We have turned July into our dancing month, where we will explore different forms of creative expression to music and encourage you to do the same, as dancing can provide an outlet for a lot of built up baggage. Hello Sunday Morning is inviting you to come along on our journey to experiment with the boogie and increase your groove.
It was sweaty, it was loud, it was electric, and the best part of all? It was Monday night.
We walked into a completely pitch-black room; the walls and floor were vibrating with beats from the speakers and DJ in the corner. When our eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, dimly lit by a few community hall EXIT signs, we were just able to make out the silhouettes of the dancers all around us.
For the next hour, we found ourselves slowly losing all inhibitions and moving parts of our bodies that have not moved for a long time. Hips were swinging, butts were bouncing and clapping, laughter and yahoos were made out over the blasting of music from old school swing music to classic ’90s hits from Destiny’s Child.
What is this magical dance universe, you may ask?
No Lights No Lycra started in Australia and has grown to provide this community experience in countries all over the world. Check out your area to find your nearest NLNL:
“The dance night grew through word of mouth and within a few months the hall was full of people who shared the same yearning for a dimly lit space to dance as freely as they do in their living rooms.”
Who says you need alcohol to dance?
The darkness at No Lights No Lycra helps you forget about that self-consciousness that stops most of us from expressing ourselves fully. Naturally, you may feel a little tense at the start as we are so used to worrying what other people might think of us. But give it 10 minutes and you’ll notice the endorphins crawling over your skin and words belting out of your mouth as you sing along and crawl out of your protective social shell to move in ways you never knew you could.
There’s no other feeling like it, a smile was glued on my face, a stitch prevalent in my rib cage and my legs ached until the next day.
Would I do it again? Absolutely.
Would I recommend to a friend? Absolutely.
Do I think dancing will cure the world? One Monday night at a time.
Have you got a list of things you’d like to try? If you want to share an experience with us that inspires others to start doing the things they have always wanted to do, we would love to hear about it! Email your story with photos (if you have them) to info@hellosundaymorning.org
Hello Sunday Morning’s Experiments Challenge is all about trying something different, something you have never done or have always wanted to do. For July, our month of dancing, we sent our marketing intern Cara to take on the Brazilian Samba …
I haven’t taken a dance class since I was about seven years old, aside from one failed attempt to learn Salsa last year. Maybe the Samba will be easier, I thought, after watching a two-minute video clip on YouTube.
My roommates and I showed up to the dance studio in tee shirts and athletic leggings with water bottles in hand. We were prepared to sweat. The studio was on the upper level of a brick building decorated with an abstract mural of bright yellow, blue, and pink. The inside was just as eye-catching: banners of multicoloured flags hung from the ceiling, posters covered the walls, and hula hoops and baskets of feathers lined the hallways.
Before our Brazilian Samba class started, we had a look around the studio. In one of the rooms, women wearing beaded scarves around their waists were practising belly dancing. I wondered if anyone in our class would be wearing pieces of the extravagant feathered Samba costumes I had seen in the YouTube clip.
When we entered the wood-floored dance studio where our lesson was to be held, everyone else was wearing workout clothes sans carnivalesque embellishments. Phew. People started stretching, so I put my leg on a nearby ballet barre (with some difficulty) in an attempt to appear as though I knew what I was doing.
Our dance teacher, an energetic Brazilian woman, burst into the room and immediately turned on the stereo. She instructed us to walk around and “feel the music.” So fifteen of us gathered in a circle and sashayed around the room. We were told to move our arms in small circles at first, then back and forth across our bodies.
When our warm-up was over, we spread out across the room, facing the mirrored wall at the front. The first move we learned was a basic footwork pattern that involved three steps. This won’t be so hard, I thought. From my spot in the back corner of the room, I tried to follow the instructor’s movements by staring at her feet, then at mine.
I was comfortable at my spot in the back of the room, where I could watch everyone’s feet in front of me. The instructor wasn’t satisfied with our feelings of ease in our places. She called out one woman from the back and requested that she move to the front of the room. Then, she had me move to the front row as well. To be perfectly honest, I panicked a bit.
I was able to use the mirror to follow along with the rest of the class, and I finally got the hang of it after everyone else had already seemed to master the steps. Then, we were instructed to combine arm motions and hip movements with the footwork. I started looking around the room to see if I could learn the moves by watching my classmates.
By the end of the class, I still couldn’t figure out how to control my arms while paying attention to the fast-paced footwork, given my lack of coordination. I’ll definitely need to return to the studio to give the Brazilian Samba another try, but this time I’ll be finding a spot right in the middle.
Have you got a list of things you’d like to try? If you want to share an experience with us that inspires others to start doing the things they have always wanted to do, we would love to hear about it! Email your story with photos (if you have them) to info@hellosundaymorning.org
At Hello Sunday Morning, the community is vitally important to us. Our community members inspire us with their personal stories and the unconditional support they provide for others.
We know from our six years of experience running Hello Sunday Morning that community is one of the most impactful aspects of a society. Thus, we thought it was important to acknowledge today, as people across America are coming together in their local communities and celebrating their national holiday with friends and neighbours.
The Fourth of July
Today marks the most significant holiday for the United States. It was the day the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, formally declaring America’s independence from Britain. Some people refer to the holiday as ‘America’s birthday,’ and it’s celebrated like an enormous birthday bash every year. The Fourth of July is unlike other holidays where families gather and celebrate at home – it’s a day where entire towns and communities come together to take part in the festivities.
Independence Day falls at the warmest time of year in the U.S. It’s summer, school is out, banks and government offices are closed for the day, and most businesses shut down. The day begins, for many, with preparations for afternoon barbecues or picnics. Some people bake festive cookies and cakes decorated with white icing and topped with candy or berries arranged into an American flag.
Families take their kids to the centre of town for local parades, where everyone is dressed in red, white, and blue, from their hair accessories all the way down to their shoes. You’ll most likely run into a few of your neighbours at the parade, and if not, you’ll certainly see them later at the fireworks display.
For kids especially, the rest of the day is spent anxiously waiting for fireworks. Fireworks displays are put on by all major cities and most small towns, and the community gathers in a park or other public spaces to watch. Anyone who wants to stake out a good spot will get there hours before the sun sets. They’ll bring lawn chairs, picnic blankets, tons of food, and even portable barbecue grills. Parents can enjoy themselves for a few hours while their kids go and play with their classmates, who they’re bound to run into. The evening ends with everyone twirling sparklers in the air before settling onto blankets on the grass to watch together.
We’re inspired by the way local communities come together on the Fourth of July to spend time with family, friends, and those living around them. On a day like today, there’s nothing more important to independence than a community.
An edited excerpt from Woman of Substances: A Journey into Addiction and Treatment by Hello Sunday Morning supporter, Jenny Valentish.
1982. The UK. The Falklands War erupted. The lowest temperature on record was captured by a lonely weather station in east Scotland, at -27.2°C. Unemployment exceeded three million, the highest since the 1930s. The IRA bombed Hyde Park and Regents Park, killing eight and wounding forty-seven. Thatcher’s Tories were top of the opinion polls. In every kid’s Christmas stocking there was a copy of When the Wind Blows, depicting a nuclear attack on the UK by the Soviet Union. I was seven.
I don’t want to lose your sense of intrigue straight off the bat, but I was a sickly child, matted with eczema and, later, permanently trailing a hankie. The umbilical cord had noosed around my neck upon my grand entrance, rendering me mute. I brought with me a special delivery of postnatal depression and was soon registered as ‘failure to thrive’.
Around our house they called me the Grizzler. My super-powers included a sixth sense for the acutely unfair, and internal combustions at perceived slights. My parents also bandied around ‘sulking’, or ‘sulking again’, but those words didn’t do it justice. When wronged, their youngest child was a kamikaze pilot in a nosedive, unwilling or unable to pull up. Empires should collapse.
‘It’s not the end of the world!’ Mum would exclaim, in an ascending tone. Dad’s favoured description of Mum was ‘wittering’. Mum’s nickname for Dad was ‘Eeyore’. We all did the Myer Briggs personality test one time and came out as introverts with tempers rising. Our default setting was: ‘Expect nothing and be pleasantly surprised.’ Addendum: ‘Any pleasant surprise will be a massive fluke and should be dismissed as such.’
What I’m describing here is temperament. Temperament is observable from birth, and it’s the foundation upon which personality is built. The dim light in which I view 1982 gives some insight into mine.
There’s an episode of the 2012 ABC documentary Life at Seven called ‘Tackling Temperament’. The Australian children it follows have been the subjects of a longitudinal study since birth, and now it’s time to test their response to frustration with ‘The Painting Experiment’.
In groups of three, the children in the documentary are given the task of painting a picture of flowers. Midway through they’re distracted by a researcher, who calls them over to inspect the real floral arrangement more closely. While their backs are turned, one girl – who’s in on the trick – scribbles on their artwork, then slips back to her own easel.
Initially, each child is dismayed to discover their ruined painting – and they’re suspicious, of course.
Child 1 is subdued. She says she knows the other girl did it, but she keeps going with her painting regardless. By the time she skips out of the room, the insult is forgotten.
Child 2 finds another blank page beneath the first and, pleased with his own ingenuity, starts over from scratch.
Child 3 wants to get to the bottom of it, but eventually her desire to continue wins out. ‘I know,’ she decides, ‘I could colour the background in.’
Child 4 is angry. She stamps her foot. ‘That just can’t happen,’ she says. The researcher leans in: so what should Child 4 do? ‘I don’t know,’ she whimpers. Does she have an idea? ‘No.’ She rejects the suggestion of turning over the paper to the clean side, claiming that won’t work.
‘How did it happen?’ Child 4 repeats, aghast. Eventually she’s persuaded to start over, but the sense of injustice lingers.
Perhaps Child 4 adopted a permanent explanation for this ruined-painting scenario. This is a mindset described by psychologist Martin Seligman in his book The Optimistic Child. A positive thinker will regard a setback as being temporary: ‘This picture has been ruined but at least I had only just started.’ A pessimistic child will tell themselves a story with finality to it: ‘This is hopeless. Just my luck. This happens every time. People always have it in for me.’
This type will also have what’s called an external locus of control: the belief that they are a passive victim of their circumstances, rather than the architect of their own destiny. Every time a reasonable solution is offered, they’ll play the ‘yes, but’ game, preferring to nurse that sense of unfairness like Gollum and his ring.
Something might go really well yet by the end of the day it’s catastrophised, remembered as an unmitigated disaster. They might similarly revise their entire childhood, levelling out all experiences to the baseline of the worst. In my memory, for instance, my childhood is like Nordic noir: everyone’s withdrawn and secretive, the sky is overcast, and people drift about wearing thick woollen jumpers (Dad never turned on the central heating). At any moment someone’s liable to walk out into a snowdrift and never return.
That’s the past. As for the future – which in Child 4’s case is the option of turning over a sheet of paper and starting anew – they’re harbingers of doom.
In defence of Child 4, certainly not all pessimistic or reactive children will grow up wanting to funnel the world up one nostril. There are plenty of coping techniques that, with a bit of encouragement, an individual can employ to regulate their moods.
The ruined paintings of the Life at Seven kids were a minor setback. In the case of experiencing childhood trauma, having low resilience – like Child 4 – can be a huge risk factor for adult anxiety, depression and problematic substance use.
One of the most thorough studies of childhood personality began in Melbourne in 1983 and is ongoing. The psychologists and paediatricians behind the Australian Temperament Project have been following the children of 2443 Victorian families. They’ve found that the features of temperament most likely to have long-term influence are persistence, flexibility and reactivity/emotionality, with the biggest predictor of adult behaviour being self-regulation.
Someone with poor self-regulation has little capacity to control their reactions, which include physiological responses, such as a churning stomach when something is upsetting, but also their interpersonal attitudes. Take me. I was one of those kids who, if a friend came over to play and a row started, would rather endure an hour of anvil-heavy, atom-buzzing silence until their mother arrived to take them away, than try to rectify the situation. Not much has changed. Fast-forward thirty years and there I am necking two beta-blockers before resigning from a job, in order to firmly get my points across without hurling a stapler or letting loose a spittled string of expletives.
