This is Alcohol Freedom Finds. This week we're joined by Lori McGiven, a fellow alcohol freedom coach from Vermont, where she's also part of the Medical Examiner's death investigation team. At 40, Lori realized she had an issue with her drinking and struggled to break free, discover how she navigated her journey towards alcohol freedom. Lori shares the transformation from feeling powerless and overwhelmed to finding joy, freedom, and fulfillment in life. Watch to learn about the profound impact it had on her relationships and the empowerment that comes from truly understanding and addressing your relationship with alcohol. Welcome everybody. Today we're really excited to have with us Lori McGiven, a fellow, this Naked Mind Alcohol Freedom coach. Lori is from, Vermont, and we're really looking forward to, to hearing her story and, getting to know her a little bit more. Thank you. I'm really happy to be here today. I'm excited to, to tell my story. why don't we start there then? Why don't we start with, what led you to becoming, alcohol free? Take us back to the, not to the beginning, but to the moment where you thought, this isn't serving me quite how I thought it might. Yeah, no, that, I would say I was, probably in my early forties and I was realizing that, I was using alcohol actually to relax so. It felt different to me because I no longer was just having a glass of wine here or there. I was actually coming home depending on that alcoholic, really wanting that alcohol, to relax and it became the focus of my evening rather than my family, other things that I had going on. So I knew that was becoming an issue for me at that point. Yeah, I think that's something that a lot of people will relate to that you, you're used to alcohol being there in the good times, when you're younger. And, and then, but we are shown that, through society, that it is the thing, after hard day's work, that's what you do to make transition into the evening and to relax. and. and it'll, it'll do that job and, but it, but that it's that sort of giving it, that job to do can become something, that, that worms its way in and becomes more and more important. and then, yeah, no. so what was your next step? what, it's great to, when you have that awareness, it can be quite scary when you get that awareness Oh yes. That, that's becoming really important to you. what was your next step? Yeah, so my husband was also drinking, like I was, so he was, coming home, drinking after work. We both had really stressful jobs, so it was something we shared together, and so we both decided, okay, we'll try to, we talked a lot about decreasing our alcohol intake, and so we tried different things. We thought that we would just drink on the weekends and not drink every night, We started that and we would last maybe until maybe just Tuesday. like Monday I'd get through it. Tuesday I'd come home and he'd look at me and he'd be like, okay, what is it tonight? And that's all it took. Just that little bit of, or it would be me saying something to him, what are you doing tonight? so we'd be back to drinking again. And so we tried that several times in our weekends if we drank just on weekends. We'd start on Thursday. So it'd be like, okay, we can include Thursday as a weekend, and Sunday's always part of the weekend. but I realized that wasn't really working for us and we weren't committing. But again, we were really, we were talking about it. So we were both in line. And one day I was on the internet and, saw this naked mind and it really resonated with me because. My background is in science and medicine, and so I thought, this really makes sense to me. I didn't understand what it was, but it made sense. I did the five day challenge and then signed up for the path through this naked mind. Amazing. two things stood out to me there. first of all, I feel you so blessed to have it as a shared experience because. Some of the shame around alcohol is because it's such a lonely pursuit to get into that trap of, depending on, the alcohol every day. So a amazing that you shared that with your husband and it wasn't a secret, but also. How difficult if you've got two enablers going on, it's like Impossible then for willpower to be the thing. So it needs to be something like this naked mind, which we'll get into in a bit. But the thing I just wanted to, touch on as well, that all three of us, and I'm sure lots of our audience, it's that mid forties thing. What is it? What is it, what are the secret ingredients about the mid forties that make it a perfect storm for alcohols insidious nature to really embed itself into our values about feeling better? Is it the fact that we've already got the house, the kids, the jobs, and we're searching for the meaning or searching for some kind of elevation? Is it that or is it that the marketing is so clever to our age group and or is it that we think we are now. Free of being, crazy drunk on a night out that we are just, we are middle class civilized, this is what we do. What is that? What do you think it is, Lauri Yeah, I love this question and I have done a lot of reflection on this, so I do think it seemed like the next thing to do, I'll just be honest, it seemed like people around me my age were going home at night and drinking, and that seemed to normalize it for me. The other piece that changed for both my husband and I is that our jobs, we were in positions that required a lot more work and stress and our jobs were becoming more stressful. And