Reframing Travel

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Kevin: Welcome everyone to another episode of the re Flammable podcast, the podcast that brings you people's stories and ideas about how we can work to reframe our relationship, not just with alcohol, but with stress, anxiety, relationships, enjoyment, and so much more.

Because changing our relationship with alcohol is about so much more than changing the contents of our glass. This podcast is brought to you by the Reframe app. Reframe is the number one iOS and Android app to help you cut back or quit drinking alcohol. It uses neuroscience to reframe your relationship with alcohol and unlock the healthiest, happiest you.

My name is Kevin Bellack. I'm a certified professional recovery coach and the head of coaching at the Reframe app.

Emma: And

I'm Emma Simmons. I'm a Reframer, a certified life coach and a Thrive coach with the Reframe app. And I'm from New Zealand, and I apologize, I'm a little bit under the weather. We are heading into winter and I'm a little bit sniffly in.

I'm okay. I'm coming through. [00:01:00] Throughout the other side. Yeah.

Kevin: Sorry about that. Yeah,

Emma: that's all right.

Kevin: That sucks.

Emma: It's one of those things, it's just, I don't know. I feel like I'm getting in early. It's, we're recording in end of April, no, mid-April. It's not even the end of April. Mid April.

I'm getting in early with my winter illness and I'll be good for the rest of the season.

Kevin: There you go. Knock on wood.

Emma: Yeah. Or I'm, yeah. I'm getting in early before we start traveling. Sorry, I'm just gonna roll my, I'll have to do like a show and tell of my cool little office that we built.

Kevin: I know. I like that.

And it's like

Emma: a little spaceship

Kevin: for a second. I didn't realize you were like pulling it forward towards you, or you can check it on YouTube, what this looks like. But I thought you were like pushing a button or something. I'm like why is it getting closer? What's happening? Is that controlling your camera?

Like what's going on right now?

Emma: No. And so it's, so I'm my office, so I work from home a hundred percent of the time. Yeah, a hundred percent of the time, except when I'm on site, which is therefore not a hundred percent of the time anyway. I work from home the majority of the time, [00:02:00] 5% of the time.

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: And we built, when we did our kitchen renovations, we built like this little office nook kind of situation for me so that I can have, and my cat Nigel's just joined me 'cause it's snuggle time. Sorry, distractions, everyone. So yeah, so we built into our kitchen dining area, this little nook.

And so when it's all closed up, it just looks like kitchen cabinets. And when we open it up, like the wall rolls back and I can slide into my office, I guess slip in. I'll have to set post a video because we'll put it on Instagram or something. I dunno. But it's pretty cool. And then I've got my favorite piece of artwork behind me, which is by Dick Fra, a famous New Zealand artist.

It's called Mickey two Mickey. So it's a picture of Mickey Mouse morphing into Tiki two, Mickey, which is a traditional New Zealand kind of, drawing piece of artwork.

Kevin: Oh, okay. Yeah. Is [00:03:00] that what's the name of

Emma: the artist?

Kevin: Mickey Mouse looking one on the right.

Emma: Tiki to Mickey.

Kevin: Tiki to Mickey.

So is that

Emma: Tiki too? Mickey too? Mickey is to Mickey. To Mickey. MEKE

Kevin: I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop saying it now. Yeah. You

Emma: gotta stop trying. I'm gonna

Kevin: stop trying. Yeah.

Emma: Tom to mic is in Maori language. If you said something was too Mickey, that means it's like cool or choice or also, okay. Yeah.

Kevin: Nice.

That is topical because I will actually be in Orlando on this weekend. We're gonna hit up Universal for. The weekend when we get there. My god. You gonna go to

Emma: Hogwarts?

Kevin: We are gonna go to Hogwarts, but sucks. I'm looking forward to, I think we can get in early on the aisle of Burke. I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan.

Emma: What's the isle of it? Why is that ring a bell. That's

Kevin: how to train Your Dragon. [00:04:00]

Emma: Oh, cool. It a new, I don't That was David to Universal.

Kevin: Yeah, I think it's brand. I think it's opening next month and I feel like my wife has with her magical research powers can or whatever. I don't know how she's doing it, but we'll get perhaps in to go see that and it's like Nintendo world and yeah.

Emma: Man, that is so cool. I'm gutted. We missed that when we were in at Universal in la My Juliet, my youngest is big on Harry Potter and how to train your dragon. She had a whole how to train Your Dragon birthday party. A couple years back and I made a toothless pinata i'll pictures. I guess it was probably my finest piece of artwork.

Nice. Yeah. Cool. I didn't know that they were doing How to Train Your Dragon at Universal. Ah, yeah. All right. We'll have to go back then.

Kevin: Yeah, that's one of my, and that was our favorite when my daughter was growing up. That was probably our favorite or one of, all the movies that I miss those days.

Yeah. When you could just, not that we can't go to watch these now or watch [00:05:00] 'em now on Disney Plus or whatever, but I do still need to, I, ugh, I should watch that. I do still need to watch Inside Out too. Oh, it's good. I totally forgot about that. Whenever it came out. Like I was like, okay, I'm gonna watch this.

Everybody's talking about it. I heard it's so good. And I love the first one and just haven't, this is first reminder that who

Emma: explains anxiety. So that's what hear what

Kevin: I hear. Yeah.

Emma: Yeah. Like it, it explained it way better than I could ever explain it to my kids. And I was like, do you ever get that feeling?

And I'm like, yeah. And I was like, okay, cool. Now we can talk about it. Yeah. I love the Inside Out movies for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So what's the purpose of your trip to Orlando? Clearly not business. No.

Kevin: Yeah, I was just sitting there thinking, I'm like, where was I going with that?

Oh yeah. It was just our favorite. The, yeah. Purpose is vacation. Yeah. Going on vacation. We're going we'll be in Orlando for two days and then heading out on a boat for a few days. Doing a cruise on. A cruise. On cruise. Yeah.

Emma: Nice.

Kevin: So with [00:06:00] that in mind, I thought that would be a good segue reason to Yeah.

To talk about just how we. Show up differently in settings that historically might have, been filled with alcohol. I know for me, vacations was one of the times where it's okay, I finally get to relax and I just, yeah. Drink,

Emma: vacation is almost like a whole pass to just let loose and drink the whole time.

Yes. 'cause alcohol, like when you're on holiday, when you're on vacation, it's no rules apply.

You are, and yeah, to a certain extent, yeah. Cool. We're on holiday, let's loosen up. We don't have to, maybe we don't cook every night. We can eat out and get takeaways every night. And yes, those things are great and a little bit of freedom and a little bit of luxury, but that freedom doesn't necessarily have to apply to alcohol as well, if that's what your journey is about.

But it does change the nature of holidays and how we approach [00:07:00] them so much.

Kevin: And one of the tips that I tell people is think about how did you go on vacation before? And or if you're doing anything, it doesn't even have to be a vacation.

If you're going, if you have a wedding this weekend, if you have any kind of function like that where, it, it is just not your normal day to day. It does open it up to be more like you said, the hall pass for being able to just do whatever you want. It's socially acceptable to pour this in my coffee in the morning before I go out to the beach or to do this, and especially when you have like I said, we're going on a cruise.

Like obviously I don't have the drink package now, actually I do have a drink package, but it's the premium coffee drink package that my wife got for me. Uhhuh. Yeah. That's how I roll now. But a lot of these places are, drinks are included. I know the first cruise I went on, I had, I don't know if it was like a wristband or whatever, but yeah, I was able to just keep going at any [00:08:00] point, at any time.

I knew where all of the places were what times they opened. By the end of the couple days we were there, and actually the last cruise I went on was six years ago. Yeah. When I started right before I say I started on my journey. It was at the, it was right after New Year's we went on a Disney cruise because it was cheaper after New Year's in between Christmas and New Year's.

Expensive the day after, or the day of New Year. New Year's Day last night. Yeah. It was, I can't remember how many thousands of dollars cheaper it was that year, but Wow. Yeah, it was sizable. But we went there and the one thing with Disney on cruises. Is they don't have drink packages, so you pay Oh, interesting.

