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drinking, drinking, alcohol, holding our hand, sober, Christmas, Christmas eve, Christmas Day alcohol-free, New Year, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, first sober New Year, stopped drinking, stop drinking, over drinking, struggling with drinking, early sobriety, longer term sobriety, not drinking, alcohol-free journey, take a break from drinking, holiday, holiday season, I want to change my drinking, process, partner, friend, family member, mom, spouse, husband, kids, I want to stop being hungover, personal growth, boundaries, struggling, staying sober, people-pleasing, sobriety, women, quitting drinking, work, high-functioning, live, boundaries, coach, sober coach, sobriety starter kit, values, service, connection, optimism, integrity, experience life, goal, purpose, core values, responsible, reliable, hard conversations, intentional, fear, anxiety, shame, self-loathing, defensiveness, resentment, pain, relationship, frustration, victim, a bottle of wine, white knuckling, coping mechanism, sober girlfriends, travel, recovery, boundary, therapy, emotional, healthy, vision board, podcast, alcohol-free beverages, Sober New Year 100, Sober New Year Circle, Sobriety Starter Kit Coaching Program, wine, gruvi, nonalcohol, stockings, red wine, January

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson 

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 bus, 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.

 

Hi there. This episode is coming out on December 18th, so it’s one week before Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. If you celebrate that, and 2 weeks before New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

I’m going to do something different than what I’ve done in previous episodes.

My goal in this podcast is just to hold your hand through Christmas and through New Year’s Eve.

And whether you have stopped drinking, if you want to stop drinking or over drinking these next two weeks, or if you are in early sobriety, even if you’re in longer term sobriety, regardless of where you are in your alcohol-free journey,

 

[00:02:00]

these next two weeks can be hard, and if you’re struggling, if you’re going off again and on again with drinking, sometimes navigating this week, next week, the week after without getting drunk or fuzzy or hung over the next day can seem insurmountable and like it’s a fool’s errand, it won’t work anyway, so why even bother trying?

 

So, I would love you to just sit quietly, go for a walk, close your eyes, listen to this episode, and try to come out of this with a little bit of peace about what your next two weeks could look like. Things you could do, really small, incremental shifts that you can make in your thought process and your habits, and how you spend your time to let yourself feel really good about this week, these memories, this holiday season, how you’re going to start this new year, and

 

[00:03:00]

I want to start by telling you about my first Christmas and my first New Year’s Eve after I stopped drinking, as well as what some of those times were like when I was drinking. So I stopped drinking on February 18th, so by the time I got to Christmas and New Year’s, I was about 10 months alcohol free.

Christmas came around and I had worked with a sober coach. I had gone through a program like my sobriety starter kit. I had support. I knew other women who didn’t drink online and in person. I’d gone on vacations to Europe through my 41st birthday. I had gone through a holiday party with friends that we always host all of that without drinking. So. I thought I was good to go and I think that my husband also thought I was all good and other people thought I was all good with not drinking. Like this was going to be no big deal.

[00:04:00]

And I was surprised how difficult and emotional it was that first holiday and for a few different reasons. Number one, I didn’t anticipate that it would be difficult and looking back and what I tell my coaching clients and the women in my member group is just anticipate that any holiday, any gathering time, anything you are doing for the first or the second time where you would normally drink, it’s going to be hard. Just anticipate that you are going to want to drink and go back to your sober foundations.

The fundamentals to get prepared for this, and it doesn’t matter if you’re on month three or month 10 or in your first week, or just trying to drink less. I’m going to tell you some tools and some mindset shifts and strategies that will make this easier.

[00:05:00]

So, part of that is telling someone in your life that you are not going to be drinking this holiday or at this party, or whatever it is. Tell them your goals. And in a perfect world, you would tell many people, now, I know it may be hard for you.

It is really helpful if you have a partner or a friend or a family member who’s going to be with you to know that you’re not drinking. It’s okay to tell them that it’s hard. It’s okay to tell them that you’re not drinking, but you want to. Even just verbalizing that can make it easier. And also, I would love you to have support.

Support from people who actually get it, who may not be your partner, who may not be your mother, who may not be your best friend. Find an online group, find a coach. Find other people who understand that making it through a holiday party not drinking is a huge fucking deal that not drinking on Christmas Eve.

 

[00:06:00]

It may be the first time you’ve done that since you were pregnant or the first time you’ve done that in many years. It gets that waking up on Christmas morning without a hangover is life changing and awesome, and it was fucking hard the night before and you deserve a parade.

So find other people.

And I did some things right and I made a couple mistakes that first year, and I’m going to tell you about them.

Number one, my mom was staying with us and I hadn’t been with her the entire time I had stopped drinking. She had come to stay with my kids when we were in Europe.

Number one, my mom was staying with us and I had only been with her for two weeks. The entire time I had stopped drinking. She arranged this big family trip to Venice, Italy, and Croatia. But it wasn’t me and her, it was me and her and my husband and my 8-year-old, and my sister and family, and my cousins and family.

[00:07:00]

So, we didn’t spend a lot of time together, and I love my mom, but I think with any mother daughter relationship or 90% of ’em, there’s tension there. I know for me, my mom, I went to boarding school and then I went away for college. She was out of the country. I moved to Seattle. Like literally, we have not lived together for any significant period of time since I was 13 years old.

So, I love having her come to visit and having her with my kids, but I somehow immediately revert to my 13-year-old mindset and having all of those emotions. So that was new to me.