so I think we found that, alcohol just seemed like the go-to for us. and yes, I think there's a lot that happens in your forties. There's a lot of life changes and your children are growing older, your parents are getting older. There's a lot more responsibility. and again, for us there was a lot more stress at work and we both can almost pinpoint it to that. I'm not blaming it on work, really pinpointing that we were both under a lot of stress during that time. Yeah, I think, yeah, I can certainly relate to that as well. But the, for me it was, you are at home in the evenings, a lot when, when you have kids, maybe more, you have maybe slightly less of a social life, or if you do, it's going from one to another, set of parents' houses and so it's, for me, I think any of the, any addiction, any kind of compulsive behavior. is and can be triggered by a situation. and once you bring in more situations, once it becomes more normal to do these things in a home environment or as a sort of thing when you get home from work, or if stress is something you think, oh, you deserve a relief from. And the relief, obviously everyone deserves a relief from stress, but you start using alcohol as that relief. then. That's that situation. it's gonna be there, every time in your, your subconscious is gonna be, calling out for that relief. that, yeah, that relief from stress. each, each time you come home from a stressful day. Okay. and so yeah, no, mean you still haven't, you still haven't said, what, how did it, a, after that, how did it go? How did, how did the path, help you and did your husband do the path as well? or how did that pan out? my husband did not do the path, so I chose to do that. I drank, I think for. I was trying to figure this out for about 60 days or so while I was on the path and while I was absorbing all the information and I did do a deep dive into the material because it's just who I am, right? I loved all the information that I was getting and about, I would actually say probably about 40 days into it, I started to lose the desire to drink and. I knew I was losing it, that desire, but I kept drinking because I knew I had a, like we had a deadline by a certain time. We were all gonna break together. And so I'm like, I'm drinking up to that last moment. I already had it in my head. I'm drinking up to the that last moment. And honestly I could have. So just to back up, that just goes to show you how strong the mind is, right? And how strong it can really take over what your body's telling you. My body was already telling me, you don't need this. And I just wasn't listening to those cues. But, when we did take the break, I was done. And it was not hard. And my husband actually did the break with me, which I was surprised I didn't ask him to do that. He just stopped drinking with me for those. it was initially a 30 day break and at one point he looked at me and he said, he is like, this isn't hard for you at all, is it? And I said, no, not at all. I was ready for it. And I, it's like, again, it's the type of person I. I am, I needed that information. I needed to understand how alcohol was affecting my body, how come I was having cravings, what that meant. And once I started to understand that piece of it and really pay attention, the attention was a big part of it too. Like I would journal how I was feeling before I drank, while I drank. that made a huge difference once I understood it. It took the desire right away. I mean it, it completely removed it. And so he stuck with me for the 30 days and after 30 days I was just done. And I just told him, I have no desire to drink. I'm not gonna start drinking again. He did start again, but not like he was, he would drink occasionally and he still will drink occasionally, but he mostly does not drink. he'll drink. Yeah, every so often, but not much. And we don't have really have alcohol in the house. We have some alcohol in the house, but not much. Not anything that, like we had before. Couple of things really stand out to me with that. Laurie is the power of that ripple effect. When we make personal change, we do good things for ourselves. Good things happen in the world, you know that pretty much. How I run my show these days. and the same thing happened for me and the same thing happened for Barry, both of our partners. E even if they weren't my, our partners been as bigger drinkers, but my husband's completely stopped. Same with you, Barry. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. but what also stood out to me there is, this, the power we talk about in the work of cognitive dissonance and, What we're talking about there is the two parts of the brain, one part of the brain, the subconscious telling you must do this. And, the conscious part of your brain going, no, you don't, or vice versa. And what you are talking about just there that, with the work you were able to, observe yourself in cognitive dissonance. You could observe yourself going, huh? So curious. I don't need this as much as I thought I did, but the other part of you going, but I'm gonna drink right up until the minute. So it's and you saw those two parts of you in play. So that brings me to why do you think this methodology is so successful for you and for. Yeah, I really believe in this, and of course, because I tell people, I'm the example and I can speak to it because I just feel it, and I do think that we need to address the underlying issues or the underlying beliefs that we have