Maureen (00:02.186)
Hey everybody, if you've ever felt stuck in the cycle of drinking, but don't resonate with the traditional rock bottom recovery stories, this episode is for you. There is another way to approach alcohol, one that focuses on healing and nourishment rather than willpower. I am beyond thrilled today to welcome Jolene Park. She is a pioneer in the gray area drinking movement and her Ted talk viewed over 400,000 times has changed the conversation around alcohol and wellbeing.
As a functional nutritionist and health coach, she is revolutionizing how we heal the nervous system after stopping drinking with her Nourish Method. Jolene is also one of my mentors and being part of her master coaching group has been a game changer for me. I've gone through her gray area drinking coaching training and incorporate her Nourish Method into my own coaching. Her insights on neurotransmitter health
and emotional resilience are transforming lives and I can't wait for you to hear her wisdom. So Jolene, welcome to SoberFitLife.
Jolene Park (01:05.511)
what a sweet intro. Thank you. It's really good to be here. Thanks, Maureen.
Maureen (01:09.332)
Yeah, I'm so glad to have you here. You've really just opened my eyes as to why it's so important to address physiology when we're helping someone change their habits, their lifestyle around drinking. And you introduced me to the term gray area drinking. I had heard it and seen it on Instagram, but I didn't really understand what it was. And I love when I first met you in the first training, you said, this is not a hashtag. This is actually
a nutritional term. So I would love it if you would explain to people what is gray area drinking and how it came about, that term.
Jolene Park (01:46.04)
Well, let's start with what it is and then we'll talk about more of the terms and language. so what gray area drinking is, it's actually a very clear black and white definition. then there's this whole gray area. So what gray area drinking is not is for that segment of the population who are every now and again drinkers. And that has a very
clear definition. It's not just an ambiguous vague like, know, anybody and everybody can be like, I drink every now and again. Every now and again is defined as two or fewer and fewer is the key word two or fewer standard drinks in a seven day period. That's, know, five ounces of wine, twice a week, and no more. If it's three or more drinks.
that starts to get into the gray area. And the reason it gets into the gray area is because there is no safe or healthy recommended intake level of alcohol, which has been established by the Lancet Medical Journal in 2018. And so there's all these terms and self-identified labels of casual drinker, moderate drinker, social drinker, addicted drinker, dependent drinker.
know, emotionally hooked, but not physically hooked. Like there's all these terms, but they're all ambiguous and they're all self-identified. And what I mean by that is we could put five people in a room who self-identify as social drinkers. And we're gonna hear five very different stories. There's a lot of fluidity. You know, it's gray.
Maureen (03:14.762)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (03:28.074)
Yes.
Jolene Park (03:34.572)
And the reason it's gray is because there is no safe or healthy recommended intake. so people who drink two or fewer, and there are many people who drink two or fewer drinks out there. And, you know, they'll have a drink and then they don't drink again for weeks or a couple of months and then they'll have another drink. And there's a huge demographic that drinks like that. That is not gray area drinking.
Maureen (03:54.379)
Yeah. I like to call them unicorns.
Jolene Park (03:58.03)
Yes. So most people who drink are drinking in the gray area because they're drinking three or more drinks a week. And then again, those stories and those histories and those amounts and what that looks like, it's a long and it's a wide spectrum, but it's this gray area spectrum. And I didn't create that word, but I pioneered it, really brought it to the public stage with my TED talk in 2017 because as a nutritionist, I came across
the research that coined this term in 2010. And it was nutritional research that was looking at the American dietary guidelines. And from a disease prevention and from an optimal health prevention standpoint, they said, we're not looking at people in this other category where it's this end stage need medical intervention to treat cirrhosis of the liver or seizures or prevent death because they've had so much to drink.
So that's the other really defined category, those two extremes. That is also not, that's not gray area drinking, but there's certainly demographic of people out there that need that medical intervention around their alcohol use. And this team of researchers with the dietary guidelines said, that's not who we're talking about. We're also not talking about every now and again, drinkers, but we're talking about this gray area. That's where that term came from.
Maureen (04:58.571)
The other end of the spectrum.
