The Alcohol Experiment: A 30-Day, Alcohol-Free Challenge to Interrupt Your Habits and Help You Take Control

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But the beautiful thing about learning something new that you cannot argue with is that once your brain knows that, it can't unknow it. I was learning about the negative biological and neurological effects of drinking alcohol and once that happened, I felt something new. I didn't feel pulled toward the substance anymore. Yeah. Because in our culture, if we question our drinking, the main question is: Am I an alcoholic? Or: Do I have a problem? And those are, for me, very fear-based questions that can inhibit growth. So where do I go from here? I'll decide that. Still taking inventory of the pros/cons and my observations about the changes. If there's one telling indication of the impact this book has had on me, please note this: the author suggests that if you're set on going to moderate drinking after 30 days of being alcohol-free (very important component for this), try getting drunk for science. This involves being completely alone and recording yourself at intervals while consuming enough alcohol to get drunk. My first thought? "Oh, god, no. No. I don't even want to think about it. Moving on." Sober Curious: The Blissful Sleep, Greater Focus, Limitless Presence, and Deep Concentration Awaiting Us All on the Other Side of Alcohol by Ruby Warrington Annie Grace is the author of This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness & Change Your Life and The Alcohol Experiment: A 30-day, Alcohol-Free Challenge to Interrupt Your Habits and Help You Take Control. She grew up outside Aspen, Colorado, in a one-room log cabin without running water or electricity. Having discovered a passion for marketing, Annie Grace earned a Masters of Science (Marketing) and dove into corporate life. As the youngest vice president in a multinational company at the age of 26, her drinking career began in earnest. At 35, in a global C-level marketing role, she was responsible for marketing in 28 countries; she was drinking almost two bottles of wine a night. Knowing she needed a change but unwilling to submit to a life of deprivation and stigma, Annie Grace embarked on a journey to painlessly gain control of alcohol — for her that process resulted in no longer wanting to drink. Never happier, she left her executive role to write and share This Naked Mind with the world. In her free time, she loves to ski, travel (26 countries and counting), and enjoy her beautiful family. Annie Grace lives with her husband and three children in the Colorado mountains.

Challenge your thinking, find clarity, and form new habits with a 30-day alcohol-free experiment from the author of This Naked Mind . Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol by Holly WhitakerYeah, that is incredible. You’re reaching so many people. I love it. Well, thank you so much for your time. I truly appreciate it. This is my 100th episode. My, can’t imagine a better, better guest to have on. I really like that idea of questioning alcohol intake in the same way we’d question our sugar intake.

Yeah. The whole idea is like, giving people permission to opt out while they’re in the gray zone, instead of like, thinking they have to stay on the ride until they get into the red zone.

Don't think about what you're giving up. Think of what you're gaining. (I'm not giving up alcohol, I'm gaining a more fit body.)

The time it takes to read The Alcohol Experiment book depends on the individual reader’s reading speed and pace, but it typically takes around 3-4 hours to complete. Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a bus, how to sit with your emotions, when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life. So actually, the Holy Grail around here isn’t sober days, or counting days, or being in recovery or being abstinent, it’s really finding peace with your relationship with alcohol, kind of whatever that means to you. So, you know, for some people, their goal will be that they want alcohol to be small and irrelevant. For some people, it will be that they just don’t want it to have so much control over them, you know, and whatever that means. That is how we approach it. And so it is, it is tough, because people are on such an individual path. Absolutely. And that is a fantastic podcast, and you have like 400 episodes or more. Is that right?

Let’s Do This!

The book itself is typical self-help fare, but does have a lot of interesting information about the science of alcohol and habit formation. Weirdly, having a chapter to read every day created a sort of reward system for myself. I would fast from alcohol for the day, and as a reward I got to read another chapter of the book and journal my thoughts. I created a new habit that has kept going beyond 30 days.

Yeah. So, the Alcohol Experiment is in the app store, just search alcohol experiment, or this naked mind. And also, alcohol experiment calm, and it’s always free. So instead of the book, you’re just watching videos, you can do it along with a book if you want to, but it’s daily videos with all the same information within a community of people. So, it’s really cool. And then I should also since this is a podcast audience mentioned, I have This Naked Mind Podcast, which is always there and available for people as well. Daily Video Content. This is where the magic happens! We’ll deliver these first thing each morning into your Membership Area and the Facebook Group so you can start your day empowered and prepare your questions for the LIVE Q&A coaching sessions in the Facebook group. These LIVE Q&A coaching sessions will then be made available in your Membership Area for those of you who do not use Facebook. What it’s not is a magic bullet, which I can’t seem to stop pursuing. And sometimes Annie’s cheerleadery tone got on my nerves. It’s not for everyone, but it is for someone, probably many someones. I think for people to just have a more mindful approach. And maybe we take baby steps. Obviously it would be amazing if we looked at alcohol the way we look at cigarettes, where we’re aware of the negative health implications before we’re told it’s fun — sort of like how the first thought we have now about cigarettes, now, is that they’re not healthy. That would be amazing, but I think that’s a little too long term, realistically. And now, let’s dive into this very special episode. And I could not think of a more perfect guest for this milestone than Annie Grace. I am truly honored to have her on the show and to share her work. And this first book, This Naked Mind was published just four months before I quit drinking six years ago. So, it was one of the first books I read on this path and helped me so much. Both the book This Naked Mind and Annie’s second book, The Alcohol Experiment, are ones that so many women cite as the intro to shifting their perspective on drinking and one of the tools that really helped them on the path to deciding that alcohol isn’t a substance that’s making their lives better or that they want or need in their lives. When I did a podcast episode on the Best Quit Lit for women, I asked all these women I know to record what books helped them and to tell me why. And This Naked Mind was at the top of the list for many women. One woman said that Annie’s book was a relief, because it opened her eyes to all of this subconscious messaging, telling her that drinking was going to bring her connection and happiness and excitement and love. And another told me that Annie made a huge impact on her life that Annie’s book was the first she’d ever read. And the way any gently and kindly explained about the addictive trap of alcohol, brought tears to her eyes. She said, I always hated myself for being so weak until Annie’s book educated me and started me down the path of where I am now.

Oh, yeah, of course. And I know that so many women who listen to this podcast are huge fans of your work. So, I did your intro before now. So, we’ll just jump on it. Know the title of your first book, This Naked Mind mentions the phrase, control alcohol. And I think that’s something that everyone who drinks more than they want to, you know, that’s like the Holy Grail. That’s what everyone wants, or they think I just want to drink like a normal person. When I was questioning my drinking, I felt like I didn’t fit in, in part because of that one friend who’d become sober herself but deemed me not an alcoholic. And I wasn’t really ready to admit my own problem either. I felt very alone in it, although as soon as I wrote the book [ This Naked Mind], people started coming out of the woodwork. Thousands upon thousands of people who were saying, “This is what I struggled with, too.”