My Unexpected Alcohol-Free Life: 3 Years In, No Regrets

In this deeply personal episode, I share my unexpected 3-year journey from a regular wine drinker to embracing an alcohol-free lifestyle at age 50+. I discuss how my relationship with alcohol evolved from 'liquid courage' in my teens to a controlling presence in adulthood, my experience with the prescribed drug Naltrexone, and the surprising health benefits I've discovered—particularly the little-known impacts of alcohol on women's health during perimenopause and menopause. 

For anyone questioning their relationship with alcohol or curious about the growing sober movement, this episode offers honest reflections on finding authentic confidence without a wine glass in hand.

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Transcript

My Unexpected Alcohol-Free Life: 3 Years In, No Regrets (episode transcript)

[00:00:00] Welcome. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm revisiting a topic that I first spoke about in a blog post about two years ago, and that is my alcohol free journey, which I think has been one of the most profound ways in which I continue to choose myself and which has brought me a lot of. Unexpected benefits, and it is a very unexpected journey.

I would never have thought that I would've been somebody who would have chosen to end my relationship with alcohol. So I'm gonna share today, you know, why I stopped drinking, how that was for me. In the first year and really some reflections on some surprising things I've learned and noticed in the years since then.

So really reflecting on [00:01:00] my relationship with alcohol, I guess I began relatively early. I started drinking in my local pub, I guess at the age of 15, which seems extraordinarily young considering. I am a parent to three children, the youngest of which is 17, and I'd be horrified if she were drinking, but there you have it.

It was very much the water that I swam in as a teen in Dublin, in Ireland in the eighties. Pub culture was the norm. We weren't playing on our phones, we were meeting each other down in the pubs, and it was just a huge social space, and drinking was normal, and underage drinking was very normal. I guess I looked 18.

It was easy enough to get served and I. You know, I don't think anyone ever enjoys her first beer, but I got used to it pretty quickly and was beer drinker [00:02:00] for a long time, and I think I. It was just a way then any kind of challenging social situation, life just felt a little bit easier. Having alcohol in my corner and having a, a glass in my hand just made things easier.

It was easier to socialize. I felt It was like liquid courage. Liquid confidence. It was a, a trustee sidekick, and I became very habituated to it. And. I didn't see it as a problem at all for many, many years. And it wasn't, I guess it wasn't until it, it was, and there was, that was a very slow, gradual realization.

And I think for a while when I realized I was thinking too much about when I would be drinking [00:03:00] next, I. Uh, began to have a number of strategies to kind of control how much I was drinking and I was quite proud of them. I was quite proud at how they worked. It was okay, I'll only drink on certain days. I won't drink on these particular days.

I won't drink alone. And then I would be out and friends with friends who were also drinking. And I remember one time a very good friend of mine saying. Oh, now I realize what you're doing. You seem really in control and I'm wondering like, I'm drinking with you and you're just not getting as drunk. You order non-alcoholic drinks when you go up to the bar to get you round.

And I'm like, yeah. It was just these little strategies I would say. I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be drunk. I will drink, but I will moderate my drinking and punctuate it with [00:04:00] non-alcoholic drinks so that I can make sure that I am in control for most of the night and things like that. Worked for a while, but the bottom line was I was, I was thinking about it a lot.

It had moved from something. That I could go out and have a drink and think nothing of it, to spending quite an amount of time strategizing and thinking about how I was gonna drink, how much, and obviously there were all of the, there were all of the issues that you have to think about if you do have.

More than a few drinks. Like how am I getting home? Um, just life becomes riskier when you are not fully in control at whatever age, particularly if you're younger. But as you get older too, it's just you're not fully yourself, which is a really. Key thing, and I was looking at some of the, I guess the research and the [00:05:00] statistics around women and alcohol, and there's lots that I didn't know until I was having a little peruse of the research before recording this episode.

And this data is just from the US but it says, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, alcohol use disorder. Among US women increased by 83.7% between 2002 and 2013. That's a huge percentage. And just a little mention of that term, alcohol use disorder, that's, I think that's relatively new.

