SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, trip, sobriety, Margaret, Casey, god, felt, sober, travel, talking, Ingrid, Provence, Megan, wine, home, incredible, night, thought, people, day, alcohol-free, quit drinking, sober, sober travel, with friends, retreats, recovery, early sobriety, sober Facebook group, drink of choice, beer, non-alcoholic, recovery, go with a plan, quit drinking

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Megan, Ingrid Miller, Margaret Ward 

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.

Hey there.

 

Today is an unusual episode, because I brought 3 of my very good friends on the show to talk about a trip we just took to Provence.

 

This was an almost 2 week trip. We had a fantastic time, and it was my first trip that wasn’t a retreat with girlfriends who were also sober, and these are women who you’ll hear. Well, we’ve known each other for a number of years. Not all of us knew each other, but also we all got to know each other because we quit drinking, and we’re part of those communities that you find online where people connect.

 

So, I’m excited to get started with Margaret. So, Margaret, welcome. Can you just tell us who you are, how many years alcohol-free you are? All that good stuff?

 

Margaret Ward  02:18

Yeah, sure. Hi, Casey. It’s nice to see you. After I feel like we went through a little withdrawal, actually, not seeing each other after being together for so long. My name is Margaret. I live in Connecticut. This August, I’ll be celebrating 7 years sober. Now I already forgot. What else you wanted to know about me that that’s the main step.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  02:35

I mean, anyone who’s listening to this show, should. I’ll put it in the show notes, but Margaret’s been on the show twice. One we were talking about running for recovery, and the second time we were talking about sober travel, because you used to run alcohol-free retreats for women all around the world. So, this episode is about sort of a recap of what sober travel was like. But if you want all the best tips and advice, you should listen to the episode I did with Margaret. All right, Ingrid, what about you?

 

Ingrid  03:09

My name is Ingrid. Very glad to be here. I really did go through withdrawal. I agree. It’s been hard not being with you all. Let’s see. I live in Seattle, Washington. I am a little over 8 years sober from alcohol and cigarettes. I always forget to mention that, and let’s see, might as well put a little plug for my bookstore. I have a bookstore in bury in Washington, and I weirdly have a travel career, travel advertising, but it has almost zero bearing on my own personal travel adventure, so I won’t go into that at all. And it was just such, such, such a joy to travel with the 3 of you.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  03:53

Yeah? So, you can have a hard time 2 weeks ago, right?

 

Ingrid  04:18

So, I’m definitely in withdrawal, and have to admit, I’ve had a little trouble transitioning back to real life and real work since our vacation. Um, yeah, so all of a sudden, everybody wants things from me, and I’m like, but where is our here? is our road trip? to the lavender. And where’s our castle, my Hill? Where’s

my croissant? Yeah. Why?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  04:23

Yes. So, Ingrid’s also been on the show twice before, which is awesome. We met very early in sobriety in an online sober Facebook group, which is hard to believe that, like some of your best friends, can come out of there. But we met when you were just getting sober Ingrid, and I was not much further along, because I am only 60 days ahead of you. We met 8 years ago, so that’s crazy. You’ve been on the show talking about finding friends in sobriety, which was one of my first episodes, and then one on Sugar and Early Sobriety, and so I’ll link to those as well. All right, Megan, let’s go to you.

 

Megan  05:09

Hi, I’m Megan. I’m five years sober, and let’s see. Casey was my Sober Coach back in the day, how I got hooked up with this wonderful group of people. And then I knew about Margaret from her trips and wanting to go on one of those. And then I just had the pleasure of meeting Ingrid on our trip. So yeah, I was really excited and really intimidated to go with you guys, but it’s been just wonderful. And yes, I miss just having people around all the time to talk to. That was such a gift, you know, to like, step out of my role in the family and regular life and just hang out with you guys for the week. So, yeah, good to be here.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  05:52

Megan, it was super brave of you to come on the trip with the 3 of us. Obviously, you and I knew each other really well because we’d been working together since like, pretty early in your sobriety. I can’t remember whether you were at like, 30 days, or maybe somewhere around there. And we think it was 30 days, yeah. And so, 5 years later, that’s incredible!

 

Megan  06:21

Yeah. Yeah, it was! I hadn’t met you in person before, and then I hadn’t met Margaret and Ingrid before either. So, I was like, just really excited for that like, moment. Yeah, I know. And we got to energize in real life.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  06:35

I remember like, you walked up in Paris at the airport, like, Oh my God, we’ve talked like, 30, 40, times, and we’ve never met him, yeah.

 

Margaret Ward  06:46

And then Casey went to sleep. Oh my god.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  06:51

It was very exciting for me. And then I rolled over and said, Sorry.

 

Megan  06:57

Yeah. And then I was like, Okay, hi Ingrid. Nice to meet you. Laura. To meet you. Good. Cool hat, just to compare.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  07:04

Yeah, let’s! You know me.

 

Megan  07:10

Ingrid.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  07:13

All right, so Margaret, I wanted to ask you, because sometimes when people have stopped drinking, I can’t even imagine them drinking the way I do, which I know is funny, but like, just tell us, like, what was your drink of choice? What did your drinking look like, kind of like, what made you decide to stop?

 

Margaret Ward  07:32

Yeah, I think my drink of choice, choice change in college, it was beer. I mean, I was just, I used it as a social lubricant and to make me feel comfortable. And it was just, you know, everybody was drinking, so that’s what I drink.

 

And then, I really stopped drinking for a long time when I got married. I got married pretty young, and started a family right away, and didn’t really drink much until my kids started getting a little older, and then my drink of choice changed to Chardonnay, and it just became a nightly, you know, something that starts so innocent enough, it’s at the end of the day, I’ve had a long day with the kids, I’m just going to pour a glass of wine.

 

And then, fast forward, like, 7 years, and you realize you’re, you know, drinking not just one glass of wine. You’re drinking almost two bottles every night. And then you’re like, Oh, crap. How do I stop this? Yeah, and then it took quite a while to stop that little nightly habit.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  08:29

Yeah. What support did you use? Like, what got you started?

 

Margaret Ward  08:33

I think what got me started is I’m trying to, or I know I Googled online, or because I didn’t think AA was the route for me. I Googled online support, and I found an online private group, and then that led me to podcast, and that led me to books, and I think it was the bubble hour that gave me most of my resources, that led me to she recovers, where I went on a retreat, like, really early in my sobriety, yeah, and it was just like one of those snowball effects. One thing led to another, led to another, led to another, and it kind of like all joined into everything I needed to finally be able to quit.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  09:13

Yeah. I think that’s really cool, because the same thing happened for me. And I feel like once you get into this, like sober alcohol free space, you find one resource, and it’s like pulling a thread. Suddenly you find more books and more people and more groups. So, Ingrid, let’s go on to you. Like, I know I’ve said a little bit, but like, what was your drink of choice? What made you decide to quit? What did it looked like?

 

Margaret Ward  09:40

Gosh, it’s been a while since I’ve really thought about this. I by towards the end, it was wine, definitely a wino, and it was both red and white. I know Casey’s red, but both i for me lots. Of ups and downs, but towards the end, I think it’s because, frankly, because I took a work from home job for the first time, and I was working East Coast hours, and I ended up starting my drinking a little earlier, and then a little earlier, and then a little earlier. Happy Hour started at like, two o’clock, and that led to just drinking more. I was alone in my apartment, right? It’s just slippery. It’s a slippery thing. And then, yeah, and then I tried to cut back, and that was hard. And then when I realized that was really, really hard, I felt like I needed to quit in order to, you know, wholesale, in order to make it a little easier. Frankly, that’s my drink to quitting story in a very little nutshell. And then I met at Casey, and everything.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  10:44

But I love how to make it all simple.

