Have you thought about taking a break from alcohol but then decided that you’re just not ready to stop drinking?

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What to Do If You’re Just Not Ready Yet To Stop Drinking With Julie Dereshinsky

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, alcohol, wine, stop drinking, quit drinking, point, women, thinking, husband, ready, sober, Julie, Casey, relationship, Coach, spend, podcast, clients, kids, day, sobriety, journey, sober curious, one-one-one Coaching, feel, alcohol-free, SHE RECOVERS®, fear, who am I? without alcohol, death by 1000 cuts, mommy wine culture, big alcohol companies target women, moderate drinking, Dry January, Sober October, questioning your relationship with alcohol, toxic relationship, boundaries, number one success factor

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Julie Dereshinsky

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 we are talking about

what to do if you are “just not ready yet to stop drinking”

And this is something that I’m sure is going through the minds of so many of you who are listening to this.

Before I stopped drinking, in my last 2 years, I knew deep in my heart that the way I was drinking was unsustainable. I was no longer under the illusion that I would be able to moderate or that my drinking could go on for a long time.

But I really felt like I’m just not ready yet. I don’t want to stop yet. And we’re going to talk about all the reasons that women do this.

But looking back, even from 100 days, 200 days and one year alcohol-free. I look back and I wish that I had attempted sobriety earlier with a different mindset because as I look back, I know I loved drinking but 80% of my drinking was no fun at all. And I was really holding on to that 20% and afraid of what life would be like without drugs.

So, if you in your mind are like yes, I’m sober curious. Yes, my relationship with alcohol is something I’m worried about. But you are thinking I am just not ready yet to stop drinking, this episode is for you. So, my guest today is Julie Dereshinsky.

She’s an International Coaches Federation Certified Professional Coach, a SHE RECOVERS® Coach and an integrative Enneagram Practitioner. Julie specializes in Mental Health Coaching and working with high functioning, high-achieving women who are questioning their relationship with alcohol. Many of the women she works with share the experience that alcohol is no longer serving them the way it used to. And they are noticing an impact on their mental health.

Julie is a wife and a mom to two young kids. She spent many years questioning her own relationship with alcohol until she decided to live alcohol-free 6 years ago.

In her downtime, Julie enjoys traveling, reading, and spending time with her husband and kids and volunteering her time in the community. She’s been featured on a bunch of podcasts and writes for Scary Mommy and Thrive Global. So, Julie, welcome.

Julie Dereshinsky  03:58

Thank you, Casey. It’s great to be here.

Casey McGuire Davidson  04:01

Yeah, I’m excited because I really wanted to have this conversation, especially remembering when I would think in my mind very clearly. I just don’t want to stop. Yeah. And so, tell me about what you hear the most from the women you work with about their reasons for not being ready.

Julie Dereshinsky  04:24

Sure, great question. There’s definitely a common thread, I would say across all the women I work with, I’d save. You know, everybody says, I’m not ready yet. Because I have a trip coming up or a wedding or my child’s first birthday. I won’t be fun. My partner drinks. I’ll lose friends, right? The list goes on and on and on. And I use many of these kinds of reasons for myself to stay in sort of the hamster wheel. I’ll have moderation for a while. But I would say it’s by and large, there’s the goalposts keeps moving. And there’s always something on the horizon, I think. And, you know, that’s our brains way of keeping us drinking, right catastrophizing and future tripping on what’s coming down the pike and why we should keep doing what we’re doing.

Casey McGuire Davidson  05:23

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that one of the things that women want is they spend a lot of time and I know I did this to reading all the books, listening to all the podcasts, which by the way, is amazing, like, you are doing so many good things for yourself and opening your eyes. If you are doing those things, reading books will be about alcohol and your brain and your body listening to podcast, but they want to wait until they no longer want to drink, right? I don’t know if you’ve ever taken those like, really crappy selfies of yourself when you were hungover. Did you ever do that?

Julie Dereshinsky  06:07

Yeah, I love looking at the pictures, right? The paler in your skin or your eyes that are. Can sort of low level bloodshot. Yeah.

Casey McGuire Davidson  06:16

And then I would write myself notes of like, why I was terrible, because I drank too much. And then also just talking so much shit to myself. And I think we do this with the idea that if we have enough negative feedback about our drinking, then we will no longer want to drink. And the punchline there is then it’ll be easy, right? Because stopping drinking is hard. You have cravings, you want to drink, you’re irritable.

But the incredible thing that’s counterintuitive is you don’t stop wanting to drink until you get some physical distance from the last time you drank. And that’s physical, emotional, all the reasons why.

So, if you’re telling yourself you’re just not ready yet, you know, just begin.

Julie Dereshinsky  07:12

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. And you bring up a good point too, around sort of waiting, waiting to be ready. That word ready is so layered and subjective. And sort of a close cousin to that mindset is, you know, nothing bad, quote, unquote, air quotes here. Nothing bad has happened yet, or I’m not that bad, or I haven’t done the thing. Broken that cardinal rule yet. That’s when I know. I’m ready. Right? Yeah.

Casey McGuire Davidson  07:45

Yeah, no, completely. And the funny thing is, when I was drinking, it was like a death of 1000 cuts, right? You say nothing bad has happened. But then I looked back and, you know, was like, what about that time in my 20s? When I was throwing up in the office, back bathroom the day of a hugely important business meeting? Or what about that time when I don’t remember the night when I was out with my girlfriends at all, but they told me that I was like crying at the end of the night and asking if I had a problem with alcohol. And, you know, I have no recollection of that.

Julie Dereshinsky  08:26

So, you’re like, those are the things it did happen. It is happening, right, but it’s to your point death, death by 1000 cuts.

