How to Drink Less with Caroline Holke

Pod Caroline Holke Deb: Welcome back to the Alcohol Tipping Point Podcast. I am your host, Deb Masner. I'm a registered nurse, health coach and alcohol free badass, and today on the show I have Caroline Holke. She is a drink less coach, and she is here to share all her nuggets to help people practice not over drinking or drinking less or whatever that looks like for them. So welcome to the show, Caroline. Caroline: Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. Deb: I'm glad you're here. So can you just introduce yourself a little bit more who you are and what you do? Caroline: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So you did, you did a really nice job. So I'm Caroline Hokey. I am a drink less coach. And what does that mean? Well, that, that beautiful thing about that is it's up to the individual. So I have clients that wanna quit drinking entirely. I have clients that just want to, and. Get rid of the bad parts of drinking, the waking up in the middle of the night and kind of feeling groggy the next day and all that kind of stuff. They just wanna get rid of that stuff. They wanna be able to trust themselves to go out and have two glasses of wine when they go out with their friends and not have the mental chatter all week, whatever that is. That's what I help my clients kind of get. Deb: Yeah, that's helpful. And so we're gonna talk about some of the tools that you use. So let me just ask you like, why do we over drink alcohol? Caroline: Yeah, we over drink alcohol because we've got an over desire for alcohol and that happens when we have any sort of substance. That gives us a high dopamine, any concentrated substance that gives us a high dopamine hit and then we repeat it and that creates desire. So there's a lot of I don't know. There's a lot of shame around alcohol. To begin with, but this pattern occurs with anything with a high degree of dopamine. There are a lot of people that get the same thing. They've got a high desire for sugar, or they've got a high desire for video games. They've got like all sorts of things. Anything that's gonna give us that hit, we repeat it a lot, we get a high desire. And so the way that I address that with my clients is we look at it from a desire standpoint and we unwind that desire. And once we see that as this is the neural pathway, this is the math that's going on in my head, and I, I wasn't born with it. My brain learned it somehow, therefore my brain can unlearn it. Now, this doesn't apply to everybody in the world if you're, you know, I don't work with alcoholics, I work with gray area drinkers. So I think that's an important distinction too. That what we do is basically look at it from a desire standpoint and how we can unwind that. Now, some examples that everybody's probably familiar with are like pavlos dogs. Now f love's dogs . For sure they got, they were acclimated, if you remember, from animal behavior in high school. That's when I took it. Anyway, the, they heard the research assistance clogs coming down the hallway and they started salivating cuz they knew the food was coming and, you know, then there was a bell that would ring and all that kind of stuff. So they acclimated themselves to this idea that food was coming and they were ready for it, Their body was ready for it. That's what happens to all of us with alcohol or again, any substance that has a high reward of dopamine in it. And so in order to unwind that desire, we have to like hear the bell. We have to hear the research assistance clocks coming down the hallway and not answer it. Because every time we answer that, we're reinforcing that neural pathway and they're, we're making that desire even higher. And so everybody says, Well, that sucks. Right? ? Like, I don't like that idea, . But if we think of it as, you know, I hate, you know, it's not as binary as this, but sometimes it kind of is. It's like I can either reinforce this habit or I can unwind. Yes, it may feel a little bit uncomfortable as I'm unwinding it, but that's not forever at all. And that path really is how we get to freedom. And Deb: what are, Yeah, what are some of the ways that you unwind it? Caroline: So that looks like basically we, you know, having an urge to drink is completely normal again, because we've got this pathway that's going, we've got this desire and, and we have habits like some people will come home and they'll pour a glass of wine or a drink as soon as they walk in the door. Some people it is They have a drink while they're making dinner. Some people will only drink between certain hours. Everybody's got their kind of like habits and so what we wanna do is we are not gonna respond to the urge when that happens and well, When that urge comes up, there are a couple different ways that we can handle an urge. We can either respond to it in that we drink, and again, that's gonna reinforce that habit. We can resist it and kind of push it away, which is where willpower comes in. And willpower is a finite resource. That will not be with you forever. And, and so interesting that by the end of the day we've got decision fatigue and our willpower is pretty much in the toilet at that point. It's, it's not a shocker that we just decide to drink and forget the diet and we're gonna order that pizza and sit on the couch on Netflix. Right? So the third way that we can handle an urge is we allow it. So, and I may