Sobriety + Social Change with Marcos Salazar
01/07/21 • 68 min
My guest this week is Marcos Salazar, whose organization For All Drinks is the official partner of the Dry January initiative in the United States. Marcos is doing incredible work to promote living alcohol-free, first and foremost by creating a platform that brings together all the amazing booze-free beverage options in one place.
But he is also deeply committed to helping enact social change, and his both his training in psychology and his background in the non-profit space, mean he has tons of insights into the wider impact of people across the board beginning to question our drinking—as we become more intentional with our choices and our work in the world.
He also has some fascinating things to say about how drinking affects our mental and emotional wellbeing—what he describes as our “psychological immune system”—as well as how to talk to loved ones about their drinking. In this episode we discuss:
-The intersection of alcohol abuse, entrepreneurship, and workaholism.
-How the Sober Curious movement is both reflecting and seeding social change.
-Why non-drinkers are “othered”—and why this reflects how quickly we exclude those with different needs to the dominant group.
-How alcohol-free options and lifestyles can be made more accessible.
-Why it’s impossible to live a fully “intentional” life while you’re drinking regularly.
-How alcohol and other stressors impact your “psychological immune system”—and what we can do to boost this instead.
-How quitting drinking helps us taking back control of our time, our attention, and our energy.
-How COVID has resulted in more of us experiencing “learned helplessness”—and how we can help ourselves by focusing on our wellbeing.
-The importance of “intentionality” when changing our habits in the long-term.
-Why having a drink is not the same as having a break (and why our brain gets confused about this).
-His partner commenting on his drinking being the catalyst to him getting Sober Curious (and how to talk to loved ones about their drinking).
Check out the For All Drinks HERE and visit DryJanuaryFestival.com for details of upcoming workshops and online events. You can also follow @foralldrinks on IG.
Big thanks to Ghia for partnering on this episode. Order online at drinkghia.com and get 20% off with the code SOBERCURIOUS through end of Jan 2021.
My guest this week is Marcos Salazar, whose organization For All Drinks is the official partner of the Dry January initiative in the United States. Marcos is doing incredible work to promote living alcohol-free, first and foremost by creating a platform that brings together all the amazing booze-free beverage options in one place.
But he is also deeply committed to helping enact social change, and his both his training in psychology and his background in the non-profit space, mean he has tons of insights into the wider impact of people across the board beginning to question our drinking—as we become more intentional with our choices and our work in the world.
He also has some fascinating things to say about how drinking affects our mental and emotional wellbeing—what he describes as our “psychological immune system”—as well as how to talk to loved ones about their drinking. In this episode we discuss:
-The intersection of alcohol abuse, entrepreneurship, and workaholism.
-How the Sober Curious movement is both reflecting and seeding social change.
-Why non-drinkers are “othered”—and why this reflects how quickly we exclude those with different needs to the dominant group.
-How alcohol-free options and lifestyles can be made more accessible.
-Why it’s impossible to live a fully “intentional” life while you’re drinking regularly.
-How alcohol and other stressors impact your “psychological immune system”—and what we can do to boost this instead.
-How quitting drinking helps us taking back control of our time, our attention, and our energy.
-How COVID has resulted in more of us experiencing “learned helplessness”—and how we can help ourselves by focusing on our wellbeing.
-The importance of “intentionality” when changing our habits in the long-term.
-Why having a drink is not the same as having a break (and why our brain gets confused about this).
-His partner commenting on his drinking being the catalyst to him getting Sober Curious (and how to talk to loved ones about their drinking).
Check out the For All Drinks HERE and visit DryJanuaryFestival.com for details of upcoming workshops and online events. You can also follow @foralldrinks on IG.
Big thanks to Ghia for partnering on this episode. Order online at drinkghia.com and get 20% off with the code SOBERCURIOUS through end of Jan 2021.
Previous Episode
Sobriety as Self-Help with Toni Jones
Toni and I know each other from our days working as lifestyle journalists in the UK, an environment where heavy drinking was often expected, and a pretty-much constant stream of free alcohol was considered to be one of the perks of the job.