The other thing too, I should mention that, also comes up quite a bit is, is the identity in the label, right? And being ready, I think, to so many women feels like you have to be ready to claim that identity. And for many people feels like you know, they have to identify with the word alcoholic, or they have to use the phrase, I’m sober. And I think a lot of people and I, you know, I definitely I would put myself in this category where you know, if you’re a gray area drinker, or you’re just questioning your relationship with alcohol, but it’s a problem, like screw the identity, you don’t have to have a word, right? You don’t have to say your something. And I think that takes a lot to get people sort of past that and comfortable with that. And it’s frustrating because no one bats an eyelash if you say you’re gluten free or dairy free, but there’s this scariness that comes along with saying I’m alcohol free. And suddenly we feel like a pariah. And I think a lot of people that’s really scary. And I get that.

Casey McGuire Davidson  09:37

And I think that’s because of the historical representation of the only people who don’t drink are people who have a quote unquote problem with it. And I really believe and see that that is changing. I do in terms of talking to people and being like, Oh, actually, I don’t drink and they’re like, oh, good for you. Do you know or? Yeah, me either. I mean, I am shocked at the number of people I tell because I tell people what I do. And, you know, even like I told you, I was car shopping on Saturday, the guy eventually who is selling me, the car asked me what I did. And I said, Oh, actually, you know, I’m a coach and a podcaster. And he was like, oh, what kind? And I said, Oh, I help women quit drinking. And he just was like, I gave it up three years ago. And the more you tell people, I was like, I would have never had an idea. Yeah, absolutely.

I actually posted and pulled up a quote, like this weekend, and it is so true.

It said, “I kept waiting for life to get better. So, I could quit drinking. But I didn’t realize that life would get better when I quit drinking.”

Because the other thing I hear from women is, oh, my, my marriage isn’t in a great place, or my work is a nightmare, or business trips keep coming up. And how am I going to handle flying first class or sitting in the airport or doing XYZ without drinking, or, you know, my kids are in this sports league that everybody drinks, the idea is that my life right now is difficult. And therefore, I need to drink to cope.

But someday, when my life is less crap, I’ll stop drinking. And I always tell women, I’m like, you may decide not to stay with your husband, or you may decide to quit your job. But stop drinking first. And I promise you, you will have more clarity, you will be happier, you will have better boundaries, like a lot of your life improves, just by stopping drinking. I’ve had a lot of women say my marriage cuts so much better. I was on the verge of wanting to divorce. And you know, it does not happen for everyone. I’ve certainly have clients who’ve gotten divorced, but at least they did it from a place of power and clarity, not desperation.

Julie Dereshinsky  12:11

Totally, totally. And I think that’s a really good point. And I saw that quote, and I love it. And I saved it. And I think the common denominator of alcohol and all that it’s, it’s sort of hard to, it’s hard to see it and acknowledge it until you’re aware you are or I am or really anywhere on the other side to notice. Oh, yeah, things did get better once once I took that common denominator out of this equation.

Casey McGuire Davidson  12:40

Yeah. And it’s so we don’t want to do that. Right? We absolutely don’t want to do that. Because we have bought into the idea that we’re less irritable, we’re happier. Our whole social life revolves around alcohol. Everyone you know drinks, but it is worth it to take a period of time without alcohol. Now, like your sign is that you are listening to this podcast, that is enough. Even if your mind your rationalizations are saying, Yeah, but I’m not ready yet.

Absolutely. What else do you hear from women for like, all the reasons that they’re not ready yet?

Julie Dereshinsky  13:30

I think the other sort of big factor I hear a lot is, is the fear of and I mentioned this at the beginning, this fear of who am I? If I’m not drinking, this is a big part of my identity.

I work with a lot of women who are parents, right? And so, we think about mommy wine culture, we think about the way you know, big alcohol targets women, like it’s a real real problem. And I think the I think of it if I were to use a metaphor, a metaphor, you know, a ball of rubber bands, all tangled and messy together, right? Parenting, motherhood, relationships, alcohol work, like it’s all there. And I think alcohol has become such a coping mechanism, an unhealthy coping mechanism for so many that to your point. So many of my clients feel as if everything’s going to fall apart and come crashing down if you pull that one rubber band out or thread out, right. And so, there’s just this real fear and hesitation to try it.

Casey McGuire Davidson  14:42

Yeah. How do you work with women to extricate those beliefs from a give them the support and courage to take that step?

Casey McGuire Davidson 

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

 

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

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

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

Julie Dereshinsky  14:54

Yeah. And so, the other thing before I answer that, I’ll go back to your other question around, you know, where different women are on their journey, right? Like, no two journeys look the same. And I think no matter what, whether they’re, you know, quietly listening to podcasts or reading quit lit on their own and sort of not talking about it out loud yet, like, they’re, they’re somewhere on their journey, right, they’re at an important part of their journey. And my role as a Coach really is to meet them where they are.

So, for the woman who’s in that hamster wheel of trying to moderate here and there, maybe taking part in Dry January or Sober October.

I think for those women who aren’t quite ready yet, but they kind of are because they’re dabbling in these things. Right? I bring a lot of curiosity, and I help them bring a lot of curiosity to their life and hold a mirror up, you know, how, how is alcohol? Let’s talk about it. It’s hard to say goodbye to, so let’s talk about what keeps you here? How is it serving you? And oftentimes, you know, there’s a lot of romanticizing going on. And I think once we, sort of, start to hone in, on that, some clarity comes. Sometimes asking the simple question of a client in that stage of, you know, what do you want more of in your life? And what do you want less of? And going back to the concept of a common denominator? Like in that question, right? You might not even be thinking of answering it through the lens of alcohol. But we quickly get there, right? I want more of X. And what why aren’t we getting more of X? Usually it’s because of drinking, I want less of y. What do you think’s going on there? It’s usually there’s alcohols in there somewhere, right?

Casey McGuire Davidson  16:51

Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned a couple of things that I wanted to highlight, I did an episode on how to stop romanticizing alcohol start romanticizing sobriety, and a fear that I, in my Course, Membership groups, something that came up this last weekend, was an awesome woman who was past 100 days alcohol-free, went on a basketball tournament weekend with her 10 year old son. And she was, you know, not having the best time for all the reasons.

