# 100 | Going Alcohol-Free - The Surprising Joys and Benefits of Ditching Alcohol

Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald. If you're tired of one-size-fits-all all advice to running your interior design business, you're in the right place. Join me each week as we dive into topics to help you run a thriving interior design business. Without the hustle. We'll talk about the business of design, but also mindset and mental health because I know when you thrive, so will your life and business. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate interior design job to build my own design business so that I could realize my own creative dreams, have more time with the people I love, and serve my clients at the highest level, while making more money than I ever could have working for someone else. It wasn't always easy, and I made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today. And I've learned a thing or two. Since then I've built multiple six-figure interior design businesses on authentic word-of-mouth referrals with many repeat clients. And I want to share it all with you the ambitious, inspired, and I get it occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives through the art of interior design, You can do this. Thank you for letting me spend part of this day with you. Let's get to it.

Well, hello there, and welcome back to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host. Kate Bendewald, it's been a minute since I have done a solo episode, and today is a really personal, personal episode. Today, I'm opening up about my choice to go alcohol free this year, and the impacts that it has had on my health, on my work, my career and in my relationships, I got a lot on my mind, a lot that I want to share. I think the most important reason for sharing this for me was because I realized what a positive impact this has had. And, you know, I serve a community of women and creative women. That's not to say that many of my listeners aren't men. Hi, glad to have you here, too. But I just know that the majority of my listeners are women. My community is women, and I've begun to learn over the last year, year and a half, two years, really the staggering effects of alcohol on women in particular, and we're gonna talk about that a little bit today. I'm by no means an expert, but I've learned enough to give me a lot of energy to put behind this. But I just realized that if it helps just one person what I share today, then that's good enough for me. So I'll start with a little backstory. I mean, the reality is, if you had told me a couple of years ago, you know, one day you'll be living a completely alcohol free life, it would have been honestly hard for me to imagine, hard for me to believe, because alcohol was, like many people, is such a central part of my life. You know, we think about, we have alcohol at all kinds of celebrations. You know, we raise a toast, raise a glass at, you know, baby showers, weddings, new job, retiring, like everything is a call for alcohol. And it's just so normal. I mean, like most people, I've been drinking since I was in well, so I I grew up in a small town where drinking alcohol in high school was no biggie. Like parents would buy it for people. We'd have parties where there would be alcohol I drink throughout college, right? I slowed down for sure, as I got into the season of life where I was having babies. In fact, that's how I knew I was pregnant, because I had a I had a habit of after work coming home, and I love to work in my garden after work. And I would come home and open a beer and work in my garden. And that was, like, my daily routine. And one day I came home and I opened a beer and I started working in my garden, and like, an hour later, I looked over and my beer had gotten hot. It just, it was July, and it was sitting there, and it was like, Huh, that's not like me. It's so like, oh shit, I'm I sort of had this hunch, and so I went took a pregnancy test, but that's how I knew I was pregnant. And so I didn't crave alcohol, or drinking alcohol for the for the most part, during my pregnancies. But besides that, I have been drinking regularly, you know, since college, really, but it was when we moved to Texas.

So for those of you who know my backstory, know that whene I was in Denver, and then we moved to Texas for two years for my husband's job, and that was a really tough period for me. I suffered from severe depression. I felt regret about moving, although I did make some lifelong friends who I still keep in touch with, and I'm excited. I'm getting ready to see some of them coming up. But all in all, that was a really tough period for me, that transition in Texas, and my alcohol consumption increased tremendously during those two years. And so then we decided to move back to Denver. We realized that that's not where we were meant to be. We were meant to be back here. And so I thought, you know, when we moved back to Colorado, things are going to be better. And I'll, you know, stop drinking so much. But then COVID happened, and that didn't help at all. You know, I, like a lot of people, turned to drinking to manage the stress and anxiety and overwhelm, and it just continued to to get to this point where it was really affecting my day to day life, and I didn't like the way that it made me feel anymore. My anxiety was off the charts. And I knew, I knew in my heart that if I cut alcohol from my day to day life, that it could, it could improve the anxiety. So that was really the first goal, was to get control of the anxiety. So okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut alcohol out and see if it helps with with the anxiety. And so I did, you know, over the last couple of years, I've done a couple of periods of going alcohol free, but then always kind of going back to it. And during those periods of going alcohol free, I would feel better, I would start to have more energy. I would sleep better, I would feel better, I would look better. And then eventually, you know, the the alcohol again, would sort of sneak back into our lives. And you know, would be fine at first, but then eventually it would become a daily thing, and it would just be this thing that felt like it controlled me, right, that I there was moderation wasn't, you know, as I've learned now, which I'm going to talk more about in a second, moderation isn't really possible for for most people. So I knew that I needed to to quit. I was just waiting for the right times, like, Okay, well, after my birthday, can we have Halloween? And there's drink scooting, then there's Christmas, then there's two years, which is why a lot of people do dry January. And so that was my that was my approach this, this last go around. So as of the time of this recording, I'll be coming up on a year.

