ABOUT THE HELLO SOMEDAY PODCAST

The Hello Someday Podcast helps busy and successful women build a life they love without alcohol. Host Casey McGuire Davidson, a certified life coach and creator of The 30-Day Guide to Quitting Drinking, brings together her experience of quitting drinking while navigating work and motherhood, along with the voices of experts in personal development, self-care, addiction and recovery and self-improvement. 

Whether you know you want to stop drinking and live an alcohol free life, are sober curious, or are in recovery this podcast is for you.

In each episode Casey will share the tried and true secrets of how to drink less and live more. 

Learn how to let go of alcohol as a coping mechanism, how to shift your mindset about sobriety and change your drinking habits, how to create healthy routines to cope with anxiety, people pleasing and perfectionism, the importance of self-care in early sobriety, and why you don’t need to be an alcoholic to live an alcohol free life. 

Be sure to grab the Free 30-Day Guide To Quitting Drinking right here.

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READ THE TRANSCRIPT OF THIS PODCAST INTERVIEW

The Problem With Using Alcohol To Joke About Parenting

 

Hi there. If you’re listening to this podcast, I’m betting you’ve been going back and forth for a while now on whether or not you should stop drinking. And I want you to raise your hand. If you’ve had any one of these thoughts.

You might have been thinking, I’m not that bad. I actually don’t want to stop drinking completely. I just want to drink like a normal person. Or maybe you come home after work. And you think I know I shouldn’t drink tonight. But I literally can’t relax or have fun without it. It’s really common to say I’ve tried to take a break from drinking before. But it’s just too hard. I always give up anyway. So what’s the point in trying again? Or here’s one I hear all the time from women. Everyone I know drinks. If I stopped drinking, I will be bored. Or I’ll be boring. I’ll have no fun. I’ll never be invited anywhere. I’ll just sit home and be miserable. Or maybe you can insert whatever your reason is there.

So is your hand up? If it is that is totally okay. And that’s because taking a break from drinking and changing your relationship with alcohol. This shit is hard.

And that’s why I’m really pumped to invite you to my completely free 60 minute masterclass the five secrets to successfully take a break from drinking, even if you’ve tried and you failed in the past.

After you take this free class, you’ll realize why what you’ve been doing up until now hasn’t been working, and what to do.

Instead, we’re going to cover all the juicy topics, including what questions you need to stop asking yourself, because they’re setting you up for self sabotage, not for success. We’re going to talk about exactly what you need to do differently. So you can stop the exhausting cycle of stopping drinking and then saying screw it, and starting again.

And we’re going to talk about the real reasons you haven’t been successful. And I’m betting they’re not what you think they are. And this isn’t surface level stuff. I am handing over the strategies and the mindset shifts I go through every day with my private coaching clients. If you’re listening to this podcast, I really encourage you to take a moment and sign up for this completely free masterclass. It will help you on your journey to drink class and live more to feeling better. So if you want to save your spot, go to hellosomedaycoaching.com/class while the class is still available, and I really hope to see you there.

 

Hi there. In this episode, we are talking about the problem with using alcohol to joke about parenting.

And if you’ve listened to the episode I did on wine mom culture you know that this is something that I feel really passionate about. And not from a place of judgment because I for years was in the wine mom culture, promoting it, pushing it, using alcohol to joke about parenting. And now that I’m on the other side I can see how problematic it was, how much it helped me normalize my binge drinking and push others into it and use it as my one way to cope. And so I think talking about how problematic it is and the more awareness we can bring around, oh my gosh, this is not okay. This surrounds us. Of course we think this way can really help us as we’re getting out of the drinking cycle. 

 

So my guest today is Blair Sharp. You might know her from Instagram under the handle, @sobrietyactivist. She is a wife and a mom from Minnesota and after a long career as a binge drinker and a party girl, she decided to retire when her son was 18 months old. Since going alcohol free in February of 2018, Blair has been pursuing her passion for writing. She supports others by creating relatable sober content on Instagram. She also works full time as a psychometrist, which means she tests people’s thinking. Blair has a sarcastic and blunt personality, which I totally love. She’s a tall, introverted homebody who loves reality television and canceled plans. She doesn’t take life too seriously, and says if she can help one person by telling her story, that is enough for her. So Blair, welcome to the podcast.

 

06:32

Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  06:35

I’m happy to have you here too. And one of the reasons I thought you would be the perfect guest for this episode was I got to know you through an article you wrote for The Sober Curator, which was an open letter to Molly Sims, “Please Stop Using Alcohol to Joke about Parenting.” And can you tell me a little bit about what spurred you to write that letter or how that came up?