And number one, she was staying in a crappy motel where she didn’t want to be a lot of other parents were drinking, right? You could smell the alcohol on their breath at the 8:30pm game, which separate question when you get away from alcohol, you’re going to look back and be like, what I did what? And they were all hanging out by the pool, drinking, and talking about it. And she hears what she was worried about, which is, you know, when you look back again, is so interesting. She was worried that they would think she was boring.

And number two, that they would think she was stuck up, because she wasn’t drinking with them. Which is so interesting. I mean, some other women tell me, Well, I feel bad going out to dinner with this person if I’m not drinking. I feel bad going on vacation with them if I’m not drinking, because I’m going to ruin their time. And it’s so interesting, why we keep going with this with this behavior that is clearly not good for our mental health, physical health, emotional health, keeping us stuck. And yet, we’re going to keep consuming this substance that by all measure is poison to our body. Because we feel bad that someone else we’re not going to get drunk with someone else or because if you don’t drink, they might think that you think you’re too good for them. Like, our minds are so convoluted.

Julie Dereshinsky  19:00

Absolutely. Oh my god, this one hits I feel like it’s the pleaser, shapeshifter, and all of us, the codependent and all of us. It just wants to make sure everybody else around us is okay. And if that means, you know, I, I spent a lot of headspace in my early days of not drinking, trying to get my story down. Trying to make sure everybody still knew I was a good time. Making sure no one was uncomfortable. Making sure people knew that if they came to my house, I would have lots of good alcohol for them. Like, nothing to see here. It’s still going to be a great time. I’m just going to, like pluck myself out of this equation and it’s stupid. I joke.

Casey McGuire Davidson  19:47

It’s yours. Real, but when you get away from it. We’ll see how our minds have twisted us up. When you said that, I smiled because for the very first time, like I was a month alcohol-free, and this couple who I really liked, he worked with my husband, but I really liked the woman. And so, you know, you’re like, oh, I want to be friends with you. And they dropped by. And it was honestly like 4pm on a Sunday or something, right? And I struggled with not offering them alcohol, I actually had removed all the wine from my house. But the thought going through my mind was, they’re going to think I don’t want them to stay, or I don’t like them if I don’t offer them alcohol. And again, like, I know, it’s uncomfortable at first. But, you know, that’s another reason that we tell ourselves, we’re just not ready because this book clubs coming up, and we want to be friends with these people. And they mentioned they drink wine there, you know. And so, it’s, you almost just have to build the muscle and be uncomfortable to see it. Okay. Do you know what I mean? Like, I did not offer them alcohol. We still had a nice conversation. They still invited us out to dinner a month later. So like, a fine, apparently me not offering them a glass of wine did not, you know, circumvent our entire friendship.

Julie Dereshinsky  21:25

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I say this to folks all the time, like your only job right now is to protect your efforts to stay sober. That’s it.

Right. And it’s in, it’s hard to feel that and sort of operate with that one track mind. But that’s really it. And so, the rest of that is noise, but loud noise. I get that very much.

Casey McGuire Davidson  21:49

Yeah. And I think that a lot of the things that we tell ourselves that we’re just not ready yet, can be pretty easily flipped in your mind. But you have to do it consciously.

So, I have a trip coming up, therefore, I can’t stop drinking, flipping that too. Oh, my gosh, if I do this trip, alcohol-free, I will experience and do so much more than when I’m focused around hanging out by the bar and getting drunk in mid-afternoon, you know, I will get up early, I will see the sunshine on the beach, I will go on a hike, I will do XYZ, right. Like, you want to hold on to drinking a bit longer. And yet you don’t like the way you look? Or you feel, you know, a thought is, why don’t I start now and see if I feel better?

Julie Dereshinsky  22:54

You know, I love that. It’s just it’s a perspective shift.

Yeah, yeah. Your other your question about, you know, how do I work with women.

So, you know, there’s a lot of, as I mentioned, as we’ve been talking about a lot of women on the, you know, where they are on their journey is, is sober curious. And then I work with a fair amount of women who have either just recently gotten sober, or you know, they’re a few months out or longer and wanting to, you know, make sure their toolbox is tight, keep up the momentum and really work to kind of train and flex those muscles. Anything for those women. It’s, by and large, maybe more about accountability and planning and reinforcements and identifying vulnerability factors, and things like that. And so, I think for those folks, it’s a little bit different. And for some women forever is really powerful. And for others, one minute, one day when we get a time is, you know what’s needed there.

Casey McGuire Davidson  24:00

Yeah. And I take a bit of a different approach, especially with the women that I work with privately on one-on-one Coaching, because when they come to me typically, it sounds like they’re a little further along, in the wanting to change what’s not working for them.

So, I also, anyone listening to this, I do not think that thinking about forever or never again, is that helpful. If you’re struggling to get past 4 days, 14 days, 30 days, I just think it’s too big. And the pull of alcohol is so strong that the thought that you will quote unquote, “never have that again”, is going to trip you up. But you know, when I work with women, I tell them like, we have a joint commitment to get you to 100 days alcohol-free. I know maybe you haven’t gotten past a week in. In the last two years, that is still our joint commitment, and my job is to support you in that. And I’m very clear with my private clients.

My course is different. It’ll support you in drinking less or stopping completely. But privately, I’m like, I am not a Moderation Coach. Because I don’t think it works on getting away from like, you’ve been trying to moderate whether or not you call it that. And, you know, I think by the time women get to me, they’ve realized that they can’t do this on their own.

Yeah. But if they’re sober curious, what do you do with them? What are the steps you take?

Julie Dereshinsky  25:38

First of all, I, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention, you know, there’s a reason why moderation is also called harm reduction, right? Like that word harm is in there. More often than not, when women come to me sober, curious, like they’re more ready than they think they are. Right?