have said that wrong in the beginning. The first one is we give into it. The second one is we resist it. And the third one is allow it. So what does allow it mean? I will tell you intellectually and everybody will understand, but when you're in the moment, it takes a lot of practice to get there. What that actually means is we almost observe that urge coming in. We, I like to think of it as. We are allowing it into our home. Just like you would allow, if you're having family dinner and maybe there's a relative that you don't love, but you're still gonna allow them in the house, you're not gonna like bar down the door and say, No, no, no, you can't. Come on. You can't come in. You can come in. It's okay. You can come in. I can trust the fact that you can be here and what that experience is when you're allowing that urge is you are being with. You're being with your, you're creating safety within yourself so that you can observe what that urge feels like in your body. Because our bodies were designed to feel our emotions. They were designed to do this. Like literally no one has died from feeling their emotions. I know it feels it. It can feel awful sometimes, but no one has died from feeling their emotion. I'm not discounting the fact that it feels awful. Okay. I I'm just reinforcing that I'm, I'm not being naive to that. I get it. I get it. But when we trust the fact that our bodies were designed to do that and so often what I see so often with my clients is that we've become disengaged with that. We're living our lives and our heads and we wanna like, think our way out of problems, which we can do to a certain degree, but we have to practice it. Hmm. Deb: Yeah. I, I love that. And I do a lot of urge work too, and I just, I love analogies too. I, I use one sometimes that it's like you, you are the driver and, and so yes, an urge can ride with you. Yeah. Mm-hmm. in the car. It can be a passenger. But you are still the driver. Caroline: Yeah. Deb: So what do you think is like a big mistake people make when they are changing their relationship with Caroline: drinking? Yeah, so I work with Type A high performers and which is so fun. I love that. And here's the thing about Type A high performers. We like things to be perfect and we like to plan it all out and have a spreadsheet or a calendar or something like that and like, Okay, I've decided therefore it's done. And perfection, expecting perfection is never gonna work. That is like, Okay, here's another analogy for you, . You can, if you were learning how to ride a bike, you could watch a YouTube channel. You can read a bike, you can read a book about it or listen to a podcast. You can talk to some friends about it, but it's never gonna, that's not gonna help you ride that bike until you get on the bike. And, and I guarantee the times that we slip up when we are learning how to drink less, really those are valuable. There is. That's a gold mine, right? But we have to be open to, we have to be curious about it and not be in self-judgment. Cause if we're in self-judgment, that's like we, we can't access our curiosity. And when we are curious about it, then we can go in and say, Ooh, what happened here? Like really and truly what was, what was going on that caused me to slip up, to make, for me to make that decision to go ahead and give into that urge and go ahead and drink. And when I can figure that out, then I have so much information to carry forward with me. I can take that knowledge so that I'm stronger and I'm smarter the next time. Now, contrast that to if I want, if I expect perfection, then what happens is this slip up is inevitable and. That starts the whole mental beat down of, there must be something wrong with me that maybe there's something wrong with the process. All that stuff. And then that creates another neural pathway of all the negative self talk that we wanna escape from, which with a drink. So there're kind of like two neural pathways that play in. and that secondary one is really dependent upon like it has to be perfect or it's not right and nothing in, I mean, we know that we can say that intellectually that nothing is perfect, but I tell you what, , we want it to be different for us always. And when we can allow ourselves that grace and compassion and like understanding that this actually can help me, then that opens us up to. And that opens us up to the change that we're looking for. Really. Deb: Yeah. Really having grace and kindness for yourself too. Caroline: Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely, that's definitely part of the picture. Yeah. Deb: Curious, You know, you, you are a drink less coach. And I, I just, I love this approach and, you know, I talked about like, I help people practice not drinking. Do you find like as people go along and they drink less, get further space around, away from alcohol, like do they tend to completely give it up or like what, what journeys have you seen? Caroline: I have seen generally what I have seen is that people will, I mean, some of 'em actually have gone a little bit further and gone ahead and, and given it up entirely. But for the most part what I've seen is that what they set out to achieve in the beginning is, is kind of where they net out. So, you know, if they say I only wanna be drinking on the weekends, then that's kind of where they, where they land. Now I don't have years and years and years of, of data to look