alcoholics love instant gratification

A lot of times, our "addiction" is not to alcohol itself, but rather the need for dopamine and comfort. We're addicted to saying yes to something that will bring immediate joy/ pleasure. As soon as we can learn to deny ourselves that instant gratification and stay focused on our long term goals, sobriety (and life in general) become easier!

Controlling our impulses benefits us in more ways than one: our sobriety, diet, fitness, anger management, cleanliness... and in today's episode we're talking about it ALL. This one skill we learn in sobriety applies to so many things in life.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The definition of impulse control is the executive functioning skill of resisting immediate urges, pausing, and considering consequences before acting. Now, I have started to learn this skill since getting sober. Sobriety taught me that because as somebody who struggles with some ADHD symptoms, the impulse control was a little out of whack. That was not a skill that I had. I mean, when I was drinking and dealing with all the ADHD stuff, it's like I would walk past the fridge, the thought would cross my mind of grabbing a beer, and I would just grab a beer, open it, and drink it. Like I wouldn't think about, do I have a meeting coming up? Am I seeing someone later? Do I want to do a workout later so I shouldn't have this? Like, none of those thoughts would cross my mind. I would just want it and I would have it. If there were uh candies sitting on the counter, I walk by and I just have the candy. I don't think about like, oh, maybe I should have this after my meal. Oh, how much sugar have I had today? None of those thoughts would ever cross my mind. I just have it. And it's not with, it's not just with things that we consume. Like my lack of impulse control spanned into my entire life. If the thought of saying something to somebody crossed my mind, I would just say it. Like if somebody did something I didn't like in the workplace, I immediately lashed out, spoke my mind. And that's not really a professional, you know, attribute to bring to your job. And maybe it's why I've gotten laid off three times. Um, but that's another conversation. What's really cool is that in sobriety, you are forced to learn some impulse control. So God bless America, I was able to learn some impulse control since quitting drinking. Thank goodness for it, because I think I am a better person all around. And that is what I want to talk about in today's episode is how impulse control spans to more than just our sober lives. Like having good impulse control helps us in every facet of life. And the reason that I'm making this episode today is because I've talked about this in the last few episodes, but when I was in Vietnam, I was offered happy water, which is like their ceremonial drink there. And I felt pressured to participate. I was connecting with this other guy who said he was sober, but then he still took the shot and he said it's rude to not take the shot. I mean, I was feeling the pressure and I felt quite ostracized for being the only one not drinking. So the the inspiration for this episode comes from that. Because even though I felt all those pressures and everybody else was drinking, and I thought, you know, this is some traditional drink that they have, I resisted the urge to participate. I denied myself that instant gratification for the long-term benefits. I think that is the main skill that we learn in sobriety is just to zoom out. Think about everything else. Think about your future. Play the tape forward. It's not just about how you feel in that exact moment. And I'm gonna talk about all these different ways that this applies, but first things that come to mind, this applies in the fitness world, when you really don't feel like doing a workout, but you still do it because you know that the long-term effects are worth it. Or in your relationships, like not doing something that your body literally wants to do. You resist because you know that it's against your values in the long run. Like this applies to so many different situations in life. So let's jump right in and talk about it. Welcome to the sober scoop. This is a judgment-free zone where we talk about how to get sober and stay sober. You're not alone. I hope you feel seen. Quitting alcohol is the best decision I've ever made. Okay, let's first talk about sobriety, okay? So this is where I learned at least a little ounce of impulse control. It's still something I'm working on, okay? But getting control of my impulses happened in sobriety. Before that, all bets were off, honey. Like, I had no impulse control. If I ever wanted something, if I ever wanted to say something, do something, I just did it. And sometimes that had negative consequences. But when I quit drinking, I really had to rewire my brain. So when I'm walking past the fridge and my mind says, crack into a drink, like, why not? Sometimes I almost think it would be funny. I'm like, why not just have a white claw right now? Why not just down a white claw? And my mind would just think those intrusive thoughts and I would just act on it immediately. If I was out at a bar and someone offered me a shot when I was already really tipsy and definitely didn't need a shot, I would still just take it because the thought