Name it, Feel it, Heal it: Navigating the Emotional Roller Coaster of Alcohol-Free Living / Ep. 012

In this episode of the Feel Lit Alcohol Free Podcast, coaches Ruby and Susan dive into the rollercoaster of emotions in the early days of living an alcohol-free lifestyle. They tackle a listener's question about feeling overly emotional after going alcohol-free and share their own experiences with unexpected bursts of tears, anger, and joy. They discuss the science behind these emotions, provide tools to navigate and embrace these feelings, and offer practical tips to kick start dopamine production naturally. The hosts also touch on the importance of celebrating small wins and using the "What have you done well today?" practice to shift focus to the positive. With insightful anecdotes and expert advice, this episode offers valuable strategies for navigating the emotional journey of an alcohol-free lifestyle.

Keywords
Alcohol-free living, alcohol freedom coaches, emotional roller coaster, sobriety, emotional healing, sleep, dopamine, feeling wheel, anhedonia, alcohol cravings, b vitamins, exercise, savoring, RAIN practice, feelings exploration, emotional mastery, self-awareness, gratitude, self-celebration, joy, envy, emotional processing, emotional regulation, stress management, self-care, self-reflection, behavior change, Facebook group, alcohol-free podcast, lit lifestyle, purposeful living

Timestamp
00:00 Understanding the science behind emotional healing.

04:50 Understanding emotions using feelings wheel, gamifying experience.

07:55 Processing emotions is part of the healing.

09:20 Stopping drinking affects dopamine production, leading to blues. After 100 days alcohol-free, focus on joy.

13:00 Regular exercise and savoring activities for pleasure.

16:19 Set timer to identify and describe feelings.

19:15 Addressing emotional healing through RAIN practice.

22:11 Focusing on the positive and celebrating wins.

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Websites:
Susan Larkin Coaching https://www.susanlarkincoaching.com/
Ruby Williams at Freedom Renegade Coaching https://www.freedomrenegadecoaching.com/

Follow Susan: @drinklesswithsusan
Follow Ruby: @rubywilliamscoaching

It is strongly recommended that you seek professional advice regarding your health before attempting to take a break from alcohol. The creators, hosts, and producers of the The Feel Lit Alcohol Free podcast are not healthcare practitioners and therefore do not give medical, or psychological advice nor do they intend for the podcast, any resource or communication on behalf of the podcast or otherwise to be a substitute for such.

Chapters

• 0:00 Emotional Rollercoaster of Sobriety
• 9:24 Navigating Emotions and Dopamine
• 23:50 Increasing Dopamine With Daily Wins

Transcript

Susan [00:00:38]:

Hey, everybody. I am so excited to be with you today, and hello, my dear sweet Ruby. Hello. Well, we have a wonderful exciting topic ahead based on a listener's question from our Facebook community regarding our feelings. So we joke around in the sober verse about the good part of not drinking is that you start to feel your feelings, and the bad part about alcohol free living is you feel your feelings. Because a lot of us I know used to numb our feelings, used alcohol to numb our feelings, at least I did. And so this listener's question is, I have been alcohol free now for a few months, and why am I so emotional?

Susan [00:01:26]:

So, Ruby, I'm gonna toss this to you to answer this question about the emotional roller coaster of early alcohol free living.

Ruby [00:01:37]:

This is such a good question because well, first of all, you may be asking if there something wrong with me? No. It's absolutely so normal. Well, I myself, as well as pretty much every client, seems to go through this emotional roller coaster. it's a part of the alcohol free journey like Susan was saying. I wanted to share a story because you can relate and, like, you're not alone if this is happening to you. I just remember one day, I was probably about 3 months alcohol free just like our listener. And I was all of a sudden crying for, like, 2 or 3 hours just sobbing and sobbing, and I couldn't believe that was happening.

Ruby [00:02:21]:

There was no real reason. I was just crying and crying, and I tried not to judge it, but I was just like, why? Why? So now I know all the science. Now, after becoming a coach and a sleep coach, I know your body is healing and actually it can take you on a little bit of an emotional roller coaster. You can't see my hands now, but I'm like you. Your body starts to heal and wants to reach homeostasis with so many different areas. And, really, it's the sleep that's healing. Your sleep is where you process your emotions. I never knew that you needed to heal your emotions too.

