EP109: Reinvention Without Alcohol: Becoming Someone I Actually Want to Wake Up To

You know when something happens you never set out for… but somehow, it changes everything?

Yeah, that’s what this week is.

This week marks 1000 days without alcohol. No Malbec. No Merlot. No Aperol spritz that turns into fuzzy logic and a f*ckload of regret.

And no, I’m not here preaching sobriety. But I am telling the truth about what happens when the glass goes down and the real you finally rises.

Inside this episode of The Reinvention Era, I share….

💥 What really happens when you stop drinking… not just to your body, but your identity
💥 The self-concept shift nobody warns you about (goodbye wine-fuelled alter ego, hello you)
💥 What being raised around alcohol taught me… and what I had to unlearn
💥 My favourite zero-alcohol swaps that still feel luxe (because it’s always about the glass)
💥 Why reinvention without alcohol isn’t about control, it’s about clarity

This isn’t about willpower. It’s about becoming the woman you actually want to wake up with.

And if you’ve been feeling the ache to move different, (not perfect, just different) then consider this your mirror.

Listen now. Take what hits. Leave what doesn’t.

But don’t be surprised if you finish this one feeling a little… clearer.

Love,

Sarah x

🩷

P.S. 
October’s pick in the Badass AF Book Club is Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis.

Girl, Stop Apologizing on Amazon UK*

We’re diving into guilt, ambition, and the ways we shrink before we shine. As always, it’s chapter-by-chapter in your earbuds…. no pressure, no group chat overwhelm. 

Get inside the club here 👇

🔥 DOWNLOAD FREEBIES TO FUEL YOUR REINVENTION

📲 FOLLOW on Instagram and Facebook

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Transcript

00:00

Hello, my loves, and welcome to the reinvention era podcast. This is where we talk all things reinvention, whether that's after burnout, after menopause, after divorce, and actually it doesn't even need to be after anything super traumatic. Sometimes it's actually a matter of waking up and realising that we've lost that fucking way and we want more than goddamn lives. Know what I mean? So that's what we do here. And this week is kind of a milestone, and kind of not because I didn't set out for this one. I didn't put it on a vision board. I didn't have a Alter Ego ready to roll. I didn't count down the days. I didn't set a goal for any of that, any of it. But here we are anyway, 1000 days alcohol free, no Malbec, no Merlot, no Aperol, no, oh, go on then just one glass that ends up being fucked up decisions and even more fucked up regret, not one single walk of shame. And so I thought, to mark the occasion, I thought maybe we should talk about reinvention after alcohol and what 1000 Days looks like. Because actually, this wasn't supposed to happen. The queen of Malbec didn't mean to actually abdicate. Genuinely, I did not set out to go sober. Honestly, if you'd have told me a few years ago, I'd be the kind of woman who doesn't drink? I've laughed into the aperol or told you to pour a bigger one. I was known for it that, you know, glass of red at the end of the day, the cheeky Prosecco before dinner, bottomless, brunch or bottomless any meal. Actually, one of my Goddaughters would say auntie sare will be fine. Just stick her in the corner with a bottle of Merlot, and she'll be all right. It was almost part of my identity, part of a groove, you know?

02:30

And then one day I just, I just didn't fancy the red wine anymore. I don't even remember the last glass, which feels wild, but I do remember that it didn't feel like a major decision, more like a soft pivot, like something was starting to shift in me, and alcohol didn't quite match it anymore. And at that stage, I didn't stop drinking altogether. I just stopped wanting to I think quite so much. And I've talked before in an earlier episode of the divorce chapter pod about how I often use alcohol in the early days after the divorce to numb out the feelings escape, if you like, like I'd grown up with my mum as probably a functioning alcoholic. I mean, I don't know whether that was actually the case or not, but she was definitely dependent. So when I was a kid, she had Scotch every single day. And then as I grew up, she went on to gin every single day and wine with Sunday lunch, of course, darling. You know, there were a few times, particularly in my 20s, when my mum would fall over pissed, and it was sort of a family joke, like, you know, how you make those kind of awkward situations into a family joke, you know? And it was kind of how it was, but it was more about who she was. It was her. The last time I saw that she had motor neurone disease, and for the last couple of months of her life, she could only speak through a machine because she couldn't talk anymore. And at that stage, she could hardly swallow. She wasn't really eating. She was having these shakes, like the nutrient shakes, like Complan or whatever they're called. And then the last time I saw that, it was May, and it was a really nice, sunny day, like one of the first of the year, you know, you get those beautiful early, sort of spring, summer days. And I'd done lunch for me and the ex and the kids and my dad and and we thought, as it was such a lovely day, we'd eat in the garden. It was a mess, you know. So we wheeled my mum out in a wheelchair, and I said to her, Complan, Complan love, and she went, Well, she didn't the machine went G and T, so I made her the G and T and a Complan that shake was not touched. She did not touch that, but she sure as hell could swallow the fucking G and T couln't she? you know, and that was the last time I saw her, but it summed her up, you know. So I think, as with a lot of these things, it is learned behaviour, isn't it? Like my attitude to alcohol was probably always pretty easy, I suppose, because it was accepted growing up, even though my dad actually barely drank. He hardly ever drank, you know, and I'll never know now for sure, because they're both dead. But what made me mum drink? I don't know what made her want to escape in a bottle all the time. 