And she has no struggles with drinking, but she will have a glass of wine or two on special occasions. So we were getting ready for dinner on Christmas Eve and my husband asked me if it would be okay if he and my mom had a bottle of red wine for dinner.

[00:08:00]

And what’s amazing is that I had not had red wine in my house, except for if it was A-B-Y-O-B party where people brought it and then took it away at the end of the party. For the 10 months I was sober. My husband was a beer drinker, and when I stopped drinking wine, he stopped having it in the house. Red, white, champagne, whatever.

So, other people drank out at dinner sometimes at bigger dinner parties. But I had not had red wine on my table in an intimate dinner since before I stopped drinking. But I was 10 months along and I was sort of surprised and I felt like I was put on the spot by him because I was so thrown off.

But I said, okay. And I definitely should not have said that. When I look back, I mean, my husband is perfectly happy to have beer. I had non-alcoholic options that we could have had, like sparkling rose or Prosecco that was non-alcoholic.

[00:09:00]

That would’ve been perfect for holiday dinner. And my mom can really take or leave alcohol. So,  if I had served something non-alcoholic and hadn’t even mentioned wine, I don’t think she would’ve had any issue with it. It was just the five of us, meaning my mom, my husband, my 2-year-old, and my 8-year-old. And we were sitting around a dinner table and the red wine was just on the table in front of me within arm’s reach while my husband and my mom poured glasses of it.

And like I said, I had other beverages that I was very happy with, but red wine was my jam and it was quote unquote my Christmas Eve too. And I felt like it was just in my face and I should have said, you know what? I’d love it if you didn’t drink wine. How about X, Y, and Z? Or this is harder than I thought it would be, but I didn’t want to say that right?

[00:10:00]

Now, my husband and my mom, they are totally normies, meaning they can like have a glass, pour a second glass and have it just sit in front of them for a long period of time. Me, I could have taken down a bottle of wine in two hours easy, but I sat there through dinner, the whole dinner with their glasses like half full. We finished eating dinner and we went to the living room to play some sort of a board game with my kids. I sat there through the entire board game and the wine glasses were right in front of me and it was pissing me the fuck off, right?

I was just like, are you fucking kidding me? Finish the bottle of wine so I can get rid of it. Like, why is it here? And when it was time to take my daughter up to bed, I walked by the bottle, I picked it up. There was like still a quarter left, and I thought to myself, if I come back downstairs and they still haven’t finished this damn bottle of wine, I’m going to throttle their necks.

[00:11:00]

So, I went up to put my daughter to bed. I stayed up there a long time. She was like two and a half. I was rocking her to sleep. Then I put her in her crib. I was texting my sober bestie and I was like, Ingrid, WTF. These guys are drinking wine. I want to rip their head off. Like I wasn’t going to drink it, but it was just like this elephant in the room that I couldn’t take my mind off of.

And it was my Christmas eve too. I was pissed that I was like, why do I have to deal with this? Why is it in my face for the first time since I stopped drinking, when I should be relaxed and enjoying my kids and enjoying Christmas Eve? I went back downstairs and they still hadn’t drank it.

And so I went over to them and I was like, y’all need to finish this right now. And I poured it into their glasses and I went up to bed. Now we had already done like the santa cookies and the carrots for the reindeer and all that stuff before I put my daughter to bed, I came back down briefly to fill the stockings and all that stuff, but I was pretty much upstairs after that.

[00:12:00]

So the next night, my mother said again, oh, well, we can just have wine with dinner. And I was like, Nope, we are done. That’s it. You can have something else. No more fucking wine. And the thing is that both of them were clueless. They were literally clueless that it was so hard for me. They didn’t know that it was pissing me off, that it bothered me, and I should have had my own back and said something.

I mean, I finally did the next night. But I want to tell you, if you are listening to this, you are allowed to change your mind even midway through dinner being like, you know what, guys? Not loving the wine on the table. Can we get rid of it? I would just encourage you to think about. How much we always try to please others.

We want to make sure everyone else is happy, and not drinking is a big deal. Your first holiday is a big thing, and it is okay to ask people to drink something else than your beverage of choice.

[00:13:00]

I personally found it way easier to go to a larger party where people were drinking and I had all of my non-alcoholic beverages that I liked, and my husband was there and my best friend was there, and they both knew I wasn’t drinking.

I found that easier than sitting around a small table.

With an intimate group, with a bottle right in front of me for multiple hours. So figure out what is hardest for you. But part of this is boundaries, and part of this is setting yourself up for success without white knuckling it. And that means most of the time changing what you’ve done before.

So this is the 18th of December. And I want to remind you that you are allowed to ask for things. You are allowed to change what’s always been done. If I could go back and my husband says, do you mind if I have a bottle of wine at dinner with your mom? I would’ve been like, you know what? That would not be ideal.

[00:14:00]

Can you guys just have a beer? Or, I have this awesome non-alcoholic Prosecco, or Can we have sparkling water or make a non-alcoholic special mojito, or something like that. Just, you know what, no thanks. No big deal. Shrug up the shoulders. Thank you for asking and being considerate.

If people are offering to make your life better, if someone in your life is being like, Hey, I’m going to not drink with you tonight. Take them up on it. I’ve had clients be like, well, my husband offered to not drink, but I really don’t want to put ’em out because it’s my deal. And I’m like, dude, say thank you.

