Why This Interview Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Usually, when we get together on a Wednesday morning or whenever you find me, it's just you and I hanging out together and discussing the challenges and triumphs of uh changing the way that we drink in midlife. But occasionally I am invited on to somebody else's show so that I can share with them the possibilities of a life less intoxicated, the same way we do on here. And recently I got the chance to do just that on my new Podpal Francesca Lipperati's show. It was one of the best interviews that I've done recently, and so I wanted to share it with you here today. Francesca's podcast is called the Empowered Perimenopause Podcast. But rather than spend half an hour talking about this inevitable life stage that does impact us all in one way or another, wherever you are experiencing it from, we instead focused on the challenges of changing the way you drink in midlife when you've got so much other stuff going on. We talked about how to do it without sacrificing your identity and how to find methods that work for you and your goals at a time when everything else in your life seems to be changing. So, to the ladies listening, I highly, highly recommend subscribing to Francesca's podcast after you've had uh a chance to hear our chat here. Her show has honestly been a godsend to me in my own perimenopause journey, which has been turbulent in many ways, and having the support of somebody who knows what they're talking about and can make sense of it all really does make such a big difference. So, of course, I'll link to it in the show notes for you. And to the chaps listening, just a small reminder that changing the way that you drink in a midlife looks different for so many reasons. And whilst perimenopause is one that will affect the women in your life, Andropause, which is the male version, which is hardly ever spoken about, is one that will affect you and the other chaps you know in your life. And in fact, I will be putting an episode together for you on that soon so you can better understand the impact of Andropaules and your own hormones and the way that you are trying to go about your journey into a life less intoxicated. So, until uh then, enjoy this chat and know that whatever's going on inside your bodies in midlife, we all deserve to take back the power of choice from alcohol. And I hope that this conversation helps you do that a little bit more confidently.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Hi, I'm Francesca, a registered nutritional therapist, and you're listening to another episode of the Empowered Perimenopause Podcast. Welcome. My aim is to bring you down to earth conversational episodes that help you develop a deeper understanding of how your body's changing in your 40s, and most importantly, how you can support yourself throughout this wonderful transitional phase of your life. Join me for my solo episodes and also episodes with guests for fun, fresh, truthful chat on all things health and happiness in your 40s. And now on to the episode. Today I'm really excited because we have our first ever guest on the show, and we've got a really juicy conversation to have on the topic of reducing alcohol in midlife without losing your identity or friendship. But before we dive in and before I introduce our fabulous guest, I want to briefly acknowledge why alcohol feels so different in our 40s. Because for lots of women, their body art starts to ask for something different, and that was my story, and possibly our guest's story, so which we'll hear as we go through. Um, because as estrogen fluctuates, how it starts to affect our liver detox pathways, which is of course how we process alcohol, it affects our brain chemistry and how resilient our nervous system feels. And the result can be that alcohol can start to hit harder, linger longer, and disrupt things more than like way more than it ever used to. What once felt relaxing, a glass of wine, can now start to result in 3 a.m. wake-ups with a racing heart, hot flushes, anxiety, the next day, and even kept lingering on further through the week, brain fog the next day and lingering. And alcohol suppresses our REM sleep, which is that restorative state of sleep. It stresses the nervous system, it adds an extra load to the liver that's already working hard to clear other toxins, plus to clear our clear and rebalance our estrogen. And in a time of shifting metabolism and more sensitive blood sugar patterns, the ripple effects are much bigger in midlife. So if you've noticed alcohol doesn't work for you the way it used to, that is your physiology. It's not a sort of failure. And that's exactly why this conversation matters today. And I can't wait to dive in with our guest. So we've got Denise Hamilton Mace. She is a mindful drinking mentor, podcaster, and writer at Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife. After a 24-year career in hospitality where daily drinking was the norm, Denise began to realize in her early 40s that alcohol wasn't serving her anymore, and she went on to become a leading voice in the low and no alcohol space through her writing, public speaking, and her podcast. So now she helps adults in midlife change the way they allow alcohol to show up in their lives on their own terms, without judgment and also without the expectation to quit, which I think is an important nuance there that we can talk about today as well. So welcome Denise. It's really great to have you here. Thank you so much for your time.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Hi Francesca, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Great. I think our listeners are going to love this conversation. I hope so. I'm sure they

Why Alcohol Hits Harder Now

SPEAKER_01 5:38

will. So I'd love to start with um if we're thinking about the woman listening to this who knows that alcohol isn't really serving her anymore, but feels scared about what that might mean. What do you see come up most often in midlife when women start questioning their drinking?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