So why do some people fail at self-regulation?
In part it’s hereditary, but it’s also down to the home environment. When a child’s stress-response systems are activated – which means an increased heart rate, rise in blood pressure and release of stress hormones – some calm intervention by a caregiver can bring these responses back down to baseline. If these skills are not observed and learned, the habit of self-regulation will not be routed into the neural pathways. Failure to learn might be through parental neglect or through watching parents catastrophise minor issues.
Conversely, pandering to a child’s every whim can mean they’ll never experience disappointment and how to adapt to it. Increasingly, drug and alcohol counsellors are seeing clients in their thirties and forties who are living back at home with enabling parents who never learned to tell them ‘no’.
The danger in both cases is that defeat can become comforting. There’s a familiar cycle of disappointment and then – if you grow up to coddle yourself with drugs and alcohol – self-soothing. In time, defeat becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Things are not for the likes of you. Something simply cannot be done. There is no point.
In summary, what we know to be high-risk factors for problematic substance use include low resilience, poor self-regulation, low self-efficacy and reactivity.
This is why it’s vital for any adult addressing their alcohol or drug use to specifically address their resilience and self-regulation, perhaps through counselling methods, such as CBT. Turn it into a game, if necessary: how quickly can I laugh off that slight? How many good things happened to me today before that wrong turn into shit-town?What advantage can I milk from this unexpected situation? What have I learned? Our temperament may be acquired through our genes, but our attributes are gained through our own free will.
Woman of Substances is available as a special offer here. The author’s blog is here.
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – French scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal.
Being alone doesn’t mean you are lonely.
Most of us are constantly surrounded by people, whether you live in an urban environment or if you’re in a relationship, work at a social company, or exist in the digital world of social media.
But sometimes we crave time away from everyone, or we may end up in a situation where we are involuntarily spending a lot more time on our own – whether that’s because of a breakup or moving to a new city.
It is imperative to learn how to enjoy your own company because like it or not, you’re stuck with yourself for the rest of your life.
When you start to feel lonely, it can help to think about all the things you can do with no one else around. You can talk to yourself, you can watch a sad movie and sob your heart out, you can dance in the kitchen naked, you can be as messy and as gross as you like and no one will be there to judge you!
Get to know yourself
Psychologist and author Wayne Dyer says, “You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.” You might find out that you like yourself a lot. If not, you’ll know why, and by being alone, you give yourself the opportunity to work on it.
How can you really know yourself if you have never really spent time with yourself?
How can you know how YOU will react to something, how YOU would spend your day, how YOU would process a big decision without the influence and perspective of someone else?
Do things YOU love doing
Go for a surf, practice yoga, take a long walk, go camping alone, swim in the ocean or cook a delicious meal.
Traveling and exploring by yourself, for instance, is one of the best things you can do alone and can be the most rewarding for personal growth. You’re put into situations where you cannot rely on anyone else and you may find yourself out of your comfort zone, or experiencing things you thought you never would without anyone else’s support or opinion or mood to influence your experience.
Solitude is also the best time to get things done. You can be the most productive on your own with no distractions, so if you have a project you’ve been wanting to start on, or an idea brewing in the back of your mind, being alone is the perfect time to work on it!
Have a creative project
Creativity is often found in the mists of solitude.
Ideas for creative personal projects include:
writing music;
planting a veggie garden;
building furniture;
knitting or crocheting a throw or scarf;
making scented candles;
drawing;
painting;
scrapbooking.
It’s okay to be reflective and even sad when alone
It is often a perfect time to be alone when you’re in a mood, as we tend to get irritated and take out how we’re feeling on others.
An article on Lifehacker, Why Bad Moods are Good For You, explains that bad moods are actually an essential part of the normal range of moods we regularly experience.
“We should recognise they are normal, and even a useful and adaptive part of being human, helping us cope with many everyday situations and challenges. Psychologists who study how our feelings and behaviours have evolved over time maintain all our affective states (such as moods and emotions) have a useful role: they alert us to states of the world we need to respond to.”
Reflection is vital for us to be able learn from the past. If we don’t reflect on something negative that happened, we can’t know how to change it, and if we don’t reflect on something great that happened, we are not as satisfied or as grateful as we probably should be. Reflection also allows you to welcome new ideas and thoughts and is critical for self-improvement.
Take a break from social media
Social media often feeds us this world where everyone is living a ‘perfect’ life, constantly having fun, going out, being social and traveling the world. It’s amazing to be inspired and motivated by these beautiful photos and posts, but it can have you comparing your life to everyone else’s. You may suffer from serious FOMO (fear of missing out) when you see your friends constantly socialising, but the reality is they need their down time too. You can’t say yes to everything and be surrounded by people 24/7, or you won’t have time to reflect, adjust and grow.
Give yourself transition time
Whether you have just had a break up and separated from an ex, moved into a new place by yourself, moved to a new city, a new job or you have come home from a big, life changing adventure, you need to give yourself time to adjust to a new environment, and allow yourself time to grieve the loss of a past time.
Acknowledge the times you crave your own space
Try to be more aware of the times you are getting irritated with someone or a situation, as this could be a sign you just need to be with you for a little while. Plan something to do alone, whether that is just going out for a walk or sitting in a park reading a good book. It could simply be taking a bath and locking the world out for a bit of breathing space. Acknowledging this feeling of wanting some ‘you’ time is vital to be able to step back from a situation and gain some perspective.
On 1 January 2017, I started an alcohol-free month. It was on the back of a classic ‘new year, new you’ moment (cliché, I know), but there’s something so neat and appealing about a bright, shiny new year. There’s also the bonus of New Year’s Eve, so you can go out with a bang.
I’ve done Dry July the past few years with various degrees of success (last year needed a reset to Dry August). I’ve always admired those strong-willed people who have a month off the booze in sunny February or October. I can cope when we’re knee deep in winter but balk at the thought of giving up alcohol in a nice month.
It’s pretty easy to get into the habit of drinking. I had a general plan for AFDs (alcohol-free days) Monday to Thursday, but too frequently that was pulling back to Wednesday, maybe Tuesday on a bad day. The routine of walk in the door; keys down; glass out and pour is very easy to slip into and so easily sustained when it’s an almost daily ritual with your partner. It just becomes a part of your routine.
What goes hand in hand with frequency is quantity. A couple ofglasses at wine o’clockmost nights adds up pretty quickly, right? Throw in a sneaky bubbly on Friday after work and a Saturday night binge sesh, and say ‘hello’ to a couple of empty bottles of Adelaide Hills pinot gris by Sunday.
I was pretty good at knowing how much I could drink and stay under the limit for driving. Sometimes I’d plan my strategy in advance – would I drink up in the first hour and then wait it out? Or would I drink over a few hours and hang in there? It’s an imprecise scienceat the best of times and obviously impacted by the wine goggles you’re wearing when you’re in the moment.
One of the bonuses of being a successful grown-up is the capacity to afford good quality alcohol. Drinking well adds to the air of sophistication and makes you think you’re a wine aficionado, rather than just someone who drinks too much. I was starting to invest quite a few dollars of my hard earned cash in alcohol and would reason that I work hard, so I deserve to let my hair down every now and again.
The interesting thing about drinking is how enjoyable it is in the moment and how shit it is the next morning. I was starting to find that my capacity to drink was pretty good so I could hold my grog with the best of them. With increasing regularity, though, I’d lose my capacity to bounce back and I’d suffer the next day blues with a fuzzy head and blocked nose. I reasoned it might be those nasty preservatives in the wine so I took up organic varieties for a while. Surprise, surprise, this didn’t seem to help.
Women in their 40s and 50s are among the biggest binge drinkers around and are fast catching up to men in terms of problem drinking. Teenagers are taking the rap for the mild-mannered mums who are putting away eight or more glasses per week. The National Drug Strategy Household Survey was released on 1 June this year and showedthat for the first time ever, women in their fifties do more high-risk drinking than 18-24 year-olds.
What’s that all about? Are we managing our stressful lives with alcohol? Is it the modern day version of a Bex and a lie-down? What I know is that I needed to interrupt the very comfy pattern I was in.
I’ve never been too good at moderation. I’m the type that will open a bag of lollies or chips and eat the whole lot. The call of an open packet of anything in the cupboard has always been too tempting for me. But for all my shocking lack of moderation, I’m really good at going cold turkey. There’s something I enjoy about the denial, something about the challenge of giving things up that spurs me on.
So here I am over five months later with nary a drop of alcohol past my lips. When I started in January I didn’t really have an end date. Having come this far I’m thinking I will definitely go six months and then see what I think. My biggest fear is that I’ll have one drink and slip straight back into old habits. Just having the fear tells me I might need to go on a bit longer.
There’s been a positive impact on my partner, too, as we no longer egg each other on and enable each other’s drinking. I’ve done Dry July on my own in the past and have found it hard when my partner didn’t do it. Doing it together has helped both of us break bad habits and he’s so proud of how strong I have been.
I hadn’t noticed before how much time I spent thinking and reading about alcohol until my inbox started overflowing with unopened emails from various merchants and wineries. I subscribed to wine clubs and had a steady supply arriving straight to my door without me even having to think about it. My last call from my Vinomofo guy ended with a polite decline and an interesting chat about that time he gave up alcohol for 364 days. He’s calling me back later in the year to see how I’m going.
You don’t realise how much our social occasions involve alcohol until you’re not drinking. I’ve been through family birthdays (including mine), knock off drinks, work events, parties, long haul flights, overseas holidays, free alcohol in the Qantas club (yes, I even withstood free alcohol!). I’ve sat there with my sparkling water or my cup of tea and felt okay about it. I do have an honest suspicion, though, that I’m a lot more interesting when I’ve had a few.
It might not be surprising to know that when everyone is drinking and you’re stone cold sober, it is quickly revealed how uninteresting drunk people are. I’ve been making lots of observations of my unsuspecting drinking subjects in the wild. I reckon three drinks is the turning point. The point where the drinker’s face starts to contort a bit, the words slur a bit, the speech volume goes up a bit and the assertiveness goes up a notch towards aggression. It’s an ugly transformation to witness. Yet somehow in this scenario, everyone tells me I’m the boring one. If only they could see themselves. If only we could see ourselves we would know we are just the same.
I know that the cold turkey approach is not for everyone. If you want some help to reset your relationship with alcohol, head over to hellosundaymorning.org to access to their online supports and community.
Article by Hello Sunday Morning supporter Kathryn Jordan. Kathryn blogs at How to be Fifty
From alcohol’s effect on fertility, to how long your liver takes to recover
Gastroenterologist Professor Weltman, helps us answer specific health questions asked by our community on Daybreak.
1. How long does it take for your liver to start to recover once you stop or cut down drinking?
Professor Weltman, Head of the Gastroenterology and Hepatology department at Nepean Hospital, NSW, says the recovery is variable as it depends on the individual.
“Alcohol does not work the same on everyone, so to start off with, it is best to give it 6–12 months before you’re able to see what kind of reversibility is there.”
Consensus in clinical research suggests that the liver is the only organ in the body that is able to regenerate by replacing damaged tissue with new cells, but it depends on the length of time the individual has been drinking and each individual is entirely different. Complications can develop after 5–10 years, though it more commonly takes 20–30 years.
Complications of liver disease occur when regeneration is either incomplete or prevented by progressive development of scar tissue within the liver. This happens when a damaging agent like alcohol continues to attack the liver and prevents complete regeneration. Once scar tissue has developed it is very difficult to reverse that process.
2. What impact does alcohol have on fertility for males?
A recent study of couples undergoing assisted reproductive treatment looked at male and female alcohol consumption in the year prior to treatment, as well as during treatment. It found both male and female alcohol consumption decreased the chance of a healthy baby and increased the risk of miscarriage.
Although the scientific evidence about how low to moderate drinking affects a man’s fertility isn’t clear, the National Health and Medical Research Council recommends that men abide by the safe drinking guidelines and women don’t drink at all during this period.
3. What impact does alcohol have on fertility for females?
For women, heavy drinking also affects fertility, increasing the length of time it takes to get pregnant and reducing the chances of having a healthy baby.