Ruby [00:03:06]:

Sleep not only heals your brain and heals your body but also your emotions. So an emotional roller coaster is where you just have these strange, like, bursts of different emotions, and they're temporary. It might be anger. You know, I remember anger showing up. I was so angry for no reason. Or sadness, or it can also be happiness. So an emotional roller coaster, it starts to kind of level out over time, but you could have these spikes of emotions for possibly up to 2 years. So everybody's different.

Ruby [00:03:47]:

I also wanna say tha you too might have this emotional roller coaster. It could be different. So what do you think about this, Susan? Did you experience this too? 

Susan [00:04:04]: Oh, yes. Yes. I wasn't in touch with my emotions at all. I started feeling so many emotions, you know, my first instinct was, of course, go numb them with alcohol because that's what I'd already done, anger, sadness, any any emotion, really, even happiness. Sometimes, like, on a Saturday afternoon, I would just start to feel so happy in my life. My it's kind of a perverse thought of, like, oh, alcohol will, like, increase happiness. You know what I mean? But it actually ended up dulling it. You know? We know that now. And I know that even in the experience of doing it when I was actually doing it, but it was sort of like I think Brene Brown talks about foreboding joy. It's almost like, oh, if I feel too much joy, then that means, you know, something bad's gonna happen or something. You know? It's kind of nutty.

Susan [00:04:50]:

So for me, it was just part of the experience in my alcohol free living was to even just learn about my emotions. Like what am I feeling now? And there's a tool called the feelings wheel that we often use in our coaching just to help people look for their feeling words: like morose. What I used was a thesaurus. So I'd put in the general feeling that I was feeling, and then I would get all these different synonyms. And I would find the one that really spoke to the actual essence of how I was feeling. And I kind of gamified it a little bit, which actually sort of helped with the intensity of kind of experiencing all these emotions. I kind of took it on as, like, as a thing, like a task or a challenge of, like, how many ways can I really figure out my emotions, which sort of helped a little bit with the intensity of, like, wow? Why am I feeling all these emotions? So one of the things that we can feel also is no emotions or blah. And I hear that a lot from clients is, I don't know. I just feel so blah.

Ruby [00:06:14]:

Yeah. What I'm hearing you say, Susan, is that it's really important to name the emotion. Yeah. I just wanted to say yes. Reiterate, like naming the emotion, knowing it's temporary, and then using the feeling wheel. And you could just Google the feeling wheel, and there are so many different versions of it. And you also mentioned Brene Brown, which is interesting because she did a study where most people only feel 3 emotions or know how to say 3 emotions: happy, sad, and angry.

Ruby [00:06:58]:

But then when you do use this feeling wheel or you use a thesaurus, but you can also it's just you start to, like in the middle of the wheel, get deeper and deeper into what you are really feeling in your body? And it's so important to name that emotion.

Susan [00:07:13]:

Mhmm. Yeah. And, I love that. Naming the emotion, sometimes that brings down the intensity of what you're feeling right there. It's really important to actually acknowledge and feel the emotion versus resisting it because what we resist persists. And going back to awareness, we always go back to those pillars. It's just part of this experience of being aware of what you're feeling and allowing it because that's part of the healing. You know? You mentioned sleep and but but the emotional healing is just to allow ourselves to let those feelings bubble up and out. It's better out than in.

Susan [00:07:55]:

So if you're crying every day for 3 weeks, then just cry and let it out because that's the healing process. So I love that so much. So one of the other things that people talk about feeling is feeling nothing. In early sobriety is this lack of feeling or feeling like everything is just sort of blah. So we kinda call it the blahs in early alcohol free living or when you, you know, when you first quit drinking, but there's free living or when you, you know, when you first quit drinking, but there's actually a science scientific word for it, which is anhedonia, a n h e d o n i a. I just like to spell it in case people wanna look it up. 

Ruby [00:08:43]:

And I'm learning something new.

