SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, sober, book, feel, cycles, sobriety, sober year, season, winter, transition, resting, piece, alcohol, kate, autumn, sensory, journal, perimenopause

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Kate Baily

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a buzz, how to sit with your emotions when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

 

01:21

Hi there. Today I’m talking to one of my favorite guests Kate Baily, who is an ICF accredited trauma informed integrated sobriety and behavioral life coach specializing in sobriety holistic wellbeing for women in midlife, perimenopause, transition and stress management. Kate co-authored two books Love Yourself Sober and Love Your Sober Year and is the co-founder of Love Sober. 

 

You might remember Kate and her partner at Love Sober and co-author of Love Yourself Sober and Love Your Sober Year, Mandy who were on my podcast in Episode 47 talking about Love Yourself Sober: Self Care Guide for Busy Moms Going Alcohol Free. So if you want to check out that episode, you can go to HelloSomedayCoaching.com/47. But today we’re here to talk about Kate and Mandy’s book Love Your Sober Year. And Kate, I’m excited to have you on again.

 

02:27

Hi, Casey. So nice to see you again. Thanks for having me on,

 

02:33

Of course and we were lucky enough to meet in person at She Recovers Miami, which was awesome because we knew each other before from the podcast and sobriety world.

 

02:45

I know and I’ve just got these memories of us dancing. I’ve got a great selfie. I don’t know.

 

02:52

I’ve seen it. Okay, send it, you need to shoot it to me after this. That would be awesome. It’s so cool the way you get to meet really awesome women in all different countries in sort of the sober and podcasting world. So that’s so cool. All right, well today we’re here to talk about your new book, which I love. It is, first of all, absolutely gorgeous. And I love the concept of the book in terms of the different seasons of sobriety and how to walk women through what to do with different seasons, of weeks within the seasons and times of year because I do feel like it really helps whether you’re stopping drinking in the spring or the winter to have something to ground you and to kind of be like okay, this is the season of recovery.

 

03:51

Yeah, stick the tools, they’re tools for, like you say, grounding and some structure and context. And Mandy and I, we just, as we went along in our sober journey, I was very aware that things feel very cyclical. I mean life is cyclical, we all orbit, we orbit the moon, we orbit the sun. But that whole, there are, the seasons are cyclical, the days and nights flow into each other, touched by transitions based on dusk and dawn. We are these seasonal beings, seasonal creatures and I do feel like there is a need to update the sober toolkit to accommodate that. Whatever that season is like you said.

 

04:42

Yeah, and tell us, just to start, about the book, about why you created it and why you created it in the way that you did.

 

04:53

Yes, we have always been really passionate. When we set up Love Sober to, and in our own sober journeys, to honor the kind of female journey, the female experience. And I’ve certainly had this coming, I’ve been about nine months on this, on the sober path, or sorry, nine years on the sober path. And certainly when we were, when I was starting out, it very much felt like there was still the old kind of recovery language. And it just didn’t, it didn’t speak to me, it didn’t vibe with me. It didn’t. I felt like it was too masculine in a way. Yeah, written by men for men a million years ago, right. So, and we’ve talked about this. So I have always felt like it needed a gender piece. It needed this kind of yeah, female sense of what it is to be living as a female in the 21st century. 

 

But also we kind of without, the more I’ve gone on, it’s almost like without ancient physiology and physiognomy, the idea of the fact that we experience things somatically. We are cyclical beings. We have our periods, our menstrual cycles, and we go through periods such as mother transitions, we go through two perimenopause and menopause transitions. And it seemed to me and Mandy, that there was a cyclical sense, that there were also trigger times that were cyclical, and there were difficulties around those. So for example, when you have when you transition into motherhood, that the mental health issues and drinking can spike, the same of perimenopause and menopause. And so we said, okay, there must be, there must be something in there, must be something in this. And so if we get to grips with the cycles of life and the seasons, and we can call out the difficulties, we can also celebrate the strength of those, and the joy of that. So it’s like, if we’ve got the tools, we can thrive. 

 

But in essence, that’s, that was the idea behind the book, and also this lush, right? You know, like autumn, I’m looking at the leaves, I’m looking at the beautiful leaves and getting the knitwear on and it’s like, Oh, it feels rich. That’s the thing that we want sober life to be celebration and to be rich. And for me, a real root in that is nature, the season in the census.