around alcohol or whatever it is. for me it was alcohol and food, so I. The two of those went together and I worked with them together. So addressing and questioning yourself and questioning your beliefs around a substance and what it means to you, I think it just brings it to the forefront and it does make you better understand it and question yourself. I did it a lot. It, and, it really removed a lot of the beliefs that I had, like alcohol relaxes me. It really, it, it did for the moment, but then it just caused a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, a lot of just terrible feelings in my body. and when I stopped drinking, all of that went away. So yes, for a moment it might relax you, but it really didn't. and I actually, I've gone back through my journal to look and you can see after about two drinks, how that's when I was feeling really starting to feel really terrible, like just not feeling well, feeling anxious, increased pulse, those type of things. So yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting to, to look back and realize. And I, I think the, what you touched on there, the difference that, our approach has to, to over drinking, is if you look at the sort of traditional method, it's all about not doing the thing, not doing the drinking, and doing whatever you can to not do the drinking. whereas our approach is, as you said, you continued during, during this program, continued drinking, while you are learning about the truth, the science, the psychology. The, the three sort of sides to, To alcohol that can keep us drinking. the substance, the societal pressure and, the self reasons that, you know, like the stress. And once you understand that, you know, I often call it, it, it's the illusion. it does feel like it's doing its job. Does it feel like it, it's cheering you up or relaxing you. But when you understand the net effect, the science will show you that, your body's reaction to it will. be the opposite and you'll end up, lowering your, your baseline of, of relaxation and increasing your, the cortisol and all the other stress hormones that are in your body will be, on alerts, during the day because it's expecting you to try and, push them down again at night. and once you start to see the reality and, understand the science, it, the alcohol itself loses its power and I think. there, there are other methodologies, for that comes to mind that Alan Calf about with cigarettes. he, encourages people to keep smoking all the way through reading the book. and by the end of the, he takes away all the reasons that you wanted to smoke. he debunks everything and that's how our program, our approach is to debunk the idea that alcohol has anything to offer you. And, once you, once the light bulb comes on. then you realize, yeah, no, actually no, that, I don't need it. and it's not doing what it says on the tin kind of thing. and yeah. And it's such a, yeah, it can be a real light bulb moment. what's, what was the, your, the most surprising part of, the path for you, while you were doing that? how long was the path when you did it? Was it for the whole year or? I did a year. Yeah. But I can speak to your point is that I don't think I would have done it if somebody told me I had to stop drinking day one. No, I wouldn't. I would not have done it. So the most, surprising part was that I was told, if while you're learning and while you're drinking and if you're paying attention to this, that there will be a switch. there's this little switch that occurs and you'll start to feel like alcohol is small and irrelevant. And I was surprised by that because it did happen. And like I said, it happened earlier than I thought it would, and I knew it was there. I just didn't, I'm like, Nope, I'm gonna keep going. although I was drinking less, but. but I do wanna say that this, that's another reason why this approach really works is that you are not telling people that you cannot have alcohol. Because once you do that, they start using their willpower. And we know willpower is not it. It works for a little bit, but it's, it doesn't work in changing those neuropathways. So it's just so important for people to actually do the work and to look at the reasoning behind the alcohol. And that full year, those first 30, 70 days for me was very focused on alcohol and, and my thoughts behind it. But after that, there was a lot of self work and a lot of deep work and work that while I was drinking I couldn't have done. So it was just great to be able to do a deep dive into some of the things that had been going on with me that I hadn't addressed. absolutely. two things that really stand out to me. First it was all about the switch. and I think that there is a light bulb moment like Barry suggested in a switch, but maybe to begin with, maybe to begin with the switches in the dark and you find it. And then through the work that you continue to do. by the end of it. Or, when you get deeper into it, it's like one of these big massive emergency stop buttons. It's oh yeah. Big. and the, there is no part of you that, feels compelled to drink because all of the reasons why you don't want to drink just becomes so much greater and they put for you in place that stop. And the second thing I wanted to talk about is you spoke about, coming from a. A scientific background and the incredible research that's been done in this work, particularly around the science of why we drink, but married with that Nestled up against it, is