Maureen Benkovich (00:01.216)
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, but the truth is we don't need a designated month to think about our mental health. We need to talk about the thing that is still missing from too many mental health conversations, alcohol. We have come a long way in openly now talking about depression and anxiety and medication and therapy, but there's this unspoken thing.
that we don't talk about and we don't mention. And when I say we, I mean everybody from patients to doctors to pharmaceutical companies. And it's just now becoming a wider part of the conversation. But we're really gonna take a look at that today because the truth is, if you care about your mental health, you have to look at your alcohol intake. And this is not just theory for me. I'm just not spouting a bunch of facts. This is what I lived.
This is my life and I was ignoring how alcohol was detrimentally affecting my mental health. I struggled with depression since high school. And I've talked about that in other episodes and then there were certain things that happened in my life that increased my level of sadness and depression. And again, I've referenced my infertility struggle, never being able to have children.
identity struggle, all of those things contributed to my depression. Not to mention a very traumatic head injury as a kid. And so all these things, I have had depression all my life. And I wanted relief so badly. I wanted instant relief. A lot of times I didn't want to do the work and I wanted the medications to just work. And I also wanted alcohol to work. But the truth is,
You know, and alcohol wasn't the whole story. There were a lot of things that contributed to my depression, but it was a very big part of my story. You know, I was trying to feel better mentally while still drinking something that was making me feel worse. I didn't really fully understand it until I started connecting the dots. So I want to help you connect the dots a lot sooner so you don't have to go through the struggles that I went through, which is why I became a coach. But...
Maureen Benkovich (02:22.194)
Many of us are doing all the quote unquote right things to support our mental health. We read an article and we think, I'll try that, I'll do that. And yet we're not looking at how alcohol may actually interfere with the benefits of these therapies, of these modalities, of these medications that you have decided to try or use to help with your mental health, to alleviate your depression, your anxiety, your sleeplessness.
So let's take an example of a lot of things people are trying. People, for instance, including myself, I did this for years, are paying good money for therapy. And in many cases, they're not being fully honest about how much they're actually drinking because there's this whole shame thing. We kind of want to hide it even from our therapists. We might feel embarrassed, ashamed or afraid of being judged. So the therapist may not get the full picture. And also,
and I don't want to get a lot of emails on this, but a lot of therapists are still very much in the 12-step labeling alcoholic mentality and not really understanding about changing your brain chemistry, changing your mindset around alcohol. So a lot of times people don't want to talk to their therapist because they think they'll just get labeled an alcoholic. So there's, you know, you're missing out on really understanding with your therapist what's going on.
people are taking medications that some of them have direct warnings about not drinking. So for instance, Wellbutrin is an antidepressant, it's been around for years. It has a very strong warning about no alcohol. Many, many people disregard that. Even if your doctor says something, you just may think, it's no big deal. And you take it anyway. This happens all the time. I was taking trazodone,
which is a old school antidepressant but also used off label for sleep because I wasn't sleeping well. Well, I wasn't sleeping well because I was drinking alcohol. But instead of looking at my alcohol consumption, I added in taking something else for my sleep, ignoring and remember I was a pharmaceutical sales rep, ignoring the contraindications. I knew it wasn't a good idea. People might even be journaling, right?
Maureen Benkovich (04:51.138)
That's one of the things that's so good for your brain, so good for your mental health. You know what my journals were full of? All about my drinking. How I wanted to change my drinking. All the shame around my drinking. The things I did when I was drinking. The things I said. That was what filled my journals. And many, many people that I talk to, that I coach, are doing the same thing. So here you are trying to journal and yet you're kind of stuck.
in this one area. So you see how I'm pointing out all the good things we're trying to do and yet alcohol can interfere or take over in the case of journaling so much mental space. It really takes up so much room. People are exercising. Now, a lot of times when we're drinking, we think, at least I'll get up the next morning and I'll show up and I'll work out and I'll quote unquote sweat it out. That is not how it works.
