
00:03:10.680 --> 00:03:16.920
But I probably am quite, you know, I developed a bit of anxiety in my teenage years.
00:03:17.079 --> 00:03:19.160
I'd have very active, busy mind.
00:03:19.319 --> 00:03:22.439
I love crack, as in, you know, fun.
00:03:22.680 --> 00:03:25.399
Like I love feeling connected to people.
00:03:25.560 --> 00:03:26.759
I love elation.
00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:32.920
And you know, when I look back, I was very impulsive around alcohol, kind of more or less from the get-go.
00:03:33.079 --> 00:03:34.600
So I would do mad shit.
00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:37.079
Like I would drink faster than everybody else.
00:03:37.319 --> 00:03:40.199
You know, I it was okay for the first couple of times.
00:03:40.279 --> 00:03:43.639
And like I actually, so I'm Catholic, right?
00:03:43.959 --> 00:03:46.040
And we made our confirmation.
00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:51.240
And when we made our confirmation, we made a pledge not to drink alcohol until we were 18.
00:03:51.399 --> 00:03:57.560
And I actually held out the longest of all of my friends and didn't drink until I was 14.
00:03:57.720 --> 00:04:00.199
They all drank in like 12.
00:04:00.279 --> 00:04:04.600
Like, I mean, sipped beer, and I was a bit of a nerd, and I was all, no, I'm not doing that.
00:04:04.759 --> 00:04:10.199
So I had three vodkas when I was 14, and that was my first array into alcohol.
00:04:10.279 --> 00:04:11.000
It was fine.
00:04:11.240 --> 00:04:23.720
And then I kind of was I not, I wasn't drinking regularly at 15, but then I moved to a town in Donegal when I was 16, and I waitressed for the summer, and I suppose that's when I started boozing.
00:04:23.879 --> 00:04:32.199
So it was I had my own money, we lived away from home, we lived in staff accommodation, we were friends with absolutely everybody.
00:04:32.279 --> 00:04:35.639
It was a real party town, and we loved being out.
00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:42.920
So we went like we would go from the hotel restaurant, like sometimes in our uniform into the nightclub.
00:04:43.080 --> 00:04:47.879
Like it was just it was vibrant, there was a lot going on, it was kind of the mid to late 90s.
00:04:48.120 --> 00:04:52.520
It was just, you know, and then I headed off to university and look it.
00:04:52.680 --> 00:04:57.000
I was I found a lot of friends who drank in the similar ways that I did.
00:04:57.160 --> 00:04:59.480
Did we was it contagious?
00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:04.040
Yes, but I loved it, you know, and I can absolutely say that I did.
00:05:04.199 --> 00:05:08.360
And I in first year in university I drank heavily, like very heavily.
00:05:08.439 --> 00:05:09.639
I was probably drinking every day.
00:05:09.800 --> 00:05:13.319
As in so Monday night we go to a nightclub called Tracks.
00:05:13.720 --> 00:05:15.879
No, the anchor, no tracks.
00:05:16.120 --> 00:05:19.639
Tuesday, the anchor, Wednesday Callie's, Thursday the anchor, Friday.
00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:23.800
I'd go down to Bundora to work, and I would go out Friday, Saturday.
00:05:24.040 --> 00:05:26.520
Actually, sorry, I would wouldn't go out on Sunday night.
00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:33.000
So like that was, and then I didn't really drink in second year to that extent, and then I barely drank in third year.
00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:37.960
So like there was always highs, lows, mediums, it was that kind of thing.
00:05:38.199 --> 00:05:40.120
20s, went, lived in America.
00:05:40.280 --> 00:05:41.720
I wasn't much of a boozer there.
00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:50.680
I was on meds now when I was over there and didn't drink a whole pile because we were kind of working and we were living, it wasn't very central where we were living, but like we did have a good time.
00:05:50.840 --> 00:05:55.160
We went to it was that that was the we were on the jerk Jersey, the Jersey shore.
00:05:55.400 --> 00:05:57.240
So there was a bit of wildness there.
00:05:57.400 --> 00:06:06.439
Came back, lived in Dublin for a year, went off to Australia and boozed my way around Australia and then came back and went to England and did a master's.
00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:10.759
So like there was periods of heavy drinking, light drinking, all that kind of stuff.
00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:19.319
So I suppose it caught up on me then when I was kind of maybe 25, 26, as in I was depressed from it.
00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:24.199
Like I came back into a country, all my friends had moved on.
00:06:24.360 --> 00:06:27.480
I kind of felt, you know, I didn't really fit in.
00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:31.960
I was going out to try and meet somebody, I got into the work that I'm in now.
00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:34.360
So like career-wise, it was going well.
00:06:34.439 --> 00:06:43.800
And then I suppose at that stage, kind of 26, 27, 28, it was maybe just Friday, Saturday nights, and then met my husband, and then it all came down.
00:06:43.960 --> 00:06:45.720
It all calmed down then.
00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:50.040
And like he's a very dissimilar drinker to me.
00:06:50.280 --> 00:07:00.680
So like I'm kind of all or nothing, and he's just very composed and take it or he's a take it or leave it drinker, yeah, which I am absolutely not.
00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:02.280
So yeah.
00:07:03.080 --> 00:07:10.520
In the beginning, then it was it was to fit in, would you say, um, and sort of belong, and it was only a social thing, but then in the end it obviously changed.
00:07:10.840 --> 00:07:13.560
Yeah, so like to fit in, yeah, absolutely.
00:07:13.720 --> 00:07:17.480
So I'm very introspective, so I observe myself quite a bit.
00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:19.480
Sorry, just cough here.
00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:38.840
So I yeah, so I'm very aware of who I am and how I interact with people, and I'm an overthinker and probably shy and like every human, and you know, going through teenage years, but I probably remember one of the first times that I felt very relaxed in somebody's company.
00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:43.240
You know, I you know when you go out when you're young, there's always cool people.
00:07:43.639 --> 00:07:46.280
I was not one of those cool people, right?
00:07:46.520 --> 00:07:51.800
But there was a girl I was talking to, she was like she was in my year in school and she was very cool.
00:07:52.040 --> 00:08:20.520
And I would have been kind of intimidated talking to her ordinarily, and I'd had we used to drink, they were called fuzzy navels, and like so they were vodka, peach snaps, and orange juice, and we used to you uh drink those in the bar that we went at, and I think I had maybe three or four of them, and I remember feeling very relaxed, and I remember feeling very much myself in a very like out of the ordinary situation, like in a pub when I was 17.
00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:21.480
So I remember that.
00:08:21.560 --> 00:08:48.840
I remember thinking, oh wow, I kind of feel like myself, and the booze helped me to do that, and I can look back now reflectively and think that like my brain cottoned on to the fact that booze plus Olivia equals comfort, you know, it eradicates the levels of anxiety that I would have had, you know, it makes me feel more comfortable, more at ease, more less socially awkward.
00:08:49.000 --> 00:09:17.960
So yeah, I think that's probably and then look at I've a great bunch of friends, they're all mad, they're like fab, you know, and they like it was wild, and it was and we all just kind of loved like you know, for me the best time was actually being hungover the next day when we they would all pile into each other's rooms or like when we lived in halls or you know, and or over to each other's house, and we talked about like all the mad things that happened the night before, you know?
00:09:18.039 --> 00:09:21.399
So it was definitely connection and it was a tool for connection.
00:09:21.560 --> 00:09:24.440
Um there's no point saying it wasn't because it was, you know.
00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:27.240
When did you start to question it then, Olivia?
00:09:27.399 --> 00:09:29.240
When did you think this is a problem?
00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:34.680
Did did anybody say anything, or or was it you reflecting on yourself?
00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:35.960
I was always saying it.
00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:38.759
I was always saying, ah, this can't be fucking natural.
00:09:38.840 --> 00:09:40.519
Like, go on, this is mental.
00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:43.000
Like, why do I feel like this and you don't?
00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:46.279
And I think the hangovers were so insane.
00:09:46.519 --> 00:09:51.080
Like the hangovers were like the drinking wasn't fine.
