My New Relationship with Alcohol + Releasing Old Patterns

Y’All! Y’All! Y’All! I have not had any alcohol for over 6 months now! And I feel GREAT! This girl was doing keg stands in her teens, partied hearty all through engineering school, kept the party going through my corporate travel days, and well into my 40s and early 50s.

Somewhere around mid-40s I started trying to moderate. I would cut down on the days I would drink or how many drinks I told myself I would have in an evening. It worked to some extent. Simon and I really slowed down in our 40s and began to drink less and less.

I started getting inspired by Quit Lit (books about people’s journey with alcohol and sobriety) and Sober Instagram. There is a whole community of awesome people out there shifting their relationship with alcohol. This Naked Mind by Annie Grace was a very helpful book and her website is awesome, offering tons of tools. I did an Alcohol Experiment class with Annie and her coaches that gave me a lot of great information and support.

Search hashtags like #soberliving #alcoholfreeliving #sobermotivation on Instagram. I followed a ton of accounts and now my IG feed is full of inspiring people choosing to shift their relationship with alcohol.

I even went to an AA meeting with an awesome supportive sober friend in Memphis. It wasn’t really for me, but I was open to trying lots of things. I really wanted to break the old, longstanding patterns I had with alcohol and find a new, healthier way. Something in me was telling me I was way too old to be feeling like crap from alcohol in the morning. My hard partying rock stays days were over. Way past over.

Part of me wanted to keep the party going as I had so many associations with Drinking = FUN! Simon and I surrounded ourselves with party people for the most part. Our culture is saturated in alcohol and the message that it’s nothing but fun, fun, fun!

It’s very interesting to me that I dipped my toes into alcohol-free living (my preferred term, sober seems so… sober) for so long. I spent years in my 40s and early 50s trying it on. Watching others enjoying an alcohol-free life. Taking breaks from alcohol. Dry January. Sober October. My longest streak was 65 days off the hooch. The lure of the party life or somehow seeing alcohol as a way to more closely connect with Simon or with friends, just pulled me back in.

Until I reached a point where… I was over it. My body was tired of feeling rough on weekend mornings. I was 52 years old. Simon and I loved cozying up on the couch watching HGTV during the week and fun new shows or movies on the weekend. We would plan weekend activities to be home on the couch relaxing by 9 or 10 and in bed at a respectable hour. No more closing down bars at 2am or drinks after our weekend events. I was enjoying life in my 50s at a slower pace with more self-care. Alcohol just had to go.

There have been 2 main things that really made it stick for me this time:

Not wanting to feel bad. Knowing in my heart and in every fiber of my being that I just don’t want to feel physically fuzzy and icky in the morning. And any amount of alcohol usually makes me feel that way. One drink almost always leads to one or two more for me and that leads to fuzzy and crappy.
Discovering the Alcohol Free Beverage Market! There are SO MANY good options out there these days. I keep the house stocked with sparkling water, flavored seltzers, herbal teas, coffee, AF beer, AF wine (I love some of the sparkling rose faux wines).

There are so many great options available to stock at home and almost every restaurant now has *Spirit Free* mocktail menus, AF beers at breweries, kombucha on tap, etc. etc. I finally realized, I can just have the AF version. It looks the same and nobody even really knows or cares what is in my glass. I join in on all of the fun and… feel great the next day! So I choose AF bevvies every time now. It just works for me.

I occasionally get tempted, mainly in a party environment with great music, but I know how I want to feel in the morning. I want to enjoy my Saturday or Sunday morning with a nice cup of coffee, feeling well-rested and ready to have the whole day ahead of me while feeling good.

I keep choosing alcohol-free living, reaping all of the benefits, and the days and months just add up. I have a little tracker on my phone and know that my last drinks were at Simon’s birthday party in late September 2024. 6 months of alcohol-free living feels really good. I am looking forward to the next 6 months, sipping away on all of my AF drinks and enjoying feeling great every morning.

I’ve had friends who have joined me for breaks like Sober October ask how long I’m on a break. I tell them I think I am just done with it for good. Simon is now in the habit of finding and offering AF drinks for me everywhere we go. I am rocking & rolling in my new world of alcohol-free living!

I don’t judge anyone else’s choices or relationship with alcohol. I am just doing what feels best for me at this point in my life. I am happy to share any tips or tricks with y’all if you are looking to drink less or go alcohol-free.

