Live Naked with Annie Grace: Transforming Your Life by Rethinking Alcohol / EP 52

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 52 of the Feel Lit Alcohol Free Podcast!

We are beyond excited to have the rock star of the alcohol-free movement, Annie Grace, author and founder of "This Naked Mind," join hosts Ruby Williams and Susan Larkin for an eye-opening conversation.

In this captivating episode, we dive deep into the journey of living alcohol-free, debunking the myth of "normies" and examining societal perceptions of alcohol. 

Annie shares her personal experiences, revealing the groundbreaking methods that have transformed countless lives. Are you curious about how brain chemistry impacts addiction or how self-awareness and compassion can help conquer cravings? We've got you covered!

But that's not all—Annie opens up about her past struggles, the transformative power of a mindset shift, and gives us a sneak peek into her upcoming book "Live Naked AF". 

Ready to embrace progress over perfection? Tune in for a powerful episode filled with empowerment, curiosity, and the tools you need to rediscover your authentic self.

Annie Grace, Author, Founder of This Naked Mind, LLC
At age 35, in a global C-level marketing role, Annie was responsible for marketing in 28 countries; and 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. 
 
Find more information on Annie Grace and This Naked Mind on their website.
Free download Annie's new book Live Naked AF!  (before it's published)

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and ask us any questions you have about breaking free from wine or living an alcohol-free lifestyle. Your question could be the highlight of a future episode!

Join our Feel Lit AF Facebook Community for amazing support and connection!

Watch Episode on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@FeelLitAlcoholFreePodcast/videos

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.

Transcript

Sick and tired of your love-hate relationship with wine? Welcome to the Feel It Alcohol Free podcast. Join us for dry January with Feel Lit 21. Press your reset button and discover how to feel healthier and freer. What's in it for you? Every day, we bring you actionable advice, heartfelt support, a caring community, and the inspiration you need. The truth is it's about progress, not perfection. What if your goal is 21 out of 31 days dry in January? There's no failure, only exploring and learning, and this is what you want. Right? Your alcohol free adventure starts here. Click the link in the show notes to join us.

Coach Ruby [00:00:47]:
Welcome back to the Feel Lit Alcohol Free podcast. We are so excited with a very, very special guest today. And this is our first episode for 2025, and we are calling this our 1 year podcast anniversary special episode. And guess who we have? We have Annie Grace with us today. Yay. We're so excited and honored.

Coach Susan [00:01:12]:
So Excited.

Coach Ruby [00:01:13]:
Yes. Yeah. 

Coach Ruby [00:01:15]:
I’m going to do a little bit of a brief bio, and then we're going to dig right in. So Annie Grace is the author and founder of This Naked Mind. She revamped her own relationship with alcohol. She stripped it of its power and changed her beliefs about booze being a reward. And today, she's helped millions of people across the globe to do the same. Her approach approach helps people where rehabs have not, and she's created a brand new revolutionary way to look at the role of alcohol in our lives, establishing a safe place for those who question their drinking but haven't self diagnosed as alcoholics or then and they're stuck in that denial of an incurable disease. So Annie Grace preaches compassion, knowing its power over shame and blame is the best way to achieve lasting change. Annie Grace doesn't teach people how to be sober.

Coach Ruby [00:02:14]:
She helps them squash their desire to drink in the 1st place. So welcome, welcome, Annie Grace.

Annie Grace [00:02:21]:
Oh, thank you so much. It's so great to be here.

Coach Ruby [00:02:23]:
Yes. Welcome. Yeah. So we know you really, really well, both Susan and I, as we're this Naked of Mind certified coaches. But our listeners may not know, you know, about you. And can you just start by providing a little bit about yourself and your alcohol free journey?

Annie Grace [00:02:41]:
Yeah, absolutely. I'm so glad to be here, you guys. Thank you so much for having me. So, you know, for me, it really started with not drinking a lot. Like, I didn't drink a lot in college. I went off to my first job in New York City. I still wasn't drinking a lot. I was actually told by my boss at the time that if I was going to be serious about my career, I need to just start showing up at happy hour.

Annie Grace [00:03:05]:
And I was like, well, why? I don't drink. And he's like, that's not what it's about. You know, it's about getting your ideas heard. It's about networking. And I was super passionate about my career. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna do that. But I'd also seen people who, you know, were dancing on tables and whatnot. So I had this, like, very methodical approach.

Annie Grace [00:03:22]:
I was gonna have a glass of wine and a glass of water and try to keep up with all these older men who were in the department at the time. Mhmm. And I, you know, would do things like go into the bathroom to throw up that last glass of wine just so I could keep drinking and try to fit in with that Manhattan boozy culture. And pretty slowly, although insidiously, and I don't remember exactly when, drinking at happy hour, at work events for the purpose of work kind of became, well, sounds good to have a drink at home instead of going to put on my running shoes. It sounds like an easy way to cope. And all of a sudden, I found myself, you know, drinking most nights. And fast forward a decade, and I was literally drinking, every single night, at least, like, 2 bottles of wine per night.

Coach Ruby [00:04:15]:
Me too. Yeah. I really relate.

Annie Grace [00:04:18]:
Mhmm.

Coach Ruby [00:04:19]:
So then what happened when you started to have this idea that you wanted to quit alcohol? Like, how did you quit? Yeah.

Annie Grace [00:04:29]:
Well, I thought it was gonna be super simple and straightforward. I felt like I knew I wasn't an alcoholic partly because I didn't think I was that bad or one of them, but partly also because a friend of mine who had gone to AA and, you know, declared herself an alcoholic was telling me that I wasn't one. That I didn't drink like her. And so I didn't think that AA was even an option, but I was like, well, if I'm you know, if this is starting to cause problems, since I became aware that alcohol was, in fact, causing problems, that it wasn't the duct tape that I thought was holding everything together, that it was actually, like, sabotaging me at every turn. That was really painful because I didn't want to admit that. I felt like alcohol was, like, a very close dear friend of mine that was, you know, helping me cope with life. And Mhmm. Once I realized that, like, that wasn't entirely true, I was like, yeah.

