Maureen Benkovich (00:00.962)
Welcome back to Sober Fit Life. And I want to talk about a topic that comes up often. You take a break from alcohol because you've heard all the promises. Better sleep, weight loss, glowing skin, instant happiness. But a weekend and none of that has happened for you. You're actually not sleeping well and you don't feel so great. You're a little grumpy and you haven't seen a 10 pound weight loss. So you're frustrated because you've heard of all these promises. I'm frustrated too.
because that is not what always happens. And in this coaching world, a lot of false promises can be out there to draw you in. So I just want to say you're not doing something wrong at all, but maybe just a mindset change. So we'll talk about that because what happens to a lot of people often is they want to take a break, right? They've been feeling they need a break. They know they're drinking more than they want to. They're unhappy with how they're feeling. They're unhappy with
you know, maybe what it looks like externally, puffy, red faced, how they feel, they're skipping their workouts, their relationships are tense, their mental health, they're noticing anxiety. So all the reasons you've concluded, okay, I'm going to take a break from alcohol. Plus you've heard it's going to be amazing, right? And it is amazing. I can tell you that as someone who's over four and a half years now, no longer drinking, it is amazing. But...
It doesn't always happen right away, right? So let's set some realistic expectations. So instead of you start this process, you know, like, well, forget it, I felt better drinking, right? And you go back to it. So as you know, I love to talk about chemistry because it's not your fault, it's chemistry. It's one of my taglines because I really love empowering people with information because once you understand that this is not about a moral failing,
and that you stop personalizing it and saying things like, what's wrong with me? How did I get here? How did this happen? When you understand how it happened, you can take a step back and start to make different choices. So we do need to talk about the chemistry. So put on your geeky hat, because I love to put mine is always on pretty much. But the truth is, and we've talked about this, but alcohol floods your brain with dopamine. So it suppresses your nervous system through GABA.
Maureen Benkovich (02:27.499)
and it makes you feel calmer. So you get an up and a calm at the same time. Remember, dopamine is not just the feel-good molecule that people, that's what you normally hear about, it's a motivator. It locks in that memory like, I was stressed out, I had a drink, I felt calmer, lock that in, let's do that again. So it's that quick fix that you start to default to and your brain starts to automate this process because
That's what brains do, right? They're trying to conserve energy. So for example, if every day you come home from work, about the same time as you start driving home, you start thinking, ooh, it's going to be nice to have a glass of wine when I get home or, you know, some whiskey. Your brain is releasing dopamine before you ever even get home and open that bottle and start pouring because it's motivating you to do that behavior. So just keep that in mind and notice the next time you start having those cravings, say it like three or four.
Right? Because your brain is adapting to this flooding of chemicals. But what it also does, because the brain wants homeostasis, that means balance. The brain actually doesn't like this massive influx of chemicals. So it stops producing its own dopamine and GABA. Because it starts to bank on and rely on alcohol to do that job. We give alcohol unknowingly a lot of jobs. Relax me.
de-stress me, calm me, help me in this social situation, help me celebrate. I'm lonely, I'm bored. So unknowingly over the years, we've been giving alcohol all of these jobs. And as I said, then the brain automates them. And what that means is it becomes mindless or a habit. And it's just so deeply ingrained. This is just what you do. And that's why I have so many clients who say, I don't know how I got here.
I don't know how this happened. I didn't used to drink every night. I didn't used to drink a bottle. I didn't used to have a problem and you know, not have an off switch. That was me. I eventually just didn't have an off switch. And I was a binge drinker on the weekends and I would always say like, what is going on? And once I understood the chemistry, I could become empowered to understand, okay, it's brain chemistry. I didn't know what I didn't know, but now that I do, it can be my responsibility.