I think a lot of times I’m finding women will come to Coaching, and they haven’t even, they’ve been thinking a lot about their alcohol intake, right, they’ve been reducing harm, moderating, taking breaks here and there, but they haven’t really said it out loud, to too many people. So, I find a lot of times when I’m working with clients, and really getting curious and kind of creating a vision together of what they want their life to look like, what they want their legacy to be like, the readiness comes pretty quickly, right? And again, I use that word like it’s, it’s subjective. You know, think about buying your first property, right? Like, that’s a great example of a big life change, like, can you ever say, if you truly feel ready, like financially, for example?

Casey McGuire Davidson  26:48

Yeah, do it, you do it, because all the data points you have, and all your good gut intuition is telling you like, it’s time, it’s time, I’m just going to do this and put one foot in front of the other.

Julie Dereshinsky  26:49

So, really come at it from a standpoint of intention, and commitment.

Casey McGuire Davidson  27:06

Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of women I talked to the Eve never told another person, how worried they are about how much they drink. I never told my husband or my friends, because I didn’t want them to know. I kept that all inside. And I think that when you talk to a person who’s been there, who gets it, who isn’t judging you, you know, it makes a whole lot of difference, whether that’s in a group, whether that’s one-on-one?

Julie Dereshinsky  27:35

Absolutely, absolutely. I know for my own journey. Also, I never said it out loud. And when I did say it out loud, or I did kind of put some feelers out there, it felt like everybody I would talk to about it, like drank the same way had no problem with it, but it was not right. But I was thinking back in preparation for this discussion, and I was thinking, I read Caroline Knapp’s memoir, Drinking, A Love Story.

Casey McGuire Davidson  28:06

I loved it. Yes, it was. Like, sober. But it was also before there was a lot of quit lit.

Julie Dereshinsky  28:10

Exactly. Like that was the big one. You read it once a year I was in for I was a late 20 something living in New York City. I think back to that, and it’s like, oh, gosh, I didn’t really start consciously considering my alcohol intake and wondering if I could go alcohol free until like, 2016. So, what the heck was going on back then? Right, that it was like, you know, noodling around in my mind. And then, you know, I didn’t stop until 2018.

Casey McGuire Davidson  28:45

So, you know, it’s funny, I same thing. But I found her book and read it when my son was just born, like maybe six months old. So, it was in 2008. I ended up being in 2016. Trust me, I was worried about my drinking and, you know, to black out and throw up that was sort of my jam. But long before them, but I read that book, and I wrote myself a note. Like it was way too close to home and I was like, oh shit, this is not good. Yikes, I need to stop. And then like 3 days later, I came back and wrote myself a note like, nothing to see here.

Definitely. I was overreacting. Like, the rationalizations are so strong, but like, that’s the I’m not ready yet. You know, loosely.

Julie Dereshinsky  29:38

And I think that’s why it’s so hard to say it out loud. Like I didn’t even tell my husband that I that I was making a go of this until like two weeks in because I didn’t want I wasn’t sure I wasn’t sure at the onset, right? Like where this was going, but I knew enough in my heart that I had to give it a go but just in case I didn’t, I was going to keep it quiet, right.

Casey McGuire Davidson  30:04

And I really, when I was doing 100 Day Challenge, which he didn’t think I’d succeed, I had, you know, said I was going to take a break before. But I didn’t tell my husband that I had hired a Sober Coach or taken an Online Course and been a member of a group until 6 months after I stopped. Like he, I didn’t tell him anything, which is kind of, and we have a good relationship.

Julie Dereshinsky  30:29

I just played for the same reasons I just mentioned.

Casey McGuire Davidson  30:31

Oh, yeah, I just, I didn’t know that I’d succeed. And I didn’t want him watching me for the rest of my life. If I even went back to drinking, like, I didn’t want him. Every time I opened a second bottle of wine. I didn’t want him to like raise his eyebrow. I was trying very hard to like, you know, protect some out.

So, tell me, I wanted to ask you two questions. Looking back at all the reasons that you weren’t ready or that you told yourself? You weren’t ready? What were some of those? And then how did you actually make the shift in 2018? Like, what changed for you then?

Julie Dereshinsky  31:18

Yeah, yeah, I’m glad you asked that. My reasons were pretty benign. They were things like Christmas is coming up, my husband’s holiday party. I can’t not drink Sunday at my kids weddings, which by the way, they were too and for when I stopped drinking that.

Casey McGuire Davidson  31:37

I can’t like, I can’t have a campaign at my, my daughter’s wedding. She was 22 months old. I mean, our story. So similar.

Julie Dereshinsky  31:47

It was crazy. So, I had so many things like that. And just yeah, thinking about life and just going out to dinner and just, you know, my nightly at that point, I was, I had a big job. I was, you know, I needed my nights. I needed my nights and my reward and my unwind time. And I just couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t imagine a life without that. So, for me, it was a lot of a lot of little things. But like you, and like so many other woman like women, death by 1000 cuts.

The Tuesday morning dehydrated, hangover after watching, you know, Netflix on the couch with my husband on Monday night. Like, that’s not cool.

Julie, when I finally said goodbye to alcohol, and for me, it was white wine, occasionally red wine. That’s it. A lot of it on a nightly basis. I had so many rules, most of which I didn’t break, but it was enough, you know, that know where those rules. So, those rules were things like no wine before, while my kids are still awake. Right? They go to bed at that point at like seven o’clock. So, nothing before they went to bed. I had rules like you know, at one point, not during the week, but my weeks ended on Thursdays and the weekend lasted until Sunday night. And then Monday would be terrible, right? Like, I just broke my rules all the time. No drinking and driving. I’m happy to say I kept that one. Yeah, mainly what’s around the tree?

Casey McGuire Davidson  33:23

I kept that one too. But I would like, have 2 glasses of wine and then debate if I was okay with the third.