What you will do is get further dehydrated, your muscles will be dehydrated, you're affecting muscle protein synthesis, which we talk about in other episodes, which is the breaking down and the building up of muscle. You're trying to get stronger and leaner. Alcohol interferes with that process. So you're putting in this hard work to make gains or losses and alcohol is interfering with all your hard work. People, many people are praying.
about their drinking. I was praying all the time, which is a beautiful thing and it's powerful, but you know, I was praying, I was praying, God, please take this struggle away from me, like just magically. Or I was saying, please let me learn how to drink less. So basically let me drink without the consequences. And I am not the only one. I coach in a Christian coaching group. I have talked to many people, very common to be kind of stuck in this.
thought life in your prayer life. So again, alcohol even interfering in your prayer life. Many people are taking supplements, but alcohol interferes with absorption of nutrients of your supplements. It disrupts your gut health. It interferes with your sleep. It keeps your nervous system activated. So you might be trying to supplement your way out of drinking or the ramifications of your drinking, but really,
Maureen Benkovich (07:14.338)
You're just taking and spending a lot of money on supplements. Many people are trying to improve their sleep. There's so much information now about sleep hygiene and how important it is. And yet, drinking to sleep, not understanding that when you fall asleep after drinking, it is sedation. It is not rest. It interrupts your REM cycle, your sleep architecture. So what feels like sleep is not true.
restful, restorative sleep. As a matter of fact, a lot of times you wake up in the middle of the night when the alcohol is being processed and you're left with cortisol and adrenaline coursing through your veins and anxiety and dread and a racing heart. That interferes with your sleep and you're exhausted. And people are trying to manage stress with alcohol. I did. I would come home from a job that I was in driving back from Tyson's Corner. Sometimes it'd be like two hours of traffic to get home.
I'd be completely stressed out. The first thing I wanted to do was go to this restaurant and I'd say to my husband, meet me there. I could not wait to have a drink before getting any food in my body and just I just wanted to feel that down regulation, that central nervous system depressant. Of course I wasn't calling it that then but I was saying I need a drink. And what I taught myself in my body is that I can't deal with stress without alcohol. I was decreasing
my resilience to stress every time I turn to a drink to decompress. So again, we want to manage our stress and we're using alcohol to do it. Many people are trying to eat better. You know what would happen to me after I'd be drinking and I have Celiac, I would eat pizza at this bar we would go to that would have pizza. I'd be like, oh, forget it. And I, know, your inhibitions go down.
your prefrontal cortex, your decision-making part of your brain goes offline and you eat stuff that you normally wouldn't eat. So again, interfering with your fitness, your health goals, your weight loss goals, alcohol bloats you. So all these things that we want to accomplish, alcohol gets in the way. And when we are unable to be productive or...
Maureen Benkovich (09:36.726)
live to our potential, that also adds to depression and anxiety and feeling bad about ourselves. But when you're hungover and you waste a whole day, you or you halfway show up for whatever it is you're doing, you know you're not showing up fully and you know why and that doesn't feel good. And so the issue is, it's not that these tools don't work. Therapy, medication, journaling, exercise, prayer, supplements, nutrition, sleep,
and stress management, they can all work, but alcohol is undercutting every one of those. And we just don't think of that. We think it lives in isolation, but yet it affects us systemically. So it's not about blaming alcohol for everything. It's about seeing the full picture. You you might be doing all the right things. I looked on paper like I was doing all the right things, but alcohol was interfering with
the results and especially when it comes to mental health. It can quietly and eventually not so quietly undercut the healing tools that you are trying so hard to incorporate and to use. So this discussion about mental health and alcohol, I want to talk about medication specifically. And hear me on this, this is not an anti-medication conversation. I have taken antidepressants
most of my adult life, they work, but not when you're drinking alcohol. It will interfere with how well these medications work and it will increase anxiety. And this is exactly what you're trying to counteract. So it's a pro-honesty conversation, not an anti-medication conversation. So do people know that alcohol interferes with their medications?
Some do on some level. mean, on some level, we all know it's not good for us. You know, but why do we keep drinking? What do you think that's about?