I think when I was beginning into question my relationship with alcohol, I had a very. Um, sort of all or nothing view about it. It was like you were either an alcoholic or you weren't. [00:06:00] And if you weren't an alcoholic, you didn't need to stop drinking. There was just a couple of strategies you might use if you were a little bit worried about your drinking or maybe dry, whatever it is, dry January.

Or you could just have a couple of strategies, but you didn't have a problem unless you carried this label of. Alcoholic and you needed to go to AA and do a 12 step program or whatever, and I felt that it meant that you had some sort of, you know, you were just a little bit unlucky genetically, and you just had this something or other in your chemistry or your biology.

That prevented you from having all the fun of alcohol without it causing you an awful lot of harm. And I thought, well, I don't that, but now what the term that's being used is not alcoholic. Although I think the AA still uses that and maybe other organizations. But it is this, the degree to which. [00:07:00] I have a dis disordered relationship with drinking, and it's either mild, moderate, or severe, and I guess the severe category for alcohol use disorder was probably what I was thinking of as that's an alcoholic. 

But I think it's interesting to see now how it's looked at as more of a spectrum and to what degree it is taking up time in your head. And it is impacting areas of your life in, in many different ways. And there's different criteria that they look at, but that's still a staggering number, 83.7%

And another thing that I didn't realize about alcohol in women was that our biology creates very unique vulnerabilities to alcohol because the average woman, we have a higher proportion of body fat and less body water than men of a similar [00:08:00] size. And then alcohol is water soluble. Not fat soluble, which means that the same amount of alcohol becomes more concentrated in a woman's bloodstream than a man's.

So this means that a, say a 140 pound woman who drinks the same amount as 140 pound man will have a higher blood alcohol concentration, sometimes by as much as 30%. So yeah, they can hold it better. Not that you wanna be holding it well, but you know what I mean. It's just like that used to be when I was young, that was a thing.

Oh wow. He can really hold his booze. It still probably is a bit for men, you know, they can hold their alcohol or even for women as well, who think, oh, I don't get drunk. I can hold my alcohols. It's just all. Bullshit. [00:09:00] It's really bullshit. I think for me, the turning point was what led me to really question my relationship with alcohol was it was really, well, first of all, my husband doesn't really drink at all.

He had stopped drinking and we had both liked to drink together, but he has asthma. That would just became. So much worse when he drank. And it got to the point that he said, you know, forget it. There's no, there's very little enjoyment for me anymore in this. And so he stopped. So I was the sole drinker.

And so I found myself on more occasions where I wanted to have a drink. He's not gonna have a drink. And so I was drinking more. By myself and spending, and then it becomes very obvious because you can't pick up the bottle and pour a glass for somebody else 'cause they're not having any. So it's just me and that I began to notice [00:10:00] that.

And then I was. Getting worried about when I would be out with people, I was noticing that I wanted to order more alcohol and maybe the table didn't, and then I was like, well, we just need to leave in my head like, when is this gonna be over so I can go home and have like a night cap or, or pour myself a glass in my own house.

Because I didn't wanna be the person who said, woo, we have another bottle. Um, because that was maybe happening a little bit too often. So the turning point for me was really noticing over time, but it was just taking up way too much head space and I was having to control my relation. It was like a controlling relationship.

I enjoy being, I enjoy this in a way that is unhealthy for me. Nothing else that I do or that I enjoy takes up this amount of effort in my head. And so it was kind of exhausting and I finally [00:11:00] went to my doctor and a wonderful woman and said, Hey, I, I really liked to drink and I find it difficult.

To control that relationship. And that was the beginning of a changed relationship with alcohol. And when I went there, I had absolutely no intention of stopping. Drinking like that to me seemed like a terrible idea. There was no way like getting divorced from drinking. I just had to find some sort of solution that would make me be able to drink, but not have to be thinking about it in this way all the time.

Taking up too much of my, my life, really, and I had done a bit of research before I walked into that doctor's office, and I walked in wanting a prescription for a particular drug, and that drug is called Naltrexone. I had found out about this drug because I'd been [00:12:00] doing lots of sort of Googling online and looking for the, like I was in this mindset like, I'm not a fucking alcoholic.

