If you’re worried about your drinking – which I’m guessing you are if you’re reading this – then you’re probably trying to cut back or quit altogether.
I can’t remember exactly when I started to question my drinking, it was more like a growing realisation that my regular white wine habit wasn’t doing me any favours.
- I wasn’t sleeping well
- My hangovers were worse (another curse of ageing!)
- My peri-menopause symptoms were worse when I drank
- It impacted my fitness
- I couldn’t shift extra weight no matter how well I ate
And the list goes on …
Getting sober curious
Simply cutting back wasn’t as easy as I expected it to be. (I later learned that there are a lot of reasons why that’s the case.)
So, I started getting curious about WHY I was drinking.
For example, I really believed that wine helped me to take the edge off and unwind from the stresses of life.
I also believed that there was NO WAY that I could socialise or go on holidays or relax on a weekend without a drink.
When I realised that alcohol wasn’t helping me do any of those things (in fact, it was doing the opposite), I started to question some long-held beliefs around drinking.
I became sober curious.
The term was coined by author Ruby Warrington, who in her book Sober Curious, asked the simple question: “Would life be better without alcohol?”
It made me change the way I thought about it.
“Do I WANT to experience what life is like without alcohol?”
Instead of:
“Do I NEED to stop drinking?”
It led me to realise all the benefits of ditching the booze, some of which I wrote about in this blog.
What if I don’t want to give up alcohol?
Of course, you may not want to stop drinking altogether.
That’s alright.
I work with people who want to cut back on their drinking as well as those who want to stop.
They all have a similar goal though, which is to have a take-it-or-leave it approach to drinking.
Either way, becoming curious about the deep-seated beliefs you have about drinking (i.e. getting sober curious) will help you gain back control. I
f you want support to change the way you drink (whether that’s to cut back or stop altogether) feel free to book in a free discussion call.