Your Shame-Free Guide to Cutting Back on Booze
30:20 Share

There's a reason the Sleep Number smart bed is the number one best bed for couples. It's because you can each choose what's right for you whenever you like. Firmer or softer on either side, Sleep Number does that. One side cooler and the other side warmer, Sleep Number does that too. You have to feel it to believe it. Sleep better together. And now save 50% on the new Sleep Number limited edition smart bed. Limited time. Exclusively at a Sleep Number store near you.

See store or sleepnumber.com for details. My name is Miles McQuarrie. I am partner and beverage director at Kimball House. The sound you're hearing is of Miles making us a really special drink. He's behind the bar of an award-winning restaurant outside of Atlanta. You want me to open some and pour you some? It's fun to watch Miles work. He is a master of his craft. He's been honored by the James Beard Foundation and the Michelin Guide. The perfect drink for me is something that is...

simple, but also kind of provokes thought. Every ingredient should shine. Miles calls this drink a Tokyo Zero. So it tastes like a light, airy, salted yuzu limeade. And yeah, to me, it drinks like a real cocktail.

In the past few years, Kimball House has added a lot of drinks like this one to the menu to satisfy what has become a growing number of customers who are no longer coming in for cocktails. The dry January thing has gone up significantly in recent years. It's like we feel it as a business for sure. And it's not just dry January anymore.

Americans' drinking habits really did change during the pandemic. Rates of, quote, excessive drinking surged. Recent studies show that rates of heavy drinking still remain high and rates of high intensity drinking are high as well. And that means more than eight drinks in a row for women, 10 drinks in a row for men. But at the same time all of that is happening, there is this other trend that is catching on.

Alcohol sales have jumped, but at the same time, non-alcoholic beverages, their sales went up as well. 41% of Americans say they are now trying to drink less or they are sober curious. So I've decided to turn to an expert who's going to share some tips about drinking smarter and more strategically, especially when it comes to your health. As we approach New Year's, if someone says when I drink champagne, it hits me faster, that's the thing. The more bubbly a drink is, the more quickly it gets absorbed.

So whether you're sober curious, you're just trying to cut back, or you just want to know more about the science of drinking, I think you're going to get something out of today's podcast. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, and this is Chasing Life. There's this really interesting laboratory at the University of Washington, and if you walk inside of it, you're going to be surprised that it looks a lot like...

The Bar Lab looks like a legit bar. You walk in, there's tables and chairs all throughout the room. At the end of the room, there's a bar, all the stools in front of the bar. Behind the bar, there's a big mirror with all the bottles of liquor lined up in front of the mirror. The first dollar bill we ever got as a tip, everybody signed it or taped it up. The lights dim for ambiance, which is classy. There's neon signs, beer signs, sports memorabilia, a stereo system. This really seems like a real bar. The key is it's a lab.

Dr. Jason Kilmer is an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral science. He studied preventing alcohol and drug use disorders for decades. So in our psych department, he built a bar. The person he gives full credit to for coming up with this concept is Alan Marlatt, who was his mentor and former advisor.

He felt very, very strongly this research needs to generalize to the outside world. So he didn't want it to be done in just a regular lab with beakers and test tubes and things like this. Everything in psychology has to spell a cool acronym. It's one of our three laws, I think. He called it the BAR Lab, the Behavioral Alcohol Research Laboratory. This type of research was kind of ingenious. It's also why I wanted to speak with Dr. Kilmer.

You see, when Dr. Marlatt started all this, it was a time when "Just Say No" was popular and attitudes toward alcohol in the United States were kind of all or nothing. In the late 1980s, the number of published studies we had showing significant reductions in drinking or consequences through prevention and intervention efforts was none. According to the Reagan National Library, we had 12,000 "Just Say No" clips.

in the United States. So that's where we were as a country. Alan Marlatt very boldly said, "What if we don't do just say no? We also don't do just say yes. But what if people do say yes? What if they make the choice to drink? Can we take a harm reduction approach?" And so he was really the pioneer for harm reduction efforts with college students. Dr. Marlatt set out to challenge some of the myths around alcohol, and he used some fairly unconventional methods.