00:09:51.159 --> 00:09:53.480
Like I'd black out a lot of the times, right?
00:09:53.639 --> 00:09:57.480
So like physically I know that I couldn't tolerate a whole pile of alcohol.
00:09:57.639 --> 00:10:03.480
I'm s I'm short, like I'm five foot four, so I don't have a lot of body mass to be able to cope with alcohol.
00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:09.639
So it was the hangovers that did me in in the end, like, and nobody ever said anything.
00:10:09.800 --> 00:10:14.279
I was always reaching out to people to say, you know, am I abnormal?
00:10:14.519 --> 00:10:17.000
Am I, you know, am I an alcoholic?
00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:19.320
Is this what it looks like, you know?
00:10:19.560 --> 00:10:21.639
And they would always say, No, you're grand.
00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:31.159
But the one thing that was said to me was, like, if I like by my husband, if I'd hangovers like you, I wouldn't drink.
00:10:32.279 --> 00:10:46.600
So yeah, it was and I suppose then like when we got married, you know, I drank in a responsible way with him, if there's such a thing, but like he would I wasn't hedonistic with him, let's say.
00:10:46.759 --> 00:10:52.919
And you know, when we drank together, I it would never be wild or it was weird that I would black out, you know.
00:10:53.240 --> 00:11:15.080
But I suppose towards the end, then I'd had kids, and you know, like having kids is very tough for everybody, and we've moved out of where we always lived, out to the suburbs, and we were used to kind of being, you know, scooting around town to all the fancy places, and you know, you know yourself, Luke.
00:11:15.159 --> 00:11:20.279
Like before you have kids, like you have nobody's needs to meet but your own, right?
00:11:20.519 --> 00:11:22.680
So all of my money was spent on me.
00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:24.600
I did a huge amount of travelling.
00:11:24.680 --> 00:11:26.840
It was all me, me, me, and more me.
00:11:26.919 --> 00:11:31.560
And it was like, where can I, you know, where's the next fancy bar we can go to?
00:11:31.800 --> 00:11:34.120
Can we go to a lovely rooftop?
00:11:34.279 --> 00:11:37.720
You know, can we eat olives or when are we going for dinner?
00:11:37.800 --> 00:12:13.800
And you know, it was just and then when we had kids, it was like, okay, so we're out here, and young kids are very all-consuming, they're very demanding, and like not to say that I just assumed that you just drink the way you always do, but I couldn't, as in like I suppose drinking at that point might have been so obviously it had dwindled since I met Gary, and then I had been, you know, alcohol-free for considerable times when I was trying to get pregnant, and then when I I'd given up for a while with no plan, only the plan was to lose weight and get fit before my wedding.
00:12:13.960 --> 00:12:18.360
So I had taken a lot of breaks, but they weren't conscious breaks, you know.
00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:30.680
So anyway, had the kids, and it became very apparent very fast that I couldn't do a lot of things in the same way when I had kids, and drinking was definitely one of them.
00:12:30.840 --> 00:12:36.279
So it like it took a long time to dawn on me, a long, long, long, long, long time, you know.
00:12:36.519 --> 00:12:36.840
Yeah.
00:12:37.159 --> 00:12:40.039
How how how many years would you say you were questioning it then?
00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:42.840
I mean, was it literally like was it a decade?
00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:44.120
Was it a was it five years?
00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:44.919
Yeah.
00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:45.399
Really?
00:12:45.879 --> 00:12:46.120
Yeah.
00:12:46.440 --> 00:12:48.919
Did you ever try and moderate it in that decade?
00:12:49.159 --> 00:12:50.039
Oh god, yeah.
00:12:50.200 --> 00:12:50.600
Yeah.
00:12:50.759 --> 00:12:58.680
And actually, so I gave up in Jul actually, so I looked in my phone to remind myself of 2018 when I gave up.
00:12:58.759 --> 00:13:08.680
So the Easter of 2018, I had been on a moderation buzz because I had I had given up for the month of December in 2017, right?
00:13:08.840 --> 00:13:14.919
But I had just because I it was easy for me to give up then, and that that was a whole month of Christmas.
00:13:15.159 --> 00:13:16.039
It was easy.
00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:19.080
I was like, sure, I'm grand, there's not a bother on me.
00:13:19.240 --> 00:13:21.879
So I'll just continue to moderate.
00:13:22.039 --> 00:13:28.360
So I remember being in my brother's house for an Easter and I was moderating and it did not work out.
00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:34.039
So I think then there was the kind of like moderation, and I didn't even know that that was moderation, I think.
00:13:34.200 --> 00:13:34.680
I don't know.
00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:40.360
It was all I was all it was all trial and error, and I kept doing it and go back to it and going back to it.
00:13:40.519 --> 00:13:44.519
But yeah, I suppose it it finally stuck when I went to Spain.
00:13:44.759 --> 00:13:45.399
Hmm.
00:13:46.200 --> 00:13:52.840
So people like us who've got that busy brain, we spoke about it before we got on the call, and you've mentioned it already.
00:13:53.080 --> 00:14:01.240
Why why do you think some people like your husband can have one or two, and then people like us, I blame that on my ADHD.
00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:07.879
But why do you think it is that we cannot seem to have one and and leave it and moderate?
00:14:08.039 --> 00:14:09.240
What why is it?
00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:13.480
Well, reflectively, this is my own perspective of it.
00:14:13.639 --> 00:14:20.600
So I'm look at I am a suspected ADHD or I have done a lot of screeners on myself.
00:14:20.919 --> 00:14:23.639
I do not have the cash.
00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:35.000
As you know, I was telling you, I'm going on a year out of work, and just in terms of priority, like an ADHD diagnosis, I'm sure it's the same where you are, but it could be upwards of 1500 euros.
00:14:35.159 --> 00:14:39.159
And but look at is there you know value in self-diagnosis?
00:14:39.240 --> 00:14:45.560
There probably is, if there is barriers towards cost and stuff, but I I meet all the criteria, right?
00:14:45.800 --> 00:14:47.800
So I have an exceptionally busy brain.
00:14:47.960 --> 00:14:57.159
Okay, I'll tell you that when I have one drink, my dopamine, which I now know is my dopamine, goes sky fucking high.
00:14:57.399 --> 00:15:00.279
And I love that feeling.
00:15:00.519 --> 00:15:10.200
It's also the feeling when I do sprints and I start to sweat out the top of my lip, I know that I'm that I'm gonna generate that level of dopamine as well.
00:15:10.440 --> 00:15:13.480
I just love the feeling of that.
00:15:13.960 --> 00:15:19.159
I love anything that will get me elevated, an elevated emotion.
00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:23.720
So I just know that, you know, so this is how I view me.
00:15:23.800 --> 00:15:28.039
So I would have one drink, it would go sky high, and then it would go plummet.
00:15:28.440 --> 00:15:30.840
And then my so Olivia was gone.
00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:34.440
She had no control over anything, and the body was in charge then.
00:15:34.600 --> 00:15:44.600
So the body, maybe the brain, the neurochemistry, the neurotransmitters, they were in charge, they were in the driving seat, they were just looking for more dopamine, and I I had nothing got to do with it.
00:15:44.759 --> 00:15:53.080
So I was all or nothing, and you know, I coach it a lot of people now, and they're all all or nothing, middle of the road, can't just have one.
00:15:53.240 --> 00:15:56.200
This is what they kind of uh call themselves, you know.
00:15:56.279 --> 00:16:04.680
So it doesn't look problematic as we know, problematic drinking, you know, in terms of crashing the car and all those kind of things.
00:16:04.840 --> 00:16:09.879
Like that mine was never like that, ever, ever, you know, especially towards the end.
00:16:10.039 --> 00:16:11.800
Was there touch and go moments?
00:16:11.960 --> 00:16:15.560
Absolutely, but was there touch and go moments when there was only me?
00:16:15.639 --> 00:16:21.720
That that was probably in my single dumb, but definitely not, you know, when I was married with kids and stuff.
00:16:22.039 --> 00:16:34.120
But yeah, I just think that my brain is different, how I react to alcohol is different, and you know, I drank for different reasons as as I suppose as the lifespan went on.