As you go ing, you can still use your card and pay. You don't pay right there. But you get the bill at the end of the week. And me being the main, the only person drinking out of the three of us that went, my wife had a few, and we we did do a tasting together, which she suffered through.

Which, which meant I [00:09:00] just drank for two at it because she took a sip of something and I took the rest finished it

Emma: off.

Kevin: I'm, I looked at the bill and I'm like, oh, yeah that's all me. That's hefty. That was one of the little things that added to my eventual, pushing me to make a change.

Emma: Little things like that where you're like, oh, that's interesting. That's little. That hit, that hits a little bit. When I think about travel before drinking, there's this one, one moment where husband and I, we went to India for three weeks for our friends. I think it was about three weeks, two and a half, three weeks for a friend's wedding.

So we got to travel all over India. We had such a great time. It was such like we only saw, I say we traveled all over India. We saw maybe 10% of India. Beautiful, amazing. Any who wanna go back. But I remember at one point we were in an airport at maybe 9:00 AM it was quite early in the morning before we caught our [00:10:00] flight, internal flight.

And we had finally found cans of tonic, which tonic was ridiculously hard to find in India. India. For some reason, we had duty fridge in finally found cans of tonic stocked up when we found them in this

Kevin: corner store shop. Yeah.

Emma: But we couldn't, they wouldn't fit in our luggage. And we were like we'll just have to drink the tonic.

And we're like if we're gonna drink the tonic, we may as well finish off the bowl of gin. So I have this memory of us sitting in an airport in India having donuts for breakfast with gin and tonic. Because you don't waste alcohol, is how Emma's brain was going. Yeah. But that just I don't know, for a significant amount of my trip, I remember trying to find tonic to go with gin instead of partaking in India.

And the beauty and shopping for the traditional gifts and things, and the beautiful culture of India, I. [00:11:00] Cans of tonic. Yeah. How ridiculous is that? Travel, I don't know how many hours the flight was. 14 hours or two flights at least to get there. And I was preoccupied with trying to find cans of tonic.

I didn't spend my whole time trying to find tonic, but it was, yeah. I look back and I'm like, wow, there is so much more that you can do when you travel other than drink. If you take drinking outta the equation, you get to experience so much more. Yeah, absolutely. That's funny 'cause I was just reminiscing in my head about, I was in India for six weeks for work back in the two thou, early two thousands or I think it was like 2006. And yeah, it was, we got excited when we found something besides the Fosters and the King Fisher beer that they had.

Yeah. Yeah. There's so much more to experience when the focus or the attention of your trip isn't on, where is the next bar? Where is the next, or where am I gonna drink? Yes. Don't [00:12:00] get me wrong. There are beautiful wineries and whatnot throughout the world and beautiful venues. But that's just one part of travel, one part of a, an area, a region.

And believe it or not, you can enjoy a vineyard or a winery and a scenery in the beautiful landscape without drinking. I've done that. Yeah. It's still as beautiful. You don't have to experience the wine. It's difficult. And it can be really hard, and I wouldn't recommend that for someone early on in this journey that can be quite uncomfortable.

But yeah, it can be done. What point am I trying to make? The point I'm trying to make is traveling without alcohol can be difficult, but is also beautiful and so worthwhile. And even things like waking up in the morning ready to go and not waking up in the morning Ugh, okay, I've gotta get up.

I've gotta shower. You wake up and you're ready to go to the beach or to the pool, or to the. On a tour, on a bike tour or whatever without feeling dusty. [00:13:00] And you remember it all, you experience it with fresh eyes and energy and vigor. Yeah, that was a big word

Kevin: I was gonna say. Is that vigor?

Emma: Vigor. V-I-G-O-R-O-R, yeah. OUR. Yeah. OOR Ger. At least in the US it's we leave out the O on or the U on a lot of those. I don't know if we leave out the U here.

Anyway.

Kevin: Yeah, because I and I agree and I'll talk about that too because but I was just thinking how I used to approach these types of things and it was always, I would, it's funny because I'm creating my own, my little packing list.

My wife's been. Putting things in the corner of our room for weeks now, like getting ready. And I'm like, yeah, I'll when don't we leave you pack three

Emma: hours before?

Kevin: When we leaving Saturday. I'll do a dry run on maybe Wednesday night and then see if I need anything. And then just throw it all in a bag [00:14:00] on, I say throw it.

It's fairly organized. I'm still anal, but but it's also last minute. So I, oh, I was gonna say how I used to go about it, and it was always the same, every trip, no matter where it was always. The stress that led up to it because a just that day of, or the travel surrounding it, travel is stressful, right?

If you get delayed, if you have issues with getting somewhere, whether you're flying or driving I saw a meme on Instagram once that talked about I'm from, oh, I thought about this before too. Where you were, where you introduce yourself, and you said, I'm a Thrive coach with Reframe from New Zealand.

And I was like, I never in, I never say where I'm from, but I'm in Ohio now, but I'm in the Midwest. And I saw this where it's we're from the Midwest. We drive to every vacation, even if it's 20 hours away. And that's what we do. Oh, [00:15:00] no, thank you. Like we we would go to, we would drive to Virginia or Florida or, and it's and this is up till like last year, we I've done this and it it's 15 hours, but we drive. So guess what? I can plan and pack things 'cause I don't have to worry about a flight. So I would pack so much stuff with to make sure that, okay, what do I want to enjoy and bring with me on this vacation, on this trip?

And it, it was always the same. I worked a ton to get ready to take a week off and then I travel and then you get there and the first day was always. The first day, the first night, a shit show. Like it was always so bad because I was finally like, I collapsed. I'm like, ah, I can finally relax. Let's start drinking.

And it [00:16:00] usually ended up badly. And I would wake up the next morning feeling awful, probably apologizing to somebody we were with and for just being, having too much. And nothing bad ever, but it was and then I would wake up and I would feel like shit. And guess what? I would have to have a drink to feel a little bit better.

And the cycle started. That whole week there was, it was never getting outta that cycle. And so when I, go ahead. What were you gonna say there?

Emma: I was just gonna say, the funny thing is like you, you said that you would drink, once you arrived at your destination, you would drink to relax. And we know now that there are so many better ways Yeah.

To relax. Yeah. Deeply relax, excuse me. Whether it's, by the pool or in a sauna or a massage or a walk around the area to just like decompress and take in your surroundings. And something I've learned is lounging by a pool in the sun [00:17:00] with a soda water with a bit of lime, a bitter mint is amazing.

Absolutely phenomenal. You do not need alcohol to help you relax in that environment and actually staying hydrated and getting that water in you, 'cause you're laying in the sun, which I know is not good for our skin. I'm not fully aware but I'm like a lizard and I need to defrost sometimes.

And laying by the pool with a soda water so that you're staying hydrated and as you're sweating out in the sun all of my holidays and got off involved sun and laying by a pool. But it's so much more relaxing and you feel so much better about yourself and about yeah, you can have my point being, you can have a beautiful, relaxing moment by the pool.

No alcohol needed. And having a soda water is just so refreshing and hydrating

Kevin: and lovely. Yeah, exactly. But

I don't believe you. You're lying like it can't possibly be. That's what, and that's what I thought. I'm like, how hell am I going to go on a vacation and not drink? Because I have never, and that's the thing that we have to think [00:18:00] about. And it doesn't even have to be like, you're not drinking, if you are cutting back, if you're trying to moderate, there are ways to do it.

And one of the things I always think about with anything is what's the purpose of it? Whether it's we're getting together, across the street with a friend or we're going on vacation somewhere, what's the purpose of it? And for me it was always to, oh, I'm gonna relax this week.

Probably the least relaxed I've ever felt in my life is coming back after vacation, like after a brutal week of. Just drinking, hard drinking and and it wasn't even, I don't wanna make it out. Like I was, just going nuts. Yeah, I drank plenty, but, it didn't even take that much to just that constant flow all week.

To then guess what? You're traveling back and you're dealing with stress again, and then you have to go back to work the next day or the day after or [00:19:00] whatever. And you're like, Ugh, I need a vacation for my vacation. I've always said

Emma: that's, yeah. So you have a few drinks or a few too many drinks at night or in the afternoon and evening, and then the next day you're still paying for, you're tired and so you're not relaxed and you're trying to put on a, this front and this effort to have fun and have a good time with your family or friends or whatever.

