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Episode 175 – Why I Don’t Drink with Sahara Rose

By Sahara Rose

Namaste. It’s Sahara Rose and welcome back to the “Highest Self” podcast. A place where we discuss what makes you your soul’s highest evolvement. And before we get started, check out these brands that make “Highest Self” podcast possible.

This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is an incredible mushroom elixir company. I proudly drink their elixirs every single day. My favorite is their chai mix, it is insanely delicious. I quit chocolate cold turkey and what helps me was drinking this chai mix every day, and best of all, they use Stevia to sweeten it, and there’s no sugars like the chai lattes you’ll find at Starbucks or wherever else. And the mushrooms are really good for balancing your hormones, helping heal adrenal fatigue, healing your body on an adaptogenic level.

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So before we get started, let’s talk about the definition of the word “alcohol.” So alcohol comes from the Arabic word “al-khul.” And al-khul literally means body eating spirit, and it gives roots to the English term for ghoul. We all have seen a ghoul before, it’s the evil demons that eat humans’ bodies, stolen corpses, that’s what the word alcohol comes from. Now what is alcohol used for? Well, traditionally, it was used as medicine. You know, if you’re going to conduct a surgery you need to sterilize something, alcohol can sterilize that thing. Alcohol was also used for extraction. So if you put some vanilla into alcohol, you get vanilla extract. If you put any type of herbs in alcohol, you extract the herbs. Therefore, when you’re putting in your human body, you are extracting what is in the body, which is the soul.

Now, this is not something that I’m just making up and my personal opinion, this is something that has been written about for thousands of years, and Yogananda in his book “Man’s Eternal Quest” speaks about this as well. So many people, myself included, have sensed this almost dark energy that comes around people who are very intoxicated as well as places, like bars and nightclubs. If you ask someone with clairvoyant abilities, they will easily tell you that they can see that when someone is intoxicated with toxic in their bodies, their souls literally leave their bodies, which make them an empty vessel for malicious souls to come through.

And this is why there are many depictions of the dark souls lingering over bars and places where people are essentially blacked out. When you’re blacking yourself out, you’re allowing the opportunity for your soul to leave your body and any soul, which the souls that want to come through bodies to do mostly violent and aggressive things, are these more evil souls that take that opportunity. So alcohol, al-khul, the word for ghoul, to extract, to take out, which is exactly what it is doing to us when we consume it.

Today I want to do a podcast about a topic I get asked about all the time, which is, “Do I drink alcohol, even a glass of wine?” So I’m just gonna give you the real answer, and my personal answer, and share with you my reason why. No, I do not drink any alcohol, including wine. In fact, I believe that alcohol is poison. Now, alcohol being poison is not something that I thought up of. If you think about it, the word for getting drunk is to be intoxicated, to be filled with toxins. So it is actually common knowledge that alcohol is a poison, and that you’re filling your body up with toxins, but for some reason, as a society we’ve chosen that that’s okay.

So I just want to share with you a little bit about why, and my journey. So, I’m not one of those people who’s never drank a glass of alcohol in their life, who doesn’t know what it’s like, who’s never had the fun, so is speaking from this purist perspective. No, when I was in college, I would drink probably four times a week. In fact, I would look forward to it. I loved mixed drinks, it was something that I got excited about. I liked the taste of the tequila, and the mojito, and all of that stuff. I grew up with my parents drinking wine every night, they weren’t alcoholics, they were drinking it what we would call responsibly.

So I didn’t have a reason that I came from an alcoholic background, and I’m super against alcohol, or I was an alcoholic, or I’ve never drank alcohol. I actually come from a pretty moderate background drinking the way that another college student or typical American does. Would drink on the weekends, have fun, never got, you know, poisoned by it or anything, but the way that I would drink it was essentially poisoning myself, though it was not what we call alcohol poisoning. Still, having a drink is putting poison in your body.

So I would drink this alcohol, mostly because I was insecure. Let’s be real, why else would you drink alcohol besides insecurity? And I’m gonna explain why. So personally, I would drink it because I felt like I needed to. I felt like it took off a mask that I could be more of myself. I felt like I was more fun, and playful, I felt like I could get along with people more easily. I felt like a cooler version of myself, I could do things like speak in Spanish super fluently that I couldn’t do when I was sober—or so I thought. And I felt like drinking was the cool experience that you finally got when you’re an adult. And it was something to be celebrated, and enjoyed, and to do often.

