The Dreaded Question

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Have you ever found yourself faced with a question that just made you feel small, like less than? A question that you dread in every conversation because you know it's coming and there's nothing you can do to avoid it. I used to have a question like that, and I used to let it reduce me down so much that I nearly stopped showing up for you, the people that I help. But what it took me a while to learn is that I don't need to dread this question and I don't need to justify myself. And just because my story looks different, it doesn't mean that I don't belong here with you today. So if you take just one thing from this episode today, let it be that you do not need a sad story to decide that you are ready to start looking at your relationship with alcohol, and that it is none of anyone else's damn business when you do. You're listening to the Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife podcast, where it's my goal to help you take back the power of choice from alcohol. I'm your host and mindful drinking mentor, Denise Hamilton Mace, and this is the start of your journey to a life less intoxicating. So, when I first launched my magazine, as longtime listeners will know, this podcast started as a magazine uh about two and a half, three years ago now. Um, and then I subsequently launched this podcast. I would often be asked whether I was uh being interviewed on somebody else's show, when I was uh at an event and I was uh liaising with people, when I was teaching, whatever it was, I would inevitably ask the question about my own drinking because people would always want to know, and I and I understand, you know, what was my own journey? What was it that led me to stop drinking? Did I have a problem? Um, am I teetotal? Do you still drink? Every single time I used to get uh some variation of that question, and every single time I used to answer really sheepishly. I would suddenly become really embarrassed, I'd become quite um insular and looking inward rather than sharing outwardly, and I'd say things like, Well, I I don't really have a story, or uh, oh, I'm not totally sober or teetotal, but I don't drink, but sometimes I do, and then I don't, and I'd go on these long-winded rants to justify the fact that I didn't have a rock bottom moment, and I had simply decided that I didn't want to drink very much. It took me years of being in this space and of drinking differently to learn to say with pride that it is okay to not have a sad story about why I was drinking differently. I used to see people in this space who had overcome major, major life um difficulties due to their drinking. Um I have interviewed founders who have wrapped their cars around trees. I've interviewed people who have lost loved ones to alcohol, those who have hit their most deepest, darkest, despairing moments, lost spouses, jobs, homes, uh almost their own lives. And they'd come through the other side and were shouting from the rooftops about the wonderful benefits of a life without alcohol and the amazing changes they'd made and the never-ending pink cloud of sobriety. If you've not heard that pink cloud term, uh I I will uh do an episode about it at some point. But basically, it's like that runner's high equivalent to sobriety where you feel wonderful and everything looks positive. And I would think to myself, I don't have that story, and therefore my journey isn't valid, and my place in this space isn't as worthy as theirs. And it made me so apologetic. But after spending so much time and meeting so many people who were just like me and just like you, I have come to realize that that's bullshit. My journey is my journey, and I have every right to be just as proud about the choices that I have made that have led me to a life less intoxicated as anybody else making a choice to live a better life for themselves. And to compare my journey or my story or my lack thereof is really foolishness on my behalf because I don't know them, and I don't know their story and what's brought them to where they are, uh, and by the same token, they don't know me, and they don't know my life, uh, and the parts of my life that were very dark and very down, and I did do dangerous things, and I did treat myself with literal disdain, uh, and the parts of my life that were positive and optimistic and hopeful, and the mad roller coaster that we've all been on that takes us from the highest highs to the lowest lows, all in our own unique individual ways. And just because you haven't had a rock bottom, just because you haven't wrapped your car around a tree, or you haven't lost a long-term relationship, you haven't gone through a divorce due to drinking, it doesn't mean that you don't still have the right to look at your relationship with alcohol, to look at your life and say, I want something different. I want something that I consider to be better for me. And what is a rock bottom anyway? Yeah, I just gave you a few extreme examples, but those are the kind of examples I think that kind of the TV examples, you know. That's what you see on