And it's, yeah, it's it's so much effort. That's just effort on top of effort. For the sake of drinking, it seems Yeah. Counterintuitive, counterproductive.

Kevin: So how do you, and going back to the the sun and the heat part of it, to let you know how I feel about that. My, my wife just texted me earlier, the weather for Sunday and it said like 87, feels like 93 and 93 Fahrenheit is, I have it up already, 34 Celsius.

Emma: And toasty. Yeah. Nice and toasty. And we're gonna be walking around universal. I'm like, that's miserable. That is awful. I was [00:20:00] joking. My, my daughter was like, oh, I wanna get so tan. And she does get tan. She has more of my wife's complexion. Oh,

HC Blist. Yeah.

Yeah.

Kevin: And my daughter has a mix of both of us where she's me in the winter and then her in the summer. But I said, you know what? I'm actually gonna try and get even more pale while I'm there. It's like almost a game of you know what?

I cover up the tattoos or lather up. I, yeah, I don't even lather up. I just cover up the tattoos and, stay out of the sun is my typical goal anymore. I don't even care. I can enjoy the warmth without baking fully or frying, I don't know.

Emma: Oh, see I will happily, yeah.

Leather up with sunscreen and lay by the pool. And it's not necessarily to try and tan, it's just like defrosting. I dunno, I'm such a cold-blooded, I'm always cold. Yeah.

Kevin: It's a joke of my brother. My brother has a pool and he has this one tree by his house. That

Emma: is it the Kevin tree

Kevin: at it is because I don't even [00:21:00] know, I don't even do it on purpose half the time.

I show up at three o'clock, that's when the shade from that tree hits the one corner of the pool in the shallow that I go to and just stand in the shade. But usually I'm like, yeah, not coming over till three, because every, other than that, it's just you're in direct sunlight the entire time.

So yeah, this species of ginger seeks out shade.

Emma: But it's all very well and good to say, like for us to talk about how going on sober vacations or a holiday and without drinking is awesome.

Yeah. And it can be done, but you definitely need tools to make that happen. Yeah. And I remember my first, it wasn't a vacation, it was a work trip alcohol free. I would have been maybe two months alcohol free at the time. And those of you who have been on Reframe for a couple of years now, may remember I shared regularly leading up to this trip to try and get my ducks in a row, get my head get my ideas straight, [00:22:00] asking for ideas, asking for tips from everyone, and reframe on how am I gonna do this. This work trip alcohol free. And I had a great plan. So I had things like setting my attention every morning that I was gonna be alcohol free and I was gonna have a good day.

I asked for the minibar to be removed from my room which I have heard, I haven't experienced it, but some hotels will charge you to have the minibar removed, which I think is really stinking annoying. But yeah, apparently some do it. I've never experienced it. I actually have a funny story. So we were with that 'cause it was a work conference.

I emailed the travel agents or the booking agency that was booking all of our conference and asked if the mini balcony could be removed from my room. And they instead of messaging me back, the travel agent messaged the CEO of the company and said, oh, I think Emma might need a private room. It sounds like she's dealing with some things.

And so the CEO then reached out to me and he's Hey, just wanting to check if you're okay. How are you feeling about this trip? The travel agents message me this, how. [00:23:00] Okay for you. And I was like, okay. So I just absolutely came clean to the CEO of the company. I was like, look, I'm alcohol free.

I've been alcohol free for about two months. I just asked for the mini bar to be removed from my room. It's not a big deal. I'm, I'm putting these steps in place to protect myself and to protect my sobriety. And he was like thanks for telling me this is awesome. He's I absolutely a hundred percent support you having the mini bar removed from your room.

Let me know if we can support you in any way. And he made sure that there were alcohol free options at all of the venues that we were going to. And so just by having that conversation that I actually wasn't ready to have, but I was forced to have, it definitely made the whole trip a little bit easier, in that knowing that I did have, I had the damn CEO having my back.

That's a pretty cool wingman to have. But yes, that was a funny, I was like, it's really not a big deal. I was trying to like, not really tell anyone, but yeah, the tra turned into this big thing.

Kevin: Yeah. Best laid plans. And then the travel agent outs you and says, and just goes right to the CEO and be like I think Emma's going through some stuff.

[00:24:00] Wow. That's not appropriate, perhaps. I don't know.

Emma: It worked out the age It feels like it

Kevin: worked out. Yes. Yeah. And that goes to show too, I think that it does. Yeah. I've heard it more times than I haven't about how something like that happens and a person has your back, whatever.

But obviously maybe you don't want, the, people don't want like the CEO knowing, but. Then again, maybe they do. It's not, what does it matter? I get it. Does it can matter.

Emma: To be fair, the last time I got absolutely tanked was with the CEO. So he was probably like that's a heck of a lot of a trip.

Cheaper holiday. Thanks him.

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. Been there. Yeah. Done that. Yeah. When the

Emma: CEO's credit card's on the bar, it's

Kevin: yeah. Sorry. And that's go ahead.

Emma: No, carry

Kevin: on. I was just thinking, 'cause that was like the, my first real, my first test when I didn't know what I was doing at the time because, it was early on.

I, I just did the cruise in January. I started, I got a therapist in January. I started talking with [00:25:00] her. And I. I, I felt like motivated. Like I, I finally started doing something because I was like, okay, I need to do something. I don't know what, I don't know where this is gonna go. I never said it was gonna be, I was gonna stop drinking.

I was always just, I'm gonna take a break and and I did. And I took a break and it, I two months, just like you said as well, I hit 60 days and I was in San Antonio for a work conference. And I was like, okay. 'cause the whole time I'm sitting there talking to my therapist but when can I drink again?

Like, when can I introduce it again? Is it at the, like, when

Emma: am I cured?

Kevin: Yeah. When is a switch that, the dimmer switch that you're gonna install in my brain going to be installed? And I was like, is it gonna be, St. Patrick's Day? Is it gonna be in San Antonio that week after?

Is it gonna be at this other trip that we're doing with my parents? Is it gonna be at the vacation at the end of the April? I was like when? And I was like, okay, San Antonio hit 60 days. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do [00:26:00] this. So the first night I was like, okay, I'm going to go to happy hour, not have anything to drink there, mingle, and then go out to dinner with our company the people from our company.

I'll have one drink. And I did. I, it was on my mind the entire time I was, I was focused and all this stuff. I was worried about all the questions I might get from other people who were there. Really, you're not drinking? And then the next night, same thing. I was gonna be like, okay, we're gonna go to this place now and I'm going to two or three drinks here.

That's it. That's the plan. And then we got there and I saw the whiskey tasting they had. And I just swore, I told my boss at the time, I. He knew that I was stepping back a little bit, we'll say, is probably what I told him. And he's oh, whatcha gonna do?

I'm like, screw it. And now it's the thing sometimes we have good intentions and, maybe we're just not ready to handle a certain situation that we're being [00:27:00] thrust into or we stumble upon or whatever. And, I took that as a I just, I didn't go, I didn't drink as much as I would have otherwise.

Let's say that silver linings, but, I then went, came back and I looked at it and said okay, how would I do that differently next time? What would I do? I would, it would just be, it would, in my head, I think it was a different response or expecting it. It made me realize that anything could happen, right?

The best laid plans that I had, the way I thought things out, I was gonna get thrown curve balls and what do I do when that happens? And to expect those and it's not that I was like gonna be scared about stuff, but it was just to anticipate things being different than what you planned. And then coming up with some ideas from there think, yeah,

Emma: when you reflect on the holidays and the experiences that you have had, you can often look back and be like, [00:28:00] okay, at what point could what could I change from that?

Or what could have been different? You could have chosen to not go to that. After party bar, whiskey tasting thing. You could have chosen not to partake in the whiskey ta tasting if you were confident enough doing that. But I think a lot of it comes with how far along in your journey you are and how comfortable you are with the people that you are with and saying no.

And sometimes it's easier to just avoid the whole situation and be like, no, I'm just gonna either not go on this trip if that's possible, or I'm gonna go back to my room and journal, meditate, sleep. I dunno.

Kevin: Yeah. I was still fairly new in my journey that I don't know that I would've, I done those things, let's say I was still maybe a little overconfident.

