Hi Brooke,
I just listened to the latest stop over drinking video thank you! I’ve been married 22 years to my husband, I have always been aware of his social anxiety and awkward behavior around others either he drinks to buffer or it’s very uncomfortable. My way of countering the negative effects of feeling the uncomfortableness I would of course drink to numb it out over the years my drinking has increased. For years I’ve wanted to stop, but could not shake the desire. After now doing thought work and recognizing thoughts around my buffering my drinking has been greatly reduced. Ive been in Fl. for the past two weeks with my daughter doing back therapy (i think your son may have been staying at the same hotel all these kids had NYC film school T-shirts on, random side note ) anyway the first week I had zero desire. My husband came for the weekend and I wanted to down a bottle of wine and did really not wanting to, but felt crazy uncomfortable. He was not drinking around this uncomfortable energy I cave. Our typical activity is drinking together, what thought work can I do to not absorb his energy and stay present with just my thoughts? We travel a lot so eating and drinking out is a big part of our lives and live in a resort style community, I just really want all this drinking chatter to not be there all the time. I want such a fuller way of life vs all these false pleasures. So many thoughts…what will our relationship be with out my drinking, I actually have goals when Im not drinking and he wants me to be compliant and content, am I really capable of anything else …etc. I feel like Im on the cusp of a major shift and don’t want to fall back into the rinse and repeat because Im not strong enough to sit through it.
As always thank you for your time and work!
So grateful for you,
Jenny