Welcome to the Catholic Sobriety Podcast, the go- to 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, Christie Walker. I'm a wife, mom, and a joyfilled Catholic, and I am the Catholic sobriety coach, and I am so glad you're here. Okay. So I have to tell you guys something that happened to me on a walk the other day. I was out with my adorable big black fluffy dog, Cooper. And when I'm out with my walks with him, it's actually when my best thinking happens. And I walked past this little neighborhood park that we walk by all the time. , This is not the park of my childhood and probably your childhood. The ones with the metal slides that would brand you like cattle on a hot day. Every time I think about those slides, I don't know about you, but I can still feel the sear of the metal on the back of my thighs. And the swings, they do not make swings today like they used to because we were absolutely convinced that if you pumped hard enough, you could actually launch yourself directly to the moon. And don't forget about those merry-go-rounds. Oh, the merry-go-rounds. I loved them. But all it took was a group of big kids showing up and suddenly it was every man for himself as they spun that thing as fast as humanly possible. I did not fall off of those things because I would put a death grip on whatever pole I was holding onto. Most of the time, nobody got hurt. Well, at least nobody admitted to getting hurt. But this park is gentler, softer, one of those modern ones with the rubberized ground and the bright plastic equipment. And then I saw the fire pole and I just stopped because my son Nathan, every single park we ever went to, the fire pole was the first thing he looked for and the last thing he left. Every single park. It didn't matter what else was there. Nathan found that pole and that was his whole afternoon, up and down, completely content. And Andrew, his twin brother, was my monkey bars kid. He'd get to the bars and immediately say, "Mom, pick me up." And I would boost him and he would cross them and we'd do it again and again. kid had bottomless monkey bar energy and I was the one paying for it. And then there was Ben, my youngest, the lucky one because Ben got to swing and he never lacked for someone to push him because he had two big brothers and me. That boy was never without an audience and never without someone to push him and I stopped at this park that I walk through often and I felt a twinge because it reminded me of when my boys were little, like little, little, snack bag, juice box in the stroller little. And I got this thing, this twinge of nostalgia, of grief. I'm not really sure what to call it. I don't think it was sadness exactly. It was more like, "Oh, that was a different season and now it's gone." And then because my brain just never lets me have a moment which I am thankful for, I started thinking about you, about the women that I work with and about what it actually feels like to grieve alcohol. And I thought, wait, these two things have more in common than I realized. So that's what we're doing today. Grab your coffee, your tea, your sparkling water, and let's get into it. All right, let's talk about the park. As I said, I have three boys. Well, I say that I have boys, but Nathan and Andrew are young adults now, and my youngest Ben just crossed into teenager territory. Ben and I watch the middle together almost every evening before bed, which is basically our love language at this point. And he almost always is still willing to let me hug him, just not in front of his friends, which honestly is fair. I respect those terms. But for years, for a solid decade plus of my life, my entire world revolved around these little boys and it was beautiful and it was everything I ever wanted, but it was also absolutely bone deep, exhausting at times. We're talking the minivan era, you guys. The era of goldfish crackers ground into every crevice of your car, someone always needing to be five minutes after you left the house or as soon as you're halfway through Target. Three different conversations happening at full volume, but none of them directed at you. However, all of them somehow requiring your immediate input. I remember waking up early, sneaking downstairs before sunrise, just to get five minutes of quiet, trying to do my scripture, trying to pray, trying to just have my cup of coffee and hear myself think. Trying to just hear myself think ... No. Trying to do my scripture, trying to pray, trying to get a workout in, trying to hear myself think. And nine times out of 10, I'd hear the pitter patter of little feet on the stairs and here would co- come, and here would come the small human who needed something. And I love my boys so much. Nope. And I loved that little boy so much, all of them. But I also wanted to cry because I had a plan. Does this sound familiar to anyone? The point is, it was full. Life was so, so full, and I loved it, and I was also desperate for it to be slightly less full, just for like an afternoon. So when I walked past that park the other day, here's what I noticed. I had this wave of missing that season, but I actually thought about what going ... But then I actually thought about what I'd be going back to. And lovingly, very lovingly, said, "No, thank you. " I do not miss the three in the morning wake ups. I had twins, remember. Do you know what it's like having twins? You do not sleep in the beginning. You just enter this kind of delirious twilight stage where you're technically upright and functioning, but I would not be able to tell you what day it was or if I even remembered to eat. I do not miss the anxiety of constantly wondering if I was doing it right. Am I feeding the ... Am I feeding them the right things? Have they pooped enough? Is the fever too high? Did I just ruin them by losing my temper over Legos? The mental load, it was a lot. And I do not miss the house that could not stay clean for longer than a living ... I do not miss the house that could not stay clean for longer than 11 minutes. That is not an exaggeration. I would put my twins down for a nap, clean up the living room for my own sanity. We had these baskets and I would just put all the toys into these baskets. They would wake up all warm and snugly and come running out into the living room, grab a basket and dump it out, grab another one and dump it out. So was a constant state of toy, clutter everywhere. And yet I miss it. I genuinely miss it. I miss the sound of their cartoons playing in the background. I miss the snuggles and the way that they'd make up little