Ep. 83 - I Went Months Without Drinking. Why Did I Drink Again?

Ep. 83: I Went Months Without Drinking. Why Did I Drink Again?

Welcome to Feel Good Alcohol Free. I'm Lindsay Hennekey. I'm an alcohol-free coach, creator of the Identity, Practice, Trust method inside Feel Good Alcohol Free, and I've been alcohol-free for more than six years. I help successful women who are tired of thinking about their drinking stop the constant negotiation with alcohol and build enough self-trust that not drinking starts to feel like who they are, instead of something they are constantly trying to make themselves do.

So today I want to talk to the woman who has already proven that she can stop drinking. But I also want to talk to the woman who is just starting this journey, because this is going to show you exactly what you can expect as you take an alcohol-free break and what can really happen. And I want to normalize it.

Why Did I Drink Again After Months Without Alcohol?

So maybe you've gone 30 days without drinking. Maybe you've gone 60 days without drinking. Maybe you did Dry January or Sober September recently, and maybe you kept going for a little while after one of those. You could even hit four or six months. Maybe you've had several long stretches without alcohol, and then you drank again.

And what makes this particularly confusing is that somewhere during that long stretch you started thinking, I think I've got this. I think I've figured this out. I don't even think about wine every day anymore. Friday nights don't feel hard anymore. I can go out to dinner. I've been on vacation. I've been around people who were drinking. I feel so much better. Maybe alcohol isn't really a problem for me anymore.

Maybe now I can have one. And then you have one. Except maybe it isn't one. Maybe it's two or it's three. Maybe one night turns into a few weekends. Maybe you wake up the next morning feeling physically awful. But I think the harder part for so many women is what happens in their heads. How did I end up here again? I thought I was past this. What happened to all of that work that I did? Did those four months mean nothing? Or even, did that 30 days mean nothing? Am I seriously starting over?

And this is what I want to talk about today, because I have been having versions of this exact conversation with many of my clients recently. And I went through it. This was my life. I would get a nice break, and then I would drink, and within a week I'd end up drinking the same as before, if not more. And these conversations that I've been having lately are with women who have made enormous changes in their relationships with alcohol, women who have gone months without drinking, women whose daily lives look completely different than they did when we started working together.

And then they drank. And I think there is something really important that we can learn from what happened next. Because long alcohol-free stretches can give you an incredible amount of evidence, but they cannot guarantee that every old association that you have with alcohol has just disappeared. And drinking again does not erase the evidence that you collected while you were not drinking. It just gives you a whole other piece of information.

So today I want to show you how I look at this with my clients, and more importantly, how I want you to look at it if this happens to you. Because the question isn't only, why did I drink again? I want us to actually ask, what did this experience just show me about where my work still is? And that is a very different conversation.

Can You Moderate After a Long Break From Drinking?

So let's get into it. All right. One of the women that I've been coaching had gone several months without drinking. And this was not several months of sitting home every single night avoiding life. She had changed her routines. She had practiced social situations. She had started creating different evening rituals, and she had gone to events without drinking and had experiences where she genuinely surprised herself.

So she was collecting evidence. I can do this. I actually like this. I feel better. I don't miss feeling messy at the end of an event. I like waking up and remembering everything that I said. I love it when I hear women say that. And maybe something else, like, I like being able to drive home and know exactly how I'm going to feel tomorrow morning. Alcohol was becoming less automatic. And this is what we want to happen, and it is what will happen for you. We want this new behavior to start feeling familiar. But a few months later, she drank a handful of times.

And when we talked about it, she said something that I think so many of you will recognize as you're listening here. I thought if I went back to drinking, I would finally be the drinker I always wanted to be. I thought after all this time I could just have one glass of wine. And I remember saying to her, girl, I lived in that hope for years. Because I did.

I spent so much time believing and hoping that there was some future version of me who would finally crack that code. Future Lindsay would have figured out moderation. She would have done enough alcohol-free stretches. She would have read enough books. She would have learned enough. And then she would magically be able to drink the way she had always wanted to drink. Take it or leave it. One glass, maybe two. Never think about it beforehand. Never negotiate with herself, never wake up annoyed with herself. Just become one of those mysterious people who can leave half a glass of wine sitting on a restaurant table. I never understood those people. I'm like, you're not gonna finish that? Oh my gosh.

