The Hello Someday Podcast For Sober Curious Women

Once you’ve decided to stop drinking it is incredibly helpful to get your family and friends on board to support your sobriety.  Your loved ones have the ability to make a number of easy changes and small adjustments to support your sobriety and make it so much easier for you to successfully and happily navigate life alcohol-free.  Your social and physical environment can either be a safe space fo...

If you’re searching for the best TV shows and movies about addiction and recovery, which realistically depict the nuances, emotions, strengths and struggles of walking away from an addictive substance, they can be hard to find. When you’re scrolling through broadcast TV, Netflix or Hulu you’ll find that most shows and movies glamorize alcohol and depict it as essential for a good time. In fact you...

Moderating alcohol is likely your ultimate goal if you’re worried about how much you're drinking on a regular basis.  You probably don’t want to stop drinking completely, but rather you want to cut back, drink less, drink less often or (what I hear most) you want to “drink like a normal person”.  And yet most people who love to drink find it incredibly hard to moderate how much alcohol we consume....

Alcohol advertising spending is set to hit 6 billion dollars in 2023 with the advertising of alcohol to women as a key industry focus for the last 60 years.    On the podcast today we’re talking about the advertising of alcohol to women with Jean Kilbourne. Jean is internationally recognized for her groundbreaking work on the image of women in advertising and for her critical studies of alcohol an...

Hitting 100 days of sobriety is a huge milestone to be celebrated.   In your first 30 days sober you might struggle with poor sleep and cravings to drink. It’s common to feel incredibly tired in your first month sober, irritated and rageful. You’re going through physical withdrawal from an addictive substance in a world where it’s all around you. In your second month of sobriety, you’ll feel much...

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Amelia and Emily Nagoski is a book for every woman who has felt overwhelmed and exhausted by everything she has to do, and yet is still worried that she’s not doing enough. Which basically describes every woman I know.  As an ex-red wine girl, the first story of a woman experiencing burnout felt all too familiar.  Amelia and Emily describe Julie...

There is a quiet time in early sobriety, after you get through the really hard first weeks, and before alcohol-free life is your new normal. The days and evenings may feel long and you might not know quite what to do with your time.  Over time drinking can become an activity, entertainment and a hobby.  My guest today is Jess Steitzer @decidelydry and she’s here to talk about why rediscovering cre...

Is recovery the new black? Is sober becoming the new cool?  With the rise in the sober-curious movement, Dry January and Sober October, sober influencers and the growth in the non-alcoholic drinks movement it seems like sobriety is all the rage. Articles in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes and stories on The Today Show and in wellness and fashion magazines are increasingly refer...

What does it mean to be a “mindful drinker”?  Mindful drinking is about becoming more aware of how your body and mind are affected by alcohol, and how you use alcohol to relate to the people around you.  Mindful drinkers notice, learn and ultimately take control of their drinking. ​​Today I'm welcoming Laura Willoughby, the co-founder of Club Soda, the mindful drinking movement.  Club Soda’s missi...

It’s time to stop using alcohol to joke about parenting.  If you look up for a minute you’ll see the wine mom humor all around you. On birthday cards at grocery stores, on cute hand towels and wood signs in home decor shops and everywhere on Etsy. “They Whine. I Wine”, “Mom’s Reasons To Drink: My 3 Kids”, “Mommy’s Sippy Cup”, “Mom Juice”, “It takes a village and a vineyard”, “This mom runs on coff...

If you’re a woman in your 40s you’re likely both moving into perimenopause hormonally and also navigating one of the busiest times of your life.  If you’re also using alcohol to ease the symptoms of burnout and perimenopause the combination can lead to a vicious cycle of heightened anxiety and physical and emotional exhaustion. You might notice that the symptoms of perimenopause are similar to tho...

What’s your approach to sex, love and relationships? Do you feel anxiety when you’re in a relationship or avoid intimacy? Do you trust easily or cling to your partner? Do you struggle to communicate your needs and fear rejection or push yourself to be overly self-reliant? Many women drink to smooth the edges of our emotions around relationships, love, sex and intimacy. In today's episode we’re dig...

