0:03
Welcome to the show, where we expose new perspectives on our ever evolving world through the lenses of various industries, cultures and backgrounds.
Our guests are disruptors, united by a common goal to bring their purpose to life.
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Whether they’re from the commercial world or third sector, from the Global North or the Global South, expect an inspirational journey that will transform your perspective on just what is possible.
My name is Philippa White and welcome to TIE Unearthed.
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Today’s conversation is one of those that stays with you.
It’s raw, eye opening and full of humanity.
Welcome to episode 108 of TIE Unearthed.
In this episode I’m joined by Tabin Almond, coach, speaker, podcast host, author and former advertising executive who for years hid a life altering struggle behind a polished, successful exterior.
1:10
In this episode, Tabin opens up about her decades long relationship with alcohol, how it began socially in university and advertising boardrooms, but then slowly morphed into something more solitary and, well, dangerous.
She talks candidly about the shame, the secrecy, and the turning point that led her to choose freedom over fear.
1:33
We also explore the deeply embedded role alcohol plays in corporate cultures, especially in industries like advertising, finance, law and media, and how addiction is often misunderstood, ignored, or quietly tolerated, even as it harms performance, relationships, and mental health.
1:54
And yet, what shines through in this conversation is hope.
Tabin didn’t just reclaim her own life.
She now helps others do the same.
She shares the science that helped her rewire her beliefs, her thoughts on why compassion must replace stigma, and how workplaces can start to shift these outdated norms.
2:16
So whether you drink or not, whether you lead teams or work within them, this is a conversation that challenges assumptions and invites A deeper kind of awareness.
So grab your favorite beverage or throw on those running shoes and settle in.
Because this is a story about change, courage, and the freedom that comes from finally facing the truth.
2:40
Let’s dive in.
Hello, Tavin, Thank you so much for joining me on TIE on Earth today.
It’s great to have you with us.
I’m delighted to be here.
Thank you for asking me.
2:56
Gosh, it’s a pleasure.
And obviously, we’re both finalists in the business.
I know how exciting, yeah.
Which also means we get to meet in the flesh in September, which is going to be exciting, yeah.
I know for the big goal of dinner, I mean, I’m.
I am very excited.
3:11
This is potentially my first sober one that’s for sure.
That’s a great segue.
Wonderful.
To that point, actually, before we even get into everything, tell me, where are you sitting today?
I am in Devon, southwest UK.
3:27
I live right on the edge of Dartmoor.
Very beautiful area, a country girl at heart.
And yeah, so this is where I’ve chosen to live.
Beautiful and I just I mentioned this the last time we spoke, but so my family lives in the countryside in England as well and they’ve got the same doors and I just love the doors for who knows, sort of English countryside houses is the little sort of click click kind of latchy kind of yeah, I just think it’s.
3:53
Beautiful.
I actually had them made, yeah, because there were some really horrible glass Archaea type things and I hated them.
So they went and the guys made these and I love them, yeah.
Absolutely gorgeous Tavern.
If you could just tell us a little bit about you and your story before we get into all of the amazing work that you’re doing, But just tell us.
4:14
Yeah, just tell us your story.
My story is one that I realise is very, very common but often not discussed, which is getting into trouble with alcohol.
I grew up actually here in Devon, only a few miles from where I am now.
I have left, I left and came back.
4:30
But yeah, I grew up around here and I, I almost think probably every adult I knew drank alcohol, some of them really quite heavily.
So alcohol was just completely normal behaviour.
I started drinking.
It was a pretty accomplished social drink every time I got to university, studied French, spent a year in France and I thought could have it went to cognac of all places.
4:55
So any tendency to over drink was sort of somewhat accelerated by a year that there.
But even then I didn’t think I was a particularly problematic drinker.
But then I once I’d left university, I went to London and started working in advertising.
5:10
One of the things I loved about advertising was how I would have described it as sociable.
It was what I meant by that was boozy there, you know, the long lunches and expense accounts and working into the evening and then going straight to the pub.
That was just the life and I don’t expect I had many alcohol free days until I was pregnant.
5:31
It was just, you know, drink during the week, just habitually routine.
If I didn’t have a lunch I’d almost definitely be drinking in the evening and it might have only been a glass or two, but you know, it was every day.
By that stage I thought maybe I’ve got a bit of a problem and I had a couple of blackouts and you know, those nights we just don’t remember what happened.
5:49
Luckily not come to any harm, but I do remember thinking, Oh well, I can’t be an alcoholic, which is not a word I’ve used anymore, but I can’t be an alcoholic because it’s been really easy not to drink whilst pregnant, so I must be OK.