05:58

But, you know, I then found myself drinking more regularly too, particularly in the last year of my marriage, when it was absolute fucking shitshow. But there's something that's quite socially acceptable to drink wine every night. You know, while you're cooking dinner, it's a very middle class thing to do, isn't it? Darling on Instagram, let's have a glass of wine while we're cooking dinner. You know what I mean. And I probably shifted then in that last year's marriage, from drinking at weekends to pretty much every night, because I was so fucking unhappy, and I wouldn't ever say it got to problematic drinking in that like I wasn't having Merlot on me, cornflakes, you know, and I'd often go without, but when I did drink, it was almost subconsciously deliberate, to block out what I was feeling and how bad it was. You know, I thought life was shit in that last year, and then we split up, and that was it. I thought I didn't really know what to think like. I couldn't see a way forward on my own without him, like I just wasn't coping with any of it, like the rejection, the affairs, the emotional side, all of it, it was, it was just all so fucking hard, and I didn't want to, couldn't fucking deal with it, you Know. And I found that if I drank enough Merlot or Malbec, I could essentially black out a knife to fucking think about it, healthy times, huh? And you know, after that, then came fuck boys and huge, huge risk taking behaviours like me plus alcohol plus Tinder equals all sorts of shit shows that my sober self would never, ever, ever, ever have done it in a million fucking years, adding fucking drunk text into the list. It's not pretty, you know, and I'm not judging because I did it, but to sum that part of my life up, I was probably the least likely person of anyone in my friendship group, in my family, to end up bloody sober like I was The last on the list. Probably, you know. And like I say, it wasn't even intentional, my son says that I drank my Lifetime's quota, which I think is rather rude, but probably true, you know. 

08:54

But anyway, very, very, very, very, long story short, after kaning it in my 50th birthday year in 2022 on Prosecco and cocktails and aperols, I decided in January 2023 I would do dry January. Now, usually anytime I tried dry January before by about the 20th I'd be like, fuck it. I'll survive. But in 2023 it just didn't happen. I just didn't want one. I got to the first of February, I still didn't want one. I just didn't fancy it. And it kind of went on like that with me just not wanting one and thinking, Oh, it's now March, April, May. I think it was about May time. I kind of got to the point where I thought, Okay, let's see if I can go then. And I got through my birthday that year and I thought, fuck it, I might as well see the year did Christmas? You know, it was like a competition with myself. I always say this, it was like a competition with myself, which I won. Because, you know, if you go into competition with yourself, then you're, it's a winner. On you.I'd like to be a winner. I'm very competitive. But, you know, like, I just thought I'd see how far I go and and I did the year. And then in 2024 I sort of thought to myself, the two main things I hadn't done yet was a wedding and a holiday abroad. There had been no weddings in 2023 and in 2023 my granddaughter also needed to have open heart surgery. So it, it wasn't a holiday kind of vibe year. So I thought, there's something about a wedding, isn't there? Like, you know, alcohol flowing all day long. And also a holiday abroad, because, you know, it's that whole glass of Prosecco at the airport and it, you know, it's like Vegas 24/7 alcohol on tap, you know? So in 2024, I had a wedding, and I went on holiday to Turkey. I did both of them, and for both of them, I didn't set out to not not drink, if you know what I mean, I figured if I wanted one, I'd have one, but it's like the desire for it just gone, like I can think of nothing worse right now than having a glass of wine. It makes me actually feel a bit ick, and I think that's one of the things that they don't really tell you about giving up alcohol.