And I had a very negative view of that. I was like, I'm not that, but I need something, some kind of help. And so I found this story of an English actress, this short YouTube video, I think. And she had gone to Hollywood and found herself, you know, very stressful environment and. Found herself relying more and more on alcohol and becoming completely addicted and it really causing huge problems for her in her life.

And she went to a step 12 step program, I think she may have. It didn't work for the first time she had to go back, but great success story sober. Very grateful for her sobriety. And then she said she found out about this [00:13:00] drug called Naltrexone and. Naltrexone was developed for some other, to treat some other condition.

I don't know what that was, but what they found was, hey, it's also got this benefit that if you take Naltrexone, your desire to drink goes down significantly and. She made this video talking about the drug, saying, oh my God, this would've been so helpful for me if I had known about this when I was really in trouble, because it took a lot for me to walk into an AA meeting or, you know, get that kind of help.

And I didn't realize that there was anything available to me. Before that things got that bad. So when I was in my conversation with my doctor, my primary care physician, and we started talking about my drinking habit, et cetera, [00:14:00] she suggested Naltrexone. Before I had to ask for it and I was like, oh, great.

Actually I have heard of that drug. So I left there with my prescription for Naltrexone and also, you know, agreed to go to do some therapy as well. And it was amazing. It was. Uh, life changing, like night and day. My relationship with alcohol, because what Naltrexone does, and obviously you have to get it prescribed by a doctor and the, uh, you know, the amount that you take, it depends on lots of things, whatever.

But for me it was one a day for a certain amount of time, and so I took it and then I went out. My first time drinking on Naltrexone and I had one drink, and then I ordered a second drink and I was like, had maybe two sips of [00:15:00] it and I was going, Hmm, I'm good. I don't want this. And never in my goddamn drinking life would I have walked away from a half drunk drink.

I just wouldn't have, like, I would've just necked it and said I won't have a third, but there's no way I am leaving half a second. But I did, I could just walk away. I mean, naltrexone is like the Ozempic for booze. It just turns off the switch. You're just, for me, you're just not interested. So I absolutely, you know, loved it.

And um, I just thought at that point, yeah, this is like a real healthy thing. It's, it's, I'm kind of like on a health kick. I'm just taking a break and reducing the amount of alcohol I. You know I have, and I think I was training for a marathon at the time, and I was just, okay, I've just needed to hit a reset or a recalibration switch on my relationship with alcohol [00:16:00] and then off I go.

And that's what it felt like. And it was great for a while. And then. I would like, maybe I was drinking a lot less. I never bought alcohol and brought it into the house. I was maybe going out every two weeks, maybe to dinner or you know, to see a band and go to a bar and have a few drinks. So I was just going out maybe every two weeks and drinking, and I had naltrexone to kind of cut me off naturally.

And so the relationship felt like, oh. This kind of toxic relationship that I had has suddenly got super healthy and I don't have to think about it anymore. And I didn't. And then Covid came, and when Covid came, things kind of got a little bit rapier, so I wasn't going out anymore. So then the decision was after a while.

Okay, well I'll. Add wine to the shopping list and we'll [00:17:00] bring wine into the house. And then bit by bit I realized that I was thinking about it more and more, what are the cues for drinking now? Because it's not going out. And nothing dramatic happened, but it started. It started changing and it became.

Clear that I would have to go back on the earlier dosage of naltrexone if I was going to be able to control the, the drinking again. And it just became really, really difficult and I realized I. Okay. Naltrexone was great because it's taken me to a place where I can see myself in a different relationship with alcohol entirely, and that was great.

But do I really want to be in any type of a relationship with a substance where I have to exercise this amount of control? And for what exactly? So I think I was about 50 at the time. A little bit older, [00:18:00] 51, 52, and I thought, you know, maybe I've had enough, maybe I've had enough. And so I, I made the decision to, like, I, I just can't be having this back and forth any longer.