So I would drink, and you know, start to gain weight, all of the sugar. I mean, even something like a vodka tonic that we consider really healthy has over 21 grams of sugar per cup, and you’re not just drinking one cup;. So I was eating cheesecake’s amount of sugar in my alcohol even though it was a vodka tonic, or a vodka soda each night, gaining weight. My face was looking puffy, and just feeling like crap the next day. And I was still young, I wasn’t, you know, now if I drink I would get so hung over, but even at that time I didn’t feel like my highest self.

The next day I’d be tired, wearing sweatpants, for sure did not want to exercise, I would eat, have carbs like mac and cheese, and starches to you know, keep my belly full so the alcohol doesn’t sit in there. And you know, when you’re hungover just the smell over alcohol literally makes you feel sick until the next night when you start drinking again. So I finally realized, and it started with me for my physical body, I didn’t want to feel disgusting, and I wanted to lose weight.

So I decided that after my freshman year of college that I would take the summer off and stop drinking, and just get really healthy to lose weight. And not only did that happen, I lost 20 pounds in one summer from just not drinking, but I felt so much better, so much more vibrant, so much more clear, so much more confident because it was coming from myself. So I would still dabble in alcohol, you know, have a drink with friends, I thought it was fun, I enjoyed the taste, I enjoyed the experience.

But little by little, my body began rejecting it, I began to practice a lot of yoga, a lot of meditation, getting deeper into my spiritual practice. And my body was outright telling me, “No, this alcohol is not for you.” And I would feel more sick, and more disgusted, and more tired and it was my body essentially rejecting this poison because my vibration was increasing. Then finally, around 21, which is the year that you’re technically legally able to drink, by then I was done with alcohol.

Now since then I’ve had experiences when I’m on a vacation and I try a drink, and the last time that I had a drink was about two and a half years ago at my cousin’s wedding in the South of France, and he had some special champagne. And I hadn’t been drinking for the past couple years anyways, but I decided, “You know what? I’m just gonna give it a chance, and everyone’s celebrating, and enjoying it, and it’s high quality, and I’m in France, so let me have it.” And honestly, I had the worst experience at the rest of the wedding from that one glass because I felt so sick, so nauseous, so disgusted. And it was just a flat out reminder to me of why alcohol is poison.

Now, the word for alcohol many of us know is spirits—vodka, gin, tequila—all of these hard alcohol, they are called spirits. Now when you look at the reason why—and you can Google this—it comes from about the 1920s, the Prohibition time when alcohol was illegal. They noticed that when people would drink, it was like their spirit went out of their body. Their spirit went out of their body, and in that place of intoxication, another spirit, mostly a malevolent spirit, would come through. And this is why people would get into fights, would get angry, would say things they would never normally say—violence, aggression—when they were drunk. Because they literally were out of their body when an evil spirit would come through.

And they would draw these old-fashioned pictures of men drinking at a bar, and these evil dark shadows above them, these spirits that were essentially waiting for them to get drunk enough to the point for the spirit to come through. And this is why probably most of domestic violence, aggression, even acts like rape and murderers, a lot of the times they are drunk. Let’s talk about the number one cause of death in this country—a homicidal death. It’s not from someone coming and shooting you, it’s from drunk driving.

So when you drink, not only are you harming yourself, but you’re harming everyone around you. From your immediate surroundings, the people that have to deal with you, to total strangers if you get behind a car. I believe that drinking is just as bad as smoking cigarettes. Both of them are not only harming you, but they are harming the people around you—through second-hand smoke, through drunk driving, through aggression.

Now alcohol, for many of us, we use it as a shield because we don’t feel comfortable in situations. For example, let’s say you go to a bar and you feel awkward because you don’t know anyone, and you want to you know, be more loose, and fun, and free so you go to the bar and you start drinking. Because it feels like, “Uh, finally I can mask myself behind this drink, and I can behave the way that I actually want to behave, but blame it on the alcohol.”

But really that confidence is not coming from you, it is coming from you believing that you are dropping the ego, but really what you’re dropping is your soul, your identity. For that moment, you are not being yourself. You’re not being a more confident version of yourself, you’re straight up not being yourself. And this is the reason why so many of us crave alcohol. We crave that experience because we can be someone that we’re not. We can be that Sasha Fierce, and walk up to the guy that we really want to talk to, but it’s not really coming from us.

