The One You Feed - Discovering Life Beyond Alcohol: Strategies for Lasting Sobriety and Emotional Wellness with Casey McGuire Davidson

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Falling off a goal is normal. Knowing how to get back on track—without shame or drama—is the real skill. I’m hosting a free 60-minute live workshop on Tuesday, January 27 at 7pm ET to teach a simple framework for getting unstuck. Register now for ⁠Falling Off is Part of It: The Framework for Getting Back on Track (Without the Drama)⁠! In this episode, Casey McGuire Davidson talks about discovering life beyond alcohol and strategies for lasting sobriety and emotional wellness. She shares her struggles with alcohol, repeated attempts to quit, and how support, coaching, and treating sobriety as an experiment helped her succeed. Casey also discusses the challenges of early sobriety, the importance of community and self-care, and practical strategies for replacing drinking habits. The conversation emphasizes curiosity, planning, and support as keys to lasting change, offering hope and encouragement for anyone considering a break from alcohol. Exciting News!!! Coming in March, 2026, my new book, ⁠How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life is now available for pre-orders!⁠ Key Takeaways: Personal journey of struggling with alcohol and attempts to quit. Challenges faced during early sobriety, including anxiety and withdrawal symptoms. Benefits of sobriety, such as improved emotional stability and better sleep. The concept of treating sobriety as an experiment rather than a permanent decision. Importance of support systems, including coaching, therapy, and community groups. Strategies for replacing drinking habits with healthier alternatives and activities. The role of public accountability in maintaining sobriety goals. Understanding the cultural conditioning around alcohol and its impact on social interactions. The significance of creating new rewards and self-care practices to replace alcohol. Encouragement to approach sobriety with curiosity and openness to change. For full show notes: click here! If you enjoyed this conversation with Casey McGuire Davidson, check out these other episodes: Special Episode: 4 Different Journeys to Sobriety The Joy of Being Sober with Catherine Gray The Magic of Being Sober with Laura McKowen By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you! This episode is sponsored by: Check out Mountains to Cross by Dr. Abraham George. It’s the story of how a life built on success was redirected toward compassion, and how that choice led to the founding of Shanti Bhavan, a school helping children break free from generational poverty. Find it wherever books are sold. ⁠David Protein⁠ bars deliver up to 28g of protein for just 150 calories—without sacrificing taste! For a limited time, our listeners can receive this special deal: buy 4 cartons and get the 5th free when you go to ⁠www.davidprotein.com/FEED⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is always more effective or easier to replace an ingrained habit with a new practice rather than going the deprivation route. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back

and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. In this episode, I'm joined by Casey Davidson, sober coach and host of Hello Sons. And we talk about what changes when you try to stop managing alcohol and start getting curious about life without it. We get into the parts of it nobody glamorizes. The 3 a.m. anxiety, the mental bargaining, the constant negotiation in your head.

And we also talk about what's on the other side. Steadyer emotions, better sleep, more patience, more peace, and the surprising relief of not being pulled apart inside. If a break has been on your mind, Casey lays out what those first weeks really take and what they can give back. I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed. Hi, Casey. Welcome to the show.

Hey, thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. Yes, welcome back, I should say. You've been a guest before. And you have a wonderful podcast called Hello Someday. And you are a sober coach for women. So you explore all things sobriety related. And I'm looking forward to talking with you.

I think we originally thought, let's have Casey on and talk about dry January. Well, if you're listening to this, you know that it is now the end of January. So we will be talking about perhaps dry February or dry April or whenever you want to do it, as well as reasons to continue on beyond 30 days. But before we get into all that, we'll start like we always, do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild, and they say in life there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,

which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops. He thinks about it for a second. He looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, which one wins? and the grandfather says the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah. Well, I've mentioned this when we've chatted before, but that parable is actually super close to my heart for a very specific reason, which is I stopped drinking 10 years ago. And when I stopped drinking, I could barely make it past day four alcohol-free. for two years before I had my last day one. I was kind of a bottle of wine and night girl. I was

super successful despite it all. You know, I was a director at a Fortune 500 company, had been married for, you know, 14 years, had two awesome kids, and was incredibly worried about my drinking. And had spent a long time trying to moderate and then a longer time trying to stop and had never been very successful. One night I woke up, same as I had done a million times before at 3 a.m. feeling awful, crushing anxiety, asking myself why I did this again? Why did I drink the bottle instead of the two glasses I meant to? And someone in one of my online groups of people who were stopping drinking recommended a coach that I'd heard of before. And so I reached out to her the next morning. And that was my last day one, which was insane. I did not want to quit. She will talk about

this. She suggested 100 days alcohol free to begin. And the reason this parable means so much to me is she talked about naming your addictive voice, which is what I think of as the voice that whispers in your ear that tells you drinking is a good idea, that it's no big deal, that everybody drinks that, you know, you just need to put some more rules around it and do it better. And she called that voice wolfy. And it was actually based on the parable. She talked about starving the wolf, you know, in terms of like the one you feed. And the way I think about it is the idea that the closer you are to drinking, the stronger the pull it has on you, right? Alcohol is like a magnet. And that, you know, can be scientific. It can be habit change. It can be emotional pull.