And now I think the thing is, if I know, if I had known that it was a whiskey tasting, I would've an, I would've thought about it [00:29:00] differently. And I I think I would have. Run it through that lens of, okay, do I go to this or, 'cause I know that's like my, if I if I have a Cryp kryptonite, that was it back then.

And just walking into that, not knowing it, it wasn't even that I wanted to not drink anymore. I was like screw it. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna even fight it. I'm just gonna go with it.

Emma: I think even me two years in now, if the work event was like, oh, we're doing a whiskey tasting, I think I would probably excuse myself from it.

I don't think I would want to just, I don't know. I, yeah, I don't think I would want to

be around that environment. It doesn't sound enjoyable or pleasurable. For me, I don't think that would be beneficial to me. My career, my mental health, my sobriety journey. [00:30:00] Yeah.

Kevin: I had a I don't wanna say a similar scenario, but something come up. I would, I think I was probably a little over three years alcohol free and. We were my brothers and my nephews were going to Kentucky. They were gonna get an Airbnb do like the whiskey tour.

'cause the bourbon trail was down there. And, I was going to go I would've been fine going, I had no issues with it, but I ran through the lens. I'm like, do I want to yeah we'll hang out at night, be together BS talk. I could go to those if I wanted to, but I probably just would've stayed home and or stayed at the Airbnb and just read or worked or whatever.

And I was like, you know what? I think I'm gonna pass on this. I'm like, as much as I, as much as I wanna go and sit out at a fire at night while [00:31:00] you guys drink and smoke cigars, and sure I could smoke a cigar, but I stopped doing that when I stopped drinking and it's not like that's all they did. They ate good food, all that. I just was like, it's not worth it for me and if they do it again, I'll probably go the next time, but I don't feel like I missed out on it. It was them and their sons, so I was like, ah, they're fine. They don't, it's a special bonding thing for them they can do. But it is, I don't know if that's learning along the way or I.

However we wanna view that or see that, it is being able to run it through that does, do I want to do this? Is this something that will without the thing that I would've normally done there, which was, drink the, a lot sorry, taste whatever I would've rationalized there without that,

Emma: educate yourself,

Kevin: is that something I wanted to do?

Yeah. Yeah. And at the time it just wasn't, there's a lot of other stuff going on. I was just like, I'm [00:32:00] good. Not the same scenario, but it is just, another thing that we can say no, and we might think, oh, but you missed out. It's. Did I we got together another time. We got together for the holidays right after that.

Like I, there was all these factors coming in, into my mind that, and, it's not like I don't see them. And if that was the case, maybe I would've gone if it was more of a, Hey, we don't get together a lot. We live in different cities or states or countries and we're doing this. Yeah I would've ran through that lens again and said, yes, I'll go.

But

Emma: yeah. Weighing up the scenarios is, and there's no right or wrong answer in any scenario. It's what you feel like you can handle or manage at that time. What, what's gonna work for you? What feels good for you? What feels right for you at. Definitely no one size fits all. You can be totally okay with going to a wine tasting and watching everyone Yeah.

Drink and taste wine one day and then a month later you can be like, I absolutely have [00:33:00] no interest in doing that. Yeah. Today. And yeah, it's, there's no, yeah, no right or wrong answer. It's about what you can manage and what feels good. Yeah. So what kind of tools do you take with you when you're going on holiday or vacationing?

You guys say vacation. We say holiday.

Kevin: Yeah. Holiday to me is like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Yeah. Yeah. The holidays. Yeah. We don't go on holiday. We don't have, do you have holiday time off or holiday time? We have PTO, we have annual

Emma: You leave?

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. PTO, personal time off or whatever. But see for

Emma: us our summer holidays at the same time as Christmas, new Year, so it's holiday all.

Of summer holidays. The holidays,

Kevin: Yeah, I mentioned it before. I believe just about like, how did I show up before? What did I do, what did I want to do? And [00:34:00] depends on where I was going. If I'm going to a beach, I would sit on the beach or at the pool and we would drink, and then we would go out to eat and I would drink there and we would come home and play games.

And, there's those types of things that I could do. And so I would plan, I would be like, okay, what am I gonna drink on the beach? Do I need to go to the beach as for as long? I don't like being in the sun anyway. But I will still, focus on, okay, what am I gonna do while I'm there?

Let's get some stuff, let's get some activities to do. And I made sure that I had a fully stocked cooler of things I wanted to drink. And, and making sure that I have those, whether it was an a beer or I like ginger beer, soda, it doesn't matter. Just making sure that I had something there.

I would throw it in my Yeti can holder, take that with me and I'd be good to go. Don't, not stain as long, having an exit strategy. Exit plan, which goes for [00:35:00] really anything we do. Because at a certain point, I. Be like, you know what? I'm good here. I'm gonna go back and read in the shade by the pool.

Or, and again, that's, this is the whole beach scenario thing, but regardless of what we do is, like if I go to Vegas, if I've gone to I just totally drew a complete blank of where I've gone on vacation over the past couple years. But like, wherever it is, like understanding how would I normally drink here?

How would I normally get together with people, have fun? What, where would alcohol show up before? So that I can think about how I want to show up now, how I want to change up what I do.

Emma: And I think, yeah, having those options of what will you drink if you're not gonna drink alcohol, if you are at the pool, at the beach, at whatever the event is, cool, you're not gonna drink alcohol, but what are you gonna drink?

And knowing, if you've gone. Sometimes [00:36:00] BYO is not an option. Like sometimes you can't have a cooler or a Yeti with your own Yeah. Stuff in it. So things like researching the menu of the hotel that you're staying at, seeing what options they have checking like if there's no mini bar in the room or some, can you then stock that mini fridge with your own?

So is there a, like a seven 11 or a Yeah, we would call it a dairy in New Zealand or a corner shop where you can go and buy like a little supermarket where you can go and buy some stuff. Can you stock up for yourself? Do a little bit of research? It doesn't need to be too intense, but just a little bit of research on where you're going and how are you, what are you going to drink?

It's all very well and good to say I'm not gonna drink alcohol, but Cool. What are you gonna drink? You can't go a week without drinking anything.

Kevin: Yeah. Lisa, who's one of our coaches, I think she might have shared this on, she was on the podcast a while back. She shared about how. She was going on a cruise, and she called the cruise line ahead of time and said, Hey, I'm alcohol free.

I don't drink. What are your options for non-alcoholic [00:37:00] beverages? I like mocktails and other, types of non-alcoholic wine or whatever. And she said they were great. And they apparently, they probably marked it down on their on their room of that they're not drinking. And I know she said she walked in one day and there was like a bottle of I think it was naughty or something like that, like a non-alcoholic champagne for the two of them.

And they really accommodated her because she asked, she called ahead and she looked, she researched it, she asked them and just let it be known. And that is, I. One of the best things we can do is just a little bit of research ahead of time. Even if it's, that's a great outcome there.

'cause they could have, I didn't do that with my crews this time because I'm more, like I said, I don't care. Right now, I've been on enough vacations that I'm not concerned. Now, this is the last cruise since this first cruise since the last one when I was drinking.

But I'm not too concerned. But [00:38:00] you're

Emma: confident that they'll have ginger beer or soda water or something that you will be happy enough to drink. Yeah,

Kevin: like I said, I got the specialty coffee package. I'll be drinking iced coffee, all I'm wired, drinking iced coffee all week.

That, that's my that's much cheaper package too.

Emma: Yeah. Nice.

Kevin: But but yeah, that's the, the thing is just that planning ahead looking ahead, even if it's, you can do that in your day-to-day life too. Oh, we're going out to this place, this new place. What do they have?

Go online Beauty of the internet.

Emma: That's my go-to for any event, any restaurant, any outing, any, yeah. Research the menu beforehand and see what they have. I think I, did I share on the podcast or I shared in a meeting recently about we went out to a, a con a show with some friends and I didn't do my homework.

I didn't research what was available and the pickings were very slim and I was quite disappointed. So I dunno, that reinforced my lesson that I need to research what's available. There were no mocktails, there were no fun alcohol free beers. It was [00:39:00] just a. Sodas, like just cola lemonade. Actually, they'd sold, so they'd sold out of ginger beer lemon, bitters, lemonade.

