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, Kristy 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 Okay, so I have to tell you something that happened to one of my c- my clients because it's so relatable and it's really something that I've heard many times before told in a variety of different ways. But this particular client is out to lunch with one of her girlfriends and, you know, they've done this 100 times. Probably the same restaurant, same table, same routine. And the waiter comes over and asks what they'd like to drink. So my client said, "I'll just have an iced tea, please." And her friend looked at her like she had just said she was joining a cult or something. And she said, "What? You're not having wine?" And my client's like, "No, I just don't really feel like having it today." And then, and this is the part, her friend goes, "Well, then I can't drink." And my client just looked at her and said, "Why?" Why? Exactly. And listen, I'm not here to say anything bad about this woman's friend, because I have been that person, and maybe you have, too. But here's the thing, that reaction, that, "Well, then I can't drink," thing, that's not really about the wine. That's about something much more interesting, and we are going to get into that today. So we're talking about the thing that I get asked about more than almost anything else this time of year, and that is the social stuff, the girls trips, the backyard barbecues, the family gatherings where Aunt Mabel has been pre-gaming since noon and is not going to let you get away with sparkling water without a full interrogation. We're going to talk about FOMO. We're going to talk about the pressure. We are going to talk about that very specific fear of being the wet blanket on everybody else's good time. And we're going to talk about what to actually do when you're standing there, holding your iced tea, while everyone else is on their third glass of rosé. This is going to be practical, maybe, hopefully, a little funny. And if you have a friend who's, you know, white-knuckling her way through summer social events right now, or will be soon, please send her this episode, because it might be the most useful thing she could listen to right now. Okay, let's get into it. So before we get to the how, I wanna spend a minute on why. Specifically, why social situations feel so hard when you're trying to drink less. Because when I talk to women about this, it's never just one thing. It's usually three fears all hitting at the same time. The first fear is I don't wanna have to explain myself, and this is huge. The idea of having to announce to a group of people that you're not drinking, or worse, answer the follow-up questions about it sounds absolutely exhausting and maybe even a little humiliating, like you're admitting something is wrong or broken or different about you. The second thing is, or the second fear is I'm not going to have fun. Now, this one is really sneaky because it honestly feels so reasonable. You've had fun at these events before, and you were drinking. So the brain does this very logical thing where it goes fun equals drinking. Remove the drinking, remove the fun. Except that's not actually how it works, and we are going to talk about that. The third fear is I'm going to ruin someone else's good time. Now, this might actually be the deepest one for a lot of women, especially the kind of woman who is naturally a caretaker, a people pleaser, someone who shows up for her people and wants everyone to have a good time. The idea that her choice might make someone else feel judged or uncomfortable or less able to enjoy themselves, that feels really terrible. And then underneath all three of those fears is one more thing. It's the FOMO. Not just the fear of missing out on the fun, but the fear of missing out on the belonging, the inside jokes, a group of women who've had a couple of drinks and are laughing and talking and connected. The feeling of being in it and not just watching it from the outside. And I want you to know this. Come closer. I want you to know every single one of those fears is completely valid, and I'm not going to dismiss any of them. And I'm also going to tell you that not one of them is actually telling you the truth. So let's get back to my client and her friend at the restaurant for a second. Her friend just said, "Well then, I can't drink if you're not going to be drinking." And here's what I find so fascinating about that response. Her friend didn't get angry. She didn't lecture. She didn't say, "Oh, come on, just have one." She got almost, I don't know, like helpless, like my client's choice had somehow taken something away from her, and that tells us something important. For a lot of people, maybe even people we love, drinking in social situations is wrapped up in permission, in belonging, in feeling like it's okay to relax and be a little silly and, you know, let our hair down. And when the person next to them isn't drinking, it can feel like a mirror is being held up that they didn't ask for, and suddenly their own drinking is visible in a way it hadn't before. That is not your problem to solve. That is genuinely not your responsibility at all But it is worth understanding because when you understand what's actually happening, it stops feeling like a personal attack and starts feeling like you're just gaining