But the idea that you are going through the drinking and withdrawal cycle. And when you are close to your last drink, you are going to crave it. You are going to want it. You are going to feel less happy without it. And the further you get away from it, the more you starve the wolf, the weaker it becomes. So I used to call, still do, my addictive voice wolfie, in terms of like, God, Wolfie's telling me this. You know, screw you, Wolfie. You're lying to me. It just really helped to externalize it. And so that is what I call the voice, so based on the parable. That is a wonderful story. And what I love about what you said, there's a few things. One is what made this time different than the times before was that you had more help. And I think that is a

general rule that we can apply to nearly anything that we're trying to change. We've tried to change. We've had maybe some success, maybe no success didn't work. We try again. The way that I see most people work their way through is exactly how I find my way to sobriety was I just kept adding more each time. Okay, well, I tried that. That didn't work. So let me also then do this thing. Oh, I tried that and now this, and it's this ability to add additional resources that help our change efforts. Those resources could be learning, reading a book, getting a sober coach, so many, many different things. So I really love that. And I also love the idea of giving our inner voices a name. I have a couple of inner voices. Mine aren't drinking voices anymore. In my book in the chapter on self-compassion,

I talk about how, you know, minor voices more Eeyore these days than it is. anyone else. Although recently I have found another inner voice, which only some people are going to get this reference, and it is Robert Smith, who is the singer of the cure who dressed up in crazy goth makeup. And I just can see a picture of him in my head, and he's like super dramatic. Like it's not a breakup. It's like the death of your soul kind of thing. And so I have an occasional overdramatic part of me that I will label as Robert Smith, which makes me laugh because I just see that. picture of him in my mind. So naming voices really, really powerful. I want to ask a question about this idea of dry January or your idea of trying 100 days away from alcohol. Where's the value

in trying an experiment like that versus deciding like, I'm just done? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so many reasons that I think it's helpful. The first of which is, you know, nobody actually wants to stop drinking or almost nobody does. I always used to describe it as a love-hate relationship that I had with alcohol for the longest time. And I will say even when I had my last day one, when I was moving away from alcohol, quitting drinking was my worst case scenario in life. I spent so much time and mental energy and, you know, trying to keep alcohol in my life. I, for years, like, very clearly was like, I need to get a handle on this so that with the goal that I never have to actually stop drinking, I knew it was going nowhere good. But it took me a long time to get away from it.

And that doesn't happen in 30 days. At the same time, if I had thought to myself, oh, my God, I will never have a drink again, right? Then the first time or the fifth time, I walked by someone on a patio with their girlfriend, having a big glass of red wine, which was my jam, I would be like, oh, my God, I am never going to feel that again. I am never going to have that again. And so I might as well have it one more time, right? And I never would have gotten started or wouldn't have gotten very far.

So in my mind, I hadn't made it past day four in two years. But I was like, I am going to treat this with curiosity, with excitement, with the idea that it is an experiment. Like I know what my life is like when I'm drinking. I know the highlights and I know the low lights. Now, 80% maybe more of my drinking was low lights, right? Like the idea of like, I'm always thinking about if I have enough wine at home. I'm always telling myself that I'm only going to have two glasses. And yet, if I didn't have a bottle of wine, I was calculating if I had time to stop at the grocery store before my son's daycare closed.

I mean, that was the extent of like, can I do this or not trying to figure out how to make sure I had enough, how to have that. third glass without my husband noticing 3 a.m. wake-ups, hangovers in the morning, promising myself I'd take a break and then drinking again. Like that is not a highlight, right? Passing out on the couch pretending I was so tired and fell asleep. The highlights were a date night on a Friday night or a girl's night out or, you know, the concert you went to. Now, I never was like, oh, and the low light was, I don't remember the end of the night. My husband had to drive me home. I overpaid the babysitter and hoped she didn't notice, whatever. But I couldn't imagine going without alcohol forever. And yet at the same time, 30 days is not enough time to change your

perspective on alcohol. And the reason is I sort of compare it to doing a commuter flight, like a puddle jumper, you know, D.C. to New York versus a longer flight to Europe or I flew to Africa a couple years ago, right? Pedal jumper, you are just waiting for it to be over. When you're drinking first two weeks suck. They just do. You are in withdrawal. You are uncomfortable. You don't sleep well yet, all that stuff. And then the next two weeks, you're literally counting down the days you're not drinking until you can drink as your reward for not drinking, right? Like, I fixed myself. If I can go to the month, clearly there's nothing to see here. Clearly, there's no problem. Let's go back to Drinky. And if you are going 100 days or a longer period of time,

you have to settle in. Like, I flew to Africa. It was two red eyes. I, you know, I went with my kids and my husband. I downloaded their shows on the iPad. I downloaded things on my phone. I got multiple books. I brought snacks. I got a new neck pillow and, you know, even like got the little foot hammock because I'm short, you know, like whatever. I had to figure out how to enjoy it. And if you are doing 100 days alcohol free, you have to be like, all right, what am I going to do instead of drinking on Friday nights? I'm not going to hold my breath and just wait for it to be over. All right, should I join a yoga class on Friday night? Should I join a running club? So I have something to amuse myself in the evenings? Like, am I going to meet my friends for brunch instead of happy hour? What new

habits might I develop? Should I get my bike tuned up so I can go for bike rides? Like, you settle into it. You're like, what am I going to do on a date night with my husband? Because I'm not drinking. He suggests a brewery. I suggest a coffee house with live music, you know? So that's the difference. And when you get far enough away from alcohol, the pull on it lessens and you can see it more clearly. You can see the impacted had on your priorities and your time. You suddenly, you're like, oh my God, is this what healthy feels like? Am I supposed to, like, was I supposed to feel this way all the time? Because I felt like garbage for over two years.

I mean, the only reason I took four months off with support because I was worried about my drinking and then I got pregnant. So like, who knows if I would have gone back to it earlier? But I was more emotionally stable. I was happier. My marriage was better. I was more patient parent. Like, go figure.