Julie Dereshinsky  33:29

Great point. Great point.

Casey McGuire Davidson  33:33

Like no, I will not No, no, no, no.

Julie Dereshinsky  33:34

I’d like to. I’d like to take that one over again.

Casey McGuire Davidson  33:39

Don’t. I mean, in theory drunk, but had 1 or 2, you know, before drive? Exactly.

Julie Dereshinsky  33:45

Good point. Very good point. No, right. I would go to dinner, and I would have 2 glasses of wine. And then I would negotiate with myself and be like, well, technically, we’re going to sit here and talk for another hour. And so, and I just ate a huge bowl of pasta. So, I think I can have one more if we don’t leave until 11. Yes, stupid stuff like that.

Yeah, so who knows? So, I had a lot of rules. And then I noticed I started negotiating with myself a little bit right. My kids started staying up a little bit later. My husband would be traveling, it would be a bear of a day and while they were eating dinner, and I was busy doing things around the house, I would pour a glass of wine.

And the very last night. It was a Monday night in 2018. And my kids were still up. Let’s say, it was you know, 6 or 6pm and my son who was 4 at the time, came like, pitter pattering into the kitchen and his footie PJs, and I was cooking dinner for myself or doing something at the stove and I had a glass of wine and I ever sort of slightly kind of like pushed it behind the coffeemaker because I didn’t want him to see and he had to use for he was not tuned in at all. I typically didn’t drink around them and just I just had a whole bunch. Have sirens and alarms and light bulbs going off in my head thinking like, Oh God, I am. I’m doing it. I’m doing what I said I wouldn’t do. I’m hiding. I’m being sneaky and I hate sneaky. I grew up with sneaky. I’m wildly oversimplifying it, but that for me was my aha moment to really give it a go.

Casey McGuire Davidson  35:23

So, when you started, were you like, Alright, I’m ready to stop drinking, or were you like, Alright, I’m going to be more serious and add more support about taking a longer break, or were you? You know, you were like, Okay, now I’m hiding it that there.

Julie Dereshinsky  35:41

You know, it’s funny I, I don’t know, because I don’t consider myself very spiritual or religious or anything like that. But for whatever reason, like at that time, it felt different, like I had just had enough. And up until that was in May, the previous November, I didn’t drink all through November in December, I felt great. And then on Christmas Day, because someone was offering wine. I was like, well, it’s Christmas. And I just did six weeks, and I feel great. And like, I started drinking, and then like, it didn’t feel right, it didn’t stick.

At that point, it stuck for me. And when I say stuck, I don’t know that I woke up the next day on Tuesday morning and said, I’m never going to drink again. But I wasn’t that far away. And that’s because for me, that’s my personality. I’m all or nothing black and white. I have to be that way with habits and things. That’s what works for me. So, I did take kind of a forever approach. Yeah. Yeah. because it worked for me. And I just doubled down on Quit Lit, and podcasts and so much storytelling, that really kind of fill back community cup for me to kind of support me in that summer. And look, that summer, I had a shitload of things coming up that would have kept me drinking. We had vacations. We had a 4th of July party, our social network, especially in the summertime, everybody drinks. I set an intention. And I put one foot in front of the other. And was it easy? No. But I just kept moving. I just kept moving forward.

Casey McGuire Davidson  37:27

Yeah, so you didn’t join specific community or have a Coach or anything like that?

Julie Dereshinsky  37:35

I did have a Coach. I had a Coach at the time, actually, she was the first person. She was the first person I actually said out loud to specifically, I think I kind of drink a lot. And she was like, she was so gracious. She was like, Well, what’s “a lot”. And I said, you know, on average, you know, probably have 4 or 5 glasses of wine a night. And she was kind of like, that’s a lot. She wasn’t judgmental. But she was kind of like, oh, yeah, yeah, you’re right to be questioning this. And I think like, once I said it out loud. And at that point, I had been reading so much and lurking in all the communities like I couldn’t unsee or unknown, any of it. Right. So, it kind of felt like at that point. The train had left the station. Yeah. And she was incredibly supportive. through that journey.

Casey McGuire Davidson  38:29

I mean, it saying it out loud to someone, you know, is really helpful. And what I’ve found is that saying out loud to someone who is a dis interested party, meaning not your spouse, not your mother, not your best friend, not someone who has sort of a dog in the fight of you keeping drinking or not keeping drinking. I mean, I found that even with my therapist on leaving my corporate job, and even having the space to explore it, because for better or worse, my husband had a lot tied to my corporate salary and a lot tied to how our life was set up and a lot of fears about, you know, me not being a big breadwinner. Right. And so, I couldn’t explore that with him. Because he had resistance there, whether he knew it or not, like I needed to be able to sort that out with someone who was not financially invested. And I think that’s the same thing with drinking, whether or not you realize it, the people you’re drinking with have some, you know, even if they don’t like your drinking, they’re used to it and we’ve such a fear of change in our relationships.

Julie Dereshinsky  39:52

Absolutely. Yeah, that’s a really good point. That’s a really good point.

Casey McGuire Davidson  40:00

So, looking back at your mental gymnastics that you were going through, like all those rules, and do those rules shift or by the way, highly impressive. You never drank when your kids were awake, because that was absolutely not me. I definitely had a, you know, not during the day, well, except if I go out to lunch on the weekends with girlfriends or, except for a mimosa on Easter, right? Like, my shift. What you’re drinking time appropriate stuff like Italy.

Julie Dereshinsky  40:33

There goes, yeah, yeah, it’s going to they were two and four. And so, there was a significant period of both of their lives, or the first six months and nine months or nine and six respectively, where I was breastfeeding, where I was pregnant with my second point, right. There was a lot in there, like kind of preventing me. So yeah.

Casey McGuire Davidson  40:56

Looking back at those mental gymnastics, what would you tell yourself when you were there from six years out?