But this client had a very similar thought. Lindsay, I've gone months without alcohol. I've changed so much. Maybe now I can drink differently. And here's what happened: she discovered that for her, one glass still became two, three, a bottle.

Why Drinking Again Feels So Much Worse After a Break

And what really struck her was how bad she felt afterwards, because she had enough distance from her old normal to notice this major contrast between the two versions. And this is really interesting, because when you drink regularly, you can lose perspective on how you actually feel.

You kind of wake up tired every day, and so tired feels normal. That's your baseline. I've said this before: when you're drinking every day, you're actually operating at like 40 or 50%, and you just don't even realize it because you've been doing it for so long. Your sleep is consistently disrupted, so that's just how you sleep. You're a little foggy, you're a little anxious, you're dragging yourself through the morning.

Maybe you're waiting for the coffee to hit. But because it's happening over and over again, there isn't always a clear contrast. And so then you stop drinking for a few months, or even a few weeks sometimes, and you start sleeping differently. You wake up differently, your mornings change, your mood may change, your energy is changing. And suddenly you drink again and you're like, wow. That is what that feels like. I almost forgot.

Don't Label It a Failure: Ask What You Learned

And instead of treating that experience as proof that the previous four months failed, we can use it as evidence. Because now you know something that you didn't know before. And I'm not speaking intellectually here, I mean experientially. You thought maybe after this break, I'll want one glass and stop. And then you tried it and you got information, and that's useful.

Maybe not the information you hoped you were going to get. Like me, over and over again. Oh my God, I hoped, I thought I was gonna be able to moderate. No. But it's useful information. And this is where I really want to change the way that we think about drinking again after a long break. Because if you immediately label the entire thing as an epic failure, you miss all of the information. You just go, I screwed up, I'm back to day one, here we go again. I can't believe I did this. And then the only story that you take from the experience is, I can't trust myself.

But wait a second. What if we actually looked at what happened? What were you thinking beforehand? Where were you? Who were you with? What were you feeling? What did you expect alcohol to do for you? What happened after that first drink? How did you feel later? How did you feel the next morning? Did drinking actually deliver what you thought it was going to deliver? What did you learn? All of that is such important information, and information is what helps us decide what we need to practice next.

Client Story: Drinking to Celebrate, Not Just to Cope

So I had another recent client, and her experience illustrated this from a completely different angle, so I really want to share this example with you as well. This is just the rich information that I can give you. It's kind of like, learn from my lessons so that you don't make the same mistakes as me. I know this journey as well as anyone. And I also know that you have to experience this yourself so that you get it. This is something that we have to do on our own, as far as going through the steps and collecting that evidence and that proof. Otherwise we don't believe it. We're just chasing this, I can moderate my drinking.

So this woman had made enormous progress. Her normal day-to-day life had gotten very comfortable without alcohol. Home was not difficult for her anymore. Her routines had changed. She was doing what she said she was going to do. And then she participated in this major athletic competition. She was so excited about it. She did really well. She felt incredible after. And alcohol was there afterwards.

And I say this all the time. This is something that just infuriates me and has to change in our society. Wellness and alcohol do not belong in the same sentence. Running a marathon and then having beer and alcohol afterward, this is not a fit, okay? This is just something that is so tragic to me, and I want to change it in our society so badly.

But what happened was she drank. And what I found so interesting about our conversation afterward was that she had always thought about alcohol primarily as something that she used to cope, to cope with stress, a hard day, difficult emotions. And during our call, she realized, I use alcohol to celebrate too.

And this is very important information for her, because we can become really good at one category of alcohol-free living while another category is still sitting there waiting for us. Alcohol touches so many different layers of our lives. We have to just practice and chip away at all of these different layers until it becomes normal across the board.