Yeah. And yet I was like, and now I was. like, and now I'm fixed and now I can drink like a normal person. Let me go back to it. So when I got away from it the second time, I felt so good at 100 days. Everybody noticed I was happier and more emotionally stable and more optimistic that I was, it was easy to be like, you know what, I want to see what six months feels like. And then at six months, I was like, you know what, I want to go for a year. It wasn't until I got to a year that I was like, I think I'm done. I think I'm good. And I still don't think about forever. I have zero intention of going back to drinking, but I don't sit there and

be like, oh my God, when I'm 75, I'm going to picture myself not drinking. Like, nope, I'm just like, I'm good, I don't drink anymore, that identity change you talk about, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's really interesting because, as you know, I just got done writing a book called How a Little becomes a lot, which is a belief in, you know, little things, small steps, 30 days is a smaller step than 100 days. And yet everything you said, I absolutely agree with. That is 100% my experience. I quit drinking 30 days a couple times.

And it was exactly as you described. Two weeks of misery, a week of like, hmm, and then the countdown. You know, the countdown to being able to start again. And yet, as I often say, a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. 30 days is a start. Yeah. And you're right. It takes longer before you really start to feel the benefits. And I love that. That is such a good analogy about how you sort of settle in, how you actually make plans for, okay, what am I going to do in this window? And I think that's something that you do very, very well in your work, in your podcast, in some of the guides that you create, is give people a plan for here's how to go about it. So whether we're talking, 30 days, whether we're talking 100 days, whether we're talking a lifetime, we're talking about

a period of abstinence. And I would love to just try and walk through some tips that are in your guide. I said to you before the interview, that's my plan. And I follow interview plans about as well as I followed laws when I was a teenager, which is to say, not very much. So we shall see. But I'd like to start giving some of these tips and kind of see where the conversation takes us and try and make this really practical, if we can, along with the fact that I can't help but get philosophical. It just comes pouring out of me. I love that.

But start today. That's the first one. Talk to me about start today. Yeah. I mean, I think that if you are contemplating, taking a break from drinking or any change, it is really easy to go four days, five days and be like, you know what, I'm going to start again on Monday. There is, first of all, I had a hard day at work. had a good day at work, my kids being challenging, you know, there's a girl's night coming up, there's a date night coming up. Like, it is so easy to put off beginning. I remember talking to my

coach, the first time I talked to my coach, I was on like day six, and I was like, okay, here's the thing I'm really worried about. I'm going to Italy. And how am I going to not drink in Italy. Like, this is impossible. I am a red wine girl, right? I planned this trip a year ago, and she was like, all right, when are you going to Italy? And I was like four months from now. And she was like, why don't we worry about that in three and a half months? Like, it just, there's never a good time to stop drinking. There is always something coming up. And if you are thinking about this, if you are listening to this podcast, if this has been on your mind, start today. And it is okay if you don't want to begin. If you don't want to stop drinking,

on my very first day, my coach said to me, nobody wants to stop drinking. You want to feel better. And I can promise you that if you stop drinking, you will feel better. And just taking that first step and then that next step and noticing, oh my God, this Monday morning without a hangover is so much better than walking into work feeling completely depleted and, you know, just trying to get through the morning and hating putting on eyeliner while looking at my bloodshot eyes. Like that's awesome. I had my first good night sleep on day nine. Like I was like, oh my God.

sleeping through the night, this is incredible. So just begin even if you don't want to. The acrobat studio, your new foundation. Use PDF spaces to generate a presentation. Grab your docs, your permits, your moves. AI levels of your pitch gets it in a groove. Choose a template with your timeless cools. Flex those two.

Drive design, deliver. make it sing. AI builds the deck so you can build that thing. Learn more at Adobe.com slash do that with Acrobat. As you were saying that, I occasionally wish that, like, I could feel as bad as I would feel drinking for like three days because it would restore all my gratitude for how good I feel. But you just get used to it, right? I'm used to feeling pretty good.

But just a couple days of that, I'd have enough gratitude to carry me another year because it's terrible. Oh my God. You can get that by getting the flu and the headache and the queasiness and the like, oh, good God and the lethargy. And, you know, every time it happens, I mean, 10 years it's happened a few times. I'm just like, I used to make myself feel this way on a regular basis. Like how did I move through life thinking this was good enough? I have been trying so hard not to get the flu because I had to record my audio book last week. So starting in like mid-December, I was like, and I see how people become germaphobes. I was trying so hard.

And now all of a sudden I'm like, I see everywhere. But anyway, I'm letting it go now. It's passed. I don't want to get the flu, but I'm not going to obsess about it. So let's go back to the second step, which is to make this time different. Yeah. I think, and we've talked about this, that if you actually want to stop drinking, okay, I just said you're never going to want to. But if you are attempting to take a break from alcohol in any form for any length of time, and I did this a million times, you promise yourself you're not going to drink until the weekend, or you promise yourself you're going to do dry January, or do two glasses of wine at night. And you don't. All that means is you do not have enough. support yet. So adding support to you find that right level is key. And so for me, when I went back to drinking, of course, my intention was to have a glass of wine on a date night with my husband.

You know, first of all, that first time, I had two, I wanted three. Then the next Friday night, I was like, oh, well, let's split a bottle. And then very quickly, whatever the days were, I was back to a bottle of wine a night and thinking about it and trying to stop and waking up, hungover, you name it. I was listening to podcasts, sobriety podcast. I had been a member of a group of people. It was called the Booze Free Brigade who were people trying to be on the alcohol-free path and trying to get out of the drinking cycle and be sober.

I had read some what we call quitlit, which is books about people stopping drinking. I had been sober for a period of time, so I knew what it felt like to not be hung over on the daily and not be horribly anxious and overwhelmed and shaky. And yet, I kept doing the same thing. So on my last day one, I started working with a coach. That was different. That was adding more things. And then I added a sort of program like I have.