I’m just a social drinker.
When the children were six and four, we left London and moved back to Denver for me for the first time.
6:09
For my husband.
He was travelling a lot with work, so I was at home a lot with the children.
So my life was a bit different.
I was working freelance, just doing research and stuff like that and sort of still working connected with advertising, but just doing the research projects for clients.
6:25
So I’d be away occasionally doing groups or whatever, but most of the time I was at home.
And then I’d be at home in the evening, put the children to bed.
And then I would just sort of start drinking almost out of boredom slash habit.
And then I gradually realized that I couldn’t not drink.
6:41
It had become a real issue and I felt if I had an evening without, I felt sort of edgy and it had become a real preoccupation in my head.
And I wasn’t probably drinking more than a bottle of wine a night, which is fairly good.
It’s way too much, but it’s not.
6:57
I wasn’t heading straight to hospital because of my drinking, but I just knew that it wasn’t doing any good.
I then started to try to do something about it.
I read what I could get hold of.
We’re talking here sort of the very early 2000s.
There wasn’t very much what we would now call Quitnit about.
7:14
I read what I could get hold of, though.
Podcasts just weren’t a thing, or if they were, I hadn’t gotten onto them.
And I also just did a bit of research.
Being an account planner in advertising, I was used to kind of trying to find out facts about stuff and again, found it quite hard.
7:30
So eventually I just thought, right, you’ve got a problem face upped it.
And I went to AA meetings, which I did for a couple of years, but never really clicked.
And I remember my would be sponsor saying to me, you’re in denial because I had a problem with saying hello, my name’s Tabin, I’m an alcoholic because I just didn’t, I didn’t know what 1 was.
7:48
There’s no definition of what an alcoholic is.
And it’s actually not a term that the medics use anymore.
And I can remember saying to this lady, she’s a lovely lady who was offering to be my sponsor.
But I’m not in denial.
I’m here, I’m facing up to it.
I just don’t think I am one of those.
I don’t know what one of those is.
8:04
And also I was made to feel, and that’s probably me taking on this belief, but that I wasn’t bad enough.
I hadn’t had enough of a rock bottom.
I hadn’t lost my driving license.
I hadn’t kind of been arrested or anything.
I, I was just not happy with the amount I was drinking.
8:20
But no really bad stuff had happened.
And in those particular a A meetings that I went to, most people seem to have criminal records and a lot of them had been kind of told by the courts, you must go to a A.
So there was a sort of almost like a resentment because they’re like, I’m being forced to be here and, and what are you doing here?
8:39
You haven’t even got a problem and nobody’s making you, you’ve got no gun to your head, why are you even here kind of thing.
As I say, that was quite possibly my interpretation of things.
Suffice to say, I didn’t feel I’d found my tribe, as it were.
And then I read Alan Carr’s book called The Easy Way to Control Alcohol, which is a book about kind of rewiring your subconscious, you know, just think differently.
9:02
I reinforced it by seeing one of his hypnotherapists for a day.
That seemed to work.
If you’d asked me then I was alcohol free, sober, whatever word you want to use for seven years.
And during that period of time if somebody asked me, I just said yeah, I found the Holy Grail.
This is how you do this one session.
9:19
It was an all day session.
I think it cost me £800 back in 2007, so it was quite an investment, but I was definitely ready.
I think I’m quite susceptible to hypnotherapy.
I’d given up smoking that way.
I was very invested in this working and it did.
9:35
And the process of of hypnotherapy is effectively working with your own natural neuroplasticity to form some new very deep neural pathways.
And it worked.
I didn’t really think about alcohol.
One of the things I was worried about was becoming very preachy on the subject.
9:53
I didn’t want to do that.
I didn’t want to stop other people enjoying their drink.
I just knew that it wasn’t for me.
And I also didn’t want to be permanently thinking about drinking and feeling deprived and mission accomplished.
I was absolutely fine and I didn’t drink.
You know, towards the end of that seven, 7 1/2 years, my marriage broke down.
10:10
I had really serious financial problems, probably not unconnected with the first two.
I was also diagnosed with breast cancer, or rather I diagnosed myself actually because I, I’d been told I didn’t have it and I said don’t believe it.
And all through that I didn’t drink and I didn’t think about drinking.
10:27
There was then a fateful night early in 2014 when having had the initial surgery.
During that surgery, they tested 7 lymph nodes to see whether the cancer was in them.
And I went back sort of 10 days after the initial surgery and sat down with my, I had my adult daughter and my brother with me.
