Why Chasing Happiness in a Wine Glass Always Leaves You Empty / EP 61

Welcome back to the Feel Lit Alcohol Free Podcast! In this episode, your hosts, Susan and Ruby, dive deep into the complex relationship between alcohol and happiness. Ruby opens up with a question many of us have pondered: "Does alcohol really make us happy?" Sharing personal experiences and client stories, Ruby and Susan discuss the deceptive illusion of happiness that alcohol provides. They explore how societal beliefs and personal experiences have conditioned us to associate alcohol with fun and happiness. However, as they unveil, the science behind alcohol tells a different story. From the chemical effects of alcohol on our brain to the way it can overshadow genuine emotions like joy, gratitude, and serenity, this episode encourages listeners to challenge ingrained beliefs and consider redefining what happiness truly means. 

Whether you're already on an alcohol-free journey or simply curious about alternative paths to joy, this conversation is packed with insights to help you feel healthier, freer, and more in control of your life. So get ready to explore the pursuit of true happiness, alcohol-free.

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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.

Transcript

Sick and tired of your love-hate relationship with wine?
Welcome to the feel it alcohol free podcast. Hi. I'm coach Ruby Williams. And I'm coach Susan Larkin. We are two former wine lovers turned alcohol freedom coaches exposing the lies about alcohol and giving you, our listeners, the tools to break free so you can feel lit. And when you're lit, you'll feel healthier, freer, and more in control of your life. So relax, kick back, and get ready to feel lit alcohol free. And don't forget, grab a copy of our wine free weekend guide after the show.

Grab our fun bingo card with twenty one feel it activities shared on the podcast. This is a fun way to get motivated to try some new practices in your daily life. Hello. Welcome back to the feel it Alcohol Free Podcast. 

Ruby [00:00:37]:
Susan and I, we have so much fun. We are loving the podcast. People are telling us that they've been getting alcohol free. Listening to our podcast, it's so exciting.

Ruby [00:00:58]:
And we, you know, we hear this from our clients kind of a lot, and we've heard this, we've experienced it. So here's the question that we wanted to pose for today. So I know I should probably cut back on my wine, but alcohol makes me happy when I'm in a bad mood. So if I stop drinking, I worry that I'll never be happy again. So we're gonna dive into happiness and alcohol and emotions. So, Susan, will you kick it off?

Susan [00:01:30]:
Okay. Well, definitely, this was something that was part of my story because if I was in a bad mood, I definitely used alcohol to raise myself to feel happier, I thought. Right? To kick myself out of the bad mood. And so, yeah, I thought, am I just gonna be in a bad mood all the time? And I hear that also from friends and stuff. Even when I tell them that, you know, I stopped drinking, they're like, I know. I should probably cut back or, you know, I know it's not healthy, but it's so fun. And I'm like, okay. That's a real tough belief, I think, you know, to crack if we believe it's fun.

Susan [00:02:10]:
I think as Americans, this pursuit of happiness, it's like it feels like it's in our DNA, right, to pursue happiness. And so and if we believe alcohol's making us happy, then it can be a hard thing to wrestle with as you're making, you know, some choices around your drinking or even taking a break. Right? You know you feel better. I knew that time and time again. I knew I felt better. But just in the back of my mind, it was like, but if I go on vacation or I go out to a special dinner or Friday night when I come home from work and I'm in a bad mood, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna deal with how I feel? Right? And so really but what I realized once I got alcohol out of my system, well, is that, you know, we're outsourcing our fun to a false chemically induced, quote, unquote, fun. You know, that buzz, that first feeling of euphoria, which, you know, we can't deny. People say that, and it's like, okay.

Susan [00:03:17]:
Yeah. You get that euphoric feeling, but then what happens? And so once I learned the science behind that, that really helped me let go and change that belief. And once I changed that belief, it was easier for me to go, oh, yeah. I can find other ways to raise my mood. In fact, once I got alcohol out of my system and kind of dropped that belief or it started to fall away, I started realizing that I found I wasn't in a bad mood as much, number one. And number two, I found other ways to raise my emotional set point, and my emotional set point started to go up and up. I gained more and more months of alcohol freedom. So

Ruby [00:04:05]:
Me too.