Say thank you. I appreciate you give him a back rub for fuck’s sake. You know, it’s all good. People are allowed to make your life easier. I mean, if someone you loved was doing this and you weren’t struggling with alcohol, wouldn’t you be like, Hey bestie, I’m here for you. Let’s do this together. So let people support you.

 

[00:15:00]

And another thing I remember, and this is us in early sobriety, making a huge change that is so tied to our identities of who we are and our fears about having fun and our fears about the future and our cravings. So I was driving back from a dinner party with my mom and my husband and my two kids. My son was eight and we were driving back at night.

It was dark. I was driving back in the car and my son said something to me about like, Hey mom, do you think you’ve been good this year? You know, he had been talking about Santa and we had talked about, you know, being good and have you been bad, yada, yada. And so I was driving along and I started feeling really emotional and reflecting on the fact that I had stopped drinking after being a bottle of wine, a night girl, sometimes a bottle and a half, and struggling with it internally, quietly for many, many years.

[00:16:00]

And I’d been doing all of this personal growth in the last year and I said to him, Hank, you know what? I think I have been really good this year. I’ve made some huge changes in my life and I’m really proud of myself and it wasn’t easy. And I think that’s really good for me. And. My mother out of nowhere, hypes up in the backseat, interrupts me talking to my son and said, well, I wouldn’t give yourself too much credit and silence.

You could have heard a pin drop, like the entire car went silence. And in my mind I’m like, what would’ve possessed you to pipe up? What would’ve possessed anyone to pipe up in that situation? And okay, I mentioned there was tension in our relationship and I went back to being a 13-year-old, and she probably did too, but I’m sure she wasn’t thinking about it.

But I don’t know why she interrupted. I don’t know why she jumped in and was like, Hey, I know you’re talking about how great you are, but maybe you shouldn’t get so big for your bridges or whatever.

[00:17:00]

Like, I don’t get it, but. It impacted me. And so like the five longest seconds in the world go by and God bless my husband, he finally pipes up to break the awkwardness and is like, actually I do think she should give herself a lot of credit.

This was a big thing and that was good for her and all that stuff. And if something like that happened now, I would not have been so hurt, so wounded, so upset. But God, like early sobriety, you are emotional and sensitive and everything is the biggest deal, right? Going through the holiday season, not drinking is a big deal.

Going over to my friend’s house for a dinner party and not drinking is a big deal. And I was proud of myself and I felt like I was communicating something to my 8-year-old son that, you know, putting it in language that hopefully he would understand. And this is big and this is hard, so you may understand why I got home.

[00:18:00]

I went up to my bedroom, I curled up and I cried a little bit and my husband came in and he gave me a big hug. And I hope my mom does not listen to this, but I got through it, right? I remember it to this day, but I got through it and I know that all those emotions I was feeling and that hurt, that was 90% about me and 10% about whatever she said, although I still think she shouldn’t have said it, but whatever.

But your first holiday, it is going to be hard and emotional. And that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. It doesn’t. And it doesn’t mean you can’t do this. And it doesn’t mean you are not going to be so happy on Christmas day or New Year’s Day or whatever day after a big party that you did not drink.

But it will be hard and you can do hard things, but you need to prepare for it. You need to think it through.

 

[00:19:00]

You need to have someone to text, or like my SSK member group, people to rely on people to cheer you on, people to strategize with you people to be like, oh my God, did your mother say anything tonight? All that stuff.

 

I have a place where you can go and be like, oh my God, my husband and mom are drinking wine at the table and they haven’t finished it in X amount of hours and it’s killing me. These people get it. These people will make you laugh. They will support you.

They’ll be like, Jesus fucking Christ. How do those people do that? I never would’ve been able to have done it. Like you need people who get it.

You need your emotions validated and you can post pictures in the group of your awesome non-alcoholic drinks. A hot cocoa bar. Or the fact that you like, remember going to bed and you know, washing your face and will wake up without a hangover and all that good stuff. Even though Christmas Eve might be hard.

So here’s the thing. Christmas Eve, not drinking was hard, but. It was nowhere near as hard as a Christmas Eve when I was drinking.

 

[00:20:00]

So I think we all have these moments that stand out to us as a particular low, where we beat ourselves up, or we think we’re the worst person in the world for drinking too much and all that stuff.

And I didn’t have a big dramatic bottom, you know, it built over time. I had the death of a thousand cuts, and some of those cuts were deeper than others. But the year before I stopped drinking, so I stopped in February. I tried to do Dry January. I had a couple lows, the Christmas and the New Years before I stopped drinking.

 

But the Christmas year before my daughter was one, my son was seven. That day is something I remember and reflecting on some of that actually makes not drinking on these sort of big events or anniversaries a lot easier. So same scenario, my mom was there on Christmas Eve, wine on the table.

 

[00:21:00]

I was definitely drinking. It did not take us two hours or three to finish that bottle of wine.

Like I said, I’m sure I drank a bottle and a half by myself over the course of the evening while I was cooking. I probably started late in the afternoon ’cause you know, holidays, whatever. It wasn’t that unusual because like I said, I was a big drinker every night, but it was also Christmas Eve and what I used to tend to do when I drank a lot was sort of go quiet, like fall asleep or pass out or just sort of sit in the corner with a smile on my face. I wasn’t this loud, embarrassing drunk. Even when I got really drunk, it was like, go up to everyone and tell them how much I love them and how awesome they are and all that sort of stuff.

But I had gray outs and blackouts on a pretty regular basis and I kind of just disappeared and went to bed a lot of times.

