 but have changed scenery using a different camera and mic. So let's get the chat overlay up so everybody can see each other and talk to each other. And let me close this. Just somebody give me a wave and let me know that you can actually hear me. I'm pretty sure it's working. I had to change browsers to be able to use my iPhone camera for this week stream. And today we're gonna talk about alcohol and caffeine because when I first started podcasting and writing and doing things like that in a million years, I never would have thought that I would talk so much about things like coffee or wine. But I know it's an important thing for us to talk about. So we will talk about that today. Hello guys, here we are. I finished my coffee. Totally fine. Hello, Carol. Good to see you. Good to see everybody. This is the 67th time we've done Recovery Monday. Thanks, B. Appreciate the thumbs up with the audio in the video. And yeah, so let's wait for some folks to pop in like we usually do. How's everybody doing today? Let me know where you're from. Let me know what's going on. Bonjour for my solo parish trip. So Kathleen, I guess is back from Paris. I hope that went well. Hello, Katya. Katya's in Russia. Hope everything's going okay over there. And yeah, we'll just wait for some folks to pop in. We have 19 people, which seems a little low, but that's okay. We will wait for a few more folks. Hello, Twitch. What's happening? Good to see you, Twitch. When I heard alcohol help perpetuate my anxiety, I went and poured all my Pappy Van Winkle down the train. That's a good comment. Hello, New York City. How are you? What's going on? Oh, yeah. Nice to see you, Oh, yeah. Mara from Montreal, Carol from Essex. Hi from Tampa. Hello, Heather. Just a quick reminder, if you're in my Facebook group, I will only see you as Facebook user. That's just the way Reestream does it. So I'm really sure. I was really sorry about that, but what are you gonna do? First time joining live. Hello, Cody. Good to see you. Glad you could make it. Hello, Virginia. Hope everything's okay. Marina's still from Paris, where I guess Kathleen just was. So we got the French connection going on today. So anyway, let's get into the whole alcohol and caffeine thing. I am going to have a little drink. This is, you guys ever had this La Croix? I've never had La Croix before. It's just like bubbly water, key lime. It's pretty good. Anyway, hey Viola, good to see you. So let's talk about alcohol and caffeine. This really encompasses more than just alcohol and caffeine. It really is like any food or any drink that you think you should not have because you think it will trigger your anxiety or it makes you more anxious. Most likely it's alcohol or it's caffeine. Those are the top two sort of offenders, if you will. But it could be anything. So a lot of people have a long list of foods that they will avoid because they are afraid that they will get triggered if they have those foods. So we show of hands if you guys are those people and you either avoid caffeine or a coffee or chocolate or you avoid alcohol or you avoid any sort of food because you're convinced that it makes you anxious, just a show by show of hands. It's actually a very common thing. So you're not alone in that at all. If you have a list of food and drink avoidances then you're not the only one for sure. So caffeine and alcohol tend to be the top offenders here or the top of the list. And people will often hear, conventional wisdom would say, if you're anxious you should definitely not have any caffeine. You gotta cut caffeine out right away. No coffee, no chocolate, no anything with caffeine in it. Tea, like regular tea is caffeinated, right? So people will hear that right away. You should cut out caffeine for sure because it will make you anxious. And then on the flip side, people will often say, like, oh, you should totally not. Okay, cool, we're getting some comments in here. Sugary desserts, cookies, foods, I'll avoid anything sugary. Let's see here. I'm gonna read comments as we go because I asked a question. I can proudly say that I was like that two weeks ago but not anymore. I'm enjoying all the sugar and coffee now. Okay, well, you know, everything in moderation but I'm glad that you're back to things that you enjoy which is good. So people will hear not only about you should cut out caffeine but often people will say, oh, you shouldn't drink, you shouldn't drink. Alcohol increases anxiety. And it's that paradoxical thing because a lot of people will use alcohol, there's a little bit of a self-medicating thing. And in fact, this week on the podcast on Wednesday, we're gonna talk about that. People who have addiction problems but people will sometimes self-medicate with alcohol because it calms them down but then there's the rebound afterwards. Like, oh, it will make you more anxious, rebound anxiety. So you should stay away from alcohol because it will increase your anxiety when you get off it. Okay, fair enough. So really what's going on there is I want you to think of a time maybe before you had an anxiety problem if you have a time before that. And I want you to think about that and think about all the things that you ate and drank back then that did change what made your body feel differently but you did not attach fear to them. So the first thing that I like to talk about when we go over this topic is the idea that we should stop saying coffee makes me anxious. We should stop saying caffeine makes me anxious. We should stop saying alcohol makes my anxiety go through the roof. What those things do and there's no doubt about that is they will make you feel differently. There is no doubt about that that if you drink a big cup of coffee unless you're super used to it and you're resistant to caffeine, you'll feel different. I know that for me, I think it was yesterday morning. I generally drink decaf coffee because I'm used to it now but I was one of those people that I stayed away