About Our Guest- Georgia Foster – How hypnotherapy can be used to combat behavioral drinking and addictions
It’s entirely possible to drink less by tapping into the power of the brain to change habitual behavior – in just seven days. Therapists typically offer an all-or-nothing solution when someone identifies a problem with the amount they drink.
Georgia’s programs include non-judgmental and reassuring practical advice, positive and effective meditations and short hypnosis recordings, exercises and assignments to increase communication, and resources for those who are still struggling with alcohol consumption. 95% of workshop participants reported a moderate to significant reduction in their alcohol intake, based on survey returns.
Full Podcast Transcription
Georgia Foster 00:00
And then I went on to talk about the inner critic, and he said, Georgia, the amygdala is the inner critic, oh, my goodness it’s a kind of another way of talking about it. The inner critic is a personality trait that we all have. They call it the reptilian part of the brain, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. And when we did live in caves, and there were bears around the corner, it might have been helpful, but now it plays games with us.
Diva Nagula 02:02
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of From Doctor to Patient. Today, I have a special guest that’s coming to us from Sydney. And we are actually 15 or 16 hours behind if I’m not mistaken. Georgia Foster is here with us. And we’re going to have a discussion of hypnotherapy and alcoholic beverages and drinking. It’s entirely possible to drink less by tapping into the power of the brain to change habitual behavior in just seven days. Therapists typically offer an all or nothing solution when someone identifies a problem with the amount they drink. clinical hypnotherapist Georgia Foster is a leading specialist in behavioral drinking. Her recent book and online programs offer an alternative for anyone who wants to learn how to drink less without giving up completely. Georgia has helped 1000s of clients take control of their drinking, increase their self esteem, and improve their relationships with family, friends and co workers, all without the need to stop drinking. George’s programs include non- judgmental and reassuring practical advice, positive and effective meditations and short hypnosis recordings, exercises and assignments to increase communication and resources for those who are still struggling with alcohol consumption. 95% of workshop participants reported a moderate to significant reduction in their alcohol intake based on survey returns. Welcome, Georgia. It’s great to have you here. And correct me if I had the time change was was it 16 hours? 17 hours? Are you ahead of us?
Georgia Foster 03:43
Well, it’s just after seven in the morning here. So yeah, I think so. I think you may have gone into daylight savings.
Diva Nagula 03:50 Yeah, so it’s 15 hours.
Georgia Foster 03:51
Yeah, this just changed on the weekend. So I was a bit confused, it’s crazy that Australia is almost a day ahead.
Diva Nagula 03:59 I know, right?
Georgia Foster 04:01
I always say I should give people the lottery tickets, should I?
Diva Nagula 04:05
Exactly, right?! You have a very interesting profession. I actually interviewed someone who did hypnotherapy, but they use it in a sense for past life regression, and the hypnotherapy that you use, can you talk a little bit more about the specific hypnotherapy that you’re using for your clients?
Georgia Foster 04:28
I am trained in regression work, but I don’t believe it’s necessary for my particular line of work. What I love about the fact that hypnosis… when the days when I used to, I mean many years ago, I’ve been a therapist for 24 years, but it was a little bit Hocus Pocus. But now there’s a real science behind it. And a lot of neuro scientists now have confirmed that hypnosis is a great way to move forward. So I kind of call myself a progressive therapist, because I’m about training the brain to work with the principle of neuroplasticity that says the brain can change and can evolve. And that the the neural pathway of the history of where we are with our drinking. So for example, you’ve got a history of drinking in unhelpful ways. It doesn’t mean it’s the truth, it’s become a habit. So I’m very much about getting the neural pathways to work towards your present and future and create different coping strategies. So regression has its place. But sometimes it can be traumatic. Sometimes it can be, the wrong thing comes up. And it could also be the right thing, but it’s about…. I’m very much if there were about when it’s time to move on.
