Episode 3: Finding Balance
Robbie Shaw:
This is Champagne Problems where we come together to explore the gray areas of drinking. This is a judgment free zone where we can all take a look at how we make decisions about our relationship with alcohol.
Patrick Balsley:
One of the things that I think we should address, especially talking about health and wellness, is what does healthy drinking look like? Is there such a thing? If there is, how do we define that? What are some of the questions that we need to ask to figure that out?
Robbie Shaw:
I think that is something that comes up, and often we're looking for a hard line definition, a black and white answer, when, in my opinion and in my experience, it seems to boil down to the individual pretty, pretty frequently.
And the hard part is how to effectively assess yourself. I have always found that the best tool is eliminating it for a while.
Sam Hamson:
I think involving someone else in that conversation too is always helpful. And it doesn't always have to be a licensed professional, but just bouncing off of someone else. Have you ever thought to ask someone else what they think of your drinking?
At the end of the day, it is different for everyone. And it's based on a lot of different things, but there are some really hard lines, and they are defined by entities like DHHS or the National Institute on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
Moderate drinking is considered one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men, anything that goes into the binge realm will look like four+ drinks for females. And that's on the same occasion, within the same day. And at least once a month. For men, that number is five+ drinks on the same occasion, at least one day per month. So if you go out as a male and you have five beers over the course of watching a football game with friends, barbecuing, and then going home, and that has happened once in a month time period, that is binge drinking.
Robbie Shaw:
One thing that I bring up a lot is often we create our own personal definition of alcoholism or alcoholic or addiction. And often our personal situation lies just shy of that.
We always have something to point at that's “I'm not that.” An alcoholic is over there in the gutter, an alcoholic is drinking every day or an alcoholic is drinking all day. And I don't do that. Therefore I'm okay.
But frequency is not the deciding factor. It's what happens when you drink. I try to get that point across to a lot of the curious folks. If I drink once a year, only once a year, but I beat the shit out of my wife every time I do it, there's an issue. Maybe I have an issue with alcohol. It has nothing to do with frequency.
Sam Hamson:
And then there's the medical side to it. What if nothing disastrous or overtly obvious happens when you drink, but at what point am I putting my body at risk? At what point am I compromising my wellness? Because then anything above that moderate level is considered heavy alcohol use.
NIAAA defines heavy alcohol use as more than four drinks on any day for men, and more than three drinks for women. And SAMHSA says that heavy alcohol use is defined as binge drinking or on five or more days in the past month. If you've gone out every weekend and you drink more than that binge amount. That's considered heavy alcohol use and there may or may not be substance use disorder or impact functioning criteria as well. But you're already in the heavy alcohol use category as far as illness and physical concern.
Loosely it's based on blood alcohol concentration, which is why you hear so many people obsess over breathalyzers because what they're looking for is how much of that alcohol is free flowing and in your blood concentration. These numbers give or take weight, height, water intake, that kind of stuff. These are the general numbers where you're jumping above a 0.08. And when you do that, you're having an impact on your physical wellness.
Patrick Balsley:
And that's where this conversation gets interesting, because do the rewards from that moderate to mild alcohol use outweigh those long term risks? And I think that's kind of where we're at as a culture. It's like, “yeah, okay. If I'm going to shave five years off my life because I want to have three drinks every night, so be it.”
Amy Damaso: Alcohol’s Impact on Your Wellness Journey
Robbie Shaw:
We are here today with Amy Damaso. Amy is an integrated health and wellness coach based in Los Angeles, where the people are beautiful and the wifi sucks. Would you mind just telling our listeners what you do and how you got there?
Amy Damaso:
Sure. I started in health and wellness as a personal trainer and I trained in New York city for about five years. When I moved to Los Angeles, I was traveling a lot with my husband and wanted to still help people be healthier. So at that point I transitioned fully to health coaching, which I had been doing the whole time with my personal training clients. But health coaching really allowed me to dive deeper into not only exercise and moving your body, but the nutrition, stress management, and just the day to day of how people live and how to make each day a little bit healthier.
Robbie Shaw:
Well, that makes you the perfect guest. Our whole podcast is coming from a place of wellness and health strategies. Have you noticed a difference in how much people are drinking since the pandemic?
Amy Damaso:
I have, particularly in the past nine months to a year. When the pandemic started, suddenly everyone was home and had a lot of free time on their hands. And all of a sudden four or five o'clock would roll around and it was like, “oh, I'm home. I have nothing to do, and no place to be. I can pour a drink.” And then I noticed this summer where people were like, “oh, I'm drinking every day. I really have to dial that back.” And by the holidays, the conversations were looking towards “I need to take a break.”