The National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines also say that:
For healthy women, drinking no more than two standard drinks on any day reduces the lifetime risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury.
Heavy drinking before pregnancy is also known to affect women’s health. Women who consume large amounts of alcohol (seven or more drinks a week or more than three drinks on one occasion) are more likely to have heavy or irregular periods and take longer to get pregnant.
For women who are pregnant or planning a pregnancy, not drinking is the safest option. For women who are breastfeeding, not drinking is the safest option.
4. What are the effects of alcohol on the brain?
The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says the short term effects of drinking alcohol can include: difficulty walking, blurred vision, slurred speech, slowed reaction times and impaired memory. Some of these impairments are detectable after only one or two drinks and quickly resolve when drinking stops. On the other hand, a person who drinks heavily over a long period of time may have brain deficits that persist well after he or she stops consuming alcohol.
“We do know that heavy drinking may have extensive and far–reaching effects on the brain, ranging from simple ‘slips’ in memory to permanent and debilitating conditions.”
A number of factors influence how and to what extent alcohol affects the brain, including:
How much and how often a person drinks;
The age at which he or she first began drinking, and how long he or she has been drinking;
The person’s age, level of education, gender, genetic background, and family history;
Whether he or she is at risk as a result of prenatal alcohol exposure; and
His or her general health status.
5. What does alcohol do to your body after the age of 40?
Professor Weltman says alcohol does not really affect people differently at any age other than babies. It is more the fact that if people have been drinking heavily since they were young, they therefore are more likely to develop the consequences.
“Drinking heavily for a long period of time can cause people to have liver damage, fibrosis scarring, pancreas damage and damage to the brain, like an early cognitive disfunction that is similar to dementia.
“Your coordination can become unsteady and the heart’s rhythm can have disturbances as well as weakening of the heart muscle. Men specifically can develop testicular atrophy, enlarged breasts and reduced sexual function.
“Women can develop osteoporosis, bone loss and muscle loss. It is common for women to see nerve ending problems and damage where they loose sensation in hands and feet.”
6. What are the side effects of medications like Antabuse/Disulfiram, Campral/Acamprosate?
Professor Weltman says Disulfiram only has side effects when mixed with alcohol.
“The concept of the drug stems back from the 1960s: you either don’t take the drug or don’t drink, because when mixed, the reaction with alcohol causes people to become very unwell.
“Campral doesn’t have any side effects and works as a stimulater for the nerve transmitters in the brain to instead reduce the desire to drink.”
According to NPS MedicineWise, these medications are suitable as a long-term treatment for patients with alcohol dependance and should only be used in conjunction with a comprehensive treatment plan.
Pharmacotherapy is generally used for people with more severe behaviours. In Australia, there are three drugs currently approved − oral Naltrexone, Acamprosate and Disulfiram. NSP Medicine Wise have a different view on the side affects of the drugs, outlined below:
Naltrexone is recommended for patients aiming to cut down their alcohol intake who do not have severe liver disease or an ongoing need for opioids.
EFFECTS: Headache, nausea, lethargy and dysphoria.
Acamprosate is recommended for those who have achieved and wish to maintain abstinence.
EFFECTS: The most common adverse event is transient diarrhoea.
Disulfiram is no longer considered first-line treatment due to difficulties with compliance and toxicity.
EFFECTS: Drinking alcohol within two weeks of taking disulfiram results in the accumulation of acetaldehyde in the blood. This causes unpleasant effects such as sweating, headache, dyspnoea, flushing, sympathetic overactivity, palpitations, nausea and vomiting.
Hello Sunday Morning is a movement towards a better drinking culture. Our vision is a world where drinking is an individual choice, not a cultural expectation. How do you feel about your relationship with alcohol?
How many drinks are too many, and where do you draw the line? Chris Raine and the Hello Sunday Morning health coaches talk us through tips on how to not go overboard.
Many of us have been there at some point in our lives.
The night/s when you took it too far, had one drink too many and crossed your line. You may have lost control of your inhibitions and jeopardised a relationship, got into a fight, said things you didn’t mean or did something you would never have done without the alcohol.
It may seem excusable when we’re young; when we don’t have as many responsibilities and the consequences aren’t as great. But when we’re older and have a job where people are relying on us, or we’re in a committed relationship, the repercussions can be much more serious.
It may have taken you that one time to learn your limit, or, depending on your relationship with alcohol, you may still be looking. For some, it’s not as easy as just growing out of it. Different things work for different people and whether you refer to them as rules, guidelines, strategies or experiments, it’s important to try a few techniques to see what works for you.
Chris Raine, Hello Sunday Morning’s CEO and founder, says learning what works for you is key to knowing when you should take it easy on the booze.
“If you’re not one to say, ‘two drinks is my limit’, (which you can do when you’re driving, but it’s hard particularly if you get into shouts or something like that), it’s good to have other rules that work for you.
“So, for me, it’s not about how many drinks I have, it’s just things like having a glass of water before I drink when I arrive somewhere or doing my best to make sure if I’m drinking I have also exercised and had a good sleep. If I haven’t and I end up drinking a lot then I know those things are tied in together.”
Alcohol is biphasic, so when you first start drinking it’s a stimulant and as soon as you stop drinking, the depressant effects kick in. You may be able to have one drink and it metabolises, but if you have 4-5 drinks and you stop drinking, it can be a steep hill downwards.
“Because alcohol is a drug, it’s hard for people to realise when they probably shouldn’t have another drink. It makes you feel good and that’s how it works on our brain. You just want to keep being stimulated and alert and perform in a certain social situation, but as soon as you stop consuming the drug it goes down.”
Liv, a 23-year-old drama student who also works part-time, says that she does not have a limit because it’s not that easy to find one. In part, this is due to it being socially acceptable to drink too much, so no one calls you up on it.
“I guess you could say I don’t have a limit. I basically go out to get wasted. I’ll buy a bottle of spirits and mostly I’ll just free-pour until I lose count.”
Liv says she is not happy with her current relationship with alcohol, and in the past, she has woken up regretting the night before.
“I do things that I regret so often, I feel disgusting about it and I guess I repulse myself, so my coping mechanism is just not thinking about it and trying not to see that person again or that group of people again.”
Liv started drinking mixed drinks when she was 16 and when she was 18 she started drinking straight from the bottle.
“It’s not something I’ve addressed because you always think binge drinking and alcohol dependence are problems that 40-year-olds have and it seems acceptable when you’re 23. You can write it off as ‘going out’.
“If I’m at a family dinner I won’t get wasted, I’ll just have one or two glasses of wine. But I see that as a difference, between drinking for pleasure when you’re eating, or at a party when you’re drinking until you’re having fun.”
Liv admits that she definitely has fun, but she would like to be able to stop when she needs to.
“When do you stop? You get drunk and you forget to have a limit, and you keep ordering more and more drinks.
“In order to [stop] I know I need to make a few changes in my life, like a healthier relationship, better friends, maybe move away from my current living environment.”
Stopping at ‘the buzz’
Good Therapy Organisation says when we can learn to stop at the “buzz,” we are well on our way to having our relationship with alcohol fully in check.
“For most people, three or four drinks make them feel tipsy or buzzed. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, yet the initial effects of alcohol in these amounts are more stimulating and euphoric feeling. People tend not to get into serious trouble from these amounts, but since the initial effects feel good, many people continue to drink past these amounts, assuming more alcohol equates to more good. It does not. It takes time for alcohol to work itself into your system, so people don’t realise how drunk they are getting, and in larger amounts alcohol has a depressing effect. The alcohol you drink today can make you feel depressed days and weeks later, and these small amounts can contribute to depressive feelings over time.”
How to deal with slip-ups
Chris Raine says his approach is to ask yourself, “what did I learn from it?” and “why did I do it?”
“I’d love to say that after doing this for seven years I’ve found perfect peace with myself, but I haven’t. If there are times when I’ve woken up hungover, sometimes I’m cool with that, sometimes it was worth it. But it if is just an average Friday or Saturday night and I wake up after having not really achieved anything and I’ve kind of just wanted to finish the week on Friday and feeling stressed, I need to think of the things I ought to change in my week. There is a responsibility that I’ve let myself down a little bit.
“You need to be honest with yourself, but you also have to be curious and understand in order to take the right action.
“The more I drink in my life, the less I’m really happy with it.”
We interview Mr. Perfect about the generational shift around male communication and why having a society that’s open to emotional freedom for men is so important.
You’re told to suck it up, to be strong, to not cry because crying is for wimps.
Men don’t often open up about how they are really feeling to friends and family. Showing emotion and vulnerability has long been stigmatised as a sign of weakness. It is the stereotype of the heroic male represented in popular culture as fearless, resourceful, stoic and usually facing adversity alone. These characters tell us a lot about what is considered to be ideal male behaviour within our society.
Men should be allowed to be whoever they want to be.
Daphne Rose Kingma, author of The Men We Never Knew, has said:
“We’ve dismissed men as the feelingless gender — we’ve given up on them. Because of the way boys are socialised, their ability to deal with emotions has been systematically undermined. Men are taught, point-by-point, not to feel, not to cry, and not to find words to express themselves.”
Men are more than likely to express emotions in places where they feel safe and it is deemed acceptable by society, like a sports event. You’ll see hugging, passionate shouting, even tears of joy after a win. But you may not see other men hugging or tearing up in another circumstance, because they don’t feel as comfortable or as open to do so. It is often the same case when alcohol is involved. Men seem to open up after (many) drinks, they can speak honestly from their heart and it’s okay because they ‘were drunk and have an excuse’.
But men shouldn’t have to have an excuse to lean back on for speaking their truth.
As Psychology Today says, “men who deviate from the traditional masculine norm by being emotionally expressive and talking about their fears are often judged as being poorly adjusted.”
When upset, women are more likely to express their feelings directly, and to seek the support of friends and family, whereas men might hide their emotions or withdraw. The problem is that withdrawing is very dangerous and can lead to serious mental health repercussions.
The restriction of emotional expression in many men’s lives can lead to:
A greater sense of isolation;
Less support being available from loved ones;
Health issues, due to carrying chronic tension in the body and other bad coping strategies;
Relationship difficulties due to an inability to resolve emotional conflicts and/or a perceived lack of ability to be intimate;
Psychological problems such as depression, insomnia and anxiety.
Suicide is the leading cause of death for Australian men aged 14–44 years old.
Yet, as a young woman in 2017, I think the toughest of all men are those who stand up for what they believe is right, even in the face of other men. Men who show their emotions and ask for help when they need it, and who open their heart to vulnerability.
I’m not the only one.
Mr. Perfect, founded by Terry Cornick, is a grassroots mental health support network with a vision to transform men’s mental health by making it a comfortable discussion for all. It is a sarcastic nod to the male approach to mental health.
Mr. Perfect is a metaphor for what the world expects us to be. It is the mask we wear.
Mr. Perfect started as an non-profit organisation to try and start these conversations that were lacking in male societies. As well as corporate talks, a blog and a few other projects, Terry also runs a monthly Meet Up in Sydney where anyone can come for an informal social barbecue, have a chance to speak to other people in the same boat, and listen to talks from doctors, psychologists and other organisations. The Meet Ups are inclusive to anyone whether it be successful men, fathers to be, students or older guys.
“I often speak to doctors who say they feel very hopeless and do not know what to do when men come in with mental health concerns. They either give you a pamphlet for an organisation or a prescription for medication.”
“If it’s not clinical, you’re not told about it.”
Terry says there is such a stigma around getting help because we have been conditioned to believe that seeing a psychologist, psychiatrist, or a ‘shrink’ means you’re ‘damaged’.
“Not only that, but there’s also the age-old thing of being masculine and being a man, and we all propagate that: both men and women. We assume this is what we need to be and people think,
“Your wife’s allowed to show that emotion so that’s fine, but a guy just cant do it.”
“Whether it be tiny set backs or big set backs, you were expected to come home after being a robot for eight hours at work and not talk about anything and just get on with it. You would also excuse traits and behaviours in your mates and just brush it off as, ‘Oh, that’s just [Jimmy] acting out,’ and you laugh about it and that’s the end of it. There was never scratching below that surface.”
Mr. Perfect aims to normalise that conversation.