So what I did was I decided, Okay, I'm going to do dry January. And this was, you know, around a year ago, around November last year, and so I said, I'm just gonna let myself party just like I normally do over the holidays. And party we did. We hit it hard, my friends, my husband and I, we, all we. I mean, we had fun. Don't get me wrong, nobody was getting hurt, lots of hangovers, lots of anxiety, but I knew that my plan was, you know, January 1, we'll clear it all out, and that'll be our first day. And for me, I'm glad we did it that way, because by the time january 1 rolled around, I was so ready to be done. I was so ready. And so, yeah, the plan was just to do dry January and to see how I felt. And at the end of that first month, I felt pretty amazing. I again, I was sleeping better, I looked better. I didn't I didn't feel the inflammation in my skin or in my body. The anxiety had started to dissipate. You know, don't get me wrong, it's not a fix all cure. If you're somebody that struggles with anxiety, that's something that I continually have to focus on, you know, reducing stress and watching my diet and all of that. But it has been pretty magical. This last year, a lot of things have really improved, but there were really two myths that I've. Discovered in the last year that has made the choice to go alcohol free so easy.

I'll be honest, the first couple of weeks were hard. The first couple of months were hard. There were definitely days where I wanted to so I'm a whiskey girl, or was a whiskey girl, I would love to make, you know, a Manhattan, and sit and hang and chat with my friends, and that just felt like something that I wanted to do, but today it's not a struggle at all. It's not something that I miss, it's not something I crave. It's not something that I feel is missing from my life. I don't feel like my life is one bit lacking in any way, if nothing else, it is more full. I've got a whole list of resources that I'm going to share with you guys that were helpful for me. I'm going to talk about them in a minute. And I really poured everything that I had into this, because there was a lot you know, going on in my mind. I'm like, well, first of all, I'm not fucking getting any younger. I want to be healthy for my kids. I want to be healthy for myself. I want to be healthy for my kids and for my family, my husband. I know that one day, my kids hopefully, I hope are, you know, we'll have children of their own, and then I'll have grandkids. I want to be around for my grandkids. I want to be physically fit. I want to be active. I want to be healthy. I want to be clear headed. I want to be present. And alcohol was getting in the way of me being able to have and do all of those things right now. Imagine what it would be like if I continued down this path of allowing alcohol into my life on a daily basis for another 1015, 20 years. Like, what would that do to my body? So I was really thinking about the future and my kids and my family and my health. But anyway, I was, I was gonna talk about these two myths.

And there are really two myths that I uncovered in this journey of learning how to live an alcohol free life. Myth number one was that I'm the problem. There is Hi, I'm the problem. It's me. There is so much shame wrapped up around this idea of alcohol, and for somebody who doesn't drink alcohol, there's always this question of, Oh, why? You must have had a problem with it. Well, yeah, because it's a fucking addictive substance. So what I started to understand was the biology and the chemical makeup of alcohol and the fact that it is a highly addictive chemical, of course you're going to be addicted, because that's what it does chemically to out to your body. It causes you to become addicted, but it is socially acceptable, so we don't ever question it, unless you don't drink it. So this first understanding, this first realization that, oh, wait a second, you mean there's not something wrong with me, that I can't handle my alcohol, that it's actually the substance itself that is addictive and is keeping me held back and held down. Fuck that nonsense. I'm sorry. I'm not gonna let this toxic fuel continued to take over my life and my body and my career and my health and my creativity. So realizing that it was this chemical addictive substance, not me, that there was something inherently wrong with me was a huge game changer in terms of letting me let it go without the shame I no longer felt shameful about this idea of wanting to stop drinking alcohol. The second myth that really helped me uncover a new way of thinking about it was I thought, like many people, that the only way forward to live an alcohol free life was to a label myself an alcoholic, declare myself powerless, and start to attend meetings in the basement of a local church with a bunch of strangers who had hit rock bottom. That wasn't going to work for me. So if this sounds familiar, you probably know that I'm talking about the AA model, Alcoholics Anonymous. Now I want to be very clear that I'm not here to bash AA. Know that aa has been a really important lifeline for a lot of people and for a lot of people, AA is the exact thing that they need to help them get out of where they are. But it wasn't going to work for me, and I kept feeling like I don't want to go to AA meetings, because, first of all, I had, I have sat in those rooms before, and I know the AA doctrine, and one of the first steps is declaring that you're powerless. And so I had this like visceral feeling of like, Oh, I just, I just don't want to be a part of that, the AA culture or doctrine. But I couldn't quite put my finger on why, you know, until I read the book, quit like a woman. So I'm going to link to this book in the in the show notes. In fact, I'm going to list out a bunch of books and a bunch. Of resources, but if there is one book that you choose to pick up in this list, I want to highly encourage you to listen or read the book quit like a woman, by Holly Whitaker.