from caffeine like the plague for years. As soon as I developed an anxiety problem nothing with caffeine, no chocolate, nothing with cocoa, no caffeine, nothing. And I don't do that anymore. So I'll occasionally drink decaffeinated coffee just cause I like the flavor of it in some cases but so I did it, I had some coffee on yesterday morning and I mixed them sometimes, I'll grind my own and I felt it yesterday for whatever reason. I was a little extra tired, I don't know. I felt it so my heart was pounding yesterday morning after that coffee. Okay, but I expected to happen cause I had some caffeine. So 100% those things will make you feel different. Caffeine will make your heart rate increase. It's a vasoconstrictor. Caffeine is weird cause it has multiple effects. It's both a vasoconstrictor and a vasodilator. It's a really weird chemical but it does have an effect on your body and it will create feelings in your body that feel like anxiety symptoms. So specifically the jittery thing, the keyed up thing like it was weird, my foot was tapping, I was sitting at my desk and I was tapping my foot. So we'll definitely do those things. The issue with anxious people is that since it feels like anxiety feels we will say, oh, caffeine makes me anxious but caffeine doesn't make you anxious. It just makes your body do things that you interpret as I can't allow those things to happen. This is anxiety and it's no good. I cannot ever allow it to happen or it'll feel like anxiety or it'll remind you of anxiety and you don't want to do that. So you declare it off limits. And the same thing with alcohol. Like when you drink alcohol, clearly nobody denies this with you consume alcohol, you will feel different. And interestingly, people tend to focus on the after effects of the alcohol. So the next day they will say my anxiety is through the roof the next day when I wake up. Whether you were drunk a lot or not, sometimes it's just I had two glasses of wine, person wasn't drunk by any stretch of the imagination but the next morning my anxiety is through the roof. So there's the next day or the sort of anxiety or the, what if I call, I've heard it called anxiety. Maybe you drank too much and there's a hangover. But also during the drinking. So for me, it was the old like, if I have any alcohol, I will start to feel different, right? So we know it makes us feel different. People literally drink just to feel different. And it will make me feel different and I don't like feeling different. I'm on guard against any change of state in my body. I will guard against any change in my hearing or my vision or the way I perceive the world. And as soon as I would start to feel that, no bueno and I would start to freak out and I would, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And I would head toward panic. So I stopped consuming any form of alcohol, right? So I didn't drink alcohol for many, many, many years. I was never a big drinker anyway. I'm a terrible beer drinker, just for the record. If you hand me a beer, I'm the guy that holds onto it for like an hour and a half. It's flat, it's warm. I don't like beer. So I was never a big drinker anyway, but I would avoid alcohol like the plague because it would make me feel different. And I was interpreting that as dangerous and it would trigger like anxiety. I would start to go into the OMG cycle, right? So those are the two main reasons why people like will avoid drinking, eating or drinking those things. No caffeine, no alcohol. And let me be clear, like that's a perfectly acceptable choice to make if you want to not consume certain foods because for health reasons or just personal preference I don't like to drink or I like to keep my sugar intake down. That's totally fine. Like nobody is here saying like, oh, you should be just guzzling coffee and eating chocolate all day long at all. It's totally fine to decide the type of diet that you want to have. There's nothing wrong with that. But I just want to really address today is one of those sort of things where we take a personal choice or maybe a dietary choice, a taste choice, a moral choice for some people, totally fine. Then we turn it into an anxiety issue. I don't like when caffeine and alcohol become an anxiety issue. When they're not really anxiety issues and then it starts to fuel that avoidance cycle. And especially if you're the type of person who maybe you're a wine person, like I don't know shit about wine, but a lot of people really love wine and they're wine aficionados and they're experts and they love their wine and that's totally cool but they stop drinking it because it makes them feel different and they get anxiety. And if you miss it, so if you miss coffee, if you miss chocolate, if you miss having a glass of wine or you miss whatever it is and you want to go back to those things which you won't because of your anxiety. That's what we're sort of talking about today, right? So let me just go back to the comments which is not something I usually do but I just want to see what everybody's saying about this because I did ask a question. Yeah, a bunch of people were saying that they are in a food avoiding people. Brene is, let's see here. I drink coffee like crazy but I have others that I avoid. Any food that triggers heartburn. Oh, I'll put that up on the screen. That was another one for me, like heartburn, some foods would give me heartburn because I just, they do. And I would avoid those too because the heartburn was a symptom that I didn't want to feel. So I get you on that. That's really good. I like it. I do believe when you are first sensitized that you should watch what you eat and drink. I would disagree with that. So I would ask you, why do you believe that you should watch what you eat or drink? Especially early in recovery when you don't understand what's going on. So I would disagree with you on that. I mean, you could choose not to eat or drink certain foods. There's nothing wrong with