00:16:34.279 --> 00:16:47.879
So, first of all, it for it was connection, first of all, it was maybe to dim down the social anxiety, and then maybe it was for connection, and oftentimes maybe it was to relieve stress or to stop a very, very busy mind.
00:16:48.039 --> 00:16:57.879
We moved into a haunt what what what I thought was a haunted house once, and I got myself into such a tizzy that I literally couldn't go to bed and I had to have a half a bottle of wine.
00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:05.960
Didn't have to, but I thought I had to have a half bottle of wine to calm down my brain to think that I was going to bed with a ghost, you know?
00:17:06.359 --> 00:17:07.799
Yeah, I used to do it as well.
00:17:07.960 --> 00:17:14.200
I used to work shifts back in the day, and I used to do um when I come home from a night shift, I couldn't sleep.
00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:18.919
So I used to have a uh a drink or a shot or whatever before I went to bed.
00:17:19.319 --> 00:17:24.759
So back then, back then I was getting those sorts of signs, but it's having that bit busy mind, isn't it, trying to sleep.
00:17:25.079 --> 00:17:25.399
Exactly.
00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:31.000
And I've I've worked with people who do shift work and who literally have to go to sleep at strange hours.
00:17:31.159 --> 00:17:44.679
And like I did night shifts for a while as well, and I would literally get into bed at eight o'clock in the morning, wake at six, and I would wake up going, Fuck this, even though I've had 10 hours sleep, but I just I have to have sleep.
00:17:44.759 --> 00:17:52.359
Like there's a lot in my body and my routine that I now know keeps me safe and well, and sleep is one of them.
00:17:52.679 --> 00:17:59.159
Yeah, it is so important, and we all know the uh effects of alcohol on the sleep, especially that rent sleep.
00:17:59.639 --> 00:18:02.919
So you mentioned Spain a minute ago.
00:18:03.319 --> 00:18:05.639
Talk us through what happened in Spain, please.
00:18:05.879 --> 00:18:16.439
Yeah, so I went to Nerca, and actually I'm going there next year's again for a 50th, so I shall re- require my steps, and although I can't even remember much anyway.
00:18:16.599 --> 00:18:19.240
So kids were small, one and three.
00:18:19.399 --> 00:18:24.759
So I was after coming, I was coming off the back of, so I'd done a 30-day stint in the December.
00:18:24.919 --> 00:18:31.879
I tried thought I was absolutely grand, there wasn't a bothering me, and then I tried to moderate, made a show of myself a couple of times, uh, etc.
00:18:32.119 --> 00:18:32.359
etc.
00:18:32.599 --> 00:18:32.839
Right.
00:18:32.919 --> 00:18:35.799
So it was kind of I was like, I can't do this anymore.
00:18:35.959 --> 00:18:38.279
These hangovers are from hell, blah blah blah.
00:18:38.359 --> 00:18:44.599
So anyway, I had brought a bottle of charcoal with me because I knew I'd have a hangover, right?
00:18:44.679 --> 00:18:46.759
Because I probably knew I couldn't be trusted.
00:18:46.839 --> 00:19:00.759
So anyway, we went in, we were in, uh we had kind of had a couple of drinks on the flight, and then I, you know, I'm not a great flyer or whatever, so uh a couple of glasses of rose, and then we went to a nightclub, and there's loads of funny stories from the nightclub as well.
00:19:00.919 --> 00:19:02.839
But like we didn't go to bed till six o'clock.
00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:05.959
Got up the next day, had to move hotels for some mad reason.
00:19:06.039 --> 00:19:14.119
I'd booked two hotels for two different days, but ended up like drinking pina caladas at lunchtime, like ridiculous behaviour.
00:19:14.279 --> 00:19:21.639
Uh, went to bed then in the middle of the day to try and sleep that off, and then went out that night again and had three glasses of wine.
00:19:21.799 --> 00:19:25.240
But in those three glasses of wine, can't remember leaving the place.
00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:32.119
It was like this stunning rooftop kind of place that we were, you know, before the wedding.
00:19:32.359 --> 00:19:34.599
Anyway, can't really remember going to bed, you know.
00:19:34.839 --> 00:19:39.959
Seemingly I was rude to the guy on reception, like Gary used the word obnoxious.
00:19:40.039 --> 00:19:42.759
I'm not really an obnoxious person, that was a bit of a shock.
00:19:42.919 --> 00:19:48.039
Then I remembered then, anyway, look at went to bed, but woke up the next morning.
00:19:48.279 --> 00:19:49.000
Oh my god.
00:19:49.159 --> 00:19:52.119
So I have a catalogue of my top 10 worst hangovers, right?
00:19:52.279 --> 00:19:57.079
And this was like this was number one, it went straight in at number one.
00:19:58.439 --> 00:20:00.919
And like this was over 23 years, right?
00:20:01.079 --> 00:20:05.240
And this was, oh my god, Luke, this was a humdinger.
00:20:05.639 --> 00:20:06.919
Like it was a humdinger.
00:20:07.079 --> 00:20:09.399
So woke up, Gary headed off to breakfast.
00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:12.759
I was like, I can't even speak, let alone go and eat.
00:20:13.319 --> 00:20:16.919
He headed off and then went, like looking around the town.
00:20:17.079 --> 00:20:30.759
I obviously was having a panic attack in the bed, kept it like my heart was beating like literally out of my chest, went to the toilet, and then I was like, oh my god, I remember like impaling my head against this toilet last night.
00:20:30.919 --> 00:20:33.319
I'd fallen, I had a bruise on my head.
00:20:33.479 --> 00:20:42.439
That sent me even more so like panic, sheer panic, and all I kept seeing was like a black body bag that I was literally going to die.
00:20:42.679 --> 00:20:45.799
My poor little kids wouldn't have a ma'am, blah blah blah.
00:20:45.879 --> 00:20:51.079
So that was grand, like I then Gary came back and he was like, Well, we need to get ready for the wedding.
00:20:51.159 --> 00:21:00.919
And I was like, I actually think I might be dead, like this might be, you know, death, but you know, and I know it sounds funny, but like I was in bits, bits.
00:21:01.079 --> 00:21:04.039
I didn't even have a shower before that wedding, Luke.
00:21:04.279 --> 00:21:07.399
I was so sick, I couldn't bring myself to have a shower.
00:21:07.559 --> 00:21:13.399
So anyway, it looked like absolute hell on earth, went down, and I was like, I can't even cope with this.
00:21:13.559 --> 00:21:18.919
So again, I was a pina colada, and that was at maybe before we went for to get the bus.
00:21:19.079 --> 00:21:29.719
But that and and that's problematic because if you're drinking to bring yourself back to baseline of normality, like you know, that's not good.
00:21:29.879 --> 00:21:35.719
So anyway, had the pina colada, went to the wedding, slept in the church, fell asleep in the church.
00:21:36.439 --> 00:21:41.559
Yeah, but actually it was great sleep, and it gave me it, it was like a a a party nap.
00:21:41.639 --> 00:21:47.719
Uh gave me a new lease of life, went to the reception, found photos of me drinking white wine at the reception.
00:21:47.879 --> 00:21:53.719
So had maybe about three glasses of white wine, couple of gins, then something started.
00:21:53.879 --> 00:21:58.759
Uh it wasn't me, like it was it wasn't me, it was bigger, like it was, I don't know what you call it.
00:21:58.919 --> 00:22:01.719
Like if you're a believer in the Lord, it was the Lord, right?
00:22:01.799 --> 00:22:04.199
If you're a believer in the universe, it was the universe.
00:22:04.359 --> 00:22:06.759
It was something bigger than me.
00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:12.599
It came upon me, it enveloped me, it had just was like, you're done.
00:22:12.759 --> 00:22:14.039
So this was the language.
00:22:14.199 --> 00:22:17.639
I was like, excuse my French, fuck this.
00:22:17.879 --> 00:22:19.639
Like, Gary, take this gin.
00:22:19.719 --> 00:22:22.199
It's gonna be the last gin I will ever drink in my life.