It's such a big area. So we're all different, right? You know, and everybody's got their own stories and their own journeys that have led them to where they are. But there are certain similarities that we all have when it comes to our physiology. There are some things just we're made pretty much the same way. And when we're young and we're invincible and we are going out for three, four nights in a row till 3 a.m., getting up the next morning if we've been asleep, going for an eight-hour shift in the pub or the office that we're working in. Uh, you know, we throw a bit of McDonald's down our throat or whatever it is and gear up and do it all over again. And yeah, you feel a little bit rubbish, but you can do it, right? You can keep going. And it's fun. And it's worth it. And it's totally worth it. The wild nights, the stories. And look, we've all done it and we all had a great time. Also, all had some not so great times, you know, there was good and bad in all of it. But what happens, I think, is that as we get a little bit older, we tend to look back with these sort of rose-tinted spectacles at all the fun that we had and all the ways that we used to do it, and keep thinking, well, I'm still that person, you know, I can still go out, I still like a party, yeah. I've got the kids at home, or yeah, I've got a job, but yeah, I can tie one on. And the fact of the matter is that as we age, alcohol hits us differently. Yeah, it just impacts us differently. And you said a perfect thing, you know, it's not a failure. This is not your body letting you down. This is not you being unable to be cool and hang out, it's just life, it's just nature, you know. It's it it's it's aging and we need to embrace it and we need to love it because there's nothing wrong with aging. It is a gift, and we should be glad that we get to do it. But we should also recognize that that means that we can't drink the way that we used to. That doesn't mean that we can't drink at all if we still want to, but it does mean that we might need to just take a look at how we allow alcohol to have a role in our life, what we want that to look like, and how we can make choices that are going to serve us better in the long run.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yes, exactly. And you've said you help midlife adults do things on their own terms. I think that's a really key thing. Um I hear from a lot of friends and clients, and and my own story as well, when I decided to to reduce my alcohol intake, was that kind of peer pressure or feeling like you should go? You can't just suddenly go out with those same people and say you're not drinking or you're having less or you don't want to go there anymore, you'd prefer to do something different because that feels like scary to sort of start saying that to those people and what might they think. So I think own terms is is really important. I think that's where I see a lot of a lot of people struggle with that.

Reacting to Peer Pressure & All-or-Nothing Thinking

SPEAKER_00 8:39

It's a really important part of what I talk about for me. I I I I repeat the same sort of things over and over again because I want the message to get through, just like you do when you're talking about certain elements of how we deal with perimenopause. You know, we need to remember that these things are happening outside of our control. Um, but we do have some element of control about how we react to what's going on. And when it comes to drinking, the control that we have is how we react to or respond to other people's um feelings about the way we decide to change our drinking. Because everybody has an opinion. Yes. And that's lovely. I'm very happy for you. I'm glad you've got an opinion. But your opinion doesn't necessarily have to have any impact on my choices and what I want to do. Um, the other part of the the own terms messaging for me is that quite often when we look at or we start looking at the way we drink, a lot of the messaging out there is if you're thinking about your drinking, then it's because you've got a problem. If you're trying to cut back, it's because you're drinking too much. And and this was very much the message that I was getting when I first started my journey. And actually, I I didn't start cutting back because of um addiction or alcohol use disorder uh or anything like that. Mine was a choice because I recognized that alcohol um was having more negative than positive impacts. It always has negative and positive from day one. Yes, you know, that's not new, but you know, the the scales weren't balancing for me anymore. Um, and I didn't want to be um bombarded with when I'm looking for alcohol-free drinks, I didn't want the message to also be, do you need to go and speak to someone? No, I just I just want to drink less. I just want a drink with less alcohol in it that tastes good. And that's kind of why I started doing what I do is to help people recognize that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You don't have to be uh in a state of alcohol use disorder, which is um what we used to call alcoholism. We now refer to it as alcohol use disorder. Of course, you can use whatever language you want. Yeah, so but but we don't have to be there. We don't have to be um, as they as the people like to say, you know, pouring vodka on your cornflakes. Yes, it's not about no, no, you don't have to wait for a rock bottom. You can make positive choices for your life, and they and it doesn't have to be all or nothing either, you know. It's not that, oh, alcohol's not really working for me, so I'm never going to drink again. Actually, most people want to moderate, they want to drink mindfully, they want to just drink less, uh, and but allow it to be an a choice that they make rather than say an automation or a habit that they're just falling in in that path of.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah, I think that's what the big differentiation is, and and that's what I sort of say to clients, because that there are a lot of there are a lot of um health experts out there that will say, particularly as we get to 40s and start moving through perimenopause into menopause, that we should not be drinking any alcohol at all, that it's just not working, it's not our friend anymore. And whilst there can be some truth in that, if somebody wanted to literally never ever drink again, that's fine. Um, but there's also truth in moderation. And you know, it's always about how much are you drinking now versus how much would be more ideal for you to still drink, but also look after your hormone health as you move through this really rocky time of perimenopause and get to menopause and enjoy your life after that. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. And I love that about your message, you know, that that's exactly it. We what you know, what can we just do to start being more mindful? Could it, you know, rather than just letting somebody top up your glass for the sake of it, or oh, I'm happy, you know, someone's getting another round, so you just say, Oh, yeah, okay, then because you're in the rounds thing. I've heard that a lot. Oh, we're doing rounds and it like I mowed my round, or I have to have I have to I owe them a round. So then you just end up having seven drinks on an evening when you would have been more than happy to have two or three and end it there, but you've ended up having more than that because of sort of conforming, I guess, to to what's on around you. So yeah, I really like that message that it doesn't have to be all or nothing, and I hope I never give that message out because that isn't what it has to be. I personally chose to stop drinking completely after a while of moderation, and that's just where I naturally went. But I wasn't planning to go there, and it's not something that I say other people should or you know have to do. So I really like that message.