the, the techniques we use around emotion based belief. Unless we really believe, feel that it's the right thing to do something different. That change won't take place. So I just wanted to ask you, because some of the pe, some of the people listening, this might be deep in the alcohol story still and going all very well for you, but you don't have the feelings that I had. You don't know what it feels like to feel like I do. so if you will, and if you don't mind sharing some of the feelings that you were living with daily before you stopped. And then maybe what the feeling tone is now. Yeah, absolutely. So I felt really discouraged. You couldn't have told me that I would've been here, before I started. There's no way I thought, there's nothing that's gonna help me at this point. and I felt really discouraged. I was extremely overwhelmed and stressed in my job. And burned out. Okay. from my job, which honestly I didn't realize that, I didn't realize I had burnout until I did. Which was later on. but I felt discouraged. I would get up every morning and say, I am not gonna drink today and this evening, right? So my, my drinking would start in the evening after work. So I'd get up in the morning, I'd have great intentions. I'd eat well all day long. I'd go exercise, I'd do all these wonderful things, and then. Five o'clock came and I just could not help myself. No matter what there were no breaks. Just no breaks. And excuse me. And I, I just thought to myself, it was just this cycle, like how am I going to break this cycle? I just don't think it's going to happen. And it did happen. And I do tell people. if I can do it, and you hear this all the time, but it's so true if I can do it. I've been there, I've been in the trenches. I felt like crap at three in the morning. I've woken up with a headache. I've gone through my day, like really foggy and just feeling like crap and over and over again. But I was able to get out on the other side and it just feels, it feels incredible and. I didn't think I would be able to do this. And I don't wanna say it was easy, but I don't, I also don't wanna say it was hard. I put the work into it. So I do believe that you do have to really put the work into it. Meaning pay attention to if you're currently drinking, paying attention to what you're doing, being aware of how you're feeling, and sometimes that can be really scary for people. actually feeling their feelings, but starting to be aware of how you're feeling and then really setting that goal, where do you wanna be? Because you can get there. It's possible. that's so feels, yeah. That I'm back there and thinking how I thought, in the sort of lead up to, trying to stop, I just thought, oh, the only good part of the day is the part where I get to have a drink and the, and how am I gonna have fun? How am I gonna enjoy anything? How am I gonna socialize without it? How am I, it all seems so undoable. and until you try it, and like you said, it does, it isn't easy, but it also isn't hard. it also isn't, it isn't as hard as you expect it will be. and. The, if you can keep in the back of your mind that, maybe it isn't, maybe it is an illusion and the work, when you hear, oh God, it's hard work. But it's, the work is actually just because on so many different levels, we are, we are sold the idea that the alcohol is helping us. you need to, on all those levels, you need to You question them and just unpick them and it's every situation, every reason, every trigger that, that gets you, to reach for a drink. you need to bring it up to the surface and debunk it one by one. And you know that's what the work is just being curious and questioning, the reasons, Society or yourself have told yourselves over the years as to why, a drink seems important and when you question it, you can, with the help of, science and with the help of modern, psychology, you can, you can see through the, the illusions that we've been sold over the years. And, and it's really empowering because it, yeah, just each time you Question that each time you try, an event without alcohol, you realize it's, much more doable than you thought it would be. and the next time things become easier and, but yeah, it is work and it takes time and repetitions. but it's really rewarding. and freedom is there on the far side, and it's not, you're not looking over your shoulder worrying, Will, will, will I ever drink again? Because, you've got no desire. you're not missing anything. You, and that's the thing that it takes away is the desire. rather than the opportunity. and yeah, so what's, how has it affected your life since? Are you still doing the same sort of work or, yeah, it's been absolutely incredible. work. So I work as a death investigator, a medical, legal, death investigator. And, I love my work and I always have, but I found a new, it's new freedom really. I set boundaries at work and did some things that I probably would not have done before. So I've really been careful to protect myself, meaning that. not available all the time. I work, the hours instead of, 24 7. And so I found my voice again. I found what's important to me. I put myself first and really focused on what is best for me because when I support myself, I can support others. And, but I really needed to focus on my health, my wellbeing, my mental health, all of that. And so what I found is, work is great and I'm happy and I'm not stressed out. And I'm not burnt out. I have a great relationship with my husband. We now