Have you ever watched someone at a bar or a party who isn’t drinking, but they seem to be having a genuinely good time? And you wondered, how are they having that much fun? This is episode 465 and I’m answering a listener question about not wanting to miss out on the fun of drinking, why you keep drinking more than you planned, and the real reason that you think alcohol makes you more fun.

Whether you want to drink less or stop drinking, this podcast will help you change the habit from the inside out. We’re challenging conventional wisdom about why people drink and why it can be hard to resist temptation. No labels, no judgment, just practical tools to take control of your desire and stop worrying about your drinking. Now, here’s your host, Rachel Hart.

Here’s the question that we got from a listener. Brogan wrote, “Hi Rachel. First off, I love your work and I’ve learned to view my relationship with alcohol in such a different way. I don’t feel the need to have drinks in every situation like I used to. However, my main struggle is, I’m a single girl in her 30s and I just really think going out to the bars and drinking is fun, but it’s getting in the way of my fitness goals and I’m spending a lot of money, so I’d like to cut back. But at the same time, I don’t want to miss out on the fun of drinking. I wish I was one of those people who could go to the bars and still have fun without it or even just have one or two, but I typically end up drinking much more than planned. If I go out and I don’t drink, I find myself rather annoyed with people around me or even envious, wishing I could drink, ‘normally’. I don’t know if any of this makes sense, but I would appreciate any thoughts that you have.”

Okay Brogan, yes, I have lots of thoughts because I was stuck in the exact same place too, and I remember being in my early 30s. I was single, I was living in New York City, and I really, really wanted to figure out my drinking. But I also wanted to go out and I wanted to have fun and I wanted to meet someone. And for the longest time, it really felt like these things were at odds with each other because I just deeply believed that when I wasn’t drinking, I wasn’t that much fun.

And that’s where it’s so easy to get stuck. I will say that this comes up a lot with the connector, the mask, and the Release archetypes. You can learn more about these archetypes and all eight archetypes at FindYourDrinkType.com. But for the Connector, the Mask, and the Release, this idea of, you know, I just want to enjoy myself. I just want to have a good time. I just want to not miss out. It really can come through quite strongly.

And it can feel like if only I can figure out how to drink the perfect amount. So, enough to have fun, but not so much that I go overboard and I regret my choices and they get in the way of my other goals around fitness and around money. Now, I will tell you, you can spend so much time focused on finding kind of the perfect right number, that Goldilocks amount when it comes to alcohol, but I think that that is going to divert a lot of your time and energy away from a place that will have much more impact. And I’m going to explain why that approach can be really frustrating as well.

What I want this episode to do for you and for everyone listening is to really help you understand the thought behind this pattern, the belief that drinking and alcohol is an essential component to having fun. Because the problem isn’t that going to a bar or going to a party just isn’t fun if you’re not drinking. And the problem actually isn’t that you are struggling to stick to a certain amount. The problem is this underlying belief that part of you needs alcohol to access a version of yourself that can have fun in this environment. And that belief is always going to make it hard for you to drink less. So, let’s break it down.

The first thing that I think is really important is just to remind yourself that fun existed before you ever started drinking, before alcohol ever came into your life. Now, maybe you’re hearing me say this and you’re like, okay Rachel, but I have more fun now that I drink or it’s easier to have fun when I drink. And I get this. But I think it is really important to just remind yourself that all of you guys listening, every single one of you, you can identify moments where you had fun before you ever had your first sip of alcohol.

And the reason why this is important is because it means that fun exists outside of alcohol. You don’t need alcohol to access it. This is a really important piece to remind your brain because when you’re trying to drink less, when you’re trying to change your relationship with alcohol, it’s really, really easy to fall into the trap of thinking, “Yeah, but things just aren’t as fun if I’m not drinking.” But to remind yourself, wait a minute, fun has always existed. It’s always been something that I have been able to experience on my own. So right now, why does it feel difficult or challenging or hard to have fun without it? We’ve got to start there.

Now, the second piece that is important is to understand that we tend to view fun as something that we get from a situation rather than something that we create. So we tend to tell ourselves, yeah, I had fun because the activity was fun or the people were fun or the gathering was fun. So we reinforce this idea that we just kind of happen to find ourselves in the right place at the right time and then, you know, if all the stars align, we get to bask in the glow of fun.

