ONE YEAR BOOZE FREE

Let me start by saying that my ability to dedicate myself to this year and being booze free evolved over the last, call it, 10 years. Little by little I was evolving and learning more about myself in order to be ready for this change. I want you to remember that sometimes the changes we need most don’t happen overnight…and that’s ok.

My relationship with alcohol changed after graduating college in 2012. I had four fun years partying it up in college only to be met with a messy, confusing and now rapidly changing perspective on alcohol. Hangovers started coming on more easily and I was introduced to something I never wanted to meet - hangxiety (the anxious feeling you get when you’re hungover - did I do something stupid/wrong? Why do I feel like sh*t? Etc etc). 

Looking back on my twenties, I spent most of those years on a vicious relapse cycle. I started to go stretches of time without drinking like “Dry January'', other random months I’d deem as dry. I’d secretly love having a health reason not to drink (like the best sober weekend I had because I was on antibiotics). I slowly started distancing myself from drinking centered social events. If I did go out, I’d offer to be the sober driver. I made up rules for myself like not drinking out of plastic cups (spoiler: I did, in fact, break this rule and drink out of plastic cups - especially if that was my “only option”). It took me a long time and a lot of trial and error to finally admit to myself what I really wanted more than anything: to eject myself from booze culture. 

I believe this decision took me this long because I was seeking internal clarity on the real “why” behind this decision. I knew that who I was becoming and who I was while I was drinking were two very different people. I didn’t want to just go “cold turkey” because I didn’t feel like alcohol was the root cause of why I felt the way I did about myself when I drank. 

I could’ve forced this into resolution years ago. I could’ve gone cold turkey the first time the thought crossed my mind but I would’ve missed out on these lessons. I can’t imagine my life without these lessons. Sometimes transformational change REQUIRES deep understanding of oneself… and sometimes that happens over time.

I was also clouded by the fact that alcoholism and addiction exists in my family tree. I knew I wanted to stop that generational trauma from passing on to my future family. In my family experience, the people that I knew were sober were the ones who were sober because they declared themselves to be an “alcoholic”. This label didn’t feel like it accurately described me and my relationship to drinking but I’d often find myself asking: “Do I want to stop drinking because I am an alcoholic?” I just didn’t feel like one.  Can you be an alcoholic if you don’t feel like one? What is an alcoholic anyway? Who defines what is or isn’t good and healthy for me besides me?

For so long, my relationship with alcohol was an internal battle. I was the one who knew when, if and, how alcohol and I took it too far. To you, an outsider, you might’ve thought “Oh she just got overserved!” or “happens to the best of us”. You’d see me being highly productive, healthy and “successful”, usually without alcohol at all, and think I was fine. Most of the time, I was fine, but when alcohol entered the picture, I was far from fine.

I felt a lot of shame around my relationship to alcohol and the internal conflict that went along with it. I rarely confided about how I was feeling to others because my story felt so unclear. Did I want to drink? Did I not? I felt like I owed it to other people to be absolute in my decision. I also was terrified to declare “I’m done drinking!” because what if I wasn’t and what if I then let someone down? 

I let this fear and shame eat away at me until September 13, 2021. I didn’t plan this date in advance but it did follow a personal victory over booze - I had a ridiculously fun night out and didn’t loathe myself the next day. I knew I was ready. My readiness was a culmination of a lot of things - many of which I’ll share with you today and some of which will remain private, not because I am afraid to share, but out of respect for those I love.

Keeping a brand of “having it all together” is one reason that took my road to alcohol free living so long. I just wasn’t 100% sure that I really could or would or even wanted to go without alcohol. There was always this mythical time in the future in which for some instance, drinking would make that moment even better. Is this what it’s like to be inside of an addict’s mind? Consistently convincing myself of a false sense of security that this habit will be beneficial for me in the long run? 

Some of you may be wondering: Does quitting drinking mean I’ll never drink again? 

I’ll tell you what… for a long time when I’d ask myself that question, I’d hesitate. I’d want there to be some sort of loop so that if I did drink I wouldn’t beat myself up. Now, I’m in a different place. For now, I’m done drinking. I don’t want to do it. It interrupts my bigger purpose so it’s not worth it. I’m also not concerned with a loophole. Should the day come that I want to drink again, then I’ll reassess at that time but based on how I feel without alcohol (liberated and amazing!), I doubt that reality will come true. I am confident and firmly grounded in my personal sovereignty that I trust that whatever decision I make is going to be the right one for me.

To dive deeper into my story, I thought I’d share a few of the questions I asked myself when considering going booze free. 

