Do You Really "Deserve" That Drink? Let's Break It Down.
You've had a long day. Maybe you crushed a presentation at work. Maybe you've been running on empty, managing the kids, the house, and everything in between. And right on cue, the thought shows up:
"I deserve a drink."
Sound familiar? You're not alone — not even close. This belief is one of the most deeply woven thoughts people carry around alcohol, and on a recent episode of The Zero Proof Life podcast, co-hosts Karla Adkins and Lorna Wilson took it apart piece by piece in what they call the Limiting Belief Lab.
Here's what they found — and what it could mean for you.
There's Something Beautiful Underneath This Belief
Before we go any further, here's the thing Karla wants you to hear: the impulse behind "I deserve a drink" isn't the problem. The fact that you recognize you've worked hard, pushed through something difficult, or accomplished something worth celebrating? That's actually a good thing.
The question the Limiting Belief Lab asks is simply this: Is alcohol actually delivering on that promise?
Spoiler: it's probably not. But let's walk through how we get there.
The Four-Step Limiting Belief Lab Process
Step 1: Name It
Say it out loud. Write it down. "I deserve a drink."
This isn't a throwaway step. When you single out a belief and put it on paper, you create distance between you and the automatic thought. You go from reacting to observing — and that's where change begins.
Step 2: Where Did It Come From?
This step has two parts.
The Backpack — Think about everything the world loaded into your backpack as you grew up. Did you watch a parent pour a drink after a hard day? Did your coworkers head to happy hour every Friday as a reward for the week? Did TV, movies, and ads all reinforce that drinking = celebrating, decompressing, or coping?
You were carrying this belief before you ever made a conscious choice about it. That's not your fault — but it is worth seeing clearly.
The Hard Drive — Your subconscious mind is a powerful filer. It takes in sequences — work hard → feel stressed → drink → feel relief — and stores them as automatic programs. The catch? Your subconscious doesn't fact-check. It just files and repeats. That's why this belief can feel so automatic, so obvious. It's not logic. It's a deeply worn groove.
The good news: science has shown that you can create new neural pathways. You can change the groove.
Step 3: What Is It Costing You?
This is where the real work happens — and it's personal.
Lorna shared her experience of finally nailing a high-stakes presentation, one that had made her incredibly anxious, only to drink afterward and spend the next day feeling awful, foggy, and unable to enjoy the win. Karla talked about celebrating a major promotion and waking up the next morning with anxiety, vague memories, and a pit in her stomach from texts she didn't quite remember sending.
The reward didn't reward. It robbed.
Ask yourself: When you've used a drink as a treat or a release — what did it actually look like the next day? Did you sleep well? Did you feel proud? Did you get to fully feel the thing you were celebrating?
Write it down. Your brain attaches to your own experiences far more powerfully than to anything you read or hear. This is you, fact-checking your own hard drive.
Step 4: What Does Your Wiser Self Know?
This is the beautiful part.
There's a version of you that already knows better — that wiser self who remembers waking up clear-headed after a hard week, who recalls a celebration she remembers in full, who knows what it actually feels like to be restored.
What does she say? And more importantly — what does she suggest instead?
For Karla, a busy stretch of recording, in-person events, and showing up for others now gets followed by something she actually looks forward to: a slower week, an open calendar, and yes — a new cross-stitch project. It sounds simple because it is. And it works, because it actually fills her cup.
What fills yours?
You Do Deserve Something. Just Not That.
The goal here isn't to shame the belief or shame yourself for having it. The goal is to flip it into something true:
I deserve to feel good.
That's the real belief underneath all of it. And when you start building a life that rewards hard work with things that actually restore you — real sleep, real rest, real celebration you can remember — that belief becomes something you can stand behind completely.
Want to hear the full conversation? Listen to this episode of The Zero Proof Life podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And if there's a belief around alcohol you'd like Karla and Lorna to break down in the lab, send it their way — it just might be the next episode.