Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Annie Grace 2018

Annie Grace asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008293482

Praise For

The Alcohol Experiment

‘Day 60 alcohol free (AF). Just did karaoke sober. I didn’t know that was possible. I had even given myself permission to have one cocktail (to loosen the vocal cords, you understand?). But after looking through the menu, I just didn’t fancy anything! Stuck with water all night. Now on the train heading home, looking forward to waking up tomorrow with a clear head, money in my pocket, my dignity (if you ignore the singing), and possibly a sore throat. The Alcohol Experiment is incredible. Thank you.’

M.K., London, England

‘Thank YOU for this amazing gift you have given so many with first your book and now the Alcohol Experiment! It has truly been life changing for me, and at three months alcohol-free tomorrow, I am more hopeful than I have been in a very long time.’

L.K., Windsor, England

‘Day 60! What? Always dreamed of being AF. Didn’t think it was possible. Thank you for my life, Annie Grace!’

O.F., Dublin, Ireland

‘45 days alcohol free. I didn’t think I could make it through the first week, and now I can’t imagine ever drinking again. The Alcohol Experiment saved my life. It’s so worth the journey!’

R.D., New York, New York

‘Annie Grace, I just wanted you to know you’ve touched the lives of many people. This is such a huge movement that you started. I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart (tears are coming down right now). You saved me after almost 27 years of drinking daily, since I was 13 years old when I started. I never thought I would be able to do what I am doing now. Thank you.’

S.J., Sydney, Australia

‘Your 30-day experiment was so helpful. I learned so much! I’m well on my way to being AF completely – from drinking daily to drinking five times in 110 days. And I don’t plan on drinking anytime soon. It was so in-depth and educational. Thank you.’

G.P., Austin, Texas

‘31 days ago, I started your alcohol-free experiment. I haven’t touched any alcohol in the past month and cannot thank you enough for giving me the kick in the a** to get started! Thank you, thank you, thank you.’

C.R., Costa Mesa, California

‘You are changing the lives of so many people. Thank you. I feel like someone woke me up from a very, very long nightmare. Really, Groundhog Day. There are no words to express my gratitude. Thank you, Annie Grace, for saving my life.’

B.K.R., Portland, Maine

‘I’ve been wanting to message you for a while to say thank you. I’ve been trying to moderate my drinking for years and find it’s a daily fight. Having a dad and brother who are alcoholics, I was resigned to the fact it runs in the family! My sister introduced me to the Alcohol Experiment after I had just completed Dry January – wow! It absolutely changed my perspective on alcohol, and I haven’t touched a drop since, nor do I intend to! Thank you so much for setting me free.’

I.G., Brisbane, Australia

‘I am now 37 days AF and have never felt so relaxed and happy. I just want to thank you for caring enough to create the Alcohol Experiment. Without your support I wouldn’t be where I am. I wouldn’t be going to a weekend of camping and family fun looking forward to not drinking. It’s made such a difference to my life. You make me feel humble and so, so grateful. Thank you.’

F. C., Brooklyn, New York

‘Thank you so, so much, Annie. You are such an amazing force for good in this world! The Alcohol Experiment changed my life.’

H.R.T., Palm Beach, Florida

Turner, Trace, and Daelyn.

You are why I dream of a better tomorrow.

Brian. My favorite person.

Thank you for creating this life with me.

Thank you for trusting me enough to double down on this dream and follow the road wherever it leads.

Jesus. Your Grace. Your Love. Your Mercy.

Your Breath in my lungs.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Introduction

DAY 1: What’s Your Why?

ACT #1: The Taste of Alcohol

DAY 2: It’s Not What You Give Up, But What You GAIN

DAY 3: Why We Think We Like to Drink

ACT #2: Alcohol and Sleep

DAY 4: Dealing with Discomfort

DAY 5: What Are Cravings, Really?

DAY 6: Why Willpower Doesn’t Work for Long

ACT #3: Alcohol, Relaxation, and Stress Relief

DAY 7: Your Experiment and Your Friends

DAY 8: How Alcohol Affects Your Senses

DAY 9: The Power of Self-Talk

ACT #4: Alcohol, Our Culture, and Society

DAY 10: Dealing with Sugar Cravings

DAY 11: The Alcohol Culture Is Shifting

ACT #5: Alcohol and Happiness

DAY 12: Your Incredible Body and Brain

ACT #6: Is Alcohol Healthy in Moderation?

DAY 13: Let’s Talk About Sex

DAY 14: Staying Mindful in the Midst of Chaos

ACT #7: Alcohol and Parenting (a.k.a. Mommy Juice)

DAY 15: Social Life and Dating

DAY 16: The Power of Belief

ACT #8: Alcohol Is My Friend

DAY 17: Relieving Boredom Without Drinking

DAY 18: Why Tolerance Is Literally a Buzzkill

DAY 19: Dealing with Depression

DAY 20: Our Headline Culture and the Science of Sharing

DAY 21: Hey, Good Lookin’!

DAY 22: Drinking Due to Unmet Needs

ACT #9: Alcohol and Sadness

DAY 23: Alcohol’s Effect on Your Health

ACT #10: Alcohol and Anger

DAY 24: Are Addictive Personalities Real?

DAY 25: Setbacks and the Way Forward

DAY 26: Liberation vs. Fixation

DAY 27: Is Alcohol Really Poisonous and Addictive?

DAY 28: The Truth About Moderation

DAY 29: Tough Love

DAY 30: What’s Next?

One Final Word

Acknowledgments

Appendix

Notes

About the Publisher

Introduction

It’s YOUR body . . .

It’s YOUR mind . . .

It’s YOUR choice . . .

During the Alcohol Experiment, you’ll make a choice to go 30 days without alcohol. Just to see how you feel. You’ll become a detached reporter, researching the facts, writing down your observations, and possibly drawing new conclusions. This is an exciting experiment, not a punishment. You’re not weak-willed for questioning your drinking. There’s no judgment or labeling here. You have a unique opportunity to remember how to enjoy life without alcohol. And with this book’s unconventional approach, I’m willing to bet you’ll enjoy the process!

WHO IS THIS FOR?

This experiment is for you if you’re curious about your relationship with alcohol, and you’re thinking about drinking less often or not at all.

It is also for you if

• You are of two minds about alcohol—you want to drink less but you also feel deprived or upset when you abstain.

• You drink out of habit or boredom—only to regret it later.

• You are starting to wonder if alcohol is taking more than it is giving.

• You are curious about a life without booze but do not feel you are an alcoholic.

• You want to drink less, but life is just too stressful.

• You have a love-hate relationship with alcohol—and find yourself setting limits and then breaking them when happy hour rolls around.

• You have tried to cut back or stop drinking (possibly many times) using willpower alone and found it ineffective.

• You fell into drinking more than you ever wanted—without making a conscious decision to do so.

• You can stop drinking for a few days but find yourself feeling deprived.

• You are ready to regain control—of your drinking, your life, your health, and your happiness.

• You are looking forward to feeling great on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

• You are ready to be your best self, get in shape, regain your self-esteem, and change your life.

It’s NOT for you if you have a strong physical addiction to alcohol—if you are physically dependent and suffer from serious withdrawal symptoms, such as delirium tremens or hallucinations, when you attempt to stop or cut back. This book may help with your emotional and psychological addiction by changing your perspective and erasing your desire to drink. However, I am not a doctor, and alcohol withdrawal can be extremely dangerous. You should seek professional medical assistance so your detoxification is medically supervised.

Is life better without alcohol? That’s up to you to decide. My own experience with this experiment proved that, for me, life was absolutely better when I chose not to drink. However, your experience might be different. It’s your body. It’s your mind. It’s your choice. I’m simply inviting you to open your mind to the possibility of making a different choice and then encouraging you to see how it changes things in your daily life.

It’s 30 days, not forever . . . Many people ask me if they will have to give up drinking forever if they try the experiment. My answer is it’s up to them. My only goal is to offer you a shift in your perspective and to show you some of the neuroscience behind why you might be drinking more than you’d like to.

You might go back to your regular drinking habits after the 30 days, you might drink a bit more mindfully (and less often), or you might decide to give it another 30 days just for the heck of it. You might also decide you feel so good you never want to go back.

Whatever you decide, I’d love to hear your experience with the experiment. If you’d like to share your story, email me at hello@alcoholexperiment.com.

