Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Alcohol Tipping Point podcast.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: I'm your host, Deb Maisner. I'm a registered nurse, health coach, and alcohol free badass. I have found that there's more than one way to address drinking. 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.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Own alcohol tipping point.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: The alcohol tipping point is a podcast for you to find tips, tools, and.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Thoughts to change your drinking.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Whether you're ready to quit forever or a week, this is the place for you. You are not stuck, and you can change.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Let's get started.
Hello.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: I wanted to try something different this year, and so that's why I may.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Be releasing some quit drinking quickies.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: They will just be short bonus episodes.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: That just cover an aspect about drinking that can help you out. Maybe have a tool or some inspiration or just something. So I'm calling them quit drinking quickies because we all have time for a quickie, right? And I am starting it out with talking about halt. This is so helpful, this acronym, halt. So if you haven't done it before, this is going to help you. So much for cravings. Halt is an acronym. It stands for hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. And so I like to check in with myself periodically. I still do this, even though I rarely have cravings to drink. But I do have cravings to eat. I will say that. Or overeat, or I will just kind of feel out of sorts to use this. If you're having a craving to drink, what you do is take a moment to check in with yourself, and you ask yourself about the four things of halt. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. And so I would oftentimes be driving home from work. This was back when I was changing my drinking, and I would feel an urge to drink because I usually always felt it in the afternoons or evening time. And I would ask myself, well, first I would tell myself, and I would maybe even say out loud, I notice I'm having a craving to drink, or I'm having the thought that I want a drink. I would take time to observe that I was having a craving, and then I would ask myself, okay, Deb, are you feeling hungry? Yeah. Usually I was hungry in the afternoon. If you're hungry, try to eat something. And a lot of people are just feeling low blood sugar, and low blood sugar can feel like a craving. You've heard hangry, that's hungry. That's hunger. Sometimes it's helpful. I even tell people, like, have a snack at 03:00 or 04:00 I don't care what you eat. You can make it healthy. Have some protein, have a granola bar, whatever. But try to eat something in the late afternoon because that is usually when people's blood sugars drop and you start to feel hungry and you start to feel agitated and irritated and you still have all this time until dinner. Try to eat something in the late afternoon or have something in your car. You have a snack on your way home from work. Or when you get home, have a snack, have that late afternoon snack, or even shift your dinner time to earlier. That can be really helpful for people, too. Definitely address your hunger that is so, so important. It's actually one of my number one tips when you are changing your drinking is to just eat.
All right. The a in halt stands for angry. I also think it could stand for anxious or agitated.
Again, ask yourself, are you feeling angry? Are you agitated? Are you anxious? And if so, address that. Maybe that would involve just taking a few deep breaths and just acknowledging, like, hey, I'm feeling really agitated right now. Where is that coming from? Get curious about it. And a lot of times we feel that after work, because work can be very agitating. Right. That's why it's called work. Just giving yourself time to process it and acknowledge it is sometimes enough to help you understand what's going on and check in with yourself.
Now, the a in halt stands for lonely. A lot of people drink because they're feeling lonely. And so what you can do is reach out to a friend or a family member, send a text to somebody, check in on a Facebook group, do something to address that loneliness and recognize you are not alone in feeling. That. Loneliness is such a common feeling that Americans have. Well, everybody really, they've talked about it just being an epidemic of loneliness that we have. And it's this lack of connection, this lack of social connection and interaction. So really acknowledge that you're not alone. This is a normal feeling. And then do something about it. Do something about it.
Okay. Last letter in the halt acronym is t, and that stands for tired. A lot of the times we're just tired. Oftentimes we can't just take a nap. Although I do love naps. Love my naps. But one thing you can do that's just as effective as a nap is actually taking a ten minute walk.
It sounds counterintuitive because it's like, dude, I'm tired, but take a walk. And that can reenergize you or take a rest or just recognize like, okay, I'm feeling tired and that's where this craving is coming from. So again, using that halt acronym, making sure that you also don't get to those states that you address, those states of hunger, angry, lonely, tiredness, that you're really working on those throughout the day so that you don't make your cravings worse later on. So I hope that this halt acronym is helpful for you and that you enjoyed this quit drinking quickie.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: 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, alcoholiday tipping point 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.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: A day you can learn from.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: I hope you can use these tips we talked about for the rest of your week, and until then, talk to you next time.