Susan [00:08:44]:

So that is very common. It is what happens when we drink and as we know and we've talked about on this podcast before is you get this very high artificial dopamine hit in your brain. And what happens then is our bodies are very smart, and they're trying to conserve energy. So they go, oh, hey. I don't need to make this dopamine anymore because Susan's giving it to me on a daily basis in large quantities with all the white wine she's drinking. So I hope your body stops making dopamine.

Susan [00:09:20]:

And then when you stop drinking, your body takes time to start regenerating the dopamine making in your brain. And so there's this period of time where you may experience these lows because your body just has a lack of dopamine manufacturing. And I think that, you know, I did experience that. And then when I started and I was working on my feelings, working on my feelings, and then I did start to feel I just wanted a story about feeling real joy. So I started doing this thing probably close to, like, in over a 100 days. I think I was over a 100 days alcohol free at this point. And I started setting an intention for how I wanted to feel that day. Like, up until that point, I was learning more and more about my feelings.

Susan [00:10:08]:

So I set an intention. And one day, I set the intention to feel joy, and I did. But it was so intense that it was like, not scary, but just like, oh my gosh. This is, like, too much joy. You know? Oh my goodness. And so I was joking around, but it was true. I went and hugged a tree, and I was like, I need to just, like, press some of this joy into you, tree, because I just can't even contain it all. It was just so so we do like, when you said the roller coaster, there are very, very high highs.

Susan [00:10:38]:

There we can feel lows. It is a roller coaster that includes the highs, and sometimes the highs are just as uncomfortable as the lows because, like, I just wasn't used to feeling joy, which is kinda sad, but feeling that yeah. But it was also kind of exciting too to go, oh, I can actually start to feel joy again. Or have I ever felt joy? 

Ruby [00:11:03]:

I want to go back through to the blahs because this is so common. I mean, if you're experiencing the blahs, I think I hear it with so many of my clients, you know, that this happens. 

Ruby [00:11:26]:

Anhedonia. It can happen at 60 days or 90 days alcohol free. But there are so many ways that you can actually kick start your dopamine. Right? And naturally. Right? We want to start knowing what are the ways to start to build that up, you know, the dopamine brain chemical. Again, I love the way you explained it. Super cool. But some of the ways are, like, setting goals, having a purpose, doing daily practices.

Ruby [00:12:11]:

I love this. Dancing, moving, singing, cold water therapy. There's some supplements like the L Theanine and the L Tyrosine that can help with dopamine levels. Are there other things you wanted to add, Susan, to this long list? 

Susan [00:12:28]:

There's a lot of things that we can do. There are a lot of things. Yeah. Absolutely. Some of the things that worked for me, well, just regular old b vitamins. And in your nutrition, I think we've talked about this before, but getting protein, the amino acids and protein really starts to help build the neurotransmitters in our brain. And strength training, which I mentioned as one of my lit practices, strength training, aerobic activity.

Susan [00:13:00]:

So a lot of my clients really make exercise, like, almost non negotiable as part of their almost daily routine. Even if it's a walk or yoga or something gentle, and I did too. Like, it was like I had to exercise just to help me be processing a lot of the stuff that was just going on in my body. So there's also a practice called savoring, which I love this idea because if you're not feeling pleasure in normal daily activities, it's something that maybe as a practice or as a challenge, you take on because what has happened is everything just becomes a haze of Sauvignon Blanc if for me, at least. It's like if I drank for all of what, you know, pleasurable activities in life, you know, and now I'm not drinking, like, sometimes those things can feel a little bit of a lack. And, again, that's the low dopamine. So it's starting to just recognize, you know, what I call cultivating pleasure. So starting to cultivate that, like, really savor a really delicious good meal and really taste the flavors and or even bringing in, like, essential oils to your shower and having this burst of smell while you're showering.

Susan [00:14:23]:

And just bring in and cultivate pleasure in your daily activities and really start to notice it and, like, and and savor it. There's this idea of savoring. Like, my gosh. I'm having this delicious chicken or this delicious Mississippi mud pie now that I'm alcohol free, and I'm having dessert instead of drinks and just but, like, really, you know, don't shovel it in. Like, I'm a shoveler. Okay? My daughter even said, like, I was, you know, a guzzler when I used to drink. That was super embarrassing when  you know, my daughter is old enough to drink, and we were, like, sharing a bottle of wine. And she's like, mom, you're such a guzzler.