WHY WE DRINK MORE THAN WE WANT TO

Since you’re reading this right now, you’re probably questioning how much you drink. Maybe you know you drink too much and want to quit. Or maybe you’re just curious about what life is like with a bit less alcohol. Maybe you’re questioning whether you might be overdoing it a bit. No matter where you are on the spectrum, you’re not alone. I’ve been there. And tens of thousands of people inside the Alcohol Experiment community have been there, too. You’re probably wondering why in the world you keep drinking even though you’ve made a conscious decision to cut back or stop altogether. Why do we do things we no longer want to do?

I wondered the same thing. When I first started drinking, it seemed to be a natural, normal thing to do. I saw nothing wrong with it. I didn’t know all the negative ways alcohol could affect my health. I was a drinker, and I was proud of it. I tried hard to develop a tolerance so I could keep up with my colleagues. It was fun. It was relaxing. I had better sex when I was drunk.

. . . Or so I thought.

Eventually, I came to a point in my life when I started to question my drinking. I didn’t like waking up with a hangover. I didn’t like having to piece together conversations and wondering if I said or did anything embarrassing. I wasn’t even enjoying myself anymore. I could drink two bottles of wine and not even feel it because I had such a high tolerance. So I made a conscious decision to stop drinking. And I thought that would be it. I just wouldn’t drink. Easy-peasy.

Sound familiar?

If you’ve tried to give up or moderate your alcohol consumption in the past and failed, I want you to know it’s not your fault. There’s something going on you’re probably not aware of. And once you understand it, your eyes will be opened and you’ll be able to undergo this experiment in a meaningful way. It won’t be just another failure of willpower.

To understand what’s going on, we need to explore a concept called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive means “the way you think.” And dissonance means “disagreement.” So, cognitive dissonance is when there’s a disagreement in your thinking. Well, how can that be? You’ve got one brain, right? Actually, your brain has many parts, and they can come into conflict with one another. But what we’re really talking about here is your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. Your conscious mind is everything you’re aware of. You’re tired of waking up with a headache. You don’t like spending your money on alcohol. Maybe your relationship is suffering, or your kids don’t even know you anymore. Because you’re aware of those things, you make a conscious decision to stop drinking.

Ahh, but there’s another powerful part of your mind: your subconscious. That’s where you’ve stored a lifetime of subconscious conditioning and beliefs that, by definition, you’re unaware of. Our subconscious mind controls our emotions and desires. And society’s attitudes about alcohol are programmed and fixed in our subconscious minds by the media, our parents, our friends, and our role models. We don’t consciously adopt these beliefs. They are imprinted on us. Take, for example, the belief that drinking helps you relax. That’s a belief you formed a long time ago after careful observation and experience. You weren’t born with this knowledge. But you watched your parents drink after a long day. You’ve seen movies and TV shows where characters drink to relax. And you’ve experienced it yourself and found it to be true. So you formed a strong belief that alcohol helps you relax.

Here’s the thing about subconscious beliefs—they’re not always true. We form our belief systems when we’re very young, and sometimes we’ll carry those beliefs our whole lives without ever questioning them. Most of the time, this is fine. The sky is blue. Ice is cold. If I fall down, it’s going to hurt. Cognitive dissonance happens when one of our subconscious beliefs disagrees with a conscious desire or decision. If I believe alcohol helps me relax, but I’ve decided not to drink after work anymore, that’s a problem! Part of me desperately wants a drink to unwind after a long day, and another part of me doesn’t want to overdo it and wake up with a hangover. There are two conflicting desires. Cognitive dissonance. To drink or not to drink, that is the question.

This is one of the reasons we continue to drink more than we want to even after we’ve decided to cut back. This is why willpower doesn’t work in the long term. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines willpower as “energetic determination.” That means it takes energy, conscious thought, and effort. This is especially true when you are trying to stop doing something that you believe provides a benefit. We don’t have to exert conscious effort and energy not to drink something we believe is bad for us if we see no benefit in it. For example, there is no effort involved in turning down a glass of motor oil.

If you believe, even subconsciously, that alcohol provides a benefit, you will be exercising willpower to cut back or avoid drinking. The problem with willpower is that since it is energy, willpower runs out. And if you use your willpower on one thing—like being patient with your kids or paying attention during a boring work event—you will have less willpower to use when you try to turn down that next drink. That is why I say we need to get out of the willpower game altogether. Until we resolve the inner conflict, we cannot hope to succeed.

Let’s pretend we’re trying to avoid sweets because we’re trying to lose weight. Yet someone at the office brings in a big plate of freshly baked cookies and we mindlessly grab one and eat it. (Okay, who are we kidding . . . we eat like three cookies.) Bam! Dissonance. Your brain doesn’t want to eat cookies, because you’re on a diet. But you did. There’s an internal conflict. Our brains immediately try to restore internal harmony in a few ways:

1. We can change our behavior. Make a vow not to eat another cookie no matter how good they look.

2. We can justify our behavior and say, “Oh, it’s okay to cheat every once in a while. We all need a little sugar now and then. I deserve it.”

3. We can add another behavior to counteract the first one. “Well, I ate the cookies, but that’s okay. I’ll go for a long run after work to burn off the extra calories.”

4. We can delude ourselves by denying or ignoring the conflicting information. “Those cookies are probably not all that bad for my diet. They seemed pretty small anyway.”

We delude ourselves all the time when it comes to alcohol or any addictive substance. We ignore the fact that alcohol isn’t doing us any favors and it’s actually harming us. We do it as a defense mechanism because we’re trying to solve this internal disagreement. Conflict hurts. Humans are hardwired to avoid it whenever possible. When you’re divided—when you’re not whole—it’s incredibly painful. And what do we drinkers do to numb pain? We drink! And then we drink more. And sometimes we drink until we black out to avoid something painful, even temporarily.

The more we drink, the worse we feel (mentally and physically) and the more we don’t want to drink.

The more we don’t want to drink, the more internal conflict we create.

The more conflict, the more pain.

The more pain, the more we drink.

It’s a cycle that spirals out of control. It’s not intentional. We may not even know we’re doing it until something terrible happens. At some point, we wake up to the reality and try to change. But unless we address the dissonance, change continually eludes us. I tried to drink less, to set limits on my drinking. I could do it for a little while, but eventually my willpower would give out, and I’d be right back to waking up wondering how many glasses I’d had the night before. I felt helpless. I felt weak. And I felt alone. I’m smart and capable. Why did this have such a hold on me? I would intend to drink a single glass of wine, or maybe two, but would wake up the next morning being unable to count how many I’d had. And that would make me want to drink more because then I wouldn’t have to think about the fact that I’d broken a commitment to myself—again. Drinking erased the conflict, even for a little while.

What I didn’t know was that there was something much bigger at work. The subconscious mind is where our desires originate. So part of me was so much stronger than my conscious desire to get my act together. The deck was stacked against me, and I didn’t even realize it.

The good news is that I discovered a way to truly resolve my cognitive dissonance around drinking. And it works for anything, by the way. If you’re eating sugar when you don’t want to, or you’re gambling when you don’t want to, or you’re watching too much television—whatever. This method works to resolve the conflict and get your conscious and subconscious minds on the same page. When that happens, you get what you want with no effort. You can go to a party with all your friends and have a great time without even thinking about alcohol. You can ring in the New Year with ginger ale. You can save your relationships. You can change your life.

Want to know the secret?

It’s all about awareness. If you’re struggling because you’re unaware of your subconscious beliefs, then the solution is to become aware of them. Shine a light deep into the nooks and crannies of your mind and figure out what beliefs are holding you back. What beliefs are in conflict with your desire to drink less or stop drinking?

I’ve developed a proven, scientifically based process to do exactly that. The process is based on a technique called Liminal Thinking, created by the bestselling author Dave Gray, and The Work, by author Byron Katie. The liminal space is the area between your conscious and your subconscious, or subliminal, mind. The technique I’ve developed is called ACT: Awareness, Clarity, and Turnaround. You’re going to become aware of your belief by naming and putting language to it. Next, you clarify the belief, where it came from and how it feels inside you. Finally, you will turn around the belief coming up with a few reasons why the opposite of your long-held belief may be truer or as true as the original belief. As with many of the most profound tools for change, it is a simple process of deconstructing your beliefs by asking yourself questions like these:

What do I believe?

Is it true?

How does it make me feel?

Is it helpful?

Remember when I said sometimes our beliefs just aren’t true? Well, that’s how you untangle this mess—by discovering the truth. Does alcohol truly relax you? Or do you just think it does? Do you really enjoy sex more when you’re drunk? Or does it become a sloppy, embarrassing mess you can barely remember?