I might start crying. It is a fucking game changer, because in her book, Holly talks about a lot of things, but one of the things that she talks about is how AA is a patriarchal society that was designed by men for men, one of the tenants is, you know, to render yourself powerless to alcohol, women don't need to be told that they're powerless, especially if they're already down and feeling like their life is out of control because of a toxic substance. It's just not the kind of message we need to be telling women. The other thing about AA is that you have to label yourself an alcoholic. I don't consider myself an alcoholic. You don't either. You don't have to either. So I felt free that there was, oh, there's a different way to view this. There's a different way to go about this, and I can take back my power. I can take back my control, and I don't need to claim myself as being powerless. The other thing is that there's a heavy emphasis in AA of counting the days, right? You count one day data time, right? Still, there are some things in AA, like the serenity prayer. God grant me to accept the things I cannot change, the power to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. That is one of the things from AA that I think is beautiful and that we should all take with this one day at a time, right? Those kinds of things. But this idea of counting days is really hard, because you, you So you collect chips in AA, and you get, you know, I don't know what it is, but you get a one day chip, you get 30 day chip. You get three months, six months, 90 day whatever. So if you if you slip up, if you take a sip of alcohol, you start all back over again, right? And that can be very demoralizing and shaming, and that is not what somebody needs who is struggling to get to start to manage their lives in a new way.

One of the podcasts I'm going to also plug another podcast called The sober mom life podcast, which, again, I'll link to that that is also been a game changer. And, you know, I love so Suzanne runs this podcast in the the community. Shout out to Suzanne and that community, which I joined, and it's an amazing group. I highly recommend you check out her community group and and her podcast. But it's this idea that, like, you know what, if you get a week alcohol free, and then you have a drink, and then you go back to being alcohol free again, like, there's that time counts, that time matters. It all contributes to the betterment of your health and your well being. And, you know, while the goal, I think, would be to choose to be mostly an alcohol free life, if you slip up, there's there's not this shame around that and that, and that was something in AA that really felt difficult for me to wrap my head around. So the two myths, again, was one, that I'm the problem. And I realized I'm not the problem. It's a highly addictive substance that I've become addicted to, that anybody would become addicted to, if they are, you know, drinking it on a daily basis, which is what so much of our culture, especially I can, shouldn't say, especially in the US, I know that this is internationally, this is Can, can be problematic for people, but it's because it's an addictive substance. So that helped me release a lot of the shame.

And the Myth number two is that AA is the only way. And then I saw that there's a different way forward, and that there's this whole movement and this whole community of incredible women, incredible people, who are promoting an alcohol free lifestyle doesn't require you to render yourself powerless, to declare yourself an alcoholic, to declare yourself powerless, and to count count days. I got really energized by that. So at the end of the day, alcohol is a socially sanctioned, carcinogenic, highly addictive substance. I'm going to say that again, they socially sanctioned carcinogenic, highly addictive substance. It's the only drug that, if you don't partake in it, you're perceived as having a problem. How is that even real? You know, think about that. The other book that ha or sorry, the other point that Holly Whitaker makes in her book quit like a woman. Is she? She talks about big alcohol, rates of big alcohol, just like there's big pharma, there's big alcohol, there's big tobacco products. You. The marketing dollars spent in the alcohol and big alcohol that specifically targets women, just like tobacco companies did years ago, tries to paint this picture that what you drink, or when you when you drink, it what you drink, can make you look sophisticated and alluring. There's nothing about alcohol, truly that is sexy or alluring or sophisticated. Again, it is a highly addictive, carcinogenic substance. And realizing that all this marketing money is spent trying to tell me that I need something that is highly addictive, that robs me of my peace, my joy, my creative energy, my life. You're gonna tell me that that makes me sophisticated or alluring. How bat shit crazy is this. So when you start to put it in this framework of we've been duped, the whole thing is wrong, all of a sudden it becomes a lot easier to say, You know what? I don't think I actually want to put that in my body anymore. I just want to see what happens if I don't. There's a couple things that have happened.

There's a lot of things that have happened since I quit drinking alcohol positive that I'm going to share with you in a moment. But before we do, I want to, I want to go. I want to wrap up this idea of what alcohol does to your brain and body. I know I'm giving you a lot of resources again. I'm going to link to all of this in the show notes, but there was a specific episode that I listened to by Andrew Huberman. So Andrew Huberman is, well, he was a neuroscientist. Don't quote me on that. Actually, I think he's a professor of ophthalmology at Harvard. He has the Huberman lab podcast, very, very good podcast. I love it. But his, he has a specific episode on what alcohol does to the brain and body. And I'm gonna link to this episode, because he talks about this in depth, but there was, there were a few things that he said in this episode that really, it was, like, sealed the deal for me. I'm like, You know what I am no, I am never touching alcohol again. Now do I know if that's true or not? I don't know. I like what I love. What Suzanne says on the sober mom life podcast is I don't know if I'm sober forever, but I'm sober for good, and I really like that. But the this specific episode of The Huberman podcast, there were a couple of things that I took away that I thought were so incredibly profound and impactful for me, first started to understand why we get addicted to it. When you take that first sip of alcohol, we get a sense of euphoria, right? And the thing that we do is we keep chasing that feeling, right? We get this euphoric feeling when we have that first drink, which is like that warm, sort of like relaxed feeling, you're like finally, and so then you'd want to feel that way again, or deepen that feeling of euphoria. So you go for a second drink, or maybe even a third or fourth but the reality is that you will never get that euphoric feeling again after the first drink, your first drink, your when you take that first drink, your brain releases more dopamine. Dopamine is the pleasure hormone. It's what makes us feel good, one of the hormones that makes us feel good, and it helps us to feel relaxed and confident, and so we get that with that first drink, but we don't get it. You cannot get it again with a second, third or fourth drink. In fact, it starts to rob your body of those chemicals. And this is why. So the other thing that you may be thinking about or wondering about is the brain fog and the lack of clarity when when you're drinking. And that was that was really a problem for me too. And I was like, Well, shit, I'm just getting old, but I don't want to feel old.