Julie Dereshinsky  41:06

Oh gosh, great question. Honestly, I would say to her, you know, just keep doing it. Keep trying. Everything is a data point, right? Everything is learning. There is a Mel Robbins podcast recently. And it was the one she did I think it was in January of this year, and it was about quitters day. And how Danai teen is quitters day, it’s like the most common ad day.

Casey McGuire Davidson  41:36

I tried Fanny, very new year’s resolution. Yes. Exactly. The third Friday. Typically, when people give up that’s if you have not given up way earlier. Yes, yes.

Julie Dereshinsky  41:48

And what I loved about it is she was talking about like, so what if you, you know, if you give up and if you quit the thing, like, go back to unwitting. It’s all learning. It’s all data. And I love that because I think a lot of people, myself included during all that time, I would feel as though, Well, if I tried and I moderated, I didn’t. I didn’t drink for 4 weeks. And then, I did again, like the clock would start again till the next time I was ready.

And I think I would say, keep trying more often. And give yourself grace and patience and care less about what other people think because it literally doesn’t matter.

Casey McGuire Davidson  42:31

Yeah, no, it doesn’t. And you will be surprised that people adjust, they do. And relationships shift. And what I found is, most relationship shift for the better apps, even if they’re your drinking buddy. I did a big podcast with my husband. Meaning, big, like we actually split it up to 2 because we ended up talking for so long. It was the first time I had ever really talked to him in-depth of what our marriage and parenting were – was like, when we were drinking. Versus when I stopped, he still drinks.

And first, I was terrified to have the conversation. He kept asking if he could come on the podcast, which is kind of funny. And I kept pushing him off because I was scared of what he might say, too. He was so much kinder than I was to myself, I would say. Also, he didn’t know all the shit that was going on in my mind. But it was the first time I kind of told him all the stuff. But you know, he didn’t want me to totally stop drinking. He wanted me to not pass out on the couch on a weekday.

Yeah, dead weight in Italy. It like he’s carrying me around on the way home or hungover. But he didn’t want me to stop drinking completely because we got together, and we are 23 and that’s what we did. That’s how we had fun.

Yeah. What about your husband? Did he want you to stop drinking?

Julie Dereshinsky  44:09

I totally get that and so much of what you say resonates with me.

So, my husband also drinks. He’s totally a Normie. He could have a beer on a Saturday night and not having right for 6 weeks. Yeah, he is. He does not drink a lot and he can take it or leave it. He was honestly really surprised he did not. I mean it didn’t really impact us and I don’t know. Forgive me for saying this dear husband, but like, I don’t know. I think a lot of our husbands can be a little bit clueless because we hide it well, right. So, my god my husband has so clueless. I mean how like he was like Oh really? You’re going to really, like, what do you mean? Like a break and he was like, and whenever he would tell people, Julie stop drinking. They were all like, Oh, why her? Really?

And I would have to say to him, like, did you ever pay attention to how many times I would get up from the living room to like, go in the kitchen and like refill my gut? And he wasn’t. He wasn’t dialed into it. He wasn’t paying attention to it. And I never talked about it. And I always showed up the next day, right? So, I was like, quote, unquote, “very functional.”

We joke now because I was not met with any resistance. And he was a little bit more like, well, this is great. Now, I’ll always have a designated driver, if I do decide to, you know, have more than a couple. I think now I am.

You know, we go to parties, for example, which let’s face it, we have 8 and 10 year old, drunk going to parties that often but when we do, I have a shelf life, right? Like, I don’t want to go and stand around for more than you know, two hours is my max. And when I was drinking, I, I didn’t need an end time. It was just fun, right? And I would have no issues pushing the kids bedtime and whatnot. And I think so.

I think now, occasionally, he probably thinks I’m a little bit of a fun killer. But I’ll take that. Because I’m the responsible parent in the room. I’m getting up with the kids the next day. I can drive people home if they’ve had too much to drink like that feels really good. Yeah, to be able to clean that.

Casey McGuire Davidson  46:19

Oh, my God, my husband was like, Damn, you’re so cheap. You’re, in terms of being a date, because I run up the bill bad.

Julie Dereshinsky  46:28

Yes, yes. And so, what to tie this back to your question, like, what would I tell my 2018 self? I’d say, you’re going to save so much money, your kids are going to be better off your relationships are going to be stronger and deeper. Right? Like, I just show up as a I think, you know, regardless of whether other people feel this, I feel it. I feel that I’m a I’m a better friend’s wife, mother, daughter, sister insert, you know, anything else? I just feel I feel like a better person and that that never gets old.

Casey McGuire Davidson  47:00

Yeah, I mean, one of my clients said to me, even on day 22. She said, her husband asked her, like, because he was a big drinker, too, and said, Oh, how are you doing with this not drinking thing? And her first response to him is something I’ve always remembered. She said, Well, waking up not hating myself is pretty awesome.

Julie Dereshinsky  47:23

So simple. Yeah, totally. I was thinking about your comments about the 8:30pm basketball or hockey game tournament. And as thinking never gets old, when I kind of catch myself and whether I’m, you know, picking up my son at that hour, or, you know, doing some family friendly activity at that hour. I always kind of say to myself, like if I was still drinking wine. This is what tonight would look like. Or this is what tonight wouldn’t look like or I would never sign up.

Casey McGuire Davidson  48:09

Movie night at my kids elementary school from six to 8pm on a Friday night. No, thank you. I’m going to sit that one out. You can take the kids right? Like, no, it’s just not about it’s just so much easier.

What’s funny, though, I still sit that shit out. Because like my daughter asked me the other day, like last week, she was like, Mom, there’s bingo night at my school on Friday night. And can we go and whatever. And I started being like, well, let’s look at the schedule. Let’s look at what Dad’s doing. And she’s almost Ted. And finally, I turned to her, and I was like, You know what, Lila? I desperately don’t want to go to bingo night at your school. I can’t imagine anything. I’d like to do less. Like, if you want to go, why don’t you ask your friends if they’re going, and I will ask their moms if you could go. Like, I was like, let me just be honest.

