Breaking Free from Comfort

Comfort is slowly killing us, but we don't even recognize it as an addiction. 

What happens when society's most celebrated coping mechanisms become our greatest chains? In this transformative episode, I pull back the curtain on the socially acceptable addictions that hide in plain sight: food and alcohol. These aren't stereotypical addictions – they're the wine moms at PTA meetings, the neighbors hosting barbecues, the coworkers bringing donuts, all numbing themselves with substances we collectively celebrate.

The neuroscience tells a clear story: food and alcohol hijack the same brain pathways, creating powerful dopamine loops that keep us coming back despite the consequences. I share my personal journey through these dependencies, revealing how childhood conditioning, identity attachment, and cultural pressure maintain our comfortable prison of numbing behaviors. The most dangerous lie? That moderation proves we're not addicted.

Breaking free requires more than willpower – it demands replacing numbing habits with regulation practices and confronting the emotions we're desperately avoiding: shame, loneliness, rejection, and boredom. My two months on the carnivore diet after years of sobriety have shown me what clarity and presence truly feel like, but the path wasn't easy. When you change, expect resistance from everyone comfortable with your former self.

The ultimate goal isn't just avoiding substances but creating a life so fulfilling you don't need to escape from it. Take one step today – whether that's seeking community support, establishing accountability, or simply choosing presence over numbness. Subscribe to join me on this journey toward authentic living, and remember: there's nothing more powerful than building a life worth staying present for.

Chapters

• 0:00 Addictions Hiding in Plain Sight
• 4:40 The Dopamine Loop and False Comfort
• 7:00 How Culture Maintains Your Addiction
• 11:04 Breaking the Cycle with Daily Choices
• 15:30 Creating a Life Worth Staying Present For
• 20:30 Take One Step in the Right Direction

Transcript

Corey Berrier: 1:00

Welcome, welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Berrier, and today, folks, we're going to talk about how comfort kills and the addictions that are hiding in plain sight. So alcohol and food are the two most culturally accepted addictions. Most addicts don't look like addicts. They're your neighbors, your co-workers, pta parents numbing themselves with wine and waffles. And waffles. You know. It's normal to drink alcohol because it's seen as a celebration, food as a comfort, but both are painkillers.

Corey Berrier: 2:02

Why does society not see this as a real addiction or these as real addictions? You know we cheer people on for escaping their emotions and we mock them when they try to break free. So how I justified food and alcohol, how it became part of my identity, daily patterns of happy hour, binge eating or emotional snacking. It's interesting to watch films where you see the girl who just broke up with her boyfriend. Where do you see her On the couch with a bucket of ice cream? Or the guy who just got broken up with he's at a bar getting smashed and the mental gymnastics of that. This is going to solve my problem, this is going to make me hurt less. Or, if you're celebrating, I earned this. It could be earned. A cupcake, it could be earned, could be an earned drink.

Corey Berrier: 3:18

And the famous line of all I'll start tomorrow, I'll quit drinking tomorrow, I'll stop eating cookies tomorrow. You know, alcohol wasn't about getting drunk and food is not about getting full. It's about not feeling. And the lie is moderation. And the lie is moderation. I thought control meant I wasn't addicted. I can control this. I can control and not eat 14 cookies. I can control and not drink 14 beers or 14 of whatever it is. You drink, 14 of whatever it is you drink.

Corey Berrier: 4:10

But you know there's a dopamine loop that gets fed. And look, neuroscience talks about this Dopamine 101. How food and alcohol hijack the brain. They both work on the same neurotransmitters together. I mean, heaven forbid. You get drunk and then eat pizza or food or ice cream, whatever it is. Right now you're just flooding yourself with dopamine and you're just chasing that same fleeting feeling.

Corey Berrier: 4:49

You know it's usually some link to childhood conditioning. For me it was oh, you've done good in school, let's celebrate, let's have a cake, let's have a whatever. If you're upset, you get comfort food or clean your plate and then you get a piece of cake. How crazy does that sound? Stuff yourself, eat everything that we put on your plate, so then you can stuff your face with more cake your plate, so then you can stuff your face with more cake. You know, just like alcohol, food is engineered to make you addicted. That's why food companies are so big.

Corey Berrier: 5:35

This is not. This shouldn't be a surprise. It's really chemical warfare and most people are fighting blindfolded, you know. But the real world consequences of these things are they invisible? The addiction of these things are invisible. For example, you may or may not have experienced this, but probably Brain fog, energy crashes, weight gain, inflammation, mood swings, crappy sleep, anxious mornings, sugar hangovers I know that's affected me for sure.