Maureen Benkovich (04:52.215)
to make a different choice. And that, my friends, is empowering. And I see it over and over and over again with my clients. But here's the thing, so when you take a break from alcohol, those chemicals that your brain is cut back on producing, and it also makes less of these things called receptors, which is where the chemical sits in, right? Imagine they're like little boats and your dopamine molecule sits in it, right?
brain also makes less of these receptors as well as less of the actual neurotransmitter. So when you take a break, your brain doesn't instantly start making that amount of chemicals again. It's kind of like going, well, let's see, because, you know, she's probably going to start drinking in a couple of days. So let's hold off on production. I like to personalize it like that because it helps you to sort of see that this is not an instantaneous process, right?
So your brain is recalibrating. You are not broken. It's just like if you said to me, Maureen, I'm gonna go run a marathon this weekend, right? Today's Monday and you're gonna run it by Friday. I would probably say, you know what? think you better think about walking like a 5K first because this takes time. Many people that I work with and including myself, I had to...
start to settle in and realize, okay, I have been drinking for decades, decades. So why do I think that in 10 days, I'm going to feel so much better and my skin is going to look amazing and I'm going to be sleeping like a baby? Well, why? Because you're hearing some false promises out there, number one. But also we're very impatient. We are very impatient people. But this is a process.
sort of settling into it and understanding the chemistry breakdown helps you to settle into it. Because you're not broken, you're recalibrating. And here's the hope, I always want to give you the hope. Your brain wants to heal and it can heal and you can be an active part of that process. So it's called neuroplasticity. And here's the thing guys, and I love this, this is from Dr. Lee Warren. His book is The Art of Self-
Maureen Benkovich (07:15.383)
brain surgery, the life-saving art of self-brain surgery. Such a good book. But he makes this statement, he's a neurosurgeon, so he knows the brain. Neuroplasticity is happening all the time, but you get to choose which direction it goes in. Default is, I'm going to drink because I'm tired. I'm going to drink because I'm stressed. I'm going to drink because it's a reward, right? That's the default. Those are the neural pathways, the behaviors that have been deeply ingrained for decades.
If we raise your thought to the awareness level where you're like, huh, I don't know how to relax when I come home from work without having a drink. Well, wait a minute, is that true? You don't know how to relax? Well, what you do know is true is just you've been defaulting to drinking to relax for years. So that's true. And we do know alcohol is a central nervous system, a central nervous system depressant. So it does calm you down. That is scientifically true.
But what we also know to be true is you will never achieve the same high or relaxation feeling you're going for after the first drink because your brain, your body is releasing counterchemicals because it does not like the massive influx of dopamine. So you're not broken, you're recalibrating and here's the hope, you have a choice in your brain healing. But it takes time. The truth is, here's the truth guys, the research shows
Substantial recovery, substantial, happens within three to six months. However, and I do this with a lot of people, a 30-day reset, you can start feeling those things happening in a 30-day reset, but you have to be consistent with taking a break from alcohol. And usually by the 30 days, you were really starting to notice some differences. And my hope always as a coach that you'll say, you know what, I'm starting to feel better.
So let me keep going. Let me do another 30 days. Because like I said, within three to six months, you're really going to feel the benefits. So that's why it's important to be patient, to have self-compassion, to be realistic and to know, yeah, I've been drinking for decades. So what makes me think I'm going to instantaneously feel better if I stop drinking alcohol? Well, we can do some things, okay?
Maureen Benkovich (09:42.114)
What I like to do is help people learn how to support their healing. So not only with raising your thoughts to the level of awareness, but how can you support your healing of your brain, your body, your gut, your sleep, your mental health, right? How can you do that? Well, there are resources and I have a method I call replace because we have to learn when we remove alcohol, we have to replace with resources that will support
your system in all these areas of life I'm talking about. Right? So sleep is not going to improve in one week. Weight doesn't drop overnight. If it is, it's water weight, most likely. Your mood does not instantaneously shift. But these things do happen, but on a timeline, and you can support that with the right nutrition. Right? So for example, everybody knows I should eat, right? But what does that really mean as far as
supporting your nutrition as far as healing your brain that hasn't been making as much of those neurotransmitters. Well, you can make sure you're getting protein at every meal, at least 30 grams. Why? Because the building blocks of neurotransmitters are amino acids and protein contains, especially the right protein, a lot of amino acids. So you can help your brain healing by making sure you're really tracking your nutrition or your macros. And we can, you know, get into that but...
an easy way to remember is at least 30 grams of lean protein per meal. And so for some people that means learning how to eat breakfast, right? Sometimes you're hungover, you don't feel so good and you don't eat breakfast or you eat something really terrible like something greasy and that's really not going to help you at all either. So relearning, paying attention to your body, supporting the healing is going to help with the timeline moving faster.