“Once guys start and open up just a little bit, there’s no stopping them. Often times they won’t stop and they will talk so much they will apologise to me for telling their story because they have probably not told anyone that for five years, or only their doctor.”
So, for someone to just say, “I know what you’re talking about mate,” or, “you’re not alone,” that’s the first step.
“My dad was alcohol dependent, and my perception of that growing up was thinking he was just an asshole. He was told he would die if he kept drinking 20 years ago, and when he kept drinking, that was it for me. I was never once told or ever thought, until I started getting help myself, that maybe something was going on in his head that caused him to drink. I can’t really put my finger on it and I’ll probably never know why, but alcohol is the best way for people to do that, to block it out temporarily.”
Terry says he has friends who will use alcohol as their crutch, so if they have a really bad day at work or they’re in a bad mood, their first reaction is to go have a pint. Then that leads to four pints, which leads to staying out until midnight and then onto a club, and before you know it, the next day they’re in a world of pain physically and mentally.
“When I used to not talk about things, I would have a big night and end up in an argument with my wife. That was painful to wake up the next day and go, ‘I think we argued, I don’t know what about but I know there was shouting’.
“So, where did that come from? That doesn’t come from me being a bad person. It probably comes from me being insecure and not being able to talk about my anger, frustration, anxiety, depression, whatever it was, while I was sober. It was just easier to do it while I was drunk and blame someone else.”
A generational movement is brewing
With Mr. Perfect, One Wave Fluro Fridays, Livin’, and many more small, start-up mental health organisations, people are starting to break down the stigma around talking about mental health issues.
Terry says there’s a real need for all these ideas and these contemporary initiatives are the best starting point.
“There are big government groups advocating ‘awareness’, but it’s hard to know what the money is really going to. There are a lot of smaller groups, starting from very low funds who are personally trying to change things. It’s positive but it’s so difficult with no backing and we now need support from those types of authorities and the government.”
How can you help?
Terry says that the most important thing is to have a good support network of friends.
“It’s just about listening and saying, ‘I went through that as well and I’m still here, so you’re doing well just by talking about it’. If you don’t have anyone to bounce these ideas off, it can very quickly go from a very small problem in your head to the biggest problem possible.
“When I’m going though a tough time, I text some of my mates and say, ‘Just letting you know mate, if I don’t get back to you tonight it’s because I’m just having a bit of a cloudy spell’. I’ve completely normalised it and instead of shying away they will text me and say ‘here if you need, give me a buzz now, reach out, I’m here, I’ll drop everything’.”
If I see someone suffering, I’ll just send them a text and say, ‘Mate, I’ve noticed you weren’t yourself tonight. Is everything okay?’ And sometimes that can open a can of worms but at least you’ve started that.
Before you get defensive about how awful that sounds, let me explain a few things. If you have followed my previous stories you will know that my drinking career didn’t start until I was divorced and about 25 years old. I spent my high school years as an outspoken, probably annoying, high school Jesus freak. That passion followed me to college, and naturally reflected Evangel University. I loved my four years at Evangel and still maintain incredible friendships. You have to sign a covenant to attend a faith-based school, which I did — no sex, alcohol or dancing, and I stayed true to that. Though I wish I tested the waters a little bit; but don’t tell anybody, I could get fined (Evangel joke).
I digress.
I think Tenley was maybe two or three when I decided I would start drinking. I drank Moscato , the sweetest kind you could find. I never felt odd, or buzzed and in hindsight that should have been an indication of tolerance, but if you are surrounded by drinkers, active drinkers , everyone’s truth is a little distorted.
Tenley at two years old.
The last three years have been a whirlwind. I hit the lowest of lows. Imagine seeing a grown woman clinging to her pillow in a nightgown, with fuzzy socks on and a missing tooth. That is who I was, walking through the doors as an inpatient. Luckily I have been able to have a pretty kick-ass, stellar recovery process that has been tiresome but so worthy.
You’re probably asking how being an alcoholic made me a better mother. There are few key reasons that all sort of tie in with the theory of ‘desirable disadvantages’.
I was a very loving and kind mother. Most women naturally fill that role. But then I began to fill my nights with drinking and the nights turned into days which turned into months and, before I knew it, everything was unraveling.
Tenley has always been a child of bright curiosity and she radiates joy wherever she flutters. I was tired, irritable, half-assing my way through a job I loved but couldn’t find any additional strength for. I was disengaged, always planning my next stop for alcohol and/or planning to have care on the weekends I did have her, because ‘it’s normal to drink with friends’. Her joyful mother became sad, tired and uninterested.
That is one of the hardest truths I will ever have to swallow. To admit that when it came down to Tenley or alcohol, I would have chosen alcohol. It took me years to figure out why and what that meant and I accept that it isn’t a choice. Once you are at that point, you are a passenger on the train.
The last year and a half of sobriety have been the hardest moments in my life. I was broken, poor, unhealthy, starting my career over again. But I got creative. I saved everything I could, learned to budget correctly, attended night classes and rode the bus two hours every morning (a consequence of an OWI/DUI).
The first year of my change, I white-knuckled it all — I was happy to be alive, but did not yet appreciate what that entailed. I found myself jealous of my old life prior to sobriety but when I really put forth the effort that this deserved , my whole life shifted.
I believe the statement above with every fibre in my being. One of the hardest things for any parent to do is admit they failed their children.
And I did it. I failed Tenley. I wasn’t the mother she deserved or needed or asked for. I scared and worried my daughter and the shame kept me spiralling out of control. I didn’t want to accept that I had done this to her as I love Tenley more than anything. When I am drinking I am not choosing to not be the best mother, I cannot choose. I see so many excellent parents weighted with defeat. I see the stress, the sagging shoulders and bloodshot eyes.
YOU CAN GET BETTER. YOU CAN BE BETTER. YOUR CHILD WILL RESPECT YOUR FIGHT, AND LOVE YOU FIERCELY FOR IT.
Tenley at age eight.
Tenley and I are closer than ever, we talk openly about my past and my choices. She isn’t walking forward with a mum that hides or shames horrible behaviour or consequences or alcoholism, she is walking forward with my recovery, hand in hand with me. She is learning to overcome the worst case scenario and be the best version of herself she can.
Your children are your biggest fans, they love unconditionally and will forgive you in a heartbeat (but do not take advantage of a soft heart, they become adults who remember). They want you to be YOU and if that means taking time to go to rehab, DO IT, if that means changing jobs, DO IT, if that means getting medication to help curb chemical imbalances, DO IT. Your children are watching you fall, but more importantly, watching you stand back up and dust your knees and shoulders off, before grabbing them too, brushing the dirt from their knees, walking forward together because you are worth it and it is never too late. Ever.
I now have better relationships. It took me a long time to understand the ‘needs’ versus ‘wants’ concept. I need someone who loves me as is and can share that love with a smaller version of me. Tenley is watching me in a relationship with a recovering drinker who put sobriety first. Thankfully, my partner emits so many qualities that I would want for her to experience. She sees love practiced and given without condition, she sees a disagreement become a solution and finally she sees me valuing myself first and knowing that I can’t be a partner or mother if I am drinking.
Tenley at six — the week I was able to see her after 57 days of treatment, meetings and rehab.
I am financially stable. Drinking took a LOT of money from me, but also taught me how to plan a budget when my one source of debt was rejected. She watches me budget, and I now think about where my money is going.
I have a supportive job. I was able to be candid about my drinking past, and that makes me better prepared if I begin to feel stressed or anxious. In the past, drinking on the job became very easy and it usually does for most addicts. It’s not purposeful, it’s to survive at that point. When you stop drinking you shake, you crave, your body does everything it can to get you temporary relief. I shared my past openly with my boss in the first interview, because for me, it’s life or death. I don’t suggest that you share intimate details of your life if they aren’t necessary but for this position I needed to be candid and was respected for it.
Here is the takeaway. I am a better mother now because I have fought hard to be one again. My moments with Tenley are an adventure that strayed off track for a few years. I am a better mother because I value the little moments, even the bad moments, because when you are accepting of death, you become very much alive if you are given a second chance. Joy is more joyful, silence is more warming, love is bigger and louder.
This isn’t to say I live without pain. Fifty percent of my time is spent without my little radiant pixie and it’s in those times that I find myself sinking into that dark hole of loneliness and hurt, wondering how I made it through the past few years. It’s simple, I made it because I wasn’t feeling anything: my goal was to not feel. But my god, does the joy feel joyful.
Parents , if anything sticks with you , please let it be this: continue to fight for what is good and true. You are giving your children an incredible gift and that is showing them when you fail, there is a chance to do it right.
If you find yourself in a similar situation and are feeling alone, you are not. Tenley and I are rooting for you, hand in hand.
We spoke to Talitha Cummins about stigma and the best approaches to opening up a conversation
“Such is the strength of denial when it comes to drinking … that a child talking to their parent may not even hit home.” — Talitha Cummins
Generally, mums are known to talk a lot. They call for a chat about anything: to tell you a trivial incident that happened at the shops; to remind you to pay your health insurance bill; or pester you to take back a stored box of clothes in your old room. But because mums are so used to helping others and putting themselves last, it can be hard to turn it around and open up a conversation with mum about how she may be drinking.
At Hello Sunday Morning, we refer to the mums in the Daybreak communityas ‘supermums’; they’re superheroes in our eyes. But the thing is, that’s a pretty high standard to live up to, and it can come with a lot of pressure. So far, Hello Sunday Morning has supported 80,000 women on their journey to change their relationship with alcohol. Our statistics show 56 per cent of female members on Daybreak have children, and of those mothers, 7.4 per cent have over six drinks daily or almost daily.
We spoke with mother, Australian journalist and Hello Sunday Morning ambassador, Talitha Cummins, about why there is a stigma attached to mums who drink and why it’s so hard for mothers to accept that they may need help to change their relationship with alcohol:
“We’re very good at drinking but we’re not very good at acknowledging the problems that come with it. There’s a tendency for people to sweep this issue under the mat because it’s a little bit too confronting. Research shows that women in their late 30s and early 40s have caught up to men on the drinking front for a number of reasons, like women entering the workforce and equality. I also think there’s an extra layer of stress on women who do a lot of the work looking after the children as well as working full time and that adds another layer of pressure. Alcohol is used to relieve that pressure. Too much of relying on that to relieve the pressure creates a problem.”
Talitha described herself as the definition of a high-functioning drinker, a category that we find often gets overlooked by GPs and social groups because they break the traditional stereotypes of alcohol dependency: a bedraggled man carrying a paper bag with hard liquor around the street.
“I would get up in the morning and go for a run no matter how much I’d had the night before. If I could get up and go for that run and turn up to my hair and makeup and present well, than I thought the alcohol wasn’t having an effect on me. I’d still be able to work all day and it wasn’t until I got home that night that I’d start drinking again. So on the face of it, I was still doing my job, perhaps not to the best of my ability, but it wasn’t a problem until it was. Things became unmanageable for me.”
Talitha thought she was the only one who knew that her drinking was getting out of hand. It took an intervention from her Chief Of Staff at work who sat her down and asked her if she was okay, for her to allow herself to accept the situation.
“I think I was just at the right point and I said ‘no’ and I just crumbled. I was ready for someone to reach out and say anything to me because I was just so sick and tired of going through this whole thing of drinking, feeling shame and guilt and drinking to make myself feel better.”
Talitha says it is so difficult to talk to a parent about their drinking because in a lot of instances, they won’t accept they have an issue themselves.
“I spoke to a parent this week whose daughter won’t speak to them because of their drinking. But this person is still in complete denial about the problem and wants to stop drinking, but not even being told by their child that there’s an issue makes them see that they need help.”
So, how do you begin the conversation with your mum about her relationship with alcohol?
There are many ways you could approach the topic, and the best for you may vary depending on your relationship with your mum. Talitha recommends a loving approach.
“I know there can be a lot of fall out from things that may have happened with the parents drinking, but approaching lovingly from a good place and making sure they understand that you’re there to support them is a good start to then let them know that you also think they need to seek help.”
You could also try opening up yourself and sharing something about your experience, such as:
“I have been thinking a lot about my relationship to alcohol lately. I have realised that it has been really valuable for me to reflect on it.”