I have one that helps women stop drinking, but I added a program for eight weeks of, like, people who are on the alcohol-free path and, you know, et cetera, et cetera, with tools. And then I added therapy and I already had working out. And then I added anti-anxiety meds because that was a longstanding issue for me. Like, I kept adding more support. So making this time different, add one more thing. Add two more things. Like throw the book at it.

But just because you failed before doesn't mean that this time won't work. You never know when the time is going to be that you stop drinking. And mine was not, you know, a big date. It was a Wednesday in February. My sobriety day is February 18th. There's nothing around that one. It was just the death of a thousand cuts. It was the same as previously.

But that day, I added one more layer of support. and I wanted to drink on day two, and I didn't. And then I wanted to drink on day four, and I didn't. And I was in tears on day 16. I wanted to drink so much. But I had talked to my coach that morning, you know, and told her I was good. And then things happened at work, and it was a Friday night, and I drove past, you know, a bar. And I was just, oh, my God, I want to drink.

And I didn't. And the next day, no day has ever been as hard for me in 10 years than day 16. And I woke up the next morning and I went for a run and I was like, oh my God, the world is gorgeous. So this time will be different. And the way to make that happen is to add some more support. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think that ability to believe it can be different is really, really important. And I think it speaks to the idea of learning to work also with the shame of addiction.

and believing that you're a person who doesn't know how to not drink versus a person who is weak versus a person who is once an addict, always an addict. I mean, there's a thousand little words for it, right? But the minute we position it, at least for me, and I position any sort of change this way, it's a matter of learning skills. And a certain point comes where you have enough of the skills

that you're able to stay sober in an ongoing way. There are times where you have some skills that allow you to stay sober most of the time, except on day 16 when you have a bad day at work and you drive by a bar, right? Yeah. Okay, well, then you learn. Okay, well, what do I do when I have a bad day at work and I want to drive by the bar? It's this learning process and adding resources and skills. So I really love that idea of try again.

I end my book with Keep Coming Back. And what I mean is not necessarily just a recovery, but to whatever it is. Keep coming back to yourself. Keep coming back to your ability to heal, to change, to grow. Because I think we all have it. How much we change, how different we become, those things are different per person. But we all are able to make meaningful steps forward. And I think the way to do it is sort of like you say, keep adding help and support.

And we're allowed to change. A lot of times people are scared of change and they're scared of change partially because they're like, my husband is my drinking buddy or my girlfriend, this is what we do, or they will be bummed if we go out for this person's birthday and I don't drink. And the truth is, you are allowed to evolve. You should evolve, you know, drinking a ton and throwing up in the bathroom and the middle of the night is not as cute at 40 as it was at 25, like it's the last quote of quote epic. I certainly didn't want to be doing that at 50 also less cute, you know, like, and we know that it gets worse. I was like, who do I want to be when I'm 50 years old? So I quit at 40. You know, what will my relationship with my son be like when he's 18,

not eight years old if I keep going the way I'm going? I am. allowed to be a different person. I am allowed to evolve. All right. Number three, this one at first glance sounds trivial. Yes. Which is to get your alternate beverages ready. And I want to talk about this from a drinking perspective and then I think we also need to talk about it from other addiction perspectives. Yeah. But what do you mean by that and why does it matter? So it is always more effective or easier to replace an ingrained habit with a new practice rather than going the deprivation route. So this is different for everyone.

There are definitely people who are like, you know, non-alcoholic beverages, meaning non-acolic beer, non-acolic wine or whatever is. It's a slippery slope. It's dangerous. And if it is triggering to you, absolutely avoid it. You don't need it. But I love the idea of keep the ritual, replace the ingredients. Like, that really works for me.

And it helps for so many women, I know. You know, you sit down at dinner. You don't want the kid cup, right? You are an adult. You're not a teenager who's lost your privileges. Like, you know, don't drink out of a. Apple juice in a sippy cup for you. Exactly.

You know, so, you know, women always say to me, like, oh, my God, I just really want to sit on the porch on a summer afternoon and have a glass of rosé. And I'm like, you can't. There, you know, I have this bubbly rosé. That's my favorite. It tastes just like rosé. You just are not consuming the alcohol. And if not, like, you know, you can have cranberry and lime and soda. You can have, when I stopped drinking non-acolic beverages really weren't a big thing.

I used to have sparkling grapefruit drink. But the idea is, like, for a lot of us, it's muscle memory, it's having. it's habit, it's, you know, taking the glass to your mouth. And that doesn't have to be alcohol. It can be something else that tastes great, but like even just the idea, like opening my fridge and seeing 17 different kinds of non-alcoholic options. And by the way, not seeing alcohol, I highly recommend getting the alcohol out of your house because that's a visual cue that will trigger the craving to drink.

but it made me be like coming at it from a point of expansion, not deprivation. Like, oh my God, should I try this one or this one? That one's interesting, you know? Yeah, I just the other night was in a restaurant and decided I would, I kind of like mottails from time to time. I don't drink them often because I just don't like to drink sugar as a general rule. Although if I was in my first 30 days, I would be gulping these things. But now, 18 years later, I need less of it. But sometimes I still want something like that. And this one had a spirit in it.

It was reminiscent of alcohol in a way that I'm not used to. And I've tried that. My friend of mine drinks, who's been sober a long time, drinks non-alcoholic beer. And I tried a sip of his beer one night. And for me, it's too triggering. Yeah, yeah. The place that usually works for me is any time, particularly early in sobriety that I was going somewhere that people were going to be drinking. I wanted a special drink for me.

That was the place like it really worked for me. It was like, okay, I'm going to a party. They're all going to be drinking. I love ginger beer. I'm bringing ginger beer. That kind of thing really worked for me. But that idea of that substitution is really important. It's interesting to think about direct substitution.

