Why Alcohol Moderation Doesn’t Work
Have you ever thought to yourself, “I wish I could just be a normal drinker”?
Same. I spent years trying to prove to myself that I could be someone who can have just one drink. But it was never just one. The purpose of this blog is to confirm something you may already know, even if right now, it is just a small seed planted somewhere deep inside of you.
Alcohol moderation never worked for me.
My moderation attempts always started after taking breaks from alcohol. I’d have a few weeks of no drinking under my belt and when I would start feeling good, I’d try and reintroduce “some” alcohol back into my life. I feel so good right now. I know what I’m doing now. I can just moderate.
This is where the strategizing, rule creation, rule breaking, and boundary crossing would happen. Looking back on it, I spent so much time and energy thinking about when I could and couldn’t drink. So much justifying why this time was an acceptable exception to the rule.
Rule: No alcohol Monday to Thursday. But my friend invited me to go out for a drink after work on Wednesday. Okay, just this once.
Rule: Only drinking in social situations. But I’m travelling for work and I always sleep shitty in hotels. It’s a special circumstance.
Rule: Only one drink with dinner. But it’s half-off bottles of wine and my friend asked me to split it. It would be financially irresponsible to order a single glass for basically the same price.
No matter how small they may be, when we create rules or boundaries for ourselves and then we break or cross them, it doesn’t feel good. Sure, there is a temporary sense of relief with the first drink (that’s alcohol doing its job), but then comes the second or third drink and with it comes the feelings of disappointment and stress because we did the thing we said we weren’t going to do.
It’s a vicious circle.
The reality is, moderation was never going to work because once I started I wasn’t able to stop. This is something that comes up a lot in my coaching. Part of the journey of ditching alcohol is figuring out for yourself if you are someone who can moderate. A lot of us can’t.
Yet as is the case with so much of this work, no matter how many times we read something, or even experience something, sometimes we just have to go through it until it clicks and we finally get it (on some deep cellular, soulful level).
That being said, I tell my clients to use their attempts at moderation as a lesson, not an excuse. We can learn from our experiences and grow from them.
The good news is, there are ways of getting to The Click, sooner rather than later.
I realized that I had been using alcohol as my default coping mechanism for so many years. In truth, it was pretty much my entire adult life - up until I truly made the decision to ditch alcohol. That was back in 2020.
Our brains are incredible. When a problem happens, or we go through a stressful situation, our brains provide us with a solution, though not always the healthiest one. But the brain doesn’t come up with the solutions out of thin air, our responses come from somewhere - for better or for worse.
It turns out that over years of alcohol use, I had wired my brain to respond to stress, fear, discomfort - or on the flip side - excitement, celebrations, happiness, with alcohol. Looking back at Past Me, I can see now when I attempted moderation, how deeply I wanted to be a woman of my word. I just didn’t know how to do it yet.
And then my goals evolved. Instead of wanting to just quit drinking, or to become a “normal drinker”, my goal was to stop drinking AND to not always be thinking about drinking.
So that’s what I started working on. I stopped drinking and I learned how to stop thinking about it. I taught my brain new ways to cope, to manage stress, and to be myself. Over time my brain began offering up new strategies - no more alcohol as the cure-all solution. Now, I have a whole new set of tools that I use when something stressful arises.
And when I want to celebrate an anniversary I make a special mocktail or I bring a bottle of alcohol-free bubbles over for a friend’s birthday. I don’t even THINK about wanting a glass of anything else.
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It comes down to rewiring our brains. I know it sounds intimidating, but this is part of the work we do in my coaching program, and it is the key to release yourself from the “I just need to figure out how to moderate my drinking” loop.
You can ditch alcohol, transform you life, and start living the life you dream of.
I reached my goal, and you can too.
Learn more about my 13-week Feel Good AF group program at the button below.
I hope this post has provided some water and sunlight for that seed that I know is within you. It’s already growing, I know it.
Looking to reimagine your non-alcoholic drink staples? Recess is one of my faves.
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