Mindful Drinking Summer Series: The Big Questions

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Welcome to the Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife six week summer series. Everyone's asking. Six short, practical, summer-friendly episodes to help you answer the biggest questions about moderating your alcohol intake in midlife. As always, with no pressure and no judgment. I'm your host, you can call me Dee, and this is week one, where everyone's been asking, is moderation really possible? 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 after five years of drinking differently and helping hundreds of people to do the same, these are the most common questions you've told me that you have about whether moderation or mindful drinking is really possible. And it starts

What Is Mindful Drinking vs Moderation?

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with the foundations, it starts with the basics. And the first question is what even is mindful drinking and how is it different from moderation? So moderation is the act of managing your alcohol intake. It's the methods that you use, the techniques that you practice, whether you use alcohol-free drinks or mid-range drinks, etc., etc. Mindful drinking, however, is everything that takes place around those choices that makes them stick. Mindful drinking starts out being something that you do and it morphs into becoming someone that you are. You become a mindful drinker when you start to take on the beliefs and the actions of one, not because it's what you think that you should do, but because you know it serves you and the life that you want to build better. I like to think of it like the six W's questions. You know, the who, what, when, where, why, and how. And if we were to break it into the six W's, yes, I know they don't all start with a W. I didn't name it, it's just the way it is. But if we were to break it into that, think of moderation as the what, when, where, and how. So what you drink, when you drink it, where you drink it, and how you moderate that drinking. And mindful drinking is the who and the why. Who is in you and who you are and who you want to be, and and the life that you want to build, and the why. Why does it matter to you? Why is it important to you? Why is this something that you feel that you need to do and why now?

But What If I Don't Have A Drinking Problem?

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Question two: Do I need to have a drinking problem to practice mindful drinking? This one to long-term listeners, uh, the answer to this one should not come as any sort of surprise, but it's absolutely not. One of the biggest myths, I think, around changing the way that you drink is that it means that you have a quote-unquote big air quotes problem, or at the very least, that you're on your way to one. But making this choice to change the way that you allow alcohol to show up in your life is the same to my mind as making the choice to do a workout or to not eat the pizza. It's not a declaration of obesity when you decide to make a healthy diet choice, just as it's not a declaration of alcoholism if you choose to skip the booze for a night. You know, it doesn't have to equate to there being a bigger problem. It could just be a recognition that there is a change that you'd like to make in a moment. The research company CAM UK, who do uh an annual drinking differently report for two years on the trot, reported that 75% of the adult population uh in the UK that they interviewed for their surveys, and they they spoke to several thousand people, um, are actively trying to moderate their alcohol intake in some way, shape, or form. Uh, and I believe the numbers are similar for the US as well. But interestingly, the reasons that people are choosing to moderate that intake range from everything from health and well-being, uh, actually at the top of the list for most people, to saving money and um not doing anything that looks embarrassing on socials. Nobody wants to go viral for the wrong reasons these days. So choosing to moderate is about taking a positive action. It's about being in control of your choice in a way that you might not feel that you have been for a while now. And it's about understanding that alcohol might not be giving you what you need the way that you need it anymore, and that it's okay to look for that elsewhere sometimes.

Is Moderation Just A Stepping Stone to Sobriety?

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That takes us to question three, and that is so does that mean that I'm sober curious? Or to put it another way, is moderation the first step to becoming alcohol free or teetotal, whatever language you want to use. The sober curious was a term that was coined by the writer Ruby Warrington. Uh, she wrote a book a few years ago, and it's called, embrace yourself because this is a long one, Sober Curious, the Blissful Sleep, Greater Focus, Limitless Presence, and Deep Connection awaiting us all on the other side of alcohol. Told you it was a long title. Um, and in a way, you could say that her book sort of kick-started, or at least played a huge, huge part in making this sober curious movement what it is. And to be honest, it was one of the things that started me off on this journey. I read the book and I thought it was really, really interesting, and I thought it had a lot of really great valid points and perspectives in it. But it's not a phrase or a term that I use much anymore, if at all. Sober curious to me, and this is just my personal feeling, and it's okay if yours is different, but I feel like the term sober curious has an implication behind it. Like, if I'm sober curious, then does that mean that my ultimate goal is to see if I can live an entirely sober life? And it wasn't that for me. I never ever wanted to go sober. That wasn't my goal. My goal was to drink less, to drink differently. Um, and look, if your goal is to go sober and you're taking moderation as a stepping stone for that, then that's fine. It's more than fine, it's fantastic. Um, but one of the things that I know holds so many people back from drinking less or cutting back or moderating purposefully is the fear that it has to lead to sobriety. It's the fear that somewhere along the path, someone is going to say, Well, wouldn't it be better if you just gave up completely? And if that fear, if that worry is going to be a barrier to someone learning the skill of moderation, then I'd rather just remove it altogether and help you to figure out your own path, your own journey, your own route, whatever you want to call it, all on your own terms, whether that means just cutting down a touch or chopping your drinking in half, or one day maybe removing it altogether. But I really think it's important that it's your journey, your decision, your choice in your way, and that we can help people to understand that successful moderation isn't defined by ultimate sobriety.

