Category: Uncategorized

With the holidays approaching, I am going to spend time trying non-alcoholic wines in the hope of helping the holiday season pass by in a jolly manner. With so much delicious foods to enjoy, from the Thanksgiving Feast to the Christmas overindulgence, I am looking forward to turkey with all the trimmings, apple pie, cheese and charcuterie, honey-roast ham, Christmas pudding and of course lashings of chocolates. All my favourite foods to pair with what used to be my favourite drink: wine.

Not so fine on white wine

Wine snobbery

Later in my career, wine was elevated into something more sophisticated as I had the opportunity to visit vineyards around the world and learn more about the glorious grape. I tasted wine in Australia, France, South Africa, Greece, Brazil, California and Mexico. I learned the correct way to hold my wine glass so I fit in with pretentious nobheads. Opportunities were unlocked as I learned about Sémillon, Beaujolais, Pinotage. I learned how to pair crumbly or creamy cheese with crisp, dry white wine while talking shop with my clients. We found common ground and connection over our love for these finer things in life.

Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.

Ernest Hemingway

Jammy, peppery, yummy

Moving to California, I discovered a previously unknown-to-me variety of red wine, frequently found in the Lodi Valley wine region in Central CA: Zinfandel. We didn’t drink a lot of Zinfandel in London. Or any for that matter. I discovered that this variety has a jammy flavor bursting with fruity aromas of blackberry, cherry, plums, black pepper, and cinnamon with varying levels of oak. God I’m drooling. And my point is made. I like me a good Zin.

Don’t call it Champagne

Keeping it classy, I learned to love Champagne and sup Kir Royales in France. I learned from the French that nothing other than Champagne from the Champagne region of France is allowed to be called Champagne. And yet I went to Russia and drank Shampanskoye and found their local sparkling wine quite OK for the price and a much better alternative to all the vodka. And then I moved to California and discovered there was a legal loophole here too that enabled the local sparkling wines to be called California Champagne. What a delicious outrage. I supported this loop hole by having Korbel as the ‘Champagne’ at our wedding. And by having a Champagne-themed 40th birthday party. It was celebratory California Champagne (toasting to a new job opportunity) that was actually my very last alcoholic drink that I sipped, 643 days ago. Read more about that tale here.

And so, 643 days since I have last indulged in the blessed grape, I want to know if there is a small slither of its gloriousness that lives on in an alcohol free afterlife.

I’ll be diving deeper into non-alcoholic wines to see if they can hold up. One of the first I tried was a de-alcoholized ‘Champagne’ from St Regis which was declared to be a delicious, fizzy bubbly. At over $25 bottle, the jury is still out on whether it is ‘worth it’ but for us alcohol-free bettys, it is a good celebration drink. I will defo be getting a couple of bottles in of St Regis for Christmas.

Bait and Switch

So, that’s the Champs covered, now how about a Red? Can I find an alcohol-free red wine that is not pour-down-the-drain filth? First up: ARIEL Cabernet Sauvignon.

They describe their wine as an oak-aged Cabernet Sauvignon with aromas of black currants, cherry, blueberries and chocolate, with soft tannins and a dry finish. Somewhat incredibly, this wine is not new to the market as so many of the AF beverages are. Ariel has been perfecting this wine for over forty years. They use reverse osmosis to pump their fresh wine through membranes that separate the alcohol and water from the wine. That leaves a concentrate with all the flavor, texture and aromas of the original wine. And it is not too bad. Quite good really. The flavors come through… chocolate and cherry and blackcurrant with a dry finish. It lacks the bite and warmth and pepperiness of a good red wine but if I am eating a rich pasta dish or a steak, and I close my eyes, I can enjoy it just enough to make it worth it.

I’ll buy it again. Christmas red wine, sorted.

Next up: White wine. Planning to try either  Luminara Alcohol-Removed Chardonnay or Giesen 0% Sauvignon Blanc with the turkey at Thanksgiving. Stay tuned.