 

Ingrid  10:54

And then, I decided hangovers. Yeah, no, the moderation story is so boring, but I tried so hard for a while, just a lot of people. And I know, I’m sure there are people for whom that works. It did not work for me at all. It just kept getting worse, frankly, like the Bing just got a little bit more dramatic. When I was trying to cut back and in terms of finding help and support, it was, you know, kind of the same story. Searching online. Found the same people, actually, that you guys found, I think, ended up meeting Casey and one of those groups, and was amazing. We took a class together, and ended up, as she mentioned, becoming early real life friends, which was so lucky. And then from there, Casey built the most incredible career, doing, helping other people like Megan.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  11:47

Segue to me. You know, I should probably pay you in retrospect, like, Absolutely

not, because I texted Ingrid and early sobriety, like I really want to drink right now, talk me out of it. It goes.

 

Ingrid  12:00

I did it when I wanted to smoke again. And, yeah,

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  12:03

yeah, that’s my indie friends. All right, Megan, what’s your quick story? Quick story in a nutshell.

 

Megan  12:08

Oh my gosh. Um, not dissimilar to you guys at all. Let’s see. I didn’t start drinking until, um, like graduate school and motherhood, I had grown up in a home where alcohol was a problem, so it was a big deal to me to not drink for a long time, and then, and then I did. Life got really hard, and I got started. And like everybody, it’s a slippery slope. So wine was my drink of choice. And again, I think, like a lot of people, it’s easy to just normalize that and it looks good, you know, like you feel like it’s okay. And although really never in my life did I care about the taste of it, just to be honest, like I was drinking it just to make myself feel better.

 

And I knew that, so I was working. I had three kids. It was after my third kid, I think that I realized I was getting to where, kind of, like Margaret said I was measuring my drinking, not in glasses, but in bottles. You know, like, is it a one bottle or two bottle night? And then, you know, looking on the outside like I was holding everything together. I would start when the kids got home from school and I got home from work, I’d start about 4 o’clock doing all the mom things, homework, dinner, all that kind of stuff. And I would just like pace myself though, and drink until I went to bed.

 

So, like, I was miserable, you know, I was hungover. My mental health was just terrible. My physical health wasn’t good. I had gone to have a physical, actually, and I don’t know, I can’t remember if my liver couldn’t be one of those looking great. And I think I just had that moment right where you’re just like, this is untenable. I can’t keep going like this. And then a huge motivator was my daughter had started her sophomore year, and her and her friends were starting to drink. And I had always wanted to be able to tell them that, like, I’m your call, you know, like if you get yourself in trouble when you’re out socializing, no questions asked. I will come pick you up, right like that was so important to me to be able to show up for them and be like a safety net, and I knew I would never forgive myself if they called me and they needed me, and I couldn’t come because I’d been drinking. So, I just like, had to have integrity with them in order to feel like I was like, Okay, you can have a great life, and you can feel great about yourself, and you can socialize with that alcohol. And I could not tell them that unless I was living that life. So that was also a huge part of it, too for me. But yeah, I just got to where I couldn’t take it anymore.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  15:02

So, that’s amazing. I mean, I love that. Okay, here’s what’s weird. We’ve been talking for five years, and I actually didn’t know about that story about wanting telling your daughters that you know you they could call you anytime, and your big worry being that you wouldn’t be able to drive to pick them up.

 

Megan  15:21

That’s incredible. Yeah, yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  15:25

That was really important to me. Yeah, yeah. You know, it’s so funny as well, because I’m talking to you guys. What was cool about our what I thought was really, really cool about our trip was that we went on this trip. You know, not everyone knew each other. I knew Megan, but the 2 of you didn’t, and it was such a fantastic experience where we got to talk about drinking and not drinking in stories, but it was almost just a context, like it was the underlying layer that we related to. But the trip wasn’t about us being sober, it was about us exploring the world and getting real with each other and having a really fantastic time.

 

It was really nice though, that nobody was fucking getting drunk every night or, like, want, you know, like you didn’t have to deal with people just like getting sloppy and buying more bottles and being slow in the morning. What did you guys think?

 

Margaret Ward  16:26

Yeah. I loved, I loved the fact that Megan, you just showed up and took a chance that you were going to get along with these three women. I remember we roomed together the first night, and I remember right when you got off, you know, the from the airport, we went up to our room, and right away, we just started talking, you know, and I think that’s a great thing about women in sobriety and in recovery, is that you have this greater context, and you’re so emotionally intelligent from doing the work that you can just show up and be yourself. And, you know, have all that, that uncomfortableness. I mean, we just right, right from the get-go, started talking, even with all the jet lag, which was great.

 

Ingrid  17:11

I mean, I agree. I don’t think I would have. I would not have wanted to go to Provence with any other person, or people, frankly, because it is such a kind of drinking destination for a lot of winos in the world and having the relief not having to think about that, like even when we went to nice restaurants, there was just no quest, and it was so easy. And actually, the French were very like, yeah, I get it. You can have your sampling water or whatever. So good. It felt easy. I agree, just having that one thing, but we knew, I knew I would like, you know, you Megan, I knew I would like you because kids who likes you.

 

Margaret Ward  17:51

Hey, and I already, yeah, really interesting point you made, though, Ingrid is like people think that these certain regions of the world, like Italy, and, you know, say Provence are like so, you know, wine focused, but when you’re actually there, nobody else really cares if you are drinking or not. And there’s so many other activities to do that don’t involve drinking. But I think Paige just put it in our minds, you know, that, Oh, this is, this is all they do there, you know? And if I don’t do it, what are we going to do? And they’re going to look at me strange, which, you know, after now I’ve been there, you know, that’s, that’s so not true. And actually, there were so many non-alcoholic options at every, every restaurant we went to, really.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  18:35

Yeah, there really was.

 

Megan  18:38

Yeah, okay, so not ordering wine was, like, not a big deal at all. Like, nobody. It just wasn’t even noticed. Nobody cared.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  18:46

Yeah, and I have to second, non-alcoholic beer, which was pretty good for those of us who like it. We just bought it in the grocery store. But it was at a bunch of restaurants too, and I remember a lot of them had zero proof, even on the menus, like zero proof mojitos and a bunch of other options.

 

 

Margaret Ward  19:04

Yeah, yeah.

 

Megan  19:06

And coffee.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  19:07

Oh my god, all the coffee. It was all the coffee.

 

Ingrid  19:11

It was so good.

 

Megan  19:12

Yeah, and yes, to echo what you guys said, like, I wouldn’t have wanted to do that trip with people who wanted to just kind of like sit and drink all day, I would have just gotten so bored, honestly. And it was just really nice to be with people that are grounded or real, like you said, Margaret, we could just stop talking. And I think people who quit, quit have to get really real with themselves, and they’re pretty real with everybody else too. And that’s just like a relief, you know?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  19:42

So, yeah, well, so I was going to ask Margaret to sort of recap, in the spirit of there is so much to do when you don’t drink.

 

And in our episode on sober travel, we talked about how helpful and important it was to really think through your trip and think through the kinds of things you’re going to enjoy if you are not drinking, to kind of set yourself up for success, and not to sit there wistfully being bummed you’re not drinking.

 

And I can’t pronounce anything in French. Well, like all of the cap, like Marseille.

 

So, Margaret, can you give a quick recap of what we did, because it was amazing.

 

Margaret Ward  20:23

Yeah, do you want, do you want me to just do a summary, or do you want me to go day by day?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  20:29

Uh, do a summary? Yeah. Okay.

 

Margaret Ward  20:31

So, we stayed in a village called San Rami, and it’s one of the it’s not a hilltop village, but it’s a central village in Provence, which is known for its hilltop villages, which are just so beautiful. So, we were stationed there for the week, and then each day we had planned to go out in different directions. So, one day we went to somewhere called Label, where they have something called Caria de Lumiere, which is projections, like art projected onto these, these massive walls, and it’s set to music.

