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One interesting thing to consider when looking at human behaviour is the idea of the vicious or virtuous cycle. Certain things in our life roll over onto others, and before long we find ourselves in either a positive or negative feedback loop.

How can you recognise this cycle?

Looking at human behaviour, we can see that a lot of really important aspects of our lives can be narrowed down to these feedback loops. The more aware we are of this, the more opportunities we have to shift them towards more positive outcomes.

Within society, some examples of vicious cycles might be:

Eg 1. A company that is struggling to be innovative and forward thinking starts to lose its younger staff because it is not keeping up with the times. This in turn makes it harder for them to recruit new people and become innovative and flexible.

Eg 2. A park is beautiful and scenic, but when it begins to be graffitied and filled with rubbish, people are less likely to keep it clean or avoid littering themselves. This is also known as the ‘broken windows’ phenomenon.

Eg 3. A child who has a difficult temperament and some behaviour problems starts school. At school they have issues with a teacher and other students. Their behaviour problems become worse and he becomes even more difficult to manage.

Some examples of a virtuous cycle might be:

Eg. 1 A business that improves its quality might see an increased level of patronage, leading to more profit and the ability to improve quality even more.

Eg 2. A company that sells sustainable and environmentally friendly products might see an increase in their sales from consumers. They can then scale their production and lower the cost of environmentally friendly products.

Eg. 3 A child who is provided with reading stimulus early on in their lives may be more likely to enjoy and be proficient at reading when they start school. They might even achieve ahead of other students, thus making reading and english a strength for them.

So how do these cycles apply to our relationships with alcohol or our general wellbeing?

Here are some possible examples:

Vicious Cycle

A person who is having relationship issues is spending a lot of time drinking at home. This is affecting their sleep and wellbeing, and resulting in less productivity and clarity during the day. It will also be more likely that they will have a drink in the evening to improve their mood.

A person has gained weight from drinking daily. They try to make good choices in their food, but are under-eating and feeling really hungry and drained at the end of the day. This means they may be more vulnerable to having a drink in the evening as they are craving calories from alcohol.

Someone who is trying to improve their mood by exercising sets an alarm for 6am, but doesn’t get up in time. This could lead them to feel even worse and upset with themselves.

Someone who is experiencing social anxiety might be more likely to drink to excess in social situations. However, this also means that they may be more likely to behave impulsively or do something socially unacceptable – making it likely that they will continue to feel social anxiety and a concern about being judged or criticised!

Virtuous Cycle

A person may start exercising daily with a friend as a way to improve their mood and health. They find that it is an effective way of lowering stress, as well as having a social interaction and chance to chat with a friend. This makes it likely that this will become a regular part of their routine.

Someone cuts back on drinking in order to spend more time with their kids in the evening and on the weekends. They find that their mood is better and they are saving money, which they are spending on things that are important to them.

A person may make changes in their diet as a way to lose weight, and find that in addition to weight loss they are experiencing greater energy and clarity during the day, helping them to perform better at work and at home. In turn making it likely that they will continue with their new food choices.

How do we replace the toxic cycle with more positive patterns?

As you can see, these kinds of cycles are fairly straightforward, and the cause and effect are fairly evident. It can be helpful to look at our own virtuous and vicious cycles, to see what kinds of things are playing out in our lives.

Often when we are looking at making changes to our wellbeing and health, we can be strategic about getting into virtuous cycles. We can look at certain things that are likely to keep a useful behaviour going. These can be things like making sure we exercise with friends (much more fun), or that we ensure that we can measure progress and benefit of things like exercise or a change in diet. Our brains love to know when we are making progress and reaching goals, and being able to see things change and progress is really powerful in keeping a virtuous cycle going.

Similarly, if you have noticed that there are some vicious cycles playing out, whether with alcohol or in your general life, see where you might be able to break the feedback loop. Being aware of cause and effect is enormous and often when we are in the middle of things, it can be hard to see this. However a bit of perspective is invaluable.

If you would like to chat some more about making changes to your wellbeing and relationship with alcohol, please feel free to speak with one of Daybreak’s Health Coaches. The coaches are there to give you some advice and support about breaking old cycles and building new ones.

My relationship with alcohol started out of peer group pressure, as so many things do when we’re in high school. To me, drinking wasn’t as bad as, say, smoking weed, because it wasn’t illegal. It was naughty, but not the end of the world and every dad has fun giving his son a first sip of beer; of mocking his first hangover.

There’d be pleas from my parents to drink responsibly, but if you’re in a park on a Saturday night, the last thing you’re going to do with your Southern Comfort and slurpee is sip it slowly. That’s a horrible concoction, but at the time it was the only way I could stomach the awful flavour of alcohol [a flavour I’d come to accept – and love – over time]. Weekends were spent at someone’s house ‘watching movies’, or in a park, ending up sick after only a couple of beers and hoping no one noticed, lest you be judged a ‘lightweight’.

When I turned 18 I was allowed to be out of control.

I smashed those years. I drank to get drunk. There was little restraint. What was the point of doing something half-heartedly? No, my nights were going to end the drunkest I could manage. Regular blackouts were to be laughed at. “How can you not remember that?” was a question regularly enjoyed, and as my friends recounted my night back to me, it sort-of reappearing in my memory like a movie I only half-watched.

It was during this time I started stand-up comedy. It was quickly apparent that the career path I’d chosen suited my lifestyle. At my first ever gig I remember the free beer in a big bucket of ice backstage. Even though it was my first ever gig, I drank like I was a veteran. I belonged.

