78: Welcome to Booze Break (and a healthier relationship with alcohol)!

Maz Compton: 0:00

There was a disconnect between what I was feeling and the life that I had.

Lyndi Cohen: 0:05

This is just about that better relationship with alcohol.

Maz Compton: 0:08

Felt like I looked through a new lens.

Lyndi Cohen: 0:11

We are your guides, helping you get this transformation, because you really deserve that.

Maz Compton: 0:16

We've got a go-to guide on how to do it and we're going to deliver it all to you guys through this audio series, An experiment for yourself.

Lyndi Cohen: 0:24

I'm happier than ever, so much better without you.

Maz Compton: 0:29

Hello and welcome to your Booze Break. My name is Maz Compton, I'm a radio host and a podcaster, and I haven't had a drink since 2015. That's a long time, maz. It's a really long time, lindy, I'm Lindy.

Lyndi Cohen: 0:45

Cohen, I'm a dietitian and nutritionist, and it hasn't been that long for me without Booze. It's just been a few months, really, six months post having a baby and I am loving it and I, you know, I want that little high for you guys as well.

Maz Compton: 0:58

And that's what we're here to do. We're here to help you have a healthier relationship with alcohol, for whatever that looks like, for wherever you're at. So whether you have a couple of glasses a week or a couple of bottles a night, we're not here to judge you. We're just here to help you get to a place in your life where alcohol isn't controlling you.

Lyndi Cohen: 1:17

And we don't need you to say I'm never drinking again, whether it's forever or for just right now. This has just had that better relationship with alcohol, so you feel more in control and it doesn't feel like alcohol is controlling you. I really love wine.

Maz Compton: 1:35

But is it red or white? That's your wine of choice. I mean any man. So when did you decide that alcohol wasn't working for you? Because I feel like that's a place that a lot of people who are going to want to take a booze break have gotten to where they're like. You know what? I love having a couple of champagnes with the girls on the weekend, or I don't mind having a beer at a barbecue, but at some point you might get to a place where you go. Hmm, alcohol's not really doing it for me. So what was that for you?

Lyndi Cohen: 2:05

I was a social drinker. I was drinking maybe five to ten drinks a week, which I think is probably what most people I speak to end up doing. You go out for dinner at my mum's house and she goes to want a glass of wine I wouldn't even think about it. I go out for lunch, I go, great, I can have a drink. It was a non-thought for me and I think that's what it was. I was just drinking because I started drinking when I was 16, pretty young, and then I just kept drinking and I never stopped to think about how it was impacting me.

Lyndi Cohen: 2:35

Meanwhile I was diagnosed with anxiety at the age of 21, and this anxiety was quite overwhelming. I have tried all the things to fix my anxiety. I've done medication, I've done exercise, talk therapy, psychology highly recommend, and I never, ever put it together that alcohol was actually throwing gasoline onto my anxiety and creating these huge flare-ups for me. And so when I fell pregnant, I had this crazy thing, because it was the first time in my life that I did not have anxiety. Then I fell pregnant again and now it's six months after giving birth, so about 14 months in total since I've had alcohol, and I still feel freaking. Amazing. My anxiety does not exist. And so here I am, continuing my boost break on this little experiment to see how I feel, and becoming curious about alcohol.

Maz Compton: 3:23

And I love the word experiment that you use, and I think that's a really great headspace for anybody who wants to take a boost break to sit in, which is this is not about never, ever, ever's. This is not about regretting every decision we've ever made in the past when we've been half cut. This is about living your life for a little bit of time without booze in it, to see what that looks like for you, and if you like what that looks like for you, then you're allowed to continue down that path, and I had a similar experience using the word experiment at the end of 2014. So let's just flash back all the way back there.

Lyndi Cohen: 4:04

I mean low-rise jeans were in fashion flares and all that stuff it was just the wild wild West in the fashion industry.

Maz Compton: 4:12

But in 2014,. On paper, my life looked epic. I had a big deal national radio show, tons of money, I was getting flown around the world interviewing rock stars, but every single day I went home from work and I drank a bottle of wine. There was a disconnect between what I was feeling and the life that I had. So as I entered into my booze break, which is still going nearly nine years later, I wanted to find out what I felt like and what my daily existence could be like without having a mad hangover most days of the week. What did you find?

Maz Compton: 4:56

In the first 30 days that I stopped drinking alcohol, I woke up one morning. It was like I took the pill in the matrix. I woke up and I felt like I looked through a new lens in my eyes and I felt like my head was clear. Then I looked in the mirror and I was like is my skin getting better? Then, over the next few months, those vanity benefits became really obvious and who doesn't love a vanity benefit? I had people telling me like I'm you lost weight? What are you doing?

Maz Compton: 5:26

But I didn't stop drinking for a period of time in my life for any of those things. They're just the compounded benefits. The main thing for me was I felt like I got a new brain. With a new brain, I could make better decisions, and making better decisions has really worked well for me. Even though in 2014, my life on paper really did look quite amazing. Internally, there wasn't anything that I could handle in my world without alcohol. Now I'm happy to report that my life looks really different, but still quite amazing externally on paper, and internally I can handle any curveball you throw at me because I'm not drinking alcohol when you drink alcohol, it affects your prefrontal cortex.