Annie Grace [00:05:18]:
Easy. I'll just cut back. I'll just stop drinking as much. And that was not easy. In fact, as I look back on it now, I can very clearly see that the more rules I tried to put in place for myself, the more, you know, willpower I tried to use, the more I tried to beat myself up to stop, the more I tried to, like, blame myself, tell myself. If I just could see how far I've fallen, then for sure I would do something about this, almost scare myself. But the more I would end up drinking over time. It would always work in the very short term, but not in the long term so I could keep myself those promises for a day or 2.

Annie Grace [00:05:54]:
But very similar to how I understand dieting, where most people who go on diets actually gain weight, most people go on multiple diets. That was my relationship with alcohol. It was like I was on this alcohol diet and every time I would restrict myself, I would boomerang back and I would end up drinking more. And so it actually kicked off this period of a lot of pain for me. I think it was 5 or 6 years where I was sort of in this limbo of, you know, not understanding why things were good in the rest of my life, but this felt so out of control, not understanding why alcohol took so much time in in my mental real estate, and just really stopping trusting myself. I was reaching a point where I didn't think I could be relied on because I had one thing to do, which was drink less, and I was failing miserably at that one thing. And so that really shook my sort of self esteem. I reached a really low spot.

Annie Grace [00:06:52]:
I remember coming back from London one day, and I had been drinking that entire week. I'd had a super boozy week. It was it was, you know, the hangovers left and right, but we're all kind of trying to laugh about it because we're all sort of in it together as co workers. And I had to wake up early to get my flight back to the US. And I went into the hotel lobby having stayed up till, like, 3 in the morning the night before and asked for a mimosa to kind of, like, take the edge off hair of the dog. And the waitress was like, well, I can't I can't give you a mimosa because the champagne isn't open. And I was like, well, okay. And she goes, well, I could give you vodka and an orange juice, which is a screwdriver.

Annie Grace [00:07:33]:
And that was one of those, like, little rules in my mind that if I didn't cross that rule, I couldn't have a problem. And one of those rules was no drinking hard alcohol first thing in the morning. But this morning, I was very, very desperate. I felt, like, in a lot of pain. And I did. And I had a few screwdrivers before I went to the airport. And that you know, I arrived at the airport, and I was in so I was now hungover and drunk and in so much pain and regret. And I remember sitting down and just writing in my journal, like, I think I'm an alcoholic.

Annie Grace [00:08:10]:
And it was just, like, this weight in my stomach, like, just gut wrenching. I felt sick to my stomach. And then there was this other voice, and this other voice is like, wait. Let's just find out why. Like, let's just find out why you're drinking more than used to. Like, why do you need to, you know, why can't you take it or leave it? Why do you feel smart and in control in other areas of your life? But this is a strange exception. And through that other voice, I actually was able to, you know, really start to look at why I put together a list of all the reasons I drank, and I started, like, digging into the science. And slowly but surely, every single reason I drink, it didn't hold up.

Annie Grace [00:08:51]:
There wasn't actually a good benefit to alcohol, and my drinking started to very naturally decrease. And after about, you know, 10, 11 months of that research, I remember telling my husband, like, if you wanna drink with me again, this is it because I'm not gonna get drunk anymore. And he was very surprised and couldn't really believe it, but he's like, alright. And we went and we split a bottle of wine. And aside from my alcohol experiment, which we'll probably talk about, that was, you know, I hadn't it's the last time I drank, and it was over a decade ago now.

Coach Ruby [00:09:24]:
Yeah. Wow. Then you ended up writing the book, The Naked Mind. And I want you to know from the bottom of my heart that that was the catalyst for my journey. I felt so alone, and then I read your book, that very first for me, like, the first in the intro, it's 3:33 in the morning. And I'm laying there in bed, beating myself up, you know, just, you know, in anguish. I mean, that is how it felt for me. And I just relate to your entire story because I worked in the corporate.

Coach Ruby [00:09:55]:
And it's just everything I'm, like, nodding my head, like, yes. Yes. That was me. That was me. So yeah. And if some of our listeners haven't read this Naked Mind book yet, it is phenomenal. But we also wanna talk about your new book too. Yeah.

Coach Ruby [00:10:10]:
So yeah. What would you wanna segue into talking about the new book that you've been writing? And it's called Live Naked Alcohol Free, or at least that's what I think it's gonna be called.

Annie Grace [00:10:22]:
Yeah. It's Live Naked AF, and it's a joyful 1st year approach to living alcohol free. And I'm really excited about it. It probably won't be out for a while still because I just finished the first draft, but it's really about everything that comes next. Sorry about that. Yeah. It's really about everything that comes next. So this naked mind was really about the mindset shift to actually, you know, leave alcohol in the rearview mirror and live naked AF is how to navigate your life, how to navigate your relationships, how to navigate, you know, the things that come up when life gets lifey, how to deal with sadness and anxiety, how to find more joy, in everyday life, all connected to really, you know, reinforcing this idea that living alcohol free is is really this badass amazing decision, not this this sad sort of punishment.

Coach Ruby [00:11:21]:
Right. Yeah.

Coach Susan [00:11:22]:
And that's what we talk about on our podcast, feel it alcohol free, that actually we feel more lit not drinking, because that's usually a term that people use when they're drinking, right, that they get lit. So we feel more ‘lit’ not drinking and have more joy not drinking. But that's not what, you know, what I thought. You know? I was in the same boat as, like, oh, this is when my story, my pastor said, well, if you have a problem with alcohol, you need to go to AA. So that was just, like, you know, that was not the answer I was looking for. And exploring that was part of my story and trying to get back to being normal and all that. And so this mindset shift for me, the path was where that mindset shift changed. And the first thing that you said that helped me in the webinar I saw from you was that we are normal if we start to develop a dependence on alcohol because our brain is doing what is the normal thing in relation to an addictive substance.

Coach Susan [00:12:21]:
And that just turned everything around for me. So I just want to thank you so much for that. Oh. Yeah. And you talk about this in the new book too, is this idea of normal and normies, and I remember that term in AA, and I hated that. So before I, you know, saw your webinar and got into the path, my whole goal, even though I was taking tons of breaks, was just to get back to being normal. Right? And that idea that I'm not normal. There's other normal people.