And they were stuck with a cola. And I was like at least it's not alcohol. But I was quite disappointed. So yeah, do your homework and then you don't get disappointed. You know what you're in for. Yeah. What, anyhow, that's Emma's pet peeve. What other tools? Another tricky part is, I dunno if you're flying down to Orlando in Florida, but

Kevin: we are, we're flying, our friends are driving that's usually I'm I'll, I'm all about driving.

Emma: See, new Zealand's just not that big anywhere over a three hour drive.

We're like, no, that's a flight. Oh. I think we just. Yeah.

Kevin: Last year's spring break, we did a whole college tour thing with my daughter, and I think I tallied up like 40 hours of driving over a week. Yeah.

Emma: If you are watching this, you can just see me absolutely shaking my head like, no. No.

Nope. [00:40:00] No, we do not. Yeah. New Zealand's just not that big. It absolutely blows my mind that you can drive for 12 hours and still be in like the same state. You can't drive for 12 hours. You could, but you'd be driving in a circle in New Zealand.

Kevin: I'm guessing we're talking like California or something.

Emma: Texas I think.

Kevin: Oh, maybe. Yeah.

Emma: Yeah. Maybe California as well. Like a long line. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. Anyway, tangent.

Kevin: Probably not because it takes I think about 15 hours for us to get to the top of Florida by the Gulf of Mexico. So that, and that's a world by Lake Erie up top. So anyway,

Emma: anyway, a tangent.

Airports can be triggering airports is was the point that I was getting at. Yes. How do you navigate airports

Kevin: snacks? I pack snacks ahead of time in my backpack for sure. Because there's, it depends like, are you in the, are you in the club or, you know what? I can't remember. Is that the right in the [00:41:00] club? In the club? The, what if I think it, of

Emma: the lounge? Like the airport lounge. The airline lounge, yeah.

Kevin: Club lounge, same thing.

Emma: And New Zealand, the New Zealand one's called the Quarter Club, so Yeah, I get it.

Kevin: Yeah. I've heard of both, I think so. I don't think I'm totally making that up or maybe I'm just trying to justify it. Be cool. Yeah, exactly. We're just gonna, I'm just gonna delete this out.

No but right, there is that and it's it's, sometimes it's like free booze. It's like going on an all inclusive vacation. It's I'm losing money if I do this. It's are

Emma: you

Kevin: though? Yeah,

Emma: but it's free juice as well. It's free soda, it's free,

Kevin: food.

If it's all inclusive, if it's included there, but, and that's the. Staying away from, again, it's always, for me, it's, I say, I'm gonna say again, because I keep going back to the same thing. It's know thyself, right? It's how do I typically show up? How can I change that? I don't need to go to the lounge.

I'm gonna go to the Starbucks and sit outside there. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna make sure I have a book or I have essentially on [00:42:00] any given flight, probably 50 hours worth of material that I can access, whether it is a book in hand, a magazine a whole series, a season of a series three movies. You name it.

Like I have it downloaded and podcast audio books.

Emma: Yeah, I do. I do all that stuff. Sudoku.

Kevin: Oh yeah. Games. Yeah. And I. So making sure that I have stuff to entertain me or depending on, when Avery's younger, it was a little bit different being able to now she's self-sufficient, or we can play games together whatever on a, on our phones.

But yeah, for me, airports are all about just, I I hunker down, I try and power down. I anticipate the fact that it's going to be stressful. What can I do to help myself there? What do you do?

Emma: So a great tip that doesn't work for everyone that I have found useful is to arrive at the airport just as they're calling your name to board the [00:43:00] flight.

And then you don't have time to go. No. I'm joking. I've only done that once. But it was helpful. Like just walk straight onto the plane. Yeah, sure. He just made it through security, but but it's a tool,

Kevin: it's a risky tool. 'cause what happens when you miss, don't make it through security and then you miss your flight and then you're stuck there for hours and hours or days and Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I'm the, I'm probably the same as you in that I've never been to a bougie airline lounge. I dunno what that's about. Poor Emma. I've been there once or

twice. Yeah. With someone else, and send

Emma: airports. Yeah. Yeah. So I, but I would, I'm not a big shopper either, so like the whole duty free thing, I'm not, yeah, that's not really my thing either.

But I would, I'm quite happy in terms of, I'm not a big shopper. I would absolutely go the go to the bookstore and yeah, see if there's another book to go with my three others that I already have packed that I might [00:44:00] like to bring.

Kevin: Mines magazines I don't do it anymore. I've gotten out of the habit, but up until for the first let's say from being 20 until 42, I couldn't get out of one of the, here it's like the Hudson News or like the shops that have the magazines and books and I could not get outta there with at least one magazine, usually multiples. That I never ever read. I had best intentions, but it was always like I get I'm gonna get these and oh, I'm gonna just read this on the plane, whatever. It was a, it was like an illness. I couldn't leave without getting that.

I don't know. It's yeah, I don't know.

Emma: We were talking at the beginning of the episode about how like, vacations and holidays, it's like the rules don't apply. Yeah. Same with snacks in an airport, right? Oh, yeah. Normally you're like, I dunno, when you're at home, you're like, I don't buy snacks.

I don't eat chippies. I don't eat candy. I know I'm, this is not something Kevin and I have ever said. Yeah. Or like I'm on a health [00:45:00] kick, but then when you're at the airport, that doesn't apply and you're buying the Pringles and you're buying the family sized bag of whatever, and it's, and yes, you're playing twice as much, but.

Rules don't apply. That too, you can buy.

Kevin: It's not, you can't take liquids on, but you can bring a lot of candy, a lot of candy in your BA backpack or whatever. And that doesn't mean that I still won't see something and be like, Ooh, what's that? I'm gonna try that. But yeah, I always that because snacks, like food, like that kind of thing, like you just said, it's like the rules don't apply.

And that's, 'cause that's how I was with alcohol. And I'd be like, all right rules don't apply with this either. So I'm going to get, bring some comfort food that I like, whatever sit there with a book or listen to a book or watch a movie and, how can I distract myself and stay away from an

Emma: airport lounge?

Not at the lounge, like at, when you're sitting at the gate and you're waiting for your flight. It is actually a great place to I dunno how to explain this. Like just decompress, take a deep breath and have a moment of silence. If you're traveling by [00:46:00] yourself, in particular, if you're traveling with kids, not so much, but yeah.

Young kids, you can just sit there and just read and there's, I guess there's the hub going around you, but you can just pop earbuds in or you can just have that moment of, I don't have to work, I don't have to, organize anything or do anything. Hopefully your whole holiday and vacation is planned and get to go.

You

Kevin: can't work, you can't potentially work too. But

Emma: it depends on what the trip is for. If it's a trip for work, then you might be working, but if it's a vacation, then you might be able to sit there and just be like, I'm at the airport, I'm ready for my flight. I've checked in, I've checked my bags.

There's nothing more that needs to be done right now. Yeah, let's just chill. Half an hour or whatever it's, yep. And I think that's a not a moment we get in life very often. No, not a moment. I get in life very often.

Kevin: No. And maybe, and we hear it a lot, right? That would be the moment that people [00:47:00] feel with alcohol.

But how can we, I'll give you a play, the tape forward scenario that you can use on the next time. When I was coming home from Dallas last year, we met there, the amongst other reframes in that the I got on the flight to come home from Dallas. And the people, the two ladies across from me could tell they were, had a few drinks.

They weren't being annoying or anything, but they were, funny, whatever. And then we were. They're like, folks, we have an issue. They gotta change. We had a flat tire or something. Or the tire needed changed. So we're gonna have to ask you, we were hoping to do it without getting taking you off, but we're gonna have to ask you to get off the plane.

And so those two ladies, I remember saying something to the effect of it looks like Dallas wasn't done with us. I guess we could just get to drink more. And so we got off the plane and they said it was going to be 60 to 90 [00:48:00] minutes. Okay. 30 minutes later, I got an alert on my phone that said it was boarding again, and I had just gone down farther and I was working a little bit.

And I looked and I'm like, oh, people are lining up. I'm like, oh shit. That was quick. A lot quicker than they told us.

