Breaking Alcohol’s Willpower Trap with Christy Osborne

October 29, 2024 By Leanne Vogel February 4, 2025

Transcript

Christy Osborne [00:00:00]

I need rest. Drink the wine. But what we don’t have is the opposite of that of getting rest and like true relaxation, not drinking. So you have to do all the things that you’re doing in life without alcohol in order to gather the data that you will feel better.

Leanne Vogel [00:00:19]

Hello and welcome. As you may know, October is sober month for many of us. We are looking to remove alcohol out of our life and I wanted to have my friend Christie on to chat about what this looks like. After losing her mother in 2018, Christie masked her grief by socializing and partying across Europe. One morning, she realized that alcohol was deepening her pain rather than helping her heal. Confronting the fear of giving up wine, she questioned how she would relax, celebrate, or even enjoy life without it. Now, with years of sobriety and two life coaching certifications, Christie helps women take a supported break from alcohol through her 30 day course and personalized coaching. Her approach has helped thousands worldwide change their relationship with alcohol by addressing the subconscious beliefs that keep them tied to it, not through willpower, but with proven strategies that work.

Leanne Vogel [00:01:16]

Now.

Leanne Vogel [00:01:16]

Christie is the host of But Jesus Drank Wine podcast. You can find out more by going to but Jesus drank wine.com Christie’s website is love life sober co UK and her Instagram is Love Life Sober with Christy. Now we’re doing a deep dive into the strategies that help you live your best life. I am so excited about this because it’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. My husband and I realized in 2018 that we were just drinking too much. We came back from a Bahamas trip on our sailboat and we basically drank every day, a couple of drinks every day. And my triglycerides were sky high and his insulin was not great. And we just decided in that moment we don’t need alcohol.

Leanne Vogel [00:02:04]

Like let’s just see what life is like without it.

Leanne Vogel [00:02:07]

And we haven’t turned back.

Leanne Vogel [00:02:09]

So that was quite some time ago.

Leanne Vogel [00:02:11]

I’m so excited to share some of these strategies that Christie is just so good at. Like she just breaks it all down and helps us make sense of why we turn to alcohol. So without further ado, let’s cut over to our interview with Christy Osborne. Hey, my name is Leanne and I’m fascinated with helping women navigate how to eat, move and care for their bodies. This has taken me on a journey from vegan keto high protein to everything in between. I’m a small town holistic nutritionist turned three time international bestselling author turned functional medicine practitioner offering telemedicine services around the globe to women looking to better their health and stop second guessing themselves. I’m here to teach you how to wade through the wellness noise to get to the good stuff that’ll help you achieve your goals. Whether you’re seeking relief from chronic ailments, striving for peak performance, or simply eager to live a more vibrant life, this podcast is your go to resource for actionable advice and inspiration.

Leanne Vogel [00:03:11]

Together, we’ll uncover the interconnectedness of nutrition, movement, sleep, stress management and mindset, empowering you to make informed choices that support your unique health journey. Think of it as quality time with your bestie mixed with a little med school so you’re empowered. At your next doctor visit, get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn about your body and how to care for it healthfully. Join me as we embrace vitality, reclaim our innate potential, and discover what it truly means to pursue healthfulness.

Leanne Vogel [00:03:52]

Hey, Christy, how’s it going?

Christy Osborne [00:03:54]

Oh, hi, Leanne. Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here today.

Leanne Vogel [00:03:58]

Yeah, of course, of course. So I just did your official bio, but I would love for you, in a couple of words to tell us, like, what lights you up? Why do you do what you do?

Christy Osborne [00:04:08]

Yeah. Oh my gosh. So I love helping women who are stuck in like, the gray area drinking cycle to find freedom from alcohol. And I really like doing that using a ton of grace, a ton of compassion and neuroscience, because that is what helped me so much is coming from a place of self compassion and curiosity while also understanding. And that’s why I’m so excited to talk to you today, because you dive into all this stuff so well of like, how alcohol is actually affecting our brains and our bodies and if we’re better served to maybe cut it out for a bit or drink less or cut it out altogether, like, and I’m obviously passionate about it because I have this story of being hooked on alcohol and then realizing that there was so much more for me on the other side of drinking every night. And so I’m just. Yeah. So, so blessed to get to talk about this.

Leanne Vogel [00:05:02]

Yes. And this is something, before we press record, something that I experienced personally. I moved on to a sailboat and the sailboat community drinks a lot. And I was noticing that I was drinking every night, like two to six drinks a night, and it just got out of hand. And so for me, it was a very clear thing. But you just mentioned gray area drinking. Can you explain what that means and what that looks like?

Christy Osborne [00:05:28]

Yeah, I mean, I don’t think There’s. There’s enough, like, an official definition to it. A lot of the kind of medical community is moving away from this idea of alcoholic because there isn’t actually a specific, one specific gene. That’s not to say that genes don’t account for addiction and all of that. However, there’s not one specific gene. And so when I was going through my own journey like that, like, being an alcoholic wasn’t something that I personally related to, but, like, I was kind of stuck in this gray area, right, where I wasn’t physically dependent. I wouldn’t have, like, class, like, qualified for a medical detox. I wasn’t drinking first thing in the morning in order to, like, function, but I was drinking, like, sounds like very similar to you, where it was like between two and five, six glasses of wine a night, and everyone around me was drinking the same way.

Christy Osborne [00:06:16]

And so it was really confusing to be like, wait, are we all. Are we all something? Like, do we all need to kind of look at this, or is this normal? That’s why I love kind of this idea of the gray area drinking. Right? It’s not like you’re just having one glass of wine on your birthday once a year or a couple at holidays. It’s like you’re drinking regularly, regularly, but you not. You’re not necessarily, like, going to need a full medical intervention. Detox. It looks like a lot like women, right, in our 30s, 40s, 50s, who are drinking wine at home.

Leanne Vogel [00:06:49]

And so why are we. Why are we doing this? I know for me, it was a social pressure thing of just everyone around me was doing it, so I was doing it. But I know that there are some ladies that just. It’s a way to unwind. What are some of the common things that. Why women are drinking the way that we’re drinking?

