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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 on any of the choices that you make around how you choose to allow alcohol to be part of your life or not. I'm your host, you can call me D, and this is week three, where everyone's been asking, where do I actually start? 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 all told me you have about how to take the first steps into a more moderate drinking lifestyle. Now, I say first steps, it might be the first time you've decided to make a change to the way that you drink, or perhaps you've tried before and don't feel like it went very well, and you're using this podcast to help you make that go a little bit smoother next time. So either way, we're going to approach it as if this was you starting out because sometimes a clean slate, a clean sheet is the best way to start the day. It's just two questions today, but each one has a three-part answer because there's some depth here in this week that deserves attention, but I do want to keep these episodes shorter for you, as we said from the beginning, so that you can actually go and enjoy your summer.

The Big Question - Where Do I Start?

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So let's dive right in with question one. How do I start? Okay, because sometimes the simplest questions are the best questions. I'm going to be as straightforward as possible here. No fluff, no wish fulfillment, real life practicalities. That is what the Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife podcast is all about. And the entire Lono Drinker platform is also all about lived experience, which I think for moderators like us is so valuable. So to answer this question, I'm going to share how I started and I think it might resonate with you.

Find Your Real Why

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So first things first was to start with my why and not the how. And I mean here really understanding why you want to make a change to your drinking. Not the surface level BS of oh, I want to be healthier. Of course you want to be healthier. I want to be healthier. Everybody wants to be healthier. But the three layers deeper truth of what that healthiness actually means to you. Why do you want to be healthier? So, for example, for me, I had my kids later in life. I was 40 when I had Logan and 42 when I had Isla. And apart from the doctors in the hospital calling me a geriatric mother, which I will never forget. Thanks for that, Doc. Um, staying healthy for me means giving myself every chance to see my kids grow up and one day have kids of their own. So this is beyond just, oh yeah, I want to have six-pack abs or I want to look good in a bikini. This is the deeper seeded reasons under why my health is so important to me and why that's an impact for my drinking choices. Or let's say when I was thinking about work, um, it wasn't just, oh, I really want to focus on work this week, or I've got a big project I need to get done. The it was the three layers deeper of why that focus was important. For me, again, giving an example from my life, was that I realized that I don't want to work for anyone else again. I don't want to have a job where I have to answer to somebody else. I'm not good at working for people. Um, and I needed to learn everything that I could. I needed to become great at the job that I did have so that I could get out of that rat race of that ladder climbing and set up on my own as soon as possible. Okay, so what I want you to see is that the why of your choosing to make these changes goes so much deeper than you're probably giving it credit for. And whatever your why is, I want you to dig those three layers deeper. Maybe it's four, maybe it's five. Keep asking yourself why. I want to be healthy, why? Well, I want to keep fit, why? Where does it take you? And that's the answer. When you get there, that's the answer that I want you to hold on to when it comes to decision time about your drinking choices.

Take Baby Steps In Safer Spaces

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Okay, step two was literally to then take baby steps. So I didn't have my first drinking less nights out with my wildest friends at our annual blowout. You know, it wasn't a let's blow the roof off this joint kind of get together, where I first decided, oh, do you know what? I'm just gonna have a lono beer tonight. Because that wouldn't have worked for me. It wouldn't have worked with my my friend group, it wouldn't have worked with the way that we'd always done things until I'd sort of given myself some proof of concept that I could do this elsewhere. So instead, I chose the first times that I drank differently to be when I was out having a meal with my husband, or when it was just um me and my best mate, or when it was at uh a school parents event. For anyone who's listening who doesn't have kids, yes, school parent get-together events often involve alcohol. Um, but it was those venues, those events, those occasions where I chose to sort of test out my mindful drinking chops for the first time. So I went to those things and I didn't stay late. Uh, I I was conscious of the fact that I didn't want it to be a debaucherous night. I knew I wanted to have two drinks and leave. And I knew that if I could do that once and then twice, maybe three times, then I would be on to a winner and I would have the proof to myself, not to anyone else, but to myself, that I could do this.

Celebrate Wins Without Making It Weird

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And then the third thing that I did was I congratulated myself when I did that loudly and proudly. Not to random people who wouldn't care less, or by showing off to said, blow the roof off this kind of friends who were hanging the next day when I was feeling fine. But I would share with my husband, I would say, you know what, I did really well last night. I'm really proud of myself. I had a couple of drinks, but I feel really good today. I'm glad I stopped. Or if I was with my best friend or, you know, somebody else who would care and want to support me in that. Uh and when I started to feel like maybe I was boring them a little bit because I was talking about it too much, um, then I'd keep it to myself, but I still celebrated. Uh, I'd get myself a nice little sushi lunch, or some extra chockies, or something small, you know, something small but meaningful, which was just a mini celebration of me. So that was the those were the first steps that I took in how I started to make a change to the way that I drank socially.

