Yeah, that’s a perfect place to end this. I love this. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. And I love your new book. Also, women are consistently referred to as ‘womxn’ throughout. While being inclusive is all well and good, I couldn’t help but notice that And I knew all you guys I knew, because originally, we were all around the same time period. And I was hung over on my couch for the like, month three in a row. And I actually saw that picture of you and Jen on my phone (not to be stalkerish). And I was like, This is what I want. I met Catherine online in a secret non-drinking Facebook group 8 years ago, when she was first starting her life without alcohol and she has been an inspiration to me ever since.

I’ve learnt about alcohol | Alcohol Change UK The six new things I’ve learnt about alcohol | Alcohol Change UK

When I think of trauma, I think of, you know, the really dark stuff, you know, bereavement and sexual abuse, and of course, those do feature in that question, but some of the other ones are less likely and more surprising. Whether you're a dedicated boozehound, flirting with teetotalling, or already sober, this witty, gritty read may just change how you think about alcohol forever. Yeah, so one of the I’m just doing this from memory, but one of the questions on the questionnaire that determines if you have four or more of these ACEs, what they call them is were you consistently shamed or humiliated by a caregiver? You know, and I wouldn’t have thought of that as you know, name calling from a caregiver, I wouldn’t have really thought of that. So traumatic childhood experience, but it is. And this is really something that was really interesting to find out for the book is that neuroscientists and and I talked to four experts very in depth for this new book. And they now say addiction is not a disease. It’s more like a learning process. Well, I think it’s so interesting. You mentioned the, you know, how inherently bad it is for you. And one thing in your book that that sort of blew my mind, because I actually didn’t know it. You said in a 2019 study, a bottle of wine a week was compared to the cancer risk of puffing 10 cigarettes for women.you’re growing up. And again, you wouldn’t really think of that as necessarily a traumatic childhood.

ways to have a sober(ish) summer - The Telegraph Six ways to have a sober(ish) summer - The Telegraph

Not everything that you expect, right, in terms of childhood trauma, you know, yes, or anything like that. There’s a lot more in there. If you’re using it to medicate anxiety, you’ll like it because it removes the anxiety. It’s a sedative, after all, and it reduces inhibitions. Those not prone to anxiety don’t like it as much,” adds psychologist Dr Judith Grisel. So if you were one of those whose “social drinking” became replaced by “home drinking”, have an introspective dig into why. Knowledge is power. 3. None is easier than one I think it was something largely driven by social media. When I quit drinking in 2013, the notion of being ‘out and proud’ about sobriety on socials was unheard of. All the ex-drinkers I knew hid away in private groups (either physically or virtually) and talked in hushed whispers. They hid their recovery from workmates, friends, even family in some cases. I even used a pseudonym while chatting in a private Facebook group made up entirely of such ex-drinkers! There was still an enormous amount of shame and stigma around it. At that point, quitting drinking was only a path for extremely addicted drinkers; it wasn’t remotely a positive lifestyle choice. The Unexpected Joy Of Being Sober + Sunshine Warm Sober With Catherine Gray If you’ve read any Quit Lit, Catherine Gray’s book, The Unexpected Joy Of Being Sober , is likely on your bookshelf or Kindle.And so we can all like give each other a little leg up when we when we’re out and open about being sober. Even if it’s in a closed group, you don’t have to do it. But you know, where your workmates can see or whatever. But it really does pass it on and pass it down. And that’s the best service you can possibly do. Flip the script from losing an old habit, into gaining a new lifestyle. When you do non-drinking nights, you build a new neural pathway in your brain and allow the well-established “drinking” pathway to fade.