Why can’t I just “drink normally”?

Drinking is just like other popular and collective topics that we all know something about but don’t really talk about like sex, marriage, finances, and body image. No one teaches you how to drink “responsibly” yet that’s the slogan. 

For a long time, I judged myself for not being able to “drink normally” (whatever that means?!). I would see other people drink and they seemed so NORMAL the next day. Like it was no big deal to slaughter their body with poison the night before. It would make me feel even more ashamed that I would ask myself these questions the next day and feel like crap about it. Maybe other people feel like crap too but we just don’t talk about it or want to think about it. I know my shame kept me from wanting to talk about it.

Battling my hangxiety alone was brutal. The worse the hangover, the worse my internal battle would be. Why was it that I would spiral into an anxious fit when I was hungover? Why was I so hard on myself? I would tell myself that other people don’t struggle like me (essentially creating more alone-ness and more shame) until a good friend opened up to me that she struggles with this too. WOW! Her admission was so liberating for me. It was the start of me being able to have greater self-compassion. 

I hated losing to this feeling. It would leave me feeling so powerless. Something in me wanted to overcome this. I wanted to be able to drink and have fun without totally beating myself up the next day. I guess I was trying to prove that I could “drink normally”. I didn’t necessarily overcome drinking without completely beating myself up but the last time I drank I truly had a good time. My self-compassion, which I needed not just in relation to alcohol but every other area of my life, had grown so that I was able to find acceptance in my decision, actions, and even yes, my hangover.

In an effort to either tell myself I’m “normal” or accept that I was not when it came to drinking, I spent a lot of time reading sober living/sober curious books. Nothing rocked my world quite like “Quit Like a Woman” by Holly Whitaker. I read the entire book in under 24 hours. She paints a picture about how “Big Alcohol” (hint: think “Big Tobacco”) wants to keep us drinking, especially women. She talks about what alcohol does when it enters our bodies. I’m sitting over here eating organic everything, juicing, cleaning up my household products and then drinking alcohol… I like efficiency and suddenly alcohol felt counterproductive after reading the scientific look at what alcohol, aka poison, does to our body. 

It was another moment of awareness of identifying that there was something external, something strong influencing me to do certain things. Societal conditioning around alcohol was keeping me stuck and unhappy. I finally had language to identify the truth behind these societal influences and suddenly I was able to reclaim my power. From now on, I have the power. From now on, I am the one writing this story. No one, especially not alcohol, can defeat me. 

What will other people think of me?

I wish I could tell you that I don’t care what people think about me, but I do. We all do. Throughout my life journey, I’ve practiced caring less but it’s still here. So, when I decided to stop drinking, this question reared its ugly head. I worried about how my marriage would be impacted, how my friendships would change, or how I’d be perceived in a professional setting if I didn’t drink. 

It is of utmost importance to share a lot of my fears around “what will people think of me?” rarely came true. I’d say I was not drinking and most people wouldn’t care. Some people would try and encourage me to drink “oh come on!!” but usually would back down with one more “no”. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t feel the need to provide an explanation to the question on why I don’t drink. 

The trickiest part of navigating this with other people was talking about my decision not to drink. I can tell that most genuinely do not care what I do or don’t do as it relates to alcohol. I can tell that some shy away from talking about it any further because it shines a bright light on their gaping alcohol wound. This reaction was the hardest to navigate because it used to make me curl up into a little ball. Sometimes I’d even end up drinking because I was so uncomfortable with others discomfort. It was unfortunately easier to make them feel better than to honor myself. WHY IS THAT?!

What will I do at social events?

There’s been so many revelations in this journey. One major revelation was: I have social anxiety. 

I’ve always known that I prefer smaller, intimate settings over large gatherings. I didn’t fully unearth the social anxiety clue until I had tapered off drinking so much that I was essentially only imbibing at weddings. As I reflected on these times, I realized that my anxiety would build weeks before the actual event. I would get so wound up about it that by the time the cocktail hour started, I’d be using alcohol to numb out the anxiety (horrible combination by the way). Now that I know this I can prepare physically, mentally and spiritually before social gatherings. I can also take a stronger lead in creating the type of social events that feel good to me. 

Speaking of weddings… one of my most fun booze free nights of my life was at a friend’s wedding. Instead of sitting on the sidelines waiting for the booze to block out my social anxiety, I hit the dance floor right away. I felt so free. I felt ALIVE. It reminded me of way back when at high school dances (some people drank before dances but I can’t remember ever doing that — mostly because our school usually had cops at the front doors waiting to give breathalyzers to minors). At these dances, you’d dance like crazy with your girlfriends or with a cute boy (hi Dane!). Eventually, you’d be so hot and sweaty you’d need a break to get some water and then get right back on the d-floor. It. was. so. fun. Why did we decide we need booze to dance?!!! 

