How the Gray Area Drinking and Sober Curious Language Changed the Game for Me.

I'll never forget the day I knew I needed to make a change. I was standing in the kitchen, it was dawn and I had not slept well the night before. I woke up at 3am with my heart racing and I couldn't fall back to sleep. So, I got out of bed and began researching sleep disruption causes. I read about perimenopause, which I was definitely in. I read about proper nutrition and how sugar intake can disrupt sleep cycles. I read about alcohol intake and how it can contribute to anxiety and fatigue. By the time the sun was peeking up over the horizon, I already had my coffee brewing. My husband walked in and asked why I was up so early. I just looked over at him, a tear sliding down my face. I said to him “I can't do this anymore.”

I had reached a breaking point in my life. What had worked for me in the past just didn't work anymore. I knew that I had to find the answers for myself. I was the only one who could help me. I began the journey of trying to figure out what that might look like. Through my research on the subject of alcohol and sleep disturbances, I must have triggered the algorithm on Facebook. Suddenly I was getting advertisements to take a break from drinking. The term “gray area” was new to me. I was inspired. I didn’t know if alcohol was the problem, but I certainly knew that it wasn’t helping. 

Until now, this thought never really occurred to me. I had taken breaks from drinking before for diets and cleanses. I had given it up for Lent. My breaks were always alongside sugar and processed food. I had never just taken out alcohol. I was curious to see how I might feel. One thing was certain, I always slept better when alcohol was not in the picture. I knew that if I was really serious about feeling better and getting my sleep on track, I had to let go of the alcohol and see how I felt. So that’s what I did. 

The difference was profound. I was blown away by how much better I felt. It wasn’t a magic cure… my sleep was still disrupted, my weight still high, but in comparison to what I had been feeling? It was a no brainer. I had been feeling so rough that the contrast of being alcohol-free was drastic! It felt like a weight had been lifted. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn't always easy. I had to learn how to navigate my social world without alcohol. I had to learn how to “feel the feels” that I had been numbing out with the drinks. It almost felt like I didn't have skin. Suddenly, everything felt big. Sadness and resentment felt big. Anger felt big. Joy and peace felt big. 

I realized this process was similar to peeling an onion. Once I would peel back one layer another would present itself. This was going to be a process. It wasn't just about alcohol. There were other things going on for me that alcohol had been masking. We uncovered an autoimmune condition that I had been struggling with that we hadn’t yet identified. I was in perimenopause and my hormones were shifting and needed attention. I had some anger and frustration built within me from years of just smiling and nodding and pouring a drink. All of that had to be addressed. What I’ve learned is that there is no finish line. I'm still working through addressing issues in my life. I think that's just part of the human condition. We are all in a constant process of becoming. 

Without the alcohol, I am aligned. My body, mind and emotions are all connected and firing together. I am closer connected to my body…I recognize what feels good for me and what doesn’t. My thoughts are more clear. My emotions are more accessible. What was happening when I was drinking? While I thought the wine was “relaxing” me it was actually spacing me from my intuition. It was important for me to come back into myself. To literally shift back into me. For so long, I had relied upon alcohol to “help” me manage my emotions. Now it was time to learn to regulate my nervous system and understand and communicate my needs. I used craving as a tool, a guide for what I needed. What I didn’t need was alcohol. For so long, I was mistaking what I actually needed for a drink. All of that changed. 

With alcohol, what that looked like was the promise, at the end of the day, of a break. My habit followed what is called the Detox to Retox loop. I would get up in the morning and go for a run. I would do all of the things all day long. I would eat healthy and take my vitamins. I had a skin care regimen. I appeared to have it all together. By the evening, I was ready for a “break.” For me, that looked like a glass of wine while I was chopping veggies. It looked like a glass of wine while I ate dinner. On some nights, it looked like a glass of wine while I was cleaning up the dishes.

Wine is what I thought I craved. What I actually craved was rest. What I actually craved was time for myself. What I actually craved was to get off the “hamster wheel” of my day and recharge. The irony? Alcohol was sucking all of that rest, time and recharging right out of me. It was sucking the life, joy and peace right out of my life. It was sucking out all of the things I thought I was finding in that fancy glass. 