I think I'm just going to stop. I'm gonna do this for me. I'm going to really choose myself. I can't be in. I can't be doing this anymore. I'm just, I'm be like, I'm more than this. I'm more than like, this drink has, like, I need it and I don't want to need anything that isn't a positive influence for me. And I began to really see that.

It's great to get help and everything, and I don't think I could have made the decision to completely stop for me. I don't think I could have made that decision if I hadn't had [00:19:00] that experience on Naltrexone of, of having a huge reduction in the amount that I was consuming. So that was that decision really.

I think it was March 28th, 2022 when I had my last rank and said, I'm, I'm just done. I'm done and I'm sure I didn't have one drink. I'm sure I had about three, maybe four, maybe. I finished a bottle of wine. I don't actually remember now, but it doesn't matter. But it, it ended then. It ended then, and I really, again, I was just looking at some of the impacts on my health that I hadn't really noticed because you just notice the things like, well, first of all, you notice the amount on your wallet if you're buying wine every week, it's expensive. And I was a wine drinker and sometimes G and t, the risks, I just wasn't really aware of it. 

And I think you, I'm seeing more of it in the media now, [00:20:00] more highlighting the risk effects, but some things particular to women. I'd just had no idea. Liver damage develops more quickly and with less alcohol consumption. In women, I had no idea. I had no idea about the link between breast cancer and alcohol. I thought alcohol, liver cirrhosis. What's it got to do with breast cancer? Even light drinking, which is considered like three to six drinks per week increases your breast cancer risk by 15%. 

And I was never a three, I was never a, uh, light drinker. I was never a three to six. But if you were in, I was probably more, well, maybe sometimes I was, I was definitely a light drinker while I was on naltrexone. Less than light probably. But if you're a moderate drinker, like, which is, [00:21:00] what's it?

Seven to 14 drinks a week, that raises your risk of breast cancer by 30 to 50%. I just, I had no idea. Another health concern for women is brain vulnerability and brain imaging studies reveal that female drinkers show greater reductions in hypo campo volume, which is part of the brain, the hippocampus, which is crucial for memory than their male counterparts with similar drinking histories.

And this says, this may explain my women experience, alcohol related cognitive decline more rapidly. I mean, holy crap, I just had no idea about this. I really thought that it was, I, I just, I. I didn't know. I didn't know. So that first year of not drinking, well, first of all, it, it feels horrible, the idea of going cold Turkey.

And [00:22:00] one thing that I did do before I planned. That date, and I planted probably only two days or three days before, was I found an online app, which is called Reframe uh, to support me on the journey, and it really was. Uh, incredibly helpful to me because it was a community based app and it was me sort of logging in and, you know, sharing my, sharing my story and my progress and kind of seeing those days and people celebrating your first week and then your second week.

But the first six weeks were shit. They were shit. 'cause all I was doing was, okay, that's a, that's a day. And that's another day. This is a terrible idea. I don't want to not be drinking. Maybe I'll just do this for a little while. But it, it just kind of went on and on and another day and another day. [00:23:00] So the first six weeks was really hard.

And then what really surprised me was that it got so much easier. And some of the most surprising things from that first, first year was, well, I went on vacation to Italy. That summer and found myself on a, as part of a tour where you, I think we were doing Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii and then we stopped at a vineyard.

A vineyard, and they're just bringing me wine glass after glass of it, and it's leaving my table untouched and I'm kind of going, I think that gave me a lot of confidence. I was going, listen, if I can sit in a vineyard and people keep bringing me wine and me kind of going, no thanks. No thanks. No, I'm good.

You know, and more and more I just found myself in positions that kind of surprised me. People would ask, are you not having a drink? And I'm going, no. And I didn't explain it very much. I just said, no, I'm not drinking. I think at the time I was doing a lot of, maybe I was doing a bit of running or I was quite healthy, [00:24:00] and so people thought, well, maybe it's a bit of a health kick, but I just.

It felt like it was my story, my, my business, and I didn't overexplain myself. So I was around family. I was around friends, people who typically were used to seeing me drink and you know, I was just ordering non-alcoholic things. I think I even ordered a pot of tea in a. Me in a pub in Ireland, and nobody really noticed.