Diva Nagula 05:35
Right. And it’s interesting you were mentioning about neuroplasticity, and that’s one of my favorite topics to discuss. It’s interesting to discuss, because I would say that a few years ago, maybe even less than that, I was an avid consumer of alcohol. And I was more of a binge drinker wasn’t something like I would drink one or two drinks a night, I would literally, it would be the weekend thing where it was the thing to do to go out with friends and to go out and have a huge drinks. And I wouldn’t really say it’s a few drinks, I would say it was a lot of drinks. But that’s what I was used to in that that kind of behavior stemmed from college. It’s interesting that I actually, in the last year and a half, have been involved with some psychedelic work, and psychedelics, specifically, psilocybin has shown to enhance neuroplasticity. And as a result, what happens to me is that I really don’t have any urge to consume alcohol at all. And in fact, it makes me nauseous when I ever I’m around it. I can drink a glass of wine here and there but if I’m around people who are consuming a lot it doesn’t suit me. And in fact, I actually kind of feel sick when I’m around people. And I feel almost like this depressant effect, almost like a contact buzz, because alcohol is a depressant. And I feel that depressant effect if I’m out consuming. So it’s interesting. And so I’m assuming that the hypnosis that you employ has that effect of neuroplasticity on folks?
Georgia Foster 07:08
Absolutely. I mean, I think the thing that people don’t understand is when you say a good example of college life is; you go to college, and it’s okay to be a binge drinker. And it’s okay to be a party person. And then you get into the 20s, and 30s, you kind of want to be a bit more serious about your professional life, maybe settle down and get married, whatever. And we get into 40s and 50s, a lot of people are thinking I still haven’t kind of sorted this one out, I thought when I got to my 50s, that my life would be really well sorted. And it’s just not how life is. For most people, I think we’re always ever evolving. So I would say to people, it doesn’t matter
your history of drinking. And when you’re saying about alcohol being a depressant? That’s correct. A lot of people, we’ve got the fear based part of the brain, which is the amygdala, a lot of people use alcohol to suppress the amygdala, and they don’t realize that. So I’m saying is, what we need to do is train the brain to actually tune out of the amygdala before you drink. Because we use… it’s just like an a nanosecond… I’m having a stressful day at work or kids are driving me mad, or whatever it is, and the brain works on habit. So in a nanosecond, your brain says, the last time you felt this, you had a drink, whether it was a beer, or wine or gin and tonic. And before you know it, the brain saying, well, that’s what we do. I’m not saying people would necessarily drink at nine in the morning, but that anxiety is there. And if that little stirring through the day that keeps going. And I’m saying, if you nip that stirring in the bud, before it kind of builds this big momentum, then there isn’t going to be that frenzy to drink as much. And that’s really what I’m about is working with the neural pathways, so that we go to the prefrontal cortex, which is here, which we know in the history of our lives, this was often criticized as being the third eye, but an actual fact, when we study the brain, in hypnosis, when we study the brain in meditation, which is the same thing, we can see that we’re in this really calm space in this part of the brain lines up. So that’s really what I’m about is, let’s stop the, the the craziness of, I worried about my drinking. Do I need to do this or abstain? Some people will need to abstain. But there’s a group of people out there who don’t need to, it’s an emotional conditioning that’s just been perfected. And I’m about training the brain to reap effect, a coping strategy of realizing that life, how we think about it, if we keep running away to drink because of it. We don’t become ourselves as whole people. I mean, we feel that we’re whole or we feel guilty about it. And I’m saying is, it’s okay to drink but drink from a different space and then start See your self esteem and previous social anxiety reduce, because a lot of people drink because they’re anxious. When they’re shy and they go to the bar and think, oh, everyone thinks I’m an idiot until I drink, I’m more relaxed and all these things are very common reasons why people drink.
Diva Nagula 10:15
And again, that’s that’s the amygdala talking when you’re, you know, going to a bar or social engagements like I’m I’m anxious and antsy. And the alcohol has helped me before in situations like this. So it actually propels that behavior when they get into situations like that. So when you were saying about the alcohol, we should start utilizing our prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is more of our executive functioning. So how do you utilize that and retrain the person to use that aspect of their brain when it involves drinking?
