Intuitive Eating and Alcohol

Recently I was asked about the place that alcohol has when connecting to your inner intuitive eater. Thinking about alcohol use in the context of connecting to your body and healing your relationship with food is intensely personal, which is why I want to share my perspective with you as someone who has been a non-drinker for 5 years and also as an intuitive eating and nutrition counselor.

If you are struggling with substance abuse or are concerned about your relationship with alcohol, please contact 1-800-662-HELP. This episode contains my personal thoughts about alcohol, but at the end of the day, you have the freedom and autonomy to do whatever feels right for you. If you are struggling with substance abuse, please know there is support out there for you, and change is possible.

Key Takeaways

If You Want To Explore Your Relationship With Alcohol and Intuitive Eating You Should:

1. Stop being afraid that you are going to want to binge drink if you decide to limit your alcohol intake
2. Notice your personal relationship with drinking and assess how it makes you feel 
3. Reach out for support and make the decision that feels right to you in your own intuitive eating journey

The Difference Between Food and Alcohol

A common misconception is that food is addictive. In reality, the food ‘addiction’ you may be familiar with is a result of restriction and the binge eating that follows. Alcohol is different from food in this way. Reducing the amount you are drinking will not cause the majority of people to binge drink because alcohol is not required for survival like food is. Often people are reluctant to cut out alcohol because they are worried they will crave it all the time. Binge drinking and binge eating have different mechanisms and experiences, and it is crucial to understand how restriction with food differs from simply choosing not to engage with alcohol.

It’s Your Personal Journey, No One Else’s

A lot of people are concerned about doing intuitive eating ‘right’. Intuitive eating is not a set of yes or no rules, it is a set of personal guidelines, and your relationship with alcohol is included in that. I want you to use intuitive eating principles to ask yourself the tough questions and help you gain clarity on your personal experience with alcohol. Do you have a diet mentality when you are drinking? Are you drinking mindfully? Is alcohol your primary coping strategy? 

By noticing your relationship with alcohol and assessing it, you can understand your own unique relationship to alcohol and if it fits into your intuitive eating journey.

Which of the questions I posed to you today got you thinking? How does your relationship with alcohol fit into your version of intuitive eating? Share your thoughts with me in the comments on the episode page.

In This Episode

• Exploring my personal relationship with alcohol use and intuitive eating (3:30)
• How to approach assessing and analyzing your own relationship with drinking (8:16)
• Understanding the connection between restriction and bingeing when it comes to food and alcohol (10:34)
• Tips for using the principles of intuitive eating when thinking about alcohol (17:40)
• Why you should analyze the emotional coping aspect of your relationship with food and alcohol (21:30)

Quotes

“There are a lot of questions that come up for people with regard to understanding how restricting food works or bingeing on food works, and how restricting alcohol and binge drinking works, and the fact that those aren’t necessarily the same thing.” (8:01)

“A lot of people will notice that if they start to cut down on their drinking, or they stop drinking altogether, they often don't notice an increased desire or preoccupation with drinking.” (13:11)

“You may decide that you are making peace with food over here, but when it comes to alcohol, if you realize that you are not enjoying it, that your relationship with it isn’t super great, you would rather just take it out for a while, its okay to remove it from your environment!” (15:42)

“It’s worth considering how these different principles of intuitive eating can apply to your relationship with alcohol and your drinking habits and know that the answers are going to be different for everybody.” (24:03)

“I hope that this show has given you some questions to ask yourself. I can’t promise that it is perfect, I can’t promise that my thoughts here are going to be exactly applicable to you. But I think it is really important to go through the questions that I raised in this show and to think about things on a really personal level for yourself.” (27:40)

Featured on the Show

Food Freedom Mini-Course

Overcome Emotional Eating Workshop

Steph Gaudreau Website

Check out the full show notes here!

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