You are listening to the Take a Break podcast with Rachel Hart, episode 9.

Whether you want to drink less or stop drinking, this podcast will help you change the habit from the inside out.

We're challenging conventional wisdom about why people drink and why it can be hard to resist temptation.

No labels, no judgment, just practical tools to take control of your desire and stop worrying about your drinking.

Now here is your host, Rachel Hart.

Hey everybody, welcome back. How are you doing?

It is very early in San Francisco as I am recording this and we just had daylight savings.

And so it's really dark out. And it makes me kind of sad because I'm really a morning person.

I really love the mornings and I like having sunshine in the morning.

So it's dark. I'll go over it.

All right, today what are we talking about?

We're talking about a concept that I go over quite a bit in my book.

Why can't I drink like everyone else?

It's a concept that I started thinking about pretty early on in my journey to figure out my drinking.

And the concept is using alcohol as a crutch.

Now before we go any further, a lot of times people don't like this language.

They bristle a little bit at the idea that they could possibly be using alcohol as a crutch.

So if that is you, stay with me, hang in there.

I want to talk to you about not only why that can happen and how easy it is to happen,

but also explain why you might not like that language and why I think it can be useful.

So the first time that I stopped drinking, I was a couple weeks after my 22nd birthday.

It was the first of many times for me.

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