[00:22:00]

So Christmas Eve, I had no recollection of going to bed. I did not eat the cookies and, you know, eat the carrots for the reindeer and leave one there. I did not do that. I don’t know what I said to my mom or my kids, but I know I wasn’t mean.

I know it wasn’t this big dramatic stuff. I wasn’t upset, but it’s just blank. And here’s what I know. My daughter ran in and my son came in super, super excited and ridiculously early. Like I’m talking 6:00 AM on Christmas morning, and you guys know there’s nothing better than little kids in matching pajamas on Christmas morning, but I felt awful.

I was brutally, brutally hungover. My head was pounding, I felt like I could feel every blood vessel in my body pumping, and I was queasy. I sort of was like opening one eye and being like, holy shit, how am I going to handle this morning I went downstairs and like I said, total blank of the night before I went to my living room and I saw something that kind of haunts me to this day.

[00:23:00]

Basically, my stocking was full. My kids’ stockings were sort of half full, and my husband’s stocking was empty. And the reason was that I was the person who had been gathering all of the stocking stuffers for most of the year. I mean, I’m a prepared girl, I think ahead. So, every time I saw something fun that I thought would be cute for my husband or cute for my kids, or kind of fun from Santa, I would gather it up and I would hide it in my office.

And I had gone to bed without filling the stockings, so my husband, I don’t even know what he thinks about this, but he had done what he could with what he had, and by the time I got downstairs, my kids were already down by the stockings. My husband was already down there and I could not fill them. And just the shame of looking at that and knowing that I got drunk and I passed out and I didn’t fill my husband stalking that I had been preparing for months and months and my husband’s stocking was fucking empty.

 

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, 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.

 

[00:24:00]

It was just this shame. That sucks more than anything. And beyond that, I felt like total garbage. Like I was trying not to puke on Christmas morning, and we were just sitting around with coffee and coffee cake and the kids were young and they’re jumping all over me. And just the amount of like self-loathing I felt and shame and defensiveness and resentment.

 

I don’t know why I was resentful, but I was probably because I was positive, my mother and husband were looking at me like, what the fuck? And it was a defense mechanism, but it sucked. So when you think about my Christmas Eve, my first year of sobriety being hard, it was nowhere near as hard as blacking out and feeling like garbage and not filling up the stockings and trying to figure out how bad I was the night before.

[00:25:00]

And sort of looking at my mother and thinking she’s judging me because I was judging me. And my husband was clearly disappointed, but he didn’t say anything to me. He brought me my coffee. He didn’t say anything. And in my mind, that’s like almost fucking worse. Like I’m sure he tried to wake me up when he didn’t know where the stocking stuff was and he couldn’t, I was just fucking passed out and I couldn’t fill my kids’ stockings.

So. Christmas Eve with my husband and my mom. Yes, they drank a bottle of wine in front of me. Yes, I was pissed off. I kind of wanted to kill them. Yes, I was sensitive about something my mom said in the car. Yes, I cried on Christmas Eve. You know what else happened? I had amazing friends to text with. I had a group to share with.

 

My husband came up and comforted me when I was upset and told me I was amazing. My kids? I put them to bed sober and they were so excited about Christmas. I remember those conversations with them when I was tucking them in.

[00:26:00]

The next day, I went downstairs after they went to bed and I ate the cookies and I had my non-alcoholic Prosecco, and I ate some of the carrots and I stuffed the stockings and I put out the Santa presents.

Drank the milk. It felt so good. I was so proud of myself. I got all the tingles. My kids came in in the morning and I felt great. Which, you know, if you’ve been hung over, the contrast is like amazing. I didn’t have a headache. We opened presents. I didn’t want to not be in any of the photos. I had lost a ton of weight.

I looked so much better.

We were those people in the matching pajamas, which you know, is cheesy, but with the little kids, I thought we were ridiculously cute. And later I went on a run on Christmas Day, right?

Instead of self-loathing, instead of trying to pretend everything is okay, instead of hanging out all day with my mother, when I really needed a break,

[00:27:00]

I went on a run and it was beautiful out and I felt that like natural high and I was listening to good music.

So yes, not drinking is hard, but you know what? Drinking is hard too. Drinking is fucking hard. It’s hard physically, it’s hard emotionally, and it’s hard mentally. And the pride and the joy you feel when you get through those uncomfortable moments, it is amazing. So if your parents are coming to town or your in-laws, if you are traveling to see them, if you are dealing with divorce or your kids are at a tough age, or you and your spouse are fighting, or I don’t care what it is. It is worth it to get support, to plan ahead, to value yourself, to go to bed early, to text people that you’re about to kill your family and to not drink.

You’re going to a party. The first 20 minutes are the worst, so eat something.

[00:28:00]

Or if people are coming over to your place, eat something before they come. Hunger is a huge trigger. Get yourself awesome. Non-alcoholic beverages. Tell people you aren’t drinking.

You don’t have to tell them anything else. You can be like, I want to go into the new year feeling awesome. So I’m starting this health kick now, or I want to be present for everything in this special time. I want to experience it all. I don’t want to be hungover tomorrow, so I’m just going to drink this awesome non-alcoholic beverage.

And you know, this is good. Or when you trust them, this is really hard. But I made a commitment to not drink this holiday season because I want to be present for it. So will you support me? All of that is okay. Make a hot cocoa bar with all the different options.