Susan [00:04:06]:
Yeah. How about you?

Ruby [00:04:08]:
Well, I thought I just you know, like, the my story of this. Like, I totally believe alcohol made me happy, but when I think back, it was like a learned thing, and it was always enmeshed with a happy fit. Like, in the beginning, you know, my late teens, my twenties, when I was starting to drink, I drank on social occasions, and it was fun. I was happy. Right? Like, we're going to a party. We're gonna drink. We're going to a celebration, a holiday. Like, it actually was fun, but, you know so my brain, you know, really, it solidified that alcohol and fun were tied.

Ruby [00:04:48]:
It was like a belief.

Susan [00:04:49]:
Yeah. What's a conflation? Right? We're taking the fun event, and then we add

Ruby [00:04:54]:
alcohol, and then we assume that the alcohol makes it fun

Susan [00:04:54]:
when, actually, the event may just be fun on its own. Right?

Ruby [00:05:01]:
Wine industry, and that was fun. It was like it was like a badge. When you work in the wine and alcohol industry, everybody talks about how much fun it is and, you know, that we work in this industry. How cool is that? And it really became a part of my identity too that, like, it's fun. But the truth is, I'm, like, gonna think of some of our, like, events that we had. Like, one in particular, I remember we were all the staff, we got on a couple of buses, and we went to a San Francisco Giants baseball game. Mhmm. And we were allowed to drink on the bus up there.

Ruby [00:05:37]:
Just like when you go wine tasting, you can drink in limos or you can drink in these, like, vans, but you drink so much more than you would, right, because you're not driving and you're just but we were all I mean, it was it was kind of, like, not a good situation. People were getting way too drunk. The bus had to stop. People were throwing. Like, was it fun? I don't

Susan [00:05:57]:
know. It was that fun. Right.

Ruby [00:05:58]:
Yeah. Like and I think here's one thing I do wanna say is I think we're allowed to change our definition of fun as we age. You know, I think about my son, you know, and he's in his twenties, or he was in his real early twenties. He was 21 when I got alcohol free. Isn't that funny? So we never really drank together. But I know. Is that funny? But, you know, his, I say, so what do you think fun is? And he would say, driving fast. Go, you know, he's young.

Ruby [00:06:25]:
Right? Like, going, you know, skiing and and doing all this, like, super, like, fast and furious kind of, like, behaviors. And I'm like, well, what is fun for me? You know, as a mid-fifty year old woman, it's Yeah, it used to be in my 20s. Yeah, I wanted to do all the exciting, fun, fun, fun things, but now it's like, it's really actually fun to sit in my garden or do something relaxing. So, you know, happiness is actually made up of 10 different emotions. So, you know, it's not just happiness. Like, I am happy. You know, Barbara Fredriksen, she wrote a really dense book, but in essence, she's saying that to be happy, it relates to your own personal experience to 10 emotions. And these emotions that create a happy happiness in you as love, joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, amusement, inspiration, and awe.

Ruby [00:07:26]:
So we'll talk about these again, and we'll probably have more episodes around all these different emotions. So, the truth is that your brain wants to seek pleasure, avoid pain, make choices that are easy, right? 
Susan [00:07:45]:
That's where the habit comes easily. Conserve energy. Yeah.

Ruby [00:07:48]:
Yeah, and then it wants to prove itself right. And that's where this belief comes in that alcohol makes me happy. It's like it wants to prove it. Well, see, That first twenty minutes, I feel some buzz or euphoria. I started to not feel that at all, though, to be honest with you, you know, was when I got deeper and deeper into it. But the truth is, like, it gets locked in early, I think, this this this, like, HEBS like, the neurons that fire together or this neural pathway. It gets really locked in early, you know, when it is like I said, in your late teens, early twenties when you started drinking, that it's fun. Yeah.