00:22:22.839 --> 00:22:26.039
And I I this is it this feels big, right?
00:22:26.119 --> 00:22:28.519
I'm like something big is happening within me.
00:22:28.679 --> 00:22:31.079
And then he's ended up taking a load of pictures of me.
00:22:31.240 --> 00:22:36.279
So we scooted off then, and I was sober, completely sober at this stage.
00:22:36.519 --> 00:22:46.039
Like, because I suppose I'd been so hungover, those drinks, and like it was probably seven drinks, which would have been a lot for me, you know.
00:22:46.199 --> 00:22:55.159
Got on the bus, and I just remember we sat at the front of the bus, and I was like, I can't believe I remember going home from this wedding because it was rare for me to remember.
00:22:55.399 --> 00:23:01.079
And then it was just this unbelievable feeling within me that this was it, that I was done.
00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:04.599
And then the next morning, we I think we were going the next morning.
00:23:04.679 --> 00:23:09.879
We were actually, and I found I saw Russell Burns' recovery book.
00:23:09.959 --> 00:23:17.479
And I'm I'm like, I'm big into manifestation, I'm big into signs, and I took that as a sign that it was my first day the rest of my life.
00:23:17.559 --> 00:23:20.439
It was the 4th of July, uh, Independence Day.
00:23:20.599 --> 00:23:23.399
All this kind of there was lots of connotation around that.
00:23:23.559 --> 00:23:27.240
Went home, bought the unexpected joy of being sober, read that.
00:23:27.319 --> 00:23:30.359
A friend of mine, I bought it for them as well, gave it to them.
00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:33.479
They were thinking about giving up the booze at the same time.
00:23:33.799 --> 00:23:36.199
We kind of took notes on that.
00:23:36.359 --> 00:23:38.599
We were like, oh my god, what about this and what about that?
00:23:38.679 --> 00:23:40.119
So there was a bit of support in that.
00:23:40.279 --> 00:23:42.199
They're back in the booze now, but anyway.
00:23:42.519 --> 00:23:47.240
But yeah, that it just kind of took off from there, you know.
00:23:47.399 --> 00:23:49.479
But there was definitely intention.
00:23:49.639 --> 00:23:56.199
I read a lot of Joe Dispends, I'm going to him in September, and he talks a lot about, you know, energy behind intention.
00:23:56.359 --> 00:23:58.759
And like, I'm not sure I created that energy.
00:23:58.839 --> 00:24:07.799
I'm not sure if that energy was created by an outside source for me, but there was massive energy behind my intention, and I was done.
00:24:08.039 --> 00:24:08.759
Oh my god.
00:24:08.919 --> 00:24:24.279
So, like, I, you know, I could sit here for seven hours and tell you about every single time I've been hung over in 23 years, and they all accumulated to that point where I was like, this is no way to live, it's no way to live my life, it's no way to raise my children, it's no way to talk to myself.
00:24:24.439 --> 00:24:26.359
I'm done, and I was done.
00:24:26.679 --> 00:24:29.079
So it was like an outer body experience.
00:24:29.159 --> 00:24:37.639
You felt like you felt like you were sort of watching, watching yourself, and it was a bit of a reflection, a bit of like holding up the mirror, and then that was it.
00:24:37.959 --> 00:24:41.399
Why do you think this was different from all those other hangovers?
00:24:41.559 --> 00:24:46.759
I mean, obviously, you said about that accumulation of of bad hangovers, and then this was the tipping point.
00:24:46.919 --> 00:24:48.279
Why was that one different?
00:24:48.599 --> 00:24:51.799
So, you know, the way we have a view of ourselves, right?
00:24:51.959 --> 00:24:56.039
So, like I would, you know, our kids were really wanted.
00:24:56.199 --> 00:25:02.599
I'm very much in love with my husband, I'm very much in love with my children, you know, I have a beautiful life, right?
00:25:02.759 --> 00:25:09.559
And I always imagined that I would be a stunning mother, like able to cope with it all, right?
00:25:09.959 --> 00:25:18.199
And a couple of times in his little three years, I had behaved in put a pathetic way, and they're my words, right?
00:25:18.519 --> 00:25:32.359
And I suppose I'd say maybe four or five times, like being hung over, Gary taking in the you know, the the parenting load and him letting me be me, but me being me was like ridiculous.
00:25:32.519 --> 00:25:33.799
Like I didn't want to be that.
00:25:33.879 --> 00:25:46.279
I wanted to be a better version of that, like a ma'am who was hungover, or a wife who would apologise, or you know, and I think it was an accumulation of all of that, and I just didn't want and you know what?
00:25:46.359 --> 00:25:49.079
I was sick of being really cruel to myself as well.
00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:52.519
I was sick of all the things that I said to myself when I was hungover.
00:25:52.759 --> 00:26:23.079
I was sick of, you know, like being ashamed of who I was, and like I just there had to have been something bigger and better for me than this, and there was, you know, and I suppose I kind of surrendered to it, and the results have been stunning and amazing, and nothing that I have expected, and challenging at times, and misunderstood by a huge amount of people, but we we move on, and you know, it's just been incredible.
00:26:23.399 --> 00:26:36.199
Would I go back to boozing not for diamonds and big fat diamonds at that, like not even for them, and I love diamonds, but like not even for you know Elizabeth Taylor's, you know, ring.
00:26:36.919 --> 00:26:38.119
When you know you know.
00:26:38.599 --> 00:26:50.039
Oh my god, when you know you know, and now when I but I didn't have the because I'd done a few of them, I didn't have a lot of in you know, self-trust, but now looking back, it was very different.
00:26:50.199 --> 00:26:58.119
You know, I tried a couple of times to give it up, and then I'd be like, Long Island Iced tea, I'll have one of them, or oh, you know what I mean.
00:26:58.279 --> 00:27:02.199
I didn't, my resolve was very weak, but with this, it was just different.
00:27:02.359 --> 00:27:05.959
And like when I came back, I just went straight into being a mom again.
00:27:06.119 --> 00:27:09.719
So, like literally, they were tiny, they were gorgeous.
00:27:09.879 --> 00:27:23.399
She had this little blonde head, she looked like a little Swedish baby, she was stunning, he was cute out the door, like they were adorable, but like they were three and one, and my God, you cannot meet your own needs when you have small kids.
00:27:23.559 --> 00:27:26.919
All you do is meet their needs on a constant basis.
00:27:27.159 --> 00:27:29.479
So, like I just went straight back into that.
00:27:29.639 --> 00:27:47.000
You know, I've looked on pictures of it, like I I don't think it was actually we had a wedding uh soon enough after that, like uh in County Monaghan in a castle, actually the castle where Paul McCartney got married, and I remember being at that, and that was only a couple of weeks after that as well.
00:27:47.079 --> 00:28:18.119
So that was fine, like that was okay, but my resolve was strong, and I just kept pushing through it and you know, going to bed at night, especially that night with a wedding, that was kind of novel, and then waking up the next day, and I just kept I think the thing that kept me most motivated was Sunday mornings, you know, and and and you know, I have a lot of goals and I'm always trying to meet goals and having them be met as opposed to a bottle of wine on a Friday morning night, and you're not right till kind of Wednesday, you know.
00:28:18.199 --> 00:28:20.839
So it was yeah, I liked it.
00:28:21.559 --> 00:28:26.439
It holds you back so much, and so many, so many people have got so much potential.
00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:35.639
But I think we just yeah, we just use it, use it to cope, use it to escape, and yeah, I think it served a purpose for me back in the day.
00:28:35.719 --> 00:28:43.000
I mean, I I spoke about this on your podcast when I come on yours, but the version of me now, yeah, it's it's so different.
00:28:43.079 --> 00:28:45.799
You and you've really got to shift your identity, haven't you?
00:28:45.879 --> 00:28:49.559
You've got to like you were saying about the work of Dr.
00:28:49.639 --> 00:28:53.319
Joe Dispenser, and I know we both follow Matt Cook.
00:28:53.479 --> 00:28:59.639
Um, you've got to change your identity, you've got to really move into being that that better version of yourself.
00:29:00.039 --> 00:29:00.759
Absolutely.