Jolene Park (05:21.472)
because when we're giving recommendations for caloric intake and optimal eating and good food and good nutrition and nutrient profile, we can't ignore alcohol. It's part of the caloric intake. It's part of the nutrient intake. And when people are looking to prevent disease like cancer, like heart disease, dementia, and live a long, good quality life, healthy longevity,
we can't ignore alcohol and there's this gray area. And so that's where the term came from. That's kind of the long explanation of what it is, what it isn't. But the bottom line is, is most people who drink alcohol drink in the gray area because there is no safe or healthy recommended intake level of alcohol.
Maureen (06:09.546)
Yeah. And you weren't just doing this research as a functional nutritionist. You actually were looking into this for yourself because you started to examine your own drinking. And I know I felt very out of alignment with myself as a personal trainer. Here I am teaching people health and fitness and how to take care of themselves and I'd be binge drinking on the weekends. And I do something called detoxing and know, re-toxing in my mind. And you also looked at that as a health provider.
nutritionist and that's kind of when you started the research.
Jolene Park (06:40.75)
Right, so I've been in the health and wellness industry for 25 years. I've had my own health and wellness company since 2001 and have taught corporate wellness classes for many years of this concept around, it's this comprehensive approach to health and nutrition and wellbeing. As a nutritionist, it's my foundation of my study and my education and my training as I train others.
but it's not the only piece. So there's a lot of people who eat good food. They know how to eat well and they also move their bodies well and they know how to exercise. But just because we eat well and exercise doesn't mean we're healthy. There's a bigger picture that goes into that. There's other vital nutrients that are needed and things with our relationships and our relaxation and our sleep and our spirituality, our emotional health.
Maureen (07:22.666)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (07:37.066)
all of these pieces have vital nutrients in them just the way that food does. And so I was teaching teaching this and you know still love that that just industry and and more of kind of the integrative mind body approach to things. And as I was teaching and working as a nutritionist, I was drinking like most women around us drink. And there was nothing about my drinking that
Maureen (07:54.314)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (08:05.546)
stood out or looked problematic looking at it from the outside. I was drinking like all my girlfriends were, book clubs and girls night out and going to, you know, happy hours and, and, but I knew that I was drinking too much. And you know, I'd wake up the next morning and say to myself, I was only going to go out and have one glass of wine. And then I had two, three glasses. I finished the bottle. Like that was not what I intended to do. And that was
getting very easy to do and on a frequent basis and that pattern of I'm just going to have one turned into more than one and that's it. You know, it was it was too many. And so this is a characteristic of gray area drinking too, is that just because people are drinking more than the recommended amount doesn't mean they have a problem. But
Maureen (08:46.794)
Yes.
Maureen (08:56.491)
Right.
Jolene Park (08:58.856)
gray area drinkers, this is where it becomes that self identified, not self identifying by what label you pick. I mean, that's fun and interesting for a minute. Different people, you know, resonate and they call themselves a moderate drinker, casual drinker. I mean, that's all interesting for five seconds. But where our work as gray area drinkers coaching then really begins is for the people who self identify saying, I'm drinking like most people around me.
but it's too much for me. And then that's where our work begins. So we're not plucking people off the street pointing fingers saying you have a drinking problem, you have a drinking problem. There's enough of that internal knowing within a gray area drinker saying this is a problem for me. Even though my husband, my friends say you're worrying too much. Sure, there's, you know.
Maureen (09:29.451)
Right.
Maureen (09:36.746)
No.
Maureen (09:44.629)
Yeah.
Jolene Park (09:50.862)
you're not an alcoholic or anything like all of those things is often the feedback gray area drinkers will get.
Maureen (09:58.313)
They feel out of alignment with themselves, just who they want to be. And I certainly felt that. And that in itself is very disconcerting. And that's the thing you need to look at as a person who might be saying, you know, when you wake up, did it again and I don't feel good about it. That is the person that we coach, that we like to coach. Yeah.
Jolene Park (10:01.335)
Right.
Jolene Park (10:18.326)
And that's then how we self-identify as a gray area drinker, saying this is too much for me. Often externally, there's nothing that has been a negative consequence that has looked like a stereotypical kind of Hollywood movie rock bottom. But we in our own bones, in our gut, we know it's too much for us.
Maureen (10:20.65)
Yeah.
Maureen (10:28.361)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (10:35.147)
Yeah.