Susan [00:08:25]:
You know? And even from what your examples are in your childhood. Like, if your parents always drank at parties or special events or Christmas or whatever, and then they got a little you know, as kids, like, when you see your parents get a little tipsy and they're kinda kooky, and you think, oh, this you know, you start that belief system right then of, oh, this must be fun. It makes mom and dad kinda kooky, you know, like, kinda funny and and wacky and every TV show, movie since

Ruby [00:08:54]:
We've you know, I'm actually reading a book right now on Audible, and they mention alcohol and fun in almost every other chapter. It's so I'm like now that I'm so aware of it, she's like, Oh, I'm out with my husband, and we're having champagne, and, Oh, we're gonna go have fun. I'm baffled, and surprised at how entrenched it is in our whole alcohol and fun and advertising. Yeah.

Susan [00:09:22]:
Right? And happiness. Yeah.

Ruby [00:09:24]:
And happiness. Yeah. Yeah.

Susan [00:09:27]:
So I guess the question is, is it true? Which we always say, first, awareness. Do you have this belief? And then is it true? Is it true? That's the question. Turning it on its head, and that's how we rewire our thoughts. And when it's not like, you know, we're brainwashing, we're actually getting to the truth of something that maybe has just been conditioned culturally, in society, and in your own experience, you get that euphoric feeling. I remember working with a client, and she'd been alcohol free for a year. And then she drank on her birthday a year later. And then she was really struggling to stop drinking again.

Ruby [00:10:07]:
Mhmm.

Susan [00:10:07]:
And she's like, I don't know. I I stopped for a year. Why can't I stop this time? And I said, well, what was your what did you think when you had that drink on your birthday? And she said, oh, I thought, wow. I really do like this. This is fun. Yeah. And I'm like, that is a hard thing to so is it truly fun? And we had to work on that because that was what was keeping her stuck when she realized she really did wanna quit drinking again when she compared the two, you know, of the year of not drinking and then when she went back to drinking. And we've talked about the drinking train only goes one direction.

Susan [00:10:42]:
So you get back on the drinking train, it goes further down the tracks. Yep. It escalates your drinking more. And then when you try to get off again, it can be harder because she reinforced that belief that it was fun. I really do like this. It your brain wants to prove itself right. So in the moment, it said, oh, let's drink. It's my birthday.

Susan [00:11:03]:
That will be fun. You drink, and it goes, oh, it really is fun. But is it really fun? Like, we don't need to believe everything we think. Our brain is

Ruby [00:11:12]:
a little tricky that way. It is. And is it fun three hours later?

Susan [00:11:16]:
Right. You know? They like to say twenty four hour fun.

Ruby [00:11:19]:
Right. Right? Yeah. Is it fun when you wake up in the middle of the night beating yourself up? Is it fun the next morning when you wake up with a headache? Are you happy? Are you actually happy? Yeah. Most everyone says I I think about my clients, and it's so when when we kind of monitor data points

Susan [00:11:36]:
Yeah.

Ruby [00:11:36]:
It's so it's like, literally, you guys, it's clockwork. They have maybe thirty days alcohol free, and they're feeling amazing. They're like, I'm feeling amazing, amazing, amazing, and then they have a data point. This is where we learn. A data point is like drinking. Okay? So they drink, and then they're like the next day, literally, they're in tears. And it takes three days of, like, feeling this depression or sadness. They're not happy for, like, three days, and then they do it again.

Ruby [00:12:02]:
But, eventually, you start to go, wow. I really feel so much better alcohol free and happier

Susan [00:12:10]:
overall. Overall. Right. Overall. So, yeah,

Ruby [00:12:12]:
We talk a lot about, like, this instant gratification, like you're saying. Think of twenty four hours ahead, “The Ruby of tonight” is going to be happy. Well, no. “The Ruby of tomorrow” is going to be sad and not feeling well.