What questions do you have about alcohol, insomnia and sleep in sobriety?  You might be wondering… Does alcohol help you get to sleep?  What contributes to good sleep?  Why am I so tired in early sobriety? What can I do if I can’t sleep early sobriety? When will I start sleeping well after I stop drinking?  So here’s the big question: does alcohol help you sleep?  Nope. Alcohol is a sedative that...

A lot of women who are worried about their drinking start asking themselves one question: “Am I an Alcoholic?”.  The questions that you typically find on an online “Am I An Alcoholic” Quiz are often the wrong questions. Ones that can keep you trapped in the drinking cycle for a long time. The truth is that you don’t need to ask yourself if you’re an “alcoholic” or if you “really have a problem” or...

When you’re stopping drinking it’s pretty normal to focus on what you're giving because alcohol is involved in most of your social activities, hobbies and relationships.     When I was a ‘red wine girl’ alcohol was a part of cooking dinner, evenings on the couch, date nights, girls nights, work happy hours, Sunday brunches, afternoons at the ballpark, vacations and everything in between.    In ord...

Recovery rocks, so let’s smash the stigma of addiction and normalize sobriety.  Lisa Smith and Tawny Lara are doing just that through their podcast, Recovery Rocks, and their writing and advocacy work in the sobriety space.  Tawny is a New York City based millennial who writes about the intersection of sex and sobriety.  Lisa is the author of Girl Walks Out of a Bar, a memoir of her descent into a...

How do you prepare to be alcohol-free before you stop drinking completely?  If you have realized that alcohol is not working in your life and are tapping into resources like this podcast, you’ve already moved from precontemplation to contemplation and into action. But it’s likely you’re not sure exactly how to put down the wine glass, build up sober momentum and set yourself up for long-term succe...

What should you expect after 30 days of sobriety? I recorded my diary of my first 30-Days alcohol-free (you can listen to it here), but what happens after that first month? You probably have a lot of questions about what happens in your second month without alcohol. I know I did.  So I’ve recorded my diary of exactly how I felt, what I did, what was hard and what helped me keep going in my second...

Is the fear of feeling awkward in social situations keeping you from trying sober life?   I get it. When I was stopped drinking I felt awkward in every part of my life - going to a bar and ordering a non-alcoholic drink, turning down a glass of wine at a friend house, making small talk at a work event without my social lubricant, telling people I wasn’t drinking and let’s not even talk about sober...

Today we're talking about living with a partner who drinks when you're sober.    Maybe your husband or partner is your drinking buddy and going to a bar or sharing drinks at the end of the day is the way you connect and celebrate.     Maybe your partner loves drinking too and is resistant to getting the alcohol out of the house.    Or perhaps your partner tells you that you “don’t really have a pr...

What we drink and how we drink is often deeply intertwined with the image and personality we present to the world, and can also be a part of our own internal identity.    As Kristi Coulter wrote in her essay Enjoli, what we drink can be a shorthand for who we are… “A woman with a single-malt scotch is bold and discerning and might fire you from her life if you fuck with her. A woman with a PBR is...

Many women look up in midlife to realize that while their lives look really good on the outside they don’t feel that good on the inside.  They’re smart, capable, and productive and work hard everyday to accomplish a lot. They take care of people, managing work deadlines and finances, business trips and family vacations, school conferences and day care pickups.   But they’re not as happy as they th...

Taking a break from drinking can be as simple as unlearning a conditioned and ingrained behavior and approached and addressed without shame, blame or labels.    In fact, the social learning model suggests that drug and alcohol use are learned behaviors and that such behaviors persist because of reinforcement from others, your environment, your thoughts and feelings, and from the direct consequence...

During the coronavirus pandemic, adults started reaching for the bottle more than ever. An increasing number of Americans responded to the stress, anxiety, isolation, loss and boredom of the pandemic by turning to alcohol. According to a Nielsen study, consumption of alcohol grew amongst adults over the age of 30 by 14% during the pandemic.    In 2020 there was a 41 percent increase in the number...

Anger (and the suppression of anger) can be a big trigger for women to drink in sobriety.  There’s a reason that people tell you to remember “HALT” when you’re removing alcohol from your life. HALT is an acronym for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, which are four of the most common stressors in recovery. One of the most helpful skills you can learn when you’re quitting drinking is how to manage anger...