I’m not going to suggest the answer is one or the other. I can’t make you believe something you don’t want to believe. Your subconscious beliefs remain deeply entrenched until you become aware of them and decide to change them by questioning their validity. Every few days during this 30-day experiment, you’ll see bonus ACT chapters. You can read them as they come up, or you can read them first if you like. These special chapters present you with some facts regarding certain common beliefs about alcohol. All I ask is for you to keep an open mind and carefully consider what you’re reading. It might take a few days or weeks of mulling it over before you decide one way or another. You might need to test out some theories. That’s okay. Take as much time as you need. This is your experiment. Here’s a preview of how the ACT technique works:

THE ACT TECHNIQUE

1. AWARENESS. Name your belief. In the context of alcohol, this is your conscious reason for drinking, simply put it into words:

Alcohol relaxes me.

2. CLARITY. Discover why you believe it and where it originated. You do this by asking questions—both of yourself and of the external evidence—and uncovering truths about your belief.

What have I observed that supports this belief?

Happy hour. And the idea that everyone unwinds with a cocktail after a stressful day at work.

Every time I talk to my friends about my struggles, either with my kids or husband, they always say something like, “Oh, no! Don’t worry, I know just the thing—you need some wine immediately!”

What are my experiences with alcohol and relaxation?

I’ve felt the relaxing effects of alcohol myself. After a stressful day at work, a drink seems to calm my nerves and allows me to transition from the hard workday to a relaxing evening.

Then it’s time to do some detective work and compare this belief with both your internal and external realities. Internally, you will ask yourself questions like these:

What do I mean by “relax”?

How do I feel when I’m not relaxed?

How do I feel when I am relaxed?

Does anything else make me feel the same way?

How do I feel while I’m drinking? Is that the same feeling as “relaxed”?

How do I feel the next day? Is that relaxed?

Is it true, scientifically? Does alcohol relax human beings?

Externally, you will examine the evidence. Does research support this belief? What do external sources say about this belief? Do they support or contradict it? And don’t worry, you won’t have to do a bunch of research—throughout the 30 days of the experiment I’ll be supplying the studies and data.

3. TURNAROUND. This is where you allow your subconscious to let go of the belief, deciding if after exploration it is indeed true for you. There are two steps here.

First, you turn the initial belief around and find as many ways as you can that the opposite of your initial belief is true. For example, if your belief is “alcohol relaxes me” the opposite becomes “alcohol does not relax me” or “alcohol stresses me out.”

Now that you’ve stated the opposite, come up with as many reasons as you can that the opposite is as true as or truer than the original belief. Examples might include

• Alcohol stresses my body out; a hangover is evidence of that.

• Alcohol prevents me from taking the action necessary to truly relieve my stress, so in that case it does not relax me.

• When I drink, I am more likely to get in an argument with my spouse, and fighting is stressful.

• When I drink, I beat myself up about it the next day, and that is stressful.

Once you’ve done that, the final step is simply to decide if this belief still holds true for you and if it is serving you or if you would be better off letting it go.

ACT: Awareness. Clarity. Turnaround. It’s an effective, scientific way to shine a light into your subconscious and figure out what’s actually causing your behavior. And you can find a guided worksheet in the back of this book to apply this process to any belief that comes up about alcohol, or about anything else in your life.

The important thing to remember is that there is no wrong answer! You are not messing up if you go through this process and still feel the belief is true for you. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but trust me on this—this process is about presenting your subconscious mind with information, facts, and logic. It’s about shifting your mind-set. And while that can often happen quickly by simply reading through the ACT chapters, it can also happen more slowly over time. Again, there are no wrong answers.

Now you know there’s something deeper at work here, and there’s something you can do about it, I hope you’re excited about this experiment! My ACT technique works. You can use it to enact change in so many areas of your life. It’s so empowering. You can use it to lose weight, start exercising, stop procrastinating, and be a better parent. For now, though, let’s focus on your drinking.

STICKING WITH IT

Often we don’t think about how much we drink or why we drink—like we’re doing in this experiment—until drinking is no longer an option. We don’t know if we drink because there’s chaos in our lives, or if there’s chaos because we drink. Suddenly, when the option to escape through drinking isn’t there, we’re forced to take a look at what’s going on in our lives and what might be triggering us. What are we trying to distract ourselves from? Sometimes the answer is obvious. Work is stressful. The boss yelled again. But other times there doesn’t seem to be an obvious trigger. Sometimes we drink to avoid anything unpleasant or stressful. This experiment offers us the option to switch from seeing stress as a reason to drink to seeing it as an opportunity to be creative and find other ways to deal with our problems. Maybe addressing the source of the stress is a good idea. Maybe blowing off steam on the driving range or at a boxing gym would be equally satisfying, and you could get a healthy workout in as a bonus.

As adults, we develop all sorts of coping mechanisms to handle stress. Maybe you like to read a book, meditate, knit, watch TV, or exercise. When I was in New York, I used to go for a long run at the end of the day. Then when I was encouraged to attend all sorts of boozy work events, from happy hours to networking meetings, that healthy habit got replaced by alcohol. Over time, all my healthy coping mechanisms were replaced with alcohol, and my life was thrown completely out of balance. What I’ve learned is that when we’re tired, stressed out, cranky, or upset, we don’t need alcohol. What we need is to change our emotional state. We need to do something to go from tired to energized, from cranky to happy. And we turn to alcohol.

You are going to experience stress over the next 30 days, I can pretty much guarantee it. But rather than saying, “Screw it!” and giving up, stop and think through it. If you have a drink now, how will that make you feel later? It might make you feel better temporarily, but you’ll probably feel even worse the next morning when you realize you broke your promise to yourself. But here is the thing—every day that you read a chapter, you are learning, and so I strongly encourage you to pick up right where you left off and keep going. If you make it 30 days with just a few drinks, that is a huge improvement, and you will have learned so much. This experiment is about getting through all the information and staying curious about your behavior, whatever it is. I recommend keeping a journal (you can even jot down your thoughts in the notes app on your phone) or a video diary to record your thoughts each day. Notice how your body feels physically and emotionally. You might be surprised by the changes you see from day to day.

I’m not here to tell you to stop drinking. Or to keep drinking. I’m simply here to provide you with a framework to discover your truth through logical reasoning based on scientific information. At the end of the day, you are the only one who can make the choice. My only goal is to challenge some of the beliefs that might be holding you back. It’s a terrible feeling to want something new or different and feeling like you’re stuck, unable to move toward it in any meaningful way. One way or another, you’ll be able to make a move by the end of this experiment. Your job is simple. Observe and become aware for 30 alcohol-free days. Be a reporter. Just the facts, ma’am.

If you’re used to beating yourself up over your drinking, give yourself a break during the experiment. And if you slip up, give yourself a break then, too. The goal is not to be perfect. The goal is simply to test out a new way of thinking and behaving to see how it feels. To see if it moves you closer to those desires you have for a new life. In fact, imperfection can be a wonderful tool to help you see yourself even more clearly.

What I ask of you now, for the next 30 days, is to keep an open mind. Consider the possibilities presented in each day’s reading. Is it possible that you could have the facts all wrong? For example, could anxiety be a heavy influence on your drinking? Is it possible that there is more going on with marketing and the profit engine of the alcohol industry than you currently realize? Is there something going on within the brain that makes alcohol seem more attractive than it truly is? Again, all I ask is that you keep an open mind. At the end, you might decide to keep drinking, and maybe you’ll naturally cut down on the amount you drink. Or you might decide to stop altogether because you feel so good. It’s your body, your mind, and your choice.

A FEW TIPS BEFORE YOU START

One of the most interesting things I’ve found in my years of research is just how many people want to change their drinking. I thought I was alone. I thought I was the only one who was questioning my drinking habits. Nothing could be further from the truth! It’s not that we are alone. In our society, questioning our relationship with alcohol is a taboo, even among our closest friends. An honest conversation around drinking seems to invite judgment. Yet the statistics are staggering. Eighty percent of Americans drink alcohol, and a huge majority drink it regularly. And think about this: Out of the people you know who drink alcohol regularly, how many of them have said something like “I overdid it last night” or “After last night I am never drinking again” at one time or another? Most of them, right? Almost everyone I know, and certainly everyone I drank with, has told me that they wanted to change their drinking at some point, to some degree.

So you are not alone in wondering about this topic. You are in the vast majority.