enters my brain and I'm like, yeah, sure, why not? I don't think about the consequences or the future. But when I quit drinking, you're pretty much forced to start thinking about the future. Because you can't just participate in that drink. You can't just say yes right away. When you're gathered around the table in Vietnam and you're offered happy water and everybody's participating, even the quote unquote sober guy, like you can't just do it because you feel that pressure inside you. We have to learn to like channel that pressure and say, I don't need to act on that right now. Like you can feel it, you can recognize that your body feels it and take note of that. Like I always say, we're building our sobriety toolbox. So we feel that pressure. We know that in those types of situations we might feel a little extra peer pressure, but we push through. And at least in that moment, what crossed my mind was having to tell everybody that I broke my sobriety, or do I have to start my day count over? Or how like having this drink is not worth being so mad at myself and feeling guilty and feeling shameful for days, weeks, months, and maybe years to come. It just didn't equate. And so that's what I mean by thinking of the rest of your life. Like, this is one little tiny moment that you're feeling pressure, but then there's the whole rest of your life that you have to think about. For a lot of people, it's very helpful to play the tape forward. So you think of what your life would look like in one hour. Would you stop at just that one drink? Would you be filled with so much regret that you would drink to get through that shame? Would you completely spiral and go crazy? Would you um just never have a drink again, but feel so guilty about having that one shot? And like, how do you explain this in your sober journey? I mean, anyway, so that's the first hour. And then you go like five hours later. Maybe you're drunk, maybe you're uh regretting life, I don't know, like regretting your life decisions, I should say. You play the tape forward to the next day, and maybe you're having a hair of the dog because you wake up hang hung over, um, you're posting on social media that you've broken your sobriety, you're going into the I Am Sober app and changing your sober start day, you're calling your family and crying and feeling so mad at yourself for breaking your sobriety. Anyway, I'm just walking you through this, um, how like playing it forward might work in your brain. So play it forward an hour, five hours, the next day, the next month, and just think of your life further in advance than just that one moment. It's it it is weak to just have that thought enter your mind and just participate in the shot. Just do it. We do not just give in. We are not weak. I mean, if you're listening to this podcast, I know that you are so strong because whether or not you're sober, you've taken a step towards sobriety and it's something you're considering, and that is hard to do in life. So I know that if you're listening to this, you are a strong person. We are not weak. We do not just give in to instant temptation for that instant gratification. No, thank you. We are in this for the long haul. As many of you know, I have managed to lose 50 pounds and completely transform my body and my life, and a big part of that was sobriety, but I also implemented other healthy habits into my life, and one of those is getting good sleep. I feel like getting good sleep is so slept on, it is actually the hack for getting healthier in life. And I have been leveling up my sleep game with OSEA's dream collection so that my skincare is working for me overnight. And this is full body skincare, baby. Their new bioretinal body serum will leave you feeling hydrated, rejuvenated, firm, plump all while you are sleeping. So give your skin a rest with clean, clinically tested skincare from OSEA. And right now we have a special discount just for our listeners. Get 10% off your first order site wide with code SCOOP. That's S-C O O P at OSEAMalibu.com. O-se-a Malibu.com. There were so many times, especially in early sobriety, but it still happens today, where I would feel the thought enter my mind that I want to drink. It could be anything that triggered this. I mean, like I said, just walking into the kitchen, I'd get a craving. Or um, if I had like a salty snack. Still to this day, when I eat pretzels, I think of beer. Like it is just a muscle memory type of thing. Like the taste is just associated with alcohol for me. So I have a pretzel and I think about beer. So there's another craving. Maybe you get cravings when you hang out with a certain person. Maybe you get cravings before a nerve-wracking situation, like having to give uh a speech at work or like anything. We all have our various urges and cravings. And what impulse control is all about is denying those cravings, denying yourself that instant, just easy way out, the weak answer to that craving, and thinking about the long term. And what's really beautiful is that when you deny yourself that instant gratification, you grow as a person because you have to learn how to work through that craving without the alcohol. So maybe you're craving a drink on Christmas morning because you always used to drink on Christmas morning. And instead, you deny yourself that instant gratification. That