You are listening to the Drink Less Lifestyle podcast with Dr. Sherry Price, episode number 113.

Welcome to Drink Less Lifestyle, a podcast for successful women who want to change their relationship with alcohol. If you want to drink less, feel healthier and start loving life again you’re in the right place. Please remember that the information in this podcast does not constitute medical advice. Now, here’s your host, Dr. Sherry Price.

Well, hello my beautiful friends. How is everyone today? Well, I’m going to dive right into today’s topic because I am fired up about it. I’m pretty excited to share what I have for you in this episode so let’s just dive in. And so today I want to talk about doing the work. Now, I love that you come here for inspiration and motivation, and I hear that from a lot of people. But I want to make sure that you are doing the work because when you do the work that’s when you get the results.

So doing the work means that you are thinking about things that you do from a holistic standpoint. And when you’re doing the work and doing this thinking about all the things that you do holistically and maybe you just want to focus in on the one area that you want change like with your drinking. It means you’re getting to the root cause of what’s causing you to drink. So if you want to lose weight, you want to get to the root cause of why you’re not doing that. If you are drinking and overdrinking you want to get to the root cause of why you are doing that.

So it means when you’re doing the work that you are solving the real problem, not just the symptoms. So a lot of people will come to me and come in my program and say, “I drink because I have stress. I drink because I’m anxious. I drink because I’m lonely, or I’m sad, or I’m disappointed.” But I want to share with you that that is a symptom of the real problem. And what I help my clients do, is really to understand why do you have these symptoms.

Why do you have the anxiety? Where is it coming from? Why do you have the loneliness? Where is it coming from? Why do you have the disappointment? Where is it coming from? Because what somebody calls loneliness actually might not feel lonely to some other person. We are all wired differently. We are all built differently. Some people don’t like a lot of free time by themselves, or sitting in a room by themselves, or doing things by themselves.

For me, I love that time. Now, I don’t want too much of it, an excess of anything doesn’t feel good. An excess of food doesn’t feel good. An excess of alcohol doesn’t feel good. An excess of time by myself over a while won’t feel good. We are creatures that are wired to be together at times. And some of us may need more of that time than others. So when we’re looking at the disappointment in our lives, or we’re looking at the frustration, or the anxiety, or whatever is causing us to drink, we really want to do the work to get to the real cause.

Imagine you go to your doctor and you tell them, “I don’t feel well.” And then they ask you all these questions because what they’re trying to do is trying to formulate what is really going on for you, what is the real problem causing all these symptoms. And I’ll tell you what, most people don’t want to do this work, or maybe most people maybe just don’t know how to do this work. And what they think is, if I just solve all these emotions and if I just keep whacking them down with another drink like the whack-a-mole game, then I’ll solve my problem.

But your problem isn’t your emotions, your problem is what’s causing that. And so if we’re always chasing our emotions as the problem and we’re always drinking for that, notice that we’re just going to create another problem on top of the emotional problem. And so now we have these emotions and then we have this additional habit that’s causing negative consequences in our lives, or addiction or whatever term you want to use for an overdrinking problem, issue, habit, addiction going on in your life.

So you have to do the work and not blame the emotions or blame the circumstances because that will keep you in the same cycle. That will keep you being a victim of your drinking even more and that will keep you stuck and you won’t be accomplishing any progress. So you will basically get nowhere in the process and I don’t want that to happen to you. Because think about it, where does all that alcohol get you. Does it get you the life that you want? Does it get you to that place where you feel good about yourself?

Does it get you to that place that you want to be? I know the answer to that question is no. Same thing you can say about loading ourselves up with crappy food and overindulgence of food. Yes, it may taste good in the moment but it doesn’t create the body that we want to be moving around with afterwards. It doesn’t give us the flexibility and the life that we want to have. It doesn’t give us the health that we want. So if all this overeating or overdrinking doesn’t get you where you want to be then we should do the work. We must do the work in order to change things.