From Hangovers to Moderation

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Was that your story then? You wanted to just decide you wanted to moderate? Did you ever think I don't want to drink at all?

SPEAKER_00 13:21

No, never, no. So I um so my I come from a hospitality background. So I spent 24 years working in pubs, bars, clubs, restaurants, race courses, you name it, pretty much everything I've I've done it. Um, and so drinking for me was a daily activity and it was normal. You know, people often talk about my career, you know, there's a lot of drinking in media or in politics or whatever. I worked in bars, yeah. And as I moved up through the ranks and I became the boss, you know, that it was my stock. I could do what I wanted with it, you know. And there were times that I did drink damagingly, absolutely. Uh, and I partied hard as well. You know, I worked in the West End for a long time, so drinking often led to other things. But for me, when the change um came about for me to start drinking differently, it wasn't um a case of me doing that, you know, that's that Sunday morning thing where we wake up and go, oh my god, I'm never drinking again. Yeah. We've all said that a thousand times until Friday, yeah. And the other thing for me is well, I didn't have Fridays, I didn't have weekends because I worked in hospitality. You know, we'd go out on a Tuesday or Wednesday because Thursday, Friday, Saturday, we were working.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

And yeah, we'd have drinks after work, but we'd be working till 11, 12, 2 in the morning. But Tuesday, Wednesday night, we knew all the bars that you could go to late and have a drink. So anyway, I I did that for for a really long time. And then I moved up in my career into events. In my last role, I was working in events, and um, so I came out from behind the bar, I wasn't running a venue anymore, and I got uh I was we COVID hit, and I was on maternity leave at the time with my daughter, my uh she's now six years old, and I got made redundant uh rather unceremoniously, but it happened to a lot of us during that time, so it's fine. And I knew that I didn't want to go back into hospitality again because the drinking and the socializing with two small kids at home and we had to protect my husband's job, so I had to make sure that he could, you know, go and bring home the bacon, as they say. Um, and so I took a bit of time out and decided to start looking after myself a little bit more whilst looking after the kids. Long story short, we watched this uh documentary called Game Changers, which is about vegan athletes. Uh, and we decided to try going vegan for six months, which was fascinating, really hard. Um, but what happened was I took out all the bad things in my diet and that I was putting into my body, and I began to realise that the only times I felt really bad were after I'd had a drink. But I didn't, it wasn't like a hangover, it was three days later. I'd still be feeling subpar, I'd still be operating at 60, 70, 80% of my capacity. Yeah. Uh and so I realised that I wanted to start drinking less, and I never ever wanted to give up completely. My personal goal was I said to myself that I never ever ever ever want to have a hangover ever again.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

That was my goal when I first stopped or moderated, it was the hangover.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

It's the hangovers, and they are. I mean, I used to have when I went out out, I had really bad hangovers. Like I could be sick for 24 hours being physically sick because I battered my body. But even when I just had casual nights out where you just go for a couple of cocktails with your bestie, you know, I was just feeling so rubbish for so many days afterwards. I thought I don't, I don't want that because it's just stopping me from doing everything else. And it was really affecting my mood.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