Maureen (10:42.935)
But that's also the challenging piece because when you as a grey-haired drinker start to change your drinking, you have the people around you going, you don't have a problem. You don't look like a drinker. You're not hitting rock bottom. And that always kind of holds people back. I know it held me back for years, that kind of feedback from other people. And that's about all I needed was to someone to say, you don't have a problem. Because that wasn't it. It was that I was just not living the life I wanted to live. Yeah.
And so you've discovered this and then you did a TED talk and I love how in your TED talk, and I recommend everybody go watch it, you talk about the breakdown of neurotransmitters and really kind of why people are drinking. Maybe they're low in this neurotransmitter or that neurotransmitter. Can you speak to that a little bit?
Jolene Park (11:31.374)
So my work is 100 % physiology based because that's where the research is and then conveniently it works really well. That's where my work and study has always been as a nutritionist in functional medicine, in kind of that precision 3.0, integrative longevity medicine. It's about the physiology. again, conveniently alcohol is a physical substance, but unfortunately.
Maureen (11:33.558)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (11:50.144)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (11:54.218)
It is.
Jolene Park (11:57.302)
dramatically alters our internal chemistry. And so the remedy with that then is to come at it with physical interventions first before the psychological intervention. So traditionally, it's been flipped. It's been more about the cognitive, more about the psychology, maybe character defects, maybe kind of that mental...
Maureen (12:07.478)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (12:21.006)
you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and have a positive attitude and look at what your belief is. And we just know from the neuroscience that it's physiology. And so neurotransmitters is a foundational place to start. They're the neuro messengers, the chemical messengers within the brain. And alcohol wipes out all the neurotransmitters. It's a dirty drug and it's why we reach to alcohol.
Maureen (12:31.104)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (12:48.398)
because when our mood is low, when our sleep is off, when our anxiety is up, or we're feeling low and blue in a depression, that's all neurotransmitter symptomatology. So serotonin is a neurotransmitter responsible for our happiness and feeling content and life is good and I don't need to overeat or oversleep or, you know, I wanna be around people. Like there's that happiness with adequate serotonin. With GABA, it's the relaxation.
Maureen (13:04.118)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (13:17.878)
neurotransmitter. Our mind can downshift and slow down and we have that anti-anxiety sensation in our body. Dopamine is the motivation to get up and go, get off the couch, get out the door in the morning, produce, execute. And then the acetyl-L-choline is about focus and attention and memory. And so when those neurotransmitters are low naturally,
and they can be for all kinds of reasons, because we're not sleeping well, because we're eating a lot of processed food, because we're really stressed or have gone through a recent trauma or adversity. Various things can deplete those neurotransmitters and then the body starts looking outside of itself to regulate the depletion and the deficiency inside ourselves. So it makes...
Maureen (13:45.984)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Maureen (14:05.962)
And alcohol is the easiest, fastest way to do that. I mean, there's no doubt about it or we wouldn't do it. Yeah.
Jolene Park (14:09.59)
And it's incredibly accessible as we know. And it works initially. Like it's a very instant and it gives that feeling of optimal neurotransmitter balance. So if our focus is off, if our anxiety is up, if our mood is down, if our sleep is off, all of those things temporarily, when we have a drink, it feels like they come into balance. But what
Maureen (14:35.424)
Yes.
Jolene Park (14:37.132)
really happens is it just knocks those neurotransmitters down even more. And then we want more alcohol to try to bring that balance up. And it's this vicious cycle of bringing neurotransmitters down further and further. we, in my opinion, and the nutritional research is there as well, the neurobiology research is there, is working with the neurochemicals to bring some natural balance, which we can do naturally through food and movement.
Maureen (14:56.246)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (15:05.518)
different exercises and different practices so that we don't have to use outside chemical like alcohol to try to get that kind of pseudo neurotransmitter balance.
Maureen (15:15.636)
Right. And the crazy thing is most people say, I drink to relax, I drink to de-stress, and yet the very action of drinking over time depletes those very neurotransmitters that help us to relax naturally, you know, and that's like the biggest thing to help people to understand. So we talk about central nervous system regulation. That's a big kind of buzzword in the...
coaching world right now, but I noticed at first when I started talking to my clients about this, was kind like, is that? Why is that important to my drinking? Why does my central nervous system matter? So like if you were describing it in a lay person terms, like why does it matter to regulate your central nervous system?