Susan [00:12:28]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's where, for me, what really helped was learning science. Mhmm. Again, coming back to a little bit of science here is what is happening when you drink, actually. So we look at, you know, what is your personal experience in the over overall twenty four hour period? But the people go, but but but that euphoria. It's like, okay.

Susan [00:12:49]:
That buzz. Great. Yes. Alcohol gives you that buzz. We're not gonna, like, say that doesn't happen. It happens. Right? You get that first euphoric feeling. They say about twenty minutes.

Susan [00:13:00]:
Twenty minutes. Right. Mhmm. So that's when your blood alcohol level's rising. But then your blood alcohol level falls because alcohol's both a stimulant and a depressant, And there's this downer chemical that comes in to help maintain homeostasis because we're getting, boom, this big dopamine hit, and then we get a big hit of what's called a chemical called dynorphin

Ruby [00:13:24]:
Mhmm.

Susan [00:13:24]:
Which brings us down. But then it brings us down for three hours. So we drank for twenty minutes, three hours. Well, yes. So we drank again. We drank again. We drank again. Notice this cycle because, especially at night, we just keep drinking.

Susan [00:13:39]:
We have another drink in twenty minutes or half an hour or forty five minutes or however long.

Ruby [00:13:43]:
And then you drink till you pass out. And your body

Susan [00:13:46]:
pass yeah.

Ruby [00:13:46]:
And is it really fun?

Susan [00:13:48]:
People don't have to even drink that much. You know, it could be two or three glasses, but when you go to bed, you don't feel it until you wake up the next morning. You wake up at three in the morning, and you have that kind of anxious dry mouth feeling. Well, all that anxiousness you're feeling is a reaction to the dynorphin, which is, I mean, there's so much going on in your body when you drink. It's like a crazy town. So you get the downer chemical. But then in order to maintain homeostasis from the downer chemical, your body releases cortisol and adrenaline, which creates anxiety, which is why you wake up with anxiety Yeah. The next morning.

Susan [00:14:21]:
And so not only just the dehydration and just kinda feeling crummy, but you've got all these anxiety chemicals in your body. So then you start your day off feeling like that, and all you need is all you want is relief to scratch the itch of the withdrawal from the alcohol, and that's why we drink again the next day. Or it's harder because you have the craving. It starts a craving response to drink again, and then your brain goes, oh, yeah. But it made me happy because our brain just wants that instant our lower brain wants that instant gratification. We have to engage our prefrontal cortex. To the cortex. Yes.

Susan [00:14:59]:
Here. To remember

Ruby [00:15:01]:
that right behind powers. The third eye. We want the third eye. Well, the truth is when you say, is it true? You asked that question, and I want

Susan [00:15:08]:
chemically. Yeah. You would know.

Ruby [00:15:11]:
Science, but then the truth is, in my experience, I was a weepy drinker. So you know how there's, like, mad drinkers or, I don't know, like, people that change their personality? Well, I would end up crying. And I kid you not, Susan, I would be, like, probably telling myself, oh, I'll drink to be happy or relieve stress or or whatever after work, say. And then the next thing I knew, I would go and pick the saddest movie I could come up with, like, Terms of Endearment. Yeah. I do this all the time. And then I would cry and cry. Maybe I wanted to cry deep down.

Ruby [00:15:45]:
I don't know, but I think it was just the dynorphin, the brain chemicals making me very sad. I'd have piles of, like, Kleenex from crying for the whole movie. And that's not how I wanted to live my life. That was not happy. Okay? No. The truth is, I was very sad. Yeah, very sad, a lot of the evenings, but the brain believed it. So I wanna, like, talk about this pillar of ours you know, Susan and I, we have, for our methodology, and we the way we coach is we've got self compassion.