And I remember one time snapping at my little boy, um, and he'd done nothing wrong. He was just chatting and jabbering away as kids do, being annoying, but no more than usual. Um, and I remember snapping at him and the look on his face, and he was so mortified. Um, and I knew at that moment it wasn't because of him, it was because I was feeling so crappy because of the drinks that I'd had. And I was like, well, that to me is a hangover that I just don't need in my life anymore. And so, yeah, so my

Active & Passive Moderation

SPEAKER_00 17:19

that was my goal. And I went from, you mentioned something I thought was really interesting, um, going from moderation to just drinking less. So I refer to it as sort of active moderation and passive moderation. And and active moderation is those things like your dry January, your sober October, um, zebra striping and bookending, and and we can talk about those terms if if you want to dive into those. Um, but it's where you're setting yourself a rule or you know, a guideline perhaps. Whereas I went from that and I moved into what I call more passive moderation now, where it has just become a part of who I am. It's become something that I've accepted that I can now take it or leave it when it comes to alcohol. But I've realized that I prefer to leave it far more often than I would ever take it. Because actually, as I've gone along, the things that I used to get out of it, I'm just not getting anymore. So that's not worth worth the cost to me. And I think that's that passive moderation stage that most people are trying to get to, that they they want to be able to just, as you say, when there's the rounds going, go, okay, well, you might be doing rounds, but actually I don't fancy one, so I'm gonna sit this one out. Or I will do rounds, but I'm getting an alcohol-free drink. And I don't have to um perform my drinking to make you happy.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yes, yeah. I think that's the key one. I definitely feel that I that's where I struggled at first. Um, because for me it was the same as you. It was like, I just wanna um I'm I'm starting to notice that I'm not I'm just not feeling good when I have a drink. And then for me, there was that icing on the cake. It was my partner's 40th that I'd spent so much money and time on on organizing for him. And then I when we got home, I was really sick and you know, vomiting, and I thought this is ridiculous. And then when I woke up the next day, there were so many parts of the night I didn't remember conversations with really important people, like family members. And I was just gutted. I thought that is like come on, this is not how I want things to be when I drink. So for me, it was all right, I'm gonna moderate, I'm just gonna have, I'm never gonna have a hangover again. And I'm never gonna be drunk again. That's what I said. Okay. I'm not gonna stop drinking, I'm just never gonna be drunk again. And I never ever have been drunk ever since. Um, but then by accident, like you were saying, I was saying to myself, I can drink and I will drink tonight or at home if I want to. And it just became over time, it just became more common that I just didn't want to. But I was I was allowing myself to. There'd be a bottle of red wine there with a meal, or we'd go out and you know, my partner would say, What do you want? And I think, Do I want that gin and tonic that I do so so my refreshing G and T with lime? And half the time I just say, Uh, I just want the sparkling water with lime. Ask for lots of lime juice, you just say, loads of lime juice, and give me a nice tall glass, and that was fine. And then we started to go on holiday, and I started to never even have a drink on holiday, but still have the most amazing time, if not much better, because I never felt rubbish during the days. And that's what for me I thought it's just this was worth it before. Not only was it worth it before, but I also didn't feel as bad. Exactly. Because I was just younger and my physiology was able to handle it, and then and now I'm I'm not, you know, it's I'm far more sensitive to it, but I actually just feel much better without it. So it was kind of like that accident. But I think, yeah, it's the biggest one of the biggest things I did struggle with for a while when we were social, because my partner was so supportive, and most of my friends were, but some of them and the family members just didn't understand it. You know, they'd say, Why? Why live a little? Come on, just have another one. What's wrong with you? I used to get because I have a I'm half Irish, so I'd get the Irish side of my family saying, What's wrong with you? You're coming to Ireland and you're not having a drink, or they'd think I was unwell, or I must be pregnant. They could not get their head around it. So it was that, you know, just sort of just being really confident to say, I'm fine, and just keep laughing with them rather than getting annoyed. Because sometimes I'd want to get annoyed, I'd feel defensive, like just leave me alone. Um, but yeah, it was kind of learning how to navigate that. And I think that's where a lot of people do struggle with what do I do? Who am I if I am not the drinker? Because people would say to me, Oh, you've changed. And I was fine with that, but clearly they weren't. But then it makes you feel a certain like, oh, so do people think I'm just boring? I I went through that for a while. Okay I must people must think I'm boring. I'm absolutely past that now. But I think that's that's part of the identity shift.

