E102: Alcohol and Your Dysregulated Nervous System With Beth Bowen, LMSW

Gill welcomes Beth Bowen, LMSW to the show. This episode is your guide to understanding why we use alcohol to attempt to regulate our nervous system and calm us down. Alcohol is a quick fix that brings down intolerable emotions, but drinking to cope makes us even less tolerant of big emotions in the future.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Beth’s experience working with veterans and in the emergency room as a social worker
• The idea of “knowing better” better but not being able to change your drinking
• The risk to licensure for a medical or mental health professional struggling with substances
• Emotion intensity and drinking to regulate emotions
• How our nervous system works and how it can become dysregulated
• Why we are so drawn to drinking alcohol to regulate our nervous system
• What the window of tolerance is and how this can increase the risk of turning to alcohol to cope
• Why morality (good/bad, strong/weak) has nothing to do with it
• How do identify if you have a narrow window of tolerance and how to improve your ability to tolerate emotions
• How to learn healthy coping strategies

Beth is a therapist and sober coach living in Austin, TX with her husband and two boys. She has been sober from alcohol for 4.5 years, and now helps other women change their relationship with alcohol through group and 1:1 coaching. Beth also founded Sober Stories, a multimedia platform dedicated to the power of storytelling in the sober space. Sober Stories publishes new podcast episodes every Friday, featuring interviews of folks all across the sober spectrum.

Connect with Beth:

https://wearesoberstories.com/

https://bethbowen.co/

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sober-stories/id1612979571

My interview on Sober Stories:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sober-powered-with-gill-tietz-of-sober-powered/id1612979571?i=1000559091670

Resources I offer:

• Community: Living a Sober Powered Life https://www.soberpowered.com/membership
• Weekly emails on Thursdays where I explain the latest episode in more detail, share images to help you understand the concepts, share announcements, interviews, writing, discount codes and more. https://view.flodesk.com/pages/6107260617e156c4839768b5
• Free resources https://www.soberpowered.com/free

Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors. Learn more:

https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors

If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support my work https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered

Sources are posted on my website

Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

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