Coronation Street or, you know, whatever your current American leading TV soap is. You know, it's always that over-dramatized, slurring your words, being abusive to everyone that you love and throwing your entire life away. But rock bottom, and I say that in air quotes, looks different for everybody because we all come from such different places. And you can't compare one to another because somebody's rock bottom might just be another person's really heavy weekend. So that comparison trap that we fall into is just not serving any of us in any way. Uh and uh it reminds me of that phrase that I really like, which is that when you compare, you despair. You know, it's like when we're looking at on Instagram uh at all these shiny, bubbly, happy young people with the perfect skin and their perky breasts and their pert bottoms, and everything is looking wonderful as they stand beside their jet planes and Ferraris and all this sort of stuff. And and we compare ourselves to them, and it's all bollocks. Most of the time they rented that or they've superimposed it, or you know, you have to deny yourself every single chocolate bar so that you've got that perfect 0% body fat. When you look behind the truth of the highlight reel that people present, you'll realize that comparing yourself to them is a thankless and pointless task. So it's okay if your journey into looking at your relationship with alcohol doesn't come from a place of desperation. It's okay if you don't feel like your life is about to tip over the balance and therefore you have to do something right now. It's okay to just look at your life and say, do you know what? I think I could possibly be better off if I drank a little bit differently, a little more often. And interestingly, you know, I've shared this before, but for me, I never said I was going to be sober. I've never made a declaration, I mean, apart from those sort of heavy hangovers the next morning you say, I'm never drinking again, which we never stick to. But I've never said with a clear head and a future plan that my intention for this journey for myself was to be sober. I never said I was never going to drink again. I never said I'm teetotal. In fact, my choice to uh change my relationship with alcohol came from a decision I made one day. Uh, and that was for me to never ever, ever, ever have a hangover ever again. So I I've always suffered uh from pretty bad hangovers. When I was younger, uh in what I call my professional drinking days, uh, they were pretty uh extreme. But I was living a pretty extreme and decadent lifestyle. I can recall several occasions where I would be um, to put it politely, hanging out my ass for uh uh one to two to three days, being physically sick for 24 hours or more after long, long uh benders of drinks and drugs and partying. Uh, I've mentioned before I went to hospitality, you know, we didn't have weekends. It wasn't that we'd go out on a Friday at six o'clock and then get really drunk until 11 and then wake up with a hangover. No, we were out every night. And we knew all the late-night bars to go to. We knew all the people to get the things that we wanted from, whether it was alcohol, whether it was cocaine, whether it was weed. You know, I've been there and I've done it all. I've got all the t-shirts. And as I got older, that sort of wild side abated, thankfully. I I chilled out quite a lot, and then I had kids and obviously chilled out even more. Um, but I still I could still put myself into a pretty um hairy state. And apart from just being physically sick and wasting the next 24 to 48 to 72 hours, the biggest issue for me was that uh the few days afterwards, you know, it was two, three, four, even five days later, when I still just felt really subpar. I was operating at 20, then 40, then 60% capacity. And I'd reached maybe 80% a few days later, but then I'd be back on it again and I'd be out again and I'd be heading straight back down again. Uh, you know, I I I wouldn't eat well. Uh I got plenty of exercise because I was dancing and clubs till like four o'clock in the morning. Um, but I didn't do anything uh consciously, productively healthy for my body. Now that's not to say that I am now some sort of um health and well-being super being, not by a long shot. Um, but now that I have aged and I've gotten so much wiser, you know, I obviously try to look after myself a bit better. I try to eat better, I try to walk every day and make sure that I'm getting some fresh air and some vitamin D, that I'm no longer operating. And what I love the most about my journey is that I'm no longer operating in a perpetual state of less than my capacity. And that was my goal. And it's okay that my goal was simply to have a better version of my life. I didn't map everything out, I didn't set the the target of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, um, not signing up for any marathons. I might do a half. I tried to do a halves, I never quite got around to it. But my point being that you don't have to plan to change everything about you, buy a new wardrobe, get a new haircut, change your friend group, you know, start