Gray Area Drinking | Jolene Park | TEDxCrestmoorParkWomen

So I still remember the exact spot

on the highway where I was driving.

I think I remember it so vividly because

I was having one of the most important

conversations that I’ve ever had with

myself.

In that moment in my car,

I knew in my bones, I wouldn’t drink alcohol again.

So you might be thinking what was the rock

bottom that brought me to that point?

And the answer is … there wasn’t one!

You see, I was a gray area drinker and

I drank between two extremes. I wasn’t an

end stage, lose everything kind of

drinker, not by a long shot. If you would

have asked my friends and family if they

thought I had a drinking problem they

have said, “of course not”. But I also

wasn’t an "every now and again drinker"

who would have a glass of champagne

for example at the wedding and then not

drink again for weeks. I didn’t fall into

either one of those drinking categories

or drinking extremes. And maybe you

can identify?

As a nutritionist who has worked in

corporate wellness since 2004,

I functioned really well. I knew how

to eat well, I worked out on a regular

basis and I loved to read and study

everything health and wellness.

But what people didn’t know was how much I

loved the “off” switch that wine provided

to my “on” and often anxious brain.

I loved the immediate effect that red wine

delivered. And people also didn’t see how

easy and frequent it was for one glass of

wine to turn into one bottle of wine.

There is a commune characteristic and

pattern in gray area drinking that I

experience and I’ve watched many others

experience as well and that’s a stopping

and restarting drinking. One time I

stopped for 7 months, another time I

stopped for 30 days, and other short

periods in between, and then I would think

to myself: “Why am I being so restrictive?

I can be a social drinker”. So I’d return

to drinking only to return to a level of

drinking where I regret it. This back and

forth drinking marry-go-around was the

exact thing that I knew I wanted to exit

off for good that day in my car on the

highway.

And maybe you don’t actually identify with

a gray area drinking because not everyone

will. But here is what I know with

absolute certainty: there are people in

your life right now, it could be family

members, close friends, colleagues, and

they are worrying and wondering as they’re

rethinking their drinking because they are

in the gray area, but more than likely

they are not talking to you about it and

they are not talking to others about it

because they think they are the only ones

and they think they are alone.

So how do I know this? I’ve lived this for

many years. And the more I can be speaking

up professionally about my gray area

drinking experience the more my email

inbox gets flooded with emails from

attorneys and therapists, senior level

managers and nurses, stay in home moms,

yoga instructors, and many many others.

And their words are different, but

the jest of what they write me is all

the same and they say, “I identify with

your drinking story. I don’t have a rock

bottom either, I want to be able to drink

socially, but I end up regretting how much

I drink on a frequent basis."

This gray area drinking spectrum is real

and it’s large. And a lot of high

achieving, high functioning people who

silently live here every day. But beyond

gray area drinking is even something

bigger and that’s a collective story of

anxiety. And this I believe is where we

are collectively missing the mark.

We don’t need anymore cognitive hoops to

jump through and we don’t need anymore

ways to focus our will power and contort

our will power in an attempt to “fix”

ourselves, what we need is practical

training in how to nourish our nervous

system in a revolutionary and new way.

So there is many components and pieces to

this, but one component and one

interesting place to start can

be understanding your neurotransmitters.

So let’s start with GABA. So GABA is

the natural anti-anxiety neurotransmitter.

When GABA is low we can feel anxious and

our mind can get stuck in a loop of worry,

rumination or obsession about anything.

Serotonin is the natural anti-depressant

neurotransmitter. When serotonin is low

we can feel more depressed, unhappy, and

crave things like carbs and alcohol and

have trouble sleeping.

Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that’s in

charge of our focus and motivation. When

dopamine’s low it can be hard to stay at

a coarse and stay on track with your

goals and your routines.

So people with low GABA people will often

say that they drink as a way to relax.

That was me. People with low serotonin

will say they drink as a way to have fun,

and people with low dopamine will say they

drink as a way to connect and engage

with others.

But here’s the problem and here is what I

want to you know and take from this talk —

It can be relatively easy for most people

on the gray area drinking spectrum to stop

drinking, but it can be hard to stay

stopped, especially if we are not

replenishing our neurotransmitters and

nourishing our nervous system in a

comprehensive and consistent way.

So here’s the good news, in turns out that

there is actually specific foods,

movements and lifestyle practices that

while they are great wellness tips for

everyone, they have very direct and

immediate roles in boosting all of our

neurotransmitters.

