Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the alcohol tipping point, podcast. I'm your host deb Maisner. I'm a registered nurse, health coach, and alcoholiday free badass. I have found that there's more than.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: One way to address drinking.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: If you've ever asked yourself if drinking is taking more than it's giving or if you've found that you're drinking more than usual, you may have reached your.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Own alcohol tipping point.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: The Alcohol Tipping Point is a podcast for you to find tips, tools and.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Thoughts to change your drinking.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Whether you're ready to quit forever or a week, this is the place for you. You are not stuck and you can change.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Let's get started.
You welcome to the show. I am glad that you are here to share your story and your experience with drinking and just being on the other side and how we can use a growth mindset to change our habits, whatever they are. So can you just give a little intro about who you are and what you do?
[00:01:03] Speaker C: Yeah. Debbie. Thank you. My name is Nico Morales. I am a keynote speaker, a trainer's trainer, a leader's leader. I'm also a coach for individuals who are attempting to achieve their definition of sobriety. And I say that because everybody has a different definition of sobriety. For me, my definition of sobriety doesn't include ingesting injecting or inhaling any type of substances. And I've gone as far as removing caffeine from my life because I found myself really dependent on coffee caffeine. And so that's my definition of sober. But basically I help individuals achieve what it is that they want to achieve. And the way I like to position it is that just like when you have a child learning a new sport, you don't just go put them on the field, you usually send them to practice and you give them a coach and somebody who's done it before them. That's the same model that I use just for adults because I feel like a lot of us are just big kids, just big grown kids nowadays.
Also an author. I wrote a book for Five Things to Know that People Should Know before they get Sober, because I found that in my journey, there was very limited resources for the individuals who are thinking about making that change in their life.
It is a decision that gets made instantaneously. But coming up to that place to make that decision, there's a lot of questions, there's a ton of questions, there's a lot of what ifs? There's a lot of scenarios that play out. And so with the limited resource on that one aspect of it that contemplation stage, people who are curious, the people who are in that gray area who I don't want to call myself a problem drinker. I don't want to call myself someone that's alcoholic because I don't like that. But I know that it's causing problems in my life. I know that I over drink every once in a while, I know that something happens when I start drinking, and my brain just doesn't stop.
There's questions that they have, and so I wrote a book to help individuals from my own experience, because I definitely have expertise in kicking substances. Alcohol was the final kind of tipping point, and it cost me both my hips. But the substances that I've used since I was, like, 14 included opiates, uppers, downers, cannabis, anything that you could probably think of, I've used. I had this one crazy idea, and I'm sorry, I'm just going to throw it out there. I was using heroin from age 18 to 22. I had this crazy idea that if I could smoke crack for a week, I'd get hooked on crack. And because I didn't like crack, then I would be able to kick that easier. Didn't work out, but that's just the extent of my own experience with substances. The other side of life is I grew up with the two parent household. I grew up middle America is what they would call it. I'm from New Mexico, and in New Mexico, we have a high poverty rate and a low education rate. So what we call well off is actually the bottom of the barrel for the rest of the nation. So that's a little bit about me. Oh, one last thing.
I got a heart for wrestlers. I wrestled my whole life, and the skills that I had from wrestling and playing sports is what was really pivotal to me in making some of the changes that I needed to make in my life. It's a quick bio.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Well, thank you. Thanks for being here. The couple of things you said, I'm like, okay, I need to know more. I need to know more. So one is, what are those five things to know before you get sober?
[00:04:33] Speaker C: Five things that I think you should know before you get sober is one, it's a choice whether you believe that it's like a disease, it's a moral issue, that it's a genetic whatever it is, it's a choice to address it right? Just like if you're sick, it's a choice to go get help. So the first thing is that it's a choice.
The second thing is that it's super uncomfortable.
