Ep. 84 - You Don’t Actually Want the Wine. You Want the Exhale.

Ep. 84: You Don’t Actually Want the Wine. You Want the Exhale.

Welcome back to Feel Good Alcohol Free. I'm Lindsay Hennekey. I'm an alcohol-free coach, creator of the Identity, Practice, Trust method inside my coaching program called Feel Good AF, and I've been alcohol-free for just over 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 that they have to work so hard at every single day.

Deer Camp, a Girls' Trip and Time Alone Without Wine

And before we get into today's episode, I want to let you into my life a little bit, because I have a couple things coming up that I have really been looking forward to. And there's a very big contrast between how I spend this time now and how I spent it when I was still drinking. So every year my husband goes away to deer camp for roughly nine or 10 days. And I'm also getting ready for a weekend girls' trip to Kripalu with one of my best girlfriends. We've been going there for many years. I've held my own retreats there.

And so I've just been thinking about this stretch of time that's coming up, where I'm going to have even more time alone at home, and then I'm gonna go away with a girlfriend. And it has me thinking about how differently I experience this now in my life as somebody who doesn't drink anymore.

My Old "Perfect Day Off" With Wine

Because when my husband used to go to deer camp, it used to mean something very different to me. I was drinking, and my husband leaving for 10 days was a big event. I would usually take two or three days off of work so that I could have more of my own downtime. I would clean the house, maybe go through his closet and get rid of some of his shirts that I thought should have been retired, you know, like when you get rid of stuff when your husband's away. I would always have a spa day, this lovely, relaxing, very civilized girls' time.

And then I'd always have another day where I would wake up and I would be really productive. I would get some things done around the house, maybe even pull out some holiday decorations. I would exercise, I would do some cleaning and organizing, and I would feel so good about myself. And then sometime right around noon, sometimes even earlier, I would pour a glass of wine and I would get on the couch. I would be all in my comfy cozies with the dog, and I would put on Hallmark Christmas movies, and I would drink wine and watch television all day.

And listen, I can make that sound pretty good. House to myself, no responsibilities, Christmas movies on lock, wine. Remy curled up next to me, who's not allowed on the couch when my husband's around. Nobody asking what's for dinner. I could eat popcorn if I wanted to. Nobody needing anything from me. I would just wear pajamas all day, or take a shower and then put on the comfy clothes. This sounds like the ultimate day off. I looked forward to this.

Except I hated how I felt afterward. I hated that I had taken this entire day that was mine and somehow turned it into another day that just revolved around wine. I wasn't restored the next day going back into the office. I wasn't relaxed by the end of it. I had checked out, and there was a big difference.

When You Want a Glass of Wine, What Do You Really Want?

And so that's what I really want to talk about today. Because when you say, I want a glass of wine, sometimes what you're really saying is, I want an exhale. I want to go offline. I want to be done. I want my brain to stop. I want everybody to stop needing something from me. I want a reward. I want to stop being responsible for a little while. I want something that marks the moment when this day belongs to me again.

So if wine has been the fastest way that you know how to get from "I am responsible for everything" to "I'm off," taking away the wine can leave you standing in your kitchen at five o'clock thinking, okay, well, now what? So today I don't want to talk about how to resist the glass of wine. I want to talk about something much more useful. What are you actually asking that glass of wine to do for you? Because once we know the job, we can start looking at whether wine is actually doing the job very well, and whether that's still how you want to get the job done.

Why the First Glass of Wine Feels Like the End of the Workday

So, all right, let's get into it. I hear some version of this from women all the time. I don't even necessarily want to get drunk. I just want that first glass. And I get that, because that first glass represented something to me as well. It was the transition. Workday Lindsay, off. Responsibilities, off. Thinking, hopefully, off.

And I think this is particularly powerful for high-achieving women, because we spend so much of the day being useful. You're making decisions, solving problems, you're responding to people, you're remembering what needs to happen, you're working, you're managing schedules. You're thinking about dinner, you're remembering that the dog needs food, you're thinking three steps ahead. And then five o'clock comes around, and your brain is like, I am D-O-N-E, done.

And then there's the wine. Wine becomes the punctuation. The workday is over: pour. I survived today: pour the glass. I can finally sit down: pour the glass. And eventually, you don't even need to consciously think any of this. The pour itself becomes a signal. This is what we do now. We're done.