Susan [00:15:00]:

I was so embarrassed. But I eat fast. I drink fast. I do everything fast. And so it was a was it Maybe you used to practice for me to slow down and savor. Well, I still do, but it is so it is a practice that I have to remind myself to slow down and enjoy. You know? 

Ruby [00:15:20]:

Yeah. I love this word savor. 

Susan [00:15:31]:

So, again, back to when you mentioned only the three emotions, happy, sad, and angry, that was me. And so that's where the thesaurus is really helpful for me. So if I'm just like, oh, I'm just feeling angry, you know, I could go look and as am I really angry? Am I, like, perturbed, or am I outraged? Or you know? I just got a different word. And, oh, I have so my coach at the time told me great practice. It just didn't and, again, kind of to get it to start to get me to become aware of actually what I was feeling. It was also to help me with being able to regulate my emotions, right, to get to a place of emotional mastery, which we can talk about, you know, on another episode because we are right here, we just have to start again with awareness.

Susan [00:16:19]:

So I set a timer, like, 3 times a day or more, maybe 5, where the timer would go off and I would just stop and go, okay. What am I feeling right now? And, again, you could use the feelings wheel. You could use a thesaurus. And I would try to identify that feeling as close to a, you know, a different word besides happy, sad, or angry as possible. And I have a funny story about this because I remember, you know, the alarm going off, and I'm like, okay. I'm just like, one I got home from work, and I was gonna on my schedule that I made for myself, I was supposed to, like, get on the exercise bike, but I was just, like, not in the mood. But I was in a crummy mood, and I was just, you know, like, just wandering around the house, feeling all kind of itchy and crabby and poopy. And wandering around the house feeling all kind of itchy and crabby and poopy.

Susan [00:17:04]:

And, like, I'm like, okay. What am I feeling? You know? And I went into the thesaurus. I'm just sort of, like, procrastinating, but not just just sort of, you know? And one one of the synonyms that came up was shilly-shally. And I was like, oh, it just made me laugh. So I'm like, yeah. I'm just shilly-shalling around, just not doing anything, not getting on the bike, just wasting time. You know? And it was just but it was so funny because it, like, kinda identifying that, and then that word is just funny, Shilly Shally. Right? And it just kicked me out of that mood.

Susan [00:17:35]:

And I'm like, okay, shilly-shally Susan. Go get your shilly-shally butt on the bike. You know? And then I got on the bike, and I did my workout, and I felt so much better afterwards. But in some ways that I don't know. I love that story because it just naming the emotion kicked me out of that feeling that way because it kicked me into just sort of laughing at myself a little bit and laughing about that funny word, chilly, shall we? So Mhmm. So I recommend, you know, setting a timer and and and do a little exploring of your emotions. Yeah.

Susan [00:18:10]:

Yeah. Yeah. My mantra was never question the decision. Oh, I love that mantra. Patience. That's not one of my virtues. That is not one of my virtues. I am not patient.

Susan [00:18:21]:

And so, yeah, I was like, no. I wanna get this. I wanna get it now, but it does take a lot of time. And, actually, it's a lifetime pursuit. I don't have the emotional mastery that I would like to have, and I still actually, I learned something from you, Ruby, about needing to sleep to heal your emotions. Because when I've recently just been sort of in a high stress, high emotional state in my life in general, and I just feel like I'm tired all the time and I need more sleep. And I wonder if I just need that sleep to kind of heal everything that's been going on with me right now.

Susan [00:18:56]:

So I'm like, okay. You know? I just need more sleep, and I should get that. Like, you need to listen to your body. If your body's saying you need more sleep, then you need more sleep. Right? It's probably what it needs. But yeah. Yeah. And, again, better out than in, you know, really feeling our emotions.

Susan [00:19:15]:

The healing is in the feeling, and, and it comes to you know, it also speaks to the practice that you and I I met doing, which was the RAIN practice, recognize the feeling, allow it, investigate, and nurture, which I feel like that is a whole episode in itself, and I would love to, to do that in a future episode with you, Ruby, as we can kind of go over our RAIN partners practice because it's another way, another tool that helps you learn how to feel your feelings and how to interact with them and how to process them in a positive way without needing to numb them with alcohol. 