 

07:26

I think it’s so important in terms of your identity piece too. One of the things you talked about that resonated with me is there are the seasons of the year, and there’s also sort of seasons of our lives. And I know, there was a big difference between when I was in my early 20s and dating, versus late 20s, and living with my now husband, and then as a couple, as a young mom, as someone transitioning into her 40s. And one of the things I always talk about with my clients is you are able to evolve and you should evolve. Like, looking forward to something and transformation is exciting, you get to decide how you want to shift your identity and what’s powerful and positive for you. And I think grounding yourself, especially in early sobriety when it’s so tender, and also a lot of it is trying to figure out what to do with yourself week by week, what to look forward to, is really helpful. 

 

When I was looking through the book, I really enjoyed how you talked about sort of spring being about restore and growth and preparation and the foundations, and reignite being summer, rewrite being autumn, talking about release and maintenance, rewriting the stories of your habits, which is such a great time if you’re a mom, if the kids go back to school. Even though my kids are in camp all summer, like it’s so hectic, everyday is different that getting sort of, when you talk about rewriting the story of your habits and behavior and sustainable tools, I feel like that’s so much easier to do when you’ve got some more of a routine. And then rest in winter, talking about reorganization and contemplation and resting in order to integrate wisdom. I mean, I think that’s so good and so important and just the idea of contemplation as we lead into the new year and thinking about what we want for ourselves.

 

09:48

And it’s so important, isn’t it, to respect that rest piece because we’re not encouraged to as women, but we’re also, there’s that kind of produce, produce, produce, go, go, go, go, 24/7 piece. A very linear, like high dopamine, high reward, go go. And it’s like, we are all living like with frazzled nervous systems. And we have to, we sort of, I think it was Mandy said you’ve got to respect the boss flow. It’s such a great phrase. And it’s like, there is so much wisdom in the cycles of nature, it literally shows us how to behave. It’s only the code of society that kind of gets in the way. And I think that sort of reclaiming the winter and obviously going into that winter season through the autumn, and how many clients and people are seeing so far, I’m so worried about that frenetic pace towards Christmas, you know. Obviously, in the States, you’ve got Thanksgiving, then you’ve got Advent, you’ve got Christmas, you’ve got New Year. And actually, we are supposed to huddle, we’re supposed to connect. But we also are supposed to be resting. 

 

It’s like, we have a rich history in Europe, of that kind of feasting in midwinter. But maybe it would have been like one thing, it wouldn’t have been like Christmas dinner, office parties, night out with the moms then do all the stuff with the kids, take them ice skating, go to see Santa, it’s too much. And we get really depleted. And if we get too depleted and we get triggered, we’re gonna try and dial down on our systems, right? Like we’re going to drink to try and take the edge off or celebrate or shoehorn ourselves into having that bit more energy. And actually, our bodies are kind of going, you know, what we’re nature is resting, we need to hear, we need to slow down or respect that, to hear the wisdom, if you like, our wisdom.

 

11:50

Yeah, yeah. And you know what’s so interesting, as we’re heading into winter, when this podcast is originally released, I wanted to dive into that a little bit. And as I looked through your book, it was really interesting to me, because I just created a sort of bonus course, in my Sobriety Starter Kit, about going through your alcohol free holiday season, and figuring out how you want to feel this season. What do you love to do? What do you look forward to every year? What triggers you, what’s hard to get through without drinking, and figuring out how you want to look at this season in a new way? And as I look at winter for your journal section, you talk about that, too. What do you want to feel this winter? What matters most to you? When do I feel most happy, calm and joyful? And that’s one of the reasons I love talking to you, because I feel like our approaches are really similar in terms of how to approach life without alcohol in a really positive and joyful and nurturing way, even though we know that the process of giving up alcohol is difficult.

 

13:15

Yeah, yeah. I know, I agree as well. I did. I had a really salient point and it’s completely gone out of my head. But yeah. And it’s so important, isn’t it that, like you said that reframe it, but reframe for me is like, the mindset is really important but we’ve got to have those small kind of bodily somatic stress.

 

13:43

Yes. So talk to me about that for the winter.

