Rachel Hart’s 100 takeaways
to transform your relationship with alcohol
I am a huge fan of Rachel Hart’s podcast “Take a Break from Drinking.” It really opened my eyes to my drinking habits and how alcohol affects me. Thanks to her insights, I have changed my relationship with alcohol completely and now only drink on very rare occasions.
For this reason, I really want to share the key takeaways from her first 100 episodes. To make it easier for you to dive into these insights, I’ve used a list of key takeaways from each episode, along with their episode numbers. This way, you can listen to all of them or jump straight to the ones that speak to you.
You can find the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
For more info about Rachel Hart and her work, check out her official website: rachelhart.com
I hope these insights help you as much as they helped me!
There’s a spectrum of drinking habits, not just “normal” drinkers and alcoholics.
You weren’t born craving alcohol; you taught yourself to desire it, and you can unlearn it by changing your thoughts.
“I need a drink to take the edge off” really means, “I need a drink to cope with how I feel.”
Confidence is a skill you can develop, not an inherent trait, and you don’t need alcohol to build it.
If you’re worried about why you’re not drinking, it’s because you’re attaching negative meaning to others’ reactions.
Overthinking your drinking habit drains your energy, indecision won’t help you feel better.
Life without alcohol is more fun, exciting, and connected, not just free from hangovers.
The urge to drink isn’t the issue; it’s that no one taught you how to manage it without giving in or resisting.
Alcohol doesn’t fix your anxiety or emotions; it just distracts you from them temporarily.
You’re not alone in having flaws; shame about your past comes from your thoughts, not what actually happened.
Deprivation isn’t caused by not drinking, it’s caused by your thoughts about not drinking.
Striving for perfection and pleasing everyone leads to using alcohol as a reward, masking how you really feel.
You know the negative consequences of your drinking, but now you need to understand its benefits, because there’s always an upside otherwise you wouldn’t drink.
To change your drinking habit, you need to challenge the thoughts and beliefs about life without alcohol.
Drinking is a choice, not a slip, own the decision rather than blaming external factors.
Doing hard things makes you grow, while drinking is the easy choice your brain craves despite the consequences, choose the hard path.
All your actions follow a think-feel-act cycle; by understanding that your thoughts shape your feelings and actions, you can change your results.
Feelings are one-word emotional states that are experienced in your body and created by your thoughts; to change how you feel, you need to separate your mind’s thoughts from your body’s sensations.
Every action, from drinking to procrastinating, has a reason behind it, focusing only on the action misses the thoughts and feelings driving it.
You create all your life’s results, and turning to distractions like drinking or scrolling won’t fix your feelings, changing your think-feel-act cycle is what changes your results.
Stop telling yourself you can’t drink, it only creates negativity; tell yourself the truth: you’re an adult with free will, and right now, you’re choosing not to drink.
Changing your drinking habit will be uncomfortable, but you don’t need to hit rock bottom, just find a compelling reason to change.
Fear of failure is really fear of how you’ll feel about failure, but failure only causes negative feelings if you make it mean something bad about you.
If a party or social event wouldn’t be worth attending without alcohol or if you think you’re no fun without a drink, you’re doing something wrong.
You can create fun or consume it, but consuming fun with alcohol or food only leaves you wanting more and brings consequences.
Chaos happens when your mind exaggerates discomfort or catastrophizes; that’s what you’re doing with the urge to drink, turning a simple urge into chaos.
Feeling torn between wanting a drink and knowing it’s not helping is normal; it’s your lower brain wanting comfort and your higher brain knowing better.
Trying to fix everything outside you to feel better won’t work, it only leaves you seeking relief, and drinking won’t change the thoughts creating your stress.
Punishing yourself only creates shame and fear of mistakes; instead, go from self-loathing to curiosity, which helps you grow and change.
Changing your desire to drink means sitting with emotions you want to avoid and understanding why your brain labels certain emotions as irrational or unmanageable.
Change starts with awareness, track your drinking or face what you’ve been avoiding.
Habits feel automatic, but recognizing triggers puts you back in control.
Learn to recognize “enough”, your body knows better than oversized servings.
Connection isn’t in the drink; it’s in the actions you take.
Alcohol is just a chemical, it doesn’t define your character.
Instead of focusing on removing alcohol, focus on becoming who you want to be.
Your brain craves easy rewards, train it to seek better ones.
The biggest obstacle to change isn’t others, it’s your relationship with yourself.