Another thing I’ve realized after reaching hundreds of thousands of people with this message is that drinking more than you want is not a weakness. If you’ve tried to stop drinking in the past and failed, I want you to know it’s not your fault. Some of the smartest and most successful people in the world drink more than they want to, including lawyers, doctors, corporate executives, psychiatrists, professors, you name it. And when they try to cut back, they don’t find it easy. And when it is not easy, we blame ourselves, believing there is something wrong with us. As you will discover, there is nothing wrong with you; it’s simply that you are a human being who is drinking a substance that is addictive to human beings.

Why is this happening to even the smartest and best of us? Because we’re going about it all wrong. The entire conversation around alcohol is flawed. And by the time you finish this book, and the 30-day experiment, you’ll see that it’s not black-and-white. You’re not either “a normal drinker” or “an alcoholic.” Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. So relax and let go of your anxieties. There are no judgments here. And even though I’ve decided to stop drinking indefinitely, you might make a different decision after doing this experiment. My only goal is to give you as much truthful information as I can so that you can make the right decision for you. An informed decision.

WHAT TO EXPECT OVER THE NEXT 30 DAYS

Magic happens in 30 days. It’s a period of time when the brain can actually change—by making new neural connections—to build great new habits or to eliminate habits that have held you back. But to experience that magic, you may have to deal with a few side effects. After all, alcohol is a toxin and your body needs to cleanse itself. You might experience some cravings and irritability at first. This is completely normal and will pass as the alcohol leaves your system. It takes about a week for the body to detoxify itself, so be gentle with yourself during this period. Once your system is clean, you’re going to feel amazing! You’ll have more energy. Your brain will feel like a fog has lifted. And it’s possible you’ll feel happier than you have in a long time. Here are a few things you can do to help the process along.

• Make a firm decision to commit to this experiment 100 percent. One firm decision takes all the stress out of the thousands of smaller decisions you have to make every day. You want to burn the boats here like there’s no going back. It’s only 30 days. And at the end, you get to make the final decision about whether you continue on alcohol-free.

• Tell someone you trust about what you’re doing and why. It’s okay if you don’t want to announce it to the world quite yet. But there’s incredible power in having someone you can confide in. Do this and you’re much more likely to follow through with the whole 30 days.

• Drink plenty of water to flush out all the toxins in your system. The more you drink clean, pure water, the faster your body can cleanse itself.

• Get lots of sleep. Your body repairs itself when you’re asleep, so give it all the time it needs. If you’re worried you won’t be able to sleep without drinking, we’ll cover that later in the book.

• Get some exercise. You’ll feel better when you get your blood moving. And I’ve found vigorous exercise to be a great way to overcome both cravings and irritability.

• Eat healthy foods, especially protein. Your body needs protein to make amino acids, which help elevate your mood.

• Start a journal. You’re going to want to “talk” through what you learn in this book, and a journal is a great place to record your thoughts privately. You can use an app on your phone, make a video diary, or use good old-fashioned pen and paper. If you sign up at alcoholexperiment.com, you’ll get a private daily digital journal. It’s a great way to keep track of your amazing progress.

• Take a photo and weigh yourself. You might be surprised at the differences you see in your physical appearance after 30 days without alcohol.

• Stay social. Now is not the time to isolate yourself or lock yourself away from your friends and family. You need your social life. You need your friends. You might be nervous about going out to places where you regularly drink. But this is an experiment. You have to get out there and try it. You are experimenting with how your real life will be without alcohol. As you go along, you will be amazed to realize you don’t need alcohol to socialize or have a good time. You only thought you did. Think back to when you were a child or in high school—did you need alcohol then? Weren’t you having the most fun? And what’s the worst that can happen? You go out to happy hour, you order a refreshing glass of iced tea, and you have a miserable time. So what? It’s just one evening, and it’s all part of the experiment. That is great data. You can examine exactly why you had a miserable time and whether the lack of alcohol is truly the reason. I bet you will surprise yourself by having an amazing time.

• Be positive! Many people tell me their biggest fear is they don’t think they can do it. They aren’t sure they’re strong enough to make it 30 days. Don’t kick off this experiment by feeling sorry for yourself. You have so much to look forward to. Sure, the cleansing process takes a little while and it’s not entirely pleasant, but you are strong and you can handle it. The same people who thought they couldn’t do it write to me after a week or two to say they can’t believe the difference in themselves. They now know they are stronger than they thought.

• Join this book’s online social challenge at alcoholexperiment.com. There you can do this experiment with thousands of like-minded people from all over the globe. You will get amazing community support, plus daily video resources and a private online journal to document your progress. There are even Alcohol Experiment mentors there who’ve already gone through this process and who are committed to helping you make it all the way to the end. (For a reader’s discount, please visit alcoholexperiment.com/reader) Throughout this book, you’ll find stories and observations from actual community members. The comments are real, though the names have been changed.

This is a 30-day experiment, right? So I just want you to read the short lesson for each day. Try to read it in the morning, if you can, and put the recommendations into practice during the day. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself having epiphanies in the shower or shouting, “Holy cow!” while you’re driving. Once your mind starts mulling over some of these ideas, there’s no telling where your thoughts can go.

As with almost everything in life, your perspective can determine your outcome. So instead of thinking about giving something up, think about what you’re going to gain: self-respect, more money in your wallet, a better relationship with your spouse and your kids, better health, better working relationships, a leaner body, and more.

This is exciting! You are embarking on an amazing journey. And don’t worry—it’s only 30 days. You can do anything for 30 days.

Are you ready?

Let’s go!

DAY 1

What’s Your Why?

The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to blame. The gift is yours—it is an amazing journey—and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.

—BOB MOAWAD

We’ve talked about how you’ve been unconsciously conditioned to believe alcohol is a vital part of life for relaxing, socializing, and everything in between. And you know there are competing desires inside your mind. Your conscious mind wants to drink less, or even stop drinking completely. And your subconscious mind believes you need to keep drinking for some very good reasons. Before we dive into those beliefs and stories and deciding if they’re true, we need to know what those beliefs actually are. After reading literally thousands of stories from people who’ve gone through this process, I’m pretty sure I know what your beliefs are. But that’s not important. What’s important is that YOU know what they are. So let’s start this experiment by writing a list.

WHY DO YOU DRINK?

Write down a list of every reason you drink. There’s no judgment here. We simply want a list.

To get you going, here’s a look at part of my list. You might have some of the same reasons.

• Work is stressful and drinking helps me relax after a long day.

• Drinking helps me be more creative on the job.

• Drinking helps me be more outgoing at networking events.

• Drinking is important to my social relationships.

• I love the taste of wine.

Don’t stop with a few reasons; keep going until you can’t think of any more. You might come up with 50 or 100 reasons, and that’s fine.

You’ve brought your subconscious beliefs up to the surface of your mind. Now we can shine a light on them, examine them, and you can decide for yourself whether those beliefs are true. And you can make that decision based on the facts, not social conditioning from the media and your peers. Don’t do anything with this list right now. Don’t try to change your mind. At the moment, these are your beliefs, and they’re currently true in your life. As I present you different ideas over the next 30 days, you may think about this list differently.

WHY THE ALCOHOL EXPERIMENT?

Okay, next I want you to pull out another piece of paper and make a second list. Write down all the reasons you want to take part in this experiment. WHY do you think you might want to drink less? Here’s a peek at my list:

• I’m tired of waking up slightly hungover.

• I no longer want to worry that I said something stupid the night before.

• I am sick of the internal dialogue about my drinking—I am tired of thinking about drinking.

• I saw a photo of myself out with friends and my teeth looked purplish from wine—it was disgusting.

• I look back on certain days and my memories are so fuzzy. I am afraid I am missing my life because I can’t clearly remember it all.

TODAY, read over both your lists and notice how they are in conflict with each other. This is the whole source of your cognitive dissonance. It’s the battle going in your mind all the time, written in your own words. Over the coming weeks, it might help you to picture these lists on either side of a seesaw or a balance. Right now, the first list might be longer than the second one. In a few weeks, check back in to see if the balance has shifted at all.

Day 1 Reflections from alcoholexperiment.com

“I am sick of alcohol damaging my life in so many ways, including making an idiot of myself, hangovers, feeling violently ill, wasted time and opportunity, horrendous fights with my husband, putting a strain on my marriage, weight gain, no exercise, loosened stomach, way too big an appetite, anxiety, smoking, money, no time.”

—JULIANNA

“Today is the first day of the rest of my life.”

—BRIAN

“Hey guys. Day 1 here. Interested to see if my list of reasons why I drink was smaller than my list of reasons why I am here. I am taking that as a sign that I have more reason to stop than to continue drinking. I have more to gain from being AF [Alcohol Free]. I feel quite motivated by that.”