 

13:45

Yeah. Okay. So what we realized is that so, sort of slightly pulling back, but yeah, we looked at various behavioral models. So there’s a kind of almost like a theoretical framework to the book, which pulls on different models and behavioral models. So we’ve got the, we’ve got the behavior change that can have, I can never say it, the Prochaska DiClemente model, of the addictive behaviors so you’ve got like pre contemplation, when we say that sort of starts before. And then you’ve got contemplation, which is like in the, in the spring, when we’re starting to kind of think about some of these things. And then we’ve got, you go through to action, you go through to maintenance, and you go through to release. And then hopefully, if you’re working with that, and you’ve got the right support, and you’re evolving with that maintenance piece, you’re not going to then relapse or go through recurrence. There’s that side of it. 

 

And then we looked at, like we have in the book, the Pinakothek cycle, which is the cycle of nature. We looked at that as well. That is that kind of growth, spring exploitation, I think they call it their maintenance, release and rest, death and regeneration. So we’ve got that and then we looked at the stress, you know, the fight, flight, freeze and foreign responses. We looked at those. 

 

So we felt that, so we looked at form in spring because it felt like quite a, like a Bambi spring, that kind of how we might adapt and not stand up for ourselves and what might be happening in the form response. Then in summer, summer’s full of energy and feminine figure, so we’re maintaining that and we looked at the fight response in that. Then autumn, we looked at flight, like the leaves for layers. And then we go into winter, which we looked at the freeze response, as well, as we were trying to pull together the essence of some of the different models, that very much goes into the kind of Cymatics piece of, of what’s happening, how is the structure in my body? How am I dysregulated? And then, what tools do I need to soothe to rest? 

 

And for me, the tools around Cymatics in the winter could be simply like, yes, there’s resting, sleeping more. Yes. Also, diary is weapon of choice, right? So it’s like, literally block out the diary coming off your deck, you almost need to create a woman cave around yourself to stop the madness. So you’ve got this kind of theoretical approach, should be. Then you’ve got the kind of journaling tools and the kind of more orderly sort of, yeah, tips and tools for resting and restoring.

 

16:38

And so in that way, it’s interesting, because you’re almost teaching in the book each season, something that could be applied at any time of the year, right dealing with the freeze response, how to respond to that. And I assume part of that is because there’s so much to take in at any one time in terms of everything from habit change to the body to psychological to coping mechanism, is that right? Is that why you sort of broke it up?

 

17:13

It is. Yeah, exactly. And the roots of sort of cycles, many cycles without, with a bigger cycle of, for example, you might experience freeze response at a certain point in your cycle, or your menstrual cycle, and you’re having that throughout a 28 day cycle, not just through the winter. So, but it was almost like pulling together. Yeah, the sort of the sense and the essence and finding it, if you like. So you can definitely like, dip in and out. You could use it chronologically, like you say throughout the year. Or you can just think “what am I feeling?” right? What if I’ve got a sense of, am I feeling really frickin activated and angry? And it’s like, right, go to summer, you’ll see the index and you can pop into summer. And you can read that, those tools there. Yeah.

 

18:00

If someone buys this book, how do you recommend that people move through it? Should they start at the season they’re in? Do you like some other way?

 

18:14

I would. I would start at the season that you’re in. I would also say, this isn’t necessarily a “quit book.” This is more like if you’ve got sober time and you want that piece of personal development or you want to dive a bit deeper. This is, it’s not really the early habit change mindset, boot camp talk that sometimes needs to happen, you know? Where it’s all that psych-ed and that like, this is where fake costs and you start paying in sweat, and some of the equipment is really like that. It’s like, let’s cut the bullshit. And let’s just be really clear about it. 

 

Yeah. 

 

So this is much more that kind of holistic, supporting you on your sober journey. If you’ve got, and I’ve had a friend who’s now six years sober, she’s just like, she’s feeling a bit flat. She’s like, I love it. It’s for wherever you are on the sober journey. And to answer your question and not go off on my tangent like I tend to do, I would say I would use it how you want but it’s a great way to treat yourself to something. Yeah, if you want to feel kind of well, if you want to feel cozy in autumn. Yeah, like dive into autumn. Yeah, go large on autumn. Right.