Alcohol Touches More of Your Life Than You Realize

So maybe you've practiced, I had a hard day at work and then I didn't drink. Or, I had a fight with my husband and then I didn't drink. Or, I came home stressed and I didn't drink. I got through Friday night without drinking. These are all great. But have you practiced, I got amazing news and then I didn't drink? Or, I went to a wedding and I didn't drink at the wedding, and I didn't drink after. I won a thousand dollars on a scratch-off and I didn't drink. I went on the girls' trip and I didn't drink. I sat by the pool in Mexico and I didn't drink. I hosted Thanksgiving and I didn't drink. I went to the fancy anniversary dinner and I didn't drink. Now, those are different reps.

And this is one of the biggest things that I want you to understand about changing your relationship with alcohol, because alcohol has touched way more parts of your life than you even realized. It isn't just, I'm stressed, therefore I drink. It may be: I'm stressed, let's drink. I'm happy, let's drink. It's Friday, let's drink. We're celebrating, let's drink. We're on vacation, let's drink. Oh my God, the list just keeps going. We're cooking, let's drink. We're watching football, let's drink. We're at the airport, let's drink. We're decorating the Christmas tree, let's drink. We're at brunch, let's drink. It's sunny outside, let's drink. It's snowing outside, somehow also let's drink.

There are a lot of associations, a lot of cues that signal to your brain, let's drink. And you don't discover all of them on day one. You discover them by living your life and practicing not drinking. That's why I don't think of this process as simply accumulating alcohol-free days. You are practicing your life without alcohol, and your life keeps presenting you with different situations.

That's why you can go four months without drinking and then still get totally caught off guard. Because four months is a long time, but four months does not contain every single situation in your life that you're ever going to encounter.

Why You Stop Preparing After a Long Alcohol-Free Stretch

So here's another thing that can happen after a long stretch. You stop preparing. And this isn't because you don't care anymore, and it's not because you're being reckless. You stop preparing because you've gotten good at this. You're feeling really comfortable.

I want you to think about that. In the beginning, you're hyper-aware. You're going to dinner Saturday night, and you're thinking about it on Thursday. You're looking at the restaurant, you're looking at the menu. You're thinking about the people who are going to be there. You're planning what you're going to order. You're thinking about what you're going to say if everybody else is drinking. Should I drive, or maybe I'll bring something? What am I going to say? What time do I want to leave?

You're thinking about every single detail. Which is also, by the way, what I teach my clients to do, because we need to plan, we need to be prepared. Our brains do not know the difference between imagination and reality. So one of the things that I teach the women who work with me is to do these mental rehearsals and get really good at visualizing and walking through every single event, so that when you're in the moment, your brain's like, okay, this is a little bit familiar. We're definitely doing things differently, but I'm not a stranger here.

But then several months go by. You've done dinner, you've done Friday, maybe you've done a party, you've done date nights, you've done a work event. You're not thinking about alcohol constantly anymore, which is amazing. That's literally part of what we want. But then something new comes up. And you think, I'm fine. I don't need to think about this. And that can be where an old pathway catches you by surprise.

Finding the Missed Step

So my client who had competed had actually thought about bringing an alcohol-free drink for afterward. She was going to. She thought about it, but it wasn't really a plan. It was more like, yeah, maybe I'll throw one in my bag. And then she didn't.

So when her competition was over, she was excited, everybody was celebrating, and alcohol was right there. And she didn't pause. She didn't slow down enough. And so that was the piece that we really looked at afterwards. Not, how could you do this? Not, oh my gosh, you should have known better. It was, where was the moment we could have supported you differently?

And the answer wasn't necessarily when the alcohol was offered or right in front of her. It was way earlier. She hadn't really prepared for what would happen when her part of the competition had ended. And that's really useful, because now we know. The next time she goes into an environment like that, we have something to work with.

Is a Slip Just Data? Learning Without Shame

And this is what I mean when I say having a slip can be data. And I know that some people don't like that language, because they think it minimizes drinking. I don't think it minimizes anything, because consequences can be very serious. You can deeply regret what happened, and you can have an experience that scares you. I want to recognize that. And you can feel physically awful. You could wish you could undo it. We don't need to pretend it was wonderful in order to learn from it.