I have been alcohol free for 600 days. 600 glorious days of easy sobriety. 86 weeks of tea drinking calm. 20 months of wholesome living. One most notable result of such easy, calm, wholesome living is the increased feeling of stability and balance. Being sober has mellowed me out. And what that means is I don’t have such raucous crazy highs but I also don’t have the bummer, fear-ridden lows. Today, I have been reflecting on the relief of no longer having those gut-wrenching lows but also the grief of saying goodbye to a fun chapter of my life.

Closing the door on those days sometimes feels hard. Sometimes I just want to laugh until I pee myself or get asked to calm down and quieten down by a bar tender (something which used to happen a lot). I remember one particular time in Camden, London, a group of work mates and I had headed to the local pub to drink rosé, smoke Marlboro lights and hang out. And man oh man, did we hang. We sat at a large table near the bar and smoked and drank and laughed and smoked and drank and laughed until the bar tender told us that if we didn’t keep it down he would have to ask us to leave. Good times!

On the Sober Curious group on Facebook, I have seen many posts where people talk about grieving their old lives as they give up drinking. And while the addictive qualities of ethanol are of course creating a lot of that reluctance, I can completely relate, even 600 days in. Considering that you’ll never have a wild work night out again, or a boozy afternoon in a beer garden, or let loose with your friends on the weekend is definitely a sad realization and I feel some level of nostalgic sorrow that my wilder days are over.

When those moments of reflection creep in, I try and focus on the more freeing elements of my new alcohol free life; the balance and stability, lack of volatility. While this shift may have reduced my wild, carefree times it has also reduced my unstable, emotional times. With the alcohol-free lifestyle I now live, comes a lack of volatility that needs to be rejoiced. Whether it was because I was tired, hungover or on a ‘come down’, my old lifestyle had me frequently angry and short-tempered. And then guilt-ridden for being angry and short-tempered.
I was on a R-O-L-L-E-R-C-O-A-S-T-E-R.

And now I’m not.

So, goodbye Highs, goodbye Lows. Hello Mellow.

To celebrate my new even keel, let’s try a little NA fizz. A Dry Secco (non-alcoholic prosecco) from Gruvi. Gruvi has a number of delicious alcohol-free options on their website getgruvi.com but it is their best-selling non-alcoholic bubbly that first caught my eye. They describe it as delicate, floral and semi-dry with a touch of tartness. A sparkling wine with zero regrets. Each nifty little bottle contains 0.0% alcohol, 10 ounces of yumminess and just 50 calories. It’s also completely gluten-free and sulfate-free. Cheers to that.

While I enjoyed Gruvi’s Dry Secco, my favorite NA bubbly is still St Regis Sparkling Brut which I write about in my New Day blog post. When it comes to Gruvi, I am excited to try their handy cans of Dry Red wine which describes itself as full-bodied, fruity and bold. “Everything you want in a red wine, it makes the perfect companion to a weeknight steak dinner or rich chocolate dessert, with none of the hangover in the morning. This velvety smooth dealcoholized wine has a balance of tannins and a hint of oak and coffee that lingers on the palate”. Add. To. Cart.

I am at a phase in my life right now, as a mother of youngish children, where we are all about creating memories. Creating wonderful moments, traditions, beach days or day trips, routines and repeat activities which help create happiness, stability and joy for our family.

We recently invested in a camper van so that we could spend our summer weekends away in the mountains, surrounded by nature; birds, deer, bunnies, lizards, pine trees, summer storms and exploring outdoors. Our getaway retreat also has a pool for refreshing weekends spent splashing for the kids or reading books in the sunshine for the grownups. It is heavenly and with my new alcohol-free lifestyle it is stress free, 100% hangover free and I am learning more and more how to stay present in the moment.

Being Mindful

Staying present in the moment is a wonderful skill. I am admittedly not great at it but I am definitely better than I used to be. With my daily morning ritual, one of my affirmations is about staying in the moment, learning to not be quite so stuck in my own head. Without any toxins or drugs in my system, I do find that I am free from anxiety or stress on the whole and therefore not so trapped in my own worries. Every single morning, I spend ten minutes meditating, reflecting on my progress and reinforcing my commitment to never drink alcohol again. It is not just about being alcohol-free (although that is a major part of it) but also just becoming a better version of myself. My affirmations that I listen to every morning speak to sobriety, motherhood and behavior change as core themes. I focus on becoming centered, calm, caring, considerate… a warm and kind mother who is there for her kids and making their childhoods the best I can.