would be the easy way out. And we are not doing things the easy way. We're in this for the long haul, and we are so strong, okay? Um, so instead, you make like a fun mock tail. You make an orange juice and sparkling water, and that's like your new Christmas drink. Maybe you put some fun garnishes on it in a cute glass. Um, maybe you crack into a soda first thing in the morning because that feels like kind of dirty how drinking in the morning feels. That's been a hack for me, by the way. If you ever feel like being really bad in your sober journey, like have a soda in the morning instead of alcohol. Um, it kind of gives you that feeling of I'm doing something I'm not supposed to. But anyway, maybe you have a craving when you're going into that work presentation. Like I used to drink before I had to present at work so that I could calm my nerves. And in sobriety, I have learned some really effective breathing techniques, like box breathing, that's the one that I use, which is in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, out for four seconds, hold for four seconds, and repeat. Anyway, I had to learn that because my heart would be racing, like pounding through my chest before I had to present at work. And I was like, how do I actually get through this moment without alcohol? I did not know how I would do it because I relied on alcohol so heavily. So I had to learn something. I had to. I tried different things, I looked things up on TikTok, I asked ChatGPT, like I tried really hard to work through these nerves that I had. And now, um, two years of sobriety later, almost, um, I don't get as nervous because I have learned skills and I'm just like calmer overall. Your body reacts, your body adjusts, I should say. Um, so what a beautiful thing though. We have to learn healthier strategies to get through our life without alcohol as the easy cop out. It would be so easy to just down a beer and calm my nerves. But I I deny myself that instant gratification. I I deny myself feeling better right now for the benefit of feeling better for the rest of my life. And like having this skill of calming my nerves and being able to do scary things. Like that's a beautiful skill to have that you will carry through the rest of your life. And when you just have alcohol to calm your nerves, that's a quick band-aid fix. It doesn't help with your growth as a human being and those nerves that you feel overall in life. So it's really cool that we get to learn those in sobriety. And what I want to talk about in today's episode is how this spans way beyond sobriety. So let's talk first about road rage. There are so many angry people on the road. Oh my god, it's overwhelming. Every time I get in the car, somebody's angry or honking or doing this, doing that. So when I learned impulse control, when I started to learn impulse control and sobriety, I'm a work in progress, okay? But when I've started to learn some impulse control, it's really helped on the road. So when somebody does something that angers me, they take the last spot in the parking lot when I've been sitting there waiting for a while, or they cut me off, or they sneak in right in front of me when I've been waiting in line to exit for like 15 minutes and they sneak in right at the end. Like, that's not fair. That angers me. But with impulse control, you can recognize that that makes you feel angry. That's okay. It's okay to sit with our feelings and like feel. We're not trying to be numb as human beings. We're we're still going to feel. So that angers me. That's not fair. I waited in this long line, you cut and write at the end, you did it like without asking, without waving, you just cut me off and cut the whole line. That angers me a little bit. That's not fair, and that's okay. I can feel some type of way about that, okay? But instead of what a lot of people would do, flipping them off, honking, uh, tailgating them, just riding their tail for the rest of the drive because they cut you off. Instead of acting, like instantly gratifying that feeling of anger and satisfying it with lashing out at this person, instead, we just we we recognize, okay, yeah, that angers me. But they must be having a bad day. Or like that doesn't actually affect when I'm gonna get home or whatever works for you. Oh well. Like, in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't really matter. That person goes through life behaving like that, and I move through life in a just fair way, and uh respecting other people. Like I just have better values than this person, however you want to look at it, whatever helps you. It's just like being able to see past that instant thing that just happened. It's not like they cut you off so you ride their tail. Like, that's that's too easy, right? That's just such an easy cop out. And we're not about that, okay? It's not they did something to me, so I'm doing something to them. No. They did something to me, so okay, that's their choice with how they're spending their morning. All good, no worries. And a random thing that's also helped me with any sort of anger on the road is listening to podcasts instead of listening to music. Sometimes I listen to music here and there, but I love listening to podcasts in the car. It has made me such a calmer person because I don't really care if I'm a little delayed getting to my destination