So we've had a lot of conversations about finding other ways to decompress at the end of the day, instead of reaching for that old reliable cocktail or a glass of wine. The pandemic has been an interesting evolution of people thinking, “oh, I have all this freedom and I'm going to celebrate or enjoy myself.” And then after a while the novelty wears off or we're starting to feel the effects of this continued activity that's not really supporting our bodies.
Robbie Shaw:
Wow. That's really interesting. A lot of times you assume there's just a lot of drinking going on and you can leave it at that, but you've actually seen the cycle and then the recognition and effort to make some change.
Amy Damaso:
Absolutely. And a lot of the clients that I see are trying to lose weight or they're training for something. And I equate drinking to eating dessert. It's the same thing: a little bit is great, but a lot isn't great for our bodies. If you are trying to make yourself healthier, how do you regulate the amount of alcohol you consume, or how do you regulate the sugar you're putting into your body?
Patrick Balsley:
When you are working with a new client and you're assessing their health and wellness needs and formulating some type of plan to move forward, does alcohol play a role in that assessment? Is that something that you focus on?
Amy Damaso:
We definitely talk about it. It's part of my opening health assessment that I do with each client. I try to figure out what they're eating, what they're drinking, and if what they're consuming is helping or hurting them. Drugs and alcohol are definitely part of that conversation.
I've had clients that don't drink at all. And I have other clients that drink a lot and are making a conscious effort to dial that down. There's a lot of social pressure around drinking and addressing that situation. But also coming home every evening or finishing up your work calls and pouring a glass of wine or a glass of whiskey, how do we address that? Talking about other things that you can do at the end of the day to unwind and relax, instead of reaching for that drink.
Patrick Balsley:
What are some of those things that you work on with your clients to help manage their stress levels instead of alcohol consumption?
Amy Damaso:
Each client is a little bit different. It's about finding something that they enjoy doing. I also address triggers. If cooking dinner, you're like, “oh, I'm cooking dinner, I'm going to pour a glass of wine while I'm cooking.” That might not necessarily be the right thing to get us away from drinking.
I love instead of pouring a drink, going for a walk, walking the dog, playing with your kids, reading something - any type of hobby that you might have, just finding something that at the end of the day brings that stress level down. So you can mindfully move through your evening.
Sam Hamson:
It's so cool that the strategies are also in line with health and wellness goals rather than potentially counteracting the goals that they have. And I'm curious what impact you're seeing alcohol having on their health and wellness goals?
Amy Damaso:
That's a great question. Regular consumption of alcohol actually has a lot of impact. It increases our levels of inflammation throughout the body. It causes blood sugar dysregulation, which I talk about all the time. When you consume alcohol, it actually turns into sugar in your body which causes blood sugar spikes.
It also affects your sleep. Even a little amount of alcohol can decrease your sleep by an average of 9.3%, high amounts, almost 40%. Memory loss, dependency, your digestive system - it really wreaks havoc on your digestive system. And it goes back to the fact that it metabolizes into sugar, and too much sugar in your diet causes candida growth and can cause all kinds of health issues. The fact that it affects your digestive system also affects your immune health. In a time where everyone's really conscious of their immune health, drinking too much is actually going to be counterproductive. I could go on, there is a whole list of things.
How to have a healthy relationship with alcohol
Patrick Balsley:
I understand that it's individualized, but what are some of the tools that you use to measure alcohol consumption with your clients?
Amy Damaso:
The conversations I usually have revolve around, “how does it make you feel? Is having one or two glasses of wine at night affecting your sleep and affecting your next day?” You might not necessarily be hungover from having two glasses of wine, but if it's affecting your sleep and making you tired and groggy, it is affecting your life. If you have six glasses of wine, you're probably sleeping through the night, but you're not getting real sleep. You're never really hitting the REM stage of sleep where your body really restores and regenerates itself.
Robbie Shaw:
How do you guide some of those changes, for instance, business dinners, social outings, cooking at home with a glass of wine? How do you guide them through those typical drinking scenarios?
Amy Damaso:
When I was in New York, the business dinner was a hot topic. I had a lot of male clients who were executives in finance, and that's a big part of their job. And when they were training for something or trying to lose weight, alcohol was always a hot topic. The way I would approach it was they needed to make a decision for themselves. Why are they trying to dial back their drinking? That needs to be their first priority. If it's important to them, they need to make a mindful effort. I think mindfulness is something that people have been talking more and more about, but being conscientious of how alcohol is going to make them feel.