 

19:27

What I think is that, I think it’s so important to keep moving forward no matter where you are, and find things that keep you grounded and bring you those small joys. I mean, I remember when I stopped drinking in February, I went to the gym often because they had a kids club where I put my kids in for two hours and went into the hot tub, in the steam room, and that for me was really lovely to have that sensory, quiet experience. You know, I got to the spring and I joined a group of women who were all alcohol free in a Facebook group and we did like a photo of the day where for each day of the month, there was a cue, like green or in my kitchen, or whatever it was. And that was really lovely because I was suddenly looking around with the green shoes I had on and taking a picture of them and the gravel and looking up at the trees above me. And it sounds silly, but I like the way in your journal, you really kind of give folks something to focus on. Like, in week two of the spring, you talk about setting your intention and seed wishes. And I just think that you almost always need something to look forward to for continued growth. So regardless of if you’re in month three or year three, habit ritual learning, doing something for yourself that’s outside of work and home, it’s so useful.

Casey McGuire Davidson 

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 

21:11

Yeah, I love that. And thank you for bringing it up because I think that setting intentions and seed wishes is a real kind of theme throughout. And that is the point that I was going to come back to what you were talking about earlier, about your resource that you created for the holiday season, because it’s a, this is about intentional living. It’s about clearing the space, calling time on alcohol, and then setting about saying “how do I want to feel? How do I want things to look?” and it’s about intentional living. 

 

And like you said, the way that we can do that is intentions, reflections. Yeah, the journaling, being aware of our cycles and our stresses and being kind of present and mindful, to see the joy and the beauty. And so there’s this kind of mixture of kind of pull back, focus in, pull back, focus in, that I feel that the seasons and the rhythms, the bigger rhythms of life, offer. Because we can say, wow, it’s a beautiful day out there, and then we’ll notice the dew on a leaf. And it will be like, if I was hungover, I would not be thinking about that sparkly leaf, that’s for sure. So it is, it’s like bringing those, that attention to the sort of treasures that are there, you know, and how frickin lucky are we to be able to see them, feel them, enjoy them? And it doesn’t feel like at the beginning, does it? It doesn’t feel like that at the beginning. But we have to be encouraged, I think.

 

22:47

Yeah. I mean, in my mind, sort of like the beginning, let’s be clear, is just about not drinking and physically taking care of yourself and navigating all, every new situation without alcohol and figuring out what you think and what you’re going to say and all that kind of stuff. And then after I went through that my second phase was just okay, I stopped drinking, I now have all this sort of extra empty time and space. So how do I want to filter in new things to fill that? New interests? Anything. Books, hobbies, exercise routines. My year two of sobriety was all about joy. Like I was just doing, I got kittens that were a little Siberian tabbies at 12 weeks old. I mean, they were just pure love. And going on trips that were just really fun and redoing my bedroom to be this sanctuary space and building out my garden, right? Year two was all joy. And for me year three was about like, growth and transformation. Like I was like, You know what, I don’t think I like my digital marketing corporate job, maybe it’s time to go back to coaching school, maybe it’s time to do whatever. And I love how you do that for people in this book in a seasonal weekly way in terms of exploration but in also a really gentle space.

 

24:31

Thank you and yeah, I love that and I do think things land differently, don’t they, as well because you can go round to evolution. You can go through, you can read some information and you can read it again two years later and it lands totally differently. Because we are constantly sort of evolving and adding and adding things in and I, for me, like you said, because this is evolution, I very much need patterns and structures and rhythms to ground me. And they’re like sticks in the sand so that I can, it’s almost like if you put, if I was doing a personal blog, I did train as a personal performance coach, but if I was doing personal performance coach speak, I’d be like, that’s the way of managing progress and tracking progress. Which it is, right, um, but it’s kind of a very, um, what’s the word, sort of a very sweet word, sort of very sensual, like sensual way of relating.

 

25:35

It is sensual. Like, that’s what I was trying to express in this book. I mean, it’s visually beautiful. And you, anyone listening to this, you just have to look up this book. And is the official title Love Your Sober Year, is that what it’s called?

 

25:52

It is, yeah. I’ve got it here. 

 

Oh, it’s beautiful. It’s very tactical, like it’s, it’s blue. And on the cover, there’s all these sort of gold inlay of the moon and the stars, like it does feel very sensual with all the drawings in it as well. And it’s very feminine, which I love and sort of ethereal.