What Do You Actually Need at the End of the Day?

Here's where it gets interesting, though. If I asked you, what do you actually need at the end of your day, would you know? Because I see this with my clients, and I experienced this in my own journey: they're very good at identifying what everybody else needs. Their boss needs something, their team needs something, their kids need something, their husband needs something, their parents need something, the house needs something, the dog needs something. And then I ask, okay, well, what do you need? And sometimes that's met with just silence.

Because wine answered that question for a really long time. A drink has answered that question for so long. What do I need? A drink. I'm stressed: a drink. I'm irritated: a drink. I'm exhausted: a drink. I had a great day: a drink. I had a terrible day: definitely a drink. And so once wine or a martini becomes the answer to that many different feelings, you stop having to identify the actual need. You just identify the desire for a drink.

And this is a very big distinction, because "I want wine" or "I want a drink" feels like one problem. But underneath that sentence could be 10 completely different things. Maybe you need a transition. Maybe you need food. Maybe you need some peace and quiet. Maybe you need connection, or to be alone. Or maybe you need help. Maybe you need to say no to something. Maybe you're overstimulated. Maybe you need to stop working. Maybe you need to have some fun. And those don't all have the same solution.

Why a Mocktail Isn't Always the Answer

So this is why generic advice, like "instead of wine, make yourself a mocktail," really only goes so far. Look, I love a good alcohol-free drink, you know that. But if what I really need in the moment is for everybody to leave me alone for 20 minutes, putting lime in a sparkling water is not going to solve that problem. It's just fancier sparkling water. So we need to know what we're solving for.

Client Story: Alcohol as an Exit From Resentment and Mental Load

And this came up recently in a conversation with one of my clients. We started out just talking about alcohol, but as we kept talking, and as I was really extracting the information, the conversation started moving into resentment, mental load, household responsibilities, feeling like she was constantly taking care of everybody else's needs. And even having trouble identifying her own needs, because she had gotten so accustomed to just moving through the day handling things.

Now that is what's interesting to me, because we could have stopped at, okay, what are you gonna drink instead tonight? But then we would have missed what alcohol was actually doing for her. It was an exit. I'm overwhelmed: exit. I'm resentful: exit. I don't want to think anymore: exit. Wine was incredibly efficient. That's part of why alcohol can be so appealing. You don't have to figure anything out. You just pour it. You get the immediate state change. And for a little while, you're gonna feel that relief.

Relief vs. Restoration: Why Wine Doesn't Help You Relax

But relief and restoration are not the same thing. That is a distinction that I wish I had understood much earlier in my own journey. Because during my deer camp week, when my husband would go away, I would have told you that I was relaxing. I would have said, this is my day. I'm doing exactly what I want. I'm watching cheesy Christmas movies and drinking wine and nobody needs anything from me.

Except if that day had actually restored me, why did I feel so lousy afterwards? Why did I feel disappointed in myself? Why did I wake up the next morning feeling like I'd wasted the whole day? Why was I already thinking about whether I was going to drink again? That's not restoration. That was checking out.

And checking out can feel great in the moment. That's why we do it. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that first glass of wine didn't sometimes give me exactly the feeling that I was looking for, because it did. The problem was what came with it. And the bigger problem was that it became one of the only ways I knew how to access that feeling. I didn't have very much practice saying, I'm done for the day, without wine making that declaration for me. I didn't have practice giving myself permission to be unproductive. I didn't have much practice asking, what would actually feel good right now? Because wine had already answered that.

Why Five O'Clock Feels Uncomfortable When You Stop Drinking

And this is one of the reasons removing alcohol can feel surprisingly uncomfortable at first. Because you get to five o'clock and you don't drink, and then absolutely nothing happens. There's no little punctuation mark at the end of the day. There's no immediate exhale. You're still you. You're still thinking. Your family is still there. The kitchen is still there. The email you shouldn't be answering anymore is still there. And your brain goes, aren't we supposed to be doing something right now? Yes. We are supposed to be learning a new way to transition from work to home.

Using Identity, Practice and Trust to Change Your Evening Routine

And so this is where identity, practice, and trust comes in. This is exactly what I teach my clients.

Identity: Who Is the Woman You Want to Be at the End of the Day?