I don't like to hide that from anybody. It's uncomfortable. Your thoughts are uncomfortable. Your physical nature is uncomfortable, aka. Withdrawals. Your spiritual nature is uncomfortable because you're shifting a lot of different things. You're questioning a lot of things. So your physical, your spiritual, and your emotional state all go into this uncomfortable place. And that uncomfortable place is where I think a lot of people fall off and turn back to the drinking, because it's the devil that you know. And you know that it can answer some of the questions temporarily, and that temporary relief is far greater than the long term benefit that you can see at that point in time. So it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to have conversations with your friends and family. It's uncomfortable to change your environments. It's uncomfortable to go into different places.
The third thing that I believe that people should know is that they're going to get to know themselves.
The individual who you are when you're drinking is not the same individual who you are when you're not drinking.
Some people call it beer goggles. Some people call it beer muscles. Some people call it confidence boosters.
Why do you need those, right? There's somebody inside of you that apparently needs that enhancement so you get to know who you actually are. There's things that I used to like that I don't like anymore. There's things that people that I used to love being around, that I don't like being around, because we didn't have the same moral values. We didn't have the same character traits. We didn't have the same direction in life.
So that's the third thing. The fourth thing is that you're vulnerable during the transition.
You are super vulnerable. There's so many things that are going to be hitting you mentally, so many things that are going to be hitting you emotionally, so many things that are going to be changing physically that you're vulnerable during that transition. And I know that that vulnerability catches a lot of people off guard because nobody likes being vulnerable. Let's be honest. I learned recently that, or I should say this I've heard recently, that vulnerability is talking about the things that you don't really want to talk about with people who you don't really want to talk to about it's. Not so much being transparent. Transparency is just talking about the things you're okay with. Talking about vulnerability is talking about the things that you really don't want to talk about. For me, one of those vulnerable things was my family situation. Like I said, I came from a two parent background, quote unquote, good background, right? But there was certain events that happened when I was a kid that imprinted on my mind certain thoughts. And so to be vulnerable with those certain thoughts and vulnerable with those situations and vulnerable with questioning what happened, that was difficult, not only just for me, but for my family as well, because they started thinking, well, now you're attacking us. Now why are you putting our stuff out there? Why is it coming back on us? And it's like, I'm not attacking you. I'm not trying to push this on you. I'm just questioning some of these events and were they in my best interest. At the end of the day, what I've learned is that my family did the best that they can, and that's one thing that I think is helpful for everybody. Now, I'm going to leave you guys on a cliffhanger because I am a guy. So number five, if you want to know what number five is, you got to go get the book for that.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: I love it. I love it. But the first four were. It's a choice. It's uncomfortable. You're going to get to know yourself, and you're really vulnerable during the transition. Yeah, I would agree. So you mentioned that you took all these different substances, but alcohol was one of the last ones to go.
Why do you think that was and how did you undo your drinking?
[00:08:50] Speaker C: Why do I think it was was because it's legal.
Society has deemed alcohol as an okay substance to take because at the end of the day, it is a mind altering substance. It changes the way that you think, changes the way that you feel. It changes your chemicals. Technically, that's a substance people that I've interacted with sometimes have a problem with.
Classifying it in that place, classifying it in that same realm as with cannabis, cocaine, heroin, meth, ketamine, mushrooms, psychedelics. It's the same thing because it changes how you think. And by definition, Webster's Dictionary, that's what a substance does. And so it is the legal substance. And that's why it was the last thing to go in my journey. I didn't like drinking when I was growing up, from ages like 14 to 21, I didn't drink often.
It wasn't until I was about 22 to 27 that I was very much a drinker. And one of the reasons why was because the individuals who I cared about, the individuals who my social network was around, my familiar network was around, my work network was around. They had a problem with me using drugs. They didn't have a problem with me drinking.
So because there wasn't that isolation, there wasn't that stigma, that negative kicking out because we can't be around a pothead. Oh, we can't be around a heroin user. Oh, we can't be around you because you do all these drugs.
That stigma wasn't there. It was, oh, aniko just drinks. We're okay with that. Let's go out. Let's go have some drinks. Let's grab some beer. Let's go have some shots of whiskey. Let's go. And that was okay, right? That was something that everybody did. And because that was something that everybody was doing, that's why it was the last thing to go. What I ended up doing was defining a standard for myself.