Coach Susan [00:12:49]:
They're normies, and I'm somehow defective. And I was doing everything in my power to not be that defective person. Right? You know? And like you said, when you were just, like, so upset on the plane ride home, like, oh my god. Am I an alcoholic? And so but you talk about what is this fear that not being normal is coming from, and why is it so dangerous in society? You talk about this in the book, and I think it's fascinating.

Annie Grace [00:13:17]:
Yeah. I mean, it is really, really fascinating. I actually call it, like, the tyranny of normal. And the reality is all we have to do is remember or look at any childhood playground to see how painful that idea of, like, not normal could be. I remember, you know, in my childhood, there was, like, a very small high school, very small school district. I basically went from kindergarten through high school with the same 50 kids, and it was not a secret that I had lived in a very alternative lifestyle for the town I lived in. So I lived in this very wealthy zip code, but I lived in a one room log cabin with no running water, no electricity. So we were, like, very abnormal according to, you know, standards.

Annie Grace [00:14:02]:
And, you know, we didn't even have a shower. There wasn't a toilet or a sink in the house. There were some holes my dad had drilled in the floor of the cabin where we'd heat up water on the stove and pour it over us. And so I didn't feel normal. Well, I felt perfectly normal until I was told that none of that was normal. Right? And I think that's the thing is we don't feel abnormal. We don't feel bad about ourselves. We feel perfectly fine with our circumstances, with whatever it is until we're told that, hey, like, no, that's that's not normal.

Annie Grace [00:14:37]:
And this is what happens with drinking. Right? We look around and we're comparing the insides of ourselves. So how bad we feel, how frustrated we are with ourselves, how much we've been beating ourselves up, how much we feel like a failure. We compare that with the outsides of everybody else, which, of course, nobody looks like they're struggling. We actually didn't look like we were struggling. I think that's probably true for all 3 of us, knowing you both Right. Well. And so we conclude, like, we're we're the problem.

Annie Grace [00:15:05]:
We're not normal. And then it actually is completely compounded, really by this idea that originated back in 1939. And that's where we can trace this idea of abnormality from. And there's a few things that were written in the big book, which is the text of AA, where, you know, people who they called alcoholics, which the term alcoholic is not medically used. It's not scientifically used. There's no definitive definition in either the medical or scientific community. It's often said that you have to figure that out for yourself. You know, it's passed around.

Annie Grace [00:15:38]:
Like, my friend said to me, like, oh, you're not an alcoholic. Someone else might say, I am an alcoholic. Some of the reviews on my book are like this, this wasn't written by a real alcoholic. Therefore, it's invalid. I mean, it's just such a nebulous term. Right? But where it came from was really AA and what happened was in the big book, it's actually this is a quote. It says, the alcoholic is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. It says, we alcoholics are abnormal drinkers, and the delusion that we alcoholics are like other people has to be smashed.

Annie Grace [00:16:16]:
And then that whole paradigm has been adapted to this idea of normies, and the term normies has been, you know, popularized as people who have this normal relationship with alcohol. And AA even the big book even goes so far as to describe everyone who can't drink, quote, normally as, quote, be unfortunate. And so it's like what are we supposed to think? Right? We already know it's incredibly painful to feel abnormal or to feel like things are sort of, like, we don't fit in. But then to feel as if, you know, that the punishment for that is meetings for the rest of our life and, you know, really being in that incredible amount of pain Yeah. Could be really, really hard.

Coach Ruby [00:17:00]:
And we're seeing it's normal on television, movies, everywhere. Right? It's like this everyone, everywhere concept of normal, and yet I love what you said, Annie. Like, we don't know what's in everybody's head. I mean, everybody saw me as just a normal person. I had a corporate job, worked really hard. I was able to show up every day, do my job. Yet, in my head, I knew that I was suffering. And, I was in denial.

Coach Ruby [00:17:33]:
I don't know if you guys were too, but, like, I remember I'd wake up feeling like total crap, but I would say, I'm okay. I can do this. You know? I'm fine. I'm normal.

Coach Susan [00:17:45]:
Well, the pain is so hard. That's why we all became coaches or do what we do is because we know how much pain we were in. And then I figured so many people are in this I would cry on the way to work and then be, like, halfway there and go, okay. Suck it up, Susan. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You gotta, you know, get with it. You gotta get in there and, like, do your thing, and then, you know, get through the day, and then on the way home, swing by the liquor store, you know? And it's so frustrating. And to think that then again, that we're not normal.

Coach Susan [00:18:16]:
We don't know what people do behind closed doors. Everyone saw me drink 2 glasses of wine when I was out in public, but they didn't know that, you know, I drank the rest of the bottle at home, you know? Yeah. So, yeah. And we don't know that, You know, the highlight reel of everyone's life, you know, that we see on Facebook and Instagram and so many places now. And so it's really hard. And you mentioned something in the book too that I mean, the science is what set me free, to be honest. And one of the things that you mentioned is that our subconscious brain is 7 seconds faster than our prefrontal cortex or our thinking brain. And I feel like, oh, that helps me help clients so much, but it also explains why you can literally be driving home saying, I'm not going to drink.

Coach Susan [00:19:00]:
I'm not going to drink. Get home. And you're ripping the cork out with your teeth and pouring a glass and drinking it, and just be like, what am I doing? And I hear that from clients so much. They're like, why? Why am I doing this? What is going on? So how do we reprogram, or how do we beat that 7 seconds? Right?

Annie Grace [00:19:18]:
Yeah. I love that question. It's it's so fascinating because part a big part of that is that so there's a a principle in neurology, and it's basically called Hebbs law, and it says that neurons have fire together, wire together, which in short means that everything that you have been doing habitually when it comes to drinking or frankly any other habit gets wired into your brain, actually, in the gray matter of your brain as sort of a superhighway for that thing. And it's not just the act itself. It's everything that precedes it. So if you're driving by the liquor store and you've done that a 1000 times and every time you've pulled in, your brain is actually thinking that that's what's gonna happen. And so it's overcompensating and it's releasing these chemicals that's preparing your brain for the alcohol that you're going to drink. It's trying to keep you safe.