So I see this constantly with my clients that right now, for instance, I had a six week group and one woman started in advance and she reached out to me through Voxer, that's how we chat. And she said, I don't get it, I am not sleeping well. Well, it's been a week, right? So right now she was used to having alcohol to help her get to sleep, but there's a difference between sleep and sedation. So relying on alcohol to sedate you,
Maureen Benkovich (12:04.801)
which is not the same as falling asleep, developing a good sleep hygiene schedule. Your sleep is fragmented from alcohol. It's called fragmentation. So it's very non-supportive, non-restful, non-replenishing sleep. So you're going through a recalibration, a transition phase. Now what she can do is do things like instead of having a drink at night, have some valerian tea, some lemon balm, right?
She could listen to an app like a calm app that has some really lovely sleep stories and things to start down regulating the central nervous system. She could do some breath work techniques. So there are things that you can do is you have to learn to replace, you have to be willing to try and then be curious and notice, I did that breath exercise that Maureen gave me and you know what, I actually feel better and I actually am more relaxed. I breath work, it's...
the one of those portable tools, you always have it with you, you can do it anywhere. And there's lots of different breath techniques for different things that you're trying to work on, such as better sleep. So it's not just about time passing, right? It's not, okay, I didn't drink for 10 days, why aren't I feeling better? It's also about recalibration. And it's about feeding your gut and your brain and your body and your mind what it needs to start healing.
So it's the whole picture. The great thing is when you're taking this break from alcohol, everything that you do actually has a chance now to work. For instance, when you're eating a meal and you're drinking, and I've talked about this on other podcasts, your liver has to prioritize getting rid of this neurotoxin. So things like digestion, nutrient absorption are not happening.
because the first thing that has to happen is get rid of this toxin. So when you're not drinking, your body can actually digest properly. You can actually have proper nutrient absorption and get the benefits of that. Your gut is not, your lining is not being assaulted by alcohol, by ethanol. So when you start to understand those things, that you're actually working against yourself when you're drinking and you're a person who's trying to improve their health. But it takes time.
Maureen Benkovich (14:28.503)
You know, so I always try to help people by remembering you didn't get here overnight, right? You didn't get to this place where you decided to hire a coach or join a 30-day reset. It didn't happen overnight and neither will the recalibration, but it will happen. I always want to give that hope it will happen. And if you are patient and also really look at this time instead of a deprivation,
And this is important, instead of being in deprivation, like, I'm taking a break from alcohol for 30 days, we'll see what happens, I'll see you on day 31. Right, that is deprivation mode. Instead, it's I'm giving my brain and body the opportunity to heal. And I'm going to be really curious and notice instead of being mindless and frustrated and in deprivation, instead try to be in gratitude.
And if any of you are rolling your eyes right now, there's a real science to gratitude. There really is when you focus on gratitude, like, know what? I'm actually giving myself the opportunity to heal. And I'm really glad I have the opportunity to learn about the truth, about what alcohol does to me. And I'm really glad that I can actually now feel good enough in the morning to meal prep and make some good meals to support my digestive system.
I'm really glad that I can show up at my workouts not just punishing myself because I've drank too much, not just checking the box because then I can tell myself, hey, at least you went to your workout, right? Instead, you're showing up to your workout fully present, ready to work out, allowing muscle protein synthesis, which we've talked about in other podcasts, alcohol reduces the ability for your body to build muscle, muscle protein synthesis.
