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Welcome to the Catholic Sobriety Podcast, the coach resource for women seeking to have a deeper understanding of the role alcohol plays in their lives. Women who are looking to drink less or not at all for any reason. I am your host, Christy Walker. I'm a wife, mom, and a joy-filled Catholic, and I am the Catholic sobriety coach, and I am so glad you're here. Today, I want to talk to the woman who is tired of making promises to herself and then breaking them. You don't like how much you're drinking. You don't like how it makes you feel. And I get it. You're not drinking every day. And you're reminding yourself I'm not that bad, whatever that bad means, because we all have a certain perception of what that actually would be. But I know you are exhausted. And the hardest part of all of this isn't even the alcohol anymore. It's the constant mental negotiations that are going on. And if that's you, stay with me. Because this episode is not about shaming you or making you take on some kind of label or forcing you into making a forever decision. It's about helping you understand why you are stuck and how to know whether continuing to moderate is actually going to help you, or if it's just quietly keeping you in pain. Now let's talk about why this feels so confusing and why you're not crazy, I promise. Here's what makes this so, so hard, and why so many women stay stuck here in this place longer than they need to. Because you're not ignoring the problem, you're engaging it, you're paying attention, you're reflecting, you're trying to act responsibly, yet here you are, right? You're still feel like you're negotiating or wrestling with yourself. You're still resetting over and over again, and you're still unsure whether you should keep trying to manage this or just finally admit that managing it is part of what's wearing you down. Or maybe this is just how life is now. And that tension, that tension that you are feeling between wanting to be faithful to your values and feeling stuck in that same pattern that you keep repeating over and over is really where a lot of the shame that you are feeling sneaks in. Now, this shame is not loud shame, it's quiet shame. It's the kind that says, Why can't I get this right? And shame isn't always a bad thing. It's actually an indicator. It points us to what needs healing. So if you are feeling shame around it, just know you don't need to stay stuck in it, but uh know that it's telling you something that this needs addressed, this needs healing. Now, here's what I want you to hear before we go any further. This is not a moral failing. This trying and then getting looped back into that same pattern, it's not a moral failure, and it is not a lack of discipline, it's actually a misunderstanding of how change actually works when alcohol is involved. And once you really understand that and understand that what you've been experiencing is just a reaction of alcohol in your brain and your body, it makes so much more sense. So let's take a moment and just talk about the loop itself because I think most women don't realize that they're actually in one. I I didn't really realize it at all while I was going through it. And I know that I talk to a lot of women who don't quite see the loop itself. And here's how it goes. So you decide to cut back, and then you create rules. So some rules that people create are um, I'll only drink on the weekends. I'm only gonna have two when I do drink. I'm not gonna drink at home. I'll only drink socially. I'll only drink during like big celebratory gatherings. And for a while it feels hopeful, like you have hope that this is going to work. This plan, these protocols, these boundaries are going to work. But here's what's happening underneath the surface. Your brain doesn't experience moderation as nothing. It still treats alcohol as something that it needs to pay attention to, which means you're still anticipating alcohol. You're still evaluating your behavior, you are still tracking whether or not you're doing it right. So even if you're drinking less, your brain is still working overtime. And that's why those mental negotiations get louder, not quieter. You'll think things like, is tonight okay? Did I push it? I'll do better tomorrow. Why is this taking so much space in my brain? You're plotting, you're planning, you're um talking back to your excuses. And I just want you to know that this is normal. It's not because you're weak, it's because alcohol activates the part of the brain that's responsible for reward and relief. And once that system is online, partial access keeps it active. It's a lot like having a bottle of wine on your counter that's not open versus a bottle of wine that's on your counter that is open. For most women, it is a lot easier to resist the urge to drink when there is a bottle of non-opened wine than when there's a bottle of opened wine. And that's because your brain is like, oh, there's partial access to it. It's it's already opened. I might as well drink it. Now, for some women, even having it on the counter is difficult. And that's where, you know, trying to collect data and information about what works for you and what doesn't work for you is super important. For some women, having it on the counter is still a temptation, it's still partial access. And so putting it somewhere else out of sight is easier. For other women, having it completely out of the house is the thing that kind of cuts off that partial access. But even then, when you have that in your mind that you can moderate and that you can have some, your brain still keeps humming along with the alcohol. And that means that your nervous system actually never gets a moment to rest. So what feels like a lack of willpower is actually decision fatigue that's layered on top of a brain that's still negotiating with a substance that quite frankly doesn't negotiate back. And that's why so many women say, I'm drinking less, but I feel worse. But here's what I want you to know because this is