Who am I without alcohol?

Remember those societal influences I mentioned earlier? Another message pushed on us is that drinking is a brand or a personality trait. People who drink are cool. People who drink are fun. People who drink are down-to-earth. In my experience, people who drink can be all of those things AND they can also be unhealthy, unclear and disrespectful to themselves or others. People who don’t drink can be all of these things as well. Personally, I had been on both sides of that coin. I would even use booze as a connection point in my business. Booze does not create connection for me - it only creates disconnection.

As I mentioned, who I saw myself becoming and who I was while drinking were different people. I liked and respected who I was becoming more than who I was while I was drinking. The more I became an observer of my journey, the more watching myself continuously go against my word was painful. I’d say I value healthy living, I’d say I value taking care of my mind, body, and spirit, and then I’d do something completely opposite of that. The continuous betrayal of my heart weighed heavily on me. The act of drinking opposed my life values and would bring me out of alignment. 

I value my health.

Three years before I went booze free, I cut out gluten from my diet and stopped taking hormonal birth control. Eliminating gluten and birth control from my body changed me. Part of the detox from gluten and the pill was that my body needed different care from me. I could feel myself going through a chemical change. What I once tolerated, like gluten, my body couldn’t handle anymore. I felt better without it too. Being off of hormonal birth control was like a primer for going booze free. The more I learned about the business of birth control, the more I saw it as something that took away my personal power. And you know how I feel about my personal power…

My body chemistry had changed so much that alcohol now felt so disruptive to my day-to-day life. Toward the end of the time when I was still drinking, I could have even a sip of wine and be down for the count the next day. So, you can imagine how crappy I would be feeling if I had anything more than that. I would feel great one day, get a good workout in, take care of myself and my body, and the next day I would feel so physically terrible. It was counterproductive and counterintuitive for me. 

I value my vocation.

Hangovers are a perfect reflection of how I would be living out of alignment and not with integrity with my highest self. My main goal in life is to live my life purpose daily and it was hard to do that when I’d be laid up all day nursing a hangover. For me, I have a deep-seated fear of being unable to live out my life purpose. So, if the option is to live my life purpose or to drink alcohol? I choose to live my life purpose.

I value my energy. 

Let’s talk about drinking and spiritual gifts for a moment. An alcoholic libation can also be called a spirit. Ever wondered why? Alcohol is a spirit that extracts your essence and affects your soul. Here’s another way to look at alcohol: alcohol extracts. Have you ever used vanilla extract? When you add alcohol to vanilla, it extracts the vanilla essence. So, when you add alcohol to your body, it extracts your essence… also known as your soul. It’s why alcohol slows you down mentally, physically, and spiritually. Spiritually, when you are operating at a lower frequency, you are likely to attract other lower frequencies. It’s a known depressant that physically depletes your energy levels. When you really think about it, a room full of people depressing themselves is, well, depressing. My priority is to manage and protect my energy. I am not a fan of things that knowingly deplete or suppress my soul or my energy. 

How to start your own booze free journey

Intuitively, I knew that committing to being booze free was something that would be an intimate and inward journey. This was hard for me as a coach and a teacher who loves to bring ideas forward that will help better your life. There were many times over the last 10 years that I wanted to bring lessons forward or start talking about what I was going through. Fears and shameful thought patterns aside, what I couldn’t do as a leader is bring this to you before I was ready. The most inauthentic thing I could do is teach on something I have not yet fully immersed myself in. 

Now that I feel like I’ve been through it, I am ready to teach on it. I couldn’t do that before. I know they say “bring people along for the journey” but my journey was so messy… and so intimate. It was for me and Dane and a few others to know about. I needed to walk through this dark forest mostly on my own. Dane often reminds me, “you need to do the work in the dark so you can live in the light”. 

When you decide to go alcohol free, or maybe some sober curious place in between, I’ve found there are 3 C’s that help the whole process go more smoothly (tried and tested by yours truly!).