10:47
And the surgeon said, well, the surgery went well.
However, we tested the lymph nodes, it was in all 7 and in a really high count.
What I heard was we need to check where this is spread to.
I very much doubt that’s what she actually said.
But that’s where my brain went.
And I just thought I’m going to leave my children.
11:05
Their father was in a bad way in terms of his mental health at the time.
And I thought they’re going to be orphaned at the age of 19 and 21.
And I was just terrified.
It was all about them.
I wasn’t actually frightened on my own behalf, but I just thought they’d been through enough with the breakup of the marriage and everything.
11:21
And this is just an awful thing.
And we went home with a whole string of appointments.
You’re coming back on, you know, tomorrow for this and the day after for that and all these tests and scams and and my brother opened a bottle of wine, which was completely normal that him and he and Lucy, my daughter started to.
11:37
And I just said, I think I’ll have a glass.
Suffice it to say, more than one bottle of wine was consumed that night.
And I just was drinking in order not to be in my head.
I just want to numb out from this.
It’s all too painful, too frightening, too horrible.
Alcohol.
Well, you have a job to do here, and that is to make me completely blotto and just not, not feel any of this.
11:58
Yeah, I was back in hospital.
And then there’s more surgery and the joys of chemo.
And I don’t think anybody would be able to drink alcohol during chemo.
It was really, you know, throwing up enough as it is.
Found that once I was better, alcohol was back in my life again.
I was drinking on my own a lot because most people thought I didn’t drink anymore because I hadn’t drunk for 7 1/2 years.
12:18
And if I went to a dinner party and maybe had a glass of wine, people just thought it’s just no big deal.
And then of course, what I was doing was coming home and drinking on my own.
Once I got home, as a reward for having stayed sober and being able to drive home, it became very secretive and kind of dark and I felt huge burden of shame about it, that I was doing something.
12:38
And why had I allowed this to happen?
I didn’t understand anything about the addictive nature of alcohol.
I didn’t really understand the process of rewiring your brain.
I hadn’t addressed any of the underlying beliefs I had about alcohol.
I just paid somebody to fix me.
12:55
It probably would have worked if I hadn’t faced something really difficult.
But in that moment, it wasn’t enough.
And that pattern of drinking on my own carried on for the next 3 1/2 years, something like that.
And I was getting increasingly unhappy because I just kept trying.
I was using willpower, just trying.
13:12
I knew that a A didn’t work for me.
I knew that the hypnotherapy hadn’t worked.
I was thinking I’m a just a lost cause.
But I kept trying to find something.
And eventually one day I googled am I an alcoholic or words to that effect and came across an organization called This Naked Mind.
13:28
And that’s also the name of a book by a lady called Danny Grace.
And I started getting emails from them.
One day I just there was an e-mail.
It was about a course that was about to start.
And I just thought I was so hungover and I can remember just sitting at my desk at work for you got to do something and I didn’t have the money at all.
13:47
I just put it on a credit card and booked this three months course.
But it was honestly the best 1000 lbs or whatever it was $1000 that I’ve ever spent because everything made sense.
I got the book, read it, and then really quickly everything just like fell into place.
14:03
And it was far from spontaneous sobriety because I’ve been plugging away at this for years.
But I just had that moment of clarity of I don’t want to.
I can picture it so clearly in my mind.
I was sitting in a restaurant in Finsbury Park with my daughter and the following day we were going to do the moonwalk in London, which is like a marathon distance walk that do overnight in aid of breast cancer charities.
14:25
And I had learned during this course that I did with Annie Grace, this Nick Mine, I’d learnt that alcohol causes breast cancer.
It’s not the only cause, but it’s the significant cause of breast cancer.
That was complete news to me.
Nobody, even through all my treatment, all my questions, nobody had ever told me of any connection, let alone causation.
14:47
So I was sitting thinking, I’m here in a restaurant about to do a walk to raise money for breast cancer charities, having survived this horrible thing, having learnt that it was probably caused by my drinking.
And I’ve got a glass of wine in front of me.
What are you doing?
15:03
And in that moment I can remember sipping the wine and it tasted horrible.
I knew there wasn’t anything the matter with the wine.
I’d already had a, you know, had a little bit of the glass or, and it was fine.
It was just like something changed in my brain.
I just thought, I don’t want to do this anymore.
And I can remember handing it to Lucy and saying, do you want to finish this?
15:21
And she went, is it?
Is it not very nice?
I said no I think it’s fine I just don’t want it anymore.
And she was like what?