Prep For Moderation Before You Go

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The second part of this question is what can I do before I start drinking to make moderation easier? Because this question came up a lot and a lot. Um, it's really hard to answer this question without sounding like either your mother uh or your teacher, uh, because the answers here are not very glamorous, but I do promise that they are useful. So, in practical terms, one of the single best things that you can do before you start drinking, so I'm talking about in the moment before you head out the door, is to eat. Because by now, by our age, we know, don't we? We really, really know that drinking on an empty stomach only leads to trouble. But I challenge you because how often, when it comes to drinking less, do you completely forget about using that as a tool to help you manage how much you consume? But it does work, okay? And here's why. One, because a full belly rarely craves more liquid sloshing around on top. You feel fuller, you feel bloated, you'll feel a little bit queasy if you try to put too much else in there. And two, because food in the belly slows the absorption of alcohol from the stomach into the bloodstream. That means you stay a little bit more mellow for a little bit longer, and therefore are less likely to decide to do something silly, like a Jaeger bomb. If I had to give uh another tip on top of that, it would be the partner tip to it, which if you've listened for a while, you've heard me say before. But drink water, lots of water. Water is your friend and it wants to help you. Let the water help you. Again, uh, it's more liquid in your stomach, which means uh likely to mean less liquid while you're out. Uh, the water gets around your body to help all the organs that are processing the alcohol that you do drink, and they're having a hard time of it because we are in midlife now, and so we're not very efficient at processing alcohol, not as we were 20 or 30 years ago. I did actually do a brilliant episode about this for you a little while ago about um why hangovers hit harder after 40, and that explains this all a little bit more. I shall put a link to it in the show notes for you, of course. But if you want to know, it's episode 176, the hidden biology behind brutal hangovers after 40. Um, and finally, also, even when you've only had uh two glasses of Vino, having plenty of water in your system beforehand means you might have a better chance of feeling even better in the morning when you do wake up feeling not so mega dehydrated, but you do have to top up that water intake throughout the night.

How To Lean On Your Friends

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And my third tip here about what you can do before you start drinking to make moderation easier would be to tell someone. Now, again, of course, I'm not talking about random strangers uh or the bartender, they don't care. But somebody who would care, somebody who does give a crap about you, tell your friends, probably the people that you're going out with, maybe not all of the people that you're going out with. You don't have to hold court here. I'm not talking about making a really big announcement, but having one person who's got your back can make all the difference. One person who supports you, who encourages you, who celebrates you and shows you how amazing you were, even when you couldn't see it for yourself, even when you're like, oh, well, I only meant to have one and I ended up having two. The friend who's going to say to you, Oh, well, you didn't have three and you normally would have had four, so that's fantastic. That's the friend that you need to tell. And that's a friend who will help to make your night out a much nicer place to be. And they also help when it's time to leave, and you know you'll have at least one person who's in your corner, who's not pressuring you to stay, who's making things easier for you and supporting you, whatever your choices look like. And if there's not that specific type of friend in that specific group that you're with on that specific occasion, then jump on your WhatsApp and tell your best friend, tell your husband, wife, partner that you could really do with their sort of virtual support and stay in touch with them, check in with them, or let them check in with you. And if you need uh a cheerleader, then just send them a message uh and say it's coming to that time now, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do, what do you think, and let them help you and guide you and support you and champion you. I am becoming more and more introverted as I get older. I used to be the biggest party animal, uh, but now I'm quite happy sitting at home chilling on the sofa. Um, but no matter whether I'm out with company or I'm at home with my husband, I still know without a shadow of a doubt that life is easier when you share your struggles with somebody who cares.

Next Week Preview And Quiz

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Okay, there we have it for this week. I hope it's given you some uh helpful insights into how do I start. I've kept this one purposefully short and sweet. I wanted it to be practical and implementable for you. So things that you can remember and to put into action when you're heading out, whether that's tonight, tomorrow, this weekend, or whatever. I will see you next week for week four when we will be talking about how to actually make moderation work in the moment. So, even more practical than today, we're talking about when it actually comes time to putting a drink in your hand and managing those social and domestic situations where you want to drink less than you normally would do. And don't forget to check out the Mindful Drinking in Midlife quiz, which I've recently updated for you. Um, it has got some great insight into the drinking triggers that might be leading you to drink more in midlife than you would like to, but more importantly, there's some great um guidance and advice and practical, usable resources for you to take back the power of choice from alcohol in midlife and beyond. So, of course, the link to that will be in the show notes for you. Go and take the quiz there. Now it will take you just two minutes. You'll also find there the link to the episodes that I mentioned earlier on today. And I'll see you next week for week four. Until then, cheers to a summer less intoxicated.