communicate like we used to, and we're both present for each other now where we weren't. we were both not present. We both numbed ourselves. He's. He was a, he's retired now, but was a police officer. you can imagine the two of us, coming home really stressed and now we just have a great relationship and that interaction is back and we're both present. I'm more present with my family. I'm more aware of just everything around me and just taking the time out. So it's been wonderful. I can't agree more about the surprise of freeing yourself from alcohol is so much more than just freeing yourself from the substance. Because you are not, you are able to look after yourself, put yourself, you can't put yourself in the driver's seat if there is a substance in the driver's seat. Telling you at five o'clock every night. Whatever you do, get the health of that fridge as fast as you can and get that wine in so that you can actually start your evening. it's if we are beholden to a substance or an idea or a food, then we are not free. And, what you are speaking to there is the freedom from the substance curating this vastness and spaciousness in life and the ability to. Really nourish yourself in a way that maybe society thinks it's selfish to put yourself first, but for me to be able to reach out and help you and others and the world, I firmly and strongly use the time that I did drinking to sauna, exercise, eat well, all of those other things. I constantly enriching rather than depleting myself. We don't realize we've been hoodwinked. We think that we are relaxing our. But we are just policing ourselves terribly. Go into any more of the science here, but the fact that you spoke of to burnout, and you were a broken person that was unable to say no to alcohol. You were in an alcohol induced burnout state. That was help making you repeat that cycle. it's clear to us now look from the outside looking in, but yes, from the outside looking back. But in the moment you just feel, yeah, you feel powerless and embarrassed. But how could someone that's a deaf investigator with such an important kind of role in this world be beholden to something else? We are heading towards the, time in our podcast. We'd like to ask you, about are there three words that resonate with you about your journey, this work where you're heading? yeah. It's, it's so clear to me, so freedom, joy, and happiness, which are things that I did not feel while alcohol was in my life. And I just, I feel them so strongly now. It's just, it's really incredible. Every day I am just so happy and grateful to not be, not have alcohol in my life and to experience those, especially joy again. That's beautiful. I think that's something that could inspire a lot of people. Yeah. that happiness, joy, and freedom. that, that's, That sounds like the recipe for a good life? yeah, I think I can resonate with all of that. and I think one thing I just struck me was that, what I realized that, I was missing was, in the same way that you say coming up, standing up for yourself and being able to set boundaries and I'd lost my confidence altogether. And I was running and running to try and. Make sure that people couldn't see I was, dropping the ball or that I wasn't, just, just pushing and pushing and in the end, pushing yourself, to the back of the queue. And I think, yeah, that it's, that, that was a real surprise for me as well. So that's great. tell us, where people can find you and the sort of people you are looking to help, in your coaching practice. Yeah, absolutely. So I. I do coach, I coach professional women. And I also have a signature program, which is called, badges Beyond ba, or I'm sorry, balance Beyond Badges. And that program is for, first and last responders, so EMS, law enforcement. Death investigators, folks that work in, high risk, positions for mental health and really high stress 24 7. Just never able to slow down. So I work with that group as well. And my website is free spirits af.com, so you can find me there in that those programs are there as well. So I do one-on-one coaching and I do also offer group coaching. Great. We'll make sure that goes into, into the show notes so people will be able to find your website and, handles for social media. Great. thanks very much. it's been a real pleasure and, I look forward to seeing you, seeing you again soon. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Thanks, Lori. I love talking with you and, instead of, it just reminds me deeply of, what it feels like to be in the stuffed place. And also reminds me that there is hope. Because, once you've found the material and as you say, you dedicate some time to the material, you can't unlearn that. And your plasticity is there each time you, practice this new skill of saying no. All this new skill of saying yes to yourself. Yeah, I keep, I actually keep having pinch me moments moving to New Zealand here because I've literally throw, throwing all the cards up in the air and, and people go to me, surely you must be finding it really difficult being in New Zealand, as opposed to living in London. And I'm like, about three years ago I moved into my, I moved house. I moved from up here into my heart. Stuff. Oh, I love that. I put myself in the driving seat. I choose to connect with people that, I feel that will also speak to me from that place, buried a dear friend of mine and we, or utterly open with one another, and it's been the most, most wonderful thing to, to share our journey