Georgia Foster 10:46
Yeah, great. Well, I use a better analogy from the psychology, I’m trained in which is a union based theory, and that is that we’re all made up of many parts or sub personalities. And there’s one particular personality trait that I call the inner critic. And the inner critic… I spent some lovely time, I used to live in the UK in London for 22 years, I had two clinics in London, before we moved to Australia three years ago, and I had the privilege of being in a very big city, where there were lots of people on tap to work with. And one of them was a scientist called David Hamilton is a very well known scientist who studied oxytocin. And we ran a change your thinking, change your life day. And he wrote the brain model of the different parts of the brain when we were in scare mode versus calm mode. And then I went on to talk about the inner critic, and he said, Georgia, the amygdala is the inner critic, oh, my goodness is a kind of another way of talking about it. And the inner critic is a personality trait that we all have. They call it the reptilian part of the brain, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. And when we did live in caves, and there were bears around the corner, it might have been helpful. But now it plays games with us, and we need it. But it’s overused in society now. And the inner critic is the part that says, You drink too much, what’s wrong with you, you should lose a bit of weight or you don’t have enough money, everybody’s smarter than you. It is a very critical part of the brain. And if we believe it, we will be scared. And all those stress, chemicals, cortisol, adrenaline, pumped through the body, and the body says, I can’t cope, what do we do? And what we know about alcohol is it shuts down the inner critic. It waves it goodbye. So people, they’re not getting hooked into the alcohol, they’re getting hooked into the feelings. So I’m saying, the inner critic can’t read other people’s minds, and the good news is it can’t see into your future. It just kind of plays these games about, if you don’t drink tonight, you won’t sleep because another reason why people drink is to shut down the inner critic actually. They’re busy brain syndrome is a negative thinking that plays over their head. So when we drink alcohol, we’re actually having some space from that inner critic. So I say to people, your inner critic, is giving you a really… I mean, there are other personality traits to drive people to drink as well. But this is the main catalyst. And when people realize that the inner critic is just one voice, it’s like, oh, my goodness, I don’t have to think like this. Because a lot of people think this is all of them thinking this. But the good news is, from my principal from where I’ve worked, and I haven’t been proven wrong with this theory, we have a negative part of our brain. But we also have a very positive part of our brain too. But when you train the brain to be in that part of the brain, which I call the intuitive, the healthy part, the charismatic part that can go into the bar and says, I can drink, but I don’t need to drink to take the edge off. That’s, that’s the person I want to become alive. That’s the person. That is really who we are authentically. So my work is really about saying if you love your beautiful Chardonnay or your Merlot, that’s completely fine. Be a wine connoisseur if you want to be or enjoy your favorite micro beer brewery place, whatever. It’s just that we’ve forgotten that who we are, before we drink, is a wonderful person. So I’m about that. So that we can drink, yes, of course, sometimes when people say, if you win the lottery tonight, or, you know, you’re you’re on a holiday and you might drink all the new plan, but I’m talking about the regular habitual drinking that causes people to grieve.
Diva Nagula 14:37
And so it’s really about reframing the person’s intent or perspective, or association with alcohol, right? I mean, it’s retraining that mindset so you’re not using it as a crutch. You don’t need the alcohol as a crutch. So it’s substituting that for something else. Is that correct? Or is it a little different?
Georgia Foster 15:00
Yeah, it’s an anxiety, it’s a self esteem thing. It’s a stress management tool. A lot of people who do the seven day program, they don’t necessarily have very low self esteem, some do have had low self esteem. So it just becomes a habit. And what’s important is to know that, when we’re in that space, we tend to forget that we use these tools as emotional crutches. But ultimately, it creates more low self esteem and more anxiety. Because the more you drink, to alleviate the inner critic, it becomes a habit. And then I call it the alcohol police, it may be a wife, or a husband or child can be the trigger to maybe realize that the alcohol is creeping up because we become tolerant to alcohol. So that first glass that was emotionally medicinal, then we need two, and we need three, and then we worry that we’re drinking too much. And then somebody may comment that we drink too much. And then the inner critic says, see, they’re watching you, they think there’s something wrong with you, you drink too much. And then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. So I’m saying let’s stop that self fulfilling prophecy. Let’s get in there now and get your mind into a better space about your alcohol.
Diva Nagula 16:19
And how do clients find you? It’s an interesting approach to the utilization of alcohol. It’s not necessarily eliminating alcohol or its ill effects is really developing a different better relationship and a healthy relationship with alcohol. So are people referred to from other primary care physicians, doctors or therapists, or how do they find you?
