BTW - If you didn't already know, I'm Sarah - Drink Less; Live Better founder, best-selling author, expert speaker, life coach and, as you already know, podcast host!
We don't have to hit rock bottom, we're allowed to want something different and we can CHOOSE to improve our lives from this point onwards.
I work in the magic space where doubt, hope and action meet... oh.... and
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Transcripts
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Hello, darling heart, and welcome to the drink less, live better podcast.
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This is the podcast that helps you to see that drinking less doesn't need to be stressful, lonely, or boring.
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I'm your host, Sarah Williamson, and I decided to have a year alcohol free as a little life experiment and haven't looked back.
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With my experience and training, I now help other women with their alcohol free or drink less adventures.
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You can find out more about me and sign up to my 5 day drink less challenge at drink less live better dot com.
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I'm here to tell you that you can relax, connect, and have fun without alcohol in your life.
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Join me here each week to find out how.
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I've got to start this episode by telling you I really love my husband.
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He is loyal, kind, gentle, loving, and oh so funny.
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I'm not telling you this because he listens to the podcast by the way. Absolutely not.
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He doesn't, and I suspect he never will.
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The only time it's even vaguely on his radar is when I'm recording and he is working from home.
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I'll pop into the other room and say, right, I need a bit of silence. I'm about to record.
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Please don't make any calls for a bit.
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My husband on the phone is like Foghorn Leghorn.
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I sometimes wonder if he needs the phone at all.
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I'm sure his clients can hear him without the actual phone in his hand, so he will agree to be quiet for a bit and I'll start
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recording, and about 3 minutes in he will go to the bathroom next to where I'll record and do the loudest wee you've ever heard in your life. Seriously, I I love him. Anyway, yes, the podcast.
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I can safely tell you all this because he won't be listening at any point.
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Here are a couple of things it's useful to know in advance.
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Mister w doesn't like silences in conversations. He's a serial gap filler.
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Our friends say he suffers from foot in mouth disease.
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If there's an opportunity to put his foot in his mouth, he will, and he is the worst keeper of secrets you'll ever meet.
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If you want a piece of news spread everywhere, share it with mister w and tell him it's a secret.
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Sometime last year we were out with friends and there was a momentary lull in conversation.
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Out of nowhere, he suddenly announced, oh, who here didn't know that Sarah stopped drinking a while ago? She's teetotal now.
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I sat there with my mouth open. What? What? Why would he do that?
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There followed a, guess what, awkward silence.
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How ironic that the person who doesn't like awkward silences is so able to create them amazingly well.
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No one really had a contribution to make, so the conversation moved on in a slightly stilted way.
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He said nothing further and I sat there fuming.
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Waited until the next day to bring it up with him.
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I don't like you announcing information about me to a room full of people and never use the word teetotal when referring to me.
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You haven't just walked out of the 19 fifties, was what I said.
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He got a bit gnarkey because he felt that he should be able to say what he liked.
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I told him that my choices about alcohol were off the table as a discussion point initiated by him, and I thought that was
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the end of that until we were away visiting family at Christmas.
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We were in Scotland, and Glasgow is my spiritual home, and where we visit a large number of aunts, uncles, great aunts, uncles,
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cousins, second cousins, first cousins once removed, you get the picture.
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So after a pandemic dictated break of over 2 years we were back.
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We were hanging out with a bunch of the cousins one day who were all mostly in their thirties and forties and there was a lulling conversation.
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Oh God, you've guessed it, you know what happens next. Oh, guess what?
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Since we saw you all last Sarah has stopped drinking and now she's he paused, he looked at me.
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I have no idea to this day what word he was going to say next.
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He was sort of saved by one of the cousins filling in the blank. Oh, guess what?
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Since we saw you all last, Sarah has stopped drinking. She is now boring.
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There were a few laughs, a few snorts, no questions, and the conversation moved on again. I was absolutely furious.
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Again, I left it until the next day, and then I really told him how I felt.
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Do not ever do that to me again.
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I am not a lulling conversation filler.
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You don't tell other people about the decisions I am making.
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I could at this point tell you the things about him that I gave as examples of what I would never talk to people about, but
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I won't do that because that would be me telling you his story and that's not what we're aiming for here.
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My story about why I decided to stop drinking for a while is mine.
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My story about how I feel about it is mine.
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My stories and who I tell them to are personal.
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I am not a monkey in anyone else's circus.
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Sure, my deciding to stop drinking might have an effect on mister w, and he's welcome to tell that story, that's his story,
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but dangling a piece of information about me and then wanting to orchestrate a conversation or hear opinions, that's not okay.
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I think I got through to him this time.
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I cannot guarantee he won't do it again, but here's hoping.
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I feel most powerful when I have control over my story, when I get to take part in the conversation and confidently contribute,
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not when I'm cast as a side character in someone else's narrative.
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Do other people tell your sober story? Do you let them? Are you okay with that? Drop me a message as ever.
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I love hearing what's going on for you in your alcohol free adventures.
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Please listen in again next week, and PS, I believe in you.