I think my sister was kind of like, oh, somebody to drink a cup of tea with me late in the evening, and I love not having a hangover. And I'm, when I think about that data, about the health things, I, I had no idea that I would be helping myself in those ways. I had no idea that I had been putting myself at so much risk before.

For me, one of the big worries was, you know, who am I really? Without alcohol, will I even, will I be able to move around the world confidently? And I'm so used to having that glass in my hand and [00:25:00] will I feel a little bit less myself. I've had a drink in my hand since I was 15, and what's really surprised me is like, wow, actually it's great.

I don't think about it. I kind of liked when I'd go for health checks and they'd say, and how many units do you have? 'cause normally when I answer that question, I'd be shaving down the number to make me sound less of a drinker. And now I just kind of go, I don't drink. And they're like, oh, okay. The absence of a bad thing happening to me is all, I guess I'm, I'm noticing.

In one way, from a health perspective, I haven't had any adverse thing happen to me that alcohol would've been a contributing factor, and I'm a relatively healthy person from the point of view of taking exercise and looking after my wellbeing. I feel if I'd continued to drink the way [00:26:00] I used to, I probably would have a lot more problems.

A lot more problems would have potentially developed for me, and I'm grateful that I'm well. I'm grateful that I'm well. And one thing that I hadn't really been paying attention to was the anniversary of the day that I stopped drinking and I had a friend say, oh, congratulations on your three year anniversary.

And I was like a very close friend. I don't talk to many people about not drinking. And she had remembered because she's amazing and she's that type of woman. And I was thinking, wow, yeah, it's been three years and it just feels normal and, and here's the reality as well. I do think about drinking sometimes.

I do sometimes think about [00:27:00] drinking and say, look at this. I'm three years and I didn't even kind of notice it, and I don't think about it. When will I have a drink again? Will I start drinking again when I'm 65? Will I have a drink when I'm 70? When I don't have any responsibilities really to anybody?

Nobody's dependent on me, will I kind of. In my golden years, when I'm in that kind of maybe 10 years left kind of view, will I then open up the bottle of red wine and just sit back and say, well, I'm on the way out now anyway, so why don't I, and you know what the truth is? I don't know. I don't know. I think I answer that question sort of on a day by day basis.

I think one thing that I do notice that's very clear to me after having three years without any alcohol is that I find it very difficult to imagine a situation [00:28:00] when. I would choose to have a drink, so I think, oh, if it was at the wedding of this person or that, I'm like, no, actually I find it very difficult to think of an occasion where I think I would feel that I needed to invite alcohol back into the party, and that's how I just take it as it comes.

Really, I don't see a reason. And there were so many reasons to stop and I don't see any reason to start again. And sometimes that kind of annoys me. 'cause I'm looking for the, I'm looking for the get out sometimes, but not in, if I even explain it like this, that looking for a way to drink doesn't have a lot of energetic substance driving it.

I am so in the habit of not drinking, I. That I [00:29:00] imagine, although I would remain vigilant, but I imagine that it would take a lot to decide to have a drink. Most of the times when I'd be making bad choices would be when I would have had a drink. So I don't have that full cognitive capacity to make a good decision.

But when you're not drinking, you're, you're more likely to make a good decision. When it comes to your own wellbeing and choose what serves you best, and here I am now as a 55-year-old woman, and I think you're anywhere between 40 and 55. There's other kind of considerations as you're entering perimenopause or menopause and alcohol.

One of the things that I've learned is that as your estrogen levels decline during perimenopause or menopause. The body's ability to actually metabolize alcohol changes significantly. People talk a lot in [00:30:00] menopause about like, oh my God, I just can't anymore, because the hangovers are brutal. There's also research that's showing that even moderate.

Alcohol consumption, say one to two drinks a day increases the frequency of hot flashes by 33% and the severity by 24%. And if you're in that phase of life, all of that stuff is pretty debilitating. And the last thing you want is to have more or worse of it. And we all know even from. Our younger years, how disruptive it is to our sleep.