that but I'm not sure why when you are first sensitized you should avoid things. When we become sensitized in the beginning and we begin to start to eliminate things from our lives, we are creating the problem. The reason why you guys are in a room with me today is because you felt some things and then got into a cycle of avoidance. So I would say that any avoidance, including food and drink is not a good idea. It's not a good idea. If you know what's going on and you still choose to do it, okay, that might be one thing but I would completely disagree with the idea that when you start to get anxious you better avoid certain things for what? Because then it teaches you like those sensations are not, I need to stop them from happening. So I'm not sure that that's true. Let's see, I avoided coffee more out of being nauseated and me thinking that harsher foods would make it worse. Let me throw that up on the screen. One of our Twitch people, hello Becky. I avoided coffee more out of being nauseated and me thinking that harsher foods would make it worse. Distinction, I mean, I knew it didn't cause anxiety. I don't know. I love the end of this comment, don't know. Don't know is the ultimate comment for sure. But it's funny because we get into these moods and listen, I do understand that if you are anxious and you are sensitized and you are afraid there's not a lot of rationality there. I understand that. Believe me, I avoided a ton of foods for a while. I've told this story quite often. There was like a three year period or four year period where I did not eat Chinese food. Didn't eat Chinese food at all. Why? Because I used to eat Chinese food all the time. And then I ate Chinese food one night, I had a swing and panic attack and I was 100% convinced that it was because of the Chinese food and I didn't eat it for years. For no reason, no reason whatsoever. But it just, you know, it just didn't do it. So that happens and there isn't necessarily rationality behind that. So I do understand like the whole thing. I avoided coffee because, you know, it'd be nauseous and then it just sort of grew into something bigger than that. And we don't know why, we don't get it. So I get it. Let's see here. I caught up with caffeine, but I'm still avoiding alcohol because I'm scared of the effect and scared to not, okay, this is good. Hey, Australia, just saw somebody pop in from down under. I caught up with caffeine, good job, but still avoiding alcohol. I'm scared of the effect and scared of not being able to take a benzo in an emergency. So this is a good thing if you are taking a benzo or really any medication that you should not combine with alcohol, definitely do not combine anything with alcohol, very good. That goes without saying. Do not use alcohol as an exposure or decide you're gonna kick anxieties asked by having alcohol if you're on a medication where you should not drink. So let's be clear about that. That is also a common statement and that's something that I could recognize too. The whole like if I have a beer or I have a glass of wine, a drink or whatever, that I won't be able to take a Xanax that I would not take anyway because I'm a stubborn jerk but I wouldn't take them but I was afraid that alcohol would preclude me taking it just in case, right? So really good comment there. Starbucks isn't coffee, my dude. I don't mean to start a coffee war, especially here in the Northeastern US you have the Starbucks versus Dunkin' Donuts war and that's nasty, I'm staying out of that. People are getting hurt. Anyway, I used to avoid alcohol and caffeine and realized there was no help. So back to adjoining coffee and the double beverages. Very good. I hardly drink any alcohol really, basically a tea toddler. Hey, you know what? That's totally fine. Some people just, I mean, I'm not a big drinker anyway. I'll drink now. I do enjoy bourbon. I like to try different bourbons and different whiskeys and I have whole closet full of them but maybe some of them will outlive me because I just don't drink a lot but I'm not afraid to drink anymore. So the funny thing about it is, this is good one. So we'll put this up on the screen. I drink coffee, I have no effects. I'm odd, I guess. I'm amazed at the number of anxious people that are like, what do you mean coffee makes me anxious? So like some people just love their coffee, they love their caffeine, it's totally fine. I know anxious people that if they stop drinking coffee or they eliminate caffeine, that's worse for them because then they have that little caffeine withdrawal thing, headaches and stuff. That's a real thing, by the way. And they don't like that so they keep drinking the caffeine and they just feel like they feel worse without it. So it's not universal to avoid caffeine. Some people are like, no, no, no, you will, I'll stop drinking coffee when I'm dead. And that's totally fine. But for some people, it doesn't bother them at all. I don't understand. Personally, I don't understand caffeine as like it wakes me up. It has never woken me up, never. Like caffeine makes me jittery but it doesn't wake me up at all. Just makes me tired and jittery. But whatever, it's all cool. Okay, GBG says it thinks it got worse when he stopped drinking caffeine, I get that. It's kind of a paradox because we stopped drinking coffee because we think it makes us anxious but we only think this way when we are already anxious. That is 100% true. And you have to realize when no caffeine and no alcohol is not a thing that used to exist in your life, but it does now. That's a red flag, for sure. Also some people stop with caffeine and alcohol while anxious, but then they don't fear it anymore. They just don't want to go back to it. That's totally cool also. Some people just decide, I don't want alcohol. Like I was fine without it, so why go back to it? Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong. Okay, so this I can relate to a little bit too. Hi, Christine. I have decaf tea. Does chocolate cause palpitations? I love my chocolate. Well, let's talk about decaf for a second. I was at the point where I would still once in a while want to drink coffee even when I was really struggling with my anxiety problems. And I would make sure that I made decaf coffee. And I got to the point where I went to, I think I was at a Dunkin' Donuts with a friend once and I got a decaf coffee and I would add, if I ordered coffee out, I would ask like 67 times. It's decaf, right? It's decaf, right? As if they were literally accidentally putting rat poison in my coffee, but I was that afraid that it's decaf, right? Yes, it's decaf. Okay, cool. And I was a little jittery and I was a little panicky but I was panicky anyway. Like that day and I was convinced that Dunkin' Donuts decaf is not really decaf and I was like on a holy war. Like those people are a lion, man, but so, you know, that. But decaf, does chocolate cause palpitations? I love my chocolate. It might, you know, it might, but it depends on the amount of caffeine that's in the chocolate, I guess. It might cause your heart to go a little faster. It's possible. Let's keep going here. I was weaned on sweet tea. That would be a Southern US thing, right? Like sometimes interpret too much alcohol. Okay, let's throw this up here. Mustard rain, great name and always good comments. I appreciate your contributions. I would sometimes interpret too much alcohol with fear of losing control. For me, if I had a little bit of alcohol back in those days that like, it would feel like depersonalization to me. So the feeling of getting a little bit buzzed or the beginning of very little bit of drunk would feel like DPDR to me. And so I would avoid that like the plague. I get that. Stop drinking sweet tea for a long time because of the caffeine. I decided that I love to taste. Okay, this is a good comment. Stop drinking sweet tea because of the caffeine. I decided I love to taste more than I cared about the anxiety. So now I have it when I go out to eat. You know, sometimes you can do good comment Heather. Sometimes you could do the old like, oh, I don't drink it normally cause I don't want to walk around jittery all the time. Like for me with coffee, I don't really want to walk around jittery. I don't need my heart to pack. So, you know, there's no point in that. So I'll generally not have caffeinated coffee but I have some caffeinated coffees. Some I got as gifts that I really like. And in which case I decide, well, I really want the taste now. So I know I'm going to have to deal with a racing heart for 40 minutes after drinking. And you make that choice. But it's contextual. Sometimes you wouldn't, sometimes you wouldn't. It's all good. In my neck of the woods, not drinking coffee or alcohol is a religious tenant and going against, oh, okay. Don't go to hell, y'all. Sometimes that's part of the equation. So Becky, that's a really good comment by the way cause sometimes, especially alcohol and abstinence is tied to moral or cultural or religious concepts. So that adds another thing to it. Sometimes abstaining from alcohol, not drinking comes with social or cultural ramifications that happens too. So sometimes people in our community inside, I can't, I'm not going to drink anymore. And then their friends sort of turn on them a little bit. Like you're not as much fun anymore. Why don't you drink anymore? That can happen too. That's unfortunate when it does. So that's another source of pressure that no anxious person needs. My friend Larry makes me, he becomes a pseudo-commediate. Let's see what Renee has to say here. I miss wine when I'm scared to feel different. That was me, Renee. That was totally me. I didn't have a problem the morning after cause honestly, why would I? Because I would drink a little bit of alcohol and totally bail on it. And again, I always say I'm not a little person. So it was ridiculous. So I didn't have to worry at all about the next day. It was in that moment when I started to feel different that I would totally bail. Ametaphobes tend to avoid anxiety for obvious reasons. Well, that could be part of it also that a metaphobia thing does drive a lot of food avoidance for certain. My, let's see here. A lot of questions. You guys are like rapid-fire comments today. What did you go to whiskey? I don't necessarily have a go-to. I do like bourbon. I'm partial to bourbon. But if I'm going to drink something else, I like really like PD scotches. Like, Islay scotches, Isla scotches. I'm sorry, not Islay, Isla. So I really like those. But otherwise I'm set up a bourbon guy. But again, I don't really drink a lot of it. I mean alcohol. Yeah, I get it. I know what you're saying. Let's see, Christine says, I used to drink before and then completely stopped cause I didn't want to trigger. Air quotes, love it. I miss drinking here and there, but I just don't do it. I barely started to eat sweets again. Well, again, that's one of those things where if it's something that you miss because it was part of, sometimes they're part of cultural rituals. Like growing up in an Italian family, wine is a thing, right? So if you're not drinking, you are a little bit left out of the ritual sometimes, the cultural ritual, it wasn't getting drunk or anything like that. But if you are missing out on social things or cultural rituals, or it's just something that you miss cause you enjoyed the taste or whatever, going back to it is not a bad thing. So I barely started to eat sweets again. So let's get down to this before I take more comments. Some people will ask, can I use alcohol or caffeine? Can I use coffee or wine as exposures? And the answer is, yeah, you totally can do that. In fact, I mean, I'm not, nobody would tell anybody to go out and get super drunk or like gorge yourself on chocolate. Don't do silly things like everything in moderation, but using alcohol or any, or caffeine or any food that you're afraid of as an exposure is a good idea. It's