Georgia Foster 16:45
Well, it is a very secret therapy in terms of it’s a very private, taboo, a lot of people feel ashamed and embarrassed. I’ve had the privilege of some journalists having come to see me and said, Georgia, I need to talk about this. So there’s been a great way forward. But I do appreciate that not everybody, having me here is great, because people are secretly worried. One in six Americans binge drink. That’s a big statistic. And I’m not talking about on the park bench. I’m talking about at home because a lot of this drinking is done in the home. And we’re talking about people who are fully functioning normal people, moms, dads, corporates, a lot of my client base in London were lawyers, accountants, people in finance, people in media, homemakers. Another big statistic is that people in the medical profession, nursing staff, people who are in the coalface of life are big drinkers. So it’s really something that I thought I wanted to… I’m Australian, lived in Britain for a long time… Aussies and Brits are big drinkers. And I wanted to kind of stop the fear mongering, because the fear mongering, ironically, makes people drink more. And that isn’t what I wanted to do. I get so worried about people being shamed. So for me, it’s just been word of mouth, really. And obviously doing Facebook and Google and fortunately being in the media a bit as well, people can see TV interviews, because I am the opposite. And I’m not saying… I know there’s a very big sober movement out there at the moment, and I’m not anti that at all. But I think majority of people would like another option. And I call it the middle ground of drinking and I think that we need to be able to offer people another way, rather than feeling that, because a lot of people I wanted to share with you another personality, it was actually two more personality traits that support the inner critic about drinking. And the first one is the perfectionist, and the perfectionist is the all or nothing drinker.
Diva Nagula 18:48 That’s me.
Georgia Foster 18:50
I kind of figured it out, not because of a psychic, but I just kind of know with people’s drinking styles. What happens and a lot of perfectionists, in the end, tend to just quit drinking because it’s just too hard. I mean, you had a really good way of changing that neuroplasticity, which is fantastic, which I wish was more available to people. But I think it’s something that perfectionists are high achievers, they’re go-getters, a great example would be a client who is vigilant with the eating and they don’t drink all week, go to the gym every morning, pump the iron. And then on a Friday night, they kind of cane it, they’ve got their couple of beers and a couple bottles of wine and then hung over all weekend and feel so bad about themselves that they go back to abstaining again for the week. I think that it could be they decide to quit for six months and then they go back to it. And so their relationship with alcohol is very fraught with high levels of anxiety because they don’t trust themselves with alcohol. But the irony is that when they do drink because they’re drinking the perfectionist away, they don’t care. They go, well, I’ll just kind of lie on the couch, and I won’t. But the fact is that perfectionists have a problem with being in the moment. And alcohol makes them be in the moment because the increase of dopamine from the alcohol, the shutdown of the inner critic, and not trying to be perfect, they have this reprieve from this perfect life. So perfectionists are wonderful people because they are high achievers, but sometimes it gets too much. And so they use alcohol as their way to retreat from that perfect life. So a lot of people resonate with the perfectionist because they get… but the problem is they drink quickly because they’re actually anxious, and they’re worried they’re going to screw up the drinking thing. And ultimately, they tend to do that. They’re in the doghouse with their partner or their children. They forget, they have memory loss. And also, what is interesting with the perfectionist drinker, because they drink so quickly. They drink a lot, and they can get drunk very quickly, and the bell doesn’t ring, they can drink to oblivion. So that is why they just don’t trust themselves and they end up just having to quit a lot of the time.
Diva Nagula 22:16
That’s interesting. So that basically describes me to a tee. Yeah, I mean, 100%. That’s me. But fortunately for me that I’ve gotten out of that, because I’ve just realized that it’s just not for me anymore. I have gone a little bit on the other extreme, where I have this negative behavior or negative emotional attachment to alcohol. It’s not where I just don’t even want to be around it. And I’m wondering if that’s because I just went over on the other side, I overcorrected myself, in essence. But that’s really interesting. And you were mentioning there was a second personality type?