Society, at least here in America, we have a bottom line that most people can't go below.
I hear somebody right now thinking, well, what about the homeless? What about the people who are strung out? They choose to go below that standard, and they choose to live below that standard.
If they were to engage with different avenues of help, then they could fall back into that bottom line standard. And there's plenty of avenues for help. For me. I didn't like AA. Not that it's a bad program. It just didn't work for me. I was sent to religious groups. I didn't like religious groups because they just didn't work for me. Not saying they don't work, but for me they didn't. But I was so adamant on finding a path that worked for me, because what I was doing wasn't working anymore.
When I finally kind of hit that tipping point, I was 260 pounds. I was living in a building that only had electricity. I was sleeping on the floor. I had a hot plate plugged in and a TV plugged in and a mattress in this room that the rest of the house was not well kept.
It was below living standards, put it that way. There wasn't any plumbing. There wasn't any gas. And so because the standard was, hey, you're not doing drugs. It's okay that you drink. I still found myself in a place that most people who use drugs were at. And so I decided, you know what? What's going to be my standard? What's going to be Nico's standard? What's going to be the thing that I create as my bottom plateau? And for me, making that bottom plateau as I'm not going to drink made sense because substances, alcohol, it all fell into the same outcome for me.
Family didn't want to be around me. Friends didn't want to be around me. I overused, over drank.
Something in my head just didn't want to stop. Because if one drink makes me feel good, then ten drinks is going to make me feel amazing. If ten drinks make me feel amazing, then might as well just buy a bottle and drink that whole thing and pass out. That's how my brain works. Like, if something works, then keep on doing it. Because alcohol was solving some of these underlying issues that I hadn't addressed, then I figured, might as well do it more. So for me, like I said, I didn't use religious groups. I didn't use AA. I didn't use inpatient rehab. I didn't use medically assisted treatment. What I did is I found personal development as my avenue for finding my way out of drinking, over drinking.
Personal development, it encompasses not just self help, not just a positive mental state. It's not that. It's. Where am I at? Where do I want to be, and how can I develop on a consistent basis, daily commitments to get to that point that I want to be at? And so for me, I learned later on in my journey that I did what was called Titrating. And if you're not familiar with what tie trading is, titrating is reducing the amount that you intake on a long term, consistent basis. So, for example, in my life, I was drinking two bottles every day. Two bottles of Admiral Nelson were that's where I was at because they were like, $6 a bottle, and they could get me drunk and I could pass out. But I needed two bottles to drink.
I knew that two bottles was too much. I had already been to all these groups who wanted to tell me that I was less than and that I needed to say that I was less than. And that just doesn't work for my mental state. I know I needed help, but I'm not less than anybody else. I just function differently than everybody else, that's all. And so it didn't sit right in my spirit to say, like, oh, well, I'm so and so and fill in the blank, right? What I felt my spirit felt good with was, I'm nico. I over drink, and I'm going to overcome it too, because I'm committed to myself. Because I know that I have the willpower to get myself into this mess. I can get myself out of this mess.
I made decisions to get me here. I can make decisions to get me out of here. And that's how I took the approach. So I decided, well, since two bottles is too much, let's go to a bottle and a half. Let's just see if you could make it one day drinking a bottle and a half, which is reasonable. It was specific, and it was something that was really relevant because it has to be like, for me, what I learned. It had to be relevant to where I was at. And if I were to go cold turkey, which I had tried, my body would have seizures. I ended up in the hospital once at work because I decided that I wasn't going to drink that morning. And I went out to go smoke a cigarette. And all I remember is standing outside the building smoking a cigarette, everything going yellow in my eyes, and then wake up in an ambulance.
Then the next thing I do is I wake up in a hospital room and I'm looking at myself, and I'm sorry, but I defecated myself. I was like, Holy cow.
