Hi hello! My name is Valerie (obviously) and I am introducing myself per the list of to-do’s. I currently struggle to find a community I relate to when it comes to alcohol because I don’t drink excessively or every day but I know that in order to get to the next level I am aiming for, I need to cut it out completely. Regardless of the amount I drink, it still has a profound negative effect on my goals, focus, and well-being. When I listen to podcasts about ruining relationships or near death experiences or dangerous withdrawals, I just can’t find my space there. I listen to a lot of FitRecovery and am hoping this is a place I feel I belong. I love IPA beer and I typically just drink it out of habit or when I feel extreme emotions of any kind (happiness, stress, etc), or to numb the fact that I have so much contempt for my job (also to numb the guilt for that contempt because it’s a fantastic salary not many see around here and I’m very good at it but I just…I mostly hate it and spend a lot of energy trying to just be grateful). I never drink to a point of being sloppy drunk. I like the buzz and I hate hangovers so that is my stopping point. Unfortunately I still feel like trash about myself in the morning. I also have ADHD and I know that makes me more likely to have an addiction of some sort. I hate the way any amount of alcohol makes me feel at this point. Disappointed in myself when I wake up, an unclear head, followed by spikes of anxiety, depression and self loathing, and the way it just murders my fitness and my focus on goals. What I envision for myself in 30 days - - refocusing on my fitness with a vengeance (I want to grow my legs like Carrie June (MiniBeast)) and help other women navigate perimenopause sans poison with a pretty label - Find the right calling for entrepreneurship and begin to climb out of the “9-5” because it’s annihilating my soul - Trust myself to keep promises to me again - And to feel proud of myself about leaving alcohol in my past all the way

Hey everyone, Chris Scott here. If you're reading this, you found your way to the free Fit Recovery community on Skool. I'm glad you did. A few things to know before you dive in. I'm not going to tell you to quit drinking on Day One. I think most of the conventional advice on this stuff has the order of operations completely backwards, which is part of why so many people relapse over and over and end up convinced they're broken. They're not broken. The order is wrong. Here's what I figured out the hard way over a decade of trying and failing to fix this on my own, and then twelve+ years of helping other people do it: alcohol dependence is a biochemical disorder first and a willpower problem a distant second. When the chemistry is depleted (and after enough drinking, it always is), your nervous system is screaming at you. No amount of meetings or journaling or "just stop" advice is going to drown out that screaming. So in here, the first thing I'm going to help you do is knock your biochemical cravings down by 90%. That's the name of the free course in the Classroom and it's exactly what it does. Once the cravings are no longer running the show, you can actually think. Once you can think, you get to decide. Some people, once the chemistry is fixed, want a life beyond alcohol. Not "without" it as some grim deprivation thing, but beyond it, where alcohol is just irrelevant to who you are. That's the path I personally went down, and it's what we explore in here for people who want to go that direction. Other people find that knocking out the cravings lets them moderate without it taking over their lives. Both are real outcomes. The point is you get to choose with a clear head, instead of your nervous system choosing for you. A few practical things: 1. Introduce yourself in the comments below. Tell us your first name, where you're at with alcohol right now, and one thing you want to be different 30 days from now. Doesn't need to be elaborate. "Sleeping through the night," "Cravings down so I can think straight," "Figuring out if I actually want to drink or just feel like I have to" — whatever's true for you. Don't overthink it.