Saying something personal demonstrates to the other person that you are comfortable (or maybe uncomfortable, but open to) being vulnerable around them.
In her TED talk, Dr. Brene Brown discusses the power of vulnerability. It is exceptionally difficult to let yourself be vulnerable in front of others.
“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen,” says Dr. Brown. Letting ourselves be vulnerable.
“Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.” Which, many have argued, is sort of the point of everything. We are wired to connect to other people, it’s one of the things that has enabled humans to be so successful as a species and it is a powerful tool for the healing process.
But what if mum doesn’t see an issue and gets defensive?
It may be a good idea to be prepared for this reaction, as drinking carries with it a lot of negative stigma from our society and is linked with feelings such as shame and guilt. Which is ironic, as the social pressure and expectation to drink alcohol is massive.
Talitha points out that confrontation is often avoided because of the expectations that you should be able to handle your drinking.
“None of my friends actually confronted me about it, despite them seeing some of the things that I was doing. It’s awkward not only for the person who is drinking, but for the friends as well; they don’t know what to say, so there’s this embarrassment around it on both sides.”
People can become enraged at a suggestion that they may be drinking too much and deny that they need help. You may find a breakthrough and the person will acknowledge their drinking, but they may deny addressing it, saying something like: “I can stop anytime I want to” or, “Everyone drinks to unwind sometimes.”
A Washington Post article written by Sara Amato, shares her story of struggle when confronting her mum about her relationship with alcohol and the positive opportunity she got out of the experience.
“Over the years, I tried to talk with her about her alcoholism, but she never wanted to hear it. It forced me to come to terms with the fact I couldn’t change her and that it didn’t need to weigh me down. She refused to recognise she had a problem and actively denied it whenever I brought it up. I could pour her wine out, but she’d still find ways to drink. If she wasn’t willing to change then it couldn’t be my problem anymore.
Her drinking forced me to be more cautious. It wasn’t until after college that I started drinking socially. I thought that if I drank anything, I would turn into her. But the more she denied she had a problem, the more it dawned on me that I wasn’t her. I had developed more self-awareness and control than she had ever shown me. But that realisation didn’t happen overnight. There was never any therapy sessions or group programs, there was only time. Most importantly, I realised that talking about these issues and getting help isn’t shameful, because [drinking] isn’t a one-person [issue]: It affects everyone. I know that now at 27, but when I was 16? No, I was really stubborn. It took me a long time to realise that letting people in doesn’t make you weak. And you should never feel alone when dealing with a loved one’s addiction. Because you’re not.”
Here are a few tips to help you take the blame off yourself
Firstly, you need to acknowledge the issue. You may be in denial to protect your parent or hide the issue. Admitting that your parent needs support, even if they won’t, is the first step in taking control.
Don’t blame yourself and be aware of your emotions. Accepting and acknowledging helps you put things in perspective. Remind yourself that you are not responsible for your parents drinking too much and that you cannot cause it or stop it, only they can. Recognising how a parent’s drinking makes you feel can help you from burying your feelings and pretending that everything’s fine.
Learn healthy coping strategies. When we grow up around people who turn to alcohol or other unhealthy ways of dealing with problems, they become our example. It may be a good idea to find some role models who can help you learn healthy coping mechanisms and ways of making good decisions.
Find support. Talk to people that may have gone through a similar thing and find support through Hello Sunday Morning or other support programs.
“To people out there who are in the midst of a drinking issue, life can get better. I was in such a low place too and I never thought that I would find the allusive happiness. But with a lot of hard work, you can get there. There is hope.” — Talitha Cummins
Hello Sunday Morning is a movement towards a better drinking culture. Our vision is a world where drinking is an individual choice, not a cultural expectation.
With aching legs, windblown faces and strands of hair frozen like spiky icicles, we “kanpai!” our Sapporo beers to a great day on the slopes as we look up to the view of Niseko’s Ana Puri mountain. The people around us sipping on steaming coffee or cold beers are likely to finish their drink and head to a Japanese onsen to end the day soaking their muscles in the healing, hot mineral springs that fill these public baths.
Comparing this to other vibrant après scenes like Canada’s Whistler or Big White ski resorts (nacho towers, live music and ski shots), the après culture in Japan appears a little more relaxed and sophisticated. However, the drinking culture in the corporate world back in the cities has far greater ramifications.
The Japan Times revealed almost 10 million people in Japan potentially have an alcohol dependency. However, only 40,000 to 50,000 are currently undergoing treatment. Susumu Higuchi, director of the National Hospital Organisation Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center, says Japan is a society that can push people to drink:
“However, once someone becomes [alcohol dependent], he or she is looked down on and it is not easy for that person to regain his or her status back in society after recovery.”
Business Insider published an article that recognises the significance of the Japanese corporate drinking culture, as this was how the older generation of workers established their relationships with clients and often used drinking as a bonding ritual for their own teams and employees. “During the day, the Japanese generally take a task-based approach, but the relationship building that happens in the evening can be critical to business success.” There is even an expression for this; nomunication, stemming from the Japanese verb nomu ‘to drink’ and the English word ‘communication’.
Hello Sunday Morning’s Chief Product Officer, Alex, lived immersed in this working culture in Tokyo for a few years:
“After-work drinks are almost mandatory, if you choose not to go then you are treated as the odd-man-out. One of the unspoken reasons this is pushed so hard is that ‘after work drinks’ is the only time you can air your grievances or communicate your feelings to superiors. During work hours it would be a massive disrespect to argue with your boss, so you are meant to bottle it inside and hold on for Friday drinks, during which you can have the ‘Oh, I had too much to drink’ excuse for opening up about your feelings.”
So there is a direct correlation between drinking as a way to cope with the pressures and stress from work. And if an organisation is encouraging employees to drink for business matters, they could be the ones leading them down the rabbit hole.
There is a uniquely beautiful type of therapy from Japan that could prove to be beneficial for people caught up in these over-working, over-drinking societies.
A therapy that goes by the poetic name of Forest Bathing.
So far, the Japanese government has funded about $4 million in forest-bathing research since 2004, with a goal of designating 100 official trails. At the moment, Japan has 48 Forest Therapy trails designated for shinrin-yokuby Japan’s Forestry Agency. Shinrin-yoku is a term inspired by ancient Shinto and Buddhist practices, and it essentially means to let nature enter your body through all five senses.
Psychological research supports the theory that immersing oneself in nature has proven to be beneficial to relieve anxiety and depression, boost empathy and improve cognition. Forest bathing research supports scientists to measure the effects of the cells and neurons during this experience in nature. Research, led by Yoshifumi Miyazaki from the University of Chiba and Qing Li from the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, uses field tests, hormone analysis, and new brain-imaging technology to uncover how the benefit from these trails works on a molecular level.
Another unique therapy from Japan known as Morita therapy was influenced by the psychological principles of Zen Buddhism and is all about accepting life as it is, known as ‘arugamama’.
“The answer lies in practicing and mastering an attitude of being in touch with the outside world. This is called a reality-oriented attitude, which means, in short, liberation from self-centeredness.” Takahisa Kora, M.D.
Morita Shoma, a Japanese psychiatrist, developed Morita therapy to consist of four distinct stages. He was disillusioned by the harm caused to inpatients while being confined in dismal places and decided to take them into his country home. It initially consisted of complete rest, from which he progressed his therapy to include art, diary writing, interaction with the environment and outdoor activities, while observing that the safe familial environment fostered responsive healing. The Morita School explains that the principles of this approach have been adapted to outpatient settings and expanded to address not only emotional well-being but to improve function in many aspects of day to day life.
Morita identifies that our mind is capable of imagining and wishing for things that have nothing to do with how life is. The Morita School gives an example of people who want to adopt lifestyles without experiencing the natural outcome of those lifestyles. People imagine that they can neglect and abuse their bodies and not experience negative effects to their health. People imagine that they can live fully and not experience the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that are naturally a part of that kind of life.
Those in cities are turning to external, alternative therapies for treatment of addiction, anxiety and other mental issues caused by the current cultural expectations. But as the high number or people over-working in Japan starts to reduce, hopefully a generational change of relying on alcohol to communicate issues with employers will also see a cultural shift.
This article was originally published on Hello Sunday Morning’s Medium platform.
Why some use alcohol to cope with PTSD and why is it vital to get support.
“Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.” — George Bernard Shaw.
What is self-medication?
Self-medication is a coping response to tough emotional or social issues and often occurs when a person turns to prescription drugs, illicit drugs, or alcohol in order to deal with situations they find themselves struggling in.
Turning to drugs or alcohol to cope is often the first step towards substance abuse which can potentially lead down the road of addiction. The brutal truth is that this doesn’t help solve problems, in fact it may bring about more set backs and can spike a vicious cycle, fuelling further struggle and evoking emotions like guilt, shame, anxiety and depression.
Hello Sunday Morning supporter and author of This Naked Mind, Annie Grace, posted a blog on Hello Sunday Morning’s community platform reflecting on why drinking to relieve pain is the most dangerous drinking of all:
I was emotionally addicted to alcohol. Here’s what I wish someone had told me
Alcohol is a tricky devil. It will convince you that it is there in your times of need to make you forget. Drink enough and you will eventually feel as if it is cathartic. Alcohol depresses the central nervous system, increasing feelings of depression and anxiety to the point where one often finds it difficult to cope with everyday stresses. What were once small, daily problems that were nothing more than an inconvenience become an insurmountable mountain when alcohol is involved.
Alcohol creates a vicious cycle in which you begin drinking to dull the pain of one problem, and, upon encountering other small obstacles, you feel overwhelmed, reach for another drink, and put dealing with reality off until tomorrow. Before alcohol, you would have just handled the situation as it came. Alcohol makes you rely upon it and think that without it you can’t function. When used to self-medicate, it becomes your motivation to wake up in the morning, a pick-me-up to get through the day, a reward for getting through the day, and, finally, an elixir to help you sleep. Meanwhile, it is actually robbing you of every pleasure and joy you deserve.
Life is better without alcohol. I wake every morning with a clear head, I know what I did the night before, and I have friends whom I don’t need alcohol in order to be honest with. I get to feel my emotions fully every day and enjoy every moment as it comes — fully and completely.
Statistics show that 50 per cent of people that have some form of dependence on a substance have a concurrent mental health challenge. Post-traumatic stress disorder is one main health concern where people turn to alcohol to try and cope. The U.S National Centre for PTSD says alcohol problems are more common for survivors who have ongoing health problems or pain. Up to three quarters of those who have survived abusive or violent trauma and up to a third of those who survive traumatic accidents, illness, or disasters, report unhealthy drinking patterns.
What is PTSD?
Beyond Blue describes post-traumatic stress disorder as, “a particular set of reactions that can develop in people who have been through a traumatic event which threatened their life or safety, or that of others around them. This could be a car or other serious accident, physical or sexual assault, war or torture, or disasters such as bushfires or floods. As a result, the person experiences feelings of intense fear, helplessness or horror.”
This anxiety disorder can be triggered by a range of things in everyday life that remind the person of the event. Some of the symptoms of PTSD include depression, anxiety, nightmares, emotional numbness and withdrawal from social interactions.
Returned soldiers suffering from PTSD tend to struggle to fit back into the day-to-day structure of normal life and can be constantly on guard, which can be difficult for their relationships with their friends or family. If they don’t seek the treatment they need in time, further problems can arise including self-medicating by drinking.
65-year-old British veteran, Stuart Wicks, opens up to Chronicle Liveabout his drinking and the lack of support for returned solders:
“In the military you are conditioned into being part of a team and you function as part of that team. I suddenly came out into an environment where I lacked in confidence, I had no self-confidence whatsoever.
The time to drink for me was from 4pm or 5pm onwards because that’s how it was on the army. If I drank, I would drink to oblivion.”
Stuart, who has now gone without a drink for five years, works for the charity Changing Lives as an outreach worker for veterans and has called for an Armed Services Rehabilitation Act to help ease the transition for veterans back into civilian life.
“I think anybody who has done some service and those in their last year before they come out, should go into a rehabilitation programme which would be able to identify and recondition that person back into an individual.