Handling Identity, Friendship & Family Pressures

SPEAKER_00 21:51

I think there are there is a lot of mindful drinking and uh and sober curiosity and moderating and whichever terms people are using. Um There's a lot of practical advice out there. Um, but a lot of it is about the identity shift and it's about how we think about ourselves, how we think about ourselves as a member of our social circle, as a member of our family. It's about the value that we believe that we hold and share within ourselves and within our peer groups. Um, you know, I I write a lot about the identity elements of this change because actually for most people, the the the one of the struggles is that am I because if I drink less, am I less of who I am? Am I less me? Am I less of a person? Am I less valuable? Am I less funny or entertaining? Or, you know, perhaps if you're single, am I less attractive? You know, will I be able to flirt? Am I, you know, all of these things. And we don't realize that alcohol is tied up in so much about who we are. I mean, you talk about your family being uh you being half Irish, um, my family is from Jamaica. Um, those are two very big drinking cultures, but we live in the biggest drinking culture here in the UK. Um, it is just massive. It is from birth, deaths, marriages, and everything in between is marked with a drink in your hand. And so when you start drinking differently, sometimes the biggest challenges are other people's issues with it and them questioning you, and either the peer pressure or the genuinely not understanding. And so I think what's really important is to recognize that whilst this is your decision and people need to make the decision that is best for them. It is a selfish decision, but it's selfish in the best possible way because in the long term it's going to benefit you, it's going to benefit your friends, your family, the people that you care about. Um, but they are going to be selfish as well because they know you as their drinking partner. Um, you may have got years and years of friendship. Once we reach midlife, you know, our friendships are pretty much solid embedded. Yeah. Solid. You know, it's it's very hard making new friends when you're in your 40s because you're like setting ways, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah, very true. And you know, for me, one of the examples I often give is my relationship. So my husband and I met when we both worked in bars, same company, different venues. Our entire relationship was built on drinking, on going out for cocktails, making each other drinks. You know, it was the sort of language that we used in the beginning to show who we we were. Um, and so when I started changing the way that I drink, I was nervous. I was definitely nervous. My best friend as well, he was the man of honour at my wedding. His and I's relationship was also built on alcohol. Um, and I thought when I start telling these people, you know, what's the response going to be? And it is, I think, really important that we understand that other people need to get their heads around what we're doing as well. You'll get a couple of different types of responses, and quite um a really good thing is that I've noticed that a lot of people, when I've done like surveys on my Substack and I've said, you know, how do people respond? The majority of people now are responding more positively. They are being, they're finding that their friends are being more supportive. But there will be some who will be like, Well, what is wrong with you? Or come on, you're supposed to, or it's rude not to, and then not to. Yeah. And I always say to people then you've got look, you've got two choices. You can either stand your ground, get into a big debate with somebody, tell them all the reasons why drinking is bad for you for you or for them. You can talk about the seven types of cancer, you can talk about the WHO, the World Health Organization advice that no amount of alcohol is safe. Or you can say, You've got a good point, but I'm really happy with this. Enjoy yourself, I'll see you later. Exactly. I love it. What's easier? You know, I don't I don't have time in my life to to convince other people that the choices I'm making for myself are correct. If you love me and you care about me and you want to support me, then you will support that decision no matter what it does for you, because it's a positive decision. And your real friends will find ways to spend time together. There are other things that we can do as human beings other than get absolutely smashed.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

And it doesn't mean that I never go to the pub. I love a pub. I grew up in pubs. I absolutely love going to the pub, but I I want to drink something alcohol-free when I'm there. Yeah. Or perhaps we want to go and do a different activity. Yeah, we can go for a coffee and go for a walk. It's not the most exciting things in the world, but we can do other activities. We can go to other bars, we can go and see a show, we can go for dinner. You can still do all the things that you did before, you're just gonna remember them better. Yeah, exactly. And that's you know, like you said, you you threw this amazing, wonderful party and you don't remember it. Yeah, and you spent time and money and effort, and and that's one of the costs to me that is is not worth the time that you spent getting drunk. Now that's not to say that you're never going to have a drink again. That's not to say that, you know, like I said before, it's not about all or nothing. But the mindful drinking element is about making that choice and just saying, and I don't mean like every single drink you've got to weigh up a pros and cons list because that would be really dull. But just making a conscious choice as to whether the action that you are taking, whether it's about alcohol or anything else, is going to serve you well enough to be worth the consequences that you'll have to deal with the next day. And if it is, go for it. If you've got nothing on tomorrow and you can spend the day sat on the sofa watching Netflix and and you're happy with spending your time like that, then that's entirely up to you. We're all adults, we can make our own choice. But actually, if you'd rather do something else, if you'd rather go somewhere, you'd rather or still sit on the sofa but not be hanging, then you can have and there are options out there. You can have an alcohol-free drink, a gin, a rum, a wine, a beer, you know, there's it's not like 10, 20 years ago when you had no other choice. We've got options now. A lot more, I think, yeah.