 

07:03

Yeah, so I guess Molly Sims is just really an, I don’t know if people know who Molly Sims is, she’s, I guess she’s kind of an influencer now but she was a model, I think she might have done some acting. I’m not really sure. But she’s a celebrity anyways, and she is just always joking about drinking and relating it to parenting and how it’s kind of like her fix. You know, in the article, I kind of just wrote it as more of like, imagine, like to her, imagine if you’re this mom that’s struggling and you see that kind of content. Imagine if you’re a child of a parent who, you know, does that and you’re like making a joke out of it. But actually, people are really struggling with this, you know? 

 

Yeah, she’s just, it’s just gross to me all the stuff that she posts like, you know, when the kids are on winter break, and she posts a wineglass where she’s like laying back with the wineglass on her head, like I call this one, the kids are home from winter break or something like that. And it’s just like, and people love it. People, you know, people are you look at the comments, and people love it. And they’re like, Oh, that’s so relatable. Thank you. And, you know, so it’s just keeping this idea that alcohol is a fix to all your problems as a parent going when these celebrities make these jokes about it. And so I was just like, I was just over it, and I decided to just write about it. It came out very easily. Yes, I guess I was passionate about it. But it’s not the first time that she’s done that.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  08:30

And I remembered it too, because Tropicana, who a little while ago, over the holidays, launched a campaign and it starred Gabrielle Union and Molly Sims and Jerry O’Connell. But it basically encouraged parents to beat holiday stress by hiding alcohol from their families and drinking in secret. And the juice companies gave the celebs and influencers special booze filled refrigerators that were designed as laundry hampers and toolboxes. So they could, you know, basically, sneak away to have a quiet moment alone and mix Mimosa and they call it a moment. And when this came out, it was at a time when alcohol consumption by women was at, and still is, dangerously high rates. And they got a lot of blowback from the recovery community from people overall that it was super irresponsible for a company to put their stamp of approval on a commercial about sneaking away from your family and drinking in your closet.

 

09:45

Yeah, and that’s kind of where I, that’s where my Instagram sort of began after that is you know, I saw this, like you said, all the silver, the recovery community was just up in arms as we get you know, especially when when people are targeting parenting, I think we understand a lot of us understand that people drink alcohol, right? It’s legal, like some people can have one or two and be fine and not blow up their lives, you know, but when you’re using it as like a way to get away from your kids and like making a joke out of it. It’s just like, super. It’s just icky. It’s cringy. 

 

Yeah, so yeah, here I am, I’m scrolling Instagram, and I see Molly Sims post a video where she’s in her closet, drinking a mimosa, and she says, “This makes me a good mom. This makes me the best mom.” And I still get like icky feelings when I say that, because like it was, so that’s just like, oh, no, it doesn’t like that. That is not what makes you a good mom, you know? Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if Molly Sims has a problem with alcohol. And if she does, I’m sure she has more than enough avenues, more than, you know, one avenue to try to get help. But so I’m not trying to like judge her or anything, but it’s just like, you have this big platform and you have these parents who think that what you do is what they should do. And if you’re doing it, it’s okay. And it’s funny, you know, but what’s Molly Sims doing at three o’clock in the morning, when she’s waking up with issues, waking up with anxiety at 3am? You know, and she’s hung over the next day. 

 

I mean, yeah,

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  11:19

just like emblematic of the society we live in and the culture that we’re raised in and still living. You know, it’s obviously not just her. There’s a Facebook group that is Mommy Needs Vodka. There are the moms who do the I Wine Mom So Hard, you know, videos, and they’re constantly holding wine glasses, they have a YouTube video called I Wined So Hard. And if you got to Etsy it is gross the amount of gear that is all about drinking, drinking wine. And again, you know, my gosh, I was a huge wine drinker. I mean, for sure, right for Christmas, like, give me the like, make your own cork board craft from all your wine corks, like this was, this was what I did. I bought into all the jokes and everything, but I also feel like the fact it was so out there, made what I was doing okay. You know, I mean, there are the little signs SNL did that, that skit, if anyone hasn’t seen it, I will put it in the show. The links, but it’s, you know, about this woman who got all of her friends were there and literally every single, you know, crappy sign she got was about drinking and they just got incrementally worse and worse. And, like, you know, there are stuff on Etsy that says, you know, I’m not slurring, I’m talking in cursive. And I’m not drinking alone if my dogs are home. And there are little socks where on the bottom it says, If you’re reading this bring mom wine, mommy sippy cups, you know, the big one. It is everywhere. And I think you’re completely right, that we need to stop using alcohol as a way to joke about parenting.