actually a good idea. So, yeah, those are perfectly valid exposures, especially food exposures. It's also the people who avoid foods because they think it'll make them anxious, that's a really good exposure. Sometimes people start to avoid foods because they somehow are fearful that they've developed an allergy to those foods. That's a different thing. We'll talk about that one day for sure. Some people start to avoid certain foods that they are not allergic to and have never been allergic to and have no evidence of being allergic to, but suddenly have decided I might be allergic to this now and then they're terrified to eat them. And in that situation, the exposures are starting to nibble on little bits of those foods. So let's keep going. Drunk people make me anxious. That's fair. That's solely fair. Okay, this is a good comment here. Little avoidances definitely pile up and then become a huge mountain when we notice finally, yes, and that's why I sort of challenged Viola before with the like, I think you should avoid, you know, caffeine and alcohol in the beginning. I don't think so because of this because every time we do that, we're treating ourselves like we are fragile and like anxiety needs to be managed and it has to be very carefully managed and we can't allow it to happen. And I know it might seem like a little thing and I'm not saying that you should like guzzle a giant 32 ounces of caffeinated coffee before bedtime at all. But this is a great comment right here because this is true. Every time we do that, we are essentially sending the signal to our brain that says we are fragile and we have to be very careful about what we put into our bodies. So just consider that. Good comment, thank you. Coffee can interfere with sleep and like, oh, here you go, Viola's back, sorry. And lack of sleep will definitely make you, lack of sleep will make you tired. It will not make you anxious. So this goes hand in hand with this comment and I've done, if you go to the anxious shoot.com and search for sleep, you'll see a bunch of podcast episodes I've done in the last six months on that. So this one avoidance now becomes another. If I drink coffee, it might, I might not sleep properly. And then if I don't sleep properly, my anxiety goes through the roof. Not sleeping will make you tired. Fearing how you feel will make you anxious. So again, you can see how avoidances begin to chain together. It's really important that we ferret these things out. And you can disagree and you can make whatever choice you want. And I respect your ability to make a personal choice. But from where I sit, we have to be careful because they start to pile up. Let's see. I'm the same with Chinese food. Yep. Circus peanuts and peeps. Circus peanuts is orange marshmallow things. I haven't seen circus peanuts in a long time. Let's see here. Okay. Penelope. I know I was using it as a crutch to be social. I need to change my relationship with it but I do miss drinking. And I hate that I'm avoiding it. That last part is I think a big deal because a lot of people will say that too. A lot of people will say, it's not really even so much that I want to drink. I just hate that I'm avoiding. So that's a good point. I get it. Yeah. Christie taking booze bar. I never know how to say that. Bus bar, booze bar. Kent makes alcohol with that. So you gotta be careful. I drink coffee now because all it does is make my heart rate after years of decaf. You guys, is there a difference in taste? Can you taste decaf coffee? I'll just throw that out there. I don't know if I can but I don't have discerning taste buds anyway. I'm a terrible taste person. Oh, okay. This is cool. Thanks, Yon. Good to see you, man. I made caffeine exposures for four months. Now I'm at the point where you don't feel it anymore. Now caffeine is, I believe one of those things that we can build a tolerance to for sure. So people who are regularly caffeine consumers need much more caffeine to feel that racing hard thing. That is true. So, but this says that now it has no effect on you or not an effect that you care about. Good job, Yon. Very good. How about foods that we puked up for? Okay. Well, that's another aversion for sure. One day I'll tell the barbecue, the barbecue corn chip story. It's not a good story. It's actually a story about, no, you know what? I'm telling a story right now. So this is, it's a funny comment, I'm sure. For me, it's shrimp, kielbasa and Doritos. So back in the day, and it was the day, again, I'll point out the grain in my beard. I had two incidents. One was my senior year as an undergrad. My friends and I went to Wendy's in the US. We have Wendy's fast food place. I don't know if you guys have Wendy's in the UK. I think you do. And we went to Wendy's, whatever. And I had whatever. I don't even know what I had at Wendy's. And the next morning I was sick as a dog, but I was sick as a dog for like three days to the point where I missed classes and I missed an appointment. I was really sick, but I just had a really nasty stomach virus. None of my friends were sick. There was nothing wrong with the food at Wendy's. 100%, it was fine. I just got sick. I did not eat at a Wendy's. I still don't really eat at Wendy's because I'm not a big fast food guy, but we refused to even walk into a Wendy's for years, a good 10 years. And then it was before that, it was barbecue potato chips. I had, I was a big procrastinator in high school. I had a big paper to write for my college English class. And on the way home from my high school job, I stopped and I bought junk food and I was going to like sit up and eat junk food and write this paper the last minute overnight. And I ate barbecue corn chips and I got so sick the next day and I still won't eat those. But those are illustrations of how we do not want to repeat adverse experiences. Those were crappy experiences. I don't want to repeat them. And so boom, avoidance kicked in, 100%. And by the way, barbecue