because I'm really enjoying my podcast. That's actually how I look at it. Like, it doesn't matter if I missed that light or this person cut me off and I ended up missing my turn or whatever. Like, it's all just okay because I'm gonna get there safely and I'm gonna get to listen to my favorite podcast on the way. So it's all right. You know, I'm like, take your time, it's it's no problem. Listening to podcasts truly has made a huge difference on the road. I'm such a less angry person, and maybe an audiobook would do the same. Like you're just invested in this story. You don't care about what's going on, what other people are doing. These people who are living this high strung, constantly in a hurry, aggressive, angry life, like listening to podcasts and audiobooks and getting sober, of course, has just made me calmer on the road. And things just affect me less. So even though someone does something that I don't find to be fair or just, it's okay to recognize that and then not lash out. And I truly believe that working on my impulse control in sobriety has given me the skill to not lash out and not act on my impulses in life in general. Another example is in the gym. Okay, this is a little bit of a flip, okay. But some days we really don't feel like working out. Like something happened at work, we're stressed, we're busy, um, we haven't seen our partner, husband, whatever, and we just want to spend time with them. There's so many easy excuses for not going to the gym. There's so many easy cop-outs. You could make an excuse every day of the week for something different. But the long-term benefits of going to the gym are so great. You know that as you're getting into your 50s, 60s, 70s, you're gonna be a lot more mobile because you're building muscle now. You think about your longevity, how you want to be able to get up off the toilet when you're in your 80s. Okay, that's literally where my mind goes nowadays, is like I'm thinking about the long, long, long term. So there's that, but then also there's physical aesthetics. Like, I want to look good this summer in a bikini. I want to feel confident about myself. I want to continue to be able to do some modeling work, and I need to keep my physique in shape for that. Also, just health-wise, having muscle is so good for you. It's good for longevity, like I said. It's good for our hearts, it's good for our bones, it's good for our muscles. Exercising is good. So we know that. We see that in the long run, and we commit to working out today because we know that it'll help us in the long run, even though it'd be so easy to just say, eh, no, I'm not gonna go to the gym. It's too easy. We do not do the easy things in our sober journeys, we do the hard things to make our life easier in the end. I think that's kind of the umbrella overarching theme here is that not reacting in road rage, going to the gym, staying sober, all of these hard things make us better people and create better lives for us down the road, even if that decision in the moment is hard. It's worth it to be hard for a second, be hard for a little while, to be easy long term. I think speaking of the gym and just like my weight loss journey in general, you don't see changes from day to day. Like if I do an ab workout, my abs are not popping out the very next day. If I eat a salad and some chicken and a healthy meal, I'm not like losing 10 pounds the next day. We have to be able to envision the long term. We can't just look for those instant changes. And I think that's why I never stuck to fitness and nutrition in the past, is because I'd be like, what do you mean? I did yoga and a hike today. I drank a green juice and had a salad. Why am I not skinny? And I would just give up on my diet, give up on my workouts, because I didn't see results the very next day. That used to literally be be how my brain worked. I'd be like, eh, Pilates doesn't work for me. I did one workout and it I didn't see any muscles. That's how my brain used to work, and I would just give up. I would say, oh, this one didn't work for me. We have to give things the chance to work for us. We have to stay sober so we can see all the amazing benefits. You're not gonna feel amazing on day two of sobriety. Like you're not gonna see all these wonderful benefits, all the positive sides to sobriety. You're not gonna see that on day two, but we have to be able to envision the long term. With fitness, we're not gonna see our body changing the very next day after a workout. We have to be able to envision the long term. Another example I want to talk about is the romantic temptations we might feel in life. Like if you're in a relationship. And some guy comes up to you at the bar and starts talking to you. And you feel seen, you feel valued. Like maybe you and your partner have not been intimate in a very long time. And you're like, oh my God, this person is like giving me attention. They're giving me everything I want. Like you feel really special in that moment. It would be so easy to just give in and like make out with that person at the bar and maybe do more, who knows what? And cheat. And that's that's the easy way out. You feel desired and you just give in. You feel tempted to do something with this person and you just do it. It's too easy, okay? We have to think about our relationship, this wonderful bond that