Lyndi Cohen: 6:06

This is very important for your impulse control. I ruined relationships. I have really created massive fractures in relationships from drinking alcohol and I didn't really think it was a problem. Impulse control helps you say no, we shouldn't be doing this or we should stick to what we really wanted to do. Now, I always thought this whole impact to our impulse control was limited to while we were drinking, but it's not. Your impulse control centres have been changed over time from drinking alcohol, especially if you've been drinking alcohol for a long period of time. Now, the good news is that you can reverse these effects. So by going through a period of two to six months, we can rewire your brain so that your impulse control centres can start working the way they should. But this means, as you can actually set goals, broaden the action you need and see the results Surprising changes that happen to your brain when you stop drinking alcohol, which is kind of like the prize. This is what we're here for.

Maz Compton: 7:09

Okay, definitely the overwhelming thing that I noticed within a short space of time of having a booze break is my energy levels Going to bed earlier because I got a little bit tired earlier, to be honest, and I wasn't sitting on my couch having a few glasses of red wine trying to, you know, scroll my way through the night and having a sleep that wasn't broken by getting up and eating to wee in the middle of the night and then maybe having a barroco because I knew there was a hangover coming. So having unbroken sleep earlier nights and getting up earlier overall resets your circadian rhythm, which means that you're going to have more energy because you're not working against the forces of nature.

Lyndi Cohen: 7:48

And then it kind of feels like when your brain is active because you've got that good energy. Now you're more creative, you're more efficient. I feel like I don't get as easily overstimulated by situations and I get a lot more done than I've ever gotten before.

Maz Compton: 8:01

It's pretty incredible. It's pretty amazing. So definitely the energy thing is huge and that mental clarity. So we're all functioning and operating on 60% capacity if we're having a couple of glasses of wine here or there, or perhaps even more alcohol. When you take the alcohol out of the equation your capacity resets to the 100%. But it should be that we could be operating it and it's not a deficit. So that's where you're going to get that energy and that mental clarity combined together and you're going to feel so good you can expect to maybe lose a little bit of weight. Because if you're drinking a couple of glasses of wine every single week, week on week, that's liquid calories, they're empty calories. They're not doing anything for you. You usually eat junk food and you usually eat more to try and soak up the alcohol. So just in general, your eating patterns may change and that might have a nice little vanity benefit for you at the end of it.

Lyndi Cohen: 8:58

Beyond this physical transformation and your bright, clear skin which I feel, and sober hair sober hair is a thing, it's a real thing. My hair is lush. I have thick, all this new hair coming through. I'm like, oh, someone had told me this, I'd be in there is also a emotional transformation. So if you want people to go oh, who are you now, you know for people to see you and go, what have you done? Because I want what you're having, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to become the better next version of myself. This is such a pathway to do it and just to do an experiment for yourself.

Maz Compton: 9:33

What alcohol does is it changes the way your brain works. We're going to get into this in the program with a neuroscientist who is a legit brain scientist, who studies the brain and knows exactly what alcohol does to our thought life, which informs our feelings, which informs our behavior. One of the main things that you can expect that I absolutely see as a benefit is you will be better connected to yourself because you're not trying to numb out of pain, confrontation or conflict. Taking time away from alcohol does not stop life's curveballs coming at you at all, but it gives you the ability to handle them well handle them in the moment and handle them from a place of centeredness and groundedness.

Lyndi Cohen: 10:20

This huge idea that I realized recently is that you cannot avoid discomfort in life. Discomfort is a given. You simply get to choose which discomfort you want. So we can choose the discomfort of staying where you are right now, maybe feeling a bit stuck, feeling sick of being in this pattern, sick of waking up having had drama, regrets, shame and guilt and all those things that often cling to experiences with alcohol. Or you can choose the discomfort of changing, of feeling your emotions when you would like to have a glass of alcohol, but you choose not to, because there is discomfort and change as well. So the question to you is which discomfort are you going to choose? It's not harder doing this pathway because it's really hard to actually just stay in the state that you're currently in, and so if you want that better connection with yourself, we're going to have to choose your discomfort. So here you are at a bit of a Matrix moment. Will you take the blue pill or the red pill?

Maz Compton: 11:19

The number one overwhelming fear that I had on the 1st of January 2015 was I am going to die of boredom.

Lyndi Cohen: 11:30

Did you in fact die of boredom as?

Maz Compton: 11:33

I have not died of boredom. In fact, I haven't died at all. I felt like I've been reborn and so, whatever fear you have whether it sounds a little irrational and over the top, like maybe mine was it did feel real at the time and I understand those feelings. But can I assure you and Lindy, I know you'll back me on this it's only a perceived fear in your brain and when you get a couple of weeks into your booze break, you'll look back and go oh my gosh, that fear hasn't actually come true. So, whatever that fear is for you, it's okay to have it, but still do your booze break and don't let it cripple you into not taking action and moving forward.