We have a hidden camera. We have hidden microphones in the ceiling. So you've got this great way to observe and study behavior where people don't feel like they're being watched. Dr. Marlott would ask students 21 and older who did drink. They had to be people who do report alcohol use. And they were recruited for a study where they were told, we'd like to see how people interact in social situations. There was some deception there.

When they came to the lab, they were asked, "How does alcohol affect you in a good way, socially?" They tell us, "I'm more funny, I'm less shy, I'm more confident, I'm more outgoing, I'm more flirty." Some people say, "Better dancer," right? We ask people, "How does alcohol affect you in a not-so-good way?" I say things I regret, I do things I regret, I get angry, I get aggressive.

They sign a consent form that says if at some point over the course of the experiment you give me alcohol, I give permission for that. People sign that and then they're randomly assigned to four different conditions in the bar lab. The first group of students were told they were getting alcohol and they actually received it.

They're told that they can drink beer, they're told they can drink vodka and tonic, and they're told, "Please drink as you normally would for about the course of an hour." And what you see in this group is nothing magical. It looks like a bunch of college students drinking. The volume of the group increases, people interact a lot more, but you need this group for comparison's sake. The next group of students were told they won't be getting alcohol, and that's exactly what happens. They're told they can drink tonic water,

with or without a lime wedge, depending if we had money, or they could get non-alcoholic beer. What did they actually get? Exactly that, tonic water or non-alcoholic beer. What did you see here? Also not that different than you would expect to see. It's a much quieter group, much less interaction. At best, it looks like a bunch of students who don't know each other who are asked to hang out and drink water together for an hour. But here's where it gets really interesting.

The groundbreaking findings that Dr. Marlatt did was when he told people we're going to give you alcohol, but give people alcohol-free drinks. The vodka and tonic people get is tonic water with a lot of lime in it, and then vodka right around the rim of the glass. No one's going to get a positive blood alcohol level. No one's getting intoxicated. But they smell the hard alcohol. They taste it. People assume the drink contains alcohol. He would do a blend of different non-alcoholic beers so that people really believed they were getting alcohol.

This is my favorite thing I've ever seen in real time with college students. By the 20 minute mark, coders trying to tell the difference between the group that think they're drinking and aren't. From the group that thinks they're drinking and actually receiving it, coders cannot tell the difference between those two groups. The volume of the group has increased. People are interacting a lot more. People are shoving tables together and playing drinking games with water.

By the 40 minute mark, that's when I think the really amazing findings happen. The original experimenters did not predict people would report feeling physical effects. Some people report feeling physical effects. Interesting. Some people talk about what a great buzz they think they have. Some people are really conscientious, which is a good thing. I don't mean to make light of that, but we'd see people who would say, wow, I'm really glad this experiment's on campus because I know me shouldn't be driving right now.

It was in the social realm though that this was just stunning. Someone would surface as kind of the stand-up comedian of the group. Someone would surface as kind of the loud ringleader of the group. Flirting, we would see. End of the hour, lights go on bright, stereo goes off, and in my favorite 10 seconds in psychology, we say, none of the beverages you've consumed contain any alcohol. The placebo effect, but remember this, there is still one group to go. With the final component,

When people, remember, they're all over 21. They all do drink. They all sign a consent form that said, if you give me alcohol, I'm good with that. If we tell people they're not getting alcohol, but they actually receive it, they're told you're getting tonic water.

Dr. Marlatt did an independent study to find out how many parts vodka you have to add to how many parts tonic water. Put a lot of lime in there, have people not be able to tell there's alcohol in the drink. Once you get that concoction, he would work backwards from a blood alcohol chart and give each person a drink based on their sex and weight that would get them to a 0.06% blood alcohol level. That's a big dose in one drink.

