RE 589: The Little Things

Today we have Brooke. She is 55 years old, lives in Denver, CO and she took her last drink on February 17th, 2026.   This episode is brought to you by:   Sign up and get 10% off: Better Help   If you're wondering what you can expect in your first seven days alcohol free, well, we just created a FREE 7-day guide for your first seven days.    [02:39] Thoughts from Paul:   In the upcoming book, This is How We Quit, we are currently narrowing down the submissions from 66 to around 20. While reviewing these all, Paul shares with us a snippet from one of them by Kristi, who was the guest on episode 492.   [07:45] Paul introduces Brooke:   Brookes lives in Denver, CO, has been married for 25 years and they have two sons. She has a background in education and for fun she enjoys being outside. They enjoy hiking, skiing, walking and playing tennis.   Growing up, Brooke believed that alcohol was necessary part of living. She saw her parents drink casually and was in a lot of environments where drinking was a given. Brooke took her first drink in high school, and it was just part of socializing throughout high school, college and her early professional years.   Brooke says it's hard to imagine a time when she didn't think drinking was normalized. Whether drinking for celebration or drinking for grieving, alcohol was always present.   Once Brooke reached her 40s, she noticed that it wasn't as easy to get up the next day without some sort of hangover symptoms even if all she had was one or two drinks after a hard day at work.     Brooke was starting to question her drinking but the talk about alcohol being "good for us" was conflicting. She was beginning to see the signs of alcohol interfering with her health. She was participating in cleanses for 10 or 30 days and found that she felt so much better when she took breaks from drinking. It was hard for her to think about quitting completely because if how much it was present socially.   When Brooke's mother was diagnosed with cancer, she noticed that all of the do