 

13:23

Yeah, and I think, you know, parents need more than just booze, right? They need support, and they need community and help and to know that they’re not alone. They might use alcohol, it might be a fix, right? It might fix your problem for 20 minutes or so and then you might feel some relief. So you know, people say well, but wine helps me relax or wine helps me sleep. And that’s just not the science of it, though. I mean, if you really learned the science behind what alcohol does to our bodies, it’s not, it is not that. It increases your anxiety, you know, it ruins your sleep, no wonder you’re waking up irritated with your kid at 5am or whatever. I mean, that’s what I was doing when I was drinking. So yeah, I totally, I totally get like you said like, you were there too. And I was there too. And so like I’m not and again, we’re not judging like the moms or the parents that are there doing this. We’re judging like, not judging, but like we’re, you know, we’re looking at the companies that are making these things and the businesses that are selling them and the Tropicana incidents like those kinds of things and the celebrities that are promoting it and things like that. It’s not necessarily the people that are consuming all this media, but it’s, it’s hard to get out once you’re in and you have all these things telling you that it’s okay. What you’re doing is okay

Casey McGuire Davidson  14:44

Hi there. If you’re listening to this episode, and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, the sobriety starter kit.

The sobriety starter kit is an online self study sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step by step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one on one coaching. And the sobriety starter kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it. And when it fits into your schedule. You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time.

This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step by step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking, from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better. You’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach, you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course 

 

You know, I just want people to evaluate this stuff with a critical eye because as someone within marketing for 20 years and brand marketing for big companies, I know that they do tons and tons of focus groups. We look very, very carefully at where we can expand market share, where we can get customers to get more quote unquote share of wallet. So if they are existing customers, we want them to buy more. If they aren’t existing customers, we want to figure out how to get them in. And the alcohol companies are doing the exact same thing. That’s why you see these influencers posting. I mean, the Tropicana moment was not free, right, they hired Gabrielle Union and Molly Sims, they hire people who have big followings and loyalty among the target group they’re going to. 

 

I have a friend who worked in an advertising agency for one of the big wineries up here in Washington State. And they had 100 Page decks on how to get women of small children to drink more often and paid advertisers $100,000 to push that message. So it does look glamorous, we are taught very consciously, very intentionally, we’re taught that we need a drink to cope with our lives, to relax from our jobs, to tolerate the demands of our children, to bond with our girlfriends, to connect with our partners. And the fact is that we’re told that alcohol helps us and the reality of our experiences do not match the lies we’re being fed. And therefore we think there’s something wrong with us. 

 

Yeah,

 

18:41

right. We think that, that we’re the problem. And that it’s, it’s our problem right there. The companies and whoever it’s promoting the drinking, they think it’s all fine until you have a problem with it. Right? And then it’s your problem. It’s not the alcohol. It’s not this, we’re not telling, we’re telling you to drink a bunch and like make jokes about these big wine glasses, but it’s not the amount of alcohol you’re drinking. It’s you. 

 

Yeah, you’re the problem.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  19:09

You’re the problem. That’s why I hate the fact that the alcohol companies have very consciously, sort of as a cover your ass way, promoted drink responsibly. Every time you use that, that is something they are putting out there to stop the government from putting warning labels on alcohol, that it causes cancer, that it is, you know, associated with decreased brain function, that all the things they were like, well, we’ll just tell people to drink responsibly. And that’s bullshit. And you know, so the and what they want to do is say, the problem is not with the substance, the substance is innocuous, the substance is fun. It is the problem of the individual if they drink too much and the issue is that the product they’re selling is addictive, it causes seven different kinds of cancer, does cause more harm to the individual and to society than cocaine and heroin. I mean, it does. And yet, it’s so mainstream. And they are, they’re seriously marketing it through jokes, through products to make it funny, to make slurring when you drink too much funny.

 

20:33

Yeah, um, there’s a whole section of that kind of stuff at a store just down the street, a drugstore, you know, like those gift shops, or stores, lots of cute stuff, lots of cute stuff in there. But it’s just every time I go in there, I just, oh, I just look around, I maybe take some pictures, but like, you know, it’s just yeah, it’s just bad. And it’s, it’s kind of like saying, you have to take a break from your kids, which we all deserve. Right? We all need to, but you don’t really ever get a break. I mean, you’re still like thinking about them. You’re still like, required, like, if there’s an emergency, you’re still required to then help with that, you know, like, there’s a koozie that I saw not too long ago, but some like off duty parent. But like is that even? That’s not even real? You know what I mean?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  21:20

When the issue is I think that, you know, honestly, I think we’ve been pacified, you know, like little kids with their pacifier crying and you kind of, at least I did, stick in the pacifier like, yeah, please be quiet, I’m tired. I don’t want to deal with this. I feel like women are fed wine or alcohol, or whatever it is, in order to make us pacified. And it works, right. There is this meme that I totally hate, but it is so true, that is like, the man’s guide to having conversations with the women in their lives, or their wives or whatever. And it’s, in each section, it’s labeled as like, extremely dangerous, dangerous, you know, neutral, safe, extremely safe. And it’s like, you know, extremely dangerous. What do you do all day? You know what I mean? Or it’s yeah, yikes, you’re wearing that. And then they go through the other iterations. And the punchline is extremely safe. In every single category. Here, honey, have some wine.