Get the peppermint candy. Eat the desserts. Go on a long walk. Take a bubble bath. Do a face mask. Remove yourself from hard situations. Take a break before happy hour. Go get some exercise. That’s okay.

[00:29:00]

If you’re going to a party, drive your own car, get there late. Leave early. Set some boundaries, but don’t give up on yourself or on your commitment.

Don’t think this is impossible to get through because it is not, and the good outweighs the bad.

You deserve to feel proud of yourself. The other thing I want to say is that a lot of times we build up events when we’re going to drink to be way better than they actually are. And in retrospect, we think it’s going to be fun and amazing because it’s a party and we’re drinking, we think it’s going to suck if we don’t drink and like we’re denying ourselves something and like we deserve to drink or that will ruin it for other people if we don’t drink or will be boring or downer.

 

Whatever that voice in your head is telling you is why you need to drink this holiday season.

 

[00:30:00]

And a lot of times if you get honest and if you think back on various events, the reality is very, very different than what you might imagine. And here’s another one that stands out to me. So same year you wonder why I quit drinking in February.

These were 2 super lows and sadly not the date I stopped drinking, but I started trying really hard and I, I would go four days and drink a bottle of wine and four days and drink a bottle of wine. And then I finally woke up at 3:00 AM in February after a couple more of these, you know, lows and was like, I cannot do this to myself anymore. And all my white knuckling is getting me nowhere. So I joined a program like my sobriety starter kit. I joined an online group, like my SSK member group. I got a sober coach that I wrote to every day, and I made the a hundred day commitment and I told everyone in my fucking life that I was doing it. But that year, on New Year’s Eve, my kids were around again. They were two and eight. We got a hall pass.

 

[00:31:00]

My mother-in-law was staying with us and our very good friends who we were friends with before we had kids, and we all had kids now they were having sort of a sleepover New Year’s Eve party, right? Like we were back in our twenties. So Mike and I were going to the party at our good friend’s house and we were going to sleepover with no kids and it was New Year’s Eve and I was beyond excited, so I got all dressed up. We were going to this party with our friends, and we got there and you know, you know me. I started drinking, right? I opened the wine. I opened the champagne. It was a party. Here’s what I know. I definitely did not make it to midnight. I don’t remember a lot of it at all.

 

I woke up in the guest bedroom the next day with another brutal hangover. My life sounds really exciting, right? Like, woo-hoo, it’s such a great time drinking.

I don’t remember if I got sloppy or when I got sloppy.

[00:32:00]

I don’t remember if I started slurring. I don’t remember if I went to bed by myself or my husband put me to bed. I don’t remember if I embarrassed myself in front of my friends or if they were like, where’s Casey? What happened to her? I mean, I. I know I’m embarrassed that I just passed out before midnight.

What I do remember is waking up feeling awful and having to sort of slink upstairs and get the OJ and pretend I wasn’t feeling ill like I did. Trying to catch up on what happened before trying to somehow play off that I got too drunk and went to bed before midnight, which by the way is pretty hard to play off.

But they were all very kind and didn’t call me out and just tried to pretend that it didn’t happen. We never talked about it.

I know my husband had no one to kiss at midnight. That’s what I know. So like that was my big amazing drinking event that I had looked forward to for probably three fucking months.

[00:33:00]

I thought that I couldn’t have fun if I wasn’t drinking. And I thought it would suck if I was not drinking and I would be missing out and I missed out on that entire night. I just don’t remember it. It’s a huge blank. I missed out because I was drinking. I didn’t have fun because I was drinking.

 

I wasn’t present with my friends because I was drinking. I let down my husband on a night. That could have been a great memory because I was drinking and I felt like shit the next day because I was drinking. And the same thing had happened on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Waking up on New Year’s Day, telling yourself you’re a piece of shit and what the fuck is wrong with you and you really need to get a handle on your drinking and this is messed up and you fucked up again and you feel like garbage.

 

That is hard. That is a crappy way to start a new year.

[00:34:00]

So you know what happened? My first sober New Year’s Eve, I actually truly, truly loved it. And we have new traditions now. Traditions that I started on my first sober New Year’s Eve because I needed to plan for it. I knew it would be hard. So now I create a vision board on New Year’s Eve every year, and I’m a huge vision board fan. If you listen to this podcast, you know that. And if you’re interested.

 

Listen next week because I’m going to talk about manifesting for the new year and your New Year’s wakeup call and how vision boards can be part of it and all that good stuff. So listen to this podcast and I am going to get you hyped for the new year. But I create a vision board each year, and I keep it front and center. It helps you, you know, all the things that you promise yourself you’re going to do in the new year, or you want to do, or the way you want to be, whatever it is. And then life gets busy and it doesn’t seem practical and it doesn’t seem important, or you think you’ll do it when you’re less busy or you just forget about why you were so riled up to do that in the new year.

 

[00:35:00]

A vision board can help you by keeping that front and center, by reminding you of all the good things in life that you want that aren’t centered around drinking. It can bring you joy and quotes on a vision board can help you reframe your automatic thoughts to something that will support you and be positive and optimistic, and help you make the change you want.

So tune into this podcast. I’m going to give you everything you need, but you can also get your supplies now. So, you want to find out how to get my free vision board kit. It’s a hundred pages of inspiration and quotes and things you can think about and look through and do to put on your vision board this year.

It is completely free with a hundred quotes and affirmations and information on how to make powerful vision board both for what you want in the new year and to support sobriety.