Many shows didn’t pay, but the offer of a free beer or two was seen as adequate compensation. I’m not saying every time I did a gig I got blind—far from it—but it was a companion through all the shit gigs, the lonely hours as I started out. A way to bond with other comics backstage and post-show. It was there to celebrate the great gigs, and to mourn the deaths we’d had on stage. Like all drinking, it was there for whatever excuse we/I needed it for.

People often ask how many beers I needed before a show, to help calm the nerves.

The nerves I had pre-show were harnessed to help me focus, so I actually rarely drank before a show. I believed too many beers would dull the sharpness I needed on stage. “A head full of cotton wool” was how I had it described to me.

As I became more confident with my material, when I’d MC/host I would drink as the night progressed, I finished some shows more than tipsy. I was still professional, but knew internally I’d probably overstepped the mark a little. Pushing the boundaries I suppose. I’d chastise myself for being a bit slurry, and wouldn’t do it for a little while. I have only been on stage once where I’d consider myself “blind”, and vowed I’d never do that again.

Though the Melbourne International Comedy Festival tended to be a different beast.
Drinking for the month the event ran was more than usual, as you celebrated the achievement of putting in the hard yards and reaping the rewards of your show with friends from all over the world.

It was like New Year’s Eve or Christmas every night, because you have so many people around to drink with. It’s a big industry – you could always find someone! It was also a way to unwind, to relax after a show, as alcohol replaced the adrenaline in the system (it’s almost impossible to sleep soon after a show because you’re so wired for a few hours).

My biggest decision was when I took all of 2013 off.

The decision to stop drinking for a year was based wholly on whether or not I thought I could do it. I’d never had a true break from it since the age of 18, aside from times when I was too sick through genuine illness to manage it. Even then, I spent the whole time thinking, “when will I be well enough to have one?” This was followed by the age-old question “it’s okay to drink on antibiotics, yeah?” To which your unqualified friends would helpfully respond “of course”. Case closed.

I knew I had problems with my drinking, but they weren’t always so visible and obvious.
My biggest issue was my ability to function really well whilst in periods of blackout. People would often tell me later I didn’t seem drunk, yet I would have no memory of moments, conversations, choices. But my autopilot (to my detriment) was surprisingly good at getting me home, and generally keeping me out of trouble. I say generally; you can’t drink that hard for that long and not have a few regrets/incidents along the way. But hey, if you don’t remember them, do they exist? The answer is absolutely they do. I cringe when I think back of what those lost moments contain. And what people think of the alcohol-affected version of Adam, when that’s all they have to judge. It’s not pleasant.

My stumbling block when it came to taking a break was “could I do it?”
I didn’t consider myself an alcoholic, but then who does? I never felt the uncontrollable desire to have itm I just enjoyed it, a lot. In fact, I enjoyed the fuck out of it. For far too long.

So I made the choice and went for it.

I had no idea how it would play out, as this was the great unknown. No alcohol for a sustained period as an adult was a completely foreign idea. It had never been done, and it’s embarrassing when I think of it like that.

The hardest thing for me though was the habit. This was 20+ years of a regular part of my life, removed in an instant. To come home from work on a Friday and not go to the fridge for a beer. To sit on a Sunday afternoon and not enjoy a wine (or two or three or let’s grab another bottle). The most difficult thing was going to the pub and not having something in my hand as I had a conversation. I’d never done it! I mean, I could get a mineral water but when that was done, what was I to do? Have another six for every round my friends had? No one needs that much mineral water in their lives!

Eventually the habit was broken. I could go to the pub, have a water, and then just sit around enjoying the company of friends, not worrying about missing out on a drink. It probably took about four weeks for that to happen, and it was a revelation and such an empowering feeling. It was probably a combination of things that came together almost all at once – better sleep, clearer skin, weight loss, less bloating and best of all: no regret. To wake up knowing with absolute clarity what I’d done the night before was an odd feeling, but one I came to really embrace and look forward to. I loved it.

So, now that I know that I can, I take regular breaks from it, particularly in times of heavy workloads. I aim for four to five weeks formy breaks now, but when I reach that I’m always keen to throw in a few more weeks because I’m enjoying the alcohol-free life!

Adam Rozenbachs is an Australian Comedian, writer and actor.

One of the aims of a practice like yoga and meditation is to be able to slow down, calm the mind and to feel whatever arises for you.

It is important to have a way to connect back in with yourself, and that may be scary for some people. For those who have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, this may seem extremely difficult, as often people drink in order to numb challenging feelings and to escape whatever is happening in their mind or body. It is also very beneficial to have an outlet that allows you to be an observer of your thoughts and feelings, learning not to get so caught up in them.

Mindfulness / consciousness

Often when someone has been drinking regularly for a substantial period of time, they disconnect from their true selves and what their body is telling them. Yoga and meditation is an effective way to start unpacking this, as well as being a relaxing and calming method to reduce feelings of anxiety, stress or depression.

One of the goals of a yoga or meditation practice is to learn the skill to tolerate the uncomfortable feelings and sensations that arise when you are in a challenging yoga posture. These sensations can also come up through mediation and make it very hard to sit with. Working through these sensations and learning to cope with them through breath and staying in the present moment, allows us to have the ability to cope better with situations in our external lives. For example, when we come face-to-face with something that would usually cause us to drink, like a fight with a partner, we can have the awareness that it might be best for us to leave the situation and have some time alone. We can remove ourselves and sit with whatever feelings come up. That way we learn to work through any anger/hurt/sadness/grief and return to the person with a greater sense of calm and clarity of the situation.

Connection

Life is all about relationships; relationships with ourselves, with others, with alcohol etc. Relationships really come down to connection and understanding. There is a close relationship between the mind and the body, and yoga and mediation are a way to weave this together.