Maureen Benkovich (11:42.124)
I mean, that's a big question and I'd love to hear an email what you guys think that's about. Why do we keep drinking when we all know that alcohol is harmful to us? I did it for years for so many reasons. I was afraid to let go of it. I was afraid, who would I be without it? All the usual things. How would I have fun? Right? How would I relax? How would I de-stress? All of those things. But when my mental health was taking a huge hit,
That's what made me really take a look and start to put the dots together. The alcohol was really making things worse. So antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, things like trazadone, sleep medications can be supportive and sometimes life-saving. But alcohol has to be a part of the conversation, especially because many of these medications do come with warnings about alcohol, increased side effects and direct.
contraindications. And doctors are starting to talk about it more. But you need to be honest with your doctor and honest with yourself. You know, because like I said, on some level, we know mixing these medications and alcohol is not ideal. But we do it because we're not experiencing a lot of times immediately the consequences. But they're happening and they're building. And the older you get, the more you start to feel those things.
the less you metabolize alcohol. So the warnings alone though are not enough, right? Because drinking is not really a logical decision when you think about it. It's an emotional, it's a chemical, it's conditioned and it's reinforced. So it's not a logical decision when you really break it down what ethanol, the neurotoxin, is truly doing to your body and your brain.
It is emotional, chemical, conditioned and socially reinforced. I have to say that again. Because we are inundated with messages, I talk about that on every podcast, advertising, movies, books, friends, family, the way we grew up, and we've tied it so long, we've tied it to relief, stress, sleep, reward, social comfort, numbing, and even...
Maureen Benkovich (14:06.026)
identity and actually in many cases, identity. It feels scary because we have made this thing our friend, our comforter, our stress reliever. These are all the jobs we have unknowingly given alcohol. So medication is there to support your brain if you have chemical deficiencies, but alcohol is pulling your brain in the opposite direction because as soon as you drink ethanol,
your body goes into a whole cascade of releasing counter chemicals to try to fight this neurotoxin and to get rid of it. Your liver goes into overdrive. So most people don't realize this and that's why we keep drinking because we kind of think, you know, it's not going to happen to us. And we drink because our brain has become wired to get relief from alcohol. So I definitely don't want to turn this all into a whole
You know, chemistry, although I love talking about this stuff, lesson, I am not a biochemist. This stuff is easily researched. It's not talked about widely as far as what we see in advertisements and commercials. All we see is happy, healthy, fun, successful people drinking. And we buy into that. But the truth is it affects our brain chemistry. Our brain chemistry has to change in the presence of a drug.
If we are regularly, and remember Andrew Huberman and his, you know, groundbreaking podcast on alcohol talked about the way people are regularly drinking, whether it's one to two glasses a night during the week or seven to 14 glasses on the weekend, the results are the same, right? So we're talking about what the world considers moderate drinking. And it feels calming in the moment, but it can disrupt the very chemistry that people struggling with.
mental health, depression, anxiety, low mood, irritability, brain fog are struggling with. So it can contribute to actually rebound anxiety, right? So you drink for stress and you feel the central nervous system depressant and about the first 20 minutes you feel that, that's what you were looking for. There's no doubt that happens. That's why we do it. But then as you start to come down from that initial high of the first drink,
Maureen Benkovich (16:33.996)
you are motivated by chemicals to get another drink. You can never achieve the original high from the first drink that you do with successive drinks and you're actually going downhill after each drink. I talk about that detail in my six-week alcohol reset course. But this is why I often reference Dr. Amon's work. If you know him, he's written so many books on the brain, he's done more medical imaging of the brain.
of before and after of drinking and people who drink long term. And he shows actual brain shrinkage. Let that sink in. Alcohol shrinks your brain. Now when you're young, you don't think about that. But more and more of us are becoming aware of mental health, dementia. We have someone in our family, some loved one, mothers, grandfathers, friends who have suffered dementia.
You know, it's one of the things you can do to help yourself. Stop putting alcohol in your body. It shrinks our brains. And, you know, research using brain imaging has found negative associations between alcohol intake and brain structure. Even at levels many people would consider moderate or normalized. And as intake increases over time and the amount, the...
danger increases. So when we talk about alcohol and mental health, we're talking about the organ, the brain, the most amazing organ, responsible for mood, anxiety, focus, decision-making, and emotional regulation. So when people are struggling with depression or anxiety, alcohol may be making it harder to get a read on your mental health, on your medical professional getting a clear read on your mental health. It really interferes. So...