There are a lot of health benefits to reducing or quitting alcohol. The U.S. surgeon general even issued an advisory recently sharing how alcohol increases cancer risk and calling for a new health warning label on alcoholic beverages.

My intuition tells me alcohol is going the route of cigarettes. The truth will come out about how harmful it actually is, warning labels may be slapped on, commercials promoting and glorifying it banned, and more and more people will choose to just quit. Younger generations are drinking less and less than us old hardcore Gen-Xers.

Now if I can just reach the same point with baked goods, cookie dough, and any combo of chocolate and peanut butter. Too much sugar also impacts my sleep and leaves me feeling a little puffy, fuzzy, and not so great. I am working on it. Gathering the data with my Oura Ring. Seeing how it impacts my heart rate and sleep at night.

Progress Not Perfection. Giving up alcohol has been great for me. Excess sugar doesn’t feel good. It’s a pretty common pattern in people who give up alcohol to reach for sugar and caffeine. It’s a brain chemical thing. I will share more about that and my progress in a future newsletter.

This Week’s Shot of MINDSET

On to the mindset tools I have been using to release old patterns and choose new patterns that feel good at this stage of my life.

Future Pacing or Playing the Tape Forward are terms that describe the mindset tool that really helped me the most to give up alcohol. Reaching the point where I just never wanted to choose drinks that I know would leave me feeling bad the next day.

Another great tool is to release old patterns. Allow yourself a little time and space to really feel what is trying to come up inside you without trying to fix it, block it, numb it, or make it go away. Meditation is a great tool, which doesn’t have to be a big formal time consuming thing. For me, its just sitting in a comfortable chair in the morning when I have 5-10 minutes. Getting grounded. Tuning in to my heart, my feelings, and what is going on inside of me. Seeing what thoughts, beliefs, and patterns are on repeat in my head, wanting to be seen and heard.

Then I just allow the space for what needs to come up to come up. I allow myself to feel it. I may cry. I may laugh. I may let some anger go. I often feel physical tightness in my stomach, my chest & heart area, my throat, my head. When I stay with it, it has the space to be felt and released. This practice is really helping me a lot to be with my true feelings instead of stuffing it all down where it tends to grow stronger and pushier over time.

I would love to introduce y’all to a spiritual growth teacher who really resonates with me, Kyle Cease. He was a very successful stand up comedian and actor and has moved into the world of spiritual growth. He sort of melds it all with humor, which I love. I am going to a retreat with him at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina next month. I am so excited to work with him in person for a few days.

This fairly short video from Kyle gives a lot of great insight on releasing old patterns and old pain. These patterns come up for us to be seen and healed so we can realize our true selves which are strong, beautiful, and magical. We often get all caught up in very human stuff and block our true light from shining through. Enjoy Kyle’s take on releasing old patterns, releasing addictions, and returning to our magical selves.

This Week’s Shot of HEALTH

In honor of my 6+ months of alcohol-free living, I found this great list of non-alcoholic drink ideas that are all quite healthy and easy to throw together for yourself on a random weeknight, for a family get together, or for a party where you have friends who might want to try some refreshing NA drinks. Almost all of these drinks have great health benefits from the teas, berries, roots, herbs, and fruits in them. Win-Win!

You can also have a look around your local grocery store, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, even party stores and liquor stores for great non-alcoholic options. Awesome new products are coming out all of the time. Many taste just like beer, wine, or mixed drinks, but allow you to feel great the next day. Simon often chooses NA beers at home and at breweries when he wants to feel good for early meetings or whatever he has going on the next day. There are so many great options available now.

I occasionally run into a place that doesn’t have much to choose from. Soda water with lime, an occasional Diet Coke or lemonade, or just a glass of water with a slice of lemon does the trick in places that aren’t hip to cool NA drinks yet. They’ll catch up. In the words of my good old friend Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Cheers to that!

If you are interested in using the power of the mind to uplevel your life, I share mindset expertise every week, along with fun & insightful stories from my own life path from 80s hair band superfan to chemical engineer to health & mindset coach (what a journey!).

You will also see plenty of health promoting tips and recipes because I am blown away by the power of intermittent fasting + a healthy diet to prevent & reverse just about any health concern Mindset plays a big part in health and healing too, the power of the Mind Body connection is pretty mind blowing.