And then we’re going to end up in a situation where someone thinks we are someone that we are not, which can only last for so long. And I mean a lot of relationships, they keep that going, every date they’re drinking, they’re drinking, they’re drinking, they’re drinking, and they never actually get to know one another. This is why dating culture is so corrupt because you’re masking who you are with alcohol that you’re never actually getting to your truth.

So let’s say you’re at a party and you start drinking. Or let’s say you’re at a wedding and a way that people gather in community is to say, “Let’s take shots,” because in that moment of saying, “Let’s take shots,” it gives everyone a shared experience. We can all come together in this quest of taking these shots so we can break down the walls of who we are and finally communicate—that’s really what it’s for.

So, one: the shots cost a lot of money, like $10 for a shot of alcohol that should cost like 50 cents, and one person ends up footing the bill, always. Then everyone gathers, which is really what the whole point of it was, just for people to gather in a circle, even if it’s for one second to put poison in their body, that’s actually what the whole experience was about, that moment of gathering, that’s what we were craving. But we don’t know how to say, “I want to gather, I want to be in circle with you, I want to talk to you, I want to connect over something that’s larger than us. So the only thing we know how to do is take shots.”

So we take the shot, we force this poison in our body, our body is rejecting it. Look at people’s face when they take shots, do they look like they’re in joy? Do they look like they’re in pleasure? Do they look like they’re like, “Mm, that was so delicious.” No. Their faces are in anguish, and pain, and disgust. They are running to find the closest napkin, or lime, or fruit juice, or something to mask the taste of this poison. And a moment later, the circle is gone, and everyone’s back to feeling awkward and feeling like they need more shots to feel comfortable with one another. Just now with each shot the conversation gets a little louder, and a little louder, and a little louder, and we think that in that being loud we are having fun when really it’s just almost a flock for attention.

You know when I was in college we used to go to the college, and oh my god, I would sometimes stand there and be like, “Wow, I could literally write a psychological book about this club.” Because it’s these people paying so much money for a table, literally a table worth $1. They are paying $1,000 to stand around this table because there is a big bottle of overpriced vodka on there, and a girl whose boobs are out, and has to impress you guys because you’re paying this much money for this overpriced bottle of vodka. And then everyone is so territorial, “Aw, this is my table, you cannot stand near my table. It’s like prime real estate over here, I’m next to the DJ.”

And then what? Everyone is forcing each other to drink. “Come on, drink more, take a shot. Oh, we gotta finish up the bottle. Go, go, go.” No one’s talking, no one’s dancing, no one’s actually having fun. All people are doing are looking around at one another, self-conscious as “F”—trying to swear a little less—and trying to mask this feeling of being self-conscious by taking more shots, having another drink, getting a little sloppier.

So then what happens? You make decisions that you inevitably will regret. You make out with some guy that you don’t know his name. You may go home with him, you may lose your keys there, you may have to do the walk of shame in the morning. And is that fun? Like really, where is the fun in forgetting what happened the night before. Are we really at such a low level of fun in our society that fun is to forget? Because to remember is too boring, is that really where we’re at?

Then let’s backtrack: what if instead, at that party, there was an elixir bar with cool tonics, and herbs. There’s reishi mushroom to get more chill, there’s Brami to get more heady, there’s some moka to get more energized, okay? Ashwagandha, shatavari, that’s all there, tonic bars, this actually exists in many places in L.A. and many festivals. So people are taking herbs that’s still giving them a feeling. There’s tons of kapha bars that allow you to feel more relaxed, but there’s no negative side effects.

And then instead, if you want to gather and circle, it doesn’t have to be around a shot, it doesn’t have to be around consumption and intoxication. What if I gathered in a circle, I said, “Hey, let’s all do a dance move in the middle. Let’s have a dance off. Let’s just have a twerk party. Let’s just hold hands and breathe. Let’s contact dance. Let’s do something.” I guarantee you, any of those options are gonna lead to way more fun than taking a momentary shot, like being in a dance off is pretty freaking fun if you’ve ever been in a dance off.

Because what we’re really drinking for is to loosen up. So what if we removed the alcohol component and just loosen up? I mean kids, when they go to a birthday party, are they like, “Oh God, this is gonna be awkward. Ugh, man. Oh that bouncy castle? I’m gonna need to get really fucked up for that.” Okay, I swear. But for real, are they like, “Oh my God, I’m gonna have to drink a lot before that clown puts any face paint on me. What? Making bead art? Oh God, I’m gonna have to be wasted.”