But shame is not analysis. Telling yourself, I suck, or I'm a failure, tells me nothing. I can't believe I did that, tells me nothing. I ruined everything, which by the way is not true, tells me nothing. I want useful information so that you are able to move forward. Everyone makes mistakes, and we don't always show up as the best version of ourselves. But if we are not slowing down and taking the time to learn from it instead of beating ourselves up, it's not going to be useful.

So let's make use of the times where we're like, whoops, I wish that didn't happen. I want useful information. What happened? Where did the old pattern show up? What was the turning point? What was the one missed step? That's my favorite part to work on with my clients. Okay, we have to go back in time here. I wanna know exactly what happened, so we can identify the missed step where you needed that support, where that extra planning would have been useful. What were you expecting? What didn't you prepare for? What did alcohol promise you in that moment? And then what actually happened? And what do we do with that information next time? These are the things that help you move forward.

You're Not Starting Over: Old Habits vs. New Routes

And I want to talk about another trap that I see after a long alcohol-free stretch. It's the idea that because something feels easy now, it's permanently handled. This is such a high-achieving woman thing, because we love checking boxes. Done. Handled. Yep, I've moved on. Next. Friday nights, done, check. Work stress, done, check. Dinner out, got that, I can handle it, check. Vacations, done. I've successfully completed alcohol. Unfortunately, your brain still has some catching up to do, okay? Old patterns can still exist even while you're building the new ones.

And so I want you to think about a route that you've driven hundreds of times. Maybe you used to drive to an office every single day. Then you get a new job. You learn a new route. You drive that route for months. That doesn't mean the old route disappeared from your brain. If you needed to go back to that neighborhood, you could most likely still drive there and not even need to think about it.

That's how I want you to think about some of these alcohol associations. You're building new routes, and the more you use them, the easier they become. But an old route can still light up under the right circumstances. It doesn't mean that you're back at the beginning. You're not. You have all of these new routes now.

And I think that's where the phrase "starting over" can be so unhelpful. You're not starting over. You're not back at square one. If you went four months without alcohol and then drank on Saturday, you did not wake up Sunday morning as the woman you were four months ago. How could you? You have four months of experiences that that version of you didn't have. Four months of clear mornings, four months of Fridays, four months of dinners out, four months of conversations, four months of noticing yourself, four months of figuring out what you like, of evidence. And now you have one more piece: what happened Saturday? You don't erase a semester of school because you got one answer wrong on the test. You look at the answer. You figure out where you got tripped up, and then you learn.

Why Counting Alcohol-Free Days Isn't Enough

And I think this is particularly important if you've been caught in a cycle of taking a break, drinking again, getting upset, starting another break, drinking again. Because after a while, the breaks themselves can become the entire strategy. 30 days, okay, now what? 60 days, okay, now what? I'm not drinking until my birthday. Okay, now what? I'm not drinking until vacation. And the whole time the focus is on reaching the milestone.

But I want you to know, what are you practicing while you're getting there? Because you can go 30 days without drinking and spend 30 days waiting to drink. These are very different things. Whenever a client says, I want to get to my birthday alcohol-free, I'm always like, yes, that is a great milestone, that is a great plan. It's a nice stretch. That is the goal. But it does not give you permission to drink the day after your birthday. We just have to work on that association. And as long as we're being really communicative about that and we're going through these motions together, I also know that by the time you hit that milestone, you are going to have learned so much. And you're gonna be a different person then. And so then we just move on to the next thing that you want to experience alcohol-free.

Those are really important milestones. But you can spend 30 days avoiding every situation that feels difficult, or you can spend 30 days starting to learn how you want to handle those situations. And I'm not saying throw yourself into the hardest possible environment on day three. Please do not hear that. Support yourself.

Make Your Alcohol-Free World Bigger

If you're newly alcohol-free and you don't want to go to the wine tasting, you don't need to go to prove anything. But over time, your world needs to get bigger. Because if your alcohol-free life only works under perfectly controlled conditions, you're going to have a hard time trusting it. And so this is where practice comes in.