 

22:33

Yeah, right. Just shut up and have something to drink.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  22:36

And the truth is that like we are exhausted. It is too much to do the first shift and the second shift, and an endemic, the third shift of educating kids at home and what you need it you know, parenting is lonely, parenting is physically hard. It’s emotionally hard. It’s isolating, you know, you love your kids, but they can drive you crazy. They are a trigger. And what we need is a break and support and time with our girlfriends in therapy and all those things and they’re saying shut up, have some wine.

 

23:15

Yeah, I think it’s just like they say, you know, you should have something to drink. You should have some wine, you should have whatever. Instead, we need to be saying like, Hey, we’re going through this too. Like women need our parents, even men. I mean, moms, dads, whoever’s grandparents, whoever’s taking care of kids needs to know they need to know that they’re not alone. You know, and I think just like giving them alcohol makes them feel I mean, it’s trying to make them like you said just here have some wine and don’t complain about it. Like relax with this but really that’s not I mean, obviously we said it’s doing the opposite. And then you know, you see everybody on Instagram, your friends or whoever you know, you post the cute little picture with your wine glass on a Friday night and we see, you know, the highlight reel of people’s lives we don’t see actual the moments you know. I was posting Oh, I’m watching The Bachelor with my glass of wine and pasta, whatever it was like I never drink one glass of wine in my life. No, I mean, the first one, yeah, you post the first one and then

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  24:23

yeah, and then wake up and are like oh shit, did I post anything else?

 

24:27

Yeah, I gotta check. Yep. And it was the hangover, that you never post the hangover. You know? That’s a whole nother issue with social media just in general of like, what we only share, you know what, this glamorized kind of like, filtered part of our life. But it is getting better. You know, I do think it is getting better than it used to be. People are posting more about their, you know, issues with drinking. They’ve been quitting drinking and talking about it, or people are just saying, you know, hey, guess what I’m struggling thing, like, I need someone to talk to, I need support. Are you struggling? Like, let’s chat.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  25:07

Yeah, I mean, I know that on Instagram, you have like 10,000 people who follow you. And that’s not unusual in terms of there is a incredible community on Instagram that you can find of all these women who are sober, curious, who are alcohol free, who are just like you who are sharing their story, not that they hit this crazy bottom or that, you know, the it’s, you know, jails, institutions or death. But saying, Hey, I was waking up at 3am, I was waking up with hangovers, I tried to moderate and couldn’t. And I stopped and my life is way, way, way better. Right.

 

25:58

That’s how I quit drinking. You know, I found somebody, I found a blog, written by someone who had a similar story to mine. And I reached out to them, and they gave me advice. And that’s like, exactly what you said, like, that’s exactly what I do. Now. I mean, I had someone just this week, a woman messaged me and asked me if I was a coach. And if I, she wants to quit drinking, you know, and so there’s people, like you said, so many followers, but like, it just shows you how big of a problem it is, and how many people are struggling and how many people are needing, quit or just meeting the content. They just need to read if someone’s say, you know, this is what I went through so that they can say, wow, like, that’s what I’m going through right now. And like, look where you are four years later, how’d you do it?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  26:46

You know. And when you’re drinking and struggling with it, yet, it’s such an isolated place. It feels like you’re the only one because for some reason, everybody talks about how oh my gosh, I struggle with sugar. I can’t stop eating chocolate or, you know, I am doing a cleanse or whatever. Nobody talks about struggling with alcohol. Nobody talks about, I told myself, I’d only have two glasses of wine tonight. And I drank the bottle. I told myself I wouldn’t drink for a week and I made it three days. I am hungover today and feeling really shaky. And I’m worried about it. Nobody talks about that. Except now on Instagram, on Facebook, in books, in podcasts. Finally, women aren’t talking about it. And they’re also talking about how to get out of that drunken psycho, like in a practical way that in no way makes you identify as having a disease or being an alcoholic. Right.

 

27:51

Right. Yeah, yeah, totally. And I think the more that people like me talk about the way we drink, too, makes people realize, like, wow, I don’t, maybe I maybe I do have an issue with it. You know, like, I didn’t wake up every morning needing a drink. Like I wasn’t physically dependent on it. I would say I was like Friday dependent on it. Like, at the end of the work week, you know, like I needed, I wanted to drink. At all social events I was drinking. But I can do that and still realize, like, I couldn’t stop once I started, you know, like, I just wanted more, and I would drink till I went to bed. And so like, just talking about it. There’s a lot of people out there like that, too, was just speaking out about it. And I think it’s just so good for other women. I mean, mainly women, you know, but men too, I don’t want to leave the men out. But there are men out there, you know, on Instagram posting about it. And I think that’s great. And to see, just to kind of see your story be told.