And as I now live Sober Furiously, here’s the twist in the story that tells you about how this wasn’t always the case.

I wasn’t always so focused on making memories for my kids. I was more selfish, more social, spending time hanging out drinking with co-workers rather than being grounded at home with my family. Rather than focusing on the quality of life for my kids and ensuring their memories were filled with joyful moments, I was instead, at times, praying that they were too young to remember the poor behaviors they had witnessed from their Mummy. At the worst of times, I would think with a smidge of relief “oh well at least that happened while they were still too young to remember it“.

YIKES.

Memory Loss

While I was busy hoping to erase the kids’ memories of the ‘out of control’ behaviors I was demonstrating I was also dealing with a whole other monster: memory loss. With age and maturity came a reduced tolerance for alcohol which caused a terrifying level of memory loss and blackouts. I would wake up after a night out with co-workers, semi-mortified about what I had done, what I had said, what embarrassment I had caused. And semi-confused as I only remembered tiny bites from the night before. Teeny tiny little memories would roll into my consciousness like dark clouds on a sunny day.

Snippets like:

• the teary conversation I had with a co-worker
• the honest sharing of childhood trauma tales at the bar
• the indiscreet peeing behind a non-discreet tree
• the lurching up my driveway and falling into a bush.

Some of these blurry little memories were witnessed by coworkers, friends and by my husband and children. But that isn’t the worst of it. The worst of it is, if these are the things I could remember from the night before, imagine the horrors that I couldn’t remember. The mortifying ‘other‘ tales that I could only imagine and embellish. The sense of shame still runs incredibly deep. The shame would hit me alongside the hangover and still hasn’t faded even now I am 546 days without an alcoholic drink.

I think back to some awful, awful memories, black holes and over-embellished blurry moments from my drinking days and my toes curl, my stomach lurches and my sense of regret hits me HARD. Many of those moments are too bleak for me to share here as I try to push them to the back of my mind and move on to my more positive and cheery situation of today.

Making Memories

And so back to the future we go, focusing on the present day, the positive new environment that I have created for myself and for my family. With my morning ritual of reflection and affirmation, I start the day focusing on my mental goals and spend the rest of each day trying to live my best life. Soberly.
People think living a sober life must be terribly dull but that is the crafty little secret that we T-Totalers know about. It isn’t dull at all!! In fact, there is a surprising and refreshing joy to be found in sobriety as your body frees itself of toxins and you remove that desperate feeling of needing something other than your own awesome self to survive. It takes a relatively short while for that to happen and after a few weeks and months, you realize that you can be happy, can have a good time, can enjoy yourself without a drink in your hand. There is a freedom that you start to feel the more that reliance on booze starts to slip away. Gatherings with co-workers or fellow parents on playdates used to be terribly awkward for me if there wouldn’t be booze. Now I glide into these events with ease and often find myself enjoying the moment much more, taking photos, holding babies, making sandcastles, dancing to the music, enjoying the desserts, sparking up a conversation with the caterers. <<<< All activities I would never have gotten to if I was staying closest to the open bar or drinks table.

I find I am able to enjoy a soda or NA beer and have an entirely excellent time connecting with people, overcoming my slight shyness by staying close to my kids. Taking deep breaths, taking it all in my stride, taking it easy. This calmer version of me helps me to focus more on my family (rather than on getting my kicks) and this summer that has meant a lot of time spent glamping with my kids, splashing in the pool, being out in nature and making those memories while the kids are young and scrumptious.

There is a surprising joy to be found in sobriety as your body frees itself of toxins and you remove that desperate feeling of needing something other than your own awesome self to survive.