at. There's no longitudinal study that shows us, but, so that could be totally different after a couple more years. Deb: Yeah, I was just curious cuz it just reflecting on my journey and I was always chasing the moderation, right? Mm-hmm. , I was always like the magical pill to drink less or moderate or just be a quote unquote normal drinker. Which I needed. I needed to like discover that and try these different things out so that I could finally get to a place where I was like, You know what? For me it's just easier not to drink. Like for me, it's easier to remove it completely than try to find this moderation pill. Mm-hmm. and I always like kind of struggle about my messaging with people. For me, you know, you tend to be like, Okay, this was was what worked for me, This is how it was easier for me to just completely give it up and alcohol shit for your health. But also it's a process to get there and maybe you won't even get there and maybe you'll be okay with drinking just less. And there's nothing wrong with that, like, That should be celebrated too and not shame down to zero. So I was just curious like what your thoughts are Caroline: about. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that my journey has very much been the same as what you've described there. I mean, I started off in 2017 and I moderated for about three and a half years. And then at the beginning of Covid, I decided that I was gonna go ahead and do a hundred days without drinking. Now I had a very solid foundation under. because I had been moderating for a long time and I was happy with that. This was just a way for me to kind of go a little bit further. And, and I really, I mean, I will say today that I have not quit drinking. I just haven't felt like it. Mm-hmm. , which for me is like, that's magical. Right? And, but I wouldn't have been able to do that if I didn't have that foundation. I don't. It wouldn't have been as, as kind of seamless as it was. I will say that for sure. And, and I'm sure that there are some of my clients that will choose to, that may choose to do that as well. You know, I got to the point where, yes, I was successfully moderating, however, I still did have some mental chatter about it and I, and I got to the point where I was like, I don't really, there are plenty of other things. I wanna put that energy. And so that, that is, that's kind of, that's the decision process that I went through. Deb: Yeah. I, I just think that's important for people to know, like everyone's on a different journey and, and that's okay. And Absolutely. Caroline: And I, I will never claim to know what is right for you or for anyone else. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I'm not an Oracle, thank God, . I mean, and, but my job as a coach is to help my client figure out where, how she can access her inner wisdom and like, what's right for her, What feels good for her. That's, Deb: Yeah. Good point. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that and talking about that. What would you say are other ways to manage urges? Caroline: So I, I've got urge interruption technique that I use, which I've found very effective. And that's basically what I've done is I've taken some aspects from a couple different modalities and kind of merged them together and, and it starts off with, I call it interruption technique. You kind of hit on the karate chop part of your hand, so I'm, I'm basically borrowing from eft. It's also called tapping. And so you kind of hit on the karate chop part of your hand and then kind of ease into it, like repeat to yourself, even though this urge is so strong, like, I choose to love and accept myself even though this urge is so frustrat. Like, I'm choosing to be here with this. I'm choosing to be here to figure out what is, what actually is going on for me. And that's kind of what I was describing earlier. It's like it's not pushing it away, like I can't handle this. It's more of a curiosity, more of an openness of what's going on here, what can I, what's happening? I'm gonna be here with, with myself. And ride this through. A lot of people call about, they talk about urges as they're riding, riding the wave of the urge. You know, I've heard different descriptions about how an emotion only lasts 90 seconds. I've heard other people say that it'll last longer than that, but whatever, you know, there, it's a fi, it's finite. It will not last forever. And the best thing we can do is like, kind of allow our body to process. So after I interrupt that, then I kind of go into, you know, then I, that kind of grounds me in the moment. I take a deep breath and I say, What's happening in my body? Like, where am I feeling? Whatever I'm feeling. And maybe it's some tightness in my chest. Maybe it's my hands are tingly. Maybe I'm clenching, clenching my jaw. But when you take on kind of the role of Whether that be like a radio announcer, you know, like somebody that's announcing a game, they're very specific. That's a very specific skill they're, they're trying to describe to somebody who can't see what's happening. And I like to kind of play that kind of a role because first of all, it takes my brain out of freak out mode that I'm having an urge. Gives my brain a job to like announce, like go into my body and figure out what's happening and then to describe it. That helps really get in, get in the space of what's happening in my body. And at the