 

Oh, yeah,

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  28:51

I think it’s an amazing thing. I think it’s really great. And I love you know, I, I would say like 95% of the people who listen to this podcast are women, but I get a lot of emails from women who say, I am struggling with this or I am newly sober or I’m on this Friday path, but my partner isn’t and I’m worried about, you know, any resources for men that are similarly not 12 step based or not, you know, for people who are men who are gray area drinkers or, you know, showing him another path. So I think it’s really amazing that there are men out there doing the same thing and I do have some men come on the podcast to talk about it. Tell us a little bit about your story. I know we talked earlier, you quit when your son was 18 months old. I quit when my daughter was 22 months old, but my son so you know managed to, decided it was the right time when she was young, but when, when my son was two years old, I was in the thick of it. So tell us about you.

 

30:09

Yeah, um, so I’ve always been just kind of a binge drinker never really saw the point, I still don’t really see the point of like one or two drinks. That’s just how my brain works. And I just didn’t know that. Like, I didn’t know that was just how my brain works. And that I see it, feel it, drink it differently than maybe somebody who just can have one and be done. Like, I just didn’t know that right until I quit. Even years after I quit, I don’t think I even really knew the science of it. So lots of negative consequences throughout my drinking, you know, back in college, you blend in really well, when you’re heavy drinker, you find your people and you you binge drink, and you party and you blackout and it’s funny, and you can blend in and you can do that for a little while. And then when you have to grow up and be a real adult with a real job and you know, a family, you kind of have to adjust. And I don’t think I ever adjusted, I just tried to continue living that way. And even until, like, I got pregnant, and I didn’t drink and it was fine. I didn’t have any issues with that. I don’t feel like I even thought about it much when I was pregnant. But it was probably because I just, I couldn’t, you know, like, I knew I couldn’t drink. So it was like a non option. 

 

And so then when I had my son, I still kind of want to do, like live that old life. And it was just a hard transition. I mean, motherhood is a hard transition period, for all the reasons right? Like your body’s different, your priorities have to change. And I was still trying to fit that like old, like have some drinks here or there. But the fact is that I drink way too much every time I drink and so I couldn’t do that and then also like be a good mom. So finally came down to my husband told me after another, you know, another night of blacking out, and I just so happened to smash a wine glass on the floor by accident, which is not like something that wouldn’t happen any other day when I was drinking. So it wasn’t like out of the ordinary that that happened. But that’s just what happened on the last night. And he told me that I couldn’t be around my son if I was drinking by myself. So I would need someone else there. And so I think that is what was the kicker for me. You know, I was like, Oh, wow, yeah, that. 

 

So I was like, still kind of trying to figure out like, what I was going to do. I mean, he told me that the next day, but it was still two days later that I actually decided I was done drinking. I don’t know if I just kind of let it fester in my brain a little bit. And then I stumbled upon a blog and of a person like I said that was kind of telling the same story of mine, and then I haven’t drink since so again, with the quitting the way I quit, you know, I just I just stopped and it’s not that easy for everyone, of course, but just like, when I was pregnant, I just made it a non option. Like it’s just not an option, right? So no booze in the house. My husband doesn’t drink so that was very easy for me like that. I’m so lucky for that very privileged to have a partner that didn’t drink so I didn’t have to deal with that difficulty that somebody

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  33:11

a lot of women have part yeah, drink as much or more.

 

33:15

And that’s what they did. Right? Like that’s what they did together. So like that person who is quitting drinking is growing as a person and changing and their relationship is in turn changing too and that’s really hard and so I have resources that I will send I send people when they asked me about that I’m like I didn’t deal with that sorry but here go look at this person’s page or you know that’s the beauty of Instagram and a sober communities that we can all send people to serve you know the what you need but yeah, so it was really hard for me at first to do social events like that was the thing because I was known as the person who was like always down to go out for happy hour or on a Friday night or go get drinks so it was hard and then I had to deal with you know the anxiety of being a mom and and the control I’m really controlling I like to know the plan and like be in charge of the plan and I had to maneuver all these new feelings that I wasn’t numbing anymore you know I don’t I don’t think I drank to like numb my have any mental health like I didn’t have like depression where I was like drinking my you know pain away or anything like that. But I just to deal with those anxious feelings I guess I never noticed I had before until I quit so a lot of things happen it’s not it’s not perfect when you quit your life you know isn’t magically perfect when you quit drinking, but it does help. It does definitely help to get your life kind of in the direction you want to go. And it is like hands down the best decision that I’ve made my entire life. 