eating quinoa and raw kale smoothies. You can just want to have a better version of the you that you already like. My mum always used to say to me, and it used to annoy the crap out of me, but she always used to say that prevention is better than cure. And she doesn't listen to my podcast, so I can confidently say without any uh backlash that she was actually right. Um, and looking at your relationship with alcohol before it becomes life-damaging is the ultimate version of prevention being better than cure. So it's okay that you're not doing this from a point of sadness and despair. It's okay that you don't need AA or any other kind of recovery service. Don't get me wrong, those things are fantastic for the people who need them, and they've helped millions, and I hope they continue to help those that need to find them. But for the vast majority of us who have alcohol in our lives in a way that is not life-damaging, it's not uh detrimental to our very existence, but it is having a negative impact that we would like to mitigate in some way, shape, or form. We don't have to wait until we're at the proverbial rock bottom. And that is the message I want you to take away today. You don't have to wait until it's vodka on the cornflakes time before you decide that you would like life to look a bit better and that you are curious about whether things could be different if you just drank a bit differently. Now, whether that is less, whether that is none at all, that's up to you how that looks. And one thing I can promise you is that when you start on this journey, what you start doing on day one is not going to be how it looks on day 100. So there's no point in trying to plan for that and trying to mitigate for it all. The point is simply to make a decision and to take some action on that for yourself. So, your task today is very simple. I want you to find some time, hopefully, as soon as you finish listening to this episode, if you can, uh, or as soon as possible, I want you to find a quiet moment in a quiet space. And I want you to get out your phone, or preferably a pen and paper. There is evidence that when you write something down, you connect with it more than when you type it into a phone or onto a screen. But I want you to get out your pen and paper, and then I want you to complete your task for today, which is to discover your why. And the truth is that you probably uh already know what it is. The fact that you've made it to a show like mine and others out there uh means that you're already on this journey and you're already thinking about the changes that you want to make. But having a single simple goal to work towards can make all the difference. And quite often, uh, when I'm coaching or when I'm mentoring, sometimes you can wonder if the path seems too simple, if it seems too easy, well, that can't be right. You know, I've got to have hoops to jump over, I've got to fill in this 15-part personal essay and then answer this 50 question quiz. But actually, sometimes the simplest things are the best. So, my why was because I never ever wanted to have a hangover again. And yours can be just as simple. So get your pen and paper and start writing. You can jot down a paragraph if that's the type of writer you are, you can make it one single simple short sentence. Maybe your motivation is that you do still want to drink, but you never ever want to be drunk again. Some people like to have a sober sprint. So maybe you want to say to yourself, I want to do more than a dry January. I want to do three months where I don't touch alcohol. Speaking of sprints, maybe it's a physical challenge that you are trying to set yourself. Uh maybe that marathon is on your to-do list. One of my husband's bucket list items is to run the London marathon. Maybe it's on your list as well. Maybe it's medical. Maybe uh it alcohol is impacting your health in some way. Uh, it could be that you need to manage your cholesterol and you never want your cholesterol to go above a certain point, or you don't want your weight to go above a certain point. Maybe it's general health, maybe diabetes. All of these things can be valid reasons. You don't have to see them as a negative. Yes, it's something that you don't want to have in your life, but they can be the driving force for you to make a single change that makes everything else better. Whatever it is, whatever is your your why, I want you to find it, and I want you to find it today. I want you to own it, I want you to hold on to it, and I want you to never let it go. Because you, my darling, deserve a life less intoxicated, and it doesn't matter what the hell anyone else has got to say about it. I really hope that this message finds the person that it's meant for today. And if that happens to be you, please do me a favor and reach out and let me know because I could really use some good news in celebration of you. My email address, as always, is in the show notes, or you can leave a review or comment on this episode, depending on where you're listening. That is it from me for this week. Until next week, cheers to a life less intoxicated.