Ruby [00:16:21]:
We talk about it all the time. Curiosity. We talk about it all the time. And awareness. So this is the awareness where I want you to spend some time. If you're listening in, maybe you could journal about this, but reflect. You know, how has alcohol expanded or diminished those 10 emotions that I brought up earlier on the call? You know? Because that's where you're going to like, does alcohol actually make you happy, or does it actually rob you of happiness? And all of those other emotions that are there that make someone happy, again, they're love and joy and gratitude and hope and awe. You know, awe is at, like, seeing the sunset.

Ruby [00:17:04]:
You know? When I was drinking I I think I already shared this before, but, like, when I was drinking, I don't even know, or I didn't see like, you know, Todd, one of our guests, he says that being alcohol free, he saw sunsets and sunrises, and and that's my experience too. All of a sudden, the awe. That makes me so happy, like, and joyful just to think about that. Yeah.

Susan [00:17:24]:
And pride is one of them. And when I would wake up in the morning, I definitely didn't feel pride. I would beat myself up. I'd be so angry with myself. If you were, you know, you were talking about being sad when you would drink, I would get angry. I'd be mean. Mean Susan would come out. Oh.

Ruby [00:17:42]:
Mean episode of anger. Yeah.

Susan [00:17:44]:
Yeah. So mean Susan would come out, and I would just get, you know yeah. So that's not happy either. Right? It also didn't contribute to gratitude. Like, all of a sudden, I was just probably the most ungrateful person. I would get angry. I definitely wasn't loving, especially towards my husband. And so here we are, a couple.

Susan [00:18:03]:
We're sitting down, you know, to have drinks, thinking it contributes to love. Right? And a lot of times, it would go south and contribute to arguments, me, you know, just getting angry about stuff. The same old you know, and in relationships, the same old argument, you know, is on repeat, and it would just come out. You know?

Ruby [00:18:26]:
Well, my sadness was related to poor me. I would when I drink, it was just all those negative thoughts would come up, like, poor me, you know, the victim, like, the victim, and I would blame and guilt. But all of these emotions, I'm looking at the list here, like, I think a really important one is hope. Like, when I'm drinking, I was in that cycle, that Groundhog's Day. Like, it was literally hopeless. I would be like, there's no way. How do I do this? I'm successful in other areas of my life, being a single mom and having a corporate job, but I couldn't get a You know, there was just I felt so hopeless.

Susan [00:19:05]:
Yeah. Well, think about when you were a kid and how happy we were as kids. We didn't drink. Right? I mean, if drinking really contributed to happiness, wouldn't we be just, like, giving alcohol to, you know, kids? Like, here, this will make you happy. But, no, we don't. And if it really contributed to stress relief, wouldn't we be giving you know, when's the most stressful time, I think, in life is, like, high school. Right? But we know. You're not allowed to drink.

Susan [00:19:32]:
You know? So, like, sometimes just turning things on their head and, like, thinking about it in these kinds of different ways, I think, is a great way to just sort of look like you said, do this exercise and, like, really ask, is it true? And like you said, it is true what I would say. You know? Or what are other times in your life when you've really felt happiness that didn't include alcohol? Mhmm. You know? If there is, it hasn't gotten to the point where you pretty much add alcohol to everything, which is kind of common.

Ruby [00:20:08]:
Interest is a fun one too because people think like, If there's this common, you know, belief out there that, you know, like, you're more creative when you drink, you know, like, inspiration. Book authors and people, you know, they drink to, like, get their inspiration and, you know, they're very interesting but the truth is, like, you can look at it both ways. Like, I personally was bored. I mean, I would boredom and, like, interest are so interesting to me around alcohol because you'd think it was relieving your boredom, but, actually, what did I end up doing? Sit there and watch TV on the couch, which is so boring.

Susan [00:20:46]:
Yeah.