 

And then, afterwards, we walked up into the they have a castle up above in the actual village. So, we walked up above there. Another day, we went to il sur la Sorg, which is known for its daily, its antique market. It’s one of the best known markets in Provence. And we spent the day just buying every single straw basket right Casey?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  21:27

I bought. All amazing. I was so scared about getting them home that was like my biggest worry.

 

Margaret Ward  21:35

Oh my gosh, but we had such a beautiful time looking over the river there while we had coffee and croissants before we went to the market. Another day, we went, I’m trying to think of everything we did. We did so much. We visited another hilltop village called gourd and another one called au ped le Bucha, where, I mean, if you’re drinking, it would have been very hard to hike up, you know, with a hangover like in the heat, because it was very not drinking.

 

Ingrid  22:03

Yes, sorry that was angry at dinner, he filled out villages in 90 plus degree heat. Was Oh, my God, but then it would have been miserable.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  22:15

We were so active, though, like we were so active.

 

Margaret Ward  22:19

Just say, then in the afternoon, we went, and we did one day, we took a canoe down beautiful, beautiful, little white water rapids. Oh, that was so fun. And we’re able to, you know, go in the water and get nice and cooled off. And then we had, I think one of my highlights, was the bus ride taking us back to where we had parked at the beginning. And it was a bus full of teenagers singing in French. And I mean, to me, that was just such an incredible experience.

 

Megan  22:52

It was so fun, like a sing along, like it was great, yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  22:56

But they were, like, getting really into it, very thought of something.

 

Margaret Ward  23:01

Then, we went, I mean, we had, we sent. We spent another morning in st Ramirez market, and then we, in the afternoon, took an incredible, scary ride up to the north to assault another village which has incredible lavender fields around it. But to get to them was a little nail biting, which, again, how we would have gotten home if we had no drinks after.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  23:29

So, I would have thrown up. I would have like gotten out of this.

 

Megan  23:30

There’s no way I could have done that too.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  23:35

I get so car sick, so I’m glad I wasn’t hungover.

 

Margaret Ward  23:40

Yeah, and then. And then we left St. Remy, and we went to another part of promos, to another little village called move, which is right at the base of the Verdun gorge. And we had the most incredible days there. We woke up early one morning, and we took an electric boat. We were one of the first ones on the lake. Lake St Croix, and were able to travel down with Casey as our navigator, this gorge where literally the only thing you heard were the birds chirping in this bright blue water. And it was just one of those, like one of those, one of those moments that you’re just like, you can’t believe you’re here. And then the next day, we went and did a bike ride up to the top of the gorge. So, we got a view of we had been down below.

 

And then the next day, we got a view from up top and rode our bikes. I think it was a, like a 13 mile route that we did, and stopped along the way, you know, at this little like cafe that appeared out of nowhere and had coffee overlooking the gorge, which was, again, just…

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  24:45

That was one of my highlights of the trip, and one that I might not have done if you guys hadn’t been like, Yep, we’re doing it. And I, I would have been so sad, because it was such an adrenaline rush. Going up was hard, but, you know, electric bikes make it so much easier. The view was incredible. But going down, I was like a little kid. I was smiling ear to ear. I was singing Indigo Girls to myself. It was one of the highlights.

 

Margaret Ward  25:17

Yeah, and, I mean, those are all the things we did. We also went swimming, which Ingrid had, like, spontaneously said, Let’s go for a swim after our bike ride, which was, again, another highlight that maybe I necessarily wouldn’t have done if it weren’t for Ingrid saying, I need to go swimming.

 

Ingrid  25:34

It’s incredible that water. I mean, I went to Alaska once by myself in search of that color water, like, it’s this crazy, electric greenish blue that you just see only in pictures, I think, until now. And like I saw, you know, glacial rivers in Alaska that looked like this, but this was actually a lake that was swimmable and warm and beautiful and pristine. And, you know, everybody was so happy.

 

Margaret Ward  26:05

And, you know, it was like a holiday, I think that was the steel Day weekend. Yeah, you were there.

 

Ingrid  26:08

Yeah, yeah. So, there was a vibe going on all around us. And I just, I had to swim. I mean, I love swimming, but I had to swim in that lake. Like, I didn’t realize that lake, like existed, like, it was just so gorgeous. I mean, look it up.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  26:26

As you listening to this, like, I will put in the show notes a bunch from our trip, just the things we saw in the lake and everything, because it, it was incredible. And I want to ask you guys, like, what were your trips when you were drinking like, you know, how would it have been different? Because I know so many of us think travel won’t be any fun if I’m not drinking.

 

And one of the things I love to do in talking with my clients is like, Okay, but what did you miss out on? Or what wasn’t that cool when you were drinking, like my husband said to me, you know, I loved going to Italy and drinking a craft of red and basically being totally drunk. And he would have to get me home, and he was like, no offense. Sometimes you were like, dead weight and we weren’t in the safest places, and you were just useless. And I’m like, oh, yeah, that was so romantic.

 

So, Margaret, actually, I’ll go to Ingrid. Like, what about you? What were your drinking trips like?

 

Ingrid  27:33

Ummm, I remember a few. What? What really sticks in my mind. And there are two trips Hawaii and Barcelona with my husband. I’ve done other trips with drinking, but this, this was when I was partnered up. I guess it felt a little different. What I remember is waiting until we could get back to the hotel room, itching to get back to the Airbnb where I could then smoke and drink at the same time on the patio or whatever the things that I wanted to do without being watched, without being judged, without having to worry about getting home and knowing how to get home. And that just wasted so much of my mental space. And it’s so strange. Like, I had such a heightened sense of embarrassment in foreign restaurants that I wouldn’t. I would actually not drink too much in a Barcelona restaurant, because I was like, That’s not cool. Like, Europeans know how to hold their liquor, right? I just had all these ideas around, like, what’s normal, what, what? And felt judged, all those things.

 

And so, I just remember so keenly, like I had to go figure out how to buy a bottle of this or that and make sure I got it home. And God, it was a lot. It was a lot of them thinking about drinking, worrying about judgment, being hungover, not being able to do warning things, and just God. I mean, I think I characterized myself as a functional drinker, but I think in those days I really wasn’t right, because that was that’s pretty heavy duty, planning around getting to be able to drink in an unreserved way.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  29:02

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Megan, what about you?

 

Megan  29:07

Um, yeah, I think that mental load that I was always carrying about, like, same like, I couldn’t drink too much when we were at restaurants or whatever. I mean, I had the kids with me and with family, but I was carrying that all day long, like, well, where’s the store that I’m going to stop at to get the bottle wine or the beer or whatever on the way back to the condo or wherever we were staying, so that I could have like, quote, unquote, like “my time”, like my treat, like my reward for, like, getting through the day, right? And like, when I look back, that’s so messed up, right? Like, that I didn’t have another way to, like, reward myself or relax and that I felt like I had to get through the day, as opposed to, like, really enjoying it. You know?

So, like, when I travel now, I’m just free of that sense of, I don’t know. I mean, like it was an obligation or whatever, like I had to have that moment in time for me and during the day, and, yeah, now I just enjoy everything so much more. I care about where we’re going to eat, because I’m actually going to eat the food. You know, I’m not hungover in the morning, so my day starts earlier. You know, I know how to just relax and take a nap and read a book in the afternoon and go for a walk. Like, it’s just richer, it’s fuller. And I the word that comes to mind is just like freedom, like I don’t have that running through my head all day long, making sure that that’s a part of my day.

 

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®.

 

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Casey McGuire Davidson  30:44

Yeah, that makes so much sense. Margaret, what about you?