Julie Dereshinsky  48:45

I love it. I love it. See, I’ve got work to do. Because we did go to bingo night about a month ago. And my way to get through that was to sign up to do concessions. So, I didn’t just have to sit there and smile, talk for 2 hours.

Casey McGuire Davidson  48:59

I wouldn’t even do that. I do not volunteer like, yeah. I’m really good with boundaries around stuff I desperately don’t want to do. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still do stuff. But if I just like, I could have like, Screw it that way, though.

Julie Dereshinsky  49:19

I’m going to try to channel some of that energy. The next school function. Good for you.

Casey McGuire Davidson  49:22

Yeah. That’s really interesting. When you said our husbands or your husband, it was just not that tuned in. I didn’t. So, a couple things.

One, you’re right, if they drink normally. I mean, when I talked to my husband, he said, Whenever I mentioned, you know, what are you doing at 10pm? On a Tuesday night when I’m opening the second bottle of wine. He was like, you were so defensive. I kind of learned not to poke that bear. Like he was like, I’m going to walk away from this.

But the other thing I remembered was like, the week I stopped drinking, like the week. He said, Why don’t you? We live three miles from like 100 wine tasting rooms. Like, it’s the biggest wine tasting area destination, you know, on the eastern part of Washington State. And the week before I quit, he said, Why don’t you just join the wine club at Chateau St. Michel? That way, you don’t have to go out a couple of nights a week for a couple of bottles of wine.

Oh, my God, listen to yourself. He also kept suggesting that I get a marketing job at the winery. I’m like, oh, like, clearly, he’s not aware of like the internal formal turmoil. But the other thing was, when I stopped drinking, I hired a sober coach. And I joined hip sobriety school that had meetings twice a week, and, you know, community stuff and whatever. And he had no clue. And I was like, no wonder I can get away with drinking it like this is just oblivious to you know?

Yeah. How, like, fairly how I spend my time.

Julie Dereshinsky  51:18

I know, I wonder if that I wonder, I think that probably also has more to do with who you are and who I am in general to which is like a capable, strong, like, nothing to see here. Like, I’ve got this right. So yeah, you know, just tend to kind of insulate.

Yeah, and maybe lean into it too much to the point to our detriment, but yeah, it’s so interesting. I know. And I did work hard to not let him see exactly how much I was drinking. Like, yeah, there are lots of tricks that want you right. Lots of tricks.

Casey McGuire Davidson  52:00

Yeah, at the end, before I quit, I was like, I had two bottles of wine sort of going. So like, I had my favorite, which had like, a cork. But then I also had a screw top bottle in the wine rack that I would like, just have an extra glass or two from and so I would do that in between finishing the bottle with the cork. And I was like, if my husband ever pulls out a bottle of wine to like, Pour me a glass. He’s going to be like, What the actual fuck, you know? Like, that’s not a normal relationship.

Julie Dereshinsky  52:33

Yeah. So many tricks, so many tricks. we all we all had them. It’s yeah. It’s bananas.

Casey McGuire Davidson  52:41

I would say a couple things that are interesting.

I would say, if you’re thinking to yourself, I’m just not ready yet, one of the things I have my clients do is write down two lists.

The first is, what do you want to stop happening and feeling and doing when that or better result of your drinking? Like number one, Stop waking up hating yourself. Stop waking up at 3am. Stop having bloodshot eyes in the morning. Not spending all your time trying to make rules, rationalizing, breaking them drinking too much. For me, it was like remembering the end of shows like it doesn’t have to be huge things. But they are definitely things that, you know, if you’re struggling with your alcohol, the shit, right?

Julie Dereshinsky  53:34

Yeah. I’ll also ask clients to kind of quantify how much time when you think about the amount of time you spend thinking about procuring the alcohol, actually procuring the alcohol, right? Doing your tricks with the bottles, right? All that time, then the time you spend waking up at 3:00am thinking about how much you drank wondering, remembering. Then the time you spend feeling like crap the next morning wondering if you feel it going to feel well enough to have a glass after work that night. Like, that’ll qualifying all that time and putting it side by side next to the time that you’re actually imbibing? Like, it’s bananas.

Casey McGuire Davidson  54:12

Yeah. Yeah. I would say that, like, when I was drinking, I thought that drinking made my life better for about two hours a day.

Yep. And it made my life worse for like the other 22 hours. Like, we really actually I mean, in terms of like sleeping and hangovers and anxiety and overwhelm and all that crap. But you know, like, it wasn’t a, you know, if you did a cost benefit analysis, it was not on the side of drinking. And yet, we tell ourselves that we’re not ready yet.

And what everybody wants to do is like, take your pound of flesh without any of the blood right like I just want to hold on to Friday. I just want to not drink during the week. I just want to not drink too much. I just want to, you know, and it’s hard because we don’t want to believe that we can’t have one without the other. We think we just need to try harder. Yeah.

Julie Dereshinsky  55:13

Yeah. Nobody wants to think everybody’s, there’s this limiting belief that at some point, we’ll be successful. Right? At some point, this won’t work. I’ve just got to find the trick, right? And it just doesn’t, it doesn’t work.

Casey McGuire Davidson  55:27

Yeah. And so, what I would say, if you’re telling yourself, you’re just not ready yet, just try and experiment.

Just, you know, I always tell people, like, after 100 days, the wine will still be there. Right? Like, you will be able to drink again, but you have to give yourself the opportunity to get some distance from alcohol. And then here’s the other thing. During that time, you need to do some work. You know what I mean? You can’t just like white knuckle it through 100 days, feeling remorse and regret and deprivation because that, that it’s not an equal experiment, like new hobbies, self-care, talk to people about not drinking, like romanticize sobriety, meaning like, notice the good shit. Yeah, and, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Julie Dereshinsky  56:23

Totally. And that, I’m glad you said that. That probably is the number one success factor in my viewpoint is adding more into your life, right?