First of all, I'm not getting old. I am 42 years old. I am in the absolute best, favorite season of my life ever. I have never felt better, and I did not want to feel old. And the fact that my brain fog was really impacting my day to day, life was problematic. And so in this episode, I started to learn I've known a little bit about the gut brain axis. Right the connection between how healthy our gut is directly impacts our brain health, our mood, our clarity, our cognitive function, our memory, all of it, I understood that at a really, really high level. So what I understand now is I understand just a little bit more. Again, you guys know, I'm just an interior designer. I don't know anything. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a scientist, but there are a couple of things that I took away from this. First of all, I. So the gut brain axis is it starts at your throat and it goes all the way through your intestines. The gut sends chemical and neural signals to your brain when you drink alcohol, alcohol disrupts these chemical signals between your brain and your gut, by the way, serotonin, which is another feel good hormone, is made in the gut. Now we've known for a long time alcohol is ethanol. It's the same chemical that we put in gasoline, that we've put that we use to fuel our cars. It is the same chemical that we use to sterilize labs to kill bacteria. It is the same chemical that we put on our hands to kill bacteria and viruses. We just mask it with flavors to make it taste good or make us look alluring or feminine or sexy, which is a whole bunch of bullshit when you ingest alcohol, it is indiscriminate about what bacteria it kills. So we know that the gut has good bacteria and bad bacteria. So bad bacteria is what happens when our food is partially digested. It's a natural part of your digestive process, but a healthy gut has lots of healthy bacteria in it that helps you process and digest your food, it helps send those chemical and neural signals to the brain. But when you drink alcohol, which is indiscriminate about the bacteria that it kills, it is killing all of the healthy microbiota in your gut, so this gut lining is disturbed, or, sorry, is disrupted, and the result of that can be what's referred to as leaky gut, which is a really kind of funky term, trust me, I'm hard to believe I'm even talking about leaky gut on an interior design business podcast, but here we are. So this so what happens? There's a lot of things that are happening when you're drinking alcohol. Number one, it's killing all of the good bacteria in your gut, the bad bacteria, which is that partially digested food. Then it because the gut, the lining in your gut, starts to thin, it can pass through the gut lining and into your bloodstream and into your brain, then these pro inflammatory chemicals are being released again. Listen to the Huberman podcast. He'll talk about this in depth, but in a way that is that anybody can understand too, right? If I can understand it, trust me, anybody can understand it, it's releasing these pro pro inflammatory chemicals. So inflammation is rampant in the body and the brain, and it all manifests in the brain. It disrupts neural circuits and causes brain inflammation. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Why? Why are we doing this to ourselves? So when I started to understand all of these things started to come together for me, right? Like realizing, oh, it's not me. I'm not the problem. It's the fact that it's this highly addictive substance that we've been conditioned to be a part of daily life, that we're ingesting. So then I can drop some of the shame there number two, that there's there's, there are other ways to live an alcohol free life that doesn't involve AA and then I and then also deepening my understanding of what alcohol does to the brain and to the body.

Why? Well, why would anybody drink this stuff? It just started to become bonkers bananas to think about the fact that we not only are treating it on a daily basis, but we are taught. We are conditioned. We are told, this is what adults do. This is what makes you sophisticated and can help you have conversations. It makes you funnier. It makes you it's just nonsense. It became really easy over time. You know, to start, I didn't miss it anymore, right? Hey, there, Kate here, if you're an interior designer looking for a community that gets it, where you can learn, grow and actually get things done, you're going to love the new designers Oasis membership. This isn't just another subscription. This is your all in one support system for building a business you love. Here's what's waiting for you. You'll get access to monthly office hours where we'll tackle your biggest challenges together, plus you'll learn from industry pros during our exclusive monthly guest expert sessions, and let's talk resources. Your membership includes access to the interior designers business blueprint course packed with everything you need to streamline and grow your business. Need a sounding board. The private community is where you'll connect with like minded designers who understand what it's like to be in the trenches, and they are ready to cheer you on. I. Plus, you can access the interior designers resource library with templates, tools and resources to help you make massive momentum in your business. There's so much more waiting for you inside, whether you're just starting out or you are scaling your design business. The designers Oasis membership is designed to meet you right where you are. Head over to designers oasis.com. Forward slash, join and learn more. I hope you'll join me and the other doers who are building thriving and sustainable interior design businesses.