 

Margaret Ward  30:49

So, I remember one trip in particular that I took. It was about a year before I stopped drinking and I took my youngest daughter away, and the first day we got there, the Airbnb host had left a bottle of red wine for us. Red wine wasn’t even my drink, but of course, I drank it because it was the only thing that was there. And I mean the combination of the jet lag and then drinking that bottle of red wine, I went to sleep and woke up to my daughter trying to wake me up because my phone was ringing, and it scared the crap out of me. Like to think that she was 10, I think. At the time, and it was just her and I, and the thought that, what if she couldn’t have woken me up? You know? I mean, it scared me so much. But, of course, I didn’t stop drinking, but I didn’t drink for the rest of that trip, but I definitely was not present. I thought about drinking the entire trip.

 

And now, my kids get a present mom. When they travel with me, they get a safe mom. They get a present mom. They get a mom who actually follows through it on things that she says, If she says she’s going to get up and go for, you know, a walk on the beach in the morning with them, she gets up and goes for a walk on the beach with them in the morning, whereas, you know, they couldn’t count on that, if I said I was going to do something, it would be like, Oh, is she? Is she really going to do that? So, yeah, it’s just like, night and day.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  32:12

Yeah, I totally get that. And, you know, I think that I also missed out on a lot of stuff because I was drinking and Margaret, we’ve talked about the fact that I was a big blackout drinker, so I don’t even know a lot of the stuff I missed out on. Like, half of my stuff was people telling me things that we did, or memories, and I looking back, I don’t know how much of that is real, or me insert like, you know, I have flashes of different things that happen during the night. But you know, a concrete example of me missing out on stuff is my husband and I went to Paris, and we did the thing much like we did when we went to France. Of like, okay, we are not going to sleep until the end of the day, we have to stay up so that we’re not completely screwed up. But of course, because I was drinking and he was drinking, our solution was just to drink throughout the day, as one does when you’re in Paris. And you know, it was fun, right? All the shit I remember, it was really fun. And we had a bike tour throughout Paris the next morning, and I think we had to meet at like, 10am and I woke up and it was 2 in the afternoon, and I was so hungover. I mean, I felt like garbage. And of course, we hadn’t gone on the bike tour, and I’ve been planning this trip like we didn’t for, like, a year in advance. I was so excited for this bike tour, and just didn’t go. And I felt like garbage on my, you know, first full day in Paris. And I was like, What the hell.

 

But another trip, a girls trip, we went up to Whistler with a bunch of my friends. And apparently, because I don’t totally remember this, I spent, you know, I remember like snippets, like we found these guys that went over to their apartment to party, which is hysterical, because it was Mother’s Day weekend, and we all had little kids, and this was, like our husband’s gift to us. Not that anything happened, but we thought it was really funny. And also, apparently I spent the first night like crying, asking everyone if they thought I was an alcoholic and didn’t remember any of it the next day. And then I did it the next fucking night. By the way, this years before I quit. And of course, it’s like, this is really fucking weird. Like, like, Scott, it was such a good time. And of course, I post on social all the pictures of us dressed up. #momsweekend #timeforme. I’m like, yeah, oh, and the road from Whistler back to. Vancouver is so horrible. It’s windy that I had to have them pull over to puke multiple times. But like, yeah, this trip way better not drinking well.

 

Margaret Ward  35:12

And fast forward to this trip, Casey, our first day, we were not only like on time for what we were going to do, we were early, and it found, like, at last minute, a full picnic basket, you know, to break. Yeah, we’re like, at the at the dock earlier than our even boat was, you know, and had already had coffee and breakfast and, you know, I had gone for a run.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  35:36

Yeah, it’s like, gone for a run that morning. I don’t think I knew that.

 

Ingrid  35:39

That’s fine, either. That’s insane.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  35:43

We didn’t  need it. Like seven in the river.

 

Margaret Ward  35:45

I’m an early riser.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  35:47

Oh, my God. Okay, that’s so good breakfast that like bed, that’s a good one.

 

Megan  35:48

Go back there for the breakfast.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  35:58

Yeah? And like a French Seth Myers, right? He was like a friend.

 

Ingrid  36:04

Yeah. His name is Maya, yes.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  36:09

If anyone wanted to ride the main boat, let us know. Now he was very it was very fun. And I think he was single, not that we asked. We did that.

 

Ingrid  36:23

Why? Why do you think y’all? Not for us, for the listeners. If they’re going to go to Marcia, look good, and you guys all got in that cold water, and you all snorkeled.

 

Megan  36:28

I was so impressed. That would not have happened if we’d been sitting on the boat drinking either. I don’t think that water was freezing. You guys were so brave.

 

Ingrid  36:46

Oh, never mind, in my 90s, and I jumped back.

 

Megan  36:48

I think that’s what I did too. It was cool.

 

Ingrid  36:52

That picnic had edible silverware. That was exciting.

 

Megan  36:57

That was weird. I was the cutest picnic.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  37:00

It was. It was very cool. Oh, the other thing we did that made it so easy, which I love. This is sort of unrelated to sober travel, but, like, we all just took turns paying for things, and Ingrid just wrote down what everyone had paid like at the grocery store, at, you know, this restaurant or whatever. And we just, like, you added it up at the end and was like, okay, this person owes x, this person owes y, but it, my God, it was so much easier than, like, trying to make people split up bills, or sort of people feeling like they were, you know, paying more than their share or not enough. It just took all that whole thing off the table.

 

Megan  37:39

It’s totally sober travel, because we were, like, totally with it, we wouldn’t have remembered who the hell got what or what the bill was. We would have lost it there. I mean, you know what? I mean, it was just so not dramatic. You know, there were no tears, there was no crying.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  37:59

Oh, my God, did anyone cry on our trip?

 

Ingrid  38:05

I don’t think anybody had to, like, melt that. Okay, tell us.

 

Margaret Ward  38:08

No, no, no, no, no, no telling. I was telling people my daughter had called while we were and my daughter’s pregnant at the moment, and she called while we were a day and asked if I would be in the delivery room with her, talking about, let’s get crying.

 

Megan  38:21

I mean, no drama, crying, no.

 

Ingrid  38:26

Yeah. I cried when you wouldn’t play another round of UNO with me. Yeah? Just kidding, but I am going to, like, insist on at least one more next time we travel together.

 

Megan  38:40

Yeah, I think that that’s fair.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  38:42

Yeah, we didn’t play Uno that much, which I was okay with, but I know it’s very important to many of you.

 

Megan  38:50

Okay, but just time that we did, it was a very long game, and it was stellar. So, it totally counts. That was a great memory sitting on the roof as a couple.

 

Margaret Ward  39:03

Well, like we did so many things, like so many great activities and everything, but I think my favorite thing, and my favorite thing with traveling with sober women in in particular, is some of my favorite parts of the trip were our mornings And our evenings up on the rooftop, just having coffee and like, just taking in the atmosphere and just talking. I mean, those, those are some of my favorite memories of our mornings up on our in our evenings up on our little rooftop deck.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  39:34

Yeah, I totally agree. It just felt we did so much, and yet it felt so relaxed, which was crazy, yeah, oh my God. My favorite part was driving with you guys to the 80s top one thing in like, somehow, every single song, we were like, oh my god, this is a good one.

 

Megan  39:59

Yeah? That. Was great. The playlist was awesome.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  40:04

Ingrid, what was your favorite part?

 

Ingrid  40:05

Oh, gosh, you know what I was just picturing. I don’t know if it’s my favorite part. There are a lot of favorites, but I remember there were 2 nights in the really fancy Airbnb we first stayed at, where you all were off doing your relaxation things, and I was in the kitchen just sort of prepping things and for at least a little spell by myself and listening to music and shopping and washing and doing, you know, just whatever these are, just for the record, not elaborate meals. This was like, I was cutting the melon, you know, that kind of thing. But it all tasted so good so I would just sort of eat it as I went, and, God, it felt so good. It was a really peaceful for me.