11:49

It's not actually about the alcohol itself. It's far more about who you think you are when you drink, and perhaps more importantly, who you are when you don't. And that's the bit that stings, right? Because when the glass goes so does that person the alter ego, that person the fun one, the brave one, the woman who didn't second guess herself into silence all the fucking time, and suddenly you're left with you, no buffer, there's no buzz, just raw, fucking real you. And if you've spent years avoiding that person, you her, that first meeting with her can feel like a punch in the guts.

12:47

You know, when I drank, I was fun, flirty and confident and a little bit dangerous, that kind of girl, you know, it was a shortcut. It was a shortcut to feeling less anxious in social settings. Shortcut to feeling like I had permission to relax. Shortcut to shut off the day and the noise and ache in my gut that I didn't really want to name or feel so when I stopped drinking all of that shit, all of it came up. All the parts of me I'd numbed out. Even a little bit came screaming in, screaming. And I had to deal with it, sober, awake, present, all of it. I had to deal with it. And it's not poetic. It's not like a montage scene in a film. It's pacing the kitchen at two in the morning. It's it's a kind of grief that doesn't even have a name yet. It's wondering if you ever actually were fun, or if you were just drunk enough to think you were you get me. Reinvention starts with those kinds of questions, the ones that don't flatter you in any way, but they do free you. And let me tell you, reinventing yourself without alcohol is not just a lifestyle choice. It's like a whole nervous system, reset, recalibration. It's a full on identity shift. And society in England, at least, does not make this easy. I have to say, it is getting there, but it's not been always easy. I remember the first time someone called me boring for not drinking. Oh, God, just they're boring. I remember just thinking, wow, how fragile is our sense. Of fun if it's built on fucking ethanol a poison.  But look at it like we're raised in this culture, aren't we, where the wine glass is a symbol of so much of celebration, of cooping, of community, it's like how one substance can do all of that is a little bit beyond me, but there we go. I mean, we drink to relax, but we also drink as a livener. We drink to get social, but too much drink and we end up in a very anti social bar fight, or worse, we drink to celebrate and we drink to commiserate. You know what I mean, like, it's wild, isn't it? But you know, look, there is nothing wrong with a glass of wine, per se. But I just think for me, it started becoming another poxy mask that I just had to put on, and eventually I just didn't want to wear it anymore.

16:08

But it has got easier. It has got a lot easier. I found zero alcohol gins that I genuinely love. I've created a non alcoholic, Aperol Spritz from a couple of different bits that feels like some in the glass, still like from noseco. And this bitter thing, this martini, I went on a cocktail making night with one of my besties for her 50th and I'd put down on the thing I, like, bought it for her, and I'd put down on the thing that I wasn't drinking. So it was mocktails. And the girl that did it, she hadn't realised that I was not drinking, so she'd got all of this, like, drink set up. Do you know what? She was absolutely freaking fantastic. She had this whole range of zero alcohol, like stuff for mocktails and every single cocktail that she made for all the others in that class. She made a version for me, and it was so good, you know, because you feel like you're part of it. But always I say the other thing that is important is the glass itself. Like I swear half the ritual is in having the glass, the white glass, the stem, particularly, I always have a wine or gin glass with a stem, I don't know. I just think there's something about it, like if you saw someone drinking a clear fluid in a gin glass with all the trimmings from across the room, you'd assume they were drinking gin and having a good bloody time. But it might as well be waterfall. You actually know it's an illusion from across the room, no one knows if it's gin or Water. I went to a wedding last week and I had no Seco in a Prosecco glass. It like people probably thought I was drinking Prosecco. I don't care. What matters for me is that I feel good holding it that it mirrors the version of me I want to be, and that's no alcohol right now, be it to see it babes, you know. 