And I, I went no I think I’m done.
That was it.
I have not drunk since SO.
And how long ago was?
That that was coming up 7 years, yeah.
15:37
In May this year, it’ll be 7 years, yeah.
Just I’m curious and I don’t know if you can summarize this in in a.
Short.
Explanation, you know, most of us understand about AI, you’ve talked about hypnotherapy and we know what hypnotherapy is.
So you’ve been through those two and then and there was a shift change reading The Naked Mind and going through the course.
15:59
Yeah, what is?
So different about it and I’m aware that it’s a course and obviously you’re also a coach and you help people.
And so there’s, you know, there’s a, it’s not just a take a pill and it’s done.
But if you can explain what is so different about it?
Yeah, I’d say one of the things is that it helps you to identify what beliefs, really deep seated beliefs you have about alcohol, things that you you actually hold to be true.
16:25
We don’t even think of it as a belief.
We just say what’s the fact, isn’t it?
And one of mine was alcohol helps me relax and de stress at the end of the day that I totally believed to be true.
If you could identify the beliefs you have about alcohol, you can then use science to challenge them and say, is that actually true?
16:46
So in the case of my belief that alcohol helps me relax, I totally believe that was true.
But then you start to question it and gain some clarity.
Well, where does that even come from?
Well, it comes from society and culture.
It’s all around us in Western society.
That’s kind of what everybody says.
17:02
So so it must be true kind of thing.
And then you dig into the science and that’s what I found particularly good.
I’m not a chemist or scientist at all, but I’ve got a reasonable brain.
And if somebody says to me this is what happens, you get 20 to 30 minutes of dopamine, the good bit, the reason it feels good.
17:20
But then once the alcohol is in your bloodstream, your body recognizes that there’s something in your bloodstream which isn’t supposed to be there.
And it produces a counter chemical which is called dianorphine.
And that literally brings your mood back down and some takes it lower than where you were to begin with and it hangs around for a long time.
17:38
So when you get that feeling of that drink’s worn off, it’s not it’s being counteracted.
So you have another one.
And so you get into this pattern of just I’ll have another drink to try and basically mitigate the effect of the first one.
But you don’t realize that that’s what’s happening.
17:54
And this, this substance is a hormone that’s produced dienorphin is depressant.
It takes your mood right down and kind of sucks the joy out of life.
And it hangs around for a long time in the body.
And then also the dienorphin is a sedative.
So that’s why you get all the sort of the dulling of all your senses and not being able to walk in a straight line and not being able to speak properly, etc.
18:15
And eventually the body thinks, oh, I don’t have a minute.
She’s pretty well passed out or maybe even passed out.
We better do something about that.
So it kind of overdoses us and then stimulates the adrenal gland.
So we produce cortisol and adrenaline typically in the early hours of the morning.
18:34
Most most of our drinking is is in the evenings.
So come 3-4 in the morning, suddenly your body is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol.
In my case, I would often wake up with that real. 334 in the morning.
Horrible anxiety, not always though, sometimes just literally too drunk to even wake up and be aware of it, but you still get that type up word feeling the following day.
18:56
Once I understood all of that science, well, OK, that makes a lot of sense.
And and I started then digging into, you know, what it is about alcohol that causes it to be a factor in breast cancer.
And there are a number of things.
19:11
One is stress leads to inflammation leads to cancer.
That’s part of it, as I understand it.
Another factor is that when we’re drinking heavily, our liver has got a lot of work to do just processing the alcohol.
And so the hormone production and regulation job of the liver is compromised.
19:31
So I think those are the main 2 reasons.
And I’m not a scientist and it gets very complicated very quickly.
Yeah, I mean, I worked in the advertising business.
I, I never actually worked on alcohol because most of my career I was at an agency called Abbottmead Vicars where we could say if there was something we didn’t want to work on, a category we didn’t want to be involved in.
19:52
And that had come about because the agency handled the government’s anti smoking campaign.
But there was quite a sort of strong moral backbone to the agency and David Abbott, who’s sadly no longer with us, but he said I don’t want anybody working on stuff they don’t believe in or don’t want to be involved in.
And so I said, well, purely because of people in the family having a problem with alcohol, I said I don’t really want to work on booze because I believe that good advertising makes people want stuff they don’t need.
20:18
That’s kind of what we did.
And I don’t want to do that with booze.
So I didn’t actually work first personally on alcohol.
But it’s a prized account in every agency, isn’t it?
The booze account?
And it’s.
Yeah.
And it’s a bit like an airline.
20:34
The best creative people work on it.