Alcohol masks reality, quit and decide if you want to face or change it.
No amount of success matters if your inner dialogue keeps telling you you’re not enough.
Your ability to sit with your thoughts reflects the quality of your mind.
Self-approval is an inside job, learn to celebrate yourself now.
Where does your mind go during daily tasks? Being present changes everything.
Hoping for change without action keeps you stuck.
The words you use shape how you experience emotions and urges.
Master the think-feel-act cycle to understand and manage your urges.
Perfectionists and people-pleasers often seek relief in a drink.
Ask better questions, and your brain will find better answers.
Don’t blame aging for what might be alcohol’s toll on your body.
Discomfort is part of life, will you choose growth or stagnation?
Alcohol is not your friend, it only teaches you to hide how you feel.
Your compelling reason helps you take action, but it won’t erase discomfort.
If you’re not taking action to change, it’s because staying the same is still an option.
The label “alcoholic” reduces a complex person to a single behavior, ignoring the real issue, coping skills.
Alcohol doesn’t create your desire, which means you don’t have to avoid it to change the habit.
Drinking to control others’ opinions is exhausting, your opinion of yourself is what truly matters.
Enjoyment is always available if you challenge the thoughts blocking it.
Your past doesn’t predict your future, your willingness to keep trying does.
When you say, “I deserve it” and pour a drink, what are you really craving?
If a positive emotion feels incomplete without alcohol, ask yourself what’s truly missing.
Taking a break from drinking teaches you to listen to your body, it always tells the truth.
Self-pity drains your energy on complaints instead of action.
Real change requires tolerating the uncomfortable in-between of who you were and who you’re becoming.
Saying no to a drink is easy, it’s handling the brain’s tantrum that takes practice.
Ignoring the truth about your drinking doesn’t make it unreal, it just makes it harder to change.
Your thoughts are not you, if you can observe them, you can change them.
Drinking seems special because marketing made it that way.
Saying yes to a drink to avoid discomforting others is people-pleasing at your own expense.
People will change everything in their lives except their thinking, but that’s the only change that works.
People don’t trigger your emotions, your thoughts about them do.
The past only exists in your thoughts, changing how you think about it changes how you feel.
Monday isn’t magical, it’s just a delay tactic for avoiding discomfort.
Enthusiasm fades when you let obstacles turn excitement into defeat.
Be honest, do you love the taste of wine, or do you love the effect?
“Taking the edge off” only teaches your brain to numb emotions, not cope with them.
Drinking can be a signal to stop working or a way to push through tasks you don’t want to do.
If you always end your day with negative emotions, a drink becomes your marker for the day’s end.
Your brain will justify drinking in endless ways, the problem is when you believe the excuses.
Alcohol doesn’t solve problems, it just stalls them.
Use the think-feel-act cycle to turn your inner critic into a coach.
Learning to ignore an urge, any urge, teaches your brain that wanting isn’t the same as needing.
Are you practicing not drinking or just thinking about how hard it is to say no?
Change isn’t about fixing yourself, it’s about evolving into who you’re becoming.
Blaming someone else for your drinking lets you avoid responsibility but keeps you powerless.
All-or-nothing thinking comes from perfectionism, question why you think you need to be perfect.
Your judgments about others’ drinking say more about your own beliefs than theirs.
Struggle is universal, you can see it as a flaw or as the path to growth.
The stories you tell about your personality are just that; stories. Change is always possible.
Stop searching for motivation, start creating it with your thoughts.
Drinking is just one of many ways people numb feelings, there are a million distractions.
Anxiety isn’t the problem, how you respond to it is.
Taking a break from drinking reveals what’s not working in your life, and that’s the real magic.
Your brain will always find evidence for what you believe, so be mindful of what you tell yourself.
The faster you’re willing to feel an urge without acting on it, the faster your desire will change.
The only thing standing in the way of changing your drinking is you.
If all your beliefs about alcohol were negative, you wouldn’t be drinking, so question the positive ones.
Your thoughts shape your reality, what you believe, you’ll find evidence for.
Commitment means taking action even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.
You are not powerless, you have the ability to consciously choose your actions.
The 100th lesson? It’s about taking action before you feel ready. It’s about moving forward even when doubt, insecurity, and a lack of confidence hold you back. Waiting for the perfect moment? You’ll be waiting forever. Change happens when you act, even when you’re not sure, because that’s how you teach your brain to do something new.
Ready to take the jump?