Emma: Oh, those ladies didn't make the flight.

Kevin: Guess who was it on the flight? Because they went down to probably a far, farther down to go to the bar that they were at before and Oh, no, they probably didn't see their phone or I was, if I didn't, if I wasn't in sight of it, I probably wouldn't have went down.

'cause I was like, that was way too quick from what they said. But yeah, we, they got us on and they were taken off. I'm like, Ooh, that sucks. Yeah. Yeah. So playing the tape forward and being like I I'm better off. You never know. Yeah. Being

Emma: alert, being aware, being ready, being present.

Yeah.

Kevin: Which is nice to say. And sometimes, yeah. Difficult to do and that's why. And maybe that's [00:49:00] why I plan ahead so much and have all the content, all the snacks, all the things ready is because my I'm anticipating delays, I'm anticipating, that type of thing. So what's gonna get me through yeah.

Emma: I giggle because we both know that I struggle to be present and prepared and ready and

Kevin: but all of those things. But I'm very much like you said, like I, I feel like I do, I am able to do that in that setting. Like I feel like I almost do power down because it can be so stressful and everybody else is so stressful around me.

This is just me. For sure. I feel like I power down and I'm just. I'm not there. I'm, it's, I'm not, it's not that I'm not there. I am just more chill. Just 'cause I'm like okay, we're delayed this, what am I gonna do?

Emma: Yeah. What do you, yeah. What? Yeah, that was a great stutter, Emma.

Kevin: I could get angry and [00:50:00] how dare you delay the flight. I'm like, yeah, this is a complicated network of planes going back and forth all across the world. I'm like, I'm not gonna pretend that I know more than the person working here. So I'm just being like, okay, cool. Do we'll just chill here for another two hours.

We'll, okay,

Emma: we'll get there eventually. Yeah, I'd rather get on a plane that had tires that work than get on a plane with tires that don't exactly. I'm not a yeah. Aeronautical engineer, but it seems pretty important. Aeronautical, is that

Kevin: the right word? I don't know. That's not a very

Emma: tical, no Aero,

Kevin: aero engineer.

I don't know.

Emma: Aerobatic. A

Kevin: aeronautical. Something like aeronautical. Aeronautical Sounds like you're combining like the air in the sea.

Emma: We're going on a submarine airplane. I'm not an engineer. I don't, I'm not a pilot. I know, but I feel like wheels are important.

Kevin: I know. Yes. I will say yes to that.

Yes. I am not either, but they are. [00:51:00] But what else do you think of when you are, 'cause there, there's the travel, right? Whether it's airplane, whether you're driving, you're staying at hotels and you get there. What are you focusing on most?

Emma: I think it's really important, and we touched on this earlier, to focus on the purpose of the trip.

Is the purpose of the trip to get drunk? If so, then perhaps this isn't the right vacation for you. But I don't know where maybe back in the day, the purpose of a vacation would've been for me to get drunk. But these days it's generally to experience if I'm traveling overseas, a different culture or, experience a different town.

Perhaps it's experience catching up with friends and experiencing friendship. Very rarely these days is the purpose of a. Drink. And that's the same as, like we said before with any event is, [00:52:00] if you're at a wedding or a baby shower or a birthday party, what's the purpose of it? Yeah. Chances are none of those events.

The purpose is to get drunk. Purpose of the wedding is to celebrate the couple. And the love purpose of a baby shower is to celebrate the couple and the baby. Yeah. Purpose of the vacation is it to rest and relax. And how does that look for you? Is the purpose of the vacation to explore a different culture?

What sightseeing trips have you booked? What touristy things have you booked in? How are you going to immerse yourself in that culture? Yeah. So yeah, I think keeping, being mindful of why you're traveling is really important to keep that in your focus of why are you there

Kevin: and how. Just say I was thinking of something that I wrote a few years back. And it was about going to Vegas and my, that was like my second sober vacation. And the first one was a couple months before, 'cause it was like the year after Covid, so it was 2021 and we were supposed to go on vacation [00:53:00] in 2020.

It didn't happen. So then it was like, we had two things that we were doing that we had to go didn't have to, but we went to in 2021 and the first one was a beach vacation. Planned that out. That was my first one. And then the second one a few months later was to Vegas. And what you just said there, what's the point?

How can you change your focus? And I think the article that I wrote was, one of the things was like the best way to, vacation in Vegas is get the hell out of Vegas. Because there's so much around there that we did. Yeah. So we got there, but we still got there two years alcohol free. And I remember vividly being on we put our bags in the room and it was my first day vacation syndrome that came up for me.

And we went down to meet family. That was, we were all gonna go somewhere to eat and we get to the floor and I immediately was like, I wanna drink like right now. And I was stressed. It was like a long flight. [00:54:00] We had to, it was delays. We we rented a car 'cause we were gonna be going to like Zion and Grand Canyon for a couple days, but that first night we waited for the rental car, it took forever.

I'm driving around Vegas, which it, we were literally like one of the closest hotels to the airport. And still I was like, I'm like, why am I driving around Vegas? And we get there. I'm stressed. I'm hungry. Talk. My blood sugar is so low. 'cause I was so hungry. Angry. Yeah,

Emma: lonely. Tired. Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: I wasn't lonely. That was the only one. But I was all the others. And I remember we were down on the floor and we were like, where are we gonna eat? I don't know. Everybody's sitting there talking and I'm just like, not contributing. And I look over at my wife and I'm like I whisper to her.

I'm like, if you guys don't choose where we're gonna go to eat, I'm going to that bar. And I told her my exact order and I'm going to down that drink because that's where my head's at right now. It was. And that's the thing, like when we go to make a change, like it's all fine in, where we're at, but then we can go somewhere else and these thoughts are going to come up because that's [00:55:00] what we're used to doing in this place.

I've been to Vegas plenty of times where all I did was drink and. I, it was the sight, it was the sights. It was the smell. People were smoking still. It was the sounds, it was the people walking around with trays. It was the bar in any direction that I could see. I was like, holy shit, I want a drink right now.

And sounds like a well-treated mural pathway. Oh yeah. That was kicking in. Yeah. Yeah. And so I, I said that to my wife 'cause we, I can, she knew it was a joke slash Okay let's pick something, let's do something. So she immediately was like, all right, let's go right up. Here is just a pizza place.

We're just gonna do that tonight. I had a giant slice of New York style pizza and a Diet Coke. Guess who was fine for the rest of the week? Yeah. I never thought about it again. It never crossed my mind. I was never, even remotely, I. Thinking about it because, but in that moment it was so overwhelming because I was like, I'm fine.

I already went on a vacation to the [00:56:00] beach. I'm two years alcohol free. I was like, all of that. And then it's no, this is,

Emma: yeah,

Kevin: this is different.

Emma: It sounds like you, another great tool that I like as well is having a wingman or a wing woman. And your wife in that moment was your wing woman. Yeah.

Of where someone you can be like, I like, I don't know, warning warning, panic button. Like SOSI don't know, you could have a code word or whatever, but being able to Yeah. Talk to your wife in that moment. Be like, we gotta do something now. Like

Kevin: uhoh, my, my code word was describing her in great detail.

A pre, a previous drink I mine that I would've got, she realized like

Emma: morning.

Kevin: Yeah. Danger. And then the other thing with that too was I got a lot of questions like how do you have fun? With, if you don't drink on vacation, there's

Emma: so much.

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: I can even think in Vegas of all the fun, like there are so many shows and so many things, and just walking the strip and seeing all the street entertainment is, it's still entertaining even if you're not [00:57:00] drinking.

Kevin: Yeah. And that's why I said there's so many we need to get, we need to get rid of this alcohol equals fun type of thing. Like I had plenty of fun when I was drinking. But the alcohol was sometimes causing the fun. But it, there's so many other emotions than fun. I might've been having fun, but I might not have been happy at the time.

I know that's a little nuance, but it's I wasn't happy whenever I was feeling like shit and drunk and in a pool and all that. It might even looked like I was having fun. But it's like, what else? Like relaxation. Like contentment, like just all those things. Like on a vacation or something like that, you can do.

