Women Going Sober: An Empowerment Guide for Women Going Alcohol-Free and Embracing Being a Non-Drinker: The Sisterhood Series, #1

INTRODUCTION

The things that matter most in our lives are not fantastic or grand. They are moments when we touch one another. – Jack Kornfield

Alcoholism can be an extremely lonely road. I have been there. I have been vulnerable. I have been broken. But my journey also led me to the victorious embrace of a sober sisterhood where I have been supported beyond my wildest understanding. I have been carried by these women in the moments when I faltered. I would like to share my journey with you, with your vulnerabilities, your fears, and your doubts. It is always possible to start a new journey, even if it looks impossible to you sometimes. Believe me, with the help of other hands, we always make it to the new light. Step by small step. One at a time.

Whether we feel compelled to consume excessive alcohol, or any other substance like opiates, or even feel trapped in compulsive behaviors, the root cause is primarily a need to escape from a reality that is too hard to face. Gabor Maté (2018) elaborates in his book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction on the catastrophic origins of various addictions. And it often comes back to the original question of emptiness that triggers addictive behaviors. He shares Serena’s harrowing story (Maté, 2018):

‘I was fifteen years old when I came down here to Hastings,’ Serena goes on. ‘I had five hundred dollars in my pocket I’d saved for food until I caught up with my mom. It took me a week to find her. I had about four hundred bucks left. When she found that out, she stuck a needle in my arm. The four hundred dollars was gone in four hours.’ ‘And, that was your first experience with heroin?’ ‘Yes.’ A long silence ensues, broken only by the throaty, weeping sounds Serena is trying to suppress. ‘And then she sold me to a fucking big fat huge motherfucker while I was sleeping.’ These words are uttered with the helpless, plaintive rage of a child. ‘She’s my mom. I love her, but we’re not close. The one I call Mom is my grandmother. And now she’s gone. She was the only one who cared whether I lived or died. If I died today, nobody would give a damn…’ (p. 1177)

I read stories like this, I consider mine, and it motivates me to keep trying, even if the steps are paved with stones. I learn that there are many stories of success, and I continue. I ask myself why I should stop drinking, and what practical tips and strategies will help me to stay in the mindset and stay sober. And I realize that staying sober is an ongoing process. I have learned that I need to do what’s best for me and use advice offered that I know will work for me.

You hold this book in your hands because you have a need. Let me provide you with personal stories, methods to reframe the mind and body, practical guidelines about becoming sober, and support to stay on that healthy road. We have to engage our strength to avoid alcohol and live with a new mindset by harnessing all the support we can get.

The current drinking culture is changing for the better because more people are choosing to live an alcohol-free life. Choosing to be sober no longer needs to have the stigma it once had. We can embrace healing methods to empower us while we gain inspiration from others. Sometimes quitting alcohol starts with moderation. Sometimes it starts with stopping altogether.

Regardless of the way you choose to liberate yourself from addictive behavior, the essential thing is to reframe your thoughts and actions toward a new lifestyle—a new future you. This incorporates strategies like meditation, mindfulness, taking ownership of your circumstances, rewriting your responsibilities, and working toward sobriety. It means reframing the old you.

REFRAMING AS YOUR PRIORITY

Dr. Joe Dispenza reflects on emptiness and fighting the feeling of lack versus manifesting a life you know is really you: It’s much easier to remain on autopilot where the body defaults the mind back to the comfortable position of relieving a craving with an external source (Howes, 2022b). It’s easier to eat that chocolate than to wait until after dinner. To change this, he promotes a process of becoming, which implies overcoming the old persona and manifesting the new in order to find tranquility. When you replace one thought, idea, or behavior with another—and persist with it while keeping your attention on it—the new thought, idea, or behavior will eventually drown out the old one. By doing this often enough, we enable an automatic response. It becomes a habit, something easy, and something that feels natural. It becomes a skill.

He further proposes that one should consider how a non-drinker would think: When you imagine what it would feel like and write it down, it becomes intentional thoughts that eventually turn into the new voice in your head. When an individual focuses, rehearses, and repeats how a person with an abundant mindset would think and act, they reinstall a changed person in their brain. Repetition of this habit ultimately makes the rehearsal process a new reality to the brain. It affects your attitude and health, just like gradual increases in physical activity with exercise does—a gradual rehearsing until the muscle responds to your goal.

Breaking this concept down into abstract segments enables thoughts and feelings to become attitudes. These can be positive or negative, depending on our mindset. When we string these attitudes together, they become belief systems that we call perception. This is basically an extended state of being where people see things how they imagine them to be, not how reality shows them. People are always subconsciously filling in reality based on memories instead of true observation. So a person’s brain can be cluttered by negative thinking patterns, which ultimately leads to not seeing the bright side of a new reality. This way, positive and intentional reframing of thoughts and feelings hacks the brain to believe a new reality.

The solution to this default autopilot system is to focus on decision. It is crucial to make a solid decision that you no longer need alcohol in your life with such firm intention that it’s greater than the emotional conditioning of the body and the physical hardwiring of your brain. Dispenza suggests giving a number level to this: For example, the person’s emotional state and brain physiology (the conditioning) can be at level seven, but then the intention has to be at level nine to effectively bring change. A high amplitude becomes a teaser for the brain and results in an explosion—the individual feels a new belief, changes their energy, and realizes a wholeness that was lacking in the default position.