 

[00:36:00]

So if you want to go grab that, go to hellosomedaycoaching.com/vision-board-kit.

 

Enter your email address, it’ll come to your inbox.

So, on New Year’s Eve these days, I vision board, like I’ve got all my quotes every year since I stopped drinking almost 10 years ago. It shifts in terms of what I want to remember this year and what I want to do, and it’s exciting.

 

But in early sobriety, this is incredible to do. I set up my pushpin board.

 

I do it with my daughter, but she needs to do her own vision board because I need mine. So I let her create her own, which is actually really fun for her too. We talk about the year ahead. We talk about what we love. We talk about what we’re going to do in the new year. I drink my non-alcoholic Prosecco or bubbly rose.

 

We have music going and it is awesome.

[00:37:00]

My son years ago when he was three or four, we asked him what he wanted for New Year’s Eve and he said he wanted a birthday cake. So now we make a birthday cake every year, which actually tastes really good and is super fun. And then we have new traditions.

So my mom usually comes for Christmas. My mother-in-law usually comes for the week after Christmas and. While my mom’s here, she reads our tarot cards every year. It’s her thing. She’s done it for like 20 years, which I actually like and I keep my tarot card for the year ahead.

But with my mother-in-law on New Year’s Eve, we get these things that are called Flying Wish paper, and you can get them on Amazon and it’s early enough that you can order them now and definitely get them before the new year. And it’s this super thin paper. You get it in a pack, I forget of whether it’s 16 or 12 or 20, but how many sheets of paper?

I’m not sure. But you get a bunch, you get the pencil and you write down your wishes on it.

[00:38:00]

And so, my mother-in-law, my son, my daughter, my husband, myself, we have divided it up each year. So we each get three individual wishes, three little pieces of paper, and we write down what we want for the new year.

And then we get three pieces sort of for the universe, sort of group, group wishes for the year ahead. And it’s really fun to talk to kids about what you want or what they care about, or you know, the world at large. So we crumple up all our wishes. You roll ’em up sort of in cylinders, and we turn off all the lights and we put it in the middle of the kitchen table and we light them on for there.

And it’s totally safe with a lighter a match you, you need to do it inside so they don’t fly away or go out. And the flying wish paper with your wish sort of catches on fire and it burns down a little bit and then it lights up in the air and it goes flying. So we give my kids these cups so they can catch the ashes.

[00:39:00]

Seriously. This is fun. But I like doing it just for myself as well. And it’s exciting when it goes up in the air and we all share our wishes for the new year with each other.

And it’s lovely. It’s lovely. And then we watch the fireworks and we cuddle up in our PJs. Then we go to sleep. And I’ve got to tell you, that is a shit load better than not knowing how I went to bed in front of my friends or not knowing whether I slurred or was out of it in front of my kids. Not remembering the night and being embarrassed around my husband and having to apologize or try to figure out if he’s mad at me or if I should say something and feeling like total garbage and digging myself out of that hole on New Year’s Day, just feeling physically ill.

Those 2 New Year’s eves, I wouldn’t trade my sober one for my drinking one ever. And part of that is we need to clearly look at what we tell ourselves is going to be amazing when we’re drinking and those limiting beliefs about them.

[00:40:00]

And then going back. Actually validating that actually being like, okay, on those huge drinking nights, was it really epic?

Do I remember it? Do I do anything I regretted? Did I feel good the next day? Whatever it is, and I want to encourage you, even if you still think that drinking is worth it, give yourself a chance to experience what it is like without drinking. Give yourself the opportunity.

You probably have years or decades of drinking on New Year’s Eve. You might not have a single sober one other than when you were pregnant. Give yourself a chance to see what it’s like to see if it’s better to see how you feel waking up on New Year’s Day, not digging yourself out of that hole.

You need to plan for it, right? Don’t necessarily do the same thing you do every fucking year, like going to a giant party where everybody gets drunk and sloppy.

[00:41:00]

You know, if you want to go to that, go late, leave early, plan something else. But I would encourage you to just plan a whole New Year’s Eve.

That’s different. That’s special.

I told you about my New Year’s Eve traditions, but yours does not need to look like mine. It can be totally different, but brainstorm a bit, right? This is your night and because you are not drinking, you do not need to sit around feeling deprived or being bored or feeling jealous.

And dear God, I beg of you, do not be the fucking designated driver. Do not. That is a recipe for being miserable, and you want to set yourself up for success, not self-sabotage. If you do go to a party and your husband or your partner or whoever wants to keep drinking, like drive yourself or you take the car home and they can Uber home or suggest something different, do not be the designated driver for your friends, right?

They can get an Uber, they can hire something. What would you guys have done in terms of getting there and back if you were drinking?

[00:42:00]

Just don’t torture yourself. Okay? This is your New Year’s Eve too. This is your Christmas Eve too. Do something that you are excited about.

 

There are so many things you can do that aren’t drinking. You can rent a cabin or you can go snowshoeing during the day and come back and have that like great feeling of having been outdoors. You can go sledding for the day and come home and watch a family movie.

You can do a spa night at home and get your skin ready for the new year. I don’t know what it is, but you can do something wonderful. So I really encourage you to do that, to get mindful and to contrast or look with clear eyes about quote unquote how fun and amazing your drinking holidays really were.

And not just the night, but look at the mornings and then contrast it to how incredible it could be to be joyful and fun and do things that were on your bucket list, maybe that you always said you were going to do, but you never did because drinking was your priority or your habit or your ritual.