Jolene Park (15:56.59)
Well, basically the nervous system in a real kind of simplistic way to look at it is it's our stress response. So when we feel activated over a conversation or bad food that we ate or, you know, a difficult environment, when anything activates our system, the system gets stressed. And if we have a fight with a loved one, it's that.
Maureen (16:02.688)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (16:19.766)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (16:24.194)
that stress in the body and that's the nervous system reacting. But the first place it starts is in the body because we're an animal, it's that animal brain and in order to protect us, literally keep us alive, our body responds first in these micro nanoseconds and it's that fight or flee response because it's stress, protection.
Maureen (16:37.11)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (16:51.458)
Do we need to fight this environment, this person, this situation, or do we need to flee? And that all happens on, it's called this neuroceptive, like our senses, our sensing. If this needs to be done way before it's a cognitive, like I need to stand up out of this chair, lift my left leg, run out of the door, the body, and thank goodness, it'll instinctively do that. If we're walking down the sidewalk together and a car starts to swerve towards us,
Maureen (17:06.315)
Right.
Jolene Park (17:19.222)
our bodies are gonna respond to that flee, fight response. it's this, the body is responding, but often, and the body can respond to past thoughts or to past experiences that are not here currently or worrying about future tripping, about the future, or something in the moment, but not, it just keeps looping and going over and over in the nervous system. So the nervous system stays in this,
Maureen (17:37.696)
Right?
anxiety.
Jolene Park (17:48.91)
We can't always stay on the gas pedal. We have to let off and come onto the break.
Maureen (17:57.611)
But our society is very much on the gas pedal all the time with our phones and our multitasking and everything.
Jolene Park (18:01.782)
Right, so then it makes sense. It makes sense of why then we're drawn to alcohol because alcohol is a depressant. Alcohol is the brakes. And so many gray area drinkers, especially women, will say that they reach to alcohol to shut their mind off, to downshift. And that's that GABA. It's that the brake when we're always on the gas. And again, either perceived or real time, the nervous system is on the gas. It's trying to flee, it's trying to fight, it's trying to...
Maureen (18:16.011)
Yes.
Jolene Park (18:31.288)
protect and our sense, the whole sensory system is lit up like a Christmas tree. And I mean, again, there's like a rhythm to our organism that it needs to be an ebb and a flow. There's some stress and then we come down from it and then we peak with some stress and come down. And so if we haven't been taught how to do that and the body hasn't had a learned response,
Maureen (18:55.616)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (18:57.998)
to where it feels safe that it can come out of that hyper activated mode, we start then to reach externally something that's medicating that is self regulating in the system. So alcohol makes perfect sense, but it's a physiological response first and then a psychological response. So all of this happens in the body, our pupils dilate, our heart starts to raise, our muscles clench. And again,
Staying in that long term doesn't feel good, so we want to come out of that. But all of that physiological response then gives the message of the spinal cord to the brain to have then an emotional response, to have a feeling, to have a behavior. But that psychology comes on board and happens after the physiology gets activated. So we have to work first with the physiology, then we can work with the mind and the psychology.
Maureen (19:41.728)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (19:52.471)
And that was so key for me in your master coaching group to understand that it's the physiological response that happens first and then the emotional. You know, that was so key to understand that. And so you, knowing this in your research, you develop the nourish method, your nourish method, which you now teach other coaches to address the physiology to down regulate the central nervous system without turning to alcohol. But like you said, unless people are taught how to do these things, it's not
natural and we're constantly being marketed to that alcohol is the way to do that and it's so easy and it's what everybody's doing. Can you talk about your Nourish Method?
Jolene Park (20:33.038)
Absolutely. And one of the things I want to say about this is that it again, just to kind of really simplify like why the nervous system is so important. We see it, all of us have gone through this with alcohol is, know, clients will say, I know this stuff. know alcohol is a poison. I know it's not good for me. That's the psychology. That's the mind. But then they say, why can't I stick with it?
Maureen (20:50.314)
right.
Jolene Park (20:58.83)
And the why is because the physiological response is immediate. It feels good. It works. It's physiology first. And we're using alcohol for the first physiological effect. And then if it were about knowing, and if it were about the mind, we'd just stop drinking. But it's not about the psychology. It's about the physiology. And so that's where I start. And my Nourish Method,
Maureen (21:05.184)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (21:15.744)
Right.