ridiculous games and I really miss the sound of all of them laughing together. I miss being their everything. I miss that particular kind of being needed. So here's what I'm sitting with on this walk. So here's what I s- ... So here's what I started thinking about on this walk. I don't miss the hard parts, but I do miss the identity of it. miss being their mom in that specific, all- consuming way, and those are actually two very different things. Okay, so the other thing that kind of got me thinking about this, I think it was in my head, is because I keep seeing these reels going around, and maybe you have to, a mom will post a video it'll say something like, "No one prepares you for this season when you go from this and then it shows like a full, loud, beautiful chaos of a family in a van or in a house, , somebody's screaming, there's music." And then it cuts to the mom driving alone, quiet minivan, empty seats, and the caption says to this. And every time ... And every time I see one of those, I feel it right in the gut because that's kind of where I am. I still have my youngest, but our rides are much more quiet. I can listen to whatever I want, as long as he's not with me, then we have to compromise. And, and most of the time, it's just more peaceful, but at the same time, when I look back in my rear view mirror and I see the empty seats, it makes me kinda just wanna pull over an ug- ugly cry. It makes me kinda just wanna pull over and ugly cry for a minute. Now, one of my twins, Nathan, is coming home from college this summer. He's been away the whole school year and, you know, other than coming home for holidays and breaks, and I'm so excited. But I'm also bracing myself for the fact that things are different every time he comes back, because he's growing up. He's very independent. And that's the whole goal of parenting, right? I heard somebody say, "You are literally working yourself out of a job, and it's the most successful failure you'll ever experience." That's so, so true. And then there's Andrew, my other twin. He's, well, he's not my twin, he's Nathan's twin, but he's still at home, which I'm so grateful for. But that comes with its own version of letting go. He works, he's in school, he has a girlfriend, and every day is this balancing act of giving him room to be a grown man while ... He works, he's in school, he has a girlfriend, and every day is just this balancing act of giving him room to be a grown man by He works, he's in school, he has a girlfriend, and every day is this balancing act of giving him room while ... works, he's in school, he has a girlfriend, and every day is this balancing act of giving him room to be a grown man while also not losing my mind with worry. He still comes in and tells me when he gets home late, which honestly, that small thing means everything to me. He doesn't have to do that, but he does it anyway, because he knows that it makes me feel better, especially if I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm like, "Did he get home or not? " At least I have that peace of mind. And Ben, my youngest, well, he still gravitates toward the playground equipment sometimes, but we like to watch the middle together every night and I just love that for both of us and I'm just trying to soak it in. But the season is shifting and I can feel it. And when I walked past the park, I felt the grief of it, the real legitimate grief. And I also knew that I wouldn't go back, not really, not to all of it. I love who my kids are becoming. I love who I'm becoming now that I have a little more space to become her. So where do you come in in all of this? As I'm walking, as I'm having all of these feelings and my brain does what it always does, it tries to connect with the women that I work with because you know what I hear constantly when someone is thinking about quitting drinking or cutting back or even just admitting that maybe their relationship with wine has gotten a little bit complicated. They say, "I'm afraid of who I'll be without it. I don't know if I'll still be fun." It's the one thing that's just mine, the thing I look forward to. What am I gonna do at parties on vacation at the end of a hard day? And I hear you. I genuinely hear you because what you're describing is grief, real, legitimate grief over the loss of something that has been a significant part of your identity. And here's what I wanna say about that. The grief is allowed. It's actually appropriate. don't need me to tell you to just push through or that it gets easier in a way that dismisses what you are actually feeling. But, and here's where we use our brains for a second. I want you to do what I did in that park. I want you to separate the grief from the facts and ask, "What am I actually going to miss?" When I miss my kids being little, what am I actually missing? I'm missing the closeness, the connection, the sense of purpose, the sweetness of those particular moments, but I am not missing the 2:00 AM wake-ups. I'm not missing the guilt spiral every time I lost my temper. I'm not missing the constant noise and the constant demand and the feeling that I have nothing left. Now, when you think about giving up alcohol or even just significantly changing your relationship with it, what are you actually going to miss? If you think about it, you're probably not gonna miss the anxiety the morning after you had two more glasses than you meant to. You're not going to miss negotiating with yourself about whether tonight is a night off or not. You're not going to miss the 3:00 AM wake up where your heart is racing and your brain is doing that lovely thing where it replays every single embarrassing thing you've ever done. You're definitely not going to miss feeling foggy, you're not going to miss ... You're not going to miss being a slightly dimmer, less present version of yourself, especially after you experience what it's like to be fully present, and if you have a situation that happens when you would have been drinking and you think to yourself, "Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I did not choose to drink tonight, or I would have missed this, or I would have handled this completely differently." You're not going, uh ... You're not going to miss the gap between the wom- ... You're not gonna miss the ... You're, you're not gonna miss the gap between the woman you know you are in Christ and the woman who pours a second glass to close that gap temporarily. So what are you actually going to miss? The ritual, the sense of reward at the end of the day, the feeling, even