 

That’s a nap, right? Like, that’s a me time. And it just felt really authentically, very Frenchy like, to be in this beautiful kitchen use from the market and doing all those things. So that was definitely a highlight. I love doing that, and I love that you guys loved the end product, or said you did.

 

Margaret Ward  41:06

Oh, the free day was so good. It was a highlight for me, having you cook for us those couple of days, it was a definite highlight.

 

Ingrid  41:12

It was fun. The fun thing is, you guys know this, maybe the listeners don’t. I don’t have kids. You all do. And so, I imagine, in a life of mothering. You do a lot of cooking by obligation. I almost never obligation, right? Like, it’s always a choice. And for me, being able to cook with these ingredients in this place, in that beautiful kitchen, and that was such a joy.

 

Megan  41:36

Like it just, I love that Ingrid.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  41:37

I never thought of that maybe being one of the reasons, because when we, I hate to cook. I mean, I cook 7 nights a week. Sometimes we take turns. But like, you know, Hank 16, I’ve been thinking for 16 years, what’s for dinner? 7 nights a week, and I don’t like, I’m like, I hate this. So, we went, and you were like, I love to cook, and going through all the markets and getting all the fresh stuff, yeah, presenting it to us, like melon wrapped in prosciutto and the tomato, basil, mozzarella and like a roast chicken or something. I was like, Oh, this isn’t and your cucumber salad. It was incredible.

 

Ingrid  42:17

Oh, the cucumber salad, the chopped salads were fun. That became a little theme, yeah, but I think that’s, yeah, what my husband definitely likes it when I cook for him, but I don’t, but I don’t feel it, doesn’t it’s not my job, right? Like it’s definitely not. Think it’s my job. It’s not my job. I do it a lot, but certainly not a thing that wears me down and makes me feel resentful. So, yeah. So, it was a joy. And I would go back, and this is, I keep looking at the real estate listings market. I cannot stop. And I’m like, I just want to live there. I switch in.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  42:57

I want that temperature in a minute, if anyone’s going in the south of France, summer me St. Ray, yeah, what am I saying?

 

Megan  43:04

Yeah, they’re saying, right.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  43:06

Megan, what about you? What was your favorite part of the trip?

 

Megan  43:11

Um, I think kind of like you guys were saying, like, hanging out with you guys, like, honestly, like the conversations were just rich and authentic and real, and that sense that everybody’s just appreciating all the little things and like in the moment, you know, and like just grateful and happy to be there, you know. And everybody’s spirits were wonderful. And I don’t get that at home, you know, like just having other people who don’t drink to hang out with. Like, that’s such a gift, you know.

 

And I don’t have a large community like that here, and something I’m always working towards. But like, that was just really special for me.

 

And I was like, Ingrid’s food like that, watching her cook. I think I got to chop things for you a couple times and shop with you, and I felt so special.

 

And like that, Margaret was up and running. And, you know, croissants would just appear in the morning, and I would, like, calm down, and it was like espresso. And like, lovely. I love pastries. It’s like, my favorite food group. And like that. I would have pastries in the morning.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  44:23

My goal was like a pond of sugar. Lot every single book every morning, yeah, like I just, you know, you just never get tired of that.

 

Megan  44:27

Or Casey just listening to your stories and meeting you in person like that. Was all of that was just such a gift. And I loved all our adventures. I think maybe I forgot about the canoeing, but that was awesome. I loved being like the person who got to see her in the back of the boat. That was so fun and so pretty and so unique, and like that castle too Margaret that you took us to, like the history person in me just was geeking out. And I could have spent forever there, like, just. Up on that ridge looking out over the vineyards and all of groves and just, you know, I loved that.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  45:11

So, there are so many things I probably can’t pick just one thing, I think.

 

Ingrid  45:14

Don’t forget Bails.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  45:15

Oh, oh, trying to find one of those to take a picture after you left Megan, like we guys are okay, tell the story. Someone tells.

 

Megan  45:27

Margaret wanted to take a picture of a hay bale when I landed on the way home.

 

Margaret Ward  45:36

I made a very silly comment rocking vice at the Hale bales, hay bales, saying that these are only ones you find in Provence, and not only someone in the back seat who sees hay bales quite often, not in Provence.

 

Megan  45:52

You got 4 people who don’t know. I live in Kansas, so yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  45:57

But Margaret was like, look at the lavender. Look at the hay bales only in robots.

 

Margaret Ward  46:04

Very excited about the prove moms, they were pretty.

 

Megan  46:10

You know what? I don’t have them next to lavender field. So that would be me.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  46:17

But Megan, after you left, we spent a decent amount of time in the afternoon searching for a hay bale that we could pick her up for them to text you.

 

Margaret Ward  46:27

And say, Only in Provence.

 

Ingrid  46:29

Oh, my God, they’re not going to die back.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  46:34

Because, yeah, that was funny.

 

Well, I want to talk about traveling early sobriety, because a lot of what we did wouldn’t have been as easy and early sobriety, but and get your advice, but I did want to mention that when you get further along, it gets so much easier, because we had a 3 hour lunch at just this gorgeous vineyard, and none of us were triggered or found it difficult or blinked at it.

 

I mean, it was just a gorgeous view. Tell me about that. Like Ingrid, you arranged it. So what made you choose that spot?

 

Ingrid  47:15

You know? What? Honestly, it didn’t even occur to me when I was suggesting we do a fancy like multi course prefix thing that that might be triggering for you all. So, first of all, I apologize. I should have asked before I did that. But worked hard, I guess. But yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, yeah, that lunch was for me, not at all triggering. I think it was the only moment where, no, not even. I didn’t even think about it.

 

Megan  47:42

You say you had a friend that recommended it or something, and you didn’t even think it was an event, like you were looking for a really nice restaurant to go to, and you just picked it.

 

Ingrid  47:52

Yeah, I mean, there was I. It did not occur to me. What I knew was that it was close to where we were supposedly biking that day. We didn’t end up biking that day, which was fine. We bike later, but that was the whole criteria, like really good food, because my travel tends to center on eating and restaurants and stuff, and so this was sort of my contribution to the trip and just picking out something nice like that. But yeah, honestly, it didn’t occur to me. Did it occur to you guys?

 

Margaret Ward  48:23

Yeah, guys. No. and I think, I think that’s something that happens. The further you get along is your mindset totally shifts, like angry sobriety. Maybe I would have thought, oh, I don’t get to drink while I’m here. But the further get like, I now think like, I don’t have to drink here, or it doesn’t even occur to you, like, it’s just such a total mindset that shift that happens. And I don’t know when that actually does, but it definitely does.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  48:56

You know, like at that lunch. Like drinking, it’s just a beverage choice in the same way someone prefers, like Diet Coke versus sprite versus strawberry lemonade or regular lemonade. Like it becomes just what do you want to drink? And you don’t look at the alcoholic options in the same way you might not look at, you know, sodas, if you’re not into soda, right?

 

Megan  49:22

And you’re so excited about everything else, like, we’re excited about the food and the handsome man and his girlfriend. Like, you know, your brain just starts to focus on other things, and you get excited about all the other stuff in life, and you don’t like, you know what I mean? Like, if it’s great or people watching, it was not thinking about it.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  49:47

I had forgotten about that guy that was, I spotted this very, very handsome Frenchman, and I just needed the other girl. Yeah. Have to observe this very handsome Frenchman. So, I was like, He’s coming.

 

Margaret Ward  50:04

He’s watching like every time it took up again.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  50:07

A lot of my attention that was not focused on alcohol, was focused on the movements of this very handsome man.