18:31

And of course, there are physical benefits, like no hangovers, none of that. Waking up with a mouth like an Ugg boot, as rough as a badgers arse, no hanging mouth for CAB. Just exit and drive whenever you feel like it, which is usually when everyone around you is getting smashed and slurring their words, and you're stone cold sober, and you go, Fuck you now, like I'm just gonna go on See ya, you know, and you can clear the skin better sleep. There are loads and loads of physical benefits, for sure, there are, but that's not really what I wanted to focus on today. I just wanted to touch on a couple of bits that actually happened when I stopped drinking that I didn't say straight away, like my inner voice got louder, sharper, way more honest. My trust in myself, my self trust grew like you wouldn't believe because I stopped waking up with fucking regret and shame. I didn't have to manage that chaos. I'd wear it the night before and I could remember it, you know. And I mean the dating side, I saved myself. I'm making a shitload of terrible dating decisions based on red wine logic and. Bit of dopamine. You know that shit is so subtle, but over time, I can't tell you how much it rewired my sense of safety in myself, in my body, in my boundaries, in my brain. And look, this isn't some sort of conversion story. I'm not vegan. I'm not here to tell you that alcohol is evil, or you need to get sober to be healed from any kind of trauma, or to get the universe on your side, or any of it. That's not the vibe. I'm not evangelical about this. You know? What I am saying is that if you've ever had that little nudge that small voice in your head that your relationship with alcohol is hashtag complicated, then you're probably not wrong. You're definitely not alone, you know. And this episode isn't here like I say, to sell you sobriety. It's just here to remind you that you're allowed to want different for yourself, even if your mates still drink, even if your partner doesn't get it, even if you don't know what your Friday night would look like without a glass in your hands. Yeah, you don't need a rock bottom. You just need a sense that the woman you're becoming doesn't need the same rituals to feel alive. You can just start small, just get curious, you know, try a mocked out dinner. Try switching to noseco on a Friday night. Just try asking the question, Who am I without alcohol? Who am I without alcohol? And you might just be surprised at the answer. I don't know, because this isn't at all actually about willpower, which I never knew. It's about identity. I didn't stop drinking because I had more willpower than you. I stopped drinking because it stops making sense. Quietly, stops making sense, not even straight away, I stopped when my healing outgrew the need to numb and also because it as hard as it was in the early days to meet myself Fully without the soft blur of a Malbec safety net. I did actually get to find out who I am, and now 1000 days later, like fucking, 1000 days mate, 1000 days I can hand on heart, say that I don't miss who I was when I drank. I don't hate her either. I don't but I don't need her anymore. I'm not polished by any stretch. I still crave silence after loud rooms. I still have times I just want to totally fucking disappear. But the difference is, I don't need to be pulled into a glass to feel powerful anymore. I've learned how to hold myself, how to come home to myself such a cliche, but honestly, that that's the bit No one can take away.

23:49

So if you're listening to this and feeling a little bit of a pang of recognition, maybe wondering if you need a change, I just want you to know this isn't a challenge. It's just a mirror that I'm holding up right now. You get to decide who you are. You do with or without the glass, with or without, the story, with or without the coping mechanism that has kept you safe and now might be keeping you stuck. You get to freaking decide. I'm not saying this is your path, but if something inside of you is feeling something at this episode, aching, maybe not offended, but a little bit unsettled, I just want to ask you, what if you didn't try to quit? Just not it's not about quitting. What if you just tried to meet yourself? Without the filter, without the bullshit. What would that version of you say? What would she say, and would you be finally ready to hear her? That's all I'm saying. But yeah, for me, 1000 days, no Malbec, no Merlot, no madness, just me present, grounded and slightly sassier. And you know what? Wherever you are, on your own reinvention, I'm just gonna raise my nosecco to you, because this isn't about perfection. It's just about presence, about being. It's about becoming someone you actually want to wake up with, and if that starts with a different drink in your glass, hey, oh, so be it.

25:56

Now before I go a quick nudge, in case you don't already know, October's pick inside the badass AF book club is girl Stop apologising by the one and only. Rachel Hollis, now this book opens up a brilliant lens on ambition, identity and how we shrink ourselves before we even get the chance to rise. And honestly, after today's episode, I think is the perfect bearing. So you know, if you're sober, curious or self concept curious or just ready to meet a sharper version of yourself, this one is gonna hit. It is. We're doing it over on Patreon. It's a chapter by chapter podcasts that you get a bite size audio that just drops every few days. There's no pressure, there's no guilt, just grown women making a better version of themselves, and you don't need to be anywhere or talk to anyone. You don't even have to read the book if you don't want to. It's all in your earbuds for busy bitches everywhere you know, everything you need is in show notes, as always. And look, if this episode did hit somewhere with you that you didn't even know needed him, please do share it with someone or share it on your Instagram stories and tag me at the underscore reinvention era, or even just give a little rating or review, it really helps way, way, way more than you will ever, ever know we're not building an audience wherever we're building A movement love and your share just might be when someone else finally feels seen, that's all you know. So thank you for listening, thank you for being here. I will be back in your beautiful, badass earbuds again next week, same time, same mic. So until then, loads of love. Bye.