Yoga Teacher, Vytas Baskauskas, from California, spoke to Yoga Journal about finding sobriety through the 12 step program and a disciplined yoga practice.

“A lot of people come to AA to get sober, and yet they’re still riddled with physical maladies and imbalances… Yoga was challenging, and it opened my mind and my body. It enlivened places that had been dead for so long, and as I worked my body, I found a refuge, some relief from feeling like a prisoner of my own thoughts. When you’re an addict, you often have a hole in your life, and by filling it with the philosophy of yoga, God—whatever you want to call it—that’s a high too. But it’s a high that won’t kill your relationships, hurt your family, or your body.”

Routine

Knowing that you have to wake up at 6am to get to a class is a great way to have an excuse to go to bed early or leave an event early and not have too much to drink. If you are out on a Friday night with friends at a bar and there’s an amazing yoga class on tomorrow at your favourite studio – it can help you tune back into what you really need. You may find that having one more means you won’t get there.

Having an alternative way to relax, helps get you into a healthy routine, as you can take yourself to a yin yoga or meditation class to unwind, instead of meeting someone at a pub. Many people start to crave the feelings that are released after yoga or a mediation practice, and these can help to become your ‘therapy’. This is when change starts to happen if you do the work. No one is saying it will be easy, but forming habits like this gradually changes your lifestyle for the better!

No ego

In both of these mindful practices, you are taught to be kind to yourself and to remember to honour your limitations. You learn to find your edge with love and acceptance rather than judgment and discouragement. It doesn’t matter what you look like or whether you are ‘flexible enough’ or ‘strong enough’. No one judges you for being ‘bad’ at yoga or meditation, because there is no competition. It is a self-practice and each day is different and may feel different in your own body.

How do I get into mediation?

The Headspace app is a great place to start if you want to get into a regular practice. It offers free, easy and practical, 10 minute sessions to try, but there are loads of other apps and online videos!. You can also look up meditation classes in your local area if you prefer to go to a space to meditate with others.

How do I get into a yoga practice?

Setting yourself goals for a consistent weekly (if not daily) practice, is something that demonstrates a lot of self-discipline. If you have struggled with keeping at things in the past, a good idea may be to buy a membership to a yoga/meditation studio and that way you know you have paid and that might make you go! There are also thousands of apps and online videos to follow.

This yoga sequence from Yoga Journal was created for people who have or have had a dependency, and it has lovely little illustrations and affirmations for you to focus on in each posture. https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/higher-ground

Just set up the computer somewhere you have space to roll out a mat or a towel and make sure you have uninterrupted time to work on your breath and follow the guide. Namaste.

Looking at social media and the news in the past few months, you might have noticed more and more people talking about the challenges of motherhood; the physical, emotional and financial toll it can take on a person, and how the end result may be feelings of stress, anxiety and exhaustion. Many mums may end up feeling guilty about these challenges, feeling that they should be more like other mums and this in itself feeds into more negative feelings.

The good news is that this conversation is now being had openly, and we have an awareness that this is a really big issue. As wonderful as the experience of becoming a mother might be, in reality there are also challenges and the need for support.

Many movies and jokes on social media will involve mums drinking copious amounts of wine to cope, and bonding with each other over boozy evenings out where they get to shake off their responsibilities. It is a hard (perhaps the hardest) job and there does need to be a release!

‘Me time’

At Hello Sunday Morning, we are well aware of this as a lot of our Daybreak members are mums who have had this exact situation. They all have busy lives, busy schedules, full time caregiver roles and not a huge amount of support or time to look after their own needs. Having a wine at the end of the day represents the closing of a chapter on the day, some ‘me’ time and the opportunity to switch off and recharge those emotional resources.

The only problem is that, after a while, alcohol tends to take more than it gives. One glass becomes two or a whole bottle, and those emotional resources don’t get topped up, but rather becomeso much as drained even more from hangovers and disrupted boozy sleep.

That need for some ‘me’ time and unwinding becomes something that steals some of your energy for the next day, that actings like a big foggy blanket over a daily routine.

On top of this, alcohol actually affects our sleep as well so even if we go to sleep more easily after having a couple of drinks, our sleep quality is much worse when we’ve been drinking, and we don’t get as much REM sleep, which is the really good quality, deep sleep.

Better ways to unwind

Many Daybreak mums come to the conclusion that alcohol is perhaps not the best way to unwind (at least, not every day) and that there are other ways of topping up those emotional resources.

Here are two lists – one for mums, and one for those who are supporting mums. We generally know that when we have ways to replenish our emotional resources, we are more likely to feel better at the end of the day, and less likely to feel exhausted, drained, frustrated or just sad.

Tips for Mums:

If you are finding that you are drinking more than you would like, visit our Daybreak app to chat with some other members about what has helped them. Often other mums will be experiencing similar pressures and rituals, and will be able to offer support and advice. Sometimes even just checking in with the community during the time you are most vulnerable, is enough to change that behaviour.

Tips for family and friends of mums

If you are a partner or a friend of a mum who is struggling with stress or pressures, here are some things that you can do to help:

– Offer to help out for a day so that she can have a break to go and top up those emotional resources – whether this is to go out to see friends, take some time to herself or head to the gym. Offering to do this might be invaluable for the mother.

– Give feedback. If you know a mum who is doing a great job, let them know! They might be feeling like they’re not doing well at all. Giving support doesn’t have to be all practical, sometimes it can be a text message or a passing comment about what they are doing right and it can be much appreciated.