Christy Osborne [00:07:07]

Yeah. I love this so much, and this is what I really dive into a lot in the book. It’s like, what is the job that you’re giving to alcohol? That is like the primary question to, like, figure out, like, the unmet need or the job. What are you assigning to that glass of wine? Right. And it’s so funny because I coach women every day, and even though we’re all so, so different, our reasons end up being the same. It’s either for connection or for rest or to ease anxiety or to have fun, to deal with really hard emotions. You know, part of my story is I dealt. I drank to deal with really heavy grief after losing my own mom.

Christy Osborne [00:07:44]

And so we assign a lot of jobs to Alcohol. And it’s really getting like under the hood of that idea, that subconscious belief and figuring out if it’s true or not. Is alcohol really doing the thing that we’re drinking it for?

Leanne Vogel [00:08:00]

And is that in your book you talk about the identification of triggers. Would you say that that kind of falls in line with the trigger aspect or are there other aspects of triggers, part of that?

Christy Osborne [00:08:11]

Yeah. So there’s kind of two different things here, right? There’s like the why behind why we drink and then there’s the things that come up, pop up that can like trigger a craving for a drink. And so by that I mean like one type of trigger, right, is exposure. Like you walk into a party and you’re handed a glass of champagne. That would be an exposure to trigger or a temporal trigger, like the weather. You know, I’ve got clients that are like, I drink on my patio every single day of summer and it’s that combination of the weather and the patio that is like a trigger for them. But then there’s also the why, right? Like why are you going to have a drink on the patio? Is it because you’re ultimately seeking rest, you know, or like to the point of walking into the party with the champagne, with the exposure trigger? Is that because you’re trying to ease anxiety or heighten your ability to connect socially? So yeah, they go definitely hand in hand. But like talking about it, having this conversation is so important because I know, especially for me, when we’re stuck in the drinking cycle, like, we don’t even take the time to ask these questions.

Christy Osborne [00:09:19]

Like we don’t take the time to ask why am I drinking? Or what do I really need? Or is there a reason, or is there a way that like, I can minimize triggers if I feel like I do want to drink less? Because we’re kind of like stuck in this perpetual survival state of like feeling icky, knowing that we should probably stop. But then you have that well oiled neural pathway in our head that’s just like, okay, you’re stressed or you need a, you need a break. And wine is kind of this easy button answer because of the way that it elicits our dopamine response. And so, yeah, the really loaded answer, sorry and all over the place. But I get really, I get really good.

Leanne Vogel [00:09:58]

I love it, I love it. Okay, so I’ve had the opportunity to work with a lot of women over 15 years in the functional wellness space and I haven’t been able to understand if I can point in their blood work and I can show them that their body is being affected by the alcohol, that their symptoms that they have come to me with being affected by the alcohol, and I outline this clearly, and they stop drinking for 30 days and they feel better. And then they come to me and say, leanne, I need a drink. I need to drink. I need you to open up my protocol. I need to have three drinks a week. And I say, like, you’re going to have the symptoms again. And they just don’t care.

Leanne Vogel [00:10:42]

Can you help me understand what’s happening there? Because I have not been able to understand this thing. And it’s not just one woman. It’s many, many, many conversations that I’ve had. It’s the same pattern over and over and over again. That they know that it’s affecting them. They. Those effects are, you know, real, and they choose to have them because they want the alcohol. Can you help me understand this?

Christy Osborne [00:11:08]

Well, I mean, I totally, completely relate to all those women because I was that woman. I worked. I worked with a functional nutritionist after the birth of my son. And I literally said to her, you can literally tell me to do anything. I will do anything to lose this baby weight, but I will not give up my red wine at night. I just won’t do it. So I totally relate. And this is the thing, is that we have all this subconscious data, like, all of these reasons that we think that we like to drink.

Christy Osborne [00:11:35]

And to the point of, like, these clients of yours, we don’t. What we don’t have is enough data to the opposite, right? So let’s say I believe that I really, really need a giant glass of red wine, which I did in order to rest at the end of the day or to, you know, ease that anxiety, all of that stuff. I only have the data in my brain, in my subconscious that that is true because of the 30 minutes that of high basically, that you get after a glass of wine, right? So I drink to relax. I get 30 minutes of relaxation. We have a, you know, then a neural pathway in our brains that says, okay, rest, I need rest. Drink the wine. But what we don’t have is the opposite of that, of getting rest and, like, true relaxation, not drinking. So you have to do all the things that you’re doing in life without alcohol in order to gather the data that you will feel better.

Christy Osborne [00:12:31]

Right? And so one of the examples I always give is I literally thought that red wine helped me sleep at night. And so I would drink red wine because I thought it helped me sleep. I didn’t learn. And it didn’t clock for me that red wine was completely hijacking my sleep until I did a deep dive on all of this, right. I realized it was totally hacking my REM sleep. I was actually, actually not resting at all properly. And so I read about it, I read the science. Just like you’re talking to your clients, right, and you’re giving them the information.

Christy Osborne [00:12:59]

But what I had to do is I had to sleep without wine. And when I started to sleep with that wine and I started to actually get the true rest, I was like, oh, that reason for me having the drink is now not valid. And so it just takes a lot of practice and doing the thing and it’s hard, right? And you’re battling against a highly addictive drug. So that’s, I mean, that’s just like that tiny elephant in the room, right? Like it actually is a highly addictive drug. It makes us want to drink more. And we think that it’s giving us all these things and we don’t have any other information, any data to say otherwise. So it’s like almost like you’re playing this game of life with half of the deck of cards, right? Like you know all of this information about what life is like as a drinker, but you don’t know any of what life is like as a non drinker because you’ve never done it before. And that’s scary.

Christy Osborne [00:13:49]

That, that’s really, really scary because it’s different. But if you can get to the point, right, where that fear of change is less than the, like the fear of staying the same. And that’s why, that’s why it takes some people, not all. And I really want to emphasize not all because I was one of those people. I didn’t have a rock bottom. But that’s why it sometimes takes people to get to this kind of like rock bottom moment because it’s like, oh, wait, maybe this isn’t great.