What I want you to consider instead is that fun is not something that you get from a situation. It’s something that emerges from how you are participating in a situation. So what that means is you don’t need to just wait for it to happen or wait for it to show up or wait for the stars to align so that you can have fun. You can be an active participant in creating this. This is a huge mindset shift. The idea that fun happens when you are engaged, when you’re present, when you’re connected to what is happening. And it’s going to be really easy to inadvertently block your experience of fun when you are overanalyzing everything, everyone around you and yourself, when you’re in your head, worrying about what you should say or how you look or what people think or what you just said or just in that kind of constant comparing and judging of yourself and other people. And also when you are just disengaging and disconnecting from the moment. I cannot tell you how many times I would go out and think, ugh, I don’t even want to be here, or I hate what I’m wearing, or I wish I was somewhere else.

So it’s a really very different mindset to go from the place of waiting for something to just become fun, for the situation to be fun, and instead think about how might I be blocking my own experience of fun, right? That is a very big shift. Now, I will say that doesn’t mean that alcohol plays zero role in fun. When you drink, especially again, if you’re the mask or the connector or the release archetype, you do probably notice that you are more talkative. You might notice that you laugh more easily. You might feel a little less awkward. You might be more willing to approach people that you don’t know or speak up or join in conversations. You might care a little less about how you’re coming across to other people. All of this is real. It’s not imagined.

But what I want you to consider is that alcohol isn’t adding something new to your personality. It’s subtracting something. It’s reducing self-monitoring and self-consciousness. It’s quieting that part of you that is constantly monitoring yourself in real time. That part of you that’s thinking, what should I say? Do I sound interesting? Am I being awkward? Do they like me? It is subtracting that piece rather than adding something. And this is a very important and necessary shift for you to make. So yes, alcohol does dampen the part of your brain that is responsible for self-monitoring, right? That is why you feel less inhibited when you drink. But it’s not adding something to you. It’s just subtracting something. This shift is everything.

Because when you understand that it’s not making you more fun, it’s just temporarily removing the friction that is stopping you from participating or from engaging or from being in that moment. And that friction that is getting in the way, that friction is all of the ways that you are constantly self-monitoring. In the moment, it truly does feel like drinking creates a more fun version of yourself. It felt that way for me for the longest time.

But when you can make this switch and see, oh, it’s just reducing that interference, that interference that’s blocking the version of me that has always been there. So I like thinking about it like it’s turning down the static so you can finally hear the song clearly. Alcohol didn’t add anything to the song, right? The song is just a song. It just made it a little easier to hear because all of a sudden that static went away. And that’s really how I kind of view the ways in which we are constantly monitoring ourselves. It’s like static that gets in the way of us having a good time.

So the version of you that you are seeking when you go out and you want to have a good time, you want to have fun, it already exists. It’s already there, but it can be hard to access when you have all of this static from constantly monitoring yourself. I think that this piece is so key. The version of you that you want to be, your fun self, it’s already there. It already exists. It’s already in place. You don’t need to create it, right? Nor is your fun self created by alcohol adding anything. It’s just temporarily quieting the static that makes it difficult to show up in a way that makes fun more likely. It’s reducing that friction of constantly monitoring yourself and assessing yourself and judging yourself, which by the way, is probably heightened when you are single and at a bar and possibly looking to meet someone.

So, the choice really is you can either focus on, okay, so how do I figure out how to drink the right amount, right? So this is where I think people get very caught with moderation because then it becomes very much about focusing on the number. And a lot of times for people, it’s like trying to find that Goldilocks amount. Like, well, I don’t want to drink too little, but I don’t want to drink too much, right? So I want to be in that place where I’m no longer monitoring myself, but I don’t want to cross this invisible line. So then not only are you trying to find kind of the perfect amount or the perfect dosage, but then you’re trying to stay at that place all night long, which frankly sounds very exhausting, right? Because then you never actually get to stop self-monitoring, right? You’re still assessing and judging the whole time. So you can stay in that place of fixated on the right number or you can say, whoa, let’s back up for a second. Why am I constantly monitoring myself? Why am I constantly assessing myself and comparing myself? And what purpose does that serve other than being my own buzzkill and making it next to impossible for me to have fun?