That's three quarters of the way to the legal limit. That's enough to keep someone at a positive blood alcohol level almost four hours once they hit that peak. When they finish that drink and say, can I have more? Drink number two is just tonic water. That way you can get the whole room to the exact same blood alcohol level.

This is a way less entertaining group to watch, but it's almost more impressive because the conviction with which people say, when I drink, all this great social stuff happens. They got the alcohol. None of that great social stuff happened. 20 minute mark, everyone's sitting around going, when's this dumb study going to get done? Looking pretty bored. By the 40 minute mark, the physical effects of alcohol were kicking in, but people attributed what they were feeling to other things.

Alcohol is a depressant. It doesn't make us sad. It depresses or slows down the central nervous system. So we saw people yawning and stretching and actively saying, wow, I had a bad night's sleep last night, had a long day at school or a long day at work. Some people, when they drink, their face gets really red, hot, uncomfortable, aversive feeling. It's called the flushing response. That was happening for people. But they were blaming it on the temperature of the room, taking off sweaters, sweatshirts, asking if we could turn on the air conditioning.

We also could see people maybe get a little clumsy, spill their drink, but instead of questioning what was in their drink, they would just clean up and be like, I'm sorry, and sit quietly the rest of the time and try not to cause any more trouble. End of the hour, lights go on bright. We say, surprise, you all did get alcohol. Everyone blows a breathalyzer to verify this. These four scenarios led researchers to a fascinating conclusion. Alcohol does a lot of things.

The reaction time impact, the motor coordination impact, the impact on judgment, these are all legitimate pharmacological effects of alcohol. But the social or interpersonal things we get from drinking are so much more due to our mindset, our expectancies, our beliefs, where we are and who we're with, and so much less to do with the contents of the cup in our hand. I am fascinated by this. So again, four groups, one group got alcohol, they thought they were getting alcohol. Another group thought they weren't getting alcohol, they didn't.

But then the other two groups, one group thought they were getting alcohol and they didn't. Another group thought they weren't getting alcohol and they did. And from a social standpoint, again, not to minimize the impacts of alcohol on the body in terms of coordination and things like that, but from a social standpoint, those people who thought they were getting alcohol and they didn't were a pretty lively group. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Not only a pretty lively group, all the things they say they got from drinking happened. And so I think that's really, really important. You know, if someone is saying, I'm considering making a change in my drinking, one of the things we often hear is, yeah, but I worry I'll miss out on all the good social stuff I get from alcohol. It's not coming from the alcohol to start with. If you have fun with a group of people, it's probably really fun to be out with the people you're out with away from work or school or stress or

And your comfort socially may have as much to do with just having a cup in your hand and less to do with the contents of that cup. I mean, I feel like that's true with alcohol. I feel like if you go to a coffee shop, having a cup in your hand, it's this buffer between us as people. There's the awkward silence, right? Everyone kind of stirs their drink, takes a sip at the same time. We fill that gap with that cup in our hand. Yeah.

Again, it's way less entertaining to watch the group that don't know they're drinking but actually receive it. But it's so powerful because when people say, I know me, I'm really shy. When I drink, I get less shy. They got the alcohol. None of that changed. Because they didn't think they were getting the alcohol. They did not think they were drinking. Exactly. This makes me feeling very, very vindicated in the fact that I am ordering mocktails at restaurants now. Did this make you want to stop drinking and say, hey, look, I can achieve all that.

without actually drinking alcohol. When I got into this field, you know, I was someone that did not drink in high school, did not drink when I got involved with this work. And so if anything, especially as someone growing up in a small town, you know, I

If someone did something, people found out about it and people heard about it. And that really contributed to a intentional decision for me when I was in high school to not drink. If I was the funny guy, I wanted people to know I was the funny guy and it had nothing to do with if I had a drink in my hand or not. And so I think...

I think what we do know is that this can be, I've heard college students say, so what do I need to do? Just have someone like make me a drink and not tell me what's in it. No, that would actually be very, very risky. You know, the mixed drink that you don't know what's in it for a very small person could be a devastatingly dangerous drink. It's more just thinking this through. You know, I hear people say even alcohol specific expectancies. We hear people say like tequila. Ooh, I can't drink that. That makes for a really rough night.