—ROMERO

“I decided that my life is my own and I am ready to live it the way I want to, and that doesn’t include alcohol.”

—LIZA

ACT #1

The Taste of Alcohol

NOTE: The idea of the ACT Technique—Awareness, Clarity, Turnaround—is to give you an alternate perspective. It is an exercise to help you resolve your or internal disagreement around alcohol. First, we’ll become aware by naming a belief you have about drinking. Then we’ll gain clarity around that belief, looking at where it came from and how you may have picked it up without even knowing it. We’ll also look at the internal and external evidence that supports that belief (or doesn’t). Finally, we’ll decide if the belief holds true through a turnaround. We will look at the opposite of the belief, and decide if the opposite is as true as or truer than the original belief. When this process is complete, you get to decide if you still believe this and, more important, if that belief is serving you or if your life would be better by simply letting it go. No matter what you decide, you will gain a new perspective. The whole idea is to play detective and look at the evidence and form an objective opinion.

What’s your all-time favorite drink? The one you can’t wait to get your hands on at the end of a long day or on Friday night? I bet if you think about it hard enough, you can even taste it right now. Taste is an innocent reason for drinking. After all, no one thinks twice about eating ice cream or nachos. They taste good! And our favorite alcoholic beverages are the same way. But for the sake of this experiment, let’s dig a little deeper.

AWARENESS

Many people tell me they really like the taste of their favorite drink. I get it. I was a red wine girl all the way. Maybe you’re a margarita lover. Or maybe you enjoy the taste of a good scotch on the rocks. Let’s name this belief:

“I drink for the taste.”

I know a woman who drinks a shot of Baileys in her coffee every morning before she drives her child to school. She doesn’t think it’s a big deal. It’s just a shot, and nothing else makes her coffee taste as good. Her concerned husband tried to get her to try Baileys-flavored coffee creamer, but she insists it doesn’t taste the same. But if you think about it, she’s not actually tasting a lot of alcohol—it’s mostly the flavorings, cream and sugar. So what do you think? Is she truly enjoying Baileys for only the taste? Or is there something else going on?

CLARITY

In order to gain clarity around your beliefs, you need to look back at the past and figure out why you have this belief in the first place. Where did it come from? There are no right or wrong answers here, and everyone is different. So ask yourself, what observations and experiences have you had in your past that might have made you believe alcohol tastes good? Maybe it’s something as simple as watching your parents pour themselves a drink at the end of the day. Or observing how they drank glass after glass in the evening. Why in the world would they drink it all the time if it tasted so bad? They’re smart, right? They’re grown-ups. So it must taste good, or they wouldn’t keep drinking it.

I have a friend from France whose parents made sure she drank a little wine with dinner from the time she was eight years old. She hated how it tasted, and told her parents so frequently. But they continued to press on, saying she would appreciate the taste when she got older. The implication was that when she became more mature and grown-up, she would enjoy the taste of wine. We all want to appear more grown up when we’re kids, don’t we? Sure enough, over time my friend became a great wine lover and now drinks it every night.

Think back to your first drink and remember the experience. What were you drinking? Maybe it was wine at dinner when you were young. Maybe it was champagne on New Year’s Eve when you were allowed to stay up until midnight for the first time. Maybe you snuck into your parents’ liquor cabinet with a friend on a dare. Or maybe it wasn’t until much later—maybe your first beer was in college. Regardless of when it was, think back to your first sip. Did you actually like it? Or did you choke and sputter, maybe even spit it out?

Who was with you at the time? Was it a friend you wanted to impress? Was it a parent you wanted to make proud? Were you trying to find a place to fit in with a new group of people? If you’re like the vast majority of people I talk to, your first experience tasting alcohol was not pleasant. You didn’t like it. But someone was there to say, “Don’t worry, it’s an acquired taste. You’ll get used to it.”

So take a few minutes to write down where your taste for alcohol came from. What was it like the first time you tried a new beer or hard liquor? Was it always an amazing taste you immediately loved? Did you acquire the taste over time? Or did you fake liking it because you wanted to impress someone?

Now that you have an idea where your beliefs came from, let’s play detective and look at the internal and external evidence. This evidence will help you decide whether your belief that you like the taste of alcohol is true or whether you have been fooling yourself.

People have some pretty intense reactions when they taste alcohol for the first time. They talk about it burning on the way down. They wrinkle up their nose because it doesn’t even smell good. Their eyes start watering. They might even spit it out. Why? One of the major reasons we don’t like the taste of something is because it’s harmful to us. We don’t like the taste of rotten food because it can make us sick. Well, what’s going on when you have a hangover? You’re sick! Our taste buds react negatively to alcohol to protect us from a harmful substance.

Let’s think about the idea of acquiring a taste for something. Whatever your drink of choice is, you probably didn’t like it immediately. But your body allowed you to get used to it. Why? Because your brain assumes you have no choice in the matter. If you did, it would make no sense for you to keep drinking. So your body does the logical thing—it makes it easier for you to deal with the taste. You acquire it. Which, if you think about it, is the same thing as becoming immune to alcohol.

Let’s look at it another way: My brother has a goat farm, and whenever I walk into the barn, there’s an intense, unpleasant odor. As my sister-in-law says, it smells “very goaty.” But guess what? My brother and his family don’t even notice the smell anymore. Because they’ve gotten used to it. They have to go into the barn to feed the goats, so their brains no longer register the odor. That doesn’t mean they like it. But they have, over time, gotten used to it.

If you did happen to love the taste of your first drink, it was probably something fruity or creamy that was more sugar than anything else. Am I right? Some drinks go down more easily than others. Straight alcohol is ethanol. The same stuff you put in your gas tank! A few sips will make you vomit and a few ounces of pure ethanol will kill you. I think it’s safe to say you would never go suck on the end of a gas pump nozzle because it tastes good! No matter what your favorite drink is, the alcohol makes up only a small percentage of the liquid. The rest is flavorings, sugar, carbohydrates, and other additives.

Now of course there are things we appreciate as adults that we did not appreciate as children. We clearly grow a more refined palate as we age, but let’s not kid ourselves: If we were purely drinking for the taste, we could certainly find other substitutes that are similar and wouldn’t cause any of the side effects alcohol causes. I am intolerant to gluten and I’ve managed to find plenty of substitutes that aren’t exactly the same but are now a natural part of my life and don’t create the stomach pain gluten does. The fact is ethanol doesn’t taste good. Consider this: When scientists want rats or mice to drink alcohol for a study, they have to force-feed them because they will not naturally opt to drink it.

So are you honestly drinking it for the taste?

If not, then why are you drinking it?

You’ve almost certainly observed characters in the movies and on TV enjoying the taste of alcohol, or giving a satisfying burp and a smile after chugging a beer. Even if the actors are actually drinking whiskey-colored tea, the message still gets across—it tastes good. We all tend to choose our alcohol to match our identities. If we’re refined and classy, maybe we drink red wine. Or if we like old cowboy movies, maybe we lean toward whiskey. Of course, if you’re an international spy, you’ve got to order a martini—shaken, not stirred. We identify with the characters and tend to like the same drinks they like. I used to love chugging Guinness and was so proud of my chugging ability. It made me feel tough and like “one of the boys” in that masculine work environment.

Maybe you see yourself as a discerning wine lover, and your cellar has become a status symbol. If that’s the case, you probably pride yourself on your ability to discern the toasty-smoky-oaky flavors with their fruity or floral overtones. Or whatever. Here’s a fun fact—the American Association of Wine Economists conducted a study of more than 6,000 wine drinkers. In this blind taste test, they discovered that people cannot tell the difference between cheap wine and expensive wine. In fact, most people preferred the taste of the cheaper varieties. And you know what else? The same blind research later found that people can’t tell the difference between pâté and dog food!

So what about the argument, “alcohol enhances the taste of my food”? Do we say that about any other beverage-and-food combination? People say milk enhances the taste of cookies, but could that be because we physically dip cookies into milk? No one dips their steak into their wineglass. The truth is, alcohol is actually an anesthetic. It numbs our ability to taste, making it more difficult to savor our food.

Imagine we could remove all the physical and emotional effects of alcohol. If it couldn’t actually make you drunk, would people still drink it? There’s a body of pretty convincing research suggesting they wouldn’t. It tastes bad. It’s poisonous. Drinking for the taste is a convenient, innocent excuse. At the end of the day, is it a possibility that there’s something more going on with your drinking than just the taste? Humans are incredibly adept at lying to themselves and believing their own stories. It’s possible that you actually do love the taste of a cool, frosty margarita. But is it really the alcohol you like? You may not have tried a delicious virgin margarita, but the truth is, they taste as good, maybe even better! And you’ll be surprised and empowered by how much you enjoy yourself without the tequila—or the hangover.