It's been almost it's been 11 months. I want to share some of the things that have changed in my life that have happened since choosing to go alcohol free, one of the coolest things that I get so excited about, my closest friends around me have also stopped drinking. Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that I was the reason, but I have to think that it took just one person, and if what one other person in our group had chosen to do this, it probably would have been easier for me too. It doesn't matter, though. The point is, it's they have said to me, Kate, it feels like you led the group in this way, and once you did it, it became so much easier. And now when we get together, we have all kinds of amazing drinks, they just happen to not contain alcohol, and we have such a good time, I don't feel like I'm missing anything, anything at all. So that was really cool, that, and not even just the one friend group, like multiple friend groups around me, lots of my friends have stopped drinking alcohol and a really loving life. My relationship with my kids and my husband have improved. I feel like I'm more pleasant to be around. I am less aggravated, right? I The anxiety, even though it's not completely gone for my life, it's far less than what it used to be, which I think makes me easier to be around. That's not because I just yelled at my kids at the top of my lungs before recording this podcast, because they were being little shit, right? That doesn't mean that these things go away completely. Life is still gonna life, right? But I'm so much more present with my kids.

My kids are happy that I don't drink alcohol, even though they don't really fully understand, you know, the reason and the choice behind it, but they can drink what I'm drinking, right? If I'm making a fun drink, which I often do, it's got good, healthy stuff in it that I'm so happy to share with my kids, and that's really cool. And just this ability to be more present with them has been really fun. I have lost 20 pounds. That's pretty cool. My skin looks amazing. It was around the sixth, sixth month mark. Well, that was a mouthful. Around the six month mark. There were. I kept running into people who I knew but I hadn't seen in a little while, and when they saw me, everybody kept saying, Oh, my God, Kate, you look amazing. You are glowing. I was like, Oh, shucks, thanks. It was a slow process for me, so it wasn't this day or night, you know, change the way my skin looked and the way my eyes were more clear, and I just and obviously I had was starting to lose some weight, but it was the people who hadn't seen me in a while that could have could see that noticeable difference between how much better and healthier I looked, and that was A lot of fuel and motivation to keep going for me. Honestly, you know, my I no longer feel puffy or because the inflammation is down in my body, right? Not only that, I I will not tell you that stopping drinking alcohol is going to save you money, because you will find ways to spend money. For one thing, I have spent more money on skincare this year, then I probably care to admit so having that nightly routine of like really washing my face and giving myself just this special moment of slathering on all kinds of serums and moisturizers like that just feels really good. So that's been a part of it, too. But yeah, losing the weight and my skin and my eyes looking better has been one of the results of this.

The other thing that's happened is I no longer have any shame whatsoever about not drinking alcohol. There. There's not this label of you're an alcoholic. There's something wrong with you. You're broken, it's no, I actually just chose to take my life back, and I'm choosing to live a healthy lifestyle, and I'm choosing not to put a highly addictive neurotoxin into my body anymore. So I used to, in the early days, used to, I mean, I always have a drink with me. It doesn't have alcohol, but I'm always drinking something. Usually, sometimes too. But, you know, in a social environment, it was really important to me that I got my drink in, like a rocks class, right? Because I wanted to feel like I was drinking a cocktail. And I think that's totally normal. And I think if, if you chose, if you choose to, to try an alcohol free life, by all means, do that. I always want my drinks to come in pretty glasses, but in the early days, it was really important. And if somebody brought me a pint glass, when all the other adults were drinking from a cocktail glass, I would send it back. It's like, No, I don't want this. Put it in a rocks glass and bring it back to me. I can't tell you how many drinks I sent back because it was in the wrong glassware. That stuff isn't important to me anymore, right? Those were the early days. I still like it to come in a pretty glass, but I'm not going to send it back because I no longer care or feel shame around being alcohol free. In fact, it's the opposite. I was somewhere with friends giving recently at a friend's house, and we had brought some the brute or Groot. I forget what's called groovy. I think alcohol free. It's like champagne, it's like Kava. So it's like a sparkling white wine. And I put it in an elk, in a in a wine glass, and I was drinking it, and I felt so weird. I was like, people are gonna think of drinking alcohol. So the tables have totally turned in regards to the shame and how I feel about being alcohol free, I not only am proud to be alcohol free, but I don't want people to think that I'm drinking alcohol where in the early days, I didn't want to look like I was standing out because I wasn't drinking alcohol. So I think that's pretty cool. Get more and better quality sleep. I have talked here before about wanting to change my relationship with sleep.

Going alcohol free was a big part of that I get. I not only get a full eight hours worth of sleep on most nights, but the quality of that sleep is dramatic. Has dramatically improved the result of having a good night's sleep is fucking unbelievable. I had no idea how much harder I was making life for myself, because alcohol is such a disrupter of sleep that not only, not only not getting a full night eight hours worth of sleep, I really get eight hours, like maybe six hours at most, and the quality of that sleep would be marginal, but I'm more alert, I'm more clear headed, I am more joyful, I am more creative. And I think that this is directly related to having better quality sleep, but all around I just feel like a more creative person. I feel more alive, and I feel more present. I don't feel like I'm missing anything at all. And I think that was the thing that held me back for so long, was I couldn't imagine life without alcohol. I have been on vacation without goal. I have had birthday I have fucking saying karaoke in public, stone cold sober. If I can do that, I could do anything without alcohol. There used to be this idea, and I sometimes forget about it, or take this for granted, that it felt like I couldn't do anything without a drink. And it's just a bunch of bullshit. Sorry. I know I'm swearing a lot today, but I am really passionate about this, and I just want people to know that you too can have a life that is beyond your wildest imagination, if you will give yourself the chance to just experience what life can be like, without alcohol. It's pretty amazing. Look. I'm not going to sugar coat anything. Life still, lifes right? There are still really hard days. I will tell you that after this election, it's I really wanted to drink. After this election, I there's, there's no sugar coating how I feel about the results of this election, but it's been really hard.