– For partners of caregivers, perhaps encourage her to make time for herself, whether that is by organising someone to mind the kids, arranging to work from home or take a leave day. For primary caregivers, down time and time to themselves can be of huge importance, but might not actually happen. As someone who is not at home during the day, perhaps you are able to recognise the need for ‘me’ time more than them and make some suggestions on how to make that happen.

– Remember emotional resources are hugely important when you are a mum – they are what we need for empathy, energy and planning. When we are feeling tired or drained, our emotional resources are also low and so we may struggle to keep on top of things. Finding ways to support yourself and asking others for support, can be a really good step. In addition to this we know that wine often goes hand in hand with unwinding or socialising, but when we are using it to top up our emotional resources, it can quickly become a drain rather than a booster.

If you’re finding yourself stuck in this pattern, have a look at what others have to say on Daybreak, other members can be a great source of advice and support, and you can also access health coaching for some additional advice on how to manage stress and drinking.

On the road to a better relationship with alcohol, we lean on the people closest to us; our spouses, our friends and our families. When friends help, they get us through the difficult nights, help us move on from our mistakes, and push us not to give up on ourselves. However, if we’re not careful, our support network can also help us make excuses. Having a friend or a family member who is a sort of “partner in crime” can turn defaulting on resolutions into a shared experience, one that somehow feels more permissible than if you did it alone.

The essential takeaway: our support networks have a measurable effect on how we behave. Pursuing relationships with people who have similar goals, helps us achieve our milestones, while other relationships will need work to make sure they function as support and not as obstacles.

Humans are social beings. It’s how we were made. We form close connections because having these relationships make our lives better. Unconsciously, we mirror behaviours practised by the people in our social circle. We base some of our internal definitions of what is okay by looking at how people around us behave. What this means for someone who is trying to change their drinking habits is that the people in your social circle are capable of both helping you or slowing your progress. Communicating effectively about what you need, and how they can best support you, can make the difference between the two.

You can get closer to your goals when your friends help

How can your friends help?

Listen: Sit down with you and have a conversation about what kind of situations can trigger your need to drink. If they know about your triggers, they can back you up and help you cope with them when they occur.

Socialise: Encourage you as you expand your social life with new activities like exercise and events where drinking isn’t the main focus. You can even sweet talk them into accompanying you if you’re nervous to go alone.

Connect: Pursue new people and new experiences, but don’t feel like you have to leave your old mates behind. Ask them to be there for you even if you can’t drink with them.

Three ways your friends help at social events

Understand that sticking to your goals is important to you, and they should not ask you to drink with them if you’re trying not to.
Help you find a non-alcoholic drink to have in your hand to avoid awkward questions.
A good way to hold yourself accountable is to volunteer to be the designated driver for the group. You’ll have additional motivation to stick to your goals, and you will be everyone’s favourite person for getting them home.

We are who we are around

In this day and age, we have a newfound ability to really reflect on who we want to spend our time with. We have access to more communities than we could ever possibly reach out to. What this means for us is that if we want to change who we are and what we do each day, we have the ability to reach out and find people who are doing the same thing. To make connections with people is to be human, and to fear losing these connections is more human still.

Changing what you do with your Saturday nights is scary, because you may lose people who expect you to drink as heavily as they do. The liberating aspect of modern society is that while you may lose some friends who can’t accept your changes, the number of people and communities for you to reach out to is limitless. Your potential to find new people, and new things to do with your Sunday mornings is limitless.

What can you do with this information? Talk to your friends, talk to your spouse. Telling them about your goals with alcohol is good, but telling them about how they can help is better.

Click on this link for more ideas on support.

Returning home after a trip around the world has taught me something valuable about self-love. It’s a busy world, and you’ll feel overwhelmed if you don’t know how to communicate with yourself and listen to your needs. Culture means to be connected, but sometimes we lose contact with ourselves when we search for a connection with others. Sometimes you realise that you have never been connected to yourself.

My teenage and young adult years were extremely fun and extremely horrible at the same time. I needed alcohol to feel okay with who I was. Without being drunk I didn’t really allow myself to have fun, and I always wanted to have fun. For me, it wasn’t like I felt great and thought a drink or two could make me feel even better. I felt out of place, lost, unwanted, stiff, and stressed-out unless I was drunk. I couldn’t see the fun in doing things without drinking, and anything was fun if I could only be drunk doing it.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t like I felt great drinking, either. Once I started I only felt content if I had a new drink in my hand or knew that I had access to more. I rarely enjoyed the moment; I only chased getting drunker. And drunker I got, but not happier.

It felt like someone had sucked the soul out of me whenever I woke up from my drunkenness. Days after drinking I still felt like I would never be able to experience joy again.

Why did I allow myself to drink every week if I knew I would feel so rotten for so many days after?

Alcohol was a part of who I believed I was. I didn’t know who I could be without it. I didn’t know how to have fun without alcohol. Honestly, I thought that a life without alcohol wasn’t worth living. Partying was all that kept me searching for more. I didn’t even care what party I went to, as long as it meant that I could get drunk.

As a 27-year-old woman who has been through a lot of psychologists, self-help books, podcasts, and treatments, I know that I have a lot of knowledge and inspiration to share with the world. Sharing is good for those who are struggling themselves and also for parents, teachers and other people related to someone who is struggling. It opens up a gateway through which people can relate, understand and then offer help.

This is why I wrote the book, Free The Girl – A story about (finding) self-love,
and share my experiences with feeling like shit. Our minds are scared of change–that’s why it is hard to break habits–but change is just one decision away.

Hot tips for self-love

If alcohol affects you negatively, here are my tips on self-love and how to work with yourself.