00:29:00.919 --> 00:29:11.399
And like I'm doing a bit of identity shifting currently, moving from one job into like a bit business, like, and I never thought I would be self-employed, even though both of my brothers are.
00:29:11.719 --> 00:29:30.839
But like that's like I have to become a person then, you know, you've to become an authority and like an e well an expert, but like maybe an expert through lived experience, or you know, like that's discombobulating to your nervous system as well.
00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:35.000
So I take things very slowly because I can't cope otherwise, you know.
00:29:35.159 --> 00:29:38.919
So you're just constantly shifting this version of yourself.
00:29:39.159 --> 00:29:44.919
And you know, I've recently gone back to exercise like in an intense way, you know.
00:29:45.159 --> 00:29:49.639
So even that part of my and I mean Gary went, we've been doing a lot of walking.
00:29:49.959 --> 00:29:52.439
He is off for a lot of the summer as well.
00:29:52.759 --> 00:30:01.319
And like we're talking about who we want to be now, like in the next 20 years, and like I want to be an animal.
00:30:01.479 --> 00:30:02.599
Do you know what I mean?
00:30:02.839 --> 00:30:13.559
I want to like I don't want to waste away in a nursing home, or I don't want to I want to be able to be fully independent and to have a really full life.
00:30:13.799 --> 00:30:20.519
And you know, we deserve better than that, and we deserve better than what we think we knew about alcohol.
00:30:20.679 --> 00:30:21.719
All of us do.
00:30:21.959 --> 00:30:30.039
Like, you know, it's associated with 200 diseases, like there's, you know, there's so many health harms associated with it.
00:30:30.199 --> 00:30:38.839
And I suppose it will I was a long time off the booze before I realized a lot of this, you know, it was for my own stuff, it was the hangovers, it was this, that, and the other.
00:30:38.919 --> 00:30:40.359
It was my own goals as a parent.
00:30:40.519 --> 00:30:45.159
But then when you begin to kind of really scratch the surface, it becomes murkier, you know.
00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:59.879
And I would absolutely encourage anybody to read, to listen, you know, to get as much information as you can for you and for your own empowerment to, you know, none of us want to live a stagnated life.
00:31:00.119 --> 00:31:13.719
Alcohol made us all small, you know, it absolutely made me small, like, you know, and a lot of people I know too, and the removal of it has allowed me to, you know, be a better version of myself.
00:31:13.799 --> 00:31:21.240
Like, am I peaceful, you know, no, not really all the time, but I'm a lot more peaceful than I was, you know.
00:31:21.639 --> 00:31:26.919
Content, content in your own skin, and yeah, happy, yeah, happy with who you are.
00:31:27.079 --> 00:31:31.799
You haven't got to take a drug to to deal with life, yeah, essentially.
00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:33.559
Yeah, absolutely.
00:31:33.719 --> 00:31:50.839
So I do, and you know, I teach a lot about the window of tolerance when I'm working with groups as well, and how we can expand our window of tolerance and how we do things that kind of bring us discomfort, and but like again, when it's intimidating to our nervous system, we take it a tiny bit at a time.
00:31:50.919 --> 00:31:52.759
Like, did I arrive at this overnight?
00:31:52.919 --> 00:31:55.000
No, it's been eight years, you know.
00:31:55.159 --> 00:31:58.599
So it's incremental, small incremental changes all the time.
00:31:58.759 --> 00:32:05.399
And you know, our habits really help us, our mind mindset, or you know, how we can reframe things.
00:32:05.559 --> 00:32:08.679
Like, I come at it from a lot of different angles as well.
00:32:08.759 --> 00:32:11.159
Like, so my degree is social psychology.
00:32:11.240 --> 00:32:31.240
So I I look at you know, how society, how we act in terms of, you know, as social beings, as social animals, health psychology, then, you know, behavior change, how we, you know, the you know, is it us who thinks that we affect our health or the world around us, you know, our I suppose our locus of control.
00:32:31.319 --> 00:32:36.919
And, you know, we I work a lot with change in behaviors and the stages of change model and all that kind of thing.
00:32:37.079 --> 00:33:01.079
Then, you know, when you look at your mindset, you know, how to reframe your own mindset, stuff like that, you know, you know, you talked about your child like childhood, and you know, there's a lot of people, a huge cohort of people who would have experienced adverse childhood experience and adversity in their childhood and trauma that do impact on their levels of drinking, you know.
00:33:01.240 --> 00:33:16.839
So, yeah, and then I suppose knowing about the science of alcohol, what it does to us, what it does to our body, how it affects every single system in our body, you know, so taking all those different bits of knowledge and maybe working on one every other week, you know.
00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:23.079
But we all have the ability to do that, whether by ourselves or in community or with a coach or whoever, you know.
00:33:23.719 --> 00:33:28.679
You focus a lot on the grey area drinking, Olivia.
00:33:28.839 --> 00:33:33.479
What what does that term mean to you and why did you come up with that?
00:33:33.879 --> 00:33:40.039
Well, i i yeah, it certainly wasn't me, but I I didn't feel that I was an alcoholic, right?
00:33:40.199 --> 00:33:42.039
That's not something that I felt, right?
00:33:42.119 --> 00:33:44.599
So I wasn't physically dependent on alcohol.
00:33:44.759 --> 00:33:47.719
I could give it up for months and years at a time, and I did.
00:33:47.879 --> 00:33:55.559
But I suppose when I had one, and I kind of explained that earlier, that physiologically it's it set something.
00:33:55.639 --> 00:33:57.479
It was like a domino effect, let's say.
00:33:57.639 --> 00:34:03.159
So I was I would have called myself Anaton if I meant that I would give up the booze.
00:34:03.240 --> 00:34:12.920
I used to say, I would have called myself Coco the Clown, I would have put any label on me, but just if it meant that I would never drink again, that's what I was that's the goal that I was looking to achieve.
00:34:13.079 --> 00:34:16.280
But I had heard a podcast with a lady called Jolene Park.
00:34:16.360 --> 00:34:24.199
She talked about grey area drinking, and she grew she talked, she witnessed it in both herself and a lot of the people that she had worked with as well.
00:34:24.440 --> 00:34:37.160
This kind of a space between maybe the you know, now and again drinkers and then uh the end stage, like it that it all occurs on a spectrum, and that somewhere in the middle, there's kind of the grey area.
00:34:37.240 --> 00:34:48.039
So the people who don't kind of fit the profile for alcoholism or severe alcohol use disorder, but who are high functioning, you know, but they drink more than they intend to.
00:34:48.280 --> 00:34:58.200
It doesn't look problematic to others, but they still have negative experiences when they do drink, so like hangovers, anxiety, all that kind of thing.
00:34:58.360 --> 00:35:05.480
You know, people who would drink to relieve stress or to manage emotions and all that kind of thing.
00:35:05.640 --> 00:35:11.640
And then they're able to stop, but I suppose the difficulty is in being kind of stay staying stopped or whatever.
00:35:11.800 --> 00:35:18.360
And like even though other people don't see that they're drinking as a problem, they kind of fret about it unknown to themselves.
00:35:18.519 --> 00:35:22.360
And I just hearing that explanation, I was like, that's exactly me, you know.
00:35:22.599 --> 00:35:30.680
So I yeah, I felt that that was an explanation for the way which manner patterns that I kind of drank.
00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:33.800
So I identified heavily with that one.
00:35:34.200 --> 00:35:35.320
Yeah, the same with me.
00:35:35.640 --> 00:35:42.360
So many people as well, since I've stopped drinking, they've said, you know, you you didn't really have a problem, did you?
00:35:42.519 --> 00:35:45.000
You know, surely you can come out and have one with us.
00:35:45.240 --> 00:35:47.400
But they don't see the aftermath, do they?
00:35:47.480 --> 00:35:52.200
They don't see those hangovers, they don't feel that anxiety that you're talking about.
00:35:52.360 --> 00:35:55.320
And we love to put labels on people, don't we?
00:35:55.400 --> 00:36:00.200
And so it we like to box people, we we like to section people off.