Usually that happens to people when they die. So did you die? What happened here? And having to buzz in a nurse to be like, hey, I made a mess of myself. Having to have them clean it up and then go clean myself off, that was a really pivotal moment in my journey because I was like, well, you can't just stop.
I will say this for anybody that's curious about changing their drinking, curious about stopping drinking, one of the reasons why medically assisted treatment and going to a doctor is so important is because alcoholiday can kill you in the withdrawals. That's scientifically proven. And this is a previous heroin user telling you that heroin made me feel like I was going to die, but it wouldn't kill me. Alcohol almost killed me when I just cut it off cold turkey. And so that wasn't doable, and I knew that. So in my experimentations of removing alcohol from my life, I knew I had to kind of wean myself off. And that's what titrating is. So after I committed myself to a few days, a few weeks of drinking a bottle and a half, then what I did is I took it down to a bottle, and then a few days a week of drinking, just the bottle, I cut it in half again. So I continued to reduce the amount that I ingested over a few weeks. And by the end of, like, week six, I was down to a pint, and I was like, man, you're getting drunk off of a pint, first of all, which is awesome, because saves you some money. Two, look how far you've come. And when I started to measure where I started at two bottles to where I was at with just a pint, I was so encouraged. I trusted myself again. I was empowered. Like Nico. You're making progress. How much more progress can you make? And that's the other thing. I think a lot of these programs miss again. They're not bad. They just didn't work for me. But one of the areas that they didn't work for me was they didn't take into account all the stuff that you've been through. If you're listening to this right now, then you are at 100% success rate for your worst days.
A lot of the groups, a lot of the mechanisms that are used, they don't factor that in. And for me, that was empowering. For me, that was like, yo, I made it through some shitty shit. Part of my language, I'm sorry if we're not supposed to cuss, but I have through that. All right, cool.
I made it through some shitty shit.
My life, not just with my drinking, but some of the stuff that I've seen, some of the stuff that I've experienced, it's been crap. And so being able to acknowledge that and measure it and say, you know what cool?
This is where I'm at now. At a point I can definitely go to not drinking. And for me, like I said, it took six weeks. I think it was like six to eight weeks that I was doing this, and I was still going to work. I was still having to take care of my responsibilities. And I think that's one of the other things that drives people away from some of these other programs is that they want you to stop your life. And I couldn't afford stopping my life. Like, my life had to keep on going. There was nobody that's going to come pay my bills. There was nobody that was going to come save me. There was nobody that's going to come help me out to get out of this mess. So I had to maintain life while I was solving this problem. And for me, that's how I was able to hit my tipping point and remove it.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Thank you for sharing. And I think it's also kind of like harm reduction.
And you had mentioned at the beginning that you help people practice, and that's what I do, too. My motto is not my motto, but I help people practice not drinking. And you don't have to be perfect, and we don't expect that out of anything else. We do, but we do get into these abstinence based programs where perfection is expected at the get go.
I just think we shouldn't shame people for not being perfect. We should applaud. Like you said, you are proud of yourself for cutting down, which is so difficult to do. I mean, especially after a bottle of wine. I don't care anymore after a bottle of wine. For me to stop there, that would be difficult. But you kept proving to yourself again and again like, okay, I'm drinking less. I'm still showing up for responsibilities and still working on myself.
And it's just that whole, like, we can't hate ourselves to love and shame ourselves into recovery. It's that kindness and confidence and trust in ourselves. Like you were demonstrating, I think that.
[00:21:05] Speaker C: You just said a powerful point there. Being shamed into recovery is not healthy. Because when that shame goes away, guess what you're going to do?
Go back to what you know. And if there's anybody that thinks about shame and guilt and I'm going to do it for someone else, that's not healthy either. You got to love yourself enough. You got to trust yourself enough. You got to have the courage to do the best for yourself. And that's what really is pivotal. Not so much I messed up again. But you know what, I love how you said you practice stop drinking. The way I teach it is we're training to stop drinking. We're not trying that's training.
And you're training each and every day.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: Love it.
