Episode 8 - Woman on the Remake: Going Dry

She heard the "whisper", "You drink too much."  In most of our social circles, alcohol is a central part of every single gathering.  Being the person who doesn't drink is HARD.  Angie began removing alcohol from her life by participating in a month-long health challenge, mostly because she knew it would be easier to pass off not drinking to her friends that way.  She spent all of 2016 playing around with the idea of not drinking, and taking intermittent breaks from it. 

Depression, stress, and anxiety were concurrent players in the last year before she really, really quit.  She hit her low point when she considered walking in front of a moving car.   The following year, she cut her alcohol consumption down drastically, but still had several episodes of heavy drinking before a serious discussion with her husband in August of 2017 caused her to stop for good. 

Angie buried herself in resources to help her stop drinking.  Meditation, podcasts, Facebook groups, reading... she tried it all.  Check below for her favorites.    Her social calendar went from ridiculously packed to empty.  To avoid the temptation to drink, she stopped going to the Friday Happy Hours, the neighborhood parties, and everything.   She began to notice that alcohol is omnipresent in our culture.  TV, social media, social events, everywhere. 

Over the next two years, Angie went alcohol-free and regained her sense of abundance, her ability to sleep, the freedom to live her life without being dependent on alcohol, and in fact, the pre-alcohol identity she had lost.

Resources:
Podcasts:
The Happiness Lab https://apple.co/31uXgBe
After Alcohol https://apple.co/2FOCXXT
Seltzer Squad https://apple.co/2Hex9rD
Bubble Hour https://apple.co/2HpeOYm

Spiritual:
Your Move with Andy Stanley
https://yourmove.is/

Blog:
Unpickled by Laura McKowen
https://unpickledblog.com/

Books:
Annie Grace - "This Naked Mind" https://amzn.to/3ocRbTV
Jill Stark - "High Sobriety: My Year Without Booze" https://amzn.to/3m9Bmvf