That's an expectancy to the body. Ethyl alcohol is ethyl alcohol. And if someone has a standard drink of beer, it's the same ethyl alcohol that gets absorbed into the bloodstream is that they have a measured shot of tequila. There's such a huge expectancy component. Perception is everything they say. So we're going to take a short break here. But when we come back, we got some really important tips from Dr. Kilmer.

There's research that shows that when people put ice in their drink, they experience fewer harms than people who don't. We'll be back in a minute. This podcast is supported by Sleep Number.

There's a reason the Sleep Number smart bed is the number one bed for couples. It's because you can each choose what's right for you whenever you like. Firmer or softer on either side, Sleep Number does that. One side cooler and the other side warmer, Sleep Number does that too. You have to feel it to believe it. Only Sleep Number smart beds let you choose your ideal comfort and support, your Sleep Number setting. Sleep Number smart beds learn how you sleep and provide personalized insights to help you sleep better.

The new Sleep Number Climate Cool Smart Bed lets you adjust up to 15 degrees cooler on either side. It's perfect for couples who struggle with sleeping too hot. Sleep better together. And now save 50% on the new Sleep Number Limited Edition Smart Bed. Limited time. Exclusively at a Sleep Number store near you. See store or sleepnumber.com for details. I'm Anderson Cooper. Grief isn't talked about much, but that's what my podcast is all about.

This is All There Is, Season 3. In the past year, I've listened to about 6,000 voicemail messages you've left for me after Season 2 and most of the ones sent in so far this season. When I listen to your messages, it makes me feel less different and alone. My grief is deep and real and it has brought me to my knees. Listen to All There Is with Anderson Cooper wherever you get your podcasts. And now back to Chasing Life.

You know, we talked about how our perceptions of alcohol impact our experience. But I also wanted to ask Dr. Kilmer about the science of what we know alcohol really does to our bodies. There's a very clear science behind how alcohol gets in and out of the body. And I will say, especially as someone that works with college students, I think there's a lot of myths surrounding exactly those issues. Like, how do we get intoxicated? How do we, in quotes, sober up more quickly? And so alcohol

A lot of that work involves taking advantage of what we know about how alcohol gets into the body and how it gets out. And,

planning accordingly. When we drink, alcohol goes into the stomach, starts going into the bloodstream. From the stomach, moves to the small intestine, and at that point, it's pouring into the bloodstream. We know there are four things that affect the rate of absorption. What we drink, how fast we drink it, how bubbly it is. You made reference to kind of the effervescence. And if you've eaten prior to or while drinking. So what we drink. Hard alcohol gets absorbed faster than wine, which gets absorbed faster than beer.

So if someone makes the choice to drink, drinking higher up the standard drink conversion chart. If it's a mixed drink, putting extra mixer in the drink or less of the hard alcohol. There's research that shows that when people put ice in their drink, they experience fewer harms than people who don't. I mean, in some ways, it's a physics issue. The more ice there is in the cup, the less room there is for a drink to go. Plus, as the ice melts, it keeps the cup full longer.

How fast we drink. The more quickly we drink, the more quickly it gets absorbed. So if someone says, "I want to be as as control of my night as possible," slow down. If it helps to alternate with water, alternate with water. How bubbly a drink is, the effervescence, absolutely makes a difference. As we approach New Year's, if someone says, "When I drink champagne, it hits me faster," that's a thing. The more bubbly a drink is, the more quickly it gets absorbed. So

Vodka and orange juice, for example, gets absorbed slower than vodka and soda or vodka and tonic because of the presence of the bubbles.

So if someone says, I do want to be as controlled of my night as possible, and it's a mixed drink, a flat mixer makes a difference compared to a carbonated mixer. And finally, if someone eats prior to or while drinking, all the alcohol gets in, it takes longer. So if someone had dinner at 530 or 6 and they're going out at 10, functionally, they're on an empty stomach, so they might want to grab a bite of something. That slower absorption will mean they won't get to quite as high a peak blood alcohol level.