Knowing Your Limits

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Yeah, and I think it it's just that natural progression, isn't it? Making, even if it's um the mindful choice of is this is this worth it for how I'm gonna feel tomorrow. But then there's also understanding your threshold, I think. So what I started to realise was if I had one drink, which was for me it would have been a vodka and tonic or a gin and tonic, those were my drinks. And I worked out over time after that point where I said, I I never want to be drunk again, I'm never gonna be hung over again, but I'm still gonna drink when and if I want to. I figured out what my threshold was for me not to feel rubbish, and also I figured out the things where the threshold was the number of drinks, but also it had to be on a full stomach, you know, after an actual meal, not on an empty stomach. There were times in the day I figured out where it worked and it didn't work, even one drink. I found that if I had one drink, I mean it it works differently for different people, but for me, if I was having that one or two drinks after, like in the evening, it was much easier, funnily enough, than if I tried to do that during the day, because there was a lot of you know brunches and things like that. And I found my day drinking, even if it was one or two, just knocked me for six. But if I had it a bit like five o'clock or or just after dinner or something, it didn't do that to me. So I spent some time figuring all of that out. And then eventually, and knowing that if I had a third drink, I would pay for it the next day, even if I wasn't drunk, I was still not getting drunk, which is what I really wanted. But I knew that that third drink would just make me feel rubbish the next day, so there was never a third one.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

And then it just gradually became none.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think you got to know yourself, it's really important. Uh that one of the the joys, I think, or one of the beauties of midlife is that you do know yourself better. Yeah, I know myself better now in my 40s than I ever did in my in my twenties. Same and and and drinking less is part of that as well, because you have more clarity, you can actually spend time with yourself and know what you think and feel, rather than just reacting to stuff. Um, but I I I I I think that's a really interesting point about sort of knowing the time of day or the type of drink. Um, because that's a really big part of it, because you can we can't drink the way that we used to. You know, I used to love an old-fashioned, which for anyone who doesn't know is basically just bourbon in a glass. It's like it's like a bourbon martini. You stir it with some some ice and some sugar and some Angus bitters is very strong. I couldn't possibly drink it now, it's knocked me for six. But you know, for example, as we as we age, as I as I know you'll know, you know, your body composition is completely different. Uh, and then especially for women as well, because the way that our our bodies are made up, all the stuff we're going through. So we I'm in the throes of perimenopause myself at the moment, and as I've mentioned to you before, you know, it's I'm all over the place with everything from my the brain fog to the temperature and and all that sort of stuff. But there's things that we don't recognise that alcohol is doing within our bodies that is impacting all of that, which is why it impacts our perimenopause symptoms, but also impacts the way we can drink. So, for example, we have less water in our body when we're uh when we're 40, 50 years old. We've got about 10% less water than we did when we were in our 20s. Now that might not sound like a lot, but what that means is because alcohol is spread throughout the body through your water systems into your organs, if you have less water in your body, the concentration of alcohol in your system for every sip is higher. So I I I say think of it like making a squash, you know, or ribena or cordial. Other squashes are available. You know, if you have the same amount of water, but you put twice the amount of squash in it, it's going to be a stronger, sweeter drink. And it's the same with our bodies, the same with alcohol. Um, so there's a lot of these things that that that change as we age, that we really need to be more mindful of, to be more aware of, to pay attention to, that impact the way that we can or can't drink. And so I think that's a really big part of mindful drinking is it's not just about, like I said, if I have this drink, can I have another one? Or, you know, I had one yesterday, should I have one today? It's not about that. It's more about recognizing the impact on your life as as a whole. As a whole, yeah. You know, there's this holistic impact on my energy, my my my my cognition, my memory, my skin, all of these things, and and weighing that up um rather than just oh, I had one this this afternoon, can I have another one?

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Yeah, yeah. So it's less about policing yourself on and and rules around what how many you can have and what you should and shouldn't do. It's more about just being really in tune with your own body and your symptoms and how you're affected.