Ruby [00:20:47]:
And, my life got smaller and smaller, with less interest. The things you talk about during childhood, Susan, like, I used to love to do x, y, and z when I was a child before drinking. And then if you kinda look at your trajectory of your life, that train, it's like hobbies, fun things, just started to drop away. I didn't want to go and, like, learn how to, I don't know, learn a new instrument or learn a new hobby or go see people. I started to just drink alone, and my world got smaller and smaller. And all of these emotions we talk about got less and less. There was less joy, less gratitude, less serenity. You know, serenity means calm in my brain.

Ruby [00:21:28]:
And I was like, you know, I'm flapping my fingers. Like, my brain was always, like, chronically stressed and, like, like, anxious, and I never had that kinda calm, probably ever. Maybe for twenty minutes after the first drink, I might have fake got a sense of calm. But that's just. But it wasn't true. Yeah. Yeah. In the twenty four hour I love this twenty four hour. Let's all go in twenty four hours, does alcohol rob you of the good emotions, or or does it add to your good emotions? Yeah.

Ruby [00:22:05]:
Be honest. Be honest with yourself.

Susan [00:22:07]:
Well, also, think about it. Even if you drink for three hours in the evening or at a sporting event or whatever, that's still in a twenty four hour period, twenty one more hours. So you still do the trade off. Is it worth three hours for twenty one hours of misery or even more? Because usually you feel bad for a few days. As we get older, we just don't tolerate alcohol as well. Like, I've talked to so many clients and, like, oh my gosh. If I drink, it's like a three day even if it's, you know, two glasses sometimes, it's like a three day ordeal hangover

Ruby [00:22:40]:
of,

Susan [00:22:40]:
like, trying to get this out of my system and feeling sadder and feeling more down and feeling more anxious. And so you really have to look at that trade off, really, you know. When I thought about that and I think of it being an unfair trade, that's really it was helpful for me in my journey. You know, that was the part of the play it forward tactic, where it's like, okay. Your brain is going,

Ruby [00:23:02]:
yeah.

Susan [00:23:02]:
Drink. It'll be fun. You're like, well, will it really be fun? Let me play it forward to three in the morning. Let me play it forward to tomorrow morning in the next three days. And if you can do that, if you can pause, breathe, think about it in that way, it helps you make Mhmm. The, you know, a better choice. Or if you're, you know, really trying to embrace an alcohol free lifestyle, it really helps you go, oh, wait a minute. That's not true.

Susan [00:23:27]:
I don't have to believe everything my kooky brain is telling me. You know? And I wanted to, well, go ahead. I heard you.

Ruby [00:23:34]:
No. Oh, just that, no. I'm really relating to what you're saying. And I do wanna go back to that we are allowed to change what we think brings us happiness and and and our thoughts and our beliefs. Yeah. You know? I just love the question, is it true? Like, that is that question, we use it as coaches all the time because Yeah. Again, we've had this, we've all got our normal brains, and our normal brains are reacting to life since birth. And we're seeing our parents and our peers in high school and college.

Ruby [00:24:10]:
We see we're making all of these beliefs. And then our brain, again, wants to avoid pain, to avoid those negative emotions. We want to feel pleasure, feel happiness. We want that. We all want that. Our subconscious brain.

Susan [00:24:25]:
Yeah. That's moving us towards those things. Right.

Ruby [00:24:28]:
And then we want it easy. And, actually, this is a good thing. This is where dopamine is our learning, brain chemical, and it's actually it's for our survival. We need to have easy ways to do things. But what was easy and what worked in our twenties, it can change. It's just we can change, and our brain can change. And it's so important to look and ask, is it really true? Does alcohol really make us happy? Is it true?

Susan [00:25:01]:
Yeah. That was my password. Not anymore. So you can't go into my bank account, but my password was, is it true for, like, a whole year.