Sober Furious

Making Mocktails

Part of what helps me to enjoy my sober life so much is how I have stopped relying on alcohol to fuel my fun and now just seek a mixed bag of delights when I go out or socialize. That means leaning into charcuterie or dessert or seeking enjoyment in the activity or conversation itself rather than leaning on the crutch of alcohol. One thing I do enjoy is finding a tasty drink to enjoy but let’s not kid ourselves that it is an alcohol replacement. It is not. It won’t give you a buzz so how can it be a booze replacement? However, it is good to have a yummy drink in your hand and we can do better than a diet coke or a lemonade. This tasty treat featured here is subtle. It is light. Refreshing. It goes very well with a salad or with a cheese plate. Seedlip Grove 42 describes itself as a sophisticated, bright, citrus blend of Mediterranean Orange, Lemon Peel, Lemongrass and Ginger with a dry finish. I paired it with tonic water, a squeeze of lemon and ice and found it to be a classy little tipple. This is my first time trying Seedlip and I am excited to try the other two non-alcoholic spirits in their portfolio. They are a brand with an awesome mission: to change the way the world drinks with the highest quality non-alcoholic options.

Their roots and history lie in the ancient art of distilling herbal remedies using copper stills, harnessing the power of nature & alchemy to solve medical maladies. Centuries later, Seedlip founder Ben Branson was inspired to purchase a small copper still and experiment with distilling herbs grown in his garden at home. He began two meticulous years of perfecting the world’s first non-alcoholic spirit–combining Ben’s farming heritage, love of nature & design, and fulfilling the need for a flavorful, sophisticated adult option for those not drinking alcohol. Sign me up!!

Confession #1: This is not my first time giving up alcohol

When I was 26 years old, living it large in London and consuming a LOT of booze on a regular, three nights-a-week minimum basis, I went for a full physical health check-up through my fancy corporate job. Before the appointment began, they gave me plenty of forms and questionnaires to fill out. When it came time to sit down and talk to the physician, he told me he had been alerted by my paperwork that I had a drinking problem. 

Gulp.

We talked through my drinking patterns and he absorbed the half-truths I told him. In his specific terms, he told me that it sounded like I had a reaction to alcohol, and wine specifically, which was close to an allergic reaction and he advised me to never drink again. I walked out of there and decided on a compromise. I decided to give up drinking for six months.

You have a reaction to alcohol that is similar to an allergic reaction and you should never drink again.

Physicians’ advice

He was right that my drinking was causing me problems. I was 26 and a social butterfly living in West Kensington and my behavior was starting to slip right as my career was taking off. Far from ideal.

• Friday nights spent out with friends would end with drunken arguments fueled by white wine.
• Work conferences always saw me closing out the hotel bar and struggling through the next day with a hangover.
• Travel home blighted by falling asleep on the bus or tube and missing my stop.
• Flirty encounters with untrustworthy fellas despite my always being in semi-serious relationships with other blokes.

The idea of giving up drinking appealed to me. I knew I needed to find a somewhat more wholesome lifestyle. I knew my life was a series of drunken mishaps and narrowly escaped disasters. I knew I was a hot mess.

Confession #3: Red Bull became my guilty pleasure

To continue with the confessions comes my guilty pleasure. Red Bull. Back in 2006, when I decided to keep smoking cigarettes but stop drinking alcohol, I needed to find a non-alcoholic beverage that still went well with Malboro Lights. Something that I could still sip in a British beer garden and smoke to my hearts content while my mates got lashed around me, something that would give me a mini buzz and taste good with the ciggies.

Hello Red Bull.

Sip, enjoy, feel naughty.

The Only Constant in Life Is Change.

Heraclitus, Greek philosopher

Quotes galore in this blog post, advance warning given. I love this one above from Heraclitus, ancient Greek, pre-Socratic philosopher. It is a well used, handy little quote. And, of course, it’s undeniably true… life is just so chock full of change. However, for those of us struggling to moderate their alcohol consumption, it can feel like change in this arena is simply impossible no matter how much you want to change. For the longest time, I was struggling to moderate my drinking and
just.
kept.
ending.
up.
the.
drunkest.
girl.
at.
the.
party.