Annie Grace [00:20:13]:
It's actually like an immune defense. It's saying, here, I'm gonna prepare for this ahead of time. And so when you all of a sudden switch up your routine and you don't stop at the liquor store, you have all of these chemicals that have flooded into the brain saying, hey. I'm preparing for this. You don't add alcohol. The brain just freaks out. And and it feels like this very intense emotional craving because the very, like, long and short of any addictive behavior is that through an overstimulation of the dopamine response, your brain has basically gotten confused to think that thing that you just did, that drink you just had, or alcohol in general is necessary for survival. And so your brain is literally so confused that it thinks this is needed for survival.

Annie Grace [00:21:01]:
So now you have this perfect storm of this chemical kind of chaos because of the overcompensation, plus the brain's thought pattern that, like, at an emotional level, I need alcohol to survive. And so you're struck with this intense craving before you even have any conscious thoughts, And it's like then you have this, like, f it button, and people would be like, I don't even know how this happened. Yeah. I don't even understand what went on. Well, you know, other studies show that when somebody's in the middle of a craving like that, the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of your brain that's like the CEO part of the brain, the part that makes good decisions for later, the part that can delay gratification, the part that can, you know, sit with discomfort, it goes completely offline in MRIs. So during a craving, the part of your brain that is actually the only part that can sort of say, I'm not gonna do this now for the benefit later, it is hijacked. And so we're dealing with this, you know, actual chemical hijacking of the brain, which manifests in these cravings and these emotions. So how do we handle it? I mean, the main thing is just awareness of what's happening, because we're not like mice.

Annie Grace [00:22:15]:
If you see that that's a trap, and you see that when you drive by the liquor store, you're flooded with just like, oh my gosh. I'm not gonna be okay tonight. I have to go back. This doesn't feel good. What's wrong? Because this feeling arises in your body, and what chases that feeling is this barrage of thoughts about needing alcohol. You don't have to say, oh, there's something wrong with me. I'm broken. I'm never gonna get out of this.

Annie Grace [00:22:36]:
This is such a problem. You could say, oh, oh, this is predictable. This is exactly what the brain is gonna do. Right? And this is exactly and that's why it's so helpful to work with a coach because they know exactly what's gonna happen. They could say, you're gonna drive by the liquor store. You're gonna be flooded with these emotions. You're gonna pull over, and you're gonna call me. Right? Or we're gonna, you know, you're gonna send me a voice memo or we're going to, whatever.

Annie Grace [00:22:58]:
You're gonna do this meditation and equip people with these kills because we're not mice. We don't have to fall into these traps of chemistry once we see them. We were, like, incredibly strong, powerful people. It's just that we don't really see what's happening. And especially with that 7 seconds 7 seconds of abject panic because your body is saying I need something to survive. Like, if you think of that, you know, like, 1-1,000, 2-1,000, 3-1,000, 4-1,000, 5-1,000, 6-1,000, 7-1,000.

Coach Ruby [00:23:27]:
It takes a long time.

Annie Grace [00:23:28]:
It takes a long time to feel like if I don't get that thing, I'm going to die. And I know that feels overly dramatic, but it's not. Like, that's what's chemically happening in the brain during a craving is your brain is saying, if I don't get that, I will die. Until your logical mind can catch on and be like, wait wait. Nobody's dying. 

Coach Ruby [00:23:47]:
You’re not going to die.

Annie Grace [00:23:47]:
It's going to be okay.

Coach Ruby [00:23:48]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Susan [00:23:51]:
I just went through this with a client who has this problem with Trader Joe's. She's like, well, I walk in, and I said, let's just walk through Trader Joe's. And she's like, the flowers are here. The produce is no problem. So when I go through the meat and the charcuterie section and then the wine section's there, and that's when it starts. And I go, okay. But I think awareness, just being aware, like, okay. I'm going in.

Coach Susan [00:24:12]:
I'm going into the section, and, like, I think you'll be okay. But then we also talked about strategies she could use during that time, and one of them was, yes. What's up with me? And, also, you know, what are you gonna buy that's different? Like, tapping into the joy of that section. Like, you're gonna buy the super expensive stinky cheese that you really wanna try instead. Instead. But I think sometimes just awareness, and we talk about awareness so much on our podcast, that's the key. Once you're aware, it's almost like you have a little bit more control over it. Because you go, oh, yeah.

Coach Susan [00:24:41]:
There it is. Yeah. There's that feeling. Oops. Because I'm in the charcuterie section. You know? And you can kind of even kind of laugh not laugh it off, but just the awareness of, like, okay. Yeah. I'm gonna be okay.

Coach Susan [00:24:52]:
So,

Coach Ruby [00:24:54]:
yeah. Yeah. Awareness and curiosity and self compassion. Like, every single episode, we talk about those three keys because it's so important in what's different about this Naked Mind methodology and the ALP methodology. We'll ask more questions about ALP in a second. But what do you think, Annie, is, like, so different about your approaches versus we mentioned AA or, like, rehab? You know, what is so different?

Annie Grace [00:25:19]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And just to comment quickly and give, like, a really tangible story for Trader Joe's situation is, you know, think of it this way. Like, if you're invited to a birthday party and they bring out this great looking cake, you know, and you're trying to eat a little less sugar but you love cake, you're gonna crave the cake. Right? You're going to look at that cake and be like, okay. And you're gonna have to think, do I wanna have the cake? Do I not wanna have the cake? What am I doing today? You know, maybe I'll have a little cake. But there's gonna be some sort of a craving. Now, I have walked through the bakery section of the grocery store, and I have never craved cake.

Annie Grace [00:25:57]:
Yeah. Why? Because there's a totally different psychological association. A, I'm not eating the cake in the bakery section. B, there's no celebration which has been tied into the whole thing. So I'm not, like, attaching the sugar to celebration and togetherness. So all these psychological meanings aren't there, but what a shocking display of how Trader Joe's situation was so tied in because of all of her experiences. I'm pampering myself. It's the white cheese.

