What is Mindful Drinking?
From Sober Curious to Mindful Drinking, it can all get a bit confusing if you're reducing or eliminating drinking alcohol––I designed a course on it, let me explain.
With all of the Dry January messaging, I thought I’d take a pause, zoom out, and share more of the big picture. We’re hearing so much about taking the month off from alcohol and all the good it can do, which it can do. But it’s also useful to think about Dry January as a starting point to reevaluating your relationship with alcohol year round.
I’ll also cut to the punchline: I wrote a course for the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) on Mindful Drinking. My intent isn’t on selling you on the course, it’s encouraging to drink mindfully. If the course helps, then I think it’s a bargain for the amount of information it has at $69 (currently reduced to $49).
I was writing my new course on Mindful Drinking in a coffee shop one day––staring hard at my screen while eating an oat bar––and, despite having already cashed the check from my benefactors, I nearly gave up.
Feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the topic, I closed my computer––took a bite of the bar, which predictably crumbled in my lap––and looked around to see if now was an appropriate time to:
Break down into a fit of tears, risking my own sense of adult propriety;
Yell and throw the computer against the wall, potentially harming innocent bystanders (and my computer); or
All of the above.
I was trying to summarize decades of knowledge I’d learned about alcohol production into a simple, easy to understand description of how alcohol is made. And, each time I described some tangible aspect, I was reminded of all of the details that I had to leave out.
When I was discussing oak aging, for instance, I couldn’t share the story of when I was at Independent Stave Company in Kentucky and saw stacks of weather-aging barrel staves or when I was in Cognac and could smell the fresh staves being hand sawed and how each affected the flavor of the spirit. There’s just too much to cover. My job was to be the omniscient expert who can speak with authority in bullet-pointed prose, but I was swimming in the finite details.
But what do any of those details have to do with Mindful Drinking? The short answer is everything. If Mindful Drinking is about being aware of what and why you’re drinking, knowing the details of cooperage (barrel making) isn’t a far shot from the starter kit. Yet it’s also not as important as understanding some other key facets of alcohol. So, I tried my best to describe it to someone who was just starting out learning about alcohol. I pictured my young son.
In doing so, I wiped off the crumbs, avoided a public scene and started from a place much simpler: What is alcohol, where does it come from, and what does it do to and for us. And how can we navigate those topics without either demonizing or lionizing alcohol. It’s not that I’m impartial, it’s that I don’t believe I can make choices for other people. The question then is: What exactly do they need to know to make choices if not the way oak barrels are made?
I started with our human evolution and culture. As an anthropology student, that’s the lens through which I see the world. Alcohol has been at the forefront of human endeavors. What that means, specifically, is that alcohol is not only co-evolved with our human ancestors—for 12 million years—alcohol is there at the formation of religion and agriculture. It’s not that people were sitting around having a beer thinking up religion or civilization. It’s that, apart from a belief in divine intervention, alcohol was likely part of our reason for their creation.
However, it would be foolish not to mention that alcohol is also mostly bad for you. Of course, I know that its wide reaching health effects can effect each person very differently, but the growing scientific consensus is no amount of alcohol is healthy. However, you can lead a healthy lifestyles that incorporates alcohol.
I wish I had better news, but I don’t. In the course, I meticulously cite reputable sources and studies. Science is always evolving but the pendulum is undoubtedly swinging a different way than I once thought as a young bartender.
With both of those things being true––alcohol is important to civilization and also unhealthy for us as individuals––how can we reconcile our experience?
My answer is Mindful Drinking.
Mindful Drinking, as I define it in the course, is a self-led strategy to drink (or not drink) alcohol in relationship to your goals, health or otherwise. What that means is that I don’t want you to give up alcohol. Nor do I want you to drink alcohol. I want you to make the decision for yourself but, in doing so, be deliberate in your choices, steering away from habit, conformity, and peer pressure. And, in the course, I try my best to give you the information clearly and with an empirical basis, which means that I cite the studies and even offer thoughtful ways to navigate the science itself.
You can dive into the course yourself, but here is a quick look at the curriculum as described by NASM:
Chapter 1: Alcohol and Society
We discuss the role alcohol plays in society, from its relationship to human evolution to cultural identity and foodways. This includes the intersection of alcohol with social wellness and drinking occasions.
Chapter 2: Alcohol Types and Production
You will learn about the many types of alcohol, including wine, beer, distilled spirits, and mixed drinks; how they are made; and how much alcohol they contain. You will also learn how to measure the amount of alcohol in a drink.
Chapter 3: Alcohol and Health
We will discuss the role of alcohol in our health and the risk of disease, injury, and death with alcohol. We will explore the effects of alcohol on sleep, recovery, hydration, absorption of key nutrients, cognitive function, and sports performance.
Chapter 4: Problem Drinking
We will discuss the excessive use of alcohol, known as problem drinking, the role that you can play in discussing problem drinking and destigmatizing treatment, and offering resources to those who are seeking help.
Chapter 5: Mindful Drinking
We discuss what mindful drinking is, ways to reflect on your relationship with alcohol, and how to make space for mindful drinking in your life. We also discuss strategies you can use toward becoming a more mindful drinker.
Chapter 6: Your Guide to Low and No-Alcohol Beverages
We will gain a comprehensive understanding of mindful drinking and practical strategies for incorporating low-alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages into their lifestyles. This chapter includes a downloadable Mindful Drinking recipe book featuring both no and low-alcohol beverages.
If you’d like to hear more about the course, I was just talking about it on one of my favorite human’s podcast, Darlene Marshall’s Better Than Fine. Darlene is a wellness coach and positive psychology practitioner and the absolute best.
And, of course, please subscribe to Darlene’s brilliant Substack, More | Better:
I also recommend, for anyone considering learning more about wellness, NASM’s Certified Wellness Coach program. It’s top notch and something I myself have studied. I am a CWC!
Lastly, for those who are enjoying Dry January, here’s an easy to make recipe from the course that you might enjoy along with a message from me on Instagram:
Derek Brown is an author, award-winning bartender, NASM-certified wellness coach, and founder of Positive Damage, Inc.
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Always informative & Derek, you have inspired so much change in my own relationship with alcohol.