Well, you had mentioned that you have been dealing with hip pain and pain in general. Can you share about that and how you manage pain without substances?
[00:22:09] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the consequences that I had from the choices that I was making was a disease called avascular necrosis. And avascular necrosis basically means that the blood vessels around certain portions of your body get cut off for long enough periods that your body responds and says, oh, well, you don't need these anymore. And so it stops bundling resources to there for me because of the way that I would slouch over using heroin. For me, the amount of times that I fell asleep sitting down on my couch from over drinking my hip bones, the blood vessels around them.
And so what ended up happening is that they died, they dried up and they began to collapse inside of my body. Now, this happened started when I was 27 years old, but I'm sorry, that's when I got diagnosed with it. It started probably when I was about 24 years old. Stage one happened when I found it, when the doctors found it in me, it was at stage four already, which was unreversible. So the only outcome that was possible was total hip replacement. So I had both of my hip bones replaced because of the choices that I was making. But I used to drink and I used to drink to the point that I wouldn't feel that pain anymore. Just like your knuckle needs to pop. Sometimes my hips felt like that. I would find myself laying in positions so that I could remove pressure from my hips.
It seemed like whenever I drink, I would feel better. That's probably because blood thinned out and there's all of these medical reasons that everybody can probably talk to about a medical doctor.
But that's how I addressed pain. That's how I addressed my chronic pain. That's how I addressed my joint pain. That's how I addressed my body hurting, was I would numb it with alcohol.
I used to numb my mental pain with substances, right? And so while I was working on my mental pain, my physical pain was there too. I believe that there's three pains everybody faces, and that's physical pain, emotional pain, and mental pain. Your logic, your feelings, and your body. And alcohol is a substance that will solve all three of them for you. You don't have the same emotions. You don't have the same mental hurt. You don't have the same physical hurt. And so I found that drinking would cause that type of pain to go away.
And I found myself dependent on that, found myself drinking not. I knew the outcome was going to be bad. I knew the hangover was going to be bad. I knew the whiskey shits was going to be bad. I knew that sitting over the toilet, vomiting acid out of my mouth and just seeing green stuff go into the toilet was going to be bad. But I would deal with that later, and I'll have a drink later because right now I need to get this pain, all these pains gone. And so for me, that was one of the other big fears that I had to face was, how am I going to deal with this pain that I know I'm going to experience without any type of help, without any type tylenol didn't work. Like 650 milligrams of Tylenol to an old Opiate user. It's like skittles. It's not going to do anything to me. Doesn't help but a bottle of rope that'll take my pain away. And so for me, telling myself, hey, Nico, that is a solution that you can choose, but it's not the solution you should choose, was helpful. And eventually I ended up getting my hips replaced. Two years ago, I got both my hips replaced within 60 days. And that long term effect, there it goes again. There's a temporary relief that you can find with substances, but there's a long term relief that you can find with addressing these issues. So when I stopped drinking, when I stopped using drugs, I started looking for long term longevity over short term success. I wasn't looking for just that short term quick fix for the day. It's too living in the moment. I learned for how is it going to affect when I'm 35, how is it going to affect when I'm 40 years old, how is it going to affect when I'm 50 years old? And then they tell me at the doctor's office, oh, you're going to need two of these. Just FYI, we're going to have to come in here again, cut you open, and put in some new hips here in about 20 years. So I was like, at least I got longer time frame than 2 hours. Because our body becomes accustomed to our pain treatments, and it reduces the amount of pain relief that it actually gives you.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: So how do you manage pain now without any substances? Or what advice do you have for people who are in physical pain?
[00:27:03] Speaker C: The first advice that I have for you is figure out the root of that physical pain. For me, I had to figure out what the actual root was because it's probably something else. And then when you figure out the root, you have an answer. Just FYI, that answer kind of relieves some of that pain. When I knew what was wrong with my hips, that gave me pain relief in itself. From there, even now, my joints still hurt, my body still hurts, but I use a mental state of nico, you walked around with collapsed hips for three years.