Like, okay, I normally drink alcohol. Now I'm going to drink a friend of mine. It is cranberry, lime, and club soda has been for years. Sober friend of mine. direct substitution, and then times where we need a different kind of substitute. So, for example, if you're a weed smoker, again, smoking a vape jewel would be better than smoking weed if you're trying to stop. And at some point, right?

And so I think the thing that makes this all work is this idea of understanding the habit loop. And I've had Charles Duhigg on a couple times who didn't come up with the idea, but sort of popularized it. And James Clear put it in his book, which is that you have a cue, a stimulus of some sort. you then have a routine and then you have a reward. The cue is whatever makes you want to drink. Sitting down to dinner, you're used to having a glass of wine, getting off work,

you're used to doing this. And then you change the behavior in the middle because you still want the reward. It's very difficult to get a certain stimulus and not want the reward. It's like if you get stressed, you want the reward of being unstressed. So the way that you get unstressed may very well need to change. But to your point, I think that substitution is a key element in thinking about stopping something. Is it like, what do I do instead? Yeah.

It's so important. And that can be like instead of going home, you know, directly on a Friday night. And I had two little kids when I stopped. But I started, you know, loved the idea of sober treats replacing that reward system. So I would block off my calendar at 4 p.m., which I'd never done. But trust me, once I stopped drinking, I was so much more productive. Go figure. I'm not moving through the world with brain fog and a hangover.

And I would go get a pedicure. And then I would go pick up, take out sushi because I didn't have the, I was a red wine girl, so I didn't have the association with, you know, sushi with red wine. I could have green tea. That felt very good. I would come home and watch a movie. That was different than taking my husband. my kids out for dinner, and of course I would pick a place that had red wine that I liked. Or if we were

going to a restaurant on a Friday night, I would call my husband in advance. And I would be like, if you get there before me, order me a chocolate milkshake, which is crazy. Like, you know, I was that girl who was like, no, thanks. I take my calories in wine. Oh, my God, chocolate milkshakes were the best, not all the time, but when I went out and would normally have alcohol, One thing I wanted to jump in on because you mentioned it and I should have said it. So I was a big red wine girl. I have had non-acolic red wine. It is too close for me.

It is too close. I do not drink non-acolic red wine. I am a huge non-acolic beer person. It tastes really good. It meaning for me, but it is not that close. For me, like the wine glass, the red color, the act. Like, it's just, I don't love that. So, you know, definitely decide what is closer to close. The other thing I think is really helpful, like you said, is changing your patterns, right?

Like sitting around the house all day, Saturday and not having that reward at the end of the day is really hard. So I would, you know, I call them anchor activities, but I would go to the gym and put my kids in kids club. And I wouldn't even work out. I would, like, sit in the steam room or go in the hot. hot tub or like read my books sometimes like just take time for myself go to a garden store and like look at all the flowers the classes they had like just opening my mind to things that were different than what I had always looked at. That's such a good idea. The next one on your list is know what to expect in your first week. Yeah. Yeah. I think that knowing what is coming up,

knowing what is normal, takes the power out of it. So typically in your first week, you wake up feeling like crap. You just do if you drink like I drank, right? You wake up with 3 a.m. with crushing anxiety. Maybe you feel sick. Maybe you have a headache. You're thirsty. You're like, how am I going to deal with it the next day? You decide you're going to stop or take a break or whatever it is. You go to work and something happens, right? Big things, small things, you know, and then you want to drink and you feel like you deserve to drink and you start thinking, this is too hard. Maybe I overreacted. Maybe I just need to cut back. If my husband drinks, why can I? Like, I don't need to stop completely. What you need to know is that is normal. That is your addictive voice, trying to get in your head. That is not your voice, right? External.

like, people are like, I just really want to drink because I'm stressed. I'm like, okay, let's reframe that. The voice in your head is whispering that you should drink because you're stressed. And so in the first week, if someone tells me in the first week they don't want to drink, I don't even believe them. I'm like, look, it doesn't happen typically because you are craving, you are on withdrawal. This is a habit. You know, day four is hard. Know that day five is hard. Know that you need a plan for your first weekend. Know that you need the alcohol out of your house. Know that if you are more irritated, angry, resentful, sensitive, emotionally sensitive to perceive slights, that is all normal.

And you can be like 80% of that is you are in early sobriety. 20% is that person made an insensitive comment or your spouse is being really difficult or whatever it is. But it doesn't last forever. And if you know this is part of the process, it helps. And I'm always like, don't do the hardest part over and over and over again. Like get to the better part. Yeah. I often say to people, it's worth knowing that it's going to get worse before it gets better.

Right. There's this idea. Like if we just stop drinking, things would be better. Well, yes, eventually. But in the beginning, at least for me, it does not feel better. It feels worse. Yeah. Right?

It just does. because I have all the things that I was drinking or using to deal with suddenly are there without a drink. And I also have the additional screaming for a drink going on in my head. And I think the beginning is rough and that's worth knowing. But I love what you said, which is like, don't keep going through the worst part again and again and again. You know, get to the part where indeed it does get easier. So I think what you're saying is the first seven days are really hard and day 16 is also really hard. Yeah. But I think that's a useful point to make, which is everybody's going to be a

little bit different. You know, you may have a hard first week than an easy three months and then a rough week or we just don't quite know when the hard pops back up. And so knowing that it will is helpful. I think this idea is that if we think of alcohol, I love your analogy of being like a magnet, the further you are from it, the less the pull is. You know, And life is life, right? Like, I mean, life is hard. Life is hard for me now 18 years sober. Now, it's far easier than it used to be.