 

26:18

It’s almost like sort of, so the blue and that gold remind me of, if you ever seen that sort of Byzantines art like the drawers, you know, the lapis, with the gold and I would say actually feels really precious, but precious and practical. And they did such a great job. The illustrators did a beautiful job and I think how sobriety is precious. And we, it should feel precious. And I haven’t seen many books out there that actually reflect that. Really brilliant, informative, badass. Yeah, all the rest of it. And actually, we’re really, I’m really, really proud of it. Because I feel like why it’s on the site. Yes, we did good.

 

27:04

And in each season, you go through sort of the 13 weeks of the season, and then the equinox or the solstice, and ritual and reflection. But you also go through in weeks one and two and three sort of the similar categories or practices or areas. But more each season has a different piece. So you talk about cultivating sober space, and then bossing your environment and then stress cycle and the art of social and ritual. But in each one, it’s different in terms of what you sort of, dive into or think about in the winter versus the spring versus the fall, which I love.

 

27:51

Yeah, it is, we wanted to do that. I mean, the way Mandy and I worked really well together because I tend to just write, like I think she would say I’m really creative, and she’s very practical. So I would come up with all the ideas and then she would say Well, that’s a theme that would go with that theme so cycles and sobriety, Yeah, week three, cycles and sobriety. Week three, summer. Cycles and sobriety with autumn. But we’d look at the different ones that felt like they fit with the vibe of the season. Yeah, you’re absolutely right and yeah, and there’s a ritual section, there’s a school of life section which might be deeper reflective tools that you can add in, and also the emotional toolkit we’ve got so in the spring understanding the hunger trigger so it’s hungry, angry, lonely, tired for those, so the anger trigger in the summer, I can’t see it, in the yeah, so the lonely trigger in the autumn and the tired one in the winter. So we just broke down, the yeah, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. See what season it fit in with

 

29:03

Yeah. And so is this meant to go along at all with your Love Yourself Sober book or is it sort of a completely separate toolkit?

 

29:13

I personally feel that Love Yourself Sober was a real sort of, create a curve for moms. It was like you know what, let’s call, let’s call BS on all this stuff. So it was very much to do with that early stressed out motherhood piece, through the sober lens, and that’s what it was called. It was called A Self Care Guide to Alcohol for Busy Mothers. This one is, my friend that just just got it and she was six years sober, she doesn’t have children. I feel like this is a real, every woman book. And it also very much speaks to that kind of 40 airy menopausal, going through that transition. When we are a bit more reflective and when we need to go through another transition. So I would say it’s really perfectly placed, it kind of reflects where I’m at in my life, where Mandy is in her life and you just kind of write from where you’re at a time, don’t you? So I’d say we’ve moved on. We’ve moved on a little bit from, from that early motherhood raw. Yeah. Something a little bit more reflective.

 

30:23

No, I love that. That’s beautiful. Was there any part of this work that you felt was more important than another?

 

30:35

I feel like it’s important to say that. So this is very beautiful. As we said, it’s a beautiful book. It’s a book of this book. But in the, when we wrote the after, the aftermath, whatever it’s called, the postscript. Yes, we felt it was very important to say because, you know, you can get into that sort of competitive spirituality and beautification of life. And essentially, all of this is about resilience. It’s about results, about tools, intentional living, watching our stress levels, having beautiful stuff and treating ourselves like the goddesses that we are. But it’s essentially about self leadership and resilience so that we don’t go back to drinking. 

 

Yes. 

 

Now when we wrote this, we wrote this either side of a Brexit fitted Europe in England, where it was COVID, it was like, what we’ve personally, what we went through, in my family, in Mandy’s it was bereavement, it was redundancy,, literally, it was like all that.

 

31:39

A Hellstorm, shit show, a dumpster fire and whatever.

 

31:49

It really was. And we said, we used every, it looks beautiful, we used every single one of these tools in the book to survive the last two years as we were writing this book. We just wanted to lay that one out there, you know.

 

32:03

Yeah, yeah. And one of the parts that I love is the sensory toolkit. And for those of you who of course, do not have this book in front of you, in different sections, it talks about soothing health is self soothing, with sensory toolkits, so sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, but also, what are some of the tools whether they are essential oils and specific ones, or taste different tastes that that help or touch so stroking animals, cozy knit blankets. I have to say, my entire family, I, my absolute favorite is this ivory mink faux fur blanket that’s so warm and heavy. And we joke about it because when I get under it, like I don’t move until I have to go to the restroom, like does not happen. And so we have let’s see, three. One on my bed, two downstairs and my son and daughter keep stealing it. And it is, I was like, Okay, we need to get another one for Christmas because it’s ridiculous, but just that cozy blanket and it’s very sensory because when we drink that’s sensory too.