I have another client who is the perfect example of this. In our first week, she had nothing going on. And so she was like, this is perfect, I really feel like I just need a few wins under my belt. And this woman, oh my gosh, she hit eight days alcohol-free under pretty controlled circumstances. She didn't have any social obligations. She didn't even have a date night planned. So she was really able to just make this decision and build some really solid routines. And then the second week, she had a work outing.

And so we talked about it: okay, your first challenge where you go out into the world is happy hour with coworkers on a Wednesday night. We talked through exactly what she was going to do and how she was going to mentally prepare. And then we talked about another challenge for her. I always like to pick some low-hanging fruit, which I understand, because I remember date night with my husband was one of the most terrifying things. But after you've had a couple of conversations with your husband, or you've experienced a week or two alcohol-free, then it's like, well, we have to make our world bigger. We have to practice not drinking.

Identity, Practice and Trust: Why the Order Matters

This is why my method is identity, practice, and trust, in that order. Because now, after this client does her happy hour and she's successful at it, I will suggest to her, okay, now let's do date night. Just you and your husband, not with other friends, not with other people. Just a restaurant that you know and that you pick, where you get to look at the menu ahead of time, and where you get to have your conversation with your husband beforehand, like, I'm not going to drink on our date night. So that you can prepare for it, and now you can practice having date night with your husband and not drinking.

So this isn't trust, practice, and identity. Identity is first. Who are you becoming? Maybe you want to be the woman who is more connected to her husband and spends more time with him. So what are you actually trying to create here? Are you just trying to make it 30 days, or are you becoming the woman who no longer needs alcohol to go out to dinner with her husband and connect? And in general, are you becoming the woman who no longer needs alcohol to cope, celebrate, relax, connect, or belong?

Now, those are very different goals. If the goal is 30 days, then day 31 becomes the finish line. But if the goal is becoming someone who genuinely prefers her life without alcohol, the 30 days are just where you practice. So that's why we have to practice.

And this gets skipped so often, because practice means that we take that identity out into your real life. You practice the Friday night, you practice dinner out with your husband. You practice not drinking after a really hard day at work. You practice celebrating. You practice the vacation. You practice telling somebody that you're not drinking right now. You practice having alcohol offered to you and declining it. You practice being the only person at the table who's not drinking. You practice feeling awkward, feeling left out. You practice having an amazing time and noticing that alcohol was not the thing that created it.

How to Build Self-Trust With New Evidence

And so then that's how you get trust. Trust is not something that you talk yourself into. So many women are like, I want to get some wins under my belt and then I'll start working with you. And it doesn't work that way. You're gonna continue to spin. I am going to help you build self-trust right away. I am going to help you get those wins right away so that you trust yourself.

And I think this is where so many women get frustrated. They say, I just don't trust myself to follow through. And it's like, okay, well, why would you yet? If you spent five years telling yourself every single morning that you're not drinking tonight and then drinking at five o'clock, your brain has evidence that you don't follow through on that promise.

So we're not gonna fix that by standing in front of the mirror saying, I trust myself. We give your brain new evidence. I said I wasn't drinking Friday night, and then I didn't. I went to dinner and I ordered a mocktail or a non-alcoholic beer. I went to the party and I stayed for an hour, and then I left when I wanted to. I had a really hard conversation, and then when I went home, I didn't pour wine. I celebrated and I woke up feeling amazing the next morning. I wanted a drink at five, and I slowed down and paused enough to figure out what I actually needed in that moment. Evidence, evidence, evidence. And then eventually your brain starts saying, we do it this way now. That is trust, my beautiful friend.

What to Do After You Drink Again

Okay, here's what I really want you to hear today. Trust does not mean that you'll never make a decision that you regret. It means when you do, you'll know how to respond. That is self-trust as well, okay?

One of the things I was most proud of in one of these recent client conversations had nothing to do with the fact that she drank. It was what she did afterward. She showed up and she talked about it. She didn't disappear. She didn't decide she had blown everything. She didn't wait until she had gotten herself back on track before she came back to the conversation with me. She brought the messy part with her. That is what doing this work is.