Ruby [00:25:10]:
Yeah. Because I was

Susan [00:25:11]:
just always wanting to remind myself to ask to be the boss of my brain and ask myself, is it true? Do you know, am I just assuming that I believe this thought, or do I wanna question it? And question it. Yeah. And it was really exciting to do that for that year. It's just sort of and is it true about a lot of thoughts I had? Is it true about some thoughts I had about my husband or about my life? And overall, and it really helped improve many areas of my life is just going back and really thinking, wait, why do I have that thought on repeat? Is it really true? Yeah. But I wanted to share one thing that's making me really happy right now Okay. What I never would have probably done if I was drinking is, you know, I think we've talked on here that I've started playing pickleball. Mhmm. I've put it on my habit tracker because I've wanted to be very consistent because you can't get better if you don't play.

Susan [00:26:03]:
But I didn't like playing because I wasn't good, so I just had to put it on there that I wanna do it, you know, five times a week, which is a lot. 

Ruby [00:26:11]:
Right? That's a lot. I know.

Susan [00:26:13]:
But I get my butt out there, and sometimes I show up, and it's only you know, I only have an hour before I have to go somewhere else, but I still get, like, one or two games in. And now what brings me happiness is I am playing so much better. And if I get, like, a killer shot and, like, some people wanna play with it. You. Yeah. And I'm like, it makes me feel so happy. And I'm like, I'm getting better. And, you know, I don't always have to win, although I could get a little bit competitive.

Susan [00:26:39]:
But, like, when I know I was in the right place and I hit that shot and I got that shot, like, that honestly makes me super happy.

Ruby [00:26:48]:
Yay. That's awesome. Well, I have a gift for our listeners before we get to our feel it section, and the gift is just imagine your life as a beautiful blank canvas. K? And each day, you have the opportunity to add vibrant colors and textures, and you can transform it into a masterpiece each day. And in your alcohol free journey, these colors and textures are the small moments of joy and glimmers of hope that sparkle throughout the day. And when you're drinking alcohol, it's really hard to actually see those or they may be nonexistent, to be honest with you. It's really hard, though. So especially for people that are because we have listeners here that are alcohol free or, like, on day, you know, 14 or 30, and we'd love to cheer you on, and we'd love to buy what the question is, what little things that you can you notice that bring you happiness or that just make your heart sparkle? Because this is what life is, life is happening today in the present.

Ruby [00:27:58]:
Mhmm. And it's about noticing these little glimmers of joy and happiness, and I love it, the way your heart sparkles. You know?

Susan [00:28:07]:
I love that.

Ruby [00:28:08]:
Yeah. So, anyway, I wanna share that with our listeners because it's so true. We are building our life today, right now. So start noticing that sunset, that sunrise, the awe. Well, Susan, this is my favorite part. It really is. One of my favorite parts is because I learned from you. I'm like, oh, what is she gonna say today? I have no idea.

Ruby [00:28:28]:
So I'm so excited. Okay. Sometimes I don't know. Yeah. I don't so, Susan, what do you do in your life right now that is making you feel lit inside when you're alcohol free? What do you do? Well, I mean,

Susan [00:28:46]:
the pickleball I already shared, but I think I've shared that on other podcasts. But it is really making me happy. But also, the other thing on my habit tracker that I've been trying to do consistently is get into the sauna. So the gym that we joined has a sauna. Cool. And I just tend to be so, like, get in there, do my workout, and get home, you know, shower, get on with my day. And so just adding the twenty minutes or you know, I worked up to that fifteen, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes in the sauna. But I did notice but I also felt like I wanna take advantage of the fact that they have the sauna.

Susan [00:29:23]:
So I'm making, you know, a commitment to trying it twice a week. I've gone once this week already, so it's Friday. I guess over the weekend, I better go. But, I mean, but when I do it, I love it. I love it. Oh my gosh. It's so relaxing. I do, like, a meditation when I'm there.

Susan [00:29:39]:
Oh. You feel so good. I feel so good when I get out. It really helps, you know, with my muscle soreness, but there's so many benefits to sauna. So, I mean, it can help you with your cardiovascular health. And, you know, my dad I do have a history of heart attacks in my family. My dad is so it can reduce high blood pressure, disease, stroke. It's so great for your skin.