corn chips are vile. Do not ask me why I was doing, why I was eating those. I have so learned, I learned from you that how easy it is to have a feeling. Oh, this is good Sonya, good comment here. I've learned, so how easy it is to have a feeling and then immediately connect it to whatever I'm doing or eating at the moment. Yes, that is the need to figure it out. So if I am struggling, if I am there, whatever, if I am anxious about, I need to figure it out. What caused it? What is it? What triggered it? How can I avoid that down the road? And sometimes we attach it to what we eat or drink. That's a great comment. But that can, we can attach it to people. We attach it to context, places, tasks. That's how agoraphobic people become agoraphobic. I can't get in the car and drive away because I had a panic attack in the car. So I can't drive. I can't, I felt panicky after I drink coffee so I can't drink coffee. That's a great comment. This speaks to the exposure thing. Yeah, sure. Again, if you have addiction problems, of course I am not telling you to consume things that you have problems with or physical medical problems, intolerance, mismatches with medication. No, I'm not telling you to do any of those things. But yes, I think it's a perfectly valid thing to do to start to reintroduce those things so that you can start to practice moving through that fear. I did that. I did that. I remember drinking an entire glass of wine one night and I was terrified, but it was a good experience. And then I was able to start to slowly do that again just in social situations and I'm not afraid of it anymore. So, it's important. I understand, Viola, that you are talking about people who are new to this but people who are new to this who avoid because they are new wind up being old to this when they don't have to. So I know I'm being really aggressive here but I am gonna argue with you in public here because if you are new to this and so you think because you are new you should avoid things. That's exactly what makes people who are then old to this and six and 10 months and a year and a year and a half later are wondering how they got into this very restricted space. So when you're new to this if you have access to this type of information that's exactly why you should not enter cycles of avoidance. It's, I know I'm being really aggressive here but I disagree with that argument in a big way because for most people in this room even when they were brand new if they had not started avoiding they wouldn't be in this room today. That's really important. So I get anxious from decaf coffee possibly and I used to think all the time that was my Dunkin Donuts decaf story. Clearly there's caffeine in here, they're terrible. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't, I don't know. Let's see, thank you for your podcast who helped me a lot. You're welcome Robbie from Australia. Welcome, welcome mate. Yesterday I ate a cookie my mom brought from home. What if there's weed in them? Okay, let's throw this out here. This is not necessarily related to the alcohol and coffee thing but since it's here and we're talking about food and drink another more common thing than you think. So like that's an intrusive thought thing, right? Or an obsession. That is where you start to get, you have a thought in your head what if somebody tampered with this? What if there's weed in this? What if somebody poisoned this? What if it's gonna make me sick? What if I'm allergic to it? And then group that thought sticks with you and then you start to freak out. That's actually a really common thing also, believe it or not. Let's see, I understand. Pots legal here. By the way, I'm not trying to pick on you by the way. I'm just trying to make sure we don't condone avoidance. Let's see. Yeah, so this is a good one. Thanks B for propping this up here. That's true professionals will even urge patients not to consume caffeine or alcohol. And I think a lot of times it's interesting because you would never find somebody that sounds like me telling you to do that. But you would find somebody who treats anxiety symptomatically telling you that. So I mean, I know a lot of doctors, the first thing they would tell you would be like, stop that, right? Stop that. So don't drink alcohol and stop drinking coffee because they will view it symptomatically. We will try to treat the symptoms of it. And in a way, you can do that. Like in a way that is a valid choice that somebody can make. You can try to treat your anxiety symptomatically. And if you make that choice, that's okay. You were allowed to make that choice. It's all good. So let's see. I heard something about like decaf is the electric car, the electric car of coffee. Really good. So these are, I see a couple of comments coming through about how I can't drink these things because they make my heart race or like Ron says, hey, Ron, how's it going? Makes my brain shut off. But then the next couple of days my anxiety is even worse. The next couple of days, you feel different. So you feel different the next day. So if you drink enough alcohols to, I understand what you're saying, to shut your brain off, you're likely feeling some sort of hangover the next morning. And then you interpret that as, oh my God, I feel different and I am anxious because I don't like feeling my own body. It's so important when you think about that. Still has corn. What is this? This sounds like a Southern thing. Still has corn whiskey, peach tea flavor is delish. Sometime comes in a pink thinner can. Why do I feel like you can only get that like Virginia and South? I could be wrong. Maybe wrong. Let's see. Sugar affects my heart rate more than, so again, for anybody who's possibly, like, you know, some people will say that sugar is as bad as caffeine. Maybe it is, maybe it is. I'm not here to argue the physiology of sugar and metabolizing sugar, but again, if you are avoiding things because it raises your heart rate, that is