[00:43:00]

So that’s my advice on moving from December 18th or whenever you are listening to this through New Year’s Day, not drinking, change some things. If it’s New Year’s Eve or a holiday party or Christmas Eve and you need to go to a party, go for a few hours. Then plan something different afterwards or say, oh, we really wanted to go for a family hike this year, so we’re going to show up from X to Y. Say this year you really want to go look at the holiday lights, so you’re going to go downtown and do that.

 

Or we’re going to take a drive on New Year’s Eve and look at the holiday lights, but we’ll come back. So we’ll leave the party and then we’ll come back. And that’s why I am not drinking or schedule a massage or a facial for New Year’s Eve. That would be amazing, right? And come to the party briefly after your massage. Like break it up, have something else that you’re interested in doing. Bring your own alcohol-free beverages.

 

 

[00:44:00]

I cannot emphasize this enough, and it can be anything I personally love Athletic Brewing Company, non-alcoholic beer. And if you go to the Athletic Brewing Company website and use the code CASEYD20, you will get 20% off your first order, and shipping is free.

I also love Gruvi, they’re non-alcoholic, Prosecco or bubbly rose. You can also get that on Amazon. I love Surely. Non-alcoholic brute. That’s S-U-R-E-L-Y. You can get non-alcoholic spirits, you can still make your gin and tonic. You can still make whatever you want. You can make a non-alcoholic mojito. Just keep the ritual, change the ingredients, but do not show up at a party without something that you want to drink with you.

 

And if someone’s like, oh, there’s wine or beer over there, be like, that’s awesome. Actually, I brought my own. So I’m all set. Or something like that.

Tell at least one person in your life that’s going to be around you, that you’re not drinking and that you would love their support.

 

[00:45:00]

And you might break down and ask ’em and say, screw it, I want to drink. And you know what? If you do that, like hopefully they don’t listen to you. You are not drinking. I get it. It is not their job to police you, but if you put it out there to one person, or actually even better, to a couple people, you are so much less likely to break and say, screw it.

Take some breaks. Okay? Some people just go to a bathroom or bedroom and just text someone who gets it or post in the SSK member group or whatever community you’re in. Take some quiet time. Walk outside. Just be that person who’s like, oh my gosh, I want to see the stars tonight. Whatever.

You’ll seem deep and mysterious. Okay.

Just take breaks and then remember, you can leave early. Also, don’t go in hungry. Hunger is the biggest trigger. Make sure you are fed. Do not diet man. Eat the cookies, eat all the good stuff.

Have a drink in your hand as soon as you can. That way they will stop asking you if you need something.

00:46:00]

Don’t sit [by the drinks table. Scope out who might not be drinking or who might not be getting drunk, and go over and chat with them. Ask them questions about what was their best part of the last year, or what are you excited about next year? Or, tell me a story about your best Christmas ever. Best New Year’s ever.

Like, listen, be present, have. Actual conversations that are not just, oh my God, I’m so busy. You know, ask ’em where the next place is that they want to take their dream trip to.

And if you want to drink, just tell yourself that joy comes in the morning. It really does. You are trading your fuzzy, boozy night for waking up with pride and excitement and a clear head and a sort of joy in the morning while you’re drinking your coffee or tea and watching the sun come up like

you don’t know how good that is. It is worth it.

So you’re listening to this, and I want you to listen to this again. Listen to this multiple times if you need to. I have got you.

[00:47:00]

And if you have been trying to stop drinking, but you’ve been going four days or seven days, or one day or two weeks, or 30 days, or whatever it is, get some support. Stop doing the hardest part over and over again. I want to encourage you to join my sober new year 100 program. It is something new.

 

I have never done it before and I am so excited about it.

 

Sober New Year 100 is a 100 day alcohol-free coaching experience for women with all my support.

 

And you can get started with all the support. As soon as you sign up, go and check out the program. You can go to www.sobernewyear.com

Or go to my website, hellosomedaycoaching.com. But the easiest way to get there is to go to www.sobernewyear.com.

 

So you might be asking. Why 100 days instead of 30?

[00:48:00]

And I have done Dry January programs for many years, but I know that dry January is the warmup. It’s not the transformation. And I want to give you everything you need to get out of the drinking cycle and feel really great and feel what a hundred days alcohol free can look like And start 2026, feeling amazing and proud of yourself and building something wonderful.

 

And I love a one month challenge. I do because it helps you begin. But here’s the truth that nobody tells you. You are just starting to feel good at 30 days and just scratching the surface of changing your relationship with alcohol. The first two weeks are hard. They just are. If you’ve been drinking on any kind of a regular basis, you aren’t going to feel great physically, mentally, or emotionally.

You’re going to have cravings. You’re going to want to drink at the witching hour. You won’t sleep well in the beginning, and you’ll be irritated and sensitive, right?

[00:49:00]

I promise you, in the Sober New Year 100, I will give you all the tools to navigate that feeling as good as possible, and I will help you not give up in the beginning when the going is tough.

So, the first month is hard, especially those first two weeks. It’s important. It’s powerful, but it is not where the magic happens. The real magic starts showing up in the second and the third month, that identity shift. The one where you trust yourself again, where you feel like a completely different woman who is clear and confident and in control.

When sobriety just starts to feel like living instead of struggling through every Friday night or every social event, it doesn’t happen at 30 days. It happens at 100. 100 days gives your brain time to reset. It gives your body time to heal. It gives your nervous system time to regulate.

