#124 Real AF

What if the reason you’re finding it hard to stop drinking has far less to do with alcohol — and far more to do with how safe it feels to actually be yourself?

In this episode, I’m exploring something we’ve been doing a lot of work around in my groups lately: the roles we learn to play in our families, people-pleasing (or fawning), masking, the inner critic, and how all of this can show up in our relationship with alcohol.

Because so many of us learned very early what made us acceptable.

Be good. Be easygoing. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t be too needy. Be productive. Help everyone else. Keep going. Don’t sit down. Don’t be difficult.

And often, those behaviours kept us safe. They helped us belong in our families and in a culture that rewards busyness, productivity, independence and being “fine”.

The problem is, we can carry those rules with us long after we need them.

So by the time we reach midlife, we’re exhausted. We’re still saying yes when we want to say no. Still putting everybody else first. Still pushing through when our bodies are screaming at us to stop. Still trying to perform the version of ourselves we believe will be most acceptable to everybody else.

And then we wonder why we want a drink.

For many women, alcohol becomes the only way they know how to give themselves permission to stop.

This is why I don’t believe stopping drinking is simply about trying harder or finding more willpower. In fact, you might have heaps of willpower — you’re just spending all of it maintaining the performance.

In this episode, I talk about why stopping drinking can sometimes feel unsafe, particularly when it asks us to do things like set boundaries, disappoint people, have difficult conversations, rest, take up space or simply say, “No, I don’t want to do that.”

I also explore Internal Family Systems and parts work, neurodivergence, hypervigilance and the idea of the “true self” — the person underneath all of those roles and masks we’ve collected along the way.

Because, for me, stopping drinking is the opposite of optimisation.

It isn’t another project to make yourself better, healthier, thinner, fitter or more productive.

It’s about connection.

It’s about becoming curious about what you actually like. What you actually want. What you need. How you feel. What happens when you stop automatically abandoning yourself to keep everybody else comfortable.

And perhaps instead of asking, “Why can’t I just stop drinking?”, we can start asking:

What would it look like to take care of myself today as if I were somebody I loved?

This work is about slowly creating enough safety to come back to yourself.

Because ultimately, we have to start to matter to ourselves.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Why our upbringing can influence how easy or difficult we find it to stop drinking
• People-pleasing as a fawn response rather than a personality flaw
• How childhood roles can become adult masks
• Why being “good”, productive, independent and easygoing can become tied to our sense of safety
• The relationship between neurodivergence, masking, trauma responses and alcohol
• Why hypervigilance can make change feel incredibly difficult
• The enormous amount of willpower it takes to maintain the appearance of having everything together
• Why saying no, resting, setting boundaries and disappointing people can feel less safe than drinking
• The “good girl”, the “cool girl” and the performance of being easygoing
• Internal Family Systems, parts work and the idea that even the parts of us we dislike are often trying to protect us
• Returning to your true self rather than turning sobriety into another self-improvement project
• How small moments of choosing yourself can begin to build safety
• Why self-criticism makes change harder — and gentle, loving curiosity matters
• The question at the heart of this work: What do I actually want?

Stopping drinking doesn’t have to be another way to reject yourself.

It can be the beginning of coming home to yourself.

Episode links & Resources

•⁠ ⁠Learn more about Emma Gilmour at: www.hoperisingcoaching.com
•⁠ ⁠Follow Emma Gilmour on insta @hoperisingcoaching

FREE TOOLS - four beautiful resources to help you drink less and feel fabulous:

1.⁠ ⁠7 Steps to Take Back Control of Alcohol - the exact steps I took when I started out on this journey nearly five years ago.
https://www.hoperisingcoaching.com/7-steps

2.⁠ ⁠Awareness Worksheets - if you do nothing else, working through the answers to these questions will change your relationship with alcohol for the better.
https://www.hoperisingcoaching.com/awareness-worksheets-opt-in

3.⁠ ⁠Your North Star Visualisation - stops your brain freaking out about doing something unfamiliar.
https://www.hoperisingcoaching.com/northstarvisualisation

4.⁠ ⁠Grounding Meditation - you know that feeling when you have a drink and the body goes "aaaaaaaahhhhhhh" and everything seems to relax? What the body really needs is to ground - to come back home to self, and for self to feel lovely. That is what we work on in my live programs. We start every session with a grounding and connect with ourselves to find out what our body really needs when it thinks it wants to drink.
https://www.hoperisingcoaching.com/grounding

READY TO GO DEEPER?

Are you tired of the mental back-and-forth about drinking?

I am running a FREE 3-Day Alcohol Reset on 22, 23 and 24 Sept, 7:30pm Melb/Syd (replays available). No willpower talk. No abstinence pressure. You can even drink while you do it. A judgement-free space to learn the tools to step into a take it or leave it relationship with alcohol.

REGISTER FREE: https://www.hoperisingcoaching.com/3-day-reset 

Want a take it or leave it relationship with alcohol? Want to stop all the "will I, won't I" internal conflict around wine?

I am running the Great Aussie Alcohol Experiment LIVE from Thursday 1 October 30 days. Small group coaching. Only 25 spots. Small, intimate and private. Rewire your brain and nervous system so you no longer have to reach for a glass to quieten your busy brain, calm your overwhelmed soul or socialise when your social battery is spent.

Early bird pricing open now (ends 15th Spetember) - $500 off the full price, plus two 1:1 counselling sessions with me and 3 webinars included (worth +$1,000). We won't run this live again until January.

YOUR NEXT RIGHT MOVE STARTS HERE: https://www.hoperisingcoaching.com/the_great_aussie_alcohol_experiment 

Change happens in a moment, my friends - the preparation for change takes a little bit of time. Take the time. You will be amazed at the difference it makes.