It was after Toni went freelance a few years ago, that she suffered a real crisis of identity, and was able to see how her drinking was part of maintaining the persona she thought was integral to her success.
She has since gone on to become evangelical about the power of self-help in changing our limiting beliefs about ourselves and the world and working to unwind the habits, including drinking, that are holding us back, and in this episode we talk about the concept of sober curiosity as a form of self-help in and of itself.
She’s also been a huge inspiration to me, and is featured in my new book, The Sober Curious Reset, for having the best come-back ever for when somebody asks why you’re not drinking: which is simply to throw it back at them and ask, why ARE you? In this episode we discuss:
-Choosing a career where free drinks were seen as a perk of the job.
-Becoming addicted to working in a high-pressure environment – as this didn’t allow for any time to think and feel deeply.
-The myth of the work-hard-play-hard lifestyle.
-How her drinking spiraled after she quit her job to go freelance.
-Confronting her cognitive dissonance about being a heavy drinker working in the wellness space.
-Integrating her “party girl” persona with being a non-drinker.
-Using drinking and hangovers as a way to avoid confronting her lack of self-esteem and purpose.
-Finding self-help as a way to help make sense of her identity crisis – and the first book that set her off on this path.
-Why quitting drinking – even if it’s not forever – is the kindest thing you can do for yourself.
-Why she chose to take 100 days of booze to start her Sober Curious journey and what she discovered in the process.
-What she does on Friday nights instead of drinking.
-Her top “quit-lit” choices – and how these titles have helped her.
Discover more about Toni and her work and become part of the Shelf Help book club HERE and find her on Instagram @shelfhelp.club
Thanks to Damrak Virgin for partnering on this episode. You can download a PDF of Mindful Cocktails from Damrak HERE and get $5 off your Damrak Virgin Amazon order through end of Jan 2021 with the code SOBERCURIOUS
Next Episode
Intuition Under the Influence with Natalie Miles
My guest this week is professional intuitive and psychic medium Natalie Miles. Natalie is best-known for her brilliant podcast, So You Think You’re Intuitive, and she and I have connected very deeply over the past year, as I helped her create and publish her debut book, You Are Intuitive, with my self-publishing imprint, Numinous Books.
During this process, I came to realize that intuition – that is, our own innate knowing about the choices that are the right for us—is integral to being Sober Curious. Ultimately this path is about learning to trust and take actions based on our own lived experience with alcohol and other substances, versus going with the societal messaging and peer pressure about how we “should” be engaging with them, what is “normal” or safe consumption versus substance abuse, and what addictive behavior even looks like.
I invited Natalie on the podcast to talk about all of this, as well as provide tips and guidance for accessing our intuition day-to-day. We also discuss why we’re so obsessed with trying to predict and control future outcomes, and how drinking can make us feel more “tapped in” even when it is actually robbing us of our agency and personal power. In this episode we discuss:
-How to tell the difference between intuition, ego, and fear.
-How past experiences—including past traumas—unconsciously influence both our choices in the now and our future outcomes.
-Using alcohol and other substances to shut down the anxiety of our ego/fear voice.
-Letting go of our need to control our emotional state and attach to future outcomes.
-Using substances to connect to our intuition—and how alcohol and weed can trick you into feeling more connected.
-Giving our power away to booze—and why often trust alcohol more than we trust ourselves.
-Natalie’s journey getting sober curious and how this coincided with her becoming a professional intuitive.
-The difference between “letting go” and “surrender.”
-Different ways we can access ourselves on a daily basis—and what is means to practice “energetic self-sovereignty.”
-Why it’s so hard to make “intuitive” choices when it comes to our drinking.
-Natalie’s experiences of dating sober during the pandemic.
Discover more about Natalie Miles and work and get your copy of You Are IntuItive HERE.
Thanks to Damrak Virgin for partnering on this episode. Get $5 off your Amazon order with the code SOBERCURIOUS through the end of Jan 2021.
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