And when we do the work we get the change, not only in the short term but we get it permanently. Because what we know is that if we continue on the same path, we are just building in that habit even more into our brain. We are wiring ourselves to create more desire for alcohol or more desire for that food. And that does not propel you to the life that you strive for, that you dream of, that you truly want and a life that’s going to make you proud of who you are.

If nothing more you want to do this work to be proud of you, proud of you, not to show off to others and not to be boastful, but to say, “Look what I’ve been able to do for my life, and for my health, and for me.” And if you don’t do the work of actually working on the real problem you will never solve it. And guess what happens when that happens? The symptoms come back and then when the symptoms come back they demand that you answer them in the same way that you’ve always answered them. That is a habit, my friends.

And I’ll tell you what, you are no fool. You are smart and so you know what will quiet those symptoms and you know how to get rid of those symptoms in the moment, you drink or you overeat. But guess what? It just masks the symptoms, it just numbs the symptoms and it doesn’t solve the real problem, so the symptoms keep coming back when the numbing agent wears off. So if you keep experiencing sadness, or loneliness, or disappointment and you drink for that and you’re telling yourself I know I should not do this but I’m doing it anyway.

You’re just going to continue down that habit cycle and so what you want to do is take a different action and a different direction. But the habit oftentimes will say, “Here I am, just do this, it’s easier, it’s what you know works.” But that my friends keeps us stuck. So I want to point out something here. I mentioned it and I don’t want anybody to miss what I said. It doesn’t matter how smart you are. It doesn’t matter how much you have accomplished in your life. It doesn’t matter how much you haven’t accomplished in your life.

It doesn’t matter how talented or non-talented you are. It doesn’t matter your wealth status, your income bracket, how much you weigh, your current marital status, if or not you have kids, if you went to college or not, how good you look, how generous you are, how nice you are. It has nothing to do with that but I know a lot of us make our drinking and our habits about ourselves. It’s not about that. You don’t have to keep drinking to penalize yourself for a past or something that hurts you or haunts you. None of that matters.

What matters only first and foremost is if you’re willing to do the work. Now, am I telling you to forget all of that? No, that may need healing, that may need to be addressed, or it may not. It may just be a smokescreen that you think is getting in your way of doing the work. And when you do the work you’re willing to get to what is the root cause of the problem that’s really causing me to drink. And when we are willing to look at that, to understand it, to not fear it, it’s only that place and in that place can we conquer it, change it or fix it.

And it’s only in that place can we get a different outcome, an outcome of healing, an outcome of restoration, restoring ourselves to who we want to be or who we were in the past. Because if we keep drinking we know that we will keep masking the problem, the real problem. We all know that drinking is the solution. I say that all the time. Drinking is the drug that takes away the symptoms but doesn’t cure the problem. I really want to say that again so you hear it. Drinking is the drug that takes away the symptoms but is not curing the problem.

I want you to imagine that you had a big old thorn in your big toe and it got stuck there. It really, really aches and throbs. It hurts. It is so painful that you cannot step with that foot because your big toe throbs. And because you have something sticking out of your big toe, this huge thorn, you can’t even put on socks or shoes. You can’t even walk on that foot. You are down a foot because of this big thorn. So of course you’re experiencing pain and of course it’s limiting you from what you can achieve and do in your life.

Maybe you need crutches. Maybe you need to lift that foot if you need to go out to the grocery store, it’s going to hamper your driving. It’s going to get in the way of you living a life where it’s just easier if you had the foot and no thorn in it. And so you have this pain coming from this foot and what do you do? You want to numb it. Absolutely, there is pain coming from it so you want to numb it with a painkiller. You take a painkiller and guess what? The pain goes away, for six to eight hours you don’t feel the pain. You still have the thorn but you don’t feel the pain.