Corey Berrier: 6:23

I know that's affected me for sure. And then you've got to look at. You know, food doesn't usually affect relationships unless you get fat. Usually doesn't affect your finances, unless you're ridiculously out of hand, but your self-respect, it steals it. You start to get fatter, you start to look in the mirror and you start to doubt yourself and the self-respect goes out the window.

Corey Berrier: 6:58

You know, as a drinker, you have these elated or false images of yourself, this grandiose picture of yourself when you're drinking. But you can be sober and still be sick. You can eat clean and still be numb, and that's just the truth and look, this is how the culture actively resists your recovery. Alcohol as during sports, fast food on every single corner. Drinking is sophisticated, restraint is judged or family pressure. Even you can just have one. You're no fun anymore, corey. Why do people want to keep you addicted? Because you challenge their comfort.

Corey Berrier: 7:58

You know it's interesting when I have a conversation with someone who is a non-drinker, or somebody even that is a drinker, but not a heavy drinker. They're just a drinker, they're just a regular, normal drinker and I say you know, I don't drink no big deal, they just keep on moving. But what I noticed when certain people get just fired up, that's because inside of them you've stung something that they know deep down is a problem. And you know food and alcohol become your identity. It becomes a coping mechanism. It really becomes your personality. Wine culture, wine mom culture, mommy, wine culture, whatever you want to call it. Foodie culture, beer brothers you know you're my brother, let's drink some beer Right.

Corey Berrier: 8:58

How addiction hides behind identity. Think about it. I'm just a foodie, I'm fat. It's really what you're trying to say. I'm just a fatty is what you should say. I like to entertain. Yep, you like to get drunk. Well, it's a tradition? No, it's not. You just use that as an excuse to do the thing that you shouldn't be doing. Or how about this? The death of your ego? Who am I without this alcohol? Who am I without this food? Well, you probably don't know because you've never gone and tried to quit these things.

Corey Berrier: 9:38

And listen, if you can't not drink for 30 days, you got a problem Like straight up. Most normal people that drink can go 30 days without drinking and have no problem. But if you're not that person, you're probably an alcoholic. So willpower alone fails. It fails. White knuckling won't save you. I promise you.

Corey Berrier: 10:10

I've tried it, trying to out-discipline addiction without some sort of inner work not going to happen. You've got to re-regulate your nervous system, especially if you're pounding a bunch of sugar and drinking alcohol. You know triggers are not cravings there, it's about what you believe in that moment. It's about what that moment believe. You know there's what you believe in that moment. It's what they maybe that situation means to that thing. And if you're starving emotionally, no amount of discipline will fill that void. And what are you actually avoiding? Emotions, most commonly, are suppressed. There's shame, loneliness, rejection, boredom, like.

Corey Berrier: 11:24

Think about what are the top three moments you reach for alcohol or food. It's one of those three, if not all four Boredom, rejection, loneliness, shame, I've done it. Look, I've 100% caught myself going yeah, I probably should eat something. Oh, that's right, I'm doing nothing and therefore I'm bored, and so I'm going to grab some food, right, because it keeps me busy, it keeps my mind working. I tell myself I need to eat. But I'll tell you something. I'll tell you how I broke that cycle.

Corey Berrier: 12:09

And it wasn't all at once, it was a thousand small choices, and I replaced numbing habits with regulation habits. Breathwork, prayer, cold exposure, cold plunge for me, movement. These are daily non-negotiables that I use for clarity and for power. There's nothing harder than getting into a 40-degree ice bath, but there's nothing that feels better when you get out, because you have accomplished something that 95% of the other world has never even done. Ever even done. You know it's.

Corey Berrier: 12:54

Sobriety is not even, and sobriety is not an identity. I got caught up in that too. It's not just being free of alcohol, it's being emotionally present present with your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your husband, your wife, your kids, your employer. It's not just about not drinking. That's just a small part of it. It's the rest of it that keeps you grounded and you want to rebuild your relationship with food and with your body, because when you start eating for energy and clarity and alignment and not comfort, it changes the game.

Corey Berrier: 13:44

I've been on carnivore for a little over two months now. It's clean, I'm satiated, I feel great, I'm the leanest that I've been in 10 years and I don't have emotional hunger, like I don't crave a bunch of crap anymore, and so food stopped becoming a reward and it became fuel. I only eat when I'm actually hungry. And you're going to face resistance with this and you know the world's going to respond with you changing, especially if you're a drinker. Your friends are going to disappear, parties get awkward, people accuse you of being obsessed. If you're going on a carnivore diet, then you start doubting yourself internally. Why can't I be normal? Why do I have to be on this carnivore diet? Why can't I drink? Listen, there's a lot more power in not doing those things than there is caving to that peer pressure.