if it was illus- an illusion, you'll miss the feeling, even if it was an illusion, that you were taking the edge off and giving yourself something. And those, my friend, those are real needs. They're just being met with the wrong thing. Now, here's what I find so fascinating and a little heartbreaking about what I hear from women before they stop drinking. So many of them tell me that they drink to feel like themselves again, like they've been on all day, performing, managing, producing, taking care of everyone, and the glass of wine at the end of the day is how they finally get to just be themselves. Now, I wanna say something, and I'm saying it with love. First of all, that makes complete sense. It makes complete neurological sense. Alcohol depresses the central nervous system. It reduces the activity in your prefrontal cortex, which we've talked about is basically your interior stop and social anxiety machine. So yes, you feel more relaxed, more quote unquote, yourself, less wound up. But here's the problem. That more yourself feeling, that is a lie, a very convincing, very seductive lie, because the real you, the authentic, clear, fully present you isn't the one who had two glasses of wine. That you is impaired. The real you is the one who shows up when the alcohol isn't there. She's the one who is slightly more uncomfortable, maybe, who feels things more acutely, who has to figure out how to decompress without a chemical shortcut. And that woman, she is so much more interesting than the slightly blurry version of you. I promise you. I have watched women, women that I've had the privilege of walking with through this process. I've watched them go from, I don't know who I am without wine, to, I can't believe I was settling for that version of myself. It doesn't happen overnight though. I, it takes time, but when it happens, it's just like a switch that flips and it's amazing. It's like all of a sudden you decide and then you don't decide again. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes time, but it does happen. And when it does, but it happens. And when it does, it's like watching someone come back into focus like the picture was always beautiful, but now the resolution just got a lot better. This is what I really want you to hold onto today because it's the thing that matters most from a faith perspective and from a neuroscience perspective your identity is not in what you drink. It's not what you do or do not consume. It's not your ability to be fun at parties or your capacity to handle stress gracefully, or whether you can make it through a Tuesday night without a glass of wine. Your identity is in Christ, full stop. It is secure. It is not contingent on your performance. It is not earned by being the fun one or the put together one or the one who has it all figured out. And here's what's so beautiful about that. When you stop using alcohol to manage your emotions and your identity and your sense of self, you actually allow God into those spaces, the quiet spaces, the uncomfortable spaces, and the spaces where you've been pouring wine instead of praying. I know that that is both terrifying and an invitation for you. So I'm gonna come back to the park for now because I want to close there. I felt grief walking past that fire pole, those monkey bars, the swings, real grief, and I let myself feel it for a moment. I got choked up. I had tears well up in my eyes. I didn't berate myself for it. I didn't tell myself to be grateful, even though I am, and I didn't talk myself out of it. I just let myself feel it and I kept walking. That's what I want for you in this process. You are absolutely 100% allowed to grieve the ritual. You're allowed to feel a little lost. You're allowed to feel a little lost at first without something that's been part of so many parts of your life. You're allowed to feel a little lost at first. No. You're allowed to feel a little lost at first without something that's been woven through so many parts of your life. Allowed to have moments where you just really, really want that glass of wine, and it's actually annoying that you're not having it. You're allowed ... And you're You're allowed to have moments where you just really, really want that glass of wine, and it's actually annoying that you're not having it. That, my friend, is not a failure. That's just what grief feels like. But here's what I know from walking past that park and from 29 years of being alcohol-free and from watching women do this hard and holy work, and it is this, you won't want to go back, not to all of it, not once you know what's waiting on the other side. Just like I wouldn't trade who my kids are becoming for the sweetness of them being little, even on the days when I miss it so much that it aches, you will not want to trade the clarity and presence and authentic freedom of this new season for the blurry comfort of the old one. But here's the thing, you have to keep going long enough to get there, and that's why I'm here. So before I let you go, if any of this resonated with you, I want you to know that you do not have to figure this out alone. That's what my sacred sobriety kickstart is, it's a five video series that walks you through the exact framework I work ... It's a, my five ... It's my five ... my free five video series that walks you through the exact framework I use with my clients covering all four - pillars of my coaching: Catholic faith, your identity in Christ, the inner healing work, and neuroscience of exactly what's happening in your brain. You can grab it ... You can grab it at the link in the show notes. Again, it's free. It's mine. I made it for you. I'll probably be updating it in the future really soon, so I'll let you know when that happens. But go ahead and grab it now, and if you're already past the kickstart phase and you're ready to actually do some deep work, I invite you to look into the Sacred Sobriety Lab. It's 12 months of group coaching, a community, and a course. It's not necessarily for the faint of heart, but it is for the brave of spirit, and I think that might just be you. All right, friend, go feel your feelings, drink your sparkling water, and remember that grief means something real is being released. Just let it be released. I'm here for you, and I'll talk to you again next week. 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, thecatholicsobrietycoach.com. Follow me on Instagram @thecatholicsobrietycoach. I look forward to speaking to you next time, and remember, I am here for you. I am praying for you. You are not alone.