There’s a lot of group esteem from the services but self-esteem is what you need on the outside.”
RSLs (Returned Service Leagues) in Australia are a place where returned veterans can come together with other ex-servicemen and feel appreciated and part of a community. There are many scattered all over Australia’s cities and country towns. The RSL’s mission is to “ensure that programs are in place for the well-being, care, compensation and commemoration of serving and ex-service Defence Force members and their dependents.”
However, many of these ex-servicemen will come to a place like the RSL club with dark interiors, cheap drink specials and poker machines with the primary intention being to drink, a lot. Combat veterans often experience life-threatening situations or witness horrors that can trigger PTSD. A 2010 Defence report found that the rate of PTSD was higher among troops: 8.1 per cent, compared to 4.6 per cent for the general population.
Tribes, On Homecoming and Belonging, A book by Sebastian Junger, explains that we have a natural need to belong to small groups of people with purpose and understanding — tribes.
“This tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society, but regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival.”
He points to a current example of combat veterans who return home and find themselves missing that tight bond of life with their comrades. “The loss of closeness that comes at the end of deployment may explain the high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by military veterans today.”
Drinking can make PTSD worse
The National Center for PTSD says alcohol has actually been proven to increase PTSD symptoms like depression and anxiety, numbing your feelings, being cut off from friends and family and promoting the feeling of being on guard. Drinking can continue the cycle of avoidance.
“Avoiding the bad memories and dreams actually prolongs the PTSD and you cannot make as much progress in treatment if you avoid your problems. Alcohol use problems make PTSD treatment less effective.”
Why alcohol casts a dark shadow on the happiest nation on earth
My two great loves, travel and the study of psychology, brought me to the hidden Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. If you have heard of Bhutan (although you’re not alone if you haven’t) you’ll likely recognise it as the “land of Gross National Happiness.”
“Isn’t that one of the happiest countries in the world?” friends ask me when I mention my trip. In Bhutan, happiness isn’t relegated to self-help books and mantra chanting yogis (although there is some of that), it is for everyone. And this is what captured my interest when I learnt about the kingdom during a positive psychology lecture; it’s what captures most travellers to Bhutan. This tiny nation has put life satisfaction and psychological wellness at the forefront of their public governance and political concerns. And I think it’s working.
The flight into Paro International Airport is stunning. We weave through evergreen mountains and hop over grand snow-capped peaks. Is it embarrassing to admit that I cried a little? Disclaimer: I cry easily and it’s possible altitude was a contributing factor, but honestly, it’s difficult to not well up in one of the most literally breath-taking environments I’ve been in.
A unique approach to governance
Known locally as Druk Yul, or Land of the Thunder Dragon, Bhutan is unique for more reasons than one. This is a country without a single set of traffic lights (they put some up in Thimphu which before long were taken down because they were ‘too ugly’). It is isolated. Bhutan did not have any diplomatic relations with another country until the 1960s. Television and internet were banned until 1999. Technology is now, slowly but surely, seeping into all corners of the culture. Still, the government is careful to not let anything get out of hand, from their strong handed emphasis on cultural preservation to their outright ban on smoking; Bhutan can’t exactly be described as a ‘land of the free’. But the Bhutanese love their government. As of 2008 Bhutan became a constitutional monarchy, and the current prime minister, Tshering Tobgay, seems generally well received. And the royal family are unanimously considered the lifeblood of the country. One of my Bhutanese friends told me that she considers the fourth king, father to the current ruler, a spiritual saviour. “I pray to him,” she says.
I mightn’t be religious but I don’t doubt that the Bhutanese have been blessed when it comes to good governance; to put it all down to luck would seem foolish. Centuries ago, the founder of Bhutan, Tibetan lama Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel, is known to have said, “if the government cannot create happiness and peace for its people, then there is no purpose for the government to exist.” That is benevolent governance if I’ve ever seen it. And it is from these very roots that the idea for Gross National Happiness (GNH) evolved. What is the point of a government that cannot keep its people happy and healthy? During an interview with the financial times of London, the much beloved fourth King famously mentioned that to Bhutan, GNH is more important than GDP, pointing out that GDP alone cannot guarantee happiness and wellbeing.
Gross National Happiness
Sangay Chopel, who works at the Centre for Bhutan Studies (CBS) in Thimphu, briefly explained to me the survey methods used to produce a comprehensive CBS report every few years. It was far from the simple census questionnaire I expected. The measurement and study of Happiness in Bhutan today is a thorough process; they’re not playing around. There are nine components within the GNH, some are subjectively measured, others objective and quantifiable, and they all emphasise a range of different values, from the spiritual to the material. These nine components include cultural diversity and resilience, community vitality, good governance, ecological validity, living standards, education, time use and balance (i.e. work life balance), psychological well being (measured in terms of both cognitions and emotions), and health.
But ultimately, the GNH is not just a broad philosophy for development of states, it is also personal ethos which, even at an individual level, can help a person shape their life journey and realise their happiness and well being by restructuring their values towards the GNH.
And internationally, the idea is taking off.
Honestly, for a country of around 700,000 people, the complexity of this analysis is astonishing. Researchers at the CBS admit that the relationship between these variables is nonlinear, but believe that this reaffirms their decision to examine happiness holistically.
Alcohol in Bhutan
All of which is why it was so surprising for me to discover that there is a considerable blind spot within the GNH domain of health. It turns out that alcohol use, and abuse, is a huge problem in Bhutan.
“The highest number of cases admitted in hospitals is due to alcohol,” says Bhutan’s national health secretary Dr Ugen Dophu, and alcohol is now considered the leading cause of death in the country.
Dr Tashi Tobgay, a Pathologist at Thimphu’s national referral hospital, says that liver cirrhosis and other alcohol related issues represent significant burdens on the healthcare system in Bhutan. The government is beginning to realise the magnitude of this health concern and are investing in preventative public health measures. However, the issue is culturally entrenched and therefore difficult to address. There are only four psychiatrists in the country, says Dr Tobgay, and each one of them wakes to a hospital room full of patients with alcohol related issues.
The alcohol-happiness myth
Why do the Bhutanese drink so much? For social, cultural, traditional or religious reasons? Dr Chencho Dorji, the country’s first psychiatrist, suggests that a multitude of individual and social factors, and the way they relate to each other, can lead to heavy drinking. Dr Dorij describes the phenomenon of associating alcohol with happiness as a fictitious conjecture we have all bought into: the alcohol-happiness myth.
Back in Thimphu, Dr. Tobgay describes his experiences at university in Eastern Bhutan, the region with the strongest tradition of heavy drinking. “It is just the way they drink over there” he said, “they ferment Ara [homebrew liquor] and start drinking in the morning before heading out into the fields.”
And Dr Dorji, having spent years researching and treating the effects of alcohol use in Bhutan, believes that the behaviour is having an effect on GNH in a number of ways. For starters, its economic impact is predicted to be significant, particularly in agricultural areas, as local councils believe around half of all grain harvests are used to brew alcohol for the home. What’s more, Bhutan is home to one of the highest numbers of bars per capita in the world and one of the highest per capita consumption rates in the developing world. Still, alcohol generated revenue does not cover its overall cost. Drinking is associated with a range of social issues including unemployment, family neglect and abuse, crime and accidents. It is a leading cause of death and disability.
What is the relationship between alcohol and happiness? I spent some time thinking about this during my experiences working in the space of alcohol and addiction with Hello Sunday Morning, an organisation concerned with both of these things. So it was interesting to come face to face with the same issues in Bhutan, where they are grappling with them in unprecedented ways.
As recently as January 2017, a statement was released by the health secretary regarding the course of action in relation to policy around alcohol. Meanwhile, my friends in Bhutan tell me that public health campaigns are being rigorously implemented to address drinking behaviours. While these actions are similar to those taken by international governments, they retain a valuable asset in their toolbelt: GNH data. Perhaps we might learn something by observing how the Bhutanese tackle this issue.
What is most evident is that even one of the happiest countries in the world isn’t perfect. Still, while Bhutan doesn’t have the answers, they are absolutely on the way to finding them.
This article was originally posted to Hello Sunday Morning’s Medium platform.
We explore the tough questions around whether you should introduce your kids to alcohol before the drinking age, and when to have the conversation about drinking. We also offer advice and strategies to help you lead your teenagers down the road to a healthy relationship with alcohol.
As parents you have a significant influence on your kids. But unfortunately, your children’s relationship with alcohol doesn’t come down to simply saying, “I’ll just make sure I drink responsibly in front of them and not let them drink until they are of age.” As much as you wish you could, you cannot shelter your child from a world made up of ingrained cultural norms and expectations, friendship groups that break the ‘rules’, socio-economical factors, and the media.
First, let us address the question of why you should have the conversation
Because children are brought up around people drinking alcohol at parties, celebrations, friends’ houses and all sorts of occasions, they tend to be naturally curious about it. Therefore, it is important to make sure they know the right information about alcohol and drinking, like how alcohol works in our system, what happens to the body and mind when you drink and the possible dangers of drinking too much, so they can be more informed and educated to make their own choices in the future.
The facts
Statistics show that 86 per cent of Australian students have tried alcohol by age 14, with this figure increasing to 96 per cent by 17 years of age (White & Hayman, 2006). Moreover, 22 per cent of 14-year-olds who are current drinkers consume alcohol at levels exceeding the Australian Alcohol Guidelines, with this figure increasing through adolescence, and peaking at 44 per cent among 17-year-olds.
“You have to be realistic; you cannot protect children from the exposure to drinking, especially as they become teenagers, go to parties and start mixing with kids who drink. So try to build up a level of trust and communication so they can come to you for wisdom to make better decisions, know how to get out of a tricky situation, and learn from their mistakes.”
Hello Sunday Morning’s Health Coach and mother of two, Tehani, says it’s important to educate your kids by letting them know, “This is what you can expect, this is what you might see, this is what might happen,” and ask them how they would like to conduct themselves at a festival or party, and what their idea of fun looks like. Rather than saying, “This is what I think you should do,” give them ideas to achieve a goal that they have come up with on their own. Trying to find the right balance between protecting your child and giving them their own freedom isn’t easy. There’s a fine line between being overly controlling with your kids but also teaching them that they can go out and have fun without needing to get drunk.
When should you speak to them?
Tehani suggests that having the conservation with kids about drinking should start from a young age, as children start to learn that actions have consequences, and because you as parents are not always going to be there to enforce rules. The Alcohol Education Trust found that at age 11, children see it as unacceptable to get drunk and 99 per cent don’t drink regularly, but age 13 is what they call “the tipping point.” Teenagers tend to shy away from talking and opening up to their parents at this time in their lives as they start to form their own opinions and find their own identity.
Don’t make it harder for yourself, bring it up as a natural conversation when something relatable comes up and try to stay open and listen. A Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy report from a qualitative investigation of young people found that helpful communication results from this tactic. 59 boys and girls aged 13 to 15 years were interviewed, and many reported their parents talking openly and negotiating boundaries around their drinking. This approach appeared to be largely effective in helping them to develop a responsible approach to alcohol.
Should I let my kids drink alcohol at home before they are of age?
This is an ongoing debate for parents as there are both positives and negatives to introducing your child to a healthy relationship with alcohol. But Hello Sunday Morning’s Health Coach believes that if you make drinking taboo it can then become a big deal when it’s finally allowable:
“I don’t think humans respond very well to really strong rules. It’s in our nature, we want to test boundaries, so the more solid the boundaries the more likely we’re going to push against them.”
There are no laws in Australia that make it a crime to drink alcohol supplied by parents in a private home. There are, in fact, studies that have found drinking a little bit with your parents at home teaches kids about moderation. They are also less likely to be binge drinkers when they are older. A four-year study from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre followed 2,000 children and their parents to find what effect early introduction to alcohol has on consumption levels. After tracking the families for four years it found that teenagers and children introduced to alcohol by their parents were less likely to binge drink later on. However, it also showed that teenagers and kids introduced to alcohol early on were more likely to be drinking full serves by ages 15 or 16. Children who obtain alcohol from people other than their parents are three times more likely to binge drink.
