It’s a few minutes after midnight on New Year’s 2022. I’m alone, in my dark dining room, looking out the window at the cold dark night. Out of nowhere I whispered out loud “I’m so sad.” I stood there in that feeling for what seemed like a long time before heading off to bed.
The evening was like any other NYE at home. Hubs and I (mostly I) drank our “before dinner wine”, then a special wine with a special dinner followed by a movie with, you guessed it, more wine. We clinked glasses at midnight and rang in the new year with a kiss. By this time, I was finishing off bottle number two.
What movie was it and how did it end? I have no idea. What did we have for dinner and was it good? No clue.
Was I sad because I was out of wine or because I was starting yet another Dry January on the 1st? Both, if I’m honest. I wanted to take a break from wine, but the idea of not having it available to soothe my anxiety, cure my boredom, pick me up when I felt down, etc. was not something I looked forward to. If I’m being honest, I knew I needed to give it up for good, but evidence of past attempts led me to believe that this time, too, would be just another 31-day break.
Taking breaks from alcohol was my confirmation that I was not an alcoholic.
I could give it up whenever I wanted. I just didn’t want to. When I did take breaks, I used white knuckling and counting days to get through.
I DID feel better after every Dry first week. I slept better, my skin looked better, and my mood was better. I told myself in weeks two and three that was it. I was giving it up for good so I could continue to feel good. In week four I started negotiating with myself.
“I’ll stay away from the wine until Valentine’s Day.” Wait. “I’ll allow myself to drink beer but not wine.” Yeah - that sounded better. Then I wouldn’t be completely missing out. And beer wasn’t my drink of choice, so I wouldn’t drink as much of it. And I’ll NEVER go back to drinking one to two bottles every day. Those days were over. Until they weren’t.
When did it get so hard?
Drinking as a teenager was just fun. Throughout high school and college it was what we all did. A fun rite of passage. My adolescent anxiety tamer. Never mind the embarrassing things i did and said, the dangerous situations I let myself get into, and the hangovers. Thank God there was no social media then! Whew!
I was married when I graduated college with a degree in hospitality management, and I had an infant to support. Shit just got Real. Welcome to Adulting! All around me I heard the message that “women can have it all” - successful career, perfect marriage, perfect children, upward mobility, and all the other garbage messages being fed to women in the 1980s.
I bought into the messages hook, line, and sinker.
I worked long hours in an unfulfilling job, left my son with a babysitter that I could barely afford, and lived in a new city I didn’t know or have any time to get to know. Keep your head down, girl, you’re paying your dues and you’ll be at the top of your game in no time! Just work hard and keep listening to the messages that society, media, and marketers were handing down. I ate it up like candy. We all did. The alternative was to admit defeat and failure as a professional, a mother, a wife, and a woman.
Partying and entertaining aren’t unique to the hospitality industry, but we took it to a whole new level, and I was there for it. Drinks after work, weekend parties and games, vacations - all of it. Also, around this time the “Mommy Wine Culture” was ushered in by the alcohol industry. You see, they had pretty much saturated the male demographic, so they went after the women. Now it was “Women can have it all AND drink alcohol while doing it!” Skinny cans of light beer (better suited to a woman’s smaller hand), sweet pink wine (no hard stuff for the ladies), Sex in The City Cosmos, right?
Once again, I totally bought into that message. Meanwhile, the family grew, the jobs got better, the houses got bigger, and life was falling into a predictable pattern. Now it was wine and book clubs, wine and birthday parties, bloody mary’s and golf, martinis before dinner, wine with dinner, cordials after dinner and more wine to cap off the night.
On the outside it seemed I had it all.
Just like the commercials! I had the job of my dreams, and I was good at what I did. I have a loving husband, and two fantastic grown children who have successful careers.
The inside was a different story. My health was slowly declining. I developed high blood pressure, a chronic respiratory cough that I couldn’t shake, GERD, and exhaustion. My anxiety was at an all-time high, too. The idea that the booze was to blame wasn’t on my radar. I went on a healthy diet, cut out spicy food and went on anti-anxiety medicine.
In early 2020 I had just finished presenting at our bi-annual conference and I was riding the wave of the high fives and Attagirls. Then just like that - COVID-19 hit the U.S. Three weeks later my job was eliminated, as the company I worked for went through a massive restructure. Nobody was paying to stay in hotels in early Covid times.
I was constantly irritable and tired.
My health issues continued to worsen, including a trip to the emergency room in 2021 when my blood pressure shot dangerously high. That’s when I finally admitted that alcohol might be the culprit. Might be?
I saw a Facebook ad for a 30-day Alcohol Experiment starting January 1, 2022 and I decided to give it a try. I felt more resolved this time, but I also had major doubts that I could really change my relationship with alcohol forever. Hence, the sadness.
Everything changed for me during the month-long experiement.
My eyes began to open when I learned the science behind alcohol addiction (a medical condition called Alcohol Use Disorder). I learned that my drinking fell into a category called Gray Area Drinking (GAD), the space between the extremes of rock bottom and every-now-and-again drinking. To most people, GADers appear like normal social drinkers, but there are a few ways to detect if you might be slipping into questionable territory with your drinking habits. I have a free resource for you to read about GAD on my Resources page.
I learned that I am not a failure or a loser, and I am worthy of compassion and grace. Finally, I found a way that worked for me to live an alcohol-free life. My health improved after I found freedom from alcohol too! It was empowering to choose to live my life without alcohol. Could I have learned to moderate instead? Yes, I could. That’s an option that works for many people.
That year I continued to learn and grow.
I began discovering that I had work to do on myself and finding my freedom from alcohol was just the start. Thankfully, I loved every minute of it—even the times when I sat in the discomfort of limiting beliefs. You see, it wasn’t just about the alcohol. It started with beliefs I had (that we all have to some degree) about myself that limited me from experiencing a full life. Where did these beliefs come from? It’s a bit of the ‘chicken or egg’ question. They are formed from behavior modeling, conditioning, and the environment in which we were raised. These beliefs become hard-wired into our neurobiology. Then these beliefs are reinforced over years of experiences and negative self-talk. The good news is that, with the right coaching, these beliefs can be deconstructed and replaced with more positive and healthy beliefs.
I developed a vision that I could use all my decades of experience in the business world and pair it with my This Naked Mind learning experience to pay it forward. I know there are people like me who would benefit from my coaching. People who also bought into false social norms and marketing messages that we can have it all at no cost to our well-being, and the alcohol industry’s lies about alcohol being a safe, healthy, and fun way to participate in life.
So, I became a certified life coach—to help people deal with all the emotions and limiting beliefs that arise in their lives, and when needed, learn to change their relationship with alcohol, so they can begin to live the life they are meant to live.
If my story resonates with you, please continue reading to learn more about how I can help you.