Not just white knuckling it and taking out the alcohol, because you’re always then going to come at it from a point of deprivation, but changing routines, adding new hobbies, trying new things, it’s huge in terms of the success I’ve seen, both personally and professionally as a Coach of my clients.

Casey McGuire Davidson  56:55

Yeah, no, totally. I love that. You said it that way. The number one success factor. The difference is doing some of that work, adding things into your life, you know, all the all the good stuff, right? That the things that you always said you were going to do, but somehow never followed through with? Because all of your time and energy was absorbed with your habit of drinking?

Julie Dereshinsky  57:23

Absolutely. And I think that’s the that’s the bummer about things like Dry January is anybody I know that’s trying it is just taking the thing out?

Yes. Noticing they feel sharper, noticing they feel better, but like, there’s an end game, right. And that end game is at the end of January. And that’s, you know, all the good stuff is starting to happen at that point.

Casey McGuire Davidson  57:43

Yeah, you’re just past the hardest part. Like, I think you notice the benefits. But you haven’t changed your reward structure at all, because your reward for not drinking is to drink. But what I would say is, any extended period of time without alcohol will give you the clarity, so that the next time you’re hungover or the next time you pass out, or the next time you’re, you know, just anxiety or waking up like why the hell did you do that?

Julie Dereshinsky  58:28

Again, you will be able to contrast that with how you felt when you were not drinking like you finally have a data point in terms of on the good side of how you feel without

alcohol. So, well said.

Casey McGuire Davidson  58:33

So, tell us how people can find you how they can work with you all that good stuff.

Julie Dereshinsky  58:38

Yeah, sure. People can find me. I’m on Instagram and Facebook. Julie Dereshinsky Coaching. My website is www.juliedereshinsky.com. I know. That’s a doozy.

So, Casey will put it in the show notes, I’m sure really well.

Yeah, and I work one-on-one with clients. You know, as I said, I meet them where they are. So, whatever that looks like. But typically, I’ll work with clients, you know, weekly or weekly or bi-weekly, all designed by, you know, their journey where they are on their path and what their goals are.

Casey McGuire Davidson  59:16

Yeah, that’s wonderful. And, and I have to say, after talking with you, Julie, you are one of the people that I refer women to if I cannot take them on for private coaching, because our stories and our approaches are so similar. I mean, everything from what happened when we were drinking to life after alcohol and what we were worried about in the quote unquote, “no consequences” we had, which is funny.

Gill from sober powered and I did an episode. I will link to it too. It was on her podcast, where we were cracking ourselves up. Like, remember worrying the consequences we had when we told ourselves. Oh, we’ve had no consequences. If you want to hear all this shit stories, like go to that one because you’re like, oh, yeah, that. I did this. And I forgot about that. And what about this time? It was funny? Yeah.

Julie Dereshinsky  1:00:16

Well, it’s funny. There was a couple in this conversation that you kept me accountable for inadvertently. I was like, oh, yeah, I guess I did break that rule once or twice.

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:00:25

Oh my God. Yeah, Gill. And I like their extensive stories about like throwing up and abs. And you’re just like, Yeah, I had zero consequences.

Julie Dereshinsky  1:00:36

Depends on what your definition of a consequence is.

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:00:39

Right? I had it all together. And you’re like, Dude, your mother, are you? Yeah. Anyway, good time.

Well, thank you very much for coming on, this was a really important topic to touch on.

And if you are listening to this, if you are in the place of telling yourself, you’re not ready yet, one, I want to give you credit for being here. I want to give you credit for questioning your relationship with alcohol, for listening to other points of view, for gathering resources.

And second, I want to encourage you to start before you’re ready, you will never think you’re ready to stop drinking. And what that’s going to mean is you will stay in a just okay kind of shitty, sometimes fun, but like 80% of your life is worse, because you’re drinking place where alcohol is sucking so much of your time, your money, your energy, your focus your physical health. And like, give yourself the opportunity to just see what life is like without drinking, like what happens, like you said, Julie, in your work, in your parenting, in your happiness in your interest. Like, I know, you might think that your world will get smaller if you stopped drinking. But in my experience, with so many women, your world actually gets so much bigger. Yeah.

Julie Dereshinsky  1:02:13

Did you find that to do? Absolutely. Well said, Casey. And the thing that strikes me it’s the way you just kind of described alcohol and drinking is, it’s a relationship. It’s a bad relationship, that you should have gotten out of way sooner than you did. And you only know that in hindsight, right? When you’re older, smarter, wiser. It’s a relationship. A really toxic one. Yeah.

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:02:39

And you know, same thing with you know, if you’re in a toxic relationship with a boyfriend, and, you know, he makes you feel like shit, but then he also love bombs you or whatever it is, like when you finally break up with that person. Don’t follow them on the social media. Same thing with wine, right? Like, you cannot get over it. If you see your ex-boyfriend popping up on it, you know, out with their friends constantly.

So like, you know, I’ve had women be like, Okay, I have unsubscribed from my wine club, emails, and the bars I followed. And you know, all the newsletters, like, just clean it up for well, imagining you’re, you’re going through a big breakup, and not be reminded of that person constantly.

Julie Dereshinsky  1:03:30

Yeah, don’t keep one foot in the door. Put up those boundaries.

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:03:35

Yeah, yeah. All right. Thank you so much.

Julie Dereshinsky  1:03:36

Thank you so much, Casey, take care.

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:03:41

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Hello Someday podcast.

If you’re interested in learning more about me, the work I do, and access free resources and guides to help you build a life you love without alcohol. Please visit hellosomedaycoaching.com. And I would be so grateful if you would take a few minutes to rate and review this podcast so that more women can find it. And join the conversation about drinking less and living more.