 

Yeah,

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  34:48

I mean, I think the interesting thing is, and I had this experience, and I tell women all the time, a lot of them don’t believe me at first I was like I get it. I wouldn’t have believed me either. Yeah, parenting is actually so much easier when you’re not drinking, parenting with a hangover is freaking brutal. I mean, my kids waking me up in the morning where I like have a pounding headache, and I’m sort of when I yell so hard, and a lot of women say to me, but I’m more irritated and less fun as a mom when I’m not drinking. And that is probably true for definitely your first week, definitely your second week. That’s because you’re going through withdrawal. And when you stop drinking, you absolutely feel irritated, anxious on edge, your body is withdrawing from alcohol. So if you’ve been doing that cycle, you never got to the point where you are more relaxed. As a parent, you are more present, you are more fun. And the other thing that I always talked to women about is women are like, Oh my god, I just hate dyeing easter eggs. So I want to drink or like if I have to play Candyland one more fucking time. And I’m like, you know, to Candyland. Like geez, isn’t that something else? We’re like, put your kids in front of the TV and right, let them watch. I mean, women are like, Oh, God, I could never have my kids do TV. That would make me such a bad mom. And I was like, I love you but like waking up really hungover doesn’t make you a great mom either.

 

36:33

Right? Yeah, we’re forgetting we’re forgetting that part. Yeah, right, exactly.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  36:37

And the problem is that you can multitask while drinking, right? You can play game five of Candyland, or dolls or whatever. But I promise you, when you get away from it, you will feel so much better. You will be less irritated with your kids, you’ll be able to manage them more easily. And you’ll put down new boundaries about what you need. So because you don’t feel guilty all the time, you’re not like oh, shit, I feel this way because I’m hungover. So I’ve got to overcompensate. I can’t take a nap. I can’t ask for help. Because then someone might be like, Yeah, you’re brutally hungover. You know?

 

37:16

Yeah. And I think also, you’re going to notice a lot more moments that you would have missed, if you were drinking, you know whether or not you’re, you’re just thinking about the next drink, or you’re going to the kitchen to get your next drink. And that’s kind of your first priority. Like, regardless of that you’re missing out on these, like, really tiny moments that you notice, like, I’m just really like, I noticed, I don’t know if it’s normal or what, but I feel like I just noticed a lot of things at work, you know, I work in psychology, so I’m, like, paid to like, observe people. But I just like notice all these little moments. And I think and those are the moments where I think to myself, like if I was drinking there, I would not have noticed that. You know, even if I wasn’t drunk at the moment, like if I was just in that life. Yeah, I wouldn’t have had the brain energy. I don’t know what it is called. To just notice that, like that little moment that he did, or that thing he said, You know,

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  38:17

when you don’t realize the degree to which prioritizing drinking changes and edits, the choice you make and how it shifts what you do with your kids and what you do with your life. And I say that in a way where it’s you only notice it when you get away from it. So I used to always be super annoyed by bedtime. Right? Like yeah, amount of time.

 

38:44

I still am, by the way. Oh, you’re right. It’s well, you know, yeah, no.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  38:51

I know. That’s fair enough. But I would run, I would rush it. Yeah, yeah. Drink again. And sometimes I’d rush it to the point that I’d get downstairs and my daughter would start crying because I was like, fuck, she thought I’d be like, Oh, I can’t take it. Like, can you go deal with her? Right? And one of the things that happened when I stopped drinking was my daughter’s room was actually my safe place, right? Because I always got upstairs and drink on the couch. And, you know, that would have all those cues that would make me be like, I’m doing this without my wine. So I would go upstairs and like rock her to sleep for like an hour and a half and I didn’t mind it was so peaceful. Honestly, when my kids were young, I took a million pictures of them when they were sleeping. I kind of liked them best when they were sleeping. They didn’t need anything from me. And I would put my earbuds in and I listened to podcasts or audiobooks, you know, a lot of memoirs of sobriety. And that was just a really, really, really sweet time in my life that I would have missed. Um, Do you know if she was drinking if I was drinking?

 

40:04

Yeah, and I mean, I’m not like annoyed every single night because you know, I’m the one who usually puts my son to bed. And we have, I was just talking to him about it last night, we have these things where we used to call them snuggle chats. And now we just call them we snuggle, you know, snuggling. But we just lay in his bed. And we talked about our day, and we just talked about whatever. And yeah, I wouldn’t be doing that if I was drinking. Regardless of if that night I was drinking, like I said, I wasn’t an every night drinker. But I would just be kind of rushing to get my own time. And I still do like, I still rush it a little bit some nights because I don’t get a lot of time with my husband, because my son, you know, stays up till nine o’clock sometimes. So

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  40:50

I prioritize eight and she goes to bed at 10. So,

 

40:54

yeah, see, and I prioritize sleep a lot more now to I mean, before it was like passing out or sleeping. And because I had to like now I want to go to sleep. So I’m ready to go to sleep when he is, you know, at 830 or nine o’clock some nights. And so it’s just trying to find that balance is still hard for Matt.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  41:14