That to me is a way more productive place to focus your energies. And I think that this brings me to the third point about how we tend to give alcohol way too much credit. Yes, it lowers our inhibitions. Yes, that temporarily helps all of that static quiet down, right? All of that self-monitoring. That is true. But it doesn’t make you fun. It doesn’t add anything. It just reduced the interference or the static. And that I think is the real problem. When you’re constantly monitoring yourself, it really is next to impossible to have fun.

This again, this is a big, big piece of the Mask archetype. Alcohol doesn’t make you fun. It doesn’t turn you into a better version of yourself. It doesn’t make you more likable. All of this, I have to say was really challenging for me to believe because when I started drinking when I was 17, that is really where my brain landed the next day. It was like, oh, this is a better version of you, Rachel. This is a more likable, a more fun version of you. And so I definitely was in the place of feeling like, oh no, it definitely added something.

But to turn this around and see, oh yeah, it’s just quieting the part of me that’s constantly scanning for what you’re doing wrong, where you’re not measuring up, where you’re being weird, how somebody else is better or doing something that you should be doing. When you notice that, you start to see that’s really the problem.

Because imagine if you walked into a bar or you just walked into any social situation believing that at your core, you are already a really fun person. You are already someone that people want to meet. They want to get to know you. They want to be around you. You’re already someone who is deeply interesting and funny and fascinating. That version of you, it’s already here. It already exists. It’s just so hard to access when you have all that static, when you’re in that constant space of self-monitoring and comparing yourself and scanning for what you’re doing wrong.

And I think there was a piece in this question that even though Brogan didn’t say it directly, it really caught my attention because she said, “I wish I was one of those people who could go to the bars and still have fun without drinking.” And what she said without saying it is, “I’m not. I’m not one of those people. I’m not fun at the bar unless I’m drinking. I’m not fun or as much fun without alcohol.” All of that was unsaid, but said in what she wrote.

For all of you who can hear yourself in this, you can identify yourself in this statement. Can you just for a moment sit with how painful it is to believe that about yourself? I carried this belief about myself for the longest time that I just wasn’t fun if I wasn’t drinking. And I believed that it was so true and I also couldn’t really access how cruel it was to say that and to carry that belief that at my core, I was not enough. I needed something to make me better, to make me more fun, to make me more sociable, to just make me more like other people. It is such a painful thought to think that about yourself. And I think a lot of times we don’t even recognize that it has pain in that thought, that it creates pain. It just feels like, no, that’s just true. That’s just, you know, I’m just more fun when I drink. I’m just a better version of myself when I drink.

What I would argue for all of you who find yourself identifying with this is, you know, if you could just strip away all of the self-judgment, all of the self-monitoring, all of the places where you’re scanning for where you don’t measure up, it would be very easy for you to have fun. You would create a lot of fun in your life because you would just be drawn to what you truly like and what lights you up and what feels good to you rather than trying to constantly perform a version of yourself that you think is somehow better.

The problem isn’t that drinking is fun and that you like having fun and so it’s hard not to go overboard. The problem is what you believe about yourself without it. When we remove alcohol from the equation, when it’s just you standing there in the bar or at the party, what are your thoughts about yourself? And yes, again, drinking can temporarily quiet all that self-monitoring. But after it wears off, the habit of constantly monitoring yourself will still be there. All of those beliefs that you have about where you’re not measuring up and what you’re doing wrong and where you’re falling short or, you know, where you need to fix yourself, they’re all will still be there. And by the way, the longer they stick around unchallenged, the louder these beliefs get. Right? So we have to really kind of shift the whole perception on this. It doesn’t make you fun. Yes, it temporarily subtracts, right? It temporarily can reduce some of that interference or quiet the static, but when the buzz wears off, the story is still there.

So that’s what I want you to see, especially again, for the Mask and the Connector and the Release archetypes. You’re not chasing fun with a drink. You’re trying to get away from constantly monitoring yourself. And it makes a lot of sense that we tell ourselves, okay, well the solution is if only I could drink quote normally, if only I could stick to this certain amount. But sticking to a certain number is not going to do anything to stop all the static, all the self-monitoring. Now it just puts you in the exhausting place of giving you another thing to monitor, how much you’re drinking and making sure that you don’t lose the buzz. And then of course, if you’re always fearful of like, oh, if the buzz goes away, right? Then I go back to my less fun version of myself, then of course it’s always going to be very challenging to resist the pull and the temptation of having another drink, having another round.