So when you start to realize how much you're actually working against yourself, you're a person who wants to be healthy, you're a person who wants to sleep well, you might be wearing wearable tech and looking at your HRV. But when you start to realize, and that's what I love to help people have those aha moments, that alcohol is actually working against you, then when you take a break, you see it as an opportunity to, how can I best support my body, my brain, my gut?
Maureen Benkovich (16:50.997)
my mental health, my sleep, while I'm taking this break or hopefully while I'm deciding I'm going to change my relationship with alcohol. I'm going to make it less and less significant in my life and I'm going to focus more and more on how can I be healthier in all these categories. So that is what I'm trying to really highlight in this episode is not get
sucked in by these false expectations that if you stop drinking for 30 days, life's going to be amazing and unicorns and rainbows are going to be coming out your butt because that's not going to happen. But you do have, I don't want to steer you wrong, there are benefits, there are amazing things that happen. Some people, and this is important, everybody is different, right? It all depends on how much you were drinking on a regular basis, you know, what that looked like.
how long you've been drinking, that sort of thing. Some people start to recalibrate right away. And when I have a group sometimes, I have to remind people not to compare because one person might come on the group and say, my gosh, I'm sleeping amazing and my HRV is so much better because they're using the wearable tech. And there's another person who then texts me separately and says, I'm not sleeping better. Well, everybody is different. Everybody's on a different recalibration timeline. So I want to say some people do start feeling
better right away and that's awesome. I took personally, I took a long time to start feeling better. My gut was a mess. I actually had to go through this sort of gut detox program and really think about what I was putting in my body. did an elimination diet. So obviously alcohol was the biggest thing I eliminated. And then I did other things and took some really supportive enzymes and it took a while to heal my gut because I had done some real damage.
The great thing though about removing alcohol is now you can start to see, what areas can I improve? Where can I work on things to improve my health, my longevity, my gut health? And that is what we work on in coaching. Individually, I can really narrow it down for you and suggest resources for you to try. And what we do is we build a specific to the client.
Maureen Benkovich (19:16.913)
because everybody's different, right? So I want to find a toolkit of things that work for you. Some people absolutely love, let's say, Pilates and that's one of their things. Other people are like, I will never do that Maureen. I'm like, okay, let's find what works for you. And walking outside might be what works for that person and that's perfect. I have one client who likes to do YouTube videos and do dancing and that really lights her up and we want to find toolkit of things and I'm talking about movement right now specifically that
that light you up, right? So the tools look different for everybody. I always like to help people find what works for them to help their brain and their body recalibrate. And knowing that, okay, I'm gonna settle into this. I'm gonna realize and give myself compassion because people are really hard on themselves. You're like, what's wrong with me? Why aren't I feeling better instantly? What's the problem? Maybe I need to take some pills to make me sleep, right? So we wanna...
Back that up a little bit. Okay, wait a minute. Let me think about this. I have been drinking for decades. Let me just have some patience here and really focus on how can I best support my central nervous system, my brain health, my mental health, emotional health, it's all wrapped in there, and my gut health and my sleep health.
So guess really what I want to say is your brain can heal. You don't have to figure this out alone. I have a quiz called, I drinking too much? And you can go and take that and go on my website or we can have a link in the notes here. I made this quiz because what I used to Google all the time is, I an alcoholic? Do I have a problem? And instead of getting these results with a label, I wanted to make a quiz where you could get real world answers.
Right? So take the quiz, see if you're drinking too much. And I also give you a guide to gray area drinking. What is gray area drinking and am I a gray area drinker? Because if you're a gray area drinker, doing this process of removing alcohol, replacing with things that support your central nervous system, support your physiology, right? Support your mental, emotional health.
Maureen Benkovich (21:33.357)
give you tools and resources, you will have long lasting habit change. So if you learn how to replace and rewire your brain, then you will have a different relationship with alcohol. So again, I just want to say if you're not feeling great right away, that is normal and natural. Keep going. Don't give up. If you'd like some help on some resources and how you can improve your recalibration, reach out to me. I'm here and I would love to help.