end of the day, this is not the end of the world. Like again, I'm gonna go back to my body was designed to do this. Yes, I'm clenching my jaw. I don't love clenching my jaw, but okay, if I think about it, if I breathe kind of into that space, that that, that will open up a little bit. And then once I go through that process, then I'm in a better place to say, Okay, now what's really going on? What's this urge about? Is this just, this is the time of day when I have the drink. Am I pissed off because my boss said that thing during the meeting and I was embarrassed, or I'm mad did my son say something that kind of ticked me off or whatever. I'm in a better place to really kind of check in with me and understand what's, what is, what's really going. So I found that to be a very, very effective technique. And I actually have a link to, I've got a video about that on my YouTube channel, which I'll give you the link to. Yeah. Thank Deb: you. Yeah, I, I was sharing before we started recording that I've shared your videos with my holiday group and like they found it very helpful, especially the tapping. What is it about the tapping. How is that working? Caroline: Well, I'm not a tapping expert, so I don't . I'm sure somebody else could explain this a lot better, but it does have something to do with you know, the, I think it's the chakras or, or maybe I don't, something will No, no, no. The arch, that's what it is. It's the acupuncture points I think. I think that's what it is. I don't do the whole thing cuz there's like a sequence where you do the whole thing. I just start off with that, that that initial one at the hand at the karate chat part of the hand and that's it. Deb: Mm-hmm. . And you do that while you're. Surfing your urge and And feeling Caroline: the urge. Right? Right. So for me, this is how it came up. I didn't, I didn't use this when I was drinking. I used this when I'm standing in front of the pantry going for some Oreos, , and I'm like, Oh yeah, what's happening here? , what is this? Yeah, that's what I do. But same process. Absolutely same process. Would work with drinking. Deb: Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about that. Cuz there are so many similarities between over drinking and overeating. Caroline: Yeah. Yeah. So for my clients, actually it's all the same. It's in it's avoidance of negative emotions. So that is the whole concept of buffering. So it can be overeating over drinking, overshopping, netflixing, anything that's taking us away from our experience in the moment. And we do that. It's a protective me mechanism. It's so that we can't, so that we don't have to feel these feelings of, you know, the urge or the deprivation or whatever it is. I don't wanna miss out all those things. Yeah. Very, very, very similar. I have some overeating clients as. . Deb: Yeah. I mean, I just think we are in a society where it's so easy to find pleasure that we don't, we are uncomfortable when we have any sort of pain or just uncomfort, just discomfort. It doesn't matter. Cause there's such a quick fix everywhere that we never allow ourselves to feel that uncomfortableness. Caroline: Of course, of course. I mean, and, and think about societal messages of, Oh, rough day, have a. And, but I mean, we kind of do that with our kids too. Like, Oh, have a cupcake. I'm sorry. So and so hurt your feelings here. Have a cupcake. I mean, all the time. And we have to be conscious of that. Like what is the message that I'm sending here versus, you know, there's some, there's. I found it almost magical to be with a coach who's holding space for me for, to allow my emotions to really come up and like to know that I'm being held, that I'm safe, that I can be completely vulnerable, and it's fine because the coach isn't gonna freak out the whatever. But in our daily life, people freak out. Like if we're having a bad day, they're like, Oh, no, no, no. Here, don't cry here, do this. It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. Like, make it go away. Even the per the person that's feeling bad as well as the other people that are around them, like we as a society do not know how to, to feel bad. Mm-hmm. and why, why would we, when we have so many different things that we can do to make it go away. But it doesn't really go away . Like we either end up with extra weight on our body, or we're in debt, or we're drinking more than we want to. Deb: Yeah. I have a, I have a friend that says, Just embrace the suck. Caroline: Embrace the suck. Yeah. Deb: Yeah. Cause it's gonna suck sometimes, and that's okay. Caroline: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So my coach says, Discomfort is the currency for our goals, for what we want. Like that's, that's the price we have to pay to get to where we wanna be. Mm-hmm. , Deb: you had shared something with some coaches in the group I'm part of that was around using, I decide Mm mm-hmm. and I found that so helpful. Can you share how that might help someone who's changing their drinking? Caroline: Yeah, sure. So I'm a mindset coach and I'm looking at all of how our thoughts drive our feelings, which really inspire our actions and our results. So what the reason that this gets tricky is so often we feel like we are just observing our life. We don't take responsibility for the thoughts that we're thinking about. And so yeah, what you're referencing there is some work that I had done for some other