we are building with this person, all that we have been through together and we have built together. Having satisfaction from this stranger at the bar in a moment, in that moment, like instantly gratifying those desires, it's not worth throwing away everything that you have built with a long-term partner. And I'm not even in a relationship right now, but I know from experience, like these things happen. And we have to deny ourselves those moments that we might be feeling tempted for the long-term relationship. This could even go if you're single and dating. And maybe, you know, no judgment any way that you are, anywhere you are on this spectrum, but maybe you really value not being like intimate with someone until a certain point in your relationship or something. But you get talking to this person and you're feeling that urge to maybe do something, maybe they're pressuring you, um, pushing you in that way a little bit, and you feel like you just want to throw away your values and just do it. Why not? Things like that, you're giving in to that moment where you feel pressure, where you feel desire to participate in that. And you're giving up these values that maybe you have built over the years. You're giving it up for that one moment. And if you participate in that temptation, you might feel guilt about it for a really long time. It might totally taint the relationship that could have been with that person if you give up your values for that moment of temptation. You know, there are so many different examples. I'm trying to just speak hypothetically to cover a lot of different situations, but there are so many ways in the romantic world that we have to deny ourselves instant gratification, deny ourselves temptation, deny ourselves those cravings that might come up in life for our values, for our long-term relationship, for our long-term selves. We have to be able to see the bigger picture and just understand that we are building a life for ourselves and these little blips, these little temptations that we feel. While it's not like bad to feel the temptation, it's bad to take part. And that goes for drinking, that goes for not going to the gym, that goes for the road rage. Like it's not bad to feel the way that we do in those moments, but if we act on it, it's bad for our long-term growth as people, if that makes sense. It's very hard to clump together road rage and romantic relationships and sobriety and fitness, but in a way, they all kind of relate. We are not thinking about this exact moment and how we're feeling in this exact moment. We're able to see the grander, bigger picture. Hopefully that makes sense. There's so many different examples of this in life, and maybe after today's episode, you will just move through life recognizing all the different moments throughout your day that you deny yourself what you want right now. I want it now, Daddy. What's that from? Uh, Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. Like, you deny yourself what you want right now for what you want long term for your future self. And just recognize for yourself all throughout the day all the different examples of when that happens. I mean, this is an ADHD thing. I'm kind of working on right now. They say, don't put it down, put it away. And I'm so bad at this, but I'm trying to work on it. So when you're holding a piece of garbage, it would be so easy to just set it on the counter and continue doing what you're doing. But instead of setting it on the counter, you set it in the trash, like you actually just put it away. And so that even goes for this whole impulse control thing. It's like it would be easier to just set it on the counter. Like that's what my mind wants to do. I'll deal with it later. But you do the hard thing in the moment, opening the cupboard and putting it in the trash, it's not that hard, but you do the harder thing so that you have a clean home for the rest of the day, for the rest of the week, whatever. You deny yourself the easy cop out of just setting it on the counter, you put it in the trash, and that's how we maintain a clean home. I don't know from experience because this is something I'm really, really working on, but I hope that as I start to implement this one, my home will stay cleaner. We deny ourselves the easy cop out for the long-term benefits. That is just the overarching theme. So pay attention to where you see that in your lives. Impulse control is such an amazing skill to have, and the fact that sobriety teaches us that skill is so beautiful. That is why I have done like three episodes, maybe four, on this topic, because it is the best skill in life that we learn from sobriety. How beautiful is that? So I'm so proud of you. I would say the majority of people in this world do not think about impulse control, do not have any impulse control. There are so many angry people who lash out and act out based on their feelings, not their long-term well-being, whatever. They think about the now, they don't think about the future at all. So you are special and unique for even thinking about this in life. And I think it makes us really, really beautiful people. So thank you for listening, and I will see you for the next episode. Don't forget to join our Facebook support group if you haven't already. I will leave the link in the description. Thanks. Okay, bye.