Because if the only version of you that you're willing to support is the version who gets everything right, you are going to have a very difficult time changing anything. The moment after something doesn't go the way that you wanted is one of the most important moments to practice self-trust. What do I do now? Do I hide? Do I say screw it? Do I turn one night into three weeks because I already ruined my streak? Or do I get curious? Okay, that happened. What do I do now? What is my next decision? Because your next decision matters so much more than trying to undo the last one. You can't undo it. You did it. But you can use it.

Why Staying Alcohol-Free Can Feel Exhausting

And there was something else one of my clients said that I think really matters here. She told me that being in what I call the growth zone for months had been really tiring. And yes, of course it is. Think about everything you're doing consciously at first. What am I drinking tonight? What do I do at five? What do I say at dinner? What am I gonna do when my husband opens wine? How am I going to relax? What am I gonna do at the wedding? What am I going to order? What if somebody asks me? You're taking things that used to run automatically, and you're asking your brain to make new decisions. This requires effort.

So sometimes after a few months, there's this moment where your brain is like, can we please, please just do the familiar thing? I don't want to work this hard tonight. And that is useful to understand too. Because if you're exhausted, overloaded, resentful, lacking sleep, overstimulated, or emotionally drained, your capacity to make a deliberate, sober choice may be lower. Again, this doesn't mean that you are doomed to drink whenever you're tired. It means you need to understand yourself. Maybe the work isn't, be stronger at 7 p.m. Maybe the work is, why am I arriving at 7 p.m. with absolutely nothing left to give?

What Was Alcohol Covering Up?

One of those client conversations actually went there. We started talking about drinking again, and eventually we were talking about resentment, household labor, mental load, always taking care of everybody else's needs, not even knowing what you need, because you're so accustomed to moving quickly from one task to the next.

Now that is interesting, because if we had stopped at "don't drink next time," which I would never stop at, we would have missed the actual thing alcohol had been doing. It had been that fast exit. I don't want to feel this: wine. I'm overwhelmed: wine. I'm sad: wine. I'm resentful: wine. I'm done taking care of everyone today: wine. So now we're not only asking, how do I avoid drinking? We're asking, how do I notice what I need before I'm so depleted that my brain reaches for the fastest familiar answer?

Now that is the deeper work. And that is why a long alcohol-free break can be incredibly useful, even if you eventually drink again, because you're finally able to see this stuff. When alcohol is constantly smoothing over the end of every single day, you don't necessarily know what's underneath it. Take it away, and eventually things start coming up. Boredom, loneliness, resentment, overwhelm, disconnection. The fact that you don't actually like your Friday night routine. The fact that you need more help at home. The fact that you don't know how to rest without earning it first. The fact that you've been using alcohol to make social situations tolerable that maybe you don't even enjoy. That's not bad news. It's just information.

Avoiding Triggers vs. Creating Support

And I want to make one more distinction, because I think this is really important. There is a difference between avoiding triggers forever and creating support while you're learning. If you've been alcohol-free for four days and you're going to a party where everyone is drinking your favorite wine, you don't get extra credit for making it as hard as possible. Bring something that you love. Drive yourself. Have an exit plan. Tell your partner what you need. Maybe leave early. Support is smart.

But eventually, I want you to start collecting evidence that you can live your life. And sometimes that means deliberately practicing something before the high-stakes version arrives. This came up with one of my clients. She had an event coming up later that she knew could be really challenging. And instead of waiting until the big event to find out how she would feel, we talked about creating a lower-stakes version beforehand. Go away for a night with your husband. Plan the beautiful dinner. Create the environment that you would normally associate with drinking, and practice it.

Not because you're trying to torture yourself, but because you want evidence. You want to go through the motions. You want to feel it. You want to say, I can do this. We can have a beautiful dinner. We can spend the night in a hotel. We can celebrate. I can wake up the next morning feeling incredible. And every time you do that, you weaken that old story that alcohol is required for the experience to count.