00:36:00.360 --> 00:36:06.280
So, yeah, when you say about because so many people, even now, they'll still say to me, Yeah, but Luke, you were not alcoholic.
00:36:06.680 --> 00:36:11.800
But I was exactly the same as you when I heard that term grey area drinker.
00:36:11.880 --> 00:36:25.000
I think the first time I heard it was from Andy Ramage, and I I heard it and I thought, wow, and he explained it so well, and I was like, That is me, and yeah, and and I felt I felt good to have a label almost.
00:36:25.079 --> 00:36:29.800
It was like, wow, that you know, they are my people, that is that is what I am.
00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:33.480
I'm not an alcoholic, I've got a drinking problem, probably.
00:36:33.720 --> 00:36:38.760
That's how I would define it, and yeah, it's a great term, gray area drinker, I think.
00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:43.160
Yeah, so I this is how I describe it, right?
00:36:43.720 --> 00:36:48.599
I was a problematic drinker because drinking caused a lot of problems in my life.
00:36:48.840 --> 00:37:01.640
Now, like there's a a whole school of thought that says that the problems turn up on the inside first and then they make their way to the outside, like the D well, you know, the drink driving or whatever.
00:37:01.800 --> 00:37:03.400
But like I can't answer that.
00:37:03.559 --> 00:37:19.880
I can't say I would have ever but I gone down that, but I do know that my drinking was reducing from probably age 30 onwards, and then I gave up with 37, you know, so I was removing it, going back, removing it, going back, removing it, going back.
00:37:20.280 --> 00:37:25.960
Because I needed more and more evidence to say that, like, Jesus, if you shut me drinking, you know.
00:37:26.360 --> 00:37:26.920
Yeah, yeah.
00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:32.360
You were building up that evidence, you were proving to yourself that you could do it, and you were giving you were dipping your toe in the water.
00:37:32.760 --> 00:37:36.200
This is what I say to people, Pete it it's not something you just stop overnight.
00:37:36.280 --> 00:37:46.120
If you've been doing it for decades, then you've got to break away from it slowly because it's gonna be so overwhelming and it's going cold turkey straight away, it's gonna be really, really tough.
00:37:46.840 --> 00:37:47.400
Yeah.
00:37:47.880 --> 00:37:49.240
Yeah, so so true.
00:37:49.480 --> 00:37:57.240
I mean, you you talk about the dopamine cycle as well, alcohol borrowing time from tomorrow's joy.
00:37:57.320 --> 00:38:00.120
Um I can definitely resonate with that as well.
00:38:00.360 --> 00:38:02.280
What what do you mean by that?
00:38:02.840 --> 00:38:14.360
Yeah, so I suppose like how I kind of explained it earlier, so like I would then, you know, so all the dopamine, all the dopamine, all the dopamine.
00:38:14.599 --> 00:38:21.559
So it was like high crash, high crash, and then towards the next day, then it would be crash city, you know.
00:38:21.800 --> 00:38:34.599
So what I experienced in those kind of three, four, five, six hours of like highs, you know, on a night out, or whatever it was, they would literally come crashing down the next day.
00:38:34.840 --> 00:38:39.800
And like, you know, I work with loads of people as well, and they experience the exact same thing.
00:38:39.960 --> 00:38:56.680
And I suppose now as we get older, as our kind of tolerance drops or sensitivity rises, this becomes more evident in people, and you know, they're beginning to kind of think, God, you know, maybe it's not it's not looking good so good for me.
00:38:56.840 --> 00:39:03.480
Plus, I think we're probably one of the first kind of generations of people to experience alcohol use on this level anyway.
00:39:03.640 --> 00:39:14.280
So we don't like a generation ago, there wasn't people kind of giving up alcohol in midlife, you know, there wasn't really talk about, you know, like I'm menopausal, right?
00:39:14.360 --> 00:39:15.079
Sorry, Luke.
00:39:15.240 --> 00:39:20.280
But like it is, you know, it's a very important factor in my life currently.
00:39:20.599 --> 00:39:37.880
So, like, there's a lot of people in midlife who are at that stage, women, obviously, because I work with women a lot, and who just can't, there's so much going on in their physiology and their hormone levels that they just they find that even one drink costs them a couple of days as well.
00:39:38.039 --> 00:39:40.840
So it interferes with too many systems, you know.
00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:42.840
Our brain chemistry, our sleep.
00:39:42.920 --> 00:39:51.320
You talked about OEM sleep there, you know, we're not processing stuff, we're waking up the next morning even groggier than we were the night before.
00:39:51.400 --> 00:39:58.519
The problems maybe multiplied, you know, you're not working them through the system where we process them either.
00:39:58.599 --> 00:40:03.160
So yeah, it's uh yeah, it's definitely a a borrow from tomorrow kind of.
00:40:03.800 --> 00:40:12.120
And I suppose the the sooner you kind of get on board with that, are you willing to, you know, is the juice worth the squeeze?
00:40:12.280 --> 00:40:15.240
You know, are the costs worth the benefits?
00:40:15.400 --> 00:40:18.280
And generally, if people are very honest, they're not.
00:40:18.760 --> 00:40:26.280
Yeah, and it definitely gets harder when you get older, and you definitely don't bounce back from a hangover when you're older, definitely not.
00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:29.800
This is why we help people around our sort of age, right?
00:40:29.960 --> 00:40:33.559
Because you you can bounce back like you were when you were a teenager.
00:40:33.880 --> 00:40:34.920
Absolutely not.
00:40:35.400 --> 00:40:44.200
So if someone's listening to this, Olivia, and they recognise you know that they can relate to what we're saying, but they but they still think that they haven't got a problem.
00:40:44.360 --> 00:40:50.039
Well, I mean, what would be the honest question that you'd tell them to ask themselves?
00:40:50.360 --> 00:40:55.640
Yeah, so like I I just said it there, like, is the cost worth the benefit?
00:40:55.800 --> 00:40:57.960
Like, so you know, what are you getting for it?
00:40:58.120 --> 00:41:13.640
Like, I'd I'd get a piece of paper, you know, put a cross in the middle, put the costs of alcohol and the benefits of alcohol, and then underneath it put the costs of of you know, alcohol-free living and then the benefits and weigh it up like that, you know.
00:41:13.800 --> 00:41:16.680
So, you know, and and make a decision, you know.
00:41:16.760 --> 00:41:20.440
If you can't do that by yourself, get somebody to help you.
00:41:20.680 --> 00:41:26.120
Ask our friend Chat GPT, they're always good at guiding us around certain stuff.
00:41:26.360 --> 00:41:29.160
But, you know, just even that, is it worth it?
00:41:29.320 --> 00:41:32.680
Like, you know, what and also what am I afraid of?
00:41:32.840 --> 00:41:34.840
You know, am I afraid of the wedding?
00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.079
I I don't know, like what what do people usually drink around with you?
00:41:39.160 --> 00:41:46.840
Is it weddings, like summer holidays, uh uh all inclusives, hens, stags, whatever.
00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:48.840
Yeah, so is it really worth it?
00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:51.160
And generally it's not, you know.
00:41:51.400 --> 00:42:00.760
Yeah, I was I was recent on a stack though, and uh the I was well, there was me and one other guy there who who wasn't drinking, um, thank God, so I had a sober body.
00:42:00.920 --> 00:42:11.079
But a couple of the guys, I've mentioned it on here before, a couple of the guys, it got to about 10 o'clock in the evening and they were drinking cups of tea, and I was I was like, what the he what are you guys doing?
00:42:11.160 --> 00:42:11.640
What's happening?
00:42:11.720 --> 00:42:19.000
And they said, Oh Luke, it's brilliant having you here because we haven't got to keep up with everyone else and carry on drinking and you know being pulled along with the group.
00:42:19.079 --> 00:42:22.760
He said, Because you don't drink, we can stop drinking whenever we like.
00:42:22.920 --> 00:42:24.280
And I thought that was fascinating.
00:42:24.360 --> 00:42:32.360
Is it the amount of people that drink because they feel like they need to, and you know, you get to that certain stage of life and you're like, I just don't need to be doing this anymore.