Moderation Methods You Can Try

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, the rules rules work for some people. And they do. I I've I've got two kids, Logan and Isla. Logan loves a rule. He likes to know what he's supposed to be doing, when he's supposed to be doing it. Isla, excuse me, it's not interested. She makes up her own rules, does her own thing. And and so the same for adults as as we talk about our drinking. Some people do work better with structured systems. So things like dry January, where the rule is very simple: you don't drink for a month, or any month-long break that you take. Um, other rules that people can look at are things like zebra striping, which is alternating between an alcohol-full drink and an alcohol-free drink on your night out. There's things like bookending, which is starting and ending your night with an alcohol-free drink, but drinking alcohol in the middle. Between there's pacing, where you would uh limit yourself to only one alcohol drink per hour, with the idea there that it gives your body time to process the alcohol. Because um, I'm not into the fear-mongering side of things, but the fact is that alcohol is a toxin to the body. So what happens is as soon as you consume alcohol, your body stops doing everything else and focuses all its energy on processing that alcohol and getting it out of your system, and it can process about one unit per hour, which is why when you have lots of drinks, you still feel drunk in the morning and you're not supposed to drive. Um, so if you pace yourself to only one drink per hour, that gives your body a chance to do what it needs to do. And obviously, in between, the idea is that you'd have some water. Um, so there are there are different types of rules, and then then there are things that people set themselves. Some people say things like, right, um, I'll only ever drink on the weekends, not on the weeknights, or vice versa, depending on how your social schedule works. Um, some people do things like um never on two consecutive days, or only with a meal. So there are lots of ways that people can approach this, and I do encourage everybody to do a bit of trial and error and figure out what works for you. Um, because I can be pretty um sure that the the way that you went about changing your drink in Francesca would have been different to the way that I did it, would have been different to the way that other people do it, which is absolutely fine. Um, but yes, after we've looked at these rules, the idea is that we don't want to live like that all the time. You don't want in five years' time to still be counting your drinks. That's just miserable. Nobody wants to do that. Um, so that's where the mindfulness part comes in. So, you know, the the rules bit that's the moderation. The moderation is like the the how, but the mindfulness is the why. And once you start to understand your whys uh and looking at the bigger picture uh and your beliefs around alcohol and how it shows up in your life, that's when things really start to shift. That's when the change really starts to happen. Because once you've come to understand what alcohol does when you have it to you and the goals that you have set for yourself, and you started to change your beliefs around the type of person I am in social circles, when you start to understand that you still have value and you're still funny and you're still flirty and you're still clever and witty, even if you're drinking alcohol free for the night. Once those beliefs start to embed, then it becomes a lot easier to make this more of a way of life rather than a checkbox that you have to fill in every night.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Does that make sense? Yeah, I absolutely love that, and I think that I resonate with that, and I think that's it's initially where I was people pleasing so much, and the next day I'd say, Oh, I you know, I had more drinks than I had wanted to, and I'd almost like be kicking myself, and and but that very, very gradually just changed and changed and changed over time. So I kept saying, It's okay, we'll we'll just keep trying, we'll just keep trying. And it was all about that until I could prove to myself that I was still fun, I was still funny, I still had lots to say, I still had the same, you know, confidence, even though I wasn't drunk and I wasn't or I wasn't drinking. Then the people-pleasing element started to become easier as well, and less and less um, and understanding as well, this is about them, then you know, I'm making I'm allowing this to be about other people rather than really focusing on myself. What do I need? And like that comment that you said earlier, you could stand there and try and explain yourself and explain why you're doing this and oh make all these excuses because I used to think of things in my head, what could I say as to the reason I'm doing this so that this person backs off? You know, I could say something so profound that they just leave me alone, or I could just, which is what I started to do, say, you enjoy your drink, and I'll enjoy the whatever this is, and you know, have a good night. And just that's it.

The Confidence in 'No Thanks'