Now, are you happy that you have the thorn? No. Are you able to do all the things in life that you want to do with ease? No. You still have the problem. You still have the problem of a thorn object protruding out of your big toe. So of course you want a painkiller, naturally. But what would work better and be wildly and miraculously healing and way more effective is that if you actually saw a doctor to get the thorn removed from your big toe.

So we wouldn’t be just chasing the pain, we would be chasing the real problem. And guess what? When that doctor extracted that out of your foot, your pain would go away. You would be healed. You would get your foot back. You would be able to put on socks and shoes. And you’d be able to go to work and drive and do all the things and you would get your life back. Now, as somebody who’s broken multiple toes in my life, I really love it when I have feet and toes that work normally and they’re not in a boot which throws off your walking stance.

And then I get knee problems and then it travels up to a hip problem because if I’m not wearing the same elevation on my feet, all of this leads to cascading pains. And so we don’t want broken toes. We don’t want thorns in our feet if we can help it and prevent it, or if we can do this work and conquer it, treat it. So this is the same thing that happens with our drinking. If we don’t do the work we keep just managing the symptoms of our life and thinking we’re just going to numb, or escape, or overdrink.

And this is the way that we’re going to solve the problem, but in fact it doesn’t and it causes a separate problem, a drinking problem. And we say we have a drinking problem which is a subsequent problem of the real problem. So if we just addressed the real problem and did the work the drinking would take care of itself. And so would we get resolution from the problem. We wouldn’t be creating a problem, an issue, a habit, an addiction if we just got to the root of the problem.

It’s really the only way my friends. If there was another way I would tell you. If there was another way that I’ve researched or read about, yes, I would give it to you but there isn’t. You must do the work for and not focus on the symptoms. Now, our symptoms tell us when something is wrong. So we investigate the symptoms but we really want to look at a true solution not just a numbing agent that we’re going to become reliant and dependent on. So we don’t want to just control the symptoms, we want to get to the root of the problem because that’s what sets you free.

Doing this work is when you’re able to look at your life and have the courage to see and diagnose the real problem. It is the path to your freedom. It is stop delaying and living this subpar life so you can get a better life, a higher quality life, one that you love even more. Because we know that being an excessive drinker, consuming alcohol in excess in any type of routine fashion will only show up as having negative consequences in our life that we don’t like.

Whether we’re not happy with ourselves, whether we’re in agony with ourselves and fighting with ourselves, whether we’re unhappy with our past, unhappy with people around us, unhappy with our circumstances, whatever if is. If we keep drinking it’s going to prevent us from feeling like our amazing self and being our amazing self. Which means it holds you back. It holds you back on the quality of your life, the quality of your sleep, the quality of how you see yourself, the quality of the relationship you have with yourself. And the quality of the relationship you have with others.

And my friends, this can all stop with you, you being willing to do the work. Now, some people will have questions, how long does the work take? I don’t know. Our minds are naturally going to want to spin out and have all the questions answered. But what I can assure you is that we can’t know ahead of time. For some people, doing the work is very quick, it’s very easy. For others, doing the work takes a lot longer.

But we all must start from the same starting point, which is being willing to do the work and getting started. Now, I can help you do the work because I know it can be scary or even just confusing to do on your own. I know some people don’t even know quite how to do the work. They know they have to peel back the layers but maybe they’re unsure on how to do that.

Now, I give you a lot of tools in this podcast on how to do that but sometimes you just need somebody who’s been there and to get you started, and who can be there for you when you have questions as you’re doing the work. I think of somebody being in a forest. If there’s no path, they don’t know how to get out. They just keep walking. But do I walk in this direction? Do I walk in that direction? But the nice thing, if you’re in a forest and you see a path, you’re like, “People have been here before and they followed that path, let me follow that path because I believe that will be the path out.”

And that’s what I shine for you, is your path. I share what my path was like for you to learn from but you’re going to have your path. And this is so much better than feeling like there’s no path and you’re just totally stuck. And this is why I help individuals in my program, I individually help them. There is a general path you follow but you will need individual help along the way. That’s not a bad thing. That is a thing because we are all unique. And so when you get stuck I will know how to unstuck you and exactly what you need to do next.