So this holds with champagne, Prosecco, sparkling wine, hard seltzers, any carbonated beverage will be absorbed more rapidly. The only state I've seen actually really lean into this research is the state of Virginia. The Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Commission in their like social host guidelines say if you're hosting a party,

and you're in charge of what drinks are offered, consider offering a mixed drink without carbonation because you will have a group of party goers who don't get intoxicated as quickly if you have something that's more flat. That's a really great takeaway, you know, because there's a lot of holiday parties coming up and I think people really do think about this. There does seem to be a movement towards what I guess people refer to as this intermittent sobriety trend, right?

Um, just going to restaurants and stuff, you know, 10, 15 years ago, Jason, I, I didn't really see mocktails very much on the menu. And now you, you'd be hard pressed to find a place that doesn't have some sort of mocktail on the menu. And it's not, you know, just served in a kiddie cup, like a Shirley temple or something. It's served in an actual glass with, with the right ice and, and, and all that kind of stuff.

Does this surprise you? I think it's awesome that things like that are offered at restaurants, at bars, on menus, and that they are done in a way that feels attractive and inclusive. I have a colleague that used to say, are you in a recovery phase?

centric kind of setting or in a recovery hostile kind of setting. A place that has nothing alcohol free would feel more recovery hostile. So the truth is having alcohol free options does feel more recovery centric, more inclusive of people that choose to not drink. And I mean, I think that's great.

On the one hand, you might see people say, I'm not going to drink alcohol. We need to consider the big picture of what they're choosing to perhaps do. We do a lot of research on cannabis use by the same age group. So for example, if for any one person, they say, I'm not drinking anymore, the initial temptation might be to say, that's great. What do you attribute that to? And if they say it's because I've made these really, really big changes and blah, blah, that's important. If

someone says, well, I don't drink as much because now I use cannabis all the time. That introduces its own risks. And so if there is a move toward drinking less and it is in fact using less substances as well, that's different than if someone's moving toward drinking less, but then they're then increasing the use of something else. I'm a dad. I've got teenage daughters. You work with college students every day. You study this for a living.

What do you talk to college students about drinking? What's your advice here? Is there a best approach, do you think? Since the 1980s, there's research that shows that if you give college students facts and information about a substance, their knowledge goes up. It doesn't tend to change their behavior. So,

the alcohol lecture probably won't change behavior. But information has its place. And what the science shows is it's delivering it in a motivational framework. And what I mean by that, Bill Miller and Steve Rolnick developed motivational interviewing, which is a non-judgmental, non-confrontational approach that highlights meeting people where they are in terms of their level of readiness to change.

and tries to elicit personally relevant reasons to change. What's in it for me as the 18-year-old in an audience that I'm presenting to, to decide, well, I want to try something different tonight, or I'm definitely going to make a change the next time I go out. And in doing so, we try to listen for the proverbial hook. For some, it's doing well in school. And there's research that shows that the more people drink, the lower their grade point average tends to be, the less likely they're still being engaged with faculty, and the more they report being tired all the time.

And speaking of sleep, you know, some students, the hook is I'm tired all the time. If people drink at night, they fall asleep faster, but quality of sleep gets compromised. So we can talk about that. For some, it's athletic performance. I mean, really, you could see 10 students in a row, all who have the same hook, or they can have 10 different hooks. So we're trying to consider what's most meaningful and relevant to any one person considering a change.