Jolene Park (21:27.884)
I can just quickly go through that acronym. So N is notice nature. O is observe your breath. U, unite with others. R, replenish with food. I, initiate movement. S, sit in stillness. And H, harness creativity. And these aspects are what I've worked with throughout my career. And whenever I'm working with clients on
whether it's weight loss or anxiety or quitting drinking or when we're working with a nutrition kind of from a nutritional foundation, there are some keystone threads that run through the research that cover so many bases. And that's what then I pulled into the neuro chakranam. And what I mean by covering so many bases, covering the neurotransmitters, regulating the blood sugar, regulating the adrenaline and the cortisol, regulating hormones.
Maureen (22:17.814)
Yes.
Jolene Park (22:24.556)
bringing the body out of that fight or flee response and bringing it back to a safety kind of social engaged response. And so things show up over and over and over. There's all kinds of bio neuro physiological neuro biological mechanisms. And in those top seven things that show up is nature, what nature does to our physiology, utilizing our breath, community, other people because
how our nervous systems co-regulate with each other. Food, huge, and the supplements, the nutrients, the food with brain regulation, with mood, movement, and then a stillness practice, a spiritual practice, and a creative playtime downtime. Now, each of those, I can dig into and lift the hood, and there's all kinds of layers behind it, because on the surface, it's like,
Maureen (23:00.055)
protein.
Maureen (23:20.598)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (23:22.452)
yeah, I should eat my vegetables and do something fun. But it's much deeper than that. Like when I say initiate movement, it's not just go to a spin class. So there's other ways that I look at too of moving the nervous system to discharge emotion and stress. And things are like expressive writing. There's certain nervous system regulation techniques of like acupressure points on the body and.
Maureen (23:47.424)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (23:49.686)
So it gets really nuanced and targeted beyond just kind of like, yeah, I should eat vegetable.
Maureen (23:55.957)
Right. We kind of want to get away from the I should, and this is what you teach in the master coach training is that, and you had all of us try these resources that you have in these seven different categories so we could experience them and build our toolbox, our toolkit of what works for us. And then doing that with our clients as far as after we coach them and kind of figure out where they're maybe they're not doing things in these categories, we resource them and give them things to do. So that
Jolene Park (23:59.116)
Bye.
Maureen (24:25.138)
is so, I love that it's such a thorough technique and it helps people change because like you're saying, if they don't address their physiology, they will just go back to drinking because in my opinion, they're just kind of in willpower if they're not addressing their physiology and we all know willpower is going to wear off. It's like a muscle, it'll get tired, it'll wear out. So, I love your program, obviously. Yeah. So, can you, you you mentioned something earlier.
Jolene Park (24:46.638)
Thank you.
Maureen (24:52.873)
And I always, when I heard this, I thought it was fascinating. Alcohol is a dirty drug. You mentioned that term. And if you could go into that a little bit, that it's a depressant and a stimulant at the same time. And that's how it has that name, global or dirty drug. That is not a term I heard until your training. And I always share that with my clients now because I think that's so fascinating.
Jolene Park (25:16.696)
Well, what I mean by that is there's a reason certain people are drawn to certain things and no one gets off the hook with this. No one's immune to it. So for some people alcohol is not their thing, but pornography is or internet gaming addiction is or sugar is or overcompulsive exercise. call it like exercise bulimia. So everybody has a thing. Maybe it's hoarding.
Maureen (25:26.485)
Yeah.
Jolene Park (25:46.696)
you know, and clutter like where there's just kind of that shutdown of when life feels too much too fast too soon. How do we cope? By over exercising by overeating by over scrolling by over drinking. Exactly, exactly. And what was the question? Where was I going? the dirty drug So there's a reason why some people are drawn to tobacco or cocaine or alcohol.
Maureen (25:57.323)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (26:01.908)
distraction.