CONNECTION…

to your highest self: For me, a major motivating factor to stop drinking was to be more consistent and more aligned with my highest self. To me, my highest self is my soul and it is the model for living with purpose and intention. It’s really, I mean really easy, to go about life without this connection. Mindlessly scrolling your phone = disconnection. Boozing to blur the edges = disconnection / soul extraction. Falling in the proverbial slaughterhouse line of the “should” life = disconnection. I am an advocate for self-reflection and taking time to get to know yourself because there is so much integrity to be found when we get to know who we really are and let go of who society is telling us to be.

to others: This wouldn’t have been possible for me if it weren’t for connecting with others’ personal stories. When you’re ready, it’s important to open yourself up and share with other people about what you’re going through. You might open up to someone and their reaction totally sucks. That’s ok. One day you’ll open up to someone and their perspective or their response of “me too!” could totally change your life. 

CLARITY …

on boundaries: It was important to me over the course of my path to alcohol free living to set different boundaries that would help me evade any experiences with alcohol that I know would turn my world around, leave me with a hangover, and of course, the dreaded anxiety. Some boundaries for me included: 

• Deciding in advance what time I would leave an event 

• Prepping how to answer “why aren’t you drinking?”

• Offering to be the sober driver in advance

• Making plans for the next day to hold me accountable (i.e. walking with a friend)

Now, let’s just remind ourselves of the real power behind boundaries. If you can honor the boundaries then you know you’ll be in a good spot. If, however, you fail to execute on your boundaries perfectly, then what happens? You acknowledge your humanity, learn from it and move on. It’s in the failed execution of boundaries that we learn the most. We’re reminded why we set the boundaries in the first place. The experience provides us with information to help adapt or reset our boundaries or even set new ones. 

COMMUNICATION…

on your decision: No great life change is ever made in a vacuum. It might feel safe to keep your decision close to your chest, but ultimately it’s the communication of this decision that will support this change. 

You’ll need to communicate your why and your boundaries. 

As you can see from my own experience, my own personal why is so layered. I don’t read this manifesto out loud every time I share why I no longer drink. I’ve summed up my reason for doing this: “Drinking doesn’t align with my life anymore”. How can you craft your why to be short and sweet? You don’t have to spill your guts on your why...unless you want to. Take time to imagine what someone might say when you say “I’m not drinking tonight. I have plans early tomorrow morning with a friend.”? They might say something like, “Oh come on, just have one! We won’t be out too late!”. Anticipate these responses so that you have follow-up commentary. Unfortunately, if you keep getting push back, I’d recommend just walking away and assessing the relationship. Who are these people you are surrounding yourself with that can’t be bothered to respect your boundaries? 

Let’s wrap this up, shall we?

Wow! If you’ve made it this far, THANK YOU!

One of my intentions for (finally) sharing this is that I hope it inspires you to extend grace and empathy toward others who come forward in a way that aligns with their truth and their highest self. There are many reasons why we hide our truth from the world, some of which I’ve outlined in this essay. I ask that when you witness another emerging from whatever cocoon they are in that you see it as an act of bravery, one to admire, and not one to send us farther back into our shadows. The more we can all step forward into the light, the better off our world will be. 

Also, I want to say that I don’t mind if you drink. The purpose of this post isn’t to be “anti-drinking”. It’s simply to provide you with something that may inspire you to question why you choose to do or not do something. I am a big believer in self-reflection and in bringing greater awareness into our everyday lives.

Finally, there are some key people I want to thank:

• “Old me”: Thanks for being open-minded and for trusting yourself to know what is best for you, even if it meant going against the grain.

• Dane: Thank you for supporting me in ALL things, especially this and for seeing me as a beautiful and free rainbow girl. I deeply value my role as your wife.

• Friends and Family: Thank you for loving me no matter what. 

• Bethany: Thank you for leading the way on this topic and thank you for trusting me with your personal stories because it showed me a way forward. You are a great friend and I’m so thankful to know you!

• Chelsey: Similar to Bethany, watching you start your booze free journey and being open about your relationship with alcohol opened new doors for me in my own journey. Your support and encouragement mean the world to me!

• Alex: I knew you as an influencer I heard talking about being sober before I knew you as a friend. Your bravery and willingness to share your story kept me motivated for this change and ultimately being able to also be open with my journey. You are amazing.

Resources:

Books:

• Sober Curious by Ruby Warrington

• Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whitaker

Influencers:

• @thesoberglow on Instagram

• @boozefreeb on Instagram (Also check out her blog: https://boozefreeb.com/)

• @alexandrazauner on Instagram

And a little disclaimer…

I have spent hours reflecting on my relationship to alcohol and my journey (and resolution) is unique to me. Please spend time and invest in your relationship with alcohol and know that your journey may differ from mine. If alcohol is impacting your health or safety, please seek immediate help from a professional.