problematic because that is going, I'm not saying you have to walk around with your heart pounding all the time just gorging yourself on sugar all day long, but when we say, I must avoid things that make my heart rate go up, when your heart is literally doing what it's designed to do in the presence of that particular chemical because you are afraid of that elevated heart rate, we have a problem. Like we have to be very mindful of that. So when you are drawing a line in the sand because your heart rate might increase, that's the thing we really have to examine. Let's keep going here. Comets keep coming, we're cranking here. I am scared to drink alcohol because they think it'll make the intrusive thoughts come true. Okay, well, that's actually not the way that works. I'm sure you've been told that before, but intrusive thoughts are just thoughts. Alcohol doesn't increase, doesn't change thoughts, doesn't make them come true. It doesn't change the real world, doesn't do anything like that because thoughts are just thoughts. So by way of some feedback, I don't recognize your name. You may have not heard that before. That's not the way that works. I've tried eliminating caffeine ahead. Okay, there you go, that no effect. True, stop drinking last year. My project is much, much better. Okay, so this is it. I appreciate you sharing this, by the way, Stacey. That's a personal thing and I appreciate you sharing it because it's a good comment. Sometimes, sometimes people will get into a trap where they don't avoid alcohol. They will use the alcohol almost excessively to knock down the anxiety. And that's a situation like Stacey is talking about here where it can make things worse for sure. That's a tough one. So Stacey, good job. And I'm glad you're feeling better. Very good. All this talk to make me wanna drink an espresso martini. Oh, look at that. I thought it was at the end of the comments. I'm clearly not. I'll keep going, I guess. But thank you for sharing that, Stacey. It's important. Since my anxiety, my stomach and bells are more sensitive to stuff like dairy, milk, et cetera. Well, anxiety is gonna directly connect to your GI tract. That's true. So people with anxiety problems often find that they run to the bathroom more than they have to do that sort of stuff more so again. We just have to be really careful about drawing a direct line. Now that I have anxiety, I have to be careful and don't ever drink milk again. Be careful. That's a slippery slope. I get anxious when I feel sick. How can I change that? You don't change that. You allow that to happen and you stop trying to fix that. So, Christina, I don't recognize your name. I don't know how new you are, but we're never trying to change being anxious. If you get anxious because you're sick, then allow yourself to get anxious when you get sick. And I'm sorry that, oh, you're not sick now. But the trick is what you do when you get anxious. If you frantically try to find a way to fix that or not be anxious, then that's the thing you have to work on not doing. We learn that we can be anxious and still be okay. That's the key here. I'm gonna kind of speed up a little bit. Where are we, 241? Let's see here. I had a night of heavy drinking when I was in the process of slowly tapering off my SSRI. I woke up the next morning. Whoops, sorry, didn't mean to do that. With terrible anxiety the last two weeks now, I'm terrified to start my taper again, huh? We have to be really careful about that too. I mean, now I'm repeating myself again and again and again because what we're seeing is like a constant references to like, this made me anxious and so therefore I must avoid that. Christine, I will talk about that. I'm gonna get to your comment. Hang on, unclean foods. No, no, no, we can't go there. Decaf sucks, can't tell the difference. It's way less strong. Perks and crust, all right. Decaf, there we go, the electric car, good. Wimpy's here, we never had Wimpy's here. Food poisoning at Wimpy's. Had bad sushi once at sushi last weekend was good, excellent. Sushi was one of my first exposures, very good. Oh God, the bizarre foods guy. Is that guy still on TV? He would go around the world and eat the strangest stuff. That's some crazy stuff. It's taken me years and years, very good. Thank you, Viola, I appreciate that. I'm not trying to pick on you personally. It has nothing to do with you personally. Thank you for understanding. I appreciate the comment. I wish, okay, let's throw this up here. Again, this is another one of the repetitions. I wish I could have coffee. I miss iced coffees, but damn, my heart races. So go ahead and make your heart race. Remember that sometimes we talk about interoceptive exposures. Have you guys heard me talk about interoceptive exposures? Interoceptive exposures are what we do when we intentionally try to bring about the physical sensations of anxiety. So interoceptive exposures are normally things like breathing through a straw, spinning around in a chair, running in place, doing jumping jacks, anything that makes you out of breath, anything that makes your heart beat faster, anything that makes you dizzy, anything that makes you feel like you can't breathe. We do them on purpose, often with a therapist, so that we can acclimate to those things and we can get used to that. So when you say, I wish I could have iced coffee, but I can't because my heart races, I would say, go ahead and have that iced coffee and practice being in a situation where your heart races, that you can use as an exposure. You don't have to do that, but that's a thing. Went to a concert, there we go. Okay, there we go. This is another fearful thing. Again, we're talking about alcohol and caffeine today, but again, in the beginning, I said it can expand to all kinds of different foods, drinks, substances that we get really afraid. Thank you, Bea, I appreciate that. It's like saying I can't do exposures because I might get anxious. I really, really want