00:42:32.599 --> 00:42:38.680
It's not serving a purpose, it's not as it's not half as good as it used to be, and I just can't take it anymore.
00:42:38.840 --> 00:42:43.240
So I found that really fascinating when there's a couple of guys said that, there was like 15 of us.
00:42:43.880 --> 00:42:45.640
Yeah, so you gave them permission.
00:42:45.960 --> 00:42:47.320
Exactly, exactly.
00:42:47.480 --> 00:42:49.320
Yeah, I mean we're social creatures, aren't we?
00:42:49.400 --> 00:42:53.880
You know, we're tribal, we're we're tribal creatures, and we just get pulled along with the crowd, don't we?
00:42:53.960 --> 00:42:54.440
We really do.
00:42:54.519 --> 00:42:55.800
We don't want to be that odd one out.
00:42:55.960 --> 00:43:00.200
That's why I think it takes so much courage, take so much courage to stand up and do it.
00:43:00.680 --> 00:43:10.680
The bravest thing in the whole wide world, you know, and I'm really proud of myself because like it's not for everybody, but like it's tough going.
00:43:11.160 --> 00:43:18.920
And I had a community call before I came on to you, and I have a couple of clients from County Mayo, basically, which is the other side.
00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:23.240
And I don't know if you saw any of this online, but uh, maybe I'm just in a bubble here.
00:43:23.400 --> 00:43:33.160
But that team, County Mayo, basically hadn't won our like national sport final in 75 years, and they won it.
00:43:33.320 --> 00:43:37.240
So, like there was literally like they're mad people anyway, they're great.
00:43:37.480 --> 00:43:53.640
And but they literally, the whole county went drinking for like the last two weeks, and just kind of tweaking out and you know, talking to people around, you know, they might have felt on the periphery of celebrations because they weren't drinking and all that kind of stuff.
00:43:53.720 --> 00:43:56.760
So, yeah, like you said, we're absolutely social creatures.
00:43:57.079 --> 00:44:08.120
We are born to connect, we are born to be, you know, in harmony and in unison and in bonds with each other, you know, and alcohol has kind of taken over.
00:44:08.519 --> 00:44:22.120
And you know, uh there is a book about the history of alcohol, and you know, it's caused a lot of things, but I suppose it has it has gone absolutely book mad in the last kind of 50 years in terms of the level at which we're drinking, you know.
00:44:23.320 --> 00:44:27.160
You've spoken quite a lot about being a parent, Olivia.
00:44:27.480 --> 00:44:33.480
I specifically help dads and their relationship with alcohol and being a better role model for their children.
00:44:33.800 --> 00:44:42.599
What do you f uh you've mentioned a couple of things, but what do you think's changed for you being being a parent compared to what you were like eight years ago?
00:44:43.240 --> 00:44:47.880
Well, I'm look at I I work with kids and young people, right?
00:44:47.960 --> 00:44:50.200
So I've 25 years of experience, right?
00:44:50.280 --> 00:44:52.920
So I kind of know how to handle kids.
00:44:53.079 --> 00:44:54.519
My husband does as well.
00:44:54.760 --> 00:45:02.680
So, like, you know, we we were well equipped at going into parenthood, but not well enough because it's so hard.
00:45:02.920 --> 00:45:07.720
But I'm okay, so I don't have the courses and levels running through my body, right?
00:45:07.880 --> 00:45:12.680
So I'm not as reactive, okay?
00:45:12.920 --> 00:45:21.720
So I'm not as shamefilled, I'm much more even, I'm a lot more at peace, I have better levels of regulation myself.
00:45:21.960 --> 00:45:33.160
I can let things kind of slide, you know, it's just I'm calmer, I'm nicer, you know, there's just it's I'm more able to regulate myself and kind of regulate.
00:45:33.320 --> 00:45:37.480
I talk an awful lot about regulation and co-regulating with the kids and stuff like that.
00:45:37.640 --> 00:45:42.680
And you know, let's say now I don't I'm I'm just talking in roundabouts here.
00:45:42.760 --> 00:45:47.400
I don't remember any specific times where I was very hungover and I was short-tempered.
00:45:47.559 --> 00:45:50.280
Like there's not specifically anything like that, right?
00:45:50.440 --> 00:45:58.920
But I'm sure there had been maybe times where I was you see, alcohol brought in me a lot of shame.
00:45:59.079 --> 00:46:04.280
So I would have always been guilty, guilty of everything and shame ashamed of myself, right?
00:46:04.440 --> 00:46:08.840
So, but I'm sure there was times where I was short tempered as a result, right?
00:46:09.320 --> 00:46:14.680
But now that that's and you really you realize very quickly that you can't be short-tempered with a kid.
00:46:14.760 --> 00:46:18.200
Like if you shout at them, uh then you have to calm them down for a full hour.
00:46:18.360 --> 00:46:21.000
So like there was no shouting going on here, right?
00:46:21.320 --> 00:46:34.440
But I'm just, you know, I'm a nicer person, I'm calmer, I'm better able to equipped with the better equipped to deal with the ups and downs of being a mum, a very involved mum, like the same as everybody else.
00:46:34.599 --> 00:46:41.720
We all love and adore our kids, we all want the best for them, we all want them to have, you know, a good experience of life.
00:46:41.960 --> 00:46:52.519
And, you know, whatever hardships they'll go through, they'll go through, but I don't want to for them to go through any hardships because of me and the way I behaved.
00:46:52.920 --> 00:46:53.240
Yeah.
00:46:53.400 --> 00:46:55.640
It's about regulating that nervous system, isn't it?
00:46:55.720 --> 00:46:57.880
I mean, when you're drinking, you can you cannot do it.
00:46:57.960 --> 00:47:00.039
You're on that roller coaster all the time.
00:47:00.200 --> 00:47:09.480
You're high, you're low, and when you're drinking as well, I I remember you've mentioned this a couple of times about your life revolving around a bar or drinking.
00:47:09.640 --> 00:47:15.960
I would go to social events and I would always make sure that there was a bar or we were close to a pub or whatever that might be.
00:47:16.120 --> 00:47:33.640
And I remember like the kids would be playing and we'd be drinking and they'd be coming backwards and forwards, and yeah, so many of the clients I work with when they quit the booze, whether that's whether they're a month down the line, whether they're two months down the line, all that guilt and shame comes up, doesn't it?
00:47:33.800 --> 00:47:40.440
And they start and and they feel really, really bad and resentful by all the things that they've done it in the past and they blame themselves.
00:47:40.599 --> 00:47:49.559
But it's all part of going sober and going alcohol free, is it's accepting what's happened but moving forward.
00:47:49.720 --> 00:47:51.160
But it's really, really tough.
00:47:52.280 --> 00:47:56.519
And like as you know, like it's a central nervous system depressant, right?
00:47:56.680 --> 00:48:00.599
So it depresses all of our emotions, even the kind of joyful ones as well.
00:48:00.760 --> 00:48:02.680
So everything comes up to the top.
00:48:02.840 --> 00:48:05.400
So like I did a lot of healing, right?
00:48:05.559 --> 00:48:14.440
And I'm very spiritual, I go to specific healers, so they have helped me heal, and that's how I healed out of a lot of the shame.
00:48:14.599 --> 00:48:32.760
Like I wouldn't be able to speak to you now and you know, tell the you know fruity stories that I, you know, eventful life events, and you know I keep a lot of them under wraps, Luke, because I'm not telling that shit to the uh to the the general public.
00:48:33.160 --> 00:48:37.720
As we all do, brackets, we all know what went on, you know.
00:48:37.960 --> 00:48:40.200
So yeah, so they've helped me heal.
00:48:40.280 --> 00:48:41.480
And like there's no shame.
00:48:41.640 --> 00:48:42.440
It is what it is.
00:48:42.599 --> 00:48:44.120
I'll never go back to that person.
00:48:44.280 --> 00:48:46.599
I'm very confident in who I am now.
00:48:46.760 --> 00:48:49.880
You know, it's a nice place to be at.
00:48:51.480 --> 00:49:02.120
So if you could go back and give your younger self some advice, Olivia, eight years ago, ten years ago, whatever that might be, what would you say to her?