To get a grasp of your own relationship with alcohol, ask yourself, ‘Why do I drink?’. If you answer ‘because it tastes good’ then ask yourself if you would choose a non-alcoholic drink if it tasted exactly the same. If not, then why do you drink?

The point of answering this question is to be truthful with yourself. Our brains love to make up excuses for why we do things, but if you ask yourself and really listen in, you often feel the real truth inside.

If you would like to take a break from drinking but it feels like a long stretch, set a reasonable goal. Start with one month if two feels overwhelming. Put the month into a bigger perspective: what is 30 days of your life without alcohol, really? Isn’t it worth giving your body, liver and head a little rest? A month just to check in and see if you feel different, maybe even better than you currently do. Aren’t you curious about how much energy you might get? Wouldn’t it be great to look back and celebrate that you could do it? At the end of the day, it is just a test to see if your life can improve.

Prepare for your time off alcohol and make a list of things to do instead:

Write a list of positive outcomes. What will you get out of taking a break? Put your list on your fridge and read it every time things get hard.
Check if someone wants to do it with you. In that case, you can hang out together if all your other friends are out clubbing. Or you can both go out with your friends if you feel like you’ll be okay not drinking.
What did you use to do when you were younger, before you started drinking? Is there a hobby you have benched?
Visit your grandparents or other relatives that you don’t see often
Catch up on your reading
Use this time to really pamper yourself. Eat healthy food, get outdoors for some natural sunlight, go to bed on time – view it as a spring clean-out!

If you need more inspiration to get this list going, try to put on a seven-minute timer and write down anything that comes to mind that makes you lose track of time or that you simply enjoy doing.

The most important thing is to be kind to yourself.

Speak to yourself like you would speak to your child or best friend. Cut yourself some slack! Keep in mind that it is okay to not always feel amazing. Allow your mind and body to just be, and say to yourself that it is okay. Right now, what I feel is what I feel, how I am is how I am – and right now, that is okay. Life is so much more than we can describe it in words. Follow your interests, follow your happiness and don’t limit yourself to what you know!

Maya Kiusalaas | www.mymondaylove.com

‘Rachierach’, a member of Hello Sunday Morning’s Daybreak program, shares her story about how she struggled for years to change her relationship with alcohol, until a big wake up call.

I started binge drinking at 14 years old. I was sneaking out and drinking every night, spending my nights at the skate park or a friend’s house.

My drinking didn’t continue steadily from there. I really only drank heavily for a year and then would only drink on social occasions and weekends, but always drank A LOT when I did drink. Back then I thought drinking competitions were so much fun; silly, looking back!

My first son was born when I had not long turned 18, and my second son was born 22 months later. I didn’t drink through pregnancy except for a couple of occasions; even then, it was only a couple of glasses. Life was pretty cruisy. I lost contact with my entire family when my first son was born. It was a drama-free life for myself and my young family when we moved from country Victoria to Queensland.

When I look back, I was drinking every night from when my second-born was a baby. The boys’ dad worked nights and I was home alone often. But I didn’t look at myself then as having an alcohol dependence.

I was dealing with many emotions from my childhood, like the lack of contact and interest from my own family. It wasn’t until 2006 when my marriage went down the tube that I really amped up the drinking. My boys were nine and 11 and I felt like I had failed them. I never wanted them to go through the things I had to. My Dad left when I was six and I didn’t see him again until I was 16. We don’t talk now; the relationship was never a good one.

So in the year of 2006, thanks to the stresses of a pending divorce and the feeling of failing my boys, I had a full-blown mental breakdown. It lasted 12 months. I was drinking more than a bottle of vodka a day and was also on anti-depressants as well as anti-anxiety and sleeping pills. I was suicidal and an outright mess.

There were so many events that year I have zero memory of. I was blackout drunk every single day. I was lucky to have an extremely understanding boss that allowed me a lot of time off. So from there, with a new partner that enjoyed drinking, I just kept on going, not blacking out every night but drinking every night.

It was about five years ago that I knew I had a problem. I was desperate to get home from work each day so I could drink, and often stopped at the pub on my way. Sometimes, I even stopped in for the odd beer during my lunch break just to take the edge off. I tried giving up but found it all too hard. With my now-husband working nights, my drinking increased again, to a point where I would black out regularly.

My life turned around

In October of 2015, I had some routine blood tests done because I was lacking energy. My liver results were not good, but I chose to ignore it for more than a year. I kept telling myself that I was only 39, I was too young to have liver issues. And there was no way I was giving up before my 40th party; the one I had waited my whole life for.

As it happens, it was at that very party in November 2016 that I knew the time had come for me to quit. I had repeated my liver test from the year before and my results were actually 10 times worse than just 12 months earlier. Eventually, I was barely getting through each waking day without needing to take a rest to stop fainting, which I soon learned was my liver saying ‘no more’.

I started my journey on my own, without telling a soul except for my husband. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. My initial goal was to have a dry spell and then drink moderately on social occasions. I went 47 days and then had the odd glass here and there on five occasions. Australia Day was fast approaching and I was dreading going through that without drinking but knew that it had to be all or nothing for me.

That’s when I joined Daybreak, when I was most desperate for some support. My husband was far from supportive; he wasn’t ready to lose his drinking buddy.

Joining Daybreak was my saving grace. I will be forever grateful for the wonderful community that has supported me through some really tough times and cheered me on through some victories. It has been more than nine months and I am still on Daybreak almost every single day because I get great joy in encouraging others to live a better life. Some of the friends I have made through Daybreak are friends I will have for life. They get it like no-one else can.

I can truthfully say that there are ups and downs on this road and the first few months were an unbelievable roller coaster of emotions including shame, guilt, sadness; you name it.