Georgia Foster 22:57
Yeah, the other one is the pleaser, which is the nurturer, the carer. And you can have a bit of both you can be, like some people, I find whenever my seminars and that people sitting in the room or giggling and they say oh gosh, I thought I was a perfectionist, but now think about please I said, well, you can be both. You could be professionally a really driven person, but in your home life, could be a parent situation where you are very much the nurturer. But the pleaser, unlike the perfectionist, they are regular drinkers, they tend not to have alcohol free days, where a perfectionist is very good at alcohol free days, because they couldn’t drink like that all the time, then they would have a problem. that pleases they know when the bell rings, but they tend to drink to please others because they spent all day looking after other people or feeling that they are needed everywhere else. They use the alcohol time to shut down from the world. To have, I call it solo parties, often put the kids to bed or feel like, it’s my time for me. But the problem with the pleaser personality trait because they have very low self esteem. They will tend to communicate through alcohol. They’re not very good at confrontational conversations, I often say to people, if you’re in a challenging relationship, or you feel that you can’t express yourself until you drink. That’s because your inner critic is there. So we need to train the brain to tune out of the inner critic. So you can communicate with a cup of coffee in your hand because often people will say, Oh, it’s just a drink talking. When an actual fact it’s an important conversation to have and pleasers need to learn. Actually, also pleasers can attract bullies, a lot of people with narcissistic personality disorder, because pleasers always think “what’s wrong with me.” They’re used to being judged, they’re used to being criticized that they cannot be sometimes a bit of a martyr as well, thinking you know, I’m saving the world. But ultimately, they need to stand back and take some ownership. And alcohol can be a very tricky situation for pleasers, because they will tend to get the barbell when they don’t actually have any money. And the person who actually has the monies, is then you get the bill. They tend to be in compromised relationships and friendships. So part of the program, the digital program, the seven days to drink less, is to train people to honor that, you don’t have to be perfect in your life to be successful. It’s about being intuitive. And when we’re intuitive we don’t need to please everybody all the time, we know when we should really be saying no. we know when to have our boundaries, we know when it’s time to retreat without alcohol, to take that time. And that’s why the hypnosis is really important with the recording on the program with the recordings, because it’s not just about drinking less, it’s about utilizing that time. And when the Dalai Lama says, If everybody meditated for 25 minutes a day, the world would be a better place. And I really believe tha. We don’t spend enough time with ourselves. We’re busy, you know, being critical of ourselves, we’re busy trying to be perfect, we’re busy trying to look after the world. But we have to, in there somewhere, look after ourselves. And when we do look after ourselves, rather than using alcohol as the method to look after ourselves, then the drinking is not such an issue for people. And that’s really what I’m about. You said reframing things. And I think that’s really important to note is, we only think this way, because it’s become familiar. And that’s obviously where hypnosis steps in, we only think this way, because it’s what we know, is not the truth. We think it’s who we are. But actually, it’s not who we really are.
Diva Nagula 26:49
Right. And it’s interesting, it’s really not necessarily from what I’m understanding with this conversation, is that it’s not necessarily having a different relationship with alcohol. I mean, that’s part of it. But it really, it’s about personal growth and self development, that’s all encompassing within the seven day program, because you’ve just hit on a lot of things that I think are really prevalent in what society is facing. I mean, not only society, but the entire world is facing currently, with this COVID chaos, a lot of people are forced to really look inward. And I feel that a lot of people have turned to alcohol as a means of coping. And I see it all the time on social media. I actually had a friend of mine who is very popular on social media. And he posted this post saying that everyone post what you’re drinking right now. It was 7:30 or 8 o’clock on a Friday night, and there was like, hundreds of posts with people actually sharing a picture of themselves with an alcoholic beverage in their hand and that kind of was a big wow moment for me. And it made me realize that a lot of people are just faced, which is dealing with their inner fears, anxieties, and instead of dealing with it, they’re escaping it using alcohol.
Georgia Foster 28:13
And we’ve been in a very unusual, never experienced before situation. And I think that a lot of people use it as a good excuse, I don’t have to get up in the morning. I don’t have to drive. No one’s gonna see me. And people are kind of seeing it as their party moment, in a way. And look I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t drink, as you well know. But I think that we need to understand that this is an unusual time. And we do know that alcohol, excessive alcohol, suppresses the immune system, whereas they say moderate drinking can actually support it. And that’s because it does relax people. But I think the most important thing is said that, alcohol sales have gone through the roof. In fact, a lot of here in Australia, the local wine shop man was saying the other day that the sales have exceeded Christmas time. I mean, this is extraordinary. And I’m not saying that it’s not about not drinking, it’s just the fact that, this is a really good time, while we are in this space, to take stock and think well, what can I do, something good for myself? What can I do? I’ve got this extra time at home, put on some positive music, start to motivate and inspire in other ways rather than drinking too much. And I think a lot of people as well aren’t necessarily always drinking about stress and what’s going on. They’re drinking because they’re bored. And we know that the inner critic, when we’re bored, we negatively think so a lot of people don’t realize that they’re actually drinking to cut out that inner critic. And when we cut out the inner critic by the booze, then we think fun things and we start writing books and we start looking at inspiring things on the internet. And we start to have these great conversations. I always say to people, if you drink because you’re bored, then your mind will look at alcohol as a form of having fun. And that is a tricky one to get into. So I said to people, before you had that first drink, my top tip is to get some motivational, inspirational things into your head, watch that funny movie, have a chat with a friend who makes you laugh, start to get the positive parts of the brain stimulated, so that you don’t need the alcohol to get into that state.