together with this business. And then Laurie, you and all of the other fellow coaches and all of the people that I'm meeting through this now ability to speak through a heart space because it's clear to do that. Yeah. I'm not having to, why is it that alcohol just also insidiously just makes us feel that we lose our confidence that we are not enough aside, all the other stuff aside, everything else. Why does it make us play so small, Laurie? Yeah. it's interesting because when you talk about feeling like from your heart space, I couldn't even, I couldn't feel that there was so much that was just shut down, that you just can't have those connections in that feeling because the alcohol is just right in the middle of it all. And I think that's such a huge part of it. Is it just. it runs interference basically to everything, to every aspect of our life. It just runs interference, and so you can't reach those deep spaces that you've had. And I look back on, a lot of my journey, which in my early twenties I had some really deep kind of like this really deep connections with people. We connected on so many different levels and it was just wonderful. And then we went away, had our own lives, children and all of that, but then add alcohol back into that. I never found that again, that connection again with people until I stopped drinking. And now it's okay, I'm open to those relationships, into those, to those people, right? When you're open and you have an open heart, it just, it just draws people to you and vice versa. Yeah, I think that's powerful. I think,'cause it's, it's easy to regret everything and demonize, everything about alcohol and the, when we first started as youngsters, the downsides, I think I've said it before, you know when you're. 20 and made of magic and rubber. You re you recover immediately and it doesn't have the sort of lasting detrimental effects and pr Maybe you aren't drinking every day and maybe you aren't, you are drinking just for fun and not for stress and not, and it's, and. But it, I've got a feeling that, you know, that, Justine was talking about, when you, what is it about the, for your forties, and I think at some point you just outgrow it and a lot of people do outgrow it and it just doesn't serve you anymore. and it feels you having to let go of something that, you know, a, an old pair of whatever that, that you used to love. And it feels scary that you might never find, something to replace it. but yeah, if anybody's still thinking about, the, do I dare to give it a try? this methodology where you can just learn to let go and Without actually having to let go, It's really powerful and yeah, that the idea that the, You are shown the illusion and it just becomes easier and easier. And before you know it, you don't feel like it. it's, yeah, no, it is, I would never have probably, I put off going to, You, I never even considered going to, to a 12 step program. I didn't either and sitting in a room and saying I'm an alcoholic.'cause if I was, me too. I never felt like an alcoholic, I didn't like that word. And all the stigma and all that kind of stuff. and it just, I knew I drank too much and, but there were people around me drinking more. Yep. Exactly. I should just need to get, get a grip on it and be better at it and let it. just not had those last couple and all that kind of stuff, and you just, you beat yourself up for it. and yeah, no, it, I just wish, I knew that was a way, and another way of, finding freedom than the traditional, method, which always seems so on track. And I think it, this is, go ahead, Laurie. No, I was just gonna say, and I think that's why people don't feel comfortable doing like a 12 step program, because just exactly for what you said, that's how I felt as well. There's no way I would've, I didn't think I was an alcoholic. I didn't wanna label myself. There's no way I would've done that. So I think it, it closes the door for so many people to actually get the help that they need or the assistance, whatever they're doing. I think this opens a door for so many people. To be able to step into it because it meets them where they're at. Yeah. and it also doesn't shame them and I that, it's, that's huge. Just not, yeah. they already feel shameful, right? Yeah. I, you often, I've heard of people being turned away from 12 step programs'cause they're not bad enough and you almost have to be prepared to say, I'm yeah. Useless. I'm broken, I'm, Yeah. I need to be saved kind of thing. and a lot of people like, like the idea of, actually no, like you said, a sort of scientific approach and you want to understand it. you want to be able to fix this yourself. you want. Yeah. and this methodology will allow you to Yeah. to work you, will empower you rather than, make you feel like you need to say, I'm powerless and. I'm the broken one and I can't handle alcohol. It's more actually alcohol is this addictive stuff and it'll addict, it'll make everybody addicted if you do it, frequently enough. okay, lemme say, Let me say just, we do need to wrap this up, but it's almost like an utter departure from how we used to stop drinking. What it's like instead is having the utter freedom to mentally. Go skinny dipping mentally. It's like we literally take the, all of the things that were making us feel embarrassed and ashamed about ourselves, and it gives us that freedom to just throw it all off, walk, continue water, and start again. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.