There's so much social pressure around drinking or not drinking. And the social outcry of not consuming alcohol is almost worse than anything. It's just, “what is wrong with you?” For a woman it's either you're pregnant or something's wrong with you. For a man it's just like, "dude what's wrong with you?" So you need to be strong. I find that you need to reassure everyone that you're doing something for yourself and that their choices are their choices and you respect them. You need them to respect yours.
Robbie Shaw:
As a health and wellness professional, do you see a value in alcohol use in this health and wellness space? Do you feel like there is a healthy amount of alcohol use?
Amy Damaso:
You have benefits in red wine, but you can also get that in supplement form or eat any type of red or blue vegetable or fruit. I think in small amounts it can be beneficial. And there is some health benefit. I find that most people don't keep it to one glass a day though.
Making healthy lifestyle changes
Sam Hamson:
One of the things that we hear is “I'm working so hard on all of these other things, and I deserve to have a drink.” How do you coach people through that?
Amy Damaso:
That's a big one and it comes up in health coaching all the time. I approach it the same way I do diet. Looking for non food and beverage rewards is really important. A lot of us are conditioned from the time we’re children that if you've had a good day or a tough day, you get a cookie or a brownie or a lollipop or something. How do we get away from that mentality?
I work with my clients to come up with a list of things that are rewarding to them that don't revolve around eating or drinking. I do the same thing with alcohol. I equate alcohol and dessert to the same category. It's things that cause your blood sugar to go up and don't promote fat loss or your body to be as healthy as it could be.
Robbie Shaw:
Why do you think people reward themselves with bad things?
Amy Damaso:
Because bad things make us feel good. We're conditioned to be rewarded at the end of accomplishing something. And for health coaching, it's really about looking at those habits and coming up with new ones, which isn't easy. And that's not always a fast process. If you're having four drinks a night, let's start by only having three. It doesn't have to be a major shift. And then maybe a month in you're like, “oh I don't need three. I can only have two,” and then going from there.
By changing your habits a little bit at a time, it's not totally overwhelming. It's not ripping the bandaid off. I find people that go cold turkey, particularly with food, they're like, “I'm only going to have 1,000 calories a day.” I'm like, “that's going to end terribly. You're going to freak out and eat everything in sight, don't do that.” Trying to find ways to make little changes that support your body is really important.
Robbie Shaw:
Are there certain types of foods or certain diets that are going to compliment somebody's attempts to pull back their alcohol consumption?
Amy Damaso:
The higher quality food that you consume, the better your body is going to feel. If you're on a diet of fast food, you're going to feel like fast food. You're going to feel like junk. If you're eating a diet high in vegetables, fruits, and lean proteins, your body is going to feel better. It's the same thing with alcohol. I always encourage my clients to stick to clear spirits. I'm a big “and soda” person - adding ice, adding soda, water it down.
If you can dilute it down, it keeps you from drinking as much because it will take you longer to consume. If you're going to have wine, stick to something that's organic and biodynamic, making sure that you're drinking water. Water-based foods can also help because they fill you up. I find just consuming more vegetables in a day will fill you up and you won't feel the need to eat and drink more.
Sam Hamson:
It sounds like you're also coaching folks on delayed gratification versus immediate. It takes time to get the results that you want. And you're calling alcohol this ‘old reliable.’ One of the reasons we reach for it is because it gives us that immediate relief. And you're teaching clients how to delay gratification. I can go and buy a new sports bra. I also don't get to wear it immediately. So it's almost like there's some brain chemistry piece of teaching different behaviors and training your brain to be able to delay gratification.
Amy Damaso:
Absolutely. I think it's also about learning coping mechanisms. Life is a little hard and we should all be able to deal with things in a way where we're not reaching for something to soothe us if things don't go our way.
Robbie Shaw:
What would you say to our listeners if they're making the decision to look at their relationship with alcohol?
Amy Damaso:
I always like to dig into the why. Why are you looking at your relationship with alcohol? Is your current relationship supporting your goals, your health goals, your life, your relationships? I really like people to have their own motivation, not external motivation. If it comes from within, it's going to resonate a little bit deeper. Why are you making this choice? I like people to come up with their own self motivations instead of me giving them a list of things to do.
Robbie Shaw:
The information and opinion shared on this podcast are solely those of the hosts and guests and not a substitute for medical advice. If you feel like you may need professional help, here are some resources. For the substance abuse and mental health services administration hotline, call 1-800-662-4357 or visit S-A-M-S-A.gov. For listeners in the Charlotte North Carolina community, visit Dilworthcenter.org or call 704-372-6969. Or visit theBlanchardinstitute.com or call 704-288-1097.