So as a way to give you some practical

ways that you can begin to boost your

neurotransmitters now I’d like to start

doing that by using the acronym “NOURISH”

N - notice nature - Research shows that

when our pleasure, which is dopamine,

and our happiness, which is serotonin,

both begin to rise when we go into areas

with a large density of trees or a large

body of water like an ocean. All it takes

is 20 minutes of being around nature with

a lot of trees, a lot of water for your

GABA, serotonin, and dopamine to begin

to rise.

O - observe your breath. There are many

medications you can stunt, blunt, and

block the fight-flight-freeze response in

your body, there are no medications that

can boost the calm response. But there is

one mechanism in your body that can do

that naturally. And that mechanism is your

breath. When our breath is regulated our

neurotransmitters become regulated.

Take a breath! How does that feel? You all

just gave a little boost to your GABA,

serotonin, and dopamine.

R - replenish with food - when you eat

protein, whether it’s animal protein or

vegetable protein, it doesn’t matter,

it breaks down into amino acids and amino

acids are what replenish GABA, serotonin,

and dopamine. When you eat healthy fats,

particularly in the form of Omega 3 fats

like fish oil, flax seeds, or walnuts,

those Omega 3 fats are the raw materials

that make your neurotransmitters.

When you eat carbohydrates, specifically

in the ideal form of vegetables, and even

more specific, leafy green vegetables,

they break down into B vitamins and

B vitamins are the pre-cursors that make

serotonin. When you replenish with food

you replenish your neurotransmitters.

I - initiate movement. Any exercise will

boost the neurotransmitters.

The Boston University did a study with

yoga participants and they had them do

a 60-minute yoga class. And then when

they measured they're GABA after that

class they found everyone’s GABA went

up at least on 27%. Some participants had

arising GABA up to 80%. Compared to the

control group that read a book for

60 minutes, there was no change in

their GABA. One 60-minute yoga class can

initiate a boost in all your

neurotransmitters.

But after we active, we need to be still.

S - sitting in stillness allows

the nervous system the opportunity

to respond and adopt in a complex world

that we live and work in in a very

nurusing way. And particularly sitting in

stillness and silence, invoking a sacred

prayer, meditation, or scripture can

really feed and replenish your GABA,

serotonin, and dopamine.

H - harness your creativity - Dopamine

loves the creative flow. And the way you

get into a creative flow is to pick

a single focused activity that ends

en “ing”. Some examples are gardening,

fishing, painting. But be careful because

there are some other activities that end

en “ing” that make us feel like we get

a dopamine hit: drinking, smoking,

overeating. Fishing, painting,

the positive hobbies boost your dopamine.

The other: drinking, smoking, overeating

depletes dopamine. Harnish your

creativity, but be very conscientious

how you doing that. As of today, It has

been 1054 days since I’ve had a drink

of alcohol.

But I didn’t have a rock bottom moment

that brought me to this point and you

don’t need to have one either.

But I’ll be honest there were two things I

worried about when I stopped drinking.

And the first was: what would happen with

my relationships? This one surprised me.

The important relationships in my life,

family stuck by me, but they deepened.

And I look back at all the new wonderful

people who who had entered my life in

the last 3 years, some of them drink,

some of them don’t, but our relationship

is not built on my personal decision to

not drink. We’ve been able to connect and

relate and we’re aligned in a way that is

new for me. And it’s been really really

nourishing to add these relationships

to my life.

The second thing I worried about was what

if something awful happened and it would

be so painful that I’ll want to numb it

with a glass or a bottle of wine? That

worry came true. Eighteen months into not

drinking I hit my worse personal financial

crisis in my life. If there was ever

a time when I wanted to numb

the experience and anesthetize the intense

anxiety and fear that I felt that was

the time. But I didn’t do it. And I

believe the reason I got through that time

without drinking wasn’t because I had

an intellectual understanding of

the nervous system, which I do, but

intellectualizing something is what gets

me through something. And it wasn’t

because I had a strong will power, which

I don’t, my will power fatigue is as much

as the next person. But what I had was

a very targeted and specific nourishment

that I had given my nervous system

leading up to that point in a very new and

different way. And that had given me

a zone of resilience and internal zone

of resilience that I’ve never had before.

So whatever road you’re on and wherever

you are on that road with your own

internal conversation, whether you’re

a healthcare professional like myself,

a business professional in any industry,

a stay at home parent or anyone else, if

you know in your bones that you’re in

the gray area with drinking or anything

else as an attempt to regulate the anxiety

in your body or the discomfort in your

life, don’t forget: your GABA,

your serotonin, and your dopamine are

waiting for you to activate them with

certain foods, movements and lifestyle

practices, and when you do that you’re

giving your nervous system the

nourishment it’s been craving all along.

Thank you!