to learn how to swim, but if I jump in the pool, I get wet. So that's what that's saying. Let's see here. Let's keep going here. Okay, this is good. Avoiding is really easy and quick. Avoiding avoidance is a totally different thing. Not beginning avoidance is the best choice possible. Yeah, and again, if we had better education about these things, I believe in my heart that fewer people would go on, I think just as many people would experience anxiety, but far fewer people would go on to develop full-blown anxiety disorders like panic disorder or agoraphobia. If we had a little bit more education about this, so I agree with you on that. Have you done any episodes about cannabis? No, I have not, and I don't plan to do that either. I don't have, I'm not judging. Anybody's for free to smoke or ingest whatever they want doesn't matter to me, but it's not a thing I want to talk about. I never talk about things to swallow or ingest or breathe in to deal with anxiety ever. Let's keep going here. A lot of good comments here. I had to give up tea because it's got caffeine in it too. Or you chose to give up caffeine because you don't want to feel those effects. I'll stop saying those things. Now I'm a broken record. Let me keep going. Okay, let's get to Christine's comment because this one I dig and this one we'll probably try to wrap things up with. How about avoiding unclean foods or fear of how they affect their health? So I did a podcast episode a couple of years back. I think it was maybe the first one I did with Jenna, Jenna Overbaugh and we talked about a thing called orthorexia. Now orthorexia is not actually a diagnosable mental health condition. It has not made it into the DSM or the ICD that I'm aware of, but orthorexia is what we call it when people become incredibly fixated on eating only the right foods. So sometimes it's often tied to health and fitness obsessions, like I can only eat organic, I can only eat clean. I mean, listen, I was in powerlifting for a while and around strength and physique athletes. It's rampant there for sure. Like if I do not have a shot of complex carbs 30 minutes after I finish working out that I will miss the insulin window, it gets crazy. But among anxious people, orthorexia can present as if I eat anything that isn't totally natural, if I eat anything processed, I'm putting poison in my body and that might make me anxious because anxiety is me being poisoned. It's really, really tough. And it can get really vicious so that anxious people can wind up with forms of orthorexia where they are literally down to eating four or five safe foods and that's it. And sometimes that starts with I can only eat clean, natural, unprocessed foods because they start to latch on to words like toxins or poisons or carcinogens and it becomes really, really extreme. So you have to be careful about that. I know as many recovered people that exist on cigarettes and candy bars and coffee that exist on whole organic foods that are only like free range. So you do not have to eat clean to recover. That being said, if you wanna eat as clean as you can eat for your own personal health as long as it doesn't become extreme and restrictive that negatively impact your functioning and your lifestyle, have at it. It's okay. Let's see here. What's wrong with fearing our own bodies just trying to rewire this guy? Yeah, well, that's kind of the way that works, right? We start to learn to see our own bodies and minds. Sorry for bringing up my intrusive thought made weed. No, no, it's totally fine. Like the intrusive thought about, this isn't about weed, that's about the intrusive thought that somebody may have like doped your cookies with weeds. That's a different animal, so it's okay. Orthorexia is 100% rampant in certain circles. I lived in those circles for quite a long time and it does get bad to the point where anxious people can develop those habits and it can be really restrictive and have a lot of negative lifestyle impacts for people in other areas that develop things like orthorexia, those impacts are very real too. I mean, I watched a lot of guys walk around always with a backpack full of Tupperwares only with the own food that they made. They could only eat broccoli and sweet potatoes and chicken and brown rice and that was it. And so anything can become extreme, like almost anything can become extreme if we're not careful. So that's about it for today. I think what we're really talking about today was more so like, you know, that habit of avoidance and not blaming the alcohol and the caffeine or the sugar or whatever for your anxiety, just recognizing that the attachment is my body feels different when I eat these things and I'm intolerant of changes in my body. I'm afraid of them. And so I go into the OMG cycle. That's what we kind of care about here. It's important. So that's it. Great comments today. You guys are really great. I saw you guys supporting each other as always, which is awesome. This will stay on my YouTube channel. If you're not subscribed to the channel, you should subscribe because that's the easiest way to find these videos. They're in a playlist called Recovery Monday. It'll stay in the Facebook group on Facebook but defining shit on Facebook and in the Facebook group as a nightmare to be anyway. And that's it. This week we're gonna talk about alcohol on the podcast. I have a special guest who shares openly about his recovery from alcoholism. It's really good. He's a good guy. I think you'll like it if you're struggling with that problem. And if you're not listening to Disordered with me and Josh Fletcher, you should do that disorder.fm. We just recorded another episode this morning. Episode five or six comes out on Friday. It's called panic dot dot dot attack. So that's a good one. So you should check that out. We're done. See you guys not next Monday, but the Monday after, because we're doing it every week. Thanks for hanging out. I appreciate it. See you later.