Leanne Vogel [00:14:15]

Absolutely. And do you think, like, if you’re using alcohol for connection and the idea of rest and to deal with anxiety and in your case deal with the loss of your mom, like if you’re not dealing with those things and you’re using alcohol in its place, is there just like a lot wrapped up in this that it’s, it’s work?

Christy Osborne [00:14:38]

Yeah. Well, and also we’re not taught to do this as women, right? Like, who taught us to ever sit with our feelings and actually like deal with them and name them them and work on them? No, we were taught the opposite from when we were like little girls. Right. We were taught, like, you’re crying. Like, stop. Make it go away. Like, let’s fix this hard emotion as quick as possible. You’re mad, make it stop.

Christy Osborne [00:15:00]

You’re sad, make it stop. And so as adult women, then it’s like, we end up. Our wine is our best friend. Right? Because it’s that thing that can have that instant, like, change of state, instant change of emotion. And so, yes, 100 to your point. Point. Like, sitting with emotions is really, really hard because we’ve never done it before. And this is.

Christy Osborne [00:15:18]

This is the stuff, by the way, that I totally geek out over. And I love because, like, push comes to shove, and I’m sure you’ve seen this in all the other areas of your practice that have to do with health. It’s about so much more than just, like, eating keto or not drinking. Right. It’s about, okay, sitting with these uncomfortable emotions, like, learning how to set boundaries, learning what you really need. All these things that sound like really hard work, and they are. But I really want to emphasize that it’s work that we get to do. It’s not work that we have to do.

Christy Osborne [00:15:48]

This is all such a gift. It’s such a gift.

Leanne Vogel [00:15:51]

Yes, absolutely. Even the reframing, like, when I’m driving to the gym and I don’t want to go, and I’m like, oh, I just could go back to bed or, like, literally do anything. Like, I get to move my body as. As somebody who has a mother who has Parkinson’s, who can’t move her body the same way that she did in her 30s, 40s, 50s, I get to move my body this way. And I don’t know when that will change. And even just that quick reframe is enough to be like, yeah, even if maybe my lift isn’t going to be great today or XYZ is going to happen that I might not be thrilled about. At least I get to move my body in this way. And I agree with you.

Leanne Vogel [00:16:29]

I think it’s all about conscious decision making. Like, last night, my husband and I were watching tv, and I made a conscious choice to have more snacks than I knew I needed. And I made a decision. I was like, I know that I’m overeating at this point. I’m choosing this. I know it’ll probably make me feel more full. I probably won’t have the best sleep, but I really want this. So I’m making this decision.

Leanne Vogel [00:16:53]

And that is so different than just turning my brain off and eating the thing because I’m dealing with some other thing. Do you know what I’m saying?

Christy Osborne [00:17:02]

Yes, so, so much. And in that case too, it’s like when you recognize that there is a conscious choice, right? It then allows you not to go down the shame trap, right? Like, because if we’re in the shame trap, we’re in this like primitive survival part of our brain where like we’re just, we, we just need to survive and so we can’t make good conscious choices. And so, yeah, I love that so, so much. And I think it ties into over like, you know, eating too much or drinking, right? It’s like if you stay feeling like you’re just doing this automatic, like, you know, automatic thing and that then you feel all this shame about it that’s going to keep you stuck for longer. But if you can stay rooted and grace and curiosity and conscious choice, like, I just love that so much.

Leanne Vogel [00:17:50]

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Leanne Vogel [00:19:22]

So how, how is alcohol affecting our bodies? Like you mentioned dopamine, like let’s, let’s get into it. What’s happening when we have that alcohol?

Christy Osborne [00:19:32]

Yeah, so many things. I mean the one, the one thing that I feel. Well, there’s a lot of things, but one of the things that I feel like the average kind of woman does not know is how alcohol is affecting our anxiety and that. And by that I mean our cortisol and adrenaline levels because we use it like, one of the main reasons we use it is for like de. Stressing and relaxing. But what ends up happening is we end up with these elevated cortisol levels and elevated adrenaline. Adrenaline levels. And it.

Christy Osborne [00:20:01]

That stays within our system for up to seven to 10 days after. And so what you’re doing when you’re feeling really, really stressed and drinking is you’re drinking to like manage this withdrawal. And so that is one of the things that like my clients say all over and over again. It’s just like, life isn’t as stressful. It’s actually not as difficult Right. As we think it is because we’re just basically like dousing ourselves in this cortisol spiker. And so of course you’re, you know, it’s making you feel. Feel more stressed.

Christy Osborne [00:20:32]

The other thing it’s doing as we. I kind of briefly mentioned is like totally hijacking our sleep where we don’t. When we’re, when we’ve had a drink. And this goes for just one drink, by the way. It does affect our deep REM sleep. And that’s the sleep that we need for our bodies and brains to be restored at night. And so when you’re, when you’re drinking, you’re just not getting that rest. And that was one of the first things.

Christy Osborne [00:20:56]

It’s also one of the first things my clients say is like, when they start to sleep. This probably happened to you too, right? Like, you just like, you’re like, oh, wait, this actually feels really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To not sleep. Yeah, to sleep properly. I mean.

Leanne Vogel [00:21:11]

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think too just even the connections we make when alcohol is at the center of a relationship, they’re not like meaningful connections.

Christy Osborne [00:21:23]

Yeah.

Leanne Vogel [00:21:23]

Do you notice that too? It’s like all the people that I knew while I was drinking and we would go out and have a drink, I no longer am friends with those people because we actually had nothing in common.

Christy Osborne [00:21:35]

Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, I’m glad you said that because that can be really scary. And that was actually my biggest fear. Like, I remember standing in the shower like a couple weeks in and being like, oh my gosh, if I keep going and I continue with my life alcohol free, like, who is going to stay around? Like, am I going to have any friends? Because I really did not have one friend that didn’t drink at that time. And I call it the friendship Shuffle. Like, friendships definitely shuffled. But the true and meaningful connections that I have found are completely different.

Christy Osborne [00:22:08]

Right. It’s really hard. Is it really hard for you to do, like, small talk with people? Like, I can’t even deal anymore. Yeah, it’s boring.