But I mean, I remember very vividly, my husband was away on a baseball trip, my son was four. And I would take him out to dinner at the village wine store here in Woodinville, I would take him out to dinner at basically a wine tasting place. Because I could drink wine there. And I could feel sophisticated and grown up and he was four years old, he did not, that was not super fun for him. And I was like, you know, having two glasses of wine there. And you know, it’s just the amount of things that I did to edit my choices based on the fact that I wanted to drink. And that’s not to say that I don’t still like refuse Dairy Queen and want to go to a great sandwich shop, but I’m not focused on the wine. I’m not focused on the alcohol. And I think that one of the most important things about if you stopped drinking with little kids is actually figuring out what you really disliked doing. And there are a lot of stuff that you know, as an adult who needs time to herself who needs downtime, and just not doing those and sort of compromising on like, I don’t need to do everything for my kids and then drink over it or drink during it. There is a really nice middle ground somewhere in there.

 

42:46

Yeah, and I feel like it’s that pressure, you know, that pressure that we are put, I mean, it’s put on us by the media and like the other Instagram, the people on Instagram, right that we’re seeing, we’re seeing where you’re putting your Elf on a Shelf. And we’re pressured to do that, too. I refuse. I’ve never, I do not, we do not have an elf on the shelf. I will not buy an elf on the shelf. You know, or like Susie’s cutting her kids sandwiches into little tiny dinosaur shapes. And then I’m pressured to do it. And I feel like I’m a bad mom, if I don’t. And so then I want to drink over, you know, like, like, no, stop putting so much pressure. Is your kid happy? Yeah, great. You know, like, they want to spend time with you. I mean, if you want to do the sandwiches, whatever, but like, you know, it’s just like, we put so much pressure on ourselves. 

 

And I think that’s a big thing that I noticed too when I quit was, like, just try to be content. You know, I don’t always need to be, I don’t like being busy. Now I’d like time to myself. It’s just a lot more calming. And I know that’s not the case for everybody. And it’s still like I said, not perfect. But you realize kind of what life is really about. Yeah, I feel like it’s like this thing, the secret. The secret, I always say a secret to life, kinda that I have figured out. And some of us have figured out, like, by removing the alcohol, it’s like opened up all these doors for us. You know, it’s increased our motivation and in our drive, just for life in general. Right? It’s not just like waking up every day, like, Oh, it’s another day of this life, you know? Yeah, it’s just changed everything.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  44:25

And you get to explore a lot more that you wouldn’t do because there was no app. Like, you open up your eyes to different things. But also, you’re right, like, just the tiny, tiny moments. You know, when I stopped drinking. My son would be like, Hey, do you want to just cuddle on the couch and watch Survivor or Ninja Warrior? And I was like, Yeah, that sounds so fun. But I did want to have this conversation because yeah, you know, joking about parenting and alcohol and how I was required for parenting can give us a really, really skewed idea, and normalize what we’re doing. And I’m not judging anyone for doing it. Like you guys know, if you listen to this, I was a bottle plus of wine a night, seven nights a week, 365 days a year. And I thought that was no big deal for a long time. For a long time, I was oblivious. For a long time, I was trying very consciously to just moderate it like, well, what if I just drink a bottle of wine three times a week? Like, that’s better than seven? You know, and I thought that everyone else did it. And that drinking nightly was just what people did. And I would talk to people, and they’d be like, Oh, no, you’re not that bad, you drink like I do. You have a stressful job here, have it, you know, here have a glass of reason. And I want to mention that this has consequences. It really does. And, you know, likely, if you’ve gone through the pandemic, and you’re listening to this, you’re drinking more than you used to women drinking heavily during the pandemic increased by 41%. And women with children under the age of five in the household, increase their alcohol consumption by 323%.

 

46:31

That’s just wild, dangerous.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  46:34

And not only is it real world consequences, in terms of the amount we’re consuming. This is what came out just a little while ago that alcohol related deaths soared 25%. In 2020, usually, the number of deaths year over year involving alcohol have an annual growth rate of 2.2%. So within that one year, the year before was 2.2, 2.3, you know, to the couple of years before, an increase of 25% in 2020, and the biggest jump of alcohol related deaths within people 25 to 44 years old. So these measures have been escalating faster for women, and it’s not car accidents, you know, necessarily, it’s issues with liver, it’s issues with heart, it’s cancer, you know, even one alcoholic drink per day can increase, contribute to an increased risk of breast cancer for women. That’s one drink a day. I was having like five to six, you know, and nobody talks about that.