really important. It really matters. Most breaks are often too short to answer the question that you're actually asking. During that time, your brain is still waiting for the alcohol, anticipating its return. It's still watching the calendar, it's still asking, when do I get this back? It's still negotiating in the background, which means that the system never actually fully powers down. So instead of gaining clarity, you are still managing the anticipation. And that's why so many women come back from a short break saying, I proved that I can stop, but I don't feel any better. It's like people will do dry January. We're coming as I'm recording this, we're coming up on the end of the year. And some of you might be considering doing dry January, which I think is amazing and great. But I've had a lot of women say, I can do dry January, I can do Lent without alcohol. But as soon as that endpoint comes, I'm right back where I was. Maybe not immediately, but your brain is like, oh, we have an end point and things can go back to normal. And that's not because the break failed, it's because it didn't run long enough to give you new information. You still stayed inside the loop and it just was waiting for that end to come. So, what changes when the decision is clear, even temporarily? Here's what I see happen. When the decision shifts from I'm trying not to drink to I'm not drinking for now. When you have that tiny little shift in how you're thinking, suddenly the daily debate disappears. And again, you might have noticed this if you've given it up, if you've given alcohol up for dry January or Lent or for a certain amount of time, like when you were pregnant, or uh before you were having a surgery. Once you say, I'm not drinking for now, instead of I'm trying not to drink, there's no, should I do this? Is tonight okay? Or I'll decide later. The brain, of course, isn't gonna love it at first. It's gonna be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is terrible. I feel so deprived. And, you know, that's that's just what it's gonna be. It's just gonna be hard at first. There's gonna be resistance, irritation, maybe even sadness, a little bit of grief of missing something. But something else happens that most women never experience before. Mental quiet. And that quiet is so important because for the first time, your nervous system isn't bracing, it isn't tracking, and it isn't waiting. That's when women start to notice that their sleep is improving, that their anxiety has lessened, that emotional reactions are starting to level out and have more mental clarity. And it's not because life got suddenly perfect, but because the background noise has dropped. And that's when discernment becomes possible. Now, here's a pattern I see over and over: a woman who is very capable. She's responsible. She's doing the work in other areas of her life. And from the outside, nothing looks alarming at all. But inside, she's just tired of starting over. She's tired of making promises to herself, of you know, quietly breaking them. She's tired of wondering whether her body is trying to tell her something. She's tired of asking, is this just midlife? Is this just my life now? Or is alcohol making it worse? So what finally shifts things isn't necessarily a rock bottom. It's clarity, it's awareness. She's realizing I'm not failing at moderation, moderation is actually keeping me in the problem. So instead of tightening up rules again, she decides to just step out of the loop. And for the first time, she gets to see who she is without alcohol in the picture at all. And I'm not saying that that has to be forever, but long enough to listen, listen to her body, listen to her mind, listen to her soul, hear what God has to say about what's been going on and about her efforts to want to untangle herself from alcohol. Now, for me, the realization wasn't emotional. It was very practical. I knew that if alcohol was in my life, it would always, always take up mental space. And I have people tell me, people don't really tell me this anymore, but especially when I was early in sobriety, people would say, Do you think that you could drink and be fine? And, you know, maybe I could, maybe I can't. But I know it would take up so much mental space for me to try to moderate. Because I'd be constantly thinking, when can I have it? How much is okay? Oh, there's an open bottle in the refrigerator. I have to go get it. Did I have too much? Why can't I drink like other people? Why do I have to consume until I can't consume anymore? That constant self-monitoring would just be exhausting. It's completely not worth it for me. And as I've grown, not just in sobriety, but in my faith, there's no way I would go back because it does not align with who I know God has called me to be. I would not be the wife, the mom, the daughter, the friend, the coach that I am today if I had reintroduced it. Because for me, it's not something that I can moderate. And if I could moderate, like I said, it would just be too noisy for me. Some of you will get to a place where you can take alcohol or leave it and you have peace about it. And that's the goal in moderation. That's how you know moderation is working, is if you can take it or leave it. It doesn't matter if there's a bottle of wine sitting open on your counter. If you've said, I'm not drinking tonight, then you don't, and your brain isn't constantly battering, badgering you to go get some. That's how you know moderation is working. That is not the way that my brain works with alcohol. So, you know, some people are like that with food. Like I don't really have a lot of food noise, and then other people do. So all of our brains are different. And if it is noisy for you, no shame. If you can take it or leave it with peace, that's amazing for you. But for me, letting alcohol go wasn't about proving anything. It was really about survival. It was about choosing a life that felt balanced, integrated. And it felt like I just wasn't on high alert all the time. I just didn't have the anxiety, the