TURNAROUND

This may be the most important part of the ACT Technique. Here you want to dig into the turnaround, or the opposite of the belief. You’ll want to take the time to come up with as many ways as you can (at least three) that the turnaround is as true or truer than the original belief. In this case, the opposite of “I drink for the taste” is “I don’t drink for the taste” or maybe even “I don’t like the taste.” Now it’s your turn to come up with as many ways as you can that the turnaround is true in your life.

DAY 2

It’s Not What You Give Up, But What You GAIN

One reason people resist change is because they focus on what they have to give up, instead of what they have to gain.

—RICK GODWIN

As a participant in this experiment, you’re obviously giving something up. You’re giving up alcohol for 30 days. But there are two ways to look at it. You could focus on how hard it’s going to be and all the things you’re going to have to give up and go without. Or you could think about all the amazing insights and experiences you’re going to gain as a result of the experiment.

We all undoubtedly control our destinies through our expectations. In other words, we get what we expect. If we expect this experiment to be miserable, then that is what we’re going to get. And so to make this a more pleasant experience, we have to change our thinking. We have to expect to go into this and experience 30 days of amazing epiphanies, better health, higher energy levels, and systematic shifts in our thinking. How do we do it? We decide to focus on the positive. It’s that simple. You might feel weird at first focusing on all the good things that are going to happen, especially if you’re skeptical that they will happen. But when you shift your thinking to what you will gain, the good things will come. They truly will.

BENEFITS

For me, I lost 13 pounds in the first 30 days. My marriage has never been better, and I’ve finally started doing all the things I’d wanted to do for years and years. Things alcohol kept me from doing, such as starting a business, writing a book, creating a mindfulness practice, and building a strong family life. I’ve become much happier socially because I’m never worried about what I said the night before. I’ve become much more successful. I think I look significantly better—my eyes are clearer, my hair is thicker. But these are my stories. What about other people who’ve gone through the 30-day experiment? What have they gained? Here’s a short list from other Alcohol Experiment participants:

• Clearheaded mornings

• Better health

• Less anxiety

• True relaxation

• Better relationships

• Self-love

• Happier family life

• Freedom to fully participate in life

PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR LANGUAGE

So how, exactly, do you focus on the positive? The easiest way to do it is to pay attention to your language, the words coming out of your mouth. Saying something like “I can’t drink” is pretty negative. It sends all the wrong messages to your subconscious because it leaves you feeling deprived and thinking about something you can’t do. On the other hand, saying “I’m going to enjoy drinking an iced tea tonight” or “I really love this lemonade” is saying the same thing in a different way. You’re telling yourself you’re not going to drink alcohol, but you’re doing it in a positive way. And you’re giving your subconscious the message that you’re going to enjoy what you’re going to do instead of that you’re deprived or you can’t.

Saying “I’m giving up alcohol for the month” also sends a negative message to your subconscious. But saying “I’m experimenting to see how much better I feel” is totally different. Positive phrasing sends all the right messages and will help you be more successful. So start to be mindful and conscious of how you talk to yourself.

You don’t have to do this experiment. You get to do it. You have the opportunity to do this. You are excited to do this. You are choosing to participate. Recognize your old, disempowering, words around alcohol and replace them with new, empowering, words. This is important. The brain loves anything that gets you out of pain and into pleasure. It loves that shift both consciously and subconsciously, so choose the words you want to use. When you start consciously choosing your words, you’ll even start to get a little buzz, especially if you reinforce your statements afterward. If you say, “I’m going to enjoy some iced tea tonight,” reinforce it by actually feeling it. “Wow, I did enjoy that iced tea tonight!” The brain will latch on to the experience and repeat it more easily the next time.

Labeling

Another type of language you’ll want to pay attention to is how you’re labeling yourself and others. There’s a ton of research showing how labels can limit your experience. When we put a label on something, we create a corresponding emotion based on our beliefs and experiences. That’s especially true when we label ourselves and say we’re depressed or we’re alcoholics. It’s true that we might be suffering, but by labeling ourselves that we are those things, we ingrain the negative feelings and end up believing them subconsciously.

It might take a little while to start catching yourself focusing on the negative or unnecessarily labeling yourself, so keep at it. If you catch yourself once a day, it’s a great start. Over time you’ll get better and better at it, and you’ll develop ways to reprogram your language and be more positive naturally. Don’t be surprised if people start noticing and telling you how much happier and upbeat you seem. That’s because you are happier and upbeat when you expect to be and use language to reinforce the idea.

The Power of Positive

Staying positive is one amazing tool you can use to stay alcohol-free for the next few weeks, and beyond if you choose. Positive thinking and believing in yourself are helpful, but I’m also talking about how you use words in sentences. Psychologists have studied how our brains process negative statements and found that the way a sentence is constructed affects brain activity. Negative constructions can cause higher levels of activity, which means we have to think harder.

Let’s keep this easy, okay? If we don’t have to think hard about drinking, the experiment will be less stressful.

So, say someone asks you, “Would you like a drink?”

You could answer in the negative: “No, thanks. I’m not drinking tonight.”

Or you could answer in the positive: “Yes! I’d love a club soda with lime.”

By speaking with positive statements, your subconscious mind isn’t triggered into activity. It’s happy. It believes you enjoy drinking, and so you’re enjoying a drink. It just happens to be a nonalcoholic drink this time.

How We Talk Changes Our Experiences

Furthermore, according to Albert Ellis, one of the fathers of modern psychology, how we talk about what is happening to us and around us actually changes our emotions around our experiences! One of the most powerful things I want you to learn in this experiment is that you are much more in control of your life than you may realize. Sure, it takes practice and awareness to begin to shape our emotions and experiences through our language—specifically the language we use when speaking to ourselves—but, wow, is it worth it!

I honestly can’t believe the changes that have happened inside me once I learned the importance of how I talk to myself—the words I use and even the tone. Do yourself a favor: Over the next few days, start to pay attention to how you speak to yourself. Ask yourself if you would speak to a stranger like that? What about someone you consider a friend? What about your child?

Listening to Your Inner Voice

You may find it hard to “hear” your inner voice. If that’s the case, do this—notice your emotions. When you start to feel anxious, upset, or stressed (or any other negative emotion), use that as a signal to pause and reflect on what you were just saying to yourself.

How we speak to ourselves has a huge impact on our emotions. This is true not only around drinking but in all areas of our lives. Studies show that the majority of most people’s thinking is negative and self-destructive. However, since our inner dialogue is constant, we are not often aware of it. The next time you start to feel badly about yourself, I want you to stop and notice the words you just said inside your head. Write them down. And then ask yourself, Was it nice? Was it helpful? Was it something you would say to someone you love? Was it even something you would say to a complete stranger, or are you talking to yourself in a more destructive way than you would talk to a complete stranger? Take time every day to listen to your inner dialogue and consciously try to speak to yourself with respect. Like any habit, how you speak to yourself is unconscious, and it will take some conscious awareness to discover exactly what that inner dialogue consists of. But if you can learn to speak to yourself as you would speak to someone you love, your entire life can change for the better.

TODAY, observe your language patterns—both what you say out loud and the self-talk in your head (we’ll get into even more about self-talk later in this book). And write down the words you’re using on a piece of paper. Do you use the same words over and over? Are they negative or positive? When you think about alcohol, do you feel sorry for yourself and tell yourself you are not able to drink? Or do you feel excited about the challenge and tell yourself you don’t have to drink—and don’t have to wake up with another hangover? How are you treating yourself internally? Are the things you are saying to yourself generally helpful or hurtful? Will they help make these 30 days a more pleasant experience? Don’t judge yourself for using negative language. Instead, think of some ways you can turn your language around and make it more positive. Make it a fun exercise.

Day 2 Reflections from alcoholexperiment.com

“My mind-set has definitely changed. Everyone around me is still drinking, and waking up with a hangover. This morning when I woke up I found myself wondering, ‘Why would they do that to themselves? Why?’ Then I remembered, ‘Oh, yeah, I used to do that to myself, too.’ It was so strange truly not being able to comprehend why people would purposefully ingest poison knowing that they would wake up feeling like shit!”

—CARL

“I’m feeling great without alcohol! New things have opened up for me—some simple things like planting a little garden, trying a different grocery store, exercising more. I’ve already lost weight, and I never have to worry about how much I’ll embarrass myself while drinking. I feel more present with my children and am not forgetting as much, or having to constantly remind myself of things I said I’d do with them.”

