EP 100: 100 Reasons with Annie Grace and Scott Pinyard

It’s the 100th episode!!! To celebrate this milestone, Annie Grace and Scott Pinyard create an impromptu ‘top 100’ list of advice, learnings, and insights they have gained on their journey. This casual, lighthearted episode boasts a wealth of knowledge from two individuals who have found freedom and discovered happiness in being alcohol free!
I'm a news junkie, I'm a politics junkie and I can follow that stuff. I listen to a lot of podcasts and the podcasts I listen to are people that talk really fast on them. I can follow those and keep up with those so much better and remember what was on them. It's not just about listening to them while I've been drinking. Also on those days when I was recovering so that was my number one, podcasts.
Okay so, I'm gonna tag onto that one. I am so surprised when I go back and watch reruns of things that I had watched. I'm like, "Wait, that character did what? Or that's happening," and this is Netflix binges and I'd always watch these binges on the airplane with lots and lots of wine and so I know one of the benefits is I'm getting to watch these TV shows completely again for the second time and have no memory of watching them the first time.
I had the same thing with Westworld. I watched the first episode and I was like, "This is boring." Then fast forward, my wife and I just binged the whole thing. It's fantastic, yeah I know exactly what you mean. The second one I wanted to talk about, you took movies that was next on my list. The second one I wanted to talk about was food. I enjoy food so much more and I was absolutely one of those people that thought that pairing wines and I wasn't super fancy about it but I thought it really enhanced it, it absolutely does not. That's one thing I like way better now than I did before, which I guess is a plus and minus.
Science fact for you number three is that alcohol numbs your taste buds so you do enjoy food more. That's just the fact, that's a reality, that's a science. Actually you enjoy it more. It also numbs the rest of your senses so we can talk about each of those individually but very specifically it numbs your ability to feel physical pleasure, so food, sex, other pleasures, numbed.
The next one again, from my sort of trying to be unusual list was personal development. For a long time I was trying to improve, and I'd read different books and I'd try out new things and nothing ever really seemed to take, I'd make some progress but not a ton. What I'd found after I quit drinking and I was able to track what I was doing, I was able to journal and compare myself to myself the day before and it was accurate and I've just seen that sky rocket since I quit drinking.
Yes, my entire desire for self improvement has spawned completely from quitting drinking. I don't think I ever read a book that was not really either a business book or a novel before then and I can't believe how much wisdom is in these books. People have done this stuff before, people have had the hard thoughts before, people have struggled with depression before. So just that entire world has been opened up to me.
Next for me I was thinking about recovering from stress. I am or was, I'm much less so now, but a very anxious person, always a worrier and stressful situations would really stress me out, like I would feel it and I would hold onto it for a long time. But now I find being able to relax without alcohol and actually relax, not just numb what was going on but actually take a deep breath and relax, I'm so much more resilient after a stressful event.
Along those lines of breathing and relaxation for me is sleep. I know we cover this quite a bit in the book and in the intensives but holy cow, not only is the quality of my sleep better but I actually don't need as much as I thought I did, I'm able to operate on way less than I was trying to get before because I'm actually sleeping and it's not sleeping and starting the recovery process so that was a big one for me. I can definitely say life improves after quitting drinking because sleep improves.
I was also thinking, playing with kids. Actually engaging with my kids, I mean I always played with them but playing with them and following along with super imaginative games and just having the stamina and sort of the mental I don't know, with-it-ness to be able to keep doing that, that's been a huge boost and I've seen it add a big boost in the relationship with both my kids.
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100th episode, 100 things. I think we'll hit a million downloads probably early 2019, so anyway listeners, thank you. Thank you for being here, thank you for indulging our 100 things. If you haven’t sampled the book yet - you can do that now. www.thisnakedm...
Listen to the complete podcast to hear the entire list of how life improves after quitting drinking. Let us know what yours are as well!