high highs and the low lows. And to me, that freedom is priceless. And that's why I decided I had to take alcohol out completely. So let me just offer you a few discernment questions. First, we're going to address your mental load. How much space does alcohol take up in your thoughts before, during, and after drinking? The second question, we're going to assess the emotional aftermath. And this question is: after drinking moderately, do you feel settled or mentally loud? The third question is about your stability, your rule stability, like how how well you can keep them. So do your rules hold when life gets stressful? Or do they start to multiply? And fourth is the relief test. When you imagine taking a 90-day break, do you feel panicky? Or is there some kind of relief underneath the resistance? The answer to these questions is information, valuable information that you can take as you start to ask yourself, is moderation working for me? Or would elimination of alcohol at least for a time be much better? Can I say instead of I'm trying not to drink, I am not going to drink right now. Moderation works for people when alcohol is neutral, when there's no buildup, there's not really any reward energy attached to it, there's no review afterwards, it doesn't dictate how your week plans go, it doesn't feel earned, it doesn't feel lost. But if moderation is Requiring effort, if it requires vigilance, if it feels like your hands are in knuckles and you are just trying to will yourself not to have it, then reducing further usually won't solve the problem because the issue isn't quantity, it's engagement. The other thing with moderation is it works if let's say you have eliminated alcohol, then you decide to have it, and then the next day you're able to not really think about it. What happens sometimes is people do a really good job of um, you know, setting boundaries. And then when they reintroduce it and they have some, even if they drink it moderately, let's say they said, I'm just gonna have one or two glasses, they have that, but then the next day, all they can think about is, can I have more? I'm gonna have some tonight. So they have that alcohol noise going again. And that is a sign that maybe you need to step away from it for a while longer, and then see if the same thing happens. The other thing that can happen sometimes is when you take it out for a time and then you have it again, you over consume because it's like your brain is thinking, oh, we're not gonna get this again for a while. So I need to have as much as I can right now. So you just need to be aware of those two facts. Again, not looking at it from a place of judgment, but from a place of curiosity, like what does this mean? And really taking that information and helping you move forward. The last thing that I want to talk about is, you know, so many of us when we think about taking alcohol out, like removing it, we start to worry about missing out. So that's actually one of the biggest reasons that women resist stepping away from it, or they do step away from it, but then they give into it. And it's this fear of missing out. And so, you know, FOMO, as it is called, says things like, What if my life gets smaller? What if people are wondering why I'm not drinking? Why can't I just drink like everybody else? What if I'm the only one not drinking? But here's what so many women who have eliminated or greatly reduced alcohol have found. They don't lose joy. They discover Jomo, the joy of missing out. And that is so powerful once they realize it, that joy doesn't come with anxiety, that joy means that they wake up in the morning and they feel great and they feel clear. Joy means that they recognize that they were more present with their family, with their friends at an event. Joy can mean that they saw something or heard something or did something that they never would have done had they been drinking. FOMO is driven by fear, but JOMO is discovered through experience and noticing those little gratitudes along the way. Now you cannot just think your way into that though. You actually have to live it. Now, with all that said, I know women who can greatly reduce their alcohol and are able to moderate and do very well with it. But sometimes the best thing you can do is just to stop arguing with yourself. And that's why temporary abstinence is often a very wise move because a longer break just gives your brain time to heal. It also gives it time to build up new neural pathways. So those old habit paths aren't just so easy to slip down, like you have another option. It also helps you find better and different ways to cope, to soothe, to celebrate. It's not punishment, it's discernment, and discernment requires space. If you're listening to this and realizing you've been stuck in the same loop for a while, this is exactly the work I do inside the Sacred Sobriety Lab and through one-on-one coaching. Right now I'm offering 20% off for podcast listeners. And the best first step is to schedule a clarity call with me. We'll look honestly at your drinking patterns and your life right now, and decide whether the lab or private coaching makes sense for you. Or maybe it's not the right time for either one. Whether you decide to work with me or not, you will leave knowing your next step. This isn't a commitment call, it is a clarity call. You can grab a spot on my calendar using the link in the show notes. Let this episode be a turning point for you and notice what brings more quiet to your heart and mind this week. I'll see you next time. Well, that does it for this episode of the Catholic Sobriety Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I would invite you to share it with a friend who might also get value from it as well. And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a thing. I am the Catholic Sobriety Coach, and if you would like to learn how to work with me or learn more about the coaching that I offer, visit my website, the Catholic Sobriety Coach dot com. Follow me on Instagram at the Catholic Sobriety Coach.