And, you know, again, I think it’s also important to remember that fun is subjective. The goal is not to have everyone like you or to have everyone think you’re fun. The more you try to be fun for everyone, the more that you’re going to be performing a version of yourself, the more that you’re going to be constantly monitoring yourself to get a read on like, okay, do they like me? Rather than being in the place of, what do I think of this person? Right? I think it’s more to just stand in this place of, okay, some people are going to find me fun. Some people are going to find me to be too much, and maybe they’re not going to be interested in what I’m interested in. Some people are going to like me in really big doses. Some people are going to like me in smaller amounts. Right? That’s true for everyone.

But it’s just such a relief, right? I don’t have to ensure that everybody finds me fun. I just need to figure out what is getting in the way of my own fun. And then it’s just so much easier to figure out who I connect with and what I want to be doing and how I want to be spending my time rather than trying to be pleasing to everyone.

So I think it’s kind of about, at its heart, this question is about replacing the idea of how do I have fun without drinking or how do I, you know, have fun but only limit myself to a certain amount, and really instead shifting to, can I notice how much I am monitoring myself in these situations when I may not be having a good time? Because self-monitoring is the fastest way to kill fun. The more you are evaluating yourself or judging yourself or assessing or comparing, the less fun you will have. Right? The goal is not to figure out how to have fun without drinking or to stick to a certain number. It’s to interrupt the deeper pattern of self-monitoring that’s actually getting in the way of fun. And one of the most powerful things that you can do is just name and notice and redirect the behavior.

Right? So when you hear yourself thinking, “Ugh, I hate how I look,” or, “I don’t know what to say,” or, “everyone seems like they’re having a better time than me,” or, “I feel so awkward right now,” just notice this static. This is you monitoring yourself. Even if it sounds like what you’re observing is about other people, notice how you may be comparing yourself to them. Once you notice all that static, you can name what’s actually going on here. Instead of, “Oh, well, I’m not having fun because I’m not drinking,” or, “I’m not having fun because I haven’t had enough to drink,” you can rename what is going on. I’m having less fun right now because I am monitoring myself. That distinction is everything.

And then instead of going on autopilot, which is, okay, so how do we solve this? We have a drink. We have another round. What if you tried something different first? What if you tried to engage outwardly? Right? Self-monitoring happens internally. So what if you turn your attention outward? Maybe you speak up, maybe you ask a question, maybe you respond to what’s happening around you. Maybe you participate instead of withdrawing and going inward. Maybe you take a small social risk. You say the thing that you’ve been overthinking in your head or you join in the conversation instead of waiting for someone to invite you in or you go up to someone and you introduce yourself.

Or maybe you just do a small shift in your body. So much when I’m in the place of self-monitoring, it is showing up in my body. I am getting small, I am withdrawing, I’m kind of closing in on myself. I might be looking for other things to keep me distracted. So maybe it’s about turning towards someone, putting your phone away, uncrossing your arms, leaning into the group. Just trying something in that moment, trying a different way to show up rather than, okay, well, I need the drink to fix this.

But the more that you can start to just have the shift of, oh, it’s not that alcohol is adding something, it’s subtracting something. I think that’s so powerful because then it’s like, oh, the version of me that I want to be, he or she, they’re already there. They’re already here, right? The only thing that’s getting in the way is the static. That’s all the self-monitoring. And when you start to make that shift, you start to see, oh, it’s the self-monitoring. That’s what’s actually causing problems for me in this situation. And that’s what’s always going to make it hard to say no to another drink. I’m always going to be in that place of like, yeah, but like if the drink is what makes me fun, or if I’m just one of those people that doesn’t have fun without it, then of course it will always feel like I’m really giving something up when I say no.

And so making this switch can be so transformative. And I challenge all of you guys to just do this when you go to a bar, when you go to a party, just the next time you’re around other people, notice the static. Notice how much the self-monitoring is what’s actually getting in the way of the experience that you want to have in the moment.

All right, that’s it for today. I will see you all next week. And remember, if you have questions for me to answer on the podcast, you can send them in to RachelHart.com/podq. That’s P O D Q.

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