Despite every single morning after the night before declaring that I would not binge drink again, that I hated myself, hated the shame I felt for being silly, drunk, obnoxious me. Or annoying, drunk, full-of-herself me. Or worse, dangerous, drunk, offensive me. I kept trying to not become that person. I kept trying to moderate my drinking to become one of those awesome humans that could drink alcohol in a classy way without ever losing control. I kept hoping that I could change. And yet change didn’t come for a very long time.

chrysalis

change

The funny thing about changing, is some people cannot accept your change. The big drinkers in my family and friendship groups tended to not want to talk about ‘my journey’. Or they saw the changes in me as an insult on them. As I moved away from an alcohol-driven lifestyle, some people saw themselves in the mirror of my move and couldn’t quite hear about my story without wanting to reassure me that their story was different. They didn’t have a problem. Alcohol isn’t a problem. Drinking is brilliant. And for those people, that is OK. I am not seeking for the whole world to give up alcohol! I am just seeking for myself to give up alcohol and never take it up again. I don’t frown upon people who drink and I don’t discourage others from drinking. Ex-drinking pals often ask me ‘how’s that whole not drinking thing going?’ and I get the sense they’re looking for failure or a slip up. They’re secretly hoping I’ve fallen off the wagon. They struggle to understand my change and presume that it must be hard won. But it’s not! For me, I now have 485 days of sobriety under my belt and it has not been a white knuckle ride at all, to quote my friend Lance Kidwell. No, on the contrary, it has instead been gloriously easy, 485 days of absolutely confident kick ass sobriety. I found the anonymous poem above on a Sober Curious facebook group and just loved the overall strength and sentiment of the words. The poem read aloud in the video above is truly worth a listen.

transformation

To represent the transformation of my mind, body, soul, mood, skin and dental hygiene, I tried a non-alcoholic drinkie poo that also promises full body benefits. Introducing the first-ever collagen sparkling tea that benefits skin, hair, nails, gut, and mood. This fizzy little delight from SkinTē balances organic hibiscus & organic rose petals combined with the smooth sweetness of organic vanilla with zero caffeine to keep you calm. It is sugar-free with antioxidants, 100% DV Vitamin C and 3000mg Collagen to keep you fresh-faced and gorgeous. Talk about a transformation! Recipe below and one last quote to round us out:

Keep on changing, sober furious friends! 🦋

I am a member of a few sober curious groups on Facebook and there are many posts from people trying to fulfill their sober curiosity but who are dreading upcoming camping trips that they strongly suspect will be filled with pressure to drink alcohol.

I know this scenario well. It is so tough to consider gathering around a campfire without a mug of whiskey in my hand. So hard to enjoy s’mores without a good slug of red wine. Unimaginable to enjoy camping with kids, in general, without a cold, relaxing beer or two.

Drunk camping

And yet, drinking and camping has ended in mishaps for me before. Or more specifically, an eye infection. After having plenty of whiskey by the campfire, binge drinking fueled by the yummy pairing of booze and toasted marshmallows, I was left putting my youngest kiddo to bed whilst my eldest got a little more time to play with camp friends. I had planned to do my Mum thing and then carry on by the campfire. However, drunksie me = sleepy me.

I passed out on the blow-up bed with my little guy and didn’t wake up again until waaaay into the wee hours of the morning, by which time my filthy campfire face was swollen and my eyes were red raw as I had fallen asleep with my contact lenses in. I dragged my ass out of the tent and into the camp facilities to wash my hands, remove my contact lenses and clean myself up. Back to bed on a wobbly blow up mattress, I tossed and turned until an early awakening by the birds/kids and then spent the rest of the trip with my head hung down in shame and shatters over being a not-so-classy camper with red raw infected eyes.

Sober Furious Camping

Camp Curiosity

We have recently transitioned from being tent campers to being travel trailer glampers and with that comes many opportunities to amp up the sober curiosity. A great way to scratch that sober itch is to lean into mocktails, kombuchas and non-alcoholic beers while away on a trip. Our little travel trailer is kitted out with some decent travel mugs and acrylic glassware plus a mini fridge freezer. We have ice on tap, a place to chill cold drinks and decent vessels to serve them in. What’s more, I have gotten savvy to the power of pairing good food with great non-alcoholic drinks. One of my weird joys in life is prepping the snacks and food for the camping trip and this last trip I included a chocolate croissants, cape cod trail mix, veggie straws, lemon peppercorn dip, baby carrots, hot chocolate, popcorn, kettle chips, tortellini, kale salad and a pre-prepared chicken curry and rice. From a drinkie poo perspective, I packed plenty of LaCroix® and GTs Kombucha Sacred Life so I could prepare a Blue No More mocktail. I also included a delicious Blackberry and Mint Jun Kombucha from the fabulous Wild Tonic. But the hero of the trip was limited edition Tucker’s West Coast IPA from Athletic Brewing Co. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am somewhat obsessed with Athletic’s line up of fabulous non-alcoholic beers, and this IPA holds no punches. It surprised the heck out of me at first sip and continued to delight as I made my way through a six-pack. This beer is part of Athletic’s Pilot Program, and I am not entirely sure what that means except I hope it doesn’t mean it goes away any time soon because this bad boy is a genuine game changer.