—ARLETTA

“I feel a change happening inside me, and I feel confident in myself again, or maybe for the first time. I feel like there is hope for the future and that there is so much to learn and ways in which I can grow and simply experience being human.”

—MORGAN

DAY 3

Why We Think We Like to Drink

True happiness comes from gaining insight and growing into your best possible self. Otherwise all you’re having is immediate gratification pleasure—which is fleeting and doesn’t grow you as a person.

—KAREN SALMANSOHN

Clearly, we must like drinking. Otherwise we wouldn’t do it, right? At least, in the beginning we liked it. Right now, you might be struggling with how much you actually hate the aftereffects. But there’s no denying that the first drink feels good. Before we can unpack all the complicated pieces of the alcohol puzzle, it’s important to understand what’s actually happening in the brain when we drink.

So, I’m out with my friends, and I order a glass of wine. I’ve had a hard day at work, and I’m looking forward to relaxing and laughing with people I love. That first glass makes me feel giggly, and there’s a little rush of euphoria that makes me feel good, maybe for the first time all day. What’s happening is that the wine artificially stimulates the area of my brain called the nucleus accumbens, or the pleasure center. The chemicals responsible for euphoria are endorphins, the same chemicals responsible for the good feelings when you exercise.

DOPAMINE AND SEROTONIN

Two main chemicals work in the pleasure center: dopamine, which is responsible for desire and craving; and serotonin, which is responsible for the feelings of satiety and inhibition. In a healthy brain, there is a delicate balance between the two. But alcohol throws off that balance, and so as I’m drinking that glass of wine lots of dopamine gets dumped into my system, making me want more of what gave me pleasure (the alcohol). Since the pleasure center has been artificially stimulated by an outside substance, my brain seeks to regain the correct balance. So it sends out a chemical downer, called dynorphin. This actually suppresses my feelings of euphoria, and as the effects of the first glass start to wear off, my sense of well-being actually falls below where it was when I started drinking. That means I’m lower than when I got off work after a hard day. Bummer.

The dopamine is still working, though, and makes me crave more of what made me feel good. So I order another glass of wine. And the cycle starts all over again. An unwanted effect is that in order to combat the depressant effects of alcohol, my body counteracts the alcohol by releasing things like adrenaline and cortisol. You may have heard of cortisol—it is also known as the “stress hormone.” So now in my body’s attempt to maintain homeostasis and combat the alcohol, I am lower than when I started. In other words, I now have to cross an even bigger gap to get above that baseline of pleasure. And that’s miserable. Even worse, though, is that the alcohol is starting to affect other areas of my brain. My senses are being numbed, and my brain is actually slowing down. Eventually, I might slur my speech. Perhaps my vision blurs. I feel detached from reality. I convince myself that this is a welcome break from the real world.

The Cycle Continues

The drinking cycle continues, and I get more and more drunk. What was at first a nice tipsy feeling is now completely out of control. But I don’t care because my brain isn’t processing the long-term meanings and implications of my behavior. Eventually, if I’m drinking a lot, it’s been slowed down so much that I have to work hard to walk straight on my way to the restroom.

My brain receptors have become numb, and my senses don’t relay the information as well, and so memories aren’t formed. I don’t completely recall the embarrassing things I say or do while I’m drunk. I don’t feel the pain I’m trying to escape. The stress from the workday fades away for a little while. But the stress remains when I sober up, and it’s compounded by the hangover I’m suffering from. The embarrassing photos show up on Facebook. And my best friend won’t talk to me because I pissed her off so badly . . . somehow . . . I’m not really sure what happened.

If you’re reading this book, you know what I’m talking about. The initial rush doesn’t last. The more drunk you get, the more you regret it when you sober up. It’s a downward spiral. And if you’re like me, you blame yourself. Why can’t I get it together? Why am I so weak? What’s wrong with me?

TODAY, realize that the cycle has nothing to do with you being strong or weak. It has nothing to do with you being a good or bad person. It’s a chemical chain reaction that happens to everyone. Although we all feel the effects slightly differently based on our age, weight, sex, and environment, the biological reactions are the same.

Day 3 Reflections from alcoholexperiment.com

“This is my third day and already I feel like I slept better. I woke up happy that I finally committed myself mentally. It is a shift I have a hard time explaining or putting my finger on. I am embracing the idea that I do not need to hit rock bottom. It is hard to break that way of thinking, but I believe in my heart now that is true. I can quit right now, feel better right now, and not drink again. It is that simple. An aha moment!”

—MONICA

“I had a situation last night that would typically send me straight to the bottle or a six-pack of beer. I won.”

—BRADY

“This is the first Saturday in as long as I can remember when I haven’t woken up hungover and miserable. I am anxious, which feels like a craving, but I recognize that it is because I have so much time on my hands. What shall I do? I’m going to need to get some hobbies!”

—PENNY

ACT #2

Alcohol and Sleep

AWARENESS

When I started researching this book, I sent out a survey asking people what their biggest fears were about giving up alcohol. I was surprised to see sleep come up high on the list. It’s a huge fear for people that they won’t be able to fall asleep or they won’t be able to stay asleep. Let’s name this belief:

“I need alcohol to sleep.”

If you’re struggling with this belief, you’re definitely not alone. One of my favorite authors, William Porter, who wrote Alcohol Explained, is well versed in alcohol’s effects on sleep, and he explains this topic brilliantly. So let’s dig into this belief a little deeper.

CLARITY

I’m not sure how much the media is responsible for this particular belief. There’s not a lot of insomnia portrayed in the movies or on TV. However, if you’ve ever had a bout of sleeplessness, you know how disconcerting it can be. Sleep is critical to our mental and physical well-being. And when you can’t sleep, you’ll do anything to be able to fall asleep. Lack of sleep has been linked to serious health problems, including cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, infections, and obesity. It also affects alertness, mood, and physical strength. This is because your body repairs itself while you sleep. It’s also a time when your mind digests what happened during the day. It assimilates the information and often comes up with solutions to problems. So when you wake up, you feel better physically and mentally. That means if you’ve experienced alcohol helping you sleep, then this belief takes hold very quickly.

Regular, high-quality sleep is essential to our well-being. So let’s look at how sleep actually works. There are two levels of sleep: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and deep sleep, or slow-wave sleep. Every night, you go through several cycles of both levels. First, you dip into REM sleep, when you’re a bit restless and your eyes are literally darting back and forth inside your eyelids (which is where the name comes from). This is light sleep, but it’s crucial to your good health. Scientists don’t actually know why REM is so important, but they’ve done studies where rats were deprived of REM sleep and it killed them in just a few weeks. Once you cycle out of REM, you go into a deeper level of slow-wave sleep. That’s when the body does the repair work that needs to happen to keep you healthy. When you’re getting a good night’s sleep, you go through six or seven cycles of both REM and deep sleep.

Now, what happens when alcohol is introduced to the equation? Alcohol is a chemical depressant, so it reduces neural activity in the brain. Normally, your brain releases a variety of chemicals and hormones at different times to help bring you back to homeostasis. As you already know, homeostasis is the delicate balance where all the systems in your body are working correctly. When you drink, you’re introducing a foreign chemical. And in order to reach homeostasis, your brain has to release powerful counter-chemicals and stress hormones.

So the cycle looks like this:

You have a drink, and you stimulate your pleasure center while the blood alcohol is rising. But as time goes on and the alcohol levels start to go down, your brain knows there’s a depressant in your system. So it releases stimulants (adrenaline and cortisol) to bring you back up into homeostasis. Unfortunately, the depressant alcohol wears off before the stimulants do, and you’re left with an overstimulated brain for hours after the drinks have worn off. It’s as if you drank alcohol and a triple espresso at the same time. The alcohol wears off, but the espresso is still affecting you hours later.

The alcohol is disrupting your sleep schedule. After you drink, you go into a deep sleep for the first five hours or so. That might seem great, but you don’t get into REM sleep. And you need both. So while your body is trying to process all the chemicals in your body, your cycles are completely thrown out of whack. You wind up with only one or two cycles of REM sleep instead of the six or seven you actually need.

After those first five hours, you wake up and can’t get back to sleep. Many people wake up at three or four in the morning and fret about everything they can think of. The worry and regret creep in, and the negative thoughts take over the brain. All this is happening because you’re overstimulated and your body chemistry is completely out of balance. Here’s the thing—any amount of alcohol will disrupt your sleep. It doesn’t matter if you have one drink or you go on a margarita binge-fest. You’re not going to sleep well. If you do this night after night, the lack of quality sleep cycles will begin to take its toll.