But all those things don’t last forever. Once you get past them and accept that the past is the past, and that’s not the person you are anymore, there is an overwhelming feeling of freedom.

So even though I have a really tough personal event to get through coming up, I’m feeling confident that this day will be a whole lot different to what it has been my entire life. I have confidence in myself that I have never had before and life feels good. Damn good!

To find out more and to download Daybreak, a program by Hello Sunday Morning, visit hellosundaymorning.org/daybreak.

Are you someone who has heightened sensitivity to your environment? Do you react instantly to a change in temperature, a certain food, or even smell? Is it painful to be around people who are loud, or in the same room as people who are giving each other the silent treatment?

We all exist somewhere along a spectrum of sensitivity, from those who are highly reactive to their environment, to those who seem bulletproof to the goings-on around them. There are so many things that determine this, but, like most other things, we know that it is a combination of genetics and environment; the epigenetics that switch on sensitivity. Having a sensitive temperament can be a wonderful gift. Just ask the people around you. But it can also mean that you are much more vulnerable to the things that life throws your way.

The research into this area is slowly coming together to form an understanding of a ‘spectrum’ of sensitivity. This covers how our brains process information, and whether we perceive things as threatening, beautiful, exciting, or boring.

We all know someone with an artistic temperament and can talk for hours about their love of music. We also know the more solid, engineer types who would like nothing more than to sit in front of a computer screen and code for hours on end.

Sensitivity is aligned a lot with empathy. These are not necessarily the same thing, but it is understandable that if someone is quite sensitive to their environment, they may also be more conscious of the inner states of people around them.

Sensitivity is also associated with anxiety. Receiving a lot of signals from your environment means that you are often in a state of high alert. Sensitive people are also more likely to be affected by life events. This increases the likelihood of trauma and traumatic memories, which contribute to challenges in your daily life.

An analogy that researchers use is the orchid and the daisy. If you are an orchid, you will need a very stable environment when growing. You need to be in a climate-controlled greenhouse, watered daily, and protected from storms and wind. If you are a daisy, you can grow anywhere from the cracks of a pavement to a garden. If a storm comes along, you are likely to remain intact and undamaged afterwards. Meanwhile, an orchid will be damaged and need a bit of time to recover, and might have lasting effects.

We generally exist along a spectrum from the orchid to the daisy. From very sensitive, to very hardy. It is not about which is better, as both of these flowers were this way from birth. Nor is it a matter of choosing whether to be an orchid or daisy. This is something that is pre-determined from the moment of fertilisation.

So how does sensitivity relate to drinking?

A lot of research indicates that those with a sensitive temperament are more vulnerable to developing issues with alcohol. This is simply because alcohol sometimes makes the world easier to deal with. If you have a lot of emotions close to the surface, experiences of rejection, sadness, criticism, loneliness or anxiety can feel incredibly intense. When we think about alcohol, it can have the effect of taking away some of the intensity of these experiences.

Dulling the feelings

The numbing effect of alcohol, while not necessarily pleasant, can feel like a welcome escape from sesnsitivity. Switching off from feeling overwhelmed is important; unfortunately, alcohol is among the fastest ways to do this.

One of the ways that alcohol works is by causing our brains to release GABA. GABA is a chemical that causes us to relax and lower our inhibitions. This allows a sensitive person to switch off from a lot of the information that is coming in. They can be slightly more affected by alcohol as well, meaning that the dopamine rush is more significant and pronounced.

Some members of the Hello Sunday Morning program, Daybreak, admit that they are feeling overwhelmed by life. Alcohol is one of those things that makes it better in the moment when it feels as if things are getting to be too much. Life can be a heartbreaking, sad, and overwhelming experience. If you are highly sensitive to your environment, it is likely that when things are bad, they will feel really bad. The plus side is that when things are good, it will feel really good. But that isn’t much help during times of stress, loss, poor health and conflict.

What is a solution to this?

If you have identified that you fall somewhere on the sensitive side of the spectrum and your drinking is a part of this, there are some things that might be helpful for you:

Take care of the basics. Sleep, diet and exercise are important to maintain your emotional health and to have a sense of balance and calm. Even if we can’t control parts of our life, we know that the building blocks are critical to staying well.
Understand what role alcohol plays in managing some of these issues. Is it numbing? Is it lifting your mood? Consider other ways to calm your system or wind down. There are other ways to zone out: listen to relaxing music or take a day in bed to read and watch movies.
Be aware of your environment. If there are things that are impacting you, make some efforts to change it. Whether it is a cold office at work or an aggressive neighbour, these things can have a significant impact on mood and coping ability, and things are easier when we address them.
Seek support. Have a look at the Daybreak program for some ideas and advice about how to deal with things differently, or speak to a coach for additional support and information. A lot of Daybreak members have great advice and ideas for self-care in times of stress, and would appreciate your ideas too.

Remember, it’s a positive thing if you are on the sensitive side. This is particularly true in terms of having good relationships with those around you and as a part of society. Many highly successful and happy people describe themselves as having sensitive and empathic temperaments. It is a case of finding what works for you.

Retaining the capacity to reflect, wonder, express joy and support those around you, without being overwhelmed by them, is often a work in progress. We know that drinking can be part of managing this sensitivity, and often it is about finding ways to change that relationship. Move from numbing towards something more deliberate and mindful.

For someone wanting to cut back on their drinking, getting into healthier lifestyle habits can be an effective way to replace habits and change their relationship with alcohol.

