NVFP Presents: “Think Before You Drink – What You Need to Know About Alcohol and Substance Abuse”
Many people around the world use alcohol to cope with stress… and while alcohol may seem to provide short-term relief, research shows that heavy alcohol consumption can lead to medical problems and increased risk of alcohol-use disorders.
Join us as Dr. Ken Zweig and Dr. Natasha Beauvais are joined by our friends at All Sober for a round table discussion about the signs, symptoms, medical complications, and treatments associated with alcohol and substance abuse.
Event Highlights:
- 0:23 – 2:19 – Dr. Ken Zweig begins the town hall event by welcoming the attendees, introducing the panelists, and sharing statistics about alcohol and substance abuse in America.
- 3:06 – 17:34 – Dr. Natasha Beauvais, Dr. Paulo Negro, Alan Kelly, Paul Gayter, and Dr. Ken Zweig all share their personal stories of patients and loved ones that have dealt with alcohol or substance abuse in the past, how they overcame their addiction and the creation of All Sober.
- 17:41 – 32:24 – Paul Gayter provides a walk-through of the All Sober platform for attendees, including more details on the inspiration behind the platform, the key features, and more. “The whole treatment and recovery industry, there’s a lot of bad actors out there, which obviously just means that the mind feels that you’re going through this alone. And we wanted to do something about that. And then the most important thing that’s been said is the opposite of addiction is community. And community is so important.”
- 33:05 – 41:14 – Dr. Paulo Negro discusses the biology of addictions, and the disruptive nature they can have on our behavior. “That is something that I find so difficult (with patients), the unlearning of the reinforcement that happened with substance. This is a form of learning that is not by memory, but by conditioning.”
- 42:26 – 46:26 – Dr. Negro dives deeper into the process of unlearning, and how he educates his patients and helps them reframe their thinking. “But there’s also a global unlearning in which if you see addiction as a form of lack of freedom where your behavior in your life is very limited, and nothing compares to the effect of the drugs, and they take over your whole life. So, you have to expand from that little funnel that you’re rotating in and realize that you can actually be in so many different positions – that’s your whole life.”
- 47:19 – 52:50 – As Paul Gayter and Alan Kelly state – nothing is more important than community. The two discuss how All Sober has created a welcoming and loving community for anyone, at any point in their recovery journey. The two also share the positive reception they have received on social media.
- 53:04 – 1:07:10 – “For so many years, society has just normalized drinking as part of our social life. And one of the things I love about All Sober is it’s doing a wonderful job normalizing not drinking, taking alcohol out of the equation, and showing people that you can be social, you can golf without beer, and you can play softball without going out for a beer afterward. You can do all these other normal activities that don’t have to center around drinking and giving a lot of these people who struggle with a place to go where that pressure is not there.” – The panelists provide their final thoughts, what the future of All Sober holds, and thank attendees for joining them.