Leanne Vogel [00:22:15]

It’s.

Leanne Vogel [00:22:16]

It’s so hard. Like, so we have a group of friends who don’t drink, and whenever they want to hang out, we’re like, yeah, let’s go. Even if I’m tired or whatever, like, I want to have dinner with you. I want to connect. And then we have a group of friends who drink and they invite us out, and I’m. I will make up every excuse not to go because it’s not that I don’t want to see them. It’s that I don’t want to be in that big group where everyone’s drinking and I just. I don’t like small talk.

Leanne Vogel [00:22:41]

It’s not. It’s not. There’s literally no point. Like, it’s just a waste of my time. So that’s how I feel about that.

Christy Osborne [00:22:47]

Yeah, totally. Totally. And that can, like, seem scary. But then when you get confident at it and you’re able to, like, start setting boundaries for the first time. Right. Like, the joke slash truth, I guess, that I always make is like, I stopped going to, like, PTA events and class drinks because it was just so stupid to stand around a bar and, like, talk small talk about, like, one upping each other’s kid and sports and all this stuff. And I’m like. I just like, no, I’m not.

Christy Osborne [00:23:15]

I’m good.

Leanne Vogel [00:23:17]

But even that concept, I guess, is scary as you’re starting to come to terms. Like, I’m thinking of the woman listening right now who’s like, oh, shoot. Yeah, maybe I actually am using alcohol in these ways of, you know, trying to deal with anxiety, thinking that it’s giving me rest, helping me connect to people, but actually, I’m not actually connecting with them. And what is the meaning of life and what am I doing and who am I going to connect with if those people aren’t around? It’s like we fill our lives with all this emptiness that doesn’t really mean anything. Is that a big thing that keeps us stuck in this space of thinking, like, this is as good as it gets?

Christy Osborne [00:23:55]

Yeah. I mean, I think that that fear right there, like, you hit the nail on the head, right? It’s again, it kind of goes back to the fear of change. But this is the thing that comes with, like, courage and developing and, like, growing is we have to do things a little bit different in order to see if things are better on the other side. And so this is why I’m like really passionate about talking about this topic also in a really, really grace filled, self compassion way. Because we need that in order to like address this thing. Because everybody around us is drinking. Right. Like, and so I would say to the woman that feels alone and that doesn’t feel like they might have any other friends that like, just try, even if you’re the first mover in your circle, you might give a permission for another girlfriend of yours to like take that the night off.

Christy Osborne [00:24:47]

Right. It happened to me where like several friends just stopped drinking and I was like, wait, what? They’re like, oh, yeah, I just saw that you could do it so I can do it. Right. Or you make new friends because you’re actually able to turn up to the Pilates class and talk to people in the morning.

Leanne Vogel [00:25:04]

Absolutely. So how does this, how does this influence a relationship? Like, I’m thinking of so many women are married to their husbands who are also drinking. And I know, I’ve seen that dynamic play out with my parents where my mom stopped drinking, my dad continued to drink. How do we navigate that? Because it’s, it’s harder when it’s that. When it’s your person that you see day in and day out.

Christy Osborne [00:25:29]

Totally, 100%. I talk a lot about this in the book. When I stopped drinking, the first thing I said to my husband, Chris. Chris was like, I just, I don’t know what this means, but I just need to take a break. So can we just like not drink in the house for a little bit? Right. This is right before COVID and then everything, you know, everything hit the fan. But he continues to drink. It’s a lot less.

Christy Osborne [00:25:48]

But in the beginning when he was still drinking, our marriage just got better because I wasn’t drinking. So there wasn’t like these stupid little fights. Like we were, you know, we’ve been married now for 16 years. We were getting in stupid fights all the time. I always tell the story about, I would go to bed and I would like try to make a list of reasons I was angry in my phone so that when I woke up the next morning, I could recite them and win the argument. It’s so stupid.

Leanne Vogel [00:26:14]

I’ve done that. I have literally done that. Yep.

Christy Osborne [00:26:17]

Yeah. I’m so glad you said that. It’s not just me. And so like there was just no petty fighting. There was a lot more patience. Right. Like I was just feeling better in myself and therefore like I was like a much probably nicer person to be around. And so, you know, that whole like saying of like, just keep your side of the street clean and you never know what’s gonna happen.

Christy Osborne [00:26:38]

It’s one of the fears that I hear so often from clients. And the funny thing is, is that it almost like never goes the way that we expect it to go. You know, I mean I can think of like two right now off the top of my head that were so nervous about their husbands and they’re now like, you know, six, eight months on this journey and now their husbands are like drinking a lot less and kind of asking questions. And, and so yeah, I mean we also just know so much more nowadays about what this does to our health. Right. Like alcohol is a Class 1 carcinogen right up there with tobacco and asbestos and like all of that stuff. And we know it’s one of the top three, you know, causes of preventable death in the U.S. like all this stuff that we were fed when we were kids that it’s good for our heart has been completely debunked.

Christy Osborne [00:27:26]

You know, this idea of like being this European drinker who has a glass of wine with dinner. Like now they’re looking at that and seeing the, you know, the, the alcohol deaths are really high in Europe. Like and so I don’t know. So we’re just know like we have so much more research now. We know about the seven different like types of cancer for women. It’s, it’s directly linked to breast cancer which is one of those things that like most of us don’t know because anyways we can go get into the whole like big alcohol and their pervasive messaging towards us on a whole nother episode. But we just have a lot of information now. And so I think also when we’re dealing with, with our husbands, like if you come with like in a really grace filled way, right.

Christy Osborne [00:28:08]

Science and like facts and being like, okay, well this is what it does to us and, and all of that. I think they can also be receptive. But you’ve got to do it in a way where it’s completely non judgmental. Right. Because this is something that we’ve, if you’ve been stuck, you know, right. You don’t want to give it up.

Leanne Vogel [00:28:24]

Absolutely. And I think too there’s a very, what I’m hearing you say, it’s a very different process of going to your husband and saying we’re stopping drinking. This is terrible for us. I’ve removed all the alcohol from the house. We both suck and we need to do better. And the opposite to that would be, I’m choosing to stop drinking. Here are the reasons why. And leading by example, that’s what I personally did.

