Tired of breaking your promise to go easy on the drinks tonight? You know your nightly habit isn’t great for your health or waistline, but it’s so hard to say no. Sound familiar? Then you need Rachel. She knows what it’s like to be fed up with your drinking, worried about judgment from others, and turned off by approaches that focus on a higher power instead of brain science. Learn the exact steps she used to change her relationship with alcohol. Discover how the brain works, the real reason ...
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Smartrecovery Podcasts
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429: The Hidden Difference Between Having Fun and Chasing It
24:47
24:47
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What’s the difference between having fun and chasing it? As kids, most people have a good 15 years of life when they knew how to have fun without a drink in their hand. Back then, your brain had no idea that the perception of fun could be outsourced to something external. You just went out and created your own enjoyment. When you get in the habit o…
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428: Change Feels Hard Because You’re Meant to Grow
33:34
33:34
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33:34
When contemplating taking a break from drinking or cutting back, most people focus on how hard it will be. They anticipate struggle, discomfort, and missing out on fun. Our brains are actually designed to avoid hard things. We’re wired to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and expend the least amount of energy possible. This motivational triad helped human…
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427: The Skill of Staying Present Through Discomfort
26:01
26:01
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26:01
Ever felt like you just need a drink to handle discomfort? In this episode, you’ll hear how a terrifying bus ride through Alaska’s Denali National Park helped me realize that discomfort isn’t the enemy – it’s the chaos we create around it that trips us up. Through a narrow, winding road perched over sheer cliffs, fear consumed me. I reacted, resist…
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426: Would You Still Drink If It Wasn’t Fancy?
26:28
26:28
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26:28
The hidden influence of "drinking the good stuff" is shaping your relationship with alcohol in surprising ways. As you upgrade your drink choices to fancy wines, craft beers, or top-shelf spirits, you might notice thought patterns around waste and value that are driving overconsumption. Our beliefs about what constitutes "good" alcohol trace back t…
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When you’re out with friends and everyone orders drinks, you might have thoughts like, “Well, you only live once. I want to enjoy it!” Despite wanting to drink less (or not at all), you order yourself a drink too. You might think that having more discipline in moments like these would help you resist, but I'm here to tell you that discipline, willp…
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424: When Drinking Less Feels Like a Fluke
26:50
26:50
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When someone successfully moderates their drinking or says no to alcohol in situations where they previously would have reached for a drink, they tend to view it as a fluke and go back to worrying about when they'll slip up again. But was it a fluke? As humans, we often attribute our wins to external factors - the circumstances, other people, or pu…
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Have you ever woken up after drinking too much and immediately thought either, “I f*cked up” or “I must be f*cked up?” These two seemingly similar thoughts actually reveal deep-rooted societal beliefs about drinking problems that might be keeping you stuck. It doesn't matter your age, gender, education level, or socioeconomic status – these thought…
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Have you ever set a firm intention not to drink, only to find your good intentions fall apart later in the day? It's a frustrating cycle that can leave you wondering what's wrong with you. But here's the truth: your good intentions aren't failing because of some personal flaw. They're failing because they're missing a crucial element. On last week’…
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Do you start each morning with the best of intentions for your drinking only to watch them crumble by evening? That frustrating cycle isn't a sign of personal failure—it's evidence that you're missing a crucial element in your approach to change. The truth is, those morning intentions aren't the problem. They're genuine and meaningful, but when you…
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Do you set strict rules about when and how much you can drink, only to break them and feel worse than before? When most people try to change their drinking habits, they immediately look for external parameters—only drinking on weekends, limiting to two drinks, or never drinking before 6PM. But these arbitrary rules completely bypass the most import…
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419: What Envy Reveals About Your Drinking
22:08
22:08
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Have you ever found yourself envious of people who seem to drink with ease? If you’re changing your relationship with alcohol, envy toward “normal drinkers” might feel familiar—but it also holds surprising insight into how your habit formed, and how you can begin to change it. In this episode, you’ll learn how understanding envy helps you uncover l…
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Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by your emotions that you'd do anything to forget what's bothering you? In those moments, reaching for a drink—and then another, and another—can feel like the only way to escape. But this pattern of using alcohol to numb difficult emotions creates a problematic cycle that actually decreases your emotional resilienc…
