Reminders to Help You Stay Alcohol-Free
Episode #339
This episode is inspired by a few of my listeners who reached out to me via my email. I've heard from so many women over the past seven-plus years who have said, I'm on day one, and I've heard from a couple of listeners recently who have shared their experiences and their challenges with staying alcohol free on vacation and in restaurants.
In this episode, you will hear more about my first vacation sober, my experiences in a restaurant in the early days, and honest reminders to help you stay alcohol-free on vacation and in restaurants. You will also hear a straightforward reminder and message to help you redefine “another day one” if you have gone back to drinking and are starting fresh.
Here are the reminders…
Before You Go On Vacation
If you’re planning a getaway, it’s normal to have flashes of doubt or even worry about staying true to your alcohol-free lifestyle. I promise, it’s okay to make this vacation about what YOU want—without pressure to recreate the past or force yourself into uncomfortable situations.
Protect yourself, don’t test yourself. It’s okay to cancel, change, or reschedule your plans.
Take time to jot down the real meaning of your trip. What is this vacation about for you now, beyond alcohol?
Ask for support or accountability from folks joining you or someone back home who gets it.
Allow your trip to be different. You don’t need to make it “better” or “the same”—let it be new, and see what surprises you.
Know your WHY. Remind yourself why you want to show up alcohol free on this vacation and let that guide your choices.
Commit to vacationing alcohol-free—close the door to alcohol before you go, without giving yourself the option to drink.
Pack your favorites: journal, earbuds, crafts, books, affirmation cards, the contact of someone supportive—fill your bag with tools that truly help.
During Your Vacation
Even moments that spark old urges or little memories can teach you about your new self—just let the moments pass and stay focused on what you’re really here for.
Give yourself permission to leave situations that trigger you. Take a walk, get ice cream, retreat to your room.
Claim your vacation: remind yourself, “This is my vacation too,” and choose activities that light you up without drinking.
Embrace every part—the joyous, the “meh,” and everything in between. Pride in yourself comes with each step you take.
When you come home, reflect on what you learned and plan something special—write a note to future you, and decide how you want to celebrate (no alcohol required).
Staying Alcohol-Free While Dining Out
Restaurants can be full of old associations and stories you’ve made up about drinking, but the present is yours to shape. Don’t stress about what anyone else might be thinking or doing—focus on making the experience what you truly want.
If a place feels too hard, give yourself full permission to say no or pick somewhere that feels easier for you right now.
If you do go out, keep the focus on your own experience—order a drink you genuinely enjoy that isn’t alcohol, savor the meal, and the time with your people.
Don’t tell yourself stories about others drinking and how “easy” it is for them—you don’t know their reality, and it doesn’t change yours.
Choose one powerful, honest reminder to keep with you during the meal—write it down and use it as your anchor if temptation comes up.
Redefine Day One
Day one can feel like a rollercoaster of emotion: hope, shame, sadness, or anticipation. However you’re feeling, all of it belongs. Embrace how you feel and remind yourself that you have gone through challenges before and you can do it again.
Let every emotion show up, and don’t try to force yourself to feel differently—this is all part of the healing.
Ask yourself if you’ve really given yourself time, support, or new tools this time. Be open to doing things differently.
Trade self-criticism for self-kindness—cover yourself in compassion, not blame.
Move, rest, listen to music, eat well—do things that remind you you’re alive and capable.
Your mantra: “I’m redefining day one. I’ve done hard things before, and I can do it again.”
Ditch the myth of doing everything “perfectly.” Your way, at your pace, is exactly right.
If you need help, don’t wait—reach out. You deserve support, and you’re never weak for asking.
Send me an email here.
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Listen to this episode. If you're living alcohol free and you're about to go on a vacation, or you're going to a restaurant and you need a reminder to help you stay alcohol free, also listen to this episode. And if you are living alcohol free and for whatever reason you go back to drinking and you are on day one, this episode is inspired by a few of my To 50 and Beyond listeners who reached out to me in my email.
I love hearing from you and sharing topics and your stories. I've heard from so many women over the past seven plus years who have said, "I'm on day one," and I've heard from a couple of listeners recently who have shared their experiences and their challenges with staying alcohol free on vacation and in a restaurant.
Welcome to To 50 and Beyond. This is where alcohol free living meets midlife to create a next-level chapter of life. I am Lori. I am 57. I started this podcast at the very young age of 50. I'm going to be 58 next month, and I'm workshopping some things just like that.