And there’s another big problem. When you start getting ready for bed without alcohol in your system, your body releases its own chemicals to quiet you down and prepare you for sleep. But when you drink regularly, you train your brain to utilize the artificial depressants in the alcohol to do that job. So that means you’re relying on alcohol to put you to sleep. But you still aren’t rested, because your natural sleep rhythms are out of whack.

So what does this mean for you during this experiment? It means that for the first two to five nights of not drinking, your body may still be expecting those artificial depressants. Your brain might be confused during those early days, and you could have trouble falling asleep. The worst thing you can do at that point is to have a drink to help you sleep. It might seem like the right thing to do, but it will actually set your progress back. The good news is most people find they’re sleeping better than ever after the fifth night. You’ve given your brain time to readjust itself and get the chemical release balanced again. And once this happens, for the first time in years, or maybe decades, you will start getting the rest that your body so desperately needs. This is great news!

While you’re waiting for your brain to readjust, you can try a few tricks to help you get to sleep. First, avoid caffeinated drinks after about noon. Caffeine can affect the body for up to 10 hours. So you want it all out of your system by the time you’re ready to hit the sack. The other trick is to get a bit of exercise. When you get your body moving, you’ll actually find you sleep much better than if you’re at rest all day long. You don’t have to do anything extreme. You can simply take a walk in the fresh air and get your blood moving.

If you’ve been drinking for a long time, you may not even notice the daily fatigue you’re experiencing because of disrupted sleep patterns. You might think it’s because you’re “getting older.” Maybe you’re always tired and you tell yourself, “That’s just how I am.” We are so overworked and undernourished that fatigue has become completely normal. Let me give you some good news: Once you stop drinking and get your sleep regulated, that fatigue and brain fog often disappear completely. You’ll feel better than you have in ages! That’s your reward. But you have to get through those first few days and give your body a chance to fix itself.

TURNAROUND

The opposite of “I need alcohol to sleep” is “I don’t need alcohol to sleep.” Come up with as many ways as you can that the opposite is as true as or truer than the original belief.

DAY 4

Dealing with Discomfort

If the only thing that people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.

—SYDNEY BANKS

When you decide to give up alcohol, you might experience some discomfort. I am not talking about severe physical addiction here. If you’ve been drinking heavily for a long time, your body and mind may have become physically dependent to the point where you have severe withdrawal symptoms, such as delirium tremens or hallucinations. If that’s the case, you need to get medical help. You may even need to be hospitalized for a while. When I say “discomfort,” I’m talking about the physical symptoms that occur while your body is healing itself. I’m also talking about the psychological and emotional discomfort that comes up because you’re giving up something you believe you need.

It takes time, up to a week or longer, for your body to rebalance after you stop drinking. While that’s happening, you’re probably going to feel uncomfortable. Because alcohol is physically addictive, there are withdrawal symptoms, which are different for different people. When I stopped drinking, I had headaches, anxiety, irritability, and weird nightmares that I accidentally had a drink. The first 10 days were the most intense, but the symptoms went on for about 30 days. Clearly, that’s longer than the time it took for the chemical substance to clear out of my body. So, what gives? Why did it take so long? Shouldn’t we feel better as soon as the alcohol is gone? Our bodies are more complicated than that, and there’s an emotional side to withdrawal as well.

When researchers studied heroin addicts, they found that the severity of withdrawal could depend on the individual’s access to the substance they were addicted to. For instance, if the person went to jail and suddenly had zero access to their drug of choice, the withdrawal symptoms weren’t as severe as one might expect. But when that person was released years later, and they suddenly had access again, the withdrawal symptoms came back. How weird is that? How is it possible to go through withdrawal years after ingesting a substance? This demonstrates how physical and emotional withdrawals are intertwined. Each affects the other, and our subconscious can easily keep things buried for a long time and then allow them to resurface later.

CHANGING YOUR MIND-SET

What helped me get through this initial period of physical withdrawal was flipping my mind-set. Instead of seeing the headaches and anxiety as punishment for an addiction that I should have been able to control, I chose to see them as signs that my amazing body was healing itself. I was willing to be sick and put up with the discomfort to make my body whole again. I knew I had been treating it poorly. So I decided to treat it with kindness and give it whatever time it needed to heal.

If you’re not feeling your best right now, cut yourself some slack. Imagine if your child was feeling sick. Would you yell at her for being a “bad person” or tell her she was “getting what she deserved”? Of course not! You’d let her rest on the couch, eat chicken soup, and maybe watch some cartoons. You’d tell her to let her body do its job. Give yourself the same courtesy.

The Emotional Aspects

As you probably know, there’s more to withdrawal than physical discomfort. There’s an emotional side as well. And both sides are all tangled up with each other. It’s almost like as soon as you get a handle on one, the other falls to pieces and you’re so tempted to give up this experiment and crack open a beer. I get it! On the emotional side, you might feel sad, angry, or resentful. After all, you’re giving up something you believe you enjoy. Your subconscious believes you need alcohol to loosen up, relax, have fun with your friends, or handle stress. When you take that coping mechanism away without dealing with these subconscious beliefs, there will be consequences in the form of emotional distress and cravings.

That is why I’m calling these 30 days an “experiment.” You’re simply testing the waters to see how you might feel if you weren’t drinking. Your subconscious mind isn’t necessarily going to like that, but it’s better than laying down the law and saying, “No more alcohol ever!” That kind of ultimatum can result in a full-on emotional mutiny.

Throughout the course of this experiment, you’re going to explore those subconscious beliefs of yours. One day at a time, you’re going to read a little bit about different ideas that might make you question what you once thought was true. By the time you reach the end of this book, in fact, you might decide that you never need or even want another drink. And your subconscious will totally go along with it. That’s called spontaneous sobriety, and it happens all the time. It happened to me. When your conscious and subconscious minds are in harmony and desire the same thing, there’s no cognitive dissonance. And when that happens, there’s no struggle. You have no cravings and no desire to go back.

Getting Curious

But that’s later. For right now, simply realize that your feelings and physical symptoms are real. Take the time to feel them. Honor them. Appreciate what your body is trying to tell you. And do not give in to the temptation to use alcohol to numb them. These symptoms are temporary. They will go away in time.

So what can you do in the meantime? How do you handle the emotional discomfort and strong desire to give in?

My solution was to get curious about my own behavior. Anytime I had a strong urge to drink, I sat with it and went deep into what was going on. I became an internal reporter. I asked myself questions all the time to find out what I was feeling exactly and what was actually causing me to feel that way. Sometimes I felt like I was missing out because I was with a group of friends who were all drinking. Other times I’d had a hard day at work and felt like I needed a drink to calm my nerves. Other times I felt like I’d been good for so long that I “deserved” to have a drink as a reward.

TODAY, instead of trying to ignore or overcome your discomfort by having a drink, ask yourself, “Why do I want to drink right now? What is it that I think alcohol will do to make this moment better?” And then ask yourself, “Is that true?” If you’re completely objective and honest, you might surprise yourself with your answers.

Do this little exercise first. Write down your answers, or record yourself in a video diary or voice memo. By doing this, you’re observing the symptoms as something separate from you. You’re giving yourself perspective—and a little bit of time for the feelings to subside. And remember that your body is amazing. It’s taking care of you right now by getting rid of all the toxins it’s had to deal with for a long time. Yes, you might not feel your best for a bit. But when the process is complete, your body will feel better than ever.

And consider the online social challenge at alcoholexperiment.com; you can find thousands of others who are also doing this experiment. Sharing your insights with others in a safe, judgment-free environment is incredibly powerful.

Day 4 Reflections from alcoholexperiment.com

“Good days but bad nights. Woke up at 3 a.m. not feeling the best but definitely not hungover. And a bit of a headache this morning. I spent the day thinking about all the holidays and times with my kids I don’t remember. Yesterday it dawned on me how much time alcohol has stolen from me. Yes, I let it. But the reading today very much reinforced that. I am generally happy. Still thankful!”

—ROBYN

“I have been having such strange dreams, I feel such a physical difference. I didn’t realize alcohol takes so long to get out of your system, so even though I binge-drink once or twice a week, I was feeling so crappy because I was never alcohol-free. I had constant headaches, fatigue, bloating, nausea. I am learning so much!”

—GEORGE

“Didn’t expect the physical symptoms to be so real. Glad I understand why I am having them. Still better than being hungover. Need to be gentle on myself and others through this. Can’t wait to sleep again!”

—HECTOR

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