information. So her friend wasn't trying to guilt her, she was just uncomfortable, and that discomfort was about her own relationship with alcohol and not my client's. You are not responsible for other people's discomfort with your choices Okay, let's say that again. Say it with me, say it out loud if you're somewhere that you can do that without looking weird. I am not responsible for other people's discomfort with my choices. Okay, let's talk about the girls trip. This is one that sends women into a full spiral because it's not just one dinner where you can make an excuse and go home. It is an entire weekend or week. It's multiple meals, multiple nights, a group chat that's been hyping this up for months, and approximately zero conversations about what happens if someone doesn't want to drink. Now, here's what I've watched happen with women who came to me terrified, or at least a little worried about an upcoming trip, and then came back on the other side. They were fine. They were more than fine, actually. I had a client who planned a trip while she was in the middle of our coaching work together, and she was scared maybe or uncertain. We worked on it in our one-on-one coaching sessions. She even brought it to group coaching. She did such a great job of setting her intentions out loud, which matters so much more than you think, by the way, because speaking something out loud engages your prefrontal cortex, and that's the decision-making part of your brain. And it engages it in a way that just thinking doesn't do. So being able to speak it out is even better. And my client, she came back and said, "Oh my gosh, Christie. It was so much easier than I thought it would be. I was fully present for every conversation. I laughed and I was actually there. That last part, I was actually there. Because here's the thing nobody talks about. When you're managing your drinking, calculating, monitoring, Wondering if you should have another or if you've already had too many, you are not fully present. You're partially somewhere else, and when that's gone, something opens up. The fear doesn't disappear. The belonging doesn't disappear. What disappears is the noise, and it's blissful. I promise you, it is blissful. It feels so freeing All right. Now, practically speaking, you have a girls' trip, a barbecue, a family reunion, a wedding coming up. What do you actually do? So the first thing is to make a plan before you even walk in the door, and I know this sounds simple, and it is, but most women skip it, and then they wonder why they ended up caving. Although my clients don't because they will tell me, "Kristi, I didn't plan. That's what happened." So plan. Think about it. Before the event, decide, "Am I going to drink or am I not? If I'm drinking, how much?" And I want you to come up with an actual number, Not just, "I'll see how I feel. If I'm not drinking, what's my plan?" I can tell you after coaching many women that vague intentions typically do not survive contact with a cooler full of White Claw and a friend who's already on her second. So set those intentions before you go. Step two is to bring your own drinks and make it something you actually like. This is a non-negotiable for me. If you are going to a party or a trip where you are not drinking, don't rely on the host to have something for you to enjoy. They might, and they might pleasantly surprise you, and that would be amazing, but it doesn't always work like that. So bring it yourself. And don't bring sparkling water if you don't actually like sparkling water just because it seems like the right thing to do. Bring something that you will genu- genuinely look forward to. That could be a fancy lemonade or a good sparkling juice. Uh, Trader Joe's has this really... I love it. It's this sparkling non-alcoholic tea. I don't know if they have it at your Trader Joe's or if you have a Trader Joe's by you, but it's really good. You can bring a non-alcoholic cocktail, and honestly, the NA options right now are bonkers. Like, when I stopped drinking, it was O'Doul's, and I was happy about it, but there are so many great options, so don't sleep on those. And if you're holding something that you actually want to drink, you are going to be a lot less fixated on what everyone else has. Okay, the third step is to practice your response before you need it. Because here's the thing, when you're standing at a party and someone offers you a drink and you haven't thought about what you're going to say, then your brain panics and you end up either caving or you say something weird and then you feel awkward about it for the rest of the night. So let's practice right now. Someone offers you a drink. You say, "No, thank you." That's it. That's a complete sentence. You're not, you're not required to explain yourself or apologize or justify or provide any sort of documentation. You just need to say, "No, thank you." Now, some people are going to push because some people are just like that, and for those people, I give my clients a couple of go-to lines that work really, really well because they're honest and they tend to close the conversation. Could say thing like, things like... You can say things like, "Alcohol has been wrecking my sleep lately, so I'm taking a break." "I've got an early morning, so I'm keeping it light tonight." "Ugh, my labs came back a little off, so I'm not