I know how to deal with it all better. And it is life. And so life is challenging, particularly getting sober, because for a lot of us, we may have been not doing a lot of things that needed done, or we let alcohol or drugs do a lot of things that needed done, mainly emotional regulation. It gets so much better. And I think that's the key is that by, staying with it and getting further away, that pull goes away. And to me, that's the worst part of it.

Hangovers suck. Being embarrassed of things sucks. All that stuff is really lousy. And for me, the worst part is the obsession. Yes, absolutely, the constant thoughts. And then if you're in later stages, along with it, is the constant, I need to stop doing this. I need to, you know, that and I describe it as being torn apart inside is the worst part for me. When I think back on like, what are the feelings in life that I never want to feel again, that's a big one, being torn apart like that inside. And that's what goes away, which is just a miracle to me. And it's just so amazing to me that that's the promise. The promise is this disappears as a problem.

Problems in life don't disappear, but that problem disappears. And the problems that that thing was causing also go with it. And it seems impossible to believe, particularly on day two, that like the day will come where I just don't want it. Yeah. Yeah. That's the promise that I think is so incredible. Yeah. I mean, I look at it all the time because I work with women, you know, taking them initially from day one to day 100 and then six months and all the things that come up as part of it, which is everything in life.

You know, I mentioned like day nine, my first night of really, really good sleep. I loved putting eye lana on and not having my eyes be bloodshot and watery. I loved not being hung over. I mean, that's pretty freaking incredible. And I had gotten so used to it. And, you know, I at the end of 30 days asked my husband because my worst fear was that I would be bored or boring or whatever it is. And I was like, hey, babe, have you know?

noticed anything, you know, different or whatever. And he was like, you know what, our life is just a lot more peaceful. You're a lot more even. Like you used to come home and it would be like super up or super down. And I think I even like worked myself into outrage in order to have a reason to drink. Like I would come home and be, you know, outraged at the news or about something that happened at work. Not even to me. Like this person would slight it. or this person did X. And I would, or this project got blown out. And then I would come home when I had stopped drinking.

My husband would be like, how was today? And I'd be like, oh, it was fine. And he's like, what? Like it was fine. I was like, yeah, I had a couple meetings. This one was good. This one, you know, this guy said this and whatever. And I walked, I got a latte.

That was cool. And he was just like, oh, my God. Like, this is amazing. And so that was really good. And some of my clients, I remember this vividly. One of them said her husband, because I always am like, ask your person. Ask them if they notice anything. And he was like, yeah, I see the light coming back in your eyes.

And you seem happier and more optimistic. And she said, it was day 22. She was like, well, not waking up without hating myself is pretty awesome. And like, people go through this. And on the outside, everything looks great, right? I was, I smiled, I had a ton of friends, I went through my meetings, and then this internal, what is wrong with you? Why can't you cope with life?

This is too hard. I hate my life. You know, whatever it was, was this constant ticker tape. And I am really going to screw up my life because I'm drinking and it is going to be my own fault. Yeah. Yeah, there is a certain point, I think. I remember this in my second time getting sober, before I got sober. I realized that I had no optimism about anything in the future because I was drinking and I had been sober eight years before.

So I knew what it looked like not drinking. I knew what it looked like drinking. I knew how sick I was. And I had no optimism for the future because in my mind it was all going to get worse. And I was going to mess it all up because of my drinking and my drug use. And I just, I remember a day in the shower where I realized that where I was like, I have no positive belief in the future at all for myself. And I don't do well in that state, you know, like I'm a generally fairly optimistic person and that's important to me. And so I do think that that is a big one.

There's this, there's a self-recrimination. There's all that. And then there's just that pessimism, that belief, that knowing. I felt doomed. That's a great word for it. Yeah. Doomed. And my life was pretty great.

I mean, what's amazing is I used to go into work and be like, I hate my life. This recurring thought in my head was like, shoot me now. I was not suicidal, but that was just my go-to, random, terrible thought. And I remember I kind of miss early sobriety and people kill me when I say this. But it is such a tender and transformational time. Everything feels like it's in technicolor. So many aha moments and realizations and, you know, your dopamine comes back up. And suddenly you just experience these weird bursts of joy.

And again, not in your first two weeks, maybe not in your first 16 days. But sometime around day 30, and I remember walking into work, it was freaking March, right, in Seattle, which is not a lovely time. But, you know, the sky was blue. These birds flew up. And I was walking into work at 7.30. And I was like, I love my life. And I was, what I had gone from, I hate my life, this is too hard, I can't stand it, I'm doomed to I love my life bursts of like emotional joy in a month. It was crazy.

Yeah, it really is remarkable. Okay, number five, find and dive into sober support. This is really important because whether or not you realize that you have been conditioned, brainwashed, your entire life to believe that alcohol helps you, to believe that it is good, to believe that it is required or that you are missing out if you are not drinking at a celebration, at an event on a Tuesday, at a work, happy hour, whatever it is. We are told that alcohol helps us, you know, be a more patient mom, connect with our friends, sleep, relax, all these things. And it's like a circular firing squad, right? Because we say it to each other too.