And I know as a 55-year-old woman, one of the biggest things that I've noticed in the menopausal years is the sleep disruption and how debilitating that is, and that's amplified with alcohol at that stage of life. I just had a DEXA scan. Recently looking at bone health, and that becomes a huge concern at this stage of life as well, because alcohol interferes with calcium absorption [00:31:00] and vitamin D activation, which are both essential to bone maintenance.

So. I mean, bloody hell it's, it just doesn't get a good, it just doesn't get a good wrap. And one thing that I've noticed since I've given up as well is, I don't know whether it's like this, your focus just, you begin to see more of the alcohols. I. You begin to see more of the sort of alcohol free movement just because you are now alcohol free yourself.

But I think the sober curious movement has just been such a significant cultural shift. I was looking at some of the data there, but the. Growth in the global non-alcoholic market is projected to reach $1.7 trillion by 2028. So you don't just have to order the Diet Coke. I must admit, I did order some of the options that were available when I first stopped drinking and they're still in my fridge 'cause I just [00:32:00] couldn't be arsedd to tell you the truth. 

I just went for sparkling water and, you know, herbal teas and stuff. But there's huge, huge choice now. You know, the sales increases are like non-alcoholic beer, wine and spirit alternatives up 33% since 2019.

So many options, even if you're just looking to reduce your consumption. And you can see as well, I have a 22-year-old son who's in college and about to go into graduate school and he doesn't drink. He's just not interested. And there's lots of people, his age group, who are drinking. But there's a significant number who aren't, and it's just much more normalized, I think, culturally, to be, you know, sober alcohol free, not drinking.

Whereas in my generation, it was like when you were a certain age, it was like you either had to say you were on antibiotics or everybody thought you were pregnant if you weren't drinking. So [00:33:00] the movement has really sort of changed, which I think. It can only be a good thing for younger folks who are coming up and they have more of an opportunity to be developing a well a healthy relationship or alcohol if you are gonna drink, where there's a lot of options and places to go where you can socialize and be with people and not be drinking.

There's just. So many dry events now, like I, I see these like morning dance parties called daybreakers or Alcohol Free festivals that are, you know, drawing thousands of people and you're seeing a lot of high profile celebrities as well who are coming, coming out, who are really sharing about their alcohol free and sober journeys, which also is helpful to people who are considering.

Maybe a different relationship with alcohol. So I guess just to, just to conclude, I think bringing it [00:34:00] back into this theme of choosing myself, for me, it's been profoundly beneficial and it was completely unexpected. Gosh, I, I, I can't emphasize this enough. I never, ever, ever would've imagined that I wouldn't stop drinking.

Never. So if you're listening to this and you cannot even think about divorce as I used to put it, like maybe we'll just have a brief separation, but divorce is unthinkable when it comes to alcohol. I thought that too. I thought that too. But if you get the right support, it's, it really is possible and it really is possible to have a life when you're not thinking about it.

You're hardly thinking about it or you're not thinking about it. You can be in all of the places that you were before and be okay and be making different choices that serve [00:35:00] you, and there will be people who see you choosing yourself in that way. And I've had a number of people approach me curious about my decision and have seen them make.

That decision too, and share that it was, you know, it, it was helpful for them to see somebody who maybe didn't seem like the most likely person to be taking the alcohol free path. Take it and. And it, and it go really, really well. So if you are looking for some help and support, I would advise you just to go to your primary care physician.

Maybe Naltrexone is for you. Join a sober curious community. Spend time in places where alcohol is not being served and. The journey looks different for everybody, and if you find yourself that you give up for a while [00:36:00] and you go back, that's not a failure. That's just a pathway. Compare, comparing yourself to other people when you're struggling.

I. Is unhelpful and you really will be surprised at the doors. That will open up to you if you go and maybe just ask for a little bit of help if it feels like that's something that you need. So I hope this has been of help and service and interest to you. If you want to reach out with any comments or thoughts that you'd like to share, you can find me on Instagram @eimearzonecoach and share your thoughts on this episode. I'd love to hear those. 

And until the next time.