Episode
Ep 118: When Avoidance Stops Working with April Day Garcia | Rethinking Alcohol |
- Podcast
- The Big Drink Rethink
- Published
- Apr 16, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3342
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://www.thebigdrinkrethink.com/podcast
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Summary
What happens when the strategies we rely on to avoid pain, achievement, busyness and constant momentum stop working? In this powerful conversation, Anna Donaghey is joined by April Day Garcia, author of The Room to Be Brave: Sometimes the way forward begins with going back , to explore how avoidance can hide in plain sight, especially for high-functioning people disguised as success. April shares how chasing achievement and belonging led her further from herself, with alcohol acting as a quiet form of escape. When a period of forced stillness changed everything, she began the deeper work of healing, returning to the “rooms” where old beliefs began. This episode offers a hopeful reframe: avoidance isn’t failure, it’s protection and real change starts not with becoming someone new, but with coming home to who you already are. Here are the Highlights: 00:00 Intro: Rethinking avoidance with April Day Garcia 00:45 The art of avoidance and the illusion of achievement 02:27 April’s memoir mapping unravelling through literal rooms 05:11 Running from the pain, and chasing achievement 09:33 How avoidance can sometimes look like high performance 11:31 No room for vulnerability, linking emotions to old, unsafe moments 13:49 Alcohol’s role in numbing, postponing, and belonging 16:50 Avoidance creates new problems, emotional costs rise 20:35 The clear rupture: seeing darkness reflected in family 23:07 Having a breakdown broke the cycle, and led to giving up alcohol 38:09 The hardest rooms: confronting your own mistakes and shadow work 41:55 Old beliefs aren’t yours and reclaiming your true self 44:12 Redeveloping your rooms and rewriting your story 52:36 Choose your hard, start with one room 54:04 Healing isn’t failure, sometimes your truest self is waiting in the rooms you feared m…