It is not neutral for the brain. Even at levels people consider normal. And the brain is the organ that we are asking to regulate mood, anxiety, sleep, and decision-making. And just know this, that temporary relief is not the same thing as healing. That word temporary means you have to do it again. And that's what happens when you get caught in this cycle. So let's talk about another piece.
Maureen Benkovich (18:56.276)
of how alcohol affects your mental health. And it's called anxiety or the shame spiral. It is real. I have had more shame spirals and anxiety rabbit holes than you can imagine. And I used to give it to myself or I might say to, you know, whatever friend I was out with drinking the next day, my gosh, like, I can't believe I drank that much. I can't believe I said that thing. And they would say, Boreen, come on, you're being really hard on yourself. You you just like to party and...
think, okay, well, I guess so. And it would take a couple days and then I would experience something called fading effect bias or FAB, F-A-B, all of a sudden, not all of sudden, like I said, it's fading, fading effect bias. Over days, I start to go, ah, you know what, Maureen, you were being too hard on yourself. You weren't that bad. Your friends said you weren't that bad. And then you end up doing it again. That's fading effect bias. Again, talk about that.
More detail in my course and my coaching. So the cycle is, you wake up with dread, you replay conversations, you wonder what you said, you feel guilt or regret, disappointed in yourself, you did it again, I was only gonna have one. Maybe you write in your journals about your shame and your drinking over and over again. I have years of writing about it, promising yourself you won't do it again, because you think it's a matter of willpower. And you want relief from that shame,
and then you get alcohol offered back up as the solution. So you feel awful, then ashamed for feeling awful, then desperate for relief from the shame, and that is part of the trap. Again, negatively impacting our mental health, the very thing I so wanted for so many years to be better.
You know, and it's painful for people to question and take a look at, is it the alcohol? It took me years to really take a look at that, the elephant in the room. I mean, I said it was everything from gluten to dairy to I didn't exercise enough or, you know, I just didn't want it bad enough. No, it's a drug and it's addictive. And when it gets tied to all these deep
Maureen Benkovich (21:13.302)
associations that we've made for decades, it's very hard to think about seriously decreasing or stopping drinking. And why? Because it's normalized everywhere, not only normalized, but like romanticized big time. People fear what it would mean if alcohol is part of their health issues. Because then we have to take a look at that, right?
everybody, including myself, worries you'll be labeled. And remember this, I say this a lot, alcohol is the only drug that when you decide to stop or do less, that people say, why was it that bad? Did you have a problem? Again, if you told people you stopped snorting cocaine, that would not be the response. It would be like, wow, I'm so glad you stopped that. That was really bad for you. Why were you doing that? It's a drug.
But we don't say that about alcohol because we have been conditioned by the big alcohol industry who lobbied very heavily to get that statement, drugs and alcohol, many years ago, so that we would separate the two. But look it up if you don't believe me. Look it up. Ask your buddy, chat. Ask Google, is alcohol a drug? And you'll find out it is. We also fear losing our reward, our social comfort, stress relief or identity.
Man, my identity was wrapped up in my drinking. I was the party girl. You know, if Maureen Bankovich was shown up to a party or at a bar, it was game on. And I took pride in that. I really did. Because I really struggled with any other identity. It was all wrapped in with like, who am I if I'm not a mom and I don't have a serious career? Well, I knew one thing I could do well. That was party. But I paid the consequences silently. Nobody saw that.
So I get it and it's other identities too, right? It's, that's just my particular story. And then we tell ourselves, but everybody drinks. Well, it's really interesting when you take a break from alcohol or you stop, like I have, you look around, you're like, huh, not everybody does drink at lunch. Or, hey, those people are having iced tea with dinner. Everybody doesn't drink and everybody doesn't drink the way I did. So...