Tagline I just shared with you: I'm growing and evolving, and I want to say thank you to my listeners who have been here since the beginning. Those of you who are just now picking it up, I appreciate your support. Over the past seven plus years, I have evolved, and I am okay with saying that I don't have everything figured out, and I'm figuring it out as I go.
I'm in a bit of a rebranding, and I have recently accepted that for myself. So more on that to come.
Also, if you're not on my new email newsletter that is going out tomorrow, it's called The Moment, and you can sign up in the show notes. Okay, let's get started with this episode and these reminders.
I never thought I would be sober. I want to start there. And I never, ever thought I would enjoy the activities that I had tied to alcohol for 30 years without drinking. I visualize like multiple shoelaces tied in knots together. These are all the associations that I had created for 30 years, and in 2013 I was 45.
So from the age of 14 when I started drinking, I associated drinking alcohol to anxiety relief, stress relief, pumping up the jam when I was bored as a younger adult, and then trying to find a boost when I was older if I needed that second wind. I tied alcohol to certain people, my relationships, sex, vacations, restaurants, concerts, sitting on my couch.
To seasons, weather, feelings, and emotions, to smells, to things people would say. I tied alcohol to escaping from difficult feelings and emotions to enhancing joy, happiness, and good vibes. I associated alcohol with myself and my identity, and I created the party girl. In 1982-ish,
I believed that alcohol made me more enjoyable to be around, better, more fun, and it made everything just more fun. The problem was at 45 I didn't feel that way anymore. I was continuing to build up my tolerance by drinking alcohol, and alcohol, of course, because it gets in, creates a totally opposite effect than what we think, especially after we're done drinking.
I was in it while I was drinking. I was feeling sad. I was feeling like there was never going to be enough alcohol to make me even feel better. I felt like it was very habitual, even though it was more than that. I had feelings of "this ain't hitting it anymore," no matter how much I drink or how little I drink.
It's just not hitting it. The night that I stopped drinking, I heard that voice that said, "You've had enough for two lifetimes." I couldn't feel the joy or the good. I couldn't differentiate. And looking back, I can reflect and say, you know, what was it? Was I really bored then? Was I really sad? Was I happy or unhappy?
I don't know. Since I've gone alcohol free, I can differentiate between how I feel, even if I can't fully understand it, and also decide on what's fun and enjoyable—and look at it as alcohol has nothing to do with these things that I used to associate it with.
Alcohol is a filter and it's bullshit. It gives you something that's not real, and we buy into it and we believe it. And I'm never going to tell anybody, like, no, you don't have to believe that. You don't have to believe that you're more fun because you drink alcohol or that vacation is more enjoyable.
That's nonsense. No, I'm never going to say that. I respect anybody's beliefs around this. It takes time for us to come out of those beliefs and give ourselves different associations, different experiences. And when you go alcohol free, you can come up with so many different solutions and have a different experience no matter how long it's been since you started drinking or how much you drink.
When we stopped drinking, we realized, okay, maybe it was more than how much I was drinking or for how long I was drinking. It's how I was tying alcohol to my life. And I have said from the beginning of the podcast: you just cannot differentiate or give yourself an opportunity to have different experiences or to see exactly what
your truth is while you're drinking alcohol. So if you are there and you're new to sobriety, or let's say you have years of sobriety and you're feeling like, "I should be in a better place now. I shouldn't be coming up with these associations," I just want to say time is your best friend. We cannot force time.
We cannot speed it up. We have to be in it. There's no time limit to this. So if you're going on a vacation, or you're going in a restaurant and you're saying, "Gosh, I should be able to just do this without thinking about alcohol," check yourself. Sometimes I think about alcohol when I'm in certain places—it comes up.
It's a thought. It's just—the longer we go, and this is my experience—we don't give into that thought. So in the beginning, I want to give you some reminders. If you're in these early stages, it can be tough, but you're tough and you can do this hard shit. I know that about you.
When you have these memories and you can look at association, you can look at it as memories, like a snapshot, like, "I'm going into this restaurant. Ooh, I used to drink there. 1999, I drank there." Of course, it's going to spark a memory, and
you can have that memory and you can let it pass. Or you can go to your favorite vacation spot and go, "This is going to be difficult because I did do a lot of drinking here." You can have that memory and you can let that pass. Alcohol worked for me for a very long time. I was trying really hard in the couple of years leading up to quitting to make alcohol work in my life like it did when I enjoyed it, and I did enjoy it.