So let's start with identity. I don't want you to only ask, how do I stop drinking at five? I want you to ask, who is the woman I want to be at the end of my day? How does she know that she's done for the day? Does she need to earn rest? Does she wait until everybody else's needs are handled before she's allowed to have any rest? Does she know how to say, I'm done working right now? Does she know how to ask her partner for help? Does she know how to take 20 minutes alone without needing a reason? Does she know what she actually enjoys?

That last one can be surprisingly hard. Because when I stopped drinking, I had to figure out, okay, what do I actually like doing if I'm not sitting on the couch drinking wine? And sometimes the answer was incredibly ordinary. Maybe I want to walk the dog. Maybe I want to shower. Maybe I want to lie on the couch and watch something ridiculous. Maybe I want to call a friend. Maybe I want to cook. Maybe I absolutely do not want to cook. Maybe I want everyone to stop talking to me. All valid. But now I'm choosing. Wine isn't choosing for me.

Practice: Plan Your Five O'Clock Transition Ahead of Time

Then we practice, because figuring out what you need once doesn't magically make five o'clock easy forever. You have to practice this transition. And I would make this really practical. If you know that five o'clock is your moment, don't wait until five o'clock to figure out what you're going to do. We have to ask ourselves earlier and really plan in advance here. What kind of day am I having? Am I back to back? Am I gonna be able to even get a 10-minute break today? What am I going to need when work ends? Am I totally fried? Am I hungry? Am I gonna be irritated? Do I need movement? Do I need 10 minutes alone? Do I need to tell my husband, hey, when you get home, I need you to take over for 20 minutes?

Do I need something to look forward to tonight? Do I need to make dinner as easy as humanly possible? Do I need to actually close my laptop, instead of saying I'm done and then answering emails from the kitchen? Create the exhale before you are desperate for it.

And then notice what happens. Maybe you have the day where you think, there is no way I'm going to relax tonight without wine. And then you don't drink. You take the dog for a walk, you take a shower. You eat, because you realize you are freaking starving. You tell everybody that you're unavailable for 20 minutes. And then it's seven o'clock, and you notice, oh, the feeling passed. Or, oh, that's what I really needed. Or maybe sometimes it's, okay, that did absolutely nothing. Also useful. We're learning.

Trust: Responding to the Urge Instead of Acting on It

And this is how you build that trust in yourself. And this isn't because you've found an ironclad, perfect evening routine. It's not because you found the perfect mocktail, or you suddenly became a woman who meditates for 20 minutes at sunset every single evening. No, that's not realistic. Okay.

Trust comes from repeatedly noticing, I can feel that end-of-day discomfort and respond to it. I can figure out what I need. I can ask for help. I can change the plan. It's okay if I'm tired. I can be irritated. I can want wine, and I don't automatically have to act on that thought. That is how you build self-trust. That is trusting yourself.

Drinking Alone: Escaping Yourself, Not Other People

But I want to come back to my deer camp story, because there is another layer to this. My husband wasn't even home. Nobody was asking me for anything. So why did I still want the wine? It's because sometimes it's not about escaping other people. Sometimes it's about escaping yourself.

I had learned that being alone was an opportunity to drink exactly how I wanted to drink. Nobody was watching. Nobody was going to notice how early I started. I didn't have to wonder whether somebody thought I was having too much. It was mine. And that can feel like a very particular kind of permission when you're drinking. Except it didn't feel good by the end of the day, because I was still doing something I had told myself I didn't want to do. I had the entire day to myself, and somehow wine was still taking up all of this space.

What Time Alone Feels Like Without Alcohol

And so that's part of why this time of year makes me think about it. My husband's going to go to deer camp again in, I don't know, a couple weeks. I'm going to have all of this time alone. And I genuinely love having time alone. I'm looking forward to it. I'm also going away to Kripalu with one of my best girlfriends. And I think about how different those experiences are for me now.

And it's not because every single second is magical because I don't drink. Please, hello, I'm still a person here. I'm still going to have moods. I'm still going to waste time sometimes. I'm still going to have days where I look at my phone and think, how have I been sitting here for 45 minutes scrolling social media? But the time feels like mine. And that is the big difference.

I don't have to plan the day around when I can start drinking. I used to do that all the time. I don't have to decide whether noon is too early to open this bottle of wine. I don't have to wonder how much wine I have in the house. I don't have to wake up the next morning and assess the damage. And when I go away with my girlfriend, I get to actually be there. I get to enjoy where we are. We get to talk and have conversation. I get to go to bed when I'm tired. And I get to wake up remembering everything.