 

33:20

Yeah, yeah, that’s it. And yeah, the sensory toolkit is lovely and you don’t necessarily need a million things you just need the things that work. So for you, your blanket and it’s identifying and being curious about that. You know, what lights me up, what suits me, and I have a similar thing, we could go into all the chemicals in the brain. Yeah. But essentially, I found out really recently I have yoga bolsters, you know, those big fat bolsters using it in yoga for restorative yoga. I don’t know how I put it in bed, but I have it in bed with me and I realized that, my poor husband.. 

 

Is your husband like what the hell, are you actually building a wall?

 

34:03

Now I’m going to, I’m in perimenopause. I was like how clear do I want to make this? No but, and I found that if I put up a barrier and I have my back to it, I have it on my back. If I have things against my back it’s incredibly soothing and I drop off to sleep like a baby. Yeah, so it’s about having things that are proprioception and it’s against my back and it is what I need, you know? I need someone to be stroking my back or a bolster against my back and then yeah, like a little kid myself.

 

34:39

I totally get that and I know for some people it’s weighted blankets to just feel that soothing and I’ve talked to sleep experts on the podcast, talking about how a cool environment with a warm blanket is the type, like you actually want it cooler than you think, as long as your warm, to help you sleep well. It’s, it’s so interesting to me just, we think that drinking helps us relax. And there are so many physical ways, whether it’s a bath or a shower or candles, smells, that you can truly sort of nurture your senses, which helps your nervous system, that aren’t going to leave you with anxiety and crap sleep and a hangover.

 

35:30

It’s right and it’s so empowering, it’s very good for our confidence to know that we’ve got practical tools to use and knowing the ones that work I think and, and like you said that a lot of this the dis, a lot of women are drinking because of dysregulation in the nervous system. So yes, to have tools, like obviously, we can work different ways, but part of that outside, in, self care and those external resources we can use, really do, they’re doing that, ah, that you, you know, that I used to think at the end of the day when I ran towards that, like glass bottle, straight bottle of wine. And it’s like, okay, of course you’re gonna still want that, that’s you wanting to climb down through the gears again, transitions, right? From busy, busy work to trying to come into a more resting state, we’re gonna have to move, we’re gonna have to transition. So we need tools for transition, which are the, some of those sensory ones on a walk or getting out in nature, your blanket, my bolster, whatever, and it’s about experimenting, isn’t it? And being curious. And then when you find that thing, oh, it’s so empowering for people. And it’s a relief, right? It’s like, it’s a relief. I don’t because for ages, I was also, there was this kind of narrative that somehow you have to sit with your feelings? And I’m like, why would I want to do that? I want to feel better. So it’s not about just having to go, Right, I’ve just got to sit here, be miserable. Sit with my feelings. It’s like, actually, no, what I prefer is I have a need that I need to identify. And then I need to meet that need. Yeah,

 

37:11

I always say that if you want to drink, first hunger, right? Are you hungry? But after that, it’s like, why? What are you feeling? And the work is to identify it, and then to sooth that or meet that need in some different way. Like that’s the work. 

 

That’s the work, isn’t it? 

 

Yeah. But it’s good work. Because we get kind of lazy with drinking. It’s like, bored, angry, happy, whatever. It’s just, easy button is drink, drink, drink. And there’s a whole universe of ways to meet your need. Physical, emotional, all the needs.

 

Yeah, and how exciting is that?

 

Yeah.

 

37:55

I know, I must say if someone had said that to me in my first couple, my first few weeks and months of sobriety, I’d just be like, What are you going on about?

 

38:05

You know, it’s funny, I was talking to one of my clients the other day, and she’s a couple months sober. And she’s like, I just want that dopamine hit, I want that buzz. I want that. That excitement. And we were brainstorming, and she was like, we were like a roller coaster. And how you just hit that like deep like, gesture, Rush and fear and joy and whatever. And she’s like, well, there is a Six Flags about an hour from me. So she’s gonna go there and ride the roller coaster. And I’m like, amazing, do that. It was that or skydiving but skydiving felt a bit much. It works. So Six Flags is fun.