And I was there when a creative team called Tom and Walt came up with the Guinness Surfers commercial, which was just absolutely groundbreaking in its day.
And I admired it.
I really admired it, the irony being that Tom doesn’t drink either.
So I just was very aware that the advertising industry and the alcohol companies were manipulating are manipulating peoples brains.
21:00
So just, I know a lot of people who have problems with alcohol.
I know many people who have managed to stop.
I know many people who haven’t managed to stop.
And I haven’t heard of the Naked Mind until you talked about it.
But the old school, I guess you could call it the old school way of talking about alcoholism is the only way that I’m familiar with with talking about it and also the the truths that we’ve just assumed to be true.
21:29
So, for example, alcoholism isn’t genetic that alcohol use disorder.
So again, not talking about, you know, I’m an alcoholic, It’s alcohol use disorder isn’t a personal failing, but a coping mechanism.
Absolutely.
And I just, you know, and I see that with the people that I, you know, I’m quite close to.
21:47
Can you unpack this idea for us?
And how does this shift in thinking help people struggling with alcohol?
I think it’s absolutely fundamental and it’s the reason why the sake and I work for me and other things.
The very first thing that really struck me about it was Annie saying this is not your fault, there’s nothing wrong with you.
22:11
I had spent 20 years believing that I was floored, probably genetically floored, and certainly of a very character, and this was my fault.
And somebody saying this is not your fault, this is alcohol’s fault.
If you take alcohol out of the piece, you’re fine.
22:28
So all that’s happened is you’re a human being.
Any human being who drinks enough of this addictive substance risks becoming addicted to it.
And the big question is why do some people become addicted and others not?
And I believe that that is, and I think there’s a huge body of evidence now say it’s when we start to use alcohol to self medicate from any emotional pain or discomfort, that’s when we start to rely on it because we found something to make that pain go away.
23:00
And we become addicted to that pain reducing because it doesn’t go away.
It just is temporarily sort of suspended.
And very often we’re adding to it because of the problems that come from the drinking.
But when you’re in that vortex, you can’t see it.
So there are plenty of people who will be able to have a glass of red wine with their Sunday lunch every week of their lives and never want to drink more.
23:22
But they’re just drinking, you know, just socially, no problem.
But the person who’s thinking I could really do with a glass of wine to switch off all this stuff that’s going on in my head, that’s when.
It’s the reason.
It’s the reason, absolutely.
It’s the objective of how you are using.
23:38
That yeah, yeah, it’s the reason.
Behind it.
Yeah, and very often, I mean, the word trauma is just bandied around Willy nilly.
But actually there is really, really clear evidence that where there has been any degree of childhood trauma, alcohol is very likely to feature.
23:56
If it’s in that person’s life, they will at some point, you know, try it and they, oh, this is great.
This is switching that off.
There’s a big study in, in the States called the Aces study, which is stands for adverse childhood experiences.
And the more Aces somebody has, the more likely they are to develop an addiction.
24:15
That may be to drugs, that may be to alcohol, it may be to sex or gambling or whatever.
But also the more likely they are to develop health problems, things like cancer and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etcetera.
You know, we are integrated whole beings.
24:32
You know, our physical and mental health are not separate.
They are interrelated.
And the Aces study is really interesting.
Having an alcoholic parent virtual commas is 1 ACE.
Those parents would be two parent in prisons, severe financial problems.
24:49
There are no violence, abuse, all you know all of those.
And the more there are of them, the more likely somebody is to to develop a problem.
Also you’re gonna get like small traumas, little traumas, just not feeling you belong kind of thing, which is also significant.
25:05
Doesn’t have to be a major event as such.
You talked about it as you introduced yourself just about working in advertising.
I also worked in advertising as you know and I’m well aware of just the drinking culture and but it’s not just advertising.
You go to the city.
25:20
Oh yeah.
London and you’ve got, you know, people in the financial district, they’re packing out the pubs.
So many workplaces perhaps unknowingly encourage drinking and it could be with whether it’s social events like you say, the lunches.
25:37
Team Bond.
Getting opportunities or even just that glorification of sort of stress.
Drinking again, sort of.
After work, let’s go to the pub, let off steam.
How?
Do you see alcohol affecting workplace performance and well-being and what should leaders be doing differently?
25:52
I know this is an area that you’re particularly.
Focused on absolutely is.
I mean, that’s what my my book is about.
The culture around alcohol in the workplace is really damaging.
If people are drinking even at moderate levels on a regular basis, it will be affecting them.