Jolene Park (26:16.749)
or exercise. And it's, it's correlates then with where their deficiency is and where their depletion is, which is not a like a psychological judgment or personality fault. It's, it's, this is where the body whisper comes in. And this is where, know, I love this piece of figuring out like, where do the dots connect? And so for people who are low in acetylcholine,
Maureen (26:23.286)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (26:39.04)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (26:44.279)
the that's more than neurotransmitter for focus. They're more drawn to nicotine and tobacco. People who are low in dopamine are drawn to like espresso and cocaine. People who are low in GABA are drawn to alcohol. And so that's why, know, it's, it's always interesting, like where people's cravings are kind of what their patterns are with stress. tells me a lot metabolically, just with their kind of
Maureen (27:11.04)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (27:13.496)
their whole physiological system, what's going on. But alcohol is a dirty drug, meaning it takes a swipe at all of the neurotransmitters. Whereas cocaine is more just dopamine, whereas cigarettes and tobacco are more just acetylalkoline. But alcohol, like a bowling ball, knocks down all the pins which can make us more anxious, more depressed. We lose our focus, we lose our motivation. And so it's this rebuilding.
Maureen (27:22.954)
Yes.
Jolene Park (27:43.36)
of all of those neurocircuits and give it a boost to all of the neurochemicals.
Maureen (27:48.363)
Yeah, with these seven categories and the Nourish Technique. I love the last two, or the most challenging for me, sitting in stillness and harnessing creativity and stillness. You know, I try to work on that now because we're not still in our society. It's always go, go, go, or be on your phones constantly or on your iPad or multitasking. So that has been a challenge and I try to work on and share that with my clients. But I also love your
harness creativity and you talk about the ING activities and you put it in such a easy to understand simplistic way like the healthy ING and the not so good for you ING. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Jolene Park (28:29.24)
So the healthy ING is hobbies and they're active. We're actively fishing, painting, drawing, knitting, gardening. The body's active, the hands are active, and it's like the runners, they're active, they're moving, and they'll talk about being in the zone when they're running. So when people are knitting or gardening or out fly fishing, yeah, there's an.
Maureen (28:54.518)
singing, dancing, you have all those.
Jolene Park (28:58.286)
component within the body, but it helps the mind find some stillness and slow down in that single focused kind of flow state. The negative ING's, drinking, drugging, overeating, overspending, over shopping, over consuming. Exactly. So we need an ING. need that. And this is, it's the leisure, it's the play, the fun. This is a vital nutrient.
Maureen (29:03.424)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (29:12.298)
gambling, overscrolling, all that kind of stuff.
Maureen (29:24.726)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (29:26.924)
that feeds our nervous system, that balances neurotransmitters. And if we don't intentionally, actively build that in, find a hobby, do it regularly through the ebb, the flow, the up, the down in your life, people around you, not having people around you, being able to go to that ING activity, it helps the nervous system step off the track of stress and worry and finances and kids and family and have that downshift.
Maureen (29:51.946)
Mm-hmm.
Jolene Park (29:55.182)
in more of a natural intentional way. If we don't intentionally do that, that's where then the addictive INGs come in over eating, over drinking, over drugging. So it's that harnessing our creativity, that playtime, that downtime, that leisure. When we look at longevity studies, this is one of the components, like of course, vegetables, broccoli, moving your body are wonderful things. But these are the things that really move the needle for that.
quality of life, that longevity of life, anti-disease, not taking as many medications, but having that leisure piece in and it goes hand in hand with being a remedy against not bringing in the addictive INGs.
Maureen (30:38.581)
Yeah. And you said that keyword has to be intentional. You know, thinking of what you used to do that made you happy when you were younger, the playful things, the hobbies, it's intentional and it takes a little bit of effort, but a big payoff. Whereas the unhealthy ING activities don't take that much intent. It's pretty easy to pop that cork, drink that drink. You know, now these days you can gamble very easily right on your phone. And those don't take a lot of intent or thought.
And so it does take a little more energy to do these healthy things, but you have a much more longer lasting obviously and healthy benefit from it. And that's what we try to help people do and continue to do myself. So I love that and your master coaching program, can you talk about that how now you're sharing this and training other coaches like myself to do this?
Jolene Park (31:29.966)
Since 2018, I've been training by request. Other coaches were coming to me after they were working with me as individuals because they were self-identified gray area drinkers, stopped drinking, went through the one-on-one private coaching with me. And as nurses, therapists, health coaches, social workers, they were saying...
Maureen (31:35.018)
Yeah.
Jolene Park (31:51.982)
I now want to share this with my clients, but I don't feel confident doing it because in my social work training, my health coach training, I didn't learn anything that you took me through. So that's why I started training other coaches in 2018. And I just, you know, the word needs to spread. So many professionals working from this physiology first perspective need to be educated, need to be trained to support their clients and patients. And if
Maureen (31:56.096)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (32:09.771)
Yes.