But I'm so grateful that I don't drink. I'm so grateful that for all of the resources that I've had in my life, and the people who are putting out quality content to help people like me and you who want to maybe try a different way, but life is still going to be hard. There's still going to be hard days, and you can do all of it without alcohol, because it doesn't make it better, it's only going to make it worse, right? So if this is something that you've been thinking about or considering or wondering for yourself, like, Would things get better if I maybe life is better without alcohol, I can assure you, it is 1,000% it's not a cure all. It's not going to fix everything, but man alive it it's not going to make it harder, that's for sure. So the last thing. I want to share with you is kind of my alcohol free toolbox. And I just want to say some of you may be wondering, Why does she keep saying alcohol free instead of sober? I'm being very intentional about my word choice, because I think that there's a lot of there's a lot wrapped up in the word sober and, well, I live in Colorado, after all, so I do choose to partake in small amounts of gummies from time to time, and that's something that I enjoy. It hasn't replaced alcohol for me, but that's why I purposely choose to use the word alcohol free when I'm talking about this, because for people who, especially anybody who's come from the AA or the NA community, they're very tyrannical about the word sober. So I'm not trying to step on anybody's sobriety toes, but that's just my choice for using the term alcohol free. But anyway, my toolbox, I want to share with you, what are some of the things that I used in tools that I use to help me in those early days? Because I'll be honest, especially if you've been drinking for a long time, if you've not given yourself a break, I am not going to sugar coat it the first couple of days. It's hard because your body is addicted to it, and so you need to be nourishing your body and your mind, especially in those early days and for however long it takes. Right? Like I said, it doesn't feel hard for me anymore. It took about a month for me, honestly, before those initial cravings started to go away. And even today, there can be triggers, like an election that goes the wrong way, that makes you feel like you want to go jump off a cliff with a bottle of Tito's or whatever, but, but especially in those early days, it's important that you've got a toolkit that you can rely on to help you sort of navigate.

So here's a couple of things that I can tell you were really helpful for me. First and foremost, don't do this alone. Tell your close friends and family about your intentions, right? There is no shame. There is absolutely no shame. You can share the research with them. This is not a problem that you have. It's the fact that this is a highly addictive, carcinogenic, carcinogenic substance that is robbing you of your life. So I highly recommend to start by telling your close friends and family about your intentions, and get their support. If they are not supportive, that says more about them than it does about you. Okay? Because you're probably putting their own alcohol use into question. So find people, find find people that are going to be supportive. And doesn't mean that you need to go announce it from the rooftops, right? It's taken me almost a year to talk about this publicly for myself, although my friends and family have known for a long time, but start by telling the people closest to you, because when you get together, you would be nice if if they were not drinking alcohol. Maybe for you, it doesn't matter. I asked my husband to not drink any alcohol around me for a little while. It's no longer an issue. He definitely doesn't drink as much, or he drinks hardly at all, honestly, and and that's a lot, because I don't drink, and I'm not, you know, the one the ring leader, because I do all of the the purchasing of groceries and drinks in our household. He was really supportive, but just make sure that you're letting folks know around you, it doesn't have to be forever, right? But just for a little while, if they could support you in this way, don't do it alone. Tell friends and family. Get all of the alcohol out of your house. I poured it out, right? We I was there was a little part of me that was like, well, we don't want this to go to waste, so let's just drink everything that we can before the end, which is why I was so ready to be done by January 1. So there wasn't much left to pour out. But, you know, we gave away bottles of wine that had been left at our house and and I, you know, there was maybe a special bottle of scotch that my husband had that I said, just go put it somewhere. I don't I'm not a Scotch person, but, you know, the stuff that, and I don't really love beer either. So beer was never something that was attractive for me.