Annie Grace [00:26:24]:
I'm taking care of myself. Like, you know, I always buy it here and then my brain knows I'm gonna have it later, like, within a short period of time. And if we just contrast that to, like, you know, walking through a place you've never bought liquor before, some, like, a warehouse with, you know, cases of wine, she'd have no craving. It's just because of the circumstances and the meanings we've created over time. And the great thing about that is, like, you just have to interrupt it once. So, Susan, your coaching is just, like, spot on. Because if she can just interrupt it once, the next time won't be a 10 out of 10 craving. It will be a 2 out of 10.

Annie Grace [00:26:57]:
Just, like, have to interrupt it once. So, anyway, I forgot your question already. I'm sorry. 


Coach Ruby [00:27:02]:
So just the approach of This Naked Mind, because we touched briefly on, like, AA and, you know, will powered rules. And, you know, how does the This Naked Mind or ALP methodology differ from, say, AA and rehab programs, and you know, the medical model?

Annie Grace [00:27:23]:
Yeah. So the best way that I've really found to explain this is this idea of order of operations. I know it sounds kind of weird, like 6th grade math. But, basically, what it is is if you can all go back and sort of think about, you know, our math classes. I have 2 teenage boys and they're always doing math at the dinner table. And so when we think about our math classes, we think of order of operations, which is basically like, you know, I learned it PEMDAS, which is the parenthesis come first, then the exponents, then multiplication and division, and on and on. And I started thinking like, well, wait a second. Why is it that this naked mind's methodology and ALP, affective liminal psychology, kind of the science that I have put into the world, why is it when we run these efficacy studies, it's not even on the same planet as the efficacy of the existing methodology.

Annie Grace [00:28:20]:
So for example, you know, you can find efficacy studies for AA, which is like, maybe if they're generous, they'll say 7% of people, might end up being in long term recovery. But usually, it's less than that. You know, studies for rehab, on average, we're talking 3 to 4% of people actually go into, but when you when we do studies with this naked mind and the methodology you all have been trained in, you know, 54% of people drink less after coming into contact with our our

Coach Ruby [00:28:49]:
It's amazing. Our methodologies.

Annie Grace [00:28:51]:
Yeah. And then 36 or sorry. 54% stopped drinking and 36% drank less. So the majority stopped drinking and then 36 drank less. So it's 90%. And I was like, okay. Well, why is that? And this kind of epiphany was, well, maybe the order of operations is wrong. And so I was like, okay.

Annie Grace [00:29:10]:
Like, I think our existing recovery order of operations goes like this. It's behavior first, then judgment, then negative emotions. So you can think of it as b n or b j n e. Right? Like, just like, it's not as cute as PEMDAS, but behavior first. Like, we're so all about the behavior.

Coach Ruby [00:29:29]:
Just stop.

Annie Grace [00:29:30]:
Yeah. Just stop. And when I was doing that to myself for those 6 years, like, I was literally at the lowest point in my life. I was hysterical in that tunnel underneath the airport in Heathrow, London. It was the first time I'd ever drink vodka in the morning. I had that rule in my head that said if you don't drink hard alcohol, you don't have a problem. But now I did have a problem because I was drinking hard alcohol. Funny fact, that rule is also said, but don't worry.

Annie Grace [00:29:57]:
You're okay if you drink mimosas till you puke. That's not a problem. But, it was like one of those hands. Yeah. Yeah. And so there I was and, like, I didn't know what to do because I had one job, which was to stop the behavior, to stop drinking. And I couldn't do that one job. I couldn't do that one thing. And that behavior, me being unable to do that because I didn't know that alcohol was tangled up in my brain as needing it to survive.

Annie Grace [00:30:28]:
I didn't have that information about chemistry and how strong and serious cravings are and how, you know, human beings, like, our brains go offline when they're happening to us. Like, I didn't know why behavior was so hard. I just thought something was wrong with me. I wasn't normal. I had a problem. I was broken. And the shame and despair, they were just, like, crushing. I felt like I was only worthy if I wasn't drinking, and I was drinking.

Annie Grace [00:30:52]:
I couldn't do that one thing, so I just wasn't worthy. And, and in that tunnel, you know, that voice that asked, like, why? Why? It was like, just wait a second. Like, just take a break. Like, let’s just find out why. Like, you're more than your behavior. And I really took that voice very seriously. And over that next year, I switched my order of operations, and I put grace first. And grace first was, you know, really the only thing that can actually make me be curious.

Annie Grace [00:31:22]:
So Ruby, as you're saying, you know, it's grace, curiosity, compassion, these things. Like, I was like, well, I can't. I can't afford to have grace for myself because I've been, like, a disaster. Like, you don't understand. Like, just a little bit more drinking is gonna send me like, I can't do it. I can't afford to have grace for myself. But then there was this, like, you know, this dialogue I'm having in my brain, and it, like, was, like, well, the definition of insanity is we've been trying it this way for 6 years, and it hasn't worked. So why don't we try this other way? And it was, like, if you can't have grace, you can't be curious. If you can't be curious, you can't know why.

Annie Grace [00:32:00]:
If you can't know why, you're not gonna be able to change this. Like, let's just use logic here. And so for the first time, I kind of stepped out of this shame where we can't have shame and that negative emotion is so reactive. It's so strong. It's so intense. We can't think logically. We can't think with our prefrontal cortex. It's offline.

Annie Grace [00:32:18]:
And so I said, okay. Like, what if it was different? What if the order of operations was grace first, which awakens curiosity, which creates positive emotion, which then, of course, would change my behavior because there's no doubt, like, behavior is the thing we need to change. But the reality is that, like, behavior might be the metric of success, but it's not what needs to come first in order to change it. And, you know, when we put our behavior first, like, very predictable things happen. We judge ourselves based on our behaviors, worthy or unworthy. That judgment leads to a shame spiral that can result in even multi day benders or really shameful drinking that causes huge problems in our life that creates negative emotion and more shame. We use that as a weapon against ourselves that drives us to drink. Our brains have been programmed to crave a drink when we're in pain.

Annie Grace [00:33:08]:
There's few things more painful than that internal conflict and on and on.

Coach Ruby [00:33:12]:
Yeah. 