Jolene Park (32:21.346)
people are working with clients or patients one-on-one, they're working with greater drinkers. There's no way getting around it. And so we need a more updated training model with working with the physiology and looking at this comprehensive approach. it's a, we're co-piloting with our clients. It's a curiosity experiment of going back to the basics.
Maureen (32:27.872)
Right?
Maureen (32:45.568)
Yes.
Jolene Park (32:46.734)
on some things like hobbies and this is, it takes time because it's a trial by fire because when you take something or do something or experience something, you run it through your nervous system and the nervous system is really gonna give a big red light and say, nope, didn't like that, don't do that again. Or it's gonna be a green light saying, that felt amazing, where's that been all my life? I wanna do that again tomorrow. And that's what we're looking for is that.
Maureen (33:14.836)
Right.
Jolene Park (33:15.906)
those matches for the nervous system and it takes some time, but that's where the coaching comes in of that partnership, that rapport of having the physiological resources and the understanding of how certain things connect with certain physiology. And then being there with the client day in, day out, week in, week out of repeating things and wiring them into the nervous system to create that new
neuroplasticity.
Maureen (33:47.607)
Yeah, because they have, we all have to experience things. We have to try it out in our body and like you said, see if our nervous system resonates with that. I love how you say if it lights them up, if it lights them up, then we take that and we keep that resource and keep building the toolbox. So how do other coaches find you who are looking for this? I know for me, as a personal trainer, as a fitness person, I came out of another certification that was more behavioral.
and cognitive based and I felt like something was missing and because I'd always come from that background as I started researching you and looking into you, it made so much sense to me and it's kind of what I threw at myself when I stopped drinking but I didn't really know, you know, that I was doing what you say. And of course, yours is much more in depth but it makes so much sense. So how do coaches find you if they want to learn about your gray area drinking coaching training?
Jolene Park (34:41.998)
GrayAreaDrinkers.com is my website and the training page is there with all the details and information and there's an application and it's all the information about my programs, training, coaching, my Ted Talk and podcasts are there and I'm most active on Instagram for social media, joleen underscore park on Instagram.
Maureen (35:02.516)
Yeah, so go look her up and check out her program. I can tell you that it's changed my coaching dramatically. And Jolene, I love to ask people this. What do you do in your own life to stay sober fit, whether it be physically, mentally, emotionally, what do you do?
Jolene Park (35:19.416)
So barefoot walking on the beach is one of my favorite things. It's why I moved from Denver to Charleston four years ago. It's a little cold now in February, but I walk nonetheless. But barefoot walking when the weather permits, I love that the grounding, being out at sunrise, all about the circadian biology and that early morning light and how that is so helpful for setting optimal neurotransmitter production and.
Maureen (35:25.174)
Mm.
Jolene Park (35:46.926)
So I'd say that's my that's my favorite movement. I'm trying to get better about more kind of zone to cardio more intense. But yeah, I love the love the walking and then some some pretty active breath work is is also a favorite of mine where it's that kind of that hyperventilation what's the quick inhale out health inhale and then hold your breath for like 40 seconds or so and exhale and it's
Maureen (35:56.085)
Right.
Jolene Park (36:16.767)
it really regulates and settles my system. There's times when I'm already too kind of activated to do that activating breath work, but lately it's been the activating breath work with just kind of leisure walking on the beach have been my two favorites.
Maureen (36:24.405)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen (36:32.714)
Yeah, so you're knocking out two of those pieces of your acronym all at once. Walking on the beach, getting outside, actually a couple of them, and doing your breath work. So she really lives it. Jolene really lives it. Yes.
Jolene Park (36:40.972)
Yeah, and that's what's fun. None of these things are islands. That often happens. You pick one and then you knock out two or three others. They all start working synergistically together.
Maureen (36:53.684)
Yeah. So she truly lives it, guys. I can tell you that. And I want to thank you so much, Jolene, for coming on the podcast and sharing all of your wisdom about grey area drinking with everybody. So go check her out. Check out her website. And thanks again for being a guest, Jolene.
Jolene Park (37:08.92)
Thanks so much for having me.