Like can you imagine that? No, kids are like, “Hell yeah, sandcastle. Hell yeah, bead art! Hell yeah, clown! Balloons!” They’re excited, they’re ready to dive in. You know, my mom was going through her stuff and she found this piece of paper I had typed up and printed when I was like in third grade, and it was my birthday party schedule. And it’s like, “Guests arrive. Piggly wiggly. Limbo. The magic circle. The musical chairs. Charades. This, that.” It was like 30 games in a row that somehow I believed that we were gonna do in my like two-hour birthday party, and then I’m like, “Open up goody bags, compare prizes, piñata, cut cake, sing happy birthday.” Like I had a stacked schedule. No kid had to take a shot to arrive to my party, we were already on that lit juice.

We take a quick break from this episode so I can share with you an amazing opportunity. Are you interested in having a career focused on health and wellness? Well if so, then the universe is calling you to become a holistic health coach. I am offering this incredible deal, a discount of $1,500 off my alma mater, Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which is the world’s largest nutrition school with guest teachers such as Deepak Chopra, Kris Carr, Dr. Hyman, and Dr. Andrew Weil, and so many others. It is split between six months of health coaching programs, teaching you hundreds of nutritional theories, including Ayurveda, as well as six months of business coaching.

And, as an additional bonus, I am offering a webinar where I will teach you how to use social media to create a thriving career as a health coach. On top of that, I have created a private Facebook community just for the “Highest Self” podcast listeners who are becoming health coaches to connect with each other, meet up with each other, and support one another on this journey. So if you’re interested, send an email over to sahara, S-A-H-A-R-A-, @eatfeelfresh.com with subject “IIN.” Again, [email protected] with subject “IIN.”  And I will personally send you back the email that will allow you to get a $1,500 off discount, as well as my business coaching webinar, and the private Facebook group. I’m so excited for you to begin your journey as a health coach.

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So why is it that we are so uncomfortable with who we are that we need something outside of ourselves to just be who we are? Because who we are is who we were as a kid: fun, playful, bubbly, ecstatic. This is why I’m such a big fan of ecstatic dance. If you don’t now what ecstatic dance is, it’s essentially this incredible experience that they have in almost every city around the world. But there’s no rule: no talking. And it’s a room of people dancing to amazing music from tribal, to hip hop, to oldies, everything in between, every DJ is different, but it’s really fun to dance to.

And the only rule is no talking. Because when you start talking that’s when oftentimes you get into conversation with someone, then you both stop dancing, and then everyone’s looking around at each other, and we get so, you know, in our heads. But when no one can talk and all you can do is dance, people give themselves permission to go crazy. They do the dance moves they’ve always wanted to do, they’re shaking it. A lot of the times, I’m not even doing a dance move, I’m just doing some like weird thing with my arm because like that’s just what my body wanted to do. And everyone is ecstatic, they are screaming, they are joyful, they are having fun, and there’s no alcohol present, there are no drugs present, there is no substances present but your inner joy.

You know, even if you go to a Zumba class, I swear, Zumba classes are way more fun than the club. At the end of a Zumba class I’m lit up, I’ve just been shaking it for the past hour. I don’t feel like that when I leave a bar. I feel drained, and exhausted, even if I’m not drinking just because the energy of the bar is so dense, it’s so desiring someone else’s energy because you’re lacking of your own that it’s the total opposite feeling, and you’re drinking a substance that you’re paying a lot of money for that’s making you fat so you can feel like you naturally would at a 10:00 AM Zumba class.

Like really think about it. There’s no reason to drink alcohol. Now some people could say, “Well, what if I’m just bonding with some girlfriends and we’re having a glass of wine?” I would say, “Why do you feel like you need a glass of wine to bond with your girlfriends?” If you have a friend that the only way you can bond is over a glass of wine, I would question that friendship. I would switch it to tea, bonding over tea, or a beautiful elixir, a tonic, some cacao to open up your heart, some turmeric golden milk to boost your mood. There’s so many incredible options, and “Eat Feel Fresh,” my book, I have a whole chapter of potions.