And when I look back now, I think that's what I was trying to get from wine all along. I wanted my life to feel like mine, my choices. I wanted pleasure. I wanted rest. I wanted connection and fun. I wanted this exhale. Wine gave me a very fast, temporary version of those things. But eventually it started taking them away too.

What Am I Expecting This Wine to Change?

So if you're listening to this thinking, okay, but Lindsay, sometimes I really do just want the wine. Of course. Sometimes you want wine. I wanted wine too. I'm not going to argue with you about your own thoughts. But I want you to get curious about what else is there. Because if the only question you ask is, how do I stop wanting wine, then you're missing very useful information.

Try asking, what am I expecting this wine to change about how I feel right now? That is a much more interesting question. Do I want to feel less stressed, or less responsible, or less bored, less lonely, less irritated? Do I want to feel rewarded, or connected, or finished, off duty, offline? And then, is there something I actually need here?

This isn't about finding some virtuous wellness replacement. Sometimes the answer might just be, I need to eat pizza and watch three episodes of something stupid. Great. Sometimes it might be, I need to tell my husband I'm resentful because I'm doing too much around this damn house. Okay, less fun, but probably more useful. Sometimes it's, I need to stop saying yes to everything. Sometimes it's, I need sleep, or I need friends. Where are all my friends at? Maybe it's, I need to sit on the couch and do absolutely nothing without turning that into another thing that I need to optimize or feel guilty about. You don't need to become better at relaxing. You need to learn what actually feels restorative to you.

And that's where so much of the identity work happens. Because when I stopped drinking, I wasn't only removing wine, or the IPAs that I drank, or whatever else. I had to meet the woman underneath all of those routines. What does she like? What does she need? What does she want her evenings to feel like? What does she want her weekends to feel like? What does she want 10 days alone while her husband is at deer camp to feel like? What does she want a girls' trip to feel like? Now that is a much bigger conversation than, what can I drink instead of Sauvignon Blanc?

Try This: "I Want This Glass of Wine Because I Want to Feel…"

So here's something that I want you to try this week. The next time that you hear yourself thinking, I want a glass of wine, don't immediately argue with the thought. Don't tell yourself that you shouldn't want it. Don't panic. Don't make a new rule. Just pause and finish this sentence: I want this glass of wine because I want to feel blank.

And then see what comes up. What's the answer? Relaxed, done, rewarded, fun, numb, connected, less annoyed, anything other than how I feel right now. Okay. Now we have something useful. Because you may not only be craving a beverage. You are likely craving a state change. And once you know the state you're trying to reach, you can start practicing other ways of getting there.

It's not going to be perfect. It's probably not going to be instantaneous. But practice. And every time you do, you collect another piece of evidence. I know how to take care of myself here. I know how to respond to myself here. I don't have to disappear from my own life in order to get relief from it. And eventually that five o'clock exhale starts belonging to you again, not to the wine.

Get Support Changing Your Five O'Clock Wine Habit

Okay. So I really hope that this episode was helpful for you. I love hearing from you, so please send me a message and let me know what it is that you are asking the wine to do. What is the feeling? Maybe it's the same thing every single day.

And if this episode really hit home for you, especially if you're the woman who can run an entire company, manage a household, take care of everyone around you, and then find yourself standing in the kitchen at five o'clock thinking, I just want my wine, this is exactly the kind of thing that we work on inside my coaching. We're not only taking away alcohol and hoping you figure out what to do with yourself. We are looking at what alcohol has been doing in your actual life. What job has it had? Where are the patterns? What are the moments when you keep changing your mind? And what do we need to practice so that you can start trusting yourself in those moments?

This is what I mean by identity, practice, and trust, the methodology that I brought into Feel Good AF. So if you're ready for support, you'll find information about working with me in the show notes. And you can always book a discovery call with me, and we'll talk through whether we're a good fit to work together and what this would look like in your everyday life.

And if you know another woman who pours that first glass every night because it feels like the only moment all day when she finally gets to be off, send her this episode. Make sure you're following Feel Good Alcohol Free wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you've been listening for a while and haven't left a rating or review yet, I would be so, so grateful if you took a minute to do that. It helps other women who need it find the show. And I genuinely love hearing what you're taking away from these conversations. Okay, I will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. And please remember, you have better things to think about than drinking.