Don't Just Count Days, Collect Experiences

This is what I want you to take into your next alcohol-free stretch. Don't only count days. Collect experiences. Actually write that down. Don't only count days. Collect experiences. What haven't you practiced yet? Maybe you have Friday night down. Maybe that's not a problem for you. Great. What about a birthday? Maybe you've done birthdays. What about a girls' weekend? Maybe you've done that. What about conflict, or celebration, travel, a bad work day? A really good work day. Being home alone, hosting. Holidays are coming, being with your family, your husband drinking next to you.

You don't have to go manufacture every difficult situation this weekend. Please don't send me messages saying, Lindsay told me to go to Las Vegas immediately to practice not drinking. No. But look at your real life. What's coming? Where are the situations that still feel like, I don't know about that one, it doesn't feel like I can do that without drinking? That's probably where your next evidence is waiting.

Questions to Ask Yourself After You Drink Again

And if you do drink again, I want you to resist the urge to immediately make it mean something about your character. Instead, do a real review. I would write these down too. What happened before I drank? What was I feeling? What was I thinking? What was I expecting alcohol to give me in that moment? Was this an old cue that I just hadn't practiced yet? Did I have a plan? Did I abandon a plan? What happened after that first drink? And how did I actually feel? What did I learn? And what would I do differently if I encounter the same situation again?

That is how you turn the experience into something useful. And notice what's missing from that list. What's wrong with me? Why can't I do this? Why am I such a failure? None of those questions produce useful answers. The questions we ask matter.

Drinking Again Doesn't Erase Your Progress

So if you're listening to this after drinking following a long stretch without alcohol, here's what I want you to know. You did not erase those days or months without drinking. You didn't erase the mornings. You didn't erase the dinners out, or the vacations, or every single time you wanted a drink and chose something else. You didn't erase what you learned about yourself, or the routines that you built, or the conversations you had. You didn't erase any of the evidence. You encountered another part of your life that needs practice.

So maybe the old belief was, I drink when I'm stressed. And now you discovered, I also associate alcohol with celebrations. Maybe you thought, I figured out Friday nights. And then you discovered, well, hosting is different. Or maybe you thought, after a few months, I can probably moderate. And then you got very clear information about whether moderation actually gives you what you want.

I want you to use it. Because the goal here isn't to become somebody who has never made a decision she regrets. The goal is to become a woman who trusts herself enough to learn from her decisions and keep moving in the direction that she wants to go. Identity gives you the direction, practice gives you the evidence, and trust is what you build along the way.

And sometimes the experience you wish hadn't happened becomes some of the clearest evidence that you have. Not because drinking was necessary, but because now that it happened, you get to decide what you're going to learn from it. So if you've been asking, I went months without drinking, why did I drink again? The answer isn't, none of it worked. Maybe the answer is, because there was another situation I hadn't learned how to navigate yet. Okay, now we know. What do you want to practice next?

Get Support Making Alcohol-Free Feel Like Your Real Life

All right. If you listened to this episode thinking, okay, Lindsay, I know exactly what you're talking about. I can stop drinking. I've done it a million times. What I can't figure out is how to make this feel like my actual life. That is the work that I do with women inside my coaching. We're not trying to create a perfect alcohol-free bubble where nothing difficult ever happens and nobody around you ever drinks. We're looking at your life, your five o'clock, your marriage, your work stress, your vacations, your friends, your celebrations, your patterns. And then we figure out where your work is. Is it identity? Is it practice, or is it trust? And we build from there.

Because you probably don't need another person telling you that alcohol affects your sleep, or that you should drink sparkling water at five o'clock. You probably already know a lot about this. The work is learning how to put what you know into practice when your actual life happens. So if you're ready for support doing that, you'll find information about working with me in the show notes. You can always book a discovery call with me to see if working together is the right fit.

And if you know another woman who has gone 30 or 60 or 90 days without drinking and then found herself wondering, how the heck am I back here? Send her this episode. And while you're there, make sure you're following the show. Make sure you subscribe. And if this show has helped you, I would love it if you would leave a rating and a review. It helps more women find these conversations, and I genuinely love hearing what you're taking away from them. Okay, I will see you next week. And remember, you have better things to think about than drinking.