drinking for a little while." Notice what all of those have in common. They're true, they're relatable, and they are health-related, which means most people are not gonna keep pushing because that would just be rude. And here's the most important thing I can tell you about this. Practice saying it. Say it out loud in your car on the way to the party. I know. I know it sounds silly, but the more you say it, the more it becomes automatic, and when it's automatic, it doesn't feel like a big deal anymore. It just rolls off your tongue, and the conversation moves on All right, step number four is to set your intention out loud to someone. Text your person before you go, your friend, your sister, your spouse, your coach, um, anyone that knows what you are doing. Tell them, "Hey, I'm going to the Hendersons tonight and I'm not drinking, and I will check in with you later." Not for accountability in the punitive sense, not so someone can scold you later if you slip up. It's just because, as I mentioned before, it engages your brain differently when you say it out loud. It makes it real in a way that just thinking about it doesn't. You move from intention to commitment, and that one step alone has changed outcomes for more of my clients than almost anything else Now I wanna come back to FOMO for a second, because there's something underneath it that is really important that we just kind of look at. When we're afraid of missing out, we're usually afraid of one of two things: missing the fun and missing the belonging. And I wanna suggest that the second one, the belonging, is where the real work is, because the need to belong is not a flaw. It's not a weakness. It's one of the most fundamental human needs that God wired into us. He made us for community. We were here to be made, to be known, and to know each other. That longing is real, and it's good. The problem is when we start believing, like Eve in the garden, like me at 16 at that party, - if you don't know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to last week's episode. We think that we need something outside of ourselves to earn that belonging, that we have to show up a certain way, drink the right things, be fun in the right ways to deserve a seat at the table, and that's a lie, and alcohol has been exploiting that lie for a very long time Now here's what I want you to think about when you're standing at the barbecue with your sparkling water feeling like the odd one out. You already belong, not because you're drinking the right thing or being the right amount of fun. It's because you are a beloved daughter of the King of Kings who called you by name before you were born. That belonging cannot be taken away by a girls' trip or a nosy friend or Aunt Mabel and her third glass of Chardonnay. You bring something to those relationships that has absolutely nothing to do with what is in your cup. And honestly, the woman who shows up fully present, genuinely funny, actually listening, not half checked out managing her intake, she's usually one of the most fun people in the room My clients who have done this will tell me these things. They come back saying, "I laughed more. I was more present. Oh my goodness, I had the best conversation with so-and-so, and I wouldn't have had that conversation," or, "I was able to give someone comfort or advice or really just fully listen to them when they needed it, and I know I wouldn't have been able to do that if I had been drinking." That is not missing out. That is showing up for yourself and for others , real quick before I wrap up, I keep mentioning it, and we're getting closer. Soberish Summer is coming back this year, and I'm so excited about what I'm building. This is exactly the kind of work we get to do together, the planning, the intention setting, the community of Catholic women who are all navigating the same situations and can actually say, "Hey, me too," when you say that you're dreading the 4th of July cookout. At the time of this recording, the cart is not open yet, but definitely check my show notes so as soon as you are able to register, you can go to that link and get signed up. We kick things off officially on July 1st, but I am gonna open up the community, I think, on the 28th. So I'll open it up just a couple days early so everybody can get in there and introduce themselves. But in the meantime, you can register early, and I hope to see you there. If you have any questions at all, feel free to reach out to me at hello@thecatholicsobrietycoach.com. Okay, friend, here's what I want you to walk away with today. The social stuff is hard. It is. I'm not going to pretend that it's not. But it's hard in a manageable way, especially when you have a plan, something good to drink, and your responses ready to go before you need it. You are not a wet blanket. You are not ruining anyone's good time, and you are absolutely not missing out on the thing that actually matters, which is being genuinely present with the people you love. No, thank you is a complete sentence. Write that on a sticky note if you need to. I'll be back again next week, and we are going to go somewhere a little deeper. We are going to talk about the evening trigger that nobody's talking about. If you're curious and you wanna know what that is, meet me back here. I'll talk to you again soon. 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.