Calories and reminding people how many calories are in these drinks, that seems to leave an impact as well. If someone says, I work out, I watch what I eat,

and they drink 40 beers a week, that's 6,000 calories a week coming from alcohol. And so Miller and Rolnick say we allow the data to be confrontational, not us. And I think that point about being nonjudgmental and nonconfrontational is important. I hear some presenters say, you know, you can do with all this information that I share as you wish. I'm just here to help you make better choices. That's a judgment that suggests you're not making good choices right now. I'm here to help you make in quotes, better ones. And so, yeah,

They're the best experts on themselves. They know, again, what the good things are. They know what the not so good things are. By the way, can I just say you're really good at this? I've been explaining this and just this comment that we can allow the data to be confrontational, but not us. I'm going to stow that one away. I think that's really important. That's a good lesson.

I appreciate that. I take no credit for that. Again, all of what Miller and Rolick have done, we do all we can to avoid labels. We avoid calling things, in quotes, problems, negative consequences. You heard me say the good things, the not so good things. We don't label behavior as best as we can. We avoid terms like alcoholic, in quotes, or addict. And, you know, the research on that even shows that what we classically call denial may have less to do with the characteristic of an individual and more to do with

probably well-intended conversation that just didn't land very well. And so if someone talks to someone they're worried about and they're like, wow, someone's in denial, you know, what terms did they use? What words did they use? Did the person feel defensive? And you can imagine where that can come from. Do things like dry January, I mean, do they work in the sense that they overall reduce drinking, obviously not just for January, but beyond? Yeah.

The research shows there can be not only health benefits, but even lasting benefits from something like that. Calling time out for a month, especially if someone says I drink more heavily around the holidays. Everything from liver function to sleep quality, you do see lots of things that can improve. But I think what's also really important is how people approach that. You know, if people approach a dry January, if you will, as an experiment,

how did it go? If someone says, "It's January 2nd and I'm kind of missing that drink," that could be really important data for them to pay attention to. If someone hits January 31st, what are their intentions on February 1st? And so, you know, you'll even hear people have said, "I extended that dry January and kept going." So it really does, it's a chance for people to kind of be more mindful about their decisions and also kind of take a look at, you know, what they consider about their own behavior.

That is the message, isn't it? Just how powerful your mind is, how much expectations can play a role in your behavior and what you think is actually going on. Absolutely. I think about that as we record this as the holidays approach. You know, if someone says, tonight's going to be a good night, it's going to be a fun night, it's probably going to be a fun night. If someone's like, well, tonight's going to be terrible. Right.

That can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And especially if people approach a mindset like that with alcohol on board, that's where you can even see things like judgment, decision-making, what people say, what people do, all of that can be affected.

I really hope this episode helps get you into the right mindset for the new year, as Dr. Kilmer said. As we just learned, that perception, that expectation, that can really make a difference. No matter what, though, I hope 2026 is happy and healthy for you and everyone you love. Cheers to that.

Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio. Our podcast is produced by Aaron Mathewson, Jennifer Lai, Grace Walker, and Jesse Remedios. Andrea Cain is our medical writer. Our senior producer is Dan Bloom. Amanda Seeley is our showrunner. Dan DeZula is our technical director, and the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Liktai.

With support from Jamis Andrest, John D'Onora, Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Laini Steinhardt, Nicole Pesereau, and Lisa Namarow. Special thanks to Ben Tinker and Nadia Kanang of CNN Health and Katie Hinman.

There's a reason the Sleep Number smart bed is the number one best bed for couples. It's because you can each choose what's right for you whenever you like. Firmer or softer on either side, Sleep Number does that. One side cooler and the other side warmer, Sleep Number does that too. You have to feel it to believe it. Sleep better together. And now save 50% on the new Sleep Number limited edition smart bed. Limited time. Exclusively at a Sleep Number store near you.

See store or sleepnumber.com for details.

This week on The Assignment with me, Adi Cornish. The truth is that many of us warned about this. Reverend Gabriel Salguero, pastor of The Gathering Place in Orlando, Florida. What are the kinds of messages you have been getting? I got a call from somebody saying that they're not going to go to church because they're afraid. Many pastors are concerned that it will impinge on our religious liberty to serve immigrant communities and mixed status communities. What does it feel like to be on the front lines of the immigration debate?

Listen to The Assignment with me, Audie Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app.