Ruby [00:20:06]:

Yeah. It's a lifelong practice. It's something that I'm still working on. I wanted to recommend the book Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown, if you're interested in finding out more,

Susan [00:20:09]:

It's a beautiful book. Like, I learned that you know, we use the term jealousy a lot. Like, I'm so jealous of that, but it's really you if you're if I'm jealous of your beautiful hair, Ruby, it's that's not jealousy. That's envy. Right. I learned from this book that your hair looks beautiful today, by the way. And if you're if you're desirable or you like one thing from somebody, jealousy is when, like like, you and somebody else are friends, and I'm jealous of your guys' friendship. So Right.

Susan [00:20:39]:

That's different. So envy is more when you just you know? So we I realize how often just, you know, using the right word and also finding out which words are in which families, you know, the resentments in oh, do you remember this? Resentment is it in the angry family or is it anyway, finding out the family is that yeah. No. There was something key about resentment too, which was really interesting to me in that book. So it's a fabulous book, and it's a beautiful book. It's a gorgeous, practically a coffee table book, except I have tons of sticky notes on it. 

Ruby [00:21:15]:

Me too. 

Susan [00:21:16]:

So in addition to Atlas of the Heart, what is something that helps you feel lit? So that's our ending question of the podcast is what are you doing in your life? Ruby, it's your turn to feel lit today.

Ruby [00:21:37]:

That's awesome. I love to create a daily journal answering the question “what have you done well today?” list. In the evenings, write down three things that you did well today. Focusing on the progress will increase your dopamine.

Susan [00:21:39]:

Yeah. I should do this more because I tend to go negative. I tend to lay there in bed and go, okay. What did I not do well today or why do I want to do better? And, yeah, I love that focusing on what you did well even if it's not a task or something, even if it's like, oh, I had a really great interaction with my son today. And I call it not taking the bait. You know? Sometimes with adult children, I take you know, I try to fix all their problems. You know what I mean? And that's not always well received.

Susan [00:22:11]:

Sometimes they just wanna vent, and so it's like, oh, I didn't, you know, I didn't jump in and try to fix everything. I just was a good sounding board, and that's something that I did well today. And focusing, yeah, focusing on that keeps you focused on the positive, which generates more more of those things in your life versus, you know, focusing on the negative of how you know, things you wanna improve. I think it's always good to think about what you wanna improve on, but I think that we just naturally go there anyway. So at least for me, I don't really ever give myself, quote, unquote credit for doing things well. I need to celebrate more often. That was something that was really hard for me in early alcohol free living, which is such an important part of the process of learning how to celebrate your little wins because I've always just been like, oh, yeah. Yeah.

Susan [00:23:00]:

Okay. I did that. What's next? You know? And, like, no. You gotta celebrate all, build small wins upon small wins and celebrate all along the way. So I love what you did well today. Yes. It's really important in our alcohol free journey. Very, very important.

Susan [00:23:20]:

So Yes. Again, we would love to see you in our Facebook group. That is where we got the question that we answered today, and we wanna answer your questions. And we would love it if you leave your question in your review of the podcast, which we would adore if you did. And, also, we would love for you to join us there because we do post things. We go live. We offer a lot of value also in the Facebook group. So we would love for you to join us over there.

Susan [00:23:49]:

It's the Feel Lit Podcast Facebook group. And, oh, today, we have to mention even though Oh. You listeners cannot see us, Ruby and I are wearing our matching shirts, which Ruby made. So I'm just gonna give you a little shout out there. They're gorgeous pink and beautiful. Yay. And so cute, and I love it so much. Thank you so much.

Ruby [00:24:17]:

Thanks so much for listening to the Feel Lit Alcohol Free Podcast. Do you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show?

Susan [00:24:24]:

All you need to do is head over to Apple Podcasts and do 2 simple things. Leave a rating and review telling us what you think of the show. And in that review, ask us any questions you have about breaking free from wine or living an alcohol free lifestyle. That's it. Then tune in to hear your question And remember, do something today that will help you feel lit. And remember, do something today that will help you feel lit. See you next time.