SUNSHINE WARM SOBER | The home of non-fiction publishing SUNSHINE WARM SOBER | The home of non-fiction publishing

If you find yourself at this dilemma junction, you’ve probably already spent many years trying and failing to ‘reduce volume’. Drinkers who don’t struggle to ‘moderate’ (ie. those who drink one or two and then stop) don’t really contemplate quitting booze. Why? The negatives of their drinking have probably not outweighed the positives yet. It’s hard to experience many negative offshoots from a few glasses of wine over the course of a week. So by the time people arrive at the notion of potentially quitting altogether, or ‘harm reduction’, they’ve most likely already established that they are not a moderate drinker anyhow. Few people are, as it happens. They’re rare. I can count the ‘moderate drinkers’ I know on one hand. So by all means, try a moderation experiment, many do before alighting on quitting altogether. It’s often the final ‘convincer’. The irony is; none is far easier than one. Cold turkey sounds petrifying, but it’s easier overall. I have mixed feelings about this one. It is really easy to read, and again at times very thought provoking. However I had two major issues with it. One is to do with the issues around being pregnant and breastfeeding. Gray suggests that pregnant women are often pressurised into drinking alcohol when pregnant. This is not my (or my friends’) experience at all. Far from it. There is so much judgment around what you eat and drink when pregnant, I’ve been told off my total strangers for having a coffee. Gray quotes one new mum whose child was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The mum clearly believes that two glasses of wine she had one evening led to her child’s diagnosis. This is not just medically unsound (it is often a result of birth injury or a virus when pregnant) but it is potentially hugely damaging to mother’s of children with health issues, just adding to the huge levels of guilt that mums already feel through social media etc. In addition very moderate drinking while breastfeeding is not banned, and to suggest that you shouldn’t drink at all when breastfeeding not only adds to the mum guilt and will in fact just mean fewer people breastfeed. 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. the unexpected joy of being sober, Catherine Gray, drinking, sober, alcohol, people, book, life, day, quit lit, feel, sobriety, unexpected, years, addicted, addiction, childhood trauma, cigarettes, joy, recoverySo millennials who are sort of late 20s into the late 30s, I think a third of them don’t drink now. And then when you look at Generation Z, which is kind of teens and early 20s, they are drinking even less again.

MEET CATHERINE GRAY | The home of non-fiction publishing MEET CATHERINE GRAY | The home of non-fiction publishing

Yeah, it’s like this circular firing squad, right? Because, you know, we’ve been conditioned since birth, to basically believe that we need to drink. It’s part of being an adult and bonding and, and then there’s the marketing and then your friends keep reinforcing it too. 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. Yeah, that’s how I mean, it truly is. And I must have had about 37 day ones. And the way the shame you feel about slipping again, the having to tell people that you’ve drunk again, and you’ve busted your day one is, it’s just so all consuming. Catherine has been sober for over 7 years now. While her first book explores the early stages of change and the learning along the way, this one provides guidance on long-term change. Sunshine Warm Sober: Unexpected Joy That Lasts is all about what comes next. She notes that many people can manager shorter stints of sobriety, but that many find the longterm change the struggle. This book inspires hope for a brighter future, where alcohol isn’t centre stage. Catherine shares her own experiences and learnings, this is a refreshing and honest read. She encourages the reader to think beyond quitting drinking and look at the big stuff. What do we want life to look like? What boundaries do we need to set? If you are seeking longterm change and a life without alcohol, this book is a great tool to have in your kit. As the millions who choose to stay sober now know, the propaganda around drinking and sobriety is wonky. Sober doesn't feel stony, or cold.The Hello Someday Podcast helps busy and successful women build a life they love without alcohol. Host Casey McGuire Davidson, a certified life coach and creator of The Free 30-Day Guide to Quitting Drinking – 30 Tips For Your First Month Alcohol-Free, brings together her experience of quitting drinking while navigating work and motherhood, along with the voices of experts in personal development, self-care, addiction and recovery and self-improvement. American studies have found that anxiety doubles the chances of becoming hooked on booze. “Anxiety and introversion can predispose towards addiction,” confirms neuroscientist Dr Marc Lewis. Yeah, I think I think it’s a really interesting thing, that these two things can coexist. At the same time. It’s, it’s more nuanced than if you were once addicted to something, then you’re addicted to it forevermore. Because I am not currently addicted to alcohol. I don’t crave it, I could, I don’t. But if I if I needed to, I could have it in my house and not drink it.