Diva Nagula 30:35
It’s almost like have a game plan to prevent your mother your brain from becoming idle and getting to that boredom state.
Georgia Foster 30:43
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that I know a lot of people talking about it. Forgive me if I’m repeating myself here. But this is a time for reflection, it’s time to think about things. What can we do? How can we make things better, and when you’re in a better space emotionally, or when you feel better about yourself, then everything’s just that easy to deal with. So I think the thing about the alcohol is, if we’re drinking as a way to be motivated, or to be inspired, if you start to use it on a regular basis, then you forget that we have that naturally. I was walking on the beach yesterday with my kids. And I’m just talking about the fact that we’ve seen pelicans on the beach for the first time. I mean, it’s just crazy. Beautiful! Wow, and I was just thinking it is such an inspired time. I had an alcohol free night, the night before. And for me, alcohol free, days and nights are just, they’re great gifts to me, I enjoy drinking, but I think we need to start to bring in that beautifulness. And obviously having alcohol free days, there’s such clarity and such more intuition. I think that this is what we need to start to ignite within our minds is that we have an opportunity here to actually sit and be authentic to ourselves and start to be more intuitive. And alcohol suppresses that intuition. That’s the problem.
Diva Nagula 32:11
That’s a very good point. In this time that we’re facing, are you seeing a lot more people trying
to contact you for appointments?
Georgia Foster 32:21
Well, I don’t see that many clients now. I do. But I don’t. My program is what people tend to go and buy. Or normally I’ll be running to London, running a seminar a couple of times a year, and I run them around Australia. So a bit of both some people just saying Georgia, I really need to drink at the moment. That’s fine. So at the moment, things on the quiet side, but when things change when people go back to normality, that is, when it all start. I always say to people, you know, dry January, people tend to abstain after Christmas, that’s a quiet month to me. But February hits bang, it’s a very popular month. And I think that in post summer as well, in September, as well, they’re very busy months. But what I’m saying is rather than wait till that moment, do it now while we’re home, while we’re in this great space, to start to build that sober self esteem. And that sense of who you are, before you drink so that you don’t need to drink to become who you think you should be. Because that person is really there in a sober life.
Diva Nagula 33:25
That’s a very good point, too. And you were saying earlier, actually, I was saying when I was mentioning your bio, that 95% of the workshop participants reported a moderate to significant reduction in their alcohol intake, that is a huge high success rate. There’s not a whole lot of things that people can actually do that has a 95% success rate. So that’s, that’s fantastic. And this is not where they’re doing one on one sessions with you, it’s a program that you’ve created.
Georgia Foster 33:58
The seminars are very effective, because we’re there all day. And basically, they’re in hypnosis, most of the afternoon, there is a lot of theory in the morning. But, the seven day program is the same thing. I think talking therapies are really important and they have their place but a lot of people by the time they come to see me or they want to do the program, they’re really sick of their drinking, they want to make a quick change. And what a lot of people may be in fear of is hypnosis but it is such a powerful, effective, quick tool to cut to the chase really to the emotional part of the brain. And as I said at the beginning I’m not anti understanding why people drink but most of the time it’s just a very boring reason it just they got themselves into a habit. Maybe they had a negative time their lives, we’ve all had trauma in our lives, and we started use alcohol is that emotional crutch? It’s not complicated. It’s just what people do. So I’m saying let’s cut to the chase. We don’t need to know why, it’s about how to move on. So that’s really my principal about that. And hypnosis is such a great tool because the brain can change and training the brain to be here rather than here, the fear base part of the brain, the amygdala, it doesn’t take longer in 25 minutes, you can be changing that dynamic. I mean, there are people… I had an email from a monk who said, Georgia, I was drinking a bottle of whiskey a night, I found a seven day program online. And he said, I couldn’t get up for morning meditation in the morning. He said, now I’m drinking half a bottle of whiskey. And I’m like, well, that was his goal. And he achieved that. So I’m not about how much you should drink. I’m about why you drink. So a lot of people say to me, I’m a bottle and a half a night, which I think is too much. But getting it down to three quarters of a bottle, then there’s a sense of self worth, and there’s a sense of achievement, and then that person, the goal is then to start to bring in alcohol free days. So I’m not about how much you drink, I’m about getting it down to about half. And when you get it down to about half, you will see a difference psychologically, physically, less anxiety, these are all of the things that I cover on the program
Diva Nagula 36:22
When they have this realization, when they’ve gotten to that point where they’ve reduced their drinking by half, it’s almost like it’s a self perpetual process, they see the benefits in their behavior, their alcohol consumption dwindle. And as a result, they’re feeling positivity in the sense that they’re less anxious, their weight may have dropped and other positive aspects. So that actually kind of feeds into the “let’s drink less” scenario.