I think also need to be looked at. There's more emotions than fun. Intrigue, interest education. Yeah. And education doesn't sound interesting, but I'm big on Yeah. Cultural things around the world and learning about, different cult when I traveled to America in just under a month.

Emma: [00:58:00] Exciting. I'm hoping to get to and learn some of the natural, yeah. Natural culture, natural history of the area we're going to, that natural's not the right word. Wilderness, like

Kevin: type of thing.

Emma: Yeah, like the history

and the wilderness and the .

So like the, the culture of the indi, the indigenous culture the people that were there before, way back when. Yeah. It's there are so many, new Zealand's a pretty young country to begin with. We do embrace our indigenous culture really well and a lot, we're the Treaty of Wang, our found, one of our founding documents wasn't signed until 1840.

So we're a relatively young country compared to the rest of the world. And so I love,

No. Like holidays can be, or vacations can be about, aren't necessarily just about having fun. And but fun isn't necessarily that high energy party thing. Fun for me is enjoyment and I get enjoyment out.

Because I'm that kind of geek. Yeah. History and nature and [00:59:00] geology. I love going on like hikes and bush walks and seeing the nature and that kind of stuff. None of that involves drinking. Yeah. Or partying. Yeah. And that's my kind of

Kevin: vacation. I like chilling. I like

Emma: not by the pool.

Kevin: No, I could do it by the pool as long as there's shade.

I sound like the most fun person I know. But no, I like to relax. That's the vacation for me. I don't we've gone we've done plenty of things where we're actually doing stuff like that Vegas trip, like we would go. We went to Zion the next day my daughter and I went Canyon airing.

That was awesome. We went to the Grand Canyon and I thought we were in a Friday, the 13th movie, because I'm like, yeah, I hope is that door locked because Jason's coming in here tonight for sure. Like we were in the, we stayed in like these cabins, these tiny cabins on like the south. I don't remember like what I think it was.

No, it was, it had to be the north. But there was like this lodge that overlooked the canyon, like huge, [01:00:00] like glass and restaurant was there and, but then they had these little cabins around that if I went 20 feet that way, I'd be in the canyon. I'd be rolling down the canyon. Oh no. I'm sure there was like a guard or so a guardrail there or something.

But but the houses, I'm like, this is straight out of a eighties horror movie. It was my immediate thought, the other people we were with didn't like that. I voiced that out loud. But I'm like, I'm just saying looking forward to just leaving tomorrow and being able to and having

Emma: all my limbs intact.

Kevin: Yeah. But it was fun. And I woke, but I remember waking up at 5:00 AM that next morning and going out and I, I went to the one lookout and put my phone up with a time lapse, the time lapse, like the sun rise and on the canyon wall and that. And you wanna talk about fun? My daughter joined me like, half hour, 45 minutes later.

We were hanging out there for a while. I was recording her doing TikTok dances

Emma: when we

Kevin: were there. I'm like, you know what? What I wouldn't [01:01:00] have probably wanted to do or been doing at that early in the morning. Was any of that. And

Emma: yeah,

Kevin: that just felt so good to be able to experience that.

So like playing the tape forward and being like what do I want to do here? What do I wanna experience and how do I wanna show up is always a good start. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds

Emma: like a that's not your typical fun, overt fun kind of experience, but that sounds beautiful and lovely and I can imagine you having so much fun enjoy with your daughter in that moment.

And like you said, you would've missed it. Yeah.

Kevin: Had you been drinking? Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Emma: All right, let's wrap this up.

Kevin: Where to next? What a, do we miss anything? Is there anything that you would recommend otherwise? As far as have a plan. Have a plan, having support, investigate support from others, support

Emma: [01:02:00] research.

Knowing what your tools are. We've talked a lot about in the moment kind of tools and on location tools, but, remembering that there are always meetings online, there's always, yeah, that's great if you're a reframer, the Reframe forum. And this is another reason why building support groups and, joining challenges and challenge groups and building your support network is really important as well, because, yes, we're all over the world, but that also means that we're also always in your back pocket in your phone.

And knowing that you have, knowing who you can quickly flick a message off to, and knowing that someone's gonna be there to answer that message is really important as well. Yeah. And those can be more private, tools that

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: You can take everywhere with you.

Kevin: Yeah. I love when people come on to meetings and just share hey, okay, it's, I'm leaving in a few days, or I'm leaving tomorrow and I'm, this is what I'm doing.

Does anybody have any suggestions for this? Or, they ask questions, but also throw it out there this is my plan for that [01:03:00] accountability. And I'll be back, whatever day, whenever they're coming back. Like they might check in, like you said. That's a great thing to remember is, reframe and, tools like that in your pocket.

You can connect with people still while on vacation.

Emma: All different time zones.

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: Literally all over the world.

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I got the wifi package on the boat too. So if I wanted to, I can do that. Actually no, I didn't get the wifi package. Nobody can contact me.

Take that back.

Emma: No, you've said it now. I'm telling everyone. But also I think some, when people come onto a meeting and share that they're going on holiday and have that it's holding themselves accountable. Yeah. And holding and letting the group and the community know. And then, believe it or not, we care about each other and we will keep an eye out for the said person on the meetings and we will check in and go Hey, how's day one of your holiday going or has it been you?

Okay. We will check in. We do, there's always [01:04:00] someone keeping, and that sounds creepy. I was gonna say, there's always someone keeping an eye out on you, but at a, in a loving, concerned

Kevin: way. Yeah. People care. And people

Emma: care. Yeah. We wanna see everyone succeed.

Kevin: Yeah. And people come back and say, I did great.

It was great. Or, it didn't work out as I planned. Yeah. But coming back and continuing on, realizing that, one of the most important things that I think for myself is realizing that the context matters, that feeling I had in Vegas is different than just a normal Tuesday here at my house.

Or a normal Saturday night at my house here it's going to bring up different feelings and different challenges. We can plan, we can prepare but how can we, keep going, use that information that of going through that and. Okay, how can I help?

How can that help me? Good or bad, however you wanna look at it. [01:05:00] Whatever happens, like, how can I use that for the next time? Yeah. How can I just keep going and use that as information to help me on this journey that I'm on?

Emma: Yeah. Reflect on it. Learn from the experience. Good or bad. Like you said, if something didn't work if you happened to drink when you weren't planning on drinking, what was it?

What could you have done differently? What could you do differently next time?

Kevin: And you can do that during the vacation too, right? You can stop and at any point we can tell ourself like, okay, just because I drank on one day, if I wasn't planning on it, doesn't mean that I can't change that up tomorrow.

Emma: Yeah, you can have a reset mid vacation. Absolutely. Yeah. Why not? Yeah.

Kevin: And that is one thing that I bring up as a suggestion for some people, depending on, oh, I'm not drinking on vacation, or I want to moderate whatever you're going in with, sometimes starting off without with the day of a day or two of not drinking can help set the tone, can help you [01:06:00] ease in to that vacation.

And just having that plan in place of you know what I'm not going to do this right away. And if you are, if you're planning on moderating, okay, I can do that. On the second day or the third day. I can work that in. But sometimes getting into, it's almost like getting into an event after that first 20 or 30 minutes, we're more comfortable and relaxed, but it's the beginning that is, more of the anxiety inducing part.

But

Emma: it's a great tip I reckon of trying to get through the first day alcohol or setting the intention. Yeah. Planning that the first day's gonna be alcohol free because I suspect if I were moderating, if I got on holiday and the first thing I did was have a welcome drink. Yeah. I would've just got the fuck it for the whole rest of the holiday.

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah.

Emma: You might need to bleep that. Sorry.

Kevin: We'll leave it there.

Emma: But I would've, yeah, I would've absolutely just been like, screwed it up. I'm done. Yeah. Let's just drink for the rest of the holiday. Yeah. [01:07:00] No matter what my plan had been going into it. So yeah, that's a great,

Kevin: but it's just remembering too that we're all, know thyself again, I'll keep saying it that way is that Socrates?

But know thyself of okay, how does it show up for you and how do you think it's best to approach it and go from there. Yeah. But all right, we're going on to the nuggets, nugget, nugget time

Emma: nuggets of the week. What did we learn this week?

So last week when we were chatting too static, I mentioned I was talking about this c chocolatier in, I don't know if I'm saying that in Christchurch, that makes these beautiful hot chocolate bombs that I'm gonna send to static.