 

47:51

No, no, but did you know that? I mean, did you know those? I mean, you know what I mean? Like we didn’t know that. I didn’t know that until I quit drinking. Right? In the moment of drinking. I had no idea because right, you’re right. Nobody’s talking about it. And I think more people are talking about it, we would see those studies that says like that, say, you know, a glass of wine a day is good for you, we’d see those studies that are probably funded by big alcohol companies. All right, absolute. Yeah, exactly. And so now, there’s a lot more of these other studies that are coming out and saying no, actually, it’s not. And I think just sharing those with our followers, sober or not, yeah, is just getting the word out there.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  48:39

You know, I think it is having an impact. So I think the tide is turning. There’s not only you know, the huge jump in non alcoholic beverage sales increased 33% in 2021, in 2020 to 35% of Americans stop drinking alcohol during dry January, which 35%, the year before was 23%. The sober, curious movement is growing by leaps and bounds. So people are realizing that this is problematic. And this isn’t the way to go. And I think every time a company comes out with a campaign to encourage drinking, or every time you hear someone in mom’s so hard joke about how much you need to drink or every time you see a molly sims or Gabrielle Union or whatever the celebrity is posting about parenting and drinking, I think you should say like these people are manipulating me. You know, they’re encouraging me to drink crazy amounts of a substance that causes cancer.

 

50:00

Yeah, and just ask why are they telling me this? Why are they posting this? You know, why are they talking about this? What are they getting out of it? You know, it’s not just, it’s not just for fun, right? They’re not just posting for fun.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  50:15

Yeah. Yeah. And I think the more we know, you know, the more you know, and it’s really, it’s good to look at that with a critical eye just to not agree, just to not accept it, without question, because that’s what we’ve done for so long. And it’s this like, circular firing squad of like, we absorb this information, we incorporate it in our life, and then we tell each other that that’s a solution. And that, you know, hey, you’re worried about your drinking? Don’t worry, you know, I drink like you do. Right?

 

50:56

It’s normal. We all do it. Yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  50:59

Well, so tell me if you are talking to a woman who is in a similar situation that you were in with alcohol, and they are struggling or going back and forth with stopping, what’s the best advice you would give them?

 

51:17

You know, I think it sometimes depends on like what kind of drinker you are. I mean, if someone’s drinking daily, and feels like they’re physically dependent on it, definitely to consult their medical professional first, like that is very dangerous to just quit out of, you know, just stopping cold turkey without any support. So I think that’s, that’s important to note, but I definitely suggest people to like, look for a therapist that maybe specializes in alcohol, or addictions. And that is a good avenue. But I also like, you know, I didn’t. I didn’t go to therapy. I didn’t, I didn’t have a coach, I didn’t have any groups, that many groups too, I joined some Facebook groups. And so that was, that was a thing. So I will, I will call them a couple of Facebook groups that I think are good that they can join, I will tell them to read This Naked Mind, because that’s the book that I read when I quit. And that one changed my life. 

 

And so I just feel like, also just letting them know that like, they don’t have to drink anymore. Like they don’t have to keep going through this cycle. Like you think you do? And it’s scary. Yes. But like, isn’t it worse to stay in this like miserable place that you’re in? Like, you’re obviously, you’ve already made the decision to reach out to me or to ask for help, like, you know, that you need to make a change, you know, there’s something wrong, you know, you want to fix something in your life, something’s not going, how you want it to go. And so what’s that change, you know, and so like, just kind of working them through, like, it’s more about almost like those moments like, well, this weekend is coming and like these little things that are coming up. And like, I feel like I have to drink tonight. And it’s like, no, plan something else, find something else. What are you going to do at five o’clock tonight, have a plan in place? Those kinds of things just to get through. I mean, there’s, it’s very situational dependent, you know, on like, specific advice, but we let alcohol control us, right, we’d like let it tell us when we’re relaxed, and when we’re happy. And if we’re having a good time. And if we’re, you know, popular at the party, because we’re drinking the wine or the, you know, the beer or whatever. But we just like we need to get back in control. And so quitting drinking is saying like, I am in control of my life, myself, I’m not letting that dictate whether or not I’m happy or relaxed, or any of those emotions that we’ve been using for at first for so long.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  53:43

Yeah, I think that’s great advice. And if people want to follow you, get in touch with you, what’s the best way for them to do that?

 

53:52

Yeah, so I’m on Instagram at sobrietyactivist, you can also find my writing and other interviews and things that I’ve done on my website, and that’s BlairSharp.com. And I’m also on Facebook, I just kind of posted my writing and things there. I don’t, you know, write a lot of meaningful things. I just post like things that I’ve written. But that’s just Blair Sharp – Writer. So you can follow me on there. I’m also on medium. I just joined medium. So that’s at Blair Sharp, if you want to follow my writing there as well.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  54:25

That’s great. And I’ll put links to all of those in the show notes so people can follow you and get in touch with you. Thank you so much for coming on. I think this topic’s really important.

 

54:37

Yeah, I agree. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.