How can you move through this? And then the other tip that I would say, I mean, that's measuring backwards, right? Think about the pain that you felt before that was worse and compare it to now and live in that state. And if you haven't felt worse pain in your past, think about somebody who is missing a limb. That's where the growth mindset kind of comes in. You got to take yourself out of your own mindset and place yourself in someone else's. So for me, whenever I'm feeling pain in the morning, I wake up and I do 100 burpees. That's how I get my day started. But that first like three. I hear cracking and popping and stretching and all that stuff, and it hurts. And there's mornings where I don't want to do it, but I tell myself, Nico, there's someone out there who doesn't have arms who would love to do burpees. With all the cracking and popping that you hear, nico, there's someone out there who's missing a leg.
That dude would love to be able to hear the cracking and popping that you hear in your legs right now. So why don't you think about them and do it for them instead of doing it for you? And that's kind of where the mindset of it plays into effect, because our minds, they're so powerful, our minds can create it. One of the things that I teach is what you perceive is what you receive. So if you're telling yourself, oh, this is going to hurt, this is going to hurt, this is going to suck, guess what you're going to receive. Hurt, hurt, hurt and suck. Don't get me wrong, I'm not. Saying to break your arm and say, oh, I'm mentally going to fix it. No, be realistic, but say, hey, you know what? My arm's broken, but at least it's not cut off. It's really twisted. Some people think that I'm crazy for it, but that's how I use my pain management now. And your body is built to help heal itself. So one of the main reasons that most people are hurting is because they don't do enough motion. One of my physical therapists, they told me, nico, motion is the lotion. And that stuck with me. Like, the more you move, the more your body stays used to moving, and the more blood circulation that you have within your body, the more that it can heal itself. That's why your blood is so important. That's why your heart is so important. So that's some recommendations that I have.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you for that. And I know that it becomes a common issue for a lot of people. And just to reiterate, like, the alcohol yeah, in the short term, it's relieving pain, but in the long term, it's exacerbating. It making it worse.
It's so hard. But it's like your number two when you were talking about the five sober things, like, it's uncomfortable, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally when you were talking about mental and emotional pain, what's the difference between mental and emotional? I feel like I would put those in the same bucket, but tell me about that.
[00:30:22] Speaker C: So mental for me, pain is a problem that I can't really solve.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:30:28] Speaker C: That's a mental issue, like a logistic, logical, task oriented issue that I can't solve myself. That's a mental pain. Right? You're trying to do a math problem, and you don't know the answer, and you have been working on it, and you can't figure it out. You get a headache. Mental pain, there's the emotional pain that's completely separate, and those are your feelings.
Those like, hey, you know what? The partner that I'm with, we're struggling in our relationship right now, and it's being strained, and it's hurting, and it hurts me inside. Everything that I think of logically to do, I've done, but it's just not working. So my heart is broken. My soul and my guts are hurting because I can't solve this. Sadness is an emotional pain. I lost a loved one.
Nothing logically is wrong there. Like, you know that everybody eventually leaves this planet, so logically you can comprehend it, but emotionally, you're just hurt by it. So that's the difference between the mental and any emotion.
[00:31:34] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you for that. So what would you say when you're talking about a growth mindset? How can we apply that to changing our drinking?
[00:31:46] Speaker C: Thank you for that question, because individuals who use substances or drink or over drink are some of the greatest thinkers out there. That's one of the things that I think people don't realize about themselves because they're in it a growth mindset establishes that you're always learning. You learned a way to solve your own problems. So kudos to you. Now, the way that you solve your problems may not be the best. So if you can recognize that I chose a solution, and that solution works for a little bit of time, I have the ability to choose a different solution now. I have the ability to grow past this stage.
I'm sorry if I hurt your shoe links, but a baby carries a bottle until a baby can eat food.