26:09
It’ll be affecting them physically and mentally.
And they would, they will be developing problems and they will bring those problems to work and that will affect their productivity.
They may get to the point where they’re not at work as often as they should be.
That’s quite hard to monitor because people don’t tend to tell the truth.
26:26
And also a lot of their absence may show up on a sort of report card, as it were, as stress or anxiety or depression.
But all three of those are being caused by the alcohol or exacerbated significantly by the alcohol.
So there’s a real productivity issue, there’s an absenteeism issue.
26:47
There’s also a really big diversity and inclusion thing here as well.
We know that here in the UK, 20% of people don’t drink at all, and some of them it is because of their their culture and their religion.
Now, if you’ve got a workplace culture that kind of expects people to drink and that glorifies it and makes heroes of the drunkards, which frankly is what was going on when I was in advertising then, you know, it’s no wonder that there are very few ethnic minorities working in those agencies because they just don’t feel comfortable.
27:18
When I was writing the book, I spoke to a young lawyer who was working for one of the very big law firms in London.
She’d graduated with the first from Cambridge in law and was clearly extremely bright and able.
And she joined one of these top firms that she, she was completely, she said the system is that only a proportion of us will get jobs at the end of the one year, 2 year period and I definitely won’t get one.
27:45
When I asked her why, she said, well, the criteria is the best fit.
And she said I don’t fit because I don’t drink and I don’t want to go to the pub and I don’t want to take clients out.
I don’t want to take them to the rugby.
I don’t want to be where alcohol is being drunk.
She was a Muslim, nobody in her family drank and she just didn’t want anything to do with it.
28:03
Matt Farmers lost a really bright girl and she will go on and do something wonderful, I absolutely no doubt.
But she was made to feel so uncomfortable and it’s just wrong.
You know, there are lots of people who don’t want to drink.
Some just don’t like it.
Some may be trying to conceive or maybe in the early stages of pregnancy.
28:23
They may be an athlete just wanting to perform well that weekend.
There are a myriad of reasons and we shouldn’t ever have to explain why we’re not drinking.
That’s the bad thing.
But social events that revolve around alcohol are by their nature divisive and damaging.
28:41
I’m not saying never have alcohol at event, that’s not realistic.
But the hero should be the non alcoholic drinks.
There should be alcohol available for those that want it certainly shouldn’t be free, or if it is maybe just one glass.
But free bars where people are being encouraged to just get drunk.
28:59
It’s just very, very bad idea.
So you’re working with companies then to help them kind of rewire that part of the culture, is that right?
Yeah.
Yeah, so I think there’s a number of, there are a number of things that I do.
I run training, education, alcohol awareness programs for companies just so that people are aware of the health, physical and mental health harm from alcohol because there’s very little understanding of that.
29:24
That is very much a prevention piece.
And I refer to alcohol as a as a well-being blind spot.
You know, it’s part of a stress management and well-being program is to just make sure that people understand more about what alcohol does.
Then I think that there’s an important cultural thing about just changing the tone of voice around social events and entertaining and bonding.
29:49
Just to say we don’t need alcohol to be center stage here.
We really need to think about how having a wider range of things that people can do without the focus being entirely on alcohol.
So the example I love is in Tottenham Court Road there’s now a giant human monopoly.
30:08
You can go in as a team and play Monopoly, but you are the people, the little hat and the stuff like that.
Whether it’s those sort of things or bowling or any activity where there may be alcohol alongside or non alcohol, but that it doesn’t all revolve around the booze.
30:25
And I think whether it’s client entertaining type of thing or just a more general staff thing, there are different better ways of doing it.
But also just calling out when people just slip into that automatic, let me buy you a beer or a non alcoholic beer.
30:43
And, and our joint publishers, they said, oh, we’ll do the wine.
And I just said, well, the non alcoholic wine.
There are so many times where there is a sort of tacit nod that everyone will be drinking, won’t they?
And it’s completely unthinking.
It’s totally unconscious bias.
31:00
But we just need to make people a bit more aware of it.
And it’s, it’s starting to happen.
And of course, the Gen.
Z, they are coming through with very, very different attitudes and habits.
And, and in 2530 years, when they’re running companies, it won’t be, oh, everybody’s going to get really drunk so that everybody’s going to need a taxi home.
31:20
There’ll be a very different approach by them, I think.
Yeah.
I’d like to kind of bring this back to those people who are listening who might relate to your story as you introduced yourself.
I’m sure there’s a lot of people who probably have never really considered themselves an alcoholic, but at the same time, maybe I do have, I’m struggling a little bit with alcohol or struggling with alcohol, but just not sure how to kind of get through.
