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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 your choices around how you decide to allow alcohol to show up in your life or not. I'm your host, you can call me Dee, and this is week four, where everyone's been asking, how do I do this in real life? 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, nearly six years now of drinking differently and helping so many people to do the same, these are the most common questions that I've collected about how moderation actually works when you're standing in the pub on a Saturday night or on the sofa and feeling like having another drink. This week is all about practicalities, so I'm going to be giving you some quick fire use in the moment tips for each of the questions that we've got this week. Starting

Making Each Drink Last Longer

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with how can I slow down and make each drink last longer? First of all, uh sip, don't glug. Now, I know it might sound or seem obvious, but like I said before, sometimes the obvious questions and answers are the best. Um physically, not to sound too um detailed, but you know, if you open your mouth wide, ready to receive an entire pint, then you're going to drink an entire pint in just a few glugs. But try to put some physical um conscious effort into how you're holding your drink and how you're bringing it to your mouth and what your mouth is doing. Take smaller sips, take a space in between them. Don't glug, don't rush your drink, and make sure that you're drinking something that allows you to do that. Um, carbonated drinks, uh, drinks with strong flavor rather than something that's quite flat and quite um single note, like a pint, which is easier to down. But if you're having something like a wine, if you're having a complex cocktail, that's going to be something that you're going to sip rather than something that you're going to glug. Number two, sit at a table instead of standing at the bar. And when you're at that table, keep the drink selection to your back. Keeping it out of your eye line gives it less attention, less prompting for your brain, and therefore makes it slightly easier for you to resist rather than rushing to try the next thing. And number three is to drink with food instead of on its own. So last week we talked about drink um eating before going out, but this is in the moment. Having something on your table, so you might not be going out for a meal, that's fine, but having something on your table, like a bowl of chips or fries, um, gives your hands something to do and your mouth other than always picking up your drink.

Stop After Your Limit

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Question two: how do I stop drinking when I've reached my limit, even if I want another one? So, first tip here: set a hard out. Having other plans works really well. Somewhere else you need to be, somebody that you don't want to let down, something important that you need to get done, that you can do safely after having had one or two drinks, of course. Um, number two, switch to low-no drinks after your second drink, if that's your limit. Whatever your limit number is, after that one. If you want to keep in the moment, stay in the venue, um, but yet still stay within your own goals, switching to an alcohol-free um or low alcohol beer or wine or cocktail, which most venues now do have a much better selection than they did even a year or two ago. Um, so you'll definitely be able to find alternatives that you can drink that still taste great, still are an adult drinking experience. So it doesn't take you out of the moment, but it does reduce the amount of alcohol that you consume. Uh, and then number three is if your limit is just one, if you're just having one drink, okay, and that's what you really want to teach yourself to do, which is a fine goal. My tip here is to indulge in quality and not quantity. Order yourself your favorite premium wine, the one that you usually only have on special occasions, or something that you've always wanted to try, maybe from the top shelf. This stops you from feeling like you're missing out. Okay, it lets you have something um indulgent and decadent. I feel like you've treated yourself so that when you do stop after that one, this is no longer a restriction, this was an indulgence in something special, and you can feel like you've ended your evening or your drinking session, having had a really lovely experience just for you, and therefore you don't mind whatever you have afterwards from the low-no or light arena. Question

Handling Social Pressure With Ease

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three: How do I turn down a drink and handle the pressure from others? This is a big question. It comes up a lot, and understandably so. Now, I have got a great episode for you on this. It's episode 161: The Real Reasons Your Friends Can't Take No for an Answer. That episode goes into detail, uh, more detail than we have time for today on the friend types that might find it harder to accept your choices to drink differently and how you can respond to them in a way that leaves you both better off. I'll link to that, of course, in the show notes for you. But for today, my quickfire answers for you here on how to turn down a drink and handle the pressure are one. Remember your three-level why. Now, we talked about this last week, so if you haven't heard that episode, go back and listen to episode 190, How Do I Start? But this is about your deeper whys, not your surface levels, and knowing your three-level or deeper why for why you're wanting to say no to alcohol in this moment is going to support you so much in saying no when other people are trying to get you to say yes. Number two, keep your responses short. Remember that no thank you is a full sentence. You do not need to offer up your entire life story coupled with a bunch of excuses. Be concise, be polite, and move on. And third, in a similar vein, don't defend your choices. If somebody wants to debate with you whether just one more will be okay, you'll be wasting both your time and your energy trying to win them over. It is better to let them sit in their beliefs instead of trying to change them and persuade them over to your way of thinking when that energy could be better spent on discussing almost literally anything else with anyone else who is going to accept and support your choices. Trying to debate with somebody whether or not your choice to drink less alcohol for yourself is right by their standards, is a waste of your time. So just don't be sucked into it. Again, keep your responses short, sweet, change the subject, talk about them, talk about anything else, and if they don't want to, then make your excuses politely, go and have a conversation with somebody else.