Tucker’s is true to the West Coast style IPA that inspired it. It has a nice balance of citrus, pine, and tropical fruit notes. This brew has enough malt character to hold up the hops, while not overpowering them. 

Athletic brewing company

Have a great glamp! 🏕

Drinking to make friends (oh dear)

But as a Mum, it was rare opportunities to socialize outside of the home that would catch me out. The old phrase “she doesn’t get out much” rang true for me, as I had turned inwards to my little family and our tiny house in San Diego. However, when there was a work event with a handy dandy open bar, or a grown-up birthday party at a friends house with lashings of red wine, that’s when I would get in trouble. I would be super excited to let off steam. Dying to let loose with my work pals. What’s more, I was keen to get uninhibited with my adult friends here in San Diego, with the hope of cracking through to the kind of friendship I was used to from my London days. Friendship built on adventures and misadventures, being asked by bartenders to “keep it down” due to the loud guffawing laughter of our group. I wanted my Mom or work friends and I to get that drunk so we could connect deeper. Deeper = oh dearer. I would often end up waaaaaay too drunk. Drunk enough to threaten the seniority of my stature at work. Or drunk enough to be off-putting to fellow Moms. And in the case of the grown-up birthday parties, sometimes my kids would be there to witness me getting Drunksie McDrunkerson. And that is NOT a good look.

Pushed (or tripped) into sobriety

In fact, the moment that put the nail into my drinking coffin was marked by my kids witnessing me drunk. Thankfully, it was a positive and celebratory tale that ended in a minor mishap and yet my daughter’s words gave me enough pause to push me into sobriety. The night began very joyfully, as I wrapped up a phone call with a recruiter for a major advertising agency, agreeing to accept a new, fabulous job. The recruiter’s parting comments to me were “time for the champagne.” Well, you don’t have to tell me twice. Our kids had been invited to play over at a neighbor’s house so I dropped them off and then continued walking to our local liquor store where I purchased not one but two bottles of good quality champs. Woop. My husband and I got out the flutes and enjoyed a couple of hours of kid-free celebrating. Music, laughter, chatter, excitement about my new job…

When it was time to get the kids, I headed to our neighbor’s house wearing some snuggly bed socks and my husband’s size 13 Birkenstock sandals. Why was I wearing this ridiculous attire? Well, because it was just across the little cul-de-sac and I was drunk on champagne. I flipped and flopped over there and was greeted by kids and my neighbor who had a friend over to visit. They themselves were enjoying a bottle of red wine and when they heard my news, grabbed an extra glass and an extra seat. I stayed there for another 2 glasses of wine before heading back home with my littles. My two kids and I happily waved goodbye and walked across the road to our house. I, however, was still wearing the slipper socks and size 13 Birkenstock’s and I tripped and scrapped my knee. When we got home, my eldest put a bandaid on my knee and I brushed their teeth and put them to bed. (My hubby hubs was passed out on the sofa after all the champagne. See what a match made in heaven we are!) The next day, hubs asked me why I had a bandaid on my knee and my daughter loudly and kinda proudly proclaimed that she had put the bandaid on Mummy’s knee because Mummy was drunk. 😱

To hear my daughter describe me as DRUNK was quite the eye-opener. She went on to admit that she doesn’t like it when Mummy is drunk because I don’t listen to her. I asked her if she would like it if I didn’t drink anymore and she said “YES”.

And that, as they say, was that.

Thankfully, I was a third of a ways through Holly Whitaker’s Quit Like a Woman when all this happened. This was the clarifying moment that I needed. That was 448 days ago.