When I was able to take the break, I could see that quite clearly.  I didn't take the break with the promise that it would only be 3 weeks, I took the break with the promise that if I felt better I was going to keep doing it. I was going to do whatever it took to feel better. That was the promise I made to myself. It was impossible, after I let the wine go, to convince myself that alcohol was ever going to be a good idea again. I could clearly see that, even though I was uncomfortable, I was on a path of growth. For the longest time. I felt like I had been stagnant

People around me could not believe that I gave up alcohol. My husband was flabbergasted when I told him that as long as I felt better without alcohol, it was out.  My family and friends had absolutely no clue how much it was dragging me down because I didn't appear to have a problem. I was fully functional (even thriving) in their minds. I was doing all of the things. I was carrying extra weight and had always struggled with yo-yo dieting but otherwise, I think that the people who knew me would never have guessed the toll that my wine o’clock habit was taking on me. In the end, it didn’t really matter what my husband or family or friends thought. It mattered how I felt. I knew it was the right thing for me. I knew that I had been disconnected from myself for such a long time and I didn't want to ever feel that way again. 

The gray area language saved me. I would have never admitted to being an alcoholic. I would have never agreed that I had a disease. I would never have gone to AA. Not because I took issue with any of those labels or solutions… but because I didn’t identify with the term alcoholic. It didn’t fit. I wasn’t out of control or powerless. On the contrary, I had a lot of power and a very bad habit. The new language included terms like sober-curious and gray area drinking. Those terms opened up the possibility to explore a life alcohol free without worrying about how it would be perceived. It allowed me to look with curiosity on my decisions rather than with judgment. It allowed me to explore the possibility of a life without alcohol. That's why I think language is very important and labels matter. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with AA or the term alcoholic. It’s to highlight the importance of language and how it can help us all find our community. I'm forever grateful for this language because I now see alcohol use as a spectrum issue.  I'm grateful for the gray area and sober curious language which allows everyone the opportunity to explore how alcohol impacts them.

Some people ask me “What about moderation?” Here’s the thing…I am not the kind of person that does things half way. That's just not me. I am an “all in” kind of person. What did that look like for me as a drinker?  I'm “all in.” I'm definitely saying “yes” to that glass of wine and I didn't want to just have one glass. I wanted more than one glass. Sometimes I wanted one bottle. I knew this about myself and so moderation was never something that I dabbled in. When I decided to let alcohol go, I let it go. I know myself and I was beyond bullshit. What happened when I gave up the drinks felt like a small miracle. I wasn’t willing to test it. 

Paul Churchill said that the path to sobriety is rarely linear. Many people will try to moderate over and over before they finally give in and let it go altogether. I bypassed all of that because I knew straight from the get-go that I am just not a person that only wants one drink. That's just not who I am. I know some people that can just have one glass of wine and be perfectly content. Not me. I always wanted a second…etc. 

The great thing about calling it early? You can save yourself a lot of time. You can save yourself from trial and error. You can save yourself from the negotiations in your head. What will I drink and when will I drink it and how many will I have? The mental gymnastics go away. There's a great freedom in that because when alcohol is completely off the table, you open yourself up to a world of motivation, energy and freedom. I didn’t have that before when I was drinking and I wasn’t willing to lose it again. 

Freedom. 

That is the word that comes up whenever I ask women to imagine a life alcohol free. They paint me the vision of themselves, alcohol free… what they are doing, what they look like, what their relationships are like, etc… When I ask them how that picture feels, the most common response is “freedom.” It feels like freedom to imagine a life where you aren’t relying on alcohol to survive the day. You move from surviving to thriving…and it’s so worth it. 

What I have been blown away to realize is that my story, while personal to me, is also part of the collective. Women have told me variations of my own story over and over. Not the exact same story, but the same underlying themes. Relying on alcohol to provide a “break.” Or making the decision, early in the day, not to drink that evening only to pour a glass as soon as the day is done. I think that we can tend to feel that we are the only ones that feel this struggle. The reality is that many women are in the same position. They realize that alcohol no longer serves them and don’t know how to break the habit. If you see yourself in my story, you are not alone.