Drink Less At Home

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And finally, today, question four is how do I drink less at home? Not every night out is out. Almost three-quarters of alcohol purchased in the UK is for consumption at home. And in the US, nearly two-thirds of consumers who were surveyed said that their last drink was at home rather than in a bar or some other venue. So understanding how to reduce your intake when you're at home is just as important as trying to figure out how to do it whilst you're out socializing. So whilst this question did come up a lot, it wasn't at the top of the list. But I think that's because most people don't often think about how much they drink at home. We always think about not missing out when we're with our friends or not being able to go out to the pub and drink like everybody else. But when most of our consumption is happening at home, that's definitely an area that we need to protect or support in the best way we can. So my three top tips here for managing your drinking at home starts with introducing some friendly friction. Um, it's as simple as not keeping your booze in your main living area. So if you spend most of your time in your living room, don't be like my mum who has a retro 1970s home bar in her living room with the glass front where you can see her vast array of miniatures that she's collected and also all of her full-strengt bottles. Now, when you have that situation, when you're sitting there on the sofa trying to watch a movie and the booze is in the glass cabinet watching you, it becomes a lot harder to resist it because it feels so much like a normal, natural part of what you do that it becomes automatic, it becomes habitual. And it's that habitual behavior that we're trying to break by removing some of the cues that lead to it. Number two, we take that a little bit further, and not only do we not have it in our main living space, but rather than just moving it to the cupboard in the kitchen so it's out of sight, put it somewhere that's more of a pain in the ass to get to. Uh, than you can usually be bothered with something like the garage fridge, uh in your attic, in the basement. I don't know about you, but I am not fighting through a wall of spider webs just to have a glass of wine. So putting it somewhere that's less convenient to get to, not impossible, but just less convenient. It's more of a pain in the bum, means that you're less likely to put that effort in, especially if you've got something else in the fridge, like a lono beer or an alcohol-free ready-to-drink cocktail that you could have instead. And then number three, the final phase uh in this three-step at-home uh drinking friction process is don't buy it unless you're going to drink it. And by that I mean, for example, if you're having a glass of wine with dinner, then that's lovely. When you go to the supermarket, buy yourself a small single-serve bottle and just have that. And when it's gone, it's gone. Uh, if you are having your mate over for a movie night, then fabulous. But get in what you know you're going to drink that evening, get a couple of cocktails in, whatever it is that you're going to have, get what you're going to drink for that night only and don't over-prepare. Uh, if you're off to Sainsbury's for your weekly shop or uh Target or something for your weekly shop, that is fine. Stay away from the buy one, get one free offers. That is how they get you. Um, if you don't need it now, don't buy it. Not having it in the house means you only have to decide one time that you're not going to drink it while you're standing there in the supermarket aisle. Once you get it into your house, you have to make that decision over and over and over again. I am exactly the same way with snacks. As long as I can resist the urge to buy my chunky peanut butter Kit Kat from the supermarket, then I know that when I get home, I'm not going to be able to eat it. So I applied the same logic to my drinking choices and I just stopped the automatic purchase of wine. Every time I went into the supermarket or my local co-op, I'd just pick up a bottle or two. Not because I wanted it, but just because, again, it was that habit of I've always got to have it in the house. So remove that temptation by not putting it in the house in the first place, unless you know you're going to be using it in that moment. All

Take the Midlife Drinking Quiz

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right, that's it for this week's quick fire, practical, in the moment, usable, implementable tips for how you actually drink less without giving up entirely in the moments that matter. Now, next week in our Everyone's Asking series is week five, and that is all about how we handle cravings and urges and setbacks because we are all human and they will happen, and it's perfectly okay if they do. You just need a few tools in your back pocket to be able to help you when that moment strikes. Um, in the meantime, please do go and check out the quiz. Quite a few of you have taken it so far, and I'm so glad you're finding value in it. Go and find your midlife drinking trigger type and the tools and resources that can help you to handle it for the next time you're in those moments. It's just nine short questions and takes less than two minutes. The link to that is in the show notes, as always, along with links to any episodes that I've mentioned for you today as well. I will see you next Wednesday, and until then, cheers to a summer less intoxicated.