When the baby can eat food, you don't give it a bottle anymore. As adults, the bottle that you carry is basically that starting point. You get to a point where you can solve your problems, solve your mind, solve your life issues with food, and you don't necessarily have to carry that bottle anymore. So thinking about, for me, all the different growths that I've had in my life is one of the ways that I use a growth mindset. I compare where I'm at right now to what I've been through. I was able to learn how to walk without getting down on myself. Nobody tells a kid that, hey, you need to stop trying to walk because you haven't figured it out yet. That's what a growth mindset is. We have to take that same approach that I'm not going to stop until I find a solution that works for me and gets me to the outcome that I want to get to. And it comes in different forms. It comes with self reflection. It comes with measuring the journey that you've been on, understanding the meaning of why you're on that journey, and looking at the cost. Those are three things that I teach when somebody's developing their own growth mindset. Look where you've been and look where you want to go.
Why was it meaningful for you to get to where you're at now? Look at where your past is and why is it meaningful for you to get to where you want to be? Look at the future. And what is the cost? What are the costs that you've already paid in the past to get to where you're at now? And are you willing to give up all that cost that you've paid to go forward? Or are you going to hold on to that and not move forward? So that's how I teach a growth mindset, because for each individual, it's very different. Everybody's in a different growth stage of their life. But if you can understand the journey that you're on, the meaning behind that journey, and the cost that you are willing to pay and have already paid, then it's a little bit easier to grow. There are some individuals who say, don't count the cost because it's going to freak you out. Just do it. That's fine. But for me, I look back at what I've paid.
I've paid with emotional currency. I've paid with mental currency. I've paid with actual currency.
I looked at how much I was drinking, and I'd spend like, maybe $300 in a week drinking. I was like, Dang Nico three times four. That's one $200, dude. You can take that and invest it in something to make a nice chunk of change. So that's how the growth mindset can really apply. And for individuals who over drink or individuals who just know that it's not the best thing for them anymore, they're the ones that know how to pivot the best, but it's scary to leave that one place to go to the next place. That's unknown. And that's why individuals like Debbie are around. That's why individuals like I'm around, because we understand that pivot moment happens on a day to day, consistent basis. And having accountability, that takes growth, and having community, that takes growth. And that's two things that you get when you work with somebody.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Can you share some of your other top tips for someone who's changing their drinking?
[00:35:59] Speaker C: Yeah, give yourself grace.
Give yourself grace. You didn't create this problem in a day. You didn't just wake up one day and say, oh, I'm deciding to over drink.
I'm deciding to be a person who likes to drink more than taking care of my responsibilities. I'm a person who ensures that I do drink on a constant basis. You didn't wake up one day just doing that. So if you didn't wake up one day doing that, then don't expect it all to change in one day.
That's one of the biggest tips that I can share with you. And don't abuse your grace. Don't say, Well, I had a hard day at work. Well, define what hard is for you.
When you can define a standard for yourself, and then you can live by that standard, that's one of the next best tips I could offer.
We all get to choose the standards that we live in. The individual who is homeless chose a standard that they want to live by, and that's why they live there. The individual who chooses to live in a multimillion dollar mansion has a standard that they want to live by, and that's why they live there. Everything in between is also standards. So you need to a tip that I can have for you is decide what type of standard you're going to live by and commit to it and set your boundaries and follow those boundaries. One of my boundaries was, again, I will reduce the amount that I'm drinking. So as long as I didn't go to two bottles, that was a boundary that I had, and I respected myself more. When I completed that boundary, I woke up, yes, feeling like crap, but emotionally, I didn't feel like crap. Does that make sense? I woke up. Nico, you only drank a bottle and a half yesterday. Good job. Let's go hit the toilet real fast, because you still got to deal with some things that are physical reactions of what you did. Wow, dude. Awesome. And telling myself that because there was nobody else that was going to encourage me was one of the other tips. Some people call them affirmations. For me, I didn't learn that until afterwards. But I would stand there in the mirror, I'd be like, good job, dude. You stuck it out last night. You only drank a bottle and a half. Tonight we're going to do the exact same thing. You did it once, you could do it again. Nico and that's how I would kind of move past it. So those are a few tips and tips. Encourage yourself, set your own boundaries. Have grace with yourself. Those are three tips that can get you going. Get your motor rolling.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Yeah, those are great tips. And like you said, it just kind of all goes back to mindset and how you think about it.