Leanne Vogel [00:28:49]

And my husband doesn’t drink anymore either. But it can be hard to kind of go through that initial push for yourself. How does willpower play into this? Like, do you just need a lot of willpower? So when you’re watching your friends drinking, you’re like, I don’t need it. Get behind me, Satan. Or like, what? What? Like, what are we doing here to, like, forge us forward and keep us on this path?

Christy Osborne [00:29:14]

Yeah, I want to. I want to go. Want to talk about the willpower thing, because I love it so much. But I also want to say to your point of, like, you know, coming to it and being like, okay, hey, babe, we’re stopping. Last year I wrote an article for Grazia magazine, it’s magazine here in the uk. And it was about, like, mommy wine culture and, like, how alcohol is actually not helping us be good, like, good moms. It’s actually hurting us. And I got like, crazy, crazy backlash on social media saying, I must not be a mother.

Christy Osborne [00:29:43]

I don’t stand for women, all this stuff. And I got really upset at first because I was like, no, this is so not my message. But then I put myself in the shoes of, like, if I was scrolling on my phone and I saw another mom saying, like, you don’t need wine, I’d be like, who the heck does this woman think she is? Right? Because if you’re not ready, you’re not ready. And so that’s why it has to come from a place of gracing a fashion and being ready. And then to your point about willpower, like, willpower is the same reason diets don’t work, right? We don’t have. We don’t have enough of it. It’s like a battery on our dying iPhone. Like, at the end of the day, it is done.

Christy Osborne [00:30:20]

It’s why you wake up in the morning at like, you know, 7:00am and you’re like, I’m not going to drink tonight. But by the end of the day, you’re exhausted and you’re in that fight or flight, and you’re just like, whatever is going to get me through. So that’s why we have to get behind, like, under the hood to figure out the reasons why you’re drinking, and then with grace and compassion, figure out if those reasons aren’t true or not. Right? Like, my whole thing Is that if you want to cut back or stop drinking, like, let’s get to the desire. Because if you lose the desire to drink, you don’t have to play with willpower at all, because the desire is just not there. And so, yeah, I don’t want. I didn’t want to be in a place of, like, feeling like I was deprived and I was missing out. And I think that that’s what the willpower battle ends up doing to us.

Christy Osborne [00:31:05]

And we. Then we’d feel like failures, right? And we feel like failures because we couldn’t do it because we don’t have enough willpower. And then you get into the whole shame thing that we talked about. And so, yeah, yeah, completely.

Leanne Vogel [00:31:15]

I realized probably about two years ago that I didn’t trust myself to make life changes, that I would commit to myself. I’m going to do xyz, and then I would like a really bad friend not show up to that commitment. And I realized that if I set those. If a friend were to say, hey, Leanne, we’re gonna go do this thing, and they don’t show up, and they don’t show up, and they don’t show up, I’m gonna stop being friends with that person because they’re just not making me a priority and just understanding that I view myself the same way and I need to commit to something and follow through with something. And when I commit to a friend, you know, the Bible tells us, make your yes be yes and your nos be no’s. So if I commit to something, I want to follow through. And that’s been a really helpful tool for me as I move forward with certain goals of, like, I’ve committed to this. I want to be a good friend to myself, like, I would expect of somebody else.

Leanne Vogel [00:32:13]

And even that little shift has been really helpful for me because I know, you know, with. With my history of an eating disorder, I remember I would wake up in the morning and be like, today is going to be a good day, even though I really screwed up yesterday. And by the end of the day, I’d be right back in the same cycle over and over and over and over. And you’re right, willpower was not enough. I needed to go under the hood and truly understand, like, what is driving this forward. Because me saying I’m just going to commit to something different is not helpful. Like, there’s a route to this. What are you finding? Like, we talked about some of the roots of feeling like we’re using alcohol for rest, connection, dealing with anxiety, creating quote, unquote connections that aren’t really that great.

Leanne Vogel [00:33:01]

Are there other things that you’re seeing when we lift up that hood that maybe we haven’t touched on when it comes to relying on alcohol day in and day out?

Christy Osborne [00:33:09]

Yeah. I always wanted to do your question, but you said something so good, like, just right back there. So the whole idea of just, like, we are, like, who are the women that we want to be, right? Like, when you’re. You said you’re like, you’re your friend and you’re, like, letting yourself down. Like, this is the thing, it’s like, what makes us women tick and what do we value mostly in our life? Like, who do we want to be? And I feel like alcohol also just chips away at that. And so, like, looking at this is just such a great way to then increase your confidence, right? And start trusting yourself. But another reason I feel like alcohol gets used and was one, definitely one for me, is to have fun, right? And that has to do with that, like, dopamine response, where you get that temporary, like, it’s actually a 20 minute, 30 minute, like, buzz high, and you end up relying on that for fun. But the science behind this is so fascinating because what happens when you ingest dopamine, you know, via alcohol, or you get that.

Christy Osborne [00:34:05]

That dopamine from alcohol is you end up getting a counteracting chemical called dinorphin. You probably know all this, but that brings you down, right? And so you want to have fun, but you’re actually being, like, pumped with this, like, depressant sedative. And if you’re a regular drinker, your brain, like, gets used to just, like, letting that hormone go. And so we want to have fun, but we’re actually, like, totally zapping ourselves of our joy, right? Like, I was in a place in my life where, like, nothing was fun unless alcohol was involved. And I mean, nothing like going to my daughter’s ballet recital. I was like, when can we get a drink? Right? Or, like, going to my son’s baseball game, like, where are the cocktails? Right? And it’s like that. That it’s a. It’s a loop that you end up getting in a hamster wheel.