So if you have a friend you love connecting with this friend, but it’s always with a cocktail or with wine, instead be like, “Let’s make some fun tonics, let’s do some golden milk, let’s do some cacao.” And if you friend’s like, “Oh, no, no, no, I really need the wine, it’s been a really stressful week, like I need to let loose.” Then that friend is not facing something deeper inside of themselves.

Because if you need something outside of you to feel loose, then there’s something wrong with the set up of your life. You know, if you feel so drained and so exhausted at your job, and the only thing that will make you feel good is to drink a bottle of wine. The bottle of wine is not your actual problem, it’s your lifestyle. And what alcohol does, it enables us to keep up these tendencies that are not serving us, essentially putting a Band-Aid over the wound, keeping us from getting to the root of the problem.

If you feel exhausted and drained, and the only way to feel better is to not feel like yourself anymore, then honey, you need to either quit that job or start a gratitude practice around it. But you’re gonna have to drink hundreds of thousands of calories of wine and spend thousands of dollars in your lifetime, and it’s still not going to change that circumstance. And if there are friends that you tried it, you tried hanging out with them sober and it’s too awkward. Guess what? You just cleared up your schedule because that person shouldn’t be your friend.

If there’s anyone that you can’t hang around sober, then you shouldn’t be hanging around with that person. If there’s any place you have to go to and be drunk there, then you shouldn’t be going to that place. Like I get it, I used to sometimes go to these clubs and I hated the vibe, I hated everyone there, I didn’t want to be there. So sometimes I would want to drink just to get myself out of the moment, and then I realized, “Wait, why am I going somewhere that the only way to get out of the misery of being there is to get fucked up?” Like does that really make sense?

And even though at this time when I was 21 all of my friends would still go, my whole community, everyone, I would stay home and I would blog, I would go on Pinterest, I would read books, I would make sweet potato brownies. I would do something that was far more beneficial to my time and my growth than being somewhere I hated to get drunk and being surrounded by people that I don’t give a shit about. Let’s be for real.

I think it’s time for us to cut some major cords with people who are holding us back. And these people who are holding us back are the ones who A) we can’t be around without being drunk, or two: the ones who are making us feel bad about not drinking. Now people don’t do this to spite you, in fact, they do this out of love for you. But it’s not truly out of love, they think it is. And this is the pure pressure to drink, and I see this happen all the time, especially within my family people do this. They say, “Oh, come on, have a drink. Oh, come on, drink with me. Oh, let’s bond over this.”

Like back when I lived in India it was so much of it’s disrespectful to not have a drink with the person whose party it is because the way that you and I connect is through having a drink with each other. And this is not just in Indian culture, or Persian culture, this is in, I know many Asian cultures, I know South American cultures. A lot of cultures have this innate peer pressure to drink. And then when you say no, people take it offensively. I’ve experienced so much of this, and guess what, they get over it because the reason why they’re telling you to drink is because they want to bond with you. And they think by you saying no, that means you don’t want to bond with them back, so that’s why they can take it to heart.

So I would say, “I stopped drinking, I don’t drink anymore.” And at first they would try and try and I really kept myself to it. I know a lot of people say, “Hold a glass of water so it looks like you’re drinking, and pretend you’re drinking that.” That was not my tactic. I was like, “I don’t drink anymore.” And the second time, third time they kept asking met o do it, people stopped. They realized Sahara doesn’t drink, so then they wouldn’t take it offensively anymore. They wouldn’t think that I’m not trying to not connect with them because I’m not drinking. They just knew I was someone that doesn’t drink so I wasn’t pressured anymore.

But if I seemed on the fence, like, “Oh, I don’t know. Oh, okay, fine, just this one time,” or pretending I was drinking with them. Guess what? They’re gonna think I actually really want to think, and I’m being shy about it, so they’re actually doing me a favor by pressuring me into something that I wanted to do. They really think that. But by me just being like, “Nope, I don’t drink. This is something I don’t do.” Just like if you have a food allergy, “I don’t eat shellfish. I don’t eat peanuts.” Whatever it is that you don’t do, people are gonna be like, “Oh, come on, I know you’re allergic to shellfish, but just this one time, come on, let’s have this lobster together. It’s okay if you’re gonna suffocate and possibly go to the emergency room, come on. Your kid’s allergic to peanut butter, but I make the best peanut butter jelly sandwiches. Okay, you wait here, I’m gonna make some peanut butter jelly sandwiches for us. It’s okay if you die.” Can you imagine that?