 

38:47

I love that. I love that. And it is, it is. I think it’s really empowering. I mean, in the, we do talk about that in the book, we talk about the neurotransmitters, the dopamine, the serotonin, the acetylcholine and all of that, that stuff. And I think it is very, it’s very gratifying to have that proper, good quality information, that kind of psycho Ed and then the feelgood factor of how we get it and that more sort of sensory, like we said, sensual approach in so we’ve got the idea. We have got that, sort of the head of knowledge, and we’ve got the body knowledge, and we’ve got the heart knowledge that we can work with, because we need all of it, don’t we? Yeah.

 

39:33

Yeah, absolutely. And it’s interesting, too. I feel like for me, and it’s actually before you even stopped drinking. I mean, it’s so funny for me like you have work, you have life, you have vacations, and then you always kind of go into a period where you’re really, at least for me was focused on something I mean, when you think about like, wedding planning, and then you go buy a house and then remodel the house, right? I mean, you just dive into all the things and then having kids and raising kids. And now I find myself like, I just bought all this stuff on calligraphy, and learning how to do calligraphy because my kids need to learn how to do script. So I thought it would be kind of fun for me as well, because my handwriting is terrible. And then I reconnected with my guitar teacher who I took lessons from for five years, but it was 14 years ago. It was before my son was born. And so just this weekend, I was like, Yeah, let’s do it again. And so I feel like just all of those habits and interests and things like that are really helpful. And they do go in cycles. So I feel like this. This book encourages people to start something small and tactical, just for you.

 

41:00

Yeah, it is. And it’s that sort of, say creating space, creating space and slowing down. And I think when we do that, we’ve got half a chance. And also, if we’re not drinking, we’ve got half a chance of, of getting a sense of what we want. Yeah, what we want to fill our time with, or what we want to explore. And I love that it’s, like the poet Mary Oliver, that quote of hers, “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”  And that for me is, is there, you know? That’s so at the heart of it. Yeah, the big It.

 

41:45

Absolutely. And so in a lot of this book you talk about weekly for your journal, and different topics to write about in your journal. Are women, or anyone reading this book, just getting their own journal, and this is a companion piece to it?

 

42:05

Yeah, maybe the journal will be the next project that we’ll do, the publishers. But for now, yeah, just, I would suggest, I liked the idea of the morning pages. I’ve got quite a few journals. So I like the idea of the way, that you’ve got the weekly, the reflections, the journaling prompts. There’s also a section in there that’s around the moon, the moon cycles and the different means of the year. Now I find moon journaling really lovely. So setting intentions on the new moon and reflecting on the full moon.

 

42:42

Will you tell us about that? I know nothing about the cycle.

 

42:47

So it sounds really woo but basically 13 moons in a year. Okay, so the lunar calendar is 30 months, the solar calendar, the Gregorian calendar, as we know, it’s the 12 months. But so far the moon’s, obviously the, you’ve got the, if you’re interested in all that woo stuff, it’s got the links with the feminine, the mother, the maiden, the crone and all that. That’s, it’s a very sort of traditionally in loads of different cultures, that’s, that’s the female parts, the masculine is the solar part, right. 

 

But for me, on a purely practical level, I find setting intentions and doing reflections every day too much. I find it onerous. In my week, I even find it sometimes, sometimes it’s a bit hit and miss. But the original rhythm of the moon is a bi weekly one, and I see a more overarching narrative with that. That helps me, it suits my, the way I work to be like, I look back at two weeks. So I was setting the intention in the beginning, then two weeks later, you’ve got a full moon. So you reflect on it, and then you decide what you’re gonna let go off. And then you sort of release it, and then you’re into the new moon again, or new like Okay, so with the new moon, you’ve got the energy growing, what do I want to bring forward? What do I want to focus on this month? And I just find it really works for me. You could do that. There’s a bit of a section in the book about that. Or there’s just the more kind of weekly, we’ll look at the topic and then we’ll just reflect on that and we’ll do some exploration about that. It’s really about like what works for you. Have as many journals as you want. Have a moon journal, a sun journal, have a weekly journal, have an angry journal where you just write all the stuff you don’t want anyone to read and then burn it. Go mad for tea journaling.