Christy Osborne [00:34:55]

And you think that you need to have the alcohol to have fun, but what you’re really doing is just, like, robbing yourself of being able to, like, experience, like, real joy because you’ve, like, totally hijacked your dopamine response. And so that’s one of those things, too, where you learn about it and I can tell you about it, and you can read about it, but when you go and you experience it and you feel it and you’re like, oh, like I am looking at the sunshine in the park and it is beautiful and I’m feeling joy today, like, oh, this is what it feels like to like have a regulated nervous system and have a regulated dopamine response. So, yeah, I mean, basically all the reasons that we drink, it does the opposite. Which is crazy, isn’t it?

Leanne Vogel [00:35:36]

Like, you just get stuck in this loop. I know, like with my mom having Parkinson’s, which is a lack of dopamine, watching that kind of like long term depletion of dopamine in the brain has been, I want to say, fascinating from like a practitioner standpoint, because it is quite fascinating, but it’s hard to watch. And you don’t think that dopamine, like, I mean, I learned this in school, like, whoop dee doo, dopamine. But like, it’s really important. Like you’re, you’re exactly right. Being able to just. Even the dopamine also helps us have that like, drive. Like the oomph in our lives is the dopamine.

Leanne Vogel [00:36:14]

Like the willingness to try new things and to be exciting and to have fun. Like, that’s dopamine. And so you’re so right. It’s like we are chasing this alcohol that gives us that dopamine kick, but that depletes our dopamine, which does the exact opposite of the things that we want. We’re less fun, we’re less exciting, we’re less oomph. And so it’s so true. You’re just on this roller coaster ride. Absolutely.

Leanne Vogel [00:36:39]

Couldn’t agree with you more on that.

Christy Osborne [00:36:40]

And just like to hop in there too. Like the other thing too that is wild is serotonin. Right. Because which is made in actually the gut. And when we drink alcohol, it totally screws with our gut microbiome. And so we’re, we’re again, we’re putting ourselves in a place where we’re going to come out with worse. A worse mood because of lack of serotonin. So again, it’s like, let’s drink to be happy and fun.

Christy Osborne [00:37:04]

But what we’re doing is we’re actually killing all the things.

Leanne Vogel [00:37:07]

And yet even with us saying all of this stuff, you’re saying it’s not enough for change.

Christy Osborne [00:37:12]

Well, right, so. Because I would, I’d be listening to this as a drinker or maybe someone that’s like, oh, I probably need to cut back. And I’d be like, okay, that all sounds Good. But, but feeling this stuff is what then it, then it’s like, okay, I understand what she’s saying and maybe if I have another day of like not drinking, I’ll feel even better, right? But then not getting to a place where you have a couple days alcohol free and then you have a drink and then have beating yourself up and acting like it’s all over and you can’t make this change, right? It’s just, okay, I made that conscious choice. Can I make another different conscious choice to feel better? And so that’s also a question that I love so much is like, and it sounds so basic, but like, how do you want to feel? How do you want to feel today? Move from that, make your conscious choices from that. If you want to feel rested and connected and all those things, how’s alcohol going to help? And as you go through this, you obviously realize that, like, I don’t want to say obvious because it’s a, it’s a lot of work, but you end up, you end up feeling it.

Leanne Vogel [00:38:13]

Yes. I couldn’t agree with you more. I remember a coach while I was overcoming the eating disorder stuff, had me choose like three words, like three things that I wanted to feel like. I don’t remember all of them, but I still hold on to one, which is adventure. Adventure is really important to me. And so when I would go throughout my day, I would kind of filter through my decisions based on these three words. If I want to feel adventurous. Is committing to a three month long thing cause me to feel adventurous or the opposite of adventurous? And when you kind of filter through, okay, this is how I want to feel, does this opportunity align with how I want to feel? If it’s a yes or no, you can kind of filter it.

Leanne Vogel [00:38:57]

Is that kind of what you’re saying? Like, yeah, if I want to feel, you know, rested, I know that long term alcohol is not going to make me feel rested. So I’m making a decision to not drink the alcohol because it’s not going to make me feel rested. Kind of.

Christy Osborne [00:39:10]

No, totally. And sometimes what I’ll do with clients is I’ll make them like a little backdrop like thing for their phone where it literally just says I want to feel more energized, more patient, calm, Right. Or clear headed or whatever it is. And I’m like, move from that. Is alcohol gonna help with that tonight? Like make, then you get to make the choice and you get to make the choice to discover whether all of this like data we have, one direction is really true or not. Right. Because that’s the bottom line. Like we’ve just been, we’ve been sold and we’ve learned like a lot of things that take examining.

Leanne Vogel [00:39:48]

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Leanne Vogel [00:40:22]

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Leanne Vogel [00:40:53]

So where do they get caught up? Like when you’re working with a client and like I’m thinking of the listener right now, she’s like, okay, yeah, actually I’m definitely using alcohol in this way. I hear what you’re saying about it being bad for me. I understand that. I don’t really care to give it a try. Like where are they getting hung up in this process as they move forward with this, like what are the hang ups?

Christy Osborne [00:41:18]

I mean it’s so different from gal to gal. I have quite a few clients who will come to me and will like get like 3 months alcohol free under their belt. And that is because they’ve done a really good job of like setting boundaries and practicing. Let’s say they’re like doing life without alcohol in a certain way. So by that I mean like let’s say you’re a home drinker, you decided to like hold some pretty firm boundaries, stay home, say no to all the parties and not drink. And so you feel great after three months, but you haven’t kind of practiced then the social aspect, right? Or you haven’t then practiced like the vacate, the vacation or as we say over here in the uk the holiday. And so that ends up panicking them because they’re like, I’ve never Done this before without alcohol. And it’s like, well, exactly right? So just try it without alcohol and see.

Christy Osborne [00:42:11]

Just stay open, stay curious. Like, what if it’s okay? What are you assuming to be true about that vacation or that night out or that wedding without alcohol? What if you’re wrong? What if it’s just super awkward for 15 minutes while you say no to the glass of wine and then everything’s fine because, you know, because no one actually cares. And so it’s just like new things. I would say it’s new things that are popping up. And that’s why I really come from this place of like, if you have a drink after like a series of months or weeks or whatever it is of not drinking, like instead of calling that a slip up, we call it a growth point, right? Like, okay, what did you learn? How can we grow? Let’s figure out how to do it differently next time. And so, yeah, it’s just, it’s just, it’s just planning and trying things differently.