So twenties, maybe early thirties, but then I didn't realize this until after I stopped drinking late thirties, early forties, especially when I was in the perimenopause phase.
That's when it stopped working, but I wanted to give it that good party girl try over and over again.
I couldn't keep up, and that's why midlife is an essential time to look at that and give yourself permission to tap out—because not a lot of us can keep up—and we realize that again after we stop drinking. But we get to that point where it's just like, "Oh my gosh, I'm pushing up against this thing and it's not working for me anymore."
So this is the time to do things differently. This is what I want to say to you. And it sounds corny, or maybe cliché if you're new here—I embrace corny.
If I can change my drinking and I can change how I do life without drinking—vacations, restaurants—you can do it too. I know it sounds so corny. If you don't believe in yourself right now, that's okay.
I wouldn't have believed it back then either, and I wish you would've known me back then.
'Cause then you'd go, "Okay, yeah, she can do it. I can too." Before I get into the reminders here, give yourself the opportunity to seize these opportunities.
Every vacation, every restaurant trip—seize these opportunities as "This is my chance, this is my chance to change this story," so then I can go on with my life and that next time I go to a restaurant or next time I go on vacation, I'm not going to be thinking about it as much. Okay? The importance of a reminder: A reminder is a thing that causes someone to remember something. Thank you, Google. That is the definition. So think of your reminders as an important tool, and they are your truth. They can be that thing that you do, and you just hold a magnifying glass up to it when you really need it, and that's part of the work that we do in staying alcohol free.
A reminder is honest. It's direct. It's coming from you. It's no bullshit. I'm going to give you inspiration today, but it's factual. It's not fictional, it's not romantic, you know? 'Cause when you get in that mode and you're like, "Oh, it's so romantic to think about drinking alcohol."
You stop yourself and you go, "But wait a minute, is that my truth?" The result of a reminder can change so much in your life, starting with the relationship with yourself, which is the most important one. When you're honest with yourself about you and your drinking, you will find it much more difficult to give into alcohol now.
It's up to you to remind yourself and embrace the reminder without adding "Yeah, but just this, once," the things that you say to yourself—you know, get clear on that kind of stuff. It's so helpful. Be honest with yourself. I was going on my first vacation in 2013, four months after I stopped drinking to visit
my very best friend up north. I live in Southern California. At the time, she lived in San Francisco. My family and I went up there for like seven days. My biggest challenge during that vacation was the doubt that I felt. What I would say to her in hindsight, 'cause I wasn't saying this back then, is it's okay to doubt yourself and do it anyway.
Seize the opportunity.
You know yourself and you know: What do you want more than drinking alcohol? You know those things that you say to yourself. It's the moments that we're in when it feels challenging and you feel like you're going to hit the IT button and go back, but you don't.
Those are the moments when you don't say "F it" to what you want more than drinking alcohol. And you remind yourself of your truth and you become someone who doesn't have to work so hard at being alcohol free.
Reminders are a really great habit to get into. As I go through some of these that I'm going to give you today, I want you to get creative and grab a notebook if you want, and write down some of your favorite reminders—those things that you do say to yourself.
And at the end of the episode, I'm going to give you one big reminder if you are on day one.
Let's talk about traveling first: Vacations. Before you go, I want to ease your mind and remind you that you can change your mind. You can cancel, you can skip. You can say, "Now is not a good time. Maybe later." Maybe you scheduled a vacation or a trip while you were drinking, and now you've gone alcohol free.
Hmm. It's not aligning to where I am right now. There's either going to be drinking around, or even if there's not, vacation to me right now is a place where I feel like I don't want to put myself. And so one of my favorite reminders to carry with you: protect yourself. Don't test yourself. We've got to give ourselves that option to cancel, change our minds, skip, reschedule.
Another reminder before you go on your travel or vacation: I'm positive that it's not going to be about drinking alcohol. So write it down. Just get clear on it, put it out on paper and say, "The meaning of this vacation, the purpose of this, and the things that I'm looking forward to are because of this."