No, if your kid’s allergic to peanut butter, they’re gonna be like, “Oh my God, I will make sure I don’t even bring peanuts around you.” And all of us are allergic to alcohol. Why are we getting drunk, it’s our body having a response that it’s trying to get rid of it. That’s why your face gets red, it’s literally an allergic reaction happening to you. Especially if you’re Asian, they call it the Asian Flush, which I get personally. It’s because our bodies are intolerant to alcohol, just like they could be intolerant to peanuts, just like they could be intolerant to shellfish, or anything else, our bodies are intolerant to it.

But as a society, we’ve decided that this is just the poison that we’re going to consciously have together because, I don’t know, it’s our only way to bond. No, it’s something that we’re all intolerant to. So if you just say, “No, I don’t drink. I’m allergic to alcohol. It doesn’t sit with me well, it doesn’t make me feel well.” You know, I used to also tell them, “It doesn’t make me feel well,” and they’d be like, “What do you mean?” I’d be like, “It makes me feel super dehydrated.” And they’d be like, “Oh yeah, me too,” and then they would start to think about why they’re drinking something that they know makes them super dehydrated. And being dehydrated leads to digestive issues, skin problems.

Like if you want to have glowing skin, people ask me all the time, “How do you have glowing skin?” I don’t drink alcohol, I eat healthy, I hydrate myself. It has nothing to do with the serums I put on, it has everything to do with within. So if you want to look beautiful, instead of getting all dressed up and heading to the bar, instead do some meditation, do some yoga, and don’t drink, and that’s how you’re actually gonna get really beautiful.

So it’s so interesting because we live in this society that so values being thin, and having glowing skin, and then promotes us to drink the very thing that prevents us from that. Really what we are lacking is community, and alcohol is not creating community, in fact, it is breaking communities. It is making us more separate from each other than ever before. The people that you go out drinking with are not your true friends. These are people that want you to be messed up while they’re messed up so you can make mistakes together and not have a deep connection.

Your true friend doesn’t need you to be drunk to hang out with you. Your true friend is like, “Come over. Let’s just talk.” Your true friend is not gonna want to meet you at the bar at 12:00, midnight, not PM, AM. That’s not your true friend. Maybe that person can become your true friend, but it’s never going to be through this connection. It’s going to be through real, sober, authentic communication.

So even going out drinking with the girls, you could so easily swap that for going on a hike, going on a walk, going to the beach, making teas, having a sister circle, doing a new moon circle, doing a journaling process, doing some vision boarding, painting some pumpkins, making some cactus art. I don’t know, there’s a thousand bajillion things that you can do that I swear will connect you more with your sisters, and make you have way more fun, and look better along the way that are so much better than “girls night out, let’s bring the wine.”

Like I’m sorry, this is the most basic version of fun. Do you want to have basic fun or do you want to have real fun? I would say real fun. Real fun involves doing something that makes you feel blissful that you don’t have to have poisons within you to make you delusional of the situation that is happening cause that’s what alcohol is doing. And I know some people say, “Oh, well red wine has health benefits, it has reservatrol, and it has antioxidants, and it’s so good for you. In fact, the American Health Association said it’s so great for you.”

So the American Health Heart Association, they are very, very controversial because much of their studies are funded. And when a study is funded, you can control the variables and the results. So yes, reservatrol on its own can be good for you, though Harvard says it doesn’t make any difference in your health. It’s not an essential vitamin, or mineral, but it is one, so I will recognize that. However, you can also find it in berries, blueberries, you can find it in grapes, you can find it in pistachios, cranberries, dark chocolate.

So why are we not making such a big deal about blueberries? I mean, people are, but not to the level of red wine, they’re acting like red wine has this like one nutrient that the body really needs, so that’s why I gotta drink my red wine. No, eat some freaking blueberries, have some pistachios, have some dark chocolate. At least dark chocolate’s gonna be enjoyable and not make you feel like crap the next day. You don’t need red wine. Have you ever seen someone that’s like, “Ugh, my health is deteriorating! I didn’t drink enough red wine in this lifetime!” No, the people who are sitting around drinking red wine being like, “Oh, I’m just drinking it cause it’s so good for me.” Those people are like the old men with massive stomachs, who are like, “Oh, it’s so healthy,” and they’ve never worked out, they smoke like Cuban cigars, they sit on their asses drinking red wine thinking they’re doing something good for them.