Annie Grace [00:33:13]:
And then when we switch to grace first, like, a totally different set of things happen. Right? When we start asking why, we start to think it gets quiet enough in our own heads for us to, like, think. And we can be curious and compassionate about our own experience. We can be, like, well, why do I feel smart and in control everywhere else? But this is the one exception. Like, why did I used to take it or leave it? Now I have to have it. And why does anybody drink anyway? And what is an alcoholic? Is my brain actually different? How is it different? Is it chemically different? You know, what did alcohol do in the body? Does it create the peace that I think it is? Or does it release adrenaline and cortisol, which is the truth of it? You know, does it give me joy, or does it numb my ability to feel joy, which is the truth of it? Right? And we get curious about what can create this positive emotion. And when that positive emotion happens, like, the behavior changes. And I've asked this to people.

Annie Grace [00:34:08]:
I say, just do a challenge. Right? Take behavior. Make it not your goal. I don't want your drinking to be your goal. I don't even want it to be what you think about. What I want you to do is every time you drink or don't drink for the next 30 days, I want you to be kind to yourself and curious about why you did it. Yeah. Do that for 30 days and commit to it.

Annie Grace [00:34:29]:
And tell me if your drinking goes up or down. And inevitably, that's why the success rate is 90% of people drink less or stop drinking, The drinking goes down. It's just, like, predictable. It's just how the brain works. And, I know I'm just, like, off on a tear about this, but the last thing that I'll say about, like, why it's so different is, I remember this just being embodied so well. I was at an event and it was a Byron Katie event and her daughter Roxanne had had a really problematic relationship with alcohol when she was much younger. And, you know, like Roxanne had been talking to her mom about, like, how she ended up moving through that. And one of the things that Byron Katie, Roxanne's mom had done is she never saw Roxanne as bad or broken.

Annie Grace [00:35:15]:
You know, she made sure that Roxanne knew that her behavior, her drinking, is not tied into her worthiness. Right? She saw, like, she saw perfection in her daughter. She saw a woman she was privileged to call her daughter. She felt love without expectation of change. And so Roxanne turned to her mom with tears in her eyes, and she said, you saw me as good, so I knew I must be good. And that's when I started to get sober, and that's how I healed. Because, like, the truth of it is and I know you guys know this better than most people because of what you do for a living, but, like, we can't break ourselves whole. Like, we can't do it.

Annie Grace [00:35:53]:
And when we try to do it, that's the paradigm right now is how much can we break ourselves down? How much can we admit we're powerless? How much can we try to break ourselves whole? And then we wonder why we have these success rates. Well, if you get the order of operations wrong, you get the wrong answer. Mhmm. Yeah.

Coach Ruby [00:36:11]:
Yeah. I I I find, you know, coaching in your PATH programs and the alcohol experiment that the what I found is this seems like a lot of people that end up drinking heavily have this we call it, like, a big big belief, the tree trunk belief, you know, of, like, unworthiness or I'm unlovable. And, you know, this 1st year in the alcohol free journey is a lot about just your, like, figuring out yourself and having that compassion, curiosity, awareness. But in that 2nd year, that's where I really worked on relationships, that deep relationship with myself too, deeper and really figuring out this core belief that I was broken or unlovable or unworthy. And that took time. This just takes time to really rewire your brain and really find that deep self love. And I love that just everything you put out into the world, Annie, because, the science and the compassion and that you're not alone. Like, all of this is just so beautiful.

Coach Ruby [00:37:17]:
We're just you're impacting so many millions of lives, and I want you to know just I'm

Annie Grace [00:37:22]:
Oh, thank you. And I think that that's the thing that I asked you guys actually were some of the people I asked for this book. You were some of my co authors. And I asked, you know, what was most surprising about your 1st year alcohol free? And it was and this was the most surprising thing for me too. It was oh, it's the first step on the journey. Mhmm. Right? Everything, everything starts to happen. Life starts to happen… After.

Annie Grace [00:37:48]:
The bottle. And it's really the first step. And the reason it's the first step is because over and over, people would say, I just didn't know who I was, and I've had the joy of rediscovering myself. Like, rediscovering, you know, the little 8 year old, 6 year old, 12 year old Ruby, and the little 9, 10, 11 year old Susan, and, like, what really lights us up and who we really are in the world before before we started believing things that that caused us to believe we weren't worthy. And, like, that journey is so beautiful and so profound and, and so amazing to watch so many women, especially wake up to our own power in this and our own knowledge of ourselves and our own internal wisdom and intuition. And, you know, when I was really writing affectiveliminal psychology, it was so clear to me that, you know, any addiction, whether it's scrolling to alcohol to work to, you know, anything, it's it's us trying to medicate a disconnection with self and the disconnection with who our most authentic things. You know, us trying to live in ways that are not true and authentic to us. And if there's one thing I think the world needs more than anything else, it's more people who are living in the truest and authentic way.

Annie Grace [00:39:05]:
And so I think that this work is so much more profound than that because at the end of the day, it's not really about the alcohol. Right? It's about rediscovering who we are. Yeah. And that's been the most surprising thing.

Coach Ruby [00:39:17]:
Yeah. Yes. I love that.

Coach Susan [00:39:19]:
We figure our heart and our mind out. And I remember because I did your PATH program, the PATH in its iteration now, the original year, 2020. And I remember about 9 months in starting to feel good about myself, but it was such a foreign feeling. 


Coach Susan [00:39:38]:
I use this word, which is such a high school word. I'm like, am I conceited? I just feel like it just felt wrong to even feel good about yourself. How terrible is that? So how ingrained in me was feeling bad about myself? I think when you say 8 or 9 years old, I think I have to really go back to maybe even before 3 years old of feeling good about myself. So it's been a journey for me. Feeling bad about myself is more my comfort zone. And so it was a hard thing to break. But ditching alcohol was the first step, absolutely, to this journey of authenticity, which, yeah, which is a beautiful thing, especially for women. Because I feel like, yeah, I feel like we live in this unworthy place and, you know, feel like we have to hustle for our worthiness and do and produce instead of just being.

Coach Susan [00:40:33]:
Like, I still struggle with just being, but I'm working on it. Me too.

Annie Grace [00:40:37]:
Me too.