To heal, and to become whole, it’s important to take that initial uncomfortable step beyond your conditioning (your autopilot beliefs, feelings, and routines that are familiar and keep you stuck in the void) and then maintain your intention and attention to manifest your new personality. Placing attention on this new you, who does not need to drink, will generate more feelings of power and control over your life. So, to overcome the personality, you have to intentionally generate an attitude that your life can be abundant and free of addiction. You become task-orientated; you don’t deviate from the new person you intend to become.

Maté also advocates this concept of looking inward to the self and mindfully applying changes to the thoughts. In Dispenza’s words: "Nothing changes in your external life if you do not change" (Howes, 2022b). Furthermore, energetic change is a new skill that can be harnessed from the multitude of information in our 21st century world. Adding skilled practice and new tools to this knowledge create significant changes to the way your brain thinks. This way, your manifestations may overcome your conditioned beliefs.

You may feel skeptical about self-help books. You may even feel that any offered advice is useless. You may fear that a change will take too much time or effort. You may feel doubtful of your own abilities. You may have been stigmatized by words like alcoholism, alcoholic, addiction, and addict that prevent you from trying to reframe yourself. You may think that alcohol is the only warm hug or the only anchor that removes the deeply ingrained emptiness that demonizes your insides. You may think there is no hope left. But I want to bring that healing within your reach. I want to make you see the victory. I want you to see that you are never alone.

1

THE ALCOHOL-FREE WAKE-UP CALL

I ask my daughter, ‘What is your worst memory of the addicted years?’ and she tells me, ‘I don’t remember.’ – Sophie Harper

I get a phone call from an anonymous number. I always answer these calls purely because a mother knows. The umbilical cord is never cut, and instinct is strong. A stranger’s voice tells me to speak to my daughter. My child whispers, Mom, please help me. The stranger is back on the other side after a long silence and tells me she is the neighbor, and my daughter was on the balcony, ready to jump. It will take me 20 minutes to get to her home, so I call my son at work and ask him to go and wait at home with her until I arrive. (They are roommates.)

When I arrive, I find him smoking on the balcony (pressured from having to leave work and his tight deadlines and also pressured from constantly looking out for his younger sister). I go to her room. It smells of vomit and urine. The laundry is piled up in the corner. And she sits on the floor in a lotus position with her eyes locked into a blind distance. Her jeans are soiled. The eyes are nowhere. She just sits there. She doesn’t even cry. No substance-induced anger-inflamed eyes this time that scream accusations at me, just utter despair: Help me.

I am not sure if I should thank the neighbor, an invisible angel in the vicinity, or some undying voice inside my child who knew who to call in another attempt at trying. The silence speaks.

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH ALCOHOL

Reading a testimonial from a parent’s sidewalk observation of a loved one’s destructive ways is one perspective. Then we read the testimonials of individuals who not only have to battle the substance but also mental disorders that often were the trigger to the substance use in the first place. I read the story of a young woman battling autistic tendencies. It took her years to discover that autism was the triggering source of a search for a social lubricant—until alcohol dependency knee-jerked her into the 12-step rehabilitation program of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), where she finally realized the root cause of her drinking habits. Flood (2021) mentions the following while thinking about her journey:

I wish I had read about the connection between alcohol addiction and autism when I was working hard to quit drinking, and spending hours online, trying to discover why the hell I drank the way I did, in spite of the negative consequences. I likely would have diagnosed autism in myself sooner. (paras. 41-42)

The media is flooded with stories, warning signs, and cries for help about alcohol dependency. The more you read, the more shocking the revelations become. And then I have my personal experience with its own powerful inner voice. Lou’s testimonial rings in my ears, I needed to get my ducks in a row (find her complete story in Chapter 10), and I think to myself, that’s how it was for me to leave my marriage: making plans, imagining that another life is truly possible and within reach, and reinventing myself. I just had to shorten that reach by making the decision and taking the first actual step.

What does a person need to get their ducks aligned? What makes the reader brave enough to take that difficult first step? Is it a personal wake-up call, watching others destroying their lives, physical health issues, relationship issues, or threatening unemployment? What if that wake-up call is not your health (at least not the immediate perception of deteriorating health) but rather the loss of significant relationships? My thoughts mull over inside my skull:

What if that same society that enables your drinking turns its back on you and judges you harshly when you cannot stop?

What if all the loved ones in your life (who consciously and subconsciously enabled you) gave up hope and forsake you?

What if you turn around and the only warm hug you can receive is from that bottle of wine?

What if your desperate loneliness from a world that deserted you is driving you toward that craving to escape? What is the real addiction here—the emptiness, the drive to escape, or the substance?

What if all the friends in your circle encourage your drinking habits and ridicule your desire to stop? What if there are no other friends, no one who thinks along the line of sobriety?

What if the enablers are your family or your parents, leaving you nowhere else to turn to when even the trusted ones failed you? What if these guardians encourage you to continue drinking?

What if you hate yourself (after all this) so much that the only option is to numb your pain with dependency or to steer