31:43
And I, I’m just the first thing is around shame.
And you talked about shame.
I think shame plays a, a really large role in alcohol dependence.
And like you said, you know, keeping people stuck in that secrecy and isolation, drinking on your own, kind of a facade for people on the outside.
32:02
But then you come home and it’s a completely different story.
You know, what advice do you have for breaking that cycle of shame, both for the individuals who are struggling with the alcohol, but I also know many people who are struggling with family members who are struggling with alcohol.
And it’s very easy.
32:18
I mean, it’s frustrating.
It’s frustrating when you are either living with or you are trying to support somebody who, who is struggling with alcohol on the outside, you, you feel helpless, frustrated, pissed off.
But that just sort of that just creates more shame.
32:36
And I’m just wondering how do you treat?
That yeah, it’s really tricky.
I mean, for the, for the person themselves who is struggling.
Once you have the realization of I’m no longer in control there, get some help.
We’ll put my contact details in that showed us you can go to this naked Minds website and every certified coach is listed there.
32:58
And this naked Mind isn’t the only organization with compassion based coaches.
There’s a one year no beer here in the UK.
There’s so baristas there’s hello Sunday morning in Australia.
There are lots of organisations now that have certified coaches who can help.
33:17
I don’t think I’ve I’ve ever coached anybody who hasn’t already tried a A for at least one meeting because it’s free.
So everyone’s going to try it.
It’s all most people have heard of and it does work for some people.
I’m not knocking, it just wasn’t right for me.
But being aware that there are lots of different options out there reading Read this Naked mind.
33:35
Anybody who’s struggling with alcohol, read it and if it resonates then contact one of the coaches.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Listen to podcasts, there are loads of podcasts that cover the whole issue of, you know, struggling with alcohol and what are the truths, what is, what’s true, what’s not true, et cetera.
33:53
So there’s lots you can do to inform yourself and all coaches I think would offer free discovery calls.
And I think all of us would say if the relationship doesn’t feel quite right, then I won’t coach somebody if I don’t think we’re going to jail.
But I will sort of point them in the direction of somebody who I think they might work better with.
34:12
And there are an increasing number of us out there.
I think Annie Graces vision is that there should be this naked mind coach in every town in the in the world where they’re needed, and that’s a long way of happening.
But there are a few 100 nows, which is great, and the more the merrier.
Great.
Yeah, So great.
Yeah, yeah.
34:28
And just for people who are struggling with that individual in their life.
It’s really hard because there’s nothing that you can do to make somebody stop drinking.
They have to do it when they’re ready and for themselves.
And I think the really hard thing, and I say this as somebody who suffered at the hands of somebody who was drinking and I wanted them to stop back when I was a teenager, the really hard thing is not to take it personally.
34:54
They’re not doing it to hurt you.
For all the pain they’re inflicting on everybody else, the pain they’re inflicting on themselves is 10 times worse.
I don’t know if you’ve heard the Mel Robbins podcast about let them then let them theory, but the idea is let them do their thing.
35:10
We can’t control other people, you know, three circles of control.
We can’t control find it hard enough to control ourselves.
We certainly can’t control anybody else.
So let them do them, let to me look after me and my response to what’s going on with them.
35:25
And that means not only letting them do their thing and continuing to love them because they’re not doing this on purpose.
They can’t help it.
It’s not their fault they’re stuck.
But nagging will never work and shouting at them and arguing and getting into fights over it can never work.
35:41
It makes them feel worse and they retrench.
But then the same time being there for those conversations, when they do finally say, Oh, I just don’t know to do that’s time to say, Oh, well, I had this podcast.
Let me find it for you.
You might be, you know, that’s it’s just opening that door a little bit and just being really supportive.
35:59
When I was doing my coach training from Annie learned this amazing technique of which I refer.
I think it’s got a posh name, but I call it the both.
And so both accepting how I feel.
I am really pissed off with this person for drinking and it’s making me really angry and I’m finding it really hard to deal with.
36:18
And I understand why they’re like they are and that it’s not my job to make them change so that both and things works.
Yeah, yeah, really powerful one, and it’s a little bit hard to do.
It’s so nuanced and there’s so much to it.
36:34
And obviously every person is is different, but there are commonalities of course.
And that’s why thankfully there’s other solutions other than AA because I think there’s a lot of people who just think that’s just not for me.
And also just sort of the older way of seeing alcoholism.
And it’s just really be refreshing to know that there’s another way, which is why I was so excited.