Maureen Benkovich (23:41.334)
And I hear this time and time again with my clients to like, I didn't realize I thought everybody was drinking the way I did. But when you take a break and your awareness is raised, which is part of taking a break, you start to have a different perspective. So sometimes it feels easier to keep managing your symptoms than questioning the thing that you've been using to cope because we're just so afraid. What if letting that go is part of the solution, right? But this is where
I come in. This is where coaching is different. I coach both men and women, smart, capable, high achieving go-getters, entrepreneurs, executives, moms, grandmoms, people who care about their health, who are working out, who care what they eat. Again, on paper, they look great.
but they are struggling with their drinking, right? I'm not trying to coach the world around alcohol. I'm talking to you people who are listening or who hear this and have been questioning your drinking, but not sure what to do about it. Alcohol is disrupting your sleep, your mood, your anxiety. You're noticing you're irritable with your kids. So many of my clients are like, I was snapping at my kids and I didn't realize it was the alcohol until I took...
this break with you, Maureen, and my kids are telling me like, Mom, you're so much nicer. I hear this again and again. My work helps you to understand it's not your fault, it's chemistry. And I'm not saying remove all the responsibility for you drinking. I'm saying I want you to understand it's not about willpower and it's not about motivation. It's brain chemistry that's been conditioned for decades.
for most of the people I work with. So once you start to understand that, and we can unwind a lot of these patterns, a lot of these associations, we remove the shame and you can look at it with a curiosity lens. Like, that's really interesting. Okay, that makes sense why I crave alcohol when I come home every night from work, because I've been doing it for years and I start thinking about it on the drive home. And what's really happening is my brain is dripping dopamine to motivate me to pour that alcohol before I even walk in the door.
Maureen Benkovich (26:03.404)
So understanding things like that help you to learn how to pause, ask yourself what you really need and try something different. So when people understand the chemistry, the shame can start to lift because you realize you're not weak. Your brain and body have adapted to alcohol in so many situations as a coping mechanism, as a boredom mechanism, as a friend, as a comforter.
as a vacationer. It's like when you start to think about all the roles, all the jobs you have given alcohol over the years without judgment, it's really important to do that without judgment. Just make a list. Just think about it. Do this as some homework. I want you to think about all the things that you think you cannot or will not do without alcohol that you wouldn't enjoy without alcohol. And I also want you to think about what are things you used to enjoy
before you really started drinking with everything. Think about it. Because when you drink with everything over time and your brain chemistry adapts and it's not making as much of its own neurotransmitters because it's trying to compensate for the chemical effects of alcohol, everything in your life becomes a little grayer, a little duller, unless there's alcohol involved. And there's a reason for that.
So the great thing is understanding all of this information is not to bring you down. That is not the goal of my podcast here, but to understand that change is possible. Not only possible, but on the other side of it, you will be amazed at how much better you feel mentally. We're talking about mentally today, but also physically, emotionally, spiritually, but we're talking about mental health today.
So it is possible with a clear method. My method, the 4R method is amazing. I have watched it time and time again. And it's such a great feeling to coach people and help them have these aha moments and this empowering realization that they can change this habit that they felt stuck in for years. And they want it to change, they just didn't know how.
Maureen Benkovich (28:21.238)
So it's the first part of my 4R method is recognize. And a lot of people stay in the recognize stage for years and that can be uncomfortable because they don't move to the next phase. So recognize is you have to recognize your connection between alcohol and your mental health and recognize all the areas in which you've outsourced your feelings, your emotions, the situation to alcohol, right? And start
start making that list because you cannot change what you are still minimizing. So if you keep minimizing your drinking and looking at all those other tools we talked about in the beginning, you know, maybe therapy, maybe medication, maybe more exercise, maybe a better diet. If you keep looking there but you're not looking at alcohol, you keep minimizing the impact of alcohol, nothing's going to change as far as your mental health. It's not gonna get better. I can say that. Keep drinking.
your mental health will not improve. But the next part is to replace. And a lot of people think, okay, replace with mocktails or functional drinks or alcohol-free alternatives. Yes, that's one part of replace. But replacing is with movement, lifestyle, nutrition, techniques like breathwork, meditation, tapping, journaling.
changing your circadian rhythms, they've gotten so off using alcohol. So learning about early morning sun, Sunlight, sleep hygiene, all of these things, these are all replacements to start taking those jobs back that you've given alcohol and matching them up with the appropriate lifestyle changes that are actually supportive, long-term, not temporary, and that will strengthen your resilience to stress. You will adapt.