00:49:02.840 --> 00:49:05.880
Yeah, I I've often said this in a jokey way.
00:49:05.960 --> 00:49:12.519
Like I had three vodkas when I was 14 on a Saturday night in a in an over 18s nightclub, but I would have given up drink on the Sunday.
00:49:12.599 --> 00:49:13.880
No, I'm only joking.
00:49:14.680 --> 00:49:18.039
Like it happened the way it happened because it happened the way it happened.
00:49:18.200 --> 00:49:20.360
Okay, what advice would I give to myself?
00:49:20.519 --> 00:49:27.480
Look at I would be I would have said make more conscious decisions to do it earlier.
00:49:27.720 --> 00:49:31.559
Like be more have more of a plan in place, right?
00:49:31.800 --> 00:49:40.039
So, you know, I said like I gave up for 30 days in December 2017 and I got derailed by a Singapore sling, right?
00:49:40.200 --> 00:49:43.160
I wouldn't get derailed by a Singapore sling again.
00:49:43.320 --> 00:49:45.320
You know, I'd have a plan in place.
00:49:45.480 --> 00:49:55.640
You know, I would have maybe, you know, but look at you can't, I don't know what it's I I'm happy I'm I'm I I've no regrets.
00:49:55.800 --> 00:49:56.920
I really don't have no regret.
00:49:57.160 --> 00:49:58.360
I don't have any regrets.
00:49:58.519 --> 00:50:04.440
But look at what what I would hate my daughter to go through the level of self-flagellation that I did.
00:50:04.599 --> 00:50:06.760
So like give yourself a break, you're actually grand.
00:50:07.079 --> 00:50:08.280
You know, that kind of thing.
00:50:08.440 --> 00:50:09.880
Stop being so hard on yourself.
00:50:09.960 --> 00:50:11.800
I'm incredibly hard on myself.
00:50:12.120 --> 00:50:17.880
So yeah, it's something I'm trying to phase out in my life, but I would probably that stop being so hard on yourself.
00:50:17.960 --> 00:50:20.599
You're actually an I stop being hard on yourself.
00:50:20.680 --> 00:50:22.519
Yeah, it's it's like we were just saying, isn't it?
00:50:22.680 --> 00:50:25.720
It's it's it's being you're being so hard on yourself.
00:50:25.800 --> 00:50:30.200
But then it I guess if you weren't so hard on yourself, maybe you wouldn't have pulled yourself out of that hole.
00:50:30.280 --> 00:50:40.039
So it goes back to the whole what you've been through shapes you and having no regrets because you are the person you are today because of your past events, right?
00:50:40.120 --> 00:50:44.120
It's it's all part of the journey, as corny and as cliche as it sounds.
00:50:44.360 --> 00:50:47.559
And it's a linear timeline, according to my husband.
00:50:47.880 --> 00:50:54.840
So like it's all like and I do and I'm I read a lot of near-death experiences, right?
00:50:55.079 --> 00:51:11.640
And like I they say, the people who have them say that we choose this exact body, this exact experience, this exact timeline, this exact space and time reality, whatever, to get exactly the experience that our soul needs.
00:51:11.800 --> 00:51:18.120
You know, we're just veiled and we don't realize that we are of divine essence.
00:51:18.519 --> 00:51:21.320
Divine timing, like we spoke about before.
00:51:21.800 --> 00:51:25.000
What does the next chapter look like for you then, Olivia?
00:51:25.079 --> 00:51:26.840
And where can people find you?
00:51:27.320 --> 00:51:28.920
So the next chapter is me.
00:51:29.000 --> 00:51:31.079
I have taken a career break from my job.
00:51:31.240 --> 00:51:36.680
I am going to, we were talking earlier about my fridge magnet today's take the risk or lose the chance.
00:51:36.840 --> 00:51:39.400
So I'm taking the risk as opposed to losing the chance.
00:51:39.559 --> 00:51:42.920
I'm gonna work it out for a year, see how I get on.
00:51:43.079 --> 00:51:45.160
So the next chapter looks like that.
00:51:45.400 --> 00:52:00.280
I'm going to become, as I'm always on a forward journey of getting better and personal development, become more evolved, become nicer, kinder, more loving of those around me, but specifically myself as well.
00:52:00.519 --> 00:52:03.480
And yeah, just I want, you know what?
00:52:03.640 --> 00:52:07.720
Me and Gary went for a walk today, and I was like, I want to laugh more.
00:52:07.880 --> 00:52:11.640
You know, I like a simple life, I don't need much to keep me going.
00:52:11.800 --> 00:52:12.760
I like to laugh.
00:52:12.920 --> 00:52:16.840
I love people, I love connecting with people, and just more of that.
00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:23.000
If people can find me, I have a website, it's called www.grayarea drinker.ie.
00:52:23.400 --> 00:52:28.840
I'm on Instagram at greyarea drinker, and I have a podcast called No More Booze.
00:52:29.079 --> 00:52:41.400
So if they want to listen to you and 133 other people talking about alcohol free living, check it out on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your pods.
00:52:42.120 --> 00:52:43.400
It's a brilliant podcast.
00:52:43.559 --> 00:52:46.120
It actually helped me a lot in early sobriety.
00:52:46.360 --> 00:52:46.920
Oh I love it.
00:52:47.480 --> 00:52:48.039
Olivia, yeah.
00:52:48.200 --> 00:52:49.880
Really appreciate I really appreciated it.
00:52:49.960 --> 00:52:54.039
It was it was one that I always wanted to get on, and I remember I kept on hassling you.
00:52:54.200 --> 00:53:03.880
And eventually you uh Yeah, you come to and yeah, you yeah, I think that was that was well over a year ago now, because I think I think we recorded it over TT.
00:53:04.200 --> 00:53:06.120
So yes, it was, yeah.
00:53:06.360 --> 00:53:07.400
Because I remember, yeah, yeah.
00:53:07.480 --> 00:53:09.240
I remember Look at you now, Luke.
00:53:09.480 --> 00:53:10.440
Yeah, I know, I know.
00:53:10.519 --> 00:53:11.559
Wow, what a difference.
00:53:11.800 --> 00:53:14.599
Yeah, look at your pod with your own pod as well.
00:53:14.760 --> 00:53:16.039
Podcasting's amazing.
00:53:16.280 --> 00:53:24.039
It is, it's brilliant, and you know, getting to meet inspiring people every week and asking all these deep and meaningful questions.
00:53:24.200 --> 00:53:25.480
I absolutely love it.
00:53:25.640 --> 00:53:26.280
It's brilliant.
00:53:26.440 --> 00:53:27.240
Yeah, it's fun.
00:53:27.640 --> 00:53:28.440
It is, it is.
00:53:28.519 --> 00:53:30.760
So thank you so much for coming on today, Olivia.
00:53:30.840 --> 00:53:31.960
I really appreciate your time.
00:53:32.120 --> 00:53:34.280
I know you're so busy with everything.
00:53:34.360 --> 00:53:38.920
Um you had a call tonight, but yeah, you you managed to squeeze me in, so thank you so much.
00:53:39.160 --> 00:53:41.960
I love your energy and I love your honesty.
00:53:42.200 --> 00:53:50.680
And uh yeah, I I've you know I've got no doubt that you're gonna absolutely smash in this next year, and I can't wait to see what the next chapter is gonna be for you.
00:53:50.760 --> 00:53:53.160
Um and I yeah, I look forward to following your journey.
00:53:53.240 --> 00:53:53.960
Thank you so much.
00:53:54.440 --> 00:53:55.320
Thank you, Luke.
00:53:55.800 --> 00:53:57.240
I've loved it, really loved it.
00:53:57.480 --> 00:53:59.079
I'm a truth teller, is right.
00:53:59.160 --> 00:53:59.480
Yes.
00:54:00.360 --> 00:54:00.840
Yeah, you are.
00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:01.720
No, brilliant.
00:54:01.880 --> 00:54:02.760
Thank you, Olivia.
00:54:03.320 --> 00:54:04.120
Thanks, Luke.