 

Ingrid  50:17

It also see our class meeting, conversation around all of our types, which was kind of recurring theme throughout the trip, like, what kind of garden you like? And you know what?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  50:31

Yeah, it taught us a lot about each other, and a lot of our types were our husbands. Should they ever listen to this?

 

Megan  50:35

Let’s see. A great conversation, right? Like, everyone’s present, and the focus on each other and the meal and just enjoying everything else about it. So, the wine just isn’t even featured in the afternoon anymore, you know, there’s Yeah, and I don’t know, yeah, I don’t know how we would have had wine there and then, like, actually driven home, you know what I mean? I mean, we would have had that designated driver or something. But like, the whole trip, we were driving and eating and driving and eating, and it just would not have worked to have the day trips. So, that way that we did from San Remi every day, if we were all drinking. You know, I just don’t see how it would have worked.

 

 

Ingrid  51:18

Yeah, it would have cut our area in half, yeah, we would have home time, right, like or something like that. Yeah, early sobriety, I had a trip that was just a nightmare, because it was like…

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  51:34

Tell us about it, because I want to talk about how early sobriety travel’s different.

 

Ingrid  51:38

It was so crazy.

 

So okay, first of all, it’s going to sound like an incredible trip, which it was. It was sailing in the British Virgin Islands with my family, and my dad was sort of the captain, I guess, and his Mrs. 4th wife. But we have complicated relationships. That’s not really the story, but, like, just FYI as background. But this trip, he splurged and got us, like a paid captain on the boat, a chef and a first mate type guy who ran around and basically, like, once in a while, dealt with first Matey things, but mostly served us drinks and food, right? Like, while we were just lounging, it was ridiculous, right? But I just quit drinking, and everything was like, Would you like a drink? Would you like a drink? Would you like another drink? Would you like another drink? And it was everybody was getting progressively drunk earlier throughout the day, and making really bad decisions and crying and yelling at each other, right? Like, family dynamics worse and worse as the hours passed. And then everybody would split off at night, right? Because dad would and actually wouldn’t want to go out and do things and, but I didn’t really want to go off and Bar Hop on an island, right? Like, so it just, it was so stressful.

 

And then, one day, they put this tray. It was a hot day. They put a tray of watermelon in front of me, and it was just looks so delicious. I had this, like, mint all over it, and I just started eating them. Like, mindlessly. I was really, give me this watermelon. I was really thirsty. It was delicious, and then it wasn’t delicious. And I was like, this isn’t delicious. Why is this watermelon so bad? This is the worst watermelon. I keep eating it, right? It was soaked in vodka, and my god, had told me, and I was, they knew. They knew I just quit drinking. They knew I wasn’t drinking, right? They know that they could have mentioned that it was soaked in Bucha. Oh, mad. I was so upset. I was so holding on by a thread the whole trip, you know, terrified I would slip up. Terrified I would want to drink again, just for the sheer emotional release that it seemed to promise at the time. And oh, my God, I I was a mess, and Tim had to deal with me. I was just so upset. I thought, I have to start at zero, right? All the things I think, I texted Casey from the goddamn British Virgin Islands saying, you know, I drank accidentally. Decided, by the way, not to reset, because I don’t give a shit. Yeah, as far as I was concerned, I wasn’t excited about it anyway.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  54:08

Oh my god, separately, what about you guys?

 

Ingrid  54:11

So, yeah, but early, early surviving, I was so stressed out at it, and that was accident, accidentally, like you guys spent hours, like or however, long, looking for the non-alcoholic beer.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  54:19

And you brought home, you gone to the grocery store. I like NA beer, Ingrid. You like it a lot. So brought home this NA beer, and on it, it said, non-alcoholic beer. Apparently they were advertising on the alcoholic beer. There options. Like the whole thing, so I open it up, and I take a sip, and I take another sip, and, you know, I can’t taste the alcoholic beer. But I was like, huh, this tastes different, and I like to look at it. And I was like, yeah. Sure, it’s not. Look at it was like, Huh, okay, and so obviously it’s fine, but, like, we gave it to the woman who owned the Airbnb. Yeah, but it, um, it cracked me up.

 

So, by the way, I into sips of beer. I am not counting 8 and a half years restart because of that. Just, you know.

 

Megan  55:21

Yeah, no, I felt so bad about that.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  55:24

It was funny.

 

Ingrid  55:27

Oh, my God, such an idiot. I’m what, yeah, right.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  55:32

It was just hysterical. Like fuck. We bought a 12 pack. What did we do?

 

Ingrid  55:38

It was like a big, big honking thing, yeah, yeah.

 

Margaret Ward  55:43

The Airbnb was very happy. Her husband was.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  55:46

Yes, yeah, yes. That’s funny. So that’s been really hard.

 

Megan  55:56

And then, I used to, like, have to get the wine out of the hotel room, right? Like they leave wine for you all the time, or it’s in the mini bar. Or my first big family trips, we went to Belize for New Year’s, and there’s like, the little, you know, hard liquor things. And I remember being so nervous about it the first time I had to tell them to take it out of the room, and, like, collecting it and taking it down to the front and just being like, we don’t need these and, like, having to give myself the pep talk, and she’s like, it’s okay, don’t apologize. Just take it down there, like, you know, and it was such a big deal in early sobriety, right? So that’s one of the big ways it’s different now too, you know. Like, now it doesn’t bother me, but I definitely had to have them take it out of the room, because there was a spring break where I finished a mini bar.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  56:47

So, the whole mini bar, you were like, yeah. Pretty much.

 

Megan  56:51

So, we didn’t need to have a redo of that. But yeah, that’s one of the big things. And then after I did it, first time, I felt like a freaking superhero, like I had that skill now, or I had that power whatever, like it didn’t have power over me anymore, and I knew how to do that and not apologize and do it.

 

You know, I think my first trip, though, with my nightmare. First sober trip, I think you might remember this Casey. I had to take my daughter on a soccer trip. She won’t remember going on this. Do you remember she played all of these soccer teams that traveled all over the country, you know? So, of course, I’m resentful about that in the first place, but I have to, like, get on a plane and spend a bunch of money to go to, like, Milwaukee and stay in a bad hotel. And, like, I just was, you know, not in a good mental place about going anyway, as they say you drink about your resentments all the time. And so, I had a million of them wearing them on my sleeve while I went on this trip. I hadn’t gotten to the point where I was grateful yet for anything. I was just angry like and, you know, the plane rides rough, and I’m a terrible flyer, and it’s dark and it’s raining, and we can’t find the hotel, so just the whole thing. My anxiety is just like boiling by the time we walk into this hotel, and it’s like, this gorgeous bar. It’s like, singing. It’s like, oh, like colorful and lights and like, all the parents on the team are all sitting down there socializing, and we walk in, and I was just like, like, I can’t, like, what am I going to do?

 

And so, I just made a beeline for the room. I turned on the shower in the back, I went to the bathroom at the door, turned on the shower, got in the shower with my clothes so my daughter hear me, picked up the phone. I think I ordered cake first from room service, like, I will need cake. And then, I called Casey, and I was like, Oh my God. Like, I just need a minute to, like, reset and like, and I think that’s what you said. You were like, you’re fine. You ordered a cake. You’re taking your time out. Just like, don’t go downstairs. Don’t apologize. And I didn’t, you know. And I think that was also like a watershed moment for me, where I just learned, like, I get to take the time out. I get to do what I need to do, to calm down and reset, and I can take a shower and have cake, and also to not care what the other parents thought, right? Like that was a big turning point for me, too. So just that, I get to take care of myself, another silver muscle, right?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  59:21

That was every trigger, right there. You were hungry, you were anxious, you were resentful, you were surrounded by people drinking and you didn’t do it anyway.