And here is really the thing, our brains will say, “This sounds really complicated.” Our brains have a tendency to make things complicated but I will tell you, it’s not that complicated. Our brains will tell us it’s hard, but when I guide women on this path they tell me. “Wow, it’s not as hard as I thought it would be.” And regardless if it’s hard or not hard, I just really want you to think about that. Regardless if it’s hard or not hard, if you get to where you want to go, will it be worth it? 100%.

And I guarantee you, doing this work is the most lifechanging thing you can do for yourself and for others. And I say it’s lifechanging, why? Because it improves your health and there is no one that will argue that your health is the most important thing. People, when they get sick, they can’t enjoy things, they can’t enjoy their money, they can’t enjoy their retirement. And if you get really sick you don’t have a job, you can’t work, things become at risk when you lose your health.

You can’t enjoy even other people as much as you would like to. So by doing this work you are taking care of your health and yourself. And when we don’t we know we’re not happy with ourselves, are we? And when we are not happy with ourselves, it’s really hard to be happy with others. We may be envious, we may get jealous, we may get cynical, we may get snide comments, we might get snarky. And we become bitter, crusty, musty and ornery. Nobody wants to live like that. And that’s what you get when you live in this pain numb cycle, pain numb.

It could be with alcohol, it could be with opioids, it could be with heroin, it could be with crack, it could be with pot. This pain relief, pain relief, pain relief cycle. Living in this cycle you won’t be satisfied with your life as if you didn’t have this cycle. It will prevent you from thriving and growing. And for some people it eventually takes them down. And to me that’s a much harder place to live in. That’s a much harder life to live. And that’s why I want to urge you to do this work my friends.

That’s why I wanted a whole podcast about doing this work, doing this work means you’re growing. Doing this work means you’re changing. Doing this work means you are not declining. Doing this work means you’re not reducing yourself and making yourself smaller. No, my friends, doing this work is doing the work of healing, doing the work of growing, doing the work of learning, doing the work of having the life that you want. And it’s having the discipline to do it.

And when I say discipline I don’t mean it’s punishment, it is not punishment. It is an honor to do this work. It’s an honor to do this work because what you get on the other side is tremendous. So don’t confuse discipline with punishment as many people do, they are not the same. You’re doing this work because you deserve it. You deserve a better life, a higher quality life. You deserve more for yourself. You deserve to get unstuck and out of this rut.

And that’s what doing this work leads to, freedom, change, lack of desire, a happier state of mind, a better attitude, and getting the real issue worked on and solved if possible. And here’s what I want to leave you with. When you do this work you will be thankful for it for eternity. I am so thankful now in 2022 that I did this work back in 2017. Had I stuck my head in the sand for yet another year, or two, or three, I would have not have been where I am in my life right now. I would not continue reaping the benefits of that decision I made years ago.

My current self is so thankful that my past self, did the work. Now, am I perfect? No. Am I still doing the work? Yes. Why? because I see its power and I see how it’s changed my life. And I love to keep growing. I love to keep learning. I want to keep changing. I do not want to stagnate. And I want to keep feeling satisfied in my life. And this is what I want for you because you can have it, you can get it if you do the work.

Alright my beautiful friends, if you like this podcast please go to iTunes and leave me a review. This is the way that my work and me doing this work spreads the message for others so that we can all begin to heal ourselves, and have better health, and live epically together. Thank you my friends, I will see you next week.

If you want to change your relationship with alcohol and with yourself, then come check out EpicYOU, it’s where you get individualized help mastering the tools so you can become a woman who can take it or leave it and be in control around alcohol in any situation. EpicYOU is the place for women who want to be healthy, confident and empowered to accomplish their goals and live their best life. Come join us over at epicyou.com/epicyou. That’s epicyou.com/epicyou. I can’t wait to see you there.