Obviously, you heard me talk about beer earlier, but that's not it's not something I ever liked again after having kids, but I asked him to just get the stuff out of the house. So just get it out of your house. Just get rid of the temptation. And I would highly suggest replacing alcohol with other drink options. I'm gonna talk a lot about drink options here in a minute, but I want to get through this list first. The other thing is, especially in these first couple of weeks months, be really gentle with yourself. I want you to think of all of any ways that you can be reducing stress in your life. So telling your family one of the big. Things was, you know, I told Mike about my intentions that I said one of the things that's going to be really important is reducing stress. And, you know, by nature, kids can be stressful. And so he was so amazing in those first couple of weeks, you know, the kids would start fighting or bickering, you know, which is real triggering for me. He would jump in and just calmly say, Hey guys, let's, let's take it down a notch, right? And he really helped come to the rescue in that way. I wasn't super social in those first two weeks. I just didn't want to give myself temptations. But the first couple of times I went out with friends and I was social, it was not that hard, right? It was not, it was not as hard as I, as I expected. So being really gentle with yourself is really about keeping low, lowering whatever stress you can asking for the people around you to help support you with that, getting lots of sleep, going to bed early every single morning, I would suggest that you drink a cup of hot water with lemon, just start your day with a cup of hot water and lemon and some quiet time. Moving your body is really important. I highly recommend walking and or stretching yoga, gentle movement that can help if you are already a runner and you're an athlete, which I was not, I am now running a little bit, which I love, but I did not at the time. There you go again. Like didn't have the energy to run, but now I do. But if you're not already living an active lifestyle and exercising on a regular basis, I would start with something that is really gentle. And I think walking is a really great way that bilateral stimulation that happens when you walk is really good for your brain. So that's specifically why the the walking is is really important, but also just daily stretching and yoga. My daughter Re has to read for school for 30 minutes every day, and she really likes for me to be in the room when she reads, which can feel like an eternity, when I'm just ready to go to bed, or I want to go tidy the house or finish cleaning the kitchen. And there's all these things that I want to do, besides sitting there and listening to her struggle through words, which I know is just a part of being a parent and a part of her learning, but it just kind of drives me crazy. So what I do instead is I sit on the floor and I stretch so I at least feel like I'm something I'm multitasking, and I feel like it's a time better spent, but I'm getting that amazing quality time with her. I no longer feel I no longer struggle with the fact that she's sitting there, struggling through words, because there's a reason why I'm not a teacher, at least for for young kids, my whole family is or school teachers, and I just did not get that. I don't have the patience, but I love spending time with my kids, and so this is a way to have quality time with her while nourishing my body stretching, you know, while you're watching a movie, or while you're letting you're listening to kids read, or just hanging out or talking, just movement, movement. Movement is the idea. But I love yoga. I love stretching, and walking is really important. I've learned a lot this year about the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is long nerve. It runs throughout your entire body, and it touches every organ in your body, there's so much information out there on the vagus nerve and how when it is basically asleep at your body can be in fight, flight or freeze. And when it's stimulated, it can help you be in rest and digest, which is the parasympathetic nervous system is is activated, and that's good. That's where you want to be. You don't want sympathetic nervous system to be overactive. That's beyond the scope of today's conversation. But the point is, anything you can do to stimulate your vagus nerve can be really soothing and healing and gentle for your body, which is really important, especially in those first couple of weeks, singing, humming, breathing exercises, meditation, gardening, these are all things that you can do to stimulate your vagus nerve. I've gotten some book recommendations on it that I will link to below, but the information I've learned about the vagus nerve has been really profound. So thinking of ways that you could stimulate that would be excellent. More things in my toolbox join a community. So I mentioned earlier the sober mom life podcast highly recommend that, but she has a community group there that is really good. Annie graces the naked mind. Her community group is fantastic.

Inside the designers Oasis community, we're going to we have a private community, and we have different spaces for different topics. We're actually going to be creating, by the time you hear this episode, it will be done, but we are creating a whole space on healthy living, because I think that's really important. Part of being a business owner is taking care of your body, mind and spirit. I'm going to encourage these. Of conversations within our own private community. For if you're not a member, please join us. If you are a member, I want you to know that we're going to have that available for everyone inside of our private community. But community is super important for feeling supported, especially in those early days of going alcohol free. There are online communities all over the place. Check your local area and find out if there are alcohol free communities. And again, I'm not going to say that aa isn't the right choice. Maybe it is for you. It wasn't for me, and there's there's nothing wrong with anybody who chooses to use Alcoholics Anonymous or NA for that kind of support if that's if that's what you need. But I do know that there are other communities in person that are not aa that could also be other options. You know, meetup.com could be one way. But just just see what's out there. I know here in Denver, there are alcohol free bars. I don't know if that's they call them bars, but that are popping up where they have events to just see what's going on in your local area. But community is so important. It's such an important part of not feeling alone in this process. And my last and perhaps most favorite thing in my alcohol free toolbox is have happy hour every day. Just because you're going alcohol free doesn't mean you have to stop drinking. I drink a lot. I am a hydrated woman.

But instead of drinking drinks that have alcohol in it, I'm choosing to drink functional drinks. So functional drinks is any drink that has ingredients that are designed to help you feel good. There are a lot of foods and herbs that you can put into beverages that is don't get me wrong, a glass of water is always ideal. But if you want to create really interesting drinks that taste good and look pretty and make you feel good. There are lots of options in the early days. One of my favorite, just like really simple go to drink, was sparkling water with ginger. And I love, I think it's called Ginger people is the brand, and they have, it's a whole bottle of just concentrated ginger juice. I love ginger, which is also really good for your tummy, so that with lemon. And then I would squeeze in these herbal tinctures. So you can get these at Whole Foods, or really any health food store is going to have these herbal tinctures. And there are herbal tinctures for everything. One of the ones that I loved is called Emotional ally. It's from wish garden herbs. I'm gonna, again link to all of this, and I would put a few squirts of the emotional ally into this ginger, lemon sparkling water drink. Every day I would still have a drink. It would be pretty and I felt really good drinking it. It just tasted good, and I knew that I was nourishing my body with stuff that was going to make me feel good. Look for drinks or add to any drink that you have, look for adaptogens. So adaptogens are plant based, and sorry, plants and mushrooms that can help your body manage stress. Adaptogen means to adapt so specific foods that help you adapt to stress. Ashwagandha is a plant Rhodiola. I would put two or three droppers full of Rhodiola into any drink that I'm drinking, and it's got a great flavor. It doesn't overpower the drink, and it does wonders for your stress levels.