Sober Mummy = Better Mummy

Since quitting alcohol, I have become a much more centered and present mother for my children and I hope my daughter will agree that I am a better listener now that I am alcohol free. With my daily meditation that I carry out ritualistically every morning, I not only include affirmations about living alcohol-free, but also about becoming a warmer, kinder mother. I am committed to becoming a stronger version of myself in every possible way but my sobriety and my mothering take the priority. I use my morning ritual to affirm this commitment every single day.

The Mother of all Non-Alcoholic Beers

Drink this delightfully refreshing brew and live your best alcohol-free life. Stay furiously sober!

When I was first introduced to alcohol, I was introduced to binge drinking. Drinking so much that I was drunk. Boozing was about the binging because to drink without getting drunk was pointless. The end game was annihilation. The drinking was the means to the end. Messy? Demonstrably. Blacked out? Probably. Schwasted? Undeniably.

People on Sober Curious groups who are toying with sobreity often ask about moderation. They don’t want to give it up foreeeevvvvvver. They want to imagine a life where the can control their drinking and not return into the state of binge drinking that got them down before.

Living a life of such excessive drinking led me to be excessive in other arenas. If I binged on booze, I would, at the end of the night, also binge on kebabs. Binging on booze in my twenties meant chain smoking Marlboro Lights. Binging on booze in my thirties lead to smoking a joint and ending up clinging to cold tile floors to stop the world from spinning as I had a ‘whitey’ (‘cross-fade’ for you Americans). Excess leads to excess.

But quelle surprise. I like excess. I love to over-order in restaurants to make sure I’ve tried everything good on the menu. I work to excess, putting in hours of work at night to make sure I was beyond well-prepared for the next day. I shop to excess, even if it’s thrift stores, I always go too far. I talk to excess, vocalizing waaaay too many thoughts. I love to excess, sometimes to needy extremes.

In the absence of excess, am I therefore left with deficiency? A void? Is there now a hole that I used to fill with booze? And if so, what do I fill my cup with? How do I feel whole again?

The answer lies in what I call multipliers. I fill my void with things that seem to multiply my bounty of riches and my sense of wellbeing. They fill the void left behind by booze because they are greater than the sum of the parts. The things I am adding to my life now go so much further than the alcohol that I have removed from my life. They multiply like little wellness gremlins… spreading through my body and my mind and helping me feel whole, a more true and authentic version of myself.

Multipliers:

Drinking tea multiplies into hydrated skin, regular bowels (tmi), hydrated insides and a feeling of zen. The pure art of sipping the hot drink steadies my breath and gives me time to be still. The teas I choose are infused with ginseng or echinacea, ginger or licorice, helping to boost my immune system, destress, help with digestion and nausea.

Doing my morning meditation multiplies into a sense of calm, a clearer mind and, importantly, willpower in the bank. I set aside ten minutes every morning to listen to my affirmations and remind myself that a life without alcohol is easy and my ultimate priority. I pair this with other important personal affirmations which act as huge multipliers. I credit this ritual for keeping me sober in the simple act of keeping my mission front of mind. But also helping me become other improved versions of myself; a warmer and kinder mother and a more caring co-worker as I repeat my personal affirmations on the daily.

My morning meditation multiplies even further as I add twenty full body push ups to the end of my session. This year I am also adding twenty kettle bell squats to the routine, multiplying the mental wellbeing into physical strength.

Not drinking alcohol in the evenings, at parties, dinners out, get-togethers, movie nights and any other events has a huge multiplier related to getting to bed and waking hangover free. One of my favourite perks of being alcohol-free is no longer passing out after a night of drinking without taking my make-up off and even more critically brushing my teeth. I can confidently confirm that I have brushed, flossed and mouthwashed every single night for the past 441 nights (# of days alcohol-free). What an accomplishment! And as for waking hangover free. This is HUGE. The lack of fatigue, upset stomach, anxiety, Fear, throbbing headache and memory loss that generally accompany a hangover for me is the ultimate game changer and is quite frankly enough to keep me alcohol-free foreeeevvvvvver.

Reap the rewards of the raw kombucha and let it multiply the benefits of your alcohol-free life.