Coach Ruby [00:40:37]:
Yeah. Taking up more space, playing big in life instead of playing small, which is what I was doing when I was drinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Susan [00:40:45]:
And I love your formulas. Like, even though I'm not a math person, I've always been terrible at math.

Annie Grace [00:40:50]:
I am not a math person.

Coach Susan [00:40:53]:
My dad's a math teacher. So my dad was always, Susan, like, how do you not get this? And I'm like, I don't know. You know? But a formula though, like, you know, emotion, repetition, authority, or just just yeah. But if I can grab onto a formula that it's like, I can put that in my brain and go, okay. 

Coach Susan [00:41:12]:
So when you were mentioning the order of operations, that just cracked me up because I was like, I needed that, an acronym, because I still can't do math. But, you know, and I love the emotion of repetition authority and how important positive emotion is. Like you said, we can't break ourselves better. We cannot hate ourselves to a better place. When you put that in a formula, that just makes sense. But that's just what we're taught. Like, beat yourself up a little bit more. I feel like I have a black belt in beating myself up.

Coach Susan [00:41:42]:
And it's like, you know, just whip yourself into shape, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know, and it's like, that just doesn't work. And when you try something new, different, then you start to see it work, and then that positive emotion around that and the and the importance of celebration, which is another thing we don't do, you know, is just yeah. This is what we talk about on the podcast, and we're just so Yeah. Grateful for you because you're what started it all for both of us.

Coach Ruby [00:42:08]:
I know. I have a really fun question for you, Annie.

Annie Grace [00:42:12]:
Yes.

Coach Ruby [00:42:12]:
So what's one thing on your bucket list, and why is that important to you?

Annie Grace [00:42:19]:
Oh, well, I really want to hit the New York Times bestseller list. This is on my bucket list. 

Coach Susan [00:42:26]:
Okay.

Annie Grace [00:42:28]:
And it's so funny because it's such, like, a petty thing in a way, but, like, it's not I've I've sold more books than most books, like, the vast majority that are published on that list because I've sold over a 1000000 copies of This Naked Mind, and that's, like, this way elite group way beyond New York Times bestseller. However, because it's, like, such a thing and it's such, like, a trendy thing and you have to do it in these specific ways, it's just one of those things that I wanna do. I think that would be great just to get the work in the hands of more people. But on a personal level, I've always just wanted to go and live for a week or 2 on a sailboat with my family. So I keep angling for that every summer. But my daughter, she's still only 7. So we're like, would it be fun? Would she just be calling the walls? But I want to make sure that my older son is 16. So I've gotta do it sooner than later.

Coach Ruby [00:43:18]:
Oh, that would be amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. And speaking of New York's times best seller, like, what are you reading right now that is like something that's impacted you and that you'd like to share with our listeners?

Annie Grace [00:43:32]:
I'm actually reading a really interesting book called The Presence Process by Michael Brown. Certainly not, you know, one of the best selling books, kind of an obscure book, but really fascinating about just kind of integrating our emotional experiences, with this process that he's created. So I really enjoyed that. And, I'm loving it.

Coach Ruby [00:43:55]:
Awesome. That's great. So I'm privy to the fact that as we're recording this, we're recording this in the beginning of December, and you're having your 10 year alcohol free anniversary next week.

Annie Grace [00:44:07]:
Yes. Yeah.

Coach Ruby [00:44:08]:
And speaking of celebrations, because it's so important to celebrate milestones, like, how are you gonna celebrate?

Annie Grace [00:44:13]:
Yeah. That's so interesting. I don't think about that as a milestone even because it felt so effortless and easy. I had to go back and, like, look up the date. So more than likely, it will pass completely uneventfully. But it's just it's not because it's not amazing. It's just because I don't know. It's so small and irrelevant that it's just completely irrelevant.

Annie Grace [00:44:39]:
It would be like celebrating the day I gave up mayonnaise.

Coach Ruby [00:44:41]:
Yeah.

Annie Grace [00:44:42]:
Stop drinking, you know, regular soda.

Coach Ruby [00:44:44]:
When did it become effortless? Because, like, in your book, you mentioned that it's longer. Like, I think it was, Dowsett Johnson was saying it took, like, 5 years. Or, you know, I just celebrated my 5th about 6 months ago, my 5 year anniversary. And I think it's completely small and irrelevant, but when did that shift happen?

Annie Grace [00:45:06]:
It's interesting because I think I did my work ahead of time. So I think I have a unique experience with this naked mind of I was the one who read through every single study, and I was the one who spent the entire year reading and rereading and, you know, like, just internalizing that information. So I felt like alcohol was mostly irrelevant almost immediately. I did have one instance, which was about 3 months after I stopped drinking. It was in March, and I know this because it was Saint Patrick's Day, and we were sitting around the table and we had this dinner party and some friends were drinking these green beers. And I was like, oh, I think I overreacted. I didn't know I was gonna write a book at that point, by the way. I had just done the research for myself, but it was in these kinds of messy PDFs.

Annie Grace [00:45:51]:
And I had started to share it with people, and people were like, you should make this a book. And I was like, I should. And they're like, yes. So I ended up self publishing. But so I didn't. I didn't intend to do this for a living. I just was like a human who had decided alcohol sucks, and then I was like, maybe it doesn't. Maybe I overreacted. But I didn't wanna get, you know, drunk that night because I knew about the coupling in the brain of enjoyable experiences, socialization, and, you know, that Hebb's law.

Annie Grace [00:46:16]:
Those things were firing together. I was drinking at every single social event, so they wired together. And so I decided I was gonna do what I called the alcohol experiment. It's a very original alcohol experiment, and I locked myself in my bedroom with 2 bottles of wine. I put myself in front of a curtain. I turned my iPhone on, and I recorded myself getting drunk. And I thought that it was gonna be fun and interesting. I thought I was gonna, like, get drunk and then wanna go downstairs and hang out.

Annie Grace [00:46:46]:
But the reality was I couldn't even watch the videos for 4 years. It took me a long time to know there's a 16 minute video on day 8 of the alcohol experiment that is an edited down of the 4 hours of footage, and it took me a long time to get that together because of how painful it was. But there was nothing about alcohol by itself that was enjoyable to me. It was honestly, like, the edges of the room started to get a little bit blurry. I started to feel slightly dizzy, a little light headed. That lasted for maybe 20 minutes. It wasn't even that great. And then I just felt in a bad mood, and I felt I started yelling at my kids.