36:53
To speak with you.
Do you have a quote that summarizes what we’ve spoken about today?
My favorite quote is Carl Jung because it kind of summarizes the approach for me.
And it is until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
37:13
So that, for me, so speaks to the empowering nature of this approach because we get stuck in this cognitive dissonance, you know, that the clever, analytical bit of our brain knows we don’t want to do it.
We tell ourselves that every morning.
And yet the subconscious is kicking off to such an extent that by 6:00 got a glass of wine in our hand again.
37:31
And the only way to resolve that is to get hold of the subconscious, the unconscious, and dig into what’s going on in there, bring it up to the surface.
And once it’s conscious and we know what’s going on, then we can do something about it.
But otherwise, we sort of feel a victim of it all.
37:47
Yeah, I just think that.
Such great advice for kind of anything that you’re going through in the sense that because you said, you know, it’s not it’s not just alcohol and it’s not just crack cocaine.
What I mean, it can be so many different types of addiction and too much of anything is not a good thing.
38:07
And so you might not have chosen alcohol as your thing, but you might have chosen something else.
But it’s not about the thing.
It’s about what is it behind that, that you have now become addicted to whatever that is.
Yes.
And that I think is the key to all of this, isn’t it?
38:23
And it’s that’s where you need to really just understand, OK, what is going on in your life right now?
What was going on in your life before?
What is it that you’re trying to control or numb or, you know, yeah, food.
It could be, you know, so many things.
Yeah, so.
And I was working recently with somebody where, yeah, alcohol was the sort of what presented us the problem.
38:43
But actually there was a real issue with him being a complete and utter workaholic.
And yeah, it gets quite deep quite quickly.
But it was a desperate desire to prove himself.
Yeah.
Within his family, his father was old and had dementia.
38:59
There was really no need to prove anything to him.
But he just couldn’t let go of that pressure on himself and so you’re good enough.
So self compassion is hugely important because alcohol and other addictive behaviors are self sabotage.
If we’re self sabotaging, the self compassion is non existent.
39:16
If we can tilt the scales the other way, then there’s self sabotage just fades and we just get to say sure, I don’t want to do that because my life is looking good now.
I know what I wanted to feel like, and that’s within reach.
Really powerful.
The other quote, which is something that I say to clients a lot and there are actually 2 sayings which are really helpful, 1 is in the moment when feeling a bit of a what is the kindest thing I can do for myself right now?
39:48
So just that literally right now, what can I do that would be an act of kindness rather than self sabotage.
And the other is I find that very often people are frightened by the constant thinking about drinking and they assume that that is a sign of being addicted and of a physical addiction that they’ll never be free of.
40:07
And those thoughts are just habitual and they come up from the subconscious because the subconscious repeats it’s, it’s thoughts, it’s just the way it’s programmed.
So just to remember, thoughts are.
Are not instructions.
It’s just such a powerful one.
Just because you think it, you don’t have to do it.
40:23
They’re not instructions.
They’re just thoughts and you can let them go.
And most of our thoughts are repeated.
Most of them are negative.
You don’t have to act on it.
Those two I know help.
People.
Yeah.
Oh, amazing.
Thank you.
Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to tell our listeners?
40:39
Just encourage people, particularly if they are working in an environment where alcohol is a factor, have a look at the book.
There’s also, you don’t need to read the book to do this, just an assessment tool called Bottling Up Trouble.
So if you do go www.bottlinguptrouble.com that will take you to an assessment tool where you can answer.
41:02
It’s very quick to do multiple choice questions, but just gives you an idea of where problems may be in your own organization.
So that’s a very.
Just to be clear for our amazing and thank you for saying that just because we we have spoken about another book, which is the naked mind, but we didn’t actually say the name of your book.
41:20
So if you just want to say the name of.
Your book.
That you obviously are a finalist for the Business Book Awards.
Yeah, it’s called bottling up trouble.
How alcohol is harming your business and what to do about it.
Thank you, Tavin, thank you for your time, thank you for joining me.
Thank you for your honesty and sharing your story that’s so raw but now you can use it to help other people.
41:42
Exactly.
Yeah.
And I think the liberating thing of of knowing it’s not my fault means that there’s no shame in sharing my story.
So powerful.
Thank you.
Thank you for having.
Me.
It’s been great.
Until next time.
Hey everyone, this is Philippa again.
41:58
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42:21
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42:41
Get in touch and I can explain more.
A huge thanks to Beja Naviera for Co producing this with me and for creating the music.
I hope we’ll meet up again soon.