[00:50:00]

It gives you enough repetition to build habits that actually last 30 days proves you can take a short break from drinking, 100 days will help you transform your year.

 

You can go to sobernewyear.com and check out everything in the program. But I am really, really excited about this. This is a brand new program that I am fully invested in, so I want to tell you a little bit about it.

So, you join the program, you get lifetime access to my full Sobriety Starter Kit Coaching program.

It has helped over 1500 women stop drinking, build lives they love without alcohol. There is everything in there. You need to go from day 1 to day 100 to 6 months to one year and beyond, and it goes beyond sober coaching. It is life coaching for busy women.

 

I will help you and give you the tools to walk through stress and overwhelm boundaries, shifting relationships, triggers,

 

[00:51:00]

vacations, parties, everything you need and you can keep coming back to it for years and years. We kick off the sober new year 100 on January 4th. I am going to help you start 2026 with clarity and momentum and a structured plan.

We have a two hour live coaching and planning session where you get to meet all the women in the Sober New Year Circle. You get to come together and you will know exactly what to do next, exactly what to expect, and how to succeed. But again, if you jump into the sober new year 100, you can start now.

With all of that support, you will have my support and the community of women you need, and the strategies and tools and resources to get through Christmas, to get through New Year, to get through a trip to see your family. So don’t wait until January 3rd. Join now.

You will get a bonus of 100 days of my daily support in the SSK private member community.

[00:52:00]

I will give you encouragement and advice. You will have real conversations with women who get it every single day of your a hundred days. You are not doing this alone, even for one minute. And if you love the community, you can keep going for a small monthly fee after those 100 days. Or you can say, that was the perfect jumpstart.

That’s exactly what I need. And. Cancel anytime. Oh my gosh. We have so much support for this program. So we get the kickoff. You will have monthly group live coaching, q and as in January, February and March. You can raise your hand and unmute. I will coach you personally.

You will get real time feedback and we will help you through challenges and celebrations and everything in between.

One of the best parts of starting now, starting with the sober new year 100 is that you get to walk through change with a group of really cool women who are doing it with you. So as part of the program, we are going to launch the Sober New Year Circle.

 

[00:53:00]

A group of inspiring women starting their a hundred days at the same time. And one of the things I love and I have seen is really, really powerful about my SSK member group is that you have your, I like to call ’em your sober litter mates, your friends who are moving through two weeks and 30 days and 50 days together.

But you also have an incredible community of women who have six months and have one year and two years and three years, and all of that experience to help cheer you on. A lot of programs have just women starting dry January together, and that is awesome. But you need a deeper community.

You need the advice and the support of women who have done this before who aren’t just on day 10 with you. So I have set up this program with all of my coaching experience to give you the tools you need to actually succeed and not just [00:54:00] hold your breath through dry January.

This is a coaching approach. It’s a habit change approach. It is positive and empowering and it works. I’ve also created the first month alcohol free roadmap with week by week coaching videos, week by week playbooks and planners, and a 30 day calendar. So this is your extra structured, extra supported roadmap for the first month.

This is the phase when most women struggle, and I created this to make sure that you never have to guess your way through it. As part of the program, you will have a private podcast and online app. If you love podcasts, you will have all the coaching and tools and pep talks and videos right in your back pocket.

You can listen in your car while you’re commuting. You can listen on planes when you’re traveling. You can listen on walks or during your run or put your earbuds in when you’re doing the dishes or doing the laundry.

[00:55:00]

This program is designed for real women with real lives, and I want it to work for you.

You’ll have so much more your partner support playbook, because your partner and friends and loved ones can either make this process a lot easier or harder, and this is designed to help them understand what you’re doing in a really non-threatening, easy to understand this isn’t the biggest deal in the world way, why it matters and exactly how to support you through it.

 

So, having your partner know what you need, positioning it in a way that is not the biggest deal in the world. Not like I have a problem, yada, yada, yada, but. Presents it in a positive way and tells them how they can help you, right? Your loved ones want to support you even if they don’t understand it. And by the way, I also have a lot of support in the program, in the community, in the group for women whose partners don’t support them.

 

[00:56:00]

For women whose partners or family might also struggle with alcohol, might consciously or unconsciously, subtly or overtly try to sabotage your work. So I’ve got what you need to navigate all the challenges in your life, and we also have a 100 day graduation and celebration event that I cannot wait to.

Enjoy with all of you when you make it to 100 days. Now you don’t have to be perfect. This shit is hard, and that’s why you need support. So if you stumble, if you come up against big challenges, if you have a slip, you are not alone.

 

So, if you want this year to be the one that you finally break out of the drinking cycle, where you let go of what’s been holding you back, where you find strategies that actually work to move through those limiting beliefs and those fears and those triggers. I’ve got you.

 

[00:57:00]

This is the first year I am opening this program. I only am going to open it once a year. So, if you want to start 2026 feeling clear and proud and alcohol-free, this is your chance to do it and to get all my support and to meet a group of really, really cool women.

 

So, I know that was a lot, but I want you to give yourself this gift for the new year. Go to sobernewyear.com. Jump in, as soon as you sign up, you’ll get instant access to all the tools and all my support, and we do the big kick-off on January 4th. I would love to see you there.

 

Regardless of whether you join or you don’t join, I am really excited for you and for the year ahead. It’s going to be good.

All right. Happy holidays. You’ve got this and I am rooting for you.

So thank you for coming on here. I couldn’t appreciate it more.