A lot of what I hear you say is choice, choice. And with that comes empowerment. And with choice, I think, is also responsibility. And so recognizing, like, okay, this might not be my fault, but it is my responsibility. And so I'm going to choose.
And I think even taking ownership or choosing if you're going to drink or not, like, okay, I did drink last night. I chose that. Can even help you along the way, too, because a lot of the times it just feels so out of control.
[00:39:20] Speaker C: Absolutely.
We go into an automatic motion. Right. For me, one of the automatic motions was somebody made me feel a type of way that I didn't want to feel. So I'm going to go buy me something to drink so I could change the way that I felt. That was a choice. What I learned, and I found that that was just an automatic motion, that I was in a circular habit that I had built for myself. I realized that there was a choice to change that habit, too. That choice to change that habit was very real, and it encouraged me because one of the things that I understood is that I had lost trust in myself. When you say that it's a choice, and when you acknowledge that it's a choice, you start to begin to trust yourself. And I'm not encouraging anybody to drink, but before you drink, tell yourself, I'm choosing to drink. And then you do that, your mind starts to rewire, to listen to yourself. And that's really what you're looking for, is a way to rewire your mind. So use what's available to you right then and there. Say, I'm choosing to drink this glass. I'm choosing to drink this bottle. I'm choosing to drink this thing, and then do it, because then your brain is going to be like, what I say is what I do, and it'll start to believe you.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And on the other end of that is like, I'm choosing to not drink. I'm choosing to have a Diet Coke instead. I'm choosing to have a La Croix or whatever that looks like for you. And just acknowledging like you're still in control even when you feel stuck and out of control.
[00:40:59] Speaker C: And I would also just say real fast before we wrap up is that replacement is a huge option. For anybody who's just curious what she said, there is a powerful statement. Instead of drinking tonight, what I'm going to do is I'm going to drink Lacoy, I'm going to drink Pepsi, I'm going to drink whatever you mix your drink with without the mixture. And that's replacement is what it's called. And replacing that is another great avenue to reduce harm.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: Super cool. Well, what would you say just to wrap us up to someone who is listening to this and they're feeling kind of stuck and they just need some words of encouragement?
[00:41:38] Speaker C: What I say to my clients is that you weren't created to be a perfect little angel. It's okay to have no halo. All you are expected to do today is better than you did yesterday. So can you define what that is?
Can you define what better today is than yesterday? And can you achieve that? Because if you can do better today than you did yesterday, you're on the path to finding a great outcome.
[00:42:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. Well, how can someone find you?
[00:42:07] Speaker C: Best way to find me is at my website, www. Nohalonem. Like Nicomorales.com, if you're on social media, is Nohalonem on Facebook and Instagram, also on YouTube. I pump out videos there. We're about to get revamped up for next year. And TikTok, it's my first name, nico double underscore last name Morales. Those are different avenues that I put out. Just free content, free ideas, free thoughts. Because you are worth changing. You are an amazing human being. If you're listening to this right now, there's a purpose for you to be here and there's a purpose for you to change. So let's do it.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate your conversation and you sharing and being vulnerable and helping others out. So thank you.
[00:42:58] Speaker C: That's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Debbie.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Alcoholiday Tipping Point podcast. Please share and review the show so you can help other people, too. I want you to know I'm always here for you, so please reach out and talk to me on Instagram at Alcoholiday Tipping Point and check out my website, alcoholtippingpoint.com for free resources and help. No matter where you are on your drinking journey, I want to encourage you to just keep practicing, keep going. I promise you are not alone and you are worth it. Every day you practice not drinking is.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: A day you can learn from.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: I hope you can use these tips we talked about for the rest of your week. And until then, talk to you next time.
[00:43:44] Speaker C: You close.