You will learn, you will get stronger, you will feel empowered. Your future self will thank you. Your brain will stop shrinking due to alcohol, right? So learning how to replace because alcohol was never designed to be your therapist, your sleep aid, your stress reliever, or your source of peace. That is so artificial, that 20 minutes of decompression that you have. It is an addictive drug designed to create more
Maureen Benkovich (30:47.618)
desire for itself. That is how an addictive drug works. So you've recognized you're learning how to replace and now we want to rewire and this part's big. You have to, same time while we're replacing, learn about rewiring the brain, your beliefs, your coping patterns, your thoughts, the way you think, your thinking about drinking. We need to rewire so that you can support
your nervous system without defaulting to a drug. And the hope is just because your brain learned to reach for alcohol doesn't mean it can't learn a new way. That's called neuroplasticity. And you are actually able to direct your neuroplasticity. The default is alcohol. need a drink. You being empowered is saying, you know what? I hear that thought. I know what that is now. It's brain chemistry. I'm not gonna listen to it. Instead, I'm gonna ask my body
What I really need is it protein? Is it hydration? Is it connection? Is it step outside? Is it breath work? A big breath, right? So becoming more mindful and aware. All of this is part of the rewire section of my program, of my method. And then renew. And this is so important. And we do this all the time with other things. What is yoga? A practice. What is exercise? Consistency. What is...
learning how to cook healthy foods for yourself, right? Preparing, planning. Same thing here, renewing is about renewing your identity and your relationship with yourself, not with alcohol. You're not renewing your relationship with alcohol. You're renewing your relationship with yourself because you are not broken. You are renewing and strengthening healthier ways to cope, to regulate your nervous system and to support your mental health.
So this is not bad news, right? This is good news when you start to understand how alcohol impacts your brain chemistry. And if you're a person who's been struggling with depression and anxiety and irritability and sleeplessness, take a look. Honestly, without judgment, without shame, without beating yourself up, but with curiosity like, I wonder if I took a really solid break from alcohol, what that would feel like, what that would be like, what I would learn about myself.
Maureen Benkovich (33:14.552)
how I would start to feel because you're going to notice. And in my six-week course, for example, or in my private coaching, you learn so much. And did you know that in the learning process about alcohol, you're changing your brain chemistry? So what you put into your brain helps to change your brain chemistry. So if alcohol is worsening your anxiety or depression, that is not a reason for shame. It's a reason for hope because you can change that.
is if alcohol is what's keeping you stuck, changing your drinking can become part of what helps you heal. You are not powerless, you are not broken, and change is possible. Look at me. Believe me, you could ask a lot of my friends out of anybody that they thought might change or become an alcohol freedom coach. It wasn't me. But I did change because I wanted to live a better life. I wanted to be healthier and happier and I want to go into my 70s.
in my 80s, as healthy as I can without shrinking my brain. So if alcohol has been part of what's keeping you stuck, changing alcohol can become part of what helps you heal. Just remember that. So I'm gonna say it again, if you're struggling with depression, anxiety, anxiety, poor sleep, emotional instability, and that awful shame spiral, even when I think about it, I get that pit in my stomach after drinking, please,
Hear me clearly, this does not mean you're weak, right? And it doesn't mean medication therapy or support cannot help. But alcohol may need to be, I'm gonna say it has to be, part of your mental health conversation. Not from shame, but from a point of getting information. Information helps you learn. Information helps you change. It's not your fault, it's chemistry, but you are not powerless to change the pattern.
If this episode hit home for you or you're thinking of someone else, please email me at maureen at soberfitchick.com. I read and respond to all my emails personally. So let me know what you think about this episode. And if you would like to dig in further to your own drinking, take my quiz. I made it up. I developed it because it's something I wish I had had around when I was taking quizzes online at two in the morning. So this one's called, Am I Drinking Too Much?
Maureen Benkovich (35:40.31)
Right? And take that quiz, it'll give you some answers. You'll get a guide to what is gray area drinking. You can see kind of if that fits your patterns and if that makes sense to you, right? Then maybe it'll give you some answers. And also there's three science-backed strategies, how to stop cravings in the moment. So you can start to learn how to change your brain chemistry and make a different choice. This is exactly what I do. I help men and women change their relationship with alcohol without shame.
labels or judgment by understanding your brain, your body and the beliefs that keep you stuck. So let's make your mental health so much better, not just in May, but in every month.