Maz Compton: 12:14

Yeah, I think we think we're going to miss out on some things and our friends are going to ditch us and we'll be the boring, odd one out Some of the things that are going to come up for different people may include the timing of a booze break, like it's my friend's birthday, christmas is around the corner, or I just got a promotion at work, or I'm finally divorced. There's so many reasons that we use alcohol in our life to celebrate or to commiserate, and if it's become a daily habit for you, that's going to be a really big reason that you are not going to want to have a booze break. There's always going to be an excuse to keep going down the path that you're going on. So what I want to remind you of, I want to remind you of the reason why you landed here, and it's because alcohol isn't working for you, and we're going to try and teach you to have a healthier relationship with alcohol, and the best way to do that is to cut it out of your life for an extended period of time.

Lyndi Cohen: 13:13

Have a think about it as well the last Christmas, that you had, the last Easter, that you had the last birthday, the last, whatever. You know, there's always something around the corner. Did you come out of that period feeling you're a best self, or did you feel a little bit of regret? I feel overstimulated, I feel overtired, I feel exhausted. I feel like I need a holiday after Christmas, because if you felt that way, then it might be a clue that actually something does need to change, and we're not asking you to commit to this forever. But what if you just had this Christmas, this Easter, this birthday? I'm going to have one without drinking alcohol. It's an experiment, it's actually exciting and it's not a burden. I want you to try to think about it as like how can we reframe this to be an opportunity and not something that you have to do?

Maz Compton: 13:57

I completely agree. I have a PhD in people pleasing and I think that makes a booze break quite difficult because you can get worried about what someone's going to think or say or how I'll hang out with my mum if we're not having Savayon Blanc together. But you will find a way to connect with people without alcohol and they are the genuine, real connections and relationships that both Lindy and I have experienced.

Lyndi Cohen: 14:22

We're very keen to help support you on your booze break, because we did it alone and we wish we didn't. In the nine years since you haven't had a drink, you've learned a heck of a lot, maz. I want to take all that wisdom and what we're doing is we're going to condense it down into just a few hours so that we're going to save you all the mistakes that you don't need, to make this experiment feel as good as it can, so that we are your guides, helping you get this transformation, helping you come out on the other end going I have changed and I did it, and feeling really proud of yourself, because you really deserve that.

Maz Compton: 14:59

We will give you practical steps. We're here to hold your hand. We're here to be your biggest cheerleaders, because we both feel that life without booze in it is better. Find yourself in a healthier relationship with alcohol, and we want to make sure that that's what you achieve at the end of this audio series.

Lyndi Cohen: 15:16

So from working out what to say when people ask why you're not drinking, to worrying about whether or not it's going to be a problem for your partner if you're not drinking alcohol. And how do you navigate that? What should you be drinking if you're not drinking alcohol? What do you do when you go to a party, to a dinner party, going out for a restaurant? What the heck do we even do? And how the hell am I going to socialize and be fun and have fun if I don't have alcohol?

Lyndi Cohen: 15:40

We're going to answer all these things and so much more, and I think what we really wanted to do and create this as an audio guide for you is you're bloody busy, I know it. You've got a hectic to-do list. We didn't want to make one more thing on your to-do list. We have to lighten your load, so there are no boring worksheets in this program. We're helping to make it easier for you to get the knowledge that you need by popping into your lovely ears and you can listen to booze break as you walk, as you get shit done, and so in that way, it's kind of like a podcast, except a whole lot better.

Maz Compton: 16:14

You've got a go-to guide on how to do it, and we're going to deliver it all to you guys through this audio series. Think of this, as you know, like we're your buddies. We're your booze break buddies and we're on this journey with you and we want to partner with you wherever you are, whatever you're doing. However, you want to consume this and help you along the way. We are here and ready.

Lyndi Cohen: 16:34

So by the end of listening to this guide, what I want from you is even if you do end up drinking again, there's going to be a huge difference, because you're going to go from a default drinker like I was not even blinking when I'm offered a glass of wine to probably being an opted out drinker who can, if you want, you can still have a drink, and we're going to teach you how to do that mindfully, so that your relationship with alcohol irrespective is going to be in a far better place than where it is right now, because you might be listening to this hungover AF and so we're going to see how we can turn this ship around. So if you haven't yet gotten booze break, we'd love to have you inside and start listening. So the best thing to do to get the audio guide is to go to my booze break dot com and you simply get it. Once you get it, just like this freebie, you're going to get sent a unique link. You click a button and it's going to get added to your favorite podcast player.

Lyndi Cohen: 17:26

Super easy for you to tune in. Pop us into your ear holes and listen as you walk or get shit done. Just click into the show notes that you'll see inside what you're currently listening to. Just with one click you can find my booze break and if you're more of an Instagram human like me, you can also pop onto your Instagram and send me a DM at nude others called nutritionist, or leave a comment on anything, and what you're going to write is booze break and I'm going to send you some stuff to get you started on your booze break.

Maz Compton: 17:57

This audio guide isn't a replacement for medical advice, and we both highly recommend making an appointment with your GP.