That's right. And I hadn't really found any others other than this one in Christchurch, which is not where I live. It's where I was traveling for work. But husband and daughter came home yesterday. There is, I have, I was today years old when I learned there's a beautiful handcrafted c chocolatier in New Zealand.

In New Zealand. Oh my gosh. They're all in New Zealand. Gees, Emma in Auckland, [01:08:00] close to where I live. So they came home with this little handcrafted chocolate box for me with this gorgeous little Easter bunny on it. And it's like a little hand painted white color and Easter bunny. And this is gonna make terrible audio.

If I hold it up to my mic. Is it like you see my

Kevin: you have to I was just talking about this. Oh. If you have to tap it, right?

Emma: Yeah.

Kevin: I hate that.

Emma: So it's this gorgeous little box about the size of my hand of these little handcrafted chocolates.

Kevin: Gotta crackle the paper. Yeah.

Emma: So I was today years old when I learned that c chocolatier are becoming a thing in New Zealand.

I don't know if they're a thing in the rest of the world, but I am here for it. And look at this. Cute. Everyone's gonna have to jump onto YouTube or describe or something. Look at this cute little gift box.

Kevin: It really is. I think it's the blue, like these blue ones that look like a globe in there that I think you need to eat one.

Emma: There's some I'm sharing because I know what

Kevin: that is. [01:09:00]

Emma: There's a little like carrot cake, like little square chocolates with a whole hand painted carrot on the top. And then there's some hot cross bun ones. Some that look like a little fried egg on top of a round chocolate.

Kevin: Oh yeah. I didn't realize that was an egg.

Okay. I had, those were fancy. I already

Emma: ate one of the little purple glowy things that was like a creme brulee with a raspberry something in it, which was amazing. Alright, he's a little blue one

Kevin: for those. Just listening. Emma is trying to hold up the box to her mic. What's the blue? What's the blue one? It's

Emma: like I was gonna, I was trying to show you through my microphone. What a minter. It's like a burnt caramel. Oh, it's delicious. No, it's like a, there's like crunchy bits of honeycomb. And caramel and

Kevin: oh, sounds good.

Emma: That's good. Can you see that's, that might be gross. Showing you what [01:10:00] I'm eating

Kevin: it. It sounds good.

Emma: You can hear it crunching.

Kevin: No, but I hear all your noises.

Emma: Oh. That's so yum.

Kevin: And for those listening or watching, I am. Feeling exactly like you, because guess who doesn't have chocolate sitting in front of them and enjoying this.

I just get to watch Emma eat delicious chocolates.

Emma: Sounds like a you problem.

Kevin: It does. I'm sitting here looking around. I do have a like bar and stuff.

Emma: It's like crunchy little, solid bits of caramel as well as this gooey caramel. So shout out to Cocoa Wilds. That was delicious. Not sponsored, gifted by my husband yet.

Good husband.

Kevin: Yeah. All right, so the blue ones are thumbs up. It's delicious. Okay.

Emma: Thumbs up for the blue ones. What's your nugget? Awesome. What did you learn this week?

Kevin: My nugget, my nugget is that I'm fixed. I I said[01:11:00]

zero context there. I got a new journal, so I have a new journal and I'm going on vacation. So I told, I started off, I therapy session with my therapist this morning. And I said, okay, just so you know, this is probably gonna be our last session together because I got a new journal and I'm going on vacation, so I'm pretty sure.

I got this. You cued? Yeah. I got this whole problem thing Uhhuh fixed. But no, I do have my A DHD self did come out a bit. I was halfway done with my old journal and just felt like I needed a. A new one I got, I caught, this pretty artist artistic one that has, its sparkly, it has, it's like the, it's like stars.

I'm all about space right now and learning about random, what's the show on HBO that I'm like binging how the universe works, I think it's called. Yeah, [01:12:00] I'm all about that stuff. But I feel like I needed a fresh start on my journal based on where I was at mentally, and I am hitting the ground running and it, it's, sometimes you just need that little blank page to get it going.

Emma: Yeah. Before we started recording, I was giving Kevin shit about his classic A DHD. With thinking that a journal will fix everything. Kevin's holding up a stack of what, 10 odd journals.

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: But so he is giving him shit about it. But he makes a really good point that sometimes, I don't know if you're in a funk in the journal that you've got isn't working, then Yeah.

Maybe a fresh journal and a fresh start and a fresh perspective. Like a reset. Great idea. Yeah. So as much as I was giving you shit about it, sorry. I think it's a great idea.

Kevin: No you changed my mind. I deserve to get shit about it. I have empty journals here that I could be using. But the I have been trying to figure out [01:13:00] like a whole process, like my whole system, my process of doing things.

I've tried countless apps, countless journals. I was even on the, these little pocket sized journals that I really like. And using those recently. And I'm like, yeah, this just, isn't it? One of the pages started falling out and as soon as that happened, that's when I bought this journal because I was like, okay, this isn't as this isn't as durable as I wanted it to be.

I'm like, I think I just need to go with the new journal. And so far so good.

Emma: There's definitely something about pen to paper, like journaling on, I've never got into the hang of, I don't journal at all anyway, so I can't really comment, but journaling on my phone isn't, it's just not the same.

Something about scrolling on a piece of is therapeutic.

Kevin: Yeah. And I'm, we don't need to turn this into an old journaling topic 'cause I could talk about that the whole time because

Emma: Yes, you can.

Kevin: I, I do have, I do my journal on my phone [01:14:00] because one of the important things, especially early on for me was.

I, I wasn't going to, nowadays, I actually, I'll actually go to my daughter's like sporting events or something and I'll bring this with me because, I'm like, oh, I need to think of something for a meeting tomorrow or whatever, and I'll bring it. So I don't care anymore. But I never did that before.

And the one thing that was always with me was my phone. So I needed to really embrace the digital side of things. But yeah, I agree. There is something to there's pros and cons to both. But I'm trying to go full, not full, but I'm trying to go analog with a lot of my stuff, tasks, all that.

And yeah, we'll see as well as journaling. And it, I've been doing that with some prompts from the Daily Stoic Journal. I got that earlier this year and wanted to use that and just I was like, nah, I'm good. It just wasn't I wasn't, I didn't wanna write in it. I was gonna write in my journal and it just I didn't create the [01:15:00] habit and now I'm like, fully in the habit of doing the morning and even the evening reflections that it has and yeah.

So forth. So good. Like I said,

Emma: amazing. Hit

Kevin: me back up in a month. Great leg. And we can see if

Emma: how's that journal going? How

Kevin: many pages? Yeah.

Emma: Pretty Galaxy Journal.

Kevin: Yeah. Let's see. I am on for accountability. I am on page

20 and 21 right now. So

Emma: that's a decent amount of writing already.

Kevin: Yeah. And I, yeah, since the weekend since Saturday, so four days I. Not all those 20 pages, like some of those index, there's a future log that I can put things in for future months, as a whole system. I got going from bullet journal.

Nice. I'm trying to learn that I am a novice I the BuJo method. Oh,

Emma: bullet journal.

Kevin: Bullet journal. Yeah.

Emma: Yeah. I have no idea. Yeah. I have not investigated. [01:16:00] So kudos to you. I love that Nugget. A new journal can change everything.

Kevin: Yep. One in doubt. Get a new journal now.

Emma: Coach Kevin said it's okay.

Kevin: Yeah.

Emma: Coach Kevin told me to coach Kevin made me do it. Yeah.

Kevin: No, don't listen to Coach Kevin. 'cause the books, journals, you name it. There's something arriving frequently here. All right. Is that it? I think we're good. Good to go. All right thank you all for listening to another episode of the re frameable podcast, brought to you by the Reframe app.

Reframe is the number one iOS and Android app to help you cut back or quit drinking alcohol. It uses neuroscience to reframe your relationship with alcohol and unlock the healthiest, happiest you. If you are enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe and share with those that you feel may benefit from it.

If you have a topic you'd like us to cover on the podcast, send an email to podcast@reframeapp.com and let us know. [01:17:00] I wanna thank you again for listening and be sure to come back again for another episode. Have a great day,

Emma: friends.