Like you're like, oh my God, my toddler's melting down. All of your girlfriends would be like, you deserve a drink. It's wine time. Happy hour, whatever it is. And so you have these deep-seated beliefs that if you don't drink, you are missing out, or you will be bored or boring, or you won't be able to transition from work to home or whatever it is. That is not true.

but it is very hard in this boozy world to believe that or understand that or feel like your life is not going to be terrible if you don't drink. So you are not alone. Drinkers typically hang out with a lot of other drinkers I did. So surrounding yourself, immersing yourself in other voices that support where the desired behavior is the behavior you want to change and is the behavior that is celebrated is really important because I promise you, you are not the only person doing this. There are a ton of other people who are smart and cool and funny and all these things who also struggle with, by the way, a highly addictive substance that causes anxiety and depression and makes you sleep terribly and feel physically ill. And so you are not alone,

but you need that social support. And it doesn't have to be people. It can be podcasts. It can be books. It can be anything that tells you in some way or another, you don't need to drink. Nobody needs to drink. You'll be happier without it. This is good. You should be proud of yourself. Yeah. I think at a certain point of substance abuse disorder, is that what we call it these days? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And there's a spectrum, right? Mild, moderate, severe. Yeah, I think at a certain point on that spectrum, I have a very strong belief that we simply cannot do it alone, that that voice in our head will be too much for us. And where you get that help, where you get another help, I think the world is so different. I mean, it's so different than 30 years ago for me in Columbus, Ohio, where there was one and only one option, which was AA.

I think we had N.A. then, too. And then even 18 years ago was more or less the same thing. The world is so different now. I think 12-step programs are a wonderful place if they work for you because they are free, they are everywhere. You are immediately around a lot of people. I think it can be an amazing thing. But there are so many other games at this point. And I think wherever you find it, you know, I know a lot.

of people who've done really well with just like a small group like what was it uh your booze free brigade booze free brigade yeah all sorts of clever names out there for these little groups of people particularly women i think women do this much better than men do it but yeah i'm a big believer in support a therapist is support a podcast is support a coach's support an app is support you know and for me it's always like okay how do I get more? Because if we look at 12-step programs, they start by saying that we're powerless over alcohol. And that's a statement that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. And I get it. But then it goes on to say that what we need, and it calls it a higher power, which we often transfer to being spiritual. But I think the core idea there is 100% solid. We don't have the power in and of ourselves

right now to know how to stop doing this. So where do we get? power and the most obvious easy place is people yeah right other people that's the most obvious place I believe for power now some people who are more spiritual or God focused are going to tap into that and that's going to be valuable but we need more resources and support I'm sort of just saying what you said in like a sentence in like as typical of me a 400 word monologue but let's go on to the next one. I'm impressed so far that we are actually somewhat sticking to this plan. We're running out of time, though. Six. Share your not drinking initiative with the people around you. Yeah. And this is, I mean, your whole book is fantastic. This is behavioral change. Have it change

101, right? Like if you make a smart goal, if you tell other people, if you state your intention out loud that you are going to do something, you are what two to three times more likely to succeed, something around that. You trying to do this alone in your head with zero accountability other than to yourself when you have tried that before is setting you up to fail, right? So everyone, I drank seven nights a week unless I was trying to not drink, right? Nobody was going to, quote unquote, not notice that I was turning down a glass of wine. They would have thought I was pregnant or like, God knows what. So I needed to tell people, I needed that accountability. So I told everyone that I was doing a hundred-day-no-out call challenge. I hadn't made it past day four in two years. I told my morning

workout group. I told my kids, my son was eight. He's like, cool, mom. I told my husband, I had to because he knew if I had a hard day, what I wanted was him to pick up a bottle of wine on the way home because it made me happy, I told everyone my girlfriends. And that was because I needed to put it out there. And so also, if you just are like, no thanks, if you hang out with drinkers, they're probably going to be like, oh, just have one. It's no big deal. You're like, I got to early work out there. They're like, yeah, but you know, you can have one. And, you know, because alcohol is a magnet, you have one, your brain lights up, you want the second one. Suddenly it's a party on your couch, whatever it is. So I needed to be like, I am not drinking. And then it's way easier to tell

them like, they're like, come on, it's a party or it's my birthday. And you're like, dude, I'm on day 42 of a hundred day challenge. Like, I'm not drinking now. I am, you know, doing great. Yeah. I think this one is somewhat tricky because I agree with you like almost completely. I think that is the best way to go. I think there are some cases where we've said we're quitting so many times before. Oh, yeah. Right? That another announcement that we're quitting can be tricky.

But I think in general, the science is unequivocal on this, that, like you said, you have people that know what you're doing that are more or less in your corner. You've got a far, far better chance. So although the person might be like, yeah, I've heard that one before. my husband was so confused. He was like, you really? He was like, you know, the idea of like, let's see how long this one will last. He thought I'd call him by Thursday and, you know, tell him. But like, again, like you talked about like keep trying.

Keep adding to the word. I don't care if you've tried and failed a million times and your partner is like rolling their eyes. Do it one more time. Yes. Keep coming back to it. Start a sober treat list and plan out treats for yourself every day. I assume you mean more than simply cupcakes and ice cream, but you'll have to expand the definition

of treat. And this is again, like, I think we get blinders on and get really lazy when we are drinking about rewards, right? Like, bored drink, happy drink, angry drink, lonely drink, you name it, drink, hard day, good day, whatever. It is your easy button. And it is your reward for getting through the day or getting through the week or dealing with a toddler or whatever it is.

mother called, I don't know. And so you need other rewards, right? You need to reframe your craving and reward cycle to be like, this is my treat for being sober. So even if you treat yourself a million times, be like, this is my treat for being sober. And I mean, my first weekend, I think my treat for being sober was like leaving the house midday on the weekend, telling my husband to deal with the kids. I went to buy new running shoes as part of my like, This is my treat. I'm buying running shoes. And I sat in my car with my heated seats drinking a latte and it was quiet. And I was like, this is my treat for being sober. But it can be fresh flowers. It can be a new journal. It can be a magazine to read alone at a coffee shop, essential oils. You don't want to feel

deprived. This should feel like a period of extreme self-care. And the other thing is when you want to drink, if you are past your first two weeks where you're just craving, you're like, oh, my God, I really want to drink. Identify why. Why do I want to drink? I'm overwhelmed. I'm angry. I'm resentful. I want to celebrate. You can solve for that, right? You can be like, I'm lonely. Okay, I'm not drinking right now. What do I do? I'm overwhelmed. I want to celebrate. There are a million ways to solve for each of those. We just have gotten used to our easy button. I think that is so true. that we get locked in and we think that the answer is, I need a drink or I want a drink.