People often have the tendency to replace one bad habit with another, like giving up smoking and binge eating sugary food. Whether it be exercise, art and creative therapies, picking up a new hobby or practising meditation, the replacement suggestions below are an important step in changing old habits and replacing your drink with something better for your mental and physical state.

When you start to develop new habits, passions and hobbies, you start to create new goals for yourself and the determination to improve in these areas can be a great distraction from drinking. You won’t want to drink on a Saturday night if you have an art course with a highly regarded teacher, or the waves are forecast to be clean and offshore the next day!

Replace habits by getting active

Alcohol releases a chemical in our brains called dopamine, the reason why you feel pretty good when you first start drinking. The great news is that exercise also releases these feel-good chemicals and endorphins into your body, so you don’t have to drink to get this effect! Plus, you can’t get a hangover from a jog or boot camp. As well as helping to replace habits, exercise works as a great stress relief, boosts your mood and helps you sleep better.

Getting active does not have to be all about spending a day in a stuffy, sweaty and uninspiring gym. There are so many activities you can try to see what you enjoy the most, whether that be:

Cycling
Personal training
Group fitness classes
Outdoor meetups, like sailing or kayaking
Running/ running groups
F45, aerobics, spin classes, or cross fit
Boxing or martial arts
Triathlons or marathons
Ocean swimming

As long as your chosen activity gets the blood pumping and the mind present, you’re on the right track!

Try meditation

While sitting in on an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting recently, I heard people talk about their progress or their relapses and what really struck me was that over 50% of the people in the meeting spoke about how they deal with their anxiety or frustration by meditating.

Meditation does not have to be bound by any ‘right’ way or technique. Sometimes just sitting still and breathing can actually increase the feeling of heaviness and depression, or sitting still is not physically possible because of anxiety. Luckily, there are different techniques of moving meditation that helps move these negative energies around the body instead of sitting still. If you’re in this frame of mind, moving that energy around and out of the body can be the most effective. Some of these techniques include ancient mindfulness practices like Tai Chi, Qigong, Yoga Asana, Kundalini, and Aikido. There are also group meditations, guided meditations, apps, books, workshops and endless resources to help get you started and replace habits.

“It’s helped me find my centre, helped me tone down and control my reactiveness, rebuilt the part of my brain that was affected by alcohol and pot and food addiction, given me control over my negative mind, pulled me out of depression again and again, allowed me to connect to that greater thing outside of me (or inside of me — however you want to look at it), and more than anything, become the number one coping mechanism in my life — for stress, anxiety, anger, blues, bitchiness — it fixes everything.”— Hip Sobriety

Be creative

Art therapy is a type of treatment that guides people to use the creative part of their brain and express their emotions through creation to replace habits. Art therapy has been proven to boost self-esteem and confidence, reduce stress and anxiety, and stimulate different experiences and feelings by encouraging people to use their hands, paint and other mediums.

The Professional Association for Arts Therapy Australia says art can be an outlet for some and can encourage people to:

Express feelings that may be difficult to verbalise
Explore their imagination and creativity
Develop healthy coping skills and focus
Improve self-esteem and confidence
Identify and clarify issues and concerns
Increase communication skills
Share in a safe, nurturing environment
Improve motor skills and physical coordination
Identify blocks to emotional expression and personal growth.

Gardening and horticulture therapy

Gardening and horticulture therapy are often promoted as a tool to help people get outside and boost general wellbeing. Horticulture therapy is now practised in prisons, psychiatric hospitals, mental health programs and addiction rehab to replace habits. As it is also a caregiving type of role, gardening can often provide a sense of purpose and structure.

Research has shown that gardening can reduce aggression, anxiety, depression and improve concentration and even self-esteem. Getting into projects like creating a vegetable garden can be a great way to feel motivated to work outside, and often you will find that time just flows by when you stop to smell (and plant), the flowers.

Hobbies

Despite what people may think, you’re never too old to take up a new hobby. The best part about taking up a hobby is that it is something you are choosing to do because you enjoy doing it, and you don’t need anyone else to be involved, or even like it! To list all potential hobbies that you can explore would take up pages and pages of this blog, so here are just a few hobbies the team at Hello Sunday Morning are into:

Surfing
Hiking
Dragon boating

Collecting art

Dancing- salsa, ballroom, No Lights No Lycra
Computer games
Drawing
Cooking

For a heavy drinker to replace habits, these alternative therapies should be used in conjunction with talking to your GP, psychologist, and a consistent support platform such as the Daybreak program and community.

As a health coach for Hello Sunday Morning’s app, Daybreak, I have noticed that anxiety is a really common issue for our members. For some people, it is a chicken or egg scenario – is my drinking a way that I am managing my anxiety, or is my anxiety partly a result of my drinking and all the things that come with it? And, where does stress fit into all of this? Is it the same, or separate to anxiety?

One thing I have noticed is that stress in our lives greatly increases our vulnerability to high-risk drinking, as well as being overwhelmed with strong emotions.

I wondered why that was, and what kind of relationship there was between these three factors. My sense was that if I, as a health coach, had these questions, our members might as well – so I have put together some pointers that my coaching clients have found helpful in exploring the relationship between anxiety, drinking, and stress.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a tricky thing to define but is generally our brain’s way of responding to some kind of threat – whether that is a threat to our safety, our reputation, our relationships or our sense of self. It can be affected by our genetics, our environment, and our personality. Stress is often a precursor to anxiety – stressful situations put us into ‘fight or flight’ mode that helps us to protect ourselves from various types of threat.

Can you be predisposed to anxiety?