Georgia Foster 36:52
Yeah, I think it’s a domino effect. But the other thing that’s really important to note is the brain works on works on memory, as I said before, so the hypnosis part of the program, is creating new references, so that the mind uses those references. And in hypnosis, we know that the brain thinks we’re really there. And a really good analogy of this is if someone came to see me with a fear of flying within an hour, they can get on a plane, the brain works that quickly. And I’m not suggesting, you know, there are people who say to me, Georgia, I come from an abusive background, and I used alcohol in bad ways, they may need to have long, like a longer term plan, or they may need to abstain, but most people just use alcohol as an emotional crutch. And I’m saying those people, which is a very large audience, know they drink too much, but they just don’t know how to drink less. And I’m saying, if your conscious mind says, right, today, I’m going to have an alcohol free day. And then something happens in your day, that’s just a sense of vulnerability, your brain will demand the alcohol, and then that’s person’s lack of willpower kicks in. And I’m saying, there is no such thing as willpower. If your conscious mind has a plan, but your unconscious mind has a different plan, your unconscious mind will win the argument. So I’m saying let’s get to the part of the brain that actually thinks alcohol is a really good fix for your emotional thinking. Let’s go to the part of the brain that knows how to change. And in hypnosis, it’s been proven, that we become more intuitive, we’ve become able to explore and exercise other ways of thinking that the conscious world just has no ability to do. So it’s not a lazy method. It’s just a very effective method. I think a lot of people say to me, Georgia, I feel a bit bad. It’s not been that difficult. And I’ve been struggling for such a long time. But underpinning that is a strong inner critic. But the inner critic is part of the emotional brain. And when you train your mind, to not hear that inner critic to not feel it, and to bring in what I call that authentic self, then life’s just easier. So when people leave the seminar, or do the online program, the goal is that spending this time with yourself, and changing your inner dialogue, looking after you in healthier ways, when you come out of the hypnosis, your brain thinks that you’ve already experienced those moments, so it will then act upon them. And that’s what I love about the work that I do. It’s just very positive and it’s just refreshing.
Diva Nagula 39:30
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s actually very rewarding. I would imagine. With you, you also wrote a
book is the book part of this program. Are they mutually exclusive?
Georgia Foster 39:43
No, I had a publisher that approached me just over a year ago, and said, Georgia, this program needs to be a book and… I wrote a book actually many years ago called The Drink Less Mind. In the day when it was uncool to self publish, because nobody will listen to me, and I said, there’s a market here. So I printed the book and within a few months, a journalist who had come to see me I sent her a copy. And I was in like, the biggest newspaper in Britain and the books sold out. And she’s like, wow, I’m okay, this because people want this approach. They don’t want to abstain. So then that was a long time ago. And then the publishing has said to me, well, we think there’s a book in there. So. So I wrote, Drink Less In Seven Days, it’s available on Amazon. And the book itself is a program. And then in the book, there are links to look to download the digital recording, which is the hypnosis. So the program or the book, or the digital program either way, is great. But the most important thing I say to people you can read as many books as you want, but to hypnosis is where the changes take place.
Diva Nagula 40:59
Right? And for the listeners, obviously, you just mentioned that your book is found on Amazon.
Where can I find your seven day digital programming?
Georgia Foster 41:09
On my website, which is GeorgiaFoster.com.
Diva Nagula 41:16
That’s fantastic. Thank you. And I guess, for our listeners, I really would encourage people to do a little research and maybe going on the website and finding more information about Georgia Foster. And thank you so much, Georgia for being on the show. It was really a pleasure having you and I think in these times that we’re facing is really great to see that something like this can be utilized to change our habits and to change our behavior until I was to grow personally, and in some cases more spiritually.
Georgia Foster 41:50
Couldn’t agree more. Well, thank you so much for having me.