Reishi mushroom is another adaptogen you can find drinks that are made with adaptogens, or you can make your own drinks and add herbal tinctures to it. So again, I'm going to link what I've done is I've created a whole so I have an Amazon shop that has shows all my favorite books. I created a whole, a whole shop dedicated to alcohol free resources that include my favorite books, which, if you didn't know this before, you're going to love this name, the genre of alcohol free living books, is called quit lit, quitting literature. Quit literature, quit lit. So there's a whole section on quit lit my favorite books. There's I've included all of the ready made drinks that I like, plus all of the herbal tinctures that are some of my favorites. So all of that will be linked below, but yeah, the point is, just because you're going alcohol free doesn't mean you're stuck to water there are you can have literally a different drink every single day, and no repeats if that's something that you want, and put in ingredients that are going to make you feel good, sleep well, all of those things really just looking to make functional drinks. Okay, so again, I'm going to share a couple of quick resources my absolute hands down, must, must, must, must, read book is quit like a woman. And by Hollywood, Holly Whitaker, the radical choice to not drink, and a culture obsessed with alcohol, this naked mind by Annie grace, control alcohol, find freedom, discover happiness, to change your life. Also. Annie Grace has a community. I think Holly Whitaker has a community. Follow all of these people on Instagram. Laura McCowan, we are the luckiest, the surprising magic of a sober life. Amazing book, her story, oh my god, I got goosebumps. Laura McCollum story is fucking amazing. She has another book called push off from here, nine essential truths to get you through sobriety and everything else. Another one that is on my list. I haven't read it, but it comes highly recommended, is called the unexpected joy of being sober, discover a happy, healthy, wealthy, alcohol free life. That's by Catherine gray. Again, I'm going to link to all of these. Follow them on Instagram, fill your feed with the kind of positive reinforcing information and advice that's going to help you on this journey. Podcast. Check out Andrew huberman's podcast, what alcohol does to your body. I'm going to link to it in link to it in the show notes. Check out the sober mom life and her community with Suzanne ware. She's adorable. Love her couple of apps that I recommend having on your phone. The I am sober app, I love that one, breath work app. Breath work has been a huge, huge part of getting to where I am, and I probably should have mentioned that in my toolbox, but the breath work app is incredible. It gives you exercises, breath work exercises for various things. So there's different breathing techniques if you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed, versus if you're needing a boost of energy, versus if you are needing to focus versus if you're needing to go to sleep. Different kinds of breathing exercises can have different results, and that was really, really helpful. The JC hypnotherapy app is actually one I've been using for years. Joseph clo is a Hypnotherapist. I have used hypnotherapy to help with claustrophobia. But his app has hypnotherapy for all kinds of things, all the things, including ditching alcohols. I like his app as well.

Again, we're gonna link to all of this man alive. This feels like I thought I was gonna feel a little bit of a vulnerability hangover. Maybe that's coming. We'll see. But all in all, I feel really excited to have gotten this out here and out to my community of people who I love so much. I know the work that we do as interior designers is number one, really important, but also it's really hard, right? Running a business is hard. There's no way around that. There's no sugar coating it. And I think it would be really cool if you tried an alcohol free life. If it feels like something that's been getting in your way, try it and see how you feel. What happens to your creativity? What happens to your energy? What happens to your business? Man, there's so much potential. As I'm wrapping up this year and heading into the new year, I'm starting to think about, you know, what do I want this in this upcoming year? And you know, this time last year, I felt really like I was kind of in survival mode, like just one foot in front of the other. And don't get me wrong, there are days that I still feel that way I eat yesterday, but big picture, when I zoom out, everything just feels a little bit easier. So I highly encourage you to try it. If it's something that you are thinking about, if today's episode resonated for you, send me a message. You can find me on Instagram at designers Oasis, you can shoot me a direct message. I would love to hear from you. If this has inspired you to try an alcohol free life. I want to cheer you on and support you, so please shoot me a message. Yeah, I feel really good about having shared this today. I'm excited for the year to come. I hope that you have found this useful and opens your curiosity a little bit All right, until next time. Bye for now. Hey friend, thank you so much for letting me spend a part of this day with you. I'm so passionate about helping designers like you, and I believe in a rising tide that when one of us does well, we all do better. So if you share this attitude of abundance with me, I want you to do just one little thing. Please share this episode with someone you think might love it. And if you're feeling extra generous today, go ahead and take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating and review. It's free for you to do, and it helps me to be able to keep making more episodes and resources for you. However you choose to help, please know I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day. I'll see you soon today.