Corey Berrier: 14:59

Get around a community of people that are like-minded. Get an accountability partner. Remember the reason why you're doing this, the reason why you're doing this, and look at this like spiritual strength opposed to social discomfort. Your old self was just coping with the food, the addiction, the alcohol. Your new self is creating a new life. You want to build a life that you don't have to numb out from. It's amazing. So look at your own relationship with food, look at your own relationship with alcohol, and I'll tell you something fascinating. This is just my opinion, so take it for what it's worth. You know, since I've been.

Corey Berrier: 15:54

You know, when I first got sober, they said eat sugar. And I did. Boy, I ate more Reese cups than you can count. I mean a glutton. The reason for that is because alcohol has so much sugar in it and so offsetting it with 400 Reese cups every day, I could fill that void. That alcohol would fill without being intoxicated, I guess, is the right answer. And so what did that do? I just wanted more sugar, more sugar, and it was okay, and there's probably a place for that. But I can tell you right now, it also numbs you out, it helps you to get through that rough patch. But I can tell you, now that I've been eating carnivore, I have more energy, I'm clearer, I'm happier, I feel better, I look better.

Corey Berrier: 17:00

And I don't say that like I've arrived, because I haven't. I'm a work in progress. Do you think I still don't sometimes? Look, I had to go pick up donuts to drop off at customers today. Do you think I didn't want to have one of those donuts? Of course, when I drove an hour and a half in my car with them. Do you think I had one? Absolutely not. And did they smell good? Of course they smelled good. Of course, sometimes a beer smells good.

Corey Berrier: 17:29

But the aftermath of that, I play the tape all the way through. And the tape all the way through means I'm going to wind up in jail. Dui, I'm going to do something stupid, say something stupid, probably going to lose my job. All of those things are the direct result of me picking up a drink today. And, not to mention, I lose my presence, I lose my sanity, I lose everything that I've worked for and I don't want to lose that. So that's why I do the things I do.

Corey Berrier: 17:59

And it may think well, god dude, how do you have enough time in the day to work out every day? Or do the cold plunge, do the sauna and all those things, and go to a meeting at night and work and have a relationship? Yeah, because me being sober gives me all the opportunity in the world to do those things. Otherwise I'd just be drinking that whole time. Or if you're sitting on the couch watching television which you're probably not, if you're listening to this, not by now? Anyway, get off your ass and do the work. Nobody's going to do it for you. You're not going to wake up one day and go I'm ready. No, just do it today. You don't have to wait until tomorrow. In fact, I challenge you to get up and start moving today.

Corey Berrier: 18:50

If you're an alcoholic, go to a meeting, call somebody, and it's going to seem like a complete uphill battle, but I can assure you on the other side of that hill, it's not a battle. You know, stopping drinking is one thing. Getting into recovery and being sober is an entirely different experience and it'll give you a life like you can't even imagine. And I can't expect you if you are a drinker. I can't expect you to imagine because you don't know what it's like, and until you experience it, like I have, you'll have no idea that it exists. You can't imagine not eating the donut. You can't imagine not eating the candy or drinking the sugary soda, because your body is addicted to it.

Corey Berrier: 19:45

Exactly what the companies want. Take control of your life. Just a little bit of discipline, a little bit, you know. Just take one step in the right direction today. I guarantee you it'll lead you to a better life. You're never going to have the life that you could have if you're getting drunk every night or you're smoking weed and getting high every night, or if you're fat and when you look in the mirror you go yeah God, I really need to lose that gut. You're only hurting yourself. And then you can play the tape all the way through and get on medications that help all that stuff, or get on semi-glutide and eat your bones and muscles away. You might lose weight, but guess what? You're also losing bone and muscle. And I can tell you I've seen somebody wither away from it and and quite frankly, I think it killed. I can't guarantee that, but I certainly believe that it played a massive part in my mother's death.

Corey Berrier: 21:01

So don't take the shortcut, dude. Like go see your doctor, get your blood work done. I'm not telling you necessarily got to listen to the doctor, get your blood work done. I'm not telling you necessarily got to listen to the doctor, get your blood work done. Put it in chat GPT. Ask it to explain it to you. Like whoever it is you're trying to do, whether it be a carnivore diet or keto diet or whatever it is but there's a way for you to get out of this slump that you're in. But you got to take a step in the right direction. I want to thank you all. Please subscribe to the podcast. That'd be the greatest thing that you could do for me. The biggest favor I could ask is that you subscribe to the podcast, leave us a review if you feel inclined, but, most importantly, pick your ass up and do something different today. We'll see you next Friday.