Is Moderation Possible For Everyone?

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So, question four then is moderation really possible for everyone? Now there's a saying, uh, and to paraphrase it goes something like uh you can please all of the people some of the time, you can please some of the people all of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. And I like that saying because it reminds me that nothing is ever going to be the right fit for everyone every time. There are a lot of people who will argue that moderation is harder than just giving up altogether. There are some that will say it's not possible at all. And on the flip side, there are some who say it has changed their lives entirely, and just for the record, I am in that camp. In fact, I did an episode on whether moderation is really harder than just giving up for you a few weeks ago. It's episode 181, and I will link to it in the show notes for you. Um, but the truth is that moderation is a skill, and for some people, that skill is hard learned, and for others it comes a little bit easier. But just because something might be hard to learn, that has nothing to do with whether or not it's right for you. So, yes, I do think moderation is possible for most people, and more importantly, I don't think that anyone ever has the right to tell you that you're wrong for working at it. Now, on the flip side, there are, of course, some people for whom moderation is not the best path. And if someone has a physical or psychological dependency on alcohol, then trying to moderate their drinking without professional help is not going to go as well as you would like. So, for those people, as always, I say to reach out for professional advice and professional services. This podcast, as wonderful as I think it is, is not the right place for those who feel that they have a life-damaging problem with alcohol. So if you do fall into that category and you're looking for help, then check out places like Alcohol Change UK or Drink Aware here in the UK or Rethinking Drinking over in the US. And of course, there's AA if that's a path that works for you. But the best place to start, if you do feel like you have a life-damaging problem with alcohol, um, wherever you are in the world, is to speak to your GP.

Will I Ever Be A Normal Drinker Again?

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All right, and question five, our last question today is if I moderate my alcohol intake, can I become a normal drinker again one day? The fact is that drinking in moderation is normal. The vast, vast majority of people who consume alcohol on a regular basis do moderate their drinking. They do stop when they've had enough. They do go home before things get too wild. But for those of us who find it a little bit harder sometimes to hit the off switch, learning how to moderate, to how to drink mindfully will help us, does help us to regain some of that control, some of that power of choice that we somehow seem to have lost a little bit along the way. And moderation does not mean, as I said before, never drinking again. It also does not mean only following strict rules, only having a limited amount of drinks, always counting your number of drinks. The goal of drinking mindfully, of moderating your intake, is to be able to go out to enjoy the company of the people that you love and enjoy a drink if you want one, without that becoming the center of your entire time with your friends, with your family, with your colleagues, with anything that you're doing. So please stop worrying about or thinking that you are not normal because you're on this moderation journey. You're simply somebody who needs a little bit of extra support in one area of your life, just like someone else might have a coach for the gym or a mentor for business, or I don't know, a teacher to learn guitar. It's okay to have support in an area of your life. It doesn't mean that you're not normal for doing it. It simply means that you have the wherewithal and the personal insight to recognize that you need a little bit of extra help and you've taken the steps to go ahead and do something about it. And that to me is a definite step in the right direction and a huge tick in the win column.

Next Week And The Midlife Drinking Quiz

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Okay, so I promised you these episodes would be a little bit shorter so that you can actually go and enjoy your summer, and I can go back to entertaining my two little terrors. So that is it for this week. Next week I'll be answering what does moderate actually look like. In the meantime, if you'd like more personalized support and guidance on your midlife mindful drinking journey, then I highly recommend starting with the newly updated midlife drinking quiz. I've spent the last few weeks updating the questions, updating the results, and the free downloads that you get with it. It's just nine short questions, and in less than two minutes, you'll have a freakishly accurate explanation of your biggest over-drinking trigger in midlife and a free guide, as I said, to help you work through it in a way that will serve your drinking type best. So click the link in the show notes to go and take the quiz now. You'll also find there the link to the episode that I mentioned earlier on 181. Is moderation really harder than quitting alcohol? I'll see you next Wednesday. And until then, cheers to a summer less intoxicated.