Susan [00:30:04]:
It can definitely improve my mood. So I just go on base how I feel. Right? And after I do it, I do feel more lit, honestly. My body is so warm that I can get into a cold shower, and it feels really good. Oh, okay. So I do a little cold shower afterwards, and then I let it warm up. And, yeah, it's something I was really surprised about. I didn't think I didn't know.

Susan [00:30:30]:
I didn't feel I didn't realize that it would make me feel so good. And so I do. So it does make me feel good. So I need to slow down and make sure you know, I'm doing it twice a week, and then I'd like to increase from there. But yeah.

Ruby [00:30:44]:
So do you think, since you just had all the benefits because I don't have a sauna, and I don't have access to a sauna right now, but I do hot Pilates or hot yoga every single almost every day right now. And I'm sweating, and it's hot. So maybe I'm getting those benefits. I think I might be getting those benefits from a sauna doing hot yoga because hot yoga is hot yoga. I am sweating.

Susan [00:31:08]:
Well, it's the sweating that helps the heat and humidity. So yeah. I mean, I don't know because I'm not an expert, but I would say yes.

Ruby [00:31:17]:
Maybe I'm getting so maybe I'm getting some of the benefits is what I was gonna say. But one of my clients is so funny you brought this up, Susan. She lives in your area. But, anyway, she bought herself a gift for being alcohol free, like, for a long period of time, a sauna in her house. I didn't even know you could do this. You order a sauna, it comes. Can you set it up? You set it up so you can have a sauna in your house. Now our culture, as far as I know, at least in where I'm from, saunas aren't a huge part of our culture.

Ruby [00:31:48]:
But I lived in sweet Sweden for a year. Mhmm. And let me tell you. In Scandinavian culture, there were saunas in the summer, in the winter. I mean, picture this. This was so fun, you guys. You go and you do the sauna, and then you go outside and roll around in the snow. I did that.

Ruby [00:32:07]:
Oh. You do

Susan [00:32:08]:
that here.

Ruby [00:32:08]:
We have a lot of stuff right now. It was really fun. It was like it's, like, a fun thing that, like, teenagers would do for fun. You'd go in the sauna for you know, and you'd do the steam thing, and then you'd run out. You'd roll in the snow. You'd go back into the sauna. You'd do that a few times. It's so fun.

Ruby [00:32:24]:
Gosh. The other thing that's fun in the summer in Sweden, you have the sauna. And then my Swedish dad, because I was with a host family, he had this thing. He would have his head kinda over, like his knees, and he'd say he'd be he's like because I said, how long do you stay in the sauna? And he said, when one drip of sweat drops from his nose

Susan [00:32:47]:
Oh my gosh. How funny.

Ruby [00:32:48]:
So we would just wait away, and then when it dropped, and then you jump in the lake. And a Swedish lake is Wow. Freezing. So you would do that. It's so I don't know. I love saunas. And, again, try it out, you guys. Yeah.

Ruby [00:33:01]:
Try this out. Maybe Well, when we

Susan [00:33:03]:
were in Europe, in Austria, all the hotels had saunas. It was, like, it was with the gym, or even if they didn't have a gym, they still had a sauna. Like, that was the thing. People do, you know, take saunas much more in Europe. So yeah.

Ruby [00:33:17]:
So I said to my client who I like, that's what I want. I wanna you know, one day you know, I'm renting at a rental, so it's hard to buy a sauna. But, like, that's my I wanna have a sauna, then I have my cold plunge, and that just is so fun. So I love that. Thank you for bringing up the sauna today. It's sounds

Susan [00:33:37]:
I love your story.

Ruby [00:33:39]:
Yeah. Yay. Alright. Well, this has been such a great episode around alcohol and happiness. So ask yourself the question, is it true? Is it true that alcohol makes you happy? Alright. Join our Feel It community, and we'd love to hear from you and hear questions. Okay. Yay.

Ruby [00:33:57]:
Bye bye. Bye


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