Leanne Vogel [00:42:56]

So you mentioned, you know, saying no to the parties and kind of like changing out lifestyle. I’m sure somebody listening was like, so I’m never going to go to a party again. Like, this is stupid. I’m out. Maybe they, maybe they’re gone. Maybe they’re listening anymore.

Christy Osborne [00:43:12]

I hope you’re not. No, so what I meant by that is like, you know, in the beginning, if you really are committed to kind of figuring out how you feel without alcohol, like sometimes you might have to say no to those things in the beginning just to get those like initial days under your belt. But by no means do I want everybody not to go out and not have fun. I’m saying the opposite of that. I’m just saying it takes, it takes practice. And I actually have had the opposite, right where I’ve had a client that like gets so good. She’s, from the very beginning, she starts saying no to alcohol on a night out. Or if you’re a really busy corporate gal, that’s like in the situation where you’re entertaining clients and stuff with alcohol all the time and they get really good at that.

Christy Osborne [00:43:53]

And then their thing is like, shoot, I can’t sit at home alone without wanting the alcohol. Or I need the relief drink when I get home from that party or that corporate, you know, work event, because I feel like I just am, you know, I need a reward. And so it’s different for everybody. But no, by no means do I say you become a hermit. Like, no, that’s not what I’m saying at all. It just takes practice and everyone’s unique, right? And this is why it’s fun to have a coach, because you get to play with all this stuff and figure out what works best for you.

Leanne Vogel [00:44:23]

And it sounds like fun may look different. Like, have you noticed that like what you thought was fun, that was, you know, what you mentioned, like grabbing a cocktail at XYZ time is no longer fun. So you’re doing other activities that are now fun to you and they don’t revolve around alcohol, but you’re still having a good time, is that fair to say?

Christy Osborne [00:44:43]

100%. And this is the thing, it’s a learning. It’s learning, right? And so, so it’s learning what that is. And that takes a little bit of time, but that also can be fun. I mean, I had a client who was like, I have been drinking since high school, I don’t even know what I like, right? And so I’ve had gals that have gone back to like dance class or even like gone and tried pottery or whatever it is. And just like figuring out what you like that actually lights you up. Because alcohol gives us like this artificial level of dopamine, meaning it’s super high that our bodies can’t make it. But when we start getting dopamine from these things that we actually enjoy, then it’s like, oh, this is actually feels really nice.

Christy Osborne [00:45:22]

And just. It’s learning, right? It’s learning what that is. But I mean, but right before we, we hit record, I was telling you I was at the Taylor Swift concert last night with my 14 year old daughter and I just, that’s not something. Of course going to a concert, I’d be like, yeah, where are the drinks going with her staying present and just like having a blast. Dancing our butts off for three and a half hours like was not something that I thought would be fun or without alcohol. But I had to try it.

Leanne Vogel [00:45:50]

Yes, absolutely. So I, I have been known to be that girl at the bar, dancing, totally sober, having the best time and I actually have more fun not drinking and I remember the whole thing and I’m able to just like really just have a fun time. And I know everyone around me is not going to remember anything because they’re all trashed. And so, you know, like sometimes it’s nice to just. What you’re saying is like go back into those environments where you thought that you needed alcohol in order to manage it. Once you get like a good handle on things and you’re actually able to have a Good time without the alcohol is what I’m hearing you say.

Christy Osborne [00:46:27]

Totally. And you bring up such a good point. Right. Because in that scenario of maybe feeling awkward because you didn’t want to dance at the bar or at the wedding or whatever, it’s. It’s very much like, oh, my gosh, what are other people going to think? Right. But to your point, they are not noticing. They don’t notice. They do not care.

Christy Osborne [00:46:46]

And so why in the world are we going to drink a Class 1 carcinogen? Like, to make other people feel better about us or our dancing?

Leanne Vogel [00:46:54]

Yes, absolutely. I was actually thinking about that today. I was doing ab workouts, and some lady had put the seven and a half pounds in her little pile of all the things and she was doing something else, and it was like minutes where she wasn’t using them. And I thought to myself, like, why am I limiting my workout to make her comfortable with something she’s not even using?

Christy Osborne [00:47:15]

Yeah.

Leanne Vogel [00:47:16]

And so I walked right up there and I said, can I just use those seven and a half? She’s like, oh, yeah, I’m not using them. I’m like, I would have done my whole workout with fives.

Christy Osborne [00:47:23]

Yeah.

Leanne Vogel [00:47:24]

Because I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. Like, why do we do that? Like, it. No, I’m going to take up space. I’m going to go there. I’m going to ask her if I can use it. And she was like, yeah, of course. And I’m like, great. Awesome.

Leanne Vogel [00:47:34]

Now I got to work my abs harder. Like, I don’t know why we stay in our head with so many things.

Christy Osborne [00:47:41]

Yeah, it’s so true. I mean, that’s just going down. The whole, like, people pleasing. Right. And just being concerned about what other people think. When that is like, the last thing on the whole entire world that we can control is what other people think and feel.

Leanne Vogel [00:47:55]

Right, Exactly. So is this. Is this zero alcohol forever, or do you think that there’s a reality that exists where you have a little bit or, like, what’s your take on that?

Christy Osborne [00:48:05]

So, I mean, every single person is different. For me personally, like, I don’t have the desire to drink because I don’t see any benefit to it. So, like, I don’t think I’m gonna drink, like, probably forever, but nobody has to use the word forever. I think it’s if you get to a point where, like, you really want to have a glass of wine, have the glass of wine, and then maybe if it doesn’t feel good, you can make a different choice the next Time, right? Like, I actually was, what’s happening with a client the other day? And she was like, oh, there’s this new family that we met. And I really wanted to make them feel welcome. And so I had the glass of wine, but like, I really. Christy, I just, I don’t enjoy it anymore. And she’s like, I feel like I’m not there.