And see what comes up for you. It's a good reminder to get clear on the reason why you're doing it. Another reminder: you can ask for support and accountability either with people that you're traveling with or at home base. It's okay to ask for support. Another thing to ease your mind: It's okay to make this vacation different. Not better, not bigger, not the same as drinking alcohol. If you've got this vision board that it has to be the same, or it has to be bigger and better than when I used to vacation while drinking alcohol,
just keep your expectations neutral and let it be different and see what happens. Go in with curiosity. 'Cause it's so fun to just be curious about something and to learn about something and to make it different. It's one of the biggest parts about going alcohol free. We gotta change things up. Very simple. Remind yourself: I'm doing the opposite now, so let me make it different and not put pressure on myself to make it better or the same as it was when I was drinking alcohol.
Because you can have a bit of a letdown if it doesn't pan out that way.
Another reminder is your why power. This is the why power of willpower: the reason why you want to stay alcohol free during this vacation.
Give yourself an opportunity to make that bigger and to put it out there and think about coming home from the vacation. How do you want to feel? Look at both sides: coming home from vacation, I can look at, "Do I want to be in that place where I'm stepping back into my normal life with the energy that comes from me not keeping my word to myself, not doing something that feels best for me by drinking alcohol?" Or, "Do I want to come back and step into the energy in my daily life of me doing it?"
And that's just a whole different energy. So feel that for yourself and see what that feels like. And write down your why power, go all in. Commit to going and doing this vacation alcohol free. Say it to yourself and say it to somebody else.
You know, when we leave the door cracked open to alcohol, it's an option. You leave it cracked open a little bit. It's like, "Hmm, I'm going to see what happens, just in case." Don't do it. If you don't want to drink alcohol, you shut that door. Nope, no longer an option. Now we're going to open the door to a different experience.
And remind yourself to pack your tools: earbuds, journal, something crafty if that helps you, puzzles, download your favorite book and your podcast episodes. Listen to this podcast episode. Write down your favorite quotes, that why power, your mantra. And don't forget to have somebody that you can reach out to that is part of your toolbox.
Be proactive here and think about it right now after I've just shared those reminders with you. Write down one reminder you'll give yourself to ease your mind before this trip. It could be a plan that you have for yourself. It could be what you're looking forward to during your vacation. This is when I want you to remind yourself to seize that opportunity of changing that association to drinking alcohol. This is a great chance to show yourself how vacation without drinking goes, even if you've done it before.
One vacation at a time.
Reminder I want you to carry with you during your vacation: Protect yourself. Don’t test yourself.
You don't have to be in the bars. This is your vacation too. Say that to yourself: This is my vacation. I want to plan activities that are not drinking activities. Only you can find some balance there if you are around people who are drinking and the activity is drinking. Like, what's the activity here? Come on. And this is coming from somebody who used to be in a bar all day long. I get it, but still, I want a different activity. And if you are in a place where you are drinking, remind yourself, "I can leave."
I can go shopping, I can go get ice cream, I can go back to my room or wherever you're staying. Take a bath, take a shower, take a nap.
Then remind yourself of this: Or fun. And you can enjoy your vacation without drinking alcohol. You're never missing out by not drinking if you're staying true to yourself and your why power. Embrace the sucky parts. Embrace the meh. Don't resist it by giving in to drinking. Those are going to pass.
Spot the joyous moments in your vacation and just continue to remind yourself, "This is my vacation too. I'm going to be proud of myself when I come home." And then when you come home, remind yourself, "I'm going to reflect on this. What I learned about myself, what helped me stay alcohol free." Write a nice letter to your future self and be proud of yourself. Remind yourself, "When I'm proud of myself and I want to celebrate, I don't drink alcohol, but I do this," and fill in the blank. What would that thing be when you come home from a vacation that you have waiting for you to celebrate?
Okay, let's talk about reminders for a restaurant. I'm going to use it again. Protect yourself. Don't test yourself if you're not ready to go to a restaurant because that is where you feel motivated to drink. You're not sacrificing anything but possibly jeopardizing your alcohol free momentum you've got going.
You just don't have to go. Cancel it. Skip it. Go somewhere else if it is a restaurant. I have a restaurant that I don't think I have been to since I stopped drinking. It was called Don Jose's. If you're in Southern California, maybe you've heard of it.
And it was where we went for brunch and it was where I caved 45 days into a break that I was taking from drinking alcohol in January of 2013. I gave in. I felt the pressure, I was in the place like, "This is impossible." And you know what I told myself after I left? "I'm never going to be able to stop drinking because of that."
So when I stopped drinking, I did protect myself. And I learned very early on there's just no reason for me to put myself in those places to tempt myself.