The mediterranean countries have a different view on alcohol, as traditional liquors and quality wine plays a big role in their cultures. Alcohol is integrated into everyday life, where a 15-year-old having a drink with their family during a meal is not something that is frowned upon. For them, this approach has worked in introducing teens to alcohol as a healthy way of life; young people become intoxicated less frequently than in countries where alcohol is consumed less frequently but at higher levels.
But, true to form, these things are never entirely clear-cut. One of the authors of the four-year study from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, Professor Richard Mattick, points to other research indicating that the adolescent brain is still developing well into the early 20s, and alcohol may interfere with optimum development.
A recent study from the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospitalfound that long-term heavy use of alcohol in adolescence alters cortical excitability and functional connectivity in the brain. The study concluded that for young people whose brain is still developing, heavy alcohol use is especially detrimental and caused significant alterations in both electrical and chemical neurotransmission among the study participants, although none of them fulfilled the diagnostic criteria of a substance abuse disorder.
The parts of the brain that are affected are the hippocampus (responsible for memory and learning) and the prefrontal lobe (important for planning, judgement, decision making, impulse control and language). Alcohol can affect these two crucial parts of a developing brain by resulting in irreversible brain changes that can impact decision making, personality, memory and learning. Alcohol Think Again recommends that for under-18-year-olds, no alcohol is the safest choice and that parents should delay the initiation of drinking for as long as possible. Yet they also point out that although research tells us alcohol can damage the developing brain, it is not clear how much alcohol it takes to do this.
The role of identity and belonging
Research shows that having a sense of belonging is a really strong protective mechanism against misuse of drugs and alcohol, as well as other unsafe behaviours that teenagers engage in. Identity and belonging also give kids an insight into a less individualistic society, and a sense that actions often impact more than one person. In a series of focus groups made up of Year 11 students in Victoria, participants were asked to complete a questionnaire which focused on beliefs regarding the factors that promote resilience and well-being. The four main factors indicated by young people to promote resilience included: peer connectedness (having good friends); family connectedness (feeling that you are loved by family); feeling that your family respects your decisions; and school connectedness (believing that you fit in at school, and having good teachers).
How to talk to your teens about drinking
With so much mixed information around, it’s important to know where you stand on this issue as parents. Reflect on your values and communicate that to your children in an open, constructive and loving way. And if they do slip up here and there, use it as a process to help them learn to be the kind of person they want to be, and to choose a relationship with alcohol that works for them.
This article was originally posted on Hello Sunday Mornings Medium platform.
Why friends react badly, and how to get through it
“But you’re so fun drunk!”
“I could never go out sober”
“How do you even stand drunk people when you’re out?”
“Isn’t it boring?”
“But how can you not drink when everyone else does?”
Do any of these sound familiar?
They’re straight from the textbook of social circle reactions to the news that you’re cutting down or taking a break from drinking. These remarks can make you question your decision and start to self-doubt, “actually, why did I stop drinking?” Or they make you feel isolated, as if no one understands your situation.
But let’s discuss an alternative narrative. As you become more familiar with your decision and you start to feel yourself gaining more control, you will no longer really need their understanding. It’s like waking up from The Matrix.
Why it’s so hard for people to accept socialising alcohol-free
The first obvious reason that hangs over our head like a cloud is our socio-cultural pressure. Taking a fairly brief look into the history of drinking in Australia, author of The Rum State, Milton Lewis says heavy drinking was an established cultural norm transported to Australia at the time of colonisation. The Rum State points out two drinking practices that were established then and still exist presently. One is ‘shouting’, in which each person in turn buys a round of drinks for the whole group. The other is a bit of a ‘work hard, play harder’ mentality where we award ourselves with an overindulgence of alcohol for getting through a hard week of work.
‘Shouting’ and ‘rounds’ come with many implications. First, it doesn’t give people much choice in the matter; in how they want to drink, how fast they want to drink and how much they want to drink. It also makes it harder to refuse a drink when you’ve reached your limit, and your limit may differ to the others involved. Once everyone has finished their drink, another person from the group will buy a round and so on. But what if there are 10 people in a group and you have gone out to only have a couple of beers with friends?
It’s not just Australia that adopted ‘shouting’, according to the Social Issues Research Center’s document on social and cultural aspects of drinking, almost all drinking places, in almost all cultures, have unwritten laws and customs around some form of reciprocal drink-buying or sharing of drinks:
“This practice has been documented in drinking-places from modern, urban Japan and America and rural Spain and France to remote traditional societies in Africa and South America.”
A cursory search for ‘the etiquette of a round’ yields some interesting insights:
Immediacy — Never accept a beer if you do not intend to shout on that evening. Shouting “next time” is not acceptable no matter how much interest is involved.
Egalitarian — No matter how much money is earned by each of the party members, or where their money came from, the same shouting rules apply.
Abstaining — From time to time an individual may wish to stop getting drunk. Ideally, they should wait till the completion of every group member’s rounds before abstaining from future rounds. If it is essential that they abstain mid-round, they should request a non-alcoholic beverage. This ensures that the first volunteer is not punished for putting their hand up first. It ensures group equality and it also ensures that the person buying the next round does not feel like a bludger by being remiss in their obligations.
Australia’s ‘work hard, play hard’ psychology may be due to “a self-perpetuating cycle as work causes stress, which renders people more prone to addictions to substances and work,” believes Dr. Richard Wise, psychologist at Windana Drug and Alcohol Recovery.
“As stress increases the activity of brain regions responsible for drug seeking and craving, stressful work is often ‘addictive’ in itself.”
In fact, Roy Morgan Research found heavy drinkers in Australia were more likely to be males aged 18 to 35, single, earning a good income from working hard and long hours and over-represented among tradesmen. It is known that those enduring active alcohol dependence often seek out environments that facilitate and camouflage their drinking, like bars, pubs, RSLs and Friday night knock-off drinks at the workplace.
The Social Issues Research Center identifies a ‘drinking place’ as a facilitator of social bonding.
This function is so clearly evident that even in ambivalent drinking cultures, where research tends to be problem-centred and overwhelmingly concerned with quantitative aspects of consumption, those conducting research on public drinking places have been obliged to “focus on sociability, rather than the serving of beverage alcohol, as the main social fact to be examined.” (Campbell, 1991)
For many, socialising is one of the main functions of drinking. The Research Center points out that “the perception of the value of alcohol for promoting relaxation and sociability is one of the most significant generalisations to emerge from the cross-cultural study of drinking.” (Heath, 1987, 1995)
This is why it’s no real surprise that negative reactions and a lack of support from your social group can be the hardest thing to overcome, as people often feel as if your going without a drink is a judgment of them and the way they choose to drink and socialise. And, hell, in some situations this may just be the case. It’s important to be a realist about your situation and recognise that friends may be lost when you open up about your decision to change the way you drink. Understanding that they don’t have your best interests at heart if they’re not empathetic or supportive is not easy, but it is a vital process of moving forward in your progress.
Dealing with negative reactions from your social groups, family, colleagues or everyday interactions can be one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome. And while the decision to drink less does not define you, for most of us, our social interactions do on some level stand to shape our identities.
Just because you have changed the way you’ve been drinking doesn’t mean you can no longer have a social life. The association between drinking and socialising remains pretty persistent, but remember that you’re cutting out alcohol, not friends. Wine, not dinner. Beer, not footy.
You don’t want to fall into the trap of resenting your decision to improve your relationship with alcohol because you no longer enjoy your time out with friends.
Strategies to help cope with an unsupportive friendship group
Methods from cognitive-behavioural therapy, a highly regarded clinical technique as used in the Daybreak app, can help you deal with a friendship group that may not be as supportive as you need. One example is the recognise-avoid-cope approach, where the first point is to recognise two different types of social pressure to drink — direct and indirect. ‘Direct social pressure’ is when someone offers you a drink or an opportunity to drink. ‘Indirect social pressure’ is when you feel tempted to drink just by being around others who are drinking, even if no one offers you a drink.
The second point in the module suggests to avoid any pressure to drink when possible. Moderation is key, but for some just having a few is not an option — and that’s okay. Certain social situations may need to be avoided altogether if you know that the people there will make it difficult for you to reach your goal in changing your relationship with alcohol. If you feel that you’re strong enough to resist these types of social pressures, you can gradually ease yourself back into these situations.
The third gives some advice on how to cope with those situations that you simply cannot avoid by knowing your ‘no’.
“When you know alcohol will be served, it’s important to have some resistance strategies lined up in advance. If you expect to be offered a drink, you’ll need to be ready to deliver a convincing ‘no, thanks’. Your goal is to be clear and firm, yet friendly and respectful. Avoid long explanations and vague excuses, as they tend to prolong the discussion and provide more of an opportunity to give in.”
Don’t put yourself in the situation — changing gamblers don’t hang out in casinos.
Arrive early, leave early. By 10 o’clock people are usually talking Spanglish — this is your cue to leave.
Explain to friends what you’re trying to achieve before a social engagement.
But most of all, recognise this is something you’re doing for yourself and you don’t need to answer to anyone.
At the end of the day, we need to recognise that the complex issues around social drinking are due to factors like our ingrained cultural expectation, other people’s expectations of socialising and our own self doubts. It will take a lot of campaigning, a lot of educating, enabling and understanding for people to start to accept that drinking doesn’t have to be part of your identity as a social individual, or your identity as part of a community. This is your road to follow, and if that road leads away from the idea of the traditions of social drinking and starts to lead elsewhere, we will support you to follow it.
Originally published on Hello Sunday Morning’s medium platform.
We’ve all heard of the challenges like Dry January,Dry July and Ocsober, where one abstains from drinking alcohol for the entire month — often to raise money for charity. While these challenges often give back to people and communities in need, more importantly they help people consider their relationship with alcohol if they haven’t before, and to better understand whether or not that relationship is healthy.
Dry January is often taken on in an attempt to redeem oneself from an overindulgence during the festive season, which, let’s face it many of us are guilty of.
But this is exactly where the problem lies … Why do we feel the need to drink to excess during a celebration? And isn’t it telling us something deeper about our drinking culture when going just one month without drinking alcohol is such a real challenge that people will financially sponsor us to do so? There’s bound to be those who toast to their success by finishing a bottle of wine or two.
The real challenge lies in acknowledging and carrying through the lessons learnt during Dry January and adapting a healthy relationship with alcohol henceforth.
Many partakers realise they need to cut back on their alcohol intake and want to continue a moderate drinking behaviour they self identify with, thus reducing the extreme drinking behaviour that caused the month off in the first place.
Sarah, A Hello Sunday Morning member, recorded a similar challenge and took the month of June off drinking to give her body, spirit and bank account a break. She posted her experience on Hello Sunday Morning’s community platform.
“A while ago I would have said it would be impossible for me to go more than a few weeks without drinking. But I made it through the month and it turns out it wasn’t as big of a deal as I had thought.”
Here are the lessons she learnt:
I got to the core of my drinking and realised that I was using it to self-medicate. So I prioritised my mental health and found that seeing a doctor gave me some perspective on what the real issues were.
A month seems long, but it isn’t forever. If you have tried to give up alcohol in the past, you may have cut it out completely and told yourself that’s final. But giving yourself an achievable time frame to change your habit and learn about your relationship with alcohol can be better in the long run.
It was my main focus and I wasn’t backing down. Any other goal like working out more came second and I could let that slip and still be proud that I achieved my one thing for the day … not drinking.
It’s not easy. I missed drinking as a reward, I didn’t instantly have a supermodel figure, I wasn’t always feeling on top of the world and my life.
BUT … My sleep improved, I am proud of myself, I’ve lost weight and with that I’ve gained a newfound confidence. I also used my money for more important things like paying off debt.
The BEST part of all? I have changed my relationship with alcohol. I know now that I can go for long periods without a drink, I can abstain or I can just have a few. I have the power to CHOOSE. Don’t worry about making the whole month, just focus on making it through tomorrow.
Talking sustainability
There is an ongoing debate about the long-term effectiveness of these challenges. A number of limitations from a public health perspective include a lack of long term support for the behaviour change process, and confusing people with an “all or nothing” message about alcohol.