 

44:45

Well, by the way, if anyone’s listening to this, and they’ve had journals for years, and I’ve had clients who do this, who look back and are like, Oh my god, 10 years ago, five years ago, I was writing about how I need to get my drinking under control, or I’m worried about my drinking. And I just want you to pause for a moment. And imagine how lovely it will be to have a journal filled with all these exercises and forward looking and reflections that are not about being angry at yourself or berating yourself. That you, you know, you’re, you’re sad or disappointed or scared or whatever. So I think that’s a really lovely new cycle to start cuz I can’t tell you how many women have told me, Oh, my God, my journals for years are this endless cycle of, you know?

 

45:40

It’s time for a new cycle. 

 

It is. It’s time for a new cycle. Yeah. And it’s nice to have a guide. It really is. 

 

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s a really good point that we really recognize the sort of downward spiral and the negative spirals. But that like you say, this is a way to work with positive, positive spirals, positive cycles and seeing your patterns in a nurturing, positive, positive way and God, you’re so right. You are so, I still have, I’ve held on to a couple of my old ones just yeah, just cuz.

 

46:21

Yeah. A good reminder. 

 

Yeah. Yeah, but not, but not dwelling there.

 

It’s not, it’s not worth it to go back. And that life is better, even when you quit drinking and life’s not perfect. Like you said, the, between COVID and just regular life, and family and marriage and, you know, politics and everything else. But it is, it is really helpful to ground yourself in the things you can control and shifting habits and changing behaviors in a self care way.

 

46:59

Yeah, yeah. And it’s almost like, that just, you’ve just made me think. That I suppose the, where, where I’m thinking about the book and the tools and the lovely, the beautiful, and the gorgeous that there is, it’s like, when life is good, we have the clarity and the intention and the tools to really thrive and love it. And when the shit hits the fan, we have the resilience to ride it out.

 

47:30

Yeah, I love that. Well, so if someone’s listening to this, anything you want to make sure that they take away from this conversation?

 

47:37

Good question. I think, I mean, in terms of general sobriety, if like, if you’re, if you’re sober curious, for example, keep that curiosity and keep trying things. Just keep trying things, reach out, get connected, and kind of know, I think, Okay, I think I’ve got it. I think it’s about hope, I think hope is so important. And whether that’s people lend you hope, because you see people further down the sober path, and you think, Oh, actually, it will get better. And every one of us, I, tell me if I’m wrong, but every one of us has thought, yeah, they can do it bu there’s no way I can quit drinking. And yet you do. And you get that, you get that one day, and then you find that tool that works. And you find the people you vibe with. It’s just that don’t, don’t give up hope. Just just keep going. Keep trying. It’s hard. And then yeah, then you get to you get share your hope with people, you know?

 

48:41

Yeah. And keep adding tools and support and resources and new practices. Because there’s not one of us who, I know this is true for Kate, I know it’s true for me, because we’ve talked about it, who hasn’t had many tries where it didn’t work. And then one, one day, you just put one foot in front of the other and keep going and suddenly it’s seven, nine years later. I mean, I know we both had a period of time alcohol free and then went back to drinking. And if anyone’s listening to this, don’t do that. Because, keep adding tools, because all I did was delay. Delay feeling better and moving on to the growth period of life. But if you have done that, or you are doing that, don’t think that you can’t succeed because both Kate and I had that experience many times.

 

49:41

Yeah.

 

49:45

Well, thank you so much for being here. Do you want to share how people can find you and follow you and all about your podcast? 

 

Yeah, sure.The easiest way to find me is at lovesober.com. There are courses, there’s a small community, but I do run courses and one to one coaching there. The way to find Mandy is MandyManners.com. So you can find out what she does there. She does, that’s her coaching site. On Instagram, yeah it’s just @LoveSober. @LoveSober.CIC on Instagram. Facebook page is Love Sober. Yeah so, but really the easiest way is the website and then the books you can get from wherever you get your books from. By the time this podcast comes out it will be available in the states and it’s already out in New Zealand and the UK and Australia. 

 

50:36

Yeah, I can’t wait to get my physical copy. I pre ordered it ages ago. And it’s so beautiful. I don’t buy every book, but I wanted to have this one.

 

50:46

I can’t believe we’ve not set you one. I have to get the publishers to send you one. 

 

50:53

Yes, send me one. I ordered it. I’ll give away an extra copy to someone I love.

 

51:00

Yeah, we’ll do that. Definitely.

 

51:04

Very cool. Well, thank you for being here. This has been lovely.

Casey McGuire Davidson  51:16