If I feel like I have to test myself, that's so much pressure. You don't. You just don't. Protecting yourself means I'm going to wrap myself in a hug and take care of myself. And say, "For right now, I am not ready." If you do decide to go and you're in the restaurant and you're seeing other people drinking, this is very common.
And it was for me as well to look at other people and create this narrative that they've got it all figured out. Look at that gal over there in that booth. She is drinking a big ass glass of wine. She's got it all figured out. She's going to go home, she's going to sleep well, she's going to wake up the next day and she's going to be so productive.
She can go work out in the morning. She's not going to have any effects of drinking alcohol. We create that narrative for anybody else. So when you find yourself doing it, know that it's okay, and you pull yourself back and say, "I have no idea what that woman is going to do." Even if you're with somebody and you know them, you just don't know.
My friends didn't know what I was doing and I was not going home and stopping drinking for one thing. I would keep it going and then I was not waking up and going to the gym. I was waking up toward the end. Very sad. Sometimes I would be up in the middle of the night on the bathroom floor. We just don't know.
We can't create that narrative and it's just not helpful. Then please, just the practical things: enjoy something non-alcoholic. Enjoy dessert. Enjoy your food. Be present in the conversation. That's what it's all about. Get clear: what is that one reminder you need to hear before you go out to a restaurant next time?
Lastly, I want to talk to you if you are on day one. When I hear "I'm on day one," it's usually "I'm on day one again." I hear excitement, I hear readiness. I hear sadness, self-doubt. I hear shame, I hear regret, I hear pressure to do it exactly right this time and forever. In midlife, especially in today's world where people are talking more publicly about the risks of drinking alcohol to our overall health and the option of being sober, I hear more of an urgency. And again, that pressure, it's like, "I got to do this. I have to do this right now."
For you, I want to say, no matter how you're feeling today—if you're feeling sad, frustrated with yourself, embarrassed, shameful, scared, doubtful—let yourself feel how you feel without trying to push it away.
Because we get to a point where we realize, "I'm feeling this way because of my drinking and I'm using drinking to take those feelings away." Don't do that. Give yourself distance from alcohol. If you've been alcohol free before, you have a vision of what that's like. If you didn't get to that place where you wanted to be, or you didn't think it was going to be the way that it turned out, ask yourself, "Have I given myself enough time? Have I given myself enough time to find better tools to use for whatever reason I was drinking to help me? Have I given myself time and found support for and asked for help for myself? What is the thing that needs to change in a few days?"
Ponder that. Don't do it today. If you're on day one, be kind to yourself. Cover yourself with compassion. Cover yourself with knowing that you are not the only one. This is difficult work to do, and you can do the opposite of what you normally do because alcohol kicks us down enough. You don't need to kick yourself down anymore.
Drinking and the way that we feel after drinking in the middle of life is not something that you need to add to by being mean to yourself today. Do the opposite. Cover yourself in compassion. Do something for yourself that makes you feel alive today if you can.
And if you can't, get rest, drink some water, eat some foods that you love, and say to yourself, "I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to work through this. And I am not alone. I am human, and I'm doing hard shit. I'm a badass for continuing on. This takes courage."
And I'm going to give myself grace. That is when alcohol can't touch you. When you offer yourself the tools and what you need from drinking alcohol for yourself, then you build that stronger relationship with yourself. One of my favorite things to do when I am feeling down and low energy is to move my body and listen to music.
If that helps you, put on your favorite song and dance like nobody is looking. And if they are looking, show 'em how it's done. Take time to come back from this because you're going to come back. This is a day where you can remind yourself, "I'm redefining day one."
I'm going to remind myself who the fuck I am, that I've come through things before and I'm going to do it again, and I'm going to keep going.
If you're putting pressure on yourself to do it right or following somebody else's roadmap, give yourself that ease and take the pressure off. Do it your way because it's the only way that's going to work and you're going to figure it out as you go. I'm excited for you. I'm proud of you. I'm inspired by you.
If you're having a really difficult time removing alcohol from your life, I want to encourage you to reach out. Start with your doctor, have a conversation with somebody who can help you with that because there are so many different ways and options nowadays to get that help and support.
It's there for you. And if you can get yourself to that place of asking, that could be the change that you need first.
I'm giving you a big hug.
. Take care of yourself this week, my friend. Don't forget, write me something. Say hello. Peace.
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My First Year of Sobriety: What I Did to Stay Alcohol-Free
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