The option of buying a “golden ticket,” for example, allows the purchaser to take a night off from the challenge and is considered by critics to encourage binge drinking. In terms of cultural change, seeing a brief period of abstinence as an inherently monstrous task probably serves to reinforce the importance of alcohol in our lives and proves ultimately ineffective, if not destructive.
In Mark Tuschel’s book, Okay, I Quit. Now What?, the author identifies that while quitting destructive drinking may initially be easy, life after can be tricky to navigate. The future may look bright when you’re feeling on top of your game, but like anything that is worth doing, it’s not an easy road.
“Quitting destructive drinking is the easy part — staying quit is the hard part. What do you do tonight, tomorrow, next weekend, when you go on vacation, for the rest of your life?”
The book lists some realities you may inevitably have to face when you decide to cut back on drinking short or long term:
Temptation, self-doubt and self-pity
Anger, guilt, frustration and sadness
Feelings of loneliness and isolation, like you’re the odd person in a group or party
The dissolution of friendships and relationships
Excess time on your hands and unspent money in your pocket
Feelings of superiority, boredom, a lack of enthusiasm
But if you really ask yourself, honestly, whether the realities outweigh the advantages to your lifestyle in the long run, I’m sure many would still want to change the way they drink. Tuschel asks readers to take out a pen and paper and scribble down the realities they think they will personally face by carrying through a changing relationship with alcohol:
What realities listed here must I personally face?
What other realities do I have that weren’t listed here?
How can I make the best of these realities?
What realities am I avoiding?
What can I do to better understand my realities?
What actions will I take to deal with my realities?
What behaviours can I get better at so I can accept and control my realities?
So, you’ve conquered a dry month? Here are some tips to help you carry those lessons forward.
So as Dry January comes to a close, you could return to old habits with ease. Or you could ask yourself whether it was worth the month of temptation, the month of complete abstinence, the month of learning some important things about your drinking and yourself, to just let this chance to change slip away. Are you going to make 2017 the year you changed your relationship with alcohol, and take back your Sundays?
Originally posted on Hello Sunday Morning’s Medium page.
We often get asked whether we are against drinking at Hello Sunday Morning, as some people assume we are anti-alcohol.
So just to clear the air … we’re not.
Hello Sunday Morning helps people think about their own relationship with alcohol and whether the way they drink enhances their lifestyle, or maybe holds them back.
If people are not happy with that relationship, we offer support to those who want to change. That change may be cutting back to a moderate level of drinking or quitting drinking completely. Our vision is to change Australia’s drinking culture through social campaigning as well as supporting individuals on their journey to change their own relationship with alcohol through our online community platform and through our latest app, Daybreak.
We all have different relationships with drinking and we all drink for different reasons. But most importantly, we are all human. And that means we’re not perfect. Working at Hello Sunday Morning doesn’t mean we all have a perfect relationship with alcohol. If we did, we wouldn’t be able to relate to you guys and we probably wouldn’t be here doing the work we do.
So, I spoke with some of the team about their diverse relationships with alcohol …
Chris Raine, Founder and CEO
“People assume that I don’t drink at all. Hello Sunday Morning’s mission is to support people change their own relationship with alcohol, without being prescriptive of how a person should drink. Our mission isn’t to get people to quit alcohol – it is simply to help people get to wherever they want their relationship with alcohol to be. Everyone has their own relationship with alcohol. For some people, it is better that there isn’t one at all. We respect that. For others, it is, and should always be, a continual work in progress.
“I do sometimes drink. Is my relationship with alcohol perfect? 90% of the time I’m really happy with my relationship with alcohol. 10% of the time, I know that it could be better. For me, it isn’t really about how much I drink but about why I am drinking. When I get stressed or feel lonely, I know I want to drink more. This is what I love about working at Hello Sunday Morning, we have so many great people in our team that I can learn from in how to change the way I approach this stress or loneliness so that I can get that 10% lower and lower with every experiment.”
Jamie Moore, General Manager
“As the GM of Hello Sunday Morning, one of the guiltiest moments is when you wake up with a hangover. It makes you feel like a fraud. But I’ve realised over the years that I only feel that way if I drank for the wrong reasons. Was I tired, stressed, anxious? If I drank for one of these reasons the guilt would build. But if I drank for another reason, spending time with an old mate, trying out some new beers, an event I was really looking forward to … the guilt wasn’t there. It made me realise there’s nothing wrong with drinking, what’s important is making sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. It’s making sure that drinking was a conscious decision, not an unconscious reaction.”
Ron Sandoval, Product Developer
When asking Ron what his relationship with alcohol is like, he replies,
“Great, I have a beer right now.”
I check his desk and it turns out he really does have an open Coopers.
“And it’s Monday, so there is no problem …”
Lauren Waddell, Executive Assistant
“My relationship with alcohol is very boring. I enjoy a drink at dinner maybe once a fortnight, whether that’s a spiced rum or a margarita, my limit would be two max. I don’t think I’ve had more than two drinks for over four years.
“When I was 19 or 20 I’d go out every few weeks and have a max of five drinks over the night, but I’d always get alcohol poisoning and severe hangovers regardless. I would have two UDL’s at pre-drinks and I was good for the night.
“To be honest, I only like the taste of spiced rum. So at functions and weddings where they only have wine, beer, and champagne, they don’t offer what I enjoy drinking so I’ll just drink water.”
Grace Enright Burns, Marketing Officer
“Alcohol and I were pretty tight. We had a passionate love/hate relationship. A toxic one that consisted of a cycle that went something like this: me waking up wanting to spew on myself, shutting out the world around me and wishing the day would just end so I could wake up the next morning and be my usual, bubbly self, and then going out the next weekend, downing a few bottles of whatever cost under $7.50 and doing it all over again.
“I just kind of got over it. I loved getting up for an early surf in the morning, hanging with my family and friends, practicing yoga, being silly and feeling good, so I didn’t want to miss out on that.
“The process of cutting back on my drinking didn’t just happen overnight. I came up with a rule with my dad who also often gets carried away on the booze. It’s called the ‘two or four rule’. I aim to have two drinks if I’m just having a quiet night or a dinner with friends, and four drinks when I’m going out for a late one, at a festival, a party or a celebration. So far I’ve been great sticking to it, but I am a sucker for a nice cocktail and the way alcohol makes me feel tingly, so I can over do it sometimes. Alcohol and I are now pretty good friends, not best friends but a friend who you’ll hang out with now and again and it will be a nice time for both of you. And if it’s not, you might not message them for a while until you happen to bump into them again.”
Ashley Boyd, Brand Designer
“I was never a big drinker, but obviously when you turn 18 it’s all exciting and new and I would still drink at lots of parties but never enough to black out. I just didn’t like feeling like shit, but I had a few hungover days and when I went through breakups and hard times I would definitely drink more.
“Since working for Hello Sunday Morning and discovering the reasons why I drink, I started to think to myself, ‘What am I doing tomorrow? Do I really want to be hungover?’ Usually, the answer is no. I’ll definitely have a drink with the girls after work but I’m never really drinking multiple drinks in one session. I’m quite happy with that.”
Zane Pocock, Head of Marketing
Reminiscing on his uni days, Zane sits back and mentions that he used to lead from the front, even winning the occasional competition.
“I now don’t drink. When I first moved to Sydney with my wife, we needed to save money. We decided one of the easiest ways to cut back on how much we spent was by stopping drinking for a bit while we got settled. But we ended up realising that it was a really positive experience and now it’s a couple of years later and I haven’t had a drink again.
“It’s strange because it becomes some sort of identity thing. I definitely identify at the moment as a ‘non-drinker’. My relationship with alcohol previously was pretty full on, but I didn’t feel like I had to change it, I just decided that I get zero value from it and don’t want it in my life anymore.”
Easter is hopping around the corner and we’re eggcited for the one day of the year when it is absolutely excusable to stuff your mouth full of chocolate when you first wake up.
What is the connection between chocolate and Easter, anyway?
Delicious god of the cocoa kind, Cadbury, says Christian customs connected with Easter eggs are, to some extent, adaptations of ancient pagan practices related to spring rites. Mr. Cadbury says the egg is a symbol of ‘fertility’, ‘rebirth’ and ‘the beginning’. With the rise of Christianity in Western Europe, the church adopted many pagan customs and the egg, as a symbol of new life, came to represent the Resurrection. The first chocolate Easter eggs were made in Europe in the early 19th century.
Why you should choose chocolate over booze this Easter
1. It’s good for you
Experts have found that quality dark chocolate with a high mass of cocoa (around 70% or more) is good for the heart, circulation and the brain.
2. Chocolate can be your partner
Who needs romance when you can indulge in rich goodness and surround yourself with delicious emotional support?
3. You won’t get a hangover
That’s right. Eat all the chocolate your heart desires and don’t worry about waking up groggy or feeling sorry for yourself.
4. It fixes things
Especially heartbreak and PMS.
5. It’s family-friendly
Unlike alcohol, chocolate is appropriate for all occasions and kids love it. Who could blame them?
6. Chocolate doesn’t make you break out
Good quality chocolate in moderation contains flavonoids which help absorb UV light and increase blood flow to your skin, making it look healthier and more radiant.
7. Naturally improve your sex life
Chocolate is an aphrodisiac that contains L-arginine, an amino acid that can be an effective natural sex enhancer. Oh, la la!
8. Boost your energy levels
The caffeine and theobromine in chocolate mean it works as a natural pick-me-up.
9. You can eat it so many different ways
You can eat chocolate frozen in ice cream form, melted, at breakfast in chocolate chip pancakes, as a spread like Nutella, as a dessert, a pick-me-up, a sugar hit or just a little midnight snack. The list really goes on and on.
10. Chocolate helps you relax
Even the smell of chocolate increases theta brain waves, which triggers relaxation.
Let us know what you like to do over the Easter break in the comments!
We’ve all heard of a bucket list (the things you want to do before you kick the bucket), but why should we wait to see the pearly gates on the horizon before we do the things we have always wanted?
What is stopping you from living life right now?
Recently we caught up with Seb Terry, who travels the world helping people tick off their 100 Things list. He is the ultimate guru when it comes to creating your list and choosing to live a more fulfilling life.
Even if people do have a bucket list, not many things on it get ticked off, as day-to-day life tends to get in the way. These reasons and excuses may sound familiar:
Money – “But I don’t have enough; I can’t afford it!”
Failure – “I won’t be able to do it; what if I don’t win?”
Commitments – “I am too busy at work; I already do too much; I have kids and a dog and a partner!”
Opinions – “What would people think?”
Comfort – “I have control over my life at the moment, if I change anything everything will fall out of place.”
Success – “What if I really love it? What if I’m good at it and don’t want to go back to my old job?”
Fear – “I don’t know if I am ready/brave enough.”
Give yourself permission
Sebastian Terry says we choose to do something or to not do something and in the middle sits one word; permission.
The first step in deciding to write or start ticking off the things on your list is to give yourself permission. You’re the only one with the power to allow yourself to think about what you really want to achieve in your life.
Choose
When we’re young we know what we want; we would be able to sit down and write an endless list with no concerns about how to make it happen or whether it’s realistic or not. But we get older and we’re told what to do and how to think by other people. Things are laid out for us by others. By living your own truth you are choosing to empower yourself.
Grow
In order to grow, we have to step out of our comfort zone. Creating and ticking off your list allows you to shape your identity, or redefine your purpose on this earth and revisit your values that may have been shadowed or buried in a pile of work and responsibilities.
Ask
You will never know an answer until you ask and most of the time, you have nothing to lose by asking. Asking if someone wants to join you in your quest, asking for the time off work, asking if someone needs a house sitter in the Canadian Rockies, asking if anyone has a workshop you could rent to start your craft. Passion inspires passion. People generally want to help other people achieve their goals.
Start writing
What is something you care about so much that you don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks?
Write it down.
You just need to know why you don’t need to know how just yet, the how will come. It’s the idea of manifestation = action, know what you want, put it out there by thinking about it, talking about it and looking into it. Before you know it, that dream will start taking shape.
Want to be a part of Hello Sunday Morning’s Experiments Challenge? Join us by ticking something off your list, sharing on social media and tagging #hellosundaymorning #experimentschallenge
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