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Have you ever set rules for yourself around drinking, only to find that they don't work? You have the best of intentions, but somehow you always end up right back where you started. What's going on here? As it turns out, there's a very good reason why your drinking rules aren't effective - and it has nothing to do with a lack of willpower or discip…
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If you're constantly rushing through your days, checking off endless to-do lists, and using alcohol as a reward, you might be living in a "pleasure desert.” When you're constantly focused on getting things done and denying yourself small pleasures, it's no wonder you feel the need to fill your evenings with alcohol. But what if there was another wa…
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415: Why You Go Back to Drinking After Long Breaks
30:13
30:13
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30:13
Have you ever taken a long break from drinking, only to find yourself eventually going back to it? So many people find themselves stuck in this frustrating cycle of stopping and starting again, wondering why they can't seem to make the change stick. Listen in to hear one of our Take a Break coaches, Adriana Cloud, explore this common struggle. We d…
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How often do you declare to yourself, “I’m just someone who…” fill in the blank? Can’t moderate your drinking? Has an addictive personality? Is broken and has no willpower? It's easy to turn your frustrations with drinking into sweeping declarations about who you are. But what if these thoughts aren’t as true as they feel, and there was an alternat…
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Do you ever feel like you're stuck in a cycle of cravings and excuses when it comes to drinking? It's easy to believe that the only way out is through sheer willpower and discipline, but sometimes, all you need is a new thought to prevent yourself from pouring a drink. In this episode, you’ll learn four powerful "breakthrough thoughts" that can hel…
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412: Inconveniences That Lead to Drinking More
12:07
12:07
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12:07
Do you ever find yourself inconveniencing yourself without even giving others a chance to say no to your requests? This habit of not asking for what you want can have a bigger impact on your life than you might think. In fact, it could be contributing to your drinking more than you'd like. In this episode, I share a personal story about how I caugh…
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411: I Can Only Stand This Person if I Drink
25:09
25:09
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25:09
Do you find yourself reaching for a drink when you're around certain people who get on your nerves? It may seem like alcohol is making the situation more tolerable, but is it really? Sobriety coach Adriana Cloud joins me this week to discuss the common struggle of feeling like you can only stand someone if you're drinking. We explore the underlying…
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410: Turning Dry January Failure Into Success
14:44
14:44
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Did your Dry January not go as planned? Don't worry, you're not alone. Research shows that more people fail at Dry January than succeed. But have you ever considered how every seeming failure might just be the next step on your journey to changing your relationship with alcohol? In this episode, I share a powerful mindset shift that can transform h…
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409: What You Get Wrong About Your Cravings
22:05
22:05
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22:05
Do you ever feel like your cravings get out of control? What if you could transform your relationship with cravings from something you dread to something you actually look forward to? In this episode, sobriety coach and hypnotist Adriana Cloud shares a genius analogy that will change how you view your cravings. Listen in to discover how making one …
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408: Interview with Sobriety Coach Adriana Cloud
42:41
42:41
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42:41
Are you mystified by your own drinking behaviors? Do you struggle to understand why you can occasionally easily moderate, while other times you spiral out of control? Sobriety coach and hypnotist Adriana Cloud is here to share her decade-long journey with daily drinking. Although Adriana never identified as an alcoholic, she knew something about he…
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407: Stop Putting So Much Pressure on Your Compelling Reason
31:03
31:03
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31:03
So you’ve got your compelling reason—your rationale to go after change in the face of discomfort. The only problem is, it doesn’t seem to be helping you drink less or stop altogether. Is it not compelling enough? Maybe that’s part of it, sure (and that is easily fixed, as I’ll share). But perhaps you’re putting too much stock in that compelling rea…
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406: How to Have a Successful Dry January
30:42
30:42
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It’s almost here: Dry January. You know you want to take a break, but you’re not sure how. Even worse, maybe you’ve tried this before and either couldn’t stick with it or didn’t see any changes. You might not realize it, but your plans to focus on not drinking may be setting you up for failure. Instead, you need to shift your thinking about the sub…
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405: When Life Is Good but Your Drinking Isn’t
26:44
26:44
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26:44
It’s easy to see why you might pour yourself a glass of wine when things aren’t going your way, but what happens if your life seems to be working out fine? Why are you still reaching for a drink? You’ve been tricked into thinking happiness must be obtained, which is why, in order to change your actions—using alcohol for quick relief—you must first …
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