coaches on when we add that language of, I decided that there's not enough time in the day. All of a sudden you're like, Hmm, that kind of burns, or that that stings a little bit, or, I've decided that the only way for me to relax is when I drink. Hmm. Like, is that really what I wanna decide? Like if I think about my brain power, is that where I wanna put it? It just, again, it helps us pause a little bit and take a little more ownership of how what we're thinking is driving our results. And I feel like that's so important because we are taught how, we're definitely taught what to think. We're taught to how to apply critical thinking skills towards other people's work. But we d we're never taught how to do that for our own thinking. And we go through life believing that what we think is true, which is great when we have good thoughts, but a lot of times we don't. When a lot of times we are not getting the results that we. and we feel like we're at the effect of what's going on around us, like our relationships or our job or whatever it is. And this is the only time that we can get a reprieve is when we are drinking. Like I can't tell you how many times my clients will say, That's the only time I can turn my brain off. That is like the only thing I can do. And like, and I, I. We'll say, Let's look at the need there. And the need there is just to get a reprieve. Let's find other substitutes for that, that solve for that need that you're gonna feel good about afterwards. So, you know, I use some creativity in, in my work, so maybe it's doing mandalas, maybe drawing, or. Mindful drawing or crochet or anything like that where it serves the purpose that we're looking for. It addresses that need, but it, you feel good about it at the end of the day, like after the fact. Deb: No one, no one ever regretted the the, the coloring that they did. Great. Caroline: Great. Exactly. Nobody has a hangover from that Deb: Well, I, I really liked that. I decided, and I tend to use it in the positive way, you know, and so you could be like, I decided I'm not drinking today. Caroline: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Mm. And Deb: then you're done. Yeah. It's Caroline: so easy. Deb: Y'all , we figured it out for you. That's all you need to do. There you go. Got that. There Caroline: you go. I just, and, and then like, let's layer in the, the perfectionist thing and sometimes I forget that I decided that, and that's okay too. But I can come back to it like it's, it's just like how quickly you can recover and go back to, Yeah. Focus Deb: on the comeback. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . What are some other tips you have? Oh, I've Caroline: got a lot. Let's see, that's kind of opening the door for just a brain up here. I think that, you know, not expecting perfection is so great. One of the, I think the reason that that works is having compassion for ourselves. I have found that our relationship with alcohol is often a reflection of our relationship with ourselves. And I can tell you that the people that I work with do not have, like, that is definitely part of the work, is creating this relationship with ourselves. And a lot of times we'll say, people will say, I have no idea what that even means. Like, I don't even know where to start. And to me that's like, this is our work, . Like this is perfect. We start with things like, what, you know, going back to when you were a kid, like what kind of things did you, like, how many times do you answer the question, What do you want for dinner with? Oh, whatever. We can go wherever. And you've, you've said that so many times that you really don't even care. You don't have an opinion. I would like to offer that you do have an opinion. It's just been kind of plastered over so many times that that you, you can't access it. So let's access those kinds of things. And that may seem like it's not related, but I guarantee that those things are related. Because the more we can get in touch with that for each individual, then that increases her capacity to really choose the things that, that she enjoys. And at the end of the day, yes, we are drinking in order to, Maybe it's just to feel that relaxation in the beginning, but the more she increases her capacity for what she really wants, then she has a clearer vision of that next day. I don't want it for that next day. I don't, you know, I can find other ways to relax tonight. I wanna still relax. Yes. But I'm, I'm thinking about me tomorrow too. And that, so that's, that's where that relationship is. Self, that's where that self-compassion comes in. And that is, that's an epidemic. Like, I mean, we're missing out on that and so many places for sure. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Deb: Gosh, I just, I, I really love what you're doing and how you talk about it and how you help other people. Thank you. How has your life changed since you've changed this relationship with drinking? Caroline: Yeah, Yeah. No, it's changed in so many respects. I used to be in global corporate marketing so I did that for 22 years and. That was a totally different world, right? So when I quit drinking or when I actually, at the time, I was just No, I guess I had, I had, I had gone onto my a hundred days. I was a coach, but I was still working for corporate and then Covid hit and I decided at that point that, you know, I guess I was part of that, that wave of people that reevaluated things. And I decided that I really wanted to do this. I wanted to help people. It was really cool to work for a big organization and to fly around the world and solve big problems and stuff like that, but seeing the impact of my work would take years versus now. I mean, I have the privilege of actually seeing someone transform right in front of me, and it's just, it is so incredibly special. So I really honor that. And so I've changed my drinking, I've changed my career. You know, my relationships have improved not only just from my drinking, but also from the thought work that I've been able to do for myself. I mean, I, I do practice what I preach. No myth of perfection. I mean, it is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I do do this work myself. Yeah. And you know, now it's growing my business and who knows what'll be next. It'll be cool. Deb: Yeah. And you just have like this peace and calmness about you just naturally. Yeah. Well, how can people find you? Caroline: Yeah, I'd love to hook up with people. So definitely at my website, it's Caroline, c a r o l i n e, Hokey, H O L K E, coaching.com. I do have a couple things on there I wanna point out. I already talked about the interruption technique that's on my YouTube channel, and I'll give you that link. I do have a stop over drinking course which is free. That people, I would love for people to take advantage of. What I've done there is I've taken kind of the key fundamentals of what I did for my journey, as well as what I teach my clients. I. Send it to my clients as like a, as soon as they sign up, then they, they go through that before we meet with each other one on one. And it's delivered via email, so you don't have to sign up for a time or any of that thing. And then you can also go back to it whenever you want to. But that I think is a valuable resource. A lot of people have gotten a lot of help from that. So that's, that's a good thing. And then I've got a craving. Meditation, craving hack meditation that, that you can download onto your phone just so that when you feel that urge coming up, , that's another, another thing that you can do is just listen to that. So yeah, I would love to. My, my point in getting into this work is to be able to help people. And so that's, that's really why I love coming onto podcasts like this is just having the opportunity to talk to more people. There's very low awareness of this, that people can get help in this middle ground, like everybody knows about AA and. We got that. We know what that is. And that's just a bridge too far for a lot of people. And what I've seen is that so many people stay stuck because they don't have a drinking problem per se. But they do have a problem with their drinking. And since they have it in their head that it's not AA or rehab, there's no help. And so they put up with the all the negative consequences and they don't have to. And so that's really. What I love to do is just to be able to help somebody recognize that there's nothing wrong with her, him or her. You know, your brain is actually working exactly the way it's supposed to, so your brain is supposed to find dopamine. It has, and it's got a neural pathway. And let's think about it that way, like let's neutralize that down so that we can really. What's going on here? We definitely deal with the emotions. We definitely deal with like all the drama that comes up and stuff like that, but that, I think that helps in the beginning too. Deb: Yeah, So, So very helpful. I mean, you're not broken and you're not alone, and there are other resources and help for you. Yeah. You don't have to hit rock bottom. Caroline: Oh gosh. No, no, please. Yeah, why bother? Why bother? And I do think, and I think that you do as well, Deb I, I, I view this whole journey kind of like a remember the combination locks that you had on your locker? I don't know. We had to buy like a thousand of those for our kids. I don't know what they did with those things, but but there's a finite number of numbers on that lock, and yet so many different combinations. I think of that as like our journey. With alcohol. Like for me, I used eft, I used a little tapping, I used a little yoga, I used a little, I read a lot of books and listened to a lot of podcasts and I did coaching and I did, you know, I, I did a bunch of different things and you did different things and the next person is gonna do different things. And that's all good and well, like, I wanna encourage everybody too, to. Keep trying different things and then maybe there's a part of it that you like. Keep that part and then you're gonna figure out your own unique combination. And I, I, I love that idea because we are all, all, we are all different and we should like we deserve our own unique solution. Deb: Oh, that is so beautifully said. I love that analogy. Just I, It's so good, Caroline. Thank you. Caroline: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for so much for the opportunity. Deb: Yeah, I am so delighted to have you on the show. I may have to have you on again and maybe do a deeper dive into one of these topics anytime. Yeah, that would be so great. I'm gonna put your links in the show notes so people can find you, cuz I'm sure they will want to. And thank you. Thank you for helping people and being you. Caroline: Yeah. Oh, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. It was really,