Christy Osborne [00:48:45]

And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, let’s rewind for a second and let’s talk about what you just said. You just told me that you realize you don’t enjoy it anymore. I don’t care if you have the drink. And like, or not. The fact that you said you don’t enjoy it is the most amazing realization because it means you can make a different choice next time if you want, you know, so it’s just, it’s what, like, what makes you feel good. And when you have, I think, and you’ve experienced this too, probably enough alcohol free days under your belt, you realize, like, why in the world would I ever drink again? Why?

Leanne Vogel [00:49:15]

Well, there’s also this, like, sometimes if the mood strikes, you know, like, I’m on a beautiful beach and the sun is shining and I’m like, I want like a cider or beer or something and I order it and I take a sip, I’m like, like, this ain’t it. Like, in my mind I thought that this was going to be so refreshing and be like the topping on the cake, but it lacks the oomph that I was expecting. And so there’s all those preconceived ideas of feelings and all that stuff wrapped up in there. But I can, I can relate to that 100%. I’ve done that a couple times. In fact, Recently I went to Canada. My dad and I were having burgers and I was like, oh, it’d be so great to have a beer. And I ordered a beer and I took a sip.

Leanne Vogel [00:49:54]

I’m like, no, still don’t like it. Nope. That. That ain’t it.

Christy Osborne [00:49:58]

Exactly, exactly. And coming to that from that place of just like, still being curious about it is, like, what it’s all about, right? Because there’s a lot of stigma in this field that would say then, like, now you’re, you’re back to day one, you’ve got to start counting days again. And like, now you’re at day one and all this stuff and it’s like, that. How is that serving anybody right? Like, let’s just, just try to do this differently to feel better. And if we do, then we get to. Again, I know I’ve said it a thousand times, but like making that, make that conscious choice. Yeah. And, and this is the thing too is now we’re in a day and age, right, where you can basically get anything that you want alcohol free.

Christy Osborne [00:50:37]

Right. A Corona Zero. Is that what it’s called in the States or.

Leanne Vogel [00:50:41]

I have no idea. I wouldn’t even know. I’m so boring.

Christy Osborne [00:50:44]

Everything is the same and it tastes like, especially with beer. I feel like they take the same and there’s so many options now. Their spirits are all alcohol free. Like you can get alcohol free gin. So like you can have it if you want and then you’re not going to feel like crap the next day.

Leanne Vogel [00:50:59]

Yeah, that’s the big thing is just how you feel after.

Leanne Vogel [00:51:02]

Do you feel like there was a.

Leanne Vogel [00:51:04]

Piece in your process and just what you see with ladies time and time again that you feel like we didn’t touch on that you maybe want to end today’s episode with. In regards to just like the lady that’s listening that feels like perhaps this is an issue or maybe they’re in the depths of this process. Do you have any words of wisdom for them?

Christy Osborne [00:51:24]

I actually recently put this question on my Instagram because I wanted to hear it from other people. Like, if you have three months more of alcohol free days under your belt, like, what would you say to the woman that’s like, kind of feels like they’re still stuck or trying? And so many people just said, just keep going, just keep going. You’re not alone. Especially like me if you feel like you’re the only one dealing with this, like, that is 100% not true. If you need community, like, reach out to me. And if you don’t want to, like work with me or get involved in any of my groups, I will find one for you. Like, I will help you find one because I don’t want anybody to feel alone because that’s how I felt. And so.

Christy Osborne [00:52:03]

And so. Yeah. And then just grace, grace, Grace, self compassion. Stay curious. Like, just, this is about you. This is a gift. Like, this is not something you have to do. This is something that you get to do.

Christy Osborne [00:52:15]

And moving that from that place of positive emotion as opposed to like deprivation and willpower and all that stuff, it just takes a load off and it makes this an enjoyable experience as opposed to like this really heavy, awful thing that you have to do.

Leanne Vogel [00:52:29]

Absolutely, Absolutely. Okay, where can people find more from you, connect with you? You have a podcast, you have a book. Tell us all the all the places, yes.

Christy Osborne [00:52:38]

So I don’t know when this is gonna drop, but my book, Love life sober a 40 day alcohol fast is coming out September 24th. I’m so excited. So you can get that everywhere. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, all the places. You can also get it on my website, which is lovelifesober.com and then the book is lovelifesober40day fast.com I have a podcast called But Jesus Drank Wine and Other Stories that Kept Us us Stuck. Which is exactly what it sounds like. We talk about all the stories that keep us stuck and then I’m on Instagram at Lovelife Sober with Christie.

Leanne Vogel [00:53:12]

I love it. I will include all the links in the show notes, so if you’re not sure where to go, just look in the show notes and everything will be there. Christie, thanks for coming on the show today.

Christy Osborne [00:53:20]

Thank you. That was so fun. That went really fast.

Leanne Vogel [00:53:24]

I really hope you enjoyed our conversation about quitting alcohol and the challenges of the gray area drinking mentality again. You can find out more from Christie by going to lovelife sober.co.uk and also her podcast but Jesus drank wine.com okay, we’ll see you back here next week Tuesday for another episode.

Leanne Vogel [00:53:46]

Bye.

Leanne Vogel [00:53:51]

Thanks for listening to the Helpful Pursuit Podcast. Join us next Tuesday for another episode of the show. If you’re looking for free resources, there are a couple of places you can go. The first to my blog, healthfulpursuit.com where you’re going to find loads of recipes. The second is a free parasite protocol that I’ve put together for you that outlines symptoms, testing and resources to determine whether or not you have a parasite, plus a full protocol to follow to eradicate them from your life if you need to. That’s available at Helpful Pursuit.com/ parasites and last but certainly not least, a full list of blood work markers to ask your doctor for so that you can get a full picture of your health. You can grab that free resource by going to healthfulpursuit.com labs. The helpful pursuit Podcast, including show notes and links, provides information in respect to healthy living recipes, nutrition and diet and is intended for informational purposes only.

Leanne Vogel [00:54:47]

The information provided is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor is it to be construed as such. We cannot guarantee that the information provided on the Healthful Pursuit podcast reflects the most up to date medical research. Information is provided without any representation or warranties of any kind. Please consult a qualified health practitioner with any questions you may have regarding your.

Leanne Vogel [00:55:09]

Health and nutrition program.

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