There is a lot of evidence that links stressful life events (SLEs) in our early life with issues later in life, including anxiety, depression and, sometimes, substance use.
SLEs don’t have to be life or death situations – they can be things like witnessing parental divorce, economic adversity or mental illness. The evidence indicates that experiencing two or more SLEs in early life significantly increased a person’s chances of developing an issue with their mood, such as anxiety or depression.

Of course, if you are a child who is vulnerable to stress, you are probably going to be affected more by something like a divorce or economic hardship– which is where individual factors come in. An anxious or sensitive temperament and stress early on in life can create a ‘perfect storm’ for some issues later on down the track.
Not everyone who feels anxious as an adult has been exposed to SLEs, but there is a really strong relationship between SLEs and anxiety or depression. It is good to remember that the active component here is the ‘stress’ – when kids are exposed to ongoing stress in their lives, it impacts how their brains develop and respond to threats in their environment. But more on that later on.

A good thing to remember is that SLEs in adulthood can also create issues with our moods – if we have a number of stressful events with little opportunity for respite, we can find that it is much harder to keep positive.
Perhaps we start to feel really anxious after a bad breakup that just keeps going on, or very down and helpless after some chronic stress at work. Our brains don’t deal with ongoing stress well, particularly the kind of stress that we feel we can’t do much about.

Remember – stress often comes first, and if it keeps going, that is when problems can develop. Often when we look back to difficult times in our lives, we can see that a number of different stressors led up to it.
What is the science behind this? It sounds too ‘tell me about your childhood’!

Emotions and stress levels

There is a lot of research into SLEs, as well as the actual mechanism that creates this relationship between our exposure to stress, our moods, and our relationships with alcohol. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of heavy duty neuroscience, but essentially:

We know that SLEs can change how our brains develop and even which genes are expressed; in particular, in the dopamine reward pathway which is a major player in high-risk drinking.

Research has found major disruptions in our dopamine signalling (for motivated behaviour and reward seeking) associated with SLEs. The part of our brain that controls this system also affects our stress and anxiety levels.
Throughout our lifetime, stress causes us to produce cortisol which helps us to survive and stay alert. However, when these stress responses are activated over and over again, a person can become vulnerable to later problems with anxiety and depression.

One way to think about it is like a button that gets pressed over and over again. At first, it works well, but over time it wears out. Sometimes it will get stuck in the ‘on’ position, and other times it won’t work at all and we’ll need to keep pressing it until it does.

People who have some problems with regulating their emotions as adults will often have had lots of stressful experiences as children, which have caused them to become ‘dysregulated’. The button in their brain that controls anxiety, mood, and even motivation, has been pressed too much and is now worn out. They might need to drink lots of coffee to get going, or they might need to drink a lot of alcohol to calm themselves down.

If there have been many disruptive, challenging or stressful events in your childhood, this may have contributed to you experiencing some issues with anxiety as an adult. If you were an anxious child who experienced a lot of things as stressful, that may also be impacting you now. If you’ve just come through a number of stressors and are finding that your emotions are all over the place, this may also be something to consider.

How does this button fit in with my drinking?

It becomes even trickier as the way that alcohol works is by taking advantage of this ‘worn out’ stress button. People who fit this description may be more susceptible to the ‘pleasure’ pathway that occurs with alcohol.

Exposure to ongoing stress means that our brains produce less dopamine over time, and so we can feel flat and empty – which can cause us to seek out the ‘high’ of alcohol or drugs. Having a sip of alcohol sends excitatory projections to our nucleus accumbens, part of our reward pathway. A complex set of interactions occur which result in that ‘good’ feeling we can get from drinking, and in people who are vulnerable, it can be a really intense and rewarding experience.

In particular, if you are an anxious person who is under stress, you may be existing in a state of mild discomfort. It is not a comfortable feeling to be on edge or tense, and alcohol is something that significantly shifts that, really quickly. We become conditioned to believe that this is perhaps the only way to take away the discomfort, or relive the stress we are feeling – and so drinking becomes more and more of a coping strategy, particularly when we are having a difficult time in our lives and are stressed, burnt out or unhappy.

Perhaps at the beginning it is about having pleasure and getting enjoyment, and later on it may become about taking away unpleasant emotions and discomfort from not having the alcohol – which is a good indicator that a problem is starting to develop, and some support is needed.

But where does this leave me?

This may sound really bleak, but don’t worry! The good news is that being aware of this relationship is a big part of the solution. Daybreak members who have identified this link between stress, anxiety, and drinking, have found some of the following strategies really helpful:

• Talk to a counsellor or coach about what kinds of things are generally stressful for you like relationship problems, criticism, failure or rejection. Understanding your triggers means that they are no longer triggers, but rather situations which can be handled with care and understanding.

• Finding other ways to ‘self-soothe’. Things like relaxation and exercise are effective ways of lowering physiological arousal and increasing your production of dopamine. Importantly, they also give us a sense of control over our mood state, which is really important for our wellbeing.

• Find ways to reduce stress in your life. If your stress button has been ‘worn out’ by life events, it may be necessary to find ways to deal with stress differently, whether that involves a change in your self-care, seeking support from friends and family to help lighten the load, or problem solving ways to address sources of ongoing stress.

• Make a list of trigger situations and a plan to deal with each of these. For example, if you know that you are likely to feel depleted and exhausted after work, make a plan to go for a walk with a friend, or schedule some other self-soothing activity that will be effective in lowering your arousal.

During these times that we are under stress in our adult lives, we need to be even more careful with things like alcohol and ensure that we are looking after ourselves and keeping stress to a minimum. This might involve getting some counselling to help deal with the source of strong emotions, or even to help to resolve current stresses in our relationships, work life or friendships.

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Daybreak by Hello Sunday Morning