SPEAKER_00 37:52

And I think you know that you said the word there, confidence, you know, when you start drinking differently, yeah. In the beginning, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this is all perfectly easy, you know, it's a change, and it's a change of decades of habit, which is which is really hard to break. But once you start to see the light through that, then actually your confidence, which is one of the things that people worry about, your confidence improves because you can be confident in who you are, you can be confident in what you can do and what you did last night, and what you know, you can know without any uncertainty that you didn't send that text message to that person who's like, Oh my god, I can't believe I said that. If you know all of that that stuff. Um and and you also then will have the confidence to to just say no thanks and know that no thanks is a complete sentence. It's a complete sentence, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Yeah. And when there's that pushback, which is why I had in Ireland, come on, go on, you sure? Why? But why? You sure? Is there something wrong that you can just continue to say no, honestly, I'm fine, and keep calm and eventually those the questioning will stop.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Keep yeah, keep eventually, you know, and I say this with all the love in the world, but you're not that interesting. Eventually, people will just move on, they they will, you know, and and the more that we fight it and the more that we push against it, and the more that we defend our position and we start, you know, sharing stats and excuses and things. That's why I hate those posts that are like 10 excuses that you can have for not drinking. So it's like, no, no, no. If you are with people who you care about, you tell them the truth, and you say, I've got a work thing coming up, or I've got to take the kids, or I've it's been feeling really crappy lately, or whatever it is, you can be honest. If it's some random person who, you know, I remember having somebody I was ordering a drink at a pub once, and this guy decided to pipe up because it was an alcohol-free drink. And to be fair, he said stuff that I would have said to people in the past, you know, like what's the point? I was like, Okay, but I I I didn't ask you. You're not drinking it. Yeah, you don't have to have it, it's fine. So, you know, I think it's just we need to recognize that that we have to stand in our power for for to make these changes, uh, and no one else can do it for us, right? And everybody else who is might be giving you any pressure if you are feeling peer pressure from from anyone, you know, how is their peer pressure going to help your life?

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

We've got to try to look beyond this very moment, beyond this conversation that we're having, and to the fact that in about two minutes' time, this person will go on and talk about something else, and I can be left standing here with a drink or without a drink, which one is gonna be better for me? Um and if all else fails, change the subject. People stop talking about themselves, just ask them a question about themselves.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Yeah, that's one of my powers, actually, is just anyway. How are you? What have you been up to? It works every time.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

How's the project? How's the kids? Or the thing, oh, I love your shoes, where'd you get those from? Or did you see that thing on the whatever it is, you know, change the subject. You're not that interesting, people will eventually move on. And if someone really, really doesn't get it, then that's their loss, you know. You can't allow somebody else's ignorance, and I don't say that in a horrible way, just ignorance just means not knowing, yeah. Uh somebody else's not knowing uh to to impact your quality of life.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Yeah, I love that. I think that's a really powerful place to finish. I really do. I think that's that it took me a while to learn that, but once once you're there, you're there. And yeah, however long it takes is fine. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, that's brilliant. Thank you so much. This has been really, I think it'd be really helpful for people to start sort of reframing things and seeing, just re-evaluating. So yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Thank you for having me. It's been wonderful. I do hope it helps people.

The Four Week Mindful Reset

SPEAKER_00 41:46

I'm sure it will.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

And where can people find you if there's I know you've got a four-week mindful drinking reset? Is that right? That people can get.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

I do, I do, yes. So I created a program, it's a four-week midlife mindful drinking reset. And so it is created to take people through a week-by-week journey. We look at things like your awareness around your drinking habits. We then look at your boundary setting and social interactions. Uh, then week three, we look at health and stress management, and then a week four, we put it all together to help make a forward plan for your life because it's important that at the end of one of these things that you have a plan for how you want things to look going forward. Um, so you can find that and uh my Substack and everything else at the website, which is lono drinker.com. But as you're on a podcast, the best thing to do is once you have finished listening to this fabulous show, uh, is to go and search Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife, where you can find my pod. Um, and thank you, Fantastic, because I think that what you're doing is so important. Um, as somebody going through perimenopause who had to figure it all out by herself and had no idea what was going on, it's been uh a godsend to find uh a show like yours that actually helps me to get my head around all the changes that are going on inside my body.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I definitely highly recommend your podcast. Definitely go out and listen to that. I will link everything that you've talked about in the show notes as well. Um, because I think the mindful reset sounds amazing if you're considering, you know, if you're ready or considering even just some sort of reduction, I think that'd be really helpful. And your Substack is obviously really popular as well, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Yeah, I love I love writing on Substack. I uh I used to produce a magazine, but actually I really enjoy doing the writing. So I write a lot about identity, about changing your drinking habits, about different ways that you can approach things. And really, my goal there is, as with the podcast, is to help empower people to feel more confident in their choices to drink differently on their own terms. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

So really helpful stuff, guys, in the show notes. I'll have all the links. Thank you so much, Denise. Thank you. Bye. If you enjoyed this episode, come and join me inside the Midlife Thrive membership. It's where I share my best resources, deeper education, and coaching support to help you navigate Perimenopause and beyond with clarity and confidence. Head to francescaleperotti.com forward slash midlife dash thrive dash membership or check the link in the show notes, and I'll look forward to welcoming you into the community.