Sobriety + Social Change with Marcos Salazar

My guest this week is Marcos Salazar, whose organization For All Drinks is the official partner of the Dry January initiative in the United States. Marcos is doing incredible work to promote living alcohol-free, first and foremost by creating a platform that brings together all the amazing booze-free beverage options in one place.

But he is also deeply committed to helping enact social change, and his both his training in psychology and his background in the non-profit space, mean he has tons of insights into the wider impact of people across the board beginning to question our drinking—as we become more intentional with our choices and our work in the world.

He also has some fascinating things to say about how drinking affects our mental and emotional wellbeing—what he describes as our “psychological immune system”—as well as how to talk to loved ones about their drinking. In this episode we discuss:

-The intersection of alcohol abuse, entrepreneurship, and workaholism.

-How the Sober Curious movement is both reflecting and seeding social change.

-Why non-drinkers are “othered”—and why this reflects how quickly we exclude those with different needs to the dominant group.

-How alcohol-free options and lifestyles can be made more accessible.

-Why it’s impossible to live a fully “intentional” life while you’re drinking regularly.

-How alcohol and other stressors impact your “psychological immune system”—and what we can do to boost this instead.

-How quitting drinking helps us taking back control of our time, our attention, and our energy.

-How COVID has resulted in more of us experiencing “learned helplessness”—and how we can help ourselves by focusing on our wellbeing.

-The importance of “intentionality” when changing our habits in the long-term.

-Why having a drink is not the same as having a break (and why our brain gets confused about this).

-His partner commenting on his drinking being the catalyst to him getting Sober Curious (and how to talk to loved ones about their drinking).

Check out the For All Drinks HERE and visit DryJanuaryFestival.com for details of upcoming workshops and online events. You can also follow @foralldrinks on IG.

Big thanks to Ghia for partnering on this episode. Order online at drinkghia.com and get 20% off with the code SOBERCURIOUS through end of Jan 2021.