And there's some truth to that, but there's also the truth to exactly as you said, I want to celebrate, I want to be less stressed. I don't know how to deal with being angry. And to your point, there are lots of answers to those questions. Once you are not hyper-fixated on there being only one answer, then you start to see there are multiple ways to solve each of those situations.

The other thing that I kind of noticed, and I had two very different sobriety experiences, I had one where low bottom, you know, weighed 100 pounds, hepatitis C, going to jail, all that stuff. And there was a certain amount of just having been beaten into submission for me. The second time, it was harder.

I think it's a little bit more like what you're describing. Like on the outside, everything was going well. I had a good job. I had just gotten promoted. I lived in a nice area of town. I drove a nice car. All of that sort of stuff was all there. And so the second time just felt harder for me. And I remember part of what I struggled with the second time was I would give myself these treats, but my brain would be comparing them. I'd be like, essential oil, are you effing kidding? Right. Right. Like I need three shots of whiskey. Yeah. Stat. Right. And it is a matter of just recognizing like, okay, this isn't going, you know, this isn't that. But it's, I think as we talked about earlier, it's that substitute, you're putting something in the place that is different that does some of what alcohol, quote unquote, did or oftentimes once did. Yeah.

And I mean, the honest truth is like, if I need to deal. de-stress after work. As somebody who's sober 18 years, I don't have the rip cord of two shots of whiskey. Agreed. Like, that isn't happening, which means I do know how to de-stress after work. And it's usually more gradual and less intense. It feels like, you know, well, that would work a lot faster. Yeah.

However, as is obvious, the things that happen, the things that I do work. more effectively and I often think of it this way I think of like you talk about this a lot like admitting like yeah I do want to drink part of me does want to drink drinking did give me this and it did give me that is what I sort of have tried to do is I look at like total points of pleasure versus points of pleasure in a very short window yeah right put me in a room with 50 people I don't know at a networking event, there is going to be a part of me, even 18 years later, that is going to think this would be better with a drink. Whether it would be or not is sort of debatable, but probably. Probably I would be a better networker in those two hours with a couple of drinks, probably.

Now, for me, the equation is, oh, two hours of that versus burning my entire life to ground seems fairly obvious. But sometimes we have to add those points up. And go like, okay, yeah, that little thing would be better, but all of this other stuff over here would be worse. I mean, I think it also is around the idea of your like really essential oils versus two shots of whiskey. Totally get it. And I think it's also about romanticizing sobriety.

We spend so much time romanticizing drinking, focusing on what it gives us, and zero time romanticizing sobriety. So waking up in the morning before my house wakes up, having a cup of coffee in my quiet home without a hangover, that is my treat for being sober. Going to the bus stop and not feeling shaky and not wanting the other parents to like look at me too closely because I didn't want them to see that I didn't look great, meaning shaky, bloodshot eyes, you know, you name it. that was my treat for being sober. I also saved a ton of money not drinking. I saved $550 in my first month, right? And I was not drinking $30 bottles of wine. It was like $13 to $16 bottles of wine, but it adds up. So $550 is money for a gym membership with kid care and hot tubs and all that good stuff. It's money for babysitters. It's money for massages and pedicures and fresh flowers. And I'm like, these are my treats for being sober. Zero hangover. More patients. Hiring a babysitter so I can go do what I want to do.

And then that allows you to keep yourself in this emotional green zone, to do those small calibration so that by the time you get home, you don't have to go from fifth gear to first gear really quickly, right? You're not at that point of like your nervous system being shot. 100%. All right. We're going to run out of time. We're not going to get through all of them. You and I are going to continue in a post-show conversation. We're going to hit a few of these we did not get to. But I want to end with number 10 before we head out of town. Listeners, if you would like access to this post-show conversation to add free episodes, to special episodes, and also urgently and importantly support this show, which can always use the support as an independent

podcast, go to one you feed.net slash join. All right, here we go. We're going to end with number 10. Think of not drinking as an experiment rather than a punishment. Yeah. I want you to get curious and excited about what's next. I mentioned this, but you know what your life looks like when you're drinking. I drank on a regular basis for 20 years, except. when I was pregnant. Sometimes I drank more, sometimes I drank less, but you know what it looks like. What you don't know is what your life could look like without alcohol in it. What would your experiences or days or evenings or relationships be like if you weren't drinking, thinking about drinking, recovering from drinking, prioritizing drinking? And I was just curious, like, would I be more

optimistic. Would I feel less doomed? Would I be less angry and resentful? Like, would I be happier? Would I be healthier? Would I sleep deeply? Would I have less anxiety? What habits would I form? Like, I deserved to find out. I was 40. I was going to do February, March, and April. Anyway, I had done that drinking forever. I was just like, let me give myself this experiment and find out. I love that idea. That being curious about what life would look like if we change something that fundamental. I think it can be a really exciting and amazing time. And like you, there are parts of me that, although in general, I'm happy to be where I am on sobriety. There are certain things about early sobriety that are indeed magical that I sometimes miss. All right, Casey, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure

to have you on. You and I will continue here in a moment, but great to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought-provoking, I'd love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don't have a big budget, and I'm certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better, and that's you. Just hit the share button on your podcast app or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom, one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.