Now I’m not saying that’s everyone, but we all know someone like that. My dad, he says the same thing, he’s never gone to the gym, eats barbecue, cold cuts, whatever comes his way, but suddenly red wine is good for you. I’m sorry, this is a sorry excuse for health benefits. If you want to do what’s good for you, don’t drink alcohol.

So essentially, no, I don’t drink alcohol, and I don’t believe that anyone in this day and age should or should need to. I believe that alcohol is a Band-Aid over our own insecurities, our own wounds. I believe that no real connection and no real communion comes around alcohol because we could create that same community without it. I do know a lot of people love the science of wine, et cetera, and I respect that. However, as you become a more conscious person, you’re gonna notice for yourself that it’s not resonating with you, it’s not sitting well with you, and listen to that, listen to that more than this podcast.

Listen to how you feel, because I promise you, if you’re  “Highest Self” podcast listener, you are conscious AF. And you care about organic foods, and you care about your thoughts, and you care about everything you put into your body so you should hold the same standard with alcohol. And this doesn’t mean, “Oh, well get organic, biodynamic wine or this.” Yes, that would definitely be better for you than beer, but it’s still poison that you don’t need.

Instead, check out kapha bars, there are kapha bars all over the country now. Kava is an incredible herb, it’s a beautiful heart-opener, it makes you really social, and giggly, and fun. I went to an awesome kava bar in San Diego, they had a whole kava menu of different flavors, and some were more chill, and some were more laughy. And again, this is not a drug or anything, it’s literally just like an herb called kava kava root. So you can go to a kava bar, you can meditate—I recommend just doing that—you can ecstatic dance, you can just be a fun person.

Like do you ever feel like with your best friend you have to be drunk to hang out with them? No, the conversation just flows. So if there’s anyone that you feel like you need to be drunk around, I would just question that and instead, again, have some golden milk, have the rose tonic that’s in “Eat Feel Fresh,” it’s such a beautiful, the Shakti rose latte. Have some cacao, cacao just raw, dark cacao, it’s such a beautiful heart-opener. Have some tea, have some oolong, have something else that benefits you because really what we’re wanting is to sit down with someone. We’re really just wanting that connection. So instead of putting a block between our heart and that person’s heart, which is alcohol, let’s truly open our hearts and connect on a deeper level, person-to-person, heart-to-heart.

I hope you enjoyed this episode. I would love to know your opinion about alcohol in my “Mind Body Balancers” Facebook group. Just search that, it’s my free “Highest Self” podcast Facebook group, and it’s where we discuss different topics, and be sure to comment on Instagram @iamsahararose. I’m always polling you guys to see what are your opinions, I’d love to know your opinion on alcohol and to dive deeper.

And be sure to also check out ecstatic dances around the world because ecstatic dance transformed my life. It is the most healing experience in my existence, truly, especially the Ubud, Bali ecstatic dance was life-changing for me, and I go to ecstatic dance L.A., every two weeks they have it. There’s ecstatic dances in New York, there’s 5Rhythms dance, 5Rhythms dance is also very healing. It’s like a form of ecstatic dance, but a little bit more guided. So if you feel like, “I don’t know how to just dance like crazy without anyone telling me what to do, I feel like I need a little bit more of a nudge,” check out 5Rythms—again, 5Ryhthms is around the world.

There’s five elements dance, which is created by my teacher Malaika Darville that she teaches. I created one called Dance Your Doshas, which is dancing your vata, your pitta, and your kapha. There’s so many options out there, even if it’s going to a dance class, that could be really fun, singing with your friends, walking in nature, there’s so many beautiful alternatives, and I really feel like we need to start experiencing more sober dating. Go on a hike for your first date, go on a walk, go to a paint class, do something else without alcohol, and I promise, you’re really quickly gonna know if that person’s for you, and if that person is not.

I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you loved it, I would love to share with you the first half of my unreleased book, “Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type,” which is different from my book, “Eat Feel Fresh.” It is my unreleased, never to be released book, because it is now part of my “Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type” program. I would love to send it to you absolutely free. All you gotta do is leave me a review in the iTunes store, take a screenshot, and email it over to me at [email protected]. Again, take a screenshot of the review and email it to me [email protected] and I will send you the first half of my unreleased book, “Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type.” Namaste.

Episode 175 – Why I Don’t Drink with Sahara Rose