 

Megan  59:33

Yeah, that was a huge turning point for me, and that’s still in my mind, is like something that really like clicked a lot of things for me that I was able to use. Then really I still use. I take time outs.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  59:49

I don’t care what the other parents would do, like yourself in the bathroom and I lock myself in the bathroom. Cake.

 

Megan  59:51

Anyway, yes. So now, like, I wouldn’t care, right? I would walk in, and I would be able to socialize and not drink and not care, you know, but I couldn’t do that my first sober trip.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:00:07

Margaret, what about your first sober trip? What was that like?

 

Margaret Ward  1:00:12

I had a couple that I went on really early, like within the first few months. One I went up to Acadia National Park in Maine with my daughter camping. It’s something we always do. And I remember everything just looking so amazing, like, I just remember I was on that like little pink cloud, or, you know, I mean, everything just looked so great, and I just felt like a super freaking hero, like I felt like so proud of myself that I was showing up in, you know, for my daughter and I had tried stopping for so long that when it finally clicked, it just really, it really felt amazing. I remember that trip a lot, just like, wow, this sobriety doesn’t have to suck. Like, it doesn’t have to suck it, can, it can, it can be pretty awesome.

 

But then right after that, I went down to Florida for a family wedding, and it was hard. It was really hard, and I learned a lot from it, because I learned I needed to voice what I needed, which at that time I didn’t know, you know, so I just felt I had to take everything on myself, like I couldn’t ask my husband, you know, not to drink, that I needed him not to do that, which now I can. But I do remember how difficult it was, and then leaving being the designated driver and going back to the hotel and going in the pool with my daughter for like, two hours, and we were the only ones in the pool.

 

And I remember thinking, this is time I wouldn’t have gotten like, this is time I wouldn’t have been here, you know. And this is time I’m never going to get back with her. Like, if I lost it, I would never have had this. And it’s one of those, like, solid memories I have now, of us, just giggling and being like, being a kid myself in the pool, you know, and just feeling so good, and then waking up the next morning and going down to the beach and nobody else. I didn’t see anyone for like hours, and I was like, I feel great. Like, I was a little smug back then, like, you all have the hangovers and look at me.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:02:14

Yeah, I think those, all those trips, yeah, were just like, you know, really discovering what tools I needed to use.

 

Margaret Ward  1:02:16

It was like a trial and error what worked, what didn’t work, and like, just, yeah, getting that sober muscle. Yeah, around travel.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:02:33

Hey, feeling smug and proud is pretty awesome, right? As opposed to sitting there feeling sorry for yourself, or feeling like, yeah, when I went, you know, I’ve talked about this before, but I went to Venice and Croatia when I was 4 months sober. And as a big red wine drinker, being in Italy and not drinking was like, you know, I felt like I was, like, going up against kryptonite or something.

 

But I had a couple experiences like yours, Margaret. I mean, first, I was with my mother and my sister and other people – my brother-in-law, so stuff that was hard. But we were at dinner at this place in Venice, and we had younger kids with us. My son was 8. Couple cousins, and we were sitting at dinner. We had finished dinner, and this would have been me 5 months before, but then they order another bottle of wine, and the conversation is just so fucking boring, right? I wasn’t drinking. I had nothing to talk with them about, regardless, probably because I was related to them anyway, and they dropped out dinner for another, like only one bored. There were 5 kids there who were also bored out of their minds, and so they ended up going outside and, like, playing around the fountain, and I went out with them, just because I was like, I cannot sit here with this wine bottle anymore.

 

Yeah, but I just watched these adults where I would have been again. No judgment in the window for an entire hour while we were hanging outside. And I was like, God, that’s so fucking selfish and like, self-absorbed. And you know, it was just an interesting perspective, and it made me realize how many times my son had probably sat around waiting for me when I just was really concerned with continuing to drink. But it was also very, very cool to be out there with them and to see their joy and to see them doing their thing, and I was not dead weight walking back to the hotel, so that was cool.

 

But the next morning, Margaret, like you, I woke up super early and I went out before anyone else was up, and I took pictures of all the canals in Venice when it was just the local people, like delivering the vegetables or opening the shops, and I had pastries and coffee and there were no tourists. And it it’s a highlight of my life doing that. Yeah.

 

Ingrid  1:05:00

Yeah, that’s awesome, yeah?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:05:03

Well, so, if someone’s listening to this and they are scared of sober travel, or, you know, also have been sober for a while, but have never taken a trip with women they’ve met in sobriety, like any tips or advice or thing that you kind of wish they’d take away from this. I’ll start with you, Margaret.

 

Margaret Ward  1:05:27

I would say, just go for it. Like, put yourself out there. You’re going to do things that really scare you, and you’ll never have experiences like this if you don’t just put yourself out there. So, I mean, reach out to some women, even if you haven’t traveled with them, and just say, let’s get together and do something, you know, or but also, like, if you’re early in sobriety, you know, like, do the research and find out what tools you need. And you know, that’s a great thing about traveling with other sober people. Though it’s a safe way to go away. So, I highly recommend!

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:06:03

Yeah. Ingrid, what about you? Someone’s taking you would say, don’t go to the Caribbean and get on a boat surrounded by alcohol. Did early sobriety

 

Ingrid  1:06:15

go to the Caribbean? Just not with my family on a boat. But I something that helped a lot for me. I think there were two things. One, the white knuckle type first trips. They were all paid for by someone else. They kind of not intentionally, but I ended up going on those hard trips, not on my own dime. And I think that’s actually if you can manage it, if you can get someone else to cover your first couple sober choice where you’re building your muscles. I think that’s a great thing.

 

Now, if you’re not that lucky, my plan B and suggestion is, maybe start with like these cool retreats that are out there that are just sober people, and meet new people, and that’ll expand your group of people who like to travel, who like to go do non-alcohol related things, and you can sort of flex your muscles there too, right? Because you’re still in the real world a little bit. You walk out of the retreat place or whatever, see other people. But I feel like going on retreats with the she recovers, retreats and other things really helped me reenter the world of travel without any risk at all, which was really, really nice.

 

And then, of course, yeah, again, like, I’m glad I didn’t have my first, like trip with my husband that we planned together, or something that wasn’t my first time trying to travel, because it was just nice to have other things under my belt, and it could be easy by the time I was planning my own travel. And then, of course, with this trip, it was like the best of all the things chosen friends, not family, right? Like so, as Megan put, you know, little to no drama at all, right, like just and food. And I keep saying food, it’s funny. I’m the only person who cared about that, but, um, and other things. So, uh, yeah, that’s my advice.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:08:15

Is cared about food. We were, we just aren’t. We’re not.

 

Ingrid  1:08:19

Yeah, it’s like, oh, croque monsieur.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:08:20

It’s incredible.

 

Margaret Ward  1:08:23

Oh, my God.

 

Ingrid  1:08:24

Casey, you and I had probably the worst croque monsieur I’ve ever had.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:08:30

That was fun. That was not a croque monsieur, that was a hilltop, beautiful moose. Jared.

 

Ingrid  1:08:36

It was a mooster, yes, the worst crop material, yeah?

 

Margaret Ward  1:08:42

You should have done what I did and just eat an ice cream that night.

 

Ingrid  1:08:53

My god, yeah, Margaret, yeah. Like two ice back to back ice cream cones. It was a perfect dinner.

 

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:08:54

Perfect dinner for last day after our three hour bike ride, too. We’re crap, so I don’t think that.

 

Ingrid  1:09:04

Yeah, that’s like my advice is, don’t be afraid to baby step it, yeah.

 

Megan  1:09:13

Yeah. I would say, go with a plan. That would be my advice in early sobriety. Have a plan that you know, kind of like Mark was saying, You know what you need to take care of yourself.