Annie Grace [00:47:21]:
I was yelling at my dog. I could see the light go out of my eyes. It was shocking. I didn't even have to watch the video, but it was so shocking how little alcohol actually does and how much it was all placebo from the things I coupled with it. Yeah. I was free after that. Like, there was no there's never been a moment where I'm like, yeah, let's have a drink. It just has never sounded good after that Yeah. Experiment.

Annie Grace [00:47:46]:
But I had to experience that viscerally, talk about how to change the subconscious emotion. All the emotion was there. Repetition, you know, I had done that for so many years that my repetition of how being drunk felt, it all came back. Right? It was like, oh, this sucks. And then, you know, I was my own best authority. Our experience is our own best authority. And yeah. So I know it's not always that what people do, but for me, it was really immediate.

Coach Ruby [00:48:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. That light in the eye, you know, really, really strikes me. I just should remember. And I can see it when other people drink now. It's like a veil goes over their eyes or something, and people change personalities, or they're just not their light, their light is not there. You know? And I remember looking at myself in the mirror when I was drunk and just, like, asking, who am who am I? Who knows, I just couldn't recognize myself when I was drinking.

Coach Susan [00:48:44]:
Yeah. When I've given this exercise to clients, usually, every time they come back and go, that was painful. I did not like that. Wow. I learned so much. And, you know, Ruby, you use it also as the mindful drinking exercise with the journaling, and how you feel, and when do you want the next drink, and recording yourself too. Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Susan [00:49:07]:
It's so powerful because when we have that visceral bodily experience, that's everything. Right? That is how it changes everything. And I didn't do that, but I feel like I did it before I started the path because I had been kind of almost alcohol free in 2019 up until COVID 2020 March. And then I just threw everything out the window, started drinking from a coffee mug like everyone else. And, and I but because I had the contrast of how it felt mostly in 2019 when I was doing many, many 30, 60 days and then kind of trying to get back to normal and drinking in between. But then when I just all you know, just no beholds barred and just went back to regular old drinking, and it took me a couple months of that and then just realizing, yeah, this is awful, and how much it exacerbated my anxiety and depression. And I was all in when it took me I think I think I was about 200 days when all of a sudden it was like, yeah, this is in the path. Like, yep.

Coach Susan [00:50:07]:
I'm not going back. You know, first, you know, you don't you don't you don't put forever on the table. Right? That's a little too daunting. So the first one was 100 days. Then I'm like, okay. If I do another 100, it'll be right before Christmas. Okay. And then once I got there, it was like never going back, and that became small and irrelevant.

Coach Susan [00:50:25]:
And that doesn't mean there aren't challenges. There are vacations. You have the resources and the tools to get through the challenges, and when you really are like, I really don't want to drink, but why? Yeah. So, you know, I sometimes say it's not easy, but it's nothing that you can't do. You know? Just like when you go to the gym and they're like, okay, that one extra squat, it's not easy, but it's hard but doable. Right? And it's worth it because that extra squat is the one that really, you know, increases your strength. Right?  So good.

Coach Susan [00:51:00]:
So good.

Coach Ruby [00:51:01]:
So alcohol freedom, you know, we feel lit. And, Annie, I really wanna know, what do you do to feel lit alcohol free?

Annie Grace [00:51:12]:
I love reading and thinking and talking about what I'm reading and thinking. So I think probably those things, like having really thoughtful conversations with friends. I think that is like the best drug for me. For sure.

Coach Ruby [00:51:29]:
I love it too.

Annie Grace [00:51:30]:
Yeah. I actually thought, if you guys don't mind, I thought of something while we were talking that I'd love to give your listeners, which is I'm gonna throw up the first nine chapters of the new book because I know it's not gonna be out for, like, almost a year. Oh, thank you. That is available to Live Naked AF just for free so people can get an early peek. Huge.

Coach Susan [00:51:52]:
Yeah. Well, I've already benefited from reading the first 9 chapters, so thank you so much for the sneak preview for us coaches. And all of your gifts are so amazing.

Coach Ruby [00:52:01]:
What a nice gift. Yeah. Is there anything that you wanna share, like what's happening with you in January or this naked mind, feel free to give us a shout right now.

Annie Grace [00:52:15]:
Awesome. Yeah. We're gonna do a live 5 day control alcohol challenge in 2025 where I will go deep into the reasons we've been stuck, why it's buried in our subconscious, and how we can get back in control in 2025. So we don't know how many tickets will be yet. We don't know, any of the details, but I'm sure we'll give you a link before this

Coach Ruby [00:52:35]:
goes live.

Annie Grace [00:52:36]:
And it's definitely going to be in January.

Coach Ruby [00:52:38]:
Thank you so much for this gift for our listeners, and thank you so much for joining us for the Feel Lit Alcohol Free podcast. Susan and I are just forever grateful for you and your book and what you're doing in the world. Thank you.

Coach Susan [00:52:54]:
Thank you so much. We've benefited so much from your passion for reading and talking about what you're reading and getting excited about science.

Coach Susan [00:53:03]:
And you've created so many wonderful programs for the world, and I'm looking forward to even more in this book.

Annie Grace [00:53:11]:
Yeah. Yay. Well, thank you guys so much. This was really a fun way to spend some time this morning.

Coach Ruby [00:53:15]:
Oh, awesome. Thank you, Annie. 

Join us for dry January with the Feel Lit 21 program. Press your reset button and discover how to feel healthier and freer. What's in it for you? Every day, we bring you actionable advice, heartfelt support, a caring community, and the inspiration you need. The truth is it's about progress, not perfection. What if your goal is 21 out of 31 days dry in January? There's no failure, only exploring and learning, and this is what you want. Right? Your alcohol free adventure starts here. Click the link in the show notes to join us. 

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? 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 answered live. Don't forget to grab your copy of a wine free weekend at www.feellitpodcast.com
And remember, do something today that will help you feel lit. See you next time!