 

Because I think, well, not, I think, I know. I had 30 days, and then I went on spring break with, like, no plan support, you know, stupid. I just thought I was going to be fine. And then, like, the second we got there, you know, like, and I will have the wine. So, like, that has been even something I do to this day, like I just like, check in with myself. Like we’re getting ready to go to Mexico, and I’m like, Hey, like, where’s the gym? What am I eating? I still to this day, take a time out. Like I always need a break in between what I first shift and second shift. So, like, every day you have your afternoon, like, I get to have 30 minutes where I like, just take a bath, take a shower, check in with myself, go for a walk, get my journal out, lay in a cold room, in the dark. Like, whatever I need to do to, like, reset and just be like, Okay, what do I need before it’s time to, like, bring everybody in from the beach and, like, figure out what to do from dinner for dinner, you know, and move into the rest of the day. That’s something I learned in early sobriety that stayed with me.

 

But, yeah, that’s a big part of my plan is just have a plan and have support, like, somebody to check in with. Like, I know people check in on your group, your Facebook great Casey sobriety kit, yeah, yeah. Like, I needed accountability.

 

And early Friday, I know not everybody does, but I did, you know, just to be, I think everybody does, yeah, yeah. Like, I just needed to be like, Okay, here’s my plan. Here’s what I’m going to do to take care of myself today. You know, that would be probably my number one thing. Like, even I shop around my daughter spring break, trip to Mexico, right? Everybody’s drinking. But, like, preemptively, like, before that, I scheduled a zoom call with my therapist, like, halfway through the week. Like that was just, like, a really simple, basic thing for me to do, because I wasn’t, I wasn’t working with you anymore at that time, I don’t think and so, you know, something simple like that can just make a big difference to have another sober person to talk to, right? Because I didn’t have anybody that wasn’t drinking around me that week. So anyway, that’s what I would say, is have a plan in early sobriety. Know what you need?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:11:38

Yeah, I totally agree. And we, actually, since Margaret and I already recorded an episode on this, I’ll definitely link to it, but it’s all about sober travel and like, 10 tips and things you can do sort of before, during and in planning your trip, and just really practical tips of how to prepare for it and get through it without drinking.

 

But what I would say is, as you get further along, a lot of people are like, Oh, my God, is it always going to be this hard to think? Is No, like it is, yeah, it is so far of an afterthought. One thing I noticed, and it was so funny, in our first apparently, both of our Airbnb hosts left wine for us, and early in sobriety, I would have very specifically, like given it back to them, you know, like just to get it out of the room. Just be like, Oh, hey, I don’t drink. Can you take this back? We actually didn’t even bother to do that. We just left it in the fridge and didn’t even mention it, I think because we’re so far along that it wasn’t even a thing. But, and then at the end in our I was like, oh my god, there was wine in this fridge. I you know, you guys mentioned it as we were, like, clearing out stuff, like, oh, we’ll leave the wine. And I had gone in that fridge like, 15 times over the week and never noticed it. And someone mentioned, oh yeah, there’s a full bar right there, and I hadn’t even noticed that either. Like, my eyes scanned by it and didn’t even register it with any emotion that’s kind of cool. Yeah, that’s really it is.

 

Megan  1:13:25

They talk about like rewiring your brain and variety a lot, right? And I think that literally is what happens right your brain. You just used to only have this one path to go down right, right in your head for whatever relaxation, and then now it’s like, I have all these other paths, and my brain literally just goes down the new paths, right? Like Margaret, you were saying there’s a mind shift, set shift, you know, you’ve literally just taken your brain in these new directions, and that’s where it goes now it just doesn’t go down the old path.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:13:55

Yeah, and your brain is so much quieter, right? You’re not constantly thinking about drinking or not drinking or not being able to it’s just you have so much more calm and space to notice other cool things, all right. Margaret first, then Ingrid.

 

Margaret Ward  1:14:11

Well, it’s something that you and I talked about. Casey, I think when we were together, is the further you go away from alcohol, like your identity gets changed. So, we’re, like, the 4 of us are so strongly our identities are so strongly rooted now, as non-drinkers like, that’s, I think, part of the reason why, like, none of this even noticed, like, things like that.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:14:37

Ingrid, what were you going to say?

 

Ingrid  1:14:39

Oh, I think I already said. It really was just a comment. I just said, It feels pretty miraculous, like if I really reach back and remember what it felt like for those first few trips, or just the first year of sobriety, to truly not think about it, to truly not care, to truly think of it as like having a glass of milk versus a. Soda glass milk is just I would never have a glass of milk. So, like, category is so heavenly, it’s just heavenly and totally worth it. And by the way, did took no work on my part. I don’t know about you guys, I took a ton of work up front, but just letting time pass and just staying the course, it just happens. So, to me, that’s cool. Not Yeah, Chris culture talks about this sort of effortful attitude, like I’m going to raise my hand and work hard and do that stuff. This is the one thing in my life where it really just got so much easier as time and like, enjoyable, like, the not just that it gets better, just so much richer and fuller.

 

Megan  1:15:40

And that sense of like I’m not missing out on anything, and I don’t feel like I am at all. I feel like I am getting so much more like, I don’t feel like I’m giving anything up. You know, it’s like a gift, right?

 

Like, just thinking about spring break with my middle daughter and being there, like, I I just got to get up early in the morning. I got to go scuba diving, right? Like I got to be present for the whole thing in such a joyful way. Like I was so happy to be there. And there wasn’t a sense of, like, missing out at all. And like, actually, you guys, she got food poisoning the night before. So, speaking of showing up for your kids, like she got food poisoning the night before, we were supposed to fly home, and so I had to, like, pack everything, do everything while she’s busy, like both ends in the bathroom, just like a disaster, right? Like, up all night, and if I had been drinking that night too. Like a part of the parents who are doing, like, it’s our last night, let’s go all out, you know, oh my God, I don’t even want to know how bad that would have been, right?

 

But in terms of, like, showing up for yourself, showing up for your kids, and being proud of who you are, right? Like, that’s one of the best things, I think, that comes out of it. Keep your promises to yourself. You show up for people in your life and like so being able to, like, get her home and through the airport while she had food poisoning, like, in a good mood, and happy to be there, and truly happy to be able to be there for her, like that, those kinds of things, right? It just gets so much better and easier.

 

Margaret Ward  1:17:19

Yeah. Casey, can I add something to that? Yeah, please. I think that’s such a good point, because inevitably, things on any trip are going to go wrong, like they’re always going to go wrong. Things went wrong on our trip like we did not know we were going to go on a scary ass highway that would almost kill us, you know. But the thing is, when you’re on these trips and things go wrong, you’re sober, you have the wherewithal to then figure it out, like Casey had the great idea, let’s go to the tourist office and add a route, you know, to get home so we don’t do it back on that road, which, you know, if we had been drinking, who, you know, I mean, it’s just things are always going to go wrong.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:18:03

If you’re sober, you are able to address them, figure it out so much easier than if you’re not. Yeah, just you don’t make everything an issue.

 

Margaret Ward  1:18:07

Yeah, right, and perfection is not a goal anyway.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:18:15

Yeah, our second Airbnb canceled like two nights before we were supposed to go, that’s right. And Margaret just figured it out.

 

Margaret Ward  1:18:29

Yeah, me at 10 o’clock at night, like, so if I had been drinking at 10 o’clock at night, that would not have happened.

 

Megan  1:18:38

Yeah, we probably would have showed up there and been like, they would have like, What do you mean?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:18:42

You’re that, yeah, yeah. Oh, thank you guys so much for doing this a I completely miss you after spending so much time with you, but it really I’m going to remember this trip forever. But I also really appreciate you coming